Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Hey, everybody, thanks for tuning in to the Recovering Fundamentalist podcast. We're your host. That's Nathan. That's not Brian. That's Greg Steer. I'm JC. Groves. Where's Brian?
[00:00:21] Speaker B: I think he's on the tarmac right now.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Yeah, Brian just got home, literally. We're recording on a Thursday night, and he just landed from brian's been breaking for a spot of tea and the plane lost all power. So I said, hey, we're recording at 09:00. He goes, y'all do it without ever.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Have you guys ever been stuck in a plane that the air conditioner didn't come on and you're sitting on the runway? Is that pretty normal? That happened to me on this trip. It was about close to an hour. We were delayed, and he said, don't worry, once we take off, the air will kick in. But dude, it was hot and, you know, I like, it hot. JC. So it was like third level of Hades.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: The plane wasn't off, but when I was leaving Albany, New York, speaking up at Word of Life and Screwing Lake, I was set on the plane on the runway for 3 hours. They pulled us back up to the thing, let us off. We walked up, came back on. Thankfully, they left the plane on, and it was actually kind of cold in there, but it was just well, we'll do this one without him tonight. Sound good?
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Well, nobody can replace Brian but Greg. You give it a shot for us tonight?
[00:01:33] Speaker C: I'll do my best.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: All right, well, let's get this thing rolling. Y'all ready?
[00:01:37] Speaker B: I'm ready.
[00:01:39] Speaker C: I'm ready.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Let's go.
The Recovering Fundamentalist podcast starts in three.
[00:02:01] Speaker C: You know what makes women stupid is calling. Jesus was not a bartender long tongue. Heifers have given me a lot more trouble than heifers wearing britches. And you know that. Say amen right? There one. Let me tell you something, Bozo. They'll be setting frosties in hell for this boy. Puts on a pair of pink underwear. Amen. I suck my thumb till I was 14 years of age. Hi, bag.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Wow. I'm telling you, four years and it still gets me every time.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Never gets old.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Never gets old. Everybody, thanks for tuning in to the Recovering Fundamentalist podcast. We are your host, nathan JC. We have a guest with us tonight. This is Greg Steer, and we're excited about the conversation that we're going to have with him the next couple of weeks. We want to thank our sponsor of the RFP free Life Soap. You could check him out today by going to recoveringfundamentalist.org. Click on the Free Life Soap tab. Use your promo code RFP. Get 20% off of your order. Nathan, you are back in the land of the free refill. Welcome, America. How was your trip, bro?
[00:03:13] Speaker B: My trip was amazing. It was exhausting. It was high paced. It was a whirlwind, but had a blast. So I went to Nepal. But as everybody on Facebook is seeing, I went to Nepal via norway, Italy, Dubai, Prague, and then coming home, I hit.
I guess we can count Los Angeles. Yeah, we can count that as a foreign country as well. We're in California.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: How many pictures did you take, bro?
[00:03:52] Speaker B: I can't count that high, but it was in the tens of thousands.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: How many of those disposable cameras did you used to go through back in the day?
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Well, I've used my share of disposables, but back then you had to be picky. Now I can take 17 shots of the exact same thing just in case something changes with lighting or something like that. Greg? Yes, I do.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Flying on a plane with Nathan Curvette. I like to sleep. I look over, this dude has his camera up on the window taking pictures in a six hour flight nonstop. I'm like, you're taking pictures of the same cloud. But that is Nathan Curvette. There is no telling how many pictures that you have on your phone right now from that.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: Yeah, there's no telling.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: I love it. Well, I'm glad you're home, bud. And Brian is now stateside he has been in England, but both of you are home. And man, last time Nathan left, COVID hit and world shut down. I'm just glad you both made it back this time. And you're not quarantined in a hotel for 14 days this time because amen. We all know the mustache that came out of the last quarantine.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: I need to do a mustache just in honor of that goodness.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Need to bring it back. Bring it back. We'll do it after next weekend because next weekend is our RFP meetup up. Yes, North Carolina. Fired up to get to hang out with some of the RFP FAM. November 3 and fourth in Asheville, North Carolina. No registration, no cost. It's just going to be a couple of days of hanging out with our family and we're going to have some speaking Craig Edwards, myself, Nathan, Brian Edwards. We've got some great music. Nate, tell us about that.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Yeah, so a lot of people are asking about the schedule, which you posted something, but basically the schedule is going to be Friday night. We start at 630. We'll end somewhere around 930.
