Digital Social Hour - From 24 to CEO: How I Built a Thriving Church & Career | Pastor Lucas Miles DSH #1046

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

From starting a church at age 24 to becoming a CEO, Pastor Lucas Miles shares his extraordinary journey of faith, leadership, and unwavering conviction. 🙏 Get an insider's look at how he built a thriving church in Indiana while standing firm against cultural pressures and maintaining biblical truth.   In this powerful conversation, discover how Pastor Miles navigated challenging times, including losing half his congregation for speaking biblical truth, and emerged stronger than ever. Learn about his innovative approach to church leadership, his perspective on modern challenges facing Christianity, and his mission to help other pastors stay true to their calling.   As the Senior Director of Faith at Turning Point USA, Miles reveals his strategy for combating wokeism in churches and shares candid insights about maintaining authenticity in ministry. Whether you're interested in faith, leadership, or building something meaningful, this conversation offers practical wisdom for anyone seeking to make an impact while staying true to their values.   Watch now for an honest, unfiltered discussion about faith, leadership, and standing strong in challenging times. This episode is packed with practical insights for both spiritual and professional growth. 🎯   #ChurchLeadership #Faith #Leadership #Ministry #Christianity #PersonalGrowth #Success   #ministrystaffing #turningpointfaith #churchgrowth #churchelders #pastoralleadership   CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Eradicating Wokeism 00:33 - Involvement with TPUSA 02:27 - Wokeism in the Church 05:42 - Politics and the Church 09:35 - Discipleship vs. Celebrity Culture 13:28 - Qualifications for Pastors 16:27 - Bible and Cannabis Perspectives 19:15 - Debating Atheists 21:00 - Gen Z's View on Religion 22:54 - Engaging Younger Generations 23:51 - Addressing Ageism 25:10 - Keeping Ego in Check 26:54 - Finding Lucas Miles   APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail]   GUEST: Pastor Lucas Miles https://www.instagram.com/mrlucasmiles   LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/

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sportsbook worth a celly, and an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I know a big thing of your messaging is eradicating wokeism, right? Yeah, you know, it's interesting. Wokeism kind of very sneakily snuck into the church. And in many ways, I think that the church was actually the first place that it came into.

But we start seeing early Christian socialists as far, you know, as late as the 1700s. There's a lot of bad actors. There's actually some dark money that's going into Christian organizations. It's a pretty sinister thing when you look at it all around. And I think the more we can educate people what the Bible says, the more they're going to be able to recognize sort of these false gospels when they're presented. All right, guys, got Pastor Miles here. We're at AmericaFest. It's his third one, my first. Thanks for coming on today, man.

Hey, thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Absolutely. How did you and Charlie Kirk first get together? Yeah, so Charlie and I met probably about maybe three years ago originally. I actually had first had him briefly on a podcast show that I did, kind of on the tail end of COVID, I guess it might have been four years ago now. And, and then I spoke, we didn't interact super long though. And I spoke at one of the pastors conferences that TPSA faith put on. And it was one of the other staff members had brought me on stage, Charlie had never heard me kind of

on my own speak before. And afterwards, he, one of his other staff members had brought me on stage. Charlie had never heard me kind of on my own speak before. And afterwards, one of his team kind of called me back to meet with him. And he's like, hey man, loved it. He's like, we want to get behind you. How do we support what you're doing? And so about the last year and a half or so, we've been working together on a couple of different projects. I've been on a show a few times, did a Freedom Night with him in Phoenix, where he interviewed me in front of about 1500 people.

And then I knew that there was a vacancy in the faith role for the, the head of faith for turning point. And I told him, I said, look, if you need me to vet anybody, I've been a senior pastor for 20 years at the same church. I had no intention of going anywhere, doing anything different. And I would have told her I was kind of unemployable. I've only worked for myself, you know, really. So I said, if you need me to vet anybody you're looking at or considering,

just let me know. And so he reached out to me around the 4th of July this summer. And he's like, Hey, I got somebody. I was like, who is it? And he's like, it's you. And I'm like, wait a minute, what? And I was not, I was not ready for that at all. And so my wife and I prayed about it.

