Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Well, hey, everybody. Thanks for tuning in to the Recovering Fundamentalist podcast. This is week two of our conversation with Greg Steer, episode number 170. But, man, we're still missing Brian. Not really sure where he's at yet. I know he's back in the country, he's just not here tonight while we're recording. But we just wrapped up our RF meetup in Asheville, North Carolina, and what an incredible time to get to see all of our RFP FAM.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Yeah, we haven't really wrapped it up, so we can't tell you about it, but when you're listening to this, it's going to be wrapped up. So maybe next week we can actually talk about all the amazing things that happened. Maybe we'll have some funny Brian Edwards stories. I'm sure we will. I guarantee you what Brian's going to talk about next week. And no one tell him this because he probably doesn't listen to this podcast.
What's a podcast? So I guarantee you what Brian's going to talk about is the food that he ate in Asheville.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Yes, that's it. The restaurants he'll talk about. My daddy preaching. Man, I love so I love the meetups. This will be our what, third time? Fourth time we had Vegas statesboro, bourbon, Missouri, and now here, this will be the fourth one.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: It's fun. Just I feel like it's the fifth or 6th. I feel like we have one in multiple.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: I don't know. But there's a lot of folks driving in and so I'm excited about it. But hey, excited about today's episode. Greg Steer dare to Share Ministries, and today he's going to get into the ministry side of this. And this is a great episode if you're in student ministry, if you're a pastor, highly encourage you to stay tuned and listen to this episode. Before we jump into it, we want to thank our sponsor here, Free Life Soap. You can go to recoveryfundamentalist.org, click on the Free Life Soap tab, use your promo code RFP, get 20% off of your order. There's only, what, eight weeks left until Christmas? I think we're down to like 84 days until Christmas, no less than that, because we're recording this two weeks after.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: Which means your Christmas tree is already up and you're singing Christmas songs 24 hours a day.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Right. So when the last episode came out on the 30 October, the next day was Christmas for us. But we did something different this year. We started setting it up at the 1 October, and then we just turned it all on because my wife's always just decorating the tree and griping about how do lights burn out in a box over the year. You take them off of the tree the day I work, because we put it up in October, and I'm sick of Christmas the next day. But we take them off the tree working, put them in a box, they sit in a closet until October when we pull them out, and they don't work. How does that happen? It blows my mind every year, but, yes, it's Christmas in our house. Full blown. And I love Christmas.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: As long as you don't worship the devil's holiday there amen I don't that trunk or treat. We don't trunk or treat copying the world.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Yeah, we actually don't. Do you all do something like that?
[00:03:29] Speaker B: We're not this year, but we do and we will. Most hope churches do eventually. We'll get there.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: I just don't know how to do it. Every church in town does something incredible and I'm like, you know what? Let's just do something for Christmas.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: We celebrate the harvest. We celebrate Reformation Day and the Americanized Halloween. We eat the candy and we're not scared of it.
Hey, it's a great season. It's a great season to put out all the skeletons and remind people that they're going to die and they're going to stand before their creator and they're going to be judged. There you go.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: There it is. Hey, we. That's it. I do want to give a shout out to Chosen Road. These guys been on the podcast. They have the number one song in all of bluegrass right now. It's called I want to be like you. Go check these guys out. This is free. But they just came in.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Hey, did they do a remake of Lecrae's song? I just want to be like you.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: No.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: In bluegrass style, because that would be amazing. Bluegrass rap.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: I think Jonathan Buckner could do that. Zach Alvin. He definitely zach, I'm challenging you. Do it.
Okay, I'm done. That was my brother.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: Uncle Chris, uncle Keith.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Uncle Ricky. You remember that song? You know what I'm talking about. No idea what you're talking about.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: Got to say something quickly. I grew up quickly because my daddy wasn't with me.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Shoot, you know, Le Cray wasn't I wasn't picky.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: I'll take any male figure.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: You all right. You know what I'm talking about.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Hey, Brian's rapped on here before, so I had to try to do something.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: My only rap song I know was born to a virgin named Mary on Christmas day he bled and Jesus died on the cross to take sin away you take him high, you take him low you take JC. Wherever go now tell me who now tell me who's in the house JC's in the house man, that was the first non Christian song I listened to. Carmen would walk out music if I was ever going to be a WWE wrestler. What are we talking about? Let's get into today's episode. We need here to referee this because if not, it's going off the rails like it has. So we're going to jump into today's episode. Episode number 170 with Greg Steer right here on the Recovering fundamentalist. Podcast starts in three.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: You know what makes women stupid is.
