Theology in the Raw - 723: #723 - Joshua Harris on Kissing Goodbye to I Kissed Dating Goodbye

Episode Date: February 11, 2019

On episode #723 of Theology in the Raw Preston has a conversation with Joshua Harris. Joshua is the author of a number of books and is most widely known as the author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I Kissed Dating Goodbye effectively "turned the Christian singles scene upside down" and continues to shape the consciousness of how Christians view singleness, dating, and the roadmap to marriage.

Hello, friends and enemies and supporters and acquaintances and relatives. Thanks for joining me for another episode of Theology in the Raw. I've got a bunch of speaking events coming up this spring. You can check out my webpage at PrestonSprinkle.com for all the dates and info and facts and ways to register. I'll be in Orange County on February 11th and 12th. I'll be in Los Altos, California. That's the South Bay of San Francisco for a conversation with Justin Lee hosted by Spark Church. That's spark.church forward slash sexuality scripture soul.

That's the website because the speaking event is titled Sexuality, Scripture, and the Soul of Christianity. A ongoing dialogue between myself and Justin Lee. If you are a Patreon supporter, you get free admission to that event. So go to spark.church forward slash sexuality, scripture, soul to register for that. If you're a Patreon supporter, you can go to the Patreon page. I've listed a free code for you and you can punch in that code and you get free admission to that event. I'll be in Seattle, Washington for One Day Leaders Forum, March 12th, Salem, Oregon for another One Day Leaders Forum, March 14th, Cleveland, Ohio for another One Day Leaders Forum, April 23rd. And then at the Q

Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, April 24th through the 26th. So again, PrestonSpringle.com lists all these events. Also, CenterForFaith.com will list most of these events as well. And you can get more info on how to register for those events. I could not be more excited about this episode. Do I say that about every episode? Maybe I do. Maybe I should downplay some of my other episodes, but I'm super stoked about this one. I have on the show Joshua Harris. If you are like me, a product of the 90s, a product of the purity culture, then you probably know the name Joshua Harris. Joshua Harris wrote a book that came out in 1997 titled, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Some of you were triggered right when I said that because Josh's book created many waves during the late 1990s. Most of the waves when I was, I mean,

I was around then. I was in college when the book came out. And in my environment, it was very well received. Lots of people were, you know, following his advice and they started to kiss dating goodbye. And other people, though, were, for lack of better terms, kind of harmed by some of the ideas in the book. I mean, Joshua wrote the book when he was about 19 or 20 years old. And, you know, it took off. I mean, it sold over 100,000 copies. I don't know how many several hundred thousands of copies it sold, but it really put its mark on evangelical Christianity in the late 90s. It also contributed to and was a product of the so-called purity culture in that era. Well, Josh has had a recent change of mind about his book. As you'll hear in this episode,

we talked primarily about the book in the episode and kind of the aftermath of it, the last 20 years since he wrote the book. And more recently, he's realized that while, you know, there's some good stuff in the book and he had some good ideas, it also had some unhelpful ideas and he has actually changed his mind. And in many ways, like repented from some of the things he said in the book. So when I heard about that, I was like,

man, I got to have this guy on the podcast. This is fascinating. So I had a wonderful conversation with Josh and I think you're really going to enjoy this. He is just a down-to-earth, honest dude with tons of integrity and grace and compassion and truth and all kinds of stuff. So please welcome to this show for the first time, Joshua Harris, author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye. goodbye all right friends i am here with uh i guess i could say my new friend by uh by guest in the show is uh joshua harris and uh as my guest in the show is Joshua Harris. And as I said in the introduction, Josh is best known for writing a book that created a lot of waves and in some ways still continues to create a lot of waves in the church. And that's the book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. So Josh, thanks so much for being on the show.

