From the Mosh Pit to the Pulpit | Mattie Montgomery!

What's up guys? This is Ben from Provoke and Inspire. And before I tell you about my amazing conversation with Maddie Montgomery today, I wanna stop and just share something that's very exciting for me personally. For about a year now, I've been working on an updated and revised version of my book, Jesus in the Secular World. This book came out about five years ago, and I have grown a lot since then.

I've had so many different thoughts about how to make it more practical, more personal, more powerful, and I really think it's the guide for reaching people in your life who will not walk into a church. The new and improved version of the book is out right now, and for a month, I have reduced the cost to $7.99 on Amazon. I've never really cared about making money off these books. I've always wanted it to be a resource available to anyone who wants it. So if you go to Amazon or wherever books are found, you can get a copy right now.

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Also, jesusinthesecularworld.com, you can find it there, or steiger.org/jsw. I would love it if you grabbed a book and if you'd be so kind as to leave a review on Amazon that definitely increases the exposure and visibility of this book. And beyond that, I just love to hear how God may have used this in your life. That means the world to me, and so if you'd be willing to share that through a review on Amazon, that would be amazing. So that's my little shameless plug.

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Go check out the revised and updated version of my book, Jesus in the Secular World, right now. As for this particular podcast episode, guys, you are going to love it. Matty Montgomery is an American musician, author, and pastor. He was the lead vocalist of the Christian metal core band for Today. Later, he founded Awakening Evangelism, and he is now the pastor of the Altar Fellowship in Tennessee.

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He is an awesome dude. We've had him on twice before. In fact, the first time was in 2015, then again in 2020. And so, apparently, we're supposed to talk every five years. You're gonna love this conversation.

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It was very personal. We talked about how to be intimate with Jesus, how to hear his voice, how to have the kind of identity that allows you to completely change directions in your life. I know you're gonna love Matty's heart, his wisdom, his anointing, and, you're gonna leave this conversation encouraged. So check it out all the way until the end. As always, this podcast is part of Steiger, a missions organization dedicated to reaching those who would not walk into a church.

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That is what we're passionate about and we want you to get involved. Go to steiger.org, steiger.0rg. You can plug in. We'd love that. Otherwise, that's it.

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Thanks for checking this out. Thank you for faithfully supporting this podcast. I hope you enjoy my conversation with author, musician, all around awesome dude, Matty Montgomery. You're listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast. Alright, man.

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We're going. Matty Let's go. Montgomery. Dude, it's been five years, and prior to that, it was five years. Wow.

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We're getting close to the six hundredth episode mark on this podcast. That's awesome. And you were episode number three in 2015. Wow. So you were you were the guinea pig, the definition of the guinea pig.

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Man, here we are every five years. What's what's going on? How are you, man? I'm doing amazing. I, am am here in, Johnson City, Tennessee where we pastor a beautiful young church, and, my, my wife I've got, you know, my wife, Candice, and and our now we've got three little boys Oh, wow.

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Who are doing amazing. And, and so I'm just trying to be husband and dad and servant to the people God has given us, at the church we pastor and and, man, just loving life. I don't know what percentage of people have literally stuck with us for all those years, those ten years. But for those that are unfamiliar, I'd love if you could just share this journey of life you've been on. I I'm sure it's been a while since maybe you've told the whole story, but, you know, you had a very distinct season and chapter as an artist, and then that kind of pivoted in a really cool dramatic way.

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Now you're you're a pastor. Can you give us, like, just the 10,000 foot overview of what's going on in your life thus far? Yeah. Yeah. So from from 2007 until the end of twenty sixteen, I was the vocalist of a band called For Today.

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And, you know, during that time, I sort of joined that band thinking I might, oh, look. My little buddy's here. Hold on. I'll I'll tell you my life story. Check this out.

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Yeah. No. That's good. I heard some I'm assuming this is yeah. There we go.

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This is George. Yeah. Look at him. George's never been on a podcast before. This is my little guy.

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I think our ratings are gonna just go through the roof. Oh, look at him. Look at this, buddy. Just look at him. He's a little meatloaf, man.

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So, it's just me and George at the house right now. So I if I, if I put him in a cage, he'll bark. So he just, he likes Fair enough, man. So, anyway, I I played I was a vocalist of a band called For Today. And when I joined when I joined that band, I said, hey.

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You know, I'll I'll join your band if you let me preach the gospel from stage every night. And we thought, you know, what's the worst that could happen if I, if I do that? And and it it turns out the gospel is powerful. And it turns out that it it changes lives in a powerful and transformative way. And so, over the the ensuing ten years after I joined that band, we saw many, many thousands of people make decisions for Christ in bars and nightclubs all over the world.

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And, and in 2016, we left for tour like we had a million other times. I'll never forget. We we just played our the first show of a of a short tour, like a three week tour we were doing in Austin, Texas. And, and I got off stage in Austin, and I walked to the backstage area, and I'm just changing out of my clothes. It's like we've done this a million times before.

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And, and and what happened is, it was like something about being on tour just felt different than it ever had before. And, and I wasn't sure what exactly. And and so I I texted my wife, like, the next day, and I texted my pastor, and I said, hey. Would y'all just pray for me? Something about being on tour just feels off.

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And, so I spent those next three weeks just praying. And and one day toward the end of of the tour, I was walking through a parking lot, and I was saying, lord, help me understand. Is there something I've missed? Is there did we go wrong somewhere? And and it was like, god said, Matty, no.

