Jennie Allen (GATHER25) - Is Jesus Coming Back Sooner Than We Think?

What's up everyone? I am very excited. You know what? I always start the exact same way. Guys, this is a great conversation.

I get to talk to three time New York best seller, Jenny Allen. And, we get to talk about a lot of different things. We talk about unity in the church, why it's so hard, and how we can come together. We talk about loneliness and societal issues. We talk about family and how to maintain intimacy with Jesus even with having busy lives and godly ambition.

This This conversation was awesome and a huge privilege, and I think you're thoroughly going to enjoy it. So check out the entire thing, beginning, middle, and end. Don't skip it. You're gonna love it. I promise.

One of the many reasons I love this conversation is because Jenny's heart aligns with ours in Steiger, which is to reach those who would not walk into a church. Reality is there are people all over the world including here in The US and in your families and in your workplaces and neighborhoods who are far from God. And most of them will not come to the church looking for answers. Look, Easter's coming up and so many people will come into our churches and that's awesome. But that demographic, those kinds of people, people who are willing to come to a church if you invite them, that is a shrinking number.

And so increasingly, we're gonna have to go to them. And that is what Steiger does. That is our heart, lifting up the gospel outside of the church to those who are open but maybe skeptical and unsure. We need your involvement in order to see a new Jesus revolution, a new Jesus movement. It's going to take all of us.

So if you go to steiger.org, s t e I g e r 0 r g, you can find out more information for how you can get involved. I would love that. And then just as always, please consider sharing this podcast. If it's a blessing to you, if it encourages you in your faith, invite someone else to be part of this community. Let them know word-of-mouth is always the best way to grow something like this.

And if you'd be willing to do that for us, that would mean the world. Alright. Well, that's it for me. I hope you enjoy our conversation with author, speaker, and all around awesome person, Jenny Allen. You're listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast.

Well, Jenny, thank you. Thank you for being on the Provoke and Inspire podcast. I so appreciate it. Oh, it's great to be here, Ben. I've heard such good things.

You have probably told this story 10,000 times, but I'm gonna just ask you one more time. Could you share briefly what led to Gather, Gather twenty five, this amazing moment that our mission was a part of as well? Could you just talk about how did it happen and maybe some fruit that came of it? I would love to hear that. Yeah.

Wow. Well, thank you so much. I thank you so much for being a part. I mean, this is this was the biggest group project ever, and it it was just so encouraging to see so many different people coming from all over the world together for this one purpose. And the purpose was to gather the global church to reach all of those that don't know Christ in our generation.

And it was a huge mission. It had never been done before. It was historic in its form and function because we had never been able to gather the global church before. Technology made it possible to livestream into 87 languages. Crazy.

All of those 87 languages but one were utilized in a pretty big way, and so it's pretty beautiful. Like, the global church actually came together. There were 7,000,000 conservatively, viewers as well as all of those through TBN on television are not counted in that. And so we reached 225 countries and territories. So it wasn't just token.

We we really did reach the global church. It came together, and, you know, we went live from every continent except for Antarctica, and they they even streamed in with their penguins and churches. And so it really was just so, so beautiful to see the global church, to hear the stories of God and what he is doing on Earth right now. And I just I was blown away. I mean, it was an obedient step for me.

I bet. Yeah. And and it was certainly full of a lot of unknowns in the beginning, people not understanding what it is we are doing, but yet people being kind and generous like you guys to say yes. We wanna help and be a part of this story. So it it's just it blows me away, and I I think we live in times right now where we can get discouraged or we can feel cynical.

And this was just one of those moments that that felt impossible to watch this and to feel those things. The church really looked beautiful and hopeful, and I do believe revival is spreading everywhere. And we got to show that. We got to see that together. And I'm so grateful for my team who worked so hard.

I mean, we truly took on an impossible task. It it just genuinely wasn't even possible technologically, not to mention financially what what we had to help happen to be able to produce it. So they took on this great big task with me and and just were so faithful. But it all started when I woke up from a dream that I dreamed Jesus was coming back in ten years in 2022, and it just made me very urgent. And I thought, what's the fastest way to reach everybody on earth?