I would love, can we just go back in time to the mid-90s when I'm sure the idea for the book was percolating? You were, I think, a teenager or no, like a 20s, early 20s or something when you ended up writing it. What led to the writing the book? And then we'll kind of trace your journey from there. Sure. Yeah, the book came out in 1997, and I wrote it when I was 1920 around. That was kind of the homeschooling movement. So I've been homeschooled my whole life. There were a lot of kind of radical ideas in that world about relationships and romance, you know, parents talking about courtship, parents talking about betrothal, you know, they basically were, they pulled their kids out of public school and private school. And they were now we're having

these kids grow up and being interested in relationships and they kind of were like we need a radical version of relationships too well I was a teen and I just thought that was ridiculous you know I wanted to date different girls in my high school youth group and I thought my parents were were nutty you know and um so I, I went out with this girl for a couple of years in high school. And when I was 17, that relationship ended. It was sort of like this, this important spiritual, you know, milestone in my life where I wanted to get serious with God. And relationships had been this, this area where I had compromised, I'd hidden stuff from my parents. We, we hadn't had sex, but we'd gone

really far. And then when that relationship ended, I just felt this sense of guilt. I felt this sense of having hurt her. And the huge focus in the church at that time was true love waits, saving sex for marriage. AIDS was something so scary, you know, the issue of abortion was driving a lot of the conversation around sexuality, all those kinds of things. And so I kind of had taken all of that in. And as I had this moment of saying, I want to get serious with God, I took all these ideas that I'd heard from my parents and from Elizabeth Elliott's book, Passion and Purity. And I started talking about that with other teenagers in a magazine that I was publishing. And I was traveling and speaking and did a talk called I Kissed Dating Goodbye. And there was

just this massive response. And that ended up becoming the idea for a book, uh was published when i was 21 and uh sort of snowballed and became this uh this huge you know in the christian subculture this cultural phenomenon so how many copies maybe did it sell the first few years i mean it was a lot right like it really took off yeah yeah we're selling a lot yeah we're selling in the hundreds of thousands and it i mean when people talk about the purity culture of the 90s and early 2000s i mean your book typically comes up was it both the product of and maybe a uh an impetus towards causing or whatever the purity culture or um how would you relate it to yeah you know part of my journey uh in the last couple years has been you know, part of my journey in the last couple of years has been, you know, getting to this point where I start, I was willing to start listening to critiques of my book. For a long time, I didn't. I kind of would just wrote that off like, well, these are just people who are, you know, being negative or, you know, they're not serious about God or, you know, and I just wasn't in the space of thinking about singles and dating and relationships. So I just was trying to move on from it. And essentially, I reached this point

where I realized, you know what, the stories that I'm hearing, I saw them when I was still pastoring, I was starting to see them in my church. And I started to see kind of the way that a church culture can harm people and, you know, damage them. And how, you know, myself included as a leader wasn't listening to people who felt hurt and excluded. And so I reached this point when I came to grad school, stopped pastoring and went to grad school where I began to listen to those voices. And so part of this is the answer to your question. Part of my journey has been trying to go back and piece some of these things together and say, what shaped my thinking that caused me to write this book? Then what was the fallout from the book? How did it influence, you know, people who read it? And how did it, how did it shape an

environment? How did it shape people's perceptions of, you know, relationships and sexuality and dating and all these things. And it's been really a complicated process. It's been an emotional process because I, you know, I was so tied to this book. I had such, it's such a big part of my own identity and sense of, of self for so long. It was hard for me to be honest about some of those things, but I do think that it was both shaped by the environment of, you know, the 90s that I was growing up in and the homeschool community. And then as it just took off in a massive way, it interacted with other speakers and writers and leaders, but it also was a big part of kind of popularizing some of these ideas. Specifically, if you're not ready for the commitment of marriage, you should wait, you shouldn't date. You should just have friendships. And purity was a big part of that. But it was also this idea of, you know, loving the other person sincerely, making the most of your singleness, not wasting

this time in your life, and so on. So back then, we didn't have the phrase purity sincerely, making the most of your singleness, not wasting this time in your life and so on. So back then we didn't have the phrase purity culture, you know, it was just, let's be radical for Jesus. Let's, you know, for me, I think there was a lot of this youthful idealism, like, well, all these people are saying we shouldn't have sex before marriage, but then, you know, I had this experience of being in this dating relationship and we're messing around in the backseat of the car. And, you know, that decision to save sex is like this last minute, like, OK, we got to stop kind of a thing. And so I was basically saying, man, we need to back this up and be like, you know, we want to stay away from this this line. We got to go way over here and not even date.

