The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Don't Just Survive, THRIVE in Your Faith - Q&A with Dr. Josh Axe

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

Cultivating a vibrant spiritual life is essential for living out a meaningful and purpose-filled life. In this faith-focused episode, Dr. Josh Axe shares practical Biblical wisdom to help you grow closer to God and dive deeper into your spirituality.  You’ll hear:  The science behind how prayer impacts your physical health The spiritual significance surrounding the Sabbath Encouragement for those feeling distant from God Methods for studying the Bible more deeply Tips on how to share your faith with confidence and grace Church shopping tips for new believers Join us as Dr. Josh Axe offers straight talk on the pressing questions facing your spiritual growth. Leave equipped with practical strategies for nourishing your soul, using your gifts, and pursuing intimacy with God. This episode will revitalize your faith and give you a fresh passion for living out your calling. Want more of The Growth Lab with Dr. Josh Axe? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook Tik-Tok Follow Leaders Instagram Twitter Facebook Email Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are your thoughts on fasting from a physical and spiritual standpoint? Does your family prioritize Sunday church over family events? I think the big thing is, is just realize that sharing your faith is simply sharing your story. I just moved to a new city and it's time to start church shopping. Do you personally honor the Sabbath? The Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath. I was feeling empty. I was feeling like my life was not meaningful.

And then I found God and everything changed. If you're watching church at home by yourself or even with just your family, that's not a gathering of people. Welcome to the Growth Lab podcast. I am Dr. Josh Ax. I'm a graduate of Johns Hopkins University. I'm the founder of ancient nutrition, Dr.ax.com, and leaders.com. And every week on this podcast, I cover the science behind how to grow. We talk about growing your body, your mind, and spirit.

And oftentimes I talk about things like physical health, also talk a lot about personal growth. but this week I'm answering your questions regarding spiritual growth and spiritual health. You know, one of the things that I found in not only my functional medicine practice in the past, but as I have disciples people and mentored them in their faith over the years, I found that your spiritual health and your mental health are sometimes even more important than the food you're putting into your body. I know that if you're consuming things that are spiritually dark and heavy, it will actually cause disease in your organs and oftentimes lead to major problems in your life. And so really excited today to take on your questions regarding spiritual growth.

By the way, if you have questions, make sure to ask them in the area below here if you're watching on YouTube. First question is, how can I share my faith with people who don't believe what I'm? I believe I feel intimidated. You know, here's what I found is that I think that the first thing I do is I remove myself from the equation in terms of thinking about being rejected or thinking about maybe how it's going to affect me in a negative way. What I try and do is think more about what God thinks than the person in front of me thinks. And so what I think I realize, and let me correlate this to health, is that, you know,

if I see somebody who has, for instance, I have a friend with diabetes. and I see them suffering and their own medications and they have all of these problems. I could say, you know what, I don't want to bother them. They might take offense by my advice, but that's really just me being selfish. And so the way that I try and think about it is, I want to do everything to bless this person. I want to do everything I can to add value to their life. And so I think for yourself, if your faith has enriched your life as my faith has, I believe that God is for me, not against me.

I believe that I have an incredible hope in a future. I believe that God is going to take care of my needs. And so because I believe that, it is enriched my life. And I want everyone to know about my faith. And so I think that if you come from a place of I want to serve that person rather than I don't want to be rejected, I think it's all about perception. So how can you share your faith without feeling intimidated? I think the big thing is is just realize that sharing your faith is simply sharing your story.

Like for instance, I'll share this for myself. You know, I, when I went to college, I grew up in a Christian home, and I went to college, and I started, you know, I started drinking more and focus on partying and not not living the life that I know that I should have been living. And I think during that time, I realized, you know what, like I just feel empty inside. I feel like there's a hole in my heart. I don't feel like my life's significant. I don't feel worthy. And then I started reading the Bible and I started getting involved at a church and a growth group. And it just transformed my life. And I started crying out to God and praying to him.

