Ep 017 || Support for New Life

Well, what's up, Pando family? Thanks again for being here with us this week for our Pando exclusive podcast. It's myself. It's Brandon. It is Matt. We have Matt back again, who is our recovery pastor here at Southeast, and Matt, we are pumped that you are back with us again. We'll see you all the time, practically each month, on that little segment before and after service. Yeah. So just update us, man. How are things going in your world? Start to the year, wherever you want to go with that. Yeah, I love it. So glad to be back. It's such a blessing, the connection that I'm getting to experience just from the people from Pando that are writing in, that are communicating and stuff. It's so meaningful for me. I shared this, I think, the last time I hosted. It's just such a good reminder for me personally, as a person in long-term recovery, that I can stay sober no matter where I am, no matter what's going on in my life. The letters that I get confirming that, it's like, man, no way you can stay sober no matter where you are. All right, what's going on, man? God is with you in all those things, and sobriety is a possibility. It's been a really great kickoff to 2026. We're excited about a lot of stuff that's coming in recovery. Even the recovery ministry starting here was just like a God thing. I was on staff and went to rehab, and they didn't fire me. Then it was like, hey, there's some stuff that we could do.

Doors just keep opening, opening, and opening. So we're doing a lot of really cool stuff in 2026, but being connected with Pando is a really big deal, a huge part of that for us. Love that. Love that y'all have been sending Matt letters. I think that's awesome. It's something we encourage y'all to do. Please keep doing that. Generally, that's our heart to be, for all of us. I think all of us end up responding to Pando letters at different points. This life of trying to follow Jesus isn't easy, especially when we're going through different things. It's even harder whenever we don't have a good foundation, and that foundation can be maybe built on sand. In a lot of our cases, I know for me at times, it absolutely looks like that. Brandon, but maybe just kind of set us up. What did Kyle talk about this last weekend, heading into week two of this sermon series that we're calling Planted? Yeah, so we were in week two of Planted, kind of walking through the importance of Scripture, why we're building our life on it, what that's about. And we were in two passages this week, Psalm 1, which kind of we started out with week 1, setting up this idea of this is what it looks like to be planted by Scripture. This is why that's important. And then later on, Jesus' words in Matthew chapter 7 at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus kind of comes to this conclusion there where he's talking about his words as being the foundation of a house, right? That if you hear his words, it's not just hearing his words, it's putting his words into practice. If you hear his words and you ignore them, well, then you're like someone who builds

a house on a sand, that when the storms come, when rain falls, the foundation erodes away and the house falls down. But if you hear his words, you listen to them, you obey them, you're building your house on the rock. And so when the storms come, when the rain falls down, your house has something solid that it is rooted on. And that's the big point of both Psalm 1 and Matthew chapter 7, is this idea of what are we building our lives on? Where are we sitting? Where are we planting? Because that's going to make all the difference in how things turn out. That's so good. And so, Matt, curious, as you listened to the Sermon this past weekend, how have you seen this apply to your life, specifically in ways where you may have seen it gone wrong or ways that you've seen it go well? Yeah, for sure. It's such a great message, and it was so timely, I think, definitely for the people in recovery that I get to walk with, and probably all of us that are really trying to walk with Jesus and figure this thing out. The way it landed for me was how much of we take other people's word for it. We have misconceptions, you know what I mean? We allow what other people in our life that are supposedly on Team Jesus and what they've talked about to influence, well, this is what the Bible says, and we've never read it ourself at all. And the way I describe it is, Matt, a lot of us in recovery, we catch a resentment towards God. You know what I mean? And really what we're catching resentment toward God is what happens to us in small towns where—in small-town USA where people will read your last name in the newspaper, and they'll think they know every single thing about you just because of your last name.

