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David, how many bottles of water do you think you drink a day? Well, actually, I only drink Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew, Strawberry Yoo-Hoo, and the occasional Pepto Bismol. Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew? Do they even make that anymore?
Fun fact, no. I have to make my own with McDonald's Sprite, and you guessed it, Texas Pete. I am genuinely horrified to hear that.
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Where's my Mountain Dew? You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. You can find 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 email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com.
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Absolutely nothing less than five stars. I will find you, and I will pop you. Hey, hey, hey. We can't threaten violence on the Christian talk show.
I contacted Stu Epperson over at the Truth Network early. He said it was all good, so ... Well, I guess we're good then. So, it was all good. I'm not going to pop anybody, but please do leave us a five-star review.
We're going to leave some links right there in the description, so you can do just that. If you don't, it feels like you pop us emotionally. I get popped every day. Yeah. Yeah.
With the non-five-star reviews. The verse of the day today comes from Micah, chapter seven, verse 18. Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in mercy. The very first time I sinned, I was worthy of death, right there.
That's a hard truth to swallow. Yeah. You look at people being born, little babies being born, and they're so innocent and they're so pure. Even my son, I remember. But then there was that time where I saw he was so little, he was so young, but he was just starting to do things where it was like, what are you doing? Why are you challenging me?
Why are you going against what I've said for you? I remember even Gavin, when Holden was just born, Gavin would try to get in and kind of push him down. I was like, I didn't teach him that.
Nope. That's just his nature. But God, and you know what? That's us too, because God is looking at us like, why would you do that? Why would you sin like this?
Why would you stray from... But he's so merciful. He's so merciful. That's a great point. You don't have to teach kids how to sin. No.
It's just wired into them. But God delights in mercy. God is angry over sin. God punishes sin, and he punishes sin in Christ hanging on the cross for us. But God delights in mercy, which is why Jesus came in the first place, because God delights in showing mercy to his children. That's right. That's right. Just want to remind you guys that every single verse of the day is brought to you by the Date the Word app.
You can download it for free right now. We're going to leave a link right in the description so you can do that. We've got Dr. Shah's book club coming up today. Lots of great things.
We're talking about a book that Dr. Shah is going to recommend to the public. But before we do that, I just have to ask one simple question. Did I believe I am? Oh, buddy. This is something that happened to me that I thought would never happen in my entire life.
Okay, so something happened to me. We took the kids out to see a movie yesterday. It was Despicable Me Part 4.
Squeeze every cent we can from this franchise. I say that. We went to go see Despicable Me 4, too. Three movies. Last night? Yeah.
Oh, nice. I'm sitting there watching it and holding this everywhere, just crawling around, just wanting to crawl, just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's other families. I'm like, hey, Holden, hold me quiet.
So she's like, well, you just hold me. He wants the popcorn. Gavin was in trouble. He couldn't have any popcorn because he didn't eat his dinner. So I was like, hey, bud, you're not getting any popcorn. He was like, okay, I understand.
I was like, okay, cool. The popcorn's in Ellie's lap. Holden's trying to claw his way to it.
We'll move heaven and earth to get over there. She's like, here, just take the popcorn. I'm done.
Sit with him in your lap and just let him eat because he just wants to eat the popcorn out of the bag. I said, cool, no problem. I fell asleep. I have never fallen asleep in public. I've never fallen asleep, like on a bus, on a car, on a plane. I don't fall asleep in public. You didn't fall asleep in public.
And I fell asleep. And I was, I mean, the movie's loud. Like this comedy, kids are laughing.
Kids are squealing. I just, I woke up and the popcorn's in the floor because Holden started crying. He's like, and I wake up. I'm like, what in the world?
He's in the floor trying to eat the popcorn off the floor. And I'm like, what happened? It didn't even occur to me that I'd fallen asleep because that's never happened. And Ellie was like, why would you let him in the, I was like, I don't know what happened.
I was just sitting there dumbfounded. You previously did not fall asleep in public, but that was prior to two kids in your thirties. Do you fall asleep in public?
You for real, you fall asleep? Often. It's rare. But sometimes when we've gone to the movie theater, we, it's rare that we take all of our kids. Cause it, I mean, that's like a small fortune taking a family of seven to the movie theater.
But you got to be able to get some coupons or something. I don't know. It is what it is. It happened. And the answer to did I do that is I did that. I did.
