Authenticity and Dating Wisdom with Noah Herrin

Hey crew, it's Adam. I'm a husband, a father, a pastor, a follower of Jesus who just like you is trying to learn what it looks like to fully live and follow Jesus in the middle of real life. It is one thing to be someone on Sundays, but what about Monday through Saturday? And so here, we're gonna talk about faith and making a difference in the messy, ordinary moments where it's often the hardest to live out. Some weeks, I'll share what God is teaching me. Other weeks, I'll sit down with leaders, pastors, athletes, friends. There's no fluff, just encouragement and truth for your life between Sundays. I'm so glad you're here. Well, hey crew, welcome on back to Life Between Sundays. Let's go. We are here in Adam's office. Let's go. We are feeling refreshed, ready to roll, knock the week out. Let's go. How are you feeling this week? I'm feeling very good this week. What do you do with all this free time you got? Oh, it's usually trouble because I have free time and I start brainstorming random ideas. It becomes not free time very quickly.

The free time turns into, oh, let's do these other things. I'm working on- Which is good, which is good. No, but I'm working on trying to be bored more. How's that going? I'm not good at it. I'm trying to be bored and really just enjoy the downtime and focus more on preaching, leading, all that kind of thing instead of doing a bunch of extras. Okay, that's good. Give me your high-low buffalo. My buffalo, I got a buffalo. You're looking at it, these jeans, let's go. What? So I had a bit of an intervention last week from the gals. Okay, but I would like to preface this. It wasn't that we, it wasn't unprovoked. I feel like you came at, you asked for advice first. You think so? Yes, you 100% asked for it. I don't know how I feel about that. Yeah, you did. You asked and then we gave our opinions. It wasn't an unsensitive opinion. I gotta say this. Something happened that Amanda, our creative director, and you came and apologized. It was like apologize. So what was that about? Can you explain that?

Well, we just felt bad. So to give a little bit of setting the scene, Adam asked if he should change up his pants. Me and Amanda were like, yes, I think you should. No, it was like, yes. Just waiting the second you asked. We're like, finally, it's time. It wasn't like, yeah, that's exactly. I was like, oh, oh. And then I asked around the office and it became very apparent that all of the women on our team thought we should change. And hey, I'm willing to say that I am wrong. So I went and got three different sets of pairs. Straight leg jeans. Straight leg Levi's from Sheels. Sheels, by the way, you should be a partner on the podcast. That would be awesome. That would be awesome. So that's my Buffalo. I got new jeans. They just asked me this morning how I feel about it. I don't know how I feel about it if I'm being honest. But I'm trusting everyone. The reason we came and apologized is because we felt like we teamed up on him a little bit just because we started looking at online, showing him what he should get. We got the whole office involved. So just felt a little bit guilty.

But again, he asked for our advice. So we're gonna give it. I did. And to anybody listening, this is actually a takeaway from this. I'm actually glad that I got. Advice? Yeah, I'm like, yeah, why wouldn't I do that? So I don't wanna be the. So what's the takeaway? Ask someone in your life for advice. Yeah, if you got a team that you love and respect or a family or friends that you love and respect and they all say the same thing, that's probably it. Especially Amanda, I would listen to her. She is on style every single day. There it is. That's my Buffalo. Okay, I love it. Well, today we have a great episode for you guys. You had Noah Heron on. Tell us a little bit about Noah. Yeah, so Noah is, in my eyes, the up and coming. There's so many awesome younger pastors, but he is an up and coming. And he's not even an up and coming. He is one of the leading pastors in our country right now. He's out of Nashville, is where he's pastors a church called The Way. You should go follow him on Instagram.