Or they'll catch a charge that was attached to you, and they think they know everything about your story simply because that charge is there, and they never once take time to know you and know the nuances of your story, the ins and outs of the things that have gone on in your life, and how much, like, really, we've done that a lot with God. We live in a place that's kind of saturated. A lot of areas of the country are really saturated with churches, and there's televangelists on TV, you know, and when you meet people and it's like—you realize that their understanding and connection are found. foundation with God is like, well, I went to church with my grandma when I was a kid. I watched somebody, you know, preach on YouTube and karma, you know what I mean? And it's like, oh, there's a lot more to this than that, you know what I mean? And so when you get a chance to dig into it, and it's like, don't take, don't catch a resentment towards God because what somebody who's supposedly on behalf of God said, get into word and do your work yourself, like the big book calls it like contempt prior to investigation. Investigate it yourself, man, and figure out what it's look like and realize we realize, like, when the storms of life have hit us, we didn't have a foundation, you know what I mean? Like our foundation of what we thought was God was he was the Aladdin genie in the bottle, like, God, get me out of this, right? He didn't answer my prayers. So he's not real, you know, so. So in addiction and recovery, whenever you see, you know, whoever it is that, you know, has not been able to build that foundation, kind of how does that play itself out? How do you know, you know, within five minutes or several hours of talking to somebody that you're like, man, or woman, here's my advice for you and how to move forward. Yeah, yeah. I think it's pretty easy to tell in that seat, because I think those of us in addiction, like we're blessed with a condition where we can't fake it, you know what I mean? And so like, you know, a lot of folks, we feel like, oh, they're, if I'm in treatment, I'm bad, the people outside of treatment are good, they're doing really good. Or we think I'm, I'm serving time right now, I'm bad,

everybody else out here just got it together and going on good. And the truth is, like, we're all fighting something, like, we're all battling something, you know. And so when you engage with somebody, like when it comes to addiction, you know, or like in other anything that's going on, that's heavy like that in their life, like, you really pick up on the hopelessness more than you pick up on anything else. Like, what's the point? Like, what's the effing point is what you hear from people, you know, men and women when I, when I connect with them, and it's like, well, I said those prayers, they don't work. Yeah. And I'm like, man, I can relate with that. Because when I was, I was a pastor, I've been a pastor for 25 years and sober for five of them. You know, I prayed every prayer I could think of. I rubbed oil on my head and other people rub oil on my head, go to sermons and church services where they would say, well, if you had enough faith, this would be fixed. Well, then it didn't get fixed. And so the problem then is me. And realizing like the hopelessness is there when you feel like there is no way out. This is just, I'm resolved, this is how it's always gonna be. And so picking up on that, I think, is probably the first indication. And it's like, well, how much have you read the Bible? Like, you know what I mean? Because the magic happens in someone's life when they quit telling the stories about what God has done in my life, or what God has done in your life, or your life, and they're able to tell the stories of what God has done in their life. Because you can't, that can't be taken away from them. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there are so many times when I realize we're all discipled by something. Something, someone, like whether it's Facebook, or Twitter, or TikTok, or even just good or bad influences in our life with people, that we're always just kind of... We're getting thoughts and ideas and different things that are going through our head that are kind of there from other people or whatever. And man, I can just tell such a difference the times when I'm sitting across from somebody, trying to encourage them or minister to them. I can tell such a difference between the times that I've been in Scripture versus times that I'm not. And that's just like externally

trying to minister to somebody, much less trying to help walk myself through a situation. That can be so difficult. But Brandon, I think Kyle kind of had three main points, I think, about some ways that we can just jump into Scripture. So there may be someone watching this today, you're like, okay, I have a Bible in front of me, I've maybe started in Genesis, and then I kind of... It gets weird quick. It gets weird quick, but then it's a lot. It's maybe more of a book than you've ever read before, I don't know what to do with it, there's some names that I can't even pronounce. But I thought Kyle kind of gave us some very specific ways. And so, Brandon, what are those that Kyle encouraged us with? What are those? Do you remember? No, I don't remember. It's the constant... So we have, number one is going to be daily saturation. So Psalm 1, Psalm 1-2, I think it's talking about meditating on God's Word day and night. And so, Brandon, probably a better question. So for you, how have you seen that in Psalm 1 impact your life, just walking through, trying to get to know the Lord and have a relationship with Him? Yeah, like, you know, I think you're absolutely right when you talk about, you know, recognizing those times in your life where it's all like, I've not done a good job staying in the Scripture, I've not done a good job with the daily saturation. Now that you say that, Holy Spirit illumination is... I know that's the second one. It is the second one. Yeah, so I'm getting there. He's illuminating it for you right now. I'm getting close. I'm getting real close right now. It's being revealed right now. But you know, I think that scripture is this way by which we come to know more of who God is, right? And not only who He is, but what He's done, what He's done for His people throughout the years, what He's even doing in our life. Like you read through, I'm only thinking of this because I'm currently reading through psalms, is you read through the psalms and you think about like, hey, David or whoever is writing this psalm, he's sitting in the seat that I'm sitting in now, right? He was sitting in this place of the same anxieties, the same problems, the same hurts, the same pains, the things that they are experiencing that they're crying out and writing to God about. This is nothing new.