And he came to ways I would pray for things like, God, would you send some great Christian men into my life who can help mentor me? And then I would show up somewhere. And then there would be men that would have conversations with me saying, hey, I'm starting a growth group. I'd love to help mentor you. And so, you know, I think for myself, I would just, share my testimony of I was feeling empty, I was feeling like my life was not meaningful, and then I found God and everything changed. And so I think that when you are sharing your faith if you're intimidated, here's the keys. Number one, take the focus off yourself and focus instead

on knowing that how much value this would add to the life of the person in front of you. I think that's the first thing. And the second thing is don't make it complicated. Just share your story. Say, hey, you know what? I see you're dealing with this hard time and ask their permission. Can I share something with you that really impacted my life? And I'm only sharing this with you because I really think it would bless you. Okay. And then share.

And so, you know, and I think the more that you, after, you know, sharing one time, it's maybe difficult and the second time, less difficult. And then after that, it just becomes natural and easy. And so I would say that, you know, how can I share my faith without feeling intimidated? I think it's that. I think don't focus on serving the other person and just focus on just simply sharing your testimony. And I've done this many, many times. And here's what I found. Everybody's intimidated doing this. I was intimidated the first few times I shared my faith with somebody. And what I found was is that they were always grateful.

I mean, I've probably shared my faith with hundreds of people. And on one-on-one, like lunches probably like 50 people. And that being said, you know, I've had people sometimes that weren't like, super receptive. But for the most part, most people were generally really grateful that I took time to share something with them. You know, I believe that most people today don't feel seen. They don't feel significant. So the very fact that you see that they have a need in their life and that you see that and you want to help them, you know, I think that alone means a lot to most people, probably more than you to realize. All right. Next question, what are your thoughts on fasting from a physical and spiritual standpoint.

Well, first off, there are many studies that have proven that fasting has tremendous benefits on your physical health, whether we're talking about intermittent fasting or fasting for one day to a week or simply fasting from certain things like sugar or or dessert or processed foods, right? So there are many forms of fasting, but there are many studies that show that intermittent fasting can help you lose weight, can help improve brain health, improve digestive health, and increase something in the body called autophagy, where your body starts to eat away disease cells. Also, it's highly anti-inflammatory. So we know via clinical studies that fasting has great physical benefits.

Now, throughout the three largest world religions of Christianity, Islam, and, well, this may not actually be the largest, but obviously one of the oldest and most foundational, but Judaism, we know that from these Abrahamic traditions in religions, that fasting does have spiritual benefits. In fact, Jesus, one of his disciples at one point asked him why he couldn't perform a certain miracle. And Jesus said is because this specific type of miracle requires prayer and fasting. And so we know that fasting has been tied to a lot of different festivals in Jewish feasts. We know a lot of the early Christians especially would practice fasting in church today, whether it be

lent or other times of the year that there's fasting. So all that being said, I do believe that fasting has great spiritual, can help you experience spiritual breakthroughs. I'll show this for myself. When I fasted in the past, I know that I really felt like I had a clearer head. I felt like I could better hear from God and think in more of a spiritual and divine way. So I think that I do think that there are benefits in terms of it bring you closer to God. I think in terms of Jesus even referencing, again, this type of miracle, this thing occurring, it takes prayer and fasting.

Chelsea and I many years ago did some fasting. And I know we were praying for some breakthroughs for ourselves and for other people. and we were able to see breakthroughs in the lives of others in terms of people being healed and some pretty amazing things. And so all that being said, I do believe and have experienced myself, fasting has tremendous physical benefits, but also tremendous benefits in terms of, I believe, spiritual growth. The other thing I really believe about fasting that I noticed, I realize how weak I am when I fast. I am so hungry and almost so moody. And it's one of the, I know sometimes when I fast, it's when I first started fasting, it was like the only thing I

wanted to think about. I realized that I am so dependent upon food and I need to be more dependent upon God. And it was, again, it was a very humbling experience for me. And I felt more hunger and thirst for God and during that time as well. So all that being said, if you are going to fast for spiritual breakthrough, I'd recommend one, intermittent fasting and take that extra time in the morning and pray and meditate and spend time in gratitude and worship. And so I think that's a good thing to do. Just doing intermittent fasting, I think fasting for breakfast and lunch and just eating dinner at night where you're doing more

spiritual practices throughout the day is gray. Obviously doing one or three-day fast is great. You can also do a Daniel fast where you abstain from certain things like meat products for several days. Now, I actually think more people probably need more meat to be healthy than not. So another option, too, is fasting from sugar, fasting from processed foods, only eating real food for a month. Nothing in a package. It can just be a meat or a vegetable or a fruit. Everything has to be fresh. So that's another one.

