The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Why The Church Planting Movement Is Failing ｜ Acts 29 & The Gospel Coalition w Eric Conn

00:00:00.000 In less than a year, our podcast has gone from an average of 10,000 downloads a month

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00:00:23.480 five-star review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks. Welcome back to Theology

00:00:29.540 Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries. In this particular

00:00:34.240 episode, I'm privileged to welcome back to the show Eric Kahn from Hard Man Podcast. Eric and

00:00:41.140 I talk about the church planting movement of the 1990s and early 2000s and why it has largely

00:00:48.420 failed. We're talking about networks like Acts 29, Churches Planting Churches, and the Gospel

00:00:55.820 Coalition, of course, makes our list. Many of these churches were multiplying, multiplying,

00:01:01.180 multiplying, planting new churches, and yet many of those planted churches have closed their doors.

00:01:07.980 We believe there's a particular reason why. We also get into biblical patriarchy,

00:01:12.820 and we talk about that as well. This is a very interesting episode that Eric and I are both

00:01:18.600 excited to share with you. Real quick before we hop into it, though, if you haven't already,

00:01:23.280 check out my book, Fight by Flight. The subtitle is Why Leaving Godless Places

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00:01:35.740 Meg Basham, Michael Foster, and many others. You can check out the book by going to amazon.com,

00:01:41.960 or you can purchase a copy at rightresponseministries.com. All right, let's go ahead

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00:04:57.380 Applying God's word to every aspect of life.

00:05:00.820 This is Theology Applied.

00:05:06.980 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied.

00:05:10.200 I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries.

00:05:13.020 And in this particular episode, I am privileged to welcome back to the show for, I don't know,

00:05:18.180 maybe third or fourth or fifth time, Eric Kahn from Hardman Podcast and Refuge Church in Ogden, Utah.

00:05:25.120 Eric, thanks for coming on.

00:05:26.860 Thanks, Joel, for having me.

00:05:28.240 Number three is always, always the charm.

00:05:31.000 That's what they say.

00:05:31.660 Yeah.

00:05:32.120 Is this number three?

00:05:33.220 I feel like it could be more than number three.

00:05:34.800 Okay.

00:05:35.400 All right.

00:05:35.820 Cool.

00:05:36.400 Yeah.

00:05:36.860 Great.

00:05:37.320 For our listeners who maybe don't know who you are, tell us just a little bit about what

00:05:42.160 you're doing, your ministry.

00:05:44.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:05:44.620 So I'm a pastor at Refuge Church in Ogden, Utah.

00:05:47.440 One of the pastors here, I pastor alongside Brian Silvey, the sweet psalmist of Ogden,

00:05:52.900 and uh dan burkholder and we have two kevins uh who don't have public ministry so most people

00:05:59.220 don't know them uh but also pastors here at the church and then i'm also the ceo one of the

00:06:04.000 founders of new christendom press we through the press we put out hard men podcast king's hall

00:06:09.880 podcast and joel i hear it's one of your new favorites but haunted cosmos also a new christendom

00:06:16.840 press production i i hear you know something about the nephilim is what i've been told a thing or two

00:06:22.320 I think Ben Garrett just, uh, let's see. So, you know, I don't know exactly the order of release,

00:06:27.560 but by the time that our episode releases and people are listening to it, I think the episode

00:06:32.580 that I did with Ben Garrett on Watchers, Nephilim, and what is currently living deep inside the core

00:06:39.040 of the earth. Um, I think that episode will have already dropped. So, I'm down, I'm down for those

00:06:44.560 things. Cool. All right. Well, thanks for coming back on the show. Let's talk a little bit about

00:06:49.020 your conference. You guys just recently held, uh, was it, what was the name? Chris, the Christendom

00:06:54.000 conference or what was it? Yeah. So it's the first annual new Christendom press conference

00:06:58.180 here in Ogden, Utah. Gotcha. Okay. And, uh, main press. Yeah, that's right. Main theme for the

00:07:02.680 show was you are the plan. So, um, a lot of what we were talking about is really things like how

00:07:07.600 to build your tribe. So observations on obviously what we did, what other people are doing around

00:07:12.720 the country that's been really successful. Uh, but also just, you know, trying to encourage guys,

00:07:18.500 There's a lot of people, a lot of disaffected men in America right now.

00:07:22.580 And so they're thinking about, where do I move?

00:07:24.540 What do I do?

00:07:25.780 They're noticing that they don't quite fit in the regime in America.

00:07:30.300 And so we're trying to give them hope, make sure that these guys don't get blackpilled.

00:07:34.860 We had some great talks.

00:07:36.200 Brian Sovey, Toby Sumter, Pastor Toby was there.

00:07:39.220 And really what we asked even Toby to focus on is building a strong marriage, confession of sin.

00:07:44.580 because what you'll find is in these moments,

00:07:48.060 we want to talk about the big picture stuff

00:07:49.820 and that's really exciting.

00:07:50.740 And we did talk about that.

00:07:52.640 But it really comes down to really basic things

00:07:55.980 like you need to repent of your sins.

00:07:57.800 You need to make sure that you have a healthy marriage.

00:08:00.900 The new Christendom is going to be dependent very much

00:08:03.440 on godly gospel preaching marriages.

00:08:08.360 And so we were able to talk about that.

00:08:11.580 Met a lot of people from around the country.

00:08:12.900 biggest takeaway for me honestly joel was how many people there weren't from reform circles

00:08:19.180 so really yeah there were guys from there were guys from pentecostal charismatic a couple people

00:08:26.520 from ag backgrounds and i was like man how in the world did you find out about us and it was really

00:08:32.440 interesting they were like oh we listen to the haunted cosmos or we listen to hard men podcast

00:08:36.820 because we like your content about testosterone and working out and then i don't know i'm not

00:08:42.100 really even sure i'm really familiar with what reform theology is but whatever you guys are

00:08:46.220 selling we want it uh it's been a huge encouragement to us um so yeah it was really cool to see that

00:08:51.800 really cool to see a wide audience and how many people did you have at the conference

00:08:57.940 uh so we had a mix um it kind of ranged from about 250 all the way up we're limited by capacity

00:09:04.360 with our building we wanted to be able to share ogden with people and really our church be welcome

00:09:10.880 to the event and so we we kind of set the price high and then capped you know how many people

00:09:16.040 were going to be able to come so a good mix and then um you know sunday more people than we

00:09:22.320 anticipated showed up uh for worship which was fantastic uh the building capacity is supposed

00:09:28.480 to be like 300 and we had 450 so uh some robust uh bass led psalm singing joel is what we had

00:09:35.980 awesome awesome so but during the conference itself so sunday was 450 because you know all

00:09:42.240 your church people are showing up but the conference like it's 225 250 okay and was that

00:09:48.500 was your church uh invited to was part of that members of your church or or was you know what

00:09:55.200 i mean because it's like if you invite your whole church if your church is 300 people and you say

00:09:58.400 hey you guys are welcome to come to the conference but you have 300 people in your church and 300

00:10:02.480 seats then nobody else can come to your conference so how did you guys work through that yeah so it

00:10:07.260 was a conference was free to people who were part of the church all that we asked is that

00:10:11.580 we we told them we have a limited number of seats and so please our svp and uh those numbers worked

00:10:17.940 out pretty well fortunately we have a balcony um and the conference was uh during a friday as well

00:10:24.020 so a lot of people had to work during the day friday obviously the evening uh was a little bit

00:10:29.540 more packed but yeah fortunately it worked out we're talking about that for next year we uh

00:10:34.660 we may be doing the joel thing and having like maybe maybe joel we just do dallas cowboys stadium

00:10:40.380 i don't think you're ready for that um that's cute but i don't think they're ready for us

00:10:46.300 i think that's the issue no but i i'm glad you want to do the joel thing because i was about

00:10:51.060 to give the joel uh recommendation yes so it sounds like yes but yeah you want to show people

00:10:56.100 so people have already talked to me you know we had our theonomy and postmill conference um

