The Uncommon Path
"The Uncommon Path" is a podcast that intimately explores the transformative journeys of individuals, featuring raw and unfiltered testimonies that celebrate the resilience, growth, and shared human experiences, offering listeners a source of inspiration and connection on their own life paths. Join us as we unveil the extraordinary stories that shape who we are.
The Uncommon Path
Travis Nicholson - From Skepticism to Devotion: Why Discipleship Is The Best Legacy
What if your journey to faith involved miraculous moments and life-changing community? Join us as Travis Nicholson, author of “Church Shopping,” shares his incredible spiritual journey from skepticism to genuine devotion. Discover the transformative power of faith and discipleship in this inspiring conversation.
TIMESTAMPS:
Travis’ 3-minute testimony (00:03:35)
Family dynamics (00:08:00)
Reaching college students (00:23:10)
The power of planting seeds (00:26:40)
From skeptic to belief (00:32:40)
Receiving the gift of tongues (00:38:38)
Balancing faith and works (00:45:00)
Legacy of discipleship (00:53:50)
How to choose the right church (01:01:38)
The 5 secrets of church longevity (01:03:51)
today we are joined on the uncommon path by travis nicholson, who just finished writing a book called church shopping. You have connections with our local church. Uh, travis, you're one of the few people who I still have relationship with, who has been part of the beginning process before leslie and I started dating. Uh, which is kind of exciting that's a.
Speaker 2:That's a funny way to phrase it. Phrase it one more time uh, that's we've known each other for a long time we've known each other for a while but you don't keep up with your other old friends.
Speaker 1:Okay, there's All right. Can we redo this? Let's redo this intro.
Speaker 2:My goal is to trip you up as much as possible. You could just summarize and say I'm a bad friend. Okay, maybe that has more to do with me being a good friend than you.
Speaker 1:Am I on the podcast? Is this about?
Speaker 2:me.
Speaker 3:I would love to hear y'all's experience about how it's going, I feel like I'm in the hot seat annie's making fun of ryan started this morning on our group podcast text thread at when I was in the shower like 7, 30 in the morning, so it's just been a theme.
Speaker 2:It's been a theme I feel like so are we really on right now? Oh yeah, I thought there would be like a red light or something more like red flags anyway, sorry, I'll answer your questions from now on serious one thing I really admire about you, travis, is that you are one of the most stable people I know when it comes to following the Lord.
Speaker 1:You have this incredible balance of seeing people's views and helping them sift through how to encounter God through them. I love that about you.
Speaker 2:Thanks, ryan, I receive that yeah.
Speaker 1:As you know, this is the uncommon Path where we take a deep dive into people's paths with the Lord and, in a nutshell, what we are looking for is what the Lord has done in your past, your present, what he's doing currently and will do in the future, or what he has on the horizon for you. We roughly have about an hour. We can go over a little bit, but we just want you to feel free to camp out on whatever you feel like you need to camp out on. I personally love hearing stories about God moments that helped shape your faith along your journey, like testimonies and stuff, but we don't want this to be rigid, where you have to focus Okay, past, present, future but um, just want a little free flowing.
Speaker 2:Sure thing.
Speaker 2:Um give us an intro into who Travis Nicholson is. Sure thing. So I'm from Houston, texas, born and raised.
Speaker 2:I did not grow up in a traditional Christian household church every Sunday. My grandmother was a believer and so she would take me to church, vacation Bible school, and when I was in fifth grade I prayed a prayer to receive Christ and I believe that was real and planted a seed. But there was no discipleship and so by the time I got to high school I was not interested in God, was not interested in the church. And then I asked a girl out to prom my senior year of high school and she rejected me, or at least I thought she rejected me, and so I felt rejected and dejected and depressed and I went out in my car and I was leaving for the day and I turned on the radio and I wanted to listen to some music, and all the normal rock stations and pop stations that I would listen to had commercials and someone had told me about a Christian station, kspj 89.3 in Houston that didn't have commercials, and so I kind of found 89.3 on the dial and there was a simple Chris Tomlin worship song on the radio and immediately the peace of God fills the car and something in me said I need this, like I need this in my life, I need this stability, I need this peace, I need this God If he's real, if he's out there, like want to be a part of it.
Speaker 2:And I had had a friend who had been faithfully inviting me to church for three years and I just kept blowing him off. And so I called him up and said hey, daniel, I would love to go to church with you tomorrow. And so I went to church for the first time on my own volition, and that was 18 years old, and at that time I was already planning to go to Baylor, um, which was a Christian school, and I was like, oh, it's a Christian school, I got to go to chapel, this and that. But then, now that I'm like wanting to follow Jesus, it's like, oh, that's great, I get to go to chapel and be surrounded by Christians. And so, anyways, I show up at Baylor university and start to church shop and end up at Antioch, cause it's kind of the biggest church in town, and I forget exactly what they had. I remember I think they had like a dance, like a choreographed dance on stage. I thought it was very strange, and so my first prayer inside Antioch was Lord, forgive them, for they are weird.
Speaker 3:And I did not think.
Speaker 2:I would ever go back to that church. But then the next week I go to a church, and it's a well-known church in town, led by an amazing worship leader, but as I was looking to my left and right, nobody was engaging in worship Like this worship leader was pouring his heart out and I was like I don't think this is the vibe. I mean, everyone here is cool, like this is the cool church to be, but they're not really in it, they're not really passionate, and so there's something in me that was attracted to that passion. I saw at Antioch and I had a few people in my dorm. Guy named Dagan was one of them, adam I guess I won't use their last names for discretionary purposes but Zach and there were a few just people who really loved Jesus, and they were kind of weird but they really loved Jesus, and I ultimately decided I want to be about what the Bible says, and that was the other thing I felt is okay.
Speaker 2:I've been part of Bible studies, but I've never been a part of people that were actually living the Bible, and that's what it seemed like Antioch was trying to do, and so ended up just getting plugged into Antioch. One of my first mission trip with Antioch was part of my first real intentional discipleship group with Antioch, learned how to share the gospel with Antioch and ended up going into full-time ministry for seven or eight years. So I planted helped plant the church here in Raleigh uh, helped plant the church in Washington DC. And then, while I was in DC, I've always been passionate about business and so I ended up getting my MBA at George Washington university and then pivoting into consulting. So I've been doing that for the past four years and I'm currently praying about what's next.
Speaker 1:So Well guys that was a great podcast, dude. Uh, that's fascinating. The Lord obviously has taken you on a journey. Um, what? What go back to like when you asked Jesus in your heart at age five. What was that like? What was your family dynamic like with God? What was the relationship like with your, your parents and the Lord?
Speaker 2:So, uh, my parents divorced when I was actually. They separated when I was three, divorced when I was five, um, so I grew up primarily with my dad, um, and yeah, just a very, I would say, unstable childhood. Um, it was stable in the sense of, well, I'll just. Yeah, it had its ups and downs and it's funny, I was, um, I was when I preached here at Antioch Raleigh. At one point I said you know my. In the sermon I said I, you know I was.
