I am a working man, I get things done, work for the Holy Ghost, work for the Son, I am a working man, oh boy, I am a special agent of the land, and you are listening to, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Ben, you are listening to Live from the Path on livefromthepath.org, boy, I tell you, it's going to be, it's going to be rough, it's going to be rough, there's all kinds of crazy stuff going on, I'm joined by Troy Engelinger, Troy, how's it going? Pretty good, yourself? Not too bad, Pants, how are you buddy? I'm doing good, how are you Mike? I'm pretty solid. So here's the deal, Ben and Dan are out of town. They're at a church planting conference in Florida, and it is, I don't really know what goes on there, I wasn't invited, so I'm not really sure what happens, but I can pretty rest assured that when they get back in town, they'll be full-fledged, geared up to start planting some buildings, so that should be pretty fantastic. Oh yeah. Pants, what have you been doing this week? Trying to catch up my sleep. Here at Pathway, we just got done with the 24-7 prayer room. Yeah, no doubt. And it went pretty good, I think. Pants, how many hours do you think you were in that prayer room?

I'd say around 20. No, you had to be more than that, because I was at 22, and I know you're in there more than I was. That's a lot. 20 or 30. Now hold on a minute, fellas. Now hold on, let me ask you this now. So, I was out of town, the 24-7 prayer room is two weeks of solid prayer at Pathway Church. We set up the ministry center to where it's the whole wing of the building, basically just set up for prayer. So, you have a place to go where the distractions are kind of gone, and it's just you and God and a wall full of prayers from other people. You can write your prayers on the walls, and then you kind of go through that, and pray for some other people while you pray for some things that concern you directly and maybe your relationship with God. So, let me ask you, Pants, 20 hours in, there had to be something. So, I mean, what was your take over the whole thing? Like, was there anything that really hit you? Like, I mean, apart from that you're junk, and that you need to change some things, right? Like, that's obvious, right? I'm going to say, I didn't need prayer room to know that. So, you knew that was coming.

But, like, I don't know, usually I didn't get a chance to spend as much time in the prayer room as I normally do. I was out of town for the first week, and I kind of shared my prayer spot with a friend of mine, which was a different experience. I've never done that before. I got a chance to go with my entire family, you know, just me, my wife, and my kids, which I've never gotten to do. How was that? But it was actually pretty cool. I was kind of, it's really never been my thing. I usually take the middle of the night shifts, you know, and so my kids are asleep, my wife is ready to go to bed, whatever. No one's going to come out and hang out with me at 3 in the morning. And I actually kind of preferred it that way. I like the one man, you know, because I always feel like I can't lead. It's hard for me to lead when I'm not doing what I'm supposed to anyway. You know, it's hard for me to lead if I don't know where we're going. And so I kind of took it as I need to go and get some things straightened out and, you know, and really have a heart-to-heart with my maker and figure out what God wants us to do as a family. And, but this time it just so happened that me and, me and, and Jaron, Grace and Ellie went in there.

And my daughter, Grace, who's four, had just happened to be causing some real trouble at church before we went. We had like the 12 o'clock slot right after church. And I thought, this is perfect. This is, this is perfect. You know, she actually kind of got in some pretty big trouble. So we came in the prayer room and, you know, I let him walk around a little bit and then I said, Grace, I need, I need to talk to you. Why don't you come with me? And we went in the, we went in the, in the, the, the room with the cross in it, you know, the darker room, you know, and I said, I said, here's the deal, huh? I said, when you do something that isn't what God wanted us to do, I said, that's when we need to ask God to forgive us and help us to do better. And this is, this is the perfect time to do it. So I'm going to pray and I'll pray for you. And then I want you to give it a shot. I want you to, you know, to try it. Cause she does this at nighttime, you know, just generally, like you help us to do the thing, the things that we didn't do well today, you know, help us to fix them for tomorrow and, and, you know, so we do that generally, but I, I haven't really pressed the issue with her, like asking for forgiveness for a specific sin, you know, or specific disobedience, you know?

And, and, and so I prayed, I prayed for her and then I prayed for myself that I could help the, you know, to show her. And, uh, and then she prayed too. And it was, I don't know, it was really humbling. Like when they say faith, like a child and when Jesus like, don't hit, don't hinder the children for me, you know, you kind of get why because they can approach it. They can approach God and they can approach their faith without all the crap with all all the, like without pretending to be somebody that they're not like, I can't count. I get so frustrated. We'll talk about this a little bit. Like, but this is my, my biggest stumbling block at the moment for me in my walk with Christ is I get so frustrated with people, phony Christian talk. Like it just drives me insane. Like you get, I hear, I hear a ton of, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jesus, Jesus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bible verse, Bible verse. And then I look and I see nothing. And I'm like, why, why, why all this work for the shenanigans? You know, why, why put all this effort into something that you don't even believe? If you believe that you, it wouldn't be so obvious, you know, that you wouldn't have to work so hard, you know, to make it seem like it's happening.

And I have, I don't know, there's just a, and mostly my, my interpretation is with dudes, you know, and so I'm not, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm not good with ladies. You know, I'm not good with ladies in general and with ladies in general. Like, it's just not my, not my thing, but like, there's a run of like four or five guys and I think God is really working on me on this of like dudes that I can just talk to on blue in the face, just talk and talk and talk and talk. And I get, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And then nothing, you know, and so, so here's the thing. And me and Troy and Pants were talking about this before the show started, right? Like when push comes to shove, you, you want a relationship for Christ, with Christ for somebody else and they don't want it. That, that's a, it's a really hard situation to be in. It's a really hard situation to sit on this side of the, and you know, the thing is like, my walk with Christ isn't perfect. There's, there's a good portion of my life where I'm junk and I ignore what he says and I disobey on purpose and that is when Dan's, Dan's, Dan's sermon this week was on Ephesians 5.1 and it was about, it was basically like once you get in that rut, how do you get out? You know, how do you get out from that? You know better and you, you actually don't kind of care at the moment. You're, you're just sitting there in a, in a, in a hole going, ah, you know, I know I should be doing better, but I don't really know how. So, you know, whatever, I'll just be who I am.

Cool. You know, and so how do you get out of that rut? Dan's sermon is really good about that and it was out of Ephesians 5.1, Pants, we'll read it here in just a minute, but, but like, I don't know, it seems like a really tough question when you're looking, when you're looking, especially, it's either people who don't know Jesus to start with or people who have always claimed to know Jesus, but then act like they could give or take what he has to say. You know, it just seems like a really hard situation. Like I said, me and Pants and Troy were talking about that. Like, what do you do with a guy like that? You know, it seems harder to me for the guy that, that claims to know Christ and knows all the things to say, and then nothing ever changes. That guy seems harder to talk to, to me than the guy that knows, that doesn't know Christ at all, you know, because then they can flippantly say, I don't want it. You know, they can say, I don't want it. I don't need it. I don't know nothing about it. It sounds stupid, you know, and you have a basis there, you know, cause you can start with, you know, like, like I was thinking about it on the drive in today, the, uh, something that, that people always say to me, like, it's like, you know, you hear people talk about Christ and they're like, what is your, you know, what is the reason you believe in Jesus? And then people say, because I have peace.

And I, I, I, I, I know Jesus. Right. And I think, I don't even know that that means anything to me. You know, like I know what it means. Like, like you would see that clever bumper sticker. It's like, no Jesus, no peace. And then they changed the spelling of no. So it's like knowledge, Jesus, knowledge, peace, no Jesus, no peace, no Jesus, no peace. Right. And, uh, I don't know, like I have a hard time even buying into that. Right. It seems like such a platitude. You hear it so often and so many times. And, and, and I just, I don't, it seems hard to grab onto. Pance? Because I, I, I'm going to say when people ask me that, I, I kind of just go back to thinking, well, what would it be like if I didn't know Jesus? I really don't know if I could figure out what I'd be able to do. Because when they ask me those things, you know, if I know Jesus, what's the difference, I wonder, well, what if I didn't know? What, what would the point be? Like, like, like, like, what are you saying?

Like, what, what would the point be of, uh, of, of life in general? Yeah. I, what, why would I even care about getting out of bed? Why would I? Well, that might be a bit extreme pants. No, I, why would I bother doing anything? Well, for self, for self-glory, right? Like, for, uh, for advancement. There's nothing wrong, you know. And, I mean, who, I've talked with friends of mine before, uh, uh, gal friend of mine. She was saying some stuff, and she said, well, yeah, he and I, we kind of get involved, but he's looking to marry this one gal. Wait a minute. Get involved? Like, get involved? Get, get, get involved. Okay, I'm with you so far. Okay. And, and she said, yeah, but we had to stop because he's wanting to marry this other guy. Sure, yeah. And I said, good time.

Okay, shut it out. Right. And I'm like, you need, if you know that, stop. It's like, yeah, yeah. And that's what I said, and we stopped. A few months later, they're married, and they're in situations where they may be getting a lot involved, and she comes to me, and she's like, I, I, I don't want to do it, and I, because I've tried to talk to her about Jesus, and she blatantly, no, I, I don't want to deal with that. That, that's foolishness. Because then I say to her, well, why not? You, you have a good relationship with him. Why not continue being involved? Right. And you don't, with, I'm talking to you, and I'm good friends with you. You seem to have morals, but what's the point? Okay, well, maybe that's the, maybe that's the, the, the grasp of the situation, right? Like, what is the point of adhering to a moral code that not, that everybody can't agree on? You know, like, like if the moral code is, like, like everyone says, well, I have a code of morals that I live by, you know, approved by me. I approve this moral code, right?

That's why I've chosen to live by it, right? But my moral code's different than yours, it's different than yours, you know, what I find to be acceptable. So, what are you, what you're really doing is, is shifting the rules as you go to fit your lifestyle. Right. Like, I find it okay to, you know, show up late, tell a lie or two, and as long as I'm not cheating on my wife, you know, I'm a moral guy, you know? Eh, you know? So, so, let me ask you this then. Like, is the, is the, is the conversation tougher because they don't have, you're not agreeing on the same moral ground? I, oddly enough, for some reason, it almost seems a little easier. If you're not agreeing on the same moral ground? We're not on the same moral ground. Because, I feel like, for some reason, I can be more blunt, not on the same ground. If it's somebody that I do respect, and I know they're, they're a good, smart, intelligent person, and because this same person, we've gotten arguments about society in general. I know her views, and yeah, she agrees. Society's a little messed up and crazy on some things. So, but then, like you were saying, gee, okay, that, that line, you don't cross. This line, go, go ahead and cross it, bend it however you want.

So, so let me, let me ask you this then, is that what is the, how different, here's the big thing where I think a lot of people are missing, right? They're like, how, how different does your life look when you're following Christ versus not? This is, there's a two-fold answer to this, right? Because I've been kind of thinking about this a little bit, because I think people, when they think about having a relationship with Christ, they're like, it sounds completely different, completely foreign, and completely out of, out of what my lifestyle is. You know what I'm saying? And there's some things about your lifestyle that probably need to go anyway, right? But I was thinking about this, because I, I have, I have a, I have a pattern of sinful behavior that I have a hard time getting rid of. You know, there's like, there's certain things that I do, or certain situations that I get in, that I have a hard time turning my back on and walking away from. And it's a, it's, it's disobedience. Like, it's on purpose. Like, there's, I think there's a huge difference between people say, look, people are going to fall. You know, you're going to have, you're going to be a sinner. Things are going to happen. You're going to make a wrong decision, and you're going to disobey God. That's going to happen, right?

