Church Staff and Spiritual Health

Welcome back, everyone. Today is Thursday, June the 8th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. That's right. You guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show, sharing it online, leaving us a good five-star review on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, anywhere you get your podcasting content from.

We're going to leave a couple of links in the description of this show so you can do just that. Absolutely. The verse of the day today comes from Acts 20, verse 24. But none of these things move me, nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. You know, that to me, like just as a man, that verse really resonates with me because I think there's nothing that gives a man greater pride than running the race, finishing the job. Like you're given a job to do, you complete the job. That's just, it's like for a man, that's just natural, you know, and that's, it's, it's almost shameful when you can't finish or you start a project that you can't complete and you have to quit. And I think Paul is using that language intentionally. I'm running this race, I'm fighting the good fight.

You know, he's appealing not only to men, but to women as well. But really for us to know that when we start this Christian life, there's a confidence that not only will we complete it, but God's going to complete it in us. And that gives us a sense of pride and a sense of urgency for the gospel. Absolutely. And that, that is the finish line is finishing well for, for the gospel, for Christ.

It keeps everything in perspective. Not that, you know, a nice house with a white picket fence and a, you know, 401k and a nice car, all that stuff. None of that's bad and you should, you know, work toward those things.

And those things are good to have, but ultimately that's not the measure of success. The measure of success is what did you do with the gospel? What did you do with Jesus? Day two of Clearview Staffordry. We are coming to you from South, what town are we in?

What city is this? Deadwood. That's right.

Yeah. We're in Deadwood and we are, um, you know, on our, we, we, we, we took a couple of museums today. Um, no, we went to one museum and we went to like some of the reenactments of like wild bill getting, that was fun. That was really fun. That was pretty fun. That was pretty fun. The actress come out and they were doing like the, um, like the reenactment of like his shooting and then that they did another one like in the, in the saloon. And then they did another one in the street of like arresting the guy that did it. And then we went to a museum called Tanaka, Tanaka, and it was like all about the bison, like this, this story of, of the bison in, uh, the American Midwest and how the native Americans would kind of go through it. And, uh, my son, my five month old decided that he wanted to be part of the show.

Sure. So he egregiously disrespected the woman giving the, I mean, do you want to just kind of tell them what, like what the woman was saying? So it, there was a presentation that we were all sitting in and everybody from our group was sitting in there and that woman was actually from Rocky Mount, North Carolina. That was crazy. Of all the places like the presenter here in South Dakota, she's from Rocky Mount. That was kind of like less than an hour from where we're from.

Yeah. That was crazy. So she's presenting about, you know, the, the culture surrounding the bison and all the ways that the native American people would use the different things from the bison, like the fur and the horn and, uh, and it was, and it was about that loud, uh, of an interruption from Mr. Holden.

He, uh, he delivered a movement that shook the world. I think this was not a big room. This museum was a very, very, it was very small and very quiet, very quiet. The room could seat maybe, maybe 30 people, maybe 35 tops.

Um, there was only like what, 20 of us in there. Yeah. If that, um, and so it was very small and she's passionate. She's like talking about like the bison and like some of this, this means a lot to her, like this history of the American Midwest and what it means and how it's kind of shaped our nation, uh, at its, at its very foundation. And Holden was like, I think I've heard enough of that.

Now it's time for y'all to listen to me. Yeah. And the, the, his, his contribution to the presentation, I would say was classless.

It was disrespectful. And I was like, you know what? I got to just get this guy out of here right now. So I go into the stroller to pick him up. Instant wetness all over my hands. Never a good sign. I looked down at her a good side. I looked down at my hand. The smell hits me as soon as I see it. I'm now I'm angry. No, I'm like, Oh my goodness.

So first instinct man's first instinct. I got to wipe it on my pants. I'm like, no, no, I can't.

I have nowhere I can wipe it. This woman's still talking. People are like looking at her now they're looking at me and I'm like looking at them and I'm looking at Holden. He's looking everywhere. He's like, I feel great. So I'm like, I got no clue what to do.

It's all over my hand. So I just, I'm putting it on him. The onesies just going to get ruined. I pick him up onesies already ruined. It's like falling out. I'm like, I gotta just, I gotta get out of this situation. I just flee.