00:11:00.140 technically our first conference was uh 2020

00:11:03.460 nate it was 2022 with john and ad we got to get the nate cam um i know yeah so so 2022 uh

00:11:16.640 uh um nathan's by the way anybody listening but most of the people who follow right response

00:11:21.860 know who nate is because i i'll give him a shout out from time to time but he's our

00:11:24.800 he's the one full-time employee right now with right response and if it's not for him then none

00:11:29.780 of it would happen he makes everything happen um but all that being said yeah so 2022 i think it

00:11:35.240 was march it was spring we had john and ad robles come out john harrison and ad robles and did uh

00:11:40.580 about like resisting tyranny and wokeness and that kind of stuff and we had 250 people come out which

00:11:45.060 was awesome we just did the theonomy and postmail conference and for that we had james white we had

00:11:50.740 joe boot we had myself and dale partridge and we had 550 uh come out for that um so but anyways

00:11:56.240 i've had people ask you know now that we've done a couple a couple conferences we've got our

00:11:59.640 conference march 1st 2nd and 3rd um blueprints for christendom 2.0 with doug wilson and joe boot

00:12:05.420 and you're going to be there and foster is going to be there and brian sove is going to be there

00:12:08.680 and you know uh dale partridge is going to be there again and you know so we're going to have

00:12:12.240 all these people there and we've got a venue that seats about a thousand for that but anyways my

00:12:18.140 point is people keep asking like hey uh why don't you come to uh to tennessee where we are come to

00:12:24.540 kansas or come to you know wherever and uh you know as politely as possible i tell them no um

00:12:29.680 the conference will never be there because um i shamelessly and unapologetically i i'm building

00:12:36.840 something in georgetown texas and i a conference is a great way to get uh georgetown texas on the

00:12:42.980 map to have you know we're now having two conferences a year spring and fall spring and

00:12:48.320 fall and so like this fall we've got a conference jerry longshore and chris whitelay are coming out

00:12:52.540 and we're doing it on you know the the household the war for the cosmos and so like by doing that

00:12:57.580 you're you're drawing people's eyes to um your local work not just i'm drawing people's eyes

00:13:03.640 you're with hard man podcast and and king's hall you know and all that you know new christian

00:13:08.160 press. The things that we're doing every single day in the digital verse is drawing people's eyes

00:13:14.900 to our public ministry. But if we're strategic, we want them to see our local ministry as well,

00:13:19.820 because one, we want to inspire people to do that where they are. But two, there are exactly what

00:13:25.640 you said. There's a lot of disenchanted, disheartened people who right now are homeless.

00:13:31.620 and we want to say, hey, here's, Moscow is awesome, but there's not just one city in the

00:13:38.860 entirety of the United States to move to. There are a couple other ones. So yeah, man, the conference,

00:13:43.860 I think doing it in the church the first year is great. Never leave your locale would be my

00:13:49.320 recommendation. Like stay in Utah as close to Ogden or in Ogden as you possibly can,

00:13:55.880 but probably want to be able to have more than more than just a few people come so yeah you

00:14:02.160 probably should entertain some kind of conference center or something like that well especially

00:14:05.840 joel you know if you're gonna come to one of these conferences i mean obviously we're gonna

00:14:10.300 need a bigger venue obviously because i draw people or because i'm fat what are you saying 0.60

00:14:15.900 no you both you're you're a gravitational force you suck people into your orbit joel 0.90

00:14:22.220 no but i really do think that's a fat joke that's a fat joke that is a fat joke yeah and i can make 0.98

00:14:28.340 the joke joel because we're friends but uh it is interesting though you were talking about this

00:14:33.480 like with your people that's the other part is like we really want it to be a blessing to our

00:14:37.900 people one of the main themes and like what we're trying to talk about at the conference what we

00:14:42.680 talk with people about is really about building a tribe and that's going to be like you know

00:14:47.600 Moscow has a strong tribe. They have strong people in the middle of it and in concentric circles

00:14:52.500 working out of who does what. But that really becomes a thing that you're trying to build and

00:14:56.920 export is culture. This struck me years ago, listening to Doug, like you can't fight a culture

00:15:01.960 war without a culture. And so the key thing that we're trying to build here in Ogden, I'm sure you

00:15:06.840 would say the same thing. And the key thing we're trying to export is culture. What's really hard

00:15:11.300 to experience that if you actually don't get to go see it. And I think Grace Agenda was a big thing

00:15:16.820 for so many people for so many years because we would go up there and, you know, the wonderful

00:15:21.580 people at Christchurch would invite you in their home and you would sing the doxology and it was

00:15:25.900 just this rich culture. And then you would walk away not understanding what just happened, but

00:15:30.520 you would say to yourself, I want this. I don't know what this is. I don't know how to replicate

00:15:35.340 this yet, but I want it and I want to go back home and I want to make that. So that's kind of

00:15:40.600 kind of one of the major themes that we're trying to talk to people about.

00:15:44.560 Amen. Yeah. So, um, developing a culture, developing a tribe, um, talk about that. How,

00:15:52.040 how have with the conference, the talk that you did at the conference, tribalism, those kinds of

00:15:57.160 things, but then also like the case study, what you guys are doing in Ogden, um, how, how do people,

00:16:04.320 how do people build a tribe? Yeah, it's a great question. And I think you could answer it in

00:16:09.480 number of ways, a couple of ways that I've answered it is by looking at David in first

00:16:13.740 Samuel 22. So David is, he's this great king to be right. He's been anointed. Saul's been rejected

00:16:23.260 and this is causing problems for him. So the women are actually singing about David. And this is 0.87

00:16:29.820 where the trouble begins. Saul has struck down his thousands, David, his 10 thousands. So it's

00:16:35.040 kind of like that. Hey, you're great. And David's better than you. So there's a rift in that

00:16:40.000 relationship. David has to flee. And so then in first Samuel 22, he goes to the cave of Adullam.

00:16:46.400 And one of the really interesting things that struck me about this was David flees there and

00:16:51.940 some of his family comes, but then you get this group of men that gather around him who will

00:16:56.880 become the mighty men. And it says about these men that they were, they're essentially disaffected

00:17:03.040 men. They're men in debt. They're bitter in soul. And so they come to David, also men in distress,

00:17:10.520 you know. So you think about our cultural context and we're like, do we have men who

00:17:14.220 are disaffected like that? Yeah, they're everywhere. And so, you know, one of the

00:17:19.180 things that I was trying to encourage people is you see a lot of the boomer pastors taking shots

00:17:23.580 at the young guys like, oh, you're trying to work out. Well, let me tell you why you're so stupid 1.00

00:17:26.820 and blah, blah, blah. You know, don't do that. But you can win in this moment. I think that was 1.00

00:17:32.460 kind of one of the key takeaways for me as I was researching this, studying it, is David won men.

00:17:38.300 He was magnetic. He had defeated Goliath. He's high character, high competence guy.

00:17:43.520 All these men come to him for a reason. And so kind of through the talk, I was just thinking

00:17:47.640 about like, okay, how can we encourage guys? How do you be that kind of magnetic,

00:17:51.740 gravitas, high dignity, high character guy that's going to draw people to yourself?

00:17:56.460 And so as you start to unpack this, there's really some interesting things

00:17:59.520 that you start to find one is that every tribe has an inner three right so you you look at even

00:18:06.520 in chronicles when they're talking about more about the mighty men you have jashobim who is

00:18:12.240 at the head of the three is what we're told and what was this guy like well he killed 300 men with

00:18:17.600 a spear so these aren't the losers and the rejects like they're not the guys playing video

00:18:23.440 games in their mom's basement while they're asking her to go get a refill a big gulp refill at the

00:18:28.340 7-Eleven right these are or meatloaf or meatloaf hey we want the meatloaf meatloaf yeah so like

00:18:36.600 these guys are super high cap guys and then david's going to build his tribe around them so

00:18:40.860 you've got david at the top you've got the three you can also then fast forward to you know things

00:18:45.420 like gideon um you've got the 300 that's a historical thing that repeats with the spartans

00:18:51.660 at Thermopylae. The idea behind it all is we don't need 10,000 normie guys who are barely

00:19:02.200 interested in the church or showing up for worship because their wife made them. I need 120 guys who

00:19:07.820 are like the Navy SEALs. And if I can get those and I can start with three at the center and then

00:19:14.180 encourage people to do that, then you can start to develop your tribe. You'll kind of notice this

00:19:18.280 even with a place like Moscow.

