Yeah. Welcome to If Not Forgot. Stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. Hey guys, this is If Not For God with Mike Zwick.
This is Michael Zwick and I hope you guys are doing well. I've got a really exciting show for today. I have got a couple of gentlemen who are from a group called Cross Exchange. And they actually directly work with the students over in Elon, sharing the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the Bible tells us to do the work of an evangelist.
But I've got Psalm 85, verses 6 through 8. And this is what it says. It says, Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee. Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation. I will hear what the- what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace.
Unto his people and to his saints, but let them not turn again to folly. And everywhere you go these days, whether it's Fox News or whether it's the internet, wherever it is, CBN, everybody's saying that there is a revival that is stirring in this country right now. You're seeing students getting baptized. You're seeing, we actually saw something on CBN a few days ago about how there was a revival over at ECU, Eastern Carolina University, where a frat house turned into a praise house overnight. And so that's the kind of stuff that we love to see as Christians.
But I've got a Manuel or Emmanuel Pittman, and I've got a Daniel Merrill from Cross Exchange. And Daniel, I'm going to start off with you. Everybody's talking about revival, but you're actually on campus at Elon University. What are you seeing face to face? Yes, thank you for our time today.
I have seen Manuel and I have seen the Lord work in the lives of young people, especially in this day and age where social media is. uh prevalence uh is impacting the culture and Putting forth a bunch of different ideas of claims of truth, and young people are seeking stability and the knowledge of who God is, who He is for them personally. And so, yes, in our context at Elon, we're seeing many young people desire to want to ask the important questions of life: the big questions: where do we come from? How do we get here? And how do we have a meaningful life?
And through our time at Elon engaging with the students, we see that the Lord working in their hearts and lives in many different ways.
Well yeah, and you may be sitting there listening today and saying Well Mike, what are you talking about? I've got something right now from A Daily Citizen. And it says that revival beginning in America with younger men leading the way. This is what they said. Ainsley Earhart interviewed country and Christian singer Ann Wilson.
And here's some of the st the statistics. Annual U.S. Bible sales shot up 41.6%. in 2022. Downloads of religion and spirituality apps were up 79.5% since 2019, and Spotify streams for Christian music.
increased 50% since 2019. What are you seeing, Manuel? Yeah, for the past couple years, I've noticed that there's been a lot of different people that I've known for myself that young adults have been craving for Christ. And a lot of the debates that I've been seeing is more in some of the older folks that they were debating whether or not they're going to follow the secular stream of thought, the atheist stream of thought. But the young people are hungry for what they haven't been sold.
They've been told they're going to have fruitfulness and prosperity. They just rely on science, rely on what the traditions of the past have told us. But yet, when it comes to logic and reason, they realize that if you don't ground that in something, it's going to lead to insanity. And they realize that traditional religion had that answer and they're turning to it. But the problem is, I've noticed that.
With the desire for original religion, it's leading them to a lot of different other sources than just Christianity. And so it's a matter of totally. Targeting discipleship to those zealous youths into true Christianity that's going to make the fruit of that zealousness really fruitful. Yeah, and there was a friend I had on the show a while back, and he said, Mike, he said, the most dangerous aspect Of spirituality is not, it's not atheism. He said it's not agnosticism.
He said it's spirituality apart from Jesus Christ. Is that kind of what you're talking about? Absolutely. Spirituality about Jesus Christ is what we saw in the past. We saw that with the Babylonian Empire, the Assyrian Empire, the Persian Empire.
Like when you have the gods of the world trying to. Seek their self-worship through people is very, very dangerous. And that's why Jesus came to dethrone the gods, to say that I'm king of the world, and it's through him their salvation. Yeah, and Daniel, what a lot of people are seeing now is they're seeing a hunger from young people. And I'll give you an example.
There's a gentleman in my neighborhood named Craig. And he said, Mike, he said, I'm an evolution guy. I'm a science guy. I have no interest in this stuff. And we're friends.
We talk. And I talked to him a little bit. But he said, but my 14-year-old son. is really searching for something. What do you think may be stirring this hunger amongst young people, Dan?