I just go right to the bathroom. So Ellie comes clean him up, take him back. I mean, it was, we didn't look good as a unit. The Galantis is did not look good as a family.

No front of the stroller. He's like whimpering. He's tired.

He hasn't slept. He's like throwing his bison in the floor. The woman's coming and picking it back up for him. He's like, Oh, thank you.

Throws it right back in the floor. I'm like, man, we've been there. There. I remember distinctly. There was one time when we first started at Clearview.

Um, Evie was younger than holding his now she was like two months old. And, um, on the way back, cause we lived in Wake Forest at the time, it was about 45 minutes away. So we were driving back from one Sunday. It was kind of in the evening.

Uh, we had no one Hartley were about Gavin's age at this time. Then we had like a two month old. So we're driving back and we stop at a restaurant, just fast food. We're going to get the, get, they could get out real quick and we get in there and we smell it. Um, and then we see it and it was like nothing in my life. If you have kids, you understand what I mean? It was bad. It is so bad. Um, we, at that point we just threw the clothes away. Really?

She wrote home in a diaper. We just, we threw them in the trash can. We're like, you know what? We don't need them this badly. We're, we're in the, we're on the side of the road.

This is not gonna happen. We just threw the clothes. I got in trouble for doing that one time. Gavin got sick all over himself on the way to a doctor's appointment and Ellie was like, not with me. So I just, I just took the clothes and I just threw them in the trash can and uh, she got angry with me. She was like, she was like, what if that had been a sentimental shirt? I was like, you don't send him to the doctor's office and a sentimental shirt. Sometimes you just throw the clothes away.

You take the L that's just what it is. Throw the clothes away today. But I tell you, boy, we rode back with them in the van and I wish we had hope. My son is disrespectful. Disrespectful son. No, he's feeling good now.

He got, he got everything out of this. He's feeling better now. Cool. We're gonna get dr shot and continue our conversation from yesterday's episode. We're excited to talk to you more about that today, but if you have any questions or suggestions in the meantime, send us a text to five, two five eight two five zero two eight or visit us online at cleary today show.com.

We'll be back after this. Good morning, afternoon, evening cleary today. Listeners. My name is John and I'm David and we just want to take a quick second and let you know about another way that you can keep in touch with dr shot's work and that is his weekly podcast series sermons by Abaddon shot PhD.

As a lot of you may know, or maybe some of you don't know, you don't know you do now. And if you don't know, then maybe hop off the podcast. David, I'm just pop off the podcast play and keep listening. Dr. Shaw is actually the lead pastor of Clearview church in North Carolina. Every single weekend he preaches expository messages that challenge and inspire us to live God honoring one of the four core values of Clearview church is that we're a Bible believing church. So every sermon is coming directly from scripture, which is great because that guarantees that there are timeless truths that are constantly applicable to our lives. This is a great resource because whether you're driving, whether you're cleaning the house, whether you're working out, you can always benefit from hearing the word of God spoken into your life. And God's word is always going to do something new for you every time you hear it.

Sometimes it's conviction and sometimes it's encouragement, but know that every time you listen to God's word, you're inviting the Holy Spirit to move and work in your life. You guys can check out the sermons by Abaddon shop PhD podcast. First and foremost, check it out on our church app. Uh, that's the Clearview app. You can get that in the Google play store.

You can get that on iTunes, but you can also find the podcast on the Apple podcast app or on our website at Clearview, bc.org. And listen, if you've got a little extra time on your hands, you just want to do some further reading. You can also read the transcripts of those sermons.

Those are available on Dr. Shah's website, Abaddon shah.com. And we're going to leave you guys a little link in the description so you can follow it. But for right now, David, let's hop back in.

All right. Welcome back to Clearview today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at Clearview todayshow.com or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to two five two five eight two five zero two eight. Or you can visit us online at Clearview today's show.com. That's right. And if today's your first time ever tuning into the Clearview today's show, we want to welcome you. Let you know exactly who's talking to you today. Dr. Abaddon Shah is a PhD in new Testament textual criticism professor at Carolina university, author, full time pastor and the host of today's show.

