An Atheist Went to Church and Loved It - Should That Worry Us?

We should want this as a church to have those outside of it look to us as a place where they can go. Often, the first experience of God is going to be more like a spiritual experience, and then I'll figure things out later on as I continue to walk and encounter God. I'll understand repentance and everything I learned through that, that I can take so much on myself, where I feel that I have to be the person that does everything, which is kind of an offense to the Holy Spirit. I make this solemn pledge that the next time I do this, I'm going to. You're listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast. What's up everyone? Welcome to the Provoke and Inspire podcast, Finding Jesus in a Broken World. My name is Ben Pearce. I'm joined by David Pearce, my dad, Luke Greenwood, Chad Johnson. The full compliment. Welcome, gentlemen. Great to be with everyone. Guys. I'm standing right now and I gotta be honest, this is amazing. I don't know how I ever sat for six hundred and something episodes, but I'm standing and I feel full of beans. And today we are going to be asking this crucial question. If an atheist walked into your church this Sunday, what is the balance between welcoming them and telling them the truth? And the reason for that question is a clip that was shuffled onto my desk and brought to my attention, and I'm going to play the clip. We're going to watch the clip, and then we're going to react. Are you guys ready? I'm born ready. Whenever someone has said to me, hey brother, you should go to church or you should try praying, I've always kind of thought in my head, you know, like, uh, thanks, bro, but that's not really for me. Like, that's not my thing. I don't believe those stories in the Bible. But recently I went because I was kind of wrestling with some things. I was struggling and I'd been doing therapy and trying different things. And it just kind of wasn't, it wasn't working. And so I went to church, of all things, and I was extremely skeptical. Thought I'd walk in there. I thought it'd be really uncomfortable. A whole bunch of people, which I don't connect with, are talking about stuff I don't believe in. And then I'd leave going like, okay, I tried, that's it. But that's not what happened. I went in and I stood at the back of my own. Then at that point they said, hey, if you're struggling with anything, come down to the front. And one of the people that work here will pray, pray for you. And so I walked down there on my own, walk through all these people, and I went down to the front. I felt super, super vulnerable and I didn't even know what I was going to say. But I got down there and this guy came up to me and he said, hey man, like, what can I help you with, brother? What can I pray for you? And I said, look, I said, I don't really know. Uh, I'm just kind of wrestling with some things right now and I just need some help. And he said, no worries, brother, I got you. And he held my head down and he put his hand on my back and he started praying for me. And within about 10s, I just started bawling my eyes out. I just started crying. I don't even know why I didn't know this guy. I was in a room full of people I did not know. In fact, for most of my life, I felt like I could not really super connect with because of that foundational belief system difference. But there I was, in the arms of a random man who was praying for me, and I let it out, and I felt so light for the next two weeks after that. And ever since that moment, I've kind of realized that you don't have to believe or understand everything that's going on. But if you just enter a space that church creates where it just feels like no matter what you're going through. If I drop to my knees in that place and I said, I'm struggling, somebody help me. All the people would come around me and pray for me. They wouldn't try to resolve my issues, but they would just let me know that they're there for me. And there's something about that which is just so freeing. There's so much humility in that space, which I just haven't found anywhere else in my life. Because every other time you come to people or a group with a problem, they're always trying to offer solutions. And really a lot of the time we don't need that. We actually just need people to say, look, I'm here to save you, but I'm here to support you, to make you feel heard and to pray for you. So if you're struggling with someone out there and you are an atheist, hey, give church a shot. It might work for you. So what is your reaction to this clip? Lots to unpack there. Who wants to start? I really loved it. I think I'd seen it before on, on like a feed that came up for me and it just impacted me as so it's so cool when you see somebody who has no church experience and is just walking in and hearing how they experience it, and especially this guy saying he's an atheist and then having such a positive experience, like coming away open, suggesting to others that they should go to church. So it really encouraged me. I thought it was really cool. Um, I have mixed feelings about it. I mean, I think it's really great that he came in