It's so solid. He is a good Instagram follower. What I love about Noah, he's a great preacher, blah, blah, blah. His humility and genuine love for Jesus is why I respect him and why I talk about him so much. And so we talk about his newest books is on manhood. And so we talk about his book. We talk about dating advice, what to look for in a partner, that someone to marry. Again, he's younger than me, and yet I look up to him in so many ways. You're gonna love this conversation. Just enjoy every part of it. This is what I was telling somebody about Noah this morning. I feel like Sioux Falls needs a young pastor leading this church, bringing it into a new season. For me, I'm just pumped about it. I feel like it's a win for our city to have somebody younger. in for your city that you have that perspective. And he looks up and loves you so much. It was really cool when we put the two together. We were having dinner and he was like, do you have any connections to churches in Sioux Falls? And I was like, yeah, actually, I was like, I deserve to be in the doghouse with Pastor Adam Weber right now

because I was at a youth camp with my son and I was supposed to be on his podcast. And I never showed up and he started laughing and he was like, well, I really love Pastor Adam and his churches. He said like 20 minutes from each other? Yeah, it's really, really close. He can probably get there even in like 12, 13 minutes. Really close, really close. Wow, well, thank you for your grace for me not showing up to the first one of these, man. I totally was just, I have no excuse. I was having a blast with my son fishing at youth camp and just completely forgot. No, and if I told you back, I was like, that is, when you're meeting with a VIP like your son, it is totally honorable and not just okay, but a good thing to lose track of time and lose track of what you're doing. Noah, I'm sorry, I just, as we get started, I just appreciate you, respect you so much. And I'm learning from you. I just want you to know that I learned from you and I'm brought closer to Jesus because of you. And I'm just so, I'm so excited for your church. I'm so excited for Nashville. I'm so excited for just what I was saying about Noah Rollins. We need you, Noah, the church needs you in our country. And so I'm just really, really grateful.

And I don't say that lightly. And I say that not, yeah, you're a great preacher. Yeah, the way church is exploding. I say that because of every time we've ever been around each other, you've showed me so much kindness. You've just like, I've always felt so honored by you. You have such humility. And so I'm just really, really grateful. So. Well, that means a lot, man, thank you. So you're, so I'm going all over the place, but your star is continuing to rise right now. Your Instagram, you're dropping wisdom. My assistant literally just, my assistant, Emily, just said, who helps him with his Instagram? I'm like, I'm not sure, but your Instagram wisdom, you and your wife, Maddie, as we just shared, you're a pastor at Way Church. You got a new space recently, but how does it feel that your star is rising? Like, does that, that might be even weird for you to hear from me. Any feelings about, feel like, that you've got to feel that. I mean, what does that make you feel? I think practically it feels like there's more things vying for my attention than ever before. So like, that's like a very like conscious conversation that my wife and I are having right now. I mean, we spent three hours last night

just talking about that and how do we stay, how do we keep our no list to get bigger? So it's, yeah, I think we, I don't know if we've ever said it the way that you just said it, but we have felt like God, for whatever reason, has been opening doors for our church, for our family, for me personally. And we're really grateful for those doors, but I just, leaders like you, leaders that I want to be like when I grow up, what I've noticed about the best leaders is they're extremely focused on the things that they know God has called them to do. And so how do we, like the conversation we had last night is how do we see these opportunities for what they are, which is huge honors and gifts, while not losing the focus that allowed us to get here in the first place. And we feel like that was just the Lord honoring, faithfulness to what he's asked us to do, not what other people have asked us to do. And so we're just drilling deep right now and going, okay, what things do we need to delegate? What things do we need to give away? And what things do we need to double down on and just really throw our focus into? That's so good. And the process of learning to say no is, at least for me, continuing to be a journey.