This is what's in the book and he's writing about it. And I think that helps us to know like, hey, this is how I engage God in this time. This is how I talk through this with God. This is how I think about this through a godly lens. And that's sometimes very difficult for us to do because, like Matt said, we get ourselves into those things where we started thinking like, oh, I prayed this or I did this and it didn't work. And you kind of see that in the psalms too. Like, okay, he's struggling with this. Like God, I'm crying out to you. You're not hearing me. But then he comes to the realization at the end of almost every psalm is this realization like, no, he has heard, he is working, he is moving. And I think scripture has a unique way of reminding us that God, I mean, it's the way by which God acts, but it's also the way he reminds us that he's active. That we can look back, we can see like, hey, this is what he's been doing. This is what he is doing. This is what I can trust he's gonna continue to do as I move forward. Matt, so in terms of this daily saturation concept, how does that relate to what we do as a church with our recovery ministry? Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I think... I love you pointed out stuff in psalms because I think I love the psalms because I'm so up and down. My moods, my emotions, my thoughts are all over the place. David flirts with like being qualified for a bipolar diagnosis. You read the psalms, like he is so like all over the place. And for a guy like me that struggles with mental health, it's like, okay, so you're telling me there's a chance. Like, you know what I mean?

Like, okay. For sure. And this is a guy who, you know, who did some... God did some really good things in his life, had some major wins and major losses. And even in Acts, they were saying this dude was after God's heart. And that's super encouraging for a guy like me that the ups and downs didn't disqualify him. And that's super cool. I think the saturation point is like what I encourage people, especially when we're trying to move past that contempt prior to investigation, like before we actually get into scripture, because honestly, you know, you've been told, hey, you need to read your Bible. It's like, okay, how do I do that? I'm going to start in Genesis. And then it's like, it's really weird. There's a snake talking to a chick. She eats an apple. And all of a sudden now, like childbirth is really bad and you're going to have a hard time growing plants. You know what I mean? It's like, whoa, what just happened? You know what I mean? Like, is there like a prequel to this? Because this is nuts, you know? And that's where you can get into Genesis 6 and 11 and all the other stuff that comes on. Like, so you start reading it and it's like, what in the world is this? And it's like, one of the things that we, if you've been in recovery rooms, you've heard something like this, like focus on the similarities and not the differences. You know what I mean?

And so like when you start to read scripture, like lock in on like what this is, you know, somebody could look at you and say, how do you know this stuff is real? How do you know this stuff is true? This is a bunch of bull crap that some of these guys got together and put together. Well, maybe so. You know what I mean? Maybe that's true. I don't know. I wasn't there at the Council of Nicaea in 300. I wasn't a part of that. But I do know that when I've read scripture and I've tried to apply that to my life, it's helped. Like, it's helped me. You know what I mean? And it's like, and so like, don't focus so much and I've got to finish the Bible. Like there is no entrance exam into salvation when this life on earth ends, and it's like, man, you've got to check the box. Did you read the Bible? Yes or no. You know what I mean? There's not on there. But it is the stuff that like, when I read that, like you have trouble, like feeling alone. Man, read Jesus's prayers when he was in the garden and tell me that crap doesn't hit for you. You know what I mean? Like when you feel overwhelmed, like everybody's against me, like nobody wants to help me. Read through the stories about like when Jesus, when they turned on him, like his boys literally left him high and dry and hung out just far enough where they could see what was going on, but not close enough where they could get in trouble, like straight, straight abandoned