But when you run into, like, repetitive situations where you continue to do it, now you're being defiant on purpose, disobedient. You're giving God the finger and saying, forgive me, I will do whatever I want to do. You know what I'm saying? Because you're doing it repeatedly. You know what God says about it. You've prayed on it, hopefully. And it still comes up, and it's still a problem. So, one of the things I was, I was trying to figure out was, is like, let's say I cut those things out. Let's say I actually follow Christ when I want to follow Christ. Like Paul says, you know, I do what I don't want to do. Let's say I do what I do want to do. Let's say I, I, I do it. Not a perfect life, but at least I get rid of the repetitive, grab me by my ankles patterns of sin, right? How different, how different would my life look than it does right now? And the truth is, it wouldn't look that much different. You know what I'm saying? It would, it would be different, but it wouldn't look different. Like, it doesn't, as soon as I get rid of my, you know, my smoking habit, you know, whatever other habit that's got you by the tail, you know, as soon as I get rid of that, does my

dream job show up? Does God work on a merit system where the more I follow, the more he blesses me? I don't know that the Bible is consistent with that teaching, right? Like God blesses when God blesses. He loves me regardless if I'm following or not following. Now, God accomplishes God-sized things through God's work. So I think there's, I think there's a, there's an avenue to, to, to split hairs on, right? Like God can still, God still blesses people. God still loves people who aren't necessarily following him. Like that's always the case. He always does. You know, I, there's, there's times I can look back before I was really following Christ. I said, he, he, he did things on my behalf that I didn't deserve, right? And he does things to this day that I don't deserve, but he can only accomplish people-sized things, people-sized things through you when you won't let him do anything. And I think that's where people get the problem messed up, right? They're like, if I do what God tells me, he'll bless me. Eh, I don't know if that's the case. If you do, if you follow what God's doing, then you can do God-sized things. And if that looks, and if that looks like a blessing to you, I hope that it does because your, your idea of what a blessing is, is pretty small compared to what God's is. You know, and so the more you turn ownership over to God to do things is when you can see

God-sized things get done, opposed to whatever you're, you have in your mind and that you're trying to take God's blessing and say, this is the best God can do. I'm sure of it. This house is the best that God can do. These friends are the best that God can do. This lifestyle is the best that God can do. And you've just taken, you've taken the power of God and cut it in a million pieces and you're trying to steal the tail into one and call it what it ain't. You know, and I fall into that trap, you know, I try, you try to make it, you try to make something for yourself. You're like, if I just work extra hard and if I'm honest at my job and I do all these things in the name of Christ, but I don't ever listen to what he has said for me, all I'm going to gain is a Mike-sized life, which is really kind of small. You know what I'm saying? Big in my own head, but really, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, pretty tiny compared to what a God-sized life does. And so, like, you see all these posts on Facebook that are like, you know, do this, this, this, this, and God will bless you, right? Like, God's blessed you already by not killing you right now for the sin that you're guilty of. Be lucky that you have a father that loves you, that he hasn't killed you for breaking all of his rules.

You know, sometimes I wish that I understood God like that sometimes. Like, I know people don't like to push the big, scary, punishing God, right? But, like, sometimes I just want to be dropped to my knees and feel the authority of God so I, so I'm not foolish enough to stick my, my right butt cheek on the throne and act like I kind of own it. You know, like, I want to be, I just, I don't know, like, I'm such a stubborn, stiff-necked dude that I just need to be slapped in the face and said, look, here's the deal. Don't ever come near this throne again. You don't own this. This is not you. You didn't make anything, you know? And sometimes, you know, people like to back away from the guilt thing, but, like, it's not so much guilt as authority. Like, I own this thing. And sometimes I have a real problem grasping that, and that's one of the things that I pray for most sometimes. It's like, God, I just want to be, I just need you to beat me silly on this thing. I just need you to level me because I'm a prideful beast, and I don't want to think that I can sneak on this throne and be in charge of whoever I'm in charge of like that, you know? Yeah, I'm going to say it like the prayer room, how we had it set up this time, we actually had it set up so that there was a holy of holies. Like, in the Old Testament, you also had, like, we had curtains symbolizing when you

go into the temple and then you go through another door that you're in, the holy of holies. And knowing that was just symbolic, it wasn't the real thing, because the real thing's not there anymore, but I even had to think about that because, my God, so we're symbolizing that. I was hesitant to go in there when I did, knowing I'm, my pride's getting in the way. I'm thinking, well, I've been okay, I can do that. I could get my one right cheek on the throne there, but like you were saying, I'm getting a little full of myself sometimes having that problem. Yeah, I don't know. You know, I think it's something that probably everybody struggles with, but every once in a while, I think it just needs to be, I don't know, I just feel like you need to be smacked up the head with it, you know? Like, to really understand God's authority and who He is. And the fact that He loves you anyway is the killer part, but, I mean, just to realize who you're dealing with, right? Like, all the things that you put in front of God and say, but God, you don't understand. I had, you know, my job really wanted me to work, and everybody else was going out to the bar after work, and like, I really need to make friends with these guys because I have to work with them every day, and, you know, I don't want to be the odd guy out, and God's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get you, Mike, sure. I've made that exact concession when there's something that I knew that I should have nothing to do with, absolutely nothing to do with, and I did it anyway. And I thought, and I prayed, I'm like, God, well, you understand, you know, I got to make

buddies. You know, I got to, I got to, dude, my boss wanted me to do this thing. I really want to make friends with my boss. You know how it is. I got to try to get ahead. Like, God doesn't run the company that I work for or run the entire earth as in general that I need to, you know, suck up to some lowly, no-good doofus who happened to promote himself throughout the company and try to get, you know, what he wanted because, you know what, that's a Mike-sized dream. That's a Mike-sized goal. Right. God, if I could just be manager of my workplace, yeah. Yeah, you know, that's exactly what I wanted, and I've done that exact thing. Like, I've gone places that I shouldn't have gone. I've gotten involved with people I shouldn't have gotten to. Now, there's nothing wrong with being involved with people who don't know Jesus, right? Like, that's kind of the point. Right. But, I mean, when push comes to shove, you know where your propensity to sin is, and you know what's going to draw you away from a closeness with God, and you have no business being there, and you know that about you, you know? And so, like, if you can't sniff that out and see that coming, that's how that Ephesians

thing that Dan was talking about on Sunday, it's Ephesians 5.1. It's not a very long verse, right? But it's, therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. And so, the big breakdown was, is that he started on the second part first, which was as beloved children. So, like, you've got to grab that first, is that God loves you, and he made you, and he knows you. Like, to start out that you're not talking to a God that does not know you. You're talking to a God that does, and that loves you, and already sent his son to die for you, he knows you, you know, whatever, you know, BS you've been handing over for the last six months, trying to convince him that everything's fine, he's been there, he's got it, you're not the first guy to come up with a clever story, you know, he's got a hold of you. But the second part was the, therefore, be imitators of God. And I thought, that's the part that kind of hit me hard, because I've been in this, I've been in this funk for, like, I don't know, about a month or so, and I've been praying on how to get out of it. I'm like, I just don't feel, I feel God leading me in some ways, and we've made some decisions that kind of reflect that leading, but I feel like I'm not invested in it, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm letting things bother me that don't usually bother me, I'm getting upset about things that I don't normally get upset about, and I don't know, like, I've just, I've had

trouble getting close, getting close with God, and of course, this is all on my end, you know, I realized this about three weeks in, I'm like, this is my end, I'm pushing him away, and I don't know why. And that, Dan was talking about it this Sunday, he said, therefore be imitators of God, that is how you get out. That is how you parlay your life against what's happening, and say, you know, these are the things that, can you imagine Christ doing these things, right? And so the first thing I think of is Jesus having to smoke, and looking at me, and I'm like, that's disgusting. Just, you know, I just don't see it. I just, I do not see it. It's not like smoking is a, is a, is a right off the bat sin, it's certainly not a good idea. Very similar to, you know, eating your own shoes, or, you know, painting your house turquoise. These are all not grand ideas, not sins necessarily, but still not top of the line, you know, genius moves, and so, but it's one of those things that when those, like, it becomes your God after a while, you know, it begins, it takes you over, and it begins to make decisions on your behalf, and there's times where I've run into the situation where I've looked at these pack of smokes I have on me, and I've chucked them out the window, and in a very grandiose statement, I've said, you will be my master no more, and I drove home directly, and I thought, finally done.

And then two hours later, whining in the corner like a small child, I wish I wouldn't have done that. What was I thinking, you know? And then at that point, my entire resolve where you will not be my God anymore, flips right back to, okay, you can be my God for just now. You won't be my God tomorrow, but the rest of it is a, I deserve to be enslaved by you for a little bit longer because I'm an all right kind of guy, you know? And so, I don't know, like those things, it just seems like such an odd dichotomy to try to fight, to try to fight with God with such petty things. Like, if you could remove yourself from your own situation and look at you for who you are, you would look at just a total white and doofus of a man. You know, can you imagine that God sits up in heaven and listens to the excuses you throw at him at your prayer night? You know what I mean? It's just got to be so, God, I was with you there for about half the day, and then I decided I was going to, you know, just, my boss called, and I wasn't really working, and I told him that I was, and actually, I'd gotten home an hour ago, and I said, well, I'm just heading home right now, and, you know, that was kind of a lie, but he's not going to know the difference, and God's like, oh, yeah. Yeah, that's solid, Mike. Thanks for, well done, good and faithful servant. Liar!

You know, I mean, that's not a solid testimony at all. And so, I mean, God's just sitting there listening to you throw up your drivel, and from your end, you're like, this is solid gold. I'm making all kinds of sense. Good thing God loves me because I've rid of sin today, you know? So, I don't know, it seems kind of few and far between. Nathaniel! How's it going? Pretty good. How's your day been? Well, I just got off the Walgreens. It was good business. What do you mean? Like, you were super busy, or you guys just have good sales, or what's happening? Yeah, good sales all around at Walgreens, don't you? That's it, then. No crazy characters? Anybody else? Well, there are always crazy characters at the Walgreens with me being there, but… You're the crazy character. I tend to be sometimes. Okay, that's fair enough.

This dude came in today, actually. He was wearing a shirt that had a dragon on it that was eating a knight, and it said, canned food. And I thought that was pretty funny. It's not a classic kind of dope, but it's kind of funny. And the other day, a dude who looked similar to this fellow, they looked like the regular D&D World of Warcraft enthusiasts. Sure, sure. And he came in, and he's like, I'm not even kidding. This is my best impression of him. This is how he sounded exactly to me. He goes, how are you this glorious day? Now, hold on. Is he in town for the… It's not Renaissance Festival time, is it? No, that's in the summer. Have you ever been in the Renaissance Festival? I have, and it was pricey, but it was overall a good time. So I've always planned on going to this Renaissance Festival, and it's yet to happen. Like, every year, I see the signs put up, and I'm like, I'm certainly going to go this year, because I used to live on the east side of Des Moines, where they used to have this thing, and I'd go to the Quick Drip before work, and there'd be a bunch of Dragon Fighters

in there, you know, dressed to the nines, buying Twinkies and a 20-ounce soda. You know, I'm like, I've got to know these guys. I used to have some friends who worked at the Renaissance Festival over the summer. Do they have the costume as well? Yeah, they bought their own costumes. Oh, they don't provide them? The vendor doesn't provide costumes? Nope, nope. You've got to buy your own costume. Well, that's a joke. I surely wouldn't do that. She bought her own fairy costume. My other friend brought his own wizard costume. Wait, but how is a fairy part of the Renaissance Festival? That's not… I thought the Renaissance was an actual event. Yeah. It's kind of like… Isn't it a time in history? Yeah. Well, were there fairies and wizards? Yeah.

Fairies and wizards don't exist, Nathaniel. Yeah, they do. They were not fairies and wizards. Yeah, they were. They're not real beings. Yeah, but the stories of fairies and wizards came about during the Renaissance era. Well, I don't think that… It's been like he having a Holocaust reenactment and then, you know, adding some fairytale toots in there because someone told a story about a fairytale during that time period. It just seems misplaced. Troy, you ever been to the Renaissance Festival? No, I have not, but I've actually just, like, you always wanted to go. Yeah, it seems like a… They have ginormous turkey legs there. Like, you know… That's one of the biggest reasons. You know the, like, street fair? Yeah, but bigger than the state fair. Pansy, you been to the Renaissance Festival? No. You should go to the Wizard. Apparently, you have to buy your own.

I think that's a little crap, man. Seriously, like, if I was going to work at a food stand at the Renaissance Festival, I would totally expect him to pay for the costume. I wouldn't go out. What are we going to do with it after the Renaissance Festival's over? I mean, if you're working… If you're working at the Renaissance Festival, I would assume that you'd want to wear that at other times in your life. So what you're saying is that it takes a certain kind of dude to work at the Renaissance Festival, and therefore, the certain guy who would dress like a wizard for money would certainly dress like a wizard for free. Yeah, the people that I knew that worked there would. They were… That's wild. I don't know anybody that personally worked there. Okay, this is a true story as well about the Renaissance Festival. There were two… Okay. They have this ring that's set up, and they have little foam swords that you can rent, and then for ten minutes, you can fight each other and have a battle. And these two dudes were really going at it. They were really getting into it.

And they were just clinging so as… And screaming things at each other. And then this one dude does a spin-around move, and then whacks the other dude right in the face. And he goes, Your skills have improved, Dwayne, but I am still your better. I totally got to go to this thing. I just had a laugh. Actually, here's another thing. A lot of the… Like, they had skits that they would do that were, like, comedy, family-friendly skits. But a lot of the jokes that they were telling were inappropriate. They were, like, blue jokes? They were… Blue in material? Sure. Blue means sexual. Yes. Yes, it does. That's certainly what it means. Have you ever heard it referred to that? Like the blue channel, or that's a blue joke?