and I think obviously God led him there. And he even emphasizes the fact that when he came forward, it was very vulnerable for him to do that. And so he comes forward. They pray for him. You know, he doesn't know what it is. He doesn't describe it because he's an atheist. And he talks about how he just broke down. I think that was the Holy Spirit. And then he's in this place of he's felt something he's never felt before. He's experienced the power of God. It seems to me that the next step would be to explain who Jesus is to him. He said he was getting this therapy and this help, and he didn't know he wasn't getting any answers. And I don't think it's like you go to the church and no one gives you any answers. I think people need answers. Of course, it needs to be a place where you can just come forward and get prayed for and not be where people are. Jesus machines and right away start trying to push something on you, but clearly I think it needs to be a place of answers. Yeah, no, there's definitely tension in this conversation because if you take that video as the full sum of his entire experience, and you don't see it in a broader context or find out what happened next, it's a challenge because it's easy to read into the silence about what he says or doesn't say. But there are some interesting things that he does say that are worth unpacking. And to your point, to start, Luke, the church should celebrate this kind of perception of it. We should want this as a church to have those outside of it look to us as a place where they can go. He mentions trying therapy, trying, working on himself, different things. He's also a fitness guru. I guess in addition to being a DJ, all those things are my favorite things too, which is weird. You're a fitness guru. I did not know that about you. All of it. All of it. Chad's more of like an internal fitness guru. It's not so much what you see on the outside. It's more the things he does to be fit internally. I assumed that the conversation you sent us, that that video was gonna go the other direction. I thought he was gonna like, say, oh, I went to this church and it was horrible. Like, here, let me tell you all the reasons. It was a, you know, offense to me, all that. And instead I was so encouraged. I was like, you guys have said, very, very moved by the way in which he describes a encounter with the spirit and with that person. But his encounter was, you can go to church and no one's going to try to give you any answers and that's cool or tell you what to believe or anything, but you can go there and you can go on your knees, and people will pray for you and you'll feel this peace that you can't feel anywhere else. So what's encouraging about that? If that's the only thing that happens? Problem with this conversation are the extremes. There are going to be people who say, of course we should be welcoming and they will compromise truth in the name of doing that. And the other extreme is they're going to say, no, it should be all about truth. And we're going to create an environment where a guy like this. Immediately is blasted over the head with the truth and doesn't gain. The beauty of being accepted as someone who could just walk into his church and not immediately needing to be fixed, but be prayed for. There is value and it's the tension that I want to get at. I think maybe it's I'm projecting a little bit because when I'm doing a no longer music show and I'm standing in front of a big crowd of non Christians out in the audience, I explain everything. You know, I talk about the father heart of God. I talk about the cross. And you know, this is not in a church. This is in non-Christian venues. I explain the whole thing and people are moved and they come to the fire. We have this big torch and hundreds of people will come there and will say, we explain what the gospel is. And if you want to give your life to Jesus, you see this darkness inside of you that you need to be set free from. And we have people pray, but I've noticed in my one on one conversations, I don't do that very much. I'll do what is described in this what we just saw. I do it all the time. I'll see someone at a at a cafe or something and I'll say, oh, what happened to your hand? And they'll tell me and I'll say, well, let me, let me pray for you. And I pray for him. And they feel touched, they cry, they're moved. And maybe it's not always appropriate, but I think, why don't I take them all the way through? Why don't I say, you know, what you felt is Jesus and Jesus is there to set us free. You know, that's, I guess maybe I'm projecting that, I don't know. Well, they may have done that in that church. Maybe. But he didn't say that, did he? He didn't. But that's an interesting thing to reflect on. How how often is it somebody might walk away from an NLM concert even. And if they were interviewed, they might say something similar to him like, oh, I'm not usually used to hearing Christians talk like that. But it was a good experience for me. But they would be at an NLM concert and not hear the cross. True. But my point is that he may have heard the gospel in this church, and we're hearing his what he's taking away from