Stop Living on The Algorithm Fruit: Start Climbing, Stop Scrolling

A guy with a ring light can reach more people than a pastor with a congregation, and that single fact is reshaping how we think about truth, discipleship, and leadership. We sit down to untangle the fracture between power and authority: why the internet can amplify a voice while stripping away the relationship, accountability, and responsibility that make authority real. 

We get practical about how algorithms train us to absorb and regurgitate information, creating the feeling of growth without the cost of transformation. Along the way we explore a rabbinic model of learning through questions, the mountain as a picture of slow spiritual formation, and why “God meets people on mountaintops” might be one of the most important clues for navigating digital life. If you’ve ever felt spiritually full but not spiritually changed, this will land close to home. 

We also push into bigger themes like Eden and the temptation to shortcut becoming, AI as disembodied influence looking for embodiment, and the subtle way celebrity culture can turn leaders into icons people defend at all costs. The thread running through everything is simple: real authority is built through proximity, humility, and being known, not through metrics and reach. 

If you care about Christian discipleship, healthy church leadership, spiritual disciplines, and resisting shallow online formation, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who lives on the feed, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway: where do you see influence replacing authority in your own life?

Transcript

Influence Without Formation

SPEAKER_04 0:01

We live in a strange time. A strange time where a man with a ring light can sit in front of his computer and have more influence than a man with a congregation. And somehow some people have decided that those two things are the same and they're not. Power and authority used to travel together and somehow now they became divorced and social media got custody of power in the divorce. So you can have a million people listening to you and nobody actually knows who you are. Nobody can correct you. Nobody can tell you that you're wrong in person. And you still command authority over people. Or maybe not authority, but an amplified opinion. So in this conversation, Tim and I dig into that fracture and what it means to have influence without formation and to have a voice without actually having a relationship with the pe the people who you're speaking into and reach without any real responsibility or respect to the people who you're engaging with. And we talk about the difference between power and authority and why the internet rewards imitation over transformation and why real authority, especially in faith, isn't built on visibility but on proximity. And underneath all of it is a really older idea of this idea of climbing a mountain. That to actually know God, to actually grow, to actually become something more than just a commentator or a critic on truth, you ascend slowly, quietly, with humility, oftentimes out of view of others. Not a broadcast, not to brand it, not to create a shortcut. And so the question becomes what are we actually climbing or in this life? Are we just watching other people climb and calling it progress? So this conversation is about that that tension and what it means to pursue something real in a world that's built on digital appearances. Welcome to the map.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

One zero. All engine running.

SPEAKER_05 2:27

Okay. We're live. Thanks again for doing this, Tim. We talked about 45 minutes before we decided to hit record.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

So we did our own personal pre-show, bro. That was what we're nothing about what we're going to talk about either. Like mostly we do like a 45-minute line like brief debrief, you know, like well we'll we'll do this, we'll do this. We spoke about nothing that we're going to speak about.

SPEAKER_05 2:53

Yeah. Um so we'll probably have to do like a few of these, but I did a a poll and was asking people what what kind of topics do you you want to hear? And you're all these are going to be kind of inter interwoven with each other, but w one of the things that has kind of emerged um as the internet has come out of its emphasis and social media's, you know, was birthed and came out of its emphasis, is nobody really sees like they don't really see any content or things from the people who they follow. So it used to be when you get on social media, you have people on Facebook, you had people on Instagram, and so I'd see like you posting pictures, your wife, your kids, but these platforms now through machine learning just feed people interest. What are you interested in? What are you engaging in? And so it's like we're supposed to be on these platforms to even engage with each other, which is a very like abstract way to even have any kind of relationship with somebody to do it digitally. But even that's been kind of taken away. And so one of the topics that people are kind of interested in is who has more authority now, uh, your local pastor who you see in person and what they're saying and doing, or an influencer on the internet who you're following who uh maybe tens or hundreds of millions of people follow who um is a theology bro or a personality um there. So I wanted to kind of get a take because obviously you're gonna come from a European departure point, which I don't know exactly how sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

We're not you're we're not in Europe, right? We're Britain. We all stand alone.

SPEAKER_05 4:34

Okay. Okay, the the cradle the cradle, the cradle the cradle of Western civilization. We're gonna hear your your hot take on it. But I'll kind of give you the yeah, space and give me some of your thoughts on that, and and then we'll just talk about the outworkings of that, what that means and implications of so I for I'm gonna geek out probably straight away.

Power Versus Authority Defined

SPEAKER_01 4:56

You have to that? So so I'm like, we have to understand the difference between power and authority. So when someone asks, like, hey, who has more authority? You know, like influencers or these people who, you know, like they we listen to them, we regurgitate their information. You know, no one learns anything, we just regurgitate stuff, right? So so so the the the the idea that you are in a social media feed of your learning is not real. What happens is that you just take carte blanche, the information that's been given to you, and you end up regurgitating that information, it becomes your own information, not your own learning. So I think it's a really important point. But actually, I don't know if we can have this conversation without understanding the left hand and right hand. So the strong right hand of God, specifically biblically, is this idea that um uh it's his power, it's his power to um trample or obstruct or stop or favor or promote or whatever it is, a strong right arm of the Lord. If you want to do a Bible study, strong right arm of God, strong right arm of the Lord, and it's normally associated with power. Um, left hand is authority, and the authority is a really interesting dynamic because and that's why you know in Britain in we have queens, kings, and they hold the skepta, that right hand and left hand. So so one of the things that's really important is that power and authority are meant to go together. Social media, in my view, has has disrupted that unity and torn it apart. So now loads of people have loads of power but very little authority because power can be seized, but authority can only be given. And so when we think about the social media aspect of this, when we are consuming information on social media, we are giving people power over us and they are influencing us and they are they are almost seizing power. Now we we we're involved in that to some extent, but when we just like absorb and doom scroll and all the rest of it, we end up actually disempowering ourselves, our own minds, our own thought processes, and we end up being people who regurgitate information. So we're suddenly like powerless sheep, you know. We just kind of do exactly what people tell us to do or say we should believe or whatever. Um, and then we get fed the same information over and over and over again to the overrhythmic aspect of that, and so all of a sudden we're like, oh wow, yeah, I never realized like I was a left-wing problemist or a right wing Nazi. Like, I never realized that this was my core belief or my core value, and now what this must be who I am. It's like, no, you just gave all your power away to some nut job online, that's what happened, and then the nut job online has friends who then is the their algorithms come in and then you see all this information, and and that's not authority, so people don't have authority basis to they have influence because I don't think you can ever really have authority in someone's life unless you have a relationship with them, but also unless you are given authority from above or from here, so there is authority that comes from above, and there's authority that comes from relationship um horizontally between that between two people. And so my suggestion would be is that when uh you understand the the nature of power and disempowerment, not from like a crazy like you know, like Michel Foucault crime and punishment angle, but just these general concepts, what happens is that you understand that, at least for me, I understand that power, the power dynamic becomes the elevation of a view over my view on the basis that I submit to that view, not even really knowing that it's authoritative. Whereas with authority, actually the it comes to relationship, it comes through divine providence in some respects, um, in terms of who God gives authority to, and from again from a Christian perspective. And what I would say is that if if if we're having a conversation about who has more influence, there is no doubt that people online have more influence. If we're having a conversation about who has more authority in people's lives in terms of discipleship, for example, I would still say that the that the reality is just the other way back to like pastors or people that have genuine interests. Now, when those pastors reject their pastoral responsibility and prioritize their influence on their social media, then you've got a whole different set of issues because you have someone who is laying down authority and to pick up power, and then they wield that power and seize that power, and we're not going to talk about this, apparently. We're not gonna talk about this, but that's what happens in neo-cat in charismatic neo-Pentecostal circles, especially in mega churches like Bethel, who I love and have loved for a long time and have a lot of support for. But when you are when you are over-emphasizing influence and under-emphasizing authority, what you do is you become someone who is powerful but does not have the authority to wield that power properly, and then you get into all sorts of trouble and become abusive. That's what happens. You can't get around it. Anyway, that was my five-minute run. How about you, Michael?