You can find all of his work on his website at Abaddon shah.com. That's right. And we are still in our recording studio from South Dakota, South Dakota strong. We requested a house with a recording studio in it, and they said, you know what? I got you because I'm such a big fan of Clearview today.

We got you. Is this really a recording studio? For those of you, if you're watching, well, I'll tell you what, if it's, if you're watching or I'm sorry, if you're only listening to the radio show, it can be whatever you think it could be. It could be Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. It could be a fan of style reality.

Exactly. It's a garage. We're actually sitting in a garage right now.

Game room type thing, the pool table and you know, those kinds of things. So it's, it's just like a man cave. It's certainly a man cave. In fact, it's, there's a little, you can't see it in the shot, but there's a little sign up there that says man cave and Deadwood customs and classics, man.

That is awesome. They knew we were coming. They knew we had a top Christian podcast and they were like, we got to make this room. So we are still in, in Deadwood, in South Dakota on our staff retreat and just having a blast. Yes, we are.

Yes, we are. We, this was a, since our show, we've been to two other places. We went to the Badlands and we can talk about that a little bit, but that's a very important place to me. It was very important for a reason and maybe I can share that now. So I've always admired Teddy Roosevelt.

Okay. So Teddy Roosevelt was, is on Mount Rushmore, but you know, he, when he was a little boy, he had struggles. He had asthma. He was just kind of a frail little boy and his dad always took care of him, would walk with him in his arms up and down all night. I mean, just really cared for him. And then when he grew up, he tried to be tough. His dad passed away. I mean, he tried to be tough guy. He, I think he was at Yale, Yale or Harvard?

I don't know Yale I think. And you know, he'd learn how to box and all that stuff. I mean, but it's still in his core, he was not as strong, right? He was the same person, same person, just kind of a weak, frail person, even though he was had some muscles now. And then something very tragic happened in his life. And the tragic tragedy was that his, the love of his life and his mother. Okay. So his wife and his mother, they both passed away between hours of each other. Unbelievable.

Within 24 hours, both gone. Yeah. I mean, like he went to one home to say goodbye and then had to go to the other one to say goodbye.

Were they sick with the same thing? No, it was something different, something different, but it just happened to be, you know, that this is it. Gosh. So he, you know, obviously it's a huge blow, right? His, his wife has gone, his love is gone, but then his mother is gone. That one person in his life who was kind of steady through all those years gone. So he decided to go away.

Guess where? The Badlands. Look, if you lose your mom and your wife in the same day, you can't go anywhere else but the Badlands.

He wanted to go to the worst possible place that he could go to and just, just take out his frustration and just go to work. And he had a couple of Cowboys. I mean, these are real Cowboys, not movie Cowboys. He's a real Cowboys who really fought rustlers and really had a shootout. I mean, this kind of guys he was with and I don't know how he met them, but he became very close friends.

Even when he was the president, he was close friends with them. Wow. That's incredible. And so, yeah. So this was a time for him to put on his big boy pants and kind of grow up a little bit, a little bit. Yeah. That tragedy happening in your life, especially for a man.

Cause for a man to lose his mother, like his first love that's, I mean, that's already hard enough, but then the one person that you can run to, that's your new love and she's going to end together together. Right. Same day. Yeah. It's it's unbelievable. I can't imagine how difficult that must've been.

And so I can see why he would be driven to go out somewhere like that, where he's like, you know what I'm I'm now I truly am alone in the world. God's always with me, of course, but now here I got to grow up. I got to go somewhere and Yale's boxing little clubbed and help me one bend away. I see what y'all are doing, but it ain't working for me.

It's not working for me. I have to go to the real hardcore and he didn't go like to Southwest or Texas or New Mexico. No, no, no. He went to the black Hills, badlands, and that's where he learned how to fight. That's where he learned how to, you know, the rough riders later on, you know, if you saw on one Hill, you know, all that, I mean, that's where he learned how to do all those things. And some of that was shows. Some of that was, you know, him trying to be this, this persona of the last great romantic and you know, the go getter and the grit, your teeth and the, you know, soft, soft, you know, walk softly and carry a big stick.