It was so cool. Arthur Brooks just came out with a new book. I'm a huge fan of Arthur Brooks. If you haven't read his stuff, Noah. Phenomenal. It's so good. So good. So, but I read, it was funny. I read a chapter, because his newest book has kind of, of like his latest, it's like all of his, uh, writeups to kind of put into a book. And one of them is like, and he's talking about how to basically have a joy filled life. And he, it, the whole chapter was on saying no, it was like saying no. And I just got a really cool invitation and I'm like, oh my gosh, I gotta say yes to this. I'm not going to get another opportunity to do this. Uh, it was, there was a lot of, uh, I would have been in the room with a whole bunch of people and would have been leading part of it. And it, as I was reading, I knew immediately I was supposed to say no. Wow. And so I, I literally wrote, I'm like, if I wait on this, I'm going to turn it to a yes. So I wrote right back and I was like, Hey, I'm so honored. I literally can't believe I passed on it. I'm so honored, um, to be thought of that you would ask me all this kind of thing. I'm so sorry right now. I need to, I need to pass. Please invite me again in the future, but I need to pass. And then literally I, I push, I push send like five minutes later, I got another invitation and it was even, it was an even better invitation, but I still felt like it was supposed to be a no. And so I, I said no again. And I, it's so crazy cause I'm such a people pleaser. Am I going to miss out on the opportunity? And yet I have so much more joy and I get to double down on what God's uniquely called me to do. Pastor this church, be a husband, be a father. And, uh, it's, it's so hard, but it's, it's, it's so good away from, away from being, and I'll brag on you away from being a fantastic human being, uh, which, which you are, why and what is connecting right now? Like, is there, is there something that you like, if you had to kind of like, I feel like God's getting behind this and this, like in my preaching, in my leadership, like what, what do you think, what do you think is connecting with people? Um, yeah, I, I think there's two things

that popped into my head. The first one is the word of God, which, you know, sounds like the cliche thing to say with two pastors talking on a podcast, but here's the shift that I've noticed. I'd be really interested to hear if you would agree with this, but like, it feels like the craving swung from these series that kind of piqued people's interest because the series was cool. So now people are really just wanting to learn the Bible. Um, so that's kind of where I'm at is like, I started, we started the church a little less than two years ago and we were always preaching the Bible, but it was, it was just like, we were trying to get super clever with these series and all these different things. I have no problem with that. But the sermons that people were resonating with the most were the ones where I just taught verse by verse through the book of James or taught verse by verse through the sermon on the now. And I would, I would be like, Hey, why, why is it that you're emailing me? Or why is it that you're calling me? Or why is it you're coming up to me after church? And I found out, well, it's because a lot of these people in our church have never read that story. They've never read that, that chapter. They don't know what it's like to read the Bible in its context. And so they're learning so much from those sermons, stuff that you and I, you know, I'm assuming maybe you grew up in church or you, you've just been pastoring for 20 years now. It's like, you just, you know, that portion of the text, you just assume sometimes that they do. And so every single sermon right now at our church, we're doing verse by verse and I'm just kind of unpacking the text and our people are loving that. And then I think like, I just, I think the Lord really kindly set me free from the pressure to preach a certain way. And so, and I'd be inspired by these different guys and their preaching style. And then I would try to take bits and pieces and kind of attach it to what I thought God wired me to do. And right now I just kind of feel like I'm not thinking about my delivery at all when I'm on stage. I'm literally just being me. And I just find someone's going to be listening to this, like, man, super profound. But I'm just finding so much connection. I heard a pastor say one time that anointing is where preparation meets authenticity. And I'm just feeling a little bit of that flow right now where I feel like the more authentic I can be paired with preparation, the sermons seem to be going deeper because of those two things. Whoa. Can you, can you, uh, is there anything you like, how would I see that? I might not even be able to see it. So let's say I. heard you preach in person a bunch of times in the past

compared to now, what is, is there any difference to the eye that you can see in that? I'm really curious about that, Noah. Yeah, so like if I sent you my sermon notes five years ago, the sermon would have been, you know, say whatever the title is, I read the text, I'm gonna share a story of some kind, try to get you laughing, and then I'm gonna kind of reference the text throughout the sermon. I'm probably gonna throw in some other scripture throughout the sermon, but I'm not really always going to work my way through it chronologically, whereas right now, I'm jumping straight in, normally I'm saying, hey, turn to, I'm trying to, I'm blanking right now on even what I preach, oh, Jesus clearing the temple, hey, turn to, you know, the text, and as people are turning, I'm sharing the story up front, and then when I'm done with the story, I'm literally just go, I'm reading a verse, maybe two verses, and then I'm talking about it, and then I'm reading a verse, and I'm giving context, and I'm talking about it, and then I'm reading a verse, and so it kind of feels like I'm giving someone a tour of the Bible, and I'm just pointing out what we're passing, and what it's done is it's taken so much pressure off of me to try to be amazing, and really, I'm just trying to be helpful, and I'm really just trying to make the points

