011 - Safe

Welcome to the Pure Desire podcast where we partner with you to bring hope and freedom on your journey to purity. Hey there. I'm your host, Trevor Windsor, and we're so thankful you're taking time out of your day to hang out with us. Filling in today as my co host is the one, the only, Brian Roberts.

Insert clever intro. Wait, I don't think I did that right. That's what it says. But I'm supposed to come up with.

Something new each time for all our listeners. This will be the only time Brian is my co host.

I blew it the one time. Hey everybody.

The reason why I get to have Brian as my co host today is that we're gonna be interviewing Nick Stumbo, who's normally my co host. We're gonna be interviewing him today about his new book titled Creating a Culture of Grace and a Climate of Shame. That's a great title, by the way. Nick, are you sad you won't be co hosting today?

It did remove the pressure of having to think of another witty greeting, so I appreciate that Brian filled in for that. But, yeah, a little different role today.

Yeah. Have you gotten any emails from anybody yet? On a previous podcast we asked people to send them in via email. Have you gotten any of those yet?

You know, surprisingly the listeners have not responded to that quite yet, but I remain hopeful and optimistic. Well, I'll get some snappy one liners for future podcasts.

Yeah.

So for anybody that hasn't listened to the previous episodes, if you would like to get your Zinger one liner on here, email nickseweredesire.org okay, before we get too off track, like I said, today we're going to be talking to Nick about his new book and getting to hear his heart for the culture of the church. So, Nick, let's just get into it with the first question.

So, Nick, where did the idea for the book come? How did you come up with the culture of grace and this idea of safe.

Yeah, really started seven years ago when my wife and I walked through our healing journey with pure desire. At the time I was a lead pastor. I was in my early 30s, had been in that role for about seven years. And throughout the time of ministry and leading up to ministry, I had a very typical binge purge relationship with pornography that was really undermining my ministry and my marriage. And so when we walked through that healing journey and just experienced such incredible freedom, we realized that that was only half the story. That what God wanted to do in us was significant, but that what God wanted to do through Us was also part of the story. And so the. The process began. Well, how do we make this. How do we take our story and make it a part of our church's story? And so on a weekend as I was preaching through Romans chapter seven and eight, I just opened up about my struggles and was very real. Talked about the change that God had brought and invited our church to be a part of that process by starting a healing ministry for men and women that also struggled with sexual stuff in their lives. And the way people responded to that was really remarkable. You know, I had people warned me, they said, you know, Nick, when you get that honest with your church, people won't be able to handle it. There's people that want their pastor to be perfect and they're going to leave. And what I found was the opposite. If anyone left because of our openness, I still don't know that seven years later, they may have slipped out the back door, I don't know. But what I did hear for weeks and weeks on end was people coming up after services saying, thank you. Because if you can be honest and be the pastor, then me too. I know that I can be here and I can be real and I don't have to hide my stuff. I don't have to act like I'm someone I'm not. Because you're being real. We can be real. And so we started groups and we just watched over the next few years as people were transformed and as that openness was creating this culture where it was okay to not be okay. It was alright to show up at church and be in the middle of your mess and not have people judge you or jump on you, what's wrong with you, but just to love you and care for you and help you. Yeah. And there came this moment where we kind of looked around as leadership and my wife and I, and realized what we have going here is more rare than we realize that because we're in the middle of it, it just seems normal. But when you started to hear stories from others, and as I'd share my journey with other pastors, the comments and remarks they'd make about why. I wish we had that. I wish I knew how to do that in our church. I wish we had that level of openness. It just started to make some light bulbs go on to say, wow, what God has done here. And it really was God's doing. I mean, we never set out with this intentional leadership plan to create a culture of grace. It just happened because of our story. But in seeing that Realized this is something that needs to be shared. We want to help others understand what happened here. And so really the book is a combination of those things of our journey, but also the scriptures that God used during that time. Coming out of a sermon series on grace and shame and just kind of the practical outgrowth we saw of sharing our story and having our story become the church's story.

Yeah. And it's interesting because when you are honest and open with congregation, you are afraid that people are going to leave the church. Like, I can't handle this. You know, if a guy, especially if a pastor, says, you know what? I'm like, I'm hooked on porn. Like, I'm dealing with purity and I'm doing that, that's such a turn off to some Christians and some people in the church. And I think that it's cool that what we saw is maybe some people will leave your church and that's not a problem. That's okay. But in the long run, it creates a healthier culture. If you're vulnerable and people understand that, well, hey, if my pastor's doing it, then I can do it.