Man, what are you guys… I'm wearing a blue shirt. Does that… You've never heard anyone say that's the blue network? I'm wearing a blue jeans. The blue network is the dirty network? Nope. Seriously. Pants, you're like two, three years younger than me. You haven't heard of that? No. You're so old, Mike. Man, I'm cultured, I guess. You guys are a bunch of boobs. I don't know. I don't know about that. You guys get around. I think it's just your old-time speak. I don't know. Okay. Your decade old speak. Okay, so the renaissance…

Well, now, to be fair, the ladies that I saw that went to this renaissance festival, ah, you know, I mean, the renaissance dresses were cut in a certain way to facilitate ladies. Right. And it seemed to be a bit much. Actually, I probably, as a good Christian fellow, don't have any business going to this thing now that I think about it. Yeah, don't go. So I probably won't. But I would go… That's like 15 bucks a ticket. I'd go to see the nerds fight with the swords. I totally… Well, that's loving. You're squill skills. The nerds? What do you mean? What's wrong with that? You just said I'd go to watch the nerds. They prefer geeky Americans. See, I'd go see the geeky Americans. Geeky Americans. Yeah. I don't…

I'll tell you what. Go ahead. I'll buy a couple of foam swords. I'll come over to your place, and we'll battle. Your skills have not improved. I'll be there with a gigantic double-handed battle axe. Man, that'd be awesome. Maybe we should have our own renaissance festival. Well, I tell you what. It would not be a renaissance festival. It would just be us fighting. Well, tell me the difference between our homemade renaissance festival and these jokers. They've just rented a bigger piece of land. Yeah, we wouldn't be on, like, in any way immortalizing the renaissance. We'd just be fighting, like I said. So it's really just us fighting. It's not even a renaissance festival. Well, why don't we wear costumes or something? I mean, I'm telling you, what's the difference? You wear costumes. You get foam swords. You could do this thing in your backyard.

Coroner Nathaniel, they had Twinkies. That's it? I didn't say Twinkies. No, Mike said Twinkies. I said Twinkies, Pat. Twinkies and 20-ounce soda. Let's get on this thing. Man, I need you guys to follow the conversation here. Mike, supply the Twinkies and 20-ounce soda. I'm there. Okay, this sounds like a good time. I'm in a toga. You've been listening to Live from the Path on livefromthepath.org. Here's what you can expect on tonight's show, a lot of awkward silences, some not good seduaries. Ben and Pastor Dan are at a church planning conference in Florida, which leaves just the bitter fellas left. I mean, the loud, kind of obnoxious slapstick comedy boys. I mean, we fought out a good Jesus topic here in the front end, and I'm hoping Nathaniel's going to redeem us a little bit. I got some great news stories coming up. See?

Nathaniel's got some good stuff from the news desk. I did arrive about 9.30 or so, and I said, Troy, what you got? Troy said, what do you mean? I got me. So Troy didn't bring anything to the table. Not a bit. Pants can only be trusted to come up with Dear Live from the Path when his telephone is working properly, and he's handed that to me. So we're going to do some Dear Live from the Path coming up later in the program. So I expect a pretty solid deal. The other thing we're going to talk about is we have a, I don't know, I've friended a couple, I don't know, I'll say charismatic people on the Facebook that tend to post things about, like motivational posters about Jesus and about God in general, and angels more aptly, that I find just to not be true. Like one of the main ones is, I just saw this today, it says, the question that I'm begging to ask is, is what you're saying about Jesus true? Like when someone says, God never shuts one door without opening another. I don't know if that's true. What if you asked for something stupid? God said no. That's it. I don't see how that's ethical.

Pants, has that been, I mean, do you find that to be an accurate statement? That's like along the lines of saying, you're asking God a question, and he's only going to say yes, I mean, you present something to God, it'll be a yes, no, or we're not getting an answer yet. I think that's a no. I think I disagree with both of you. I think, I think you're completely taking that the wrong way. When he says, God never shuts one door without opening another, that has nothing to do with, I don't think that has anything to do with you asking for something stupid and him just telling you no. Why? Because God's not going to leave you in a doorless room. You've got to be able to. Well, you got in there, there has to be one door. He doesn't magically erase the door you took to get in. You just, you just said that God doesn't shut a door without opening another one. And you're arguing that. So if God shuts one door, there's no more doors. If he doesn't open another one. No, it's just a shut door. The door can be reopened. You can't open a door that God shuts.

Well, God can open. It's in the Bible. You cannot shut a door that God shuts, or open a door that God shuts, and you cannot shut a door that God opens. Where's that at? I'm almost 100% sure that's in there, brother. I would hope so before I said it's in the Bible. No, I can't remember the exact verse, but I know that it says it. Nathaniel, you want that? Troy, Troy, we haven't got through all the words yet. Here's what I think. We've got to do most of it. That Facebook stuff that you're saying that people are posting up, it sounds more like a secular proverb than a Solomon. Yes, it does. It does sound like a secular proverb. That's fine. I just, I don't think God's going to leave you in a doorless room. Maybe once you're there for a while, teach something. Maybe you've got something to learn in that room. He's going to put you in a room where you can't go anywhere? Maybe.

I completely disagree. Okay, that is not in the Bible, Troy. Man, I must be wrong. I would, whatever part of your life you've based that off of the Lord's teaching is not in there. So I'd X-nay it. I don't even think it sounds biblically sound, to be honest with you. I do. It's just something that, but it's not. It's not in the Bible, Troy. Okay, well, my apologies that I quoted, so I thought it was in the Bible. No, what I'm saying is, is that you're saying that I find this to be biblically sound. You're the Facebook poster. You're the guy that says crap like that. You don't see me posting like that. It's a metaphor, Troy. Follow it. You're trying to, this is the exact same thing that I see on Facebook, and you've gotten behind it, and it has no biblical root. It just sounds nice. Okay, so where's your justification? Let me ask you this.

Let's flop it onto your opinion, since I'm obviously wrong. You think God just puts us in a place where we can't go anywhere? I don't know that I would say that. Okay, so what is your disagreement with the statement, the whole, God never shuts a door without opening another one? I would disagree with that. Okay, I would A, never say that God never does anything. I would never say what God or God does not do. Okay, that's fair. I would not attribute that at all. Secondly, God never shuts one door without opening another. I just, I don't know. It just doesn't sound right? Well, I just don't buy the fact that you're telling what God does and does not do. God does whatever God wants to do, and God can shut a door and leave you sitting there for a while if you need to sit there for a while. See, what it is, what you're trying to do, what you're trying, they're trying to instill for you to take lumps and say, oh, it was God's will to shut that door. He's obviously going to open another. Maybe the door just shut on its own. God doesn't shut all doors and open all doors. Some doors are shut because of sin.

Some doors are shut because they shut on their own. Some doors are just shut because of natural occurrences, because of the way that the earth was made. You know what I'm saying? Man, God doesn't sit there and shut and open doors every five minutes. He doesn't, he's not micromanaging the doors. Sometimes God opens doors. Some guy, sometimes God doesn't touch the doors. What, what that, what people are using that saying for is trying to attribute bad things in their life that happened and saying that God caused them to teach them a lesson or because they wanted to divert them to another path. There's sometimes that that's true. There's a lot of time that it is not true. Sometimes that is just absolutely not true. People try to attribute things like that all the time to God when really, that's a pretty thin line. If you have a working, honest relationship with Christ and you throw everything up in prayer, odds are that you're going to be right where God wants you to be because you're talking to him, paying attention, listening to where he wants you to go. And instead of going, I got fired. It must have been God's will. He wanted me to get another job.

Or you stink at your job. You got fired because you suck. That's why you got fired. God didn't shut that door. You got fired because you don't produce what they've asked you to do. That's where I have a problem with it. Okay. Because I think that's what people use it for. Nathaniel. I agree. Totally. Pants. Speaking. Go ahead, Pants. Thanks, Pants. That's pretty solid. I'm glad we tossed it over to you. I had a cardboard cutout of a chimpanzee I was going to bring in, but obviously I've made a better decision. Thanks, Pants. Speaking of Facebook, this is a great segue. Okay.

That was what one of my latest news stories was about. Okay. Okay. So the internet shot off on my computer, so I'm just going to try and remember it. Basically, here's the story. A lady in a church group posts photos like a three-decker cake that she has made with elaborate icing and embroidery. Okay. And she puts up there, just something I made for the fam. And this angers her church family friends because they feel like she is bragging way too much on the Facebook. But they use it as a tool to encourage their faith. Like if they get angry at a post that she has posted because she's always posting these posts about her family and her husband and how her life is always awesome. And if they get angry at it, they know that they've got a problem with them and God that day. What? What? Is this? Is it? Nathaniel, this seems like a really odd situation. So a lady made a cake for her family.

She's obviously a good cake decorator. Yes. Right? I mean, she's made a nice cake. Made a cake, took a picture of it, posted it on Facebook, say, made this for the fam. Right? And then people within her church family are upset because they feel that she's gloating. Yes. She's saying, I mean. Face bragging, if you will. Is that a phrase? Face bragging? I don't know. That's what it said on the article. Okay. That's not bad. I thought it was pretty funny. That's not bad. Do you think that's, I don't know, do you find that to be an accurate assumption? Like, do you think that, do you find, okay, let's break this down into two things. One, do you find that people post things on Facebook more as a bragging than, do you find that to be the general tone of Facebook?

To brag? To brag. Or to say, hey, look at me. I'd say, no, that's not the general tone. I mean, sometimes it's used like that, but just, you know, letting people know what you're doing. Okay. What you're up to. Is there anything wrong with showing your cake decorating skills on the internet? I don't think so. What if it's all you do? What if it's all you post? Well, maybe. Like, every day is another cake. Me and a fam. Me and a fam. For my fam. For my great people. I love them. Here's another cake. Here's another cake. I'll bake cakes for my family all the time.

I'm going to say, you must be a baker. Yeah, obviously she's good at what she does. You do that for your family. I think the church has an almost pride issue. Yeah. Like, it's a women's group is what it describes. Oh, yeah. Okay, I was going to say something, but never mind. Here's the deal. Never mind on that one. You're watching live from the past. Made a sentence before like that. Here's the deal. I'm not the side commentary guy today. I can't just spout off at the mouth and then recede back to my microphone that didn't fix it. And so, I'm going to tone that thing down and call it what it is. A big oopsie on my part. Whoops. I guess, you know, I find this to be, I find that it's odd. Like, in situations like this, like, it really does, it brings that phrase, which is a non-biblical phrase, by the way. But, what is it, one bad egg spoils the bunch, right? Yep.

One bad grape? What's the phrase? One bad apple. One bad, that's not true. Yes. Unless it's got a worm in it. No, it's the apple. No, no. I mean, the phrase is probably correct, but like, one bad apple, I mean, it doesn't spoil the whole bushel of apples. Yeah, it does. Unless there's a worm. Like, if they're in a cart. Well, how, what does it do? It, like, rots the rest of the apples. How? It just sits there. The fumes of the other apples. Ow! That's ridiculous. The phrase is, one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch. I don't think that's right. No, I don't think so either.

Anyway, the gist of it is, is that, like, one little mole in there, you know, creates a big to-do. Big hairy mess. Right. And really, it should be just, Facebook is a different example, right? Because now you're getting detailed, personal information about people that you don't see very often. You know, people that probably should have been out of your life for a reason are now connected back to you, like your second grade, whatever, your best friend in second grade who moved away, haven't seen him for 15 years, turns out that, you know, he loves death metal and eating squirrels, raw, uncooked, and now you don't have anything to come with the man, but now your Facebook buddy's right, and he's like, just got another one, nummy, nummy, nummy, you know, and there's him eating a squirrel, you know, you're like, oh man, I don't know why I'm still friends with Bob, but I, you know, it is what it is. So now you're getting detailed information that is usually only privy to close friends. But now on the Facebook, you're getting it, everybody's getting it. And so now people who you usually would not share things with, now know more about you than they should, and now have a two cents about it, right? That's what the whole comment post is about, right? Here's my two cents on your life, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So maybe it begs the question, should she have seen this coming? I mean, if she's part of this gaggle of church ladies… Well, here's the thing, they said that she only does it on Facebook. Like, in real life, she's a nice person, and she's agreeable to get along with, and she doesn't, like, brag about her life or anything like that.