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You know, you haven't gotten off base. You've just finished everything I called you to do. Oh, interesting. And, and and so I, you know, I said, okay. Well, what does that mean?

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And and he said, well, you can keep going if you want to, but I'm not I'm not gonna go with you. And so I I talked to the guys in the band, and I said, hey. This is gonna be it for me. And and I don't know why. It's not I'm not mad at anybody.

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I love you guys deeply. The show's been amazing. You know, people who are coming to the shows are still being, you know, touched powerfully by God. It's awesome. I'm having a great time, but I just I I think God is just saying, you know, that his grace on my life for this is over.

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And, and so we did, we started planning at that point a farewell tour. And we did a a a big farewell tour at the end of twenty sixteen and, got to go all over the world and and play one last time to people, who had been with us for years and and just spend time with them and hang out, you know, after concerts and things and just an amazing experience. And then in December of twenty sixteen, we played our last show. And people kept asking me during that farewell tour, you know, what are you gonna do next? Do you have an idea?

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And, frankly, I didn't. My answer was always the same. I'm gonna I'm gonna take my kids to the park. I'm gonna take my wife on a date, and then I'm gonna start praying about what to do next. And so that's what I did.

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We we had no clue what we were gonna do, after the band. It wasn't like I need you know, I had a I didn't have a sense that I needed to, you know, capitalize on momentum and start something quickly. We I just went home for about two years, and I did some traveling and itinerant speaking and and a little bit of online teaching stuff. But it was in, the summer of twenty eighteen that I was sitting on the floor of the church. My wife and I, and and my family and I attended down in Mobile, Alabama.

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And, it was like the Lord just sat down next to me and said, Maddie, it's time to gather the family. And it was like I knew as soon as I heard that phrase, gather the family, I knew exactly what that meant, that it was gonna look like planting a church and creating a space, just room in my life, room at my table, room in my home, you know, room in in my world for all of the the many people that we'd ministered to as I traveled all around the world for them to come and really begin to build community together and to make discipleship really the the commitment, of our life and the central focus of our life. And so that was in the summer of twenty eighteen. Mhmm. And we just waited and prepared.

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We moved from where we're living, Mobile, Alabama to Johnson City, Tennessee, in the, the summer of twenty nineteen. So that was a a full year of preparing and and waiting and getting ready for that. And then, and then we launched our church to the public in January of twenty twenty, which is hilarious. So as you can imagine, it was, like, very chaotic. You know?

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Nobody knew. Everybody thought we were gonna die if we go to church together. Right. It was just a it was a weird time to be navigating, church planting. But God, man, just, amazingly, he he blessed our church, blessed our efforts through COVID, through that season, and the church really grew and flourished, supernaturally.

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And so, we just celebrated it this last January. About a month ago, we just celebrated our fifth anniversary as a church. Yeah. And the church, we, we bought a building a a few years ago, and and, I think the last report we have to do a report at the end of every year. The last report we got is that we have about 1,300 members in our church, which is which is just, an amazing blessing.

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And I think the thing that's most exciting is is not how many people are coming, but rather how how passionate this group is about loving the lord and loving each other. It's like every week, I hear amazing stories about people in our church who heard of a need that somebody else had, and they just met it. You know, there's I I heard a story about a man who there's a bad storm in our area, like a year ago, and, a a man in our church, his the roof on his house was severely damaged. And the first I heard about it was the day after about a dozen other men from the church went over and repaired his roof. And, and so it wasn't it it was just, it's amazing to see the way the gospel of of Jesus Christ brings people together in a transcendent way, you know, across racial lines, across generational lines.

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People from totally different backgrounds are coming together as one family for the glory of God. And, and the way that the kingdom, blesses and benefits everybody who's a part of it, it's just it's such a tremendous thing. It's an amazing thing. So we're having an awesome time here in Johnson City, Tennessee now pastoring a church. And the church, it's a lot of different types of people, but, certainly, there's a bunch of people who used to come and mash it for today shows back in the day.

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And, and it's cool to all be together and to celebrate what God is doing there. What had you cultivated in your heart, in your spirit, in your identity to be able to make such a drastic change, to be able to surrender what I think for a lot of people is one of those kind of identities that's so fixed. It's like I'm an artist, and it's such a it can be a a big idol. Like, I I know the temptation in my own context. It can be a challenge.

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And as I was reflecting on it, the analogy that came to mind is there was a running back, Robert Smith, who was, like, he retired quite early, and he spoke of his retirement with that kind of confidence that I hear in your voice when you said it was time to change. And it was like the way he spoke about it was like, I'm done. I'm done. My my work here is done. Like, I might got more in the tank as a as a running back, but I know what's next.

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My time here is done. I'm ready to move. And everyone's just like, woah. And I of course, as a young kid who loved him, I was, like, devastated. But the other part of me admired someone whose identity did not seem to be wrapped up so tightly into one thing.

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And especially when you compare that to sort of the the guys that just go a little too far, a little too long, and you can just kinda tell, like you said, you're going, but I ain't going with you. That kinda thing. So how were you able to make that change? Well, you know, I I was in the band for ten years. And, full disclosure, there were certainly days that I did better at this than than other days.

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But, but but it was always a priority of mine to make sure that I never saw myself as an artist or even even as a a preacher or an evangelist, but but rather as a servant. And, you know, and and if my identity is that I'm a a servant of others because I'm a servant of Christ. Right. Then, you know, if he needs me to serve by playing concerts, well, I'll do that. If he needs me to serve by building a a local community, I'll do that.

