Discipling Through Domestic Missions

Welcome to Truth Talk Live. All right, let's talk the truth news. I can't hide it! I can hold it. A daily program powered by the Truth Network.

This is kind of a great thing, and I'll tell you what. Where pop culture, current events, and theology all come together. Speak your mind. And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Talk Live, your host.

The one and only devil's nightmare. What's the Russian nightmare? Nikita Kolov and host of its time to man up and QA with Koloff. Hope you're listening to that. And hey, let me just mention at the top of the hour here: man, if you don't have the Truth Network app.

on your You are missing. out. You need to go get that, download that app and gives you a access to a variety of podcasts as well as the Truth Network live radio shows and Always a privilege, always a pleasure to be here. Big shoes to fill, of course, because I am not Stu Epperson, and his feet are much larger than mine. But I'm going to do my best today.

I'm going to do my best. And with me in studio today, I have with me Scott Reed. Scott, thanks for being a part of Truth Talk Live with me today. Man, what an honor. Glad to be here.

Well, glad that you're here with me. And it's going to be fun to just bounce some things off of each other. And, of course, we're going to talk about something that you specialize in. in something that you know about and and and i'm going to ask you why there's a need to this uh but that's uh discipling through domestic missions and uh that's going to be our topic Topic of discussion. And of course, many of our listeners out there are perhaps familiar with foreign missions, of which I've been a part of.

I've done Quite a number of overseas trips. Went down to the Caribbean, suffered in the Caribbean, helping build a Bible college and a church and then over to Africa, which was more of a mission for real. Angola, like four years after their civil war. Oh, man. Yeah.

Oh, man. Wow. I mean, they still had the military out like every day walking around with AK-47s, and the rule of thumb was: you don't go out on the streets after dark.

Okay, so it was feeling real at that point. It was very real. It was very real there in Angola, Africa. And my first of 11. mission trips over to Africa, part different parts of Africa.

Have you done overseas mission? I know you're doing domest we're going to dive into domestic missions, but have you done overseas? Honestly, I've I've been overseas. We have some um Ministry partners of sorts in Israel that we're just fans of, support, have a heart to get back with them. But most of our whole life has been poured into students here in the U.S.

And youth and children and teenagers. Because you've been a how many years of youth ministry have you done? Oh man, I'm going to show my age here. I started when I was 18.

So we're talking over 30 years. Over 30 years. Working with youth and college students. Youth and college students. And 18, age 18, man, you got it.

Grabbed hold of it early.

Well, I think the Lord grabbed me, and there was, there was, I don't, I'm not sure if I was fit from much of anything else.

Okay. Yeah, I seem to be bad at everything else, but for some reason I could do this. You could do that.

Well, some might call that a calling. You know, I've tried some other things that didn't pan out so well as well. Yeah. And and didn't work out for me. But uh I had a family member once say to me, He's he said, You're a good boy, but unfortunately, there's no use for you.

You're okay.

Well, speaking of of your family, um Of course, I interviewed you for the man-up show, It's Time to Man Up and also QA with Koloff. And you told me. Your family roots here in America go back to the 1700s. Yeah, all the way back to the 1730s, yeah. And in Winston, and of course in the Winston-Salem area since the 1770s at least.

That's great. The 1700s, that is amazing.

Well, we're going to dive more into domestic missions here in our upcoming segments. But anyone who knows me, you know, and when I host True Talk Live, you know, I like to do some Bible trivia because, Scott, I like to give away some 8x10 autographed photos. That's exciting. From my past wrestling career. I love giveaways.

Yeah, giveaways are fun, aren't they? Absolutely. And in fact, when we do conferences and camps and all that sort of thing, I just, I love giving stuff away as well.

So let me, let me, I just want to throw out the first question there for our listening audiences, see who might know the answer to this and want to get an autographed 8x10 from my wrestling career, my pro-wrestling. Career. Here it is. Here we go. Who wrote, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth?

So, who wrote that? Who wrote that? Here's your choices: Jude. Peter John Or Paul. And so we're going to have you call 866-348-7884.