I still pastor a church in Indiana, near the University of Notre Dame. And then I commute to Phoenix. So we're doing kind of the two state thing for the first time here ever. It's been incredible. Both teams have been super gracious, you know, with kind of understanding that I have a foot in both worlds. But I'm full time here at TPSA Faith as the senior director. Got a team of about 30 people right now helping to change the really the landscape with churches across the country and get pastors preaching the word of God again and engaged on these social issues.

I love it. I know a big thing of your messaging is eradicating wokeism, right? So where are you seeing that where it's problematic the most right now? Yeah, you know, it's interesting wokeism kind of very sneakily snuck into the church. I don't think that people were looking for that or expecting that. And in many ways, I think that the church was actually the first place that it came into. When you go back in history, I mean, I could go back in my most recent book, it's called Woke Jesus, I go back starting in the 1700s and kind of working my way forward of how wokeism sort of found its way in. And of course, at that time, it was not called wokeism. It was just progressive thought. But we start seeing early Christian

socialists as far, you know, as late as the 1700s. And so this has been a slow thing that's happened. The universities that started in this nation that were predominantly created for raising up clergy, places like Harvard and Yale and Princeton, they now are sort of like the beacon of woke thought and progressivism today. They started as theological training centers and that got usurped over time.

And so in more recent years, I think the church in a desire to really kind of do the social justice thing grabbed a hold of critical race theory, we grabbed a hold of, you know, all these different ideologies, and it just kind of keeps evolving. But there's a lot of bad actors, there's actually some dark money that's going into Christian organizations to try to fund them and push this sort of idea. And so it's a pretty sinister thing when you look at it all around, but you know, we're really trying to stamp that out, bring, you know bring light and attention to it.

I've written a couple of books on the subject, probably done, gosh, probably sent her 50 interviews on major platforms around the country addressing this, but we still got a lot of more work to do because there's still Christians that I think can't recognize it. And I think the more we can educate people with what the Bible says, the more they're going to be able to recognize sort of these false gospels when they're presented. I love that. Yeah, there was a lot of negative PR on the church, right, with the back of churches, especially. Yeah, I think that that created a lot of sort of skepticism, right? And so, you know, you start seeing

whether it be the pastor that has the affair or some scandal comes out from 20 years ago or it's a financial thing or, you know, the pastor's, you know, using a gold toilet and everybody else is in an outhouse kind of situation. And I think that all of that really kind of makes people look at Christianity and goes, is this really what I want to be part of? But look, the individual expression of any given pastor is not a representation of the trustworthiness of the gospel or the truth of scripture. I think that we have to allow the word of God and Christ to stand on their own.

I want to be the best witness for Jesus that I can, but I'm going to tell you up front, I'm not going to do it perfectly. If I falter, that doesn't mean that God failed. Get ready for Las Vegas style action at bed MGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for. When you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat, and Roulette

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celebrity pastor mindset. They put their faith in a particular person rather than in Christ. I think as believers, we have to keep pointing people back to Jesus instead of an individual. Right, because you were part of a church that had over 20,000 attendees, right? So, no, not my individual church. I've spoken in churches, you know, like that. I have a lot of friends and pastors in that space, but no, I've been a pastor at the same church for about 20 years. We're in South Bend, Indiana. It's a triple majority red state, but we are a very blue county. So we were going up against Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

So our church is much smaller than that in size, but we've really become a beacon in our area of, I think just what it means to stand strong and bold and brave in time like this. I love it. Did you involve politics in the church? What's your opinion on churches talking about politics? Yeah, so I got a great story on that.

So I, in 2015, 2016, as we were kind of going into the first Trump presidency, look, I've been a conservative really my whole life. I flirted with Christian socialism early on and thankfully I had some people that pulled me out of that. So I know how the allure that it has. But I did a series in 2015, kind of rounding the corner in 2016 on, I called it, What does the Bible say about, very simple. And then for eight weeks, we did a different word at the end of that. What does the Bible say about socialism versus capitalism?

What does it say about open borders versus secure nation? What's it say about sexuality? What's it say about marriage? And we just went through and just biblically, I just begin to kind of unpack what scripture offers on all those various topics. And in eight weeks, I lost half of my people from my church and half of my donors from my church.