that the Bible is making in a very clear way, and then I'm picking spots where I'm gonna tie to other scriptures, or try to make a bigger point, but the difference is my outline is just the scripture with stuff in between it, whereas before, it was like, what's my one point, and how do I make this four different ways, and whatever. It's more like a Bible study session than it ever has been before. But anything that you would say noticeably about you being more you on stage, is there anything that you would say there? Is there anything that you could? No, for sure. I used to hear more Pentecostal preachers, and I'd be like, man, I wish I could do that. I wish I could do it like Robert McDoo, or I wish, I heard Manny Arango one time, we were speaking at an event together, and he set the place on fire, and he can yell, and he's got this great yelling voice, and then for the next six months, I was having an identity crisis, because I was like, oh my goodness, nobody ever stands up and claps when I preach, and the whole room was doing it when he was doing it. And so there was this period where I was really trying to implement a lot of that into my preaching. I would say right now where I'm at is, I think that God is going to use my communication style

to reach the people that like my communication style, and he's gonna do it in a way that's much more effective than someone else. And so, yeah, there's still moments when I get excited. I think if you're Baptist and you come to our church, you're like, this dude's Pentecostal. And if you're Pentecostal and you come to our church, you're like, this dude's Baptist or Methodist or whatever. I'm just trying to preach it the way that God's wired me to, and I'm not thinking as much about what people are feeling in that moment. That's so good, that's so good. So I just interviewed Amanda Bible-Williams from She Reads Truth. And so we were talking about just what's happening with people being more drawn to the Word and just opening up scriptures, and even all the stats that are being released right now is really, really cool. But even in our church, what we do twice a year, and we should do it even more, but twice a year we give out copies of the Bible, like big books of the Bible, along with my personal notes in it, and then we'll bring people through. So we've gone through the book of Jonah, we've gone through the book of Esther, we did the entire book of John. This time we start, so we start this next month, we're going through the book of Genesis chapters

25 through 35, the story of Jacob. So everybody will get those chapters. And then it's like, there's a 30-day reading plan, and it's like, oh my gosh, you just read through the book of John or you just read through, but people are eating this up. We get permission from the NIV to print up, I think it's like 2,500 copies of it, and we're finding the same thing, of people just wanting the Word. I'm stealing that, I'm stealing that. It's so good, and now what's so cool, because we've probably done this eight or nine times now, people are now kind of keeping them, and it's like, oh my gosh. And what's so cool is Embrace is probably, there's probably richer theological, more like seminary church style preachers in Sioux Falls, but it's pretty cool. Like, man, our people have read through the book of Jonah. Like they've read through the gospel to John, like the whole thing. They've read, and it's like so many. times, like Christians, that's just a win in itself, is to get people in the Word. And then what we hear people say after these series is, is I started reading the Bible for the first time, so I finished John, and then I just kept going. It's like, oh, that's incredible, so. It's helping them fall in love with it.

Yes. That's what it is. What I love about this, just this even, and this is the team that is awesome, I just get to put together some of the writing part of it. What's so cool is it's just, it takes away the scariness of getting a big Bible. It's like, well, I can read this. This thing is so small. Who can't read this? And so it just makes it more, it just makes it a little bit more approachable. Absolutely. Before we go any further, there are some awesome partners that we'd like to give a shout out to just for making life between Sundays possible. Adam, take it away. Yeah, our partners are amazing. I feel so proud to these partners, all my partners in general, but our first partner today is First Interstate Bank. I've been doing my personal banking with them since 2007, which feels like forever. Well, it was. That's a long time. That's almost 20 years. I was just telling someone at First Interstate, I know I mentor all the time, but Joy at First Interstate Bank, she's at the 57th Street and Cliff location. She's my second mother that I never had that I want so much.