And it's to mobilize every believer. There are 2,500,000,000 people that make up the church that call themselves believers in Jesus, and so that's a pretty big team. Yeah. And we are spread out all over the world. There are 5,500,000,000 people that still do not know the love of Jesus, and we just we just wanted to have a good fat church meeting and and say, what if we all went in together to reach everybody everywhere?

And and just some of the stories coming out of it. I mean, there's so many. We just got, on the phone with several leaders from around the world and just heard of, you know, throughout prisons all over The US, got behind bars, aired it. They live screened it and put it on, and over 600 people in prisons, inmates, through gather 25 accepted Jesus. Wow.

And the I mean, in Africa, there was a leader there that I just was on the phone with that she she said we we were so moved to reach the lost around us that we just we when gather finished, we pulled together people in our community, and we started an organization to get tools and bibles. And we're just gonna give them away to everybody in our town. And we have a strategy and a plan. And so I just think people were launched into their own ministry. What someone said recently to me was, Jenny, the the missiological vision of the church has always been to equip leaders and pastors and missionaries.

This was a moment where the global church came together to equip the laypeople of the world and to do the work of the kingdom. And I really I hope that's true. I believe that's happening. And, yeah, it was a moment that you didn't wanna be on the outside of it. You wanted to be on the inside.

You wanted to be Yeah. Fitting your life well for God. Yeah. And I would say that with the profound loneliness that our world deals with in and outside of the church, frankly, and the effects of individualism and technological factors like social media and the Internet. It's like even just the very act of attempting to gather, of course, somewhat paradoxically online and in person.

Those in person gatherings, I think, are of itself is effective. Like, we need to be together even COVID with the way a lot of people stopped gathering, stopped coming together, and you hear that injunction from scripture to continue to meet together. There's even power just in the act of getting together. Right? Yeah.

We were so surprised. I mean, it was something so unprecedented as this, and people didn't exactly understand it or know what it was. We had over 20,000 groups Yeah. Mhmm. Participating.

So and by groups, I mean, sometimes it was 5,000. Sometimes it was 1,500. Sometimes it was five in a living room. And so that was so encouraging to me because I think with something online, your your tendency could be just, I'm gonna turn it on and watch it in my pajamas. But I do think we are we are deeply longing for connection.

I wrote a book a few years ago called Find Your People. Yeah. Mhmm. And it really looked back at the history of people groups throughout the world. And it was it was so discouraging to me when I did all this research because I honestly felt kinda hopeless after six months of researching because I thought, gosh.

We are literally not set up at all in our culture today to have community. And every generation prior to the industrial revolution lived in villages, and they took care of each other. They rarely ever moved away. Families, you know, helped with your kids and bear you buried your parents where you were born. You know?

And that that that has massively changed in the last, you know, hundred years. And so when you think about even just today on Earth, you know, 80% of the world still lives that way in villages taking care of each other around campfires, cooking together, raising their kids together. So we definitely are in a moment where I think I think we're realizing how broken it all is. I think between the industrial revolution and the the technological revolution of our day, I mean, we've got a we just have a crisis. There's no doubt.

It it is alarming. And I would say it is the basis for the anxiety, the depression that we see in the world. It is there's you are born my my friend, doctor Kirk Thompson, says, you come into the world looking for someone looking for you. Every human does. Yeah.

And it is our fundamental to be seen, known, loved. Like, these are our fundamental god given needs. And Yeah. We're all staring at screens instead of going to find each other. We're all staring at screens instead of showing up for each other.

And so I I do. I pray. I I know people are longing for it. And I was so encouraged to see rooms full all over the world, coming together to worship Jesus. It was so beautiful.

It was so just miraculous. But we need it every day. We need it every week. We need it we need it all the time. What a witness we could be, we should be to a world that does not have the worldview to provide the basis for that authentic community.

Right? When you think about someone growing up in a culture that says, hey. You define truth. You do whatever feels good. You get for you what you need.

You know, you don't have this transcendent basis for self denial. You don't have this God that in of himself is community and then provides the basis for within his church, imperfect as it is. Like, we need to be a witness to the world that, man, you can come to this place. We can be together. We need to challenge, like you said, some of those systemic sociological problems.

