What Happens When Christians Stop Reaching People Far From God? | with Joby Martin

you heard his talk, we get more personal today. And he is a man full of stories. I was listening thinking, man, the gospel and the power of Christ is just so tangible. I'm excited for you to hear these stories for yourself. And if you want more talks, conversations like this, please like or subscribe below. You're listening to Open Bible Open Life with Pastor Kyle Mercer. At Two Cities, we're passionate about making and mobilizing disciples. And that doesn't end with Sunday. We're here to bring God's Word and work into your week so you can be equipped to be sent wherever you go. Pastor Joby Martin, welcome to the podcast. It's good to be here. Yeah, we were just talking. You're not sure if you ever been to Winston Salem, North Carolina before. But you are here tonight to speak at the heights. And by the time this podcast comes out, you're already going to give your message. So we're not going to talk about the message. People can listen to that online or they were here in person. I want to talk to you about something. I don't even know if you know this. You might know this. I would assume you know this. The outreach 100 magazine, new numbers just came out. Okay. I actually, a mutual friend of ours, Bruce Franks took a picture of the first page and sent it to me and say, "Congratulations." And I looked down and by God's grace, very encouraged. We're number 12. Congratulations. And I think I'm going to send a picture to Josh Howardton because he was number 13. Let's go. Let's tell him, "Hey man, just look where you are and then look up what I'm just kidding." He would laugh at that. But I saw you guys. Number one, fastest growing church in the United States this year, grown by almost 8,000 people. Now, Rick Warren has said, Doron Beth has a question. I'm talking about it now. Rick Warren said, "The wrong question to ask is how do I make my church grow?" The right question to always ask is, "What is hindering my church or this church from growing?" What hinders most churches from growing? I mean, you're sitting here. We can go through your story. I know a lot of people know your story and we can get in it, but your church has grown. You started a big 3,000. But what hinders churches from growing? I think, man, there can be a lot there. Yeah. I think overwhelmingly in a church that feels like it's going pretty good is probably complacency. Among the congregation, the staff, the lead pastor, both. It probably starts with the staff and lead pastor, but he can creep into the congregation. And then all of a sudden, I'm preaching on a Mark II tonight and there's too many churches that just get satisfied with full rooms. And full rooms is not the

goal. Transform lives is the goal. And in Mark chapter 2, these four guys are just willing to do whatever it takes. And what it takes is to tear a hole in the roof. And the problem is that makes all the people that are already in the room uncomfortable. That's right. Yeah. And that's who you don't get emails from, the people that aren't there. You just get the emails from the people that are griping if you discomfort them in order to reach one more. That's right. And so I think that's it. And especially things are going pretty good. Yeah. You know, for rooms are full and bills are paid and kids are happy and the mom is happy. And then it can just kind of set in. And then the worst thing happens is you kind of abandoned the great commission, which is to make disciples for the sake. And then you, you theologize all the reasons why, no, no, no, we don't really care about growth. We're just, you know, we're going to go deep and we're just going to take care of each other. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So complacency, anything else you'd say? I think it's a lot of me centered kind of Christianity. Yeah. You know? Yep. And people just, I mean, if you just do a cursory study of the four gospels, look at the number of times the disciples got in trouble when they turned inward. I mean, think about when the mother of sons of Zebedee, Matthew 20 goes to Jesus and it's like, Hey, can my boys get elevated to right and left? It doesn't go good. But and then look at the time that Jesus high fives the disciples is when they turn outward. Yeah. I mean, think about the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus actually didn't feed the 5,000. He blessed the food. It's by his power that it happened. But the miracle happened in the hands of the disciples. Yeah. Every single time they turn inward, it goes bad. And every single time they're great commission focus, it goes good. Yeah. And what I mean by goes good is not more people came. Actually, after the feeding of 5,000, Jesus is going to run air by off with the gospel. But what I mean by goes good is like, God is pleased. Yeah. And I think fundamentally, a lot of people lose they lose the narrative on why the church actually exists. So I'm older than you. But in the 90s, the fundamental question, I remember going to kind of a very influential church, the very smart pastor, he's very gifted. And he said, if you're going to run a church, you've got to make this fundamental decision. Are you going to keep people or read? there, right? It bothered me like crazy. Yeah. And I'm sitting on the couch with my son when he was about four years old watching Shrek 2 for the 100th time. Yeah. And I laugh