Yeah. And I think there is a difference. When we're in leadership, we've been called to something. We don't just, you know, pull open a wound and bleed on people that there are timing issues of when's the right time to be public about this.

Right.

So for the year while we were walking through our healing journey, there was a much smaller circle of people that knew and were supporting us. And it wasn't known broadly by the church. And so I do kind of give that warning if leaders and pastors listen to this, that in no way is this book an encouragement to just every Sunday get up there and dump. Yeah. Whatever bad happened in your life. Because that tends to create not a culture of grace, but more just a culture of acceptance or of anything goes. No one really cares what you're doing. And that's not really the heart of grace. So we do want to have our realness, our openness be done in a way that is redemptive and not just creating more mess for other people to deal with.

For sure. So when someone sees a book that's written on culture and when it's written in the realm of Christianity and evangelicalism, I think that. Is that a word? Evangelicalism, Evangelical world? When books are written about culture in the church, more often than not, I think people think, oh, it must be for leaders or pastors or for elders. So is this book really only for the leaders in the church or who else could it be for?

You know, the context for a lot of the book is the church, but it certainly is applicable to everyone, because the truth is, in some way, we are all a part of creating culture. That might be the culture of our marriage or of our family, the culture we create as parents. We're creating culture in small groups that we're a part of or workplace or the church we attend. And so, on some level, likely, every person has to look at themselves and realize the way I act and behave is influencing the cultures I'm a part of. And if we can recognize that, then we realize I need to understand how to be a person of grace in my home, in my small group, my workplace, and my church. And so I really feel that anyone that gets that, that sees I'm a part of creating culture around me, will really benefit from this book.

Yeah.

Because everybody needs grace. Right?

I know I do.

Some more than others.

There you go.

So, Nick, when I. When I think about. When you're talking about culture and you're talking about communicating to the body of Christ and fellow believers and people around us about the struggles that we face, and it's kind of that idea that this is not about performance. This is about how I fit in. I know my value is not based on performance and that I want to share with those around me the struggles I have and how God is moving in my life and the strides I'm making forward. But I know for me, you know, like, being in a peer desire group, and we know it's not a performance contest, but gosh darn it, every week it feels like it. It's some, you know, at some level, I still get into, I got to do this, I got to do this. I got it. And I think, too, you know, churches do that, too. Like, we. We set programs because they help us organize, and they're good for, you know, getting people connected. But how do you. How do you get out of that performance mentality personally and, like, even as a church? Because I think that's a real struggle for churches as well.

Yeah, I think there are a couple of reasons. We get caught up in that performance mode in our churches and in our homes. For that fact of the matter, part of it is that we live in a culture that is really wrapped around performance identity. Our Western culture teaches us from a very young age, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, that your value comes from your performance. And the better I perform, the better I do, the more valuable I am. And so if you can get the 4.0 and get the scholarship or have the promotion or the right possessions or job at work, well, then you're more valuable because your performance shows it. And we'd love to think the church is immune to that, but we're not. We carry that often into our worship experiences. And then I think we also battle our own theology sometimes because we feel like we teach people so much about coming to Jesus and saying the sinner's prayer and have your sins forgiven, and he cleans you up and washes you white as snow and fills you with the Holy Spirit. And the message we can get out of that is like, okay, and now that I'm saved, I should be all better.

You're all done sinning now.

Yep. And if there is sin in my life, it's going to be progressively getting better and better because I'm just going to trust Jesus. I'm going to pray about it, I'm going to get help. And this maturity process should be pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, that's not a very biblical idea. It's not something we see in Scripture that our process of sanctification, which just means becoming like Christ. Our journey, becoming like Christ is challenging. It's difficult. It's something that isn't completed until we get to the other side of this life. And so we really have to recognize we've been set up for kind of that performance mode. And so we feel like if I'm not, you know, if I've believed in Jesus for a while and things in my life aren't all that great, then I just have to fake it. I should fake it until I make it, you know, I should be able to act like I'm spiritual and I know God and I trust him, even if I know behind the curtain of my life, there's all kinds of stuff I don't figure out.

Yeah.

And that's what's so desperately needed in church, is that permission to, in a sense, be a mess, that permission to own where we're really struggling and having issues, because then we can invite God and others in to really find what real health, what real growth looks like, as opposed to just acting like we're okay when we're not.

