Passion vs. Performance

speaker-1: This Church in Taylor's presents in the Word. To our This Week in the Word podcast at Faith Baptist in Taylor's. We're so thankful that you were able to watch, if you didn't or listen to our first episode with Pastor Mark Herbster. And this is a podcast that's really intended to allow us to have furthering and ongoing conversations about things that we are passionate about based on God's Word that are relevant to our church life here in Taylor, South Carolina. And and to that end, this morning, I'm so pleased to introduce to you our speaker for our upcoming Family VBS here at Faith Baptist Church and Taylors, Mr. Rand Hummel, who's been a longtime friend of this ministry and to many probably that are watching this, Rand for years was at Wilds of North Carolina and then more recently at the Wilds of New England where he was the director and God used him to found that ministry. And I'm so thankful that he could come on here and talk with me this morning through this podcast format. So thank you, Rand, for joining us today.

speaker-0: My privilege.

speaker-1: What one of the things that's pretty neat, I guess, for Rand and I both is Rand is now a New England boy. He's been there for long enough that I think you could count as such. I grew up in New England and I still have a lot of my heart blood in New England. And when it comes to church history, a lot of the revivals that have taken place in this country, a lot of the work that God has done for years, if you go back in church history and some of the famous men, I remember visiting D. Moody's home. I remember scene where he was converted in Boston and he's just alone. ScI Schofield, of course, was in that area. Jonathan Edwards had a proficient ministry in that area. So many others that were used of God in amazing ways. And really many of the early revivals in this nation were right there in New England. And I'm sure Rand you've seen much of that where you minister too now. Yeah. One of the things that's unique about going to New England though is seeing that, knowing that history. And then now knowing that that may not be true. I I'm bringing that up because I pastor in South Carolina in what some would call the buckle of the Bible Belt now in 2026. But if you were to ask the question, where's the buckle of the Bible belt a hundred years ago? They have said that the answer is right where Rand Hummel is sitting. It would have been the New England states. And you've been ministering there for a while there at the wilds of New England and you've seen churches that came through that. Some of them been planted for a while. W what encourages you most about what you're seeing about churches today, even as you minister?

speaker-0: Well, if you say just New England, which I do spend a lot of my time technically right now I'm with staff adventures for kind of both wilds, and so I'm in a lot of places all over. But the bottom line in New England, I I can't document this, but there's almost like a secret revival going on. Yeah. I mean, in some ways it's so secret, those who are involved in it, I'm not even sure they notice that it's going on. But there's There's a number of churches throughout New England. Now I will say this. It's not uncommon for me, to get up on Sunday morning to drive two hours after stopping at Dunkin' Donuts, hot medium hot cream, no sugar, butter became swirl.

speaker-1: So you really are a New Englander at this point. If you've got your favorite Dunkadonuts order.