it apart and he laughs it apart. And I'm just beginning to think, well, is Shrek a kids movie or a adult movie? Well, if Pixar can pull it off. Yes, surely the church can both reach people that are far from God and disciple people that had known him a long time to be on mission to disciple people. That's right. Now, for you guys, we're doing tonight, we're doing heights, but the heights is really, we learned it from you guys, saturate. Can you tell us the story behind why you have saturated? I don't even know exactly when you started it. Does that start the same year that you plan? Have you always done it and how has it changed and transformed? We planted it in 2012 and so the following fall, we started saturated. Listen, man, I'm just a youth pastor that God made plan a church. Yeah, I didn't mean to. Yeah. And so I'm still doing the same thing. I'm still just doing student ministry before adults. And one of the things that I think is that adult discipleship went wrong when adults could go into camp. Yeah. Cause you know, the, the, the brilliance of student camp is you get kids out of their regular, they turned down the noise of all the distractions they can kind of tune their ear into the good shepherd and do what he says. Yes. And I was just trying to recreate adult camp. Yeah. And so we just took this old school revival is what it is. The only reason we don't call it a revival is I don't want to presume upon the Lord, you know, schedule afterwards renewal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's it, man. So we just, the way we do it is I would just invite in a bunch of my friends. We were praying fast, getting ready for it. Just turn up the spiritual intensity to 10. Yes. And just celebrate the goodness of God for a bunch of days in a row. Is there a certain memory when you look back on the heights or I started, I started. Yeah. When you look at saturate over the last 10 years, is there, is there a talk? Is there a moment? Is there, was there a speaker that was it? What was it? As you like, what's your main memory? I can tell you, I think a part of the revival we find ourselves in at 11 22 is about five years ago, like in the height of COVID and COVID, it was a rough six weeks for us in Florida. Yeah. Yeah. We aimed all of saturated at, we call it gospel renewal. And we just studied. So this would be 2021. 21. Yeah. Yeah. So my guy, I think it was that it could have been the fall of 20. I can't either. I could go back and look. And we looked at kind of the ingredients historically that always predicated revival. Yes. And it was things like a pursuit of holiness. It was prayer. It was repentance. And then just the spirit shows up. Yes. You know, and, and then also

we were looking sociologically at all the things that were happening in our country. And I have the benefit of being around some really older seasoned pastors and we're all freaking out in 2020 and 2021, right? Cities are on fire, race relations or worse than they've been in a long time. Political parties are divided. I mean, it's just bad. And some of these older guys are like, this isn't new. Have you not heard of the late 60s? Well, I was born in 73. So I don't even think about the late 60s. And then out of that came the Jesus revolution. That's right. The early 70s. All those hippies started getting saved. Yeah. Because the leaders in Southern California started welcoming all people and removing obstacles that kept people that were far from God. That's right. Meeting him, Chuck Smith, Calvert Chapel movement. Yeah. And they did it in a church that went line by line verse by verse in the Bible. They weren't doing like cool hip stuff, man. They were just all these hippies are coming in. They're interested. So we were leaning into that. We're praying hard for that. And I think we are sitting in the answered prayers of prayers that we were praying in five or six years ago and preparing. I love it. Now, another thing that your church has really led the way on 1122 is the idea of one more. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of different ways people say it. Who's your one? One of the ways we say it here is who's one person is far from God close to you. Yeah. How have you guys? Let me tell you a story first. So when I went down, one of the first times I was down there at 1122, not only did I hear people all the time, I'd be in this environment and someone would say, Oh, this guy's my one and this guy's my one. And but then I started to meet more people and they would say this. I was his one. Yeah, which is like this whole other level of not just everybody's thinking about their one. People are going, I used to be lost. And God found me through this one because I was his one. So how did that come about? How did that mindset and how did you kind of give the vision to the church to think about one more? Well, there's Part of it is my own story. I got a bunch of trouble in high school, find myself cutting the grass and stuff at this Southern Baptist student camp. And on the last night of camp, they recreated the crucifixion of Christ.