it, and we're hearing it through his filter and his lens. This is what I experienced, and that was good. They may have given a ton of solutions up front or a gospel message, but what he took away was I felt loved and accepted and I wasn't forced to do anything. And he used what I love. Is he? He said humility. There was humility there, and I. And I value that. So I wonder if it was a genuine spiritual experience that he had. Um, and I was going to say that the point I feel you're making, David, is an important one is that if that's all that happens, it's not enough. But often the first situation or first experience of God is going to be more like a spiritual experience. And then I'll figure things out later on as I continue to walk and encounter God, I'll understand repentance and everything. Yeah. And context really matters because what you're describing, David, is a one off. We're in a city. We have this crowd in front of us. Of course, we're going to try to love them. We go to great lengths to communicate the gospel in a relevant way, but to leave them and not share the full life, death, resurrection of Jesus would feel like a failed opportunity. So I totally understand what you're saying, and that's a particular context. And yeah, we should have that same urgency. I would say, in our daily experiences. But at the same time, I think that it can go too far where there is an impatience and before someone even has any context. I mean, this guy is a self-described atheist walking into a church. No relationships. I would imagine he might have gone back. He probably did go back, you know? And it reminds me in some ways, if we're going to take it to the band world, and I don't want to get too myopic there, but the difference between what we do and maybe a local band that is day in, day out in a particular club or in a particular scene. I think there does need to be a different approach. I know I have definitely made mistakes where I took the no longer music mindset of, I'm here once and I got to just, you know, I have no time for anything. I'm just going to preach the gospel and bolts. And I did that often at the expense of developing real relationships with the club owner and the bar tender and the people that came. And it's not that I regret preaching the gospel, it's that I think I pendulum swung too far, but maybe that's not relatable. I mean, maybe most people like you describe are kind of cool and on board with the acceptance part, but it's the presenting the full gospel part that gets lost. I don't know, two things really strike me in this conversation. One is that context is everything. I like how Luke described, we're seeing this through his filter, and we don't know for certain whether or not there was a gospel message tied to it and it just didn't, you know, get translated in that message. But it does remind me, and I appreciate David's vulnerability because the first time that I ever visited New Zealand, where I realized years later, there's like footage of us passing along the water and someone told me, like, you were like, so close to, to where the pierces live. In that context of praying for people, which I was very comfortable with, the thought had never occurred to me. Maybe I should share the gospel as a connection point, because they're being so touched and the Holy Spirit's moving so powerfully. So David's not alone. And I think that that probably applies to a whole bunch of Christians in any whether you're praying for someone or just serving someone, or sitting down with a meal or in a club with them, or you have you sense that you have a little favor with them and they, they, they're willing to talk to you and you're having a conversation. I mean, I think it's incredibly easy to miss the mark. And it wasn't until my friend said, hey, do you think we should share the gospel with all these kids? That it was like, oh, uh, maybe we should. It could be that I'm, like I said, frustrated with myself in this because I've had, you know, even in the last few weeks, I've had several conversations with people outside of the church where I pray for them. They cry even in public places where they feel embarrassed. And then I just kind of leave it and I think, well, maybe God is just touching them there and it's he's going to that's the first step. Or maybe I should say, you know what you feel. That's that's the Holy Spirit, you know, did you know that Jesus can take away that emptiness inside of us, that darkness. You can give your life to him. I make this solemn pledge that the next time I do this, I'm going to try that again. Luke. You're right. He's in a church. We don't know everything that happened there, but I don't think there's too much sharing Jesus completely outside of the church. Of course not. That's true. That's true. I wonder if it would, because there's different ways of looking at this from the perspective of him as an atheist experiencing church. Um, what can we learn from that? There's the are we doing church? Right. Um, is that what he experience of the church? Good. And we want to, you know, do that more. And there's this what your point you're making, like, how do we each apply something here