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Transcript
[00:00:03] Remy: I would love to just keep geeking out with you all night.
[00:00:08] Chris: Anytime.
[00:00:09] Remy: Chris, welcome to the show, man. Thank you for being here.
[00:00:12] Chris: Thank you.
Glad to be here.
[00:00:16] Remy: So I think we have a pretty comprehensive talk tonight. I’ve got my show notes up here in front of me. We have a pretty comprehensive talk tonight about all sorts of things, I guess just your own sort of journey to Lutheranism and then to, you know, leading your family and. And, you know, father led faith formation, things like this, which is wonderful and something I really want to discuss. Overall.
[00:00:47] Chris: I. I actually grew up in the ELCA Lutheran Church.
[00:00:52] Remy: Okay.
[00:00:53] Chris: Which wasn’t the nightmare that it is now, but it was still. I mean, you know, we had some female pastors, like, associates growing up. Right. And I remember even back in Sunday school, you know, my, My teacher would take biblical stories and try to give scientific explanations for things. And so, you know, I. I remember one time she had this story how, you know, Moses led the Israelites across to the Sea of Reeds rather than the Red Sea, and that it was much easier to cross.
And so, you know, my teenage mind, I was like, well, you know, that doesn’t really solve your problem because then you have Pharaoh and his armies drowning in a shallow sea of reeds.
[00:01:45] Remy: Yeah.
[00:01:45] Chris: So one way or the other, you know, something miraculous had to happen.
And it. It was definitely miraculous that I kept my faith during that time because, you know, it just. It seems like everything was going against it. But as. As I grew up, I. I started to question infant baptism. That was probably the. The biggest struggle I had.
And I decided I wanted to go look for a different church because I just didn’t like the direction the ELCA was going. Sure. So I ended up at a Mennonite Brethren Church, Anabaptist.
And there, I mean, they welcomed me in.
And it. It’s still a church that I love the people there. And, you know, there’s a few guys that I’ll meet with every week for Bible study. So, you know, I keep in good contact with them. I. I actually just saw the pastor that church about a week ago.
But over the course of, like, the last or the. The. I was there about 17, 18 years, and I just struggled with this idea of someone being baptized and saved as an infant. And it. It got to the point where my main struggle was, you know, when do we enter into this covenant? You know, do you enter into the covenant upon baptism as a baby or upon profession of belief? You know, because Jesus had talked about being born again. So I was like, well, you Know, if you’re born again, that means that at some point you make a decision for Jesus. And is that the point that you enter into the covenant?
And that’s.
[00:03:43] Remy: That’s fascinating. If. I’m sorry to interrupt, but if I could. Why.
I mean, why is that the conclusion, you know, that if you’re born again, it means you must make a decision. And I don’t know, maybe it’s just my own post Lutheran mind, like, now that I’m like a Lutheran, I can’t wrap my mind around that thinking. But, like, you didn’t make a decision to be born, why would you make a decision to be born again?
You know, it’s weird that at the.
[00:04:17] Chris: Time, I mean, you’re.
Well, you’re led through this idea that baptism is your public profession of faith. It’s your first act of obedience. So it’s. You look at it entirely from the perspective of this is something I’m doing for God instead of something God is doing for me. And I think that was sort of the key thing that had to open up in my mind was realizing that, hey, baptism is not my work. It’s the work of the Holy Spirit. And then, you know, the thought of what a beautiful picture it is that an infant can be brought into the kingdom having done no works on their own. Yeah. So they. They truly can’t boast, you know, because their. Their salvation was entirely a gift of God. And I. I guess once I started seeing it from that perspective, you know, the.
It. It started getting a lot. A lot easier. I started seeing baptism, you know, pretty much everywhere in scripture. And yeah, you know, Chris. Chris Roseborough was probably one of the keys to that because, I mean, it’s kind of a long story. But, you know, one of my business partners that I went into business with was an atheist.
And it’s funny, the other business partner was Jewish. So it kind of sounds like the beginning of the joke when you have a. A Christian, an atheist and a Jew going into business together.
But he and I, the atheist, we’d get together and play chess every. Every week or a couple times a week, especially, you know, once, you know, once we went into business for ourselves, you know, he could find excuses to take breaks pretty easily. So every time we got together, we’d get into discussions. And I mean, he’s super intelligent guy and he’s an honest guy. So when we’d have discussions, he’d actually think about stuff.
[00:06:30] Remy: Right.
[00:06:31] Chris: And so over the course of time, you know, he eventually came to faith, and he ended up joining a Lutheran church.
And so he was the one that introduced me to Chris Roseborough.
And at the same time, well, I listening to Chris and I got to tell him this at the issues etc. Conference. I was, you know, it’s is. It’s not often that you get to, you know, go up to someone who’s had such a. An influence on you and actually let them know, hey, you’ve had this influence on me, especially without sounding really corny.
But the thing that he really helped me with was the idea that God had means of grace that he used even in the Old Testament.
[00:07:27] Remy: Yeah.
[00:07:27] Chris: And so, you know, he talked about, you know, Naaman being baptized, and so I had to really go back and study that. That passage.
[00:07:36] Remy: Yeah. And you know what?
[00:07:37] Chris: You know, you come to realize Naaman not only got healed from his leprosy, but he came to faith. And what an amazing, you know, thing that was. And of course.
[00:07:49] Remy: What’S amazing about Naaman, I’m sorry, in that story in particular, is that the healing for him is an afterthought. Right. It’s not even the primary thing.
[00:08:01] Chris: Right.
[00:08:02] Remy: He comes up out of the water and the first thing he says is, surely your God is God. You know, like, amen.
So sorry.
[00:08:12] Chris: Anyway, well, and then.
No, well, I mean, the. The thing is, is the fact that the Lord, you know, made him use the Jordan river instead of the rivers in Damascus. You know, there was nothing magical about the Jordan river itself. So it’s obviously the Lord’s, you know, word upon the water.
And.
And then, of course, you know, Moses lifting up the bronze serpent.
[00:08:38] Remy: And you said, there’s nothing magical about the drilling river. You said, there’s nothing magical about the Jordan river in and of itself. There’s dispensationalists everywhere right now losing their mind.
Like, all the people at the church I grew up in are like, wait, there’s a disturbance.
[00:08:57] Chris: Yeah, I know. I have friends that take great pride in the fact that they’ve been baptized in the Jordan River. And I mean, nostalgic wise, I.
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn’t call it a baptism. I’d be like, okay, I went swimming in the same place that Jesus got donked.
[00:09:17] Remy: I wouldn’t mind waiting in it, you know?
[00:09:19] Chris: You know.
Yeah, I figured I already got re baptized once. I don’t want to do that again. I kind of feel. I kind of feel like Timothy, you know, getting circumcised and baptized. Well, I was baptized, you know, twice.
[00:09:35] Remy: The Mennonites re baptized you.
[00:09:37] Chris: So, yes. In order to join the church, you had to be re baptized.
I looked at it as a. Since it was a public profession of faith, that was an opportunity to invite my non Christian friends and relatives and we got to do it in a lake.
When I was getting baptized, there was a thunderstorm. So that was interesting.
[00:10:02] Remy: Wow.
[00:10:02] Chris: You know, I kept thinking the entire time I could be going home right now too, in the spiritual sense.
But yeah, being baptized in the lake is, it’s kind of a cool experience. You know, nothing to take away from the baptismal font inside the, the nave of the church, but definitely the lake with everybody, you know, standing on the shore. You know, there’s, there’s a, a nostalgic experience to it. I think one of the, the issues though is then you can only get baptized when it’s warm out. And you know, generally there’s only a couple times, you know, a year that groups of people could be baptized. So it’s like you’re pushing it way off.
[00:10:51] Remy: Yeah.
[00:10:52] Chris: You know, where I, I think, you know, if someone’s going to get baptized upon profession of faith, well, it should be, you know, soon after profession of faith.
I remember, I mean, that was one thing that.
Oh, go ahead.
[00:11:09] Remy: Sorry. That’s all right. I remember one time, me and my buddy Quentin and his wife Megan and my wife, we were all at my house and we’re going through the small catechism together because they had just gotten married and she was a Christian but wasn’t quite sure or maybe she wasn’t a Christian. He was kind of feeling it out and she, I guess, kind of wanted to be, but wasn’t sure where she landed on everything.
Maybe nominal Christian sort of background. But they were over at our house and we were going through the small catechism together and we just like literally started at the beginning and just worked through the whole small catechism over dinner in a couple of hours and it was like 8:30 at night.
And she, we get to the end of it and she goes, this makes sense. This seems true to me. I’ve never been baptized. How can we do that? And so I called my pastor, Joe, and I said, hey Joe, my buddies are at my house right now and his wife wants to get baptized. How soon can we do that? And I’m asking Sundays out, like which Sunday in the future can we plan this for? How soon can we do it? Joe says, can you meet me at the church in 15 minutes?
And so that’s what we did.
[00:12:29] Chris: That’s amazing.
[00:12:30] Remy: We packed her up in the car, we drove over to the church. And it’s like 8:30, 8, 45 on like a Tuesday night. Nobody else around, just me, my wife Quentin and Megan and Pastor Joe. And we baptized her right then and they’re good to go.
[00:12:47] Chris: That’s amazing. Yeah. See, and I remember as an elder in the MB church, getting into an argument with the other elders over baptism because, you know, first off, you know, my son, he professed faith at 7 and I really wanted to get him baptized. But in the MB church, they, they treat baptism as almost in the same way as the Lutheran Church treats confirmation, where you, you have to go through a baptism class, you have to fully understand what baptism means, you know, and if you don’t understand the faith the way that they think you should understand the faith, or if you don’t profess it right. Well, then they, the elders reserve the right to deny you baptism.