[00:06:12] Speaker C: Called Jesus Was Not a Bartender.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: High back two. You have lost your mind, long tongue.
[00:06:20] Speaker C: Heifers have given me a lot more trouble than heifers wearing bridges. And you know that say amen right there. Let me tell you something, Bozo. They'll be selling frosties in hell for this boy puts on a pair of pink underwear.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:06:34] Speaker C: I suck my thumb till I was 14 years of age. Hi, man.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: So tell us about Dare to Share.
[00:06:43] Speaker C: Yeah, so Yankee did another thing very well. He reached teenagers.
And when I went to his church, we had 800 teenagers in the youth group, only 300 adults in the church.
He believed the fastest way to reach a city was by mobilizing the youth. So he's like you guys. He was a youth leader with senior pastor clothes on. He was a youth leader with authority and a budget, and he trained and equipped us. And so when he started Dare to Share, I just basically kind of made my own version of that training and equipping and started training students.
I got a hold at Riverside Baptist Church at an auditorium of 2000. I said, hey, I'd love to fill this and train. And I filled the first three or four rows. 100 kids in an auditorium and see 2000. And that was our first Dare to Share event in 1990. But you got to start somewhere. So the vision of Dare To Share now is every teen everywhere hearing the gospel from a friend.
So there's 1 billion teens worldwide.
So if you to line them up in a single file line, that line would go around the world 7.5 times.
The vast majority of those teens do not know Christ. So how are we going to reach Him? Here's how we're going to reach Him. And this is where the local church ties in, energize the church to mobilize youth to gospelize their world.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:19] Speaker C: So we provide free curriculum, tools, training to youth leaders. I mean, all of our curriculum on our website, digital curriculum is free, 75 pieces that youth leaders can download that's awesome. And train and equip their students to share the gospel. And we make it available worldwide.
It's all to and through the local church. We don't have dare to share groups. You start. It's your youth group we want on fire. When you win, we win. And we want to see youth groups double, triple, quadruple in size with new disciples made and multiplied as those kids are dispatched as federally funded missionaries onto the public school, as home school students, into their co ops, as Christian school students into the community, and see revival happen all around the world. And so that's our vision. It's all to and through the local church. And, yeah, we do some events we can talk about later, but, man, I love the church.
Jesus never said, I will build my 501 c three nonprofit parachurch organization. He said, I will build my church.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:09:27] Speaker C: I love the gospel, and I love teenagers. So the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes teens need trained and equipped in what we call Gospel Fluency.
So we use a gospel acrostic to teach students gospel fluency. What is that message? From Genesis One to Revelation 22. And I'm kind of going on and on. You guys ask me questions.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: No, keep going. I love it.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds good.
[00:09:57] Speaker C: All right, well, I'll share with you the Gospel acrostic that we train students in.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Please do.
[00:10:02] Speaker C: G-O-S-P-E-L. God created us to be with him. Genesis one and two our sins separate us from God. Genesis three, sins cannot be removed by good deeds. Genesis four through Malachi four, paying the price for sin, jesus died and rose again. Matthew, Mark, and Luke everyone e is everyone who trust in him alone is eternal life. The book of John and L is life with Jesus starts now and lasts forever. Acts of Revelation so, we have students memorize it like chords on a guitar. You learn the chords, and then you make your song. So you learn that message, and then you make it your own. And then we developed an app called Life in Six Words. So students can basically download the app, and if they can swipe and read, they can share the gospel using the Life in Six Words app. And on that app, just if you look, this is where there's gospel conversations. That's a map of the United States happening right now, man.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:11:01] Speaker C: So teenagers just download it. They ask their friends they can use social media videos that we produced, but they can just ask their friends, how would you describe your Life in Six Words? And their friends choose the six words that would best describe their life from pain to adventure to joy to money to brokenness. You ask them, Why did you choose those words? You hear their story. Then, Can I share with you my words? I share my testimony. Then, can I share with you God's words?
And you walk them through the gospel across it.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:11:34] Speaker C: And you get all the way through know if they're ready to trust Christ, you can lead them through a prayer, and water comes out and baptizes them. Now, that'd be cool.
But then if you're talking to somebody from a different language, there's 20 different languages with unique prospects.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:11:52] Speaker C: And it's all free.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: So we'll put a link to that in the show notes. But where do they go to download that app?