way over here and not even date. And, you know, I, you know, I've come to see in the years since, like I was, I was adding man-made rules to try to, you know, control myself and, and, and help other people. But when you, when you start adding to God's word and adding man-made rules, it causes different kinds of harm. Well, yeah. Can you talk about some of the, maybe some of the early pushbacks or fallout that you were hearing, but weren't listening to. And then, yeah, more recently when you did start listening, like, what are some of the big, cause I mean, when I think about even the purity culture, I think about, you know, the stuff that, uh, again, I,

I admitted to you earlier that I actually haven't read the book, but I know the gist of it. It sounds like, I'm like, well, that's, yeah, we shouldn't have sex till we're married. Um, you know, maybe dating isn't the best thing for people to do if they're not ready for marriage. It seems like there's some good ideas in the book, but I can, I can probably predict, and I was a college professor for a number of years, so I've experienced some of the fallout as well. But yeah, what are some of the pushbacks, some of the pain that people were, you know, experiencing as a result of the book? Yeah. Well, you know, it's an interesting thing. The reality is, is that different people interacted with the book in different ways. And so for a long time, I didn't listen to some people

because I had other people saying this book was healthy. This book, you know, helped me. And even to this day, there are people who say, well, listen, I read it and I just, I filtered it. I took some of it and I thought other parts were kind of silly or I just kind of applied this and it helped me in these particular ways. And that's where different people's experience and backgrounds, personalities, family situations, church situations shape their experience of any idea or concept, you know, and I think in evangelicalism, they're consistently, maybe this is just our American culture, but like

fads that sweep through the church, you know, and I think my book was one of those fads. So there were some ideas that I think it was trying to counterbalance some, maybe some excesses or some problems. Like, yeah, you know, if you're just kind of selfishly, you know, hopping from one relationship to another in these dating relationships, like that could be a big waste of your time. And you might be misusing and harming other people just being selfish and being a jerk. I mean, even in the secular world, people talk about like dating can be a mess, you know, dating can be this game or whatever. So, but I came so strong in my book and I really, the rhetoric of it and the attempt to have a, you know, attention grabbing title, attention grabbing idea, you know, plant a flag in my book and take a strong position and,

you know, be radical, you know, it and be radical. Again, I just thought, oh, we just need to try harder. But that mentality, I think, can often cause us to miss, even if we give a nod to the concept of grace, when you have that kind of try harder, just pull yourself up and do this for the Lord kind of a mindset, it can be, it can become legalistic. And it can also, I think, I think that one of the problems is, is that there was a lot of trying to promise, like, if you do things this way, you'll experience God's best. That's a big theme through the book. Well, you know, there's a little bit of truth to that. Like, yeah, God, you know, God's word talks about the blessing that comes from obedience and all those types of things. But I think the way in which my book emphasized that someone could read that and get the sense of, you know what, if I just check off

these boxes and I do these things, then my life's going to turn out in a certain way. And 20 years later, well, you know, there's, there are a ton of people that are like, it didn't turn out that way. You know, I waited and I didn't get married or I did get married and my sex life was a mess. Or because I didn't date, I had no idea what I was looking for in a spouse. And then I, you know, I made this courtship so serious so quickly, I ended up marrying somebody without really knowing them as well as i should i felt pressured to get married because i didn't want to like you know just date aimlessly right so you have all these stories of people going man you know this shaped my thinking it caused me to fear relationships with the opposite sex it caused me to to not you know

get into healthy dating relationships. And then I think there's a whole category of how this, how my book talking about dating in, you know, mingled with, you know, the way the church was talking about sexuality, which I think part of what the, you know, the focus and the critique of purity culture, and I don't even pretend to be the best representative of talking about that, but the majority of our discussion around sex is about forbidding. It's about warning. It's about danger. that kind of emphasis and then tries to, you know, really do things the right way and really guard their eyes and make sure that they're not thinking sexual thoughts and all those kinds of things, you can develop like real hangups and unhealthy views of sexuality because it's fear