She's just a pretty cool lady. But only on Facebook, she puts up, like, things about her, like, her husband, like, one of the examples was like, uh, he just got that promotion, he really deserve it. I love my hubby. Like, stuff like that. And that infuriates them. Really? I don't understand it. Yeah, that's something bad to say. Congratulations to my husband. That's just her saying, hey, husband got a job. He got a promotion. I don't hear bragging in that at all. Well, now here's the thing, because I'm kind of on the opposite. I might kind of be agreeing with the gaggle ladies a little bit on this. Like, if I want to tell my wife congratulations or, hey, I love you today, I don't usually post that on a Facebook. Like, hey, I love my wife. You know, like, I would just call her and say, hey, wife, I love you very much. And then I hang up the phone. No other person involved. You know, it seems like a one-way transaction. And so that stuff I do find a little bit weird sometimes.

Like, you can overdo it. There's nothing wrong with, like, throwing it out there and saying, look, I got the best church family in the world. Or, I really love my kids. Or, my wife is the best. Or, you know, whatever. My best friend is pretty solid. He helped me out of a jam. Just wanted to let everybody know that this guy is tops. I think that's okay. But, like, if every day you're like, love you, hon, on the Facebook for everybody to see, I don't know that you really mean it. You seem like a big phony to me. I would agree with that. But I thought it was weird that they used it as an indicator of how they're doing with God on that particular day. Like, sometimes they'd be like, okay, I'm okay with, I don't know her name. Let's just call her Jill. Okay. I'm okay with Jill's post about her family and her kids at the park where they're all perfect and wearing knitted sweaters. But on other days, when I feel harsh against her because she put up something about a cake, I know that I have a problem with me and Jesus today. And I need to get right with the Lord. Because I am harsh against Jill on the Facebook. That is kind of an odd. Is she right, though?

I mean, have you, I don't know, how do you say that, right? Has your relationship with God deteriorated because you're upset at somebody on Facebook for no reason? Actually, that kind of ties in with the last three weeks like I was talking about, right? Like I've been getting upset about things. I don't normally get upset about things that don't normally bother me or bother me. And does that equal not a closeness with God? No, it doesn't. What's it? I don't know. Does it just equal hate? It depends on. A funk? Can you just be in a funk? It depends on, I think, on what it's about. Like, if it's just small things that are irritating you, maybe they're just irritating, you know? Maybe you're just in a funk. Yeah, things can be irritating. I mean, that's kind of the deal. But it's like something that's not regularly irritating to you, and you're like usually okay with it. Maybe you're harboring something in your heart that shouldn't be there, and you need to talk to Jesus about it.

Yeah, maybe you had some weight in your heart that you've been keeping around, and then the little irritating stuff is building on top of a small hill. Yeah. And so a molehill turns into a mountain. Another phrase that's not in the Bible, but I love it. Honestly, that could be it. I mean, it's not that you're getting further away from Jesus, but you're getting piled up on so many other worthless things that those are distracting you. Well, I think that's where you're trying to sneak your cheek up on the throne. You're trying to say, God, I'll handle these small, irritating things, when really you just said, look, you know, God, I don't, these things are bothering me. You know, just take them. I'm going to assume you're going to handle it, and I'm going to let them go. And then you're not carrying them around. Then you're not near as upset of an individual like Troy. Troy, don't be so upset. It's just a little thing. Just take it easy. Nathaniel, stop posting your cake stuff every time. Maybe Troy wouldn't like you. You know? That's what I do.

I make cakes. Now, wait a minute. Speaking of which, Nathaniel, you usually bring soda for everybody here. Okay. So here's the deal. I show up, no soda. You were here last week, and there was soda. Not for me. I brought four of them. You just didn't take it. Okay, obviously you guys can't be trusted. That's a week old. You guys obviously can't be trusted to keep a conversation going. Okay, here's another story. Okay, go ahead. Okay, this is from the world of Christian music. Okay. Music producer Mike Davis brought together two popular Christian artists, Cameron and Kirk Franklin, to perform a duet. Wait, wait, Kirk Cameron? Kirk Franklin. Kirk Cameron, Kirk Franklin.

Two Kirks. No. Okay, go ahead. It was supposed to be a Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder thing, Ebony and Ivory, he says, two performers at the top of their games. Okay. Instead, it became an underground classic that has never been released. The song, uh, Carmen and Franklin came up with Glory B, has lots of silence and random hallelujahs and mm-hmms. Says one musician who heard it, heard the track, nobody really took the lead and it was just like a funky breakdown with Carmen and Kirk making occasional noises. Both men are known for their speaking rather than singing in the song. Carmen sometimes breaks out with a few lines of rap and Franklin responds, praise the Lord. Then silence ensues again until Franklin chimes in inexplicably, everybody now. The track is unlikely to see the light of day. Hallelujah! Like that? Yeah. Although a preview was available for two days on the label's website before being quietly pulled. It's must hearing among producers here. Says one Nashville hand.

Are we gonna hear it? It was taken down. It sounds terrible, Pants. It doesn't seem like we wanna waste our time on it. Mm-hmm. Hallelujah! I mean, we can totally pull that off. You can take a bunch of Jesus-esque phrases and throw them up there, like, you cannot open a door that God closes. Hallelujah! Pants. Mountain out for more hell. Amen! Put the cats, put the cats, put the cats, put the cats, put the cats, put the cats, pants. I don't think these are good ideas. You know, I'm gonna submit, Nathaniel, it's really not a discussion piece. Amen. You know what I'm saying? It's more like a, hey, that happened kind of piece. You know what I'm saying? What about this one? Mega Church downsizes, cuts non-essential members.

Okay, this sounds solid. Go ahead. Wow. Go ahead. I'm excited for this one. Julie and Bob Clark were stunned to receive a letter from their church in July, asking them to participate in the life of the church, or worship elsewhere. They basically called us freeloaders, said Julie. We were freeloaders, says Bob. And a trend that may signal rough times for way follower Christians, Bellwether Mega Church Faith Community of Winston-Salem has asked non-participating members to stop attending. What do they mean by non-participating? Non-tithing, most likely. That's what I'm asking. Here it comes. No more Mr. Nice Church, says the executive pastor, newly hired from Singular Wireless. Oh, yeah. Paper is not always better. Cell phone executive. Perfect. Providing free services indefinitely to complacent Christians is not our mission. Freeloading Christians were straining the church's nursery and facility resources and

harming the church's ability to reach a lost, says the pastor. When your bottom line is saving souls, you get impatient with people who interfere with that goal, he says. Faith Community sent polite but firm letters to families who attend the services and freebie events, but never volunteer, never tithe, and do not belong to a small group or other ministry. The church estimates that of its 8,000 regular attendees, only half have volunteered in the past three years, and a third never have given to the church. Before now, we made people feel comfortable and welcome and tried to coax them to give a little something in return, says the staff member. That changed. We're done being the community nanny. Surprisingly, the move to disinvite people has drawn possible response from men in the community who like the idea of an in-your-face church. I thought a church that doesn't allow wussies that rocks, says Bob Clark, who admires the church more since he told them to get lost. He and Julie now tithe and volunteer. We've taken our place in the church life, he says. How do you feel about that, Mike? Somebody else better go first. How do you feel about that, Troy? I am on the fence.

You're on the fence. I am. That's a shocker. I know. I know. It's surprising for me to be complacent with just that answer. You're not a pastor. It just makes me laugh, first off, that the guy was working at Singular Wireless, that's awesome, Corporation Church. I get where they're coming from, I do, on a financial standpoint, where, I mean, you've got 8,000 people coming to your church and 4,000 aren't giving back at all. That's got to get pretty expensive. But at the same time, I understand your bottom line is saving souls, and you don't want anyone to get in the way of that, but what about the people you're just kicking out? Yeah, you're kicking out people that don't know. Yeah, you're kicking out 4,000 people, or asking 4,000 people by your statistics that are not active participants in the church to leave the church and worship elsewhere. But Christ said, our job is to go out and bring people in. And if they don't participate, we kick them out? Yeah, you're not going to help out. Go ahead and go. That's what that's saying.

Oh, man, that's… Oh, forget it. I'm against it entirely. Mike? I'm not on the fence. I'm against it. That's ridiculous. What should they do? I want to hear… Because you were asking me earlier, what do you do with a fellow Christian brother? I don't think this is a bad idea. I don't think this is a bad idea. Why? I don't. So here's the problem, right? So you get a… It's exactly what they're describing. Take the tithe out of it. Like, act like the money's not the issue, right? Because I don't think that really is the issue. But let's… You get…

Let's say you have a church that seats 5,000 people, okay? And you're at capacity every Sunday. You only have one service. 5,000 people show up. Not one more person can come in the door, okay? People who want to come to the church can't come in. 2,000 of those people are just soaking it in. They show up for Sunday. They feel pretty great about themselves. They don't drop a dime. They drink all the free coffee. They put their kids in the daycare. They use up the services. They get in their car and they go home. And life does not show any fruits of the Spirit at all. They don't change anything. They're not even attempting to grow a relationship with Jesus. They're there for a big old self-esteem boost, right? So there's 100 people that wanted to come to your church today, can't come in. Because those guys are soaking up the welfare of the church. So, if you let them stay, keep the 100 out and say, sorry, can't help you. I'm sure you want a relationship with Jesus, but you can't come in here today

because the comfortable freeloaders are taking up all the seats. And they're not willing to move. They just want to be served. They just want to serve me. I'm here on Sunday. Serve me. I'm part of your church. Serve me. If you have an active and healthy church body that's looking to develop a relationship with Christ, that church body goes, how can I serve? How can I serve more people? You need me to, you want to start a second service and we're going to meet in the basement or in the alleyway? I don't care. I'll do that. Give them my seat. Take my seat. Yeah, I'm going to say. I'll usher. I'll park cars. Whatever. Take those people, those 2,000 that aren't getting anything out of it, keep them in.

The rest of them that are getting something out of it and are doing work outside of that service, they go. Bring those other people that are waiting to get in. Let them come in. Tell me the difference between a guy that knows the gospel and does not do it and somebody that doesn't know the gospel. That again. What's the difference between a guy that has heard the gospel, like a guy that shows up on Sunday or doesn't show up on Sunday, whatever, and claims to be a member of your church and a guy that has never been to church at all, knows nothing of Jesus Christ. What do those 2 people have in common? They don't do anything for the church. They're both going to hell. Neither one of them know Jesus, right? One of them is defiantly disobeying Christ and knows the difference. The other one is seeking Christ or knows nothing about him. So you're putting up a blockade for the guy that could possibly be seeking Christ and could possibly have a relationship and you're pulling out all the stops for the guy that just wants to come in, soak it in, and then leave. Okay, so what you're saying is the dude who just sits there is going to hell, even if he believes that Christ is a savior. I mean, he doesn't do anything, but he believes that Christ is a savior.

How do I know you believe that? How do I know that you believe Christ is your savior? This is not for me to judge, but how can I generally tell that? Fruits of the Spirit. You see Jesus in people, right? We have musicians come into this show all the time and you see Jesus in people. You know when he's there. You know when people are seeking Christ because you start to see fruits of the Spirit. You see patience and kindness and love and you see unselfishness and you see progression of the gospel, right? So that's how you differentiate between the guy that runs his mouth, can spout off Bible verses and always knows the perfect thing to say when you ask him a question and his life is a train wreck. It's not, there's no setup. There's no organization. There's no attempt to show any activities relating to Christ. It can give or take. But what comes out of his mouth sounds pretty sweet. And so I have a really, I'm not 100% on this plan, right? This might be a bit harsh. The problem is to implement this plan correctly, you have to know everybody. You can't just shelve everybody because on paper it looks like they don't do anything,

right? Because you could have people that go to that church that you say they don't volunteer, you say they don't give money, and you say they don't do this. Well, maybe they're out missioning four mornings a week down at the homeless shelter. Maybe they're not volunteering in your building. You know, maybe they're tithing their money to the church right next to their house that's having a real hard time. They're still giving their money to God. They're just not giving it to your building, right? So you have to, you can't just make a broad assumption on what people are doing and then say you're out of this church, right? Right. You can't do that. But it's impossible to A, go through every single person in your church and determine individually if they're following because that's not yours to judge. And second of all, they'd probably lie to you if you asked them, you know, are you following Christ? Oh, yeah, of course. He's the light. I follow the light. Absolutely. Follow the footsteps of the light.