That's 866. 34 truth. If you know the answer to that trivia question, love to give you, send you an autographed 8x10, whether it's for you or maybe another loved one who may be, as I affectionately came to know in the South, a wrestling fan, Scott.

Well, the suspense is terrible. I'm just saying. Who's going to win this?

Now, you can't give the answer, Scott, but do you know the answer? Don't give the answer. I confess I know the answer. Answer. You know the answer.

Okay. Don't give it out. We want someone to call in so I can send them an 8x10 photo.

So, all right.

So, who wrote, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Boy, do we need that in today's world, right? To rightly divide the word of truth. Because there's a lot of things out there, Scott, would you agree that are not true? Yeah, I think.

Am I understating that? I think it's safe to say. Maybe. I'm understating that slightly. Yeah, just this last decade, it's been a rough one.

Man, if the if the truth, if the if the and Man, a bit needed to yeah, more than ever, the the truth needs to be told, right? Yes.

So so, Scott, you know, in this uh we're gonna have to jump to a commercial break here uh shortly, but uh just just give a a quick glimpse into What 121 does, what you do out there in our world? Yes, we do domestic missions.

So we partner with church youth groups and we take them out on a tour. And on this tour, the first five days, it's a 13-day leg. And so the first five days is intense discipleship. From there, we visit children's homes. or rescue missions or inner-city urban centers.

And so we're at each one for three days. And over those three days, you're going to get to engage in five worship gatherings with these students. And organized activities. You're going to get to rub elbows with them, and you're going to learn how to believe in the gospel and share the gospel and to befriend. People are folks, honestly, from some harder places in our culture.

You're going to learn how to love them and relate to them and love on them. Over those three days, and hopefully, the idea is that you take that home and you can live that in your own neighborhood, in your own city, in your own community, and in a wide range in terms of age, right? Everything from young children, even all the way up to adults. Yeah, it's mostly teenagers, but one of the places we visit, they have 60 single moms, 60 single dads in residence with their children. And they're doing it right.

They have them in trade school training, financial literacy counseling. They're doing phenomenal work. And so there, you're going to have young, when I say young parents, some of them are in their teens and they have children. And obviously, they're in hard, dark places. Nobody wants to be at one of these places.

But they're very open to the gospel. And it's just a beautiful time to take a teen. into that environment.

so that they can learn how to interact with it. And you've been doing this for over 20 years. Yeah, 2004 was our first time out. It was our learn what not to do tour.

Well, hey, you got to do that too, right? I call it plan, do, and review. Exactly.

Okay, we're going to plan it. Yeah. We're going to do it and then we're going to review it to see: okay, what can we do better? Or what maybe we should not do next? See, I go back to those guys who went on the first one.

I was like, you should come again. Because we figured it out.

Okay. Okay. Well, when we come back, we're going to dive deeper into exactly what Scott does and why. And I think you would agree with what he does is very needed in America today with as many troubled teens and young people out there. Stay tuned.

Don't go away. And I want to. Call in for that 8x10 as well. Truth Talk Live You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. All right, we are back.

Here, Nikita Koloff here with Scott Reed, joined by my My new tag team partner, here's Scott Reed. Never thought I would hear that. He never thought.

Well, you had said, you know, when I was interviewing you for my show, that, you know, probably not, I guess in a million years, or maybe a Russian phrase would be a gazillion years. Yeah. Did you ever think in watching me years ago on television that you'd be sitting in a studio with me and discussing Jesus, right? Exactly.

I mean, you were the communist enemy, my friend. I was scared to death of you. They loved to hate me back then. They loved to hate me. Which means you did your job well.

I did. I did. I was the number one most hated guy in pro wrestling at one point.

Well done. Voted by the fans. Yeah, I wear that as a badge of honor, you know. And you're not the first to say, man, you struck fear in me. Like, wow.

Like, anyway. All right. Hey, speaking of that, I'd like to get, look, every time I've hosted this show, I've been able to give at least one or two or more photos away.

So who wrote, study to show thyself approved unto God? I work with. That needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, Jude. Peter John Or Paul. You don't even have to know the scripture.

You just have to know who wrote it, okay? 866-348-7884. Call in Timmy. Come on. 866-3424.