It was like the passion play before Mel Gibson, you know? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And I would have thought I was a Christian 'cause I was Southern, you know, the gig, especially around here. And coach Bully, my football coach, who led the camp, gets up, shares the gospel. And then we sing just as I am about 50 times and classic. Then he comes up afterwards after, you know, in the language we use back then, sorry JD, but who wants to ask Jesus in their heart, you know? And, you know, we don't love the language today, but I'm telling you what, if you ask him, he will. - Yeah, yeah. - He'll come on in. And I thought I kind of missed it. And it was my embarrassment, 'cause I told everybody I was a believer, you know, just as I was a camp. And dude, I knew for the very first time that when he died on the cross, he counted for me. For the very first time, it was real. I thought I was sitting at Golgotha 2000 years ago. - Yeah. - And I get in as bad as camp. So you can't get saved in your seat. You gotta walk down in front of everybody, you know? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And I walk down, and coach gets up and goes, I think there's one more.

I think there's one more. And he looked right at me and he knew my story. He knew my family, what was going on with my family. It wasn't good. And he quoted his own version of John 3.16. And he said, he was like, "God so loved you." That he gave his only begotten son for you. And if you would believe, I mean, there's maybe a hundred of us there, but he's pointing right at me. And so I went and put my faith in Jesus. Well, years later, I ended up preaching my first sermon under his leadership at the camp and leading Bible studies on this kind of stuff. Well, years later, I was on a mission trip in Jamaica and he passed away. And I wasn't able to get to his funeral, but there's a Florida Baptist pastor named Johnny Rickenbucker that did his eulogy. And he preached Acts 11, 24. I have a tattooed right there. It says, "And he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord. And one day I'm preaching at 11, 22. And I just said, "Listen, a great number in the kingdom is not however many thousands of people we had at Easter. A great number in the kingdom is just one more." And then there's some old leftover mentorship from Doug Fields where he used to have all the students

identify a five, he called it pray for five. And I just started asking our church to just pray for that one more person. And then we partnered with our people and we call weekends where we give a clear salvation invitation one more weekend. And a part of that comes from when I was in college, man. So I'm volunteering at my very formal downtown first Baptist church with pipe organs and Stan and the doxology. There's no word, you just knew it, you just memorized the things. And then I would lead my fraternity brothers to Christ or they would be interested. And I was like, "Well, this church is gonna work for them 'cause they don't have to close. They can't manage the dress code, they'll get kicked out." And then I was a part of this college ministry thing and I would go to it and sure enough, dude, like three weeks in a row, it'd be the jam, right? And then every time I brought my unbelieving friend, the weird girl with the flowy dress and the flags would get up. And I mean, she's up there flagging around and I was like, "Oh gosh, my buddy was like, dude, is this a cult?" And I was like, "Yeah, I think it might be." And I thought, I remember praying, I was like, "Lord, if I'm ever in charge of one of these things, I can't imagine if my church was actually a partner with me and trying to lead my lost friends to you." 'Cause it was either like a place for saved people

after you've been saved a minute and you had memorized the books to the Bible and memorized the doxology and knew when to stand up and sit down and all the things. Or it was kind of like a little too weird for just like a normal fraternity guy, right? - Yeah. - And so at 11.22, we were just like, "Hey, we're gonna partner with you. Start praying for your one more." And I'm going to tell you like, "Hey, next weekend's the one more weekend." - That's great. - So cash all your chips in to get 'em here, bribe 'em, lie to 'em, whatever it takes. But on those weekends, I'm gonna, and you can come to church whenever you want. - Yeah. - But just know that on these particular weekends, and it's typically, it's just wherever the text goes. Like I just taught, last night I taught Matthew 24 about the size of the end of the times, and then I added in the first of the three parables, the parable of the 10 virgins, 'cause I didn't want people to miss the point, get all caught up in all of them. That's the ideological ideas, and so the whole point is don't miss the party, give a salvation invitation. But are people know the salvation invitation's coming? - 'Cause that was a one more weekend?