Yeah. And then Saturday morning we're starting at nine and we'll be done by noon. That is the goal. And yes, we do have some Asheville locals that are going to be doing some music. They're RFP FAM and super excited about that. Can't wait to hang out with them. We talked today about the music and good stuff is coming.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: We're going to have some bluegrass.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: We're going to have some praise and worship, maybe even get a little Southern gospel going.
It's going to be good, going to be fun.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Come and hang out with us.
Asheville, North Carolina november 3.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: And you got to be careful with that one, JC.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Yes, you do.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: I have actually said that from the pulpit and I basically lost everybody after that, it was over.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: So come and be with us. It's going to be great. Hey, we also want to give a shout out to those who are on behind the Mic. And you go and be part of the behind the Mic family. $10 a month and you get all the content that is edited out of our normal show and just a good way to get to know us a little bit better. So we thank you for supporting and sponsoring the RFP Network and being part of the behind the Mic family. We also want to give a shout out to our RFP network, some great podcasts on there. Be sure to head on over to Recoveringfundamentalist.org. Click on the RFP Network tab and give a listen to some great podcasts while you're driving down the road, while you're working, working out, mowing the yard, whatever you're doing, shoveling snow because Greg Steer is about to have snow up in Denver. Whatever you're doing to the RFP network. Well, I am excited about today's show. And next week this is going to be a two parter. And this is episode number 169. And we are pleased to have with us a guest today, Greg Steer, a great preacher, evangelist, president, CEO, whatever you want to say, of Dare to Share Ministries. And I'm sure many of you have heard of him and heard his preaching. Got a great book that's out right now. And so Greg, welcome to the Recovering Fundamentalist Podcast.
[00:07:53] Speaker C: So glad to be on the show, listen to you guys. Love the podcast. And it's like a fraternity. I didn't really realize until I heard about your podcast. I go, I'm a part of this fraternity. I'm a recovery fundamentalist.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: We don't get to choose to be in this. It chooses us.
[00:08:14] Speaker C: You know, what I would say is I'm a recovered fundamentalist. I've come to terms with it and I'm grateful. I'm actually grateful for my fundamentalist background because it taught me a lot of good, solid truth and it also taught me what legalism is and to avoid it at all costs. And I took everything I learned from fundamentalism, scraped out the legalism, spackled the cracks with grace and the Holy Spirit. And when you do that, there's a lot of good stuff.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[00:08:43] Speaker C: And when you don't do that, there's a lot of bad stuff.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: You're right. Greg's got a brand new book out right now called Unlikely Fighter. And I just finished it. I do audiobooks and it was great. I got to hear Greg read the book to me. And it is a great book, but listening to your story on the book Unlikely Fighter, I realized how much the things that you were saying, I was agreeing with. We are and we say this all the you know, from listening that we get told that we don't like the fundamentals, that we don't like the IFB, that we're telling people to leave that. And that's the bipolar opposite, honestly, of what we're doing, because we feel we are recovered. We are helping those that are coming out of this man made ideology. But we will say this over and over and over again. We are so thankful for the heritage that we grew up in, the fundamentals, the learning, the awana, the Bible verses, the things that really gave us a good foundation to stand on. And that was one of the things I appreciated about your book Unlikely Fighter, was how you are thankful for the past, but it's also the things that are extracurricular. That's what we're talking about, and that's what we're here to challenge and call out and to help those who have been negatively affected by that stuff.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: Greg, do you have a copy of the book there that you can show our YouTube people? Nice. Yeah. Go get this book right now. Is it on Amazon? I guess.
[00:10:06] Speaker C: Forward by Jack hiles. No, wait. Lee Strobel. Sorry. Lee Strobel. Sorry. Come out of my mouth.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Get it on audible. He reads it to you.
[00:10:19] Speaker C: I will read it to you on Audible. That's right.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:10:21] Speaker C: And it's weird.
I've written tons of books for teenagers and youth leaders, but this was emotional for me.
Somebody told me well, my wife, I asked my wife, I go, Why am I crying as I'm working on this book? I mean, I go to the mountains and I get a cabin, and I'm like Jack Nicholson in The Shining for like, a week. I'm just know, like a crazy person. And I'll call her up, and I'm like, Why am I crying? And she's like, you're going back. You're going back. And what I've told you, when you write a regular book, you just write it from your heart. When you write a memoir, you get in a time machine and you take the reader with you back to that moment where you see what you saw, you smelled what you smelled. You want them to hear what you heard and feel what you felt. And it brought back a wave of just memories that were so visceral it shook me.
It was crazy. And it started actually before, because when we just dive in, start talking about this.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah, sir, give away too much from the book, but go back. Tell us about your past.