And, and I argued with them. I was just like, well, where is that in Scripture? Because I said, quite honestly, if Philip was sitting next to the Ethiopian, you know, and the Ethiopian points to the lake and says, you know, why should I get baptized? I was like, man, if Philip was midnight brethren, he’d be like, well, you know, first off, we have to gather the elders and they have to determine whether or not, you know, enough to get baptized. And we’re looking probably next spring.
[00:14:12] Remy: Not to disparage because they’re faithful men. They are faithful men and they are acting according to their conviction. But it’s funny to me that like, I’m sure a large amount of this, we have to make sure you understand what baptism actually is and what it means before you get baptized. I’m sure a large amount of that curriculum is actually teaching people how to read away what the Bible says baptism actually is, you know.
[00:14:42] Chris: Well, and also just the ability for a seven year old to stand up in front of the congregation and give a testimony for why he, you know, believes what he believes is. I don’t, I don’t know too many seven year olds that can do that. Yeah, but I knew his, I knew his faith was sincere.
He got particularly convicted over James 2:10. You know, as far as if you have kept the entire law but sinned at just one point, you’re guilty of breaking all of it. And so that was sort of the first time that he really, you know, realized that, hey, I, even though I, you know, haven’t done tremendous sins in my life, I have still fallen short of the glory of God.
[00:15:31] Remy: Wow.
[00:15:32] Chris: And so his, the only thing that he could say is, I want to be baptized, because I want to be part of God’s family.
And, you know, I, like I said I had to. I had to keep arguing in order to get him baptized. But I’m glad, you know, they finally relented because that would, you know, we probably would have left the church if.
[00:15:52] Remy: Yeah.
[00:15:53] Chris: If they hadn’t.
[00:15:54] Remy: How old is he now?
[00:15:57] Chris: He’s gonna be 18 next month.
[00:15:59] Remy: Amazing.
[00:16:00] Chris: So, yeah, he’s. That. I don’t know if you remember the. The picture of he and I with Chris Roseborough and.
[00:16:07] Remy: Yeah, I did see that.
[00:16:09] Chris: So he’s the incredibly large young man that was sitting on or standing on the other side of Chris Roseboro. He’s.
Yeah, he’s about 6 to 250. He’s gonna be.
[00:16:19] Remy: That’s awesome.
[00:16:20] Chris: Left. Left guard this year for his high school football team.
[00:16:25] Remy: Amazing. So, yeah, I was in band.
[00:16:30] Chris: Yeah, I was. I was a journalist major, so I, you know, I was on school newspaper. And that was. That was how I got dates, you know, because I. I used to write puff romantic pieces for the school newspaper.
[00:16:51] Remy: My biggest fear is that I’m going to get a call to a congregation one day where the main, like, cultural cohesion of everybody in the congregation is like the local sports team or like sports ball, and I don’t know anything about sports, and I’m going to be like, oh, my gosh, I have to learn football right now.
[00:17:12] Chris: Well, he’s. He’s thinking about going to either Concordia Chicago or Concordia Seward, and he’d really like to play football.
[00:17:23] Remy: Yeah.
[00:17:23] Chris: So, you know, I guess wherever he can have the opportunity to play football. I like the idea of Seward because, like, everybody in Seward seems to be a big fan of the football team, but he wants to be a pastor, so.
[00:17:38] Remy: Oh, that’s great.
[00:17:39] Chris: I think having a big hulking lineman for a pastor could be. Could have its.
[00:17:44] Remy: I think it’s wonderful. I think it’s wonderful. I think we need. I think we need more men like that guarding the sheep. I. I love it. I’m down for it. I think. I think the times. The times are a come.
[00:17:57] Chris: Grew up even. Even when we were at the MB Church, he was going to a Lutheran day school because we just couldn’t, you know, take putting him into the public school. And so that was, you know, one of the few schools that we knew about that was K through 8, which was pretty reasonably priced. And I didn’t know a whole lot about Lutheran doctrine at the time, but, you know, I was like, well, you know, it can’t be too bad.
So it for any of those churches that have the schools that are wondering whether or not their schools, you know, have an impact. They have an impact because, you know, by the time he was, what about 6th grade is when we decided to make the transfer.
[00:18:47] Remy: So, so how did you, by the.
[00:18:50] Chris: Time he was in eighth grade, I was actually teaching at the school.
[00:18:54] Remy: How’d you end up Mennonite brethren? Like, that seems like, that seems like a weird place to land, just in general.
[00:19:04] Chris: Oh, man.
Back in the day before, they had like match.com and some of those, they had services that you could call up, you know, to get matched. And there was, there was some, some Christian dating service. And I was single that I just decided to give it a call because I wasn’t, you know, as a computer nerd, you just don’t go out and meet people.
And the young lady that I talked to on the phone that was trying to sell me on this service, I wasn’t about to buy the service because I found out it, you know, cost more than the, the car I was driving. I was like, this is just, you know, I’m not going to, I’m not going to pay that kind of money for something.
[00:19:52] Remy: I’m going to be honest. I was really, really hoping that this was, like, this is how I met my wife, and she was Mennonite brethren. I was really hoping that’s where we were going.
[00:20:04] Chris: No, but she, she turned out to be local and she invited me to her church, and this was her church. And the thing that I got impressed with was that the pastor seemed excited to actually see me, you know, the church I had grown up in. I don’t think the pastor even knew my name, right? And, and they were just very welcoming. So, you know, I, I acclimated to them really well. And then, I don’t know, I, I, I, I’ve always had some kind of a gift for teaching. So, you know, I started out in their college and career Sunday school class because they didn’t know where to put me and ended up teaching the class. And the next thing I know, I was teaching the adult Sunday school class. And then, you know, once I got married, then they asked me to be an elder, and so elders got to preach sermons. So I was able to preach sermons.
And, you know, that’s, that’s pretty much how I got into it. I was one of the Bible studies that I led at that time.
A friend of mine convinced me that I should, you know, start jamming with him and a couple other Guys from the Bible study. So we started playing in a Christian band, and, you know, next thing you know, we.
We. We toured as far as Topeka. So I guess that’s about, you know, an hour away, so.
[00:21:34] Remy: Nice.
[00:21:35] Chris: That was our claim to fame. We got to play at Starlight Theater in Kansas City. We were playing in what they call Rock the Light, which was like a big Christian rock music festival.
And we didn’t get to share the stage with Casting Crowns, but Casting Crowns was at that. That festival. So we felt like we’d gotten some type of fame. But.
[00:22:02] Remy: Right.
[00:22:03] Chris: So while I was there, I, you know, I played harmonica and sang on the worship team.
And I think that was. That was one of the things that kind of led to the beginning of the end because, you know, eventually they started, you know, playing worship music that Chris Roseborough was actually talking directly against, you know, with Hillsong and.
[00:22:25] Remy: Yeah.
[00:22:25] Chris: And Bethel.
And when I raised objections to that, I got scolded for raising the objections. Wow. You know, one thing about playing harmonica is that, you know, people look at that as, you know, if you ever want someone to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, you start playing a soulful harmonica piece in the middle of a Christian song. And I guarantee you, people will come up after that, and they will tell you, oh, I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit.
So that made that. That really kind of.
[00:23:00] Remy: No, ma’am. That was the blues.
[00:23:03] Chris: Right. Well, it just made me uncomfortable because I felt like instead of worshiping as a congregation, you know, we were creating, you know, 300 different individual worship experiences. And so then you had people that, you know, they’re like, oh, can you guys play this song? And it’s like, man, we’re not taking requests. It’s not. It’s not a concert.
[00:23:23] Remy: Right.
[00:23:24] Chris: You know, it’s supposed to be our time of worship.
And the first time that I actually went into the Lutheran church that we ended up at and participated in the worship service, you know, I was like, man, this is. This is congregational worship. This is. Yeah, this is how it’s supposed to be.
I don’t know. You talk about how I met my wife. I did meet my wife in one of our. Our concerts. So she was a groupie.
She’s probably. She’s probably gonna watch this. But, yeah, she was a groupie. She came up to me after.
After the concert and you guys for.
[00:24:09] Remy: Your last show and a half.
[00:24:14] Chris: And. Well, I mean, that. That. I figured the whole experience was worth it if it got me to be able to meet my wife.
[00:24:22] Remy: Amen And.
[00:24:23] Chris: And she was. She was going to the Midnight Brethren Church, but she. She grew up Catholic, and so she.
She had to get baptized in the Midnight Brethren Church as well. And. Wow.
[00:24:37] Remy: Yeah.
[00:24:38] Chris: I think she just did it because they asked her to. I don’t. I don’t think.
I don’t think it was. I think she. She had a more orthodox view of Baptist baptism than I did at the time.
[00:24:53] Remy: It’s crazy, man. It’s like.
It’s like, you know, my wife is a Catholic, and I’m like a super extreme Anabaptist Protestant, and we wish there was a tradition that met in the middle, and it’s like, boy, howdy, wait until I tell you.
[00:25:13] Chris: There you go.
Yeah, well, like I said, if it wasn’t for the school, you know, we wouldn’t have been introduced to the church. And so then I, you know, I met with the pastor, you know, several times, and at that point, I think between my conversations with him and just reading and listening to issues etc, and, you know, just Christian radio in general, you know, I’m one that I can, as I’m programming, listen. Listen to podcasts. So I. I think a lot of that just kind of seeped in over time, and whenever I learn something new, I have a tendency to want to teach it to someone else.
So that it stands to reason that, you know, I like teaching Sunday school. And.
[00:26:12] Remy: So you ended up. You ended up teaching at this Lutheran school.
[00:26:18] Chris: Yeah.
And were you still.
[00:26:22] Remy: Were you still Mennonite Brethren or had you gotten all the Way Lutheran at that point?
[00:26:27] Chris: I. I had gotten all the way Lutheran. So it was.