I mean, all of these were things to psych himself up, go and do what needs to be done. And that how we have to do that. Absolutely. Yeah.

Just kind of psych yourself up here for the task at hand. And a lot of times there's something that you said about just toughening up. I mean, yes, you can build physical strength.

Yes, you can, you know, work out or you can, you know, become more fit, but toughening yourself mentally, emotionally, spiritually. That's so, so important. Absolutely. And so I've always wanted to go to the bad lands and I've seen pictures and all, but I was like, you know, I know it's more than this. And then it happened. So when you first pulled up, you saw it for the first time we got out of the van.

We start walking. What's going through your mind as you're seeing it in real life. I wonder what Teddy Roosevelt saw. Really? Yeah. I wonder what was his experience as he was here and he was doing what he had to do to grow up.

How was it for him? Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. I remember going through Monument Valley two years ago when we did it and just how red everything was. I was expecting it.

I was expecting it to be the same. And then coming here and seeing so much green, but yet so many mountains at the same time. Like it's, it was, for me, it was like two worlds of beauty that somehow collided.

It was like these vast plains where like Buffalo Rome and where prairie dogs are just this big Savannah and then Rocky mountains. And yet somehow they're cohabitating and it looks beautiful. Right. And I mean, and so much, so much green, so much grass. And the, the, the rock formations are incredible, but they're so different than Arizona where the red is. These are, these are very pale, very pale stone.

Yeah. And we saw some that were like yellow in there, like marbled through, um, just kind of hiking through the best part for me, the best part for me was, was seeing the, the bison that we saw, because we, on the way there, we saw one like laying on that. I was like, Oh man, we drove right past it. I wish we'd stopped. I wish we'd filmed. I wish we didn't even see one on the way there.

Then we went laying down in a field and it was kind of, kind of far off, but we could have pulled over and taken a picture. Like, man, what a missed opportunity. I was like, I hope we see some more. I hope we hope we hope we see at least one more somewhere.

Yeah. So we were stopping along the route at every lookout point and we would look across and see the beautiful badlands. And you know, now this is the Bigfoot lookout. This is the panoramic view, or this is the ancient hunters lookout.

I mean, this is a lot, a lot of points with different names. And then we go over this hill and you see a few cars on the left on this side road. And we all saw it at one time and we're like, hold the bison. There was like a herd of them in the road, like, like crossing the road to where like cars could drive up to them.

But then at a certain point you just have to stop. Cause they're in the road. They, they, and they, they own that place.

It is very obvious that they do this. So they take their time. They're not worried about you as a car because they're the Kings. I mean, and I guess Queens with some of them, like what are you going to do if there's a bunch of bison in the road and you try to, they're going to win. You're not going to shoot them out of the way. I mean, these are incredibly huge animals. If one of them gets in the middle of the road and lays down, it's like, well, okay, I can't get around it. So think about a bull or a cow or a Longhorn that you've seen and just raise the side.

Oh yeah. Put that Longhorn on steroids. You can't imagine the size. I mean, they're unbelievable. See, we were looking at pictures of them and we went to the museum that showed the bison and they had the big, the stat, the wax thing, seeing it moving around and blinking at you and like hearing it be like, just like blowing air. Like you could hear their, hear their foot fall. And you're like, this is a powerful, like a, see a huge animal and you can feel its strength like to where when we got out to take the pictures, I was like, Oh golly, maybe we let's, let's take a step back here, gang. And so we saw those and we, you know, took some pictures, took some video and, and we're able to see them. And then we continued a little ways and we're trying to find a place to turn around. And then there was another group that we came across like up over the hill. They're like, Oh, there's, there's some more right here. It was incredible. Just being that close to them. Like, I mean, if we wanted to in certain places, we could have reached out and touched them. Oh yeah.

They were very close. To me, it's, it's, it's a symbol of America in a way. I, you know, like Teddy Roosevelt would say, forget about the Eagle. Who cares about the Eagle? Let's talk about the bear or the bison.

I think those are really the symbol of the United States. They're big, they're strong, they're imposing. They're not going to come charging at you. But if you attack them, nowadays, that's not quite true. But anyways, if you attack us, we're, we're coming after you.