[00:11:41] Speaker C: So I was not raised in a fundamentalist church. What I tell people is I was raised early on.
I didn't come from a church going, pew sitting, hymn singing family. I came from a family filled with bodybuilding tobacco and beer drinking thugs. And that's just the women, sadly. But in my family, three of my uncles were competitive bodybuilders. For those of you watching on YouTube, here's my Uncle Jack who was Mr. European Health Spa. Right. It looks like the Wolverine with those lamb chops.
He went to jail once for choking two cops unconscious at the same time in and out of jail most of his life. My Uncle Bob was a bouncer at the toughest bar in Denver.
My Uncle Richard was a bodybuilder and street fighter. My Uncle Dave was a Golden Gloves boxer. Judo champion, war hero.
My Uncle Tommy was a champion bodybuilder. And my mom was the only girl in the group. And they were all afraid of her. She was tough. She was like the woman at the well with the baseball bat. And the Denver Mafia. The small don'ts nicknamed my uncles the crazy brothers. So whenever the Mafia thinks your family's dysfunctional, that is a bad sign.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:02] Speaker C: And I was like young Sheldon in the hood. I was a terrified, nerdy little kid that wondered how in the world I got stuck in this crazy family and saw so much violence. I saw when I was five years old.
And this is how the book starts. I was playing on the front porch, and a brand new car pulls up. And we lived in north Denver, which at the time was the highest Kramer area in the city. And there was a guy sitting in the car, and I recognized him. He was a guy that my mom had married months earlier who had left us, and we had no idea where he was. And I yelled inside, Mommy. Mommy. One of my daddies is here. And she looked out the window. She was doing the dishes, smoking a cigarette, and she started cursing, grabbed the baseball bat, runs out, cigarettes still in her mouth, shatters his front windshield, says, Get out of the car. I'm just a girl. Takes off his side mirror, takes off out his headlights. And she's taunting him, like, Get out. Get out. She's not afraid of this dude. She's got five street fighting brothers that are all afraid of her. She starts doing body damage. And I'm freaked out, yet somehow proud of her. I'm like you. Go, mom. You go, mom. Because she's wailing on this car. And then he made a tactical mistake. He got out, and she lit him up, beat him bloody, and he drove off.
Mom comes walking back up with this bloodied splintered bath, cigarettes still in her mouth. I'm thinking three things. Number one, I will never disobey my mom again. Number two, how'd that cigarette stay in her mouth the whole time? And number three, why is my mom so mad? And I found out years later she had a shame fueled rage. She almost aborted me, lived this party life and had me. And when she would look at me, she would burst into tears. So my family was a family filled with violence and terror. And I was absolutely petrified as a kid.
So that's my until until a hillbilly preacher.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Yes, sir.
[00:15:00] Speaker C: Nicknamed Yankee. Got a picture of Yankee. Those of you on YouTube, right? Looks like a country western singer.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Did he go to Tennessee Temple?
[00:15:11] Speaker C: No, he went to florida Bible College, okay, college. And Yankee was nicknamed Yankee. His daddy was a moonshiner and counterfeiter in the backwoods of Georgia and he was born on the run from the law in Pennsylvania. So his dad gave him the nickname Blank Yankee.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:15:34] Speaker C: He dropped the blank and kept the and so here's this guy who hillbilly deep Southern draw with the nickname Yankee, who plants a church in the suburbs of Denver and starts a youth ministry and on a dare goes into inner city Denver and to my Uncle Jack's house.
Uncle Jack. This Uncle Jack knocks on his door.
Yankee standing there and Jack comes to the door, no shirt on, two beer cans, tattoos everywhere, one beer for drinking beer, one for spitting, chew dog like this. What do you want? Yankee was fearless, had that Southern drawl and that know, that Christ confidence. I'm here on a dare from Bob Daly to tell you about Jesus. And he goes, Well, I don't know Jesus. I know Bob, I'll give you five minutes. Invited him in. And my Uncle Jack heard for the first time the gospel of grace that Jesus came for sinners, that salvation was free, that if you put your faith in Christ, that he died in your place, was buried, rose again, you have eternal life. And Yankee looked across the kitchen table and said to Jack, does that make sense? And Jack goes, Hell yeah. That was in his prayer, was Hell, yeah. He trusted in Jesus. And the dominoes began to fall. He brought 200 I'm not exaggerating this 250 people bodybuilders street fighters, gang members out to Yankees Church in one month. One month.