[00:26:30] Remy: Take me through. Take me through getting to all the Way Lutheran real quick.
[00:26:36] Chris: Okay. Well, when I finally had the epiphany about baptism, and then, you know, we had these. These struggles with, you know, being scolded for the music that we were playing. And I. And I felt like, you know, I really can’t continue on on the worship team.
And I just. I got to the point then where when I. When I met with the pastor, I was like, I think we’re ready to switch. So, I mean, this is a big deal because we. We moved, you know, because we. We’ve always thought that, hey, you know, whatever church we go to, we want to live right by so that we can be involved in it. So we moved across town, and, you know, I had to go through adult catechesis, which it was kind of funny because, you know, I. I knew everything going into it, so it was sort of a matter of just kind of you know, going through and getting green lit, and, you know, I was so excited just to be able to take communion because, you know, that as far as I’m concerned, that was then my first real communion experience. You know, that was.
That was the first time that I, you know, was able to receive Christ in his fullness, you know, and that.
That was a powerful moment for me, you know, but maybe it’s because of the relationship I had with the pastor, but he. He just kind of vouched for me along the way. So, you know, we were probably members of the church for about four months before they made me an elder.
And then, you know, we had the senior pastor at the church leave. And the one that I. I was friends with was the associate pastor. And so I used to help with the adult Bible class.
And once Covid hit, I lost every single programming project that I had for the year. So everybody’s budgets completely dried up, and they’re just like, oh, I’m sorry, you know, we can’t move forward with this. So I had nothing going on. And the.
The eighth grade teacher took a job in Indiana. So he was the last male teacher at the school.
And so it was actually my wife that suggested that I teach, because she’s like, why don’t you talk to the principal and see if you can teach the religious class, the religion classes for middle school?
And.
And I was like, well, you know, give it a shot. Maybe we can trade it for tuition. And my. My son was a eighth grader at the time, so I got to teach his. His religion class.
[00:29:39] Remy: Oh, wow.
[00:29:40] Chris: And, you know, the.
The pastor vouched for me, and they, you know, went ahead and said I could teach. I don’t. I don’t know that.
I don’t know that that’s a usual. A usual circumstance. And I’m sure it wouldn’t happen anywhere else. It just was sort of.
Everything kind of came together with it, and.
[00:30:04] Remy: Amazing how God does that.
[00:30:06] Chris: Yeah. And I guess the way I pitched it, too, was, you know, I was sort of tangentially going through Pastor Bender’s Lutheran Catechesis book, where I wanted to focus on the scriptures associated with things, because to me, you know, scripture is always where I connect to the most. You know, I. I love the catechism, and I always make sure that, you know, we. We cover all the doctrines in the catechism and that we read in the catechism.
But, you know, the scriptures have the narrative, and I think, you know, especially among the youth, you know, they. They connect to the Narratives of scripture, you know, when people can actually become real, then.
[00:31:06] Remy: Right.
[00:31:07] Chris: Some of these doctrines that you talk about, you know, they actually take on life.
So I wanted to make sure that as we went through the catechism that we were connecting it with scripture. And I think, you know, Pastor Bender’s Lutheran catechesis book does that really well.
So I did that for the seventh graders and for the eighth graders we did sort of a comprehensive dig into to Peter in his ministry. So we studied First Peter, second Peter, and, and then of course Mark and Portions, Acts.
And the, the primary memorization for the 8th graders that year was to memorize the full book of First Peter because, wow, First Peter is one of those books that has about every, every piece of doctrine that you’re ever going to deal with. And it’s, it’s, it’s not, you know, as far as books go, it’s, it’s not a hard one to memorize.
So, you know, the way, the way I figured it is that if they get that committed to memory, then, you know, they’ll, they’ll have all those different doctrines locked away.
But I wanted to make sure that they really got to know Peter and, and through that, you know, have a deeper understanding of Christ.
[00:32:35] Remy: Yeah.
How long did you teach for?
[00:32:39] Chris: But, yeah, I got to, I, I taught for a couple years and then, you know, I started getting busy again with programming and they at that point had hired another male teacher. So I do, I just think it’s, it’s really important to have the, the male influence in the school. You know, it’s, it’s harder and harder to find, you know, male teachers.
And you know, I thought it’d be a little bit, you know, different for the kids too because, you know, I wasn’t, I wasn’t a typical teacher. You know, since I have spent my life out in, in the business world, you know, it’s like we could actually talk about real world things.
[00:33:27] Remy: Right.
[00:33:27] Chris: And it’s kind of shocking, you know, even in, in a Lutheran school, you know, where the kids are at on some of these subjects. You know, the, the seventh grade class in particular was a, a real struggle because, you know, a lot of them spent a lot of time in front of Tick tock and so they just had taken, you know, I don’t even know how they, they got there, but you know, the, they were fully on board with, you know, abortion and they were absolutely shocked, you know, when I called it a sin.
You know, it’s, I, I definitely stirred, stir the pot, you know, and Bringing up, you know, some of the subjects.
But it’s, it’s important because you can find out exactly where they are in their faith just by, you know, the worldview that they’re presenting.
[00:34:32] Remy: Yeah, did. So that led you to being the catechist at your church, the being a middle school teacher?
[00:34:44] Chris: Yeah, well, I, as. When my son went through catechism, I was a parent helper. And then when the, the senior pastor had left, the associate pastor, I, I just sort of tagged him with him.
[00:35:07] Remy: Yeah.
[00:35:08] Chris: And then the church kind of hit some, you know, financial difficulties and they decided that they could only have a senior pastor, that they couldn’t have the associate pastor. And so they, they hired an interim to come in and the interim kind of undermined the associate pastor and pushed him out.
And so I ended up being sort of the sole catechist for a while because the interim pastor lived about a half an hour away. He didn’t want to come back.
[00:35:43] Remy: Why wouldn’t the church just hire the associate to be the senior? He’s already there.
[00:35:49] Chris: I, that was, believe me, that was something that I really had wanted to happen because.
[00:35:58] Remy: That’S, I mean, that’s so upsetting.
[00:36:00] Chris: They didn’t feel.
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s actually crushing because they, they had no cause to fire him. You know, they had no cause to vacate his call. So instead of, you know, taking those kind of actions, they cut his salary way back.
And it was all, you know, in the, the name of, they wanted someone that was more dynamic. You know, someone who are you select had some more application to them.
No, that was, I’m shocked. That’s the toughest thing is because, like I’m saying, well, I’m someone that, you know, would never think about changing churches. You know, it’s like the one time I changed church, it’s because I had a fundamental change in my view of theology.
[00:36:52] Remy: Right.
[00:36:53] Chris: And, and so then I figured that was going to be the church we’re going to be at forever. And so when they did this, I’m just like, well, you know, I’ve been led to believe that you guys think that this is, you know, the, the pastoral call is, is not just a call to the ministry, but a call to a specific congregation. And if that’s true, what you’re doing is undermining the call of God.
[00:37:15] Remy: Yep.
[00:37:16] Chris: And so in this meeting that they, they had to cut his salary, I stood up and said, you know, gave an alternative plan in which, you know, we could afford to, to keep him as the senior pastor and get rid of this interim. And, and so then everybody kind of turned on me and next thing I know, you know, it’s like I’m no longer teaching adult Bible class. I’m no longer teaching, you know, at the school. And they, they at least let me finish out the year as a catechist because, you know, the kids already lost their pastor. I was like, you know, they can’t lose their, their catechist as well.
[00:37:59] Remy: It’s so I wonder, I mean, not, not that it would have gone over honestly any better, but I often wonder because I hear about situations like this all the time where these kinds of, like the politic of the church happens, right? And, and people get sort of pushed out in this way. And I always hear about like, like what you did, you stand up and say, hey, look, here’s an alternative. But it’s not what the people want. And very rarely do I ever hear. And I, I don’t think it would necessarily be any more effective, but I wonder what it would, the outcome would be like if someone had just stood up and been like, hey guys, what we’re doing here is wrong. And there’s judgment for this.
There’s judgment for this. You know, you’re, what you’re doing, what you’re doing is against God and he will judge you for it. If not here, he may, you know, this church may prosper and you think you’re doing wonderful because of your prosperity, but your, your prosperity is in spite of your disobedience, not because of it, you know.
[00:39:10] Chris: Yeah, and I, I, when, when we resigned the church and I resigned the elder board, that, that was pretty much how I left it. You know, I just, I didn’t think that the church could move, move forward and heal unless they, everyone, you know, repents.
And you know, I, I couldn’t believe that they were so willing to, you know, crush someone who had served the church for.
He was, he was there for at least 20 years, man. And no, I not touch. I mean, he’s a dear friend. So, yeah, you know, I, I, I couldn’t see that. You know, I had a real difficult time just having that happen to my friend and my sense of loyalty and, but fortunately there, there was a, another LCMS Lutheran church, that spot just a half a mile away from there. And the associate pastor ended up attending there before he received his latest call.
And so we, we went over there as well. And so this pastor and the pastor of that church, they both have been really instrumental in, in propping up Dominic, my. My son, you know, and helping him, you know, solidify like, you know, what ministry looks like, especially that, you know, they. They have a very biblically masculine view of what. What a man should be in. In Christianity, you know, so, you know, it’s. It’s not. It’s not like the, what. The Andrew Tate people, you know.
[00:41:06] Remy: Yeah.
[00:41:07] Chris: You know, it’s like we draw our masculinity from Christ himself. You know, he’s. He’s the quintessential male.
[00:41:13] Remy: Amen.
[00:41:14] Chris: And.
And so, you know, the. The pastor of this church is not afraid to. To speak up when things need to. To be said.
It’s very.
It’s. It’s more formal than I’ve ever been used to, you know, so I. I love it. I mean, the. The regard for.