I mean, even you mentioned the whole industrial revolution where, you know, prior to that, families lived together, extended families, work was more integrated. There was the farm, and families were all woven into that. Yeah. And I think about reality today. I have a a nine year old, a six year old, and a four year old.

And so, like, I think about the nuclear family and how exhausted we all are, all my peers are, and how that even of itself doesn't work, how we still need we need all the help we don't have anymore. It's just way more difficult and expensive to get it than it was in an environment that was shaped for it. And and then we bring that individualism into our church experience where we try to be discipled alone. We try to evangelize alone. And so I'm so grateful for your attempts to, in a both literal and in a wider sense, gather because it's so important.

It is. Yeah. I think everybody's gotta come to terms with what is, and then you've gotta build a vision and a plan and push against the culture Yes. For what it could be. And I am a big believer in that.

I I think we we have to we've gotta be honest and understand. It's why I love history so much. I love science so much because when you really understand the realities of our day in perspective of how every other human on Earth has lived prior to a hundred years ago, you start to feel convicted. And then when you understand, you know, this is how you were built, like, scientifically, like, the way your brain works, like, the connections that are made, the the worst thing they have proven for your health is isolation. Yeah.

Worse than drinking, worse than drugs, worse than any other thing, bad eating, obesity, loneliness. Yeah. Like, when you read that science, you go that can't be true. But it is Yeah. Because it you you become hopeless and your your body doesn't thrive.

You know? You you can't nothing is more damaging than our mental health, and our mental health is most affected by our community. Yeah. Yeah. It's I always find it so fascinating when secular research and science just elucidates something that scripture has been saying forever, and then we go, hello.

Yes. It is not good for man to be alone. Like, he's the first thing he said. Right. He created a human.

First thing he says is not good to be alone, but all we've all forgotten that. And and it's it's okay. I mean, I'm so compassionate because you just you only know what you know, and we put screens in kids' hands at two and are confused why they're addict why they're addicted and why they don't wanna be with their friends at 16. You know? This is this is Oh.

You know? It it it to some degree, it's happening to us. It's not it's not just by our free will, but our our free will, it needs to stand up Yeah. And and take note and start to push back against it. And and even that has to be done together.

Right? I I think of parents around my age that are starting to look at each other and say What do we do with a loan? Yeah. We all come to an agreement here? Because I can't fight this alone.

I can't and that's with all the principles that we have. We have to band together. Absolutely. Anyway, that that is a whole area I'm fascinated by, and clearly you are as well. I feel overwhelmed.

But, of course, God is not overwhelmed, and he knew this was coming. And he knew the challenges of raising kids in the absence of these things, and he knew exactly what it would look like with it. And so he provides that godly wisdom, and wisdom is what I've been praying for more than almost anything because it's one thing to know God's word. It's another thing to apply it to this crazy world. And so wisdom is huge.

Let let me just change course here real quick. Unity is obviously a huge part of Gather. Right? It's about unifying the church. Let's get on the same page for a common mission.

Now I'd imagine that sounds great, and you had it you know, you can have it on a shirt, and it sounds great as as a slogan. But as you've actually tried to unify a very disunified church, what what have you learned about how hard that really is? What how do we get past the things that divide us? I've got an interesting perspective on this. It was the easiest part of what I did.

Oh, interesting. Okay. I think it was the easiest part of what I did because I was super upfront. I said, listen. I'm not asking you to come, and I I actually think this is what God was talking about, in scripture.

This is what Jesus was talking about in the last supper when he's sharing, you know, this is this is what I want for you. When he's praying, be one as Mhmm. We are one. I think he meant what I'm about to say, which is I'm not asking you to agree on every theological issue. I'm asking you to come together around four things, to pray, to worship, to repent, and to commission the church to reach loss.

And everybody goes, oh, okay. Okay. We can come around that. That that was easy. They they were like, yeah.

Okay. You're not asking us to agree with doctrine across, you know, every oh, okay. I don't think Jesus was talking about that either. I don't think he was saying agree on all things. It it was you know, I think he meant, like, love each other, and come together around the person of Christ, the gospel, and getting it to the world, the great commission.