Speaker 2:When I preached here at Antioch Raleigh. At one point I said you know my. In the sermon I said I, you know, I did not grow up in a Christian household. And then my family, you know they, when I was in Houston, they were talking to me over lunch and said we listened to one of your podcasts and you said that you didn't grow up in a Christian household. What we celebrated Christmas, we celebrated Easter, like you grew up in a Christian household. And so it's like I guess you're right, technically, I didn't grow up in a Muslim household. So, yeah, I guess I did grow up in a Christian household, um, but it was not a household that was in love with Jesus.
Speaker 2:It was not a household where I was discipled in devotion to the Lord Um, and so that was something that I was introduced to uh, primarily through through Antioch Church, but also some of those early relationships in high school, people who really loved Jesus.
Speaker 1:So God to you was that you had no relational like aspect or box to put God into, like he was just a God.
Speaker 2:That was right there, right and I think that has helped me in a sense. So when I got to Antioch, I love the approach of we're going to read the Bible and do what it says, and so this I was. I think tradition is great, but I was unanchored to religious tradition so I didn't grow up in a church that did things a certain way. I didn't have this strong dogmatic generational belief that you need to do things X or Y. It was like the Bible says it, you do it. The Bible doesn't say it, it's not that important. So, whatever the doctrine may be, I could clearly see okay, there's some things that a lot of church people do that I'm not reading in the Bible. Jesus doesn't talk about it at all, and yet church people seem to be very dogmatic about it and it was very easy for me to not worry about those things and just focus on loving God, loving others basic building blocks of the faith.
Speaker 1:All right, let's fast forward to you meeting the Lord in the car and then going to Antioch for the first time. How far of a gap was that?
Speaker 2:What do you mean? The okay, so April 2008 was the car and Antioch was August 2008. Okay, so not that long, Okay.
Speaker 1:So in in that gap of time, was there just this constant hunger that kept coming up? Or was it just okay, I want something different? You kind of put it on a shelf and then was like, oh, you know what I'd like to go to church. Like was the Lord kind of knocking on your heart at that time or what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the church thing was automatic. It was. I need more of this. I'm going to go to church to get it.
Speaker 2:Um, the only things I knew were listening to Christian music, so listening to Christian radio, and reading the Bible. I don't think I even really knew how to pray. I'm sure I did pray in my own certain way, but the only things I really knew how to do were read the Bible, which I had like a teen study Bible that my grandmother had given me years ago. In fact, I wish I had this Bible.
Speaker 2:I lost it at Baylor, but she had written, she had given me this Bible in fifth or sixth grade, and on the front cover she said Travis, this book will keep you from sin and sin will keep you from this book. Book will keep you from sin and sin will keep you from this book. And, sure enough, when that book collected dust on my shelf in my closet, sin would rule my life. And then, finally, you know that senior year, being able to pull that back out and get back into the word, or get into the word really for the first time, um, that was my anchor, that was the one thing I knew to be true. And so, um, but antioch really broadened my horizons to say, oh, there's other dimensions of of faith, you know, think of the spiritual disciplines of community and fasting and prayer and meditation and worship, and I was introduced to a lot of those elements.
Speaker 3:um so, have a question about the, the, what you saw when you were in Baylor you tested out those two churches and you saw the one that was kind of like the cool kids, and then you had the one that was you. You sensed the passion. What were you sensing and did that? Did it take a while for that culture to get into you or did you just like dive in, like tell us about how that aspect of it affected you?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think myself, like many people I would suppose, are drawn to authenticity and so one of the things that you know, Baylor's a Baptist school. You have chapel a very common occurrence and I just interviewed someone for my book who had this exact same occurrence where he was in a lifestyle of partying at Baylor and decided he wanted to get his life together. So he goes to a church he only knew of a couple churches and he goes to this one church and he sees his drinking buddies there at church and he's like, wait, you guys go to church and then they just kind of put on their Sunday slacks and then went back to campus, had lunch and did their thing and he's like, well, this is strange, why do these guys go to church Like they? They live my lifestyle and yet they just put on a Sunday, their Sunday best, and go to church. And so at the time you had that culture at Baylor. I think it's changed, uh, over the past 10, 15 years, but so we're drawn to authenticity.
Speaker 2:So when you see people that are really authentic about their faith, I remember I asked Dagan the first, the first break we had of school. I said, hey, are you going home for Labor Day weekend going back up to Dallas, and he said I'm not sure I need to pray about it, I need to ask Jesus about it. And I'm like what? Just make a decision, yes or no, why do you have to ask Jesus? And then I realized, oh, he literally Like why do you have to ask Jesus? And then I realized like, oh, he literally has. In the same way, we have a relationship with our earthly parents and we call them up to process life. He had a relationship with his heavenly father that he would commune with on a daily basis and I had never seen that so up close, and so that was the authenticity I saw.
Speaker 2:Another highlight for me was I have a soft spot for people in general and loving the least of these, and so I remember being with Antioch Life Group leaders at the Taco Cabana across from Baylor and we were just there getting tacos and there was a lady there sweeping the floors and this guy started talking to her and just saying, hey, how can we pray for you? What's your name? And just got to know her and said we would love to pray for you. And just seeing him pray for her and see her tear up, and just feel the ministry of God and just realize, wait, we can impact people in random like that. This is amazing. Like this is incredible and I certainly had not seen that before. So often, religion keeps God in the box, keeps church on a Sunday, and so when you see a people that has a disregard for that and just says you know what God is everywhere and he wants to love everyone, and when you actually live out that lifestyle, I mean it's, it's um contagious.
Speaker 1:Was it hard for you to grasp the relational aspect of father God?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I would say so, uh, more about me relationally family. So what typically happens is your spiritual walk can mirror your family of origin, your home, upbringing, and so I typically have had strong male figures in my life and, uh, strong female figures who possess male qualities. I don't know the PC way to say that, but you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:And I missed some of the uh feminine. You know, I didn't grow up with my mom and my mom was a, very was a, was a driven entrepreneur. Uh, she was very emotional, very encouraging, very, very soft, but also she a leader. She was a single mother at times and so she just knew how to get things done and push things forward. So I missed some of the mother heart of God growing up, and so I think the father heart of God, the missional aspect of Jesus, the wake up at 6 am and spend time with Jesus, all of that was pretty natural for me to understand. I think it was the relationship with the Holy Spirit, the tenderness of God. That was more of the growth area and continues to be a growth area for me. Yeah, does that answer your question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's fascinating to me yeah, that's.
Speaker 3:That's atypical, I would say, and a lot of people have father issues or you know something, even whether it's mild or major. But I mean I've met people with a fair amount of people with issues from their mother side of their parenting, but I'd say it's less common. Mothers tend to be the ones that leave a lot of that imprint, especially at the young age.
Speaker 2:How's that?
Speaker 3:going. How's that going, that kind of discovering that tender, encouraging side of the word. Well, I will say, say you know god is gracious.