- A hundred percent. - Okay. - And we tell 'em, we're like, next weekend. It's just it's the text. That's it. Got it. Now I will occasionally like I had this sweet grandma come up to me in the lobby last night and she says my son is going to be here either you know one of the next three weekends if I email you can you make it a one more weekend and I go absolutely. I love that. So whatever that text is. Come on. I don't care. That's what we're doing. We'll talk to. I had a conversation when Clayton King was here. I asked him about giving an invitation and because he's just very good at it. He's all aren't you guys also related? Yeah he was cousins. I thought okay. Yeah I found out. I don't know if I thought it. I think he told us that when he's here. How do you think about the invitation? Because you are really good at giving it at creating that moment and I know the Holy Spirit's got to work but like what are like I guess it's just one preacher asking another preacher. I could ask you more personally but I think people be interested. Like what are you thinking up there as you're like man I'm I'm calling people to come to Christ. Correct. Now my soteological leanings are very very very reformed. I don't love the use word Calvinist because I don't believe in like a state church or infabaptism but five points I'm all gravy with them. But man when you read through the scriptures I mean I mean you think about 1 Corinthians right that we are ambassadors for Christ calling people to Jesus. Amen. And so I beg and plead or preach hellfire and brings us don't just kind of depends on where the text goes and I just try to be as clear as possible. And the two primary things I'll usually say is I'll just like what does it mean to put your faith in Jesus. I love to unpack that Greek word postuo. It doesn't mean believe that. It means believe in or trust in. Yeah. Which simply means that if you believe somehow when Jesus died on the cross that counted for me. Yes. And confess Him and you will be saved. Yeah. And then often when I'm explaining it to our folks I'm like listen maybe in a Christian it's not easy but it's very simple to start. It's as simple as ABCs. You admit it. I'm a sinner in need of a savior. I believe or trust someone Christ out on the cross that counted for me. And then the sea is the only prayer in the Bible that I can find that he answers 100% of the time. Romans 13 for all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Yeah. And I'll typically unpack what it means to call on the name of the Lord. Not just believe that he died on the cross but I am.

Well I love it in the Beatitudes blessed are the meek which means a bit bridled horse. I'm turning over the reins of my life to you. And then just beg him to get saved with the faith in Jesus. Well you also I just know this from knowing you a little bit is you also have a big heart personally for just personal evangelism. Oh yeah. One more. Yeah. I mean you know what does that look like? Obviously you're traveling a lot and you've got a lot of responsibility. What does it look like for you to personally share your faith in people? Well my son called me out on that last summer. When he was younger and I was coaching all of his teams you know I just there was right picking for all the all of his teammates and all of their families. And so I remember we were coaching his 12 of you you travel all baseball team. I think there's 14 kids on the team. I baptized 12 of them in a year. So what I would do with the other coaches we just team up. We just pick one family and be like all right that's who we're going after. We're going after that kid. We're going after that family. And we would be strategic about it too. We'd be like hey Jacob you want to spend the night with us and then we'd tell the parents and be like how much else just come to church and then you know then you could pick him up at church. We would do a lot of that kind of stuff you know. And then I'm preaching at our high school camp two years ago. Yeah it's two years ago. And I did a one more sermon for our high school kids and had them all come forward and write their one more name on the wall. My son goes up and writes his one more's name on wall. Then he walks up to me and like only your son can do and he goes so dad who's your one more. I mean I know you preach the tens of thousands all the time but who's the one person and I was like yeah dude I've been a little bit slack like since you quit playing football. You know. And so I just shifted gyms. There's a gym directly across the street from the church. And for me to do a 45 minute workout takes an hour and a half just because I get a lot of you know you stopped a lot. And I just try to walk in that gym now with like my one more lens is on. Lord who do you want me to talk to? That's great. Now there's a lot of church people and I just yeah I wear them all 1, 2, 2 and Jesus clothes just in case people are like I think that's him. And we baptized eight people out of our gym this year. I love it. Why does I've been around you enough to hear you. I mean last time I was with you you were telling a story about just I'm filling up a gas tank. And it's encouraging because, you know, I get the same thing with me. I'm like, man, I've got the, what am I trying to say?