We will help you even if you are our enemy, but we will deal with you if you are going to harm our people. Oh yeah. A bison is never going to pick a fight, but it will win every single fight that's in. Right.

Right. That's, I think it, it resembles the American spirit more than anything else. And that's why I like it. The wide open spaces, the rough terrain, but the beauty and the roughness. And then to see the bison out there, just moving about as free as he can be and just looking at you like, what are you doing here?

That quiet strength. Yeah. Okay.

You're going to go by, go ahead. There was one that was in the road as we were pulling back and just kind of like leaned his head, like, all right, you guys go on. So there was, so we got out when we saw the herd of them, they were like grazing in the field.

And so we got out and we, I mean, we kept our distance and we were very safe about it. We were taking pictures and they were all in the field, but there was one that stayed behind. And I don't know if it was like the security detail. I don't know if it was like, he was like the rear guard, like the security, just keep an eye out, just making sure everything's good.

Everything's good. And he was like scratching his back on like the post and stuff and just watching. He never moved. And then when we all got back in the car, he was like, okay. And he crossed the road and we went home and I was like, this was organized. This was really organized as a plan.

So funny. And then, uh, so we saw the badlands and then today we had the chance to go and see a museum dedicated to a dig for, for mammoths and mammoth bones. That was incredible to just see the work that was being done there. Like we actually got to walk around an active dig site.

Yeah. This is in 1974, uh, in hot Springs, South Dakota. Uh, this, this gentleman was going to develop that area, I guess, put some, uh, apartment complex or whatever. And as the big equipment equipment began to dig, they hit a tusk. And when that happened, it was like, they stopped and backed off and said, let's check on this, figure out what's going on. And they dug some more, come to find out there are countless mammoths, skeletons under this, this, this hill, this mound. And as they began to, they got in touch with, uh, they said Dr. Meade, um, and then a couple other, um, I don't know if they were paleontologists or not, but, uh, anyways, but they're the ones who took over and came into the mix. And since 1974, this museum has been operating and, and just, they keep digging.

It's an active work site. Yeah. It was incredible to just, to be there and not only walk around and see all the exhibits, but to just see, I mean, there were people there actually like working on the fossils. That was what was crazy.

Yep. That was what was crazy to me was like you said, it's an active site. It's not just, I mean, it is a museum and it's a place where you can come in and go in the gift shop and enjoy it and see the mammoth exhibits and stuff. And yet the actual bones are not just on display behind glass. They're being worked on right before your eyes. Like the paleontologists are down there and they're like dusting it off. And there's like the laboratory downstairs that you can go and look into. I mean, it was insane to actually be, I've never been on an actual paleontology to logical. I've never been on a dig site before. I've never, never actually seen that kind of scientific work being done.

Yeah. It was fascinating to watch them work and to see them. I saw them like carrying bones to the laboratory and someone's sitting down at a desk and just with a brush, just meticulous. They've got like the goggles on that magnify it. I mean, it was, it was crazy.

It's exactly what you think of in like movies and stuff. Well, I mean, we, we filmed at the mammoth site and at the badlands. We filmed in both places because of a series called contend. If you guys have been keeping up with what's happening at Clearview for the past several years, we've been going through this apologetic series. So the book of Genesis on how creation came to be, how God made the heavens and the earth.

That's where we get our contend day series. That's right. And then also, you know, the catastrophe that happened at, during the flood, the global flood, right? Where mountains were rearranged and new mountains were formed and new valleys and new waterfalls came to be, and it radically changed the flora and the fauna of the world, of the, you know, of our, of the earth and the mammoth site, you know, it long, long ago, you know, and we're talking about in the post flood ice age, there were, they say about millions of woolly mammoths roamed the earth.

I mean, think about that for a moment. And then suddenly at the end of the ice age, cause the ice age, you know, if you look at secular scientists, they talk about many different ice ages that came and, you know, for millions of years and hundreds of thousands, but I don't think it was that long ago, just one ice age, one ice age 4,500 years ago and lasted for several hundred years or something like that. But anyways so these are the kinds of things we go and film and we see how the evidence found by modern science, but when sifted through the biblical account, we find that the biblical account is true, especially regarding the age of the earth or not millions and billions more.