by his, by his crew. Like you feel like you've been abandoned. Like it's like, oh man, this dude, okay, maybe this has been through his life as well. So, you know, saturation really the day for me is like finding something in there that is like, and I can see the similarities in, you know, that I can connect within that, you know, and, um, and realizing that it's quality over, over quantity. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, I've got to read this. I've got to read that. I've got to finish it. And there's nothing wrong with, I'm reading, I'm going to read through the Bible and you're playing right now. You don't have to be that. Right. It's like, read something, lock onto it. And it's like, oh man, it's like Psalm, Psalm 1, like, so you're telling me if I lock in on this, that I will grow fruit in season. and out of season, that sounds pretty cool to me. Like, I'm gonna have some good stuff in my life, whether it's going good, or I can have good stuff in my life where it's going bad. Oh, okay, okay, I'll come back, what's next? You know what I mean? Like, I'll hear that, you know, so. No doubt, and there are two things that Kyle had mentioned in terms of this idea of building on this foundation, right? He had said kind of two things are true, that number one, everyone builds a house. So no matter who you are, everyone builds a house. And number two, every house will face storms.

Every single one of them, and his next line is something that I think just kind of puts it all together, is that, you know, nevertheless, the storm will reveal your foundation, right? Like, the storm will reveal your foundation, and unfortunately, no one on Earth can control, like, even just thinking about this literally, like, you can't control where the storms are gonna go. All you know is that in season, they will come, and it will reveal, you know, what your house is made of, what you've built your house on. And so, Matt, in terms of maybe, like, more of a practical conversation, how would you, like, what would you point someone towards who may be watching this right now that's like, man, like, I've tried to read my Bible, like, I just don't get it, it's confusing. Where would be a couple of places that you're like, man, like, this is a woman, this is where I would want you to start? Yeah, I love the way you can tell, like, kind of the background of the author, you know what I mean? Like, I think it's important when we read Scripture to kind of ask ourselves that question, like, who's writing this, you know what I mean? We read stuff with a lens, like, we've seen Rocky, so we know he wins in the end, you know what I mean? So you watch it differently a little bit. We read stories in Scripture, and we're like,

oh, this is Mary, you know what I mean? And Mary, of course, Mary in Luke chapter two, when she's doing the writing of the song, Mary's Prayer, the Magnifico, whatever, you're like, oh, well, of course Mary would say that, and it's like, nah, man, don't miss the fact that this was probably a young lady who came from a place, she did not have old money, she was not from a place of influence and wealth, and this angel just pops up real quick and is like, hey, you're pregnant, and you're not married, and it's all good, because God's got you, you know what I mean? And it's like the moment, the significance of that moment for this young lady, for her to walk back and be like, all right, man, God, you said it, I'm in it, you know what I mean, I'm ready to go with it. So I think locking in with who the authors are, you can tell, right? So if you read from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the stories of Jesus, I love, man, get in those things, read stories of Jesus, you're never gonna go wrong reading how, and it's really unique, and there's a lot of layers to it, and that'll point to the next part of it, like the Holy Spirit illumination when you read it, like new things pop, but you're never gonna go wrong reading stories about Jesus, you know what I mean? Then you get into other stuff that Paul wrote, which is kind of the epistles in there,

and the letters that he wrote to churches, you can tell Paul was a smart dude, he was super educated, like, you know what I mean, his sentences are super long, you know what I mean? And there's even times I'm reading it and I'm like, okay, let's slow this down, let's break it down. So I love to point people to James, I think James is a great place to start, James, as they say, was more than likely the biological half-brother of Jesus who grew up with his dad as a carpenter, you know, was more, and so you read, when you read James, it reads like a guy who was, like, you think about, you grew up with your grandfather, who was giving you those life lessons, he'd be like, hey, this is about like this, and he tells it like kind of stories and he attaches it to things. So the same way Jesus taught, Jesus taught using very practical application, those parable lessons about sowing and reaping and farming and animals and things like that. When you read James, it's like super easy to connect to, you know, say, hey, you're gonna face trials of many kinds in chapter one of James, you know what I mean? And bless when you get those, because those things are gonna reveal who you really are, like what we're talking about in Psalm one. And then it goes into talking about, man, watching your mouth, chapter two of James.