00:19:20.760 Moscow has been obviously largely shaped by Doug Wilson,

00:19:24.100 but you get to know the people up there

00:19:25.220 and you're like, okay, there's actually a few guys.

00:19:28.140 You've got the school with NSA

00:19:30.800 and all the people who have poured into that,

00:19:32.480 Ben Merkel.

00:19:33.820 So when you start thinking about,

00:19:34.880 okay, you got music, you got a school,

00:19:36.800 and you've got the church side.

00:19:37.960 So at least three components

00:19:39.440 and then guys who are really able

00:19:41.760 to push the ball forward on those things.

00:19:44.260 We simply, quite simply like stole that model, right?

00:19:47.760 We came back.

00:19:48.640 We've been up there a few times.

00:19:49.720 We met with our people over the years.

00:19:51.480 And it's like, okay, well, I think with Brian, we can do the music and the preaching.

00:19:55.400 I think we can do liturgy.

00:19:57.460 Headmaster Love, I think you can do St. Brandon's Academy.

00:20:00.300 We start building this thing where we've seen success with them.

00:20:03.940 And what do you know?

00:20:04.800 Like as the years go by, it's like more and more people are showing up for these things.

00:20:10.080 More and more people want to be a part of the church.

00:20:11.840 but it all goes back to this

00:20:14.420 core of friends which I think

00:20:16.600 we are talking about this offline

00:20:18.420 but this really becomes a central thing that

00:20:20.460 is kind of strange in all of it

00:20:21.780 at the heart of it all is like me Dan and Brian

00:20:24.180 we're actually friends we have the same

00:20:26.420 mission core principles high character

00:20:28.500 high competence but we're

00:20:30.360 friends

00:20:30.800 that's it

00:20:34.460 just stopping right there

00:20:35.940 I was just

00:20:37.760 I was hanging on every word

00:20:39.360 i was i thought there was going to be more yes oh there's more there's more joel no no that's good

00:20:44.380 no that's good yeah uh having a real friendship i you know so you know we were talking offline

00:20:50.480 and so i'll say a couple of things you know repeat for you yeah yeah for everybody else

00:20:55.260 it'll be it'll be new information to them but one thing that i've learned is you know obviously you

00:21:01.180 need trust a high degree of trust and trust comes through friendship um it does that's that's one

00:21:07.340 way to acquire trust is uh profound uh friendship relationship love brotherly love uh for one

00:21:15.580 another um another way though to acquire trust um this isn't sufficient on its own so don't don't

00:21:22.460 hear me wrong i'm not saying that this is enough um but it matters it does matter is uh you can

00:21:28.000 have two guys who are best friends and lock them in a dungeon and give them one meal a week and and

00:21:33.840 they could be really great friends when they enter that dungeon 10 year friendship and you know

00:21:39.700 after six months there's only one meal per week they're starving you know um they might start

00:21:46.740 fighting and eventually one of them might kill the other dude and eat his meal and maybe eat him too

00:21:51.740 right like my point is that like depravity runs deep and uh and when when resources are scarce

00:21:58.500 um a lot of times and i'm not saying this is a christian i'm not saying it's a virtue i'm not

00:22:03.580 saying it's right i think it's sin so i'll name it for what it is i think it's sin um but a lot

00:22:08.540 of times we start looking out for numero uno we we um are not caring for the affairs of others

00:22:15.120 you know because there's limited there's scarcity and what i've noticed is and i think there was a

00:22:19.800 lot of this in the church planting movement and i and i was a part of this because i was in acts 29

00:22:23.900 and hook line and sinker bought into the you know the whole church planting you know church plant

00:22:28.580 i believe in church planting um but i think man we we spread ourselves too thin right like like

00:22:34.140 we thought like we're gonna you know make a difference by having you know 10 000 churches

00:22:39.060 of 40 people with with pastor lead pastors who maybe could be a lay elder and lay elders who

00:22:46.480 maybe could be a deacon and deacons who maybe could be a church member um and and are probably

00:22:51.340 women you know and uh not even only to a male diaconate and so anyway so all that being said

00:22:56.100 you know, deacon means you're the lead attendant of the parking lot team, you know, and so like

00:23:01.080 we had bad ecclesiology, that's part of it. But also we just like, we lowered all the standards,

00:23:06.060 like at every level, every position came down a rung or two, because that's what you got to do

00:23:14.060 when you're spreading thin. And I've noticed, and I don't think it's a coincidence in God's

00:23:18.460 providence and timing that right off, you know, on the heels of the church planting movement and

00:23:23.400 and a lot of guys being disenchanted by that um you've got what's shining through now and it's

00:23:30.620 finally getting some of the notoriety that it deserved all along but now like people are like

00:23:35.420 yeah i'm a fan five years ago nobody like most of the guys who like doug wilson now did not like

00:23:40.440 him five years ago no you know and so but now everybody's a fan and uh and part of it's because

00:23:45.380 of his courage and you know all these kinds of things uh his even keel you know disposition in

00:23:49.920 the midst of chaos you know he just you know just straight ahead you know he's he's not he's not uh

00:23:55.960 just you know dissuaded by by criticism all this but part of it also is what you said earlier it's

00:24:01.400 the culture it's the team it's the camaraderie it's like yeah doug is you know he he's the father

00:24:06.820 figure there he's the patriarch there's no doubt about that but it's not just doug right i mean

00:24:11.580 you've got an all-star cast that keeps building because it's just it's just sucking in more guys

00:24:17.060 into its orbit it's you know it's like jared longshore um you know and then it's joe rigney

00:24:22.260 and then it's you know some other baptist you know that's going to become presbyterian you know

00:24:25.820 and so like you know and so it's like you know all these guys and you've got you know gabe wrench

00:24:30.800 and his brother aaron wrench and you've got you know i mean you've got a lot of guys you've got

00:24:35.540 chalk knocks you've got and so you've got this all-star team and some of them were were made

00:24:41.660 they were forged right nobody knew their name for 10 years and now we know them but but it like

00:24:46.940 that was a long work that Doug was doing faithfully that made this rock star, shaped this rock star,

00:24:53.080 this diamond out of the rough. And there was a lot of rough. Other guys were already diamonds.

00:24:57.840 Joe Rigney isn't going to, you know, to be discipled for, you know, for 10 years by Doug

00:25:03.120 Wilson before he has a public ministry. He's going with a public ministry day one, hitting the ground

00:25:07.480 on staff, hired, you know, same with Jared Longshore. And so my point is, you look at that

00:25:13.420 And then you look at you guys, you know, so they're the OG guys, but then this new wave

00:25:17.900 of guys who are following that model, Ogden, Utah, you guys doing a bang up job of taking

00:25:22.800 that plan and just replicating it in your own way, in your own context.

00:25:28.940 But we've gone from the, we've got a half decent guy who doesn't beat his wife, you

00:25:33.800 know, and he can preach, you know, maybe a sermon.

00:25:38.440 Let's send them out, you know, in three months to church plant.

00:25:41.600 we've gone from that to um now it's like we're we're like no let's let's actually see if we can

00:25:47.660 if we can fold in a little bit here let's take this guy who right now is like he's in the trenches

00:25:52.900 and he's solid but he's for whatever reason it's not because he's a loser um he's actually solid

00:25:59.620 he's a mighty man one of the three uh but right now he is literally he's killing 300 with his 0.91

00:26:04.860 spear alone why don't we get him over here with eric and brian and dan and and we'll kill 3 000

00:26:11.360 because it's not just like this guy can kill 300 he can kill 300 he can kill 300 and so combined we 0.94

00:26:16.520 can kill 900 no it's exponential it's like combined we can kill like 3 000 and uh and i think people

00:26:22.540 are picking up on that and building teams right now and and i 100 percent affirm it yeah you're

00:26:28.460 absolutely right joel it's a phenomenal point and i think what's happened so the 20th century was

00:26:32.600 dominated i think that if there's one force that dominated american evangelicalism more than any

00:26:37.880 other figure, it was Billy Graham. And it was all like, think about this early Billy Graham.