Wow. And so you have a, you know, this is, and this is why I think it's so important that in my role in speaking to pastors around the country, I've got 3,500 pastors right now that were, you know, that were deeply engaged in their lives. I think that list is going to double or triple in the next, you know, two years. And, and the, you know, when I'm talking to pastors around the nation, I think it's important that they know that, look, I'm still a pastor myself. I'm still in the pulpit. The things I'm asking you to do, I have done myself and I've paid the price of being bold and being brave and being free, you know, in this. But here's what I'll tell you is we've grown back several times since then. We're the best position

we've been financially. We're stable. You know, we've got great place of ministry is God's rewarded. I think that obedience, you know, in preaching the word and, and although it was painful at the time, I would tell any pastor that it was worth it to speak truth, even if it meant losing people. I think we have a lot of pastors. I always say there's three types of pastors. There's true pastors. They're obvious. They're preaching the word of God. They're, they're legit. Then we have traitorous pastors. They are usually pretty easy to sniff out. These are guys that have bowed the knee to Marxist agendas and everything else instead of preaching the word of God. The middle category though,

is where it's a little messy. I call these guys, I call them the trembling pastors and those are the pastors that are kind of, they're not sure. They might align themselves ideologically with the truth, but they're afraid to speak out. They're afraid of what it's going to mean, or they're going to lose people if they do, or they're going to lose revenue if they do. I mean, I talked to a pastor here recently in a major city in the US. He's got a $47,000 a month lease payment on his bill. Wow. You know, and that's not extravagant. It's just that's the size of building they need for their church in a very expensive area of the country that they're in. And, you know, he's

going, he's doing the math. What happens if I bring Lucas Miles or Charlie Kirk into preach on a Sunday morning like does that mean that I end up losing people or offending somebody you know and look my goal is never personally offend anybody but I think the word offends people when you present truth in a very like straightforward way Jesus presented you know grace and truth and I think that has to be a bed rock of our message but they're doing the math there and going man is this is this something I should really it kind I take the chance here or not? And a lot of these guys are trembling and they're, they're,

there's a story in the Bible about Gideon who's hiding in a wine press, you know, because he's afraid of this neighboring army that's coming against him. And that's where the angel Lord meets them. And I think we need some pastors that they need to hear from God in that midst of hiding and go, look, rise up, you value a warrior. Like it's time to get out there. It's time to make this happen. Yeah, it's interesting times, because you see the headlines of church attendance is down.

But at the same time on social media, it seems like Christianity is getting so much support and engagement. Yeah, you know, look, I think that we're going to start seeing those numbers change. I'm optimistic. That doesn't mean there's not going to be a lot of work to do. You're absolutely right that we have more Bible sales we've

ever had before. I mean, there's a lot of great stats. but then you see a stat like a couple years ago, Pew Forum put out that only 24% of church-going Christians believe that the Bible is the inerrant, authoritative Word of God. So that means that 76% of people in church on a Sunday morning at any given time don't believe that the Bible is the Word of God. They think it's like, okay, it's good teaching or some of it's inspired, but some of it's not, you know, they have all these mixed views on it. And so I think that it's so important that this is where we really just doubled down

on discipleship. And in our, in kind of this celebrity culture, this is interesting too, because, you know, you and I probably have some mutual friends, I imagine if we start going through our Rolodex here, of people that are, these are, these are like, you know, household names in many cases, especially among younger generations that have like come to christ recently and but they haven't been fully discipled yet and so they're kind of going through this navigation i think there's a lot of pastors that see you know you go to a place in la where you got a celebrity that ends up at a church the pastor's almost become get ready for las vegas style action at bet mgm the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for.

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If I speak too much into Justin Bieber's life and talk to him about what he really needs to hear, is he going to stay? You know, and I'm not just using him as an example, but like, you know, you have that sort of thing where like, how honest can I be? Where I just a normal everyday non-celebrity that comes into your church, you worry about that less.

So they're actually getting discipled better because you're giving them the truth without that hesitation. I think it's very important that those pastors in the nation, those of us that have influence with major celebrity figures or social media influencers or whatever, that we build rapport with them in such a way that we can say the hard things and say, look, I love you. I love your platform. I love what you're doing, but bro, you need disciples a little bit more and you need somebody to come alongside of you and really teach you the most excellent way in the word of God so that you don't start becoming a teacher

and yourself overconfident in these things and then causing a lot of people to fall back into some sort of error or falsehood. That makes sense. Is that the biggest issue you're seeing right now with pastors they're afraid to speak out? I think generally afraid to speak out. Obviously the celebrity social media thing that not everybody's dealing with that exact same way but that's more and more as platforms are blowing up. But I think just the fear to speak out I think is there for sure and there's a lot of bad information.