speaker-0: Literally going to a church of eighteen or twenty-two people. That is not uncommon. The farther north you go, the churches are tiny. But there's men that are just so social, so faithful. Okay. I was visiting a church last Sunday, Sunday before last, up in the White Mountains, not too far from Meredith. And this church, by the way, it was exciting because many years ago, maybe ten, twelve, I preached. For a guy starting a church at a he was at a train depot. And then I preached for another church that didn't have a pastor struggling, had a nice old building and about twelve people. And and the other church when it when COVID hit, they couldn't rent that building. And so I I wasn't playing God or anything, but I'm thinking, wow, they're only like fifteen miles apart. Here's a group of people with a building, here's a pretty good sized group of people, sixty or more without a building. So I got them praying together and I did. I introduced them to each other, et cetera, et cetera. And this two weeks ago, a bunch of the summer staff went with me, but we did the fifth anniversary of their merger. And it was it was a joy. In fact, when I told the staff of New England, the Wilds kids, we have about sixty staff today, but wanted to go with me in northern New Hampshire. Fifty-five went, okay. And they sang and gave testimonies. And the church is growing, it is. But there was another one way up in northern Vermont, St. Albans. You c you literally could almost throw a stone and hit Canada. And I mean they got like 220 people. And I I I know it's not just numbers. And I've been going to that church every year for, I don't know, maybe seven, eight years. And watching their growth is amazing. And then last year when I was there, I'm always there in September. I think I saw part of the key. And this kinda is the same thing in every church. They you see excitement where you see people getting saved. And I'll put it this way, people wanting to come to church. They come to church because they want to and not because they have to. Because there's an older lady, probably in her mid eighties, wheelchair, and she was brought down to the front and the pastor got up and thanked the church for praying for her for an operation. And then he started crying. And he walked away from the pulpit, went right down to her. 'Cause even after she got through some kind of heart issue, they found out she had a brain tumor. And she only had so many months to live. He just knelt down next to that chair and cried with her. that pastor really, really cares and everybody in that church knows it. And it's it's kinda like contagious. It's like a magnet. And people know. People know when they're loved, okay? And there's a number of different churches here and there that I'm the privilege to be a part of because her kids come to camp. And I'll just say this, the ones that I love going to, not just New England, but forever, you just you kind of look around, especially during song service, and you can sense whether they're there because they have to be there, because they're expected to be there, or because they really, really want to be there. And you can almost see it in their faces in the way that makes them mingle before and after the service. So yeah, a lot of good things like that are happening. And even what I was told was impossible to start a Christian camp. In a place there it's not that you struggle like I would assume in the South in Greenville, and I did live in North Carolina all those years, where everybody at least has professed to be saved, okay? The other day I was getting a haircut and the lady cutting my hair, we talked about the Lord, and she's a believer. She had a necklace on with a cross. She said the day before, this is in Connecticut, teenager said, Why do you wear a T? on that necklace. He had no concept of what the cross was. And I we have kids come to the camp often who have never touched the Bible ever. And it's a joy. Or I remember Boris Gleis was there one week and you were both preaching and some kids running around the courtyard say, Can you take me to one of those priests? I need to get saved. Okay. It's just a totally different world. But at the same time it's kind of exciting. The number one religion in New England right now, sadly, is none. It's not like they're into Catholicism or into any isms that's just just not part of their life. So if you're at a restaurant and you say, Hey, I'm I'm gonna pray for me, okay. They say, Are you serious? Yeah. They're very, very open to that. And so I have found very few would fight you. In fact, they're interested if they see At least the three most contagious fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace. they see that in somebody's life. It's like, who are you? Where'd you come from? you know?

speaker-1: And you've been there long enough in New England to see some of that fruit taking place. I just wanna connect the dots for our our our listeners. And one of the things that I think is interesting about where you're at and where we're at, if we're gonna compare historical, okay. If someone were to ask me today, where's the Bible you you where's the Bible buck buckle of the Bible belt, I think most people would say, well, you know, South Carolina, right right where our church is. That's kind of like the buckle of the Bible belt. You are where it used to be. Likewise, we're in kind of a college town. New England has those Ivy League schools. In fact, for those that are listening, they in of the 119 first colleges found in America, founded in America, those most of them up in the New England states, 114 of those 119 were founded to train ministers. I think if people here of Harvard and Yale and Princeton, they think of you know, academics, but back in the day they would have thought of training young preachers. So here you are, you just talked about bringing in young preachers and ministers with you to go to a town that probably used to have that kind of influence. And the question I think that's hanging in my thoughts as we have this conversation is how did we get there? How how did the churches begin to drift towards complacency and l and in some cases eventual closure? And here we are Is are we headed that way? I'm thankful for what encourages you most about what you're seeing in churches today. But are there things that concern you most along that?