Yes, I would say that as both a local and national trend, we see the influence of in previous generations, during the early 2000s, early to mid 2000s, there was the rise of the new atheist movement. And that had a lot of great sounding promises to young people, but those promises failed. They didn't come to pass. And the new atheist movement fragmented and destroyed itself from within. And since then, within the Gen Z population, the late millennial and Gen Z population, we see them turning and seeking after.
Other forms of actual spirituality and religion. And so, to what you were saying, the importance of navigating how those conversations go, it's the importance of. developing and discipling them into biblical Christianity and not something that presents itself as an a a biblical alternative, but is actually grounded more in superficial uh claims and actual deep uh biblical truths. Yeah, and and and when I think about this, one of the things that I see Is there's a lot of excitement, there's a lot of enthusiasm amongst young people, and there always has been.
Sometimes it's been pointed in the wrong direction. I remember when I was young, I was a zealot. And the beliefs that I had at that time were completely different from what I had right now. I mean, at that point, I was a liberal. You know, I went to Appalachian State.
They taught me that there was no such thing as God. And I said, well, I guess there's no, you know, and so I can kind of put myself in some of their shoes to realize, hey, these are the professors. in their colleges, in their universities, and they're telling them there's no such thing as God. You're an idiot if you believe this. You're a bigot if you support a marriage between a man and a woman.
You know, you're unkind if you don't want a woman. to be able to choose To be able to kill her own baby, as she would say, as we would say. But they would say, choose to do what they want with their own bodies. And so it is kind of tough going against that. How do you kind of combat that manual?
Yeah, when you combat different worldviews, it's a matter of truly knowing where they're coming from.
Now, I want to be careful with the word empathy here because, in some capacities, that's a helpful term, in other capacities, not so helpful. But you do want to know where your friend is coming from, so you understand them as an individual when you're talking to somebody.
Now, when you're fighting an idea or philosophy, you can talk to the wind or talk to people in general about those things. But when you're talking to someone actually dealing with something they're struggling with, like a woman who is struggling between the fact that she just got pregnant, the guy doesn't want to stay with her, how do you minister to someone like that? Or someone that's truly found community with the LGBTQ community, and everywhere else look for community, but they were not ministering to them in that way.
So, people like that do exist, they are struggling, but nevertheless, Christianity is there to answer them with love, but it's love rooted in truth. And that's the part that people have a hard time with. But yet, we meet them with truth. We provide that loving community for them as well to help them in their state. Can you give me an example where you did that personally?
Yes, there's an individual that they've come into my church, I'll be careful with his name, but he at Northside Presbyterian Church is an individual who has been flirting with Taoism and Mormonism. And he himself is part of, I'm just going to simply say, an interesting sexual group online. I'm just going to leave it at that. And I was praying to God to give me someone to disciple. And I tell your audience and everyone, be careful what you pray for.
I met this individual at a Bible study who he was very purposefully kind of shocking people with what he had to say. And everyone was just kind of weirded out by him. And so was I, but I realized in the moment that this person needs community. This person needs Christianity. He needs to be brought into the fold.
And so I made it my personal mission to love this man. And I'd be careful with the whole idea of making him a care project, making him an evangelism project for myself as a matter of me truly loving and ministering to him as a brother in Christ and believing God for his salvation. And for the past year, he's been faithfully attending my church. And he's slowly been breaking down the strongholds in his life of like, what is this that's in my way? What is this belief that I have?
What is this Christianity? Who is God? What is the substitutionary atonement of Christ? How is the death of Christ applied to my life? It forgives me of my personal sins.
And he's been gradually coming to an understanding of that. And so that's one great blessing that God has gifted me with. Praise God. 1 Peter 4.8 says, Above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins. And I've seen when I try to sit there and argue with somebody, sometimes they just dig in even more.
And there's times where we have to debate people. There's times where we have to stand for truth. I get that. But I've seen also that a lot of times people don't care how much you know. Until they know how much you care.
And Daniel, you've had somebody that you've been discipling as well for a while, is that right? Yeah, yes, that is right. There is several different people in that category, but one of them that I would share on the radio program. is a young man who for many years struggled in different capacities with identity issues. And one of the things that he shared with me is that No one ever really explained to him the The necessity and centrality of Christ's atonement in their life in his life, just like Manuel was sharing, and the importance of that.