00:26:43.260 You had crusades, football stadiums, you had Billy Graham. He was really the first

00:26:48.200 televangelist. So TV and mass communication where everything could get just pumped up and

00:26:54.340 promoted at such a massive level. Well, I think most people from the last century are pretty

00:27:00.020 disaffected by that. We've had our celebrity run of people. And I think what people are looking at

00:27:05.940 now is more of an Avengers model. It's like, I don't need just one guy who's going to be

00:27:10.620 really good and he's going to be the guy and he's going to surround himself with a lot of

00:27:14.680 corporate yes-men, managerial class, bureaucracy stuff. So typically what you see and have seen

00:27:22.000 in evangelicalism, right? This was sort of the model, even with Young, Restless, and Reformed,

00:27:28.940 was you would get one guy who was super, super talented. And then he would basically drive away

00:27:34.380 every other talented person from him

00:27:36.140 because he had to be the show, right?

00:27:39.520 That was one of the things

00:27:40.600 like we heard about Driscoll

00:27:41.960 through all the Mars Hill stuff was like,

00:27:45.120 Mark was like, I am the brand.

00:27:47.720 Well, okay, we all saw that.

00:27:51.200 You know, we were young, young pastors

00:27:52.700 in Acts 29 or wherever else

00:27:54.180 while that was going on.

00:27:55.500 And so I think there was a conscious effort

00:27:56.940 like for Dan, Brian and I,

00:27:58.040 where we said, no, we will never do that.

00:28:00.940 It has to be about a team of men

00:28:02.800 who are all high-cap, high-competency guys.

00:28:07.840 One of the stories that I often tell to talk about,

00:28:10.720 what is it like if you can get everybody to row in the right direction?

00:28:14.320 We think about Michael Jordan when Phil Jackson got to the Bulls

00:28:17.480 before they win their six championships.

00:28:20.260 Michael was winning scoring titles, but they weren't winning championships.

00:28:23.820 And Phil told him, he said, Michael, do you know why that is?

00:28:26.680 You're really good, but when the playoffs come,

00:28:29.040 they're just going to triple-team you.

00:28:30.760 He said, what you need to learn how to do

00:28:32.280 is pass the ball to Scottie Pippen and John Paxson

00:28:34.900 in the early years.

00:28:37.020 And so once he started doing that,

00:28:38.620 you couldn't double-team Michael.

00:28:39.980 You couldn't do that anymore

00:28:41.180 because he was spreading the love.

00:28:42.960 He was passing the rock, passing the glory.

00:28:45.380 So that's one of the other features

00:28:46.520 that we've had internal to the team is just saying,

00:28:49.200 you know, Brian is like,

00:28:50.060 I'm happy for you to get glory, Dan,

00:28:52.500 and for you, Eric, to get glory.

00:28:54.980 It's not a fixed pie of glory.

00:28:57.120 There's not like, you know,

00:28:58.400 Brian needs to get his

00:28:59.340 or nobody else gets theirs.

00:29:01.220 But I also think it's that understanding,

00:29:02.920 that core understanding.

00:29:04.460 The book, Tribal Leadership, is really good on this.

00:29:07.600 He talks about, there's a group of authors,

00:29:09.320 but they talk about a level three tribe.

00:29:11.160 Level three tribes will do some good stuff,

00:29:13.320 but it's fundamentally a team of people

00:29:14.780 who say, I'm great, right?

00:29:16.740 They're all saying, I'm really good at what I do.

00:29:19.280 We happen to be in the same building,

00:29:20.700 but it's fundamentally about me making my bones, right?

00:29:24.620 Well, then what is greatness though at the tribal level?

00:29:28.240 what's a level what they call level four tribe level four tribe is we're great we have a unified

00:29:33.300 mission um the things that we talk about here in ogden i i want to be you know the greatest honor

00:29:38.880 of my lifetime will be being buried next to dan and brian you know lord willing like that's my

00:29:44.440 goal let's you know that we say that all the time like i want to be buried next to my brothers

00:29:48.600 it would be an honor and we'll await the resurrection together um this kind of thing

00:29:55.160 though is like, this is how you do something great. I think what people are realizing once

00:29:59.800 you get the vision for Postmill Christendom, right? Rebuilding Christendom, you start to realize

00:30:05.300 I can never even make a drop in that bucket. If it's me pastoring on an Island, no matter how

00:30:12.200 successful I am, I have to build this. What I think a lot of people are understanding. I have

00:30:16.400 to build institutions. I have to equip other men. Like it's going to have to be this grand

00:30:21.420 work at a grand scale that Billy Graham can't do. He cannot do that by himself, this single

00:30:27.860 individual guy. So that's the other encouragement that I try to tell people is, listen,

00:30:32.640 there's a lot of really hyper-talented guys out there right now and they're still doing the lone

00:30:37.520 guy thing. And it's going to actually be hard for them to want to step away from that because

00:30:42.140 they're stepping away from money and power. But it's like, listen, if you learn anything

00:30:47.460 from any of this just just realize like it's the core to three strands right now you're one strand

00:30:52.820 yeah you can be great individually but if you really want to be a part of building new christendom

00:30:59.300 you're going to have to join forces with other guys and and be that you know three strands in

00:31:04.340 the core now now it's unbreakable right amen and part of it also i think is like the world has

00:31:10.400 changed quite a bit with you know just the the fact that you can have a podcast and you can be

00:31:15.800 on youtube and you can you know you can do this and do that and you can build a network like like

00:31:20.020 there was a time where part of the reason why you didn't want to build an avengers team is because

00:31:26.020 at the end of the day whether the church is a hundred or a thousand in terms of numbers there's

00:31:30.500 still only one lord's day and one pulpit right so if a guy wants to preach there's still only 52

00:31:36.660 weeks in a year um you know and and so but now it's it's different like you're going to preach

00:31:43.460 some um at refuge church you know but um but you can be sharing the pulpit with brian he's he's

00:31:48.540 going to preach more um you know dan might preach from time to time you know but um but here's the

00:31:55.080 deal there's uh there are other platforms there are other teaching opportunities outside of simply

00:32:00.020 the lord's day homily that's a unique that's a game changer um and so my point is that like

00:32:05.540 it's not even you said like one guy maybe he you know if he's a one-man show he may not want to

00:32:09.800 leave that because you know there's probably prestige and notoriety and even money or whatever

00:32:14.880 involved yeah but here's the thing uh because of the way that the world has changed in the

00:32:20.360 providence of god with this great post-millennial hopeful eschatology um he doesn't necessarily

00:32:26.060 even have to leave that right you you moved to ogden and you took hard man podcast with you

00:32:30.900 you're still doing it and and then you also like you guys started another podcast with the king's

00:32:36.700 all. So now you've got your solo podcast, then you've got your collaborative, you know, work

00:32:40.920 over here. And then Brian's doing the thing with his wife, you know, and, and then, you know, you

00:32:45.020 and Dan have done a couple of things together, you know, and now it's, you've got the high

00:32:48.620 strangeness where the deacon, you know, he gets his shot, you know, and God bless him, Ben Garrett,

00:32:53.340 you know, and so, um, and, and it's awesome. It's glorious. And there's still only 52 weeks a year.

00:32:58.520 There's only one pulpit. There's only one church, but, um, but it's like, okay. And podcasting is

00:33:03.180 just one one way of looking at it but then it's like okay but let's take it our podcast game from

00:33:07.640 just you know podcasting to what if what if we had a publishing arm like like and it's legit let's do

00:33:13.200 this new christendom thing um and what if another guy like his platform it's not the lord's day's

00:33:17.460 sermon um but it's uh what if he's teaching k through 12 classical education and training

00:33:23.060 warriors for the next generation to slay giants and and dragons right and so then boom kevin love

00:33:29.100 You know, and like, and so, so it like having that, that, and what I'm getting at is this, 0.67

00:33:34.240 I think pietism killed us thinking that the only thing that mattered was the church. 0.94

00:33:39.840 And the only thing that really matters for a man is preaching, right?