It's like, man, just watch your mouth. So it's like, hey, let's start there today. Like, I'm gonna try to let the words that come out of my mouth be something different than what it is. So love the stories of Jesus, love the book of James, great places to start. And like I said, Psalms is good for my soul, because I realize I'm all over the place and it means I'm not disqualified, because David was pretty jacked up. I love that, I love that. So, you know, starting, you know, just reading four Gospels, right? Right at the beginning of the New Testament, you know, maybe going to James. You'd also mentioned the Psalms, like those are great to navigate through. But one of the things that you said that I loved was understanding like who the author is. And it makes me realize and remember that like when we think about scripture, it's not just a text, like it's not a textbook, right? And when we zoom out 30,000 feet, like who is the author behind the authors? And so Brandon, maybe a question for you, as we think about scripture as a whole, like why is it so important for us to consider that at the end of the day, this was inspired by God, that this is the word of God,

and how should that change what we're? on the page. Oh, that's good. Um, man, that's a, that's a tough question. You're, I'm getting all the tough questions today. I don't know what's going on today, man. Please, I never want to do this again without Brandon. Because like, I get the really fun, oh, I can talk about that. You ask him stuff and I'm like... I'm just curious what your opinion is. No, no. I mean, we talked about this a little bit last week, right? You get the 2 Timothy 3.16, with all scriptures, God breathed this idea that God is inspired and he's worked through the authors of scripture to give us what we need to have in this book. And I think that, you know, what helps us when we think of it that way is that we're recognizing that we are not just reading someone's advice, right? That when we look at scripture, we're not just looking... Like, I love James. I'm with you on James. It's a great book. But we're not just reading like James's advice on life, right? That we are, we are reading these God breathed words of the one who gave us life, who created life. So it's not just that we're talking to someone who's like a guru or we're trying to figure out what is your best life now plan or whatever. It's that we're talking about, like, this is the person who created our life. This is the person who gave us life. This is the person who designed us. And so what we're looking at in scripture is, hey, this is how he has functioned us to live, how he has functioned us to operate. This is, you know, he has created us in his image. And when we're reading about who he is, he's showing us like, hey, this is how I want to share my image with you. This is how I want you to be like me. And so I think we're not reading self-help books when we open up the Bible. We're reading the very word of God that's trying to guide us into this is who God created you to be.

This is how God created you to be. And you're getting this from the source himself is telling us how to live. That's so good because, you know, we're not... Because again, like, and even speaking about the character of God and who he is and how he relates to us, like he loves us, right? All of us, it doesn't matter who's watching this. Like he loves us, that he's formed us in our mother's womb. And he, again, the thing I continue to learn just in life in general is that when you are following the way that God has told us to live, oftentimes things go a lot better for us. Not perfect or not even the way that we would describe as good, but it always goes much better than the way of not following Christ. And you may not reap that this next year or this next moment. In 20 years, you may realize that, man, I've been walking down the wrong path. But it's the principles, it's the foundations that God gives us in Scripture that are so important. And it comes from what the Bible tells us about our Father in heaven that truly loves us, that sent his Son for us. And I know that this could potentially be a topic or a point of pain is that he is a father, a parent we can trust. We can totally lean into, we can totally put all of our chips in the middle of the table and say, all right, if there's someone that's looking out for me, it's him. Even if I have no one else, if there's someone that's looking out for me, it's him. And if anybody's considering like, man, why would I even trust the Bible? I would say that's one of the main reasons why. Because if there's anyone that you can put your chips in the middle and say, hey, I'm gonna follow this person. It's not us, trust me, it's him.

