Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1397 | The Cult-like NAR Church That Nearly Destroyed John Cooper

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

Allie is joined by lead singer of “Skillet,” John Cooper to discuss spiritual abuse, the new apostalic reformation (NAR), and his new EP “After The Storm." For the past few years,  John has faced challenges with his former church, specifically regarding undisclosed doctrine and the spiritual abuse of his family and other congregants. In this episode, John discusses the problematic doctrine of present-day apostleship rooted in NAR theology and why it contributed to spiritual abuse in their church. Skillet's new EP “After The Storm” expresses the emotions and struggles behind suffering and how God is faithful even in the darkest moments. This is an informative episode for those who have experienced “church hurt,” a beautiful example of seeking peace even when it seems impossible,  and, ultimately, an encouragement to stand firmly planted in what’s true.   Do you have a question for Allie? Leave a voicemail at 844-755-5252  Share the Arrows 2026 is on October 10 in Dallas, Texas! Tickets are on sale now at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sharethearrows.com⁠⁠⁠ Share the Arrows is sponsored by: A'del Natural Cosmetics: AdelNaturalCosmetics.com Range Leather: RangeLeather.com/ALLIE We Heart Nutrition: WeHeartNutrition.com – Time Codes 00:00 Intro 00:45 John’s conversation with Alisa Childers 5:00 John’s story-the epidemic of the “Moses Model” 8:43 Similarities to 2020 BLM, the beginning of disagreements 25:55 The decision to go public 34:48 A third party was hired 38:24 “Sowing division”? 43:04 What is the New Apostalic Reformation? 48:17 Personal struggles and spiritual warfare 58:39 John’s guiding light 1:02:29 Skillet’s upcoming EP – Today's Sponsors: Alliance Defending Freedom | Visit JoinADF.com/ALLIE  or text ALLIE to 83848 to make TWICE the impact. World Watch News | Visit worldwatch.news/allie or use promo code “ALLIE” to start your free trial today. Hillsdale College | Go to hillsdale.edu/RELATABLE  to enroll. It's totally free. Good Ranchers | For a limited time, you can get a free Ground Beef bundle with your first Good Ranchers or Just visit goodranchers.com/allie to claim your free Ground Beef Bundle. Everylife Diapers | Visit Everylife.com , and use promo code “ALLIE10” to get 10% off your first order today! Episodes You May Like: Satanic or Sanctified? Skillet Gets Real About Christmas Controversy | John Cooper | Ep 1281 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-zcHv2Mpw0  'Apostle' Kathryn Krick: The Truth About Her Viral Exorcisms | Ep 1374  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlPGD9dhO9I  Speaking Tongues or Nonsense? Rebutting Bad TikTok Theology | Ep 1173  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX1D76lz8WA  --- ► Buy Allie's book "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.toxicempathy.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► Buy Allie's book "You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love": https://alliebethstuckey.com/book ► Subscribe to the podcast: iTunes: https://apple.co/2UVssnP Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2FwkXxj ► Connect with Allie on social media:  https://twitter.com/conservmillen https://www.instagram.com/alliebstuckey/ https://facebook.com/allieBlazeTV/ ► "Relatable" merchandise — use promo code ALLIE10 for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

My apostle stood up in front of the church saying there's been a third party hired, but I can tell you there has been no sin. I have not sinned at all. He even asked his elders, he said, elders, if you agree that I haven't sinned, would you stand up? There's two that didn't. All the other ones stand up, which is good. We're all sitting down like, this is the most culty thing I have ever seen in my life. Not a lot of people seem to mine except the people that are leaving.

They don't understand that theology matters because it makes you act a certain way. The third party said, yeah, this is abusive. John, thanks so much for taking the time to join me again in person. How are you doing? Good. Thanks for having me again. We've talked so much. So you're always so cool to have me on.

I appreciate it. I know. I love it. Okay, you just had a marathon episode. By the time this comes out, it'll be a couple weeks ago with Elisa. And you talked, you and your wife for a few hours just about the betrayal that you had gone through at your previous church and kind of how your new EP that comes out next month has been inspired by some of that suffering that y'all went through. So tell us first about the

songs that are coming out and then what led to you writing and creating them. Yeah, yeah, I'd love to. So yeah, I did the podcast with our friend Lisa Childers. And we've been talking about it for about a year and I really didn't want to do it. I was like I'm trying desperately to go through every biblical process I know how with my church to get to a place of, of some sort of reconciliation or just peaceful leaving. And really what came down to for me was basically there was doctrine that wasn't being shared with people. So it's sort of like not really disclosed.

And as I began understanding it, it was just like, hey, at the end of the day, we don't have to get along. I don't even, you know, they're not going to repent for the way they treated us. And that's fine. I don't even need repentance. But there does need to be a disclosure of your doctrine. trend to the people still there. And if you will just do that, I will go away.

I don't want to go public. And they just refused for another 14 months. And it kind of came to a place where I'm like, I've got to tell this story. My wife joined me, as you mentioned, Corey joined me. She never does interviews. It's probably done three interviews in a decade. She hasn't like being on the microphone. But it was important to do.

So that's why we did that. So people can go and check that out. It is a marathon. It's about two and a half hours. Oh, but it's so good. Longest interview I've ever done. So here's what I would say. We have got a new EP coming out.

It's called After the Storm. I would not say that this EP is about church hurt. That's not the right way for me to say it. I don't want people to listen to it and be like, oh, this is the record that's all about church. That's not the case. The album is about suffering and that life is really hard. People are suffering all sorts of different things.

And sometimes I think it's good, especially with rock music, I would say with any music, but especially rock music is about being real. It's about being authentic. It's about sharing what you're going through because that's music is very kind of therapeutic for a lot of people. And I sing a lot of songs about victory.

I sing a lot of sports songs. Like we have a song called Feel Invincible. You know, I feel, I feel it invincible. You're going to make it all these like finish line. I'm in very kind of energetic. I'm never, you're never going to get me down. And these are like, whoof, I'm feeling pretty down, I'm feeling pretty down right now.

And I'm in a place of recognizing the hurt, reaching out to God at times feeling like he's not hearing me. And that's okay to admit as well. We see that in the Psalms and we see that in many places in wisdom literature. Ecclesiases, you're just like, man, this is pain. You know, you are going in the middle of this pain and it feels like no one's listening. But I'm holding on. I am barely holding on, but I'm holding on.

and I need you to meet me in this pain. And that's where the songs were written. And I want people to hear it and interpret it through their own suffering, whatever that may be. One of my biggest influences when I was growing up, the preacher, he did youth camps. He used to say, have you ever felt like that God is not listening and he is not showing up? And he used to say, if you haven't felt that way, be patient. it's going to happen.