She's married to a pastor as well, so we just connect. Oh, really? We just connect on every level. Well, I didn't know that about her. Honestly, there's been times that I'm tempted not just to go to her for banking, but I literally want to call her just for life advice and wisdom. Like, Joy, what would you do with my car? Like, what do you know? I got this conflict in my marriage. What should I do, Joy? Like, I just feel like I need. So FirstInterstateBank.com, they got locations everywhere, over 300 locations, 14 different states, Arizona, Colorado, Washington state, great state of South Dakota, to find a location near you, visit FirstInterstateBank.com. Our second partner is Vern Eide Mitsubishi. I cannot, if you've talked with me for five minutes, I'm talking about Vern Eide, and I'm talking about their owner, I should say. Vern Eide is originally their owner, but Jim Lake is just- Vern Eide is a name? Oh, yeah. That's a man's name? Absolutely. That's who, like, that's literally who was like a second father to Jim. Oh, really? Yeah. His wife, this is crazy, his wife, Vern's wife

just passed away last week. And so she was like 90-some years old and was, I guess, just an amazing person. Really? I did not realize that was a name. Yeah. So Vern Eide, if you're looking for any type of vehicle, no joke, if you drive an Outlander, looking for an Outlander like I drive, or a CRV like my wife, an Acura, a Ford, Chevy, you name the make of vehicle, they're going to have it. And no matter where you live, they will ship it to you. In this day and age, more people need to ship vehicles. It's crazy. I mean, it's so simple. I didn't even know it was possible. It's unbelievable. So go visit VernEide.com, you won't regret it. I like that name Vern. I love Vern too. That's kind of a sweet old man name. OK, so I'm shifting gears big time. Like your new book, Welcome to Manhood, hello first off. So how do we become men and are our boys not becoming men? So how do we become men, maybe it's the other way around, are boys not becoming men and how do we become men? That sounds like a good band name. I think like the big general statement I'm going to make, this is obviously not true of everyone, but I do think that like what the world is saying

is like to be a man is to make as much as you can. Financially, it's to get girls, it's to build a name for yourself, it's to grind and really build a kingdom of you. Whereas if you look at the man who made the greatest impact on the world, he did the exact opposite of all those things. He wasn't trying to build something that was all about his reputation and fame. He was regularly giving away fame. He was serving others. He was putting other people ahead of himself. He was laying down his life. And so the kind of differentiator that I'm making in the book is like, hey, even if you're not a follower of Jesus, you should at least consider that his idea of manhood actually lasts a lot longer than yours does. For example, Caesar in Bible times, he was wealthier than Elon Musk. He had the biggest army. He had all the things that you could possibly want. He was the man, literally. And you fast forward to today and his legacy is a very average side salad. Whereas Jesus is still being worshiped. He's still being talked about around the world. There's literally billions and billions of people who. want to follow him, and so I think for men, we all think about our legacy, we all think about the impacts

that we're making with our life, and I just want people to consider that maybe the best way to be a man is to follow the man who made the greatest impacts in the world. Okay, holy crap. So, what would you say, what does it mean to be a godly man? Like, what is that, because even like, what does that mean? Because is that kind of the rugged cowboy, is that the, like, what does that even mean just in general? What does it mean to become a godly man? If it was, they wouldn't have let me write the book, because I, listen, I have baby soft hands, I have baby soft hands. I really struggled with the title of the book, and really, my publisher had to kind of talk me into it at first, because I was so concerned that people were going to look me up and be like, this dude doesn't hunt, he doesn't have a beard, you know what I'm saying? Like, you look much more qualified to write a book with that title. The only reason I have a beard is because I'm bald, and you have to balance off, you have to balance your face to make it look,

Well, you can grow one, I can't, so, so, like, the thing that I believe makes a godly man is the pursuit of God. So, I don't think that you have to be perfect to be a godly man, but I do think that you have a, you have to have a persistency. So, I reference in the book, Proverbs 16, 24, the righteous fall seven times, but they get back up. And I think the difference between the righteous and the unrighteous is not that one falls and the other doesn't. The Bible is clear, the righteous fall two. The difference is that the righteous get back up. And so, that really encapsulates the heart of the book is that righteous men, godly men, they get back up when they fall with the intention of, I'm gonna learn from that mistake, and I'm going to win this fight. Well, that will preach. If you're able to, Noah, two other descriptions of a godly man. Yeah, so, the whole book was inspired from a Billy Graham sermon. I love Billy Graham. I do too. And I've listened to like every single sermon of his that I could find on YouTube. And in one of his sermons, he talked about how men, it was kind of the tangent in his sermon, but he talked about how every man has to overcome