speaker-0: You know, I would it's it's about as basic as a junior chem, fourth grader to me. They sing the little song, read your Bible, pray every day. And you'll grow grow Girl, I'm in a different church. I can't say every S I try to be home one Sunday of the month to go to our own church with Amber. But I this past Father's Day I was at my church, but I haven't been there for seven weeks. And I normally am gone about forty, forty-five Sundays a year. and this is all the God has called us to do at this point. I'm I'm not complaining, it's just reality. And you do get into all kinds, you do. But you can almost tell sometimes on the by the ways of either the pastor or the song leader. by the way, I just read yesterday in the book of John. Wow. He well, he's re preparing a place for us. Why? 'Cause he wants to be with us. Those kinds of by the way comments are so real that you know that there's individuals who are seriously in the word of God. And on the reverse of that, you know, in my ministry as a camp guy for many, many years and speaking in all the colleges, and I wrote a book, The Dark Side of the Internet and Lest Lest You Fall Meditations and Fight War and Purity, and so I have to do a lot of counseling in regards to internet and all that junk. Every time, and I can say this every time, usually don't use 100% words. Every time somebody, especially a teen older teenager, college guy, and they'll come to me and surround me and talk to you. I what's up, man? I'm just I'm addicted to porn and I I hate it. I want some help. Can you help me? I said I can't help you. But before we even begin, I got a simple question for you. How is your devotional life? And every time. They kind of step back, stare at the floor, and shake their head. And you don't eat, you don't grow. And this idea of, you know, just reading your chapter or whatever, that's not reading. I mean, and I tell the kids, don't do devotions. That's so robotic, so repetitive. Spend time with God. And this year, I'm I'm going back every week to the wilds of New England. I'm doing, I think, four camps in other places. And I do a message this year, it's called Read. Read your Bible, read, examine, apply, do. And then make say it like seven thousand times. Okay. They do remember it, but read, examine, apply, do, and show how. You don't just read and say, I've read, check mark. Read I dare and I say I dare you this coming school year, every month, take a new book. Take the book of Philippians and read it every day for thirty days straight. It'll take you nine minutes and thirty seconds. Every day. I said, don't just read it, so got that one done. But read it over and over and over and over until finally you're examining it. And then all of a sudden you're going, yeah, I need to be joyful. Paul's in prison and he's that joyful and I can do this. And so just encouraging them to read and pray. And I think we you ask, what do we see? It is a repetitive, robotic Christian life. It's kind of scary. It is. It's just, you know.

speaker-1: You're you're speaking to something that's very I I think it's pertinent to conversations about just passion. What what are you passionate about? And and w what do you care about when you're talking about the by the ways, like by the way this, by the way that. You know, d do you believe we're we're seeing a growing tendency toward Christians that are just simply going through the motions of church and things? Like our in our context, for example, we we probably have a higher num percentage of second and third generation Christians, maybe even fourth generation Christians, than the average church. And that seems like it's a real danger. Are are you seeing that as well and and how do we protect from that?

speaker-0: Totally. You know, the church is that it is another thing. New England, when the churches are growing, that means over 50% are first generation Christians. Like one, this we're in a Bible study. This kid, she's like 24, 25. And we're gonna go through the book of Esther. And you're supposed to read the first half for a Bible study. And she comes and she goes, I'm so sorry. What's wrong? I read the first half. I had to find out what happened at the end. So I went ahead and read the whole book.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah.

speaker-0: That that kind of heart, you know, it's it's exciting. I know I get to work with kids. I realize that, and they're very impressionable and they get excited. And camp is an easy way. Why? Why? And I even we do a QA and they can ask me anything in the world they want, okay? And then when it'll when we get to the end, I say, no way QA means I can ask you. Why is it you guys come to camp? You have your devotions, you sing in the service and you're smiling and you're not fighting with brothers and sisters. Tell me why is it easy at camp and not easy at home? And they give the same answer every time. They'll raise their hands and say, Well, we get distracted. We have a cell phone and video games are sitting right there. Nobody else is doing it. I don't have in my home like a counselor, even a mom and dad, to make me have time with God. And they go on and on and on and on. It reminds me of Revelation, obviously three. They just we've gotten so we've gotten apathetic because we've gotten so distracted.