You did that. And then Holden did that. I fell asleep and Holden spilled popcorn all over and was eating it off the floor. I just let him eat it.
I didn't even, I didn't even bother. Ellie, Ellie, stop, put a stop to it. She didn't like that, but I was like, man, it was like, I'm gonna have this popcorn.
It was, it was so crazy. Cause I was so disoriented. I was like, I don't even know where I'm at. I'm not, I'm not disciplined in that baby. I don't know what to do. That's not even my kid.
That's not even. Oh, wait, where am I? Anyway, that's, that's what happened. That was my evening. Write in and let us know if you've ever fallen asleep, movie theater or otherwise in public.
And what was the result? Call 1-852-582-5028. Or you can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. We'll be back after when you walk out the door on Sunday morning. Our music is more accessible than ever.
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Amen. Let's hop back into the show. Welcome back to Clear View today with Dr. Abbadon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at clearviewtodayshow.com.
If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right. And we're here once again in the Clear View today's studio with Dr. Abbadon Shaw, who's 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 abbadonshaw.com. Dr. Shaw, welcome to the show this glorious Thursday afternoon.
Yes. So good to see you guys. Happy Thursday. Happy Thursday.
Same to you. Hey, listen, I, um, I fell asleep in public yesterday, which I always said that I would never do, but I don't know if that's just a thing of age or a thing of just, it just kind of happened. But, uh, there was a big popcorn fiasco at the movie theater where really, yeah, I fell asleep and I was holding the baby and he was like, I'm just going to dump the popcorn out all in the floor that was holding. So I wanted to know how likely are you to fall asleep in public?
Cause I always said, there's no way I can fall asleep in public. Oh, I do. You do? Yeah. Movie theaters. It happens. I went to a movie recently, won't mention which one, cause I don't want people to think that it was that boring, but it was not just tired and it's dark and I just temporarily, I just, it's pretty easy for you to fall asleep in the movie. Yeah.
And even if it's a good movie, it happens. I just, what about a plane? Can you fall asleep on a plane? If I'm really tired? Yeah. Uh, I just have always in my twenties, I never was able to fall asleep like in public.
First I couldn't even fall asleep in my own bed, let alone like in a car in public. Like why? I mean like you were, like you were so wired. I guess so.
Yeah. I just was like, I would try to lay down, but then my mind would start thinking about something else and I'd be like, oh, that's kind of fun to think about or I'll get on my phone or whatever. But yesterday I was watching this despicable me and I was like, I'm just gonna, I'm just going to shut my eyes for a second. And then the next thing I know the baby was in the floor.
All the popcorn is just scattered all over the floor. I had really, yeah, it was crazy, but enjoy the movie. Yeah.
It was, I didn't see a lot of it. I don't know how much I slept for, but I was, I was snoozing for a little bit of it, but I just wanted to know how, is that something that just comes the older you get or if it's just like, Hey, if you're tired enough, you'll just fall asleep. It's not like because you're old or aged that it isn't happening. It's just, I guess it's, it's either the tired long day and just comfortable seating and you just kind of like, and it's just dark and so you go out. So it's not like you're old and just, I can't stay awake.
It's like, I'm a slow dark room and it's just kind of like, very true. Well, listen, I, it's a great day today and you know what, what time it is. I didn't even tell Ryan about this. Ryan doesn't even know this.
I don't know. It's mail time! I'm going to sing it for him one time there, Ryan. Here's the mail, it never fails.
It makes me want to wag my tail. When it comes I want to wail mail. Somebody wrote into the show after our, thank you. That was a, that was a great song. I appreciate that.
Yes. This is from Travis T. right here in North Carolina. It says, I just picked up my copy of 30 days praying for America and I'm loving it.
My wife and I have been going through it day by day and it feels like we're falling in love with our nation all over again. That's awesome. What do you think to feature your own book for Dr. Shah's book club, Travis T? My answer to that is Travis, a little bit.
Yeah, a little bit. So we're not going to do it today, but thank you so much for writing into the show. We did want to do Dr. Shah's book club.
I didn't want to, I didn't want to disrespect Travis too much. We're not going to do our own book for book club. Maybe one day we'll get there or maybe someone else will do a show and Dr. Shah, your book will be on their book club. But for today, Dr. Shah's book club.