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If if he needs me to serve by, you know, waking up extra early and making breakfast for my kids, well, that's that's what I'll do. And I I think, you know, one of the mistakes that we make in the modern iteration of the church is is that we have drawn a line between leadership and servanthood. And, frankly, I think that the pathetic state of our modern Western church is in large part because of that mistake that we have said, you know, leaders don't serve, and and that couldn't be further from the truth. Leaders you know, if if we are gonna be a leader in the kingdom, you know, we've we've said for years that down in the kingdom, down is the way up. The greatest in the kingdom, Jesus said, would be the servant of all.

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And so, you know, for me, my my heart has always been, god, I just wanna serve whoever you put in front of me however I can, with whatever I have at my disposal. And if that's my time and attention, great. If it's my finances, you know, if I'm able to make a a, you know, a change in their life or serve them in in that way, great. If it's, you know, maybe some some wisdom that I have from God's word that I can offer that would give them guidance or direction or inspiration, I wanna do that. But I I think it's really important, man.

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We have to we have to repent of our idolatry in regard to the way that we relate to calling. Like, we have to kill this idol called calling. Sure. Like, if we are going to I I think especially in our generation, especially in our sort of sect of Christianity or or our our little unique, expression of Christianity in our generation, man, people worship at the altar of their calling their entire life. And, and they never actually begin to serve Jesus.

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They serve you know, somebody gave them a prophetic word that they were gonna play their music in stadiums someday, and they chased that word for decades, never realizing that God has given them opportunities to serve, to be a blessing to others, and and to glorify the Lord every day in between, you know, where we are today and where we wanna be, the dream that we hold in our heart someday. And so, man, I I I think for me, it it was like, God just always had me on a on a journey of making sure that I didn't become a slave to my own sense of calling and that I just looked for chances to serve whoever was right in front of me. Yeah. And I I would say even adding to that, it's not even just that you surrender your calling in a sense that it's the best thing, but you give it up because God asked you to do it, and you kinda begrudgingly give up these great things. There's a house money component to it where you recognize that the greatest joy is simply being with Jesus, period.

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Yes. And and there's even the this kind of meritocracy that the culture that we have that says you are what you do. You are what you do. And so your Right. Entire relationship with Jesus is even defined by whatever path you're on or whatever path you take, which makes changing or giving up or letting go so paralyzing.

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Right? Because that is who I am. In the absence of that, what is my relationship with Jesus? Isn't it so much about recognizing that this other stuff you do is cool, but, man, it's not the first thing. Right.

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Yeah. There's a there's an author I I like a lot named Thomas Merton. And, Thomas Merton once said, who am I? I am one loved by God. Yeah.

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Think there's something so beautiful because there's he he's a fantastic, super influential author in his day. He was a Catholic monk and, and priest and, you know, a tremendously gifted communicator and especially writer and, and and very influential. And I think, you know, you could have pointed to all of those things as being his answer to who am I. Well, I'm a writer. I'm a priest.

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I'm a mystic. You know, all of those theological things or or sociological things that we find that identify us. But his answer was, I'm one who's loved by God. Wow. That's it.

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That's really all you need to know about me is that I'm loved by God. And, it's my privilege to love him back. And I I think you're right, man. If we see that as our calling, then we are actually living our calling right now. And, you know, whether there's hundreds of thousands of people coming to watch us live our calling or whether it's just our spouse and our child, it's a a holy calling, and and it's a privilege to be able to walk that calling out before the lord.

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It is amazing how we can imbibe ideas from the world and not even distinguish between what's godly and and what's the world. And, you know, I deal with a lot of I've been doing ministry now for twenty plus years, and I deal with a lot of younger people coming into our mission. And their entire focus is all about trying to find that unique thing that that will fulfill them, or what's my well and then they'll be in a role, and they're not happy. And they well, maybe I need to be doing something more creative or maybe I need to and it's always this sort of restless desire to find or unlock the combination of circumstances that will finally make them content. And I kinda sit there and I go, yeah.

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That stuff's cool, but is just Jesus enough for you? Right. We have got to get to a place where Jesus is enough. It's the whole lose your life to find your life. Right?

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Ironically, I think you actually find your path when you let go of it. Yeah. That's it. And I think what what people, especially young people, don't realize is, you know, the the dream they have in their heart, if it becomes a reality, it's never gonna be as sexy as it was when it was just a fantasy. You know?

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Like, I was, by some people's standards, an actual rock star. You know? I would sit at meet and greets and sign autographs for hours every day and would have fans, you know, pay money to come see me, use my gift, and take pictures with me. And it's like, you know, I got to do all this stuff. But here's the thing people don't realize about that is it was, you know, it was twenty three and a half hours a day of being an actual homeless person, sleeping on floors, you know, eating food from a from a, you know, a gas station, whatever we can get at a gas station.

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We're driving six, eight, ten hours in a day. But then there was that thirty minutes where we look really cool, and everyone was like, oh gosh. That's a dream. You know? And and so, whatever the job is, like, I as a as a a pastor, I I love to teach the word.

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It's it's a a passion of mine. I love to get into God's word with God's people and, you know, dream together about what it looks like to to live this thing out in a meaningful way. But the truth is, man, I'm I'm in the process right now of putting together a, you know, a financial summary of our 2024 expenses. It's like, it's not fun at all. It's boring.