People are like, oh, I'm going to lose my 501c3 if I talk about politics. No church has ever lost their 501c3 ever. And so that's not a thing. Nobody has ever spoken out about politics and had their 501c3 taken away. And so I always tell people the best thing that could ever happen would be the IRS showing up to my church

and taking away my 501c3. I would be on national news the next my church and taking away my 501c3. I would be on national news the next day and our church would blow up. I mean, it would be amazing. And so I'm like, look, if you want it, come and get it. You know, like, please, please come and take my 501c3 away. Obviously, we're not intentionally trying to violate that. You know, we but but look the word if you just preach the word of God, you're going to deal with every social issue your people are going to, you know, if you just look at like a primary doctrine like God is creator. When I understand properly that God is a creator,

it helps me understand marriage. It helps me understand sexuality. It helps me understand gender. It helps me understand just created order, role relationships, all these sorts of things are summed up in this creative order that God put together as he himself, the creator. And so if we just kind of get back to teaching the Word, a lot of these other issues We're gonna be our people are gonna be equipped on but I think that pastors

They've just become cowardly in many cases and many of them have just been they've been themselves raised up in progressive Bible colleges They don't actually agree with the Bible not every pastor has a biblical worldview So we kind of take that as a I think think, for granted at times that a pastor, well, he's a pastor, he should have a biblical worldview. A lot of these guys are woke themselves. And so, you know, I think that we have to really expose and root out. We're actually working on a platform right now within TPUSA faith where we're calling it the American Pastor Project. So we're going to be going around the country calling on pastors and getting them to sign a biblical, you know, kind of a doctoral commitment. It's super high level.

It should work with every denomination. It doesn't require you to drill down at a micro level. Basically just says, I believe in historical biblical Christianity and I'm going to work to eradicate wokeism from my pulpit. And what church in America, if they're biblically minded, should not be willing to make that commitment. So we're going to start learning who is kind of on the side of truth and who's not. We're putting a map together where you could find churches, you know, that are in your area that are partnered with us

and everything else. So when people call or Charlie goes on air and says, Hey, if you're looking for a church, head over to this and check it out. So that's gonna be rolling out in 2025. Very excited about that. That's a good idea. It reminds me of this one app I use called Seed Oil Scout.

Have you heard of that? No, I haven't. So it's like a health app, but it tells you if the restaurant uses bat marines, basically. And it's everyone in the country. I need to get that one because I'm pretty anal retentive on that stuff. So that's good. Yeah, that's good man So what are the qualifications to become a pastor? How rigorous is it? Love it?

So, I mean obviously a different denominations have their different take But I think what matters to me the most is what the big what the Bible says about this, right? And so I think that first of all, you have to have a calling, you know If somebody's going into ministry because they're like, oh, I think this is a great way to get seen or this is a great way To make a buck or this is a great way to you know, or this is a great way to make a buck, or this is a great way to kind of grow my audience, those are all the wrong reasons to go into ministry. You have to have a calling. You have to know that God is saying, look, Lucas,

you know, when I really first got a call in my life for to go into ministry, I was about 15 years old. I was at a youth conference. There was a, I prayed 1,200 students. This pastor stands up on stage and he says, look, I really believe that the Lord is going to lay somebody's name on your heart. And that that person, when you get home, that they're going to need a, they're going to need a phone call. They're going to need somebody to pray for them. Just reach out to them and

see why God's put their name on your heart. So I just kind of, you know, I was new to, fairly new to my faith and just kind of going through the motions, you know, and, and God puts this girl's name on my heart. I home and I was you know, I was 15 I was scared of girls. I was awkward man. I was like I was like, hey this gonna seem weird I think I got her number out of my yearbook and I was like this gonna seem weird But I was at this conference and your name came to mind she was kind of goth You know sort of like, you know, very like alternative culture at the time and I said like, you know I don't know what you're gonna think about this

But like I feel like I'm supposed to pray for you is anything I pray for you about you know Just kind of awkwardly stumbled through it and she goes she just starts crying and she goes what day was that I said it was Wednesday she loses it and I go what's going on she goes what time and I go 830 and and she just like weeping on the phone and I'm you know I'm going man what I what am I doing you know I don't even know how to what's going on here finally get her to kind of settle down for a second and I said what's happening and she goes my family got a call 8 8.30 on Wednesday night

that her older brother had jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and killed himself. Whoa. And it was at the exact time that God laid her name on my heart that their family had received this call. I don't know what I said at that moment. I don't know how I ministered to her. I was probably in shock myself.