For the. The sacrament is. Is much higher than I had ever experienced. You know, it. It seems like among the. The popular pastors, they. They tend to rush through the liturgy, you know, and communion, where, you know, they speed through the words of institution. You know, where the church that we’re at now, you know, it’s like you actually, you’ll. You’ll bow for portions of it. You’ll join your flag for portions of it. You know, it’s.
It’s taken with ultimate reverence, you know, that’s what should be, I think.
[00:42:27] Remy: So right now. And this podcast is probably not going to air anywhere close to right now, just so you know, but right now I happen to be going through a class on catechism and teaching the catechism. We read this book by Charles Arand Arend. I don’t know. I have read half a dozen of this man’s books now in my seminary education, and I have yet to be impressed by any of them.
Charles, if you’re listening, you don’t have to pad the word count in your own books, buddy.
They’re just. He’s just. He just. Golly, he just has to keep on writing.
And we read this book that he wrote on catechism and, and like, the history of the catechism and modern. Like, the way the modern catechesis works. And like, basically what I took away from this book, and it’s a very short book, but what I took away from it is that catechism was really, really, really effective until Christianity became legal.
And then after Christianity became legal, catechism just kind of went to crap. And it’s impossible, basically, to catechize even the clergy, much less the laity.
How do you. How do you catechize kids? How do you do it? How do you do it in a way that, you know, it sticks?
[00:44:01] Chris: I mean, you have to start young first off, you know, and that’s with memorization. You know, Dominic was involved with Awana when we were at the other church, which, you know, anytime I hear somebody memorizing, like, one verse at a time and like, disparate verses and they become their life verses and stuff, I roll my eyes. You know, it’s. I. I can’t. I can’t stand to have something in my brain that’s out of context. You know, it’s like I have to know, like, right. Where does this fit into everything?
But when you’re talking about little kids, they. They can’t figure out how it fits into everything. So the best thing for them to do is just get God’s Word in their heart, you know, so memorizing the catechism, memorizing scripture, by the, by the time they get to be in elementary school, you know, that. That becomes like a really easy exercise for them to do.
And to me, once they have all that information, you know, locked in their brain, you know, then as they start, you know, getting to, I don’t know, maybe fourth grade, they, a lot of times will have the. The logical capabilities to start making some connections.
So, you know, when that, when that stuff is locked in their brains and they start making connections later on, well, then suddenly all. All of that scripture that they know and all that catechism that they know suddenly has meaning.
[00:45:43] Remy: Yeah.
[00:45:44] Chris: So we, So I, I’m seeing the fruits of that now, you know, as far as now, now that I have a high schooler.
[00:45:52] Remy: Yeah.
[00:45:52] Chris: You know, his, his capacity for, you know, theology is incredible at this point, you know.
[00:46:01] Remy: Right.
[00:46:01] Chris: I’m. I’m always excited, you know, when, When I can ask him, you know, questions and he actually gets, like, the nuances, a particular passage.
And I. Part of being a catechist is you, You. You teach in such a way where you, you ask questions, because even if they don’t know the answer, at least the neurons are firing. And so they’re thinking, you know, when they, when you get to the answer, that they have a better chance of holding on to it. And if they’re able to get the answer, it locks it in.
[00:46:34] Remy: Yeah, it’s. You know, it’s funny through. Throughout the course of this class, and I’m about halfway through right now at the time of this recording, that’s basically what we’ve. The conclusion we’ve all come to is that you start young with Getting them to just learn it, you don’t have to understand it, you don’t have to know what it means. You just need to be able to repeat it at the drop of a hat. It just needs to be in here somewhere, locked away that you know, it’s. And once you know it as you get older, then we can work on like basic application. And then once we go from there from basic, like first order application, the fourth commandment, I’ll obey my parents means obeying mom and dad. We can get this when we’re 8, 9 years old, that’s fine. As we get a couple of years on from that, we can sort of go second level application to teachers and my friend’s parents. When I’m at my friend’s house, I have to obey his parents, right? And, and eventually. So like the idea is lock it in when they’re young and then we can teach them application and as they get older, we can abstract that application further out, you know, into sort of the world until, because, you know, you, you do have to be developed, I think, to a certain point. I mean, I don’t think this is just scientific fact. You have to be mentally developed at a certain point to be able to conceptualize abstract ideas apart from yourself. You know, things like the future tense, you know, and delayed gratification, you know, these sorts of things. But the ability to abstract out the Ten Commandments or the Apostles Creed and how do we apply these things, you know, in our life anyway? Yes, start young. It’s the, the, the amount of, the amount of work that people do in creating catechetical literature and catechetical programs to try and get into two middle school years. What is actually a lifelong diligence study and application is mind blowing. And it’s never shocking that it doesn’t work.
[00:48:55] Chris: On the thing that’s sad to me is that a lot of parents think that they’ve done their job just by taking their kids to confirmation class or, you know, taking their kids to church and Sunday school.
And they don’t, you know, feed into them the rest of the week.
And you know, I generally give them homework, you know, which it’s rough. And I feel for the kids having to do, you know, regular school work on top of doing confirmation homework. But the way I did it, I always did it so that the parents had to get involved, you know, so when they did memory, you know, instead of having them recite memory to me, which I think can be completely nerve wracking for young people, I assign that task to their Parents, you know, And I said at the very beginning, like, obviously, you can lie to me and say that your kid knows the scripture, right? If they don’t, but what good is that, you know, what’s the point of taking your kids to confirmation if you’re not going to actually learn the scriptures that are required, you know, So I trust between us and God that you’re doing the. The role of helping them get this memorized and checking off their memorization.
So it was a matter of trying to relieve the stress of the kids and yet get the parents involved. I always wanted the parents to be there, so I forced the parents to sign up.
So I had to have at least one parent at every single class, you know, and, you know, part of that’s discipline. You know, you want. You know, kids tend to behave a little better. One of the parents is there, but it’s also so that the parents can listen because, yeah, they need it, too. And you’d be surprised at how involved, you know, when the parents, like, when all of a sudden their ear perks up and they’re learning something and they’re interacting with it. Then next thing you know, they’re making comments and they’re involved in the class. You know, that’s.
That. That’s what you want. Because, you know, hopefully then when they’re driving home, they can have a further discussion about, you know, whatever it was that we talked about.
But yeah, I think that’s the thing that probably shocked me the most, is the lack of parental involvement.
[00:51:35] Remy: Yeah, and it’s. And it’s honestly one of the most, I think, important factors in catechization specifically is parental and familial involvement.
A funny aside, we have one of our guys in the seminary alts is in Mexico, and where he’s at, the Catholic church down there charges for confirmation, and they charge a significant amount of money. So you. You pay and it’s like, it’s a deposit and like, you know, you get it back mostly or whatever. And, you know, they have a whole way that it’s not, you know, simony or whatever, but it’s. It’s still, they charge a significant amount of money. And his Lutheran church was able to grow by simply charging less money. They were offering it for free, but no one would come because, you know, for whatever reason, I pursued value. But when they started charging but less money, then people came because it’s a deal now it’s a deal. And he said that they had amazing parental involvement because the parents are like, look, we’re shelling out $300 for this thing. You’re gonna know it, you’re gonna learn it. And he said their church has just grown by leaps and bounds. And also like the Catholic Church, you get the money back at the end or whatever. But it’s. Yeah, he said that, that was just, it was one of the ways that they were able to get parents involved was by charging. Because now that the parents, now the parents have something on the line here. They, you know, they have their money on the line. And you want, you know, your kid needs to pass the catechism because you’re paying good money for it.
[00:53:29] Chris: Wow. Maybe. Maybe that’s what I’m doing wrong. Cause I don’t charge for anything, you know.
You know, I, I always figured I, I don’t want to hinder the gospel. So, you know, everything that I write, I have out there on my blog and, and people can read it and, and I still hope that, you know, people will have it in their heart to buy the books.
But, you know, I, I think, I think sometimes, you know, the, the books are. It’s a different experience. You know, some of the Bible studies that I teach, you know, we’ll use the books and, and reading from the book is, is a completely different experience than reading online. But I just didn’t want to hinder it so that, you know, if somebody wants to be able to go online, you know, they can do it and, and, you know, use it as a resource.
I mean, I, I mainly, mainly started it, you know, for my family.
[00:54:25] Remy: Yeah.
[00:54:27] Chris: When Covid.
[00:54:32] Remy: Let’s dive into this. Let’s dive into. Well, there is one point on the outline here that I actually want to hit before we dive into father led and like, family faith formation before we get into that, which will probably be the rest of our discussion. I think I do. An interesting point on the outline we have is that you also taught high school Bible class at the Mennonite Brethren Church, and the comparison between the youth there that went to public school versus the youth in the Lutheran school, Lutheran Church.
I’m just curious about that.
[00:55:16] Chris: Well, the big difference is you’re more focused on apologetics and faith establishment than you are with getting into the finer points of Scripture. You know, I, I still, you know, God’s word does its work. So we spend, you know, most of our time in God’s Word. But, you know, when you start asking questions of high schoolers that are public school students, they have a tendency to have, you know, different kinds of questions.
And it’s, it’s unfortunate, but you know, there’s. Several of the kids started getting into, like, the transgenderism that was.
There’s a. I. I know three or four of the girls that, after they left high school, you know, decided that they were guys.
And I was like, man, I.
I don’t know what they were picking up in school or online or whatever it was that.
[00:56:28] Remy: Yeah.
[00:56:29] Chris: You know, was making this.
It just. It just seemed incredibly unusual to me.
And so I. I don’t know. I guess I. I had a much lower expectation, and I was. Especially in. In the Mennonite Brethren Church, since baptism is viewed as this. This thing that you do when you’ve reached a certain level of faith and you want to profess this faith. You had a lot of the kids that were not getting baptized because they would say, well, I’m just not sure that I’m ready to make that commitment.
[00:57:15] Remy: Wow.