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It's, you know, tedious. It's and I think, you know, the fantasy of of a calling or a dream is so much more exciting than the reality of a calling or a dream. You know, most, it it's like I have said for years that, you know, dominion we hear the word dominion. God's call is to have dominion. But dominion is just a fancy word for responsibility.

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Mhmm. And, you know, the truth is if we wanna have a big calling, we're we're gonna have to get used to big responsibility. And the way we get used to big responsibility is by taking care of the little responsibilities, the things we have right now. And I I, you know, I when I talk to young people that have a big dream and and a call on their life that they, you know, believe God has given them, it's like, okay. Great.

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Are you attacking what you have right now with the same energy and excitement that you'll have when that big dream becomes a reality? Because if not, well, then God's probably being merciful to you by not giving you that big dream because you would totally fumble it. I think, you know, all of us can better position ourselves to be, you know, influential and impactful in a big way by being faithful in the little ways that God gives us every day right now. Yeah. I remember I was walking, and I was praying, and I was, like, ruminating on these things I was stressed about.

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Like, this organizing this or organizing that. And as I was thinking about these things, I had this moment, like, this epiphany where all of a sudden it dawned on me, like, dude, six months ago, it was this exact same thing. And a year and a half ago, it was this exact same thing. And it's not that it made it feel useless, like nihilistic. Like, what's the point of all this?

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It's just like a cycle. But it did kind of in a way feel like, you know, when you get annoyed about washing the dishes, it's like they're never done. There was almost this cycle of like, dude, you're just always stressed about the same things just in the new season, the new season. And it kind of took the the steam out of it a little bit, the the air out of the balloon a little bit. But it was almost like God kind of being like, this stuff's cool, and I care that you care, and I wanna help.

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But, man, like, can we just hang out? Like, can we just be together? Like, can we just put this stuff on the shelf just for a second? And, I'm ambitious. Like, I know you are, and you you work hard, but there's been a freedom in putting it into its proper place.

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It's like the Augustine ordering your loves. It is cool. You can love it, but Yeah. There's deeper and bigger loves. And even your what you were saying about your family, you know, it's like, I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I'm gonna take my kids to the park, and I'm gonna take my wife on a date.

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And to me, it's like, it's the eulogy goals. Yeah. Nobody is gonna be there at the end of our lives going, man, that show was cool. Like, maybe, but more likely, they're gonna be like, he was a good husband. He was a good dad.

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That guy loved well. He served. Man, eulogy goals. That that's what we should be striving for. Right?

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That's it. Yes, sir. Oh, man. So okay. So you you said something, and and I know this was one of my questions related to the church.

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Right? So every every scene, every calling has its things, and I think God has given you a prophetic voice. Like, when you're in the music industry, you're stirring the pot. Right? People were coming to Jesus, and you were preaching the gospel, which is not easy to do regardless of the scene that you're in.

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In the church now, the this world that you're now in, what what has God been saying to you about the big c church? Like, without sort of the arrogance and the all that that can come with criticism of the church, what do we need to be doing? What are some healthy things that need to change as it relates to responding to culture, but just to honor God, to be more faithful to what he's calling the church to be? Yeah. I mean, I I think my sort of impulse response is something I've been saying for years.

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I wrote a book about it that we need our leaders, especially those who teach the word of God from the pulpit. We we need them to fear God. And and, frankly, they they don't. The the difficult thing is, pulpits are easy to come by in our generation. You know?

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Yeah. Any idiot with an iPhone and an idea can build a huge platform for himself. And so, you know, you have people that are on YouTube and on Instagram and on TikTok and saying, well, hey. I took this verse out of context, and this is what I think. And, you know, tragically, our generation is too biblically illiterate to to correct them.

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And so people get away with it for years. Yep. And and I I think what it comes down to is is, like, you have people who who have no fear of God that stand at pulpits, and and maybe it's just online. Maybe they're leaders of churches, and they stand in these trusted positions of influence, and they speculate. And they say, well, this is what I think the Bible means, and this is what I think Jesus would do if he was in this situation.

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And there's no actual authority. There's no actual conviction. And the difficult thing is the people who are telling the truth are getting diluted into obscurity by the fact that there are just countless people lying on behalf of Jesus. They're lying on behalf of the scriptures. They're taking the Bible, and they're twisting it to mean what they want it to mean.

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And because of that, it's it's, like, becoming increasingly difficult to tell the truth between the shepherds and the thieves that that Jesus talked about. It's it's like there's just so many people pulling the sheep in so many different direction that it's it's so many different directions. It can be difficult to tell the difference between who's a true shepherd sent by God to lead his people in in into safety and provision and someone who's a thief who just wants to build their own platform at the expense of the people that that follow them. And so I think my first answer is we need our leaders to fear God. But my second answer, and I think this one ties into that one, is we need to stop following leaders who don't fear God.

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And, you know, we have the authority. Ultimately, you know, a a mentor of mine in the faith, an old old leader who was a senior pastor of a church for sixty years. I met him in his mid eighties. And, and he said to me, son I was in my early twenties. He said, son, ultimately, you can only be to people who they say you are.

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And, that's just one line. It's like you know, it wasn't a whole book of information or wisdom, but that one line came from sixty years of trial and error. You know, sixty years of of hard learned lessons. And, and I man, I have caused pain in people's lives and and in my own life by trying to be a pastor to people who just wanted a a buddy. You know?