And this has been our dark night of the soul. And I'm on the other side of it. And I can attest that God is faithful and that he never lets you down. He will show up. It just might, it doesn't come when you want it sometimes. And it takes a little bit longer. And that's what this EP is about. A lot of people watch that interview with Elisa,

but there's a lot of people watching and listening now who didn't. And so they actually, they have no idea. So can you take us through this church, that you were a part of and what happened? What fueled that feeling of betrayal? Yeah, I think maybe doing a short version, or should we do the three? We'll do another four-hour episode. You know what?

I want to beat Elisa, so let's go with four or five hours. Yes, we got to beat her. You know, the condensed version is basically, there is a lot, there really is an epidemic. It's not in America. One of the things that it was shocking to me and to Elisa, as she's looking at the metrics of the episode. I knew it was happening internationally, but this is not just an American thing. This is an international thing.

The widespread amount of people from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Switzerland saying, oh my gosh, I went through this too, is gigantic. It's an epidemic. And it's happening in every corner of the church. It's not just charismatic churches. It's cessationist churches. I got a ton of text from reformed people. I know somebody that Lisa knows texted her who was an elder in a reformed church and he said,

oh my gosh, this is my story. Now, my story personally happened in a charismatic church, but I just want to say that because what happens is people can think, oh, Cooper's bashing charismatics now. It happens anywhere where you have a pyramidal authority structure, one guy at the top, the Moses model, some people call it the Moses model. There's all sorts of different native leadership or eldership. He's not truly accountable to anyone. And in a spiritual sense, if you got this guy at the top, who is saying, well, I have a special

insight from God into this. Even if you do have a plurality of elders, if he's the one with the inside, it's a little bit hard to argue with the guy that says, no, God told me. That's a pretty hard thing to argue with. And so my experience was this, not truly understanding the doctrine of the church I was in. I was there for 30 years. what makes it even worse or harder, I should say, is that my wife's dad started the church. He's still is sitting elder in the church.

My wife's brother-in-law, who became my best friend for the last 28 years up until a couple years ago, is the, quote, apostle of the church. And so while I did know they called themselves an apostle, which I've never been comfortable with because I don't really believe in apostles like that, when we would have the conversations, it would be like, no, all we're talking about is church planters. We're talking about pioneers and people that go and plant churches. And every church has this. Presbyterians have church planners. And I'd say, okay, if that's what you mean, I get, I don't, you know, I don't love it. And with all the interviews I've done all these years on all of my reform thing, if I would ever talk

about them, I would say my church leader, you know, or my head pastor. I don't like the word apostle, but they just mean it this way. But come to find out. always have kind of an issue with that? Or was it at some point that you started thinking about it? Like, you're like, I'm not so sure about that terminology. I never liked the terminology. And I came from a church in Memphis that used that terminology. I didn't like it. And so I thought I was kind of going to something that was going to see it in a different way. So I probably won't get in the weeds of that because I know there's some people like, they're going to be like, dude, he called himself an apostle Cooper. Why were you at that church? I get it. But I think that one

the things we're seeing. We see this in leftist ideology. You see it with the BLM. Do you? Oh, I know. I'm about to ask you, do you remember? Of course, you remember. But hopefully, were you there? I remember. No, it feels like it. I know you were there because I learned a lot from you. But people listening, I hope you all remember 2020 having these conversations about, well, what do you mean when you say, systemic racism? Are you just talking about this or that? And then you'd have these big arguments and they'd say, all I'm saying is, there's still is racism in America. And then you'd be like, well, of course I agree with that. But that wasn't really all they were saying.

But some of them didn't know it wasn't all they're saying. And some of them did. Some of us nefarious. And some of them were just useful idiots that didn't know. They didn't know what was going on. And it would be that loop, that loop where you're going around. You're like, oh my gosh, can we just define our terms so I can know if we agree or not. Yes.

That's exactly what is happening. Again, I'm not bashing on cares. I'm not saying it's only in charismatic churches. I'm not saying that at all. But it is happening a lot, especially in the new apostolic reformation, NAR movement we call it. It's happening a lot. My story is basically this, not understanding that until I began to rub against authority in the church.

That first started happening in 2020. And that was because I began speaking out about a lot of the things that we all, you know, experience. And I was assuming my church would be on board. I thought they were going to be like, yeah, that's awesome, Cooper. Go for it. And y'all were, I mean, y'all were close to Kenosha, right? Yes, we were in Kenosha. Okay, in Kenosha. So a lot of the chaos and the craziness was happening there. Yeah. So people listening might not know. So like Kyle Rittenhouse shot people three blocks from my house. They burned, you know, the, the storefronts in that sort of downtown area is you can see the street from my street, you know, that I lived in. So yes, it was very close to home. We were right

in the middle of all of those things. And, you know, the church I was a part of just acted like it didn't happen. Like it wasn't even a thing. Well, like, what, what rise? You know, it's like, we're just like going to mention it and keep talking about revival. Man, woo, we need that good, we need that good Holy Spirit fire revival. And it just never got mentioned. And I was like, this is really strange. Quick pause to tell you about our first sponsor for the day, and it's Alliance Defending Freedom. Y'all, I love ADF. We've had so many of their clients on.

We've had them win, share the arrows awards. They represent the most courageous Christians throughout the world who are speaking up for the truth of God, the truth of biology, and are getting persecuted for it by the government. ADF defends them. This is about defending our First Amendment rights, defending the truth. And if you want your kids, your grandkids, to be protected in this way, then we have to support groups like Alliance Defending Freedom. They're the real deal. I know these attorneys. They're awesome. But the only way they can do this is with our help. So I really encourage you to

partner with them, stand for freedom. Give a gift today. Your gift will be matched by a special grant while funds last. Go to join adaf.com slash alley or text Alley to 838-48 to make twice the impact. Join ADF.com slash alley. And so I was speaking out and I began to have with my best friend who was my quote unquote apostle. I never called him my apostle, but that was his position. And we started kind of budding heads a lot. And because you were like, okay, I feel like this needs to be addressed.

People need clarity. You were talking. I remember about social justice ideology at the time and that kind of false theology. So you were kind of fired up about this in a good way. And you were hoping that they would be on board with that or just, you know, from his position, give the clarity that was needed to the congregation. Yeah, absolutely. People were very confused.

Right. And so I think part of what happened because it was a small church we were in. And I think what happened was that there was a lot of people in the church, not everybody that appreciated it, but there were a lot that did that were like, you know, thanks for doing this. Yeah. I think in hindsight, I think what was happening was there was probably more people that like that than I had known. And I think that in order to diminish my voice kind of came this, this constant headbutting, constant headbunning. But I never knew why. And I was always like,

hey, I love you. And I really respect you. I have a fear of the Lord. If I'm saying something wrong, I need you to explain to me why. I was very teachable. I'm actually, I'm actually, people might not know because I'm so passionate, but I'm quite a teachable person. I'm not arrogant. I don't think I know everything. I am extremely like, am I wrong? Tell me why I'm wrong. But it just kind of basically what would happen was just a shut me down. They just needed to shut me down. And I would keep asking, can you explain it to me? And there were never any explanation. So we would just go round and round. So what was the response when you were saying, okay, we need to talk about what's going on three blocks away. People are confused about it.