Speaker 2:So when I was doing the discipleship school in waco, we had ricky chalet that does you know gender identity and and childhood development and stuff like that. He says from the ages of zero to three, uh, a young boy needs to be very close with his mother, uh, you know, nursing, all that. And then at around age three, that's when he weans off his mother and should begin to attach and mirror his father. Um, and when you interrupt that cycle one way or the other, you can get off in different areas, whether it's sexuality or, uh, mental health or mental acute acuity or things like that.
Speaker 2:So, um, I was with my mom, my mom was with me you know, 24, seven, the first three years of my life, and then that separation happened when I was three, three and a half, four, um. So from a psychological growth standpoint and maturing standpoint, actually, you know, was very blessed and lucky to have those early years with my mom. So that you know I'm already messed up enough as it is. Can you imagine if I didn't have that foundation?
Speaker 1:so how is your relationship with your parents now? How is that so?
Speaker 2:my mom. My mom passed away in 2015 nine, almost nine years ago now and we had a good relationship right before she passed, and one of the last meals I had with her we were at Jimmy John's and I just felt strongly just to say, hey, mom, can you tell me again about you praying to receive Christ and what that looked like for you? And she shared with me a couple times how she had prayed to receive Christ and what that looked like for you.
Speaker 2:And she, you know, shared with me about how, when a couple of times that she had prayed to receive Christ and just for whatever reason, I just felt like I needed to ask that question of her and talk to her. And um, and she had been going to a few, she went to Antioch Houston for a time. She died in Phoenix and, uh, she was part of Antioch Phoenix for a time out there and um, so she had sort of a spiritual upbringing. Well, actually, what happened was, um, while I was at Baylor, uh, my mom went missing. Her husband at the time called me and said hey, travis, your mom's missing. Has she talked to you? I'm like, uh, no, what's going on? And she was missing for like five days and, and it turns out she had bipolar disorder and so she would occasionally get off her medication and get a little loopy, and so she drove off to some town and was like in Amarillo, texas, and got in trouble with the law, was in prison. They said she was going to be there for like a month or two months.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:And she was in prison or jail I don't know exactly where she was and she prayed she's like God, if you get me out of here, I'll serve you. You know that classic prayer God hear me. And um, and, and she prayed with a nun. Actually, a Catholic nun came and visited her and they kind of prayed that together and the next day, through some fluke, they let her out and said you know X, y, z, you know, you know you're, you're free. And so, as she left those prison doors in the middle of texas, she's like I gotta go back to church. And so she immediately started going to church and getting involved with bible studies and things like that, and so, um, yeah, so was thankful that the last five years of her life, or whatever, she was, uh, more spiritual than she had been.
Speaker 2:And we would pray together, we'd go to church together, and yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, I don't want to talk too much about my dad because he's still around and he might listen to this and I don't want to be dishonoring. I think I was really convicted by that. You know that Genesis passage with Noah and his sons, and you have Noah who's kind of making a clear mistake here and one of the sons calling it out rightfully so, to my logical mind but God punishes that and says you've dishonored your father by uncovering his weakness, and so I just always want to be sensitive to that. But, yeah, if I had to rate my relationship with my family from a zero to a 10, I would say it's a six.
Speaker 1:That's what we're here for. All about numbers. How good are you, that's right If you had to rate yourself as a Christian.
Speaker 2:My spirituality score would be a nine, but my prayer checks out prayer score would be a four evangelism used to be an 11 and now it's a 2 11 out of 10.
Speaker 3:I like it that's hilarious you know what, though? Uh, to To back up your own rating of an 11, because we'll just go with 11,. We've had people on the podcast that were like pretty much ask the same stuff every time, like how did you meet Jesus, how's it going and where are you at now? And there was at least one, maybe two, that started with.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Travis Nicholson met me on a college campus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was more than that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We got one right here.
Speaker 1:We got Warren Bristol in the house, so it's funny you know, reflecting on the story with Warren.
Speaker 2:So when I was a college pastor at NC State, we got another one right here, Andrew Corker. We have some observers today it's our first live studio audience. It is, it is. Have some observers today it's our first live studio audience. It is, it is. How is the live studio?
Speaker 1:audience, adding to the dynamic. Do you like it? It's uh a bit distracting. It's a little nerve-wracking um, so anyways.
Speaker 2:so when I was college pastor, nc state, most days I would go and eat lunch at on at the dining hall and I would sit with random people. So I'd find people either in groups or sitting by themselves and just I would essentially break up my lunch into six meals. So I'd start with a little bit of granola and yogurt, then I'd have some fruit, then I'd get the chicken, then I'd have the pasta, then I'd finish it off with some cereal. You know, I just kind of would have these little small plates.
Speaker 2:So and I would talk to, at least you know, have you know five, five random encounters every day. And so I had my little bowl of yogurt and see Warren, you know, sitting at a table. And so I just go and and talk to him. And what's interesting about the encounter with Warren? There wasn't anything I said that convinced Warren to come to Antioch or to follow Jesus or to like me. It was just that I reminded him of his grandfather, and so he just had a intuitive sense to trust me because I reminded him of someone he loved and cared for. And I think that's so indicative of life I found so many people are intuitive with their decisions rather than logical. There's nothing I could, there's probably nothing I could have said that could have turned Warren off, cause he's like, ah, it's just like my grandpa, you know.
Speaker 2:And so, and sometimes we, we take rejection personally or we take acceptance personally, and so you know, right before I met Warren, I was probably rejected by someone and then so it's like you just keep going on, keep being faithful, Um, but yeah, so Colby Lehman, who planted Antioch Raleigh, he set a tremendous foundation of just going for it, sharing the gospel. I mean, to this day he leads someone to Jesus every week. Um, he probably shares the gospel, you know, 12 times a week and sees you know two salvations and, um, and it's, it's remarkable, so he led the church with anyone that moves like we're going to tell them about Jesus, tell them about Antioch and invite them in. So and that was sort of always my default of you know why not, um, and so it was easy to follow uh Colby in those footsteps and he really set the bar high so that when I was here and doing ministry it was easy to talk to people like Warren and Parker and Sam and others.
Speaker 1:I think it's fascinating to hear stories like this because it's not rocket science. You know, you build this whole like I spell speak for myself. When I started going to Antioch I was like, oh, it's so scary sharing the gospel. And you're like, do I do the cross analogy? Like, do we have enough time in the to go through window to do that? Do I throw him a track? That's not very intentional, intentional and so like you second guess yourself all. But like you can easily invite someone to church and love on them.
Speaker 1:And what's so cool about like warren's story is that I've heard that story so many times from warren. It's like you just talked with him, you didn't even say anything. Like you said you didn't even say anything. Like you said you didn't even say anything, but because Warren recognized something in you, it changed his life. And so I, I, I, I just always want to be reminded that even saying hello can change someone's life. Like giving someone a hug or something so simple of of just doing something that you feel like is is very, uh, just kind of nonchalant, you know yep I remember hugging.
Speaker 1:There was a guy, do you remember justin wallace? Yeah he was in our life group at MCC and I remember he had.
Speaker 2:He's here now. No, he's in DC.