And then one by one by one, crazy circumstances, my whole family ended up coming to Christ. I got involved in Yankees church. An independent fundamentalist church called Colorado Bible. Bible Church. And man, it just it blew me away. So yeah, there was legalism. We could talk about that. All that other stuff. Let me just tell you, this fundamentalist, this fundy King James only old school filled reference hymns in church pews in the building reached my whole family for Christ, and for that I will be eternally.
And yeah, I mean, we talk about the other stuff I kind of learned as I went along. But man, I go back to the the gratefulness I have for the Gospel of Christ and for that man, Yankee Ralph Yankee Arnold. You can look him up on YouTube, by the way.
He's got YouTube videos. He'll get up to 30,000 views on some of them.
Hillbilly preacher knows how to work YouTube, man.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: That was one of the things I took away from your book, was just how motivated I was just by Yankees boldness and just to listen to the book of the ripple effect of his boldness and confidence, to take that dare and to go and to share the gospel. And I was mean. We live in a nathan serves in Asheville. I'm here in North Georgia. Both of us are in areas know are very religious, if you will. Well, Nathan's not in a religious spot at mean, you know, it's it's Baptist and everybody's Christian, but there's people that we will never share the gospel with because they don't look like they belong in the church. And that's one of the things I took away from that was just a motivation to get to see the other side of the ripple effect of taking that bold stand and man absolutely incredible there.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: I just looked him up on YouTube so I'm going to be watching some of those videos yeah he does not.
[00:19:24] Speaker C: Like Calvinists you're going to find that out on those videos.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: That's pretty typical of the IFP he.
[00:19:31] Speaker C: Does not like Calvinists.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: Well, Greg, one of the things that you did mention not to go back and rehash anything and of course I don't want to give away too much in the book there. But you did go to a gothard conference. You talk about that quite a bit. It was actually at a bill gothard conference that the holy spirit got a hold of your life in a pretty powerful way. You want to share a little bit.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: About I mean it wasn't just went, so I brought this along.
I won state ECSI preaching in 1979.
Still got the medal. I should wear it when I preach, just so people take me more seriously.
And then when you would win state in high school, you'd go to Bob Jones University. So I went there and competed at BJU. I'll tell you later on about a fistfight. I got in there at Bob Jones University, which is not in come on.
When I was in high school long story.
When I was 15, I went to a Jack Hiles conference, youth conference, and saw Jack Hiles himself preach.
Took off his jacket, did his muscle thing, and he had big biceps and an excellent communicator.
Went to Bill Gothard seminars, I think two years in a row here at the Denver Coliseum. And it ran after the Christian school meetings. You didn't have to go, but you were strongly encouraged, which means you had to go, right?
So we'd go, and I think it was Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, and then Friday night, and then Saturday. I forget how it went, but 5000 teenagers mostly, a lot of home school and Christian school students.
And he talked about all of his stuff. And some of it was like, no, some of it wasn't settling right with me. You know how, you know, like, okay, yes, but something's off. Right?
But one thing that was on was he talked about forgiving your dad's.
And I'll never forget him talking about the parable, when the man borrows millions of dollars and then can't pay it back. And then the master releases them from his debt. And then he goes out and finds somebody owes $20 and says, pay me back every penny.
And basically he said, whatever your father has done to you is nothing compared to what you have done to your heavenly Father. So you can forgive whoever because God's forgiven you through Christ.
And I'll never forget the moment, because the only sound you hear in the audience is a little giggle if he makes one of his kind of dumb jokes, but the pencils against the paper because you have those big old notebooks and just taking notes.
Well, when he talked about forgiving your dad's in that moment, I'll never forget I was so convicted because I never knew my biological father. What I knew about my dad is that he abandoned me and my mom before I was even born. My mom met him at a party, they partied, she got pregnant, he found out, he got transferred 2000 miles away. He was in the army.
I found out the whole story when I was twelve, that I thought my brother and I had the same dad because his last name is Dear, my last name is Dear. And whenever Doug's dad, George Steer, would call and I'd answer, he'd always say, put your brother on.
And he never wanted to talk to me.
And so I went to my mom and I go, why do you always call him Doug's dad, and why doesn't he ever want to talk to me? And she sat me down and she said, well, he's not your real dad. And then I heard the whole story. Then my grandma told me the story about me almost being aborted. And I was filled with rage. And people would ask me, what are you going to do if you ever meet your biological father? I said, I'm going to kill him. I knew where we kept the 357 Magnum, so I hated my biological father. I remember sitting there at a Bill Gothard seminar and he talked about forgiveness forgiving your dad as Christ has forgiven us. And I burst into tears and screamed, I forgive you, dad. And I'm an ugly crier.