based, you know, there's no celebration of the goodness of sexuality. And there's, you know, there's no kind of guidance for how do you, you know, just, you know, view yourself as a sexual creature, recognize that that's something that God created, not tie yourself up in knots and condemn yourself when you, when you, you know, experience failure in different forms or whatever, you know, just, just kind of the healthy life, you're in different forms or whatever, you know, just, just kind of the healthy life, life of a, of a disciple, a lot of that can be missed. And I think all of that added up to a lot of people feeling really damaged. So everything you've said in the last few minutes, is that really in the last just two or three years that you've been kind of putting all these

thoughts together? Definitely. Definitely. Wow. So were you pastoring while you were kind of starting to shift your view or rethink some things? Well, I pastored for 17 years and I stopped about three and a half years ago to go to graduate school in Vancouver, B.C. and Canada. On the tail end of my time of pastoring there, I started to kind of put things together and see, you know what, there were aspects of our church culture and the way that we'd led that had hurt people. And we started to listen to those people and apologize in different ways, you know, where we just had these standards where you need to do things this way, you need to educate your kids this way. If your kids rebel, you're not a good parent. I mean, we would never come out and say those things, but that was kind of the church culture and just heavy-handed leadership many times. And so it was only when I stepped away from that, that I was able to, I think, be more, I wasn't protecting an institution

in the same way. I didn't feel all this kind of political pressure to, you know, to defend everything. I was more just willing to engage with people. Okay. Oh, that's fascinating. Was it hard leaving the pastorate or has it been like a refreshing break? It was hard on many levels, but, you know, it was going to graduate school, you know, studying at a, you know, a graduate school of theology, where I just, I realized I didn't want to be a pastor anymore. So that was, that was, yeah, it was kind of totally backwards. I didn't, I didn't do that formal training on the front end. I pastored for 17 years. And then, you know, just was completely

burnt out and worn out and experienced, you know, failure in different ways as a leader, you know, a ton of like church political turmoil and all these different things. And got to this point where I was like, I need a break. And so a sabbatical became going to graduate school. And in that context, just kind of being able to be honest with myself with, man, I don't even want to do this anymore. But that was, that was hard for me to admit because, you know, it was, it was kind of, you know, this, I was all wrapped up with my sense of calling and, and identity. And so it was hard to admit that because I knew it. Other people expected me to keep pastoring. Do you think you'll go back to pastoring or is it

just kind of up in there right now? Or is it a definite no? I would say it's a definite no, but, but who knows? Yeah. Wow. Well, curious why you picked, and I want to come back to some of the stuff with the book again, but curious why you picked Regent. Regent's one of my favorite graduate schools. It's the top five that I always recommend.

So I'm curious why you... Yeah, I had some really dear friends, Matt and Julie Canlis, who had attended Regent and knew me well and kind of knew my story well. And I went on a trip with Matt to Scotland where we stayed in this monastery and, you know, did this like prayer retreat. And I was right in the point where I was just trying to figure out what am I going to do in my role at the church? And he and Julie really just sat me down and said, wouldn't it be great for you to have focused time of study? Regent would be such a great fit for you. And so that's how I ended up deciding to go to Regent. It's been a good experience?

It was great. You know, it was, it allowed me to, you know, I think stay sharp, be challenged intellectually, learn a ton and interact with, you know, Christians from, from all different kind of streams of the, you know, of Christianity, which was really healthy for me. Cause I'd been in a context where it was just very, you know, narrow. We read these people, we hang out with these people. This is our tribe. And I, I, everything I learned about the church and theology had been in one place. And I felt like I needed something a little bit broader. Would you say you've if I can, if you, if you don't mind sharing, have you,

have you, I don't want to say left. Well, yeah, I'll just say left. And you could maybe use it in a word. Have you left that kind of brand of Christianity that you were a part of for so many years or just expanded? Maybe you're, you're thinking a bit or. I would say I've left it. Yes. Okay. Well, how do I identify now? Did you have a denomination or any kind of a flavor of Christianity that you could put on?

You know, I, I think I, for so long, I've been kind of, you know, in that sort of, this is my tribe sort of mindset, that I'm super hesitant to jump into any other tribe. I mean, we attend a small Baptist church that's local here, but yeah. Okay. I wouldn't really identify in any particular way. Yeah. Whatever happened to CJ Mahaney?