[00:57:17] Chris: And. And I was like, no, please, just. Do you believe.
Do you believe Jesus is the son of God? Do you believe that his righteousness, you know, pays the penalty for your sin? If so, you need to get baptized.
[00:57:30] Remy: Yeah.
[00:57:31] Chris: You know, and that. Yeah, it. It was. It’s a much different experience.
You get a lot more of the arguments of, well, you know, the thief on the cross next to Jesus didn’t get baptized. And it’s like, yeah, well, you don’t. You don’t prove a rule, you know, by its exception, you know? Right.
It’s like you. I maintain that the thief on the.
[00:57:59] Remy: Cross was, in fact, baptized.
[00:58:02] Chris: What’s that?
[00:58:03] Remy: I maintained that the thief on the cross was baptized. What. So what is baptism? Baptism is the promise of God given to you via the water and the word. What did the thief on the cross receive? So Jesus said. He said, remember me in your kingdom. And Jesus said, today you will surely be with me in paradise. Jesus received the promise of God, okay. Through the word of God, who is himself living water. The thief on the cross was literally baptized by Jesus’s words. Thank you very much. Next. Next. Objection.
[00:58:37] Chris: All right. Yeah.
The. The living water part probably wasn’t the.
I probably wouldn’t have come up with that. That’s good.
Yeah, I. I just.
The way. The way I always looked at it was that Jesus didn’t give the command to go out and make disciples, you know, through baptism, until after the resurrection. So, yeah, I. I assume that the thief on the cross was one of the Jewish insurrectionists. And that’s, you know, the fact that he recognized Christ as Lord meant that he was circumcised.
So a circumcised Jew professed faith in Christ. You know, if, if Christ declared that he was saved, he was saved.
[00:59:26] Remy: The. I find a lot of the. Not to devolve down into like a baptism discussion, but I find a lot of the Anabaptist sort of problem with baptism in the New Testament is that they view and as a temporal link and not a, like, not a causal link. You know, so like it says repent and be baptized. And what it is, the and is associative. We’re putting these two things together. Repentance and baptism are one concept in the New Testament. Repent and be baptized, they’re the same thing. The and is an associative link here. But a lot of times they view it as like a causal temporal link where they’re, without realizing it, unconsciously inserting the word then in there. Repent and then be baptized. But there’s no. Then there’s no. The two things are one thing, repent and be baptized. You know, he was tall and strong. If I were to say that he were, he was tall and strong. No one thinks he was tall first and then he became strong because he was tall. No one like, no one thinks that. But for some reason with baptism we got to put that little then in there.
[01:00:45] Chris: Well, and part of that I think is they, they look at repentance as a one time event.
You know, it’s like I realized I was the sinner. I repented of my sin, Christ saved me.
[01:00:57] Remy: Wow.
[01:00:57] Chris: And now that I’m saved, I’m always saved. So there’s no need to continually come back and repent, repent, repent.
So they don’t, they don’t see it as an ongoing action. You know, if you, if you say to them, remember your baptism, they’re not thinking on the promises of God. They’re thinking about an event that happened in a lake somewhere.
Geez. So it’s, it is, it’s a, it’s a different mindset. And so I, I think when people get in these discussions, they have to define their terms.
[01:01:33] Remy: Very important. And I.
[01:01:36] Chris: Often people just kind of talk past.
[01:01:39] Remy: I, I kicked the Mary hornet’s nest on Twitter here yesterday.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some guy was like, God doesn’t have a mom. And I was like, her name is Mary and the disrespect will stop. You know, and it really kicked the hornet’s nest because. And it’s. Because you’re exactly right. It’s defining of terms when people say, when I say God, I’m referring to deity. There’s only. There’s only like the one deity, right? There’s only the one being in three persons. And that being does in fact have a mother. In one person. Jesus does in fact have a mother. So it’s, you know, the way we describe the communication of attributes, I would say it’s perfectly okay to say God has a mother or God died on the cross. God bled for you.
One guy was like, oh, so by your logic, God poops? And I was like, brother, you’re going to be really shocked when I tell you this.
It’s going to blow your mind. But yeah, yeah, for 33 years, 33 solid years, God pooped like once a day on average. Yeah, 100%.
And, and it’s because when I say God, I’m thinking of deity, right? The. I’m thinking of the, like, the one immutable deity.
But when they say God, they’re specifically thinking of, like, God the father.
You know what I mean? And, you know, so you, you often, you say God has a mom. And they’re like, the father doesn’t have a mom. And it’s like, well, no, but the Son does. And the Son is just as much God, isn’t he? Right. And that’s, it’s so funny. I always ask these people when they get upset, they say, you know, God doesn’t have a mom. And I say, is Jesus God? It’s my first question every time. Is Jesus God? And they say, yes. And I say, does Jesus have a mom? And they say, well, yes. And I. Okay, well, QED God has a mom. Next question. You know, but yeah, it’s a fundamental difference in thinking, I think.
[01:03:47] Chris: Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s strange because I, I think sometimes, you know, Baptist, Anabaptists, they have a tendency to go in the opposite direction with Mary where they, they’re like, oh, she was just, just a sinner.
Yes. But she is still a, a blessed woman and we still hold her in high regard. And the, the fact of the matter was that she was a willing, you know, vessel, you know, for God. She raised him in the faith. And she, as far as parents go, you know, she and Joseph did everything that the Lord had them do.
[01:04:29] Remy: Yeah.
[01:04:30] Chris: To, you know, maintain Christ’s purity. So, I mean, it’s like they did everything that they were called to do.
[01:04:37] Remy: Huge win of the Catholic Church is holding up the holy family on their own feast day as the model of a family, holding up Joseph as the model of a father, Mary as the model of a mother.
This is a, this is really, really wonderful and something that I think we kind of, you know, lose. You want good examples, good biblical examples of how to be a parent. It’s Mary, it’s Joseph. This is. This is how, you know, you look at St. Joseph, it makes me cry. Like, every time I think about it, where it says. It says that he sought her to put a. Sought to put her away quietly because he didn’t Even in this, thinking that somehow she had betrayed him and gotten pregnant outside of wedlock with some other man when he finds she’s pregnant.
Even. Even in this. In his, like, most, like, his hardest moment, even in this, he doesn’t want to destroy Mary. He still wants to protect her and love her and serve her in this. And, like, what a beautiful. Talking about masculinity. What a beautiful picture of being a godly man and showing love and sacrifice to the. Even when you’re wrong, do you still want to be faithful and love and protect and, you know, we. I think we lose a lot when we.
When we disregard the holy family. You know, it’s not just. It’s not just that, you know, they. Oh, Mary, you know, oh, Mary was just a sinner like the rest of us.
Yeah, okay, Mary was a sinner, but I don’t think you can honestly biblically say just like the rest of us, because Gabriel says most highly favored among women.
That’s, you know, that seems to be very distinct.
[01:06:29] Chris: The scriptures prophesy.
I mean, nobody else can have the claim that they were prophesied about in Scripture except for John the Baptist. You know, Mary.
[01:06:42] Remy: Yeah. There’s Jesus, there’s John, and there’s Mary.
[01:06:44] Chris: Genesis, chapter three.
I mean, that’s. It’s amazing that, you know, she is the seed, the. The woman who produces the. The holy seed. You know, Eve. Yeah, Eve thought she was that woman.
So, you know, Mary’s. Mary’s elevated higher than Eve.
[01:07:03] Remy: Yeah, there’s the con. The. The connection between Mary and Eve is very, very early in Christian history. It’s very, very early. Another very early connection with Mary is the Ark of the Covenant. Because what’s in the Ark of the Covenant? It’s the manna. It’s the law, and it’s. It’s Aaron’s staff in the Ark of the Covenant.
And these, The. The representation of how that, you know, how that is God and justice and provision and grace and all this stuff. But at the same time. Or is it Moses’s. Is it Moses’s staff? I don’t know. Anyway, but I think it was there and stuff. The idea that Mary is the new ark of the covenant because by carrying the Christ child, she is also carrying all these things. God’s grace and his love and his provision and his law and all these other things she’s carrying within her in her womb. You know, there’s all kinds of these different connections to Mary. So the idea that Mary was like just another, that it could have been anybody, she’s just another sinner, is kind of preposterous. You know, like she’s very specifically chosen, very specifically honored.
You know, not that we should pray to Mary, heaven forbid, but the idea that we should disregard Mary is so off.
[01:08:31] Chris: No, I think she’s someone to be highly esteemed.
The Jews lifted up Sarah. I think, you know, Christians should lift up Mary. Now the other one that bugs me is the way that the Protestant church treats Peter because they have a tendency to treat him as almost just above an idiot. You know, where in all of my studies, every question that Peter raised shows that he has a deep seeded knowledge of Zechariah, Isaiah.
So I mean, he knew, he knew his scriptures and you know, just, just because he was a fisherman doesn’t, doesn’t mean he was a Neanderthal, you know. And you know, Jesus, you know, he, he may have teased him, but you know, he teased all of them. You know, I, I figured he teased James and John, calling them sons of. You know, I mean, I, I love the fact that Jesus gave them nicknames, you know, that. Yeah, that just goes to show that, you know, Jesus was someone that was really, you know, a good friend as well as our Savior, you know.
[01:09:53] Remy: Yeah, yeah, it’s. Peter was a bit brash though. Peter, Peter was a bit brash for.
[01:10:02] Chris: Could be.
[01:10:03] Remy: For as well, for as well thought as he was. Peter was also very much a let’s act now kind of guy.
[01:10:11] Chris: Definitely.
Yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna, I, I just think that the.
Oh, go ahead.
[01:10:20] Remy: I’m gonna pause it real quick. I have to take a bathroom break. Give me like two minutes.
[01:10:25] Chris: Okay.