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They just wanted to to be a friend and hang out, and I'm trying to tell them what they need to do with their life. And this is what the Bible says, and it's like, dude, I didn't want any of that from you. I wasn't asking for that. And trying to sort of and people used to accuse me in the band of of forcing my beliefs down people's throats. It's like, man, if I could if I could force the truth down your throat, I would do that because I I love you, but it's it's not possible.

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But, man, I, you know, I gotta recognize that not everybody wants my advice. Not everybody wants my input. Not everybody wants my leadership, and that's okay. But the thing that all of us, I think, have to recognize is that we have the authority to choose what leaders we follow. And if I can't see the fear of God on someone's life and and and what does that look like specifically?

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I I would say they're a person who has accountability in place for themself. They're a person who recognizes they are not above temptation. They, you know, have not gotten to some place of revelation where they themselves couldn't be the next example of, you know, a significant moral failure. They seek out accountability. They confess when they fall short, and they own it.

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They own their mistakes. They are a a lifelong learner. They're a student of God's word. They're reading books. They're they're trying to grow in their understanding of God so that they can then turn and feed those who are following them.

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And they're a person who succeeds in private more than they succeed in public. Meaning their marriage is healthy. They prioritize their marriage even if it means maybe the people in their church don't get as much attention. Their kids love and trust them as a as a parent, you know, even if they have to sacrifice time with church members to make sure of that. Their kids love the Lord.

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Their kids love their their parent. And And and I think those are some of the features of someone that fears God. And if I can find those features in a person, man, I I will trust them even if we disagree. Even if they see things differently than I do, I'm happy to say, alright. I'm sure you know what you're talking about because I can see the fear of God on your life.

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I know that you don't come to conclusions without a lot of thought and study and serious prayer. And so if if this is your strong conviction, then I trust you. But, you know, unfortunately, we we have platformed or or we've trusted or we've followed people who just have the loudest personality. We follow people who have the, you know, the best clothes and the the best marketing team on social media, and so we just see their reels all the time or we, you know, we watch their videos or we we subscribe to their podcast, and and they're not people that fear God. And so I guess my warning to leaders would be we if we hope to lead in in where the church is going, we are gonna have to be leaders that fear God.

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And and I would say to every person who attends a church or is a part of the church, I would say you should guard very seriously who you follow as a voice that has any sway or influence or authority in your life and make sure that those are people who fear God. Because if they're if they're not if they don't fear God, it's only a matter until they fail catastrophically. Yeah. Man, that's a challenge, and it feels like there's a lot of trade offs involved. I mean, even what you were saying related to, you know, I will follow the kind of person who puts their family first, who is accountable.

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And I think you're absolutely right. Those are the kinds of qualities that we should be looking for in a leader we wanna follow, and yet our culture seems to elevate a lot of different things. We look for youth. We look for charisma. We look for unique talent.

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And then I think we place all this pressure on leaders to do a billion things. Be a podcaster. Be a writer. Be an author. Be an influencer.

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Be a CEO of a multi site church. And the combination of both what we look for and then what we expect creates an environment where how can leaders possibly be the kinds of godly leaders that you described that we should be looking for and following when this kind of expectation is placed on them? How can you fear God if there's no room to seek God? How can you have a family that loves you if you have no time to spend with them? There's gonna be trade offs.

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Right? So we might have to redefine what this shiny, sexy vision of a Christian leader even looks like for them to be there anything that's worthy of following. Yeah. I think we need to, probably turn away from the idol of content. You know?

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The idea that what did they say? Content is king. You know, it used to be in our parents' generation, it used to be cash is king. But, you know, we we have decided we don't like the, the prosperity gospel, so now it's content is king, which is just as deceptive, just as wrong, just as backwards. And, you know, there's a a teacher, Eugene Peterson, one of my favorite authors, Eugene Peterson, who I don't know that I agree with Eugene Peterson on everything.

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I mean, I I know for a fact that I don't agree with Eugene Peterson on everything, but he wrote, a book called the contemplative pastor that I think every pastor should take the time to read. And in it, he says a a busy pastor is a lazy pastor, which is a crazy thing to say. Wow. Yeah. It seems like that's so counterintuitive.

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But then he goes on to explain, you know, we're we're really only busy for one of two reasons. The first is that we think it it makes us look important to other people. When our schedule is so full, you know, we only have ten minutes to meet with someone six Tuesdays from now. It's like, wow. He must be very important.

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The other reason that we're busy as as pastors or leaders is because, we the way he says it is we lazily abdicate the essential practices of deciding and directing. And and we abdicate these practices to other people who don't know what our marriage takes to succeed. They don't know what kind of time demands our kids need to thrive. They don't know what our personal relationship with God needs. And so they'll pull us in every direction.

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You know, come to the hospital and visit me and, you know, get on the phone and and let me vent to you. I need you to pray for me. I need you to, you know, walk me through a a book of the Bible. There's, you know, all sorts of things, many of which are very valid and legitimate things. But, you know, with several 100 or several thousand people that that have those demands, it suddenly becomes it can quickly become, overwhelming and and not possible.

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And so as leaders, we have to be intentional about guarding our time. You know, you get the report every week that says what your screen time is, and it's like, yeah. If your screen time is, like, eight hours a day and, and you're like, gosh. I just can't find time to to pray. I just can't find time to study God's word.