And I'm they didn't know what to call the EMTs or what was going on. I had a meltdown. I had to do it a thousand times after that, but it was easier every time.
And that really, I mean, it freed me up, set me free. So even in the midst of all the mess and all the legalism and all the seven steps to everything, that forgiveness doc really made a huge impact on me.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: It's always amazing to me how God can use broken people who share the truth, because all truth is God's truth and broken people, even in my life, I sat under Jack Hiles. I sat under a lot of these guys that we found out later some of the things that were going on. And it's amazing how God loves to take a needle of truth in a haystack of error is how one theologian said it. And God can change and transform our lives with that truth for people who are hungry. And so, man, I love and appreciate how you acknowledge that there are things wrong within how you grew up in the fundamentalist church. But it helped you and God used it.
[00:25:40] Speaker C: Yeah, and I think when I was younger, the rules were helpful in the sense of they give you a form, you do your DeVos every day, you share the gospel. We did Friday night, soul winning every Friday night. I'm telling you, I personally shared the gospel with at least 5000 other teenagers by the time I graduated from high school. And sadly, I counted because I was fundamentalist. But I was out there Friday night sharing the gospel. Saturday I had my own bus route and went door to door and I had recruited adult to drive the kids from the apartment complexes. And I wasn't the exceptional kid. I was one of many. So that early on it provides. And then you start asking questions. Like, I remember back when this is when Christian rock first kind of made it know, Twilight Paris and David Meath.
So I was a roofer during the summers and I would roof with a group of Christian guys and one of them's name was Mark Schweitzer and he was my Grace dealer. He was one of the teachers at the Christian school. But he would say, Christian rock is fine. He snuck me into a David Meese concert when I was 15 years old. I'd have got in big trouble if they'd have that. He'd have got fired.
But they started saying things like all rock goes counter to the beat of your heart. And I remember in music class, my teacher was like, music, classical music is on the one three beat. Rock is two, four, whatever. He goes, Canada is the beat of your heart. And I was like, I raised my hand and she was like, yes. And I go, well, if you time it right, it's like heart aerobics. They're like, Go to the office. Okay?
So you start asking those questions because I was doing everything they told me to do. I mean, I was reading my Bible daily. I was winning preaching contests, I was memorizing books of the Bible. I was soul winning like nobody's business.
I was preaching in church, I'd let the preacher boys preach in church. I was the student body president. I was all this stuff. But there was something in my soul that I thought something is off. Because what they were really good at is salvation to the lost person. Like salvation to the lost person. Come as you are, gay, straight, alcoholic, whatever. Just come and put your faith in Christ and you're forgiven and you're given eternal life. You're signed, sealed and delivered, no strings attached. Very clear on the gospel to the lost person. But then once you got saved. There was like a giant scroll, like, okay, now that you're saved, here's how you get sanctified.
I got to do all this and measure up. And I felt like Paul in Philippians three, I did this. I was this. I did know of the tribe of Know in regard to the Know zealous for the was. I was pursuing all that stuff and leading the way. And something was gnawing at my soul that there was something missing.
Something was off and through my friend Mark Sweitzer, my coach and my teacher, he started helping me dropping those grace breadcrumbs.
And I think the end of legalism for me when I realized I didn't quite yet discover grace, but I discovered legalism was not working.
And this is not in the book.
I won state preaching when I was a senior in high school, and I went with my friend Scott. He won dramatic interp to Bob Jones University to compete for Nationals.
And if Disney World is the happiest place on earth, so to speak, then Bob Jones was the Godliest place on earth for a fundamentalist that was Know. We turned Greenville to pray, right? So I'm there, and I'm like, oh, my goodness. They got chandeliers and murals and statues that are fully clothed and Godly people. And Bob Jones Jr. Was know. I mean, all the stuff. And then after hours, I actually was walking and talking with a girl and a security guy.
You can't walk with a girl after dark. I'm like, oh, no, this place is so I'm like I'm like, impressed. And Scott and I are staying in the dorms with the college guys from PJU. I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, I'm going back to the dorms. I'm sure we're going to have Bible studies and fellowship.
And I walk into the room, senior in high school, and I'm from the hood. I wasn't a tough guy, but I know when something's going down, and I walk in and I could feel it. They have my friend Scott surrounded these college dudes, bob Jones University college dudes, and one of them who's got this cocky look on his face, know, standing up his elbows on the upper bunk. And he calls my friend a curse word.