[01:10:27] Remy: I’m not actually gonna, I’m just gonna let it record, but I’m gonna.
[01:10:34] Chris: It, it.
[01:11:32] Remy: Sorry, you, you have the honor of being the first very long one I’ve ever done. So.
[01:11:39] Chris: Yeah.
Cool.
[01:11:42] Remy: Yeah.
So Peter kind of brash?
[01:11:49] Chris: Well, I, I just think it’s, it’s one of those things where because Peter is lifted up as the first Pope in the Roman Catholic Church, you know, the, The Protestant church wants to dismiss him and because the Protestant church holds Paul in such high regard, you know, The Roman Catholic Church wants to dismiss him.
[01:12:11] Remy: Right.
[01:12:11] Chris: And I always, I always figured it was a little bit ironic because in the Roman Catholic Church, you know, priests needs to remain, you know, single and celibate, and yet their first pope was married. Yeah. And Paul, you know, in the Protestant church, in the Midnight Brethren Church, they used to have these discussions, you know, saying, oh, you know, we were trying to figure out who could be an ex elder, and we were thinking, you could, Chris, but you’re not married.
And I was like, you don’t have to be married to serve, you know, and in fact, you know, I said, when I do get married, my time for serving is probably going to be limited. Right. You know.
[01:12:51] Remy: Yeah.
[01:12:52] Chris: So you guys should be taking advantage of me now. But, yeah, I just thought that’s ironic because they, they lift up Paul to such a high degree and, and Paul was single. So according to their rules, Paul couldn’t have even served as an elder, let alone an apostle.
[01:13:10] Remy: Yeah.
Yeah. Well, it’s funny, it’s, it’s funny how they flip flop on that. Right? Because like the verse that the Romans lean on for the celibacy of the priesthood is where Paul says, I wish you could all be like, I am.
You know, but they’re not gonna, they’re not gonna lean on.
[01:13:31] Chris: Yeah.
[01:13:31] Remy: On Peter, their first pope being married, you know, and I think probably a number, a number of popes and priests after that also. You know, there’s a, like, you can definitely see the celibacy accretion come in to the church historically.
So.
[01:13:52] Chris: It’S, I mean, it’s unfortunate. You know, some people are called to be single, some people are called to be married. You know, I figured I was called to be single. You know, when, when my wife came up to me after that concert, I was, you know, I was pretty surprised. I just had assumed at that point that I was going to stay single. So.
Yeah, I mean, she was, she was the answer to many years of prayer. But yeah, you know, my prayer was always, you know, I, I want to be married if being married helps me serve you better. Right. You know, it’s like if, if, if I can do ministry best as a single person, then I should do ministry best as a single person. But if being married is, you know, God’s will for me, then that’s, that’s what I wanted.
So, yeah, I mean, real blessing. I, I, just. Completely unexpected, you know, I didn’t become a dad till I was 38, so.
[01:14:59] Remy: Wow.
Wow. God bless, because I’m 36, so we we don’t have kids. We’ve been married 11 years. We still haven’t had kids.
So. Yeah, God bless. There’s still time.
[01:15:17] Chris: You know, that’s.
Yeah, you know, we, we’re at the, the thought that, you know, if God wanted to give us 10, we’d be happy with 10. You know, he, he gave us the one. And you know, Dominic kind of broke everything on the way out. So I think he, he kind of torched the place so that we couldn’t, couldn’t do it again. But that’s great.
[01:15:46] Remy: So it has been.
It. It has. Then I guess if your prayer is God, let me be a husband or a father if it helps me serve you better. I guess it has. I think that that sort of segues us nicely into father led faith formation and you know, family devotional life and how do you, how do you do that? Walk me through it.
[01:16:23] Chris: Well, I think it has to be baby steps. You know, one of the reasons why I try to keep the blog down to about, you know, 10 minutes or so. I mean, obviously you can discuss a whole lot longer than that and you can add in hymns and other prayers and stuff like that, but you know, this, it’s hard for families to set aside, you know, carve out like regular time. And so I think it’s, it’s best to do something that you can form a habit around, you know, and so the best way to do that is to, you know, keep it short and have something that builds.
So, you know, for me, my biggest struggle. We used to do portals of prayer and that, that’s okay. I mean, I even know some people that, that write some of the, the articles for portals of prayer or the devotions for portals of Portals of prayer. But it’s, none of them are tied together. You know, it’s like you’re, you bounce around all over scripture.
There’s, there is no cohesiveness a lot of its application. You know, to me, application is like my least favorite form of study, you know, because I, I think applications like dessert. You know, it’s the thing that you get to. Once you have a good understanding of the passage itself. And so the better you understand the passage and, and who it was written to and who wrote it and why.
Well then, you know, the applications kind of draw themselves after that.
[01:18:05] Remy: Sure.
[01:18:07] Chris: So to me, portals of prayer just didn’t, didn’t cut it. You know, it, it was too, too much fluff, too much application. I wanted something that was systematic in the way that it went through, you know, books of The Bible.
And the problem with that is that everything that I found out there was far too academic.
[01:18:33] Remy: Yeah.
[01:18:34] Chris: You know, and I, I don’t think you can do that in a family setting, you know, for the most. I mean, if your kids are super geniuses, then, yeah, I guess if you can, you can dig into, you know, some of the. The more academic.
But what I was looking for is just something that would consistently go through, you know, a book at a time, always keep things in context. You know, I, I have a scripture reading at the beginning. I have a question to, to ask, you know, because like I said, I’m. I’m a catechist at heart, so it’s like, I, I think you always open with questions just to get people thinking. And, and usually, you know, if they dig into the. The devotional text, they can come up with the answer pretty easily.
But, you know, the goal is just to, to get them thinking in the right direction after reading the scripture passage and then, you know, have, have just a few minutes of. Of reading something about that passage so that they get a better understanding and then closing it with a prayer. And I, you know, prayers in the Anabaptist church, a lot of time are really long and flowing, and, you know, I admire some of the people that I know that have the ability to pray these really lengthy prayers.
I love the fact that when the disciples asked Jesus, you know, what should we pray? Jesus gave them a super short prayer.
Whenever we go to, you know, family members for dinner, you know, it’s like, always look at me and ask me to pray. And I think everyone thinks I’m gonna go off into some long prayer, but it’s always, you know, just sort of the common table prayer type thing. Yeah, yeah. You know, because I don’t want to. I don’t want to be the one that holds people up from eating.
[01:20:38] Remy: You know, we. At every. At every single family gathering, they’re like, all right, let’s all hold hands and bless the food. And every single time, everyone just, like, they’re bowing their heads and they’re all, like, looking over at me like, seminary boy, you know, And I’m always just like, jesus, thank you for the food.
Amen.
I don’t know what you want.
[01:21:07] Chris: Well, at least you have to cross yourself and say, in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Ghost, Amen.
[01:21:12] Remy: That’s right. That’s right. I start doing it in Latin just to throw them.
That’s great.
So were you able to find such a resource or did you have to.
Did you have to create such a resource.
[01:21:32] Chris: Well, that’s it. I created it.
I don’t have a lot of patience to do a lot of research.
So if I have a vision of how I think something should be, I just go ahead and do it, you know, and for me, because I’m a nerd, you know, it’s like my first instinct is always, well, if this is helpful for my family, it could help other people. So I’m going to throw it out on the web. And then, of course, it uses my software to run. So, you know, when people want examples, you know, that they can look at for my software, I can say, oh, here’s one.
But yeah, I mainly do it, you know, just for my own family.
And it. It began because my wife went into the hospital right at. Right at the beginning of COVID And the crazy thing, she didn’t even have Covid. She had a lung infection. And maybe the lung infection was the result of COVID I don’t know. But her entire left lung got filled with infection.
And she’s a. She’s a nurse practitioner.
She works for University of Kansas Health System. And, and she’s a. In the neurosurgery department.
So she’s, you know, she’s brilliant. She just decided that, well, hey, this infection doesn’t seem to be getting better on its own. Maybe you should take me in to be seen. And obviously it was causing her way more distress than she was letting on, because when she let me know this, it was Good Friday going into the weekend that everything locked down. So when I took her to the emergency room, I. I dropped her off, and it’s like they wouldn’t let me go into the emergency room. I was like, okay. So I went home thinking that they were just going to give her antibiotics and send her home and that I’d be just going down to pick her up. And all of a sudden I get this phone call saying that she’s going to have to have three different surgeries over the next two months and that she’s in a real dire place, you know. So we went from thinking, you know, here she has the remnants of some type of cold or something to, man, she’s going to be in the hospital for an extended stay and have to have all these surgeries.
So that was right when they wouldn’t let anybody come in to visit.
And it fortunately, because she worked at the hospital that she stayed in, you know, one of her co workers came by and grabbed her tablet and that’s. That’s when I started Posting the stuff online so that, you know, she could FaceTime with us and we could still do our family devotions and have a sense of normalcy.
So. But that’s it. I mean, you know, you develop a routine.
She recovered. Yes. Okay.
[01:24:38] Remy: Just on us.
[01:24:39] Chris: It actually was quite miraculous.
[01:24:42] Remy: Happily ever after.
[01:24:43] Chris: She had one.
Right. She. She had one surgery and she started getting way better after that. So she was only in the hospital for two weeks and came home. But, yeah, we. For a while there, you know, it was. It was pretty dire. And then when all this news came out about COVID you know, then you. You started to panic because nobody understood what Covid was at that time. And one. She was. She was just about to get released home, and her transporter got tested positive for Covid. And at that time, when you tested positive for Covid, you were locked down, isolated from the rest of the hospital. Yeah. So because she got exposed to it, she had to go into the COVID wing of the hospital. And so essentially she’s getting exposed to everybody else who has Covid. And at that point she’s like panicking, thinking, you know, I don’t know that, you know, here I thought I was coming home and now they’re putting me in with sick people. And so, yeah, it was. It was definitely a trying time.