But what I knew when I walked away from that is that God spoke to me. And since that time, the bedrock of my ministry has really been that I know that God has a call on my life to preach the gospel. I started preaching at 17 years old. And whether people pay me or don't pay me, this is what I do.

This is what the mission of my life is. It's not my business, it's not my job. I would be working with churches, whether Charlie was paying me to work with churches or not. This is just a call my life So this you have to consider the cost you have to you know You and then you have to recognize that that that that my life is your life is gonna be scrutinized if you're in ministry You know, there's certain things that I don't do that

I know biblically I have the freedom to do that I just know it's gonna cause people to think about me differently really, you know or to do in that way So, I mean even something like alcohol like I believe that somebody is free to drink. I have pastor friends that drink. I don't have any theological issue with that. But I know in my own life, I don't want somebody to say, well, you're only preaching the grace of God so that you can do X, Y or Z. I try to live in a way where I limit my freedoms for the sake of giving life to other people. And that has protected me, I think, from a lot of things, you know, in life. Yeah. Gotta avoid cancer culture, right? Right on. Right on. What's the Bible's take on cannabis?

Cannabis, that's an interesting take, or interesting question. So my personal opinion is that, you could look at this a couple of ways. We could say, hey, follow the laws of the land. If it's legal in this place, there's people that would try to justify it that way. For me, I think it's a little bit

more black and white than that. I think that for me, I would never encourage a Christian to do anything that is going to take their mind into a into some sort of distorted place. I think that if you know, if you're using, you know, certain product cannabis products that are for medical purposes, and they're finding benefits for cancer treatments, and they're finding benefits for those sorts of things, there's ways to be able to get the benefits that they have, I think, without the hallucination, without the kind of the high that comes with that. And so I think that there's a lot of justification regarding cannabis products in the name of trying to work our different angles here to make it work. If they have benefit, they can have benefit without the high. You don't have to have the THC in it in order to get those other benefits. That has virtually no, you know, therapeutic benefits the way that the other parts of the product might.

And so personally, I would stay away from it and would take probably a little straighter edge with that. That makes sense. You've never tried it? No, I haven't. All right. Yeah, haven't had it at all. So it's, I've been around, I had a lot of friends that,

and people that probably thought I was a pothead in school because I had so so many of my friends smoked weed growing up, but I just said I kind of had you know, shaggy long hair with them and but no I Mean I gotta call my life very early and very thankful the Lord, you know I actually felt like I always had a boring testimony because I just like been walking with the Lord for a long time But in hindsight God has really spared me from falling into a lot of stuff a lot of problems I see other people that I know and and I'm just very grateful that God really protected me along the way, you know, from some of that. Yeah, young age for sure, 15. A lot of people don't get a call until much later. Yeah, yeah.

Dean might be one of the youngest I've heard actually. Yeah, I planted the church actually that I'm still pastoring. So I just turned 45. I started the church I'm still pastoring at 24. Whoa. So I've been a senior pastor for over 20 years now in South Bend, Indiana there. And it's been absolutely amazing. And so that's something that's really helped shape

my ministry and calling. Yeah, that's incredible. That's the youngest pastor I've ever heard, 24. Yeah, it's a cool dynamic though to bring to the older crowd. I appreciate it. It's interesting, because a lot of our congregation is like, watch me grow up.

So we've had people have been there a long time. And so it's been pretty amazing to see that and be part of it. Now I'm kind of in that middle phase where, and honestly, my 40s have been incredible. I think that there is a new level of respect that people kind of, you just kind of cross into at that age of 40 that I was used to being the young guy in the room kind of fighting for that level of respect.