And my friend is, you know, I went hood. I walked up to him, I said, just call my friend that. Yeah. And I picked up his feet and I pulled him, and he hit his head, and I jumped on him, and I started beating him like, damn, damn. And I was screaming, this whole place is ungodly. This whole place is ungodly. And they pulled me off, and I was like, all you are ungodly got blood dripping from my fist. I was the ungodly one. But I'm going to tell you something. I think that's when legalism shattered, that's when I knew this is a joke.
Chandeliers and murals and all that stuff doesn't mean yep. Because what's happening behind the. Scene, and I'm not saying this know, in every dorm room and at Bob Jones University, anywhere, any other place like that, but in this particular dorm room, it did.
And it shattered legalism for me completely. I was like, this is not the way. This is not the way.
And from there I went to a rebel not this did not make Yankee happy. I went to Liberty University. The liberal Liberty.
And it was there that as a freshman in September, I got dumped by my girlfriend back home, and I had a meltdown. And I ran out in a rainstorm with thunder and lightning screaming at this. It was like I was brand new to the university. I'm covered in mud. They thought I had a mental breakdown. I did.
And the next day I walked into the there was one room and dormate that was for devotions. Nobody was ever in it, right? And I walked in and I said, god, if you don't become real to me, if you don't show me what this Christian life is all about, I don't think I can do this anymore because I've done it all. I've did the list, I obeyed the scroll.
That's when the Lord introduced me to people like Major Ian Thomas Torchbearers, about the life of Christ. Later on. Francis Schaefer's true spirituality book later on my favorite Chuck Swindahl book grace Awakening.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: There it.
[00:33:59] Speaker C: Tell my I read the Grace Awakening. I began to tell my brother Doug, man, that ministry, call it a Bible church is legalistic. You got to get out. And my brother has got learning disabilities, so he's like, man, it's bad. And he's always like, what's legalism again? And I'd explained it, and he's like, man, it's bad. Tell me again what legal? He didn't quite get it, so I gave him the Grace Awakening, and he read it and read it and read it, and finally he got it. He walked in to that church, they had a Christian school and a college wound to tomb ministry, of course, yeah. And he goes, my brother's very simple minded in all the right ways. He's like, Everybody, I need your attention. I need your attention, please. Gather, gather. Teachers, administrators, pastors, youth leaders, they all gather together. And he goes, I just read The Grace Awakening by Chuck Swindahl, and I discovered what legalism is, and this church is legalistic. So I'm out of here.
Goodbye.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:35:06] Speaker C: He walked out.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: What an exit, man, that is amazing.
[00:35:13] Speaker A: I've never heard of it.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I wish my exit story was that exciting. It wasn't.
[00:35:19] Speaker C: Well, I had an exit story, too.
I came back from Liberty and I was still going to call it a Bible church. And I was there buying 200 gospel tracks, and Yankee called me into his office and he said, sit down, young fella. And I go, yes, sir. And he started talking about everybody who left the ministry, stopped preaching a clear gospel and then he asked me if I was a five point Calvinist, and I'm like, Seven? I added two more points of my own. I go, no, what the heck? I'm buying 200 gospel tracks. And then he just said, well, everybody who's left this ministry stopped being a soul winner. And then I slowly realized he's talking about me. And I got mad, and I stood up and I said, Yankee. I said, I'm out of here. I said, Eight years of training transform my family. I'm grateful for you. Thanks for the theology, but this church is legalistic, and you don't believe in the Holy Spirit because you think if you talk about the Holy Spirit, you're going to be charismatic. I said, I believe in the Holy Spirit, and I'm not charismatic. But you cannot have life, you can't have joy, you can have peace without the Holy Spirit. Thanks for the memory. I'm out. And I just stormed out, and that was it.
And broke free from the legalism, embraced grace. A couple of years later, started Grace Church with the whole idea of grace to the unbeliever and grace to the believer. And a year after that, started Dare to Share. And then over the course of the know, I got in contact with Yankee again, and we started building a relationship. And one day, in a serious conversation, he looked over and he goes, One day, young fella, you're going to find out I was right about everything. I go, well, on that day, put a gun to my head and pull the trigger, Yankee.
But you know what? Let me tell you, Yankee, there's stories in the past, but I want to tell you this. I'm so grateful for him, and we actually have a great relationship today. He's still in King James old Schofield, all that stuff, and the music is more conservative and all that stuff, but he loves Jesus, and he's been married to his wife 60 plus years, and he preaches the gospel to everybody who listen. He does it with a smile on his face.