speaker-1: That that is trul well and truly one of the biggest concerns I I that I just want to keep bringing our listeners back to this this di this d d dichotomy that I'm drawing attention to is okay, here we are in Greenville, South Carolina, here you are up in New England. Again, New England used to be where revivals were taking place. You were a hundred years ago that was the Bible buckle of the Bible belt. Here we are in South Carolina, people think of us as the buckle of the Bible belt. But that's not gonna stay that way if we just rest on our laurels. The the complacency is one of the biggest danger points. So how do you distinguish between real, genuine spiritual faithfulness and spiritual complacency? Because we got people that are faithful. You know, they go to church. Sure. But Are they spiritually faithful or are they just spiritually complacent? What's the difference between them?

speaker-0: Yeah, and I think many of at least in their heart of hearts, they really think that they are. They're f they faithfully go to church when a lot of people don't even do that, obviously. And it's not just a going to church. I remember years ago, trying to be consistent devotions and some guys were asking, What about Sunday? And I said, Sunday, if you can, you should get up an hour earlier. And add at least a half hour, 45 minutes to your time with the Lord. They said, wait, wait. I go to Sunday school and church, an evening church. I said, if you have that extra half hour with the Lord, by the time you leave for Sunday school, your heart is so full. You're just saying, come on, teach me, teach me one. Okay. And it really does, because it takes many, now I know I'm almost 70. It takes me 15 or 20 minutes. I hate to say it, but like to get into it. They get my mind to stop. I gotta do this. I forgot to talk all that pastor. I was gonna pick up this for a camp. All that goes through my mind. But then all of a sudden, once you lock in and the world disappears, then you even forget to drink your coffee and it gets cold on you, you know what I mean? And so that I still say that special time with the Lord. whatever time works best for an individual, but it is a habit. But it is a good habit to do. But again you want to do it because you want to and not because you have to keep variety in the devotional life. Because if you spend time with anybody, you learn to love them more. The more you love them, the more you have that dread of disappointing them or displeasing them. so sad. Luke twenty two is one of the saddest chapters. Everything everything that happened in Jesus just made him sad. You know, he's betrayed by Judas. And then Peter turned his back and then the Hebrews beaten. And even when he was talking at the at the you know, the Passover Supper, he explains, I'm gonna die. And they're over there arguing who's the best. Then he turns around and says, Hey, if you want to, you can take some stuff with you on the next journey, but I'm gonna die, just as they said, I am gonna be hanging with with other transgressors. And the next thing they say, hey, guess what? We found another sword. It's like God. Everything was so sad for the long time.

speaker-1: Well it's almost it's almost like if I could interject, it's almost like things have become so syrupy sweet like and happy and joyful. That's kind of what church is, right? Church is is just that. But then I I love that you brought up Luke twenty two because the Bible deals with some dark themes. It's honest with us about the sinful condition. It's honest with us about ourselves. It's it God loves us enough to not pretend like We're perfect, happy, joyful all the time. There's a difference. And that's what makes it distinct. So you can read a Luke twenty two and you can walk away going, Man, our God, Jesus, the Son of God, sacrificed so much for us and yet here I am living as if the only thing that matters at church is that we we all get along and sing kumbaya around a campfire. Right? That's that's not there there is some darkness that we have to go through with our sins.

speaker-0: Yep. And I think we want to be fed. Now again remember my life is a little different. You are a shepherd. Yeah. And you have your sheep. I'm the sheepdog. and that's what I've had the privilege of being out for forty eight years.

speaker-1: Before before I've heard you explain this before and I I love the analogy. Maybe you could dig in on that a little bit.

speaker-0: Yeah. I'm a sheep I'm a tool in the hands of the shepherd. I'm a camp guy, therefore, like a sheepdog, I bark at the kids, I bite at their heels, I howl, I warn them of the vultures coming to get them, and I push them back to the shepherd, push them back to their parents, push them back to their pastors, okay? Now somebody said is that biblical? Well, I think so, because I found a passage that mentions two sheepdogs. I haven't found a commentator that agrees with me yet, but I'm sure it's true, okay?