But Matt, that's what makes us excited about something we're gonna be able to put in partnership on Pando here in the coming months, something called Pathways. Tell us about that. Yeah, I love it, man. We're really excited about that. Our recovery ministry, we developed a curriculum that we use and it really was born out of a lot of the questions that I think people ask when it's like, okay, hey, I wanna get sober and I wanna figure this thing out. But understanding who God is or what God is about, we have lots of questions and like, can I trust this? Can I really trust this? And what I love about what you were saying with that is like, what the scripture does is it shows us how God pursues and reacts to people. So you get a sense of like, okay, when they screwed up really bad, God was still with them. Some of us are like, man, I turned my back on God a long time ago. Man, he wasn't there for me. I turned my back on God. I've lived my own life. I've kind of shut that door. Man, you read John chapter 20 and it's really freaking cool that Jesus walks through locked doors, go straight up to Thomas who had shot his mouth off and said, unless I touch his hands, I'm not gonna believe he's real. And instead of Jesus leading with shame or condemnation of like, how dare you doubt me? You saw me walk on water.

Like he walks through the locked doors and he's like, all you need to touch my hands. Like, bro, here it is, touch them. That's all you need. Like we get a snapshot of how God interacts with us. And so Pathways was really born out of that. What does it look like to connect with Jesus as a part of my long-term recovery? And so we put together a curriculum where we walk through some very basic things. The first things we walk through is like, man, is God real? How's God different than any other gods that people talk about all the time? Is God real? Does God have a plan for me? And if he has a plan for me, why is there no plan for me? or bad things happening in my life? Why have bad things happened in my life? Is a lot of the questions that we talk about in it. And then we spend a lot of time about talking about what spiritual formation is. And spiritual formation is a word we use in church where it's really just the definition we use in Pathways is where I'm growing to want what God wants more than what I want. Yeah, that's huge. And so we unpack some spiritual formation stuff where we talk about how God made all of us.

And if there's one lesson that we want you to take away from Pathways is God is interested in more than just your behaviors. Like God is interested in more than just the things you have done in your life. Like Jesus came to heal the wounds behind those behaviors. I don't know if I got to talk about this on our last podcast but it's kind of my kick right now that I'm just cannot get away from. We have a deficient view of sin. We understand sin like specifically from the legal context which is not inaccurate, but it's just lacking. It's just deficient. Like we understand sin as like, I've done something wrong. I deserve punishment. And so we see the words like, you know, in Romans 10, 9 that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, you will be saved. And that's a Greek word, sozo, that means saved there. And we understand sin like that but we don't think about sin like how, from the wounds that it are because a lot of our behaviors in life grew out of things that other people had done to us. And it's God's not just sitting there. Can I say pissed? Pissed off at you. He's not just pissed off at you because of the behaviors that are in your life. He's very interested in the wounds

that those things grew out of. And what's so cool about that Greek word sozo that's used as saved in Romans 10, 9, back when Jesus was dealing with the woman who was bleeding and she came up and she touched the edge of his cloak and she turned around and he said, daughter, go, your faith has healed you. And it's the same word. And so like the same word describes saved and healed. And so for us with pathways, what we wanted to do is if you've got a lot of questions about like, okay, I wanna walk with God. I love this. I say this a lot too, right? Following God is gonna work in your life. Right now it feels like a 50-50 chance, right? Sure. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't. 50-50 coin toss, right? For those like me that are an alcoholic and addict like I am, my way was zero. I ran this ship all the way into the ground multiple times. So my way was zero. 50% beats 0% 100% of the time. And so man, like trust in God, even if it feels like a coin toss, it beats the 0% that I have for myself. And so pathways is meant to help lay that foundation of like, is God real?

Does he have a plan? Does he love me? If he love me, why do bad things happen? You mean God made my mind? God made my emotions. God made my soul. God made my body. God made the people that I hang out with all to make up who I am. And it's meant to lay that out. So it's like, okay, I really wanna connect with Jesus as a part of my long-term recovery, or I want this to be the foundation of what I'm doing. It's meant to help kind of lay that out. And we're so excited that he gets to be a part of Pando. That's really cool. I love that. Yeah, because I think sometimes we can forget that Christ didn't just come to like wave his arm and then, hey, I've forgiven all sin, then I'm moving on, right? I'm sitting in heaven. But like there are depths to our soul that he wants to heal within us, right? And that's where the transforming work of God shows up. I love that imagery of Jesus walking through that closed door and meeting there with Thomas. I think that's great. And so Matt, so that's kind of like the heartbeat behind it. What does it specifically look like?