The longer I do this, the more I spend a lot of time with our staff, a lot of time with our elders, a lot of time with other pastors. Yeah. Um, you know, a lot of people also just think about the average person. Listen here, you know, they, they find that they're sending their kid to the Christian school, their homeschool, whatever it is. And they love their community group or whatever you guys call it. And so they're, their core friendships are on. So you got to begin to go, okay, someone told me you got to ask the question, okay, where do I belong? That's not the church. Yeah. And that's usually where I'm going to help people believe wherever I'm so for us, you know, in the summer, it would be the swim club we're a part of. You know, right now I'm in it. My kids are 14, 12, 10 and it's the parents. Yeah. You know, I'm, I'm building relationships and then I do some golfing. And so, you know, the, the other day I had this conversation with a guy that I'm getting to know. I see him at the golf course and, uh, we joke someone, please better golf for me. We play together and, uh, he's, I met his wife. He's married and he is just a real quick story for me. But, but basically I said, Hey man, I said, you know, he's talking about having kids. Are you, you know, you can have any kids any time soon. And he just kind of said, we're trying and, uh, I did the old Andy Stanley thing in my mind of like not going well, digging time, time to dig in. Yeah. And I just was right down the, on the course saying, Hey, this might be a little weird,

but come up for you. Yeah. And just, I could tell he was honored and it was awkward. Yeah. But I'm like, Lord, give them a kid. Like let's, let this be one of the miracles and give me more insight into his life. But that's what, that's what makes it the mission fresh for me. Well, there's two things I would encourage folks with two. One is you can't think about it. It's like a, like a one time opportunity. You just got to think about it like you're building that bridge. So like if, if you're in your office, man, and you are, here's the thing about offering to pray for people who's going to turn that down. That's right. And, and even if they say no to hear your story or hear the gospel or to receive an invitation to church, here's the thing you don't realize is that you're building a bridge to those folks. And when their life hits the fan and one day it's going to hit the fan, you know, who they're not going to go search out in the office. They're not going to the fun guy. They're going to that guy that they think may have a connection with the Lord. Just in case. And so just don't, don't ever give up. You know, and then too, again, man, salvation is the Lord's. So I know I can't talk to anybody in heaven. And so if I, this changed me too, I have just decided if I feel what I perceived to be a nudge of the Holy Spirit. And a part of the way you know it is, is because it lines up with the scripture. I remember one day I'm standing in Walmart and there's this lady and she's just frazzled and I'm in the 10 items or less aisle and she's got about 25 items.

So I'm already judging her so bad, you know, and then they put all the candy right there where little kids just grabbing candy and she screams at the top of her lungs, relax. And I thought he's never going to understand the meaning of that word. And I'm just telling you, I felt like God said, get her. Now one day I will stand before the Lord and give an account for that interaction. So let's just say for the sake of argument, I made that up. And, and he's like, hey, that lady in Walmart, I didn't tell you to share the gospel there specifically in that moment. And I think I'll be like, I still, I still think I'm cool. Yeah, I think God's okay with it. That's right. But what I don't want to do is be standing there and because we have to give an account for every word that we speak and him go, you know, you know that I told you to talk to that lady in Walmart. So I didn't you. And so I just simply said, Hey, ma'am, are you okay? Yeah. And she's like, I'm fine. And I was like, no, really. Are you okay? And I just looked at doing, she breaks down. And then a leader in your cries, pay for a Walmart groceries and stuff, you know? So you just don't, because here's what you don't know. You don't know that that girl, that lady, that that morning may have woken up in what she feels like a mess and she cries out. Yeah, that's right. Lord, if you're really there, prove yourself. And then God's like, I hear your prayer. You're the person to answer it. That's it, dude.