speaker-1: We'll get someone to write it for you.

speaker-0: It's called the Shepherd's Son. The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. But go all the way to the end. You see the sheep dogs follow the sheep and push them up to the shepherd. There's two of them named. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me. So you know at least three sheepdogs, goodness, mercy, and rant at this point, and other guys that do my kind of ministry. And I love that God's called me into that. It j one of the differences I miss teaching new things because I have to repeat a lot. And then when you repeat a lot, you go say, Lord, help me sound like I've never ever preached this before. Like when I come to your church in a couple of weeks, because your theme and all, I have a message, I don't think I can get it done in one shot. It might take two. And if you want a title for the message is help, I see a little Pharisee in Ape. And you start looking at your life and thinking, Whoa. And this hit me.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: I actually worked on that message many years ago after I think I'd been in the WAMS for 25 years. And I led a hike that day. We did fun time or whatever. And it was 10 minutes before the evening service. Probably 250 kids out there to preach to. So I ran in my office, grabbed my Bible, I started out the door and and I thought, man, God didn't even ask God to help me once. My mind is, it doesn't matter. I preached this thousand times. And that's when it hit me. So you know what to do and how to do, but you're not depending on God. Right. And that's when I did a deep study of Matthew six, seven and eight there. And it's amazing how many of the little thoughts can creep into our hearts and we hardly even know it. And it's it's subtle. It it it's not like a volitional, I don't want to really pray to you, God. It's a subtle, let's get this done so I can go do what I need to do. That kind of thing.

speaker-1: You spoke to the the your week with us and I I wanna make sure for our listeners and those watching that you know when this is coming up. It's July nineteenth, twenty, twenty one and twenty two. That's a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Rand will be here at Faith and the title of his series he's doing is is Behind the Mask, which is subtitled Breaking Free of Performative Religion, and it's going to deal with the themes and you just kinda cue us in on one of the one of the topics you're going to covering and I'm so excited about that because we we really we all have a tendency. We if we just sit I I I I've heard it said that the easiest sin to commit is laziness. Because definitionally the only thing you do to commit it is nothing. And I my fear so I'm just so those that Rand knows this, but I I'm a I'm a third generation pastor, third generation Christian and I've ministered a lot around my peers and preach at camps, even at the Wilds of New England, where a lot of the teens that are coming are coming from Christi not all, but but a lot are coming from Christian homes. And of course, that being my experience, I'm married to a wonderful godly lady who also was raised by godly parents and I'm thankful for their influence in her life and and so on. But one of my greatest fears is now even pastoring a church with a lot of second and third generation Christians is that my my greatest fear is that the greatest strength that their churches have is our greatest weakness. We've got these people that know the word of God really well and have been taught it really well, but that doesn't always necessarily equate to a passion for things that are are godly necessarily. And so we're very used to putting on the mask, going to church, looking the part, speaking the language But there's no real heart passion to what we're actually doing. And and that is exactly the theme that you'll be speaking to. Maybe you could kind of elongate a little bit more on what it is that you'll be covering when you're with us.