[00:11:59] Speaker C: Just the app store. Life in six words on your App Store.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: Life in six words on the App Store.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:12:05] Speaker C: So Train and Equip and again, I want to give credit to Yankee here. So he had us learn seven sentences to communicate the gospel. And I thought, man, that's hard to memorize. So I condensed it to six and threw a gospel across on the front of it and started in Genesis one, not Genesis three with sin. Started with Genesis One.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:12:32] Speaker C: Again. Take the good, leave the bad and keep moving.
Yeah. Dare to share what our vision is is we want youth leaders and pastors like you to tear off a piece of the map and say, OK, we got Asheville, we got the city in North Georgia and we can't do it alone. We're going to unite with other churches in our city and we're going to deploy our Christian kids. We're going to work together and some of fundy may be listening to this right now. I knew this gooey. Ecumenicalism, working together with compromisers. Let me just tell you about this.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: Come on.
[00:13:09] Speaker C: I don't believe in ecumenicalism. We call it 1751 vision seven Values five Truths God got to believe in the Trinity, right? Yep. God's son, Jesus Christ, fully God, fully human, died literally on a cross, rose physically from the grave, coming back again, pretribulationally. No, we don't make that.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Spirit different.
[00:13:33] Speaker C: God's Spirit, third person of the Trinity, indwells us at the moment of salvation, empowers us for life and Godliness and tongues. Just joking, just joking.
The fourth is God's word. Inspired, inerrant and in charge. King James only. I'm just kidding. I got to stop.
And the gospel. So God God son god spirit god's word and gospel And I was being sarcastic about that other stuff. But if we agree on those five things, we can put our hands in the middle, at least to meet monthly and conspire how to reach our city for Christ.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: You've got an event coming up on the 11 November. Tell us a little bit about that.
[00:14:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Dare to share live. So dare to share live. So we used to do these big conferences where we trained tens of thousands of students in large arenas all across the United States. That's kind of what we're known for, right. We shifted to a simulcast seven years ago, and this year, for the first time, we pre recorded it.
So we could be global. So right now we have 1600 satellite sites in 65 countries.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:14:43] Speaker C: So on November 11, there's going to be a global day of youth evangelism.
So starting in New Zealand, as the sun goes around the world, that map on the app is going to light up, God willing, in gospel conversations all around the world, as youth groups are trained, equipped, and they get inspired, we do a drama. This year it's about hell.
Again, that's something I took from the fundamentalist playbook. We don't talk enough about hell and evangelicalism today.
So I wrote a drama 35 years ago called Letters from Hell. And now this one was basically FaceTime from Hell. You get a FaceTime message from a friend that died and went to hell. And they describe it as they're being dragged away. And at the very end, they're thrown in. And the girl getting the call wakes up and realizes it was a dream and shares the gospel with her. Friend because we don't want to traumatize students. Like, come forward to your therapist, you'll never be the same. But then we equip them how to share the gospel, and then they go out to share Christ. At the same time they're connecting with their friends online with the gospel. And then they come back, share stories, and then on the app, there'll be an instagram feed from around the world of gospel conversations taking place. And it's highly produced.
Three and a half hours of training and equipping, or 3 hours of training and equipping, and it's really well done.
I'd put it up against any event out there, and it's free in English and Spanish because I love the church, because I love the church. And our donors love the church. And youth leaders generally don't have budget and teens. I was one of those kids that couldn't afford anything, and we said, you know what? Let's make it free. So all you got to do is go to Daretosharelive.org. That's the number two daretosharelive.org. It doesn't take a lot of prep. Get five or ten students, do one in your church, you could do one in your home. The only qualification is you go out and you share the gospel. This ain't no watch party again. I got that from the fundies, man. Let's stop talking. Let's start rocking.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Let's start rocking. Tweet. That right. Or X. That whatever it is.
Greg, both Nathan and I were student pastors for a really long time, and our heartbeat is student ministry. I believe that you said this a minute ago, but I believe with all my heart you show me a thriving student ministry. I'll show you a thriving church. That is the generation that's coming. That's not the church of tomorrow, that's the church of right now. And I love that you're reaching students exactly where they're at, because they get to go to a mission field every day. And the older I get, the more I realize how less and less I'm allowed to be in there and how they are going into the world to take the good news of the gospel. And there's nothing better than when a student gets it and understands that. And I've been doing student ministry long enough that I get to see the adults now that have kids in student ministry, and they're like, man, I wish I wouldn't have wasted so much of those student ministry years not sharing the good news of the gospel. And so I applaud what you're doing, man. We back it, we support it. And youth pastors, pastors, those that are in ministry that are listening to this episode get signed up for Dare to Share live on November the 11th. We'd love for your church to be part of that. This is putting feet to the word. This is an incredible opportunity to spread the name, the fame, the renown, the esteem of Jesus Christ. The good news, the.