Well, you know, I read a book years ago called the Silence of Adam by Larry Krab, it's known called Men of Courage. I don't know if you ever read this book, but he starts out in the first chapter. He tells a story of when he was a little kid, he said he's a smart little kid and he struck out first time he played baseball. And he said he went back to the dugout and he realized these pitchers are very good. And he literally he realized he's an entertainer. So he goes, if I don't swing the bat, I get on base. And he said, most men live their entire life, never swinging the bat because they're they would rather hope that the guy throws a bad pitch and they get to walk, but you might get walked. You're never going to hit a double. And so it's like, I just think in another line I heard a guy say one time is, and I had never had this thought. You know the four soils, of course, the rocky soil and thorny and all that. He said, do you know the only thing that changes soil? A storm. And I thought, in so many ways, we're praying a Jonah prayer over people's lives. Which is scary thing to pray, especially on people that we love. Destroy the ship, not the center, kind of the, you know what I mean? Let's talk about, a couple of last things I want to talk to you about. One is just prison ministry. Can you tell us a little bit, so we just are in our first prison ever,

we're learning how to do this. We got in April, we're in Butner, federal prison. I know you've had opportunities to go and even preach live. Are you guys are in two or more? How many prisons are you guys in? What is that? What does prison ministry look like for you guys? - Yeah, we're in 27 prisons. - Oh, I guess. - I thought, okay, wait, this is, but does that mean campuses in 26 prisons? - Three campuses in 27, what we call outposts. - Outposts, okay. - Okay, so I'm preaching at JD's church, and in their bumper video, they do an update on their prison ministry, and I come home and go, we're doing that. And just because one, our government officials in Florida are very, very, very faith friendly, so that it helps like crazy. So I get together with a couple of our state senators, the guys in charge of the budget, and they go to our church, and we do this big meeting, and the guy that I put in charge of our prison ministry also used to play in the NFL. And he's one of my Mac carriers, one of my best friends. And I'm like, Jeff, I know you don't like talking about the NFL, and I'm like, brag,

I need you to brag all about it, 'cause trust me, these grown men are gonna turn into little boys when they realize that you play linebacker for the dolphins and then the jags. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So we walk in, I'm like, yeah, this is linebacker for the jags. Jeff got, it's been a minute. Everyone of them remember when he got drafted and all that stuff. - Oh, come on. - So they say to us, all right, well, if you really want-- - You're about to create camped prisons while you're doing right here. - A hundred percent. - You're creating student camped prisons. - So I just preached live from one of our prisons last week. And so they tell us there's one of the correctional facilities is called Baker Correctional, and these men have less than five years on their sentence and they're all coming back to Jacksonville, Duvall County. And so these politicians are thinking, well, if you really want to make a difference, how about get Jesus in these men before they get back to Jacksonville? - Yes. - And I'm like, great, we'll go wherever you want us to go. So we start. What's interesting, two things happen.

One is the Assistant Warden and Warden Kish. He just drew the short straw and had to attend because we met during his shift. And he's sitting in there and in about three weeks, Jesus just gets all over him, just gets all over him. And the difference between prison ministry and the way we do it is we just do church. And we show up and the volunteers show up, and that means more than anything else for the prisoners. There's all kind of people that pop in and do an event. And they usually bring a film crew and they film it and they YouTube the heck out of it. We just do church with these men. So just like a campus, it gets piped in just like all the other campuses. All right, well, we do saturated in prison eight years ago, seven years ago or something like that. And so we all show, we bring like the full band and we show recordings of the four or five preachers that are preached, the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. And then I show up on the last day to do a baptism service. So I'll preach the gospel, invite men to get in the tub. They've never, there's these old chapels in almost every prison. They'd never put water in the baptistry of this chapel ever. - That's a parable. - We fill that thing up, I baptized 67 men that day. And here's what's crazy.