That's right. Well, Dr. Shah's book club, as you know, is a recommendations from Dr. Shah. You know, you have years of experience of reading and research. So this is your chance for, uh, to share with our listeners and our viewers, maybe some recommended readings on things like ministry or things like understanding the Bible leadership. So Dr. Shah, what is the book recommendation for us for Dr. Shah's book club today? Two books by one of my favorite writers.
He was a Harvard business school professor by the name of John Cotter. This, these are the two books. Okay. The first one is the heart of change or actually the first one was leading change. The second one was the heart of change. And these two books were very instrumental in where we are in our church today. Wow.
Yeah. Again, I would say Bible is top notch, of course, but as to leading our church through this time of transition to where we are today, making an impact for Christ and still maintaining that balance of theology and, and outreach and all of that, it's coming from these two books. So is it about how to change culture, how to change church specifically, how to change just the mindset of the people around you? Uh, it's not about the church. Okay. It's about business. Okay. Cool. Okay. Changing old businesses and helping them align with what's happening in the world today. Wow. That's what these two books are about.
Okay. So what led you to these resources that they're geared for a business setting when we were going through a church shift or a church revitalization, what led you to these resources? So the way it happened was I came to this church, Nicole and I came to this church in 1998. First year was just youth pastor. And then the pastor left to go take care of his family. So the church asked me to preach a few times, which I did. And then they extended to me the call to come as the pastor. I prayed about it. It was not that it was beneath me or anything. It was just, I felt like I wasn't quite the person for the job, or I didn't fit the demographics around here. I'm from an outside place. I just didn't feel like maybe I can, I can do this.
I don't know. But I'll have to pray about it. But then I came as a pastor in 1999 and I tried to bring about some changes and they were quickly shot down and didn't go anywhere. I understand completely when small churches or country churches are not able to grow is because of the mentality, the mindset.
And again, these are the realities. I'm not talking down about people. I'm simply explaining to you what the mindset is of the people.
Do you remember what some of those changes were? As simple as we got to reach the youth. That seems odd that they would disagree with that.
Go to any of these small churches or country churches or churches that are struggling with like four people sitting there. And if you would think, right, you would think growth means fresh blood, new blood, new people coming in. They don't agree with that. Really? Yeah. They may say it is, Oh yeah, we would love to have more children who love to have. But if you start saying, okay, for you to do that, we got to do this.
They'll immediately stop you. So we were here for some time. And then my dad, of course, told me to stick it, stick it out, be there, don't leave and all those kinds of things.
And after that point, I, um, I began to preach and I just focused on my preaching, my teaching, I worked on my PhD work and visited people, loved on people. I try not to get bitter. And I believe by God's grace, I wasn't bitter because we love the people and I didn't want to blame them or be angry with them because I felt like that was not necessary. But I was like, at the same time, I cannot just, um, just, just, you know, cajole them and just, just, you know, pat them on the back and say, it's all good. Everybody's good. It's life is great.
It's all wonderful. I was like, no, I have to be, I have to love them at the same time, um, um, you know, call them to action. And so I began to bridge that gap.
I love them and at the same time, call them to action. So that's where these books came into place. Cause you were committed at this point to changing the church and changing the culture around it. So it was in 2005 that, um, we finally, you know, another member left cause I mean, we were hardly like 30 people if that. So another good giving member left the church and we felt like, wow, how can we keep going? It was a big blow. And their reasoning for leaving was like, oh, this church just kind of hurt us.
Just not good enough for our socioeconomic status. So I was like, beneath where they were. And I was like, oh really? I mean, you are the church. How can you look at the people around here and say, they're not good enough for me, but it's, it hurt. And I knew where it was coming from and not just from the person, but also the person's spouse who was not part of the church. So I was like, oh, but don't listen, don't listen to that person.
But of course they didn't do that. So I went to our leaders and I said, you know, we need to move. We need to go somewhere else with our church and restart.
We need to do that. And I thought it was going to get shot down. It was going to be like what it was at one time back in 1999 that, hey, we were not interested. Just continue. Sure enough, they came back a couple of weeks later and, and I told them, I said, if you don't, I will still continue. And so they came back and they said, no, we want to do this. And yes, we will do this.
