Immersion 2023

Today is Monday, July the 24th. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. And 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, or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact 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 review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content from. We're going to leave a link in the description of this podcast so you can do just that.

Let me take my AirPod out so I'm not being rude on the radio show. And today's verse of the day is coming to us from Proverbs 23-22. Listen to your father who gave you life and do not despise your mother when she is old. This is so funny because I just got done spending a week with teenagers. A parent definitely wrote that. And what I was going to say is, in the teenage years, and I did this, many of us do, you go through this phase where you're like, Mom and Dad, you have no idea. You just don't understand what it's like. You don't know what it's like to be a teenager today.

And part of that's true. Like, your parents were not a teenager at the same time you are. However, your parents have been down this road before.

Yeah. Teenagers don't change. Times and cultures may change, but teenagers do not change at all. Human nature does not change.

Exactly. So listen to your mom, listen to your dad. You know, parents make mistakes, but God's given us, as parents, He's given us the benefit of having experience that you don't. So listen to your parents. And there's always that culturally cool new suave thing to do where you only focus on the bad of your parents and the traumas and the this and the that.

But listen. Listen to your father who gave you life. Unless you're willing to say, I don't value my life at all, then you do owe some appreciation to your parents for giving you that life.

And the only way you can't is to say, I don't value my life at all. It's like, well, then you've got a bunch of other problems. Then there's other issues we've got to talk about. But if you're willing to acknowledge that, hey, it's better for me to exist than not to exist, then you have to give credit where credit is due. That's what the Bible says. Right. I mean, it's a matter of, you can tell a lot about a person about the way they treat their parents. That's true. You can tell a lot about a person about how they interact with, especially as you get older and your parents are getting older and you enter into adulthood.

How you treat and view your parents says a lot about you as a person. Speaking of getting older, being tired, you've been doing a lot of traveling. But let me tell you what. There are several moments. We went to the mission trip a couple weeks ago. That was, I think, three weeks ago. Welcome back, by the way. I haven't even said welcome back on the radio yet. It's been three weeks since you've been on an episode. It's good to be back.

I heard from somebody recently, they were like, hey, you haven't been on the radio show. Is everything OK? I was like, yep, just haven't been here. Shenan So, we went on the mission trip to Hendersonville. We got back Saturday, and then left not 24 hours later to go to Bryson City to Camp Living Water up in the mountains for a week. It was back-to-back stuff. It was so good. It was so awesome to watch God move in both the mission trip and Camp Living Water, and just to see all the ways that students were responding and recommitting their life and some getting saved for the first time. It was awesome. It was so much fun. Kretzmann We're going to talk a little bit about the mission trip on today's episode, but what was camp like?

I don't know that we'll get an episode to devote completely to camp. What all did you do? Cross-country camp, for me, I was the speaker for teen camp. I was responsible for the curriculum that the counselors were using in their cabin devotion time.

I also had a message each night in chapel. People come from a variety of backgrounds. We had some of our students there, but lots of other students. We even had a young man there from California who flew in for camp.

Kretzmann That's insane. To the mountains of North Carolina for camp. Cross-country camp, flew across the country by himself.

He's done this a couple years in a row. People from all walks of life. I get in there, and I guess for some, I wasn't what they were expecting. We played a game at the beginning of every chapel. The theme was survivor, like how to survive in the game of life. We played a game at the beginning of chapel. It was a virtual game where they responded to stuff on the screen. It was all about keeping an alien cat alive. It was called dead cat.

Kretzmann You played that here, don't you? Cross-country camp There's two editions. We played it here, and then I played it with them at camp. I started it, and I was like, we're going to talk about who wants to keep a dead cat alive, and all this crazy stuff. Some of them were like, can we talk about this? Is that OK?

After a couple of days, they warmed up to it. Kretzmann I'm glad you're back. I'm glad you had fun. I'm glad you were gone, and you were able to do all your traveling. Not going to lie, it's good to have you back. Cross-country camp It is fun to go. We had a blast.

I would do it again in a heartbeat, but it is not overrated to sleep in your own bed. Kretzmann That's right. Cross-country camp That's a good thing.

Kretzmann Yep. Cross-country camp We're going to start today's episode in just a second, but if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. Or, you can visit us online at clearytodayshow.com.