Truth, call into me.

So, all right.

So, we're talking about domestic missions. Scott, what's the importance of you've been doing this for since 2004?

So, over two decades, what is the reason, the vision for why, why did you see the need to go minister to troubled teens and troubled kids? And what was it? I mean if uh You spend any time in youth ministry, you're going to run across kids in need. You're going to run across the kids that the teachers are afraid of, or they don't know what to do with them. And that's just, that's always the thing, no matter where you're at.

Uh you were talking about um Of course, foreign missions, and I celebrate foreign missions. In fact, my eldest son is about to head out to Kenya, I think, in a few weeks. And I'm just so thrilled for him to have that opportunity. He was in South America last year, I think. But This is where I'm coming from.

and why I believe domestic mission is so important. is because and why a discipling mission is so important. Because The foreign missions are valuable, but they don't teach a kid how to share the gospel in our culture. It's apples to oranges. You gain an appreciation that you definitely need.

I think it gives you perspective of how blessed we are and all of that encouragement that goes with it. But that does not carry over when you try to share the gospel with a kid who's come up in poverty. Or with a kid who's had no exposure to the gospel. Um Uh with Uh A friend group who's actually hostile. To the gospel, the things that we actually encounter here.

And so by going into these group homes, which are filled with teenagers that are coming from abuse, extreme poverty, many of them are being adjudicated, these kids are coming from out of the hardest places that our culture has to offer. And so we're able to give elbow to elbow. Interaction. where they literally learn how to befriend. Not condescend?

But befriend.

Okay. Kids out of their own culture.

So it's a peer-to-peer ministry opportunity. And we've just, and the other thing is: this is just coming to believe and have confidence in our message. We don't have to apologize for our gospel. Our gospel is powerful, it can change a life. And we've got to believe that.

And so, this tour that we do, literally, it is a gospel process. Practicum. You get to learn it, and then you get to take it and watch it do. what it does. And the idea was I remember many years ago I had taken a group out And at that time I was serving as a chaplain for a football team.

and at a local high school. I remember I was out prayer walking the field before the game started, and we had just come off of one of our trips. I looked up into the stand. And I saw About thirty of my students were up in the stands of the high school And they were sharing the gospel. Mm.

At a high school football game. That's amazing. Yeah, so you see that you see that impact, the boldness to. To be able to share it. Here.

Yeah, on a domestic level, right? Exactly.

And so that's why we do it. And of course, but you look at the numbers now, and we're close to. What, seventy, eighty? Ninety percent of Of the U.S. population, they have no working knowledge.

They have no real relationship with Jesus. We need missionaries here.

Well, we're going to talk more about that. I know you have some statistics on that. We've got Gary up in Virginia. Looks like he might have an answer to the question. Gary, are you there?

Yes, sir. Hey, Gary. What part of Virginia are you out there, Gary? I'm in mathematics. Appomattox.

I'm familiar with Appomattox. Hey, all right.

Well, appreciate you calling in and certainly tuning in to True Talk Live. And what you got you got an answer to the question, the trivia question for me, Gary? Yes, I do.

Okay. I'm thinking of somebody who likes sports. He talked about running the race. Yeah. And he probably would have liked to.

I think he would have liked to have been in the Iwan Olympic Games.

So I'm gonna say it's the Apostle Paul. Oh, that's good. Yeah, I think he wanted to wrestle in his day as well. But, you know, I don't know if he ever had that opportunity or not, but you are correct, Gary.

So you are a winner. And I always like out of curiosity, let me test you just a little bit further. Any idea what the address was? In other words, what book and scripture? Let me really test you here, Gary.

There's a bonus in this if you get it. Yeah. Any idea? Come on, man. Yeah.

It is 2 Timothy.

Well done. That is well done.

Well, we're going to stick a little bonus in in the envelope for you, 2 Timothy 2.15 to be more specific. But now, Gary, just out of curiosity, too, did you watch wrestling up there in Appomattox growing up or anything? I did when I was a child back in the day. I remember. Yeah.

Gene and Ellen Anderson. Oh, yeah. Minnesota wrecking crew, baby. Come on. Yeah, Black Jack Mulligan, I remember him.

Yeah. Johnny Weaver, remember that guy? Yeah, the Mighty Igor. Wow, come on, man. You are crushing it.

The Mighty Igor, Johnny Weaver, right? Johnny Valentine, right? And Wahoo McDaniel. Wahoo. I got to have a match against Wahoo in the Omni in Atlanta.

Did he slap you on the chest? He did. And I can tell you for the record, those chops from Wahoo McDaniel. stung. They stung.

So Well, that's amazing, Gary.

Well, thank you for being a listener to Talk Live as well. Appreciate that. Yes, sir. My pleasure. Thank you.

Well, hey, don't go anywhere. My producer, Nick, is going to get your address from you, so we can mail out an autographed 8x10 telling him who you want it made out to, whose name you want on it. And I'm going to stick a little bonus in there for you as well, okay?

Sounds good. I appreciate it. All right. God bless you, Gary. Thank you for calling in.

Just as an encouragement to Gary, just want him to know that bonus is not going to be a picture of me. And I'm doing you a favor on that, Gary, just so you know, as you're listening out there. Be blessed. Come on. All right.

Well, hey, on that note, let me draw out a second trivia question, and then I'm going to get back to Scott on the need for this domestic missions work that he's doing. Here's a good one here: which is the shortest book in the Old Testament? which is the shortest In the Old Testament. I'm going to give you some choices here. Gay jaw?

Nahum Habakkuk, at least how I'm gonna pronounce it, and Obadiah or Obadiah, which is the shortest? book In the Old Testament.

Okay? Give us a call at 866-4666-8666. 3487884. That's 866. Three, four, truth.

When we come back. We need another winner, and we're going to talk about this. missions work that Scott is with some success stories. We're going to hear about some success stories. Stay tuned.

Truth Talk. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. All right, welcome back. True Talk Live, your host Nick Key Dikoloff here with my tech team partner Scott Reed, and we're talking about domestic missions work here, but while also testing your Old Testament. knowledge, which is the shortest, book in the Old Testament.

Joel? Nahum, Habakkuk or Obadiah, give us a call at 866. Three, four, eight. 7884, that's 866-3525. Three, four, truth.

And Scott, let's speaking of truth. Let's talk about some statistics, some true statistics of The need for what you do. In fact, I think you had said we we were talking off air, or maybe during an interview I was doing with you, that That America apparently has become the number one nation on the planet that now needs missionaries, not send them out like we once did, but now missionaries are coming to America to evangelize America. Very true. And uh it's it's actually kind of scarier than that.

What's happened is Many folks are immigrating. Many of them are actually coming over as believers, and then they get here. And our culture is so dark, many of them actually lose their faith once they get here.

So what many of these countries are doing, they're actually sending missionaries over to preserve their faith if they're going to live in the U.S. Wow. And so you're going into these these uh Facilities? Mm-hmm. That in a wide range of ages.

And so, what do you see in obviously a lot of brokenness and I know some of these places you go, you say they're not there because they don't have parents. Right. Many times the parents are in jail. Um or or it's it's a case of abject poverty. And nobody in the family can actually take care of the kid.

In many instances, these are kids that have been bounced around the foster. The system. But one of the issues that you bump into is if you've got a 17-year-old. And they're they're medicated. Just for behavioural reasons?

That's a hard kid to get out and foster because there's not a lot of foster parents who feel safe. Bringing a kid like that Under their roof, right? Because they could be very hard to control.

So That's why I think these homes and these atmospheres are so important. We're big believers in them. We're big fans of house parents to these folks who do this as a calling. I mean, can you imagine having 15 kids like that? In a cottage with you, and you've got to tell them to brush their teeth, you've got to get their meds into them, you got to take care of their homework, you got to do all of this stuff.

These folks are heroes as far as I'm concerned, the house parents at some of these places. And to me, that's got to be like many things, but you almost need to know you're called to do that. Oh, you would have to do that. In order to survive that. And by the way, the burnout is immense because many do do it and find out.

It's more than they can handle. Yeah, absolutely. And you would be shocked at the number of folks who do this coming out of retirement.

Okay, so they're retired but looking for something to do? It's like they've hit the spot in their life and they're like, it's time for us to give back. And so you'll find a lot of house parents that are actually retired and they're doing this just as a way to give back.

Okay, so give us a quick example of what your team does.

So you get these youth groups, they go on a tour with you. Just give a quick rundown of what that looks like. What you'll do.

So, we're traveling with a live band that, if we can, we're going to make out, we're going to make that band up out of your youth group if possible, and we'll put them with some guys that we bring with us. Uh, they're going to be learning sketch comedy, things of that nature. Uh, there, everybody's actually going to learn how to walk somebody through a plan of salvation. Uh, they're going to learn the do's and don'ts as far as how to interact with kids out of these atmospheres.

So, all of that is going to be taught during our first five days. And we're going to be literally going to really press into Christ in you, you in Christ, you in Christ, hidden in God. We really want you to get centered on your identity and Christ before you go out and try and share this message. But then, we're going to go to each home and we travel with 34 by eight stage platforms, 18-foot lift towers. We this past year, you're hanging forty light fixtures, live sound, all of that.

You as a student, you're going to be trained, you're going to be doing that.

Okay. They do it all. And so we literally present a youth camp. Like the youth camp that you're gonna that you're gonna take your youth group to this year, you're gonna be producing the youth camp at this children's home or at this inner city urban mission or at this rescue mission. Wow.

And how many of these a year will you do? We have five coming up. In December, we're going to be in Orlando at the Orlando Union Rescue Mission. And from there, we're going to be in Atlanta and over Valentine's weekend. These are short legs.

But then over the summer in June, July, and August, early August, we'll be doing three legs. Each leg is 13 days long. And you're currently looking for three youth groups.

So if you're a pastor out there, a youth pastor involved in a youth. Youth group, and you're looking for something for your group to do, man. This would be a great thing to be involved with, right? Honestly, it's it's it's phenomenal. Uh, and you can go to the website 121.life, that's o-n-e-21.life.

All the details are there. Contact me, we can sit down, we'll share coffee, we'll talk about it. And if you've never taken or traveled with your group, that's something that we can teach you how to do, and we will walk you through the entire process. And if you understand missions, foreign missions are expensive, but most domestic mission organizations are very expensive. And once you, I'm not going to give the details here, but once you go to the website, you'll actually see that what we're doing is for what you get, is a great, even it's even a great financial opportunity as far as if you want to get your kids out.

It's not going to absolutely wreck your youth budget for the year.

So you will still be able to take your kids to camp.

Okay. And do this, you'll still be able to pull that off in a financially reasonable way.

Sounds like a good, incredibly rewarding thing for a youth group to be able to do here on a domestic basis, right here in America. Most of the homes we visit at present are in Georgia and in Florida at present.

So quite a bit southeast in that area. And by all means, go check out the website and see if that's something that for next summer, that you're looking for something to do next summer with your youth group, then this may be it. That's why you're listening today. Wait on another caller to give away another 8x10 as well, which is the shortest book in the Old Testament, Joel. Nahum, however.

Habakkuk or Obadiah. Call 866-348-7884. That's 866-34TRUTH. We already gave out an 8x10 to Gary up in Appomattox, Virginia. The state for lovers when you enter into Virginia.

Yeah, so they must have that love thing down up there in Virginia. I guess we missed it, North Carolina. We missed out on it. Yeah, we're the Tar Heel state. How's that work?

Yeah, what a name. Yeah. Tar Heels. Come on. Who came up with that?

Anyway. I grew up a Wolfpack fan. I don't get it. You know, and it takes character to be a Wolfpack fan. Because you haven't had the success, have you?

Yeah, anybody can pull for Duke. They win. Yeah. Right. Yeah, what's up with NC State, man?

I don't know. We have two championships that they won. Two, but we had that, you know, we had that glimmer. What was it? Last year we got in the final four, shocked everybody.

You know, I was reliving 1983 again, which that's all we have. You know, I think you know what you needed. You should have just hired Bill Belichick. That's what, well, no, maybe not. Oh.

Nikita had to go there. He went there. All right, we're moving on. Moving on. Hey, come on.

Come on, call in. What's the shortest book in the Old Testament? I know somebody out there in Listening Land, Truth Talk Live, knows the answer to this question. Is it the book of Joel, Nahum, Habakkuk, or Obadiah, 866-348-7884? That's 866-34TRUTH.

I want you to give us a shout. Give us, before we go to our next break, can you give us a. Just a couple quick examples of just how troubled these teens are. And then when we come back in our final segment, some success stories. But let's give a quick glimpse into.

How troubled some of these teens are? This will be a story, it'll be a success story about how troubled they are. We were at a home in Georgia. The director pointed me to a kid. He had been there for maybe seven days, and he had said he had yet to say a word, but the reason was this.

The reason he was there was because he had witnessed his father had taken a revolver and had shot his mom in the face right in front of him and killed her. Mm. Hmm. We were in the swimming pool. playing water baseball.

with their students. It was an in-between organized activity that we were doing with their students. And I looked over. And I saw this young man. He walked over and he said something to one of our team members, who was one of our guitarists for that leg.

and then he disappeared. He came back about five minutes later walking across the field with a guitar. Old beat-up guitar. He walks in and he sits over with this young man. His name is Sam Cho.

Was our guitarist. Phenomenal kid. And I just sat there and watched them. Get lost in conversation. That actually happened on our second day.

For the rest of our time there, we couldn't get that kid to be quiet. Wow. So just a complete turnaround and transformation for These kids are coming from all over the place. They're coming from tragedy. All kinds of abuse, right?

And all kinds of abuse. Yes, we've actually, there's a home that we used to go to. They actually have a cottage of girls that are being rescued from sex trafficking. These are US born girls, some of them which were actually sold into it. Yeah.

Yeah, which is sagging to wrap your head around here in America that you know you'd sell your own child into sex trafficking and i'll and i'll share this um They say up to 78% of the kids who go to these homes have no working knowledge of the gospel whatsoever.

So when you go to speak there, Jesus is a swear word and the cross is jewelry. Mm. Wow. You can't mention Bible characters. They don't know who you're talking about.

Yeah, so you can't use the typical Christianese when it comes to talking with them, right?

So you've got to kind of talk on. Their language on their level to win them to Christ. Absolutely. That's pretty much it.

Well, when we come back in the other segment, we're going to hear some more success stories. And we have Let's see. I guess we we we have we have time. Do we have time to One minute. All right, Keith over in Mary, North Carolina.

Keith, are you there? Yes, sir. All right, Keith, we just got a minute before break, but you got an answer for our trivia question. Obadiah. Obadiah.

Come on. You are correct. All of how many chapters, Keith? Any idea? 21, I believe.

One. If I counted, right?

Well, 21 verses, one chapter, I think. Yeah. Well, you're in Mary, North Carolina. Wrestling fan, Keith, just out of curiosity. Did you watch wrestling growing up?

I yes, sir, I did when I was younger. Did you cheer me or boo me, Keith? I'm just curious.

So you can be honest here. Rock Truth Talk Live, you booed me, didn't you? I can't remember your name in wrestling.

Okay, but you but you watched wrestling in your early days. Yeah, Johnny Weaver and Brute Bernard and Ole Anderson, all them.

Okay, okay, yeah. I came on. Gotcha. I came on after this on the scene after that.

Well, Keith, don't go anywhere. You're over there in Mary, North Carolina. My producer, Nick, here, is going to get your address. Tell him who you would like the 8x10 to be autographed to, and we'll send that out to you, okay? Oh, you know?

All right. God bless you, Keith. Thanks for listening to True Talk Live. Thank you.

Truth Talk Live You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Hey, we're back here, Tooth Talk Live with Keena Koloff. Partnering here, tagging up with Scott Reid. We've been talking about domestic missions. And man, if you're a pastor out there, youth pastor, youth, part of a youth group, and looking for something to do next summer.

I want you to get a hold of this guy. This may be something that would be an incredible blessing to your church and your community. Not just the fact that you're going to go serve and be able to help these troubled teens and troubled children, you know, those who have come from some very broken situations and learned it, but to go back home, right, Scott, to go back home and implement that. They're going to go through some training with you first and then go out into the mission field. Right.

But then be able to go back home and be able to implement that, put that to work in their own youth group or their own schools, church, community, like just where they live, right? Yes.

And the beauty of them going out as a group with their youth pastor or with their youth workers. is what we find is Yeah. A vision and a dream, it either gets strengthened or introduced. As they're doing this together and they just seem to catch a vision. For when they get back home.

Okay. And I'm just a big proponent of getting your students out. Mm-hmm. I I just just there's just power and heading the road. And because discipleship is more caught than taught.

Right. And there's just something about the rub of community when you're just all on top of each other for 10 to 13 days. If you go on, if you go on tour with us, The first little bit, you're probably going to be sleeping on a floor on an air mattress, all in a room together. Um and all of our meals, we do all home cooked meals.

So we're taking all of our meals together. Once we get on the road, some of the homes we might be staying in a cottage, but we'll be in a cottage together.

Some of the places we go, we're sleeping on the gym floor. where all of our equipment is set up.

So it's very communal. uh which is extremely healthy for a youth group. To walk through or a college group to walk through. Just the interaction with each other. And I would imagine, you know, possibility, opportunities to bond with, you know, maybe you go to the Wednesday Night Youth Group, but you don't really interact or have much of an exchange with somebody.

You're there week after week, but here, as you said, you're under the same roof for 13 days. You're going to kind of get to know somebody on a little different level, right? And that's amazing. And so.

So Give us another story. Give us another. a success story of of a a a troubled teen or or one that Stands out in your mind, pops up. We had, we were in a home Atlanta and Young lady comes in the first night, and we had shared the gospel and If looks could kill. I was actually a little intimidated.

She kind of scared me. She's a big girl. And she came up later that night. after I was done, she walks straight up to me and she just s straight up says, Well, what about the Koran? You didn't say anything about the Koran.

Apparently she was a uh she c can self identified as Muslim. Um Come to find out that they kept her on some sort of mild sedation because the moment it wore off, she just became violent. She just started hitting and punching. Hmm. My daughter at the time my kids were raised doing this, so When we do these tours, my wife, all of my kids, we are all doing it together.

So, my kids have been a part of this from the start.

Well, four four kids. Four kids. They range in age now from everywhere from 16 all the way up to 22, I think.

Okay, and you've been married. How long now? 32. 32. Going on 32, yeah.

So, um, that's amazing. He doesn't look a day over 33. I just want you to know here. Uh, I appreciate that. That's amazing.

So, anyway, 32 years of marriage.

Okay. So, um,. Yeah, so uh we get to our last day.

Well, one of the things that happened was is uh she was enamored of my daughter. She was really small and she kept wanting to hold her Oh, she. And I'm not going to lie. The first time she walks up and she wants to hold our daughter, she's not asking, she's telling. Yeah.

You're like, let me, boy, but a lot of prayer right now. Yeah. Our last day, she actually approached my wife and she traded her Koran in. For my wife's Bible. And we had gotten word over the year, over that past year, because we like to stay in touch when we can, that she had become involved in a ladies' Bible study and was actively participating and had just been doing.

really well. And it was such an encouragement to hear. And I'm guessing, you know, just because I come from a broken home, right? And my dad left when I was. three.

I'm I'm the youngest of four. My dad didn't financially support my mom, so we became a product of welfare. Yeah. And I'm in the projects of Minneapolis, man, what we affectionate call the ghettos of Minneapolis. Wow.

Like just outside, like, like I've been sensed back numerous times and just tried to reflect back on some of those early days. I mean, the Minneapolis skyline is like right there. Yeah. Like, in fact, my mom and I would walk from our projects downtown. we'd walk to downtown Minneapolis.

That's insane. It is. It really is to think about it, going back to to look at. And uh and and I I went and I and I was uh in uh third, third, fourth grade bullied. I had been bullied by and set some things in motion in me.

Sure. You know, and I, Scott, I said, I. I had planned my escape the whole entire day. I planned my escape route home because I was on the, I guess, the top of the list to be beat up next after school or whatever. Wow.

And in racing home, you know, what door I was going to go out as soon as the final bell rang and was going to avoid, you know. These stresses are real on a kid. They are real. And they impact. I mean, they do.

You carry that. It impacted me for years. I didn't even realize until just a few years ago just how much that impacted me, that spirit of fear that kind of followed me around through life. All that said, you know, what felt like, and I found out when I went back and kind of revisited some things, I found out what felt like a two-mile run home was like two blocks. Like.

I'm like, really, really, Lord, two blocks. I've been telling every people all these years. Yeah, I had to run home like two miles, you know, to retell my story. Exactly.

It was like two blocks. But, but the good news is, through a series of things, I won't go into all the details, but it was through some ministry I was able to bring closure. And then the final closure was to be able to go back. Beautiful. The old neighborhood's not there.

I mean, there's housing. There's still Minneapolis housing there, but it's been torn down and rebuilt and all that. But Bryant Avenue is still there where I live. And the elementary school where it happened is still there. And so I was able to revisit that and bring closure, final closure to all of that.

And so some of your success stories, I'm glad to hear you stay in contact with them afterwards and are able to hear some of these stories. Yeah, and you're not always able to do that because the average stay of a kid is like, in some cases, anywhere from two weeks to two months. Many of these kids aren't there for long.

Okay. So, and that's why. Yeah, and that's occasionally you'll get a kid who stays there for years, but that's rare. Again, they're floating in and out of the foster system.

Okay. So, you run into a lot of that. But that's one of the reasons why we're able to go back to the same home again and again and again and again.

So, we really aim to build relationships with the house parents. At these homes because we're pouring into them as well. But it gets us back to the same place.

So if there is a kid who's there the next year, It's just all the better.

So for me, it's like I can't rest when I go into a home. I can't. take it for granted. You're starting all over. And there's just and there's again, no no shortage of broken kids, right?

I mean, and this is the thing: one of the biggest things we're teaching our kids is that people are people. And of course usually there's a large minority population. Um one of the first things that that we do in our training With our team members, because a lot of times we're taking white middle-class kids into these environments. And one of the first things I share with them, I said, I need you to understand something. You're white.

Mm-hmm. And if I catch you... This is what we don't want you to do. We don't want you to condescend. Because that's not loving.

You're not loving when you're condescending because you're up here. You're not going to love until you're eyeball to eyeball. At their level. Yeah, and this is the thing. People are people.

So this is what I want you to do. If I catch you using slang I'm going to pull you aside because you need to understand something. You're bad at it. They're going to see right through you.

So you talk about the things you talk about. You joke about the things you joke about. You be you, as authentically you as you can, and you're going to be shocked how fast you will win a friend. They will trust you way sooner. Even if they don't understand you, even if they think you're silly, they will trust you and be endeared to you sooner if you will just be authentic.

And so for some of these kids, it's kind of their last stop, right? In other words, the courts maybe giving them an option to say, hey, you're going to go to this orphanage, go to this home, or go to juvie, right? Juvenile orphanage. That's a thing, yeah. Detention center.

And I was just recently in Arizona at a juvenile detention center. Wow. And able to minister to a group of kids there and young men, all young men. And uh And you're right, whether it's a juvenile detention center like that, or I've had a handful of times I've been in a prison. Yeah.

Man, if you're not authentic, man, they know it. I mean, they can see right through you in a nanosecond, man, in a heartbeat. They can see right through you. Yeah, when we bring a band in, I let the band know. I was like, listen, we're not playing hip-hop because you're really bad at it.

We're not even going to try. In fact, if you did try, you would just insult them. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. What's your website?

O NE21.life, 121.life. O NE21.life. Man, I want to encourage you, at least for at very least, check out the website. May you know, maybe maybe you're not in a position to partner And take your youth group or send your youth group on one of these trips. Maybe you can support Scott financially and do that.

Be sure to go over to and check out the Get the Truth Radio app, to which at the top of the hour. Check out the It's Time to Man Up and QA with Koloff. And Scott, thanks for being with us today. Thank you so much. Scott Reed, thank you for being with us.

Two Talk Live, your host, Nikita Koloff. Until next time, Jeto Eta. Truth talk.