And so I'm really grateful for where I am and the role that I have here with Turning Point. But it's been absolutely incredible. I'm looking forward to the years ahead. Yeah. What's your approach with skeptics like atheists and stuff? Do you ever debate them? Do you get them in the time of day? Yes, I'm doing more and more of that. I actually would like to jump in that a bit more. I was a philosophy, religious studies major, and so I'm pretty familiar with a lot of different backgrounds. I've read a lot of Hindu books like Bhagavad Gita. I've looked at other religions along the way. I think that Christianity has proven itself

over the last 2,000 years. There's a reason why people have not been able to refute it or really be able to cancel it in fullness. It always rises back up. So I think that those are the conversations the church needs to be engaging into more. I love, you know, my guy like Bryce Crawford who's out there just kind of, you know, doing content on the street and, you know, talking to atheists and Satanists and all these different. But like, look, that's more and more common.

The book I'm writing right now is actually on paganism. And, you know, there is this resurgence of paganism in our nation. And I think that we have to be willing to have those hard conversations. And there's a way to do so with still treating people with dignity and love, you know, I'm not for going in there and just name calling and blasting them and everything else, but having a real conversation and go, okay, so let's talk about what you believe. Let's why did you get there? How did you, why did you turn away from your faith in Christianity? What does that look like for you? And I think that, you know, just being able to have an answer for every question

that people ask you is so critical. And it's, it's kind of a lost art in the Christian world today. I love that take and I think that's why conservatives really won this election. We were willing to have these debates and conversations. You saw on the other side of things they were not willing to debate. Yes. Oh yeah. You just like the screaming or just the name calling, all of this. And then you have a guy like Charlie who's out there just who's willing to be calm and

willing to ask questions, willing to engage people. And obviously there's some people that make it harder than others You know if they're just gonna be super belligerent or whatever But to me like if somebody's willing to say like hey, let's sit down and have that conversation. I Think that that is I think people see that I think they appreciate it And and I think that's a great opportunity for Christianity and for conservatism to shine. Absolutely What are you seeing with my generation and how they view religion as a whole? Yeah I think that there's an age of skepticism really right now that's happened.

You know, when you look back philosophically, I actually was just sharing with somebody else about this, that you know, you look back whether it's Aristotle and Plato or, you know, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, you have this, anytime there's sort of like two polarizing ideas that clash together, and now we have, you know, red versus blue, Democrat versus Republican, progressive, you know, or Marxist versus, you know, conservative. And I think that people that are outside of politics, look at that and they don't even know what to think. They're like, man, you guys are just all arguing

all the time, I'm just pulling back from everything. And what did COVID teach us? You can't trust doctors, you can't trust teachers, you can't trust pastors, you can't. And so there's this whole long list where, you know, people are just looking at, who can I trust anymore? And I think that that is, it initially becomes a really, like this age of skepticism that can become very dark.

And I think we've seen that with a lot of people, rise of school shootings, all this sort of stuff that's going on, rise of, you know, dependence upon antidepressants and, you know, anti-anxiety drugs and everything else that's out there. But I think that where that can lead to is it can lead

to basically people throwing their hands up in the air and just saying, what else can I do? There's gotta be a solution. And what happens when people tend to get that place is they tend to start looking up. And I think that's where they find the Lord. And so sometimes when society kind of gets to its most hopelessness,

that's an opportunity for God to move. I could see that. Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of guys my age in their 20s, like almost like lost, no sense of purpose. Yes. No sense of direction. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's where the church has to do a good job of coming alongside of people. You know, I worked on a book with Dr. George Barna and a few others called Helping Millennials Thrive. You know, I'm a technically kind of a young Gen Xer. So I was born in 79. So I'm right at the tail end of Gen X, like kind of the last year before Millennials. And so I kind of relate to that older millennial young Gen Xer sort of

feel, but I've got a lot of nieces and nephews and kind of the Gen Z range as well. And so I spent a lot of time, you know, in that world. Um, one of the things that I think I have seen is that, um, that ideas from younger generations are very quickly dismissed. So for instance, there's a, there's, you know, we have kind of that Greta Thunberg, you know, generation where it's, it's sort of like, what are we doing for the environment? If we don't a there's you know, we have kind of that Greta Thunberg, you know generation where it's it's sort of like What are we doing for the environment if we don't change it? The whole world's gonna implode and all this sort of thing and instead of like listening to people and having a conversation

They just are quickly dismissed. Well, you're this or that and instead I think I think what needs to happen there Say look, I love that you want to have such a great stewardship for this earth I love your heart for the beautiful things that are around us. I think that's so valuable. In fact, did you know that scripture actually talks about some of that and that we are called not to worship the earth, we're called to be stewards of the earth. Here's what good stewardship looks like that we can kind of redirect them into a biblical worldview rather than just doing a hard stop and then rejecting their ideas. There's some element of truth that they're actually touching on.