Why God Meets People On Mountains

SPEAKER_05 9:53

Well, I think you you brought up you know a few different points on on power and authority, and then you know, around being discipled and around how information is is kind of consumed. And I remember I have a close friend of mine named Alexander, who who lives in uh Geneva, Switzerland, and he studied in in Rome, did did a the theological study in Rome, and then he did a philosophical study in in Tel Aviv. And part of his his study is he went and actually sat under rabbis, and so he would sit with the you know, full-on, everybody has the the Jew curls and beard and everything. He's just this Swiss French guy there. But he'd said the the way that they would learn is is the rabbi would come in and he would pose one single question and then leave. And so you have a group you're learning in a community of people, and the rabbi's posing a question, and usually it's pretty a often a disarming kind of simple question, and then he leaves, and it's you have a week to figure out. And so it's actually the the process the going through the process of um discovery within yourself, and so we we the internet is like and AI is the opposite of that. You we we genuinely are letting something else sting for us, and to your point, memorizing and regurgitating information, but the process of trying to figure out the answer to the question is more important than the answer often um there. There's actually a story um in I think it's in Chinese folklore about the monkey king. Do you know the story? Okay. So for people who don't know, just a very brief version of it, is that um there's this divine being of chaos who gets created. It's a little monkey uh who falls from the heavens in a stone egg. He grows up, it's what Dragon Ball Goku is actually based off of, but uh he has a staff that extends unendingly and and uh he has superpowers, he can transform anything, he can ride clouds, whatever. He ends up fighting, fighting the heavens, uh like heavenly beings, and he gets imprisoned. And then a monk who wants enlightenment comes to him and frees him from this prison that he's been in for 500 years, and so this he says, I want to go on this journey of enlightenment to get this secret scroll. And so they go on the journey together, and at the end of the journey, they get to where the scroll is and they open it up, and there's nothing on it, and then they get the understanding of like the journey gave us all the answers that we were actually looking for, all the sacrifice, everything we had to do to get here. And so, circling back to the rabbi story, so one week the rabbi comes to Alex, he says, uh to the group, not to Alex, but to the group, he said, Why do you suppose that God talks to people on mountaintops and leaves? And so they're all like, Well, you know, they're opening up the scriptures and they're talking, dialoguing, so to ruin it for everybody, to do the exact opposite of what I just said, he comes back the next week and he says, the reason why God meets people on mountaintops is because you have to climb them. So we're conditioned to go to the internet, to the oracle of all of our whims, and go to ChatGPT and go to an influencer, go to our YouTube algorithm that is tailored around our interest to curate information for us that it thinks that we want to keep us engaged as long as possible. Why? Because you're the product and they make money off your attention, they they give you ads, and they're making money off that. Um, it's not for your benefit. But my point is climbing a mountain means you have to step outside of it's a pattern break. You have to step outside the everyday goings of life. And if you want true transcendence and true alignment, and and people sometimes, you know, in Protestant Christianity, we've over kind of personalized God in a Western sense of like when I go to Walmart and I can get any kind of Oreos that I want, I can get mint Oreos, peanut butter Oreos, whatever. And they're like, you know, what I just love about Jesus, Tam, is he just he he he talks to me when I put my slippers on in the morning and when I'm drinking my coffee. And sometimes people take this to an extreme where they delude themselves a bit. I remember I was in the church and when October 7th happened, uh this is like kind of a crazy story, but October 7th happened, right? In Israel, all this stuff happened. There was a lady who was there on a group doing a tourist tour of the Holy Lands, and she was talking about how scared she was, and then like while they were in like a bunker somewhere, like somebody was handing off specific kinds of sandwiches or some kind of food, and she's like, that happened to be my favorite favorite one. I just thought to myself, like, the Lord knows what I need, he just wants me to be comforted, right? I'm like, you are delusional, like you think that life is that much about you. Like while people are literally, their bodies are being dismembered and rape and murder is going on right outside of where you're at. You think that God is hyperfixated on giving you the sample. So people deluded themselves into thinking that it's it's all about them. And so when we have the humility to step outside of ourselves and climb a mountain, it's not safe to climb a mountain, and it's not safe to meet God on top of a mountain. I know, like from an orthodox perspective, Jonathan Bougeau and Jordan Peterson have talked about how uh religion protects people from uh divine encounters, basically, like in a positive sense. Like it's creating a barrier, like what we see in the temple. If people go into the Holy of Holies, they die. And so we've gone to an extreme where there's no, anyways, I'm gonna ramp, but my point is is that how we perceive wisdom and how we perceive transcendence uh to to agree with you is I I absorb information, I regurgitate that information, and and I accumulate that and get higher and higher and higher, but I don't change anything about my life. And Rich Mullins once said, I am not what I believe, I am what I believe is doing to me.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

And I don't know if you do get higher and higher and higher, I think you're gonna get lower and lower and lower.

Eden And The Shortcut To Wisdom

SPEAKER_05 16:21

Because I because I think that the more perception-wise, perception-wise is like I have a bank and I'm dumping information in the bank and like look how much I know, but my head's getting bigger, my heart's getting smaller, like the bench.