What did they say? Yeah. There was never anything that made any sense. So it would be like talking to your progressive friends about what do you mean when you say systemic racism and never actually getting to the bottom. Like you never have any resolution. And like for me, I have progressive friends. Like I would be fine if the only resolution was we agree on the definition. And I know why my buddy thinks there is systemic racism and that America is bad. And all the structures of our country were created to put people of color down and to lift white people up. Can we just agree on that?

And if you, Joe, my progressive friend that I love, if you think that I can be friends with you, but I don't think that I would like you to understand where I'm coming from, to me that's just true friendship and we can still be mates. You know, it's like, but you didn't get that in 2020, right? Yeah. Not often.

It was usually like you're still living in the, they're just mad at you and they just keep telling you you're a racist over and over and over. But they weren't. The people that you're talking to, about in church leadership weren't necessarily progressive, right? No, no, they weren't progressive. They just, I think they just didn't want me talking about it because their structure,

and again, I know that not everybody can understand this. You can't really understand it until you're in it, and I get that you can't understand it. But it's because in their structure, unbeknownst to me, because I'm reformed. And so I'm thinking, why aren't we having a Bible disagreement about this based on the Word of God, I think that I'm being a good friend to you, even though you're my church leader. That's what we're supposed to do. I didn't know that's not actually what they believe. So they would say that, but in reality, if you've got a guy at the top that says,

God is giving me apostolic wisdom to lead. It would just basically what he was, I didn't know this and he never said it this plainly. It would be basically, God's given me insight to lead, not you. Right. So I don't need to give you a biblical argument. This isn't about you and all of your exegesis and all of your exegesis and all of you're, that's not what you're here to do. God gives me the role of leadership. So at one point, I remember him saying to me, John, I just got to say, like, he said to me, he said, John,

do you not think I'm an apostle? And I was like, what the actual crap is wrong with you? Like, I was like, I don't, I was just like, I don't, I said to him, I was like, I don't know what you, like, I said, you saying that to me is, like, you might as well be saying, do you not, do you not think that I'm male. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like I don't know what that has to do with anything. Do you not think that Dr. Pepper is good with ice cream in it? Like I don't know what you mean. And also you had been told that well, by apostle, we just mean church planter. And so but now that's like an authority flex. Yes. I'm like, what does you have being a church planter have to do with this conversation? And that was like a conversation stopper. And I was and I, but I keep pushing and I'm like, oh, I'm

he's done with this conversation. I do not know why he is this. And I still don't know what he's saying. And so then behind the scenes begins the Cooper's just all about politics now. It's not really about the gospel. And then I'm asking people like, I don't know what I've done wrong. Why am I being treated? This went on for about three years.

And so by 2023, I had decided that I've got to get out of this place. I can't live here anymore. I hate this, I hate this church. It used to be the place I loved with all my heart. Love the people in the church. They're the best ever. I love the people in this church. But I just was like, I got to get out of here.

I don't know how to function in this. I still didn't understand the apostle thing. I just, I knew I was being controlled, but I didn't understand the doctrinal reasons behind it. But I knew the control was real. And I had come to a place when I just was like, they're not really reformed. They say they're reformed.

They're clearly not because this is how reform people deal with things. You have a biblical argument. And I have a responsibility to be a Berean and to do my research. I'm not just going to take it because some jags up there saying it. And it's like, that's not how we do it. Yeah. In the reform, there was a guy called Martin Luther. Read him.

And so I was like, I got to get out. And I also had decided that by that time I was being spiritually bullied as well. And I didn't know all the language for it, but I'm like, He's just spiritually bullying me because I don't think he knows what he's talking about. I think if he had a good argument, he'd give me one. And he actually doesn't know what he's saying. He's just used to bullying people and them falling in line. And was it just the disagreement over what was happening in Kenosha, the social justice stuff,

you wanted him to speak up about that? Or did the disagreement kind of blossom into other areas as well? It began to blossom in other areas because I began writing papers. At one point, he got upset with me because I just, I was like, this is going to be a bridge too far, this social justice stuff. He began working with a church in town that was going to be a multi-ethnic church. And I said, great. I love it. I want to go.

Let's see what this is all about. And I went. And I told him, I said, dude, this is just, this is just social justice. This is not kingdom. This is bad. And finally, he said, this isn't how we do it, Cooper. We write papers. If you have an issue, you write a paper.

And I said, all right. I never heard of that. Okay. Yeah. That's how you're doing it. So I started writing papers. And for three years, I wrote five papers that not a single one ever got answered. Okay.

And you submit it to him? Submit it to him and the elders. No, excuse me. It was him and his team. He had a team around him. And to four guys and three guys at the time, then four eventually. Nobody would ever answer my papers. And so it did begin to expand into other.

things. So what would happen is we would all be hanging out for family times because we're all family. And I would say something thinking that we would all agree. And what would happen in front of my kids, he was just demean me in front of my kid, just absolutely demean me in front of my own children, in front of his children, who I was very close to. And I would be like, what's going on with this? And I would be like, are you, what do you mean? Am I wrong? We said we're moving to Nashville, love you, think you do good work for the kingdom, and we're moving. Want to leave on good terms. Don't want our friendship to change.

And the climaxes, he said, well, you need to know our relationship. He said, I love you too. But our relationship has already changed. You no longer hold to the vision. You're tearing down my life's work. You're not going to be under apostolic covering. Then kind of came all these other things later about. Aposolic covering in these movements is basically, if you're familiar with Bill Gothard.