They just don't have the full picture. So we have to be able to help them cut away, you know, falsehood and agenda from what is actually sound and wisdom filled, you know, in their approach. Yeah. I love that ageism, right? Yeah, absolutely. I've met people younger than me that are way smarter than me.

Certain top. Under, I do that on a regular basis. Honestly. Yeah. 100%. I've literally met teenagers these days that are just super bright. Like some of the millionaires, South Mid. There's two kids over here doing a podcast show,

and they're like, I swear they're like eight and 10. And they're hosting their own show. It's awesome. And I look back, I wish I would have had some of those opportunities. I mean, I think that the opportunities that young people are getting today to start building a platform young. But here's the key.

You have to have humility in the process. It's easy once you start looking at your follower account grow, you know, you get to the point and I'm sure, you know, you've probably fought this in some world like, okay, I got a million people, I got 10 million people, or I got whatever that's following you. And then you start, it's easy to just kind of take that echo chamber that's around you and go, I got it all figured out. Everybody loves me. Everything I say is true. And I think we have to be able to go, look,

I'm thankful for the platform I have. I want to use this appropriately, but I want to steer people towards truth. The Word of God says in Romans 3, 4, this is, let God be true in every man a liar. And I think what people like fail to realize is sometimes my own emotions or my own mind is the liar. And I need to be willing to kind of take all of that back to conform it to the Word of God and say, look, this, I want to guide people towards truth and not just fall into kind of my own pattern or my own way of thinking. It's really about elevating his way of thinking. Yeah. Has that helped you keep your ego in check that way of thinking?

Gosh. Yeah. And I think that, um, you know, I really feel grateful that I feel like I've been able to kind of stay down to earth and kind of the whole process of my trajectory as a career, you know, as a pastor, especially, I mean, every week you get done preaching, you know, you have people come up to you, Oh, you changed my life. Thank you so much. I love that, you know, and it's kind of, you almost have to not even hear that. Like, I'm grateful that they're saying it. I'm thankful for them. But I really just try to immediately go,

that's God, that's God. That's not me. That's God. And I don't, I don't want a false humility either. You know, there's a very interesting verse. A lot of people haven't thought about this. So the Bible says that Moses was the most humble man in all the land. Now here's the unique thing about that scripture. We believe that Moses actually penned it. So Moses says about himself in the Bible, and Moses was the most humble man in all the land. Now you would go, only some egomaniac would write, I'm the most humble man in all the land. But here's the interesting thing. If we took, if we went out in the crowd, you know, at AmFest, let's say, you know, packed, you know, evening session tonight, and I stood up on stage and I said, okay, hey guys, I want to do an experiment. Everybody settle down, quiet down for a second. If you think that you were the most humble person in the room,

I want you to come up on stage here with me. Now the egotist would go, I know I'm the most humble person in the room, but I don't want everybody to think I'm just, it's all about me. So I'm not going to go up there. You know, the person who is self-abasing would say, I know I'm not the most humble. The only person who can actually raise their hand and say, no, I actually believe that I'm walking in humility, is the person who actually is actually walking in humility. That they're only, because I'm only allowing the identity or the sort of like, the descriptors of myself to be what God calls me. So if that's what God calls me, I'll write it down. But somebody I think who's self-abasing

or who's an egotist wouldn't be able to do it the same way. That's so funny. Yeah. I love that. Pastor Miles, it's been fun. Absolutely. Where can I keep up with you and see what you're doing next? Yeah, for sure.

So hit me up on social media. It's at MrLucasMiles. That's M-R LucasMiles. Also, they can head over to tpusafaith.com or if somebody's interested in having me come in, speak at their church or event, they can go to lucasmiles.org. I love it, we'll link it below.

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