That's what I do. Totally. Totally do that. Right. Everybody says the same thing, you know? And so the problem is, is that it's just the… What if they're working on it? Well, you know, they're sitting there and they just need some time working stuff out. Then they can stay. Well, they're not doing anything, so they got to leave. No, they can stay. Why? That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying is it's impossible to implement what he's implementing. It's impossible to do that because you're not the judge of what they're doing. You don't know them. If all you know is know them by paper, you don't know them. And trust me, if you have 8,000 people in your congregation, you don't know them. You don't know them. How much prayer went into this decision-making of sending out the 4,000 letters to people that are stagnant in the church? That's what I'd like to know.

That's a lot of letters. How much the singular wireless guy prayed about actually implementing this situation? What if he did? What if he did? There's a lot of postage in there. What if God called it right? What if God knows those 4,000 people and said, they got to go. They're clogging up my house with their garbage, and they refuse to clean it. But if that's something, I mean, if it's actually based on something that they got from God, I can't go against that. I mean, I'm not going to – That's the thing. You can't speculate on what the guy – how the guy came about his decision, whether it was God or whether it was not God. I don't know. I don't know. I tell you, there's some truth in what he's doing. I don't know if I like it. I don't agree with his implementation. I don't think you can do it. I don't think you can accurately do it without putting yourself as the judge. And you can't do that because it's not your job.

But the broader question is that how do you keep your church from being exactly that, a serving the saved church? Everybody in your church? Either – let's say – Well, you said earlier that they're not saved if they're not doing anything. Well, let's say they are. Let's say this guy's got the wrong end of the stick, right? Let's say there are 8,000 people. Let's say they love Jesus. They don't volunteer. They don't give money. I find that odd. I find that to be an odd – that doesn't mean that you don't love Jesus or you're not seeking Christ, okay? That doesn't mean that. If you're a mature Christian and you don't tithe something or you – I mean, you're just – something else is your God, right? Like money is probably your God if you're not giving God what he asked for. If they're – you know, if you're not volunteering, if you're not serving in any capacity within the church or out the church, if you're not serving people in general, if you're just serving yourself, you know, as a mature Christian, I think you've got issues. I think you've got problems. I'm going to say –

When does the church give up on the immature Christians? It doesn't. When do you become a mature Christian if that's how you're doing it? What do you mean? If you're not volunteering and if you're not giving to your church body and if you're not serving people, you're not a mature Christian. Well, that's kind of what I'm getting at. That's kind of what I'm getting at. Yeah, and that's – because I heard you say that they're saying they're a mature Christian there, and that in itself, you could go up to them and say, no, you're not. You're not a mature Christian. Well, here's the thing, right? So instead of sending out letters, like that's a total – So do they start a new ministry and say this is for people who don't do anything? Well, I – Will the people who don't do anything show up to that? I don't think it's a public – I don't think it's a public – I think it's a – A letter sending campaign, right? Like if you show up as a pastor of a church and you notice – I mean you're not going to decide this in a month, you know, that these people are junk

because I don't see anything coming out of the coffers, right? But there is a bit of an issue if you have a church full of consumers, of takers, right? You're taking from God's church, right? Like is it necessary for us to have donuts and daycare? On Sunday mornings? Not really. I mean, is it nice? You bet it's nice. And it helps out a lot. It gives our kids a place to go. And we have an awesome children's ministry that gets to work more with them on their level and things they understand. And then the adults can go to a grown-up church where you can digest some little harder-to-digest food, right? So that works out perfectly. Is it completely necessary? Probably not. Are there people that take advantage of that system that show up, use it for free daycare, eat the free breakfast, and leave? Do we love those people the same? Absolutely we do, right? But there comes a point where they're just eating up resources. They're blocking other people, right?

Your church takes in X amount of money because the guys who are succubusing it dry aren't obviously tithing to replace the things that they're doing, right? So you just have them. They're just like a – they're pulling all the resources out, and they're not replacing them. And so you're basically ineffectually stopping the ability to minister to more people because you're ministering to people who are basically stealing. Can you do anything about – should you do anything about that? Or is that all in God's hand? Would you as a church organization – is that any of your business to look around and go, I think they're – You guys are a bunch of bums. I think they're bumming us out. Like, I think – seriously, I think we're getting bummed. I think people are showing up, taking and taking and taking and taking, not giving. Again, and we can't effectively serve more people because they're robbing the coffers, man. They're taking every resource we have without replacing it or even trying to replace it. And don't bring up, like, the one sad, sad guy who got laid off from his job. That's not the guy I'm talking about. I'm not talking about people who are having a hard time. I'm not talking about people who had a luck in life. I'm not talking about a spouse that died. That's not the people I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the people that do okay. You know, they can take care of themselves. They're nice people. They show up and they take. They're taking from the church. They're using all the resources that it has and not replacing it. Does the church have any reason to say, seriously, we can't minister to others with you acting this way. We can't do anything. I'd say that's when the church talks to that person and they minister to that person. So that person ministers to others. Because that's the big problem, I think, with this church. In my opinion, they're just too big. Because, like, the leaders of the church, I'm not saying you can't, but that'd be pretty tough for them to know every single one of those people. And that's where you do break it down in small groups. And then in the small groups. They won't go to the small groups. That's how you know them. Well, no. That's within the small groups. You can have, okay, Nathaniel knows the guy that's there at the church that's not really doing anything. Nathaniel will talk to that guy. All right, then Nathaniel will work on him.

And then I'll be talking to Nathaniel, trying to help him out. And you get… So, but you're taking up time. Like, that's what they're saying. That they're taking up time to minister to people that are already in their church. When they're just coming there to do nothing. When they could be spending time in the small groups trying to reach out to other people who are not in the church. Like, they're wasting time. They're wasting money. They're wasting… Resources. Resources. Like, seriously. They're wasting everything. We have to… They're sucking at… I think, overall, it's a pretty… It's a pretty good plan. Because you're going to get rid of the people who don't want to be there. So you're for it, then? Yeah. Okay, Nathaniel's on the pro.

And the people, like you said, it's going to spice up the people that… Like the dude said, we're in a get-in-your-face church, you know? He's now doing stuff. Because they got in his face. Do you think churches aren't in your face enough? Do you think that works? Do you think it works for some people, not for others? Right? Is it all… I think so. I think it depends on your personality. Like, some people, it's going to spice up and they're going to start doing stuff. Some people, they're going to leave and then do something, do nothing at another church. Right. They can go succubus somewhere else. Stop stealing the Lord's money. Go ahead and keep up the bigger church then. And do that. Go outside the church. Bring other people in. And eventually, those people that don't do anything are going to realize, I don't have anything in common with these people.

I'm going to go. Yeah, they're going to go. They're not doing anything. They'll just leave themselves because they don't feel comfortable. Okay, so the chat says, But their resource-sucking behavior is not a product of loving Jesus. What do you expect from folks who are not yet on the path? So is that to Troy's point? Is that to, they don't know Jesus yet? That's how they're going to act? Do you boot them? Give them the boot? I think so. You've had plenty of time to know Jesus? I think so. If they're going to church committedly and that they're still doing nothing, they're going to the church committedly, they're members there. They have signed up and they're still not doing anything. They're more than likely going to go to a different church and then do nothing there. They might find somebody that they connect with more there and start doing something there.

Who knows? Maybe they could go to another church and still do nothing. I agree personally with Nathaniel. I don't think that the church has to boot them. I think they'll boot themselves. They'll say… Why would they boot themselves? Well, like I said, they'll shut down the daycare for Sunday, see what happens. They'll leave and maybe in the other church, they'll find somebody that they like. Why would they leave, though? They're getting free coffee, they're getting free donuts, they're getting free childcare on Sundays. Free childcare on Sundays. Isn't that good? Free childcare on Sundays, free childcare on Wednesdays. I mean, it depends on how far you grasp this out, right? You could totally take advantage of almost every small group within the church. They're getting a good hallelujah. Here's the thing. Okay, so here's the question, right? Because I struggle with this.

I have a hard time with this sometimes. And this begs that same question, right? You talk to some fellows who know you've explained the gospel to them. You've explained Jesus' love to them, right? And they say, yeah, I'm on board. And they never are. Like they say they're on board, but they never are, right? It never comes to a point where you write them off and say, I can't continue to dump resources on this. Or can you? Once you're in, you're in. At some point, you've got to cut it and say, look. Look, you know, like how many times has the guy that you've been talking to about Jesus show up at your house drunk, crying, saying, I really want to change my ways? You say, okay, great. Let's talk about it again. We'll talk about it again. And you keep talking about it. So this happens every weekend for a year. I'm going to say, if they, if in that situation, they keep coming to your door, drunk and drunk, real apologetic, that, you know, Mike, I screwed up. I don't want to be like this anymore. Can I stay here? Every time. Take them in.

I think. But you could be doing other things with your time. Like, you could be going out on that Saturday night when he's coming drunk to you and reaching somebody that, who, who is actually going to change their ways. Take them with you. You're going to take slobbery drunk Bob with you to minister. Where is it your place to be selective? What? Where is it your place to be selective? Where is it your place to say, you no longer deserve my. I think you totally have that option. Okay. Yeah. I don't know if the deserve is the word, but I can no longer give it to you. I think that's an option. So there is a point where you just wash your hands of the person and, and, and say, you know, I've tried. Yep. Yeah. Okay. You've tried. It's the Holy Spirit's work now. You planted the seed. Well, that's, that's true.

The right. That, uh, the chat's suggesting you set a trap for the Steelers that, uh, you charge it five cents for the donuts. And then when they try to steal the nickel, then you can boot them out. That's elaborate. But I, I mean, I, I suppose. That's quite the plan there. I love it when a plan comes together. I suppose. So it seems like a really, it seems like a tough conversation. Pants. Are you, are you, what? I'm asking them to borrow five cents. We're not currently charging for donuts. It was a, it was a hypothetical situation, Pants. Okay. I'm good. Thanks for your, thanks for your two cents or your attempted five cents. Uh, you've been listening to Live From The Path on livefromthepath.org. Ah, God knows why. I mean, there's, there's, there's funky things happening, uh, all over the place. Uh, you know, I suggest that you spend this time in a prayer and Bible study. Can't go wrong with it.

Ask the Holy Spirit if it's time to start cutting people out. Frankly, I think that's your answer. I think your answer is, I don't know about the pastor, man. He's got a big, he's got, that's a lot of people. U.S. Seller. But I've, I've prayed on, I've prayed on people before. I said, I can't, I can't do this anymore. Like, like I physically get, I get upset at people. Where I feel like I'm talking until I'm blue in the face. And they give me the same old song and dance every time. And then it never goes away. And I'm like, I don't know what else to do. And I'll pray on it. And, and normally, it's, it's come back differently than I'd hoped it'd come back before. But normally, God says, you plant the seed. That's all you can do is tell them about me. You can't make them do it. And that's the, that's the crux of evangelism. You can't make somebody love Jesus who doesn't want to. You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. That's it. Right on, Troy.

That's in Philippians. I think Paul said that. Arimathea. Remember that? Don't. It's not in there. Sorry. Yeah. All right. I got one more story. And then, uh, then I'm done with these stories. Okay, good. We'll rest up with some dear life from the past. So go ahead, Nathaniel. Uh, man over familiar with the Holy Spirit. I don't know if this is going to be a good conversation, but here it goes. Okay. Mike Thomas, 23, enjoys cultivating a close relationship with the Holy Spirit. But some friends say that he has become too familiar with the third person of the Trinity. When they call to ask what Mike is doing, he now tells them, me and the HS are down at the coffee shop. It took me a while to figure out who HS was, especially when I would get down there and Mike was alone, says a friend. And lately, Mike tells friends he's hanging with the ghost.

We all know the Holy Spirit is with us, but it's hard for us to relate to him like Mike does, says one friend. When the group heads out to dinner or a movie, Mike sometimes pauses and says, hey guys, let's not forget the ghost. When they meet new people, Mike introduces himself and the Holy Spirit. It's a little awkward when you're meeting girls, says one friend. They're like, who else is with you? Casper? When Mike arrives at church for worship, he has started announcing, woohoo, another dose of the ghost. When he has been heard during praise time, you are the ghostest with the mostest. Mike has also insisted that people call the third person of the Trinity Holy Spirit rather than the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is a person, not a thing, he chides. Do you want people to call you the John Smith? Friends say they appreciate Thomas' close relationship with the Holy Spirit, even though it's making their social lives challenging. We're asking Holy Spirit to talk with him about it, they say. How do you feel about that? Go for it, Mike. Not going to work, fellas. Look, I have to eat up most of this conversation, so I'm going to start with you. Okay. So, okay, here's where I have an issue with the friends getting so, I mean, of course it's going to be. I disagree with Troy. That's fine. Of course.