speaker-0: Well, I mean I have found especially with teens, and by the way, you'll hear me say this, my life is eighty five percent of my preaching's still to teens. Yeah. When I get called to come to a church, I'm only preaching Sunday at the church because I'm at the Christian school for three days and I always insist on three chapels every day. I won't be an entertainer where you just go in for a day and get a good time. What three nine times of those kids and then I can be home for a couple of days at the end of the week anyway. But When I go in like that, but teenage adults are more just teenagers with wrinkles, as they say. And I really just if it's not real to them, if they do it because they have to, but our theology dictates the fruit in our life, bottom line. And I probably will use a message that tells us all that we know a lot about God, but we believe some lies. There are people in every church I've ever been to that think that God doesn't love them or that God would not forgive them. There are even some that think that God doesn't care or that God's a thousand miles away. Every one of those are lines. Right. And Satan, he just is he hasn't changed his tactics since Garden Beaton. Tries us to g tries to get us to believe that God is not really who he says he is. And so the more you know your God, the more you have a desire to please him. And even if you think about that, multiply grace and peace, and we all need that in our lives, grace and peace be multiplied to you. How? Through the knowledge of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ. Don't try to fix your problems and be perfect, get to know your God. And then your decisions are not to please man or even please self or to look good. Your decisions are to see or seek please God. And some of the other things will come to light, okay? And part of that is also that it's not secret. It might as well be meditation. You know, we read, but do we really do what God says about meditate? Is the the meditation of your word day and night, the sweetness of that? thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou may observe to do. So I I think we all are willing to quote unquote do our daily best with our little booklets. But do we learn to meditate and just take one verse, crawl into it for 45 minutes or now and I know it's hard. Young moms, when do they find time? Dads that are busy, they get home from work, sit in the chair, boom, they go to sleep. So I know it is a challenge for all of us, but the people I know that God has used in an incredible way, they get up early in the morning like Jesus did. Yeah. And they spend time. And I just shared with by the way, I have seventeen guys at the Walls, New England, all on staff. They meet with me once a week and we just talk about the homeletics of preaching and we critiqued the Sneaker of the Week and any of at once. I have one pastor friends and I sign out and they get to go preach Sunday morning messages at little churches all over New England. And it's just a burden of mine to get these guys right now getting a burden for New England, so they'll want to come back and do that. And that is a big big part of it. Because right now the young guys will tell you very quickly AI can probably write I know it can write a better message than I can write, but I shouldn't use the word message or write a better sermon. Yeah. But they can't preach something. It can't well, AI can't do this. AI can never love. Yeah. It can pretend, but it can't not love. Commandment is that.

speaker-1: It's a robotic. I wrote an article I wrote I wrote an article not that long ago, I can send it to you, entitled Can AI Preach My Sermon? Yeah. And and just shared it with it. But it it is it's a it's I don't even know how the English teachers can be English teachers nowadays. You can just steal it. But you can't steal a heartbeat.

speaker-0: No, no. And I've even had some of the young guys who are in seminaries and Bible colleges and we were waiting for the other guys to show up. I said, Hey guys, who can tell me, let's see, who gave me the names of twelve apostles? Right. And they stare at me. And one of them said, Rand, why do you need to know that? I said, Well, I don't even know what you're asking. He says, You can Google it. And and I'm not down, I'm just saying that's the mindset today.

speaker-1: boy.

speaker-0: And I was taught no you're those

speaker-1: Are those kids I out of curiosity, are those kids even that grew up in good Christian homes going to good Christian churches?

speaker-0: And good colleges. Yeah. And still thinking that way. Yeah. I was raised that if you get arrested, thrown into prison because of your faith, what for the next three years are you gonna scrat what do you remember about the Bible? You're gonna scratch on the wall. So you have it there. You know what I'm saying? It is and it's true. If I don't know something, I even this morning I'm on I'm sitting at my computer, I'm studying feast of the unleavened bread. Okay, was that before after Passover? Yeah. I mean we don't have take time to pull a book off the shelf anymore. But that in a way could also hurt us.

speaker-1: Well, we've been incredibly spoiled. I I was gonna I was gonna say and that I think is what's scary. Yeah I think we've been given so much and the devil knows that. And so some of the even the young men that you're training, I'm so glad that you are, i they have been trained as good soldiers, so to c so to speak, from their youth, and the devil knows if they can get passionate about God, these guys are dangerous for God. The devil doesn't want it. You know, I I I every time we have a conversation like this and I'm so looking forward to you being with us, you're gonna cover this in depth. I immediately think, Well, if Jesus took the pulpit today, what would he preach about to my congregation?