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I can't find time to to to get alone and and worship God. It's like, yeah. Get real with yourself, man. I think, you know, we have to recognize that so many of us are, so eager to produce more content, to preach a new sermon, to get a new clip that we can put in a reel, to put out a new podcast, to write a new book, that, we forget about the fact that none of it matters if we are disconnected from God, from our spouse, and from our kids. But if we can succeed in those three areas, a a fruitful, prosperous life in every other area will be inevitable.

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What and, frankly, irrelevant almost in the sense that Right. I know it sounds crazy, but it to me, it's like laying there at the end of my life, I know a life of no regret will look like, man, he loved Jesus, he loved his wife, and he was a rock star dad. Everything else, man, whatever. That's right. Whatever.

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Like That's right. And and, ironically, I think the byproduct of that sort of intentionality is gonna be that you care about other people, that you devote the gifts you have, like the servant who invests well and produces a return. That's the irony, man. That's the lie. The lie says that you gotta pursue yourself.

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You gotta pursue your goals. You gotta get it because nobody's gonna get it for you. And it's just a vicious trap, and you don't end up satisfied. You need to have an aim, as you said, and that aim needs to be informed by scripture, by your relationship with God. I want to be the kind of person that puts God first, that recognizes that to be fruitful is to remain in the vine.

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That's all it asks us to do is simply abide from there to develop a plan that would actually reflect that aim so that I'm not just saying that in a lofty sense, but I am creating a life that would actually reflect that aim. But one thing I would love your thoughts on, I've been really trying to build in more, is reflection. I feel like you can have an aim. You can have a plan. But if you don't have regular rhythms of reflecting Mhmm.

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And I don't just mean that in some self help sense where you're thinking about yourself, but where you're inviting the holy spirit in to examine your life and to really evaluate what you're doing. I feel like you can have those things, but you're not actually doing them and you don't even realize. Yeah. How have you lived this intentional life? How have you committed Yeah.

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To getting your order right and then actually making it happen? Well, I I feel like I should give you this disclaimer. I'm still figuring it out. Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah. Of course. You know? But one of the things that I have done regularly, I would say maybe every six months, for the last my wife and I just celebrated our sixteenth anniversary. Oh, dude.

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We just hit 15, so we're we're one behind you. Come on. That's awesome. Catch up, but we're getting there. Probably every six months, I'll sit her down, maybe on a date night or something like that, and I will say, hey.

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Is there anything I can do to be better? Is there a way that I can love you better? Is there a way I can serve you better? Is there anything that you need more of from me as a husband or less of? Yeah.

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And I I give her the space to say, well, actually, you know, you've been on your phone too much or, you know, actually, I feel like Yeah. You're doing all the church stuff all the time, and and me and the kids are just we get the leftovers, and I I just need I need better from you. And and I, you know, I I bring that to her because, like, I I was an athlete for a long time. I I played collegiate, soccer at a pretty high level. And and so, you know, one of the things I realized that I learned really from sports, but I I think it transcends into every area of life, is is that those who are going to do bad, they avoid accountability.

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They avoid correction. You know? Those who are gonna do okay, they receive correction when they have to. You know? If a if a coach tells you, hey.

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Do this different. They'll hear it, and they will apply that coaching. But the people who are gonna be outstanding at a sport, in their industry, even in their life living as as a disciple of Jesus are not those who avoid correction Mhmm. Or those even who receive correction, but those who pursue correction. Yes.

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And so you're talking about reflection. I think what that looks like is is the pursuit of correction. What can I do better? Mhmm. Where am I falling short?

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That's a question that most churchgoers in America are actively avoiding an answer to. They don't want to hear how they can be better. They don't wanna hear how they're falling short. Yeah. They wanna hear that they're just loved, and God thinks they're fantastic and wonderful and amazing just the way they are.

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They don't have anything to change. But the truth is, you know, repentance is a part of the Christian life. It's not like you repented one time when you answered the altar call at youth camp, and now you're good. Yeah. No.

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Repentance is like a foundational piece of the Christian lifestyle. And so for all of us, we ought to be seeking God constantly saying, okay, Lord. What is the standard for, you know, this particular area of my life? Like, we should be systematically looking through our lives and saying, alright, God. I feel like I'm doing a good job in marriage, but how about the food that I eat?

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Am I honoring you in that? Am I honoring you in the music that I listen to? Lord, let me bring that to you. Okay. Let's look at my finances this month.

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And, and, god, you show me your plan for the management of money. I I wanna make sure that I'm honoring you in this area. Okay, god. You know, teach me to what about my work? You know, I have this job, and it's not maybe the job that I would love to have.

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Maybe not the dream job, but it pays the bills. So teach me how to approach work in a way that honors you. And I think, you know, if if we can begin sort of systematically going through the various areas of our life and bringing them before the Lord and saying, okay. What do you say about this? Is this pleasing to you?

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Is there anything that I can do better? How can I grow in this area? We'll find that constantly there are tweaks that we can make. Yeah. You know?

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And and, like, a lot of these things are moving targets. You know, what my wife needed from me fifteen years ago is very different than what my wife needs from me now. She's a mother of three boys. You know? She's the a pastor's wife of a of a church.

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It's like she's a very different person than she was fifteen years ago. And so I continue to come back to her and saying, alright. What do you need now? Is there anything different? And and I think throughout the seasons of our life, we've gotta be continually coming to God and and just inspecting our lives, our choices, our priorities, our ambitions, and dreams in light of the scriptures, in light of who we know he made us to be, and in light of the people who are around us who need us to succeed to make sure that we're doing right according to all of those things God has has set as as a sort of protective barriers for us.