Speaker 1:Justin Wallace. Yeah, he's in DC. We'll have to talk offline about that. But there was a guy in our life group who, man, he was just hungry and just got a fire for the Lord and I remember very, very nonchalantly giving him a hug and saying I love you, man. Like after some worship set or something, and it was like a year and a half later he came to me and was like that hug, when you hugged me, that was the first time I have ever felt loved, because I grew up with no mom, no dad, and that was the first time I've ever physically felt love. And when people talked about love, I never understood it until you did that and I was like I started tearing up because I'm like all I did was something that I do just about to everyone and it didn't seem very special to me, but like it marked him, it caused him to run after the Lord. I thought that was so powerful and so fun.
Speaker 2:Simple act, one of my kind of life verses. If I had to choose one, it's Matthew 13, 31. And it says the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. And so I just love that visual of we're seed planters. We're called to be faithful, to sow. We can't control what happens to the seed, but we have this little seed and we're going to plant, and so whenever I would lead mission trips, I would kind of have everyone hold out their hands like this, cup their hands like this, and say, all right, you're receiving some seeds from God now, and when we go out, we're just going to go plant seeds, and that's all we can do. We can't convince people of anything.
Speaker 3:We're just planting the seeds. Wow, that's cool. You know, in the ancient days, the biblical time of seed casting and sowing, they would cast a seed and then till the field. We do it opposite now. They would cast the seed and then till the field. We do it opposite now, yeah, but they would cast out the seed and and it would just kind of go wherever and then the you know, the, the plow man would come, and so I just think it's like really interesting, because a lot of times we're like we have the mentality of like we're going to through intercession and this and break up this fallow ground, and break up this hard rocky ground, and then we'll go spread the seed and and. But in biblical times it was the opposite you go plant seed and then the ground gets tilled later.
Speaker 1:Holy cow, I've never heard that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's incredible it changes that whole analogy that we hear from the pulpit and reading books oh my gosh yeah yeah takes all the pressure off yeah, you don't have to worry about like is this gonna fall on the? Yeah, you know, is this soil ripe?
Speaker 1:it's like oh my gosh, you just called the show. I wish I would have heard that 10 years ago.
Speaker 3:The reason I'm a believer is I had aunts. My dad was not a Christian, my parents weren't Christians. My aunts prayed for me a ton and generations back. I'm sure I'll meet and have many generations of Christians that blessed my family line, but they prayed and every time I was around hitting me, every time I was around hitting me with the gospel, hitting me with the gospel as a little kid. Then my parents being divorced, both working. The only camp in my little town in illinois was a christian camp so they sent me there all summer so they were selling little bible studies and stuff like that. And finally in seventh grade, kind of like you, I had a buddy that was just like you want gonna come to church. Nah, I go on easter, you know I don't I go.
Speaker 3:I go to a catholic church on easter and christmas and then finally he just said why don't you come with me? And it was the day that they were taking like registrations for to get confirmed, which is like a lot of evangelicals don't even know what that is, but it's.
Speaker 3:It's a like a kind of almost like a catholic high church process of in seventh and eighth grade, going every wednesday and every sunday and then kind of graduating with baptism okay, and I go from not going to church at all with my parents my whole life to going once and coming home and telling them I was going to go twice a year for two years so you just never know man like keep selling seats. Yeah is the point. I love that it's funny.
Speaker 2:I went to a church in high school and I think it was easter and I'm just talking with someone in the lobby how you kind of chat with a newcomer on easter sunday and they said, oh, have you been to this church before? I was like, yeah, I came at. I came. I'm just talking with someone in the lobby, how you kind of chat with a newcomer on Easter Sunday, and they said, oh, have you been to this church before? I was like, yeah, I came at. I came around Christmas and I said, oh, um, are you a, are you a CEO Christian? And that's Christmas and Easter only. And I was like, yeah, I guess I am, I'm a CEO Christian. Yeah, that sounds cool. I didn't realize he was actually making fun of me at the time I looked back, I was like oh, that guy was kind of being rude, but at the time I was like, yeah, that's what I am.
Speaker 3:He's calling me a boss, I'm a ceo christian christmas and easter, only they call them creasters.
Speaker 2:Now, that's kind of more yeah common term creasters, creasters, yeah, christmas and easter.
Speaker 1:I haven't heard that one. Someone would ask me if I was a CEO Christian. I'd be like I don't know what you're talking about there you go. Okay. So back up, going to Antioch, where were some pivotal moments of you mentioned it being kind of weird, kind of different right From what you grew up but you wanted. You were drawn to the authenticity that came from people. Where were some moments after that um time where you were gradually sinking your feet deeper and deeper into like what the Holy spirit is doing and stuff, what are?
Speaker 2:what are some pivotal moments? Three stories come to mind. Do you want to hear about vision, tongues or missions? Both, three, if you only had the time for one story.
Speaker 1:You said your whole story in four minutes at the beginning.
Speaker 2:I want to be the fastest podcast guest ever.
Speaker 1:I think you can do all three of these stories in 30 minutes. Okay, start with the first one. Three of these stories in 30 minutes.
Speaker 3:Okay, start with the first one.
Speaker 2:All right, start with yeah, so first mission trip was to Juarez, mexico, and so this is how skeptical I was when I first started going to Antioch. I'd heard of these amazing testimonies of this mission trip in Mexico spring break, college mission trip, you know, people would get healed, the blind would see all this sort of stuff and I was convinced at first that antioch paid actors you know, I think you pay cheap actors in juarez, mexico, to convince these college students that they were being healed of these ailments, in order to pump up the faith of these unsuspecting college students, and so I was kind of convinced.
Speaker 2:I think that might be what's going on here. But I'll go, I'll go scope it out. Andrew's like no comment, I've never done that. Um, we, seriously we don't do that. This is why we don't have a live studio. Um, and and so. And so I'm down there and, sure enough, start seeing miracles, left and right, people's knees getting healed. Uh, I remember the first miracle. First miracle I saw my friend Marshall prayed for this lady who had cataracts and her eye was all gunked up. And we just started praying for her and I was very skeptical. I was like why are we praying for her? God bless her, I don't know. And sure enough, marshall removes his hand and her eyes completely cleared, she goes glory adios, glory adios, glory adios. And it was just. She was just in shock that her eye was healed. And I'm just seeing this like what is going on, and I you know, these actors like this good.
Speaker 2:These are good special effects cgi, the projection thing, just right, um, and so then one of the nights, uh, end up. I had this dream it's this very vivid dream of a park and this Hispanic lady wearing a yellow jacket and she's got this big white spot on her jacket with a barcode. And it was just a very vivid, random dream, like one of those light bulb memories, but it was a dream. And then the next day we pull up to this park for an evening outreach and I'm starting to look around and I tell my friend Dagan I said, dagan, I just had a dream last night and this is the park Like. It looks exactly the same as this dream I had last night. He goes. Well, you know, keep an eye out for that lady. Maybe she's here, and I was like maybe.