And I've had people do actually bone broth fast, where they just do for breakfast and lunch, they do herbal tea and they do bone broth. And then for dinner, they actually do a solid meal like meat and vegetables and avocado, something like that. and the benefits are tremendous, both for physical breakthrough and spiritual breakthrough at the same time. All right. Next question we have here, do you personally honor the Sabbath? Wow, this is a great question. And actually, I will say that my wife and I, this is something that early on in marriage, I don't think we didn't see eye to eye on. And so I know this really, I have studied the Sabbath tremendously. And let me share you, share with you my belief about the Sabbath. Throughout my life, I definitely

have at times, and I'm not, I want to say that I haven't, I don't, I haven't done this always, but I have observed the Sabbath and really kept it completely holy from my standpoint. Now, let me say my more Christian standpoint versus the Jewish standpoint of the Sabbath is a little bit different because where I start with the Sabbath is something that Jesus said. And it's, you know, and Jesus said, the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath, right? And so the way that I think about that is this, is that, like, for myself, is a Sabbath is about God, number one, it's about family. It's about rest and rejuvenation. So those are the three things I think about. It's about God. It's about my family. And it's about rest and getting my battery recharged. And so what I do,

do is I don't have a lot of rules around the Sabbath. I try not to work. I try and to spend time with family and God on the Sabbath. So that's where my focus is, is on God and family. And then I try not to work. I try not to, you know, do things. But I don't have a lot of hard set rules in terms of, for instance, I can't walk more than a mile on the Sabbath, right? There are some Jewish fences is what they'll call them, but Jewish laws around. Well, on the Sabbath, you can't light a fire. And so I have a friend of mine who's Jewish. And we go, to his house, we won't, we won't light a flame on the stove or he won't. I'll actually do it for him when he's cooking food, certain things like that. So when we're celebrating Shabbat with some of our Jewish friends. But all that being said, what I do on the Sabbath is, I think the, I think the

mindset is so important. The Sabbath is for us. God created the Sabbath for us to rest and get restored and rejuvenated, spend time with God and family. It should be, again, when you think of the Sabbath, it should be, wow, a day to get recharged. And so for our family, when I think about that, it's, you know, it's going to church on Sunday. It's doing brunch afterwards and enjoying some good family time. It's going out and playing with my daughter in the yard. It's maybe, you know, taking an hour and just watching a movie and relaxing. It's having a great, you know, fun dinner. And it's and then it's spending a little extra time, maybe in worship or conversations about God and trying to make the things that I listen to and watch more spiritually strengthening that

day. And so that's the way that I follow the Sabbath. And so again, do I honor the Sabbath? I do my best to honor the Sabbath. For instance, I really try to not to speak on on those days, whether it's Saturday or Sunday, depending on your beliefs. But I try whatever day I'm practicing Sabbath, Saturday or Sunday. And let me say this. I have a couple times over the years, you know, maybe had chances to travel or things like that that may not be restful. But then what I would do is the day before, day after I would try and make that a Sabbath. Now listen again, so all this being said, I believe that there is a spiritual significance to a Sabbath. And I believe that people are best following a Sabbath.

Now, I think there are some sex of Christianity and absolutely of Judaism, who believe that there are various set structures around Sabbath that are probably more strict than what I have, and that maybe it's a sin to not observe the Sabbath. My belief is it's not a sin, but I believe it's not wise. I believe you're more blessed. You're more rejuvenated. You have better relationship with family and God. If you take one day a week and it's all about God, all about family, all about rest,

I believe you will be more blessed. I believe I have been more blessed when I have practiced Sabbath. So again, I don't want to say, and I'm not here to tell you, it's a sin or not a sin. I don't, but I do believe it is a blessing and you will be blessed if you honor the Sabbath. So that's how I feel about. But I think that mindset's important. That the Sabbath is, if it's outwe're about so many rules and so many restrictions that it's stressful, that's not restful.

Structure it in a way to where it's restful, and it's about God, family, and rest. Okay. Question here. I often have dinner with my boyfriend and his brother and his young son. None of them have the same Christian faith that I have. So I feel awkward asking if I can pray before dinner. Do you pray over meals when you were with non-spiritual friends and family? I do often. It's not every time. Let me give you an example. If I, if I'm in a certain business meeting, and we've got 20 people at the table and it's just really not, it's just not, not that type of environment. I don't, I won't, I won't always initiate prayer. But, but I do, if it's just me one-on-one with almost anybody, yes, I will pray. If it's with my family, yes, we'll pray before meals.