AI And Disembodied Influence

SPEAKER_01 16:33

And and it and it goes back for me at least, it goes back like e to the very beginning, you know, like so from a Christian worldview point of view, um, and actually from the more monotheistic worldview point of view, but the the reality is that Eden, so the garden of not my daughter, um Eden is uh a walled garden at the top of a mountain, right? And Adam is given dominion over a specific arena at a specific point in in the creation, which is paradise. And it's not paradise because somehow it is created in perfection compared to the rest of creation, it's paradise on the basis that he is um he has the opportunity to walk with the one who can bring him into a state of oneness with himself, i.e., in the in the call of the day, you can walk with God in the call of the day. And and what happens is is that it's so for me, it's a fascinating thing because the idea that you would then circumvent that relational dynamic of walking in the call of the day with the father in order to become like him. The way that you do that is that you try and become God without God. This is a this is say aphasis, and there's various different aspects of this, but you try you try and become God without God, right? And and what happens is that you you try and circumvent that might be the right word, circumnavigate, whatever the right word is. Um, the long process of walking for eternity with God, climbing the mountain, because you're mountain, but you're climbing the mountain with God, you're going higher with Him, and you're like, Do you know what? Actually, I I'm just too tired, I've got this and that stuff going on in my life, I can't really be bothered with this or whatever. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and basically like um uh short circuit the process and become divine in my mind, become the person that I've always known that I should be, because you actually are meant to be divinely minded. We have the mind of Christ, that's the purpose of or one of the purposes of his coming. And we we short circuit that process, and what that means is is that we and then I mean the reform tradition is a little bit off on this from my perspective, because we all we often see that the true knowledge, good, and evil is um the ultimate temptation, like this is this is the temptation of God. It's like, well, the temptation isn't the tree, the temptation is to disobey, right? So the temptation is not the tree of knowledge, good, and evil. The temptation is to believe the lie from the snake, the serpent, the devil. We can talk all about that if you want to. Um believe the lie that that you are not like God and can become like God in a quicker way than he's letting you do it, and he knows that you'll become like him, and so he's actually scared of you, right? So and so I mean there's all sorts of lies in that three lines, it's it's a phenomenal book, like in terms of the amount of information that that is packed into Genesis 1, 2, and 3. But so what we do is that instead of climbing the mountain, we end up trying to walk downhill, and we end up walking down to the depths, and we end up creating God in our room, which rather than be going becoming like God in his image. And that what you're talking about, the idea of false transcendence in a sense, um becoming transcendent in uh a what the Bible calls aloof and lofty ideas, right? That's this is exactly what Paul is talking about. It's because we're unwilling to climb the mountain, we're unwilling to approach Eden, we're unwilling to approach God, we're unwilling to approach the sacrifice or the death that that will cause us because you can't stand face to face with God and not die. You know, um, and we can talk about Moses at some point if you want to, and why he doesn't, or anyway, blah blah blah. But actually, the entire social media aspect of what we're talking about is just the renavigation in modernity of the original problem, the original problem of sin, the original problem of circumnavigating a way of becoming divinely minded, you know. Um, and for me, I'm like, we just do the same things over and over and over again. Um, and I think like when we think about AI, this is the last thing I'll say and then jump my Michael back in. But when we think about AI, um the best way I've heard it describes, it might have been John Fapaggio, but I don't know. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe this is me. Maybe I'm just a freaking genius. This is the best way to describe. But in but in is is like Sauron from Lord of the Rings, it's just this massive eye, right? And uh you've probably heard this, right? It's probably not me that's made it up. So Michael was nodding, he you know, so it's not just me, guys. I'm just so it's Sauron that that's like middle of in the eye, the in the middle of Mordor, in the middle of hell, sounds like um, middle of death, and and and and he needs people to embody him, yeah. So he's not embodied, he's disembodied. And what that means is is that AI is looking, and and this is the danger of it, is looking for people to embody what he thinks. And we're not gonna go conspiracy on this, that's not the point of this conversation. But then if we just take a step like back, influencers are looking for you to embody what they think because as far as you're concerned, they may not it could be like an AI fictional character that you're most obsessed with, right? There's all this stuff, like it may or may not be real, but whatever that is doing, whatever you're perceiving, it doesn't have an embodied nature, right? It has a nature of ethereal digitalism but it doesn't have a body and it's looking for you to embody it and I think that that is a twist and a um and a perversing a perverting sorry of the original design that we were meant to embody the incarnate we were meant to embody the spirit so oh man I don't know if you know about like Nephilim rituals or if you know about anything to do with like um how like pagans um in the Near East used to used to um invite spirits in what they used to used to build on the body and then they had this unmouthing ceremony where they would breathe into the mouth um and into the nostrils um and then the spirit would come and reside in that and they would dress it they would feed it and then they would control that idol and or or or that there would be like a a a a give and take with that idol where you know if we feed you give us rape. So that was the part of it. In the creation story is that it's completely flipped around where God doesn't create an idol he creates a human is just a Dham which means humankind and he breathes into the nostrils his spirit into a Dharm. So it's the exact opposite man doesn't create God and control God. God creates man to reflect his image and we then walk up the mountain to be with him. So and I mean I could go through like like an insane number of um how the Jews invert pagan worship. I haven't got time to do it now the purpose of the inversion is specifically because we want to sacrifice ourselves empty ourselves to allow him in as opposed to fill something with us. What Islam does fundamentally in terms and all mono all um unitary monotheism basically creates God in their image. And so anyway there's lots of but I'm saying what what you're saying about false transcendence is literally on social media is literally the problem.