We'll be right back. Well, good morning, afternoon, evening Cleary Today listeners. My name is Jon. 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. Shah's work, and that is his weekly podcast series, Sermons, by Abbadon Shah, Ph.D. As a lot of you may know, or maybe some of you don't know. If you don't know, you do now. And if you don't know, then maybe just hop off the podcast. David, hop off the podcast. I'm just playing.

I'm just playing. Keep listening. Dr. Shah 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 lives. Well, 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 Abbadon Shah PhD Podcast. First and foremost, check it out on our church app. 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 ClearviewBC.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, AbbadonShah.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. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-518-5028.

That's right. And if today's your first time ever joining us here on the Clearview Today Show, we want to welcome you, let you know exactly who's talking to you today. Dr. Abbadon 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.

That's AbbadonShah.com. Dr. Shah, Ryan is back. He's back.

Yay! I missed him. Beetlejuice style. We said his name enough times.

Ryan, Ryan, Ryan. Hopefully without all the supernatural hijinks that ensued. It was funny, as I always thought that Beetlejuice and the mask, like Jim Carrey's mask, I always thought it was the same character. Same character. Didn't know it was two movies. Similar in a lot of ways. As a kid, I always thought you say his name three times and he goes, somebody stop me!

There's a little bit of blurring of franchises there, I think. I was thinking as we were going through that intro, I was like, do I remember everything that I'm supposed to say? I hope so. And then muscle memory took over. Well, Jon did a great job, but you're you. So, we missed you, though. Aw, I miss being here. I miss being here with you guys. I miss the back and forth.

When it's just me, I was like, man, this is a lot of information. It is great to be back. We were out in Hendersonville on our mission trip, and it was an incredible week. Dr. Shaw, thank you for the opportunity to go and serve. I say this, but I really do believe this, and this is what we stress to our volunteers and students, we view this as being sent out for a week as Clearview's missionaries and being able to bless that community and work in that community.

So, we're grateful. It was an incredible week. It's hard to summarize everything that went into that week, but our theme for this summer, and this is something Dr. Shaw and I met about and prayed about, was immersion. What does it look like to go deeper in the Christian faith? We felt like a lot of times, people would get to that point of salvation, or they know that they need to be a Christian, but there's not really guidance on what happens next. So, that was the answer for this mission trip.

What happens next? What are you supposed to do now that you're a Christian? Well, you're supposed to become a disciple. You're supposed to be in this process of discipleship. So, that was the goal of our week in the curriculum, in Bible study, in even the quiet times that we did in the morning. We're all kind of centered around that idea of what does it mean to be a disciple, and what does it take to make others a disciple as well? It's fun, because it's good to see, because I know Dr. Shaw, that's one of the core values of the church, is that we value the lost and the unchurched as a church.

That's right. And immersion, that idea came from baptism. We see baptism as a sign of obedience, baptism as a sign of identification with Christ, but we took it to a different level, which is baptism as being immersed in the truth of God's word, and learning how to walk as a disciple of Christ. And so, baptism, maybe Ryan can explain that more, is we took it from our W.A.R.T.E.R. analogy, or acronym, which is Witnesses, Accountability, Together, E, Establish in the Word, and R is, you know, Reproducing More Disciples. And you took that model that we try to apply.

I think sometimes we're doing a great job. Other times, we're so busy with so many of the things going on that we're not always conscious of this acronym in our implementation, but it's there. It's behind everything we do. And so, teaching our youth to also follow that acronym, except we called it immersion.

Absolutely. It was mapped onto the same thing. I think I read and consumed those messages more leading up to the mission trip than I did when you actually preached them. But just reading over them and just gleaning from your research and from the messages, we took that concept and mapped it onto a week-long mission trip, which worked out great, because there were five days.

So, that was automatically five days of content. So, for the benefit of the listeners, W, once again, Witnesses. Just like the first disciples were witnesses, they were not just people who heard about it from somebody else, and they actually saw Jesus. They touched him, they felt him, they heard his voice, they saw the miracles, they ate the food. And in some ways, they also witnessed his death on the cross, his burial. They did not see his resurrection, but they saw him after the resurrection.

And they were radically changed. They were so transformed that they were willing to die for this. Now, we joke about this, but if it came to our lives, if we were going to be so passionate about something, if it's not real, at some point in time, we will say, we're done.

You know, we're not going to die for this. But these disciples were willing to die for it because they witnessed something so profound. And that's what you want in the truth, right? Absolutely.