It's interesting you say that, because as you're saying it, I'm thinking of a quote I once heard from a pastor who said, more often than not, we think sanctification is like this super highway where we're just going 100, you know, 150, 200 miles an hour, all the way down. We're just growing at warp speed. But he said, in reality, it's like a dirt path. It's just gross and grimy, and sometimes it goes backwards to go forward. And it's like a hike. I mean, you're moving up. And so it's just. It's good that people understand. Sanctification isn't this, like, slide that you just get to put your hands up and wee, you know. And again, it happens because that's not how it is.

Yeah, we used to say in our. In our seven pillars group, you know, because you look at the faster scale and we talk about being in restoration. One guy was like, restoration is not as fun as I thought it was going to be. So that was always our joke. Like, restoration is not a lot of fun, you know, but it's where we want to be.

Right.

And I think what we do in that journey is we look around at other people and we make a lot of assumptions because we think they're on the superhighway. Like, man, their marriage looks good and their kids look perfect and they seem to know the Bible so well and they love Jesus. And it reinforces this message of what's wrong with me because I know the whole truth of my life.

Something must be wrong if I'm not.

But what we don't realize is that the reality is we don't know the truth of their life. We only see what we can see. But we don't know that behind the scenes, they're very often struggling with all the same things we are at all the same levels. And sometimes those people are looking across to church at us going, man, if only I was more like them. And, yeah, and it's such this deep irony that everyone feels like they have to play the game to compare, when, if we would all quit playing the game together and be real, we'd find we have far more in common than we thought. And we could enter into that difficult journey of sanctification in a way that actually produces change.

Yeah, for sure. So with the performance based in your experience, how would someone be able to identify if that really is the culture in their church, that it's a performance based. And you are valued based on how you do in your daily life or how you live as a Christian or how many times you go to church? So how might someone see and be able to identify that in their culture at church?

Yeah, I think there are a few things we can look at as kind of markers of a culture that's trapped in performance orientation. And as I say this, I want to be Clear to say, I love the church. The local church is where my heart is at. I grew up in a pastor's family and I loved that experience. And it trained me in God's word, it trained me in values. There are so many things I have to be grateful for. And then I went to college to become a pastor and went into ministry right out of college. So the church has been my life. And I want to be clear to say I want to see this change happen in the church because I love the church. So as I say some things that sound perhaps a little critical, I don't mean it as criticism as much as hopefully raising awareness of where we inadvertently create a performance mentality for people. So some markers that I look for is when at a church we're only telling the happy stories. What I say is every testimony starts to sound like chicken soup for the soul that life is bad, I met God, things are better, and everyone lived happily ever after.

Like the sitcom, we wrap it up in 30 minutes.

That's right.

And if that's truly their story, that's awesome. But I think that's the minority of stories that most stories are like, I was in a bad place and God met me and things got worse, and then I grew and learned some things, but then something else happened that was also bad, but then this happened and got better and it's, it's not all figured out yet, but God's with me and I just don't hear enough of those stories in, in churches in Hollywood. Yeah, that. Let it be real. I think another marker to look at is how we react to confession. I think in a lot of churches, any kind of admission of fault or sin is treated very hush hush, or with this gasp of like, we can't believe they do that. Where, you know, behind the scenes we're all doing the same thing. But when it comes out in public, it's like, oh my goodness, how could they?

Right?

So our reaction to sin, I think, says a lot about it. Another marker to look for is taboo topics. Realizing that at our church, we just, we never talk about that. And I think for a lot of people, sex is that area. We never talked about sex. We, we figured everyone was having it because they were having kids, but no one ever talked about it in a redemptive biblical way other than to say, don't do it until you're married. Another marker can be our approach to change. I think when we look fundamentally at a way a lot of churches believe people change, it's that we teach them the Right thing to do, we preach the right motives and passages and then we believe that they're going to go home and make the changes. Which is really a knowledge based approach to transformation, that if I just help people know the right things, they'll go do them. Which if that actually worked, we would all be so much better than we are. But yet that's still the approach. And I'm not saying we shouldn't teach or preach, but if that's the only thing we're doing, should we really expect people to be transformed? And then the last marker I look at is when a church does have an instance for maybe some discipline or to correct someone that is veering off the trail and really their life is going off the rails. Is our approach to them to punish or is it to restore? Yeah, because if you look at the biblical purpose of discipline, it's always with the goal of restoration to bring someone back to God, back to family, back to connection. But sometimes we start to treat that person like such a black sheep and thinking if, you know, if you pay for your stuff long enough and if you feel sorry enough, then maybe we'll let you back in. Yeah, well, that's really emphasizing punishment and that, you know, punishment might make us change, but more often it just makes us leave and we don't want anything to do with it.