And I'm grateful for the legacy he left in me. But I'm also grateful for the break, because the break really helped form Dare to Share, because again, I took all the good stuff that I had learned about soul winning and evangelism and boldness and courage and just scraped out the legalism and spackled the cracks with love, grace and the Holy Spirit.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: I love that man.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: As you're talking about, Yankee, I can't help but to think my grandmother call her nanny. Her husband, Charlie Sturgill, was a pastor for 40 plus years. Very legalistic. IFB Bob Jones. He ran with Bob Jones. But my nanny has started coming to our church plant here, Hope Church, and she was actually the very first person to sign up as a covenant partner here at Hope Church. And she doesn't agree with everything that we do. I don't wear a suit and tie and she's still very legalistic in her own right, but she said this the other day, and this is what I love. She said, I may not agree with your technicalities of how we do things, but you love Jesus and you're preaching, and that's what matters. And I think if we can get to that place where it's about the gospel and the man made Ideologies, the stuff that we don't agree on, there's a lot of times, and that's what we've been doing for four years, is saying, hey, these are the man made ideologies, the preferences that are preached as Bible. That's when it becomes wrong. Preach the word, the gospel will never return void. And as long as you're preaching the gospel, we're good.
[00:39:01] Speaker C: Well, I knew something had changed, because a few years back, I was doing Winter Jam, preaching at Winter Jam and came to Tampa, where Yankee lives now, and I invited him out, and Yankee came to Winter Jam.
There's ten Christian rock bands, and he told me after, he goes, he goes, now, new song I kind of liked I kind of like that new song. And he goes, but not sure about the other music. But, boy, you preach a clear gospel, that's awesome. That's what matters most.
A lot of times in the ministry I was raised, it wasn't even as much Yankee as some of the leaders underneath him, because sometimes those followers take it to the next level.
And boy, when you read Colossians Two, do not touch, do not taste, do not handle, has no value in restraining the sensual indulgences of the flesh. But set your mind, Christ, set your mind on things above that all that legalism. Just is like an aphrodisiac. It makes things worse.
Don't touch the hot plate. Well, I got to touch it now.
I remember we had one teacher. He was my trig teacher. He was so serious. He looked like George McFly had the same glasses. And he always had a very serious look on his face. And he was always never joked around. And I was joking around in trade class, and he called me into the hallway. He goes, I want to talk to you about your attitude. I go, I want to talk to you about your attitude, too. I said, you look like you've been baptized in lemon juice. I go, I joke around because I'm happy, because I've been saved. Go to the office, okay? I had to go to the office. Yeah, those conversations didn't work out. But again, I'm grateful for the good. Take the good, leave the bad, and keep moving.
Know? I talk to people.
I think some people are looking for an excuse just to leave Christ and leave the church. And they had some church hurt. I'm like, you want to compare? Church hurt? You want to compare? Life hurt. I've had a lot of life hurt. I've had a lot of church hurt. You don't have to leave the church. You don't need to forsake the Bride of Christ. That's not an excuse. And when you stand before the judgment seat of Christ, that's not going to be accepted.
[00:41:24] Speaker B: Yeah. I have a question for you, Greg, because this season is on the church. And first of all, your story is powerful and I love that you were reached through the church. I believe the church, the local church, is the primary way that God works in this world. And I love that you're able to focus on the positive things. But you were talking about the church had some strong points, probably theology, evangelism. And I think most churches are like this. Most denominations are like this. They have their strong points, and you have the churches that are all about the Spirit, but then they kind of get soft, some of them on theology. You have the ones that are strong on theology and they're scared to death of the Holy Spirit. They're scared of any emotion. They're scared of expressing the joy in Christ. Some churches are extremely evangelistic, but as a church planner and even as someone, if God removed me from the ministry tomorrow, and I was just looking for a church to be a member of, I want to be a part of a church that's well rounded. Why can't a church be spirit filled and committed to doctrine and evangelistic and able to engage the culture, all these different aspects?
I don't know if there's going to be a perfect church this side of heaven. Probably not. But I think as pastors and even as people, lay people that work in churches or that serve in churches, we should be committed to being a well rounded church that represents Christ. Talk to me about that. How do we do that?
[00:43:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't think it's that complicated.
I don't want to oversimplify, but I think you look at Acts 242 through 47.
Prayer, fellowship, breaking of bread, the evangelism, the apostles, teaching upward, inward and outward, upward worship of God, inward use of our gifts, transformation by the Holy Spirit, outward evangelist, discipleship. There's a lot of ways you can form it, frame it, and I think you just keep letting the Word of God be your guide.