You study, you go, Oh, this, how in the world can they keep saying millions and billions? And you remember how we finished yesterday is that we spent the entire day. We spent the entire day in the badlands and we're talking about Noah, we're talking about the flood. And then we're going to go over here, over here, and we're going to look at these sediments and we're going to film a video about the flood. And then we're going to go over to this place and we're going to do another video about the flood. And we're going to, we're making them together in this one big video.

We're going to put this video out in maybe a couple of weeks or so, or whenever the time comes. But we're just talking a lot about the flood. And then at the very end of the day, while we're watching the bisons, we look over, cause it rained hard. Like as we were in the badlands, we look over and there's just this enormous rainbow. And we were looking at it and Dr. Shaw was in the other van and I called him. I'm like, look, do you see the rainbow?

He's like, yeah, I do. And Ellie was like, you can't not film that. Like we didn't have anything in the script cause we wrote a script out for the, for the video and we didn't have anything at all about the rainbow.

I was like, we gotta, we gotta just get out and do it. That was such a cool moment. Video after video, a moment after moment talking about Noah's flood and then there's a rainbow.

How perfect. I asked Dr. Shaw, I was like, do you think the Lord just wanted us to do this video today? Well, it was not just one. There was a second one that showed the rainbow all the way across the sky. Well, when you guys started filming, but as the video was going on, there was another rainbow that formed. I just started sobbing. I was like, that's a double rainbow.

No way. Rest in peace. But it's again, a sign of God's glory.

God's grace really. Because you know, he said, I'll never destroy this world with water again. I mean, he knew the catastrophe that happened when he destroyed the world with water. When you drive, and I love geology. I am not even an amateur geologist. I mean, there's amateur ones, you know, who know this and that. I'm not even that.

I'm below that. So, but I love geology because when you see the rock formations, whether it's in Arizona or Colorado or Utah or now South Dakota, or even back home in North Carolina, you can see something crazy happen. You see, and I've read a lot in geology and especially from a biblical perspective. And that's when you understand why God truly said, okay, I'm not going to do that again. Not that he was like changing his mind. It was more of a, you know, I'm a gracious God.

I'm going to give them one more chance. And the promise is that one day, you know, he will send his son. That's a sign of grace. I've always respected that about you because you're a Christian. And so there's faith, but you're also a scholar. So we look for evidence.

And there seems to be at a lot of people's life, there's some crisis where the two conflict. And in the, in the 10 years that I've known you, I think the 25 years that you've been studying the Bible, it's never conflicted. All the evidence that you found has, has bolstered your faith. And that in turn bolsters my faith. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And that's one reason we have church. We have books coming out. We have this radio podcast.

We have YouTube so many ways because we want to help people at this critical time in history, when things are crazy and when these values are being attacked to help believers, but also to reach out to unbelievers and say, Hey, look, there's something here. You don't want to miss. Right.

And and then come to know Jesus Christ. Absolutely. Absolutely. And Darshan, thank you so much for the opportunity to have a trip like this for, for us as individuals, as a leadership team, as our families. I mean, we can't say thank you enough for a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Brilliant. Well, just to see our whole group and you guys interacting with your family, kids are, some of our team is here. David's here. Adam's here. Nick's inside.

Katie's inside, but it's wonderful to see them having a good time, growing, enjoying themselves, taking it all in. Sometimes you can see they're getting overwhelmed so much as you know, going on. But this is part of that replenishing time retreat is to replenish our heart, mind, body, spirit. And each day morning and evening, we're doing our study through the book of Philippians. That's right. And then we pray every morning for our church families, name by name.

That's right. So if you guys have any questions or suggestions for new topics, or you want to learn more about Stafford trees, what that would look like for you in your context, or even about the stuff that we talked about today with Noah's flood. If you have questions about that, send us a text to two five two five eight two five zero two eight, or you can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. And you can partner with us financially on that same website. Click that donate button. Let us know it's coming from Clearview today and we're glad to count you as part of our Clear View Today show family. We love you guys. We'll see you next time on Clear View Today.