Before I do my men's group, I pray before, before that, oftentimes before my team and I kick off an event, we'll, we'll pray. And so, you know, I am very committed to prayer and would, dinner. Again, it goes back to this, this first question is what I try and do is think about this prayer is not just for me. It's, that's kind of selfish. My prayers were I want to serve and bless these people here at the table. And I'm serious when I say this, I have hardly ever in my life. Maybe, let me say this, maybe it would happen one out of every 100 times, but probably less than that. Where I have said, hey, can I bless this meal? And somebody would offended. I can't think and I've had I said thousands of prayers at meals with in front of other

people for other people and maybe it maybe it's one in a thousand where somebody's like well I'd rather not I'm uncomfortable with that literally one in a thousand so all that being said I think that it's it shows courage I think it shows character I think it shows that you want to that you want to care for in the right way and bless the other people at the table so anyways I would just say that, now listen, I would ask them say, hey, is it okay with you if I pray and bless this meal? And if you're not uncomfortable with it, then I won't. Right. So I think you can ask them and give them permission to say, yes, I'd love for you to bless this meal or not. And then you could always just, you know, say a quiet prayer there by yourself. So anyways, I think that any chance you can get,

listen, here's the other thing. I'm not, my mindset oftentimes isn't, uh, the focus is, just sharing my faith. My focus is more, I want to bless these people. I believe, and by the way, it's the Judeo, the Jewish belief, absolutely, and some Christian beliefs as well, that your food, there's energy that is passed upon the food. There are actually studies on plants and certain things like water and different structures on if you're saying mean things to a plant, or there's a negative energy towards it versus a positive uplifting, you know, classical music, praise and worship music, those sort of things. I personally believe it actually impacts plant structures. It impacts food. It impacts people. So I believe that the food you're going to eat actually is more blessed in a way

more healthy if you were praying for it. Now listen, I don't believe if you're going to the church potluck and everybody's eating, you know, white flour dinner, rolls with margarine that you're praying for. And all of a sudden, it's like, you know, it's broccoli when you eat it. I don't believe that. But I do think there is an effect of blessing that happens when you are praying for your food and for other people. So all that being said, I would say, do your best, but don't feel guilty if it's just not the right situation either. All right. Another question here. I have felt stagnant in my faith lately. What are some ways to revitalize my spiritual life.

Here's what I would say. Anytime that I felt stagnant in my faith, there's a few things I really felt like have gotten me revitalized. One would be get around more people that are more spiritually fervent, you know, that have a little bit more zealusiness to their life. And so I think that if you can spend time around people that are on fire for God and ministering to the needs of, other serving the needs of other people, I think that that's the most uplifting is you,

if again, similar thing, when you study show this, when you spend time around people that are disciplined, you become more disciplined. When you spend time around people that have a greater net worth than you monetarily, you'll make more money. There's studies on all of this. When you spend time around people that are more physically healthy, you become more physically healthy. So the very same principle will apply. If you are not feeling spiritually fervent or or or, or motivated or inspired, hang around inspired people spiritually. And when you do that, it's like a flame. It's like, you know, you'll be, you'll be lit on fire. So that's my number one piece of advice. Number two, show up. Go to, you know, go to church or synagogue, okay, on Saturday or Sunday.

So go to a worship event and then go to a second one in the middle of a week. Like on a Wednesday, like when I was growing up, we would go to church Sunday school. And then I would go to a Wednesday night growth group or service. And then we would do praise and worship. And so that's another thing, too, is I would do praise and worship. And there was something about that that was so energizing to me as well. So I would say spending more time in praise and worship and singing out loud can really light you on fire. And then I think reading about people that are spiritually on fire,

you know, I think that there are a lot of spiritual growth books that kind of talk about general theologies or ways of life. But I think if you read about someone like Mother Teresa or St. Francis of Assisi or Billy Graham or, you know, these incredible people that were passionate about their faith, I think that's revitalizing and inspiring. And I would say making sure that you've got good spiritual habits, like waking up first thing in the morning and blocking off that time no matter what to pray, to meditate, to read Bible or spiritual growth books, something that's spiritually uplifting, but getting in those habits. But I really believe for myself for a breakthrough, I think the biggest thing I've seen is that extra night of like a praise and worship

or a growth group and then being around people that are spiritually strong and growing themselves, that's what I've found for myself to help me get unstuck in my faith. I've heard you say that prayer affects your health and body. How is that? What does it do to your physical body? Now, listen, I'm going to answer this question in two ways. I'm going to answer it via rational thought in the natural, and I'm going to answer it in the unseen via the supernatural.