in our one on one conversations and in the opportunities we get given? And I totally agree with you on that. There needs to be more sharing the gospel, pointing people to Jesus clearly. I also like thinking about how there is a journey that people are on. Encountering God and God will speak to them through different moments, in different conversations, and always reminding myself that that moment I'm in right there is probably part of a bigger thing God's doing. And if I get the chance to share a big, clear picture of who Jesus is, great. If I don't get the chance to do it all and I do a part of it that's also valid and important. So we we can't fully say he didn't hear the gospel. Even if he experienced, um, the love of God and the Holy Spirit moving him and an understanding of humility or acceptance or love, all those things are part of the gospel story. And he needs to, to hear more. He needs to continue to hear. And that's often, um, maybe where we error on the other side is, is by assuming that we've got to get it all done right here, right now. And otherwise this person, you know that they haven't got it. Um, there's a, there's a whole big picture happening, right? Right. All of this is ultimately a false dichotomy, right? It's the misattributed Francis Assisi quote, you know, always be preaching the gospel and when necessary, use words. And the fact is, it should be both. People should both feel welcome, feel loved, see Jesus in and through you and hear the gospel. I had a friend in high school who dropped out of school. He was suicidal. And you know, long story short, we I was able to pull him kind of back into my social circles. And he was around us and we were doing Bible studies, and we were taking time to go around the circle and pray for each other and say encouraging things about each other. And the first encounter for him was feeling the love of Jesus represented through the community, but he also continually heard the gospel. And at some point the Holy Spirit moved in his life and he gave his life to Jesus. It had to be both, and I'm aware enough of my own proclivities and my own fears that there's always a resistance to that final step. You always want to stop short of that, even in the context of this. Know of a no longer music show where we visually, theatrically depict the life, death, resurrection of Jesus. They hear the gospel. We're having these interviews after the show. And to your point, Luke, they don't quite still understand, you know, the way they express it, like, oh, I love your message. It's all just about everyone just accepting everyone, loving each other. I immediately feel this internal resistance. Oh, I don't want to have to explain the gospel to them again. You know, I've learned to overcome that most of the time. I still fail. Then I do it. But then there's even another layer where there's that. Do you want to make this decision? Even that resistance, like I would do these street interviews here at the University of Minnesota, where this pop up podcast and I committed myself to always weaving the full gospel into the way I talk. So at one point or another, they would inevitably say something like, well, I'm not religious. So then I would say, that's interesting. I'm not religious either. And I would explain what religion is. Gotta earn God's love. He's far away. He's mad at you. But this is who Jesus is. And then I would essentially, just as a way to present the two options, I would explain the full gospel. Know Jesus did for you what you could not do for yourself. He died so that you could be healed and forgiven. All that. But even in that, I would want to stop short of saying, hey, do you want this? Do you need this? I showed a video to you guys and maybe I could link it to this episode of where I was on the streets and there was this young guy, his name was R K. I did that exact explanation. And in that moment, I felt like the Holy Spirit was like, ask him like, does he want this? So I did, I said, do you want to know this Jesus the way I do? And he was like, yeah, yeah. And so right there, we pray during the context of this podcast on the streets on the University of Minnesota, but I had to kind of push through those multiple layers. And I'll be honest in saying that was rare, even in that context. So I'm aware of my own fear and it is hard to push it to that level. What about this point that what you just described there and I. And often what happens in. No longer music concerts as well. And many other things we do in the mission of sharing the gospel is a moment of decision, a moment of calling somebody, challenging people, hey, surrender to God. We need God. Render to God. It's yeah. And it's and it's a really important point. It's what Jesus did a lot. When Jesus says to people, follow me, drop what you're doing, follow me. That's an invitation to surrender. Um, that maybe there's a distinction, though, between that and a full, rational understanding of what the gospel is. Do you know what I mean? Like, I've often tried to figure that out and not only what I do, but also just what we do as a mission. Um, I feel like there's a, there's a limitation to how much most people