[00:18:26] Speaker C: I would I applaud all you know the payday is going to be someday. I had a payday this last week. I was preaching at the Missouri Baptist Convention to about 1500 pastors and youth pastors and church leaders and I was preaching on the power of the gospel and the potential of youth. And if you miss youth, you miss the movement and get behind your youth ministry. And afterward I had youth leaders coming up to me saying hey, deacons were coming up saying how can we support the youth ministry? I'm like yes. So I had one pastor come up to me, Pastor Jimmy. And this got me because years ago, 20 years ago we did a reality series called Gospel Journey where we got a Mormon, Muslim, Buddhist, Jew sounds like a joke. Set up to went into a bar and we met a priest. We took all these worldviews to Maui for a week and we filmed a reality series called Gospel Journey Maui Nine Parts. And then we did one before that in the mountains of Colorado with the Wiccan and JW and all these different world religions.
Well, Pastor Jimmy walks up to me and goes 20 years ago I was one of those bad kids walking with another bad kid on the way to do some bad things. And we were on the side of the road and a youth group rolled up on us in a car, a car full of teenagers and invited us to youth group. And we went and they remembered my name and they opened their circle and we went through Gospel Journey and I put my faith in Christ and I used that.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: That'S huge to train other.
[00:19:57] Speaker C: Kids and now he's a pastor.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:20:03] Speaker C: And I think God gives us some glimpses of that on this side of eternity. But on the other side of eternity, what you both do, JC. Nathan, what every youth leader and pastor out there, what every Christian out there is doing when you chuck those gospel seeds, it is doing something we have no idea until the other side of eternity. So it's time to mobilize and let's say this do I try to say one other quick thing.
I think we got to break the come and see stuff.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:20:37] Speaker C: And what I mean by that is not stop doing come and see.
We want to invite people out to church, we want to invite people out to youth group, but for every one that will come, there's 99 who will not.
And we have to almost leave the one to get to the 99.
And how do we do that? We train and equip our adults and our students how to share the gospel with their neighbors, their family, their friends, their classmates, their teammates. They need gospel urgency, fluency gospel strategy and the job of the evangelist to equip God's people for works of service. And we need to change our view from being pastors to being quarterbacks like come watch me throw the touchdown pass to becoming coaches. I'm going to coach you to throw the touchdown pass every day of the week and to share the gospel with everyone you meet.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:21:33] Speaker C: And yeah, I'll give the gospel, too. So if you bring somebody out, and I hope you do, they're going to hear the gospel at church. But you are here to do the work of the ministry. And I think that's how we're going to flip this thing around. Prayer and relational evangelism, man, I agree.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: With that so much.
Can I just be honest? I wish that I could go back and do student ministry with what I know now after 20 years of student ministry and the hype and the games and the eating bananas through pantyhose and the stupid things that we tried to do. Don't act like you never did that.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: You never done that.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: Never done that put pantyhose.
[00:22:13] Speaker C: I laughed, but I never even heard of it.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh, we've done every stupid game.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: And listen, we did spray shaving cream on people's faces and throw the little puff balls out.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Yeah, we've done everything. I want to give a youth pastor listening right now, just a free exit out of that rat race. I spent so much time, I'm so guilty. This makes me sick to my stomach. How much time I spent worrying about a game, worrying about a video up front, a fun, energetic thing that hits on exactly what you just said. Greg that got them in the door. But I forgot to study. I forgot to get the word or give them any tools to leave and listen. I got a young person.