So prayer affects the health and body of it. according to studies. And I believe it affects people positively because they're focusing on that thing they want. There's a process of visualization, which has been shown in certain studies, to increase the likelihood of the outcome. So when you pray, you're praying for, let's say, yourself healing. Okay. And maybe there's a level of you're saying it and you're picturing yourself healed. So there is something rational and physiological. We know that happens when you're, body gets a mental picture and a vision where your body neurologically starts making those things happen. So there are very rational thoughts to prayer. I think there are talking metaphysics. If we talk about

energy, I talked about this earlier, I believe that, listen, think about this. If you have somebody who is sitting next to you and you say, I hate you in a really negative tone, what does that do to their spirit versus saying something like, I love you. You're such an incredible person. Thank you, thank you, thank you. What that does to their energy. So we know that the words we say in our tone, if it's in positive tone, I love you, I hate you, right? It affects another human being in a positive or negative way. Okay. So I think prayer is very similar. Whether the person can hear it or not, there are positive or negative tones that are being released into the world and towards that person that may affect them. Okay. Now, now, how does it affect? So let's talk about the supernatural.

I mean, throughout the Bible, God really, God talks about, God hears our prayers. It says that God hears our prayers. And God himself or angels on his behalf will go to work on our behalf. And so we know that there is a, you know, there is a supernatural realm. It's like you can't see the wind, but it's there. I mean, we know that there has to be something that's actually operating and creating our physical bodies, the things we see. And I think about the spiritual world a little like this, or here's an example. My body right now, there is something that's animating me.

What's the difference between me right now or if I died immediately and my body is sitting right there? What's the difference? There's no spirit. Everything could be pretty much identical. There's no spirit. So all that being said, I think that, you know, prayer affects our health and our body in a very rational manner. But more than that, I believe it's a supernatural in terms of, you know, God, God saying, you know, God.

And prayer really should be seen as a two-way communication between us and God. You know, oftentimes I think when people pray, they think that, um, that, you know, they're saying words to God and then that's it. But the way that I think about it is this, how does a spirit speak? It's not in a physical voice like we hear it. I think you start looking for things showing up, divine connections and things happening that are based on your prayers, right? Looking out for those things, being mentally and spiritually aware of those prayers you

made and what's happening. And also, you know, I think when I think about person, is a prayer, I think what I think about things that are spiritual, it's more like a thought. I'll sit there and pray and say, God, what are your thoughts on something I could do to really bless Chelsea? God, what is, you know, asking God, hey, what should I do in this situation? You know, we have a team member and they have a family member that died and what should I do about that? What's the best way to go? And I'll sit there and I'll pray, but then I'll just thinking, listen and just say, God, what are your words? What do you have for me? And I've never

heard an audible voice, but I'll have different thoughts come in. And I think I can recognize the voice of God because it typically makes me uncomfortable because it's more than I would normally do myself. Like, buy them a plane ticket, give them a week off, send the, you know, the best, you know, send flowers, make sure that you, you know, say incredibly kind things to her. Tell the team, let's show extra compassion, everybody. Like, to me, that's the Holy Spirit telling me, hey, and a lot of times it's just much more than I would normally do myself in terms of what I'm hearing. And so I hope that helps. But prayer is very much a two-way communication. Another question here, do you have any advice for studying the Bible more deeply? You know, I think we spend two, let me say this. One, when I read the

Bible, I think it's most beneficial to have other tools that go along with it, like a commentary. So, for instance, if I'm reading a book like, let's say the Gospel of John, okay, or Genesis, there's another one. Let's say I'm reading Genesis. And I'm reading Genesis. I will have a commentary. By the way, I'm listening to a commentary right now, or I just went through one with Genesis. So I read the book of Genesis.