Yeah. I think of the passage where, you know, Paul tells the church to cast this guy out to hand him over to Satan, but then the next line is for the salvation of his soul. Right.

So that means he sow that. Here's the purpose of it.

Yeah, that's so good, Nick. So good.

Okay, so Nick, tell me, like looking at a church or culture community that we're in, what are the dangers of not having this culture of grace or having a safe place? Basically, what do you see as most detrimental in that environment?

Yeah. What comes to mind for me is a quote out of the leadership realm that says, we teach what we know, but we replicate who we are. And I think that's the danger when it comes to a culture that's maybe creating shame, that's based around performance, is that if I'm caught up in that as a leader or a parent or a spouse, then I'm going to replicate that in the people closest to me. Because if I'm driven by an idea that my value comes from performance, I can't help but treat you the same way. And now we're replicating this dysfunction of we're all trying to look good and play the part and not being honest about what's happening under the surface. And what I think is really dangerous about that is people today, particularly younger generations, are hungering for something that's real. And I think we're seeing a lot of research and data come out about the church that says young people are leaving in droves. And I think a driving issue is they feel like it's not real, it's fake, it's not applicable to where my life is really at. And so they come and hear a sermon like that had nothing to do with the life I live. Why would I keep listening to the sermon? And I think a lot of it is this performance mindset that if all the people they see on stage have these happy, perfect little lives and they know the messes they're dealing with, it's like, I. I don't fit here, I don't belong, and I don't. I think that's really unfortunate because the church doesn't need to lose people for that reason. I mean, if people want to walk away from the church because they can't buy into that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, well, that's an issue they should make that decision over. But it shouldn't be because they feel like they don't fit. Because if they could see the reality of the people around them and the struggles they have, the battles they're facing, I think younger generation go, man, this is a place that knows me and loves me. And they actually have some direction, some answers to provide. Because if people walk away from the church because it's not real, they might go into other cultures that feel very real. But I find those cultures don't have much answers or much hope, right? So they can relate to people, but nothing's changing in their lives. And so I think that's the danger is if we don't really address the culture and we don't become real, that increasingly culture won't find much attractive about the church.

Well, and it's sad because I think that the church today ends up looking like a retirement home for Christians where you've put in the work and you can just cash in and coast out, when in reality it should be a hospital. Sick people come here and get healed. Sick people come and get treatment from the healer, from the one who is able to do it all. And, you know, another thing I think of too is I have. I've had some friends who, you know, at seasons in their life were struggling with alcohol addiction and would spend time in the bars. And what I found out through conversation is that the reason why people go there is because the people they drink with, the people that they're there with every day become family. They love them for who they are, they accept that they have problems and they're just real with each other. But then if you get up and go to church the next day, you can't be that real anymore. You can't experience that because of this performance based thing. And it's sad.

It really is. I hope if we're a part of a church, if we're a Christ follower, I hope that bothers us because I know it bothered me that feeling that, that people could find more acceptance and family at a bar than they would at church because it seems like we're meant to be that family. And I think the barrier is that fear of rejection that people don't really know me and if they knew me at church, they wouldn't want anything to do with me. And so I hope this book gives people a pathway to see the church can be that place where someone goes knowing they know everything about me and they love me and I'm family and I'm not perfect. I got a lot of stuff to work on, but man, when I'm there, I just. I feel like I'm at home. And I think that's the kind of place the church can be and the kind of place that our own homes and our families can be.

Amen to that, for sure. Okay, so a lot of our listeners maybe aren't pastors. You know, for me, I come from a perspective where I was a pastor for a few years. And so I'm thinking of our listeners out there who are not in church leadership, who haven't been in church leadership before. And oftentimes it's easy to think that changing the culture really has to do with leadership. And only leadership is able to change that culture. So my question is, can someone who's not in a leadership role or a primary change agent for the church, can that person affect the culture in a church?

