Cliff and Stacey Connectly are two of the founders of Turning Point USA, a youth organization that has been on campuses across the country for over 40 years. They are a great example of the power of the open-air dialogue method and the impact it can have on the minds of college students.
00:00:38.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
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00:01:42.000But really enjoyed spending time with you guys, and you both go to college campuses in a similar fashion that I do, and if the audience is not aware of it, you go and kind of hold court.
00:01:53.000And you sometimes go for multiple days in a row.
00:02:19.000The first time I did open air was during an inter-varsity beach evangelism project in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1980. And stood up on the beach there with the inter-varsity students and began to preach.
00:02:31.000And the people hopped off their towels.
00:02:32.000And I found out real quickly they didn't want to hear a sermon.
00:02:35.000But they wanted to show me what a fool I was for believing in Jesus.
00:02:39.000And so we developed the dialogue method.
00:02:41.000They just would fire questions and I would answer.
00:02:43.000And then we started, I'll never forget, the first campus was SUNY Albany up in upstate New York.
00:03:26.000A lot of these students don't know what their meaning and purpose in life is, objectively.
00:03:30.000So when we ask them that, there's a lot of ooh, pauses.
00:03:35.000And so a lot of these students are coming out.
00:03:37.000They also see that there's something wrong.
00:03:39.000There's been something wrong over the last...
00:03:41.000However many years, whether it be political, whether it be their parents having divorce, whether it be a psychological health issue, I think they're just waking up to there's something wrong, there's been something wrong in our nation.
00:03:52.000And we think that God could potentially offer some answers.
00:03:56.000The long period of time you've been seeing it, do you think things are more promising in the last couple of years, meaning more people are interested, more people are stopping, more people are asking questions?
00:04:09.000And over the past 44 years, I've seen a lot of ups and downs.
00:04:13.000The questions have remained consistently the same, but the emotions, I think, is really what are different.
00:04:18.000I think there's a big difference between my dad, who at the age of 18 held a gun in the Alps in Switzerland, part of the Swiss Army, as he watched Hitler's panzer divisions come up and stop right on the border of Switzerland.
00:04:30.000A lot of difference emotionally between that versus people who have to go to a crying room to work through who won the last election.
00:04:39.000So I'm very grateful for Stuart and for his emotional sensitivity and his counseling background because we have to be sharp in how we address people, not just intellectually but emotionally as well.
00:04:49.000Do you see an increased amount of curiosity from these students trying to pursue truth and meaning?
00:05:11.000I miss a bit of the post-Vietnam War, the hippie movement, the free speech movement in Berkeley, where there was a willingness to really go at it and to understand that even though we are going at it, we're not being disrespectful, but we are strongly disagreeing.
00:06:25.000And that's when they get the healthiest.
00:06:27.000And we know traditionally, before this therapeutic age, over the last five to ten years, that's what our nation was all about.
00:06:32.000Our nation was all about God first, nation second, and that brought great psychological health and gave people meaning versus now, they don't know who they are.
00:06:41.000It is without a doubt the sickest generation, both mentally, physically, emotionally, nutritionally sick.
00:06:48.000Has the church stepped up to try to offer Of course, the ultimate healing, which is in Jesus.
00:06:55.000Do you think the Church has met the moment?
00:07:01.000I am very, very grateful for the Church, for the emphasis on the intellect.
00:07:06.000Let's think through this stuff honestly, for the emphasis on emotions.
00:07:10.000Let's be thoughtful and careful the way we talk, and for the spiritual, obviously, that we need Christ to fill that God-shaped vacuum at the center of our being, and for the physical.
00:07:21.000That we need to get off our backsides and start feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting those sick and in prison.
00:07:27.000And the growth in involvement with hurting people who are physically hurting, I think is a tremendous statement.
00:08:15.000Doing this, how you've done it, what do you think?
00:08:17.000What have you learned to make you better at defending the faith that you wish you would have known a decade ago?