It's cool now, pastoring. I got a church full of people that remember when I was youth pastor, they were all middle schoolers and I got to baptize eleven of them this year. And they're like, dude, guy that came and would preach at FCA that we understood what you were talking about and now they're growing in their faith. But I got a kid that he was in our youth group from 6th grade all the way to senior in high school. He's a Army Ranger now, serving in the military. And I got a badge and a letter from him the other day and he said, I just want you to know, I don't remember a lot of what you taught. I remember a lot of the stupid games he said, but you paid attention to me and you always preached Jesus, and I'm thankful for that. And I'm a Christian today, a strong Christian today, because you always presented the Word and I want to that. And I was like, man, you know that he doesn't remember one of those stupid games that I set up way late at night. And listen, I'm not against games. Do them. They're fun. I got crucified on Twitter the other day for saying youth groups, why are we doing stupid games. Let's preach. Do your games. They're fun, whatever. I mean, we have fun with that, but don't spend so much time focused on that because they're not going to remember that in five years. But you preaching the gospel and giving them something to hold on to and daring them to live out their faith when they can own their faith. And it's not youth pastor faith or mom and dad faith, but they own their faith. Because what happens is they graduate from high school, they go into these universities, they let the first professor start poking holes in their faith, and it turns to Swiss cheese real quick. We need young people that own their faith and live it out.
[00:24:36] Speaker C: So let me just tell you, that's what Yankee did so well. Yeah, I mean, when you got into the youth group, they give you a Bible and a stack of gospel tracks, so you're going to learn to master this. And we learned theology, and we had played games, we did all the goofy stuff, but we dove in. He did 45 minutes talks, and then we went out every Friday night doing soul winning. Let me tell you, years ago, I did a research project through Dare to Share. I didn't do it. We commissioned it.
We interviewed hundreds of youth leaders. Half of who got a Dare to Share, the other half had not. We found seven things in common with every youth ministry that was seeing 25% new conversion growth.
Seven things. From urban to suburban, from Southern Baptist to Pentecostal. Seven things.
I did a ten city tour across the nation. I interviewed 1000 pastors and youth pastors, went over these seven things, got double thumbs up. We'd never done anything. They got more thumbs up. We got middle fingers before, but never.
I cross checked it with the Book of Acts. These seven values were everywhere. Then I cross checked it with a typical youth ministry, and they were not to be found. I wrote a book called Gospelize Your Youth Ministry, and it's based on these seven values as found in the Book of Acts. And you can buy a hard copy or listen to it on Audible, but it's a free digital download. So if you just Google Gospelize Greg Steer, it'll pop up and you can download it for free. And if you want to buy hard copy, you can too, but I encourage you to download it. Or if you listen to Audible, listen to it. These seven values, I believe they're church mean. Yankee did six of the seven values, just almost intuitively.
And when I was pastoring, we did most of the values as well, almost intuitively because it's so scriptural.
Okay, let me give you an example here's. What will separate the fundamentalist from the spirit filled believer, right?
Guess what the first value is.
What do you think?
[00:26:51] Speaker A: Oh, that was a question. Sorry.
[00:26:55] Speaker C: What do you think the number one characteristic of the youth groups that we're seeing 25% new conversion growth per year or more. What do you think the first defining characteristic is?
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Love.
[00:27:09] Speaker C: No.
Good guess.
[00:27:15] Speaker A: Welcoming.
[00:27:17] Speaker C: No, it's this. In accessory prayer, the youth groups that reached the most prayed the most.
Wow. They prayed for their lost friends by name.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:27:32] Speaker C: And you think about this we're biblicists, right? First, Timothy two. What does Paul write? To Timothy?
First of all, prayers supplications intercessions be made for all people. Why? Because God wants everyone to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth he's telling Timothy. Paul is writing it to Timothy. Here's how you program your church services. The number one thing was not preaching. The number one thing was praying, and it was praying for the lost to be saved. We spend more time in announcements in a typical church service than we do for inaccessory prayer for the lost and wonder why we're not experiencing.
I got number two is relational. Evangelism drives it. And I won't go through all the seven values, but I'll tell you a story about my budy Tod Peters, who's a McLean Bible church. Now, that's where David Platt is the lead pastor. Before David Platt was the lead pastor there, tod was a Navy Seal for 26 years.
He retired, became a youth pastor. McClain bible called me up. He goes, how do I do youth ministry? I go, Read gospel eyes in the seven values, then call me. Well, he didn't call me, so I called him up a couple of months later. I go, Tod, you read gospel eyes? He goes, yeah, I operationalized it. I go, what does that mean? Please don't kill me. And he's like, Well, I put it all into practice. I go, okay, let me quiz you in accessory prayer.
How'd you put that into practice? He goes, you know how you play games before youth group? Goes, yeah. He goes, we play games up till 07:00. Then I think they said they ring a bell and everybody hits their needs and prays out loud for their lost friends by name.