I'm familiar, yeah. In other words, this is not just within apostolic movements, but basically what they're saying is there's a leadership at the top that God is anointed and you need to submit to them, submit to their whatever. And if you leave their covering their church, if you disobey them, if you're no longer submitted to their leadership, then you now are not covered. Howard. Bill Godthard used to call it an umbrella. They were called umbrellas. You're no longer the umbrella. So you might get wet by all the demonic stuff that's out there. You could lose,

I think that the guy at my church, the leader at my church used the analogy. He would call it root and fruit. Say there's really good fruit in your life now from the Holy Spirit that comes from me. I'm the root, basically. I'm your spiritual root. And if you cut me off, you're not going to have that good fruit. And I was just like, dude, I don't even know what you're talking about. That's not the gospel. You're not a mediator. It became this whole big thing. Simultaneously, he did a sermon called they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching simultaneously after we had decided to leave. And I listened to it. And I just said, brother, this is the most frightening thing I have ever heard in a church before. I have never heard anything like this, which is basically,

remember the scripture in Acts, they devoted themselves to the Apostle's teaching and the breaking of bread and to prayer. And he's basically saying, yeah, that. So you devote yourself to my teaching. It's basically what he's saying. So it was basically a sermon on submission to him. Yes, and to his teachings. Right. So it changes authority of scripture to authority to my interpretation of scripture. Does that make sense? You're creating a new category. that actually is a little bit more papal, funny enough, except that all these apostles want to be their own popes without any accountability and their own,

instead of tradition, it's their Holy Spirit revelation or something. I never heard any of that taught at our church. I didn't know they believed that. And so, long story short, that's what happened. And I just said, no, that's cray. That's absolutely crazy. And so I started talking to other elders saying,

do you know that he believes and I started going to my elders saying this is what he said and all the elders kept saying he didn't believe that you just have a bad attitude you just have sin in your heart you have bitterness in your heart you were going to them about specifically this idea of him having supreme authority that people need to submit to and they were just kind of denying it yeah we don't believe that yeah we don't teach that and so and you're like okay what do we believe yeah and I'm like well I'm out of here and they're like you just have a you just have bitterness and you need to stop to talk so me going to elder they started saying was gossip.

So it's gossip for me to go to an elder, my elder, and say, are you aware of the teachings of the guy who is over you? Like, do you believe this? And they're like, why are you gossiping? And so it created this chain reaction. And so eventually people started leaving the church. And I started telling people like, you just need to understand what this guy believes.

This is not good. And I kept, but the whole time I kept saying to my elders and to the apostle, I love you and I don't want to be at war. Yeah. We can be friends with you believing this. I'm not saying you're not a Christian, but people in your church need to understand what happens to them when they disagree with you.

Because that is not, this is not Protestant. That's the issue. But they refuse to do it. Another pause to tell you about our next sponsor, and that is World Watch News. Okay, you don't want your family. You don't want your kids, your teens to have screen time. But there is one way, possibly, to have healthy screen time for your teens in addition to watching

this podcast with them. And that is watching World Watch News. World Watch News is a biblical way for your kids, especially your teens, to understand what's going on in the world, what's going on in the news without sensationalism and without an unbiblical perspective. They're going to get objective facts. They're also going to get a biblical interpretation of what's going on in our country and what's going on in the world. World Magazine is an awesome outlet. I wrote for them several years ago, several articles, and they do really good work of trying to break down the news in a really godly way. Your kids are going to love this and they're going to get even smarter because of it. Go to worldwatch.com. Alley. You'll get a 30-day free trial. Worldwatch. News slash Alley code

Alley. And so this has gone on for over two years. I wrote a paper about it. We ended up having a third-party investigation because so many people started suffering spiritual abuse because they were going to be leaving the church and they the church leaders started lying about us. They were making up stories about us. They said in public on multiple occasions that we were acting from the devil. The devil was the one who is influencing us. Because they saw you as trying to sow division within the church and they saw you as to blame for all of these people saying, yeah, I've experienced the spiritual abuse too. Yes. Yes, that's right. All of this was from the devil. This was the plan of the devil.

Then they started having prophetic words where they would go up and we feel the Lord is just saying their little foxes. You know, and these foxes are distortions of truth that are ruining the garden and stay away from any of them. It just went on and on. And you're like sitting there and you're like, are you talking about me? Yeah, I'm the little fox. You know, you know, anyway, Foxy maybe. What's up? Just kidding.

That's a joke. But anyway. So you've got to have the comedy because it gets so heavy. Comic really. And so you've got to remember during this whole time, this is my wife's family. Right. It's your brother-in-law. It's her family.

She's gone to that church her entire life. No, no. Her brother-in-law. It's her brother-in-law. Okay. Of course, which is mine too, but it's on her side. Right, right. Yeah.

And her dad is still a sitting elder. And so I'm saying the elders, why are you guys saying we're from, so I kept trying to do the biblical process. Why are you saying we're from the devil? I kept going back to them. Like, this isn't. right, you've got to repent for this stuff. And so this went on for two and a half years. Eventually had a third party investigation. Report came out. They said, this dude is longstanding

spiritual abuse. He needs to be out of ministry for good. There needs to be repentance. And so that went on. They released it in for six months. All the elders and all these churches haven't said peep. They've acted like it didn't happen. Nobody ever repented. Nobody ever explained anything. And so it just got to a point And this is the worst part, is that I had known, so this has been for the first year and a half, they kept saying Cooper's lost his mind. He made up all this stuff that we teach, that we obviously don't teach, not even some of the elders believed and blah, blah, blah. Well, I had known that about eight months after I wrote my paper, even while they kept saying they didn't believe this and I was making stories up, I knew that the apostle wrote his own doctrinal paper in response to mine, but would not release it.

And what was this paper about? This paper was about apostolic authority. Okay. Namely. A couple of other things, but namely apostolic authority. And kept it within his little group and nobody would release it. And I knew this because eight months after my paper, I got a call from one of the elders. And I was like, why is he calling me?

And I said, what's up? And he says, dude, I just want to say, I'm really sorry. I had no idea. He believed this. I didn't believe your paper. I thought, I thought you were exaggerating. I had no idea. I have the Apostles paper, and it's everything you said and worse.

And I said, well, send it to me. He's like, I can't do that. You know, that would be lying or that would be gossiping. And I was like, no, it's not, dude. And so he resigned, but this remained under wraps until about five weeks ago. That's the reason I went public. I saw something online today of somebody. They did a podcast reaction video to me and Alisa's.

And he was for us. He was on our side. At the beginning, he said, he said, you know, there's a cynical part of me that can't help thinking that maybe the reason the Cooper's did this now is because they're releasing this record and, you know, and blah, blah, blah. And that stuff makes me so mad, you know, so I'm just want to say like, the reason we did this. this. So Skillet has sold 22 million records and we're doing fine. I don't need to come up with some. Don't hit in up drama.

The hardest thing we've ever gone through to help me sell more records. That's like I just want to say if that guy's watching, love you, don't say stupid crap like that. That's stupid. You can keep your stuff to yourself. Yeah. Sometimes you just got to keep the cynical side of you on the inside. Keep the cynical side to yourself.

Yeah. Before you start saying. things like that. It was really that that was released or you got to see that paper five weeks ago, even though it happened a little while ago. Yeah, so it's six months after the third party report. The elders haven't said anything. And then a whistleblower finally gives me this paper that this apostle wrote 16 months ago

that affirms everything I wrote and it's even scarier. And what were some of the things that you found scariest? The thing that was the scariest is that, He taught that, do you remember when Paul says, I'm the least of the apostles because I persecuted the church? Yeah. Which is obviously a statement of humility. And we know it's a statement of humility because it's within the same thing when he's saying, I am a true apostle of Christ. Yeah.