I I just I I'm someone who is intentionally naive, I would say. Sure. Sure. I I I know I know this was loaded. I knew it.

I knew I knew a lot of the people I talked to were part of the divisive factions in the world. I I'm not naive, actually, but I decided to just not think about that and to believe the best and to go, you know what? I think we can do this. Do you think this is crazy? And people would say no.

It sounds like this reminds me of Billy Graham days. This reminds me of when I was a part of this huge event where the Catholics and the Protestants all came together and the charismatics and everybody came together for the good of getting the gospel to their city. Okay. Like, can we do that again? I'm not saying agree on everything.

I'm not saying be one church, world church takeover. I'm not none of that. I'm just saying let's just do what Jesus said. Let's just let's just be one on mission. Let's be one in prayer.

Let's be one in, love for each other and for the lost. You know? And I think people crave that maybe more than anything right now. I think I got easy yeses because I I I think people miss the simplicity of the gospel and getting the gospel to people that need it, and that was the only goal. Okay.

There was one goal. There is one goal of my life, and I think it should be the goal of anyone that loves Jesus. It is to revive the church so that everybody everywhere is reached with the gospel in the next you know, by 2033 is our goal Right. Along with a lot of other people. So I I just I don't know.

I think we've really overcomplicated it, and I think everybody's really weary and tired of that. Right. And and you would think that would have been evident by Jesus' selection of closest followers being just sorta uneducated, normal laypeople. Yeah. Right?

Like, if he wanted to build this, like, super complex theology or super complex academic system, there were a lot of people to choose from who could have helped him out in that process, but that's not who he chose. No. And you gotta know, like, where I'm coming from, I I'm seminary trained. I have Sure. Yeah.

Two year I have a three year degree from a Uber conservative seminary. I I care about theology. I'm I'm well versed in it. I can give you an answer on my view on just about every single thing that you would ask me and with confidence and with great conviction. I I am someone who cares about all that.

Right. I am I I but I it is to serve the goal of reaching as many people as we can before we're in heaven. When we're in heaven, we're gonna have all the knowledge. We're gonna know everything and more that I went to seminary for. We're gonna know all the answers to the tensions and the mystery around the theology.

But what we won't be able to do is to help people believe in Jesus and get to heaven. So I'm not saying don't pursue that. I gave three years of my life to it, and I do continually still do so much academic research for the work that I do. I just we've just lost the main point. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think as the main point comes back, you know, I really am a big believer. My life verses are in Hebrews 12 and that there's this great cloud of witnesses and they're watching, and we're supposed to run our race and throw off the weight and the sin that so easily entangles us fixing our eyes on Jesus. Well, I think of those all of those things happening simultaneously.

I think as we run our race, as we live out the great commission, as we try to reach people with the gospel, as we obey God to whatever he's called us to do to accomplish that, our sin and weight start to fall off because we're running and we don't really can't carry it. And we're focused and then we're fixing our eyes on Jesus because we need him. We can't do this without him. I really believe as the mission and the great commission is just seized by the church that our hearts come around that. I really believe that the the weight, the sin, and division, a lot of that falls off.

And as we are about that that purpose, because you're just so moved. I mean, we showed I think we showed and all of this is available. Anyone can go and watch any of this at gather25.com. We have all of it broken up where you can show it in your churches. Our our brand, our logo isn't on it largely because we want you to be able to use it for all your purposes.

This is just a free thing to serve the church. But we told about 20 plus stories of the global church, and I think it was so I think it was everybody's favorite part to see the persecuted church, to see, the revivals that are happening on every continent with young people. And I really believe that all of that awoken something in people, reminded people. Oh, yeah. I I've lost my way.

I've I've gotten very, very, disconnected from what I'm supposed to be about. And and so I hope and pray that it was just a giant reminder of the heart of God and where this whole thing's going because Yeah. I don't know if Jesus is actually gonna come back in ten years, but he will come back. Yeah. And he could come back in ten years.