I'm just telling you a hundred times, so you're ready. That's fine. You most of the time disagree with me, so that's okay. Anyway, I can see where they're coming from when it gets awkward, but I mean, is he doing it sincerely, or is he just doing it for show? I mean, I think that's where it draws the line. I don't know. When you say ghostest with the mostest, I think you're pretty serious. I feel like the reverence has fallen out of the bag when you say ghostest with the mostest. I've seen people pray to God saying, what up, dog? How's it going? Are they blaspheming right there? Are they saying what's up? Yes. No. Yeah, what up, dog? How's it going? No good. Some can say that's more personal relationship than the people that are just saying, dear heavenly father. I understand the reverence, but sometimes it's just being personal and having a serious relationship with God. No, I think you've kicked God off his throne and put him next door to you like he's your neighbor. I think that's insane. Then what's the Holy Spirit?

What do you mean, what is the Holy Spirit? I mean, that's the part of the Trinity that stays with us, isn't it? Okay. I'm with you so far. So what's so bad about having a seriously 100% buddy friendship with God? I mean, there's a point in time when, yes, you have to be, well, you should always be in reverence with God. You should always be fearful of God. Except for when you want to call him dog. Hey, there's nothing wrong with saying that. It's like calling your, are you not showing respect when you call your buddy? No. What if your friend's completely okay with it? If you've talked to the Holy Spirit and he said, hey, it's cool if you call me dog. Mike, don't ever call me dog. I didn't realize it was. I'm not saying that I'm the kind of person that, Mike, if you come up to me like, what up, dog? I'm like, hey, Mike. This is not about you and your perception of yourself, Troy. No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is, is it a sign of a greater, of closer friendship? No. So it's a sign of just complete, blatant disrespect for God?

Yes. So when people say, what up, dog? How's it going? To God, when praying, it's disrespectful to you. Yes. I completely disagree. You have a… I'm with Troy on this one. You have a disinflated, small view of God, if that's the case. I think you're the one with the disinflated, small view of God. In what respect? Okay, and I understand you're putting God in the reverence, which is definitely a good thing. You've got the fear of God, which is definitely a good thing. But if that's your way of showing your 100% love and friendship with God, what's the problem with it? Okay. Okay, because let's say, like, you're just saying, what you're saying is that the way that you choose to do it is okay because you chose to do it. Like, it makes you feel comfortable to say, what up, dog, to your buddy, Steve. And so if you talk like that to Steve and God is just as good as a friend to you as Steve is, then you should be able to talk to God that way. That's not… I'm not trying to make it an earthly friendship. That's not what I was trying to do. I apologize if it came off that way.

Okay, what I'm saying is, so I'm not saying, let me flip it here. Where is it biblically that says that we wouldn't be able to do that? Maybe it's your perception of showing disrespect, but, I mean, in an earthly way, you can find certain things disrespectful where people are completely okay with it. I don't see where it is biblically that says that's disrespectful to God for having that kind of, maybe that's your relationship with God. Being comfortable praying with him like that. Because God named himself and it wasn't dog. Okay. God named himself. He picks his name. His name is God. I am father. So you have to pray by one of the names in the Bible. I would certainly attempt in every capacity to revere God who he is. If there's commandments that you choose to follow, one is love the Lord God with all your heart, all your soul, right? Almost every other command… This is Old Testament, New Testament-like is fear of the Lord. Read most of the Old Testament. Have fear of the Lord. You don't have a fear of the Lord when you say, what up, dog? But where's your fear of the Lord when you're saying, you're praying to God for… They're the same if you don't mean either one. What do you mean?

If I say my… If I say my heavenly father and I don't mean that, then I just as well have said dog. There's no difference there. What if I mean when I say my heavenly father? Because there's times when I do pray, dear heavenly father, and I'm completely serious about that. Then I think you're pretty solid. Our loving God. But at the same time, I feel like it's completely okay. And if I say, what's up, dog? How's it going, man? You know, obviously I'm not going to say, hey, God, how's it going? Do you have a biblical example? A chat asked. Do you have a biblical example where God was addressed as your friend, as a buddy? No, I don't. Obviously, I mean, I wish I could tell you that I had… Biblical knowledge to be able to draw on upon that. I don't. But I don't… There's that one song, I am a friend of God. That appears to not be directly out of the Bible, but thank you for your commentary, Nathaniel. I'd like to see the biblical argument against it.

There's not biblical evidence to back it up. That's the argument. There's not one place in the Bible where God portrays himself as your buddy. You don't… I consider God to be my friend. Which is a common misconception over you trying to make God who he's not. He loves you very much. God's not my friend. He's your father. Right, but… You want him to be your buddy, but he has no representation of himself as that. He does not represent himself as your friend. Right, but in the same time, I mean, I could call my father that. No, my earthly father, I'm not trying to compare those things, but that's the… I don't know how to say what I want to say without sounding really blasphemous, because I'm not comparing my earthly father to my heavenly father. I don't believe in any way that they're on the same plane. I know that God is much, much infinitely higher in deserving respect and deserving my love than my earthly father, but I don't see an honest problem with me having a relationship with God where I feel comfortable about telling him anything, and not just in the sense of being fearful of the Lord. Yes, I am fearful of the Lord, but I believe that I have a friendship with God, and maybe

I'm wrong on that, and I hope I'm not, because I'd like to know that God is my heavenly father. God is my provider, my creator, but also my friend. I mean, I think that's an unconditional love right there. I would, here's what I would submit. Go ahead. What if that's the language you use? Like, you don't, you don't talk formally ever. Like, it's going to be a stumbling block for you to go, oh, thy father in heaven. No one said you had to pray like that. Well, it's… I think, I think the problem is you have a perception problem with God. I would hope that my kids never think of me as their friend, ever. I would, I would never want them to do that, because I have a certain authority over their life that it has to be there for our relationship to work. Okay, well, if you're arguing on that standpoint, now bringing you to an earthly perception of you and your kids, I considered my dad to be my best friend. My earthly father to be my best friend, but I respected him 100%. Well, I'm not going to say 100% because I'm, I'm, I'm flawed. I'm not perfect. But 90, upper 90% of the time, I mean, my earthly father was my best friend. Truly the, the one guy, earthly person that knew me better than anyone else. And we could have buddy, buddy conversations.

But at the same time that my dad came to me and said, Troy, you're screwing this up. I'm sick and tired of it. I'd stop it right there out of respect for him. But at the same time, I could have a buddy, buddy conversation with him as a friend. And it never became such a problem where I didn't respect him because of our friendship. The chat says, the chat submission is that this is a discussion that has nothing to do with language, but your perception of God. If you look as God at God as your buddy, you have a perception issue. So there's something wrong with me thinking God's my friend. Yes. Okay. And I'm not trying to fight you on this. I mean, I appreciate you telling me, I know that as my Christian brother, you're, you're wanting to, to let me know if I'm doing something wrong. I disagree. I don't know any biblical verses to back myself up. That's why that's the, that's a huge problem. That's a huge problem. What? That you don't have any biblical reference for what you think. Right. What I'm saying is I, I, at this point in time, I'm still, I've never read the Bible

once fully. I'm working on that. I've never gone through it to the point where I can pull verses out of my head. 100%. That's not, that's not what I'm asking for. What I'm telling you is, is that you, it's, it's an issue when you say, I disagree with you. I don't have any biblical basis for that. You haven't given me any biblical basis against it, really. The Bible does not provide any examples where God is your buddy. Does God, does it provide any, any examples against it? If you, you're looking for a verse that says, God is not your buddy. What? No, what I'm saying is, okay, so we're, we're on the, on the opposite side of the same coin here. You're saying that it's biblically not sound to be God's friend, but you can't provide me with any examples of where it's God specifically is telling me I'm not your friend. You know what? I can vote to, Troy, how many of your friends are you told to fear with all your heart? No, my earthly friends, none. The ones with a katana. Yeah, exactly.

The ones that could murder me very easily. Like Mike's saying, I just, you know, I mean, I'm definitely going to look into this a little bit more and I'm not trying to seem like I'm trying in any way. It says to fear your father. Right. And I, I think, I think it's completely healthy to fear God, but also be a friend with him. I mean, I, I, I fear God and I have God and reverence in my heart, but at the same time, I don't, I don't personally pray, Hey dog, how's it going? I know people that do, and I don't see any problem with it whatsoever. I can talk to God about stuff. Like I can talk to one of my friends. Obviously he's in much higher reverence, infinitely higher reverence than my earthly friends, but I don't see any problem with, with considering a relationship with God. To be a friendship. Just like I consider my relationship with God to be, he's my father. I'm his, his son. Those are two extremely different things. I think that's where they coincide because they just don't. A father is not a friend in general. A father is just not a friend. He can be a good dad. You could still love him.

You can love a friend. You can love a father, but a father has authoritative position. A friend is not a friend is a side commentator in your show. A father is a main character, right? I, so, okay, well, if, if we're going to go off that, let me ask you this. So you find trouble in me being best friends with my earthly dad, Sean, did you, would you have trouble with my dad saying, yeah, my son's one of my best friends? If he said that to you right now, you would argue with him about it? No. No, I would not. Okay. But you just said a father and a friend can't coexist. No, one doesn't supersede the other. That's what I'm saying. Like, you cannot put friend and father on the same plane and say, and call them the same animal. A father always trumps friend. Like, you're always a father first, a friend second. Right, and I'm not saying that God's my friend over my father. God is my father over my friend. But that doesn't mean that he can't still be my friend and my father. I find it odd that you, you're fighting so hard for this, Troy.

I'm going to say, I think it's almost a respect issue, too. I mean, because you, you're supposed to respect your father. Right. And you have to. Right. Yeah, you can go ahead and respect your friends. But that, that also is on a completely different plane. I, I, I respect my friend, Troy. I respect my father. I, my, my earthy father, yeah, he, he's definitely above my best friend. My best friend that I've ever had, but then my dad. Mm-hmm. I'm great friends with my dad, but you know what? Yeah, we're good friends, but he's my dad. No matter, no matter what. Here's how, like, if you believe Christ is who he says he is, and you believe God is who he says he is, if you believe those things, the first thing you say when you walk up into heaven through the gates is, hey, dog, how's it going? That is not what would come out of my mouth. That's what I would submit to you. If you were staring Christ in face to face, or you were watching him getting murdered on the cross because of your sins, is that what, what runs through your head?

Hey, dog. It's, that's not what I think. Like, that's just, that's just not, that's just not the, it just doesn't, it just doesn't seem, I don't, it's, and I think the chat's right. The chat's called a semantic problem. You're describing a father, you're describing a father relationship and calling it a friend. But I see, I just don't, I just don't see that shoe fitting. Mm-hmm. I suppose if you want to make that shoe fit so you can feel free to call him dog if you want, it's just a weird thing to fight over, right? I'll just call him what he says to call him. Mm-hmm. I'll call him father and be done with it. Like, do I, I'm like, I mean, what am I giving up, right? My casual ability to say, hey, dog, that's the stupidest thing I ever heard, right? Thanks for dying for my sins, by the way, I really want to call you dog. Is that cool? I mean, give it up. Just call him father, what he says he's called. The point that I'm not, that I'm, I'm talking about and discussing here, I'm not, I'm not talking about being able to call God something other than what's in the Bible. I have a big problem with not being, not considering God my friend.

I don't, I, I, I'm not 100% sure why. I mean, I wish I had something more than that, but I consider God to be my friend and maybe that's wrong. And I'm definitely going to be looking into this. I can promise you that much, but you know, right now I truly don't see a problem. Obviously him being my father does supersede him being my friend, but that doesn't mean he can't be. Here's the thing. I'm, I'm not totally on board with calling him dog and all that jazz, but, but here I'm with Troy on this, that he can be a friend relationship, but above that, a father, but you can call God your friend. What's the difference between, what do you think the difference is between a friend and a father? You, I, you said earlier, right? Right. A father has an authoritative position in your life. Does he, does he, now, does a father give up his position to become your friend? No, no. Absolutely not. But you can still be friends with your father. You're calling a father, here's the thing though, is what you're saying, you're just wanting to call it something different, right?