I go, how many kids in your youth group? He goes, 500. I go, what about the lost kids? He goes, oh, it's perfect. They feel so awkward because now they know these kids know someone they don't.
I go, Relational evangelism drives it. How do you put that in? He goes, you know your gospel acrostic? It's our wallpaper. I went into his gym where they have youth group. God created us to be with him all over the you're surrounded by the gospel.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:29:31] Speaker C: Leaders fully embrace and model it. How do you put that in practice? Our student leaders and adult leaders all share the gospel actively, or we find them a different role. They're no longer leaders.
Now he got promoted to campus pastor, and now their church is leading the way. Their campus is leading the way from seniors in high school. To senior citizens, and they're implementing all seven of those values like a Navy Seal would. So, yeah, encourage youth leaders and pastors, too. Get gospelized. Download it for free.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: We'll have put that on our website. We'll put a link on it to so great. That is awesome.org. And get that. I love it. And by the way, that's a demotion from student ministry to campus pastor.
I promoted. I went campus pastor back to student pastor.
[00:30:15] Speaker C: There you go. There you go.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: And I'm just church planner, so I'm.
[00:30:18] Speaker C: Like, no, you guys both are still youth leaders.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: Oh, we are man at heart. Nate and I started a ministry. I was able to be part of this 20 years ago. It's called Young America Ministries. And we went into inner city trailer parks and just shared the love of Jesus with people. We built relationships with him because what happens so many times in ministries is they'll go in, they'll preach the gospel, get them to raise their hand, pray a prayer, one, two, three, repeat after me, and then leave. We put trailer in these parks and man relationships with them. And to this day, there's still relationships with those people because of the gospel hour.
[00:30:55] Speaker C: I love that.
You ever hear the Spurgeon sermon on preaching to the poor?
Because I was a trailer court kid. I was the apartment complex.
And spurgeon. He took over a church in South London, which was like South Chicago for London. I mean, not too far away from where Jack the Ripper was. Same basic time period, all that stuff. And somebody kind of asked you, why are you in this area? And he's know, if you want to set a house on fire, start the fire in the basement. This fire burns up. And if you want to reach a city, start with a with it. He didn't say this, but start with the trailer courts apartment complex.
Yankee knew that, too. Yankee knew that, too.
[00:31:47] Speaker A: That's where my church is, right?
A there's a right outside our front door. It's called barnheart circle. It is the poorest part of the county, and I mean, perfect drugs, evil. But that's where we're at. It's our mission field, and Nathan's just surrounded by it in so oh, yeah.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: All over the place.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: Well, Greg, before we wrap this up, I want to just ask you a couple of questions. The first one that came to mind when you were talking about leaving legalism, stepping out on your own, starting a new church, having that conversation with your pastor, what would you say to someone who's in that situation right now? Because I had a conversation, literally today, had about an hour long conversation with a guy that called me up, listens to the podcast, and he's just torn. He knows that God is calling him to step out, and he's starting to see truth and realize things. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. But he says he loves his pastor. He's a good man. Yeah, there are negative things in the church, but he feels like it's still a good church, it's still salvageable. He's trying to speak into it. But what would you say to someone who's in that situation that really doesn't know what the next step is? They don't want to dishonor God. They don't want to dishonor the guy that led them to the Lord. But they also have babies to raise, and their wife is unhappy because of legalism. What would you say to them?
[00:33:22] Speaker C: If somebody was serving me water and had arsenic in it?
I wouldn't drink it.
And as soon as you're aware of legalism, you can't ingest it anymore, and you can't have your kids ingest it, because it does, in some cases, irreversible damage. It's a poison.
And when you leave and you probably have to have a hard break, and you'll probably be gossiped about, talked about, criticized.
Don't just go into a vacuum. Go somewhere. Go to a different church where you can get healed and you can grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and be loving and kind. I lost my temper when I left yankees. Church. Well, I was 18 years old.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: Back when you knew everything.