And I also watched Jordan Peterson did an incredible, it was very long, but in it. it's on YouTube, but this incredible breakdown of Genesis. And then I also listen to a Dennis Preger commentary on Genesis. And then I have some other Christian people who went through. I bought a book on a commentary on Genesis. And so what I'll do is I'll read commentary. I'll try and read the Bible. I'll try and maybe also read or listen to a commentary.

And maybe even watch a few YouTube videos on experts. on it. So in order for me to go more deep, I tend to read the Bible, but have other tools along with. And I also think having a growth group that is maybe doing some of these things together or somebody you're studying with, you know, we live in a very Greek society, which means we're more individualistic. When you look at the ancient Eastern and Hebrew worldview, it's very much more community driven. You know, in more of the evangelical or Protestant churches today, a lot of of it is, hey, go read your Bible by yourself. I'm not saying they're just condoning only reading it by yourself, but that's what we tend to do is I'm going to show up to church once on Sunday, and I'm going to

read just this book once by myself. I'm going to randomly flip it open to wherever it lands. And I think the more Eastern and Hebrew mentality is very much like we are going to, I'm going to read it by myself, but I'm also then going to go and then discuss it with a friend, and we're going to read it together. And then maybe the church or or or the synagogue, every everyone is reading the same thing there. And then I've got a track I'm going on where I'm going to spend a whole month on this one book of Genesis and learning everything I can. So I think if you're going to go deeper, you should go deeper, not just yourself, but if you can find one other person to go deeper with you. And I think commit not to just to reading the Bible, but hearing what other experts say about it

as a commentary. And for me, that's been very, very enriching in a way that I've come to know the Bible much, much more deeply. All right, a few more questions. Do you read the Bible and pray alone or with your wife and daughter? Now, let me say this. Most of the time I do it alone, we are starting and getting it into a practice of doing more together. We pray together for at dinner. My three-year-old will pray. I mean, it's so cute right now. Like, we'll pray. And then we'll say, Arwin, we're going to pray to God right now or pray to Jesus, and she goes around and she, you know, and sometimes she'll get out of her chair and say, God, thank you for this, thank you for this. Anyways, we pray together. And I do think there are tremendous benefits of reading the Bible

together or reading a book together. Chelsea and I have done this on occasion where we said, hey, let's read a book together and we'll read it and on our date nights, we'll discuss it. So I do think that that's a great, great thing to do. Another question, my husband recently came to me and told me he feels far from God right now. What encouragement would you give to someone who feels like this? You know, I think what I try and do is I try and set up situations for people to where they can, that would allow them to choose to draw closer themselves. And so encouraging them and saying, even,

yourself, hey, I would love to go to church. I would love to go to this conference and I'd love for you to come with me. You don't have to, but I'd love for you to come with me, right? So I think that, and then I also think encouraging your husband to join a community of another group of men that are iron sharpens iron. I think that's one of, that's the biggest flaw I see for men right now, why husbands and other men feel far from God is because they're solo, where they're hanging out just with other men who aren't seeking God in pursuing a relationship. or growing in their faith and religion. And so all that being said, the greatest thing you could do is somehow encourage him to hang out

with other godly men. That is the single thing that will help him grow the most. In addition to that, encouraging him to go to things. But again, I think there has to be this thing where it's like men want to follow other men they respect and admire. And for men, it tends to be other men that are strong men. mentally, strong spiritually, men that are passionate, men that are hungry, men that want to fight and go to war in the way of, you know, more of a spiritual way of impacting society for good.

So I think the greatest single thing you could do is try and set up situations where he can get around other godly men. The other thing I would say is pray, pray for him, you know, pray for those other men, godly men to come and do his life. And then again, I think others just setting up situations at church or growth groups, maybe as couples, those sort of things. And then you can always buy him books or things that you think will help draw him near. But I think those are some of the best things. And then encouragement for him, I think, yeah, I would think the encouragement is encouraging him to go and do those things.

And I think sometimes letting him know, hey, listen, I, like, I think women oftentimes could be more direct or open in their communication. Like, for instance, if Chelsea would say to me, which she has, but if she did, if she said, Josh, you know what, I just, I really feel like, you know, at one point, you were really strong in your leadership and spiritually in our marriage. And I don't, I'm not feeling that from you right now. Is everything okay? Hey, like, I, I miss your leadership. I miss your hunger and growth for God because that's what inspires me to grow.