Like all the qualities that you normally attribute to a friend, a father is a friend plus authority. That's it. That's what a father is, right? He's a friend. He loves you. He cares about you. He's invested in your life. He wants to know what you're doing. He wants to see what you're up to. He wants to make sure you're okay. All good qualities and a friend. Plus he says, that's wrong. You're not going to do that. Or I think you should change your ways. A father is a friend plus authority privileges. And so it's kind of encompassed altogether, but you're trying to cut out the authority and just do the arm hug or the fist bump. When I, okay, not me. You can totally fist bump your dad. I don't want to get caught on this thing. I'm just saying. No, that's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is my question. I love fist bumps. Yes. God. Woo. That'd be awesome. That'd probably hurt a lot though, just being honest. Getting a fist bump from God. That'd really be terrifying. But at the same time, so you're saying that a friend or a father is the friend plus authority. So if I call God by any, obviously I'm just throwing this out there because this is not what I say, but hey buddy, I am removing God's authority by saying that. I wouldn't, I wouldn't submit that. I'd find it hard to believe that you are including it, but I'm not saying that that's true. Okay. I'm saying if what's coming out of your mouth matches your heart, you're probably fine. If you, I find it hard, I find it hard to buy into that you're putting God in his correct perspective by calling him buddy, but I could, I'll just admit that I could do that. I'm going to say, and I know Mike, you, all four of us, you're, you're the only father here. So I'm, I know I'm really talking out of line, but it's basically, I mean the father could be like a friend, you could have, you don't know anything about kids pants. Yeah.

Yeah. Pants, you know nothing about kids. Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm, I'm worth it. But the, and you could just like a friend still have relationships, have deep loving feelings for your friends and you can have arguments and debates with them, but ultimately I and your, your father can, yeah, yeah. I see where you're getting that. And then when you're done, but you're still going to bed at night. Okay. That's it. I understand what you're saying. I, I, here's the thing, I, I, I, I, it's just a perspective issue, right? If that's, that's all that it is. It's, I find it really odd if that's a hangup for you, like you really dig on calling Jesus by alternative names that are hip to the today's generation. That's not what I'm saying though. Yo, what are you saying? Here's what, okay. Maybe I agree with you.

Nevermind. I'll back off to this. So you're on your own. Just to, to, to wrap it up and I'm not going to keep going. I'm completely cool with calling God, my heavenly father. He is, he's Lord, he's Yahweh, he is, I am, he is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the mega, all the names you can think of in the Bible. I don't see any problem with me. I feel it's more of a personal relationship than someone who just walks up to God or opens the channel of prayer and says, dear heavenly father. I know that that's in reverence and I know that that is still prayer. I feel like I've moved to where I'm in a more comfortable position and a more, more solid relationship with God that I, I don't have to, to just say heavenly father. And I'm not saying I do say, Hey dog, good to talk to you. How's heaven? Hope you're kicking it up there, whatever. But that's just my opinion. So I agree with you. It is perspective. It is where you're at. And I'm not saying you and you're at, I'm definitely not saying that I'm in a better prayer life with God than anyone else by saying.

That's kind of what it sounds like. Sounds like I'm just throwing up your heavenly father just because that's what they taught me, that's not what I'm saying, what I'm used to, and I'm not just spiritually advanced as Troy Ingram, who gets to high five God and call him, Hey, what's up, disco man? Like I said, I'm completely, I'm, I love calling God my heavenly father. I do because he is. But every once in a while, it's just a, Hey Jack, I don't see the difference. Well, okay. I'll take that back. I do see the difference, but I don't see it as disrespectful. That's where I'm coming from. Well, you can ask him. God, all those times I've called you. And this is definitely not, yeah, exactly. How's that go? This is definitely. Seriously, can you imagine dying, walking up to the thrones of heaven and saying, Hey, buddy. I want to run up to God. I want to give him a high five and then hug him. That's what I want to do. Hey, buddy is what you'd open with?

I want to say, Oh, what's up, dude? And then high five him. What's up, dude? Yes. I'm completely cool with that. What if he's not? I'm not just going to walk up to him. What if he's like, don't defame my heaven? Lord of all, you show up with dude? When I go up there and hopefully I hear, well done, my good and faithful servant. And I'm like, what up, dude? Hopefully he's not going to look at me and be like, no. The chat's example prayer is, Hey, dog, bless this homie. Go shiz. Amen. Whoever put that, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yo, yo. Hey, yo, yo, dog. What up? No. And you've been listening to Live from the Path, where we worship Buddy.

Hey, buddy. I'd like to give my tithe to Jack. And if I don't, you're going to kick me up out of this door. Yo. We broadcast every Monday night from 10 to midnight on livefromthepath.org. Check out the YouTube channel at www.youtube.com backslash livefromthepathmemorized. From the Pathway podcast, which you can also get on the Live from the Path website. Where can you get it? You can certainly get it on www.livefromthepath.org. You can check out our past episodes along with the current artists that we've had, artists we've seen, artists that have come within the studio, artists that we've just taken pictures of and put on like they've been here. We've totally. We've green screened. We've not done that. I've thought about doing that, but it's not popular. So let's see if we. We've got Bob Ross. Bob Ross did not. Ben fixed that before he went out of town. Ben and Dan are at a church planting conference in Florida, which is funny because they're out there trying to figure out how we're going to plant more churches, and we're discussing

how to kick some people out. Because we're tired. We're out of here. Getting rid of them freeloaders. We're tired of their leeching behavior. Taking all my donuts. I feel like we should call Dan. They sit there and they're snacking on communion wafers that we're paying 30 cents a pop for, talking to their homeboy Jack in the sky, seeing how they can get blessed today. Oh, show. Here's the deal, Pat. Here's the problem with this whole situation. Other people are in the deeper straits than we are, and they need advice. And they've turned to us, and I don't. I think we've supplied good advice. We've had a healthy conversation here. I think we've been constructive. Well, let's spend another couple minutes patting our own backs. Let's see if we can't move on. I hope that they've written to us and given us their problems. Here's the deal. So that we can help.

And here's what they've written in. This is a dear life in the path. Ting, ting. Iron sharpens iron. Ting, ting. Iron sharpens iron. I wish I'd have gone to Florida. You know what I'm saying? I'd be stuck here with you, Bob. Me too. Dear life in the path, my wife and I are 50-year-old professionals who have paid every penny of the cost for our two daughters' four-year college education. Our oldest, Lena, went on to law school and has incurred well in excess of $100,000 in law school loan debt. She has struggled to find a job as an attorney, and I'm no longer sure she still wants to practice law. Lena is married to a medical student who also has significant student loan debt. Two nights ago, I made the mistake of telling Lena that her mother and I would help her pay off her student loans. I regret having opened my mouth. She and her husband spend their money on frivolous luxuries and are not responsible financially. My wife and I live frugally. We withdrew money from our retirement accounts to help fund our daughter's college educations. We now need to increase our retirement contributions and pay for maintenance and repairs to our home that we delayed while paying for their tuition. Although we have always helped our children financially, we can no longer afford to trade our future financial security

and our present standard of living to support them. I would appreciate some advice. This may be an issue affecting a lot of parents at this time. Your thoughts? I think, Mike, you and I had a conversation a couple years ago about you being a freeloader? Me being a freeloader and a joke and a pansy all around. That sounds like something we talked about last week. I think that's what we had a conversation about before the show. Okay. We talked a couple years ago, and this is where I'm kind of posing the question to you because I don't know if you've heard anything different from here. But at one point in time, we were talking about being stewards of God's money. And if we're, I believe the exact words that you said to me is if you're not saving for your grandkids, the down payment on your grandkids' home, then you're not being a steward of God's money. Where does it fall in where you are a steward of God's money and you do take care of your kids, but where does it stop? Where is it where you need to let them be on their own, they need to take care of themselves, or should you be the one who steps in and say, yeah, I'll help you with your student loans, yeah, I'll help you with this, and not have them step up responsibly with their money that they've been given by God? Well, it depends. Are you their friend or are you their father? I think you can be both. No, I'm kidding. What up, dog? Give me the money.

Yeah, here's a, well, here's a problem. I see, I see, I see the chat praise again. Hey, Jack, bless this debt. Your boy, the bomb. Thank you, Jack. I would submit that I have a problem with actually both of these situations, but mostly with the dad, with the boy in the situation. He's done terrible things for his children. He's not taught them anything. I would hope that I would be able to pay my kids' way into college, gladly pay it. Now, whether I've raised a bunch of ill-gotten brats who take advantage of their old men and don't do what they're supposed to, ah, you know, that's probably on me too. But, like, the phrase, I'd like to keep up with our standard of living, I have a real problem with that phrase, right? Like, my standard of living is whatever God has told me my standard of living is. You know what I'm saying? And if I, if I'm poor because I pay for my kids' college education, that's my new standard of living. I don't sit there and look at my kids every day and go, you've cost me a new spa. I could have had a spa, you worthless. You know what I'm saying? Like, my new standard of living, I should have thought of that before I handed out the money. Like, you can't look back at a gift that you've given somebody or something that you've provided for somebody and go, if I only wouldn't have done that, then I could have had this. Because that proves two things.

One, that you hold grudges. And two, you made bad decisions. It's no one else's fault that you handed out money but you. You know, it's not like your kids stole it from you. Now, if someone stole money from you and you said, if they wouldn't have stolen my money, I'd have had this. Because that's the truth. But, like, if you gave the money, you can't look at them and go, I've wasted my money on you. Well, you shouldn't have given it to them. You know what I mean? If you were that worried about it. And, frankly, like, we can't keep up with our standard of living. I think you need to lower your standard of living. Sorry. You know, I didn't complain about one of the kids. One of the kids obviously is not caught in any trouble. The other kid, you know, I've seen this before, too. Like, they go to college and they don't want to leave. So they decide a major that's going to keep them there, like law school, for another six years. And so they just keep on staying and staying and staying. And this dude popped out of his mouth and said, hey, we'll cover this. No problem. No problem.

You know, a big mistake. You know, but obviously if they show them the front half of this debt, you have to go to a fairly decent school to get into law school anyway. So I'm guessing they probably got at least 80 to 100 to begin with that they've already covered. So I'm going to submit their standard of living is probably pretty high. And so, I don't know. No, I think I don't know what to say. Like, I think they've – he's obviously let this go on a little too long. And it maybe should have been stewarding his own money a little bit better. When you hand it over to your kids, that doesn't mean you're done watching it. You know, it's not like you just write your kids a blank check and say, here, go to college, do what you want. Because then you'll have a bunch of kids with no college education and a DUI. That's a mistake, you know. You're keeping on them kids. I'm going to say, and I agree. He made a mistake saying, yeah, we'll cover this. But because of that, now their children, as far as we know, they don't have any knowledge of how to manage finances. And plus, in saying that, that they're also – because his daughter got married and they use their money foolishly to spend it on other things that aren't really needed. It sounds like one who needs to go back to his daughter and say, look, I misspoke. We cannot cover all that. But I did say that. We're going to take care of it. But you need to understand how to work finances and how to deal with stuff.

That sounds like the most ineffective speech to a kid I've ever heard in my life. Like my eyes would glaze over and I'd be like, I wish this old man would be quiet because I'm going to borrow the car and I'm going to go do something. We need to talk about – we're financially responsible. You have to be responsible now. As the father, you definitely did make a statement saying that, yes, I will pay for this, which he obviously didn't think it through. Just spoke out of emotion. What I would do in all honesty is if he's so worried about this where his standard of living is going to go down because of this and his daughter or son – I'm not quite sure – his child is living irresponsibly with her financial situation, I'd make a deal where they have to start helping to pay for it. I mean, if you're – you don't have to go on and pay for it all, I don't think, but I wouldn't look down on the dad making a deal with the child on helping out. That way, through having to pay for her own college and through having to pay for her own cost of living to go down, she can learn better financial responsibility. Okay. Here's a story. Okay. Once upon a time, I went to a private school. My parents were paying for it, and I was failing. And by the end of the year, they said, you failed. We're not paying for your school anymore. So I went out, and I had to get a job at Walgreens. And they said, we're never paying for school for you again because you failed. You have to do it yourself now. So since then, I have saved money and paid my way through my schooling so far. And not failed? Not failed. I had to turn my grades around because I don't want to waste money on –

On myself. Yeah. Like my senior year, I was failing out my junior year. And then after that, they said, you're done. So my senior year summer, I got a job at Walgreens, and I saved all the money all summer. I didn't spend a dime, and I had to save it all up so that I could pay for tuition at ICA. That you were getting for free until you – Until I was failing. So then I paid for it then. And then I saved up more money, all the money I could, to go to Central Christian College of the Bible. And there, I was on the dean's list because I had to try hard because I was paying for it myself, and my bank account was going down. I didn't like to see that go down, so might as well get something out of it. Right. So I think they should just tell the kids to pay for it themselves. I mean, they've gotten themselves into that situation. Actually, I'm – I mean, they've paid for the four years that they said they were going to pay for originally. Right. And then they decided on their career choice after that. It's their – they could have gone into something else. They could have chosen something else. It was their decision to go on to law school.