One of these individuals is actually had grown up in the Mormon LDS faith, and they have not been exposed to historic biblical Christianity. And we see this a lot within the Elon University context. One of the things that actually was told by an individual in the spring semester that I met, a Catholic student originally from New Jersey, he had never met any conservative Protestant before he moved down here and met me and met us. He saw Catholics, Muslims, and Jews, and liberal mainline Protestants who didn't believe in the inerrancy of Scripture and didn't really hold to the Bible. And so there's several examples of people that we're ministering to and trying to reach and disciple on an ongoing basis in this area.
If I may share one of the things that's what we're here for. One of the things in our ministry context within Elon and also in the larger scale is. Among young men there is a growing Desire to ground themselves in biblical masculinity. And in so doing, they want to have a grounding of truth and reality. And so, several of the students that come to our organization, though we are a historic Protestant ministry, are actually Catholic students.
And one of the things that they've shared with us and interacting, we've seen is that. Almost all the young men, a part of the Catholic campus ministry, are pro-life and for the sanctity of life and against abortion, but almost exclusively all the Catholic. Catholic young ladies at the Catholic ministry are actually pro-choice and pro-LGBT.
So even within their own community of Christianity, we see this level of divide between young men who want to ground themselves in reality and biblical truth and those who, like a lot of these young women, who are going down the line of Uh on ungrounded empathy.
So one of the things that Manuel shared is the importance of empathy can be in good and important, but it's how we ground it. If it's grounded in biblical Christianity, that's important. If it's ungrounded, it's destructive. Yeah, I remember years ago when I first started to get into sales, I read a book and it was called How to Win Friends. and influence people.
I don't know if you guys have heard of that or not. Have you read it? Yeah. And but one of the things in the book is they said that everybody that you're talking to has one thing in common. They want to feel important.
Right. They want to be important. And I've found That there have been people who really didn't want anything to do with Jesus at first. But when I took an interest in them and I asked them questions and I showed them love and I showed them that I cared about them. It was funny how all of a sudden their logic seemed to change once they thought, once they knew that I actually was taking an interest in them and I cared about them.
Because there's a lot of people that society kind of looks down on or throws away or says, you know, oh, you know, this person's crazy or they're different or whatever. You know, what I see, what Jesus did is he would literally eat with the prostitutes. and the tax collectors and the people that everybody else didn't really want to talk to Emmanuel. Jesus went and talked to them and he loved them and he spent time with them and in turn a lot of those people ended up giving their lives to Jesus Christ. Amen.
That's definitely the principle that I sought to apply with the individual that I was discipling. And there's others, too, that I meet over time that I want to have engaged with. But it's still, I mean, just focus on that one individual, and I'm still ministering to him as well. And to try. Truly practice what Jesus did, I'll tell you guys it's not easy.
It's not easy at all. It's gonna be one of the hardest things you do, but it's also some of the most rewarding work you ever do. And it's just a matter of you loving God so much that that pours out of you because you cannot love them on your own. You just can't do it. It's impossible.
And that's why the burden is on God, and He does it through you. Yeah, because the Bible says that we love him, Jesus, because he first loved us. And when we realize how much grace that God has given us, Daniel. And how much we've messed up. I know I'm not perfect.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I'm still having to repent for stuff. And just try to work on myself and stuff like that. But at the same time, it makes it easier for me to love people where they are.
Now, that being said, There are some people who go to an extreme with that and they say, We love you where you are. You can stay in your sin. You just say yes to Jesus, say you believe in Jesus, and you can stay in your sin, and that's fine.
Well, we don't believe that either. Is that right, Daniel? That is right. One of the people that I've been discipling, ministering to, struggles with, or has struggled, I should say, with drug addiction, with cocaine and meth addiction. And one of the things that we see at college campuses like Elon, the two of the greatest, three of the greatest vices from a physical level are alcohol, cocaine, meth, and marijuana at university campuses like Elon.
And those substances or other types of things in someone's life, whether it be pornography or other types of vices in someone's life, is something that needs to be actually not just pushed under the rug and not talked about. It needs to be brought to the light because when it's brought to the light, the Life-transforming power of Christ can save and reach that person, like the gentleman Maniel was talking about, or other people that I've been ministering to and working with. And we see that. both in the university context and outside the university context and the importance of that. Yeah, and you go to one assemblies of God church, Daniel.