can grasp in one sitting or in one conversation or even over a period of time. I still am not grasping things, you know. Exactly. And maybe we sometimes mix that up. Maybe sometimes. Because for me, surrendering to Jesus is actually quite a simple concept. I can't do this. I need God, I'm open. I want I'm going to take a step of faith here. God help me understand. That's the step we're often asking people to do. I find that's super important. I want to explain as much as I can of who Jesus is. I'm not going to assume that people are really going to grasp it all, and they'll need time. They'll need time to grasp it all. And that's exactly where the power and person of the Holy Spirit has to be with us as a helper, and not just with us, but also and especially with them, because it's like the both and, you know, the Holy Spirit present with us, present with them, beginning that process. What what I've seen in the times where the Lord's given me the opportunity for there to be a really special conversation or a powerful moment like David described. And I was willing and recognizing that, okay, this is more than just them tasting was incredible. But there's so many times where it was, it's in my history anyway. It's like a, a little bit of a hit and run. And so it's like, oh, we just, it's like fast and, or there. Anyway, any number of things. But I learned through that, that I can take so much on myself where I feel that I have to be the person that does everything, which is kind of an offense to the Holy Spirit, which is that what if he wants to bring David into the story next, and then he wants to bring Luke in, and then he wants to bring Ben in. And over time, he connects the person that maybe I started with and brought in all of these other people to help them understand. And so there is something that it's not to say. I think the flip side is to be like, well, I don't ever say anything, because that's always going to be David's role or Luke's or Ben's. And I'm just the guy that starts the the thing. I hear what you're saying, Chad. You're right. But at the same time, we need to be bold than we are. We need to lead people to Jesus soon. Yeah, absolutely. We just need to not create false dichotomies in this. We should celebrate a story like this. And I agree with you. There is some concerns to it where he concludes it by saying, you don't have to be saved, you just have to be heard. I'm like, oh, a little off the mark there, buddy. I think you need to be both heard and saved. But for a lot of people, to your point, Luke, we start with a very what's the right word? We just don't have a full picture of what it means. David, you often describe young believers and they're like, you talked about your friend who was praying. He's like, I pray God that you bring two girls with bikinis and sacks of money. Like you don't get it right away. Let me explain that. You didn't put that in context. Yeah. So what's this about? No, I think it's better out of context. Who is this friend? So? So we'll call him C Johnson. Just so it's anonymous. Bible study with these crazy guys in Amsterdam. Say God wants to speak to us. When we pray, he'll give us visions. He'll give us. He'll speak to us. And so we can ask God to do that. And so let's do that now. Let's say Jesus, is there anything you want to say to us? Is there any prophetic thing you want to say to us? And then we're all quiet. And then after a while he goes, I just got a vision. I just got a vision. This could be your random story, and it might even be better than what you have planned. I'm just throwing that out. Yeah, I agree. What is it? He said I saw two girls in bikinis and they were holding fistfuls of money. And now he's the development director for Steiger International. That's right. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. I don't know what to say about that vision. The point. The point is we're not going to get everything right perfectly. And I don't the point of this podcast is not to necessarily judge that church. They didn't preach the full gospel, trying to judge them. Say you did. I said that that is not the point of this podcast. The point is that we should celebrate that when he was struggling, he viewed the church as a place that he could go to. That's step one to celebrate. Step two is he went there and actually was received. He went down and who knows what the altar call was. Maybe the thing that he came in response to was the full gospel, we don't know. I go to a lot of churches and many of my pastor friends, they always give a very powerful, relevant altar call opportunity every time. And not shockingly, the ones that do always see people coming to Jesus. So he responds. He's prayed for. He's not immediately told, okay, well, what are the list of sins that you've committed and how can we deal with those? He started at step one, which is you're loved, you're welcomed. Let me pray for you. We don't know the full story of what he was told or he didn't surrender yet. That's something that's probably probably evident in the way he's talking. Like if we're going to try to identify that moment of surrender, I'd agree with David in that way that that's