speaker-0: Yeah. I know he did the gospel in there.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: And I know you'd encourage him to be willing to love him. That's the greatest commandment of all. Right. To love him and love others. And it really it does fall down to that. Yeah. Because I tell the counselors and the obstacle camp, and we've said this for years, you're a camp. You're you're preaching and you're pouring your life into those kids. You're thinking of God and others, God and others, God and others. You get to the weekend, you're too tired to sin. So you just go eat some pizza, do your laundry, take a nap. And you do it again for ten weeks in a row. Your entire focus is God and others. And then the kids go to their Bible colleges, and then I get a text, Brand, pray for me. I was so close to the Lord and it's just it's just kind of drifting away now. I got a heavy school load. And so I text back, just tell me how you're doing with your personal time of God. And he said, Not too good. It always comes down to the back.

speaker-1: I keep wanting to think back too from our beginning, like just talking about legacies. I mean, you're in New England, there's a legacy there. We got a legacy at our church. Well, what about a church that has that kind of legacy? What what would Jesus say to a church that has a tremendous legacy, second, third, fourth generation Christians even? Here's a church example. Imagine this church. A church is in a city that the apostle Paul first went to in Acts eighteen. They sit under Paul's preaching for two years, and he founds their church. They're still in that city as Paul writes the book of first and second Corinthians, and they would have been the second recipients of that. Timothy becomes their second pastor. So it goes from Paul to Timothy. Also in their membership are Aquila and Priscilla and Apollos. They all labor in this same church. The apostle John will spend the last years of his life with them. And it was here that John would write the gospel of John and three of his epistles. Maybe that was a Sunday school class. I don't know. Tradition tells us that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is buried in their city. So what would Jesus say to that church? Well, we have it. Here's what he says. I have this against you that you left your first love. Yep. That's the Church of Ephesus. And that's I think if there was a passage for the series that you're on, that would be the passage. You've got all this, you've got tradition, you know the Bible, you know how to dress right, talk right, and act right. But do are you passionate about God? Is the Mio question. And how do we get from there to wherever we're to wherever we are to where you are? As a teenager, You're the one that instilled in my heart you are as close to God as you want to be. Right. I and I remember you saying that as a teen and I imagine you still say that. Yeah. So how do you get that?

speaker-0: I think and I think also by the way, Jesus very simply what did he do? He prayed early in the morning, he met people. And then he prayed some more and met some more people. So if I do in my life, I'm gonna pray and meet people, tell them about Jesus and go pray some more. It was just kind of a cycle that he lived. I did want to mention one other thing when you're asking the difference in the I think the biggest difference in the last 40 plus years, and I've put it this way, sin is not sinful anymore. Consequences are we shy away from them, but there's no shock factor, there's nothing that bad and therefore that complacency towards sin is almost equal to complacency in s with spending time with the Lord. We don't see the need to ink for whatever reason in the feast. I don't know if I have an answer to all of that.

speaker-1: You're seeing that at camp on a pretty regular basis, then.

speaker-0: what would kids say and the problems that they have on thinking well I didn't even know about that until I was almost thirty or whatever, you know. Yeah, there there is a difference. And I I actually pity them. Now I live in a world where I deal with kids who obviously drugs, the alcohol, wondering about their gender, same sex attraction. I also have learned to pity And really feel sorry for them. Many of them don't want to be the way they are. It's not like I counseled one teenager at Kim. And they came to me and they said, That preacher said, like, you know, it was sin to be attracted to the opposite sex and give in the real lifestyle. And so I said, Well, come off, let's get your couch, sir. We sat down, took the word of God, went to first Thessalonians four, Romans one. And that sixteen year old just looked at me and goes, Whoa. I didn't know that. I'm not even gonna think about ever doing anything like that again. See, it's not a simple rebellion. They don't know. Right. They don't know. At at least in the word. Right. Is it post Christian era in New England? I don't know.