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Yeah. It's, I I love the emphasis on pursuing correction. You know, pursuing correction would be one thing, but even a step before that, just even being self aware enough or self analytical enough to even say, what am I doing with my life? Like, I think most people just they're just living, man. They're just they got all these goals, and they're super vague.

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And maybe they don't even have goals. Maybe they haven't even gone that far. But to someone who's just, like, hearing this, but they're like, man, this is so deep and so many layers. Where do where do you even start with that? Because most people are living unexamined lives, let alone breaking it down into categories and bringing that before the Lord and making course corrections.

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What's step one in all this? Well, I think step step one is has got to be the profession of and alignment with the lordship of Jesus. Yeah. Like, if Jesus isn't our savior, our redeemer, and the one from whom we gain, like, purpose or value, everything else is gonna be built on a faulty foundation. Yeah.

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And and so, you know, I I think step one has to be fixing our eyes on Christ. And fixing our eyes on Christ, not only as our savior, our hero, our redeemer, our rescuer, but fixing our eyes on Christ as our model of what sonship looks like or or our model of what life ought to be. Like, Jesus says in in John 17, he says, this is life that they would know you, God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. And so, you know, for us to understand life, for us to receive life is for us to know Christ and for us to know who God truly is, not just for us, but who God is in us. And I think when we come to that place of knowing God, that's the thing.

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Like, AW Tozer says the most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God. God. Yeah. It shapes every other part of of who you are and how you live. And so this idea that that if we can see God right, if we can look at Jesus, the life that he lived, the way that he impacted or affected the people that he interacted with, the way that he communicated, what were the priorities that he had?

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What were the things that were important to Jesus? What were the things that were maybe not so important to Jesus? You know, I think about, like, this is kind of a tangent that might upset some of your listeners, but let's have fun. You know, it's like everyone expected the Messiah to come and to be political. Yeah.

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Like, they all thought he's gonna give us political dominion. Yep. That's that's what the Pharisees expected. When the Messiah comes, he's gonna overthrow the Romans, slaughter all of them, and he's gonna make us the dominant political force of our time. So Jesus comes, and he says, what I what I came to do is to set you free from your sins.

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And they all said, ugh. Yeah. No. Thank you. Jesus oh, he talked a lot about politics.

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He he talked a lot about the kingdom, the. You know, all of these things, he he used political language when he called his followers apostles instead of disciples. It's like all of that is political language, but he came to build a kingdom that would last for forever and ever and ever, not a kingdom that would just come into power, last for a few generations, and then and then fizzle out. And so instead of building an earthly kingdom, he came to establish and inaugurate a heavenly kingdom. And so you you sort of have this, like, this set of priorities, and and Jesus cared for the souls of the people in front of him instead of, you know, asserting political dominion over everybody or imposing his will by way of political force.

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And so this is like it's controversial. So we see the things that Jesus emphasizes and cares about, and and then we have to ask ourself, alright. Are those the things that I emphasize and care about? And and if Jesus is our our model, if that's what it looks like, if he really is, the Bible says, the firstborn among many brethren, if that's what it looks like to be a child of God or a son of God, well, then that's what I wanna be. And and so I wanna look at Jesus as my model for how I ought to live and and the standards and priorities that I should set for myself.

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And you see Jesus emphasizing prayer, time alone with the father. You see Jesus, meeting the needs of people that are in front of him. You see Jesus calling people out of sin and into righteousness, but you also see Jesus giving mercy to people that others had written off entirely. And so you you have this sort of beautiful, robust, comprehensive picture in the scriptures of who Jesus is. And, and I think that's got to be our our step one is knowing Christ, seeing Christ, and seeking Christ as as our model.

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And and, frankly, I don't think we'll ever move on to step two. If we if we can obsess about Jesus, we're gonna be okay. Yeah. I have found that my intimacy with Jesus produces gratitude. And for me, gratitude is a vital component in this because when I recognize what Jesus has done for me, of course, how could it not produce extraordinary gratitude?

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And what it also produces is a sense of I can trust you. Like, I can trust you, which means I am so extraordinarily grateful, and and I can trust you with all of my life. In fact, beyond that, I'm enamored by your design. I want to do things your way. In fact, it's laughable to think that I would say, God, here's my plan.

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Sign the bottom of the contract. And then being enamored by the design produces then a sense of stewardship. Too much is given, much is expected. And I I now sense that the life I've been given is not mine, and I want to make the most of it not because I want to build a name for myself and, of course, my own selfish ambition weaves itself in, but I think at the core of who I am, I say, God, I don't want to waste what you've given me. And so that gratitude fuels my enthusiasm to pursue his design out of a recognition that I have been given so much, and I better not waste it.

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Oh, that's so good. You know, I I said once in prayer, I said, God, I I don't just wanna be consecrated. I wanna be captivated. Yes. Yes.

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And I think, like, I grew up in church where the word consecration was kinda central to everything that we do. You know? You turn away from sin, consecrate yourself, don't have sex outside of marriage, and don't Mhmm. Drink alcohol, and don't, you know, say cuss words, and don't watch r rated movies, and don't dance, and, you know, all that stuff that Christians shouldn't do and and, Christians shouldn't do. Yeah.