I don't need any inside scoop, but just whatever's public. I literally don't even, I know there was some fallout with the church or something. Yeah, there was a huge kind of blow up in our denomination. And there was a lot of personal pain in that for me. But he is pastoring in Louisvilleville kentucky oh really okay yeah so in the in the in sovereign grace yes i i've i don't know all the all the details of how things are going there but that's where he is are you in relationship with him anymore or is it no no i really don't have any relationship with,

with anyone in sovereign grace or any connections there anymore. No. Do they see you as kind of like a black sheep, would you say, or is it an amicable amicable? No, I think there'd be a lot of very negative views of me and disappointment in me for sure. Wow. So over the years, since you wrote, I guess, Dating Goodbye, and you said, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of positive, obviously.

I mean, tons of people were buying the book, but also, you know, some criticism and even maybe personal like pain and stuff that people are like, man, this, what you said in the book actually led to these things and pain. How did you, how did you handle that? Was that emotionally pretty trying or do you have a pretty thick skin that you didn't let it get to you or well I think once I opened the door to listening to people it was it was a pretty emotional and difficult process for me um because it's just hard to admit you're wrong you know especially when it's something that um is tied to your sense of success you know your sense of identity this is the this is a book that made me a best-selling author you know and that was something i was really proud of it was that that uh accomplishment was something that made me a best-selling author, you know, and that was something I was really proud of. That accomplishment was something that gave me a sense of, you know, significance, and

this is what I've done, and so to question that and interact with people who had been hurt, you know, I mean, it was a roller coaster for me. I'd have days where I was just like, you know, super down, just feeling so sad over it. Other days where I'm being defensive and just like ticked off at people like, you're blaming me for too much, you know, it's like, it was a real roller coaster. So part of the story is that when I was at So part of the story is that when I was at Regent, I met a young woman named Jessica Vander Weingard, who was from Australia. We were working on a documentary school project with one of our professors, Ewan Russell Jones, who was a BBC documentary producer before he became a professor at Regent. And she wanted to make a documentary about Christian dating. And she had read my book as a teenager, loved it, got to her, you know, mid 20s, and was like, wait a second,

I'm not married, this didn't work out. And so she was at a place of really being really disappointed and ticked off at me and my book. And then she meets me at Regent and we're fellow students. And so it started out with her saying, hey, would you be interviewed in my documentary? And I was like, yeah, sure. And then she came to me and said, I think she heard about me listening to people who were critiquing my book. And she said said maybe the

story here is actually your journey of reevaluating your book and to be honest I was like so scared by that idea I turned her down at one point um and and and but it ended up coming back around where I just I realized for myself it's like I wrote this book that influenced all these people. How do I possibly like get back to people and tell them that my thinking has changed? How do I do that publicly? And, and then I also felt like, you know what, if it's just me kind of going off, you know, up a mountain, like I'm going to rethink my book and then come back down with like, okay, I've rethought my book and here's the new, you know, here's the new law or whatever. Here's the new perspective. Like that's not going to be healthy. And so I felt like, you know what, there's so many people that have been influenced by my book and have grown up in this culture. You know, Jessica's idea for a documentary is a way

to involve people. It's a way to capture their voices. It's a way to listen to different people. involve people. It's a way to capture their voices. It's a way to listen to different people. And it's also was a way to show the fact that, you know what, we all at different times need to go on a journey of learning, rethinking, refining. And so we ended up crowdfunding this documentary. We made it our thesis project for school. It was all done by students, volunteer students, funded by people who believed in the project. It was a crazy, messy journey, but that kind of captured my story of reevaluating. And that process of the documentary was very emotional. There was a lot of ups and downs for me and for the whole team, honestly. What's the name of the documentary?