That's correct. That's correct. And so the last couple of weeks I preach at the baseball fields to the kids. And I've been to a cross-assembly. I don't know if you've heard of that.
It's over in Raleigh. And there was a really good message this Sunday by a guy named Chad Harvey, Pastor Chad Harvey. And one of the things that he said, he said, in my life, one of the things that I'm trying to get away from is playing it safe. He said, because it's easy when you kind of get to this point in your Christian life where you kind of got stuff set up and you can kind of lean back and say, hey, I'm living the good life, I'm doing pretty well. You know, it's funny, there was an example, manual, in the Bible, where there was a man.
I don't know if you remember, I'm sure you remember this. You're in the seminary. Come on. But there was a man and he said, Hey, I've made a lot of money. I'm going to tear down my barns.
I'm going to build larger barns and I'm going to sit back and I'm going to take it easy and I'm going to basically live my life in a great way. Remember what Jesus said to that man? Ah, building a barn is, I'll be honest. No, that's okay. Yeah.
He said, you fool, he said, tonight your life is required of you. And he actually talks about, he said, not living your life for money. But for me, what I also take from that passage is not to just sit on your laurels, not to be complacent. The disciples were never complacent. The apostles were never complacent.
And just because, yes, we've done some good things in the past. As you guys know, Manuel, there's a lot of people out there who are still lost and still need Jesus, and we've got some work to do. Is that right? Amen. Absolutely.
The Great Commission of Matthew chapter 28 is so clear that we're called to disciple the nations. And there's As much as we'd like to think that Christianity is in our part of the world here in the Bible Belt, the second you go many other places around the world, even in the United States, there are people that have not heard the gospel. I think friend Daniel here, when we ministered in Elon, every now and then we meet someone that has never heard the gospel fully explained. And it's kind of crazy. You might think that if we're in the Bible Belt, we grow up in church and we just can't be all always in our echo chambers of hearing the same thing again and again and again.
We need to get out there to actually talk to those who do not profess Christ, that do not know the name of Christ, who may be a part of a different religion or a different community. And when you do that, you realize that, oh, I have the message of everlasting life. And if I don't share this, People are genuinely going to live in eternity in hell. And their very souls are on the line. And I think about when we think about the go to a hospital and this man trains so much to do surgery on somebody that's in pain and suffering, how much more important is it not to minister people's souls that are eternally on the line?
Absolutely. And young people, as we talk about young people, Young people want to get involved. Daniel, I mean they're excited about whatever. I mean, I mean, if you go out this past weekend, you saw the No Kings protest. Yes.
You know, that's not something that we believe in. It's not something we stand for. But. I will say this. If they really believe in that, I give them credit for going out there and doing it.
They're doing what they believe in.
Now, I disagree with everything that they stand for, but they're doing what they believe in, and they want to be a part of something. How can we take that same enthusiasm that they've got, Daniel, and turn it towards Jesus? What would you say? Yeah, I would say that Everybody is seeking after something. And just like many years ago, we saw a rise in people wanting to give their time and efforts to save the earth from ecological disaster and other things of that nature.
And, you know, those are good endeavors in their own right. But I remember one time seeing something at a Whole Foods grocery store and it talking about the end of the world coming and the earth being destroyed and all that. But it was from a completely secular perspective. And the thing is, if we as Christians Can encourage and minister and raise up young adults to transform the culture around them. That's the most important thing.
And I would say. In our context and the people that we're engaging and ministering to, I would say one of the things that helps. Guide them and direct them is giving them a sense of groundedness in. Um the The completeness of the Christian message, how the gospel is not just for a A inward devotional lifestyle, which it is, but it's also how it impacts their studies and their classes, how it impacts their relationships with their family and with their future spouse and other things, is helping them and discipling them to see that. If they commit their lives to the Lord, it's not just something that they keep in a corner, but how it impacts everything.
And that's going flipping back for a moment to my analogy, the new atheist movement, and how that shifted. Right after 9-11 happened, there was a there's an increase in people going to church. And that was in 2001. But the new atheist movement kind of was around the time between 2006 and 2010. And this swing from.