that's definitely not all the way He's. He experienced the first step. He didn't surrender yet. Right. But where is he going to be confronted with that and given that opportunity. But at a church, and if he feels as if that is a place he can go to because people care, they're going to hear him. They're going to listen. My belief is that God's going to continue to work in his life, and that point of surrender will come. But that is where we first have to create an environment where people actually want to be there. Well, like I said, I was probably projecting on. Yeah, definitely. It's Freudian for sure. And we didn't we didn't go in depth into the church. What the church should be like for somebody like that. And I do think that's an interesting thing as well, relating back to the Frank Turek episode that we did, what what should church be like? I've been thinking about that a lot since that episode. And then other things that have come up that I don't think I like the examples or references that we usually have of church nowadays, what we've made it be. I keep finding myself going back to what was church like? What was Jesus's church like? In a way? You could put it that way. A community just happening day to day on the move. Teaching happening openly, publicly. Spontaneously. Everybody could come here. It was communicated to everyone who was around. Discipleship was more of a relationship, and yet it happened more in small groups. But the crowds were there as well. And they were. Seems like they were often given priority. You know, Jesus would go away with a small group to do some more in-depth teaching. The crowd turns up and he stops and he's like, okay, now we've got to address the crowd. And there's something just alive and dynamic about that, where anybody could get access to Jesus and to hear and the ones who were lost and in need tended to come away feeling loved and accepted by Jesus. And the ones who didn't really want anything from Jesus were the ones that were getting confronted and, and getting into arguments with Jesus. So there's a lot of stuff in that that I look at as an example of a community around Jesus that then I analyze in relation to this story and an atheist walking into a church and I'm like, come on, that's what, you know, church needs to be welcoming to those guys and they should walk away feeling, oh, maybe there's a place for me here. And is there any greater evidence that we don't need to separate welcoming and truth than Jesus himself? If you ponder the fact that Jesus was wildly popular among non-believers, how cool is that? Jesus, who is unapologetic about the truth, who said following me is brutally hard? Who gave all of these hard messages, was surrounded constantly by sinners, by people who did not think and act like him. That should tell you that it's not necessary to create the false dichotomy that people want. They want to grow. I mean, this guy came to the church because everything in the world failed him and he still felt empty. And deep down, none of us want. Just like a passive, like good for you. We want to grow. We want to deal with the stuff in us. I love the analogy of a coach versus a critic, because a coach is someone who has your back and you know that they have your back, and you know that they have their good coaches for sure, who have your best interest in mind. And so when they say, hey, you got to fix this and you got to change this and you got to be disciplined, you receive that in a certain way. Whereas a critic, it's like they don't care about you. They just want to leverage your failure. They want to expose the things about you that are wrong. And I think deep down we want coaches. We want someone that's going to come alongside us and say, hey, I hear you and listen to you, but I also recognize the things in you that need to change. And I'm committed to working with you to improve. And so I don't know, I just think if Jesus is our model, then we should recognize that we can be welcoming and we should be, we can be truthful. People want that and that we shouldn't have to create this separation, that we should want both and be patient. Because as you said in the early church where some dude was just walking by, he might have caught some of Jesus's message and he might have missed some other part of it. Right? He was probably getting his toga pressed, you know, and he didn't have time to hear the entire message. So he was like, oh, that part about loving was cool, wasn't he? Missed some other parts. But church is messy and God is ultimately in charge. And that's kind of how it should be. Last week I was in Austin for, uh, for some really beautiful donor meetings and, uh, and the donor's beautiful or the meeting's beautiful. You went to the beautiful donor convention, the BDC? Yes. They didn't let me in for obvious reasons. And the surroundings, everything. Look at me like, hey, let Chad talk. Yeah, let Chad talk. Let Chad talk. Turn off the lights. Go, Chad! Go, Chad! Go, Chad! Go. So anyway, I'm in Austin. I'm in Austin and I had an opportunity to meet with this young man named Yibo, who is from. No, it wasn't. It was EBA. Dad. Geez. EBA, is it all right? No. It's