Because he saw Jesus. Yeah. Have I not seen him? Have I not suffered? Have I not planted? Have I not? I'm not a father? You know, he's going through all these things.

And then you see this humility. I'm the least of the apostles. because I persecuted the church, but Christ saved me. It's this amazing humility, right? Those are the leaders we need. This guy says, because Paul says he's the least of the apostles, that proves that Paul is not, he is not as great as the 12. He's on a lower level of apostles,

which means that Paul is actually not greater than modern day apostles. So this means Bill Johnson and all these people, people that call them those apostles, they're just like Paul. They can't write scripture, but they're just like him. Paul is not a greater apostle than them. And that really blew my mind. Another thing that was in the paper, he was quoting someone else, but says this. I want to say the quote fairly, and then we can explain in case people that are like, well, what does that mean? But they're talking about the way that hermeneutics, the hermeneutics should work in the church. And they say in each individual church, the only orthodox hermeneutic is the apostolic hermeneutic,

which means the only right understanding of the Bible in each church is defined solely by the way that apostle reads the Bible. Wow. We're not consulting church history. That is like papal infallibility. Definitely. But even worse. Yeah. Because the, you know, the Pope also, there is accountability there.

You know, there is the Magisterium. there is tradition, there is whatever. This is totally disconnected from the creeds, confessions, from everything in church history, because he's the new Paul. Right. And I read that and I was like, I didn't even write that in my paper.

I would think that's too far. There's no way he believes that. Right. Okay. So the third party finding and the release of that paper of basically saying, I'm Paul for my church. This is the interpretation that you have to adhere to. By the way, John Cooper didn't.

And so that was a big problem. I'm assuming that those two things kind of went hand in hand for you. You're like, okay, well, the spiritual abuse findings make sense because we have this guy over here who claims that he is basically an impenetrable authority. What did the third party find? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, for one thing, you get it. A lot of people, even the elders in the church, there still don't understand.

The connection. They don't understand that everything you do comes because you believe something. I don't know why they don't, but they, you know, a lot of churches, again, this is not just a charismatic problem. Okay. So any charismatic is getting offended. I've been in a charismatic church for 35 years. I love you. Okay.

It can happen anywhere in small town churches, anywhere. But in a lot of charismatic churches, there's just not Bible training. And that kind of has worked into the DNA of Charismatics a little bit, which is churches have become too hedonology. They can quote all the Crees. They can quote all the, they can all the systematic theology, but they don't have the passion for God. And what really matters is passion. And it's like that thing. A lot of charismatic churches are like that.

Not all of them, somebody's going to say, mine's not love you. I believe you. But a lot of them are. This one is. They don't understand that the things you believe result in actions, which is why. I, my apostle, stood up in front of the church saying there's been a third party hired, but I can tell you there has been no sin. I have not sinned at all.

He even asked his elders. He said, elders, if you agree that I haven't sinned, would you stand up? In the middle of the thing. And there's two that didn't. All the other ones stand up, which is good. The other ones stand up. And we're all sitting down like, this is the most culty thing I have ever seen in my life. and nobody, nobody seems, not a lot of people seem to mind except the people that are leaving.

So they don't understand that theology matters because it makes you act a certain way. The third party said, yeah, this is abusive. And yes, I think he thinks this is okay because he believes he has some special like, like nobody can, nobody can really disagree because of the apostolic wisdom or something of that nature. And just personal flaws, which we all have. have. We all have personal flaws. Massive defensiveness. You know, anytime you come and say, I've got a problem, I've got an issue. You have hurt me. He will flip it on you. They will flip it on. You're the problem because you didn't used to be like this until you started

becoming critical. You didn't used to be like this to you started a friendship with this other person that was critical of my ministry. It's like always flipped. You know, there was a time when you trusted me. And I just have to ask you. this is one of the things they always say like, do I have your heart? That's one of the ones they'd ask at the time. I'd never heard this. But a friend of mine says, dude, he was like, do you have my heart? And I was like, Jesus has my, like, I don't understand the question.

He's like, that's why I left. This is just culty. So people, but when you're in it, you're more confused. So it puts you on a, you start spinning and you can't make sense of it because there was a lot of good things in the church. There's a lot of good times. wouldn't be my best friend for 28 years if he had been spiritually abusing me for 28 years. I loved him and I still love him today.

And I forgive him now. You know, I'm, I've kind of pleased forgiveness. Don't want a friend, don't want a relationship, can't do it, you know. So I think that that kind of explains that thing, I think, pretty well. I remember in 2020, this was used a lot, but I'm sure it is still used today. It's just wielded as a weapon, this accusation of being divisive. that if you spoke up to your pastor at the time, and this also happened after Charlie was assassinated, and maybe the pastor said something totally weird, both sidesy, or maybe someone felt like,

oh, gosh, I really wish that he would have given me clarity on that, and he didn't. And you have some congregants who are willing to go to church leadership and say, humbly, like, you know, I just was disappointed in this, or this is what I read in scripture, and this is what you said, and here's where I see the daylight between those two things. And very often, not always the accusation towards that person to silence them is you're being divisive. You're being divisive. And especially for someone who really doesn't want to be divisive, for me, I'm like,

I don't care. Like, I don't care if you think of advice. But that's also because of like what I do for most people. That's the last thing they want to be called. So it is an effective silencer for people who are like, okay, well, I'm supposed to be a peacemaker. And I'm supposed to bring people together. And yeah, this person is, whether it's a prophet or an apostle, could just be their seminary trained. They've been a pastor for 25 years.

And so it's a very effective intimidation tactic when someone is being told that speaking up about something is sowing division within the body. Yeah, that's, you know, that whole like root of bitterness thing, you know, it's always used in every, every situation like, this when people are leaving church or because they ask questions or they push back on something, it's always you're being divisive. I mean, I was told that so many times. And no matter how much Bible I would come back with them on, it wouldn't matter. Next sponsor is Hillsdale College. We know that the university system is so corrupt. There are so few colleges that you actually want to send your precious 18 year old to. You don't want all of that work that you have done, that Christian teachers have done in your kids' life to go challenged completely for four years without

any rebuttal from any conservative professors, you want them to know the truth and how to think critically. That's what they're going to get at Hillsdale College. They're going to be taught how to think and how to combat these deceitful ideas that we see in the media that we see in the world. They will learn the real history of the United States, where our values and our virtues actually come from. But it's not just for teens and 20, 21, 22 year olds. It's also for you. They've got these 40 online courses that are totally free and available to you. You can enroll today when you go to Hillsdale.edu slash relatable. You can learn all about the Western tradition. You can learn about the works of C.S. Lewis. You can go through a course on

the book of Genesis. So fascinating. You'll be a lot smarter when you finish these courses. Go to Hillsdale.edu slash relatable. 12 months ago after after the thing when when the apostles got up in front of the everybody said, I haven't even sent and all the, you know, I sent an email and I said, guys, I'm going to have to go public because you're, you're, they were lying. They were all on stage still lying about their doctrine. And they're and they were like, well, I don't know what the, I don't know what he believed, you know.