the three Gs, the temptations and the three Gs, gold, glory, and girls. And different people have taken that phrase and they've kind of gone different ways, but he says that every man has, basically all the temptation that we face falls under one of those categories. And I think that many men, they look at whatever one of those categories they struggle with the most, and if they are losing the fight in that area, like let's say it's pornography, let's say it's lust. After a certain amount of time, you just start to believe it will always be this way, that I'm just never gonna be able to win this fight. I'm just always gonna struggle with this to some level. And when I read the Bible, I just see over and over again that Jesus didn't come to give us partial victory, but he came to give us full victory. And so I just think like when you wanna be a godly man, there has to be this resolve that I can win the fight because Jesus won the war. I can overcome because Jesus overcame death, hell, and the grave. And so yeah, those three areas, every chapter of the book goes into one of those areas, and it's a very practical, here's the problem, here's the solution biblically, and then here's some practical next steps

that I hope will help you as you try to fight this. So good. I'm gonna try to find that clip from Billy Graham. If we are able, we'll drop it in the show notes. Man, that right there, that's powerful. I've never heard that. The three Gs, like, oh my gosh. And so cool that it was kind of a tangent, like a Holy Spirit tangent in the message. Billy Moore, Holy Spirit tangents. We'll take as many of those. I love listening to Billy Graham as well. That, not that long ago, I listened to him preach at Madison Square Garden. I found it on YouTube, and just listening to him preach was powerful. I know that in the book, you talk about choosing the right partner. Can you advice on doing that? Advice on choosing the right partner? I feel like specifically, Noah, you are, so gifted, uh, with folks your age and younger, but again, I'm like, I'm 43 and I'm learning from you dating. I've said so many times lately, I can't imagine dating right now. Like I just, I can't, I cannot fathom it. Like, honestly, I feel God's protection on my life that I'm not dating now. And I got married 21 years ago. Cause I'd be in, I'd be in trouble advice on choosing the right partner. First of all, I think it's the most important decision besides the decision to follow Jesus. And I'm a living example of that, where I was in a relationship with a girl for almost four years when I was in college and neither one of us were really following the Lord. Um, today we both are following the Lord.

She's an amazing, amazing girl. I have nothing but great things to say, um, about that girl, but I think what I was called to do and what she is called to do are very different. And so I think that we could have gotten married, but God and his kindness and grace didn't allow that to happen. And I think about if we had gotten married, would we have been able to have a faithful marriage? I think so. Yes. Because of, of Jesus being at the center of it. However, I think it would have been a real challenge for us to do the things that we are now doing separately that God has clearly called us to do. And so it's not just a matter of like all the basic stuff that, you know, if you attend a church, you're going to hear on a regular basis, which is like, you want to be equally yoked to, you know, you don't want to date someone who's not a believer. Like you want to, like that stuff is like foundational for sure. But it's even more than that. Like you want to be thinking, what am I called to do? And is this person going to make that better? Is this person going to make that more effective? Is this person going to love that? Or is this going to be someone that I have to convince every time I feel called to do that thing, or I have to talk them into all the things that I love to do. So that's like one thing. What would you say? What would you say really quick? Like, how did you know? How did you know? Like what did anybody? Yeah. How did you know? Were there? Yeah. So I mean, it started like with my wife, Maddie, we've been married for six years. We went on a date, we were living four hours away from each other. So I drove four hours to take her on our first date. And when we were at dinner, it just became so clear on the first date that this girl did not need me to be validated. Like I was not going to add an ounce to her joy. There was no like, there was no striving for her to like prove herself to me. It wasn't like she was like apathetic and like any of that stuff. I mean, she was she looks beautiful or like she had her stuff together. But I'd just been in conversations with girls where I was like, OK, like this girl is like really into it. And I think that like I might be an idol and we just met. Like, does that make sense? And I've had conversations with girls. I wanted to make it work. She just had such a contentness in the Lord. And I noticed that immediately. And I was like, this is