00:33:42.860 Like if you're not a preacher, then, then honestly, you should just trust in Jesus and

00:33:48.420 die, you know, because there's really no point of living because preaching is the only glorious

00:33:53.160 thing there is.

00:33:53.720 And this all of Christ for all of life, like we're, no, we're going to take back academia.

00:33:57.680 We're going to take back the arts.

00:33:58.940 we're going to take media we're going to take medicine like my lay elder so we're we're two

00:34:03.200 years in right so like i just want to say as a disclaimer some people might be thinking eric's

00:34:07.320 saying some stuff and you know but joel's kind of like a like right response only has joel you

00:34:11.260 know and is joel one of the guys that eric's talking about well i'm like right response is

00:34:15.280 two years old we like we got our we hit our stride and and launched in april 2021 and also

00:34:22.620 planted covenant bible church the church that i'm the pastor of in april 2021 so we're 26 months in

00:34:28.440 it's a new endeavor because i relocated from california my theology was changing i was moving

00:34:33.900 getting out of california embracing post-millennial eschatology all this kind of stuff so it's a new

00:34:37.940 endeavor uh but even the one lay elder that i have right now who is an awesome man connor hensley

00:34:43.180 godly man um he's not sitting there hoping um for a job uh at at the church and he's also not

00:34:50.860 sitting there praise god hoping that you know that i kill over or make some mistakes so that

00:34:54.920 can take my job. And I know what that's like. And that's what I was getting at earlier is trust 0.95

00:34:59.560 comes from deep friendship. It also comes, trust also comes by two guys both having their own meal

00:35:06.380 and not having to share one. So it's like, if you're building a dream team, you don't want to

00:35:11.920 do it with 23 year old men who not only have they not achieved anything in ministry, but beyond just

00:35:18.540 that, these guys, they haven't achieved anything in the work world at all. They literally don't

00:35:23.760 know how to make money. So they're looking to the church, not just because they feel a call

00:35:27.760 towards vocational ministry, but this is their only chance at even getting a job and providing

00:35:34.080 for a family. If that's the lay of the land, the guys that you're looking at, those are not your

00:35:40.220 three mighty men. They may be the disenchanted, the disgruntled guys who are in the cave, in that

00:35:46.700 larger number of 120 men, right? Guys in debt. But the guy in debt is not the guy that you want

00:35:53.060 on staff at the church um the the guy in debt is not you dan and brian you know you probably you

00:35:59.620 might have a few guys in debt who are members in good standing in the church and you're working

00:36:03.620 with them and you love them and they're growing and they're repenting and all these kind of

00:36:06.900 but they're but that's not your um avenger team right and and so my point is um one it takes time

00:36:13.340 like for us we're two years in it it takes time for for some and i'm having conversations with

00:36:18.160 guys who have achieved something in ministry they wouldn't just be coming and hanging on to my

00:36:22.140 coattails, they've got their thing and they'd be bringing it with them, you know, and coming to be

00:36:26.660 an associate pastor, even possibly a co-pastor situation, all those kinds of things. I think

00:36:32.060 that that's awesome, but you have to find the right guy. And, and, and I told you this offline

00:36:36.860 because we've had conversations just in our friendship, you know, and I picked your brain

00:36:40.100 about this, but it's almost like a Venn diagram that I'm not even positive. These two circles,

00:36:45.380 they either overlap so narrowly, like just the edges, barely kiss, or they're just next to each

00:36:53.880 other and don't overlap at all. And if that's the case, I'm going to be just heartbroken. I'm

00:36:58.000 betting the house that they overlap and it's just a small overlap. But the two circles are as

00:37:03.160 follows. The guy that I want to come and join Right Response and Covenant Bible Church, be my

00:37:07.540 co-pastor, come on the network of Right Response, have a podcast, we collaborate, he's got his own

00:37:12.060 thing i've got my own thing boom you know uh my first avenger you know and then and like so there's

00:37:17.780 a guy i want that's one circle the other circle is the guy who will come so a guy that i want

00:37:24.300 but then the guy who is willing to come and again i'm thinking if these two circles overlap it's

00:37:30.540 just barely because there's guys that like like i'm just gonna say i'm gonna say it publicly and

00:37:34.960 i know i know he won't mind because we're friends he's on the board with right response he and he

00:37:39.800 he knows I'm, you know, but I, I have, I have pleaded a couple of times offline with 80 Robles

00:37:45.060 to come and, and 80 Robles would be awesome. He would be bringing his own thing, not just in the

00:37:51.860 world of ministry with his own podcast, the 80 Robles show, you know, those kinds of things he'd

00:37:56.240 be, you know, and drawing more people to the church. Cause he's got gravitas, all this,

00:38:00.060 he's got experience, pastoral experience, all these, he's got courage. He's got spying,

00:38:04.080 all those kinds of, he could baptize babies for me. We can practice baptismal Catholicity, 0.53

00:38:07.740 you know lowercase c the whole nine yards um but not only does he have that he also has his own

00:38:12.540 own business outside of ministry he owns his own business he sets his own schedule he makes money

00:38:17.940 he's not a loser is what i'm saying by god's grace he's not a loser um there's a whole bunch

00:38:23.780 of guys that i i could send out an email today and say would you come and be my associate pastor

00:38:28.440 and they would um but that's because they haven't done anything and then 80 robles is the one you

00:38:35.340 know one of the few guys that i want and it's very unlikely he's going to come um because he's

00:38:43.080 content he's content you know like so so it really takes now now that's not to discourage myself i

00:38:50.560 feel like i'm discouraging myself so i need to give myself pop a quick white pill i don't want

00:38:54.720 to discourage myself or anybody else who's trying to do what you guys are doing in ogden or what

00:38:58.700 doug did in moscow what i'm trying to do here um in georgetown texas i i think that it's it's god

00:39:04.480 is sovereign and and sometimes you like god has to make that happen i think i think it's um

00:39:09.880 one i think some guys need to catch this vision this tribal vision and i want to go back to you

00:39:15.140 to talk more about that also though in god's providence some guys will catch the vision and

00:39:19.380 so they'll they'll they'll even though they're content and they love where they are and um

00:39:23.760 they'll be willing to pay the cost to move because they see the the value the high um exponential

00:39:29.800 value of joining forces that's how some guys will move because they'll see the value they'll catch

00:39:34.300 the vision. Other guys will move because they weren't really, they were so content and even

00:39:39.880 seeing the benefits, they weren't willing to do it. But the Lord in his mercy will push them out.

00:39:45.640 Not because they're losers, not because they can't succeed, but the Lord will orchestrate

00:39:50.860 things in such a way that they're like, all right, like some guys, it's not that they are lost,

00:39:57.600 they will succeed themselves out of a job because they're so successful and so faithful and so

00:40:02.980 courageous, they will be warmly asked to leave or they'll see the writing on the wall that

00:40:07.420 eventually they'll be warmly asked to leave. And so they'll go ahead and get ahead of it

00:40:10.540 and just, and just make the transition and, and, and boom, you'll get your first adventure like

00:40:15.400 that. So anyways, what do you think about some of those things? Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely

00:40:19.000 right. I agree with the pietism. Um, you know, Joe Boot has written about this, I've covered it, 1.00

00:40:23.800 but churchianity, you know, this concept that the only thing that we exist on earth to do is build

00:40:29.580 the church well then you're going to get if you get high cap guys that go to the church they're

00:40:34.760 all competing for that number one spot right because they're told that the only thing that's

00:40:38.740 really valuable ultimately is being the head pastor well that's a pretty truncated world so

00:40:43.540 then okay you say that's a problem but but then one of the other problems quite honestly a lot 0.71

00:40:48.620 of churches don't attract high cap guys in the first place because the pastor is gay and the 0.94

00:40:53.620 church is run by women. So in that scenario, they're kind of like being a successful businessman 0.68

00:41:00.000 is actually kind of seen as dirty. So you're like, well, I guess I'll just, you know, kind of come to

00:41:04.440 church and, you know, hang out with my lodge buddies or whatever. And I'll spend most of my

00:41:09.120 time on business with my business partners, because these are the guys that are actually

00:41:12.840 building culture. And so you just kind of stay away from the church. The church isn't really

00:41:16.960 involved in any of those activities. So I think definitely that's why we're trying to reclaim

00:41:21.380 a lot of the stuff that we do in our church and building our culture, it really does come down to

00:41:26.060 we have a lot of businessmen in the church. We encourage them. Yeah, go start that business.