You look at the Scriptures, it's pretty clear on a biblical ecclesiology. And I think part of the problem is this may step on a few toes, but you don't even see the concept of senior pastor in the New Testament. You don't.
You see elders. You see a group of Godly men that shepherd the church. And that phrase chief among equals doesn't even make sense to me. You're either chief or you're equal. You can't be chief amongst equals. That's so stupid.
It's like that phrase, salvation is free, but it cost you everything. I'm like wait, hold on.
It's either free or it cost you everything or somewhere in the middle. But all those can't be true.
I think the downside of that is we build these Protestant popes that they're the anointed one of the Lord. And no wonder we got so many fallen leaders is because we have these lead pastors that many of which surround themselves with yes men and they do what they want to do. And yeah, some of them go in the right direction, but it's so easy to go in the wrong direction. And again, I think that's just one example that you see scripture. What does it say in one Timothy three point elders, there's going to be a group of Godly men shepherding that congregation. Right.
Again, I'm a simple minded man. What do we do when you come to ordinances, communion, baptism, the preaching of the Word, discipleship, fellowship. And no, there's not a perfect church, but we need to be perfectly pursuing that.
[00:45:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good.
[00:45:35] Speaker C: And what I tell people is I go, if you find a perfect church, don't go because you'll screw it up. What you want to do is you want to find a good church and make it go to I go to a good church out here in Nevada. Storyline church JT english is the pastor. It's a good church. My role is I want to play whatever role I can to make it even better. How can I help? How can I serve? And I think that's the way everybody needs to approach their church, find a good one and make it better.
[00:46:07] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:46:07] Speaker C: And there's no perfect churches, but there's a lot of good churches out there.
[00:46:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: So you pastored for a few years though, right?
[00:46:15] Speaker C: I did, yeah. Take us ten years. Ten years.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: And then Dare to Share was flowing out of that. And Dare to share has blown up. It's massive now. It's an incredible ministry.
[00:46:28] Speaker C: Yeah. And you know, it started I remember my buddy Rick Long. So Rick, he and I have been friends since I was in 9th grade. He was 7th grade.
He was the know. I taught him to play basketball and he beat me 3 hours was he and I would talk about girls and talk about planting a church and reaching the world. And so he was a high school youth leader, I was a middle school youth leader, local Baptist church. And the youth ministry was thriving. New believers, new converts, new disciples. The church was pretty traditional, so we presented an eleven page plan that I had written called Operation Arvada. How do you gospelize the entire church to the senior pastor? And he didn't like us too much. He goes, let me pray about it. Which is a pastor's way of saying there's no way I'm ever going to do that. Right. While we were waiting, Rick just said, hey, why don't we start our own church? And that was January, Super Bowl Sunday. We got on our knees, we just prayed to the Lord and committed it to him. And march 12, 1989. We planted that church a few months later and with 23 people and in somebody's living room, mostly family and friends that came to watch the train wreck. And we moved seven times in four years. But now the church began to grow and a lot of grace, that was our thing. Grace for the unbeliever, grace for the believer, IOU inward, outward, upward, elder run kind of deal. And I resigned after the Columbine High School shooting because I'd started Dare to Share on the Side because of my side hustle. I love teens, I was planning on doing both for the rest of my life. But after the Columbine High School shooting I resigned to do Dare to share full time. And today that church is probably, I don't know, 3000 plus. And Rick's the pastor now, and 60% new conversion growth at that church. Most of the people came to Christ from people reaching people. And when we first started the church, I walked into Rick's office, he had his high school diploma hanging on the wall because he didn't graduate from college. And I'm like, what are you doing? He goes, I'm trying to establish credibility as a pastor. I'm like, well, why don't you put your fifth grade perfect attendance award up there? I go, Dude, pop that down. We're going to have to earn our credibility in a different way. And now I'm like, man, put that high school diploma back up. It's kind of know it's one of the largest churches in our city of Nevada. Awesome.
[00:49:05] Speaker A: Hey, we're going to stop right there. Be sure to come back and join us next week for episode 169 for week number two with Greg Steer right here on the Recovering Fundamentalist Podcast.
Thanks for listening to the Recovering Fundamentalist Podcast. Be sure to stop by our social media, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Give us a follow. Also go to our website, recoveringfundamentalist.org. That's recoveringfundamentalist.org. There you can find recovering fundamentalist swag. You can get your t shirts and hats. You can join our X Fundy community, see where we're going to be having some meetups. It's the recoveringfundamentalist.org. Be sure to join us next time for the Recovering Fundamentalist Podcast.
Sam.