Forgetting Who You Are

SPEAKER_05 24:18

But this is like a side note it's funny that you bring this up but I know that I I was watching this documentary and I see that there's a form of Tibetan Buddhism it's a sect of Tibetan Buddhism where they will do this thing called the divine banquet and they'll use a human skull as a bone as as a bowl and then they use a human thigh bone as a flute and so they'll play on it and they'll go to places that are known to like where spirits dwell sometimes it's bogs or graveyards or caves or whatever like spiritual places and they'll call these spirits to come and basically what they'll do is like through visualization and meditation they're emptying themselves out like all that they are into this bowl and they're inviting these spirits to come and consume them and there's a term in Tibetan it it it's it's again a a form of you could go through reincarnation or these like long journey or you can do this and it's a way to subvert or fast track. But there's a term within Tibetan Buddhism of of basically where these people lose their minds they go crazy um when this happens they crack and some of them die uh actually from going through this anyways all I have to say when you say it's it's inverted like you're inviting spirits to come eat you and then God kills and lets us eat his his body but um oh dude I mean so I mean we if you want to talk about communion and the Eucharist in that context we can do that later later later later just to wrap up the point so like I think again that this is uh this is about perception of of of kind of like what words mean and I'll just circle back to I think that in in western culture specifically and the way their school system is it it is very much about I will tell you what to think you absorb that information and then I'll I'll create a testing system on can you regurgitate that information back to me and you are like higher you're above like your other peers even though that has nothing to do um with wisdom per se and you know your your recounting of of the creation story I really you know there's a joke but I really would have wanted eve to just say to the devil he's like if you eat this fruit you'll be like God he's like okay you eat it first because he already know so it you know I I think one of the things that we we've one of the things I've learned as I gotten older is forgetting is a sin. Forgetting things is actually a sin. Forgetting things actually positions you to miss the mark to make mistakes to like have failure in your life is forgetting things that are true things that are good things that are right and so in the creation narrative the devil's like well if you want to be like God and like when you read that narrative it says God created man and there's a benediction and he said it is good. And so if the creator of everything that exists makes something and then he like signs off on it like there's nothing really else for me to add to it you lack nothing in the intention of the creator. And so the devil is saying like you you do this and you can be even even better than what you are or different than what you are but you're forgetting who you are. So the initial fall is is to your point I believe the lie about who I am and out of that then I enter into a system of like trying to curate for myself a a transcendent experience and I think like when I look at like the scriptures that are prophesying about the coming of Christ they're saying um there's nothing about him to make men turn their heads and I think in retrospect for us like when we see media around like the gospel of John or the chosen or whatever it it's filmed in a way that is very attractional of like there's just so there was just something about Jesus wasn't there and like I remember hearing people talk about that there was like Jesus told them guys they he said you know you drop your nets and you come follow me and there was just something about Jesus where they where they did it. And I was like well scripture saying actually there wasn't anything physically about his appearance to to make men turn turn their heads or look at him he was he was ambiguous in that sense and and I think it's so interesting because that's the exact opposite to your point of people who maybe have a call of God in their life maybe not maybe they're just like great businessmen and marketers who find themselves in these positions of leadership. But they're gonna lay down like their responsibility to do life with people and disciple people and go narrow and deep and maybe have like an impact that's narrow and deep with two or three people and try to go shallow and broad and have hundreds of people um there and they're basing it off of their how can I get people to perceive it's perceived value right like and and I did like e-commerce uh for a period of time uh helping people market and and you really like to sell products online that have very little weight this is very like uh this is really good I don't realize how good it was until I started saying it so everybody started taking notes you want to sell products online that have very little weight they don't weigh anything and have high perceived value these are the best products you could sell online guys from an e-commerce perspective meaning jewelry I can make a little piece of metal and I could oh it's artisan it's this the words that I attach that piece of metal increase your perceived value of that thing literally where something is five dollars to make I sell it for$150 and it weighs nothing to ship it. And so my profit margins are like exponential there right and so that's kind of like what I see happening with influencers they they they great orators where they they're very flashy they present themselves in a certain way and Christ is really the antithesis of the the devil as well in the sense that the devil is an angel of light he comes to like he's very attractional he comes to see us and and so Paul writes that we shouldn't regard each other anymore from earthly standards. Like you shouldn't just look at somebody with your eyeballs and then put them in a box of like what they are you should spend you and the only way really to discern who somebody is is to be with them in person and spend amount some time with them. How are you with your wife? How are you with your kids how like after I've been with you for an amount of time I could start unraveling who is actually 10 and and from there then through that you not asserting it on me but you will have more authority to speak into my life if you say hey Mike I'm observing this about your marriage and like is everything okay that if I don't have that with you you have no authority to speak into my life you know even if you're even if you're like in a in a positional a position of leadership.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Yeah because in even even the positional leadership model that we often see in the context of church is that the the the leaders believe that they should have authority over your life and there is a God given authority. So if I believe that you are called in this moment to be the leader of this church and I'm part of your church I'm submitting to that authority but you don't actually have that the authority to tell you what to do or to challenge me necessarily you have the authority in terms of being able to have the authority of the the the navigation of where the church is going and the vision and all that sort of stuff although I mean if you if you if you think about the idea of church vision and you apply that to anybody apart from charismatic neo-Pentecostals it makes no sense because why would you need a vision for a church? A church is defined as it is you know like if we know what the church is just get out of the way and just do what the Bible says anyway whatever. But like actually you you you might have the authority in terms of you you can I don't know like do confession or do whatever else it is but there's a depth of authority that can only come if you have relationship that isn't positional and that isn't hierarchical and that isn't religious in that sense. Well I think that we have to be really aware of that and then we also have to bel we also have to know that leaders don't have to have authority over us in terms of how we live our lives I've had leaders in my life who I love and I cherish them and they're amazing but they have core values that are completely different to my core values. Yeah they're like we we will miss our children's birthday to go to this conference because this is the most important thing. Fine whatever like no worries I don't hold that core value I'm like I I want to be at my kid's birthday I think it's probably slightly dysfunctional that you don't want to be at your kid's birthday or at least it's not the priority in that moment. And and I think like for me I don't give them authority to dictate how I am functioning in my core value and wanting to see my kid on their birthday. But I am giving authority in my life to say hey I submit to your leadership in this context and I think we have to be really clear about the difference between those things.

SPEAKER_05 33:25

Otherwise you end up in a cull you know like that's what happens like you end up you end up saying okay well the leader has authority in this situation which means I have authority in all situations which means that I must grow my hair this time or whatever it is you know well well I think that that's kind of the dynamic of of people so in when when Paul is dealing with the Corinthians the Corinthians had this kind of culture about them where they would follow speakers like sports teams. So they would kind of figure out like oh Tim is very passionate what he speaks and this other speaker he's very like logical in how they speak and so when Paul writes this this thing some say they're of Apollo some say they're this person some say they're this person he's saying I didn't come to you with eloquence of speech um some Protestants will just take it and be like we just gotta talk real plain. We don't we don't want that learn talk that's not what he's saying what he's saying is um I'm only following one person. I remember I saw this clip of Denzel Washington like they were asking him something he was like I only followed one person. That's Jesus Christ. I ain't following nobody else you know saying this and so but people people get in this mode of like who's the best of the best of the best and and I want to follow that person and then I'll I'll to a degree model but that to your point in reality there's going to be like compartments of life where that person has no authority to to speak um into your into your life and again I I remember hearing this this um analogy but Lewis said I want God not my idea of God and so then we try to model that out and like frame that out it's like well what what standard are we going to use um for that and if I use the standard that my dad set or I use the standard that my pastor set or my favorite favorite influencer set it would be like if I if I'm on a construction site and I cut a six foot board and then I use the new board that I cut to measure the next board and I take the newly cut board and use it to measure the next board. I take the newly cut board and measure by the time I cut 80 boards I went from having a six foot board to an eight foot board. And so in scripture it says Christ is is the cornerstone. So when you set the cornerstone it does define the parameters of the building once that stone is set and I start laying stones out from it it's going to define what that looks like. And so Jesus saying those who want to save their life have to lose it and those who want to lose their life is going to save it I have to lay down a bunch of things and then ask him what are the parameters of what my life looks like um so in the same vein of thought if I want God not my idea of God do you want the life that God has for you or do you want the life that you think that God has for you and when you do that you can only do that from the source. You can't do that through um influencers and people who are telling you this is this is the Christian life but when you're around and and because again just to be clear anything that's on the internet is to extract money from you nearly almost anything just to be clear like if somebody has uh moment they've invested money and time and energy of it to make except for me I don't I don't monetize this I'll gain money from this it doesn't be clear.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

But but you say Simon's Matt Winger then you're the you're you're the you're the black winger hero that doesn't quantify as I didn't use YouTube name.