So I think also, you may be letting him know, like, his spiritual leadership influences you in the kids, that I think affects men because I think most men naturally, they want to lead. They want to do those things if they've got the right character. And so I think that may be something else you mentioned. All right. Last couple of questions here. I just moved to a new city and it's time to start church shopping. But I've only been to one church my whole life.

In your experience, what are the pros and cons of attending a large megachurch versus a smaller congregation? You know, here's the thing that I would say is I think the best church is the church where you can be most involved and where you can experience the most growth. So most growth, most involved. You know, I think oftentimes people try and go to the church where they're the most comfortable and they're the least seen. You should want to be in a church where they say, hey, can you serve in the parking lot? Hey, can you be part of children's care? hey, come to the pot, like, hey, I think sometimes smaller congregations allow for, you know, a greater

level of being involved if you are a spiritual leader. I think for megachurches, obviously there's more programs, there's more things going on. Sometimes you get more lost in the shovel. People don't notice if you're there, you miss. And I don't actually think that's a good thing. But I would say this, find a church that challenges you to grow. Don't look at church for, you agree with everything. one that challenges you to grow and you're so convicted, you go and take action. You pray more, you read more, you share your faith more. You're more generous to those who are impoverished. You want to give more to orphans and widows. You want to, the best churches are the ones that make you most like Christ, that make you more wise, that help you grow in character that, where you're trying

to use more of your own skills and talents for the good of the world. So that's what I would think about is that when you're church shopping, shop for or look for those people in the community that you see, wow, this person is really a God, you know, this person is a God fearing and God-loving person. And you can often tell what sort of churches are are discipling and creating those types of individual. So whether it's large or small, I don't really think that's as important. I do think that not only going to church, but being part of a growth group, where you meet one other night a week or day a week, I think that that is tremendous for growth. In fact, I think more growth happens there oftentimes than Sunday. So I would actually try and be part of a

church where you can definitely be involved in one of those groups outside of just one day a week. Does your family prioritize Sunday church over family events? You know, I think that for us, our family, my family is so faith-driven. And so I think for us is that we, you know, even if we're having a family event, we are praying, we're talking about God. We're, I mean, we are a very fervent, a faith, you know, a fervent family when it comes to our faith. And so I think that prioritizing church over family events generally is probably a good thing. Last question. How important is it to attend church in person versus online? I think it's much better to attend in person. I think online, it's much better to attend in person.

I think online, it's not the same effect. I think we're meant to be, I think the church, let me actually go back to the definition. Church in the New Testament is actually known as the Ecclesia, okay? E-K-K-L-E-S-I-A or Ecclesia, as some people call it. So, and part of that meaning is gathering, a gathering of people. if you're watching church at home by yourself or even with just your family, that's not a gathering of people. Okay. Even if we go back to, again, what Christianity stem from, Judaism, you know, the synagogue, people were meeting in person.

They weren't doing it at their house by themselves. It was a gathering of people that were purpose driven to worship God together, to learn about God together, to then to leave. serve others together. So I believe, listen, if you for some reason, you are sick with a colder flu and, hey, watch it online. Absolutely 100%. But I would encourage everybody to commit to going to church in person. And listen, I've done church at home or watched it online. And I've done it in person. and like when Chelsea gives birth, you know, month after, a lot of times we're just, we're at home and we're huddled in and we're watching online. But I do think in person is hands down, not even close, that's what you want to do because that's the original meaning. It's the ecclesia. It's the gathering in person.

And that doesn't, listen, that could be on Sundays. It could be on Saturdays. It could be on Monday's nights. But I do think it's an in-person thing that's happening with a group of people on purpose to worship and honor God and learn. and grow in him. All right. So this week for this Q&A, we covered spiritual growth and spiritual health. Next week we'll be covering another topic. We're going to cover health coming up. We're going to cover relationships and a whole lot more.

Hey, I'd love to hear from you. What was your biggest takeaway from this Q&A? And please let me know. What are some questions you have for future Q&As? Leave that in the comment sections below. And hey, thanks so much for tuning in to the Growth Lab podcast. Remember each and every week, I cover the science behind how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, your spiritual life, and so much more. Hey, if you're not subscribed again, please subscribe, like.

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