Speaker 2:And then the night goes on, you know, we do some ministry, and then, sure enough, I see the lady from my dream, this, you know, short stature, hispanic lady, maybe in her forties, wearing this yellow kind of fuzzy jacket. And I go up and I'm talking to her and, as I'm talking to her, for whatever reason, she's holding like a ream of office paper from Office Depot, on the same side where I saw this white spot and in the corner of this office paper was a barcode, and you know I just tried to encourage her the best I could and you know we were talking about Jesus and whatnot. But as simple as that sounds, that felt so surreal to me as an 18 year old who was convinced that there were actors out there, that so it would be pretty. Enhanced technology because you know Elon Musk wasn't around back then. So to do like plant dreams and then make it happen in real life, that was like beyond Antioch's budget and I knew it at the time.
Speaker 2:And so I said you know, this has got to be God. Right, this is God. God is real, Miracles are real, like I'm going to full send into this thing and um, and yeah, that, for as simple as that sounds, that was a, that was a trajectory change for me. Uh, essentially yeah, uh, of having that vision and seeing that lady and just realizing and kind of encapsulating, okay, all of these miracles are real and God is really moving on the earth. And if God is really moving on the earth, I need to be involved.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's wild. What were the two other stories? Because we have time wild. What were the two other?
Speaker 2:stories Cause we have time, um, uh. So I received the gift of tongues as a freshman as well and, um, I heard our college pastor at the time, carl Gullley. He shared kind of his testimony of tongues and that day I was sort of stirred by that and stirred by you know, god, is that something you have for me? And I remember him being my dorm room at Baylor and just praying God, I want any and all gifts you have for me. If you have any gifts for me, like want it and uh. And sure enough, I just sensed this kind of prayer language bubble up and I started speaking in tongues or gibberish or I wasn't sure what it was, and and I did that for like 10 minutes and stopped and was like that was, that was strange and I didn't tell a soul, didn't tell anyone, was embarrassed, was shy just was like I don't know what that was, but I'll just keep researching, learning more about what this prayer language is, and so I just kind of kept it to myself.
Speaker 2:And then, a couple months later, I'm on vacation in Mammoth, california, and I was praying and pacing back and forth and, for whatever reason, I asked God the question. I said God, what's your plan for humanity, or something like that and I felt led to pray in the spirit.
Speaker 2:So I started like praying in the spirit and this phrase pops up and I just kept repeating ta eska, ta, ta, ta, ta, eska, ta, ta, ta eska, ta, ta, eska, ta, ta, ta, eska, ta. And then I continue to pray and whatever, and about an hour later I was like you know, that was kind of interesting. I just started saying a phrase in tongues for a bit and I don't even know if that would be crazy, if that word actually meant something. So I was just like I'm just going to type it on Google. So I type in on Google Ta Eskata. And, sure enough, first result Ta Eskata. Greek for the end times, the last days, the return of Christ, and.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, I just spoke Greek, that's cool. Wow, I was like, oh, I just spoke greek, that's cool. And uh, and from that moment I was just convinced okay, I, I and what. I was also praying at that time lord, do I have the gift of tongues? Can you like confirm that to me? And so, again, in my own little, unique, silly and small way, god convinced me yes, you have the gift of tongues and you should use it for the edification of the body and for evangelism and whatnot, and so, um but uh, but yeah, the gift of tongues is strange.
Speaker 2:I actually uh I don't think Andrew was with me, but I was at an Indian wedding that I had been invited to because we saw this incredible healing on the streets of India. This lady had broken her leg and she was supposed to dance for her friend's wedding the next day, and so she was sad Like I broke my leg. I'm super disappointed. Like, well, we're going to pray for you, so we pray for her. She gets healed. She's like, oh, my goodness, it's incredible, we lead her to Christ. And she's like you guys got to come to the wedding tomorrow. Like that's great, we'd love to go to the wedding, and indian weddings are a hoot, especially in india, and so we go to this indian wedding and it was wild. I mean, it's a multi-day affair, so we're just going to like the friday night session and she does her dance and things like that, and uh, they decide to interview us as like the american guests you're kidding and so they interview us and they get up and there's like is there anything else you would like to say?
Speaker 2:I was like sure, so I grabbed the mic and I just start going for it in tongues and I was like Lord let this be the gospel. And I'm just sharing and I hand her back the mic and I was like, how was that she goes? That was gibberish, Very, very nice. I was like, well, I tried. God, I don't really know how this works, but I tried.
Speaker 1:And so anyways. I can't read that note that's such a great story oh right.
Speaker 2:And then, and then the next year, we went back and, uh, we were lost in the neighborhood. I was with my friend, blake, and you know you go out sharing the gospel and india is great because there's people everywhere, so it's pretty easy to share the gospel. We end up in this abandoned neighborhood where there's no one around. We're like, how did we find the one place in India where there's nobody here? Like I have no idea how we got here. And so we see a rickshaw and I said, all right, blake, here's the plan. I'm just going to go in this rickshaw and I'm only going to speak in tongues and we're going to trust god to get us to the right spot. And so we go in and I hop in and uh, just, and the guy looks back and goes, and then we, we go off, and blake and I look at each other, like where are we going? It worked.
Speaker 2:And uh, and he ends up taking us to a shopping mall. And I don't know if that's just because we were white tourists and he's like, oh, oh, these guys both like to go shopping, or if maybe I actually said that Unfortunately it didn't lead to any mass revival at the mall. But you know, sometimes you just got to go for it, you just got to go for it, and I think the Lord loves it to just say let's go for it. I think Christians can sometimes be too uptight about things of oh, you got to use the gift of tongues in this way and not this way, this and that. So, anyways, we were young and dumb college students and we had fun with it.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3:I love that story man, I love that story too.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, you said you had three stories. Is there a third story?
Speaker 2:The last one was just with missions in general. My first overseas mission trip was to Thailand, and that was the first time I met someone who had never heard the gospel, never heard the name of Jesus Maybe. Maybe they had some recognition of the cross as a symbol, but did not know what it meant, and so that was an eye-opener for me to know there's people out there who don't know who Jesus is, and that was a motivator for me to say, okay, I want to be part this God's mission to making him known around the world, and so that was a marking, a marking experience for me.
Speaker 1:Wow, how has cultivating a skillset of communicating the gospel and church planting affected your ability to communicate with the father in the secret place? And what are maybe some pastor recent revelations of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do think. So part of communication, like I remember in India, there were days where I shared the gospel 40 times in one day, and what successful salespeople will tell you is you just got to get your reps in, and until you've had a hundred rejections, like you're not trying, and so you need to. As a disciple of Jesus, you need to be okay with failure and you need to be okay with giving it a shot. And so, along those same ways, I think, with communicating with the Lord, it's um, don't be afraid to do it wrong. And and I think that is an interesting thing in the culture with certain people who are new to faith or old to faith is, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm afraid to pray out loud, I'm afraid to pray because I might not get it right.