[00:34:27] Speaker C: Yeah, back when I knew everything. But it's going to be a hard break, most likely, because legalism also produces a cult like atmosphere. If you leave the fold, you've forsaken Christ. So you just got to make the break and you got to read Galatians, get the Grace Awakening and read Grace Awakening and Marinate on the truths in that book. Read the book of Galatians and Colossians and Philippians, and that's the kind of church you're going to be looking for, man.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: That's good. That's a good word. Thank you. And the second question that I have, just to wrap up my thoughts today, god has used you in a powerful way in your generation to do something special. You started with nothing, and you had a vision and you had a calling and you've worked your butt off. I know that anyone who starts a church, anyone who starts a parachurch ministry, it is a lot of work. Fundraising, writing, curriculum, all these different things. It's hard work, but I believe that God is calling many of the people in our audience to, number one, catch a vision of what it is that God's gifted them to do. Get a burden for someone or something or a segment of society and do something about it. I remember when we started Young America, I quit my job, got two other jobs, started seminary, met with the guy who Wes Williams, who JC and I are both very close friends with him and his family. Met with him in his office that first morning, and he said, all right, what are we going to do? And I just kind of froze and I said, Man, I don't know. And it was just like we put all these plans in, had all these conversations. What was the morning of I'm getting ready to go and it's just like I was terrified.
And he said, what are we going to do? And I said, I don't know. And he goes, okay, let's just go do something. Go do something today and come back and tell me what you did. So that's literally how we started. I drove into this trailer park with my truck, a cooler full of koolaid, my guitar, a table and a pop up tent that I set up in someone's yard. And they didn't kick me out. And we just did something that day. And from there we started doing more. So could you speak to people that maybe are so overwhelmed with legalism and with church hurt and all this other stuff that they're focused on that and they're not seeing what it is that God's calling them to do? Tell us what it's like to start a ministry and see it through to being able to reach the level where you're at now, where you're seeing fruit.
[00:37:27] Speaker C: Well, it is hard work, but you have to have a clear vision and you have to do the work. I love First Corinthians 1510 when he says, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was in me. So you got to get that vision and pray and work. I do a lot of prayer walking, so I'll just go walk and pray and intercede on behalf of the next generation of our staff, of our team, family life, but lost people I know and just beg God to ekbalo send forth workers into his harvest field.
Prayer and hard work, prayer and duct tape. There's no easy way. And I do think one of the things people I've never had a sabbatical. I know that's probably bad, whatever, me neither.
And I don't mind when people do. I mean, I think a sabbatical is a great thing. I think sometimes you need sabbaticals when you don't rest along the way. So the 70 years that Israel was in captivity was really because of 490 years. They didn't let the land rest every 7th year. So God took his sabbatical. And I think when we're always going and we're never resting in the Lord, we're not having our time with Him, we're not having vacation with our family, we're not taking a day to recharge, we're not getting enough sleep. Then you sometimes have to make up for that in an extended sabbatical because you're a mess. Right? I don't think that's the kind of sabbatical that pleases the Lord. I think if I take a sabbatical someday, I want to get to take a sabbatical, not because I have to. So let me explain it this way. I consider myself half monk and half missionary.
So the monk, Greg is up at five, my first hour in the Word and in prayer. Then I go work out.
Then sometimes I go on a walk with my wife, and then I'm at work, and then I go missionary.
And I go missionary hard.
And I've been able to do this for 32 years at Dare to Share, touring on the road, late nights, early mornings.
And I've taken a vacation with my family every single year since we've been married, since we had kids.
I told my kids when they were little, I'm going to be gone a lot, but I'm going to give you an unforgettable childhood. And so three times a year, I've taken them on trips with me and spent an extra day or two doing something fun. Because I want to finish this race well. Yeah, people say it's better to rust out than burnout. I go, I don't want to do either. I don't want to rust out. I want to stay. You lubed, ready to go oil me up. And I don't want to burnout.
I want to finish well, and I want to hear, well done, my good and faithful servant. So find that God calling. Start. Do something. What? Spurgeon said, do something. Do something. Do something. When everybody else is talking about doing something, do something. When everybody else is in the committee meeting, do something. Our goal, gentlemen, is not to talk about saving souls, but to do it. And that for the glory of God. Find something to do, but then rest, recharge, and learn to walk by the Spirit.
Let me give you just a quick illustration that rocked my world. Can I do that?
[00:41:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:18] Speaker C: I had my old professor, youth Ministry professor, have us write down our top five priorities in order of their priority. So my list was God, ministry, family, friends, fun, or something like that. And then he said, I want you to spend write down how much you honestly spend with each every day.
So I wrote down my time with God in the morning, this, that, and the other for everything else. Then I want you to reorder your priorities by what you spend. The most time doing is number one, and the least time doing is number five. Well, my list flipped.