Discomfort, Fasting, And Real Friendship

SPEAKER_05 36:50

So the the issue is is that if it's there it's gonna make money off of so when when I'm in a community of people it's like people who who love me they're not trying to manipulate control intimidate seduce me with something but they're like genuinely hey let's let's build each other up um there and they love me enough to tell me the truth uh and not you know some people love you but the devil the devil will tell you something that that'll tickle your ear that'll make you feel good and if you're always feeling good from the things that you're hearing from these from people around you they don't love you they might love they might love the way that you make them feel and they're trying to get you to love the way that they make you feel but they don't love you. If all the time it's always like good thing if you've never been confronted if you've never had anybody push back on a decision you've made if you've never had anybody and and um people there's mechanisms online where these people who are influencers will like there's some term I seen I don't remember what it is but basically it's where people cut their families out of their lives completely. I don't remember what's called but basically like there was a group that met like yeah so it's been two years since I don't talk to my parents at all anymore. And I'm like okay there's always like the exception to the rule and the rule. And so everybody's like yeah but you don't know what happened in my life and da da da I'm like fair but I think that that's a really not a helpful mechanism to normalize of I I will just like make the choice to cut people out of my life forever because some of the people who I have in my life who cause me uh a fair amount of stress and a fair amount of of uh of uh problems are people who like I'll just use the example maybe I perceive that my parents are are causing me stress but then I reflect on how much stress that I've caused them and the things that I've I've done so there's like a tension between there and so if I get in the mode of just cutting people out um again I'm trying to curate a life for myself and and so it's ultimately just comes down to hey God like are you inviting me to love Tim in this moment?

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Are you inviting me to to anyways I'm going on a rant I'll let you no but I think it's right because I think I think in in in the end I mean I I I was supposed to look at it quickly I I couldn't find it I think it's Sakot the the the Feast of Tabernacles or maybe it might not be that I'm sorry if it isn't but but the Jews used to leave their civilization and go and live in tents I think for a month I might have got that wrong but you can look it up in order that they did not forget what it was like to live in the wilderness like that that's what they did. They they there was a command to have a a season of for everybody where they would not forget where they came from and they would not forget the pain and the hardship of their ancestors but also for other people that are enslaved in that way or whatever or or or or in the wilderness or whatever it was. And I think that there's something very important and this is the spiritual act of fasting or um what whatever any sort of ascetic principle silence like whatever it is because it's basically being able to say you know like no I live a life of comfort and even though I live a life where most people don't really want to say that I'm doing something wrong and that makes me feel really good because actually it's super easy like it's a really easy way to live my life where I have the TV that I can turn on and I have the social media that I can do scroll through and I have whatever it might be but the whole purpose of that is that when the Jews got to the point where they were so comfortable God was like hey you need to remember discomfort you have to remember that and so that so the question is for anybody including us you know are we willing to take the discomfort of the journey up the mountain to actually meet God or are we way too comfortable um in our on our safety right and and I think that there is something really powerful that the journey towards God always involves you dying to some degree and it and sometimes we think that people are so I'm talking about friends here right I'm not talking about leaders who abuse I'm talking about friends. Sometimes we think that this idea that a friend that that a the a correction from a friend is a slap in the face or like that's what the that's just paraphrased from the psalm or proverb rather but we sometimes take that as an as an attack on us. It's like well actually if they're your friend it's not they're not attacking you they're trying to love you and the journey up the mountain includes those things otherwise you don't become anything. So so that so the the the whole point about Adam in it is that he isn't created perfect. He's created with the potential for for perfection he's not creating this perfect state he's not he's he's sinless but he's not perfect. You can't conflate the two reform theology does this quite a lot so so Adam is created sinless but he isn't created perfect because perfection's impossible right and you have to grow to the point of perfection you have to be tested and then you pass the test and become more perfect than you were there's always a great and and steps forward.

Marketing, Cosplay Faith, And Discernment

SPEAKER_05 42:19

And so if we if we are only ever who we are now we are only ever being we're not becoming but Adam was created to be and to become so if we are content with who we are in the here and now and we don't want to become someone greater more perfect more divinely minded whatever you want to say we've completely missed the point of our existence and actually Western culture social media is a part of that but western culture thrives from you not being who you're meant to be not becoming who you're meant to become exactly right dissatisfaction uh marketing is is and marketing and sales is based around creating dissatisfaction it's called creating the gap right and so there's there's paradise island and there's hell island and there's where somebody's at and you're convincing them that they're on Hell Island and you convince them that you have Paradise Island on some level or or degree and so you create that dysfaction which convinces them to take action and get off of um Hell Island so to speak and I think just tying a bow on on what we're talking about of there'll be people who come and present an act as stand ends to give us wisdom. So the devil is coming in in the creation narrative like hey you can you can it's always like do it fast you can get it done fast you can eat this fruit and and be like God and the reality is is there's people who will cosplay cosplay the They will cosplay a Christian. They are they're wearing a costume and they're proclaiming to be on your team, so to speak. And people really want to have a team. They want to really belong to somebody. And Jesus, Jesus said to his disciples, he said, Beware the leaven of Herod and the Pharisees. And you can't really tell. If you mix in, you know, the yeast with the bread, you can't tell until things start bubbling that something is is off. It's like been mixed in there. It's the same thing with the parable. Jesus gives multiple parables of like the darnal wheat or the bastard wheat, where you know, a rival farmer comes in to another rival's farm and he or his enemy, I don't know if it's a rival farm, is his enemy, and he comes in and he throws a bunch of seed in with the wheat that he's planted, and those plants will grow up and they look exactly the same, but you only can tell the difference when the f when the actual wheat is supposed to be produced because the darn wheat will have no wheat. And so what's it doing? It's it's robbing nutrients and it's taking up space um there, but in in a in a natural sense, you're looking at it and you and you can't tell. And so that would just be my observation is that you know, walk treading lightly with people who we see online but know nothing about, of like taking what they're saying and implementing it because they could be very much like just masquerading or live action role-playing a Christian because people get satisfied with like, well, if you say you believe what I believe, I have power of agreement. That makes me feel significant and that makes me feel feel good about what's what's happening here. And I look at Paul, and Paul is saying, imitate me as I imitate Christ. Well, how does he imitate Christ? Galatians 2.20. The life I live, I don't exist anymore. There is no Paul. I've been co-crucified with Christ. The life I now live is Christ living through me. I'm going to be an avatar of God moving through my life. So here's a guy who's saying, Yeah, come and imitate me. I don't exist anymore. So you're they're pointing people to to Jesus. So again, if if people are not trying to point people to the to the author uh of salvation and and the creator of everything that exists, and like the the Denzel statement, I'll follow anybody's follow Jesus. Like that that's where people need to be pointing people, and that's kind of that can be a kind of litmus test of um of sorts.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

Yeah.