He could come back tomorrow. And I just I just think we need to be sure that we are doing the main things. And I think the church when I share that vision with people, I think it was partly, the favor of God helping us secure yeses from across denominations and across continents. But I also think it was a a longing that people have right now, a deep desire to see, the church thrive and the church work together and the church do what it's what it's meant to do. Mhmm.

And I think the holy spirit helping you frame it through the lens of urgency wasn't coincidental. I think that for urgency does tend to crystallize what matters. I think about whenever I, you know, go to a funeral, it it's amazing how clear my priorities become. Right? All of a sudden, all the things I thought were so important, it just very easily separates.

And, again, that's not to create these false dichotomies, like theology doesn't matter or apologetics doesn't matter, all these sort of Yeah. Beautiful facets of the body of Christ. Right? They're beautiful facets. And I when I see some apologist who just brilliantly articulates the Judeo Christian worldview, I'm blown away.

Same same thing with theology. But there is not not to completely mangle Augustine's ordering of loves, but there is an ordering that matters. Like, first things do have to be first, and then we can totally appreciate these other things in light of what's most urgent. So I really, really appreciate that. How do we fear God until we know God?

How do we Right. Know God without his word? How do we know the word without studying it? So there is this this call to to that for sure. And and there are some main things.

Yeah. You know, we we we were clear on the gospel. I mean, everybody that got on the stage, I was so proud of. They understood the assignment. We preached the gospel clearly.

There was, repentance that was clear. We were not talking about a lukewarm watered down faith. We were we were talking about Jesus. We were talking about a Trinitarian God. We were talking about orthodoxy.

So, you know, I I don't we were not this was not a watered down thing. This was Right. Deeply, theological, but it wasn't divisive because we stuck to the what the Bible says, and and we didn't get into a million little sidebar things that we could have. Right. I'm really proud of it, the leaders and the communicators for that.

I mean, it it was a huge ask to to say you can't you're you're leading the global church. You can't you can't talk about your pet Yeah. Your pet passion and your hot topic. Like Right. Or your pet.

I mean, either way. Either way. I'm sure that might have done that. Yeah. I mean, I'm always haunted by that idea in scripture where there are these religious scholars and these brilliant minds when Jesus came onto the scene and they did not see him.

They did not recognize him despite all their training, despite their intimate understanding of the the prophetic elements within, you know, what we now call the old testament that would have clearly pointed to the reality of Jesus, and they completely missed it. So there is this idea that, man, you can know everything and still not know the thing that matters most, which is a a terrifying prospect. So Absolutely. Let me let me change directions again. I, your passion's awesome.

And, obviously, in in light of the world's needs, we need big vision. We need ambition in the right sense of that word. And yet I I often in the West and especially in America, I think we equate success in a certain way. We equate it with size or scope or, you know, even things like numbers or eyeballs or whatever. And so my question for you is how how do we balance worldly ambition or or how do we discern, I guess, the difference between worldly ambition and and godly ambition, especially when the church, you know, has a pretty rough history with the way they've stewarded fame and money, and you're always seeing these tragic stories of moral failures and just abuses in the church.

How have you wrestled with huge ambition, but god's definition of that? Yeah. I mean, one, I think I have a really great I'm gonna speak personally to it. I have a really great life. Like, I have a great husband.

We have a great marriage. I have a great local church. We were at dinner with my pastor last night and his wife. I have great elders that I respect and submit to. Sure.

I have kids that are largely on the right tracks, like, love Jesus, and I enjoy. And I know that could sound like bragging, but I think it matters to say that that is my life. Like, I don't I don't I I mean, this is an assignment right now to do gather writing books at times and it's it's an assignment I have, teaching the word in any way possible. You know, I feel a lot like Paul that says by all means possible. You know, two nights ago, I was at a college campus baptizing students, and that morning, I was at an Arkansas prayer breakfast for legislators.

I mean, by all means, pause you know, I don't I don't know. Sometimes I almost forget what exactly I do because I'll just do whatever I can do to help people know god. And sometimes it's a room full my living room full of eight girls, and sometimes it's a stadium full of 50,000. I don't or an event for 7,000,000. I don't it doesn't matter.