Speaker 2:Or, and um, and yeah, it's just like having a conversation. So, um, I think, um, yeah, being okay with complaining to God, talking, you know, having having run on conversations with God, Um, and uh, yeah, hopefully I'd say hopefully we are not polished in our communications to God as we are polished to other humans. So when I, when Andrew and I have a conversation, I try to think, okay, how do I? What do. I want to communicate what would make the most sense to Andrew for saying this, and so I say it. You know, I couch it a little bit and I think of, you know, Andrew's emotional makeup and I say, well, I don't want to say it this way, I want to say it this way, you know, and that's just a human thing. But with God, hopefully, I'm not like that and I can just just freely share.
Speaker 1:Where in your life was there kind of a moment where you were like okay, it's more about relationship and less about how well I do this. Was there, was there a time where it was all about service and performing for God and then there was kind of a marking moment where it was like, oh, it's actually less about performance and more about relationship. Was there kind of a clear um process that the lord took you through through that, or has that just always?
Speaker 2:kind of been a gradual thing. It ebbs and flows and I still struggle with this because I think I think we can get. God loves you if you never do a work of justice ever again in your life. God loves you if you never hug your spouse again. God loves you if you never go on another mission trip. God loves you if you never tithe again. But all those things you're missing out on the fullness of God. You're missing out on experience.
Speaker 2:And I remember one time, you know, I used to beat myself up for not sharing the gospel with someone that I felt like maybe I was supposed to and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:And I just had a simple picture of me going to a amusement park and you have the roller coasters and it's just this fun amusement park and God's giving me a ticket to go and I'm saying no thanks. And in the same way, it's actually not that big of a deal, like, okay, you don't want to go in the amusement park, that's fine, but it's really fun and you'll enjoy it and it's great. It's a great experience, but it's also not the end of the world if you don't want to. And so I see it as a missed opportunity, whether it's prayer, fasting, whatever the spiritual disciplines you think. It is all about relationship, and he has given us these tools to cultivate relationship with him, and so it is a missed opportunity to do that. But he's the best father in the world and doesn't use guilt and manipulation to impact how we do that, or if we do that.
Speaker 1:That's really good that is good.
Speaker 3:Reminds me of the whole idea of faith and works. It's like faith without works is dead, but that's not to say if you don't see works in your life that you need to just go muster it up, because it's like work on the faith aspect and the works will come Like if works are the overflow of healthy faith or healthy relationship is kind of the way I see it. No, you know, like my kids when they're young, I have to go tell them all the time to do their chores as they mature and they get older.
Speaker 3:They just recognize this is part of life here in this family. This is what our family does. That's good. It takes, it takes a, it's become the cultural thing and it's like just an overflow of being part of this family. It's not because dad said, do it, you know. I don't know if that's a healthy analogy or not but no, that's right, yeah, just I think, yeah, you can get get over emphasis on works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and's a tough, it's a really tough dynamic. It's a challenging theology. To understand the great theologian Martin Luther himself, he called the book of James James an epistle of straw. It's worthless. James is just all about works and we don't need that in the Christian faith. And it's like this is.
Speaker 2:This guy, you know, historically has a pretty good understanding of who God is and how to follow Jesus and all that sort of stuff and he didn't fully understand it. And so it's a tough thing to understand faith and works working from a place of acceptance rather than for acceptance. And you know, I love, uh, bill Johnson has this illustration where he talks about in the 1800s it would take two weeks for someone to experience salvation. That was like the norm. So when you hear about Charles Finney's salvation experience, he would travail in a room by himself for weeks at a time and then finally there'd be this breakthrough moment and he'd be saved. And apparently, you know, for years that was sort of the status quo of how one would accept Christ was through this travailing and this, this process. And people would read through scripture and say actually it just says by faith you'll be saved.
Speaker 2:You don't have to travail and, you know, have these kinds of birth pains, of just that initial salvation experience, and people began I don't know if it was Wesley or whoever began to preach. You know, by faith you will be saved, by faith you will be saved. And within a few generations. It was then. It was then accepted by the church at large. Oh, you can actually just pray with someone and in a minute they can be saved. By faith you will be saved. And so these, these. I believe there's a not progressive revelation, but it's a. The word of god is always true and the church is continually getting deeper into the truth, so we should have a greater understanding of some of these dynamics than Martin Luther, john Calvin. However, I think, as the church develops, we should be maturing to look more like Jesus. We should be maturing, uh, to be more like, um, what God's original plan is, um. So I don't know if I'm off.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I love, I love that. Yeah, if you get a bunch of people and bring a soccer ball in and you just give no rules and no boundaries, you're going to have utter chaos. But if I bring the soccer rule book in here and we all sit down and we read it together, you will have all the knowledge to know how to play. But it will be so boring and he's like the Christian walk is like marrying those together, like you have to have both. You can't have one or can't have other. Some people are going to swing one way and need more of the other and vice versa. But I think that fits right along with what you said maturing and choosing to mature and get closer to the Lord.
Speaker 2:Yep, I love that. I don't remember that illustration, but that's really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it stuck with me, gosh, forever. What kind of legacy do you want to leave, travis?
Speaker 2:Good question. Another one of my life verses is Luke 8, 15. As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience. So that picture has always been a baseline for me, that I want to be one who is good soil that here's the word and holds it fast and honest and good heart and bears fruit with patience. And for me it's been about being that good soil but also investing in good soil and finding that 20 or that 30, 100-fold harvest.
Speaker 2:So I've always seen that there's a parallel with discipleship, that I want to be discipled by Jesus and then invest in others who invest in others, who invest in others. So I think the best legacy is to have a trail as a strange word, a legacy, really, a legacy of spiritual children, of spiritual disciples, um, so that you know cause I. So I was in um ministry full-time for eight years and then got my MBA and went into corporate world and, to be honest, I feel like I missed out um by being in ministry. I feel left behind, so I am not as hireable because I worked for Antioch instead of working for Wells Fargo or some brand that people recognize.
Speaker 2:So, when corporate people read my resume, they just say you worked for some no-name ministry for eight years. I don't know what that means, and I actually only got the job at Deloitte because my person I interviewed with happened to have a friend who was in church planning and so he understood. Oh, I know what it takes to plan a church and I can see, I understand the language that's on your resume and so I'm going to vouch for you.
Speaker 2:Um, if you don't have that, they're just like you work for Antioch, like I don't know that they're just like you work for antioch, like I don't know, that's not a big name, fancy pedigree. So you know, we're gonna. We're gonna give the job to the product manager from tesla you know makes sense, right, yeah, um. And so there is part of me that struggles. Man, I wasted so much time. You know I could be. I could be making this much money by now, I could be at this path of life right now.
Speaker 2:But I really have zero regrets because of that spiritual legacy, because of discipleship because there are people who are around the world who are serving the Lord, because God used me during those seven years of ministry to do some very impactful things. And I'm okay with dying as a homeless man somewhere as an 80 year old who accomplished nothing in the eyes of the world, but I was obedient for a seven yearyear period to disciple the few and at this point I just have to live with that and you know, and, but I do live with that and I'm thankful and I continue want to be that person that invests wisely by being good soil and finding good soil dude, that I mean that's so good, so convicting for me.
Speaker 1:I mean, without you we wouldn't be sitting here.