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's one of the mistakes we make when we think about changing culture, that we think you need to change the whole group together and that the leadership should come out and tell us how to change the culture. When, if you think about it, if you try to change a whole culture just by starting a program or teaching people to be kind to one another, it doesn't tend to have the kind of impact it needs to because we're just all being nicer but not really addressing our stuff. It's at the individual level that change happens. And so I absolutely think someone who's not in leadership can be a part of changing their culture if they'll take courage to show up and to just be real and in their heart say, I'm not going to play the game. I'm not going to act like things are fine if they're not. Now that doesn't mean I'm going to come and pretend things are bad or act like I'm messed up, but just if it's been a rough week at home and someone says, hey, how you guys been? I'm not going to put on the smile. We're great.

Yeah.

They're saying it's been a hard week. Yeah, we're really struggling.

Yeah.

And invite people into those kind of conversations that aren't just built around, you know, church nice, which I think people are getting sick of. And so if you're going to a church where you feel like I'm not a leader here, I'd ask you the question, but are you stuck in the game of playing church nice or are you being real about who you are and what's going on? I've seen in our church and in a lot of churches that the way change occurs often is kind of through this ground up movement that when a few groups. That's what I love about pure desire groups is they invite that kind of realness, that kind of grace that really begins to transform people. And as that happens in a church and maybe a pocket of four or five people that are starting to experience I'm fully known and still they love me and they like me, they come to church with a different attitude, a different mindset and, and other people start to take notice like what's going on with you? And then they want in a group and pretty soon a group of five or six people are shifting the whole culture of a church because there's something fresh about when people are walking in grace and able to be real and not hiding who they are, that's very, very attractive. And so if you'll, like I said, have courage to be real, to show up and not hide your stuff and in the appropriate ways. Again, I'm not suggesting you get up on Sunday morning, share time if your church does that, which very few do. But you know, I'm not suggesting you get up at a sharing time and just blah, you know, lay out all your stuff, but with a group of people, in a pure desire group, in a small group, if you're able to start just taking off that mask and Taking that risk, I think you'll find that you can shift culture far more than you expect.

Yeah. And it's so interesting. I don't know, Brian, you can speak to this too. But in group with pure desire groups, I found that when I'm open about some of the deepest, darkest stuff that I've always been afraid to share, I often actually, every time I've done that, I found that someone else had the same exact experience that I had where I felt like I was alone and I was the only person. And shame has kind of morphed me into this person that's in the corner and in the dark. But I realized that once I share and I get it out there, someone's just like, oh, yeah, man, me too. Same over here.

Yeah. You know, when you were talking Nick, too, about being cultures or agents of change within our culture, it makes me really think about most of us at church are in some sort of small group, and boy, what a great place to start, because these are people who know you really well. You're right. You don't want to get up on stage and, oh, it's sharing time. I'm just lay it all out for everybody or think, you know, I think I should send a letter to pastor once a week now and just really let them know what I think about.

Bleeding on other people is not what.

We want, but to start in that area. Like you said, Trevor, when I was in group and I would share something or either my seven pillars group, or I volunteer at Kid City, which is our youth ministries, and I would. Other volunteers in the break room, I'd talk with them, tell them about what was going on my week. I noticed the more I did that, the more that bled out into other areas of my life. People that I meet at work, people that I see at the club and even at church, when I'd come to the greeters, I remember one Sunday morning and you just do the usual thing of how's it going? You shake the other person's hand and they say, well, how's it going? And nobody ever says how it's going. They're just fine. Or in. And I actually stopped and I knew this greeter. I said, you know, I'm glad you asked me that. Let me tell you something. It might have been sorry that he asked me that, but I recognized that because I felt that freedom in a smaller group, I could start to experience that in a larger scale. And I could see where that would snowball and almost like you said, become contagious. And I Think that's so cool.

Yeah. And it's encouraging to know that we don't have to get the majority on board to change culture, because sometimes we think that way. Like, okay, how can we get everyone to do this? I think of Malcolm Gladwell's book the Tipping Point, and he finds that, I think he gives the number 17%. 17% of a core group that are doing the same thing and identifying with one another. It starts to attract attention and it gains momentum. And so you really can have tremendous influence at a church through your small group or through your family as you make choices to live in grace and get out of that performance mindset.

I wanted to make a disclaimer. When Brian said club, he was talking about Athletic Club.

Oh, sorry, yes. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Not a dance club. For any of our listeners who may, you know, want to email in. Is Brian okay?