speaker-1: Well I I I'm again, I know I keep repeating myself, but on purpose in a sense, because I want people to understand why we would have the sessions that we're having with you. I mean this is not this is a week of meetings in a sense. It's an irregular week of meetings. We've got a a children's track going on for VBS and we're excited about what all the fun that they can have. And by the way, the adults are welcome to join us for some of the skits. We we we love it, right? It's it's almost like camp in that sense, so you'll feel right at home. but There's a there was a reason why we as a pastoral team and and even after talking to me, this is why I want this topic covered for our church. Because what's to say that the buckle of the Bible belt in South Carolina isn't anymore? That could change. That could change tomorrow. And and in a sense, I would say we better be careful. You know, we we we need to steward the one thing. We I was just at the wilds of North Carolina two weeks ago. They had us doing that. They had us doing parables and one of them was the parable of the talents. And I thought, man, for a group of teenagers, that's a pretty powerful parable to consider. But even for us in this room and and for you to come and cover this topic, I I I think maybe advanced reading might be required reading should be the parable of the talents or Revelation two or those such passages. Well, it could be us. We could be next.

speaker-0: Okay. But by the grace of God. And he loves us and he wants us to be close. I like what I read this morning. Peter, Satan wants to sit to his week. But Peter, I prayed for you. Right. Then Peter says, I'll never, ever. Then you jump over to the book of John. Peter said, I'll never, ever, ever turn my back on you. And it was almost like if you take out the chapter headings and stuff, that Jesus said, Really, Peter? Before the rooster combs, you will deny me. But let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me, 'cause in my father's house are rooms for guys just like you who denied me and turned their back on me. We're gonna be together, you're gonna be forgiven, and I'm gonna use you in a wonderful way. And so there is a lot of really positive hope in what God promises.

speaker-1: And God is good. We're we're excited. I I'm excited to have you come. Again, the dates on that for those that are joining us, we'd love to have you join us are July nineteenth, twenty, twenty-one, and twenty-two. Randall be speaking every evening on all of those nights. There's children's tracks. we tell our people are pretty familiar with this, but if you're not and you're just watching this, our family VBS, we always, always start with the adult sessions first, and then we creatively try to match something for the kids, but it's it's focused on the adults. So if you've got no kids, that that's fine. There's definitely something for you. We'd love to have you join us. And there are plenty of people that have maybe more fun than the kids that just come to the adult sessions. And and we we would love to have you join us for those. You'll also be speaking in our morning service on on July 19. You'll also have a combined growth group hour that time. So you talked about three times in a day, man, we're gonna we're gonna wear Rand out when he's yeah when he's with us. But I'll give you the final word maybe and and what some of your prayers and passions as you as you prepare to be with us and cover that topic as a final word.

speaker-0: Well, just I always say this everywhere I go. I'm here for one reason. I came to help all of us get to know God a little bit better so we love him a little bit more. Because if we learn to love God more than we love self, we learn to love God more than anything. It will. And I I don't mean just say that we love him, I mean truly, truly have that dread of displeasing him. to love what he loves, to hate what he hates. and as we grow in our knowledge of him, we will grow in our love for him and we will be desirous of pleasing him more and more. We're all missed, we're all broken, and we will be till we get to meet him face to face. But he knows when we love him. He knows if we're pretending he does. So let's not pretend to love him. Let's just really learn to grow in our love for him.

speaker-1: Well, we're so thankful for Rand and his ministry, and we do pray that y this has been an encouragement to you. If you'd like, you can watch any of these videos on our YouTube channel, Facebook, social media. You can also subscribe to us and any of our social media platforms, as well as anywhere you get your normal podcasts, you can find those there as well. But thank you, Rand, again for joining us. Can't wait to have you with us here very soon at Faith Baptist in Taylor, South Carolina. Thank you so much.

speaker-0: Thank you for joining us today. For more information about Faith Baptist Church, visit us at www.fbctailors.org.

speaker-1: W dot f