[01:25:48] Remy: I. Right. Right near the beginning of that. It started right near the beginning of that when it was. It was clear that there was something going on. And we weren’t sure if it had made it to the United States or not. But it was. It was February of, I don’t know, 20. So we were wondering if it. It was right around the time where we weren’t sure if it was in the United States yet, even though it had likely been in the United States for months now.
But I got really sick with the flu. But I tested negative for the flu. I’m convinced it was Covid. I’ve never tested positive for it, but I’m convinced that’s what it was because I had all these incredible flu like, symptoms, but I tested negative for the flu. But I went into my job, provides a primary care physician, urgent care for employees. And so I went into the clinic, as we call it, and they. One of the first questions they asked me, they said, have you been to China in the last six months? Or you’ve been around anyone who’s been in China in the last six months? And my buddy had just brought his wife over from China three months prior, she had just moved over here from China, and we had just celebrated Chinese New Year.
And that year it was a hot pot. And so we’re all dipping our food in this communal broth and eating it, you know, whatever. And so I told the lady, I was like, actually, I just shared a hot pot with a Chinese girl who got here from China six weeks ago.
And the lady, she stops and she looks at me and she goes, sir, this is not a joke. And I was like, ma’am, I’m not kidding.
I don’t know what to tell you.
Serious.
[01:27:49] Chris: She probably still tells people about that, too.
No, that’s crazy. Was she from Wuhan?
What’s that?
I said, was she from Wuhan? Is that the.
[01:28:04] Remy: No, no, no, no. She was from. She’s from. She’s from Guangzhou. But it’s. As I understand it, Guangzhou is really not very far from Wuhan. Like, it’s close enough that it matters, so.
[01:28:18] Chris: Oh, wow.
[01:28:20] Remy: Yeah. No, it was.
[01:28:22] Chris: No, that was a crazy time.
[01:28:24] Remy: It was. Man, it was like the whole world fell into a fever dream.
[01:28:29] Chris: Well, and for those that, like, didn’t take it seriously, I mean, I. I didn’t take it too seriously, but my. My friend and business partner that was the atheist turned Lutheran, he got Covid. And after he recovered from it, it caused a zytacon storm in his lungs and, like, scarred up his lungs to the point where he had to go on a ventilator. And he was in a coma for a couple weeks. And we wondered, you know, when he came out of it if he’s still going to be the same guy. And so. And it just.
If it affected you, it affected you big time.
[01:29:10] Remy: Yeah.
[01:29:11] Chris: You know, he was.
He. He was pretty sure that he was not long for this world. And I’m. I’m so glad that he survived it and that he stayed intact because, like, like I said, he’s one of those that I meet with usually Tuesday mornings.
[01:29:30] Remy: Yeah.
[01:29:31] Chris: And I tell you, man, just glad that.
[01:29:38] Remy: I remember telling my wife, in the heat of it, as sick as I was, after I got back, the doctor told me at the clinic, she said, I don’t know what this is. Everyone keeps coming in super sick, but it’s not the flu. And I’m just prescribing symptoms, trying to keep up. Right. So I got like eight different prescriptions for, you know, the. The muscle ache and for the congestion and for the cough and for the upset stomach and all this. And I’m taking all these medications or whatever, and I remember being a couple nights in and laying in bed. It’s like the middle of the day. And my wife came and checked on me and she said, how are you doing? And I told her. I was like, I think I’m gonna die. Like, I legitimately think. And you know, guys, they’re like, oh, when they get sick, they think they’re gonna die. But, like, I really thought I had never been that sick in my life. It’s to this day the sickest I’ve ever been. I legitimately thought I was gonna die for a couple of days there.
[01:30:45] Chris: Yeah, some of those early strains were pretty bad.
I don’t know. And it did such a number on churches. I know our church. I don’t know if your church closed down at all. Ours did, you know, for. I don’t know, it was about four weeks. You know, originally they talked about two weeks to slow the spread. You know, we thought we were being charitable.
And, you know, the pastor still came and did the service and so they did it online.
[01:31:14] Remy: Yeah.
[01:31:15] Chris: And I can. I can just remember feeling, you know, almost start by the time I was able to come back and have communion and just missing the fellowship with other people. And even when you got back, you know, it’s like nobody shook hands. You know, it’s me, like, shaking hands and giving hugs and stuff is.
[01:31:37] Remy: Yeah.
[01:31:37] Chris: Is a big thing, an important thing. And, you know, I just love having conversations to. People hate the masks. And people were so mean about, you know, the masks. Like, you know, you need to make these required. And, you know, I’m telling you, it’s like that, that became a test for orthodoxy. You know, it’s like, if you don’t agree with me when it comes to masking up or, you know, social distancing or whatever, then you can’t be a Christian. You’re not charitable, you know, or as it started to be politicized, you had the other side saying that, well, you know, you have no faith in Jesus if you’re wearing a mask. And I just, like, I don’t know. I mean, some people are afraid, you know, some people aren’t. And instead of dividing over it, you.
[01:32:26] Remy: Know, not to be like, weirdly political about it, but what I thought was interesting was this was the first big flip flop that I saw happen in real time. Like that. I can remember that so clear in my memory was because Republicans, I remember at the outset, Republicans were like, guys, we should all just wear a mask. It’s common sense. And Democrats were like, look at Trump and the Republican dictators trying to force everyone to wear masks. It’s a police state. And then like, he gets out of office pretty early into this thing and everybody flip flopped on the issue. And now Democrats are like, oh, you gotta wear a mask to love your neighbor. And Republicans are like, oh, Biden. I was like, what in the world? Like, I remember when the Republican position was wear a mask, you know, or.
[01:33:16] Chris: Get the shot too. Yeah, they flipped up speed.
[01:33:21] Remy: That was Trump’s thing.
[01:33:23] Chris: Right.
And when the shot first came out, you know, I got the first two doses or whatever. I didn’t get any since then. But I, you know, I don’t know, I, I never even thought about it before. I always got my flu shots and stuff and.
[01:33:39] Remy: Yeah.
[01:33:40] Chris: You know, and then of course you had dispensationalists saying, are you taking the mark of the beast?
[01:33:45] Remy: It’s like, no, I have a whole article of that on my website.
[01:33:53] Chris: Oh my goodness.
[01:33:54] Remy: Oh man. Dude, any. If you’re a dispensationalist, anything is the mark of the beast. If you try hard enough, you know.
[01:34:01] Chris: Right one, and everybody’s the Antichrist. It’s like a constant, you know, Pin the tail on the Antichrist.
[01:34:08] Remy: Yeah, well, everybody’s the Antichrist.
Everybody’s the Antichrist except for Donald Trump.
And it’s wild to me because, well, unless of all the people that are going to be the Antichrist, it’s going to be Donald Trump.
[01:34:26] Chris: Well, especially because I’ve heard dispensationalists now talk about, well, you know, he had a head wound.
Beast is supposed to have a head wound.
So, you know, and he, he had the Abraham Accords, you know, he’s, he’s supposed to enact a covenant in the Middle East. And I’m, I’m like, no, you don’t understand. Daniel, chapter nine.
[01:34:57] Remy: Man, it’s so crazy.
[01:34:59] Chris: I can’t wait till I do. Daniel.
[01:35:02] Remy: It’s so crazy because like the dispensationalists especially that I grew up with, I remember the scaredest I’ve ever been was in fifth grade we had a guy come and talk to. I went to a Pentecostal Holiness Christian school. And in fifth grade we had a guy come and talk to us about the temple and how the Jews have everything they need to rebuild the temple, like all the supplies, the bricks and everything. And it’s on standby and they’re just waiting for whatever, you know, something thing and that when that thing happens, that’s the end of the world. And then they’re going to rebuild the whatever. And I was so scared. But years and years and years later, probably two, two years Ago or so I realized they’ve already. The third temple has already been built. Like the Antichrist temple has already been built on that spot. It’s the Dome of the Rock, dude. They have a mosque on the temple ground. How is that not the Antichrist third Temple?
It’s been built, guys.
[01:36:03] Chris: That’s a good.
Well. And even that like the idea.
I don’t know. I always encourage people to go through my study in Hebrews, you know, that’s the basis for the.
[01:36:18] Remy: Available for members only on the Lutheran answers table Talk. Get a membership. It’s there.
[01:36:25] Chris: Nice plug. There you go. Thank you.
But the. The building of. The building of the temple, if. If you look at it in. In light of. Of Hebrews, there’s nothing to desecrate because it would. It would never be holy to begin with. You know, it’s like, oh, yeah, reinstituting the animal sacrifices is tantamount to crucifying Christ all over again. So they can build a building and they can kill animals in it, but it doesn’t take away sins. It doesn’t.
[01:36:55] Remy: Yeah.
[01:36:56] Chris: You know, it’s an abomination to begin with. So there’s.
[01:36:59] Remy: I’m of the opinion.
I’m. I’m of the opinion that God won’t even let it happen because Christ has already done the thing. There’s.
[01:37:10] Chris: There.
[01:37:10] Remy: I think God sets hard limits on humanity. There are just things that we are not allowed to do that will never be allowed to do. Trespass, the speed of light. There’s just a hard limit, you know, And God says thus far and no farther. Like he. Like he says with the sea, he says to humanity. And I think that’s one of those things. There’s not going to be another Jewish temple with animal sacrifices because Christ has already done the thing. There’s a Talmudic story of where they have the scapegoat and they tie a red scarf around it or like a red ribbon around the scapegoat, and they send it into the wilderness after putting the people’s sins upon it. And when the scapegoat comes back, the. The red scarf is white. When it finds its way back to the camp. And that’s how they know God has forgiven their sins.
Because the. The red of the. Their sin has been turned white as snow. Whatever.