Like, I I wanna be where God wants me to be. I don't feel enamored with size. I think size only matters in that we've got four 5,500,000,000 souls we we're trying to reach, so we're trying to actually knock that number down every day. But but I I don't I don't know. I I okay.

I guess I'll say it from this sense. I've I've had three New York I mean, this I mean, this is whole thing's gonna sound like I'm bragging, but it makes the point I'm trying to make. I've had three New York Times bestsellers. I've led now the biggest women's event and biggest global event in Christendom, I think. I mean, somebody could argue that it wasn't, but I think, I don't, well, I don't feel anything.

Like, I don't feel, like, more satisfied. I don't feel more, like, like, settled in my soul. I have more troubles because I have more work in ministry. And I think when when you when you know that the end goal, like, is not the prizes of this world, it's like you're gonna live for there's two kingdoms. There's two you can live for.

And my kingdom is God's kingdom. And in that world, none of that matters. And Yeah. All that matters is faithfulness and obedience, and then he deals with the results of it all. And so I fully expect, like, not all my books are gonna do that well.

I fully expect that not all the things I touched will turn to gold. There's been lots of things that fail. I'm okay. Like, okay. If it fails I in fact, I had a dream.

I had a vivid dream that that it was I mean, it was Firefest. I don't know if you know what that is, but it it was a Oh, yeah. Massive That's oh, it was hard to watch. Does that well, I lived it in my dream, and it was me. And I had invited the world, and we absolutely it was, I mean, detailed.

Like, people showing up on screens and bathing suits. Like, it was so bad. And, I mean, hysterical, but just a disaster. It was so vivid. And it was so great because at the end of my dream, I sat down in this dirty theater where we had been kicked out of our event space and we were in this dirty theater and everything had fallen apart, and I was totally humiliated publicly.

And I sat down on this floor of this theater, and I I laid down and I started laughing. And my team's all looking at me, and they start laughing. And it was the best dream because I knew I was obeying God to do this thing. I pushed in every relationship I had. I pushed in every I mean, I cashed in anything I had without confidence that this would for sure work.

Only the voice of God saying you gotta do this. And so I just had pushed every chip in the middle of the table, and I I didn't know if it was a good bet apart from God said to do it. And I told my team, I was like, if this completely flops, we are gonna laugh because we obeyed God. Yeah. And I will never regret that.

And I just think that's which kingdom are you gonna live in? Like, I I don't have the energy to spend the all of it on trying to become successful or Yeah. Matter or make sure all those people came. I don't even know how all those people came. I we didn't even have a good strong marketing plan.

Like, I don't even know like, that was a work of God. You know? I don't know how my books have sold in Target. Like, that's weird. Like, I'm a Christian author.

You know? I don't know. I just I just feel like he told me to write the book. Yeah. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

And I'm really I mean, let's see. I I think as much as I can know, I'm really okay. I know. I do know because there have been plenty of things that have failed. I'm okay either way because that's just not like, what the results are are just it's not the game.

I'm not gonna play that game. And it is a choice every day. I can play that game when I open Instagram and I see how much somebody, you know, has liked something or not. It's a choice. We all have to make every day of which kingdom are we gonna live in and what's our goal gonna be.

But I, you know, I say all the time, I won't be able to do this forever publicly. Like, people aren't gonna care. They're not gonna listen to me forever, and I'll be fine. Like, you can find me in my living room making disciples just like I've always been doing with my kiddos, with my grand kiddos one day, and I'm good. Like Yeah.

Because that is life to me, and that's what he's called me to steward. The rest is up to him. Like, I I'll do the steps of obedience, but I'm not responsible for what's happening with the world. I just I'm not. And and so I think I just understand my place.

I believe in submission. I Yeah. Have really great people around me. I believe in confession. I mean, even last night at dinner with my pastor and my husband and his wife, I'm saying, like, the real stuff that's going on and the things I struggle with.

So Yeah. I think those are some of the the ways we fight it, but it's coming for all of us. I mean, it's not like I'm I don't struggle with it. I struggle with it every day. I just that's my perspective on it, I guess.