The documentary is called I survived, I kissed dating goodbye. And it's been released by, uh, exploration films. Um, and it's, it's completely free. Uh, it's, you know, people can, um, go to, they can just search for, I survived for i survived i kissed goodbye and they can go to exploration films and um get a link to to watch it and stream it online it's on amazon prime in the u.s so people can can access it that way when did it come out uh we just released it in uh in november of 2018 oh wow so just recently yeah so when people, when people hear the name Joshua Harris, and when you interact with people, are they aware of your, your shift, your change of view,

or do they still think, oh, here's the, I guess, just stating goodbye person or? Well, I mean, that's the reason I'm, I'm coming on your podcast, right? I mean, I've been, I've been trying to get the word out. And it's been tough because, you know, even in that I've gotten a lot of criticism, which I understand. People are just like, why don't you shut up? You know, like we don't want to hear from you anymore. And I get that. But I feel a sense of like obligation to, you know, try to spread the word of my own rethinking. People, I just want people to think for themselves.

You know, I want them to wrestle with these ideas themselves, but, um, I've been doing a lot of media and a lot of interviews just to try to, to, to spread that so that when people, you know, hear about this book that they will come, they'll hear about the documentary. They'll read, you know, I've released a statement on my website where I'm saying here's where my thinking has changed and um you know that that my publisher has agreed to stop publishing the book so it's it's being discontinued and it won't be reprinted. That's crazy like yeah and that was your choice you you wanted the book to be yeah you know it's actually a really um it was kind of a crazy process because you know I'm working on this documentary and my publisher is just, they're great. I mean, they've been really kind to me over the years, but they were getting a little nervous, like, hey, can we see this documentary? Like, going to end. I mean, that's the whole point of the documentary is we were trying to capture a journey. We didn't know, you know, exactly where I was

going to land in thinking about the book. So I kept delaying them and delaying them. And then finally, we had this rough cut. And we said, Okay, we need to send it to the publisher. And so I sent it to them. And I'm just thinking, like, what are they going to say? What are they going to do? And I actually have a, my book agent, who is a great guy, he talked to me before and he's like, man, you know, we're going to have this phone call with the publisher. And honestly, I don't, you know, I mean, they could want to like sue you because you're, you know, you're basically publicly undermining this book that you had this contract with them. And I'm like, what? I didn't even have that as a category of possibility. I was like, is that for real? But we got on the call with them and they just were amazing. They said, you know what, we watched this documentary and we really

believe in what you're doing, that you're trying to help people. And we feel like the best way that we can support you is to, you know, is to discontinue publishing the book. And that was just like a huge moment for me. It was both, you know, it was sweet and that I felt like that was the right decision in light of the critique and the flaws that I saw in my book. But then it was also like, you know, sort of the little funeral for me of sorts. also like you know sort of the little funeral for me and of sorts so do you still get people that aren't aware of your change of view and they you'll still get maybe emails of people in pain or blaming you like you still get that kind of criticism or um i mean yeah i i hear all kinds of different things people who yeah who don't know about this or or people who know about it and and just think it's really inadequate and that i you

know they they so it's it's just so many people that have been affected in different ways yeah and what about people that i within evangelicalism i could imagine um some people they don't have a category for like changing your view so like the fact that now you're saying i don't i disagree with several things that i said like yeah i could imagine they might write you off or not see that as i mean just so you know i see that as a a massive uh testimony of integrity and humility and wisdom i mean if you knew everything about sexuality and relationships at 19 then goodness um i mean, the fact, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, I think the answer is, I think there are people who, you know, are concerned that, you know, that I would rethink these things or they, or they still agree with, with the core ideas. And so they view it as,

you know, buckling under pressure, you know, why are you, I get those kinds of emails a lot, you know, why are you selling out? Why are you just caring about, you know why are you I get those kind of emails a lot you know why are you selling out why are you just caring about you know trying to please people that kind of a thing but you know I think that that's I think that is a testimony to I do think it's a it's a hard thing to for the church or for for authors or leaders to admit when they've gotten things wrong and then in a nuanced way to explain that and I think a lot of times we just sort of move on and we don't deal with it we kind of just start saying something different or we we adjust what we said and we kind of downplay what was what happened in the past but you know I I think that

that I don't think that that uh takes into account all the people that followed and bought into something and it's like their life is affected and they're understandably like wait a second like I I made decisions that shaped my whole life and you know there know, there can be, you know, a lot of anger and pain. How's the documentary been received so far? Have you gotten some feedback? Yeah, I mean, we've gotten, you know, all kinds of critique, people who just think it's poorly made

or people who think, you know, it didn't, we didn't interview the right people or didn't go far enough with ideas or, you know, didn't apologize strongly enough or all those kinds of things. But then there've been, you know, a lot of, a lot of, this is the feedback that, that is most encouraging to me where people have said, you know what, this helped me process pain in my life. It helped me realize where I've changed. It's given me encouragement that it's possible to rethink things.