Saints, Icons, And Celebrity Worship

SPEAKER_01 46:36

And I think I think so I so I mean I don't know if I agree that Paul was saying I don't exist anymore, but I understand what you're saying is it's it's it's the Christ is so Christ is so present within him that he is is living as him but presenting as Christ, and that's the purpose of it. Because that that j the the the the the join the joining of Christ and people is a really important aspect of that. But then just to go back to the model, so I'm just trying to try and tie a bow on it, right? But but but the but the marketing piece from Hell Island to Paradise Island, right? It it is an inversion of the truth, it's a perversion of the truth, because actually we do want people to become different and move from where they are and become something that they're not yet, but we don't do that by buying stuff, or we don't do that by we go to that information that we hear online or whatever else it is. We actually do that by walking up a mountain. So marketing is basically trying to convince you on a very basic level that you're in the wrong place, and actually there's nothing specifically wrong with that as a principle because we are all in the wrong place, we're not yet the perfected selves that we're called to be, but it's a perversion of that principle because it basically says that you will find happiness in our island that we created as opposed to happiness in the in the in the Eden or the Belgium time. But so I think like there's there's lots there, and I and this this thing with Denzel Washington as well, like I only follow Jesus, yeah, kind of, but I also follow the people that embody him. So so I think like that's that for me is where those two the the pool the the pool thing and the Denzel thing come together because Denzel is like I don't follow anybody. I'm like cool, like I understand the principle there, and that is ultimately where we should be. We should be walking towards where we are reliant on Christ, but also in our journeys, we need people that reflect Christ too, so we follow them for a season, we follow them for a lifetime, or whatever it might be, in order that we can understand about Christ embodied on earth and what that can actually look like. It's why saints are really important, it's why church farmers are really important because we look to them, and I mean, oh man, I mean we could talk about veneration and iconography right now if you want to, but but but like the the idea behind those things in orthodox and Catholic circles more orthodox than Catholic, because Catholics take it up on a bit of a weird better, um, is that you are looking into the future of who you are yet to become, and actually these saints have become their perfected selves as a result of them climbing the mountain.

SPEAKER_05 49:12

They're more alive than we are, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Exactly right, yeah, and and there's something very powerful about that. And actually, if you would like my very personal opinion on what happened in Bethel, I think they have a very poor theology of iconography because I think what happened is that people worship Bill and Chris, and the most likely they received that worship. And my gut would be is that if we had a difference between um in our understanding of what iconography is meant for, you know, we we all have icons, we all have people that we venerate or celebrate, or celebrityism is a crazy example of that because it's so perverse. But but we all have icons in our lives, the people that we look up to, the people we're like, wow, look, you have done this, like CEO of a millionaire, what's it called? Secret Diary of a Millionaire, whatever it is, I don't know what it is. You're like amazing, and I want to become like you. They become an icon. The problem is you worship it, and the problem is when you want to give worship to something and that thing receives worship, you've become you completely disintegrated the natural order of worship. So for me, what's happened is that Bill and Chris have created a culture which is amazing, but they've also created a culture in which, and with Danny Silk's culture of honor stuff, I think, and unpunishable particularly, they've created something where they've actually received worship from people. And I mean, we've both been in that school where you're like Bill could do no wrong, you have a 10-minute standing ovation, and Bill's lovely. I've I've had one-on-one time with Bill and Chris and Dan, and like they're lovely, amazing people. Um, but when you don't understand that people are worshipping you, you receive that in some way, even inadvertently, you've basically got a problem. Because what's happened is you've created a culture that means that you are the icon, that that you are not just the icon, you're the god. And that becomes very iffy, especially no offensive in American culture, because American culture is specifically celebrities. I think this might be.

SPEAKER_05 51:16

Yeah, we we try to follow like success stories and leaders. Uh so let me just walk back what I'm saying about the Denzel piece, is uh specifically framing it that there's a standard that we're gonna follow. And the standard is gonna be like crisis is the corner zone. Of course, like we I have a mentor I have the same mentor now, uh someone who speaks to my life since 2008. We've walked like he he discipled me when I first became a Christian. Um, Jim Kelly's his name. I had I I did podcasts with him, and I still call him. Like, hey, like this is what I'm doing. Like, I respect your opinion. You know, what you know, there's something going on with my dad, or something's going on in my family. Like, what do you think about this? And I listen, I absorb it, I take it in. I'm always holding an intention. Like, it's not the absolute, but I 100% believe that we need people who are farther ahead of us in life in certain areas who are going to save us unnecessary suffering and pain. And the whole idea of ironing sharpened iron is like a very cliche and cheesy thing that's kind of said sometimes, but it really means like me and Tim are going to we're going to rub against each other and p chunks and pieces of us are gonna fly off, sparks are gonna fly, it's gonna be heat and friction. It's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt. Yeah. So I think that that's that's a hundred percent part of of the Christian life. And I think um, again, I can I just can't emphasize enough that people need to be around. You cannot, there is no substitution of being within community with people and having them integrated in your life and doing like there's that like you're deluding yourself if you think that you can go off and get what you need from you know internet land um and absorb it.

SPEAKER_01 52:50

Especially if you're a leader, yeah. Especially if you're a leader, yeah. You need because often leaders leaders don't don't don't bring that around them because they're the leader of the organization. If if people say yes, and there's no holes.