And I said, you guys are lying about it and and it just, it is not right for people to give years of their life to something that, that, that they do. don't understand that you haven't disclosed. We're not, that's, that's not right. And tithe money. Tithe money, you're giving your resources. Like you're giving everything, you're, everything you have is given to this.

It was that kind of community. This wasn't like a Sunday and Wednesday night sort of thing. This was a we are all in. This is our church family. So I just said, I'm gonna have to go public because you won't say, so I finally got the apostle to write three paragraphs on, on something he believed a very particular thing on what he calls apostolic foundations. That's what he calls it. And I said to him,

I said, thank you so much. I said, if you will release this to all your churches, I will go away. You will never hear from me about this again, not going public because I don't want to go public. I just want your people to know, we can all be friends and just go away. They refused for 14 months. they just won't tell people what they believe. So what is Apostolic Foundation? Oh, man. Just the authority structure? I don't even know if you want to get into it because this is so specific to that particular movement.

But maybe a better way to answer if you don't mind would be to answer what are the defining in terms of apostolic foundation, how do a lot of these kind of new Apostolic Reformation-style churches? What do they mean? Like, what does that even mean? Yeah. What is the danger of that? What is the thing that defines it, which is kind of an adjacent topic. You don't mind me talking about that, right?

I think it, I think that's a better way to answer rather than my specific church so that more people understand. Basically this, NAR, new episodic reformation. It's sort of like BLM in that everybody has a different understanding of what BLM is. We don't have BLM the website or are you talking about the local thing? well, but they don't have, you know, they have regional authority, not somebody over it, and they could all be doing it. You remember all of that. Everybody watching probably knows what I'm talking about. Some people will have the BLM shirt, but they don't know anything about the website. It was so frustrating, but you know it when you see it. The thing that really categorizes

these new episode of Reformation churches is this. It is that God is restoring apostles and prophets to be authoritative offices over the church. And that is the blueprint. That's a word that most of them use. It's the blueprint for how the church is supposed to act. In my opinion, what they're trying to say is we need one church again. We need the Catholic church again. The universal church, we need that.

All these splendor denominations are really bad. Charismaticism has always been against denominationalism, which is why all the rise of all the nondonationalism. denominational churches. They're like, we don't want to be a denomination. It was the pain of what the Protestant Reformation did that a lot of us believer was necessary, but it came with some pain now. We're now splintered into a million different beliefs. How are we going to come back and together and be one? And the idea is that it's because God instituted apostles to bring unity because that's what the Ephesians 4 says. As Christ is ascending, he's given apostles.

apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists, pastors for the unity and maturity of the faith until we grow up into that head of Jesus Christ, full stature of Jesus Christ, whatever the scripture is. And so that's the idea. That is kind of the common denominator. It's not just that there are church planters. It's that there are people at the top that say, no, we are actually the rightfully anointed and appointed offices of the church. we bring God's special revelation in to organize the church to know what God is doing. Now, when we say they teach new revelation, they don't mean new revelation like the book of Mormon. So it's not the same.

They're not bringing a new Bible or God gave me new revelation that contradicts the Bible. But it's more like, no, God's giving us revelation to understand the correct interpretation of the Bible as it applies today. and that is why you can see some of these guys teach the Bible and it's wacky and you're like, that's not what that scripture means at all. They would say, well, that's because you don't have the apostolic revelation. So what you get into, funny enough, is a little bit of a postmodern, I would call it literary deconstruction, you know, a very much like the Bible can mean anything.

and when people like John MacArthur would or Voddy, Baccom would be like, no, there's a correct interpretation of this. We need to continue to always reform to find out what that correct interpretation is, but there is an objective meaning. A lot of the apostles and prophets today, what they're saying is, okay, there may have been an objective meaning then, but we need Holy Spirit prophetic movement to understand how it applies today. And that is how they get around. They can use the Bible in the wildest, wackiest ways ever to, because they believe they have prophetic direction. That's the thing that

brings the kind of NHR churches together. Yeah. And fair enough, some of them would be like, we're not gnar. We just believe this and this and this. But you might say, yeah, but some of those characteristics are. Yeah. Does that make sense? Right. Yeah, it totally makes sense. And you can see how that structure, again, I'm not picking on charismatic, although I'm not a charismatic myself. You could see how that structure, though, would lend itself to a lack of accountability, and all lack of accountability is vulnerable for abuses and manipulation and false teaching and all kinds of things. When we've talked about it's not exactly the same as NAR, but maybe you've heard of

Catherine Crick. She calls herself a prophet and apostle, and she's been appointed an apostle by this other person who considers himself an apostle, George Davy, and a criticism that I've gotten, and I would say this is a form of spiritual manipulation, not only are you divisive for saying, okay, she's doing these things, asking for your money to accomplish these things that's not the way of Jesus and it's not what we see in scripture, they will go so far as to say, that's blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Well, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit we read is the only unforgivable sin.

And so if you really want to silence someone, then you not only tell them they're being divisive, you tell them you're going to hell. You're going to hell if you keep speaking up against these things. So the silencing manipulation tactic can be strong for anyone. But I imagine especially for someone who had a personal relationship with this so-called apostle, these are your family, these are your friends. This is people, you know, people that you hung out with forever. And I just imagine that that was not only emotionally painful, but we were talking before.

You also felt like physical pain and physical manifestations of all of this conflict that was going on in your life. Yeah, it's really important what you just said. about the unforgivable sin, you're speaking against the work of the spirit kind of a thing. So if you go against the apostle or his teachings or this, it's almost like you're going against God and God is going to do something bad to you maybe. So it's this very transactional kind of horrid picture of God, actually, if you think about it. Right. Anyway, that's, that will exist at a much lighter level.

So, in other words, I would say that's a very extreme thing to say, but that kind of spiritual manipulation and, and spiritual threats, I mean, I would call them spiritual threats, almost like a spiritual curse almost. That exists in, and a lot of these churches. And that, those kind of things existed a little bit into ours. Sorry, I forgot. Oh, physical pain. Yeah.

Yeah. I kind of put two like big questions into one. No, no, you're good. I did experience a lot of physical, physical manifestations of great pain in my body. And now some people in these churches will be like, that's right, because you left the apostle. You left his covering. You left his covering. And so, of course you did.