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Yeah. And so, you know, I was, like, very concerned with being consecrated. But I I felt like if what I am is consecrated to the Lord, then that means my degree of passion for him is a direct result of my own enthusiasm Right. Which is pretty feeble Right. And, you know, goes like this a lot.

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But if I'm captivated, then my passion for the Lord, it's not a result of my own enthusiasm. It's a result of his beauty. And though my enthusiasm goes up and down, his beauty never does. It's unwavering. Yeah.

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Like, he he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And if I can be captivated by his beauty, well, then no one has to beg me to turn away from sin. It's like, you know, you don't have to, you know, I don't my friends aren't dragging me away from strip clubs and prostitutes to try to make me, you know, faithful to my wife. I'm captivated by her. So it is a joy for me to come home to her every night.

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It's a joy for me to turn away from other women because, man, I'm I'm captivated by her beauty. I think if we can love God like that to where we're captivated by his beauty, it'll it'll capture our imaginations. It'll capture the thoughts we think when we're laying in bed at night. It'll capture the thoughts we think when we're in a hotel room by ourself. Yes.

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You know, it'll it'll capture the the interior parts of who we are, and it'll begin to change our priorities and passions. I love the analogy, the marriage analogy, because I think a lot of people approach God kinda like you were saying, which is, well, how much can I get away with in the context of my marriage? Or how much can I love her just to get her off my back? You know, what sort of that line? And I I see a version of that in Christianity where there's this sad, weak, powerless Christianity where it's like, how do I retain my hell insurance?

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But how close can I get to the world? How how much can I flirt with the edges? And that is just such a counterfeit version of what it means to follow Jesus. It's like you said, I love my wife, and so I pursue the eradication of my own selfishness joyfully because I'm like, man, anything I could do to get closer to her and to have a better friendship and more intimacy and more depth, I'm in. Amen.

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Well, dude, this has been awesome. I knew it would be, and I could go on and on. I got other things I wanna talk to you about. But out of respect for your time, we'll wrap it up here. Maybe the only thing I'll ask is that we don't wait another five years for a conversation like this.

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Who knows if the world will even be here in 2030? But according to our schedule, that's when we're scheduled to talk next. So, hey, man. I appreciate you. Keep doing what you're doing.

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I know that fruitful days are ahead. And, it's funny. I didn't realize, like, right when we talked the last time, you were, like, in the midst of COVID starting a church. I forgot how chaotic that was, and I thought of, you know, Paul where in x 16, he's like, the holy spirit's like, don't go there. Don't go there.

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Don't go there. Don't go there. He goes to where the holy spirit clearly leads him, and next thing he knows, he's in prison after having been beaten. And I'm sure you had days where you're like, this this was the plan? Right.

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Oh, for sure. Yeah. Being a a pastor is like, you know, it's long stretches of boredom interrupted by total chaos. Sounds like you never left the tour, man. That sounds exactly like, it sounds like you didn't change at all.

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That's right. But it's beautiful, man. I'll tell you what, Ben. Like, so I for many year, obviously, I I traveled with the band, but I also traveled as an itinerant evangelist. And sometimes at shows and and at conferences I would speak at, you know, I I would do, like, an altar call or give people a chance to respond, and you'd have, you know, a few dozen, a few 100, sometimes a few thousand people come forward to an altar.

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And it would look powerful. It's like this is gonna look great on on Facebook. Right. And so you have all these people at this altar call, and and, frankly, I don't know any of these people. I don't know what they're walking through.

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I don't know, you know, what their life looked like before they answered this altar call, and I don't know what their life's gonna look like after. Sometimes I would get testimonies, but for the most part, it's just a bunch of random strangers. But, man, I could walk you through my church and just point out and say, well, that that marriage was was all but over when they decided to come to this church. You know, this this guy was a drug addict. Yeah.

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Hey. She was cutting herself and had already circled the date on the calendar that she was gonna kill herself. She had already written her suicide note, and then she came to church, and God set her free. You know, I could walk you through the church and tell you, like, testimony after testimony after testimony. It is a church full of living, breathing, tangible examples of the fact that God still saves today.

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He still sets people free from sin and depression and suicide and sickness and brokenness today. He is still God, the same God that we read about in the Bible. And, and it's just written all over the church. And so I guess I'd encourage your readers or your your listeners, you know, if if, if they're watching this and maybe they gave up on the church because of failure in the church, I would encourage them to go back into the church and just start asking people their story. Because every single person in the church will tell you that God is good and he still saves sinners today.

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All of us are examples of that. So, man, I'm just I'm blessed to be a part of God's big story and to be able to carry the torch during my time in ministry and and, to hopefully, you know, honor the legacy of those that went before me and and hopefully set a a build a strong foundation for those who will come after. Dude, love it, man. Love it. And, every once in a while, I see the you post in your your boys on the football field, and that that brings me great joy.

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I got a I got a son who's a big time hockey kid. And so I Oh, awesome. That's, like, one of my favorite little gifts I never saw coming from God. How much fun it is to watch my kid just It's the best. Oh, it's It's stressful.

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Oh, of course, it's stressful. But that's because guys like us don't do anything half or chill or there's no such thing. But, man, it's the best. Anyway, we need to do this again. There's so many things I I didn't get to, but Anytime.

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Thank you. And, yeah, that's it, dude. Appreciate it, man. Talk to you next time. Thanks so much, Ben.

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Appreciate you, buddy.