00:08:23.000Oh, I think people can become too myopic in just reading the scripture and having kind of carbon copy classical arguments on how to defend the faith.
00:08:32.000I think a worldview takes an emotional angle, a cultural angle, an intellectual angle, an experiential angle, and...
00:08:41.000You can get too myopic in just one of those.
00:08:43.000It's just my emotional experience, and I believe in Christ, and this is how your needs can be met, just from an emotional experience.
00:08:50.000But you also have to answer the intellectual issues, and you also have to say, does the gospel meet the biggest cultural issues?
00:08:55.000You know, the sociologist Christian Smith, one of my favorite sociologists out of Notre Dame, talked about the more they're studying the doctrine of sin, And how it's going away in a culture of relativism, the more you see the breakdown in so many of the greatest traditions, institutions, and the more that doctrine leaves, the more issues we're going to have at a cosmic, sociological, and psychological level.
00:09:19.000You heard every argument under the sun.
00:09:22.000They just get repurposed and repackaged.
00:09:24.000But does every era and every age, I'm sure some arguments are surfaced more than others.
00:09:31.000During the free love movement, it's like, you know, don't tell me what to do.
00:12:28.000And so I'm far more critical of the church than—you're much nicer than I am.
00:12:32.000But, I mean, for example, we have millions of young men that we reach that are coming to conservatism, and they say, yeah, the church is irrelevant.
00:12:40.000It is too open to the sins of the day.
00:13:25.000In a culture that is more and more addicted to comfort every day, you see those that are addicted to comfort, those nations that are, you're going to have problems, tremendous breakdown.
00:13:36.000And so for a revival, you've got to talk about meeting a God-shaped hole.
00:13:41.000I'm not one of these pastors who likes to talk about numbers at their church, but I will say we have kids driving five, six hours Saturday nights and sleeping in their cars and coming to our church Sunday morning.
00:14:13.000Yeah, in Connecticut, and they've got the rainbow flags, every single one of them.
00:14:16.000And so it's dedication to truth first and foremost, and we believe that ultimately it's how to save souls, and then secondarily how to go about pushing for justice.
00:14:26.000The moral absolutes that we're talking about from the perspective of Judeo-Christian worldview, well then all these social justice movements, they're just going to peter out, break down, and what are they really after?
00:15:00.000Because I'm sure you've seen it all throughout the years, where students might have a more Buddhist perspective, or whatever, or the power of now.
00:15:08.000But you're saying right now it is basically one of the darker ones, which is that there is no truth, don't tell me how to live.
00:15:15.000If you were to anticipate the next move, where does that lead them if not towards Christ?
00:15:36.000The golden calf of moral relativism is me, narcissism, self-absorption.
00:15:42.000And when we live in a culture that so emphasizes comfort and feeling good, I mean, what's going to stop that?
00:15:51.000I mean, I'll never forget speaking at a Korean church down in Dallas, Texas, and afterwards I said to the elders who invited me out for a meal, how's the church in Korea doing?
00:16:00.000I mean, I've always been so impressed with the amount of missionaries that come out of the Korean church.
00:17:43.000What would you say if you were like, hey, I got five minutes to try to load you up before going on campus, what would you tell that person?
00:17:50.000I would tell them, read Acts chapter 8. Three different ways to connect with three different people who are seeking, honestly.
00:17:57.000These people have to be seeking, honestly.
00:17:59.000There's way too many atheists who pretend to be seeking when they're truly just closed off cynics.
00:18:04.000Can you tell pretty quickly, I'm sure?
00:18:07.000Yeah, Acts chapter 10. Do you think it's a waste of time?
00:19:19.000Can you clarify that we should never ever compromise God's standards or rules for our life?
00:19:25.000I just think the Roman road or the Evangicube are kind of cheesy, cookie-cutter ways of doing it, and yet you do need to present the gospel.
00:19:32.000Well, for example, I have to say an F word every other way in the world, which I think is outrageous.