I suffered depression over the last couple of years because these people made me feel insane. It will make you break with reality to where you don't even know what is real anymore because I'm like, but I'm looking at what you said and now you're saying you didn't say it. And I've known you to be a really good man for 30 years, but I have it written down. And so you're denying it's written down. And maybe I'm the crazy one because all of my former friends that were elders are saying, Cooper's just being a divisive person. The root of bitterness, he's being used by Satan.

And you're like, maybe I am being used by Satan. Like, this stuff is real. next sponsor is good ranchers. We've been using good ranchers for years in our home and it's made our lives so much easier to have that box of meat sent to your front door on dry ice every month. I never have to think about going to the grocery store and picking out different cuts of meat. It's all from an American farmer ranch. It's all really high quality. And right now we've got 300,000 metric tons of foreign ground beef being shipped into the United States in an effort to lower beef prices. It probably will lower beef prices. But, you're not. You're going to,

you don't know where this beef is coming from. What are those cows eating? What are they doing? Where are they? We have no idea. But you know with Good Ranchers that all of your meat is coming from an American farm or ranch is great tasting and high quality. They've got seed oil-free chicken nuggets. They've got all different kinds of food for your family.

Go to Goodrangers.com. You will get a free ground beef bundle, four-pound ground beef bundle when you use my code Alley. Goodrangers.com, code Alley. I have a friend who left this church in 2018, same church, and was told, you know, basically you're leaving the covering, you know, hope things go okay and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, unfortunately, they suffered a lot. His daughter had mental health issues, ended up having a suicide attempt. and one of the family members of the apostle told the mom of the person who tried to kill herself, this is because you left the apostle. This is why this happened.

That stuff will ruin people's lives. That is some evil, wicked stuff right there, right? So it got so, I was so stressed out and so angry and so just a break with reality that I just suffered a lot of pain. My knees were killing me. My feet hurt so bad. Now, I'm an athletic person, so I run a lot. I work out. I play concerts, which are also kind of quite energetic if people have ever seen videos. And I would play a concert and I couldn't sleep. But now, my feet were hurting so bad. And they would just, I could feel my heart beating in my feet, you know, and stabbing pain. I'd get up in the morning. I couldn't walk for the first few minutes. I was in

Europe touring and it hurt my back so bad. I couldn't take my clothes off. Corey had to help me change them. I was like, honey, I can't, like, I can't remove my pants, you know. And I was just in agony for a while and trying to work out and I was running about three miles, you know, a couple times a week. And I was just suffering. I just, I was like, well, I guess like my age finally hit me, you know, and that's the way it is. And two months ago, when the Lord finally broke me through all of this stuff, this spiritual warfare and this agony, I had a clear picture of what was going on. I knew that I was doing what God called me to do. I was standing on the word and I had been praying for months. God, I need you to deliver me. And he finally delivered me. And I've got no pain. It just went away.

And I run about six miles a day now. Wow. And I wasn't able to lose weight. I was just suffering. And now I feel great. And my feet never hurt, literally never hurt. And I'm like, I talked to my counselor and she's like, this is what it's like when people leave a cult. If you leave a high control group, this is normal.

Like you're not abnormal. It would be abnormal for the level of fighting you did. Right. It would be abnormal to not be suffering. some sort of major physical illness. It's like that Psalm, not that David was leaving a cult, but he is warring against someone who is such, you know, that he knew well as Saul was pursuing him.

And he's like, my bones are wasting away. You know, that's what it reminded me of. That's the first thing that came to mind is like, you know, that Psalm has always been kind of strange to me. It's like, well, you're talking about your emotions. Your emotions are sad. Why are you talking about your feeling like your body is wasting away. But as you're explaining that, I'm like, wow, those things are inextricably intertwined.

As you were carrying that burden, it was almost like you were physically carrying it. Absolutely. I mean, there was one time in the middle of this thing, you just reminded me of it. You're talking about David. In the middle of this whole thing that there was a couple who was leaving that met with the apostle. And for their exit meeting, they'd already told them they'd send a text, we're, hey, we're going to be moving to Nashville. And would like, like to just get together with you and say, you know, thank you. Met with them and said, hey, just want to say it's been a great 10 years or 12 years. We appreciate everything you put into us and serve us. We love you. We're going to be moving on. And it became a really bad meeting in which

the apostle was like, I hear you, but it's pretty tough to hear the I love you thing when I have lost your heart and when you have lost trust in me. And you wouldn't, be doing the things you're doing if you had not lost trust. And it became a very abusive meeting. So a few months later, this woman, it was a couple, but the woman sent an email to all the elders after she had moved saying, this was a really abusive meeting. And the apostle ends up writing and says, like, I don't know how, but we happen to have a recording of that meeting, a secret recording. And he's like, I don't know how it happened. And he's like, you know, if you don't take this back, I'm going to send it out. And so he sent it out to all the elders to prove that he

did it. And I was on the thread. She copied me on that. I told her, I said, you copy me on that thread because they spiritual bully people. And there's anything I hate in the world as a bully. That's my guiding light. I don't care how big they are. We're going to go at it. Okay. And I said, copy me on that. And I responded to when I got, when they sent the thing, I listened to it. And I sent an email back and I timestamped all the claims that she had made. I said, they made all these things. I timestamped it.

One of the elders emails me back in the thread with all the elders, which includes my family members, my father-in-law, praying the imprecatory Psalms against me, praying the lions are coming against your anointed one, like the enemies of God thing. And you saying, David, reminded me that that is the level of. I'm like, I'm waiting for my father-in-law to speak up for me. Like, you don't start praying in Pregatory Psalms against brothers and the Lord, you idiots. Nobody will stand up for me.

And it makes you think, am I great? And so we just went to war. They've lost 40% of their church. And another reason why I finally spoke up is because the rumor is, is now the third party has been done. They haven't said anything. And the apostles is coming back into ministry, business as usual. No repentance necessary for the actual spiritual abuse that happened. No disclosure of theology and doctrine.

Back to business, baby. And that's why I went public, not because I have a new album coming out. Yeah. Wow. Because, I mean, they're a sheep in that congregation. I mean, you're basically claiming they have a wolf, not a shepherd. Yes. And you care about their spiritual well-being.

Like you said, you love those people. I love them. all I want for them to do is to know the doctrine. And if they stay, we're still friends. Yeah. This is not a, you're kicked out of the kingdom if you believe this thing. It's, it's definitely unusual. But, you know what I mean?

It's like, yeah. Yeah. You mentioned Martin Luther earlier and I always think of that quote of peace, if possible truth at all costs. And that basically, I mean, whether you consciously were thinking this or not, It sounds like that idea was your guiding light. Peace if possible, that's ideal. That's what we want.

But truth at all costs. And what people don't realize is that it's not the person that is trying to align with scripture that is being divisive. Lies are divisive. I mean, the truth is divisive too, but in a good way. The truth divides, but like social justice ideology is divisive. False teaching is divisive. Side B Christianity is divisive.