And there is. In the year of Jesus death, they send out a scapegoat with the red scarf. And when it comes back, it’s still red.
And there. There is much Jewish speculation about why wasn’t the scapegoat accepted well, it’s because Jesus was the scapegoat that year, you know, once and for all.
And so anyway, I just. I’m of a firm believer that these. That these things just won’t happen anymore. God’s put a hard limit on that. I think there won’t be another Jewish temple. There won’t be the whole idea.
[01:38:46] Chris: And the whole idea is predicated upon a later writing in the book of Revelation and an interpretation of Daniel 9 that says that the.
The final seven promised by God through Gabriel to Daniel is a future seven and that it’s referring to the Antichrist, you know, in this covenant that the Antichrist is supposed to declare, when, in fact, you know, when you study the rest of that promise, it’s all about Jesus, you know, and to put this gap in there between the 69th and the 70th seven just doesn’t even. It doesn’t make any kind of sense, Biblically or otherwise. I mean, can you imagine if the Lord told Jeremiah, you know, you guys will be in Babylon for 70 years, and then, you know, 2,000 years later, he’s like, oh, yeah, I meant to tell you there’s a gap between the 69th and the 70th year. I don’t think that would go over real well.
So, you know, I think that final seven was referring to Jesus and his ministry. And the abomination that causes desolation was the crucifixion. You know, it was the. It caused the earthly temple to become desolate because he inaugurated the new covenant. And then the final three and a half years after that was the rest of the promises God fulfilled to the Jews. And there’s a.
A big shift in Acts, you know, where they go from preaching to the Jews to preaching to the Gentiles.
So I. I think at that point, it’s like all of those promises given by Gabriel were fulfilled. And one of the things in my Luke study, I. I just pointed out the fact that Gabriel was the one that delivered the message to Mary and to Zechariah.
And, you know, that’s like a bookend. You know, that’s the only other time Gabriel shows up in Scripture. And so I look at it as a bookend, saying, hey, you know that promise that I made to Daniel way back in the day? Well, it’s. It’s coming true now, you know, and he uses the language at the end of Malachi in reference to John, you know, as if to say, you know, how God’s been silenced for the last 400 years. Well, you know, here we’re picking right back up where we left off. You know, this is, this is giving me the fulfillment for everything. And in Matthew, he has the magi come out and give the gifts.
And Daniel was the chief of the magi. So, you know, I just look at that as, you know, whatever astrological signs that Daniel had put down, you know, saying that the Messiah is going to come at this point in time. And they were looking to see if his prophecy was coming true because he was so well respected as the seer of, interpreter of visions and prophetic or a prophet of the Lord. Sure.
So, you know, I think that the magi is, as a testament to the promise of Daniel or promise given to Daniel coming, coming true.
[01:42:11] Remy: That’s awesome.
[01:42:12] Chris: Now I’m excited about going through Daniel. After I get through Jeremiah, I’ll be going through Daniel. I’ve been systematically, you know, I wanted to cover the post exile prophets. So I, you know, I did Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, and then I did the, the post exile, you know, history books of Nehemiah, Ezra, and then I threw in Esther and, you know, from there we started going through the, the pre exile prophet. So, you know, Zephaniah and Habakkuk.
[01:42:49] Remy: And now has anyone actually read Habakkuk?
[01:42:52] Chris: I figure, oh yeah, Habakkuk’s a great book. I mean, it’s short. It doesn’t take.
[01:43:00] Remy: I’ve heard, you know, I’ve heard too.
[01:43:01] Chris: Long to get through it.
[01:43:02] Remy: I, I’ve heard it’s great, but I don’t, I don’t think I’ve actually read any. It’s one of those books where you’re like, oh yeah, Habakkuk. Yeah, that’s in there. That’s in the list of books.
[01:43:14] Chris: It’s.
Well, and it’s, it’s one that gets referenced in the New Testament. You know, there’s a part in Hebrews I think that I think makes a veiled reference to Habakkuk.
No, no. I loved your podcast on Jonah. I, Jonah is one of my favorite Old Testament prophets. You know, I wish, I wish I was in on that discussion because the only thing I would have added is that Jonah’s deliverance from the great fish would have terrified the Ninevites because they worshiped Dagon. You know, Dagon was a, their fish God, Poseidon or Neptune or whatever.
Yeah. So Jonah being delivered from the great fish would have been a sign. You know, Jesus dude said Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites.
[01:44:06] Remy: God is constantly, constantly delivering elves to Pagan deities just like personally hand addressed delivering huge losses to pagan deities. It does not stop. The, the train does not have brakes.
[01:44:24] Chris: Yeah. Exodus was filled with it.
[01:44:26] Remy: Yeah.
[01:44:27] Chris: Even to the point where when you finally get to the, the Red Sea, not the Sea of Reeds.
Amen.
Israel is camped right before the temple of BAAL Zephon, the Lord of the sea.
And so that’s when, you know, Pharaoh gets it in his heart that like, well, he, you know, he may have destroyed all the Egyptian gods, but, you know, surely being backed up to the sea, we can appeal to the Canaanite BAAL and you know, goes after the Israelites. And so the Lord, you know, this, he’s. He separates the sea and drowns the, the Egyptians, you know, and BAAL Zafan’s temple is destroyed. And you know, God is the victor. I mean, throughout the entire. Why I’d even say in the New Testament, because proclaiming Christ as Lord is God’s conquering of the Caesars. But.
[01:45:31] Remy: Well, yeah, they called the Christians atheists, you know, because they had all the gods and we only had the one. And so they called us the atheists because we only had the one God. And so they told Saint Polycarp, they said, all you have to do is denounce the atheists and we’ll let you live. And he turns to the Coliseum and says, away with you atheists, to all the Romans, because he’s saying, you know, your gods aren’t even real, you know.
[01:46:04] Chris: Yeah.
[01:46:07] Remy: Constant God, just winning. I love it.
[01:46:15] Chris: So much winning.
[01:46:17] Remy: You’re not.
[01:46:18] Chris: That’s why Trump loves our God. There’s so much winning, so much winning.
[01:46:22] Remy: You won’t know what to do. You’re not going to be able to stand it. You’re going to be like, we’re so sick of winning.
That’s great.
Oh, man.
How do you just to close us out here, how do you structure family devotions?
[01:46:47] Chris: Well, for us, we do it in the evenings just because my wife goes to work at like 5:00am and you know, I’d never be able to get my son up that early unless it was football season and, you know, evening time, everyone’s sort of a captive audience, you know, so we can have a fruitful discussion. But I imagine, you know, every, every family is going to have their own time that they do it. You know, maybe it’s around the dinner table.
The, the key is just that you find a, a consistent time and let it be a habit, you know, because the, it gets to the point where, you know, at least for, for My son, you know, he, he looks forward to it, you know, so he’s, he’s the one that is like, oh, is it time for devotion? So it’s, it’s just, it becomes something that they, they bank on. You know, there’s so many things, things in this world that, you know, kids just experience change all the time.
[01:47:56] Remy: Yeah.
[01:47:56] Chris: That. To have, you know, certain, certain things that are fixed, you know, and the nice thing about having it on the web is that, you know, even if he’s away at, you know, like he went to Vocadio a few weeks back, you know, so we can, we can still do them over FaceTime.
But yeah, I just, I, I think the, the routine is, is really important. And then, you know, every day I, you know, try to tie things back to the, the previous day. So there’s always context and that’s, I mean, that’s really about it. You know, I think if, if kids see that parents actually believe in this stuff, then they do too. You know, it’s like.
[01:48:50] Remy: Yeah.
[01:48:50] Chris: And you can tell when someone believes in it because they, they’re dedicated to it. They take it seriously.
You know.
You know, obviously no amount of apologetics when somebody into the kingdom, it’s, you know, the gospel is the power of God and the salvation. So, you know, the more time that you can spend, you know, actually dealing with the words of God. The words of the word of God does its work.
[01:49:22] Remy: Amen.
Amen.
Chris, thank you so much.
[01:49:29] Chris: It’s as simple as that. I don’t.
Oh, man, it’s my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me.
[01:49:36] Remy: Yeah, man.
[01:49:37] Chris: So. And thanks for including my, my study and your, your membership.
[01:49:45] Remy: Yeah, I hope.
[01:49:46] Chris: Yeah. Thank people.
[01:49:47] Remy: No, I mean, you’re thanking me, but I need to be thanking you because. Thanks for giving me the content before we go. Anything we can plug for you. There’s going to be at least 35 people that will hear this. So, you know, not to brag.
[01:50:05] Chris: I just, I mean, if people, if people go to labellife.com that’s the, the, the study site. And then, you know, I have a resources drop down that has a books area that has the different books that I have. You know, I, I do them all through Amazon. You know, I’d love to do them through cph, but I don’t know how to go about that route.
[01:50:32] Remy: It’s. So it would be too expensive.
[01:50:37] Chris: Yeah. You know, I, I just tried to send them a, a brilliant, if I may say so, idea of how they can do their shipping so that it would reduce the price of their shipping and be more friendly to people that want to order.
And I just, I never heard anything from them, so it’s kind of disappointing to me because I, well, I would think that they would want people to order stuff.
[01:51:03] Remy: All those, all those prices, though, that you’re seeing on the front end, like, they’re. That.
Never mind, never mind. 8th Commandment. God bless them. CPH, they’re doing God’s work. They’re putting out, you know, they’re putting out great content. So God bless you, cph. If you can afford cph, then you should definitely support them.
[01:51:25] Chris: They’re great.
And if you can’t, go to my place or my site and get stufflife.com.
[01:51:35] Remy: It’S cheaper than CPH.
[01:51:38] Chris: There you go. I should put that on the site.
[01:51:41] Remy: You should.
Chris, thank you so much, man.
[01:51:45] Chris: Yeah, thanks, Remy. Take care.
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