Speaker 3:It's true, warren would not be our producer. Be very scratchy audio. You know, something that I'm reminded of is, like you know, we talk about heaven. When we talk about heaven, we think, oh man, eternity's so long, and it's not even long, it's just like it's. It's the absence of time as a metric. Yeah, and if eternity is true, then it's true now.
Speaker 3:So you're already just all your investment perspective should just be eternal yeah, I mean not to say you're not wise with your cash, right or whatever, sure, but that's like you're not taking any of that with you. So all of our heart and our mind should be on what's of eternal value. Yeah, and so, no, I struggle with that a lot.
Speaker 2:And you're in investments right Financial advisor. Yes, you want to give a plug as a sponsor of the podcast. I don't.
Speaker 3:Not that I'm not good, but I'm not sure legally if I can do that. But yeah, I work in.
Speaker 2:I work in stewardship, we'll say financial stewardship you know what they'd say about the stock market is it always goes up. It always goes up, 100 years from now you're gonna have want to buy. You know the the dow at 38 000 because it's going to be at 100 000 in 70 years. You know all that type of stuff and it's like actually eternally it'll be at zero I can say that as a fact eternally. The stock market is going to zero. It's not going to matter eternally, but yeah it does matter in the next hundred years.
Speaker 3:So that's the tension I feel at least and I'm sure you would feel that in your line of work as well. Yeah, you walk in it. You walk in that tension. What I like to say is, like I, like I have no interest in in helping people get well wealthy, like managing wealth, to just get wealthy, like purposeful wealth, it doesn't have to be my purpose, doesn't have to be my passion, but what is your reason? What's your reason? Like the simon sinek, like, what's your why? Yeah, right, because it's not just about financial security. Like, if, what is your purpose? What are you right here?
Speaker 3:for we're not guaranteed another day yeah this is a good question about your legacy, right? Yeah, so those are the kind of things I try to connect with when I'm helping people plan and stuff, because it's just very important to not just always be solving math problems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1:Travis. I just want to say thank you, man, thank you for your faithfulness and you've helped shape culture in our church. And I mean little stories like Warren, like I can't imagine my life without Warren, Just Warren's little story. And then, like all the other people that you've helped not only bring in to just our church you've helped not only bring in to just our church, but just the faithfulness that you've instilled as a value is uh, yeah, it's priceless.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I want to hear about this book.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I don't know if you're wrapping things up, but I want to hear about the book what's prompt?
Speaker 2:So you started the podcast with the two opposing churches and how you picked one and that was kind of my story, yeah.
Speaker 3:That was part of your story.
Speaker 2:How do you choose?
Speaker 3:a church and now you have written a book on how to choose a church.
Speaker 2:I've noticed through the past five years. So the church is shrinking, church attendance is shrinking. You can look at those metrics a lot of different ways, but we'll just say Sunday church attendance is categorically statistically going down and has been going down for some time. During the pandemic, 10 million people left the church, never to return. And so what's going on there? And there's a lot of reasons.
Speaker 2:But as I've had conversations with people, I was at an event in Nashville speaking with a guy and he said you know, they were going to a church for years and you know, pandemic happened, they ended up moving and they just sort of start, they just stream services from a church.
Speaker 2:They, like you know, back home and they haven't really got back into the groove of going out and finding a church.
Speaker 2:They just kind of got comfortable in their current realm of life and so realizing I think people need a reminder that the church is out there, that people are out there. We just had dinner with a couple that recently went to Antioch, raleigh and loved it, but it took some initiation for them to get in the door and realize wow, there's this spiritual family out here that we've been missing. And so the goal of this book is essentially to give some handrails for people who are stuck, people who are confused, people who are overwhelmed. If you type in churches on Google, you're going to see 30 churches within any geographic area within five miles and that's pretty confusing. So in this book I try to detail out okay, here's a four-step process of what it actually looks like to find a church, visit a church and not be overwhelmed by the process all right cool and title of it again is church shopping how to find a church and thrive in your faith.
Speaker 2:I would love to let me. There's one chapter I think y'all would enjoy.
Speaker 1:I want to are you going to filibuster or?
Speaker 2:yes, no, let's. Uh, where is it okay? So I I interviewed I actually interviewed craig and annie for this um, the chapter is called going the distance and it's the five secrets of people who remain committed to church for the long haul. So I'm gonna read, I'm gonna read the secrets and then I want you to just pick one and maybe we can unpack it a little bit. All right, secret number one don't put pastors on pedestals. Secret number two be a peacemaker. Secret number three expect challenges. Secret number four be a problem solver. And secret number five know that God's ways are higher.
Speaker 3:I know what my pick would be, but I do want to make an observation that if we're not supposed to put pastors on pedestals, why do they always preach from stage?
Speaker 1:That's right. Well, it has a lot to do with church membership, Chris.
Speaker 3:Oh, Ryan, you know how to push my buttons.
Speaker 2:You guys just preached on church membership right.
Speaker 1:Oh, we did. I didn't preach on it.
Speaker 2:Are you on the anti-membership camp?
Speaker 3:Craig did Craig and Craig Oman, who was we won't say who's anti-membership, but Chris learned a lot.
Speaker 2:Good, good. I'm glad he was schooled by the theologian.
Speaker 3:I got information that I took to heart.
Speaker 2:Now we had a guy part of our church uh, ramon was part of our church back in the early days and we were talking. He goes, he's like I love Antioch, but you know, I just, I just wish I could be a member Like I'm. I'm an official member of my other church and I've been coming to Antioch, but I'm not, I'm not a member. So I pull out a sheet of paper, make it into a little rectangle card and I put official Antioch member Ramon, and I said sign right. And I signed it. I said here you go, ramon, your official membership card, and he looks at it.
Speaker 3:He's like oh, I'm a member now and you know that's funny. Works for some people the first time he got like the food line mvp card.
Speaker 2:He just was like well, here's a shop in the rest of my life. That's right, that's right part of the family now so yeah, so I'm a big proponent of church loyalty cards.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's on page 95.
Speaker 2:I love it all right in all seriousness, I would pick number three.
Speaker 3:But what would you pick, right?
Speaker 1:number three was which one again?
Speaker 3:um problems will come, or something like that expect challenges and be a problem solver so those are together.
Speaker 1:That list is good. Number three is good. Number one for me is pastors on pedestals let's do it.
Speaker 3:Let's do it because I made a joke about it, so we'll. Let's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we as humans have a propensity to put any leaders, to put corporate leaders, to put school principals, to put them on pedestals, and leadership does have an out, like a leader's voice matters. And so it's a tension, right, it's a tension of there's a right place of leadership and authority and there is the understanding, as far as we are concerned, about church today, in 2024, every pastor in America has flaws. Every pastor in America is a sinner. Every pastor in America will make mistakes, and so the expectation that you happen to have the pastor that doesn't have one of those things, that's an unrealistic expectation. And the fact that you notice and you say, oh, I noticed on Sunday they preached something that was wrong, or I think they have, they did something sinful last week, like, yes, you were, you were just noticing reality, and so what do you?