It's not that I would characterize it as indifference. It's just a recognition that it is of a substance that is not the soul and life giving substance that only Jesus can bring. Right? So it's it's it's simply a recategorization. It's like, hey.

It's cool. Like, it's house money is the way I look at it. It's like you know, I was thinking I had this thing the other day where my kids were off school, and it was one of those kind of days where when you're kind of in two minds and you don't just embrace being off. You're kinda trying to work in all the gaps, and so you're frustrated. And my daughters wanted to jump on the trampoline, and I didn't wanna do that.

And and then all of a sudden, I had what I felt like was a really strong holy spirit moment where I felt like God was saying, what would the ten year from now version of you say about this moment? Yeah. Hey. You know what? I'm really glad you were half present, and you chose not to engage with your daughters.

And because guess what? In ten years, they're not gonna ask you to do that anymore. Yeah. And your son's not gonna wanna play baseball in the yard. He's not.

He's not gonna ask. And I just sat there and I said, the ten year from now version of me is gonna say, Ben, get your butt on that train. Yeah. Oh, it's so true. I mean, I'm in the ten year version of you, and they're my best friends.

And so that that's the best investment I made. Yeah. I remember Priscilla Shire telling me once, like, years ago, she's because she would just say no. I'd ask her to do things. She'd be like, no.

No. Sorry, Jenny. I love you. No. And she but she said, these are just the years.

I wanna be at the basketball games. I wanna I wanna be at these things. And and she also said she said, you know, who's gonna be around you when you die? Like, that's who you wanna be good with. You wanna be with who's standing beside your bed when you die one day.

And I'm like, that that stuck with me. And I I I praise god that somehow we've pulled these things off, and I can say with with my kids, with my my family, like, I I've I've got that. And it's so worth keeping and investing in and giving up whatever you have to give up to have that be right. It just is. Yeah.

For probably about a year or eighteen months now, I I I've been implementing this thing where I really first, I just wrote a mission statement for my life. Right? So it's intimacy with Jesus, devoted husband, devoted father, then I wanna tell people about Jesus and inspire other people to do the same. That's it. And then every and it's in that order.

No. It's top down. And then every Friday, I take an hour, and I just call it reset. And I basically evaluate my calendar and my time and my bank account against that that mission statement. And I say, am I actually doing that?

And Yeah. The weekly rhythm has been great because it it's just enough of accountability that if I did it every six months Yeah. I'd be like, oh, nope. Didn't do it again. We'll see you in six months.

And I'm telling you, it is just this whole eulogy goal, this what what am I gonna want? How do I frame my life around the things I want people to say about me at my funeral? Right. It takes intentionality, though, doesn't it? Because life just It really does.

Flies by. Yeah. It does. And and yet, you're not you know, nobody will do it perfectly. No.

Right? So, you know, there were so many things I missed, and there were so many things days that, like, you're describing that I didn't choose them. And yet, there's a lot of grace for that. I think, you know, the way we parented you didn't ask me this, but the way we parented is we said, okay. Our end goals let's just keep our end goals in mind the whole time.

And our end goals were that our kids would like God and that our kids would like us and that we would like our kids and that God would be pleased with our kids. And that just kind of it was like that helped us make decisions as we were going. So when they would really screw up, it's like, I could lose my mind on you or I could teach you the gospel in this moment and the love and the grace of God. And, again, there were times that we had to be strict, strict, strict, and they didn't like us that day. But the in the end, we were building these friendships.

We were building these memories. We were building these stories with each other that were grace filled, that were full of direction and kindness and friendship. And I just think it worked. You know? I mean, we're friends now, and and they love God.

Like, all four today love Jesus. And I I just and they like God. And they grew up in the the sons and daughters of two people in ministry. You know, my husband was the pastor for years, and so that could have gone terribly wrong. And I don't think we have control over that, guys.

There are times, and certainly even in my own life, when when a kid is rebelling and it's not your fault. Like, it just isn't. But but I do think having the right goals of just don't get confused. You're not trying to build more you know, on the list was not successful kids. People.

On the list was not moral people. It was like, no. We're we're gonna make really big mistakes here in this house. Like, we're gonna screw up, and and we're gonna apologize. And we're gonna understand the grace of God for each other and for ourselves, and I don't know.