And then he asked, how many of you guys feel guilty? And I raised my hand, and all of us did. He says, Because you bought the lie. And he drew a circle on the chalkboard, and he wrote the word me in the middle. He says, when you're in the center of your circle, then God is a spoke and work is a spoke, and fun is a spoke, and friends are a spoke and school is a spoke. But when God is in the center of your circle, everything you do is worship.
[00:42:20] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:42:22] Speaker C: Coming out of that fundamentalist background, that flipped my grid. It blew my mind. And I was a roofer at the time, and I began to view every roof as worship to the Lord.
[00:42:36] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:42:36] Speaker C: And listen, drive and listen to the radios, worship everything I do, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do to the glory of God.
And I have no idea how that ties in with the original question, but there you go. That's all I got.
[00:42:48] Speaker B: That's a great answer. And I think that'll challenge a lot of our listeners to do something, to get busy and pursue it. And I also hear just in between the lines, reading between the lines of what you're saying. I think you are probably a list oriented person. You're organized, and you have set out to accomplish this in a very organized way, because most ministries or churches or businesses that aren't organized, they reach a level and they stop.
[00:43:19] Speaker C: Let me correct you, okay?
I am a hot mess, okay? But I surround myself with people that know what they're doing. Our president, Debbie Bracina, has been here for 30 years. She is the best leader I know. We have an executive team, sharp, our whole staff, all 30 of them really good at what they do. Yeah, my daughter watched The Office and she said, dad, I've realized you're just like Michael Scott, except for two things. I go, what? She goes, you're not inappropriate and you're not acting pretty good.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: I love it.
Well, Greg, I think as we wrap this up, man, it has been incredible to have you on with us. I think our folks will realize how much you are part of the RFP FAM. You get where we've been, what we've done, and I just love that God is using you in some incredible ways. Dare to Share has been an incredible part of my life in ministry. And so I thank you for listening to the Holy Spirit and acting out on that and continuing to spread the name of Jesus and the good news of the Gospel, I think, as we close out today, would you pray for our family youth pastors? Pastors? Yeah, you just pray for us as we close out today.
[00:44:45] Speaker C: I will. And I encourage everybody, I'm on Twitter and Instagram at Greg Steer and I post a lot about the Lord and youth ministry and just encourage you to follow along and let's do this journey together. So let me pray for you.
Father, I just thank you for JC and Nathan. I thank you for the truths that we all learned that were good and solid in our formative years.
And Lord, over the years, we've had to face that legalism and scrape it out.
But Lord, you've taught us grace and love and the power of Your Holy Spirit.
And Lord, you've kept that passion for evangelism. So I pray God, for the Recovering Fundamentalist podcast, Lord, that you would continue to increase its reach and ministry impact, and that those who listen, lord, some of those listening are really hurting. And I remember those years of pain and recovery. And some are on the other side. Some may be cynical, but I pray God you would just give them your grace and strength to move past the hurt and to be able to comfort others with comfort from your Holy Spirit that you've given us. May they walk in the grace that you provide, not just for the unbeliever who puts their faith in Christ, but for every single believer.
May they walk in victory over sin and the Lord just give them a passion to share the gospel with everyone they can and use them in a powerful way on this side of eternity to declare the good news with their life and with their lips. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:46:42] Speaker B: Amen. Thank you.
[00:46:44] Speaker A: What a great episode. It's been good to have Greg Steer with us these last two weeks here on the Recovering Fundamentalist Podcast. And Greg, if you're ever in town, give us a shout, man. We'll meet up, do it up with you, that'd be great.
[00:46:57] Speaker C: Same thing with Denver.
[00:46:59] Speaker A: I don't know when I'm definitely but if we're ever out there hey, let me ask you this. Do you have a restaurant out there called Cafe Rio?
[00:47:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: Oh, man, yeah.
[00:47:10] Speaker C: We love Cafe Rio.
[00:47:11] Speaker A: I would get on a plane and fly out west just to eat at Cafe Rio. That sweet barbaco burrito enchiladas.
[00:47:17] Speaker C: It is pretty good. Homemade, those homemade tortillas.
See what happened.
[00:47:26] Speaker A: There you go, Greg. Thanks for being here with us on the Recovering Fundamentalist Podcast. Be sure to go to recoveringfundamentalist.org. We'll have links to all of the websites for Greg Steer and Dare to Share ministries. You can get that book gospelized and his brand new book Unlikely Fighter. And guys, y'all have a great week.
[00:47:45] Speaker C: Time to gospelize.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: There we go.
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.