Exercise regularly, folks.

He's fine. He likes to play racquetball at the club. That's what we're talking about.

Yeah, yeah. Share with all my racquetball friends all my problems. So. So, Nick, let me think about this. If someone's listening to this now, I could see them saying, wow, that sounds really good. I get what they're saying, but like, where do I start? How reading this book, how is that really going to specifically help someone in their church get sort of some handles on starting change in their church or in their small group or in their community?

Yeah, a couple of things. I hope it'll give them that self awareness of where they are trapped in shame, where the fear of being exposed for something in their life or the unpleasant parts of their story will cause rejection. That if they become aware that that's there, then they can make the courageous choice to begin to face those things and in the right situations and contexts, move into real openness and honesty. And so I think that's the second thing they'll really get from this book is a clear understanding that change begins with me, that creating a culture of grace begins with me being a person of grace. And each chapter, I think, really spells out what is the process we go through as an individual to understand grace at a much deeper level than probably we have before. As we understand what God calls us to, how God feels about us, the lies that we've been listening to. And as we walk the steps of becoming a person of grace, then just like we've been talking about creating a culture of grace becomes the natural outflow of that. Because as I said earlier, I replicate who I am. I don't replicate what I say or do, I really replicate who I am. And so if I'm becoming a person of grace, I can't help but pass that on to the culture I'm a part of. And so I think people really find some really applicable, clear things that they can do, whether or not people in their church or even in their own home are ready to take those same steps. So as they become that safe person, that person of grace, they'll create a culture of grace around them. Cool.

That's very cool. Okay, well, Nick, as you well know, because you're on this podcast every episode, we like to end our episodes with just giving the guest a platform to just speak encouragement. So let's say someone out there listening who sees their culture that they're in and they know that change is possible, and now they're getting fired up understanding that they can be a person of grace and change the culture, what encouragement would you give to that person?

Yeah, I think when you look at grace, you start to realize, and hopefully through our conversation today, you realize that grace and truth always go together. That to create a culture of grace involves facing truth about what I've done, where I've been, the mess of my life. And that can be incredibly intimidating. And so some listeners might be feeling like, can't we just create a nicer church with people that are a little more real? Do we have to face the real truthful stuff? Because that's a risk. And so what I would want to really say to people is that it's worth the risk. It's not always easy. It's not always fun. It's not always straightforward. And three steps to a better you. It can be a real journey, but it is worth it because it gets us to the places we really want to go. I think every one of us yearns to be fully known, and we somehow theologically know that God really knows us. But until we've experienced it through other people, that theological truth of God's knowledge of us, God's love isn't able to sink down into our hearts and into that core of our being that really understands love. And so as we start to face that risk of being real and open about who we are and letting our stuff be known in the right context with a safe group of people, we receive their love as we feel fully known and fully loved through other people. It's amazing how that impacts our relationship with God because we realize he feels that way about us. And so if anyone listening is feeling like boy stepping into the light, I don't know if I want to do that. My encouragement would be, you know, when you step into the light, it makes you squint and at first it hurts your eyes, but if you will stay there, if you allow your eyes to adjust that, you'll find being in the light and having nothing to hide and nothing to fear is really an entirely different way of doing life. And so it's not just about, well, how can I make my church a little happier or my home a little kinder? It's really about how am I transformed at a place that I know who I am. And in that comfort of knowing who I am, I'm able to affirm and love others for who they are and invite that same level of truth out of them. It's incredible to watch it happen. And really that again, that's our story. It wasn't our master plan of church growth, it was simply obedience to God saying, here's the truth of what's going on in our lives and we want to use it to help others. And then watching other people be courageous and say, yeah, I want to face my stuff, I want to be real. And then watching their lives be changed and marriages get healed and seeing that happen is like, wow, this is powerful. This makes a difference. And so if our experience and our journey can somehow help others take that same journey, whether as an individual or in their whole church, that's really the purpose of this whole book. And I'd be delighted to know that.

Absolutely. Nick, dude, thanks for being our guest today, taking off the co host hat and talking us through this. And thanks for writing the book. We really appreciate it.

Absolutely. I'm looking forward to those snappy one liners when I'm back to my co host role.

There we go. And I guess we should also thank Brian. Thank you for co hosting today.

Thank you, Brian.

I've emailed you a few of those one liners while we were so check them out, they're good.

Please someone else help.

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