And let's move forward. How did you feel when that happened? I was a shock. It was a shock. I bet. But, but I mean, there was some, there was some confirmation that God had set you on the right path, that these people that, these same people that would have shot you down six years prior are now on board.
Yes. So you put it on the market and still didn't sell. 2005, nothing. 2006, nothing. 2007, nothing until the end.
Now we would have different congregations come and check out our building. And then they were like, eh, and then didn't do anything. But the end of 2007, you know, the market crashed and everything. It was a bad time, but God sort of kept us in a bubble where I was not even interested in what was happening in the market. It didn't affect me. We were too below the poverty level to even be impacted by that. So we were like, whatever, whatever. Yeah. And the church building sold and this happened in December or November when it happened, I was like, oh wow, we're going to be moving.
This is a great opportunity to now recast ourselves in a fresh, in a new, in a biblical light, the way we need to be. And at the time I used to get the Georgia Baptist newspaper. So like a monthly thing or a weekly thing. I can't remember now.
I think monthly. And on the front page of that newspaper was a story by Ike Reichert. Ike Reichert is a pastor, still is a pastor in Atlanta. And my father-in-law knew him when he was like a kind of a famous teacher, preacher kind of thing. And Nicole's dad knew him. So I was like, oh, I know who this person is. His wife had died in a wreck and all that. He remarried and everything.
I was like, oh, I know who that is. I began to read the story. And the story was about this church, Piedmont, I think Piedmont Baptist Church. I think something like that. I can't remember.
How it turned around, how the church began to grow, blah, blah, blah. So I was like, oh. And then on the bottom was his email. So I took that email and I emailed him and I said, hey, I love to have five minutes of your time if you could give me that time.
And I thought, he's a busy man, big man. He's not going to respond. But he sure enough responded. And he said, call me on this day, on this time. Love to talk to you. He talked to me for a good hour and a half.
Maybe more. And one of the things that he told me in that conversation was you need to get John Carter's two books, Leading Change. This one came out I think in the 1996 or something like that. And then The Heart of Change, about 2002. And he knew that those books, even though they were geared towards businesses, that would help you with this church.
Yeah. What he was saying was you need to know how to transition a congregation and do it without losing your mind or do it without hurting people, and do it biblically as well as being aware of what needs to happen today. So it's not just like some ethereal principles from 2,000 years ago, but principles that apply today. And so he said, just to let you know, he's not even a Christian. He may be, I don't know, but the principles are solid.
And there is not a good book out there on this subject of leading churches through a change. So I bought those books. Here they are.
They're sitting here. These are the books. And I began to read through them.
This is me taking notes in these books. Leading Change and Heart of Change. Heart of Change is more, there are more stories of people who followed these principles. That's what Heart of Change is all about.
And I was like, wow, this is exactly what I need. And so I took these principles and I began to help our church leadership, which was pretty much the main people who came, to changing and becoming who we are today as Clearview. How did that process go? Like, what did that look like as you were like, okay, I've read this book. I understand these principles.
Now it's time to start applying them. How smoothly did that go? It was tough. It was tough because I was learning too. So many times I was reading the chapter Friday night because we would meet on Saturday mornings from like nine o'clock to 12, something like that. And we did that in 2008, starting in, I believe end of January, I think it was, all the way to like August. We met every three weeks or so. I think there was a little break in between, but overall every three weeks or so we would meet and walk through the principles in this book in 2008. Wow.
That's incredible. And there was a couple of other books. There's another book by Aubrey Malphurs called Strategic Thinking or something like that. Strategic Thinking for a Change or something. But it's by Aubrey Malphurs. Great book again.
Do you want to talk about some of the principles just very briefly, just to give people, if they're listening, because there may be people out there who are trying to get their church to go through a change right now. Yeah. So some of the things that he talks about is why firms fail. Firms. Because he's talking about businesses. He's talking about law firms. He's talking about steel industry. He's talking about medical hospitals. He's talking about colleges and universities. That's who he's talking to.
That's pretty incredible. And he's telling them that you are failing. You're falling apart or you're dying and you need to change if you're going to have an impact in today's world. If you're going to have your business growing in today's world, you got to change.
So he gives some reasons why firms fail and then what does it take to have a successful change and the force that drives it. Then he talks about the importance of having a sense of urgency. This is where it's like an eight stage process, starting with a sense of urgency.