00:41:30.760 Go start that real estate investment company. Start the auto business, whatever. And then we

00:41:36.660 have a lot of people who are actually investing in that too. Sometimes at small scale levels,

00:41:41.560 sometimes not. But you need that so that a lot of high cap guys have owned space that they can play

00:41:48.760 in the pasture in and around the church too, which is going to be your community. Cause that's

00:41:52.860 what we're trying to build. Uh, going back though, to the talent, you know, this is something that we

00:41:57.700 often miss, uh, how many churches and how many people listening will have this experience where

00:42:03.320 you say, well, we don't really have any qualified men, but here's what we do have. So let's just

00:42:08.140 make it work. And then you, like you said, you start, you start promoting guys to different

00:42:14.540 positions and they're not really qualified for any of them. So now you've got, I think,

00:42:19.340 probably in America, at least 50%, that's on the low end, at least 50% of churches in reform camps

00:42:26.700 of unqualified or disqualified men in leadership. Well, that's going to be a huge problem in terms

00:42:32.760 of attracting, retaining, and training other highly qualified men. But then go back to things

00:42:38.280 like, okay, on the flip side of that, what if you did have qualified men? Think about the teams that

00:42:43.420 win championships so i was thinking about the colorado avalanche last year uh they won the

00:42:48.100 stanley cup and uh it was a kind of this funny post cup hoisting interview they asked the captain

00:42:54.240 gabe landeskog they said gabe how did you guys do it how did how are other teams going to replicate

00:43:00.340 the building that you did and he goes oh it's really simple he goes just go find another kale

00:43:04.860 mccarr one of the greatest defensemen in nhl history and he's like third year player and he's

00:43:11.060 right. Jim Collins hits

00:43:12.960 this in good to great. You have to get the right

00:43:14.960 man on the bus. And so

00:43:16.840 what I would say is behind

00:43:18.700 this is the other piece of this

00:43:20.440 behind every great team are great

00:43:22.780 recruiters. There are

00:43:24.720 a GM or there's

00:43:26.820 somebody, you know,

00:43:27.640 with the Bulls, you had the same thing with

00:43:30.900 Jerry Krause. Like he

00:43:32.680 the guy works tirelessly.

00:43:35.260 I don't know how he did it. Look

00:43:36.880 at the Dallas Cowboys in their heyday. What happened?

00:43:38.920 They make a big trade and they get one

00:43:40.920 draft and they've got Michael Irvin, Emmett Smith, and Troy Aikman. That's ridiculous. But why did 0.92

00:43:46.480 they win? Because they had great talent. They had great people. They had the right people on the

00:43:50.680 bus. So I would encourage guys to spend a lot of time doing the networking thing. You're going to

00:43:56.200 spend a lot of time and it's going to be fruitless. But ultimately, as you said, you have to believe

00:44:03.520 that God is going to bring the right people to you. And then for the people, maybe there's

00:44:07.560 people listening to say, maybe I would go join Right Response Ministries, but I don't know.

00:44:11.920 Here's what I would also say. When I was making the decision to move to Ogden, Utah,

00:44:17.440 I happened to be preaching like the past year through the book of Ruth. And so this had been

00:44:22.980 on my mind. You know, the book of Ruth, you have Naomi in the beginning. She's Mara. Call me bitter.

00:44:30.060 You know, life is rough. There's been a famine in the land. And she says, what do you do? Your

00:44:35.620 family's dead. You have like no prospects. What do you do in that scenario? Well, she turns her

00:44:40.640 gaze and her eyes to the house of bread and they're in the house of bread in Bethlehem.

00:44:45.220 God has lifted the famine. And so I was thinking about this and I was saying, you know, we don't

00:44:50.560 get to pick who's anointed. We don't get to pick the places and locations where God is blessing.

00:44:55.080 What we do get to decide is how to respond to them. Right. So that was really one of the first

00:44:59.900 things I did. I looked around and I said, where's God blessing? So we entertained Moscow and we

00:45:03.560 entertained Ogden. And you could look at both situations and say, God is clearly his hand of

00:45:09.160 blessing is upon these places. Man, I wish it had happened at this other place where I was,

00:45:14.280 but it wasn't there. So I've got to go to one of the places where it is. And so that's what I would

00:45:19.520 encourage a lot of people. You can look at your ministry, your church, and you say, look, God is

00:45:23.680 clearly doing something with right response and with Joel. And you say to yourself, well, if you

00:45:28.340 don't have that where you are, find one of the places, go visit, go talk to the pastors.

00:45:33.580 Maybe you're the right guy. Maybe you're not. Maybe you're in the 120. Maybe you're in the

00:45:36.400 three, the inner circle. Either way, you go where the blessing is.

00:45:41.320 Amen. That's a really good way of saying it. Yeah. It's worth moving for. And it's kind of

00:45:46.200 funny because I think literally the last time you and I did a show together, I think the last 15

00:45:52.360 minutes of that episode was basically like lovingly rebuking men for not being willing to

00:45:59.060 move if they don't have a solid church and just say yeah it's costly yeah it's gonna hurt and

00:46:03.600 yeah there's gonna be sacrifice and yeah it's gonna be hard and blah blah blah and yeah you're

00:46:06.860 gonna have to figure out work and you have to figure this out and figure that out but what's

00:46:10.320 the alternative that you you stay you stay in your blue progressive you know

00:46:16.720 kid trans in state you know or city and uh and your wife you you make her like you're already 0.54

00:46:25.640 paying a cost right your wife you like the guy who's listening to this if this is you you know 1.00

00:46:30.980 i'm talking to you right your wife is already having to work out of the home because you can't

00:46:34.920 afford um the cost of living where you currently live you know like that is a cost you know or

00:46:40.540 um you you don't have a solid church or you have a church and yeah it's this reformed technically

00:46:45.760 reformed baptist church but they're pietist right and uh and they they have not seen the profundity 0.95

00:46:52.700 of uh of christian nation gooder than transing kids which is a profound statement but they can't 0.81

00:46:58.680 see it right they are so steeped in pietism they they don't have a clue um right that like like

00:47:04.000 your pastor just shared with you uh this afternoon the article that john piper you know just put out

00:47:09.620 about how nations you know should be christian but not too christian you know and uh like yeah

00:47:15.320 that is a cost you are like you may not even realize it but the question is it's like you

00:47:20.280 can you can always see when it comes when you're debating making a change yeah i think it's a lot

00:47:25.040 easier to see um the cost that's going to have to be paid if i make this change it's easier to see

00:47:30.740 the cost you will pay if you do a new thing than the cost that you're currently already paying

00:47:36.080 by by staying the same by doing the old thing we don't like we're we're aware that if uh if if i

00:47:42.540 sign up for this subscription, it's going to cost me $10 a month. What you're probably not aware of

00:47:48.340 is that you're already signed up for 17 different subscriptions, 13 of them you forgot about,

00:47:53.640 and you're actually paying. Like my wife and I, this is a funny example, but like we discovered

00:47:58.660 a couple of years ago that we had four Amazon accounts. And I'm like, oh my God, I am single

00:48:03.480 handedly funding, you know, funding the antichrist, you know, and like, so, you know, but like four,

00:48:10.020 because you start one and somehow I forgot about it, you know, and I don't even know how it's

00:48:15.280 possible. I literally still to this day, I don't know how it was happening, but Amazon didn't tell

00:48:18.940 us. They weren't going to help us out, you know? And so they were just taking, you know, our four

00:48:23.280 different, you know, pay and we, you know, you set up your auto pay and blah, blah, blah. And so

00:48:26.920 that's a silly example, but my point is like, we're all, we're life, life costs something.