The leader of the black gang goes almost first. Now, I've learned a lot about prison culture that I didn't know, regardless of what your gang affiliation is outside of prison, when you get to prison, you just kind of link up by ethnicity. And so the leader of the black gang gets baptized like second or third. And then we baptized 66 men and I go, I think there's, I do the coachly thing. I think there's one more. In this skinhead, leader of the white gang stands up. Dude, he's got FU, the whole word tattooed on his forehead. He's got a swash to go on this side of his head. And under, on his neck, on his left side, it says if it ain't white, it ain't right. And he stands up, comes and gets to the water, renounces the sins of his past, the ways of the storm. - Come on. - Anything darker demonic he's ever been connected to and pledges his allegiance to Christ and Christ alone. And this dude is the most yoked up. I mean, it's like casting, put him in there, all right? I'm baptizing, he comes up out of the water. The leader of the black gang stands up and starts walking forward, he comes out of the water and they hug in front of about 180 men. And the leader of the black gang looks at the crowd goes, he just goes, it ends today, that's what he said. And I'm like, what ends? - Thank you.

How are the gospel? So DeSantis's office calls us and it's like what are you doing? That's what I'm doing is that's what I told you we do church and preach the gospel. We do church and And they're like his team. They're like what about recidivism. I'm like, yeah, that's not my problem. It's your problem You know that program we just do church and it goes alright. You can go to you can have every prison in Florida It's yours. I'm like cool. So Kish the assistant warden gets credit for the turnaround. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's part of what happened. Yeah, so then he gets elevated to war Warden at Marion correctional and when he gets there one night at because we do a Thursday night service at 722 And he's like we have internet here. I'm the warden and do whatever I want So he calls me because I've just appointed myself the campus pastor of Marion correctional. I'm like great. Let's go so then he starts calling all of his Christian warden buddies and says you guys should just all start what we call Outposts of 11 22 that just means you showed a service and we equip you with all the things you need to be to be 11 22 and it's just spreading across Florida and so This is cool About a year in we did a baptism service at Marion and the first guy in the tub was the warden So I baptized with the prisoners the warden. Wow Last week we took our whole crew there because you know this year Sunday is kind of weird around Christmas. I think Christmas might be a Saturday So what we're going to do this year is we're gonna ask the whole because normally I broadcast from our broadcast location So we went in and recorded a full service from Marion and everybody's gonna stay at home and watch online And it's gonna be broadcast from Marion correctional. Wow So that's what we do. We're trying to we're this close to getting into our first federal prison in Georgia So whatever you could teach me there to get me in. Yeah, some of things that made that happen for us. Yeah, okay last thing Let's talk about men. Yeah, you wrote a book about manhood. Um, you've spoken a lot of different places about about this topic Yeah, I'm trying to think of a unique angle because I know you've been on a lot of pockets to talk about it Maybe I just want to talk to you a little bit about being a dad Okay, so just in in the sense of you know, Kevin Myers was here I told you before we turn the cameras on talking yet So we're gonna release that podcast before we release this one and he's talking about father wounds

Talk to us a little bit. I mean, you're you're in a unique season You I don't know a ton about your family, but I know you've got one son that's in college and you have a daughter. That's Junior. Yeah, there were dropouts now JP dropout of college and Reagan's homeschooled Okay, but you're what I'll try to say is like you're coming to the end of the season of having kids in the home You're about to be an empty nest 21 and 17 and when your kid 17 with the driver's license you basically feel like yeah Yeah, all the freedom. We love it. Yeah. Oh my gosh Totally new season. I mean part of the reason probably you're able to do some of the travel You speaking at different things you do now And I just dig my wife and now she can travel with me that's cool And you know, she did stay at home mom thing for the last 20 years. Yeah a long time So this is what advice so in our church, you know, they say most churches are 10 years both eight sides of the senior Stage so we've got a lot of men in our church 30 to 50 years old. Just I mean we got 900 kids in our kids ministry. Yeah What what advice do you have to dads in different seasons? First just let yourself off the mat, bro. You've never done this before This the most humbling thing I've ever done is to try to be a dad it is humbling, you know I've got one boy and I've got one girl And so this is the first time I've ever done this and I have no idea what I'm doing. That's what it feels like most of the time. Yeah, yeah, you know And Way more is called than taught. I think everybody knows that Fight for time with your kids pray out loud over your kids, especially when they're little man leverage bedtime For your benefits because what they're what they think they're doing they think they're tricking you Like if you if you read the Jesus storybook Bible or you know talk about their heart That's one of the questions, too I would I would try to not ask my kids like activity performance questions at bed Like would you do today? But I tried to ask them heart questions because what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get them to associate words to Feelings and this is safe things to talk to dad about yes Because when they're grown and gone I still want to be a primary influence in their life even though I have no control over them Yes, and so Leverage those times. Yeah, you know leverage those times, but one of the things