Like you need that drive to change. Right. So many times I hear people saying, you know, I've seen denominational people coming to help a church go through a process to become contemporary, whatever. I hate to say that because I know they're doing the best they can, but I'm thinking, oh my goodness, you don't understand how to do this, do you? Hey guys, so we need to go back to what Jesus said about the church. We need to be about kingdom building. That's what we got to be. It's just all about the kingdom building. Yeah. And I'm like, oh my word, you're leading them down the wrong path. That's not going to help you. So apparently you don't know, you got the position or maybe you said like a one or two statements that's impressed somebody and now they made you in charge of church revitalization.
Oh man. I'm not saying I'm the one for the job. I'm very happy where I'm at, what God is doing. I'm shocked. I'm like, oh my word, you don't know, do you? Because since then I've been in denominations, denominational meetings. I've been in seminars where I saw someone get up and start talking about how to help churches come alive. And their ideas are like bunk. Do you think that people find themselves in those positions where they're like, all right, now I'm in charge of church revitalization. And they like, they know like I'm in over my head here. I don't know what I'm talking about.
They are, they are. I think many times he's going on the internet, finding somebody's sermon, something, something, maybe a book they read. And I will tell you to this day, there is not a really, really good book on that subject. I think people think there are, but they are not. I know there are different authors who have done a great job in bringing certain things to light. Like Tom Rainer has done it. At one time, George Barna, George Barna is some of the stuff I'm not too keen on.
But at one time he had done a great job with that. You know, Frog in the Kettle is a book that he wrote back in the nineties. I read that book. So there's some good books, but they still are not where we need to be. Yeah. It just gives us an opportunity for the future. Yeah.
Have a resource there. Maybe a future release here for the churches. That's what I'm saying. So the first stage is establish a sense of urgency, which means you have to help people understand that this is not something, let's talk about this for a while.
Yeah. Let's have our meetings and let's just sit in a circle and talk about just the heart of change, just why we need to change. Oh, that's not, I wish that would even happen.
That's not how it works. They come together and they talk about everything and talk about, if it's a country church, they can talk about the rain or they can talk about something. If it's a city church, it's going to talk about some rezoning that's happening. If it's a mid-sized community church, they'll come together and they will chitchat or they'll be like, you know, don't take my position. So it's a complaining session.
Or something of that sort or like protective over there, their little turf. So it's not where it needs to be. Urgency means you have to begin with, this needs to happen now.
It needs to happen now. So for me, the way I looked at it after reading that chapter is what is the sense of urgency? What is the sense of urgency that would light some fire under people?
Oh, yeah, very simple. They're children and grandchildren. Yeah, that's a good point. If they do not know Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior, and if you're not giving them the truth, if you're not discipling them, if you're not leading them to the cross and helping them walk with Christ and get into his word, oh, they'll be lost forever. That's a great point, because there's nothing, if that doesn't spark urgency in people, then maybe you've got the wrong people. Like if your people are...
There's little else that will. Yeah, if your people are worth leading, then that will 100% spark urgency in them. Are your children sitting next to you? Are your grandchildren sitting next to you? Now, I'm not talking about if they're going to another church and they're really satisfied, doing great, praise God. If they're living in another city, another town, another state, totally understandable. But they're not in any of those situations. Are you okay with that?
Yeah. Well, I can't make them... No, no, no, that's not what we're saying. We're saying, are you doing everything possible to lay out the foundation and make it possible for them to come and want to worship with you?
And raise their children, your grandchildren, to love Jesus Christ. And if you... Hem and haw means something's not right with you. That's true. But if it feels in your heart, yes, I want that.
What can I do? Now we're ready to talk about change. Because if there's nothing... Like John Carter went on to write another book called Our Iceberg is Melting. It's like, think about you sitting on an iceberg.
It's melting. Yeah. That'll put some urgency in you.
You got to move to do something about this, because it won't be long before you'll be in the water. True. Very true. Wow. That's such a great concept for us. And that urgency behind change, man, so good.
Leading Change in the Heart of Change by John Carter. Great resources for you. If you have any questions about those resources, write in and let us know, 252-582-5028. Or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Don't forget, you can partner with us financially on that same website. Scroll to the bottom, click that donate button, and let us know what's coming from our ClearView Today Show family. Lots of great content coming your way. Make sure you guys tune in. Love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on ClearView Today. Thank you.