going to serve me really well if we did get married, because her or she's not going to be like attached to me for her hope and her joy and her peace like that's coming from someone else. So that was baseline. And then from there, whenever we would have conversations, which we did early and often about what I felt called to do, which was to start a church, I knew that when we were dating, I was like, I'm going to plant a church one day. Her eyes would light up and she would ask questions about that thing. And like, hey, like, tell me about this. Like, tell me about your dreams. And as I'm sharing, like she seems genuinely interested in a way that didn't seem like it was surface level or like she was just putting up with me. It was like I started to see excitement from her. I also am a little bit of a weirdo, Pastor Adam. I just after being in such a long relationship, I didn't want to mess around. And so I made a rule for myself. I said, hey, I'm not going to date another girl until I know for a fact I could be married in a year or less time because I didn't want to sit in the dating scene too long because I knew because I'd done it right, that it was really hard to stay in that place and live a holy life. So I told my now wife at the end of our first date, I said, hey, I really enjoyed this. I don't want to freak you out, but I only want to date someone that I think I could marry. And I was like, I know we just had our first date. Here's the deal. You passed. Not that you're asking. I was like, I'm not saying I want to marry you, but like, I'm just trying to show you that I'm taking this really serious and if at any point you don't believe I'm your husband or could be your husband please break up with me immediately because my goal is to pursue you with the intent of marriage and she was like a little bit thrown off by that like whoa like because she didn't know me you know I'm saying like she didn't know I meant that she didn't know the context but she said since then that that set a precedent for our relationship to where she just was taking it way more serious and what I think a lot of people do in dating relationships today where it's just kind of like yeah I like you I think you're hot we have things in common we should just date you know whereas we were like if we do that we're gonna do something we shouldn't that okay so Noah I want to go back and share as much as you're willing so with your with your long-term

girlfriend it wasn't all the things that you normally say like just like again you hear like no you unequally yoked you're having sex and you're dating or whatever else yeah how did what's what signs did you like you didn't think you yeah you would be better together in your calling but like what led you to that cuz you're in a relationship for four years that's hard to back out of yeah well to be to to be sure like we definitely cross lines that we shouldn't have and then what happened was I gave my life to Jesus she gave her life to Jesus and we started to try to follow Jesus in our relationship at that same time she was feeling a calling into like like very creative things she's a very like creative girl I was feeling a calling to start a college ministry so here comes Noah trying to rally a team and and build a college ministry on a college campus and I'm I'm always on stage now and I'm I've got a microphone all the time and she like was so that was just not her like she was very very introverted very like I I don't want anything to do with that and I there's nothing wrong with that yeah but I started to see for the first time like I think what would make this a little easier is for her not to be like so nervous about some of these things that she's gonna have to do for the rest of her life even if she doesn't want to be a pastor like speaker herself like she's gonna be around a lot of people all the time and I'm already seeing that her being around college students like I don't think that's her calling I in so it just started we would kind of you know it but heads a little about yes that I didn't feel like we're a big deal but maybe she did and vice versa and I could already see like hey where this is going this is not gonna get better it's gonna get worse it's good it's good last last last last dating question red flags on dating like if you're dating someone here's some here's some red red flags that you would have come to mind I think if they don't have friends of the opposite sex that they hang out with regularly that's a that's a quick one you want to marry someone who doesn't need to be with you at all times of the day now don't know I'm gonna choose my wife over every other person with drop of a hat okay she's my best friend but I just think it's a little unhealthy when

people get in a relationship and they bounce on all their friends I think that's a big red flag I think another one would be that they need to like I don't even there's probably a word for this but it's like they need your validation all the time like they they're always wondering what you're thinking how you're feeling like you haven't done anything but you didn't text them in four hours and they're like what's wrong and like that stuff is that is they're not ready for a dating relationship I think at that point I think another thing is like I don't love the idea of dating potential I think potential is a great thing to notice I think it's a horrible thing to date so oh like they've got the potential to be a great spouse well what if that potential never happens then you're married and that's tough so I would say just like potential is not enough you want proof you want proof of concept there were three things that I wanted to see in a dating relationship and as soon as I felt good about those three things it was like I'm marrying that person I want to make sure that their relationship with the Lord was the real deal so that's the first thing yeah second thing was I wanted to make sure that their family relationship was healthy so you can't control you know if they have a bad family but you can't control the or you can notice what they talk about how they talk about it are they honoring are they respectful Are they full of grace and compassion? Like that mattered a lot to me. And then the last thing was like, what are they like around me and their group of friends? Are they fun? Like that just mattered a lot to me. I'm gonna be married with this person forever. I want this to be fun. I don't want this to just be all romantic. Like it needs to be that for sure. But I want this to be someone that I'm excited