Speaker 1:what's correct?
Speaker 2:So what do you, what do you do with that? And I think so often we use that as an excuse, uh, to to pull back, to pull back from community, to pull back from the church, to give less and to some people, walk away from faith because of this issue and it's a very deeply complicated issue. It often intermingles with our own family of origins family of origins, you know, personal upbringing.
Speaker 2:Um you know, if you were abused by your father and you see just a hint of of something from a pastor, you can feel that. And in doing research for this book, I met people who were, you know, even if, uh, if, if, they grew up in a cultic, cultish environment and you know the pastor says something about the kingdom of God and how the kingdom of God is going to, you know, take over the world by force. So you know some of these passages that are kind of militant, you know they're running the other direction. There's like I do not want to be part of this church and it's because of their personal wounding that we all have and personal background and that can that can trigger things that affect our view of reality, affect our view of spiritual leadership. But yeah, I'm trying to see if I have anything.
Speaker 2:Here's the last thing I say on this is people who have remained committed to church for decades do not base their faith on spiritual leaders.
Speaker 2:They understand that it's their responsibility, so it's your personal responsibility to walk with god. Pastors are meant to be an example, but not the foundation. If you want to stay committed for decades, you need to have realistic expectations for the pastor and not put them on a pedestal and so uh, uh, yeah. So, as I had conversations with people like Annie who have been involved with church and faithful church for decades, they understand. They understand that you know how many times have pastors offended you? A lot, and it it happens, it's par for the course. And so learning how to, how to manage those expectations, how to walk with it, how to be in forgiveness, how to walk in relationship all that, I think, is really key if you want to, if you want to make it for the long haul how do you think you avoid the trap of getting like to, to where you're caught up in the the personality of the head pastor versus just the right appropriation toward the right?
Speaker 3:level of respect, you know what I'm saying, cause I think you see a big, dynamic pastor leave a church, especially if they leave in a dramatic or bad way, and so many people are just like oh my gosh and they're. It almost hits their faith, as opposed to being like, oh the, the break in relationship should just be a break in relationship, not a break in your. It shouldn't be a stumbling block to your actual faith. But you see that sometimes and I I think, like maybe they got, they were, maybe they got.
Speaker 3:Somehow they got wrapped up in this cult of personality of this person Yep. And that should have been an admiration for Jesus. So how?
Speaker 2:do you keep that right balance? Yep, we were just talking about this last night. Someone rightfully pointed out they recently went to an Antioch church that's about one year old and then they've been going to this church that's 12 years old or whatever the number is, and the church that's one year old always has the senior pastor preach. Like 90 of the time the senior pastor is preaching because he's laying foundation, right. But with antioch raleigh, every time I visited it's someone different preaching. There's a plurality of elders, there's a plurality of teachers and leaders and pastors and and I think that's healthy and when you look at biblical churches, the smaller church plants typically only have a, you know, one or two leaders, and in the larger churches, like at Ephesus, they tend to have a plurality of elders. And so my recommendation to a mature church if you are past five years old, 10 years old, you shouldn't have that main dynamic leader preaching all the time.
Speaker 2:And I remember when Rick Warren was trying to retire, he actually would split his sermons up. So he would. You know he's a classic four point sermon guy, so he would give sermon points one and three and he'd have this other guy come out and give point sermon two and four, and so it was just trying to warm, warm the church up to like this new face and it actually ended up not working out for them in that regard and they brought in another sort of charismatic presence to fill that and I think they're doing great. It's all about you know what model you feel like god is leading um, but I would say it's a sign of health if you can have a plurality of elders, a plurality of leaders. I think that's more biblical than not and I think the cult of personality is um is an american thing or a human tendency to want to.
Speaker 2:You know, he says in corinthians oh, I follow paul, I follow apollos, and it's like no, no, that's not, that's not the goal. The goal is to follow jesus, like you're saying um, and not get caught up in a past uh, pastor's personality.
Speaker 1:It's it's. I was reading in first and second Kings the other day and it's fascinating to me how, from the beginning of the fall even to now, we are constantly looking for a leader. Like, as a, as a people, we just have to have a leader. Yeah, and that's not god's intention. Right, god's intention is to be the leader, but we that we want that, like there's something innate in us that wants a leader.
Speaker 3:But jesus is the leader and I've been reading the Bible chronologically through the year and I met Samuel hmm, and it's just like it breaks my heart, because when they asked for a king is really it's asked for a king and Samuels, like, upset about it, he's given his, like you're gonna take your sons and get in war, you take a tenth, going to take a 10th of your tithe and all their 10th of your stuff and whatever. And then the Lord says this you know, hey, they haven't rejected you, they've rejected me. And I was like man, it hit me fresh again.
Speaker 3:Just so I read it probably two or three days ago and it's tough and it's like, yeah, there's a place that's just reserved for God in leadership and we have to give unto Caesar what's Caesar's. We need to be respecting and following the appropriate church leadership, all that stuff that's laid out in the Bible. But there is something in our hearts, our in the spirit and the natural even. It's like this is god's space and that's sacred and there's attention. There's got to be attention to walk it.
Speaker 2:I don't feel like I get it right but and I think you have to be rooted in acceptance. So I've always thought and tried. A good barometer for me is if the pastor of the church I'm attending looked at me and said, Travis, you suck and I don't like you. What would my response be? And I try to remain anchored in the place of like, I'm okay with that, Like, that's fine. Not everyone has to like me and you're a pastor and you have an opinion. But my heavenly father, he's in love with me and he's your boss.
Speaker 2:So I'm good, you know, and I think that that's a barometer of having that having that core, that core anchoring in the father's love for you, helps alleviate the pressure that we put on leaders and the expectations that we have on leaders, because they're they're not my, they're not my source, they're not my source of affirmation, they're not my source of connection to God, um, they're not my mediator.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1:That's good man. You're not getting validation from anyone but him. I mean, that's the key.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what do you want to title this episode? Can tongues be in the title somewhere? I feel like that would be a good clickbait title. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Hot button. Tongues good or bad Explicit filter.
Speaker 2:Tongues, godly, not godly question. We need a man. We need to put like tongues, women, leadership and being a ceo christian, like just put all the terms in there or like super clickbait, like this guy's tried speaking in tongues for five minutes.
Speaker 3:You'll never believe what happens. He's he he spoke tongues at an indian wedding here what happened you won't believe what it did to his physique okay, I like this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I don't know, it's like instagram marketing 101 you know that's right.
Speaker 3:Well, travis nicholson it's been a pleasure. Same thank's, right. Well, travis Nicholson, it's been a pleasure. Same thank you for coming. Thank you for being willing to share your story. Be vulnerable. Tell us what you're doing. The Lord's been doing. It was really a pleasure.
Speaker 2:It's awesome also want to put in a plug for your book Amazon right yeah, type in church shopping on Amazon, or my name Travis Nichol, and it will show up.
Speaker 1:And please leave him a five-star review.
Speaker 2:That's right, thanks guys, thank you, you, thank you.