And so someone's saying, well, hang on, the word of God says this is not the one who's sowing the division. It's like, no, I would love, you would love nothing more than for everyone to be united on sound doctrine based on the Bible. That's like your hope and your goal. But if false doctrine is leading people astray and into these abusive situations, well, then peace or compliance is actually not the right move. Absolutely. And that's what's been so frustrating about it is saying, we can have peace if you just disclose. Like, I don't want to be here. I think your doctrine's bad.

Disclose it. And I think this is good for people listening if they're in a church of what any, any sort of flavor. I think they just need, I want to remind you that disclosing your doctrine is the first thing you're supposed to do as a shepherd. Yeah, should be on your website. It's on the website. Like, it's all there. you don't have hidden doctrine, that's when you get into culty things or esoteric things. That is a danger.

And knowing who you are to appeal to if there is a conflict, meaning a plurality of elders or whatever your ecclesiology is, there's got to be a system to appeal to. That stuff should be there. And if they're not giving it to you, that is a huge deal. Yeah. You know, that's a really big deal. So yeah, for me, I just wanted the people to know that. and I am experiencing a great measure of freedom now.

I feel like I've come through it and I never gave up on Jesus, but I was just like, God, I don't know where you are. I can't find you. And I am having a hard time reading my Bible. I don't know how to pray anymore. You know, I bought a Matthew Henry book on prayer because I'm like, I need to start over like a little kid. I don't know what to do.

And it was quite difficult doing that. And I think that has given me a far, greater compassion for people who leave the church are on that kind of deconstruction path or gone through that. Maybe they went progressive or maybe they left the faith or whatever their story is, there is a much kind of greater compassion for me for like your stories matter. You matter. Your stories are legitimate.

I'll be the first person ready to hear your story. In reality, one-on-one, I was always ready to hear those stories. I don't think anybody would disagree with that. But in the way my posture, especially publicly, towards like, no, those are real stories and I want to hear them and you're not going to offend me. You're not going to scare me. There's nothing going to tell me that I haven't felt myself. I get it.

If you feel like you hate Jesus, you come talk to me about it. I can hear that story and have compassion for you and be your friend and we can try to walk through it together. I want those people that might have been on the fringe or they left the faith. I want them to come back to the faith. I want so desperately for them to come back to the loving arms of the Savior and the men that misrepresented him, they shouldn't have done it. I'm your guy.

You know, come talk to me. So I think that gives you a greater compassion for those folks as well. Last sponsor is EveryLife. I love EveryLife diapers and wipes. We use them in our home and have for years. They work really well, super clean, all of that. but they also have some other things. Not only do they have like lotion and body wash for babies.

That's amazing. They also have this really cute belt bag. And it's nylon. So it's really easy to clean, spacious interior with multiple pockets, reinforced stitching for everyday wear, adjustable strap for multiple ways to wear, crossbody waist, chest. Plus it's available in four colors, soft petal, oat milk, camel, and midnight. It's perfect for moms on the go.

You can fit your phone. You can fit even a diaper in there. their little travel bag of wipes, it's really convenient. Go to EveryLife.com. Use code Alley10 to get 10% off your first order today. Everylife.com code Alley 10. And separately, I am bringing this up. You do have an EP coming out next month that we talked about.

And that is after the storm. And we touched on a little bit in the beginning of our conversation. But that's not just about church hurt. That's about any suffering, any betrayal. So whether you're someone who was just described, by you, someone who has been betrayed or someone going through something else. Like these songs are in the midst of that suffering for them, right? Absolutely.

Yeah. I mean, again, you don't want to make a record that is about a thing. I want them to hear. I mean, this is kind of my mindset going into this record. All right. I would say it like this. You come to the place, like after all the fun and the games and the, we lived, you know, very much in a cold.

sure over the last 10, 12 years of like, everything is awesome, you know. I don't know you have kids. You remember the everything is awesome. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. That might have been a little bit before you. I can't remember. Anyway, everything is awesome is a great Lego song. But, you know, all of the like life is amazing. You're amazing way. After all that's gone away at the end of the day, what do you do when you go to bed at night? The fun is over. The texting is over. And you realize, that you don't matter. Your life doesn't matter. No one sees you.

If you are gone, would anyone care maybe for a little bit until you're forgotten? People won't remember you, generally speaking. People got stuff to do. There's not really anything to live for. And the,

like you're a, you're an accident. You're a cosmic accident according to Darwin's universe. You just happen to be here. And so whether you do things right or wrong, it doesn't even really matter. If you feel love, if you don't feel like, if you're faithful to your spouse or unfaithful to just, at the end of the day, does it even matter? And you come to a place of just the only thing I want is just to not feel pain.

And you just avoid pain at all costs and whatever it takes. That's it. I don't want to feel pain. until you come to that place of of so much numbness that you can't take it anymore because to feel is to be human and then you go you know what maybe I just want to break something beautiful you know and that was the line that was the the opening line that I had for this when I was writing this on screen I just want to break something beautiful just to feel again you got to we have to understand that is the world that young people are being born into today, nihilism, there is no God, there is no transcendent

beauty, there is nothing to live for, you're a cosmic accident. And so just live for whatever makes you feel good for God's sake, because there's nothing left. I wanted to enter into that space to write an album, especially for young people, to say that like all of those feelings makes sense to me. All of those feelings I get you. I've been there and they are real. They're even logical. They're actually logical conclusions to the world you have been raised in. But it's not true. You do matter because God created you in his image. And that means you have value because God says you do. And that means the things you do matter and the people you touch matter. You are part of a cosmic drama that is happening right now for the God of the universe to make himself glorious and to make himself the center of everything and to have a family of people who glorify him that he will be in communion with forever.

It's almost too good to be true, except it is true, the gospel message, to tell these people, I know you feel like you don't matter, but you do. And you got to keep fighting. You got to keep fighting to find that hope. It's the hope we have in Jesus, of course. That is the place I want to enter into with this EP. And that is why, yes, I wrote based on the things I was feeling from the pain I was experiencing. But the overall message, the EP is called after the storm. The overall message is we're still here.

Yeah. The storm hit. Now we can come up from the bunkers and see how much the tornado, how much the twist or How many houses did it take? How do you rebuild after the storm? It's time to do that. I just want these young people to know you've been lied to. The Darwin's world that you were born into is a lie.

The sexual gender confusion world you're born into, it's a lie. And et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You do matter. There's a God who is merciful who is reaching out to you. And if you ask, if you seek him, you will find him. Amen. Amen. And so good. When does it come out?

October something. Next month. Be on the lookout every day. Wake up. First thing, check Spotify. Go check Spotify. Our song, Scream, is out right now. Yeah. Go check it out. Awesome. Thank you so much. All right.