to spend the rest of my life with, which sounds very basic, but there's so many relationships that are not that way. So I kind of looked at it like that. And then once I saw those three things with Maddie, I mean, we were two months in and I bought a ring. So I was like, let's go. So good. Any other dating advice? Like this, like so good, Noah. And I feel like, again, I can't imagine dating right now. Is there anything else that comes to mind? Like things to look for, red flags, anything else there? Yeah, I just think like sex, sexual stuff in 2025, that's one of the harder things. I think since like my parents were dating just because it's so easy to see stuff. It's so easy to send stuff. It's so easy to isolate. I would just advise like in any dating relationship, as many guardrails as you can put in place as possible. It's really hard when that stuff enters the situation for you to see the relationship clearly. I honestly think if me and my prior relationship had been able to stay pure, we actually would have ended our relationship sooner because we would have been able to see that it wasn't gonna work. But the moment you start doing things sexually that is against the Lord's design, there's just an extra attachment there.

And next thing you know, you're marrying someone that was not the right one. You were just getting things that felt really great and you confuse that with love. And so I would just like as many guardrails as possible, not because God has like this big no sheet for you, but because his design is literally so much better than you could imagine. So good. Noah, last question. Any kind of going back to like the church, any challenge for the church, for pastors specifically, but even just Jesus followers in general, is there any challenge you would have for just Jesus followers? That's really abstract and it doesn't even be anything profound. I think that the quiet time with the Lord, what has changed my quiet time is giving God space to talk back. And so for a long time I'd read my Bible, I'd pray and then I'd go. And I'm not one of those dudes who like spends two hours a morning reading. You know what I'm saying? Like I do when I was sermon prep, but I'm like a 15, 20 minute read, pray, go. And that has always been amazing for me. Like I've seen so much fruit from that. But in the last two years,

I've been adding this little 10 minute walk to the end of my quiet time in the mornings where I just walk around our neighborhood and I just don't talk. I don't listen to music. I don't, it's just me and silence in the Lord. And that has just been a game changer. And I realized that I was treating my relationship with the Lord like a megaphone instead of a telephone where I was just shouting at him all the time. And that's beneficial. But the things that he has whispered to me on those walks have just been game changing for our church, for me and my wife's relationship, for our family. One of the biggest decisions that we made as a church, you know, finding this venue came from the still small voice of the Lord in one of those walks. And so I would just challenge anybody listening, like ask yourself the question, does God have space in your life to speak back? That's good. Noah, it's gonna be the best day ever. I'm grateful for you. And just even that saying is every time I see it, I can't help but smile. And it just reminds me how many reasons I have to thank God and praise him. And that genuinely like our perspective changes everything. Just so grateful for you, honored to know you.

Well, thank you guys so much for joining us for today for Noah's episode. Noah talked a lot about manhood. Do you have a challenge for any of the men listening? Oh, gosh. Give them a challenge for their week. I feel like, I don't know if this is like, I don't know if this is a good challenge or not, but I'm just finishing this series called Be a Man. And if you're looking for- Series at preaching. Yeah, so we just finished a preaching series at Embrace and it's really seemed to connect with people. So you can go to Embraces YouTube and watch week one of the Be a Man series. That'd be my challenge. There's probably a whole bunch of other things. That's good, yeah. We'll go do that. Noah, just huge respect to you. I'm just so excited about what God's doing in and through you and your family and your church. So that, thanks to our partners, First Interstate Bank and Vernadi Mitsubishi, these episodes would not be possible without both of these amazing organizations, so go support them. Have an awesome rest of your day. Thanks guys.