00:19:49.000And so they've got to steer away from that, because I think there's a level of respect of a character of a person who doesn't need to curse to present it.
00:19:55.000Well, of course, you should never sin to try to evangelize somebody.
00:20:17.000We're asked too often, but we kind of back out.
00:20:19.000I think the best way to train someone to share their faith is come out to the open air, watch how we dialogue with people, junk what you don't like that we do, embrace what you do like that we do, and then develop your own style.
00:20:32.000What I get asked all the time, and I'd love your thoughts, is, Charlie, how do you remember all of this?
00:20:37.000How seriously do both of you take scholarship and learning and reading, I imagine very much so, to stay sharp and be able to engage on the infinite topics that can come your way?
00:20:49.000That's one of my greatest regrets, that I haven't studied more.
00:20:51.000I like the preacher who said, when I preach, I'm first going to study as hard as I can.
00:20:59.000I'm going to pray as hard as I can, and then I'm going to preach as hard as I can.
00:21:03.000So we've got to study hard, we've got to pray hard, and then we've got to preach hard.
00:21:06.000What does that look like in practice for you guys?
00:21:18.000You've got to read as broad as you possibly can.
00:21:20.000My favorite mentors are my dead mentors, so they can't hold me accountable on anything.
00:21:25.000But one was in New York City, and he read 150 books a year, and he's written some national bestsellers, and he comes at it from every single angle, culturally speaking, in order to present the gospel, to make it relevant.
00:21:37.000Because I don't think it's enough anymore to just present the main doctrines.
00:21:42.000In the 1700s, when you had the Whitfields, when you had the Newtons, or Edwards, They could just come in and talk about...
00:21:52.000Exactly, and you also have Whitfield down there.
00:21:55.000Right, so you could just present the gospel, and it's the fire and brimstone, and people, there was revivals by the thousands who were just saying, oh gosh, I'm going to hell, I better check this out.
00:22:03.000So it's out of fear that they considered God.
00:22:05.000Well, you can't do that anymore for the average person.
00:22:08.000So we have to read, we have to memorize.
00:22:10.000I try and, you know, he had us memorizing scriptures since we were two, and he's doing it with all my daughters right now.
00:22:15.000You know, they get a couple gummy bears every single time they're able to memorize a single verse.
00:22:20.000Is huge, I think, when it comes to the intellect and really being able to hone that skill is important.
00:22:25.000The question in front of a lot of other people, though, is also, and finally, I know this is a simple but it is a very important one, how do you both find the confidence and the courage to go cold into a campus, you don't know anybody, and break that ice?
00:22:40.000Are you both naturally introverted or extroverted?
00:22:43.000Well, the first bar that I preached in in inner-city Boston when I was in seminary, I picked out the bar and I parked my car, and I walked towards the bar door, and I walked right past the bar door, and I walked around the block for about 15 minutes, trying to get up the courage to go in there and tell those men on vacation about Christ.
00:23:01.000Finally, I said, Cliff, you're defeated, so I went back to my car, was opening the car door to go back to the seminary, and the Holy Spirit brought to my mind the words of Hebrews chapter 11, 32 to 38. And what more shall I say?
00:23:13.000I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised, who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword, whose weakness was turned into strength.
00:23:29.000So I began to realize, Cliff, you are the biggest wimp around.
00:23:34.000These guys, these great men and women of faith, laid their lives down.
00:23:39.000And you can't even walk into a bar in inner-city Boston and tell men on vacation who are doing the wrong thing about Christ.
00:23:46.000Convicted of my lack of faith, I turned around, walked into that bar, and stood up and said, Excuse me, guys.
00:23:51.000John writes in 1 John 4.10, This is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
00:23:59.000And the bartender came running down the bar, cursing his head off at me.
00:24:19.000And when I grow in faith and trust in God, understand what is true and right, then I will put a stake in the ground, and I don't care what happens, we're going to uncompromisingly stand for the truth of Jesus Christ.