People going back to religion and church to going to the new atheist movement. And one of the things that was unique about that time period, and I'll use it as an analogy for your question, is that the new atheist movement was militant atheism, it was evangelistic atheism, and because of that, it gave a sense of. A purpose and a sense of duty to young adults who are seeking direction. And if we, if we use that energy today, that with young people swinging back and wanting to have a groundedness within objective reality and a trans in the transcendence, that will help them to see that there is meaning and purpose, and that meaning and purpose has zeal to it, it has. Power to it, and I think that's one of the important aspects.
Is there anything that you would say, Manuel? Uh yeah, just I don't want it to be a fad. We just don't we see fads rise and fall, different things that come of interest here and there. And right now, cons traditional religion is the the fad. People are going to different religions, going to different churches and trying to see what's cool and what's hip.
And it's a popular thing.
Some people can even look at it this way. They have the older generation, and the younger generation always rebels against the older generation. And now what's countercultural is, you know, being a conservative and being caring for your family and being a man. It's that's kind of considered the countercultural and like what it would have been in the 1960s. And but at this time, I think it's time to channel it and focus it to biblical Christianity.
And those that choose to be there, just like the other parable I'll mention, the sower throws out the seed. There's a lot of seed being thrown, a lot of people going into churches and seeing what's going on. The question is how many is going to stay? And those that stay are the ones we need to keep on watering and cultivating and growing for God's kingdom. Yeah, absolutely.
There was a book, and it was by Stephen Roy, and it was called What God Thinks When We Fail. And he tells a story, it's a fictional story of a young violinist in England. who was absolutely amazing and flawless. He was the best. Violinist that they had ever seen.
But the one problem with this kid is he would not play in front of a group. He was scared to death. And so one day the pressure just mounts to the point where he says, I've got to do this. I've got to get out and I've got to get in front of this group. And there were people there who were his critics.
And he got up there, and for about two hours, he just played flawlessly. And after about 20 minutes, even his critics. put down their papers and pens and when he was finished he He got the loudest. standing applause that anybody had ever gotten and anybody had ever seen. But while they were applauding him, He just sat there.
He didn't respond to their applause at all. And he looked around the crowd until he finally saw his master or his music teacher. And when he saw his master or his music teacher applauding, he let go and he responded and he was excited and happy. The point of the story is this. A lot of times, if we're talking about or thinking about doing evangelism, especially with younger people, we are going to be discouraged.
There are going to be tough times because you guys have told about the good times. There have also been some other times as well, but at the end of the day, I think what kind of keeps me going, and I hope it's what keeps you going, Is that there's only one person that I'm playing for, and that's Jesus Christ. And if Jesus Christ is pleased with me, I don't care what the world has to say. What do you guys think? Amen to that.
Like the whole idea that we are Truly playing for an audience of one. He is our master, he is our king, and he's given instructions. And I forgot fully how the phrase goes, but it's if I would I rather stand with the world and be judged by God? No, I'd rather stand with God than be judged by the world. That's our calling.
That's awesome. What about you, David? Yeah, I would say one of the things that came to my mind when you were speaking there. I had a friend that I grew up with who actually was very impacted as a young adult, as a teenager, and then going to his undergraduate in the early, to the mid-2000s and became a new atheist and was very hardcore and still is. But in our evangelism in Elon, in Burlington, I actually was able to interact with him.
He came by and we interacted. And one of the things that he told me. that stuck with me and that I'll speak to this to your question. He said If I believed In the God that you serve and the God that you believe in, I would do the same thing. And like Pendalette has talked about, though, though he said, Though I do not believe in your God, if I did, I I would have the same conviction as you do.
And he actually thanked me for actually believing enough to go out there because we were evangelizing at that specific event. It was LGBT festival. And he thanked me for doing that. And the hard thing was I asked him if he would be willing to catch up just as a friend and to talk and he said no, he didn't want to do that.
So, you know, there was that hurt as someone that I grew up with, I was close to. It has I've seen him since then at different times and it's been a blessing. Yeah, well Daniel and Manuel, I want to thank you guys for coming on. If you guys want to donate to this wonderful ministry that's helping to reach young people, it's www.crossexchange.org. And it's Cross, C-R-O-O, C-R-O-S-S, X, like the letter X.
Change C H A N G E.org and it goes towards a good cause, If Not for God. All right, for my YouTube channel. If not for God with mighty wit, Just like subscribe and hit that notification bell.
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