Scandals, Brick Wall Faith, And Outrage

SPEAKER_05 53:04

If it's very personality-based, like what you're uh you know talking about, if it's very personality-based, you have to uphold the brand. And so upholding the brand means that there can't be any defects or anything wrong. And one of the things I did respect about Rich Mullins as he um toured was he would show up to churches and he would put he would start the you know, the people want a very polished presentation, whatever. So Rich would show up and he would just start he would publicly confess sin. And he was open about the fact how much he struggled with loneliness. And sometimes he did struggle uh with drinking or he's whatever it was, and he would publicly confess sin, and he was like always trying to dismantle this persona that people would try to build up with him. Now, I I think that you could maybe take that to a place of like make get basically giving permission like not to like change per se in a way, but I do respect it because we because of the time that we live in where everybody wants everybody else to think only good things about them. And I I just want I I want for myself like just to authent authentically like be changing, be growing, and just take a legitimate audit, you know, when tax time comes, it doesn't matter what you want, it matters like how much money you made, how much money you spent, like what's going on. So taking an audit of things, I think in that circle of people, um within like that that ethos of like charismatic Christianity, one of the things that that kind of rises to the surface is people again, like perceived value of like the you know the term of like anointing. So how much magical powers does somebody ha have granted from them from God? And um there's kind of belief systems that will unfold out of that, um, in regards to like, well, if I proximity is power. So if I'm around you and you have the magical powers and and I'm in close proximity to you, that can kind of rub off on me. And if you lay hands on me, you can you can impart. And and so there the in the timing, like because I'm looking back again like to 2008 till now, so I'm looking back at that time of in in mainstream evangelical Christianity in America, the the Holy Spirit was all but forgotten predominantly outside maybe like in Pentecostal holiness circles or assemblies of God or Church of God circles. But when you talk about Methodist, Baptist, um, Presbyterian, etc., like the Church of Christ are sensationalists, and they some individual churches of Christ even believe that the Holy Spirit doesn't even dwell within believers, he dwells in the Bible, and so all of your Christian life is surmounted in when you read the Bible, the Holy Spirit in the Bible illuminates the scriptures, and then you're transformed by the renewing of your mind. So if you have Down syndrome or you can't read, um, it's an issue of like transcendence, you know, in that belief system for me. But all that being said, is like you see people who were looking at the scriptures. If you look at New Testament Christianity, if you remove everything that's supernatural from New Testament Christianity, you have effectively cut out roughly around 45% of the New Testament. And you so you see a group, uh, a group of people who make an observation that the church has gone without things for so long, and so there's a kind of a polarizing reaction and a and a higher value around how do we cultivate and steward these things that we went without was so long? And because of that, we have to give permission and leniency to things that um just wasn't good. Like you need character, you need people, and again, when I think about growth, the idea of growth, and one of the things that becomes more and more attractive to me around orthodoxy is their perspective is oh, you want to be part of our church? Come and hang out with us for a while and see if you feel that way after a long time, versus like being seeker friendly, versus like, how can I create this attractional aspect of it? It's like we're not trying to be like an exclusive club here, but like come because the Christian life is a medicine. And many Western people want to think purely in legal terms of just like I'm in, I'm out, I'm guilty, I'm free, I'm saved, I'm unsaved, I'm believed, I'm an unbeliever. And it's just like an absolute of things. And it's like, no, we're all in some kind of like spectrum, and God is working in our lives, and the Christian life is is medicine, and and it's meant to uh heal us, and that healing may take decades or lifetime to happen in certain areas. Um, so I I think like like being far removed time-wise of like being in in Northern California, you know, I I appreciate again what was deposited in my life uh in a lot of ways. Um with the guy, I don't know if you ever heard of a guy named Mark Verkler. Mark Verkeler is a kind of the obscure guy, but he had a he wrote a voice, a book called Four Keys to Hear God's Voice. And I think he comes from a sensationalist background, so he's a very logical intellectual thinker. Um, anybody who's listening to this, go read the book, uh, the audio version. The audio quality is very bad. Um, but if you read the book, it's it's it's very good, very, very simple. But it it's a good entry point for people who come from like sensationalist backgrounds or backgrounds where we don't know who the guy is. So I partnered that book with The Forgotten God by Francis Chan because Francis Chan kind of like went on his own journey, not quite of sensationalism, but definitely from a mainline perspective. Um but uh yeah, I I don't know, man. I think again, people are people. I've always like kind of held and I've been in enough like scan like seen scandals and seeing things play out from a young age where I just know that if I see anybody, everybody's got some skeletons in their closets, everybody has ego, everybody is going to fail at some point. There's gonna be some kind of failing. Like that's throughout scripture. We see people failing. So I I I don't really understand like when I see tons and tons of outrage, like this ruined my life because this person, like, no, I'm like, you built your you built your house on something other than a rock. Bro, you build your house on some kind of weird belief system because I I always just it's like as much as I love you and there's things that that you'll say that like you know, I I'll just no, that's a good thing, I'll take it. It's not like I'm building my future and my perspective of oh, Tim told me this one thing, and like now if that's not true, then like I'm right.

SPEAKER_01 59:49

I don't underst I personally don't understand that because I but and I mean I'm I'll go, I mean, we can go rogue here, and I'm I'm not a Rob Bell fan, but when he wrote Velvet Elvis and he talked about fake being a trampoline and a platform which you spring from as opposed to a brick, brick wall, it's really important, really important. Because actually, w if you look at anybody who grows up in Christianity in the last 30, 40 years, they haven't they get given a brick wall, and then someone knocks one brick out, the whole wall comes tumbling down. Normally at university, where secular humanism kind of like finds its way in because you've protect being protected from it for such a long time. Well, I think that's a really important thing. But so when I'm saying about like um the issues in leadership, there is also an equal issue in participation. Because you offer worship without knowing you're worshiping. It's a major problem. Because what happens is is that we like if if you like I I mean I I I have no idea what your audience is gonna be here, but if you look at Donald Trump as an example, your far hardcore mate maga, mega creating guys, whatever it is, they cannot hear that Donald Trump has done anything negative at all. Right. They can't hear it. Because actually, if you take out that piece, then the aura of perfection of completely what God wants, what's good for America, what's good for the world, etc. etc. falls down. So what you have is you have lots of people building brick walls that are impenetrable, but you're not meant to be doing that, you're not meant to be warding yourself in, you're not meant to be building your own safety, you're meant to be going outside of what is safe for you and walking up the mountain. We'll get back to this every single time. And I think for me, I I've got a major problem with how we interact as Christian congregation members with leaders, with especially worship leaders, with with all the horrendous theology that goes on there, with all these different things, and we just basically soak it in, and we're like, why? Why is that? We're freaking lazy, bro. We don't want to think for ourselves, we want someone to think for us. Sometimes you're gonna uh need an expert in an area, like I don't walk into I don't know, like a head teacher's office and go, hey, I've never done education before in my entire life. This is how you should do it. No way. Also, you need to have a view about what should be done. Especially if your kid goes to school. So my kids go to school, and I'm like, hey, I don't know the education system, never been a teacher, um, never been a head teacher, don't know the issues that you've got with life managing staff with curriculum and all the rest of it. But just so you know, we are gonna be the ones that teach our children about different genders, and we're gonna be the ones that teach our children about what marriage is, and we're gonna be the ones that teach our children about spirituality, not your baby yoga classes, just so you know. So I'm coming in with a view, I'm not telling them how to do their job, but I am saying I will do I will not participate in some things. The problem that we've got is is that we that takes a lot of time and intensive thought, which really we're conditioned not to do, because we're conditioned to regurgitate information that we've heard education systems or online or whatever it is, and so for me, there is equal um responsibility on leaders and congregation members, people being led, to not let this thing become mental, which it has been, and it has become.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:34

Yeah, I like is that you think what we're talking about? I don't know.