And we talked about that on the first day. What is a witness? What does it take to be classified as a witness? And if that's the definition of somebody who witnesses or experiences something, how can we be considered witnesses of Christ? And, you know, so the whole concept of, you know, you've seen God move, you've seen God work, he's revealed himself to you in his word. Now you then need to go and share that message and how it's not just an option, it's a command to go and share the gospel with people. You could see like those light bulb moments in students' minds in their eyes when, you know, this concept of evangelism is beforehand, it was something that they had to do, mark off of a checklist. But now it's, man, I can't not do this because of what God has done for me and because of who God is. That's right.

That's right. So for us, witnessing is different. For them, they actually saw Jesus physically and then saw him after the resurrection physically. For us, it is the impact that comes into our lives when we encounter Jesus or the message of the gospel, right? There's a change that comes and we are witnesses of that change. And that goes in three steps, which is pre-conversion, conversion and post-conversion. Here, this is what makes us witnesses of Christ.

So that's one. And then next is accountability, accountability, which is accountability is, you know, those people in your life who can keep you focused on God and protect you from falling into sin. We use the analogy of a guardrail. As you're driving along and you're on the highway, you don't really think about a guardrail until you need it, until you need to be there.

And you really want it to be there so that you don't fall off of the edge or you don't drive into oncoming traffic. And accountability is that in our lives. And you mentioned that in your message, Dr. Shaw. Accountability is what protects us from danger. It's what guards us from, you know, wandering on our own.

That's right. And clearly there are many levels of accountabilities. We have care group leaders. They keep their families accountable. Not accountable in the sense like you tell us what you're doing.

Right. Accountable in the sense of we're there for you. Many going through difficult time, we're there for you. Like just this afternoon, I was having one of our board meetings and not church meetings, but I'm involved in the community. So I was meeting with somebody and this lady began to tell me, she said, thank you. You know, so-and-so call me and you know, I thought it's so good. And I was like, wow, that's awesome that this person in our church called this lady who's been attending our church kind of on and off. And then she said, yeah. And then she sent me a letter about the care group. I was like, oh, this lady that I was talking to is in the lady's and her husband's care group.

Hence this person in the church was calling this lady who's been visiting. Gotcha. Okay. So I saw accountability working, but in a different sort of way. Well, that's what the interesting thing is because people think accountability is I need to make sure you're following the rules and I need to make sure you're coming and you're attending church. Right. That can be accountability, but it has a negative tone. Right. And the accountability that we're talking about here and that you've demonstrated and that you've set up through your care group leaders is that, hey, I'm holding you accountable because I care about you. Right. You being in church is, is good for you and it's good for your family. And so I care because I care about you and your family.

I'm going to reach out and I'm going to make that connection so that you don't drift further and further away. Right. And if you're going through a difficult time, like this lady's husband is struggling with dementia and things like that. And so the lady who called the care group couple lady who called, they're going to have lunch together.

They can sit down and talk. And so it'll be a good time for her to just vent maybe, or maybe more than just vent, you know, maybe it's time for her to pray and be encouraged or, or be sort of discipled. Yeah. So I think it's, this is a, this is accountability.

That's awesome. One of the biggest things we stressed in that day was, was something that you mentioned in that message on accountability is that accountability isn't motivated from a sense of I'm going to catch you doing wrong. Right. It's motivated from a, from a feeling of love. I love you and I care about you and because I care about you, I want to, I want to help guide you and lead you and protect you. And the goal, like you, like you said, it's not about catching someone doing wrong or even preventing them from doing wrong. It's that accountability helps you continue to grow and continue. Like you could be doing all the right things, but you still are being held accountable because you do have to, at the end of the day, every, every like day or week, I've got to come to Dr. Shah or to whoever, really to Dr. Shah.

And then he goes to whoever, but I say, Hey, here's what I got accomplished this week. It's not a matter of, well, now I have to tell you all the things that you didn't do. It's like, Hey, you've trusted me with this task. You've trusted me with this position.

Here's what I have to show for it. Right. And so that accountability, it's really to keep us growing rather than, like you said, to catch us doing something wrong. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And then there is T, which is together and together is a kind of a fellowship.