You just got it you got to let yourself off the mat I'll point you to two places one is the Garden of Eden and the other is the parable of the prodigal son In the parable of the prodigal the father obviously represents God and what did he do wrong? Nothing yeah Would I would I'd point you to The baptism of Jesus who walks out into the water God the Father speaks out loud to us behold my son and who might well please and he had done zero public ministry up to that point Zero and so before he ever got anything right and he got everything right, but before he ever do it He ever did it God had placed his approval on his son so as a dad if you could understand that that your worth is not defined and how your kids turn out, okay, and With that man, you just got to fight for the hearts of your kids and And so many times and here's what's crazy to you. How many kids do you have three? It's unbelievable how the same two parents can make such different human beings, isn't it? It's crazy. Yeah, it sounds like a hallmark. Yeah, they all are so different. I love it so different Yes, so like the thing you did with your oldest might ruin your youngest and you know So you got to train up a child the way they should go another way you want them to go. That's right But that's it. I mean I just leverage everything you can to be as involved as you possibly can because you're gonna find you I found myself many many times And I just didn't know what to do like I didn't like do we hammer him for this one because we love him so much and we want to discipline or Is this the time that we grace them because we're really leaning into the long-term relationship and you just honestly you don't know I Don't know it's hard. I mean, they're both walking with the Lord right now, but You know ain't my daughter is a little bit of an angel. She's she's kind of a layout I mean, she's just sweet and love Jesus and we'll go to go in a ministry And there was a season where my son just went off the rails Tell you when that happened. He was in the ninth grade. I mean author I'm not gonna share all of his dirt out here, but One of the things I did is canceled every travel thing that I had booked and

That was his ninth grade years It was like six years ago and that was right on the front edge of me getting invited to all the things that I thought were a dream And I just went no can't do it and I had to call people that I've looked up to forever And say I'm not doing the conference. I'm not doing any of that stuff. I'm just guy. I just my son needs home Yeah, wow, you know, I again my kids are 14 12 10, but my experience I don't know if you would agree at this. Oh, you're in the glory days. Oh, there's license. No diapers That's it. Here's the thing. Here's I have found I found that zero to five very hard because they're always needy and until your kids Five they're a full-time job for somebody, but then five to ten I would say was the easiest years because they've done these little personalities and and I'm here at the church all time and drop Mom and they got but as we've gotten now. I've got a middle score and a high score And we're talking, you know puberty youth ministry braces sleepovers all of that And it's correct and you know, and now they don't have their license yet So I'm kind of the free Uber driver, which I do appreciate the windshield time, but it's it's a lot Yeah, I make the most of all of that. Yeah. Yeah, okay So last I said last question, but this really is because we're gonna go in about, you know, an hour and a half You're gonna be speaking here at nights you speak a lot of different places, but Not that you've thought not to put your own spot. Not that you thought about it Maybe a ton, but as you come here tonight preaching on mark two, what do you hope happens? What do you hope God does? Honest to goodness that just people have an encounter with the living God. Yeah not that like they're They think wow, that was a great song or that was an entertaining talk or Man our church is really blowing it out. Yeah, but that people encounter the living God Yeah, I mean that's the that's the crux of mark two is this is that Jesus looks at the paralytic being lowered down the roof And he goes eyeball to eyeball with him and he says son That's what I want. Yeah, I want every man and woman here to feel to have a an actual experience with the living Christ and They deep down in their soul way louder than you can hear audibly with your ears That you hear the creator of the universe call you son or daughter that changes everything. Amen Looking forward to it. Thanks for being here. Look for tonight. Thanks for it

Thanks for tuning in to open Bible open life with pastor Kyle Mercer We'll be back every week with new conversations. So make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode