Truth Warrior University

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Truth Warrior University begins right here, right now, and from one of my favorite places. I can't get too cozy with this place, but it's so good. Cupcake Cuties. Where are we, Dave Compton?

Set it up for us, buddy. We are in beautiful, gorgeous downtown Wahlberg. Cupcake Cuties here on Highway 109. And we just love coming to Cupcake Cuties. I think maybe we have permanent membership here, Steve.

Would you think so? I think we're stockholders. I tell you what, somehow, yeah, a pound of stock or a pound of cake, I don't know, whichever one. Pastor Jay, we've been here for many meetings, and it's neat to be talking about Christ. Set the table, kind of what you're feeling walking here with these other godly men, our Truth Warrior interns, Marcus, Colby, Bo Tucker, other interns that couldn't be here today. But what's your thought? What's your encouragement?

Oh, it's always a blessing to hang out with people who love Jesus, and it's always a blessing to be able to meet here at Cupcake Cuties as well, because you can get a lot of goodies. Are we doing the younger me thing? I'm thinking so. This is the question. Marcus, ask this question. I love it. Wasn't that profound?

Ask this question, and we have some very special people here. Pastor Jay Boyce, Pastor Oaklawn Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, right? Great church.

You're in the middle of EBS, too. Yes, sir. Well, tonight's the last night, but we've had a great week so far. We started our day together at Wednesday in the Word at Dario with a bunch of 50 other guys, and he played the guitar and sang incredible worship.

Then we went through Psalm 23, which was so much fun. We got Max Floyd. Real quick, tell us who Max Floyd is in a sentence or two.

Born and raised on Kodiak Island in Alaska, currently involved at Calvary Day School in leadership and shepherding the students there at Calvary Day School. Thank you, Stu, for having me. To your right, across from me, is Marcus Watson. Who's Marcus Watson, real quick?

Tell everyone who you are, our newest Truth Warrior intern. I'm Marcus Watson. I play basketball at North Carolina A&T. I grew up in Clemens, but moved to Atlanta when I was around 9th grade freshman. Graduated and went to Oklahoma State and then transferred to North Carolina A&T.

All right, awesome. Now, we've got two other Truth Warrior interns. Sir, tell us your name real quick and who you are. My name is Bo Tucker Beatty, and I go to Calvary Day School.

Grew up in Yakkin County and love playing sports. All right, and what about this guy? Who are you, sir, our senior Truth Warrior intern? My name is Colby Hales, but I'm 20 years old.

I'm a junior up at Liberty University. Just spending the summer with Stu, learning a lot and meeting a lot of cool people. We have a profound question, but Colby, I want you to introduce us to the guy that led you to Christ in 2016. He's also one of our special guests here from out of town, from sunny Florida.

You think it's hot in North Carolina right now. Who is this guy here? The guy sitting beside me, his name is Mr. Bonner, but December 12th of 2016, I was in high school and he was my principal, but I was spending a lot of time in his office that year for just being a young dumb kid, but Mr. Bonner led me to Christ in his office on December 12th, 2016, and so I'm eternally grateful for him and so thrilled that he's back in North Carolina and to spend the day a little bit with us, and so I'm very grateful for him. But yes, this is Mr. Bonner. Mr. Bonner, you're munching on what there? Hold that little ice cream cone up. What is on that thing?

This is cappuccino crunch ice cream, the best, the best on a waffle cone. It's good to have you back in North Carolina. We're going to let Marcus Watson ask you a question, and I'd love for all three of you to participate if you would. Pastor Jay, Max Floyd, Mr. Bonner. Marcus, ask him this question, and by the way, there's a cool cliffhanger, a fun little fact about Mr. Bonner we may mention or may not. We need the ratings, Mr. Bonner, so we may have to mention it. Someone at this table cut Michael Jordan from his ninth grade basketball team.

I'm not saying who, but anyway, not yet anyway. Let the listeners guess. This is Truth Talk.

I'm Stu Everson. Truth Warrior University is underway. Our Truth Warrior interns are here.

We have Truth of the Youth also, the first segment of our show each week. But Marcus, ask this question of him, and I want you to give the same answer. I'm going to hand you the mic here, and then we're going to go, and then we'll ask the same thing of Mr. Floyd and Pastor Boyce. Looking back on your life and all the hardships and everything you've done, what is, if you can go back and tell your younger self, what is one thing, what's some advice you would tell your younger self?

And that's a very, very good question. And one answer really stands out to me above all, and it comes to me very, very quickly, and that is to make sure that my life is not a series of performances to try to please God, but my life is one where I know and am confident that I am saved and that Christ is taking care of everything performance-wise that could ever happen for me, and that as a result of that, that my actions and my daily walk is more of a participation in kingdom work than it is a performance trying to please Him. I would tell that to my younger self, and it would save me a lot of grief.

And this is Max, and I would say, and thanks for that question, what a great question it is. And I gave, when you asked me this earlier, the first, my first reaction would be to, as early as possible in life, begin a walk with Christ, as early as possible. I think if I could tell my youngest self, as soon as you walked in the door of a church, as soon as you went to a vacation Bible school, as soon as you heard the gospel for the very first time, never, ever forget that, and then apply it to your lives and live it out because it will radically change your life. On a second note, I would love for someone to have told me, or I would wish I would have known, that when I began chasing after sports, and what God had gifted me at, is that I would turn, I should have, I would have liked to have known about turning my eyes heavenward and giving him the glory for all of it, asking for his help, rather than doing all of this for me. I would love to have had that as my mindset. I think I would have been a better athlete. I think I would have been a better teammate. I think I would have been a better son, friend, because when self is on the throne of your life, like the old crusade illustration, when self is on the throne of your life, it really, things begin to implode. But when Christ is on the throne, then you become the teammate you need to be, you become the athlete, you become the student you need to be. And I wish if I had, if my older self would have told me that, that's what I would have liked to have heard. But thanks again for that question. Jay Boyce here, pastor at Oak Lawn.

That is a great question. I was over here pondering what I would say. I have a lot of, I hate to, I hate to double back on what Mr. Bonner said, but I think that I would, if I could write a letter to dear younger me, I would say put on your running shoes and run away from any kind of unbiblical, legalistic, not trying to be critical, but church life, because I was indoctrinated and grew up. And then what it caused me to do is find my identity in what my pastor thought, or what my, I always wanted to be pleasing to my father and mother and mother, but you grow up into your young adult years, again, wanting to please people so much, that you just forget about what God has done for you. And the verse that comes to my mind is Romans 8, 1, where Paul says, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

And so, yeah, I would say that. I would also tell my younger self to learn the value of hard work early. Get out of bed early. You know, don't waste your life away, sleep until noon. I don't care if it is a Saturday. My dad taught me those kind of things, but, you know, I would reiterate to myself the importance of learning to work hard, because I believe that is important.

Later on in life, you will look back and wish you had. Amen. This is Stu Everson, that is Pastor J, Max Floyd, Mr. Bonner. Great question from Marcus Watson, our Truth Warrior intern.

We have another question from an intern. Let me set this table, though, for you, in case you don't know what is on the table. We have got a combination of this homemade key lime cake, award-winning strawberry cake, carrot cake, and I got this dad's chocolate fudge cake. We're at Cupcake Cuties, and what kind of coffee do you wash this cake down with, Dave Compton?

The one and only Foster Hobbs coffee. Brother Dave, awesome Truth Warrior-like warrior in the full time with us, playing Southern gospel music, leading people to Jesus all over our radio stations, and so honored to serve with him. What a great colleague. I learned a whole lot more from him than he does from me, Dave.

I'd love to take Marcus, and I may borrow your question and throw it at him, too. After that, Colby is going to, as we wrap up here, going to ask a quick question of these guys. Dave, what would you say to your younger self if you could talk to yourself when you were at the Truth Warrior University intern age? I have actually turned that over in my mind stew even before we've had this discussion today because I have often thought what I would love to do different, I would have been more disciplined.

I think I would have been more in God's Word, praying more. But, you know, the thing of it is we can't go back and undo any regrets. And just like Jay mentioned, I have regrets in my life. I think we all do. If we're honest, we have regrets, but we can't go back and undo them.

We can't rewind the tape, so to speak, and record it again. So we have one shot at life, and at age 63, I can tell you, stew, that I want to finish well. So I've been a Christian broadcaster since I was 16 years of age, and at some point I must confess that someone said, oh, if you could only get on that country station. And I thought about that. I thought about that, and God got my attention pretty quick when we were doing a live broadcast with some gospel singing on the air, and we put together a little quartet, me and three other gentlemen, and we were singing the song Learning to Lean, Learning to Lean. And I know that God spoke to me when we were singing Learning to Lean. He spoke loud, and he spoke clearly. He said, son, Christian broadcasting is where I want you. So almost 50 years later, this is all I've done, and I'm so thankful.

Can I share something else? Real quickly, in 2020, my job came to an end, and the day they told me, today's your last day, I had been at that post at WPET 42 years. And as unprofessional as this sounds, I literally cried on that call with four pretty significant people watching me do that on a go-to-meeting call. But God had other plans. I was mentally just, I was a mess, Stu. Stu knows because he was calling me and checking on me and praying with me. And one day, Brother Stu said, well, what if I could buy that radio station and put you back to work?

Long story short, that's what happened to me. And I'm forever grateful, Stu. And as I told Stu, and I've been with Truth almost two years now, I told Stu that it was my greatest achievement coming to work for Truth because I needed to be in this environment. So I praise God for that. Well, there's a letter to myself. Connect with Dave Compton a lot earlier and spend a lot more time with him. But he has been a huge blessing, you can see, to me.

Thank you for sharing that. We've got another real big question from Colby, one of our Truth Warrior interns here at Truth Warrior University. We're going to take a quick break. You're going to meet the man that did a big favor to Michael Jordan. He's sitting here with us, and we're going to talk to him real quick and let that cat out of the bag. Hold on, more coming up right after this.

You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. What are you passionate about? What are you excited for in the kingdom of God? What is the Lord doing in your life? When's the last time someone asked you that question?

Just a simple question. What brings you alive? What makes you come alive for Christ? When's the last time you led someone to Christ? Just heard a powerful story about a guy. He came over and taught a buddy of mine how to play the guitar, and then that buddy of mine encouraged him to pick up the Good Book, and now they're encouraging each other, and God's working in that guy's life, and that guy's actually sitting with us right here. We had a great last segment. If you didn't hear that, go get the podcast and hear about what God is doing and what several of us at this table, that our Truth Warrior interns are sitting here, part of what we're calling Truth Warrior University, at least that's what it's called for now. We've been in all these sessions all day, starting at Dario in Psalm 23, meeting with all kinds of Christian business people and pastors and leaders and guys that have a lot more tread on the tires than us and pouring into these guys here, and we just love our young people. They're the next generation. We're going to be gone on to heaven. Someone's got to keep running the show here, right, guys? So we're grateful for them. You know, when I was younger and broadcasting and the young people came along, I'd kind of get annoyed.

Internship? What are you talking about? I'm busy. I've got to station off the air, and I don't have time to show you how to do this.

I just do it myself. Well, now I'm thinking, wait a second. I'm not getting any younger, Brother Dave. I need to pour into some other people. We need a progeny. We need spiritual disciples. And so that's why I'm tickled to death that these young men are here learning, and we're excited. And one of the guys that led our Truth Warrior interns, one of our guys to Christ is here with us.

He's in town from Florida. So we've got Mr. Bonner, Mr. Floyd, Pastor Jay, and we're at Cupcake Cuties in Wahlberg, North Carolina, recording here on site. And I was going to throw the mic over to Colby Hales, one of our senior Truth Warrior interns, to ask a quick question that we can just pass the mic around to all you guys, okay?

How's that sound? And even we can throw Dave in there, because we all kind of had jaw-dropping moments as he shared some things a second ago that really got me teared up. So here you go, Colby. I'm so thankful to be here today with all of these great guys. There's so much to learn. So the two questions I have to ask are, one, what are you all up to now? Where is the Lord leading you? And then two, what are you most passionate about today? And the Lord has rearranged your passions through life. What is he calling you to right now? And that might line up with what you're doing now. But yeah, Mr. Bonner, you can start with it.

Well, that's a great question. And what I'm up to right now is an associate pastor at a church in Winter Garden, Florida, called Mosaic Church. And basically what it entails is, the title is discipleship pastor. What I'm responsible for in no uncertain terms, really, is Christian education and leading discipleship groups, both men groups and women groups. And it's really, I couldn't be more honored that God has chosen me to step into that.

I couldn't be more humbled because I somehow don't feel prepared to do that. But God said, go. And he has given us a lot of success in that arena. And they've seen a lot of spiritual growth happen in people's lives. So God gets the glory for that.

What am I specifically passionate about? Is discipling men. And just seeing men die to themselves, seeing men own their own mistakes, their own weaknesses, because we all have them. Let's don't kid around. We all stumble. We all fall. We're broken people. Thanks to Adam and Eve.

We inherited that. So first of all, begin by humbly owning that, our problems, and then giving them back to God and saying, okay, God, forgive me, use me. I confess these. Help me to repent and help me to move forward and live the life that you've called me to live. As a husband, as a father, as a neighbor, as a worker in every arena of life, watching people come alive in their spiritual lives. That's what I'm passionate about. Okay, this is Max Floyd continuing with a question about what am I currently doing now and then what am I passionate about.

Is that correct, Colby? So what am I currently doing now? I've been at Calvary Day School for five years. I just completed my fifth year as a teacher there. But I'm transitioning into an administrative role. So instead of having 80 to 100 students, 60 to 100 students each day coming through my classes, and now it is expanded to where I am now the shepherd, so to speak, overseer of every student, seven through 12 at Calvary Day School.

And the title, I guess, is dean of students now. And so I'm in charge of all the touch points that students will be involved with. I'll be interested in the coach's relationship with the student. I'll be interested in the teacher's relationship with the student. I'll be interested in the cafeteria's relationship and touch point with the student.

I'll be interested in the administration registrar. All the touch point and students with students. And so I'm interested in all those kind of touch points and as the dean of students, that will be my charge. What I'm passionate about right now, I think, is that, like Dave, is that I want to finish well. And I think that what I'm passionate about now is that every opportunity, as I'm looking across this room right now, it's not by chance all these people are in front of me. God has sovereignly had people cross my path, whether it's a plumber, whether it's a woodworker, a flooring crew coming through, whether it's a stew in front of me, whether it's a student intern. There's something about every episode and God is looking at me and basically saying, there they are, Max, and you've got the story, you've got the truth, and what are you going to do with that?

You can say goodbye, you can talk about the latest sports event, you can talk about the weather, or you can talk about the most important thing that will transform their lives. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. And Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. Jesus said, I, he who has me has life, he who does not have me does not have life. I have come that you might have life, I might have it more abundantly. So see, I have that message and now every kind of, some would say serendipity, someone would say that was just a chance meeting. No, I see as every kind of meeting with people as almost an ordained appointment now that God has given me the boldness and courage and some knowledge now through paying attention in Sunday school, you know, all those years and that now I can help them maybe along the way. So that's what I'm the most passionate about and I pray that that will continue.

Thanks for that question, Colby. Okay, Pastor Jay here. Where I'm at right now, I'm the pastor at Oklahoma Baptist Church.

It's in Winston-Salem. I've been at Oklahoma for almost 12 years. I started there as the worship pastor and I became the youth pastor. Then I was the worship and youth pastor together but in 2015, I became the pastor there. I still lead worship to just about every Sunday but that's what I'm doing, what I'm passionate about. Obviously, I want to see people come to Christ. I really am passionate about that. I'm passionate about God's word. I love to teach God's word.

It's really probably the most favorite thing that I do. That and then my relationship with the Lord and then right behind that is my family. I've got two boys.

One is 21. He's a junior in college. I just want to continue to see him surrendering his life to the Lord.

I'm blessed that he has so far. I've got an almost 12-year-old boy. Raising boys is a big deal. I'm passionate about seeing both of my boys serve the Lord. This is not too important in the scheme of life but I'm very passionate about the Atlanta Braves.

Big time. Dave Compton, what are you passionate about, brother? I'm passionate about what I'm doing in Christian broadcasting, wanting to make a difference. I pray that I am. It's my lifelong dream of being a broadcaster student.

That's what I want to continue to do. You and I, we're about to walk into some new avenues. Something that's coming up that we really can't talk about right now but I'm saying yes to the Lord. Lord, I'll go. I'll go. I'll go.

I'll do that. So I'm just going to keep on keeping on and I desire all of you gentlemen here at this table to pray for me. I just want to be a vessel. I want to be used. I want to be humble.

I want to be God-honoring. And I remember many years ago, my son is almost 40. He'll be 40 in a few weeks. When he was a young teenager, we don't know exactly what happened but he ran away from home. He ran away from home. My wife called me. I left my job, came home.

We were looking everywhere for him. And all of a sudden, I got to live what the prodigal son's dad lived. I looked and from afar off, I saw my son with a backpack and he was coming home. He was coming home.

And oh, what a reunion that was for my boy to come home and to hug him and to tell him and assure him that we loved him. So I want to be used in that capacity to just help see others home. Awesome. Well, let's wrap this segment up by asking our Truth Warrior interns real quick. I'm going to go to Bo, Colby, and then Marcus. The biggest thing you've learned today, all day long you've had people pour in from you, from pastors to worship leaders to adventurers seeking dean of students at schools.

And you've had anywhere from guys at big motor sports companies, executives. What's the biggest thing you've learned today? Just tell us real quick as we wrap it up. I would say the biggest thing that I've learned today is mistakes that you made in your past, you have to let go and move on from them and continue what you're doing. I would say something very similar to that, but also when you face trials of many kinds, leaning into your trials and knowing that God is using those to develop something bigger and better in your life. We might not always understand what those specifically are, but just acknowledging that God has a plan and it's in his character to continue to lead and guide you throughout his plan and get you through the other side.

So, yeah, that would be my big takeaway. Marcus Watson, for me, knowing that forgiveness is a major part of life, moving on and just being able to forgive and forget because if you hold on to something, really just holding yourself back, just forgiving yourself and then forgiving people that do you wrong because not everybody's right and so you're not even right yourself. So we're all just trying to seek God and I feel like that's one of the most important things, just being able to forgive and move on and just knowing that sometimes you're going to be lonely. Like I said earlier, it's just like in those times when you're really lonely, that's the times where you really find yourself and find out who you are supposed to be. That's the fire that you need to move forward. And so I feel like that's one of the most important things I learned today.

All right. That does it from Truth Warrior University at Cupcake Cuties today. Who knows where we'll be next time. Remember the truth warrior verse.

John 832. You shall know the truth. The truth shall set you free. Now say it with everyone loud. You shall know the truth. The truth will set you free.