All right. Fellowship, that sense of community. This was something that we, that one of the, one of my favorite things about the way that we have done the mission trip is that we develop our own curriculum and we structure it from the ground up. And that's done intentionally because rather than giving someone prepackaged curriculum, we can tailor this to our student ministry and where they are and what they're feeling and the things that they're going through and relate it back to Clearview. Because we don't want this to just be like a cell that kind of orbits around church.

We want our students to be part of Clearview because they are, they are part of the day to day life and ministry of Clearview and various teams. Even outside of our student ministry, they serve in nursery, they serve in children's ministry, Kindle, the guys are involved in the men's ministry, the girls are involved in the women's ministry. So relating this aspect of community first to our church family and then on a smaller level to our Illuminate student ministry, we were able to really kind of drive home the importance of God has blessed us with this community, this family to belong to. And we need to treat it like that. We need to prioritize it, number one, and we need to protect it, number two. Togetherness is one of those things that I know that you're very big on because, again, you've said this from the pulpit and you've said it to us as a team, but it's really hard to hate up close.

You know what I mean? When you're together and you spend time together, it's difficult or it's more difficult, I would say, to build resentment and to build animosity because you see these people and they're such an integral part of your lives that you're, you know what, it's kind of unmistakable that God has put me here in this place and time with these people. It sort of overlaps with accountability, but it's more than that. It's kind of an overused phrase in our culture now, but it's doing life together. And togetherness brings out that aspect that I'm not here now to hold you accountable or to help mentor you, but I'm just with you. We're together doing a ministry, an activity, a service, whatever it is, but we are learning to grow together. And next comes established in the Word.

Absolutely. We talked about our day is full of being directed back to the truth of God's Word. Every day starts on the mission trip with quiet time, a 30-minute window of time that's kind of blocked off and structured.

I mean, they have a guide, the students have a guide that they work through. And from there, they go to Bible study. And then from there is rec. And rec is a lot of fun. It's a lot of high energy. If you see the recap videos on Facebook, you'll see a lot of running around and laughing and having fun. That's the good stuff.

That's the stuff that makes for good videos. But even each one of the games is tied back to this idea of being immersed in the Bible, of discipleship. For example, on the day where we talked about being established in God's Word, we talked about it's easy for you to lose sight from where you are.

You've got to pay attention, and you've got to treasure God's Word. So we had our teams that were blindfolded, and they had to find a goal in the game. But of course, they can't see. So their team is guiding them, but their team can't move. So you've got to listen for your team's voice.

But the further you get from your team, the less likely you are to hear their voice, and you're going to hear other voices mixed in. So then that corresponds to the further you get from God's Word, the less likely you are to hear God's voice. And that's so true, to be grounded, to be built upon the truth of the Word of God.

And I can't emphasize that enough. I say that to our staff, do our devotions daily, get into the Word, study the Word, because those are the building materials the Holy Spirit is going to use in your life to guide you. Many times, people are simply doing what they think is right, and then asking God to bless them.

I want us to do something different. I want us to build our lives on the Word of God. And that gives sufficient building materials for the Holy Spirit to nudge you along, to guide you, to open opportunities for you every single day. So think about the Word of God as building blocks. And so also with our youth, the Word of God is a building block, or is part of the building blocks that allows the Holy Spirit to build a structure, a kingdom, or build a person of Christ in and through us. There's something very unique about Clearview Church that I've not seen in really any other churches in my life, whether it would be in person or on the internet or on television, which is the way the Scriptures permeate everything.

I mean literally everything. It's not based around a personality. It's not based around hype worship or hype music or hype productions. It's based around the Word of God. It's founded on the Word of God.

And then all those things, the personality, the charm, the productions, the lights, the radio shows, all those things flow from the Word. So that it's not a person's opinion. It's not like a big larger than life figure who's talking to people from their ideas or from their world experiences. It's coming straight from the Word of God. And that builds trust in you as a leader.

And it builds trust, I think, in us as a pillar of the community. And let me reiterate, it gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity to work through us. You can have all the information, the knowledge, but if the Holy Spirit is not guiding you, then it's a waste. You know, the Bible talks about the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. So the letter may be there, okay, established in the Word, but keep in mind is the Holy Spirit who gives life. Of course, the Word of God also gives life, but here I'm trying to emphasize the importance of the Word of God so that the Holy Spirit can work. And that's a little more there when we talk about the Holy Spirit. And the next one is to reproduce.

Absolutely. Creating the disciples who make disciples who will make disciples. This was one of my favorite messages in the series when you preached it. It's so powerful to think about the concept of, you know, if we take this goal of discipleship seriously, what would the implications be?

