Meet Our New Voice- Shelby Abbott

Well, welcome. I'm Bob Lapine, and Shelby Abbott is going to be stepping in to be the new voice for family life today, the person with show notes and information, and to help get you pointed in the right direction. And Shelby is here, and I thought it would be good for you guys to get to know him. And so, Shelby, welcome. Yeah, thank you so much for having me, and thank you for being willing to trust me with something that has been happening for decades now, and I really am humbled and honored to be a part of such a great legacy here at Family Life Today.

Well, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but you were a guest on Family Life Today back a couple years ago, and at the end of that guest session with you, I stepped out and was talking with David Robbins, the president of Family Life, and I said, You know, when it's time for me to step away, Shelby might be the guy. Just from the conversations that we had and the way that you were, I loved the fact that you were able to respond spontaneously to what we were talking about. You were quick on your feet. What you were saying was substantive and biblical, which is not, you can't always count on that being the case. And so I just stepped out and said, I'm not a prophet or the son of a prophet, but this could be what God has for Family Life Today going forward. And saying that to David Robbins, too, you did email me after that time, and you said, Hey, great job. It was really great to meet you, but I had no idea that you had had a conversation with David.

I loved you and had a wonderful plan for your life. The Holy Spirit was working in and through you in those moments. So speaking of God loving you and having a wonderful plan for your life, his wonderful plan for your life has revolved around the ministry of Crewe for a while now. Did you come to faith through the ministry of Crewe?

I did, actually, yeah. January of my freshman year, I just turned 19, and I had been involved with Crewe at Virginia Tech, where I went to school. I was in a Bible study and going to the large group meetings and even being met with a staff discipler. But I just came to a point during the first large group meeting after the winter break that when the gospel was shared up front, I realized that I had never actually made a decision to put my faith in Christ, to trust him.

I was not born again at that moment, which terrified me. But also, God's grace poured out over me in a fresh new way, and I became a Christian then through that ministry, got super involved with Crewe after that. And when I came to the point where I was about to graduate, actually the year, my senior year, I was like, I think I'm supposed to come on staff with Crewe.

So it was a pretty easy decision for me. So I came right on staff after I graduated, and I've been on staff for 22 and a half years now. And working most of that time with college students, right?

Correct, yeah. I was at James Madison University for my first seven years in Virginia, working directly with college students. I've done a number of things since then, bounced around, but I've always been involved with student conferences. I've emceed the winter conference that we had in Baltimore for the last 20 years. I emceed a spring break conference called Big Break for 18 years. And so I've always rubbed shoulders with college students.

And my favorite thing that my wife and I have done over the last 10 years is actually running a summer mission with Crewe in Ocean City, Maryland, where students will come for the entire summer, and we get to pour into them and invest in them that way. And so it made the switch to family life about two years ago, and I've been training under the best in order to translate what I know about the stage onto radio. Well, and to translate what you know about the Scriptures. Again, one of the things that I'm most encouraged by is that you're not stepping into this role simply to be another pretty voice. You're stepping in here with some background, some substance, some love for what we stand for here at Family Life. This is something that you have strong convictions about. I do. It's definitely not a pretty voice.

I wondered why they were trading the sultry, silky voice of Bob Lapine for what sounded like a ninth grader with a bad head cold, in my opinion. But yes, I have a deep love for theology. I have a deep love for practical outworkings of theology, not just saying and knowing stuff, but actually putting it into action. I love to share my faith. I love to train students. I love to talk with people about issues of the Scriptures.

I have grown a ton, particularly in the last 10 years, in my love for, certainly, God, but what it means to live a life that's directed by the power of the Holy Spirit through a knowledge of the Scriptures and put it into practice in a way that I don't just say stuff that I believe, but I live it out as well. Because you've been on staff with CREW, you've been aware of Family Life throughout your time on CREW staff. As you have looked at what we've been doing kind of from a distance, what have been your impressions of the ministry of Family Life over the last two decades?

Yeah, I think when you're working with young people, you kind of have tunnel vision, and they're kind of your only world that exists. Now, I had known about you and Dennis Rainey, of course. I'd read some stuff by both of you. I was not super aware of the ministry of Family Life until I got a little bit into my years on staff, and I always remembered thinking when it came to Family Life, the word excellence was such a forefront word that popped into my mind, because you would do things with such greatness for the glory of Jesus.

Not excellence for the sake of excellence, but excellence for the glory of God. My wife and I went to a weekend to remember very early on in our marriage, and I just thought, man, this is really good. Really, really good stuff. I read a few things. Obviously, I had emceed a conference one time where Dennis Rainey actually was one of the speakers, and so I got to interact with him just a smidge there. I would doubt that he would remember who I am, but I was like, this is just really quality content, and so it's always held a warm spot in my heart. I just was unaware of the larger outworkings of what it actually impacted, and so when I came on staff of Family Life, I didn't realize that Family Life today was as big as it was.

I didn't realize that there was a love like you mean it, Cruz. I didn't realize how influential Family Life today is in so many families and homes and lives all across the nation, and I'm just deeply grateful to be a part of it. You are, in addition to taking over these responsibilities with Family Life today, you're launching a new podcast. Tell listeners about that. Yeah, one of the major things I'll be doing with Family Life is launching a new podcast for 18 to 28-year-olds, and it's going to be called Real Life Loading.

The subtitle of it is, Somewhat Anxious, Always Authentic, and so I found that one of the things that young people will respond well to is quality content that actually is a balm for them and helps them and is caring for them, but it also raises the bar in their life at the same time. We're going to be talking about everything from sex and sexuality to anxiety and fear and worry to progressive Christianity, deconstruction, doubt, dating. We're going to talk about all the stuff that young people are interested in talking about, but perhaps are not getting the kind of biblical content that they need, and so I'm thrilled to be doing a new podcast with Family Life aimed at the next generation. And that's going to be available wherever people get their podcasts. Correct, yes. It'll be everywhere and including on the Family Life app.

Got it. Well, I hope folks will enjoy getting to know you. Glad to have you in the chair as Family Life today wraps up every day.

You can help point listeners to where they can learn more and how they can grow in the relationships that matter most. Isn't that how we say it? That's right. And you have paved the way for me, brother, and I am deeply grateful for the roads that you have carved out. I would not be able to do it without you. I am not replacing you because you are irreplaceable. And I'm just very honored to be able to take the next step knowing that such a great path has been cleared for me ahead.