I know there's some videos and then we're gonna work to put some of the content that's more of a written form on there, but talk to us about that. Yeah, so there'll be some videos that we'll upload and they're short videos, 10 to 12 minutes long. We kind of set some ideas up, talk about scripture and connect that back to like the person that's watching it. Like, okay, how does this apply to my life? And then there's gonna be a written point of it that you'll be able to get access to. And kind of like, it's a fill in the blank thing that you'll be able to kind of follow along like with a journal. And one of the things we love about this that we discovered is the completion side of this that happens. And so, man, we just had 17 inmates at Pike County Detention Center here in the state of Kentucky where we're located. They just graduated Pathways this past weekend. And we got to issue them a completion certificate that they completed Pathways with Southeast Christian Church. Nice. And so just know once we load this and it's up, that's something we want from you. When you complete phase one of Pathways, write in, let us know. We will send you a certificate saying

you just completed Pathways. So many really cool stories of like, people be able to use that like when they're interacting in the legal system. You know what I mean? Like I don't call it the justice system, but when they interact with the legal system and they show up with that and they say like, this is something I completed and this is something I'm a part of. It kind of bleeds into, like it lays into other things that we do. But man, it would be one of the deepest joys for our ministry, for the recovery ministry, to be able to get a letter from somebody in pain. And it was like, hey, I completed phase one. I completed spiritual pathways on the Pando app. And for us to be able to sign a certificate and mail that back to you, that you had, that you did this, you started it, you completed it, and it laid some groundwork and foundation for you of like, hey, I really want to walk with God. I don't know what the heck that means. And this helped me answer some questions along the way. I love that. And so you talked about the 17 people in Pike County that have graduated through that. What have you seen in them that's different from when maybe they started that

versus where they are today? Yeah, I think some of it is just, when you said, how can you identify somebody that has that? And I said, it was hopelessness. It's like when there's something hope coming back. You know what I mean? Because it's no longer Matt's story or no longer whoever's story that's there. The hope that's coming back, like this is what God has done in my life. And so there's something really meaningful about committing to something and being able to complete it. It's like 12 or I think, I don't even know how I wrote it. It's like 12 or 13, 14, 12 or 13 lessons, I'm not sure. But like, it's like 12 or 13 lessons that you complete, but you complete this thing and you did it. Nobody can take that from you. Nobody can tell you you did, nobody did it for you. Like you did this yourself. You started something, you finished it. You made a healthy choice to try to invest in a relationship with a power greater than yourself that can restore you to sanity. Like you did that yourself. The other thing that we see from that is like how contagious it is for other people to say, you know, to like, hey man, you can come be a part of this. You know, like challenges, like there's something that happens in the human psyche when we do something we're not sure we can do, you know?

And so there's some of it like literary that is like a challenge, you know what I mean? But like the way we're gonna put this stuff together, it's like, you know what we're talking about. Like you've listened to the video, you get it. And there's a lot of like, they were using that to like practice and learn. Like it's a safe place to learn. Like there's no shame in the fact that your fourth grade teacher sucked. Right. And that was when you checked out of school. I still write like a fifth grader because my fifth grade English teacher was really, really mean. And so when I write right now, I write like I talk with like 17 commas. You know, I checked out of that, checked out. You know what I mean? There's no shame in that. Like if you're trying to figure this thing out, watch the videos, work your way through it. Like nobody's, we're not, I'm not grading your work. I'm not checking your work. And it's like an accomplishment thing of like, no, I can start this program. I can finish this program. And then the hope that speech springs out of that where they go back and like, man, you can come be a part of this.