It was fun. Yeah. It was fun. I miss I miss hard parenting. Right now, they're they're all spread out.

They're all big. I was gonna say I could trade a day or two. I, Yeah. I I think I have to get the days back come ten years from now when they all have to use, and I'm doing it again with my grandkids. Well, you can borrow them then and just return them.

So Right. Well, that's true. That'll be easier for sure. You know, reflecting on my own life and the things that I get to do, even the more, you know, quote, unquote glamorous things on stages or in front of a lot of people. It's the same exact thing you're talking about where it's great, but the moment's gone, and this stuff lights me up so much more.

This is the stuff where I'm like, whatever you wanna do, god. Big, small, I I feel so grateful and privileged for all of it, but mostly, I wanna be oriented around the things that matter most. And that's the vine and branch thing. When you invest there, then all the other stuff ends up being more wild, more risk filled, more adventurous than you could have ever conjured up yourself anyway. That's the irony.

Right? If you pursue those things, you destroy your relationship with God and those things. Yep. And, it's that inside out process that when you can grasp that, it's it's revolutionary. Yeah.

And I you know, to your point and your question about all the people that have gone off the tracks, I know how that happens. I know how that happens because I know how I get off the tracks. And I would just say we have to take sin really seriously and just keep confessing and keep saying it. And I don't know another way to do life, and I don't know that everybody sees it that way. But, I think that that should be the pattern of every Christian, certainly every Christian leader.

Yeah. I think that's that's missing in our day. Accountability. I think the second you stop submitting to accountability, certainly the word of God, but then others who can we we're great at justifying our own behavior, right, and ignoring things to our own detriment. But, again, that speaks all the way back to our community conversation, which is if you are not tethered to people who will be willing to stick it out with you even once the mess reveals itself, which it will.

Right? That's the point of community. It's not just loved. It's known and loved. Mhmm.

But, anyway, that is an entirely different conversation, and I feel like we could just go on and on. I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I'm so grateful for your time. And maybe just to end here, how can we be praying for you in this next season? Yeah.

I mean, what we're watching through my friend's ministry, Tanya Pruitt, at Unite is just so special. We've been speaking. We've been on 14 college campuses, and we've watched revival happen in every room we've been in. And so you can pray for the next generation. Pray for God to continue to pour out a spirit that revival would spread.

We're praying it spreads to the church. We're dreaming about that. And just pray for the the spreading of the gospel. I mean, I really don't I don't have another goal. Of course, I would love protection for our family in it, but we have people praying for that.

I would just say pray for revival to spread, pray for the church to wake up, pray for souls to be saved and come into a saving knowledge of Jesus. And, yeah, that's those are the things I'm striving for. I know you are. I know, so many people listening are as well. K.

And, yeah, I just think together that that's that's what I wanna pray for. K. Well, let me just pray that now. So, Jesus, thank you. Thank you for this conversation.

Thank you for your heart for us. I pray you would bless Jenny. You'd bless her family. You'd give her rest even as she continues to strive to do whatever it is you've asked her to do. And I really sense that on her, a willingness to just be an obedient daughter ultimately.

And I pray that you would give her rest, that you would give her intimate moments with her family, and that you would also just let her breathe and celebrate, and all that you've done and all that you will do. And, I I as I prayed before this started, I prayed that the years to come would just make the years prior look like nothing. Not for the sake of numbers and social media and websites and all that stuff, but for your kingdom, God, because people need to hear about you. And it's not right that they don't know, and it's not right that we have it within our capabilities to tell them. And, of course, you move through that any way you want, but there are so many there's so many resources at our disposal.

I pray that we would wake up and use them, Jesus. Be bold, lord god, and and and really see that revival happen that that can become a cliche, lord, but let it be a reality. Let it be a reality in whatever small part you're asking us to play in that, both us and also those listening, let us play that faithfully, and then and then let us find our life in you, because that's the greatest gift of all. So we thank you. Yeah.

Bless Jenny. Bless everything she's doing, and we just thank you for this time together. Amen.