00:48:32.280 It's going to cost something wherever you are. And a lot of times we can see the cost up front

00:48:36.280 for the new thing if we make it change, but we don't see the current costs that we're paying

00:48:40.920 by remaining the same. And so like right now it's like, well, we don't have to move or,

00:48:45.320 you know, we're already in, you know, in a house, you know, or, or we've got this,

00:48:49.300 or our kids are in a school. Okay. Okay. That's great. Um, and you know, but what's your church

00:48:54.760 really like? Uh, what's that school really like? Uh, how many hours is your wife having to work

00:48:59.880 out of the home? Um, how, you know, like all, all those questions being considered. And then it's

00:49:04.320 like, okay, if we moved, maybe we'd lose this, this, and this, but what would we gain? Right?

00:49:09.280 We go to Ogden, Utah, and we've got like a baller school, baller church. We've got this,

00:49:13.720 we've got that. You know, if we go to Georgetown, like our church, we're starting, you know,

00:49:16.920 St. George classical, you know, we're going to fall 2024 next year. We're doing an interest

00:49:21.180 meeting this Saturday with the members in our church. And we've, you know, we've filed the

00:49:25.280 bylaws and all that. Like, so there's, you know, there's something there. You go to Moscow and it's

00:49:29.120 like, all right, you've got a school, you've got a college, you've also got, you know, like you've

00:49:32.800 got everything. And so it's like, yeah, like there's a cost to making a change, but there's

00:49:39.360 also a cost to staying the same. And a lot of times that cost is actually higher and we don't

00:49:44.280 feel it. Yeah. Big time. I remember Pastor Dan telling me that I was deliberating on the decision

00:49:49.040 and I said, I don't know, moving is a risk. And he was like, staying is a risk. Everything's a

00:49:53.420 risk. I mean, there's risk all around you. I think the question is which ones, which ones do you want

00:49:58.540 to choose. So we kind of have this internal office joke where Dan will always say, it's usually to

00:50:04.900 me, but Dan, Dan will be like, I don't want to offend you accidentally. I want to do it on

00:50:10.220 purpose. And so it's kind of our friend joke, but it's true. It's like, I want to, I want to pick

00:50:16.080 the risk, right? I want to pick the situations where I get to decide which risks. And I think

00:50:20.880 there's a lot of it too, for people where you're saying, you know, you've heard the saying like

00:50:25.980 better is the devil you know than the devil you don't um every situation is going to have trials

00:50:30.520 and so people well but i know what they are here i will also say this just as a point of

00:50:35.260 encouragement for like why tribe is so powerful i guess this is the case for a powerful tribe

00:50:39.780 i didn't realize in fact like how bad my past situations were until i left them and then we

00:50:46.900 came to ogden and it was like oh the world is painted in color not black and white oh like

00:50:55.540 things we hadn't experienced in a long time, like robust friendship, you know, just hospitality

00:51:01.520 within the church on a very ongoing basis, healthy families, healthy marriages. And so once you got

00:51:07.400 to be around those for about a year, it was like, I could easily say after the first year here and

00:51:13.080 far before that too, but especially after the first year, I would tell people, looking back,

00:51:19.100 I would have given anything to come here. I would have given up my job. I would have given up

00:51:25.180 doesn't matter because people are always like yeah but i got a business i got this thing and

00:51:28.980 i'm like if you don't have a robust church and a robust community here's the deal you get one life

00:51:34.980 it's pretty brief pretty brief like people aren't going to remember you anyway but what legacy or

00:51:41.240 do you want to leave you know one of the things that horrifies me the most you hear these stories

00:51:46.140 of like single people who get to like 40 and they're like we can't have kids now

00:51:51.180 and it cuts me Joel because I think your legacy is dead forever right forever and I don't want

00:51:59.880 that and if I am going to leave a mark in a community if I'm going to leave a mark in my

00:52:04.100 people I have to join a tribe I have to join a tribe of other great men doing great things

00:52:10.340 and so I was kind of looking at it I'm like okay you know I'm 35 years old at the time and

00:52:15.940 you know okay how long ago was it how many years has it been since you moved since we started

00:52:21.780 thinking about the decision it's been a couple well we've been here a little over a year and a

00:52:25.560 half um so yeah just looking at it you're like okay i maybe if i make it to 70 i got 35 more

00:52:32.660 years you know 40 years who knows but that's not that long you know the the first 35 went really

00:52:39.520 fast and so you're saying to yourself like how how can i actually do something that's going to

00:52:45.580 be worthwhile. And I think connecting men to that too. Here's the other thing I'd say about

00:52:49.340 building a tribe. Dan has said that repeatedly in just like private conversations, but he's like,

00:52:54.980 you know what I never anticipated is with the King's Hall and with the Hardman podcast,

00:52:58.460 all the stuff we do. He's like, I think our biggest success is we've been winning the hearts

00:53:03.200 of men. We didn't even know that that's what we were doing, right? We're winning them locally.

00:53:08.340 But when people come here, like we had men at the conference who were like, you have my heart.

00:53:12.740 I want you to know that. And we were like, wow, that really, like I just met you, but they know

00:53:19.020 you so well through the shows and through the things that you're teaching because nobody else

00:53:23.580 is giving them that. And so that's kind of the other thing that I always tie together in this

00:53:27.400 conversation. You want to build a great tribe, great tribes. We talk about high competence

00:53:31.920 leaders. Fundamentally, it's really two things. You have to be extremely courageous, right? Wise,

00:53:37.780 all that, but you have to be extremely courageous in the way that you communicate.

00:53:40.620 and number two you have to speak to the taboo right you have to speak to the taboo the things

00:53:47.240 that we talk about are the things that no one will touch one of my favorite on the courage front

00:53:51.620 stonewall jackson right he's tactically aggressive when everybody else is retreating i think we have

00:53:57.120 to do that on issues like sexuality right to exactly what you're saying uh i started the

00:54:02.020 hard man podcast because i was like why is everybody blowing this down for retreat like

00:54:06.860 we can win this uh it's it's battleground that we should be proud to claim um so that's part of it

00:54:14.720 is saying okay we need to attack when others retreat uh but the other one is often forgotten

00:54:19.500 one of the great tacticians of the civil war was robert e lee and most people forget that he was

00:54:25.520 in the army corps of engineers and his main job was he was an as an engineer he he was the one

00:54:32.220 who picked the battlefield. So he knew where the best positions were. So I think one of the things

00:54:37.260 we have to do if we're going to be effective as tribes, think about David. I mean, this is

00:54:42.000 masterclass in guerrilla warfare, hit and run, wear the enemy out. You have to be the flea that

00:54:48.160 wears the dog out. That's how you beat a greater enemy with more resources. This is how the Taliban

00:54:54.580 destroyed the presence of the U.S. in Afghanistan. I like to make the comparison. I said, you know, 0.91

00:55:00.880 it's interesting global homo lost i think the gospel coalition and tim keller their way of life 1.00

00:55:06.540 is losing and yet the taliban won and it would be wise to sit back and say why was that you know 0.89

00:55:12.860 a big part of it was because you know zealous passionate yes all those things uh but they were

00:55:19.640 they they knew their battleground right and for them it was physical as well as other things but

00:55:25.400 they played to their people who you know they understood better than we did all those sorts

00:55:32.340 of things so it's like you think about what we did um many of us on social media across several

00:55:39.080 years we were just the flea under joe carter's skin we were the flea for ray ortland we were the

00:55:45.940 flea for beth moore and russell moore where are those people now they're not in our camp most of

00:55:52.000 them, many of them are not even on social media. If they are, they're like completely outed as

00:55:55.720 leftists, feminists, you know, Beth Moore preaching, right? The thing that they swore 0.99

00:56:01.020 up and down, she would never do. Uh, same with Amy Bird. What are they doing now? Okay. So it's 0.99

00:56:05.840 like, this is how you win. Uh, when I was a kid, my mom would always tell me, she said, Eric,

00:56:12.060 you have a rare gift for getting under people's skin. And, you know, she told me though, she said,

00:56:18.360 as a wise mother, she said, you have to learn how to use that for good, though. Like, make sure you

00:56:22.860 use it for good. But this is fundamentally guerrilla warfare. This is what David was so good

00:56:27.860 at. And I think it's what we have to get good at as well. We don't have the most resources.