And it's been healing. I've heard that from a handful of people, and that's been super encouraging. Or even just people saying, you know what? I didn't realize how much that era and that culture shaped me in negative ways. And you processing those things helped me to realize that. And now it's helping me to kind of filter through and adjust my thinking. Gosh, you can't put a price tag on that. Yeah, that must be super encouraging to hear that.

Yeah, that is really encouraging yeah it's like they're they're mapping their journey on the euro and journey and processing together well i'm excited to watch it so amazon prime you it's it's yeah right when we set up this podcast interview i remember googling around like oh wait he he's got a documentary and he's changing his mind on some things oh he's's really cool, man. So, um, well, yeah, I, uh, I hope you enjoy it when you watch it. Yeah. Well, Hey, thanks so much for being on the show, man. Oh, Oh, one more thing we got to mention your company. Uh,

why don't you give a quick pitch? You didn't just out its nose. Uh, Josh did not ask you this, but I always like to, uh, um, advertise whatever ministry or company or organization that my guests are doing. So, yeah, take it away. What are you pursuing these days? Oh, that's kind of you. Yeah, I started a business called clearandloud.com. It's where you can learn about it.

But basically, I do marketing and brand strategy. So I help companies that are having trouble connecting with their customers, and they're just not being clear in their messaging. And that's coming through on their website, or they're just not growing the way they want. And I use my background of communication and storytelling to help them be more clear with their message and hopefully improve their, and just grow as a company. So it's been a lot of fun. I work with people in all different industries and all kinds of organizations. And I, I love storytelling. I love the power of words.

And I've learned to learn a lot from that over the years. So I know I get to try to help other people with their message. And it's, it's very similar. You were telling me earlier with Don Miller's StoryBrand. Oh, exactly. Well, I'm a StoryBrand guide. So Don Miller is one of my oldest friends and I got certified in his StoryBrand framework, which if you haven't heard the StoryBrand podcast or read Don's book, Building a Story Brand. It's just a great resource for companies that are having trouble with marketing. And so I use that framework and I walk people through that and help companies with that.

So how did you get to know Don? So you guys go way back? Oh my gosh. Well, yeah, we met each other at a Christian camp in Colorado. He was going from Texas to Oregon. I lived in Oregon. So we met at the camp. He was a

counselor. I was a dishwasher. And when he moved to Portland, I was like one of the few people that he knew. And so we ended up working together. We used to do conferences together. We both kind of dreamed of writing books. And I mean, he's just an amazing, amazing writer. Now he's an amazing business leader, just building an incredible business, but he's an amazing business leader just building an incredible business but uh he's been a really dear friend to me oh that's cool i've never met him i when i read when i read his stuff and just look at what everything he does like oh i so resonate with so much that he's that he's for you yeah i mean he's at the the story brand work that he's doing is is really incredible i mean, using the key elements of story

to help businesses really clarify their message. And he does a great job. He's a great guy. You should have him on your podcast. I should. Well, if you can connect us, that'd be amazing. Some of those guys. Absolutely.

Yeah. Okay. So you gave the, what's the website again for your company? And then do you have a personal website too? Yeah. The website for my company is clearandloud.com. Clearandloud.com. Clearandloud.com. Yeah. And then also I have a, my, kind of my personal website is joshharris.com and people can go there and get

access to the documentary and you know, learn about this stuff that I've written about my book. But they can't buy your book unless they find it at a, at a used bookstore. and learn about this stuff that I've written about my book. Okay. But they can't buy your book unless they find it at a used bookstore. Well, unfortunately, it's going to be available for like one penny on Amazon used for a long time. But what can you do? Josh, thanks so much for being on the show.

I really appreciate it. Great to be with you. Thanks for the show. Really appreciate it. Great to be with you. Thanks for the conversation.