What could it look like? And I'm re-sharing in the message, like, if we just operate on a one-to-one mindset, if I go and I share the Gospel with one person, and that's great, and then another person's saved, wonderful. And then I go and share the Gospel with one more person, great. At the end of five, ten, fifteen years, we will have accomplished a bit. I mean, there's a small amount of ground that we've been taking.

I think one of the things that you've taught me is that people will say things to give themselves an out when it comes to discipleship or evangelism. They're like, really, at the end of the day, numbers do not matter. If we get one person saved, it's like, okay, that's true. But we're not talking numbers. We're talking souls.

People who are lost and going to hell. And so, yes, I agree numbers don't matter, but let's not pretend that that's what we're dealing with, or just numbers on a page. The idea that numbers don't matter is actually not biblical. The idea that numbers do matter is actually biblical, because Jesus, repeatedly when he had his disciples with him and they did miracles, especially the miracle of catching fish, they always had their nets bulging over, breaking, tearing up. They had to get other boats to come and help them. They had even right down to how many fish they caught after resurrection.

They even had the number of that fish if you remember that. So when you put all these things together, what we come to find out is this. God's plan always was a multitude of people from humanity to come to know him. Multitude, if not the whole humanity. But of course, whole humanity doesn't come.

Many turn away. But that is God's plan. We want our youth to also understand this concept early in life and not just be like, my friend, I'm going to bring him to church. No, my friends, I'm reaching for the gospel.

Absolutely. Creating those inner circle groups. And that was their project as they head back home. You get to the end of a mission trip and you're like, I don't want this to end because I feel so close to God and I'm riding that mountaintop experience and I'm just going to wait for the next trip so I can get back to close to God. I'm like, hey guys, God is the same back home as he is on the mission trip.

He's not any closer to you, but you are closer to him because of your posture, because of how your life is going. So as you go back home, everything that we learned, take this and apply it in these inner circle groups, these accountability groups that will help you. And then in six months say, hey, love you guys. This has been wonderful. I'm always here for you if you need anything, but you go and then you each form a new inner circle.

And with that process, I mean the growth is exponential. Yeah, that's how it's supposed to be. So I'm grateful to Ryan and Elizabeth for taking this concept, which was for the adults, but taking it down to the level of the students.

And I'm hoping you'll even go down to the level of the kids. Oh, I'm sure. We're grateful to you for setting that culture. And because that culture is established at Clearview, it's easy to implement it in a smaller ministry that takes place within Clearview.

Because once students grow it through Illuminate and they graduate out, then they're still maintaining in that same culture. And then I have to learn how to swim all over again. Right. That's awesome. So exciting, man. I could talk for hours and hours about the mission trip and everything that happened. I do want to share one thing though. There was a gentleman at the campus where we were, Fruitland Baptist Bible College, because of your connection, Dr. Shah. We've been there for the past couple of years. And we love him dearly. He's a good friend of ours. And he and his family, I share this in service, but he and his family have had some ongoing medical issues over the course of the past year.

And just, you know, some scary stuff and medical issues are draining both emotionally and financially. So every year as part of the mission trip, we take up a love offering. And this year it was unanimously decided that this offering was going to go to this gentleman and his family. And so we told the students, in fact, we kind of forcefully told them, hey, please don't give all of your money. And then you don't have any money to eat on the way home.

I can't spot 60 people for lunch. But if you would like to give and you have some money leftover, you have some extra money, feel free to drop it in here. And it was over $1,200 that the students raised for this guy and his family. And that just goes to show, I mean, that's the culture that you've established here, Dr. Shah. These kids have grown up in, and they understand what it means to be generous and to give sacrificially. So thank you for everything you've done to make the mission trip and life here at Clear Eposible.

And I know I've already thanked you, but also thank you to our volunteers. Man, how many? 14. 14 of them.

14. Without being asked, they went and did a phenomenal job. If I mention names, I'm going to forget them. Also grateful for some of our staff that went. Also grateful for the staff here. John was with me holding down the fort. It was wonderful.

Yes. It was an incredible week. If you guys have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-58-25028. Or you can visit us online at clearevutodayshow.com. Don't forget, you can partner with us financially on that same website. Every gift that you give goes not only to building up this radio show, but countless other ministries for the Kingdom of God. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.