Right. And if you're shouldering a $100,000 debt, I think you try to find yourself a job pretty quick and start getting that stuff paid off. I mean, she has a law degree. Can it be that hard to be – you could be an ambulance chaser lawyer and make good money off that. And you could litigate for Greenpeace. Like, there's plenty of stuff to – There's plenty of stuff to prosecute. Everybody wants to sue somebody for something, you know. You could work for Judge Judy, for crying out loud. But the secular advice is, before making any promises to your daughter, you should have reviewed your retirement plan with your financial advisor. Oh, yeah, that's what I do. I make – I call my financial man every time. Hey, I'm going to go buy a candy bar, Steve. What's it looking like? Ah, she'll be good, Mike. Should we sell or buy? Thanks, man. It's still not too late to do that. And once you do, you should immediately inform Lena that, upon review, you now realize that giving her money will compromise your plans for retirement. That guy's kind of a pansy. I would have just said, look, man, you're bleeding me dry. Obviously, I can't count on you to support me and your mother because you can't even get a job.

So I'm going to have to keep my money and make sure that your mom and I can live and pay our bills because you're a bum. End of story. See you. Get out of my house. Take your dog. They said he was like, no, didn't they? Huh? Didn't they say that he was married? Oh, she's married. She's married. Yeah, she's married to a dude. So she's already out. Yeah, and she's doing whatever she wants. She lives extravagantly. According to this guy. Now, on the other hand, like I've borrowed money from people because we've been in the straights and I stopped and got a soda and they just about blew up at me. Like, I borrowed money. I got a soda. I can't believe you. And it's like, well, after I paid it back, right? But then they see me buy the soda and they're like, I can't believe you're still living your crazy ways, you know, because you still buy soda. Some people are a little touchy about that.

Once they've lent you money, these are the people you don't want to borrow money from. The people that watch you to see how you spend your money after they've lent you money and they want to know what you do with your money that they were forced to have lent it to you. You don't want to borrow from those people. You want to borrow from the church. You just show up, eat the communion wafers, borrow money, and do what you want. It's a freeloader. Until then you send you the letter. You just do whatever you want to do. Tied them to Jimmy. Here we go. Dear Live from the Path. My mom and I have been travel agents for 15 years. My cousin, whom I've always been close to, asked to join our business multiple times over the past few years and we always said, yeah, that'd be great. I added that. A few months ago, I learned that she went behind our backs and started her own travel agency. When I confronted her about hiding it from us, she said I didn't. Then one day I went over to her new office. She said she hadn't wanted to hurt our feelings, but she already has. She says I'm being irrational for not supporting her, but I think she was wrong for not joining us and going off on her own. Do you think our relationship can be saved? Yes. You're one of the problems in the relationship to begin with.

Your relationship is based on material things where she has to join your agency instead of starting her own. It's just because she's competition now, and that's the only reason. Get over the material part of it. There's still a relationship to be had. Hear, hear. Okay. First off, I'm going to assume this is in America. The cousin, why can't the cousin start her own business? She never said she'd get with him and his mom. Okay. So, what's the problem? What do you mean? Well, she hurt the woman's feelings. Yeah, she hurt the woman's feelings. I think the whole thing was she was asking to be a part of their business for multiple years and then eventually went behind them. And if she went behind them for shady reasons, like, oh, you know, I'm going to do this, then I'm going to become the competition and be better than them, and then finally break out and say, ha-ha, I'm better than you, then I can see a problem with it. Hey, whatever. You know what? She just don't like the way you do stuff. She don't want to work for you. Yeah, she just wanted to create a real business.

You keep a dirty office. Your taxes are late. You know, you have a weird dress code. You don't water the plants right. Who cares? She don't want to work for you. Exactly. Why do people get so upset about it? Like, I really wanted them to work for me. They don't want to work here. It's not like you have people apply for a job. You offer them the job. They're like, you know what? I don't like your company. I'm going to go start my own radio show. And then they call you every day like, seriously, why don't you take that job with us? Why don't you take that job? Why don't you have to go out and do your work there? Why would you want someone working there that don't want to work there? You know, why would you want somebody to come? Every day, I say, Pants, you have to work here. I don't want to work here, but I want you to work here.

So every day, Pants drags his face in here, you know, upset, kicking stuff, late for work, tipping over the coffee pot, causing a big stink. Pants, can you run the paper out? No, I don't want to. I don't want to work here anymore. Spreading around. Solid hire. This is exactly the guy that you want working at your place. Give it up, man. Your hiring agency is working very well for you. And then I start one, and isn't that how it was? Then the person went and started their own, and that person's ticked off. Yeah, they're upset that she went and started her own travel agency instead of joining theirs. Get over it. Build your relationships on something a little bit more meaningful and a little bit more solid. Come on, guys. Let's bring it together. Secular says, your cousin should have been forthright about starting her own business instead of hiding it. That's true. She was kind of chicken-libered about that. It is not irrational to feel hurt that she didn't live with you. Yeah, it is kind of.

That's kind of Nancy. And that was her mistake. However, this is a free country, pants, and your cousin had a right to change her mind about joining your business. Boomski. Your relationship can be fixed as long as you and your mother accept that she had a right to go into business for herself if she wished and refrain from discussing business when you're together. That's a big mistake, boys. Don't ever invite people to be in your family business. Why not? That's why I don't work in family business. Families don't. Especially not a family member. No, you don't want to be in business with your family. We learned firsthand. Okay, let's see what we've got here. Okay, here we go. Dear Life from the Past, Melody, in parentheses, has been my best friend since we were in fourth grade. Pants, if you answer this the way secular answers it, I will punch you in the face. So they're now in their 30s. They've been friends since they were in fourth grade. Over the past few years, Melody's life has changed. She's separated from her husband, lives alone, and shares custody of her three children.

She started dating almost immediately after separation, going out with almost anyone who showed her a little attention. She's now involved with a man who told her he's bisexual and has never taken her out on a date. Still, he never hesitates to call and ask her to clean his bathroom or cook him a meal. She is always crying on my shoulder because she ends up with losers. Yet the picture she has on her profile on all the dating sites shows her in a skippy bikini. One evening, Melody asked me why she can't attract a decent man. I told her that she needs to love herself before she can be loved. I also mentioned that if she wants to stop attracting sleazy men, she should consider changing her profile picture. She became angry and hasn't spoken to me since. As a friend, I felt it was my responsibility to tell her the truth. I want to help her get her life back on track in a positive way. Was I wrong to be honest with her? Boys? Honesty is never wrong. Is that the truth? I'm going to say the person that wrote to us was in the right. The fact that now she's asking our opinion on it, I don't quite agree with. She was right in being honest to her friend. If you don't want to attract those type of guys, don't wear that outfit and post it on your dating site to pick them up because that's what they're going to see. But I completely agree with the friend. Okay, so the friend of the writer, so the person who wrote in, the friend came to the person who wrote in, right? It wasn't the person who wrote in just blatantly.

No, she cries on the writer's shoulder. I want to attract a decent man. I can't attract a decent man. Yeah, I agree with her being honest with her friend. That's always good because honesty is good. And I don't see what she – just because the friend's reaction to honesty, she didn't – that means the person didn't want honesty. She wanted a cookie-cutter answer that made her feel better about herself. She wasn't looking to actually change because when she was given a legitimate reason of why, she got defensive. She wasn't looking for a reason. She was looking for comfort. That's it. The friend did exactly what she needed to do. Oh, someone's out there for you. Yeah, she was looking for, oh, just be yourself. Be yourself, and even though you're being completely skimpy, be yourself. Be yourself. No, that's not what you need to hear. You need to hear that you need to – if you're going to want to attract the right person, you've got to act the right way. Is that true? Yeah, you got to pretend to be somebody else? No, it's not about pretending to be somebody else. What if you're a sleazeball?

Maybe if you're a sleazeball. If you're a sleazeball, you're going to attract sleazeballs. Yeah. I don't know too many just chivalrous dudes that are looking for a bunch of sleazeballs. I don't know. Maybe they want a clean bathroom. Yeah, exactly. This guy's completely using her, and she's completely okay with it. She's not okay with it. She's crying. She's looking for – I think she's just looking for an answer. Do you think it's true that you have to love yourself before you can be loved? Yes. I think there's a fine line with that, but I think that you need to get yourself morally – well, because we're live from the past – spiritually right. What if we're not live from the past? Fine, if we're not live from the past and we're secular here. I think you need to get yourself morally right before you're going to ever attract anyone you want to be attracted to you. I think you need to get yourself in line before you're ever going to be worthy of someone who deserves someone in line. If you're a sleazeball, you deserve a sleazeball. If you're trying legitimately to get yourself to be a better person, to better yourself altogether, not go out sleazzing, dating, all the different stuff, that's when you're going to be in the right line. That's when God's going to put someone in your way because he's going to put someone in your way that you're going to treat right. I believe that anyway.

I think you need to be in the right line to be given someone in the right line. Pants, you have to love yourself before someone else can love you. I think it's not fair to the other person to ask them to love you if you can't even love yourself. What if they already love you and you don't love yourself? Yeah, there's plenty of situations where I love people who don't love themselves. Then you don't deserve their love. You have to love yourself and then… But it's possible to not love yourself and still be loved by other people. Yes, it is. So you're saying you don't have to be loved. You don't have to love yourself to be loved. I love people that don't love themselves. It is possible, but… It's not fair. If you can't even love yourself, how do you recognize them loving you? Pants, what have you been reading? Have you been reading those Shady's Facebook comments? Pants, what have you been reading? I want to know what you've been doing with your time. Have you been drinking that old soda? I mean, this sounds like your mom and dad showed out a college education. You went, and then went to law school, and then did anything with yourself, and this is what you've come up with.

Troy, you're going to start talking like pants. Love yourself so other people can love you. No, that's not what I'm saying. What are you saying? Not so other people can love you. So you can just love yourself. You can just have a self-love party. You and your great self can take yourself out to dinner. You're going to wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and go, hey! And think how awesome that you are. I don't have to put up this. I love me. Pants, I love yourself. No, I cannot go and ask Nathaniel to love me. I would hope not. In this state, it's getting pretty close to it. Go ahead. Let's not start on that. He does, but I can't ask a lady to love me if I can't even love me. That just doesn't seem fair to her. Life isn't fair, Pants. That's your advice to Pants?

Okay, Pants has said something patently ridiculous. And you're bad. I'm not disappointed in Pants. This is what I expect from Pants. But the pair of you boobs can't come up with anything to straighten them out. Hey, I was just using my old man's references for me. Life isn't fair, Nathaniel. How is Pants wrong? How is Pants thinking that you have to love yourself to be fair to someone else to love you? How is that incorrect? You don't deserve anyone's love. And none of us deserve anyone's love. That's the part of loving someone. You love their flaws. It's not about you have to be correctly in line and loving yourself for someone to love you. I love plenty of people that don't love themselves. That's how I help them out. You know, by me giving… Everybody's a charity case for King Troy? That's not what I'm saying. I'm going to help you out by loving you. That's what it sounds like.

Well, okay. So if someone doesn't love themselves, you shouldn't love on them? That's not what I said. But I didn't claim it to be a charity case. Like, I walk around loving people. Did I say it was a charity case? No. You put a word in my mouth. You said to help them out. What do you call that? It's not a charity case. What do you call helping people out? I call it charity. So charity is wrong? If you say that I'm giving charity to people, what does that generally mean? I love them, so I'm trying to help them out. Yeah, but that's a very bad way of putting a charity case. It sounds awful the way that you're putting it, yeah. Like, I don't really love them. I'm just loving them to help them out. No, I'm saying I love them, and by loving them, I'm helping them out. I already love them.

That's not what it's determined by, is if you don't love yourself, that's the only way I'm going to love you. I'm not saying that at all. But, by me being able to love them, maybe I can help them out in loving themselves. Say flaws again. Flaws? Oh. What does he say, like, floss? The first time he said it, he was like, flaws. You gotta love the flaws. You gotta love the flaws. That's terribly. All right. Terribly embarrassing. You listen to Live from the Path. 10 to midnight. If I walk in the rain for days, will you leave me on the way? I promise you, the show is usually not this great. I mean, this is high-quality stuff that you see. The best of the best. I mean, the technical ability, the audio capability, I mean, it's just, it's top notch. So come back and visit us next Monday from 10 to midnight on Live from the Path at livefromthepath.org. Check out the YouTube channel at youtube.com backslash live, user backslash livefromthepath.

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