00:56:32.560 You know, the ability, though, of media and podcasts, as we say all the time, we're like,

00:56:38.940 we're constantly out punching our weight class. People be like, so how big is your church? Like

00:56:43.420 10,000? And we're like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, Sun Tzu said that you should, one of the arts of

00:56:50.020 warfare was to make your enemy think you were bigger and different and in a different place.

00:56:54.120 And when you're not well-armed, make them think that you're well-armed, you know, you want to

00:56:57.440 confuse them, right? Deception is warfare, right? So a lot of it we're not even trying to do,

00:57:03.360 but you look at that and you're like, okay, this is the kind of tactical perspective that we have

00:57:08.040 to have about this fight i agree yep so picking your fights punching above your weight class

00:57:14.680 i think that's really good and picking your team and not doing it alone and not spreading yourself

00:57:21.660 too thin i think yeah i think that was one of the major failings of the church planting

00:57:27.200 churches planting churches kind of thing that act 29 was big on gospel coalition was big on a lot of

00:57:33.020 guys were big on and um and i was big on it i was in x29 i drank the kool-aid i was like hey we're

00:57:38.420 gonna you know and so all of a sudden what you're doing is you're raising up way more leaders than

00:57:42.180 you actually have you're calling you're saying we've got 10 leaders when you really have like

00:57:45.980 three and the other seven are wearing a title that that uh is not helpful it actually does

00:57:52.000 more harm than good because they're they're not they're wearing a title in a uniform that they're

00:57:56.400 not uh that doesn't fit um they're not actually qualified for it and then and then you're sent

00:58:01.800 you know if you actually do send out a church plant you're sending out suicide missions

00:58:05.160 right you're sending out a guy who who has been you know you've humored him as though like this

00:58:10.120 guy you're man you're a pastor you're a shepherd you know and all solid exegesis brother that was

00:58:15.660 a great sermon you know when he preaches once a year you know and then you send them out with

00:58:19.940 10 people to plant a church and two years later he's got 10 people planting a tree and you know

00:58:24.680 you're sending them out to die it's not loving it's not and uh so saying no no no you know right

00:58:30.540 now, the enemies at the gates, there are different times. There are different times in the war right

00:58:34.940 now. I think we're living in a moment. Sons of Issachar, they know the times. I think the time

00:58:38.960 right now is fall back. And that's not a feckless retreat. But I fell back from California. I'm

00:58:47.380 saying, you know what? We'll take California in 50 years. But right now I'm going to make sure

00:58:51.660 we keep Texas. And so fall back temporarily. This works politically. It works theologically.

00:58:57.600 you know but fall back even at the church level and and get some alliances join join some forces

00:59:04.600 and uh and build something uh formidable like a force to be reckoned with like what you guys are

00:59:10.860 doing in ogden there's a reason why people you know you're punching above your weight people

00:59:14.600 think oh the church must be you know 1500 people or so whatever and it's like you know um because

00:59:20.380 it's like well surely it is to have three leaders of this caliber because that's part of why people

00:59:25.380 think that it's it's the amount of production how much you produce how much you put out in your

00:59:28.740 public facing ministry but then it's also the number of leaders people look at you they look

00:59:33.080 at brian they look at dan now ben you know in haunted cosmos and they think if they've got four

00:59:37.300 guys of that theological caliber and that grit and that gravitas uh and they're thinking that you

00:59:44.700 know the church planting world they're thinking four guys like that um that's yeah yeah it must

00:59:49.980 be a church of 1500 because sadly and and this is the thing i'm saying building all this up to say

00:59:55.580 it's kind of sad sadly that's what it would have been if if you had four guys back in the the

01:00:01.220 driscoll days you know in acts we would have planted five churches that's right you would

01:00:05.060 have planted five churches by now you know planting one church a year and and we and we

01:00:09.160 would have said it as though it was this like glorious thing and do otherwise would be selfish

01:00:14.300 yeah or fearful or you know like hoarding of research like we demonized it we called it sin

01:00:19.540 we did like we called it we called it sin we would like 10 years ago in the church planting

01:00:25.820 world we would have said what you guys are doing at ogden utah is sin yeah hoarding resources

01:00:31.440 yeah and and so then what happened we got our butts kicked is what happened and and yeah i

01:00:37.540 mean not much of those pastors are even around they're not yep and not successful if they are

01:00:44.220 so we want to learn from that all right well i think this has been helpful any final words

01:00:48.360 or final thoughts eric yeah no i i think uh especially like i would just say even

01:00:54.160 you know we talk about building a tribe but one of the other things that's really important is

01:00:58.800 something that you know you and i and and brian and dale other michael foster a lot of us have

01:01:04.600 worked on too is is also the intertribal building um building up new networks of people um just

01:01:11.060 really through friendship a lot of it doesn't even have to be official but definitely encouraging

01:01:16.360 guys to you know don't act like you're the only game in town because you're not and um you know

01:01:23.120 i learned this early on in you know several years ago you might be the only game in your literal

01:01:28.060 physical geographic town yeah you might be but not in the proverbial town there is the town of

01:01:34.080 new christendom yeah you are not so yeah even like michael foster uh very early on when i started

01:01:40.480 it was actually before I had started the Hardman podcast, he had reached out to me and he was like,

01:01:45.680 hey, how can I help you? How can I promote you? And I was like, yeah, what's the catch? Like,

01:01:48.940 what do you want from me? And he was like, I want to help you. You know, I think you're,

01:01:53.080 you know, you have a good voice and, you know, you can speak to a lot of these issues. He

01:01:56.940 encouraged me to start a podcast, get active on Twitter. He gave me a lot of trade secrets about

01:02:01.700 what he did and how to be effective, how to network. And a lot of that has shaped my ministry.

01:02:07.780 So just being really gracious with giving toward other people, building up, not acting like it's a fixed pie of glory that you have to take from other people to have yours.

01:02:16.900 But instead, as we all kind of give to one another, I'll tell one final story that I found really interesting.

01:02:23.220 We had Toby Sumter at the conference and I was speaking with his wife.

01:02:28.460 And it was just such a joyful thing.

01:02:30.820 I got to share this.

01:02:31.640 She said, you know, my son is listening to your podcast.

01:02:34.860 And that's really cool.

01:02:36.100 You know, their now grown son is really, and so he had asked his dad like, hey, have you

01:02:41.100 heard of the Hard Men podcast?

01:02:42.340 And he's like, as a matter of fact, I'm speaking at their conference this weekend.

01:02:45.800 But it was funny because I said, you know, the whole reason I started the podcast was

01:02:49.640 I went to a conference and Toby was speaking on masculinity.

01:02:53.440 Wow.

01:02:53.980 And so just to see like-

01:02:55.560 Full circle, right?

01:02:56.360 That's awesome.

01:02:57.460 In God's wisdom and dispensation, his love for building up the church and his bride,

01:03:01.480 that's what happens when you give your gift away.

01:03:03.480 So just encouraging guys.

01:03:04.700 the best way to network, the best way to bless the church, give your gift away as often and as

01:03:10.780 well as you can. And those are the things God uses to build these networks and tribes of men.

01:03:17.360 So yeah, give the gift away. Don't be withholding because when you do that, you're robbing the

01:03:23.340 church. So just give, give generously and God will supply you more seed for sowing.

01:03:29.040 Amen. Eric Kahn, thanks.

01:03:31.160 Absolutely, Joel. Thank you.

The NXR Podcast - July 11, 2023

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Why The Church Planting Movement Is Failing ｜ Acts 29 & The Gospel Coalition w Eric Conn

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