gone. I think you guys are messing with my brain now. He. Is that the thing that you put on the guitar? He's from Iran. Like, makes it go from Iran. Chad, let Chad talk. Exactly. Thank you. Luke. He's from Iran. He. He was approached by Steiger missionaries randomly just out on the like on the streets. Their opening message was so powerful and so profound that I don't know anyone could ever do it. They said, hey, can we talk with you? They literally just said, hey, can we can we talk with you? They took it out of your book. Yeah. And as a result, this man ends up giving his life to Jesus, ends up getting baptized, is connected to a church in Houston, has been. Was telling me about how he was just back in a certain country that I probably shouldn't talk about on, on this podcast and, and how much God's working and how much God's using him. And he's now a, like able to lead all these people and connect them to Jesus. And it's just, and it all started with, hey, can we talk to you? And then God used many other people in his life to bring bring him fully into the Lord. So, so good. Anyway, it was it was so awesome. Chad. That's so cool. That's awesome. All right. Well, do we move on? Are we good? Have we solved all the world's problems? Haha. Nice boys. I'm not gonna lie. This standing thing's awesome. I feel just full of zest and vinegar. My thoughts are flowing smooth. Uh, do your do your lower legs ever get tired though? Yeah, dude. Lower legs. Yeah. Not your upper legs. That's what I'm. I'm standing too. But I feel now you inspire me. Your standing chair. I do it. I did, yeah. I'm standing. Many things I'm learning about you today, Chad. But that's why at one point I was going. I was like this. I'm just going to take the chairs. I'm going to take the stairs downstairs real quick. The problem is if I stand up where I am. Oh, there he goes. If I stand up where I am, I'll hit my head. If I stand, I'll hit my noggin. My wee little noggin. All right, David, are you ready or did we already do it? I'm ready. All right. I still haven't gotten the soundbites. Blame Steve, Stephen dot Bradley at steiger dot org. And if you are like, where are the soundbites? Send him an email. You know, do it gently. You know, he is a man with a heart, after all. David, go David's random story. So I don't always like to expose people, but I feel like it's appropriate that I do. Okay, so opening line because Luca. Luke. We're interested. You got us. Luke. He came to me about his marriage problems, and I don't think it's like. Do I look like a marriage counselor to you, Luke? So I hope you don't mind. Luke. But you're all I've got. You're all I've got. So he was talking about how. How his wife Anya only gives him the Baptist side hug. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. The one arm side hug. Do you think it means that she's trying to communicate something? Because she only gives me the Baptist side hug? Yeah. If Chad walks into a room, it's the full hug. Both arms. It's the Presbyterian. Like the full body hug. Presbyterian, not the Presbyterian is just. That's the handshake. It's a little wave. So Chad always gets the. There's so many places my brain went and all the filters were like, no, Ben. No, no. I mean, Jodie gives me the. She really hugs me. Doesn't do like like Luke at this Baptist side hug, but I have to say that when I I've been in meetings where Chad is and me, they go to Chad. They like. It's like it's a gravitational pull. They just run to them and they just give them the, the full hug and then they come over to me, give me the little side hug. Sure. Yeah. It's the dreads. They don't want to. They don't want to mess up the dreads. That's what it is. It's like I have zero full hug currency like Chad. I don't know if there's a deeper issue here. People don't want to physically commit to me in a not in a in a bad way. Oh, so I, I just want to know what love is. Do you want to know what love is? Look, I'm very happy, okay? I'm very happy to hug you. I probably always do, but not ready for what did you call it? A physical commitment. Don't think I'm ready for that. Are you ready to physically commit to me? Gross. What does that mean? I don't know, but why does Chad get the full hug? And Luke only from his wife? He only gets the side hug. That's because Anna's polish. We'll have to, uh, we'll have to kick that over to the people, and they shall vote with their feet, as they say. Are you done, David? Are you. Are you good? What more can you say? I mean, that was. Yeah. Yeah, I'm emotional actually. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, what a cheeky. We'll let that all sink in and coalesce into a nice stew. A mental stew for you to poke around with or something, I don't know, physically commit to the stew. That's maybe the lesson of the day. Uh, we appreciate you guys. Thanks for checking out the Provoke and Inspire podcast. Send an email, provoke and inspire podcast at org if you want the sound bites back. Stephen dot Bradley at staggered org. If you have complaints or just general issues with Chad or David, Luke at org and otherwise, that's enough emails for one day. We'll talk to you next time.

‍