Lazy Consumption Versus True Leadership

SPEAKER_05 1:03:38

Well, yeah, I th I think uh you know I work in a in a functional functional medicine space sometimes, and and um one of the things that people struggle with is a functional medical space is just you admitting to be a drug pusher.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:53

That's okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:53

You just gotta say it as it is, but a lot well a lot of times people have have issues around around their their gut, right? And their gut is kind of uh it's called your second brain. So just a quick run-through for people, your gut actually controls about 70% of your immune system, it controls 90% of your serotonin production, which is a happy chemical, it's the final filter, uh like getting toxins and waste out of your body, but also helps you absorb uh nutrients. It's the if people have autoimmune, your gut's linked to the trigger for the autoimmune. Um, pretty much all chronic diseases are metabolically driven. They're driven by chronic inflammation. So the gut plays a very central role in our in our health, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:33

And why am I saying please buy this drug?

unknown 1:04:36

No.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:36

Why I'm saying that is uh well, I will say this. There's a guy in my church, and he was having after the COVID vaccination, uh he was having a lot of like chronic sinus infections that he never had before. Like every like couple weeks you just get another one, another one. I was like, Bill, are you taking any pro or prebiotics or anything like that for your gut? And he's like, No, why should I? And I'm like, Yeah, do like a soil or fungal fungal based one. There's tons of stuff out there for that. Short version of stories, he still till today will come up to me. He's like, I can't thank you. He's like in his 70s, I I can't thank you enough. All I did was I take that one sub. I have not had any science infections involved. Like, cool, cool story, Bill. What's my point? My point is, is you we you said we're lazy. People people are in like an absorption mode and they've not been activated. And again, this is one of the problems that we talked about before we even start recording. Is I'm if I'm trying real leaders create more leaders, people who uh and when I say real leaders create leaders, I'm not talking about the guys who sell courses online for thousands of dollars. That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about somebody who will walk beside of you to the point where they're willing to work themselves out of a position so that you can be what they are to a degree. Uh Jesus said, as the Father sent me, I now send you. You're gonna do the same thing to me. So he's like, I'm demonstrating what leadership can be here, and I will work myself uh out of a job. And when we're in consumerism mode, what what some people need before they go and try to climb the mountain is a colonic. They need like a Holy Ghost enema or something going on to like get some of that stuff out because you you you have you have waste and toxins built up in your system that have blocked up the pathways. And so you can't absorb nutrition. One of the things that happens if you absorb if you have too much waste and toxins in your body is your cell walls are normally open like this and oxygen and nutrition will pass through when it's inflamed what what what happens when you roll your ankle and you're playing football your ankle gets swells and gets bigger. So what happens your cell walls they they they close so now stuff from the body can't get in the cell things are soaking out of the body and your entire body's made up of cells. So some of us have absorbed too much content. So I'm telling you like you just mentioned like the Jews going out in the wilderness you need a a spiritual colonic or enema get out fast for a while get it get it out of your system and then do a hard reset of like what should I be be doing because we're conditioned to just uh it's like uh that Wally film where all the people just got fat and they're like rolling around and like the things I ain't walking anymore. And it's like I mean it's supposed to be a river not a not a swamp.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

And I I'm doing um I'm I'm having counseling at the moment and I'm I'm having support from a counselor and one of the things that um we came to in our sessions was I I can't do silence. I can't sit with silence. So he said to me the challenge for you is is that instead of when you are driving to work or whatever of listening to a podcast you need to sit in silence. Can you do that? And I'm like but honestly fill me with anxiety. I'm like I don't know what's gonna go on with my head what's gonna what what is going to go on in my mind in silence. It's a it sounds for some people they're like you're crazy. I'm like dude for someone like me my mind is like like that and I love it. I love the idea that I can talk anything from like pre-millennial like interpretation of revelation through to like the 18th century and 1800s of Victorian like I love that. I love like I love it. But it kills me because I am so constipated by my knowledge that I'm unable to filter through it to find out what's useful. And when I sit in silence it is it is the and also it's a block to hearing the voice of God it and to my relationship with God. And I've got to be careful that my absorption of information doesn't just look like me perpetually eating from the tree of the the tree of the bulge could be do you feel like I have to stay silent.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:48

Do you feel like from your job this like we don't have to we can talk about some not not you have shrimp details but like with with the work that you've done in the past like working with the state like typically like first responders and police officers and people who see pretty horrific awful things they kind of get jacked into like a fight or flight where their cortisol is like up and um it's like a whole thing of like adrenal fatigue but they don't know how any other way to be like that's kind of scary to like not do anything. Do you think that there maybe is an element of like you need like a nervous system reset where your nervous system just comes down to a baseline out of 100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

But what I'd say is is that I think I'm better in my social workshop than I was in ministry. Well because I think ministry for me was the was the was like what really triggered because I went through a whole healing journey process maybe seven or eight years ago I came back into ministry a specific sort of ministry and and it literally was it played back into my um dysfunction and celebrated my dysfunction of being constantly able to go massive capacity can run really fast really hard can can I I had a guy come around my house that's true sorry guy around two nights ago and he said to me um I'm I'm in ministry um about to have a baby about a child like you you did ministry so well like you went to the gym have the perfect family all your kids are in church your wife is there etc etc like how did you do it and I was like bro everybody in my family died so everything that you saw not everything sometimes it was fun but when you're talking to me about my example in ministry I was like dude I had two nervous breakdowns I was ill for six to eight months every year and just had to just get on with it and didn't have to chose to get on with it and I was like dude if you want an example for ministry please don't choose I do that and it was a massive thing for him because all this illusion burst through you know and it was like he said at the end he was like oh man now if I fail it's okay you know now if I now if I can't do what you do it's okay you know so yeah so it's just a very interesting dynamic. Um but I would say yes the cortisol is high um the adrenaline is high I'm dealing a lot with um sex offenders at the moment um and constantly on hypervigilance for children and y I can definitely figure this I can definitely figure it and even though you don't bring it home in your mind you do you you definitely bring it home um in terms of like your body.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:37

Yeah. I think it it's a it would be a difficult thing to turn off.

Knowing Truth Versus Living Truth

SPEAKER_04 1:11:41

Like obviously like if you're police officer first responder like what you're doing there like where children are at risk and and um that uh shifting gears basically like being able to compartmentalize enough to be like good at what you do but then like when you come back to like your life um being present and being your like a a comprehensive version of yourself I guess um is is not an easy easy shift and uh yeah um there was a technical error on Tim's part his mic died and so we had to properly cut but we'll follow up with another one. So I think the difference of what we were running at here between knowing about something and being formed by it is held in the tension of what Jesus said. You'll know the truth and the truth will set you free. And knowing the truth and experientially living the truth are two different things. I can know that I'm supposed to go to the gym and know what kind of food that I'm supposed to eat and that's not actually what's changing my physique and my body. It comes down through living that out and so we can consume quote unquote truth all day through clips and sermons and quotes and podcasts but if there is no relationship to it there's no correction there's no cost there's no walking that out experientially it doesn't become any kind of authority in our life it's just regurgitation of of information just stays information. And that information doesn't transform you it makes you feel like you're being transformed. It's a it's a placebo and that's uh a really subtle thing of buying self-help books and listening to self-help podcast makes you feel like you're putting in the work to be changed but you're simply not so that pattern keeps showing up whether we're looking at saints or church fathers or anyone who's actually walked this out it it's quieter, it's not glamorous, it's slow, it's relational and it's grounded in humility and in being known as we are okay and so there's a saying that God can't change the person who you're pretending to be but he can change who you are if you admit to it. And so that's not something that's just followed okay so the the key takeaway here is this is very simple but not necessarily easy is getting closer to something that's that's real, closer to people who actually know you closer to practices that form you closer to God not as an idea but as a person who you're willing to climb towards even if no one sees it and actually especially if no one sees it because then we know that there's not alternative motives with that. So we'll follow up with this podcast we're going to keep going but uh till next time