It's really cool. It's available on there. It's completely free. So I think that that's the hope that you see kind of come back in people, the joy of like completion and doing something hard that is there. And then what it equips you to do is the next time that somebody shares some, you know, idiot preacher on something with you that's misquoting, is misquoting something saying, hey, this is talking about right now in America. You're like, nah, I'm calling bull crap on that. Cause it's not like, I learned a lot about myself and God is really just as, he's way more interested in more than me than just my behaviors. He's really interested in the wounds that those things grew out of. You know what I mean? And he's more angry with the wounds in you that happened to you than he is the behaviors that grew out of them. You know, he's way more moved to fix that. Like, I don't think Jesus, like the way I interpret Jesus on the cross is it is finished. Consequences of sin were done. Like, I don't think he trips over, like we do over like decision,

like I don't think he, it's like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you did that. Right. You know what I mean? Like it's unredeemable. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, no, it's finished. Like I beat it. Consequences are done. Let's get into like, why does that appeal to you? Because you didn't just get up one morning and think, hey, this is a great idea. I want to blow my life up. Right. Oh, for sure. You know what I mean? Like it grew out of something and Jesus is like, nah, bro, I'm here for that. Sis, I'm here for that. I'm here for the stuff that that grew out of. Like, I want to be present in that. Because the interactions that you see with Jesus and the people we had in scripture, it wasn't that they were just made. The lady that wet his feet with her tears and poured out a year's worth. Like Kyle was teaching about that. I think this past week and all that. Poured out a year's worth of wages on him. That wasn't just because like her get out of hell free card

or her internal insurance was capped. It was like, nah, man, like I get to live a quality of life that I didn't know was possible for a person like me. And that's what I found. I think Pathways helps kind of lay the foundation for that. That's so cool. And for y'all that are watching this right now, I mean, I don't even really have to give a marketing pitch better than that, than why you should be excited about Pathways coming. And so, you know, for several of you, you may have been watching our worship services and our messages over the past several months, or maybe a couple of years. You've been watching these podcasts each week and being faithful, you know, to be in the service of God. Scripture, and you may be asking, like, hey, what is my next step? Well, what we're praying for is that this Pathways program, this material that's coming, will be that next step for you. Max, I know one of the things, even just thinking about theology and just making sure that we're believing and trusting the right things, I think each year that goes by, the more that I realize just how important that is. Because there will be people, there may be pastors, there may be churches that show up on the Pando app that you're like, man, that sounds good, but that doesn't apply to my life. Or, man, I've been trying to trust this thing that this person said, but again, it goes back to we're all going to be discipled by something. And that's why I'm so excited for this Pathways thing that's coming, because I really do think that's going to help everyone watching be able to really ground themselves on the importance of Scripture, who God is, what He says about us, and how we can live our life. But fellas, any closing thoughts as we wrap up here? No, super excited. We're super excited a lot in the church world, like super excited to be here. Not all the time, but there's a deep level of anticipation for the connection

and what God is going to do. I believe that God is close, the psalm tells us God is close to the brokenhearted and saves those that are crushed in spirit. And to be present in a place with people who are genuinely searching, that like I said, it's not like everybody on the outside, oh, they're doing great, they're good, and I'm in here, so it's bad. You know what I mean? Those that pastor churches can tell you, everybody outside ain't getting it right, they ain't doing good. You know what I mean? But to be in a place where it's like, hey, I know I need some help, God met me in that place. And then man, I think the unleashing of a bunch of wounded healers to go out and be like, nah man, this is what Jesus did for me, this is what Jesus did for me, we can't wait for that. Yeah, as a people that have been forgiven, and that is not just you, that is all of us on this side of the camera as well, that all of us, we are people that have been forgiven because we've all made mistakes. A lot of times behavior coming out of these deep wounds that were within us. And the reason why we're qualified to be able to talk about Jesus is because He's done that work in us, right? It has nothing to do with a seminary degree, it has nothing to do with having just great literary skills, it has nothing to do with that. Those things are super helpful. But the thing that will qualify all of us to talk about Jesus is that He has done the transformative work in our lives. And so Matt, man, thanks again for being here. Brandon, thanks for hanging out with us today. Y'all, be on the lookout for Pathways here in the coming months. We're hopefully to get that on Pando here somewhat down the road, y'all. But we love you, thank you so much for being here with us, and we'll see you next time.