Theology in the Raw - 848: Living Your Whole Life for Jesus: Clare De Graaf

Episode Date: March 11, 2021

Clare De Graaf is a cancer survivor, sort of “retired” businessman, a friend, a mentor, the chairman of the board for The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender, founder of many Christian non-profit ministries, and one of the most zealous, faithful, wise Christian leaders I’ve ever met. In this conversation, Clare talks about his journey in the faith--which involves many twists and turns, ups and downs--and his contagious outlook on the kingdom of God.  You can read more about Clare, his life and ministry, and his book The Ten Second Rule, on his website: https://www.claredegraaf.com Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today, my very good friend, ministry partner, and in many ways, a mentor in my life, Claire DeGraff. Most of you are probably not going to know the name Claire DeGraff, but as I say in the podcast, he kind of chuckled about this. I often refer to him as kind of like the Forrest Gump of Christianity. I don't think he's ever actually heard me say that about him. And he was taken back. I said, well, let me explain. I said, you know, in the movie Forrest Gump, it seems like Forrest kind of shows up everywhere in various historical moments throughout the 20th century.

And I feel like that's been Clara's journey. He's kind of operated behind the scenes of Christianity or evangelicalism. You know, he's never been like a mega church pastor, never, you know, written a New York times bestselling book or whatever, but he's had a significant influence on evangelicalism in, in many different ways. Most of all, he just has an incredible story. He is 71 years old. And as you'll hear, he had a pretty tragic awakening happen in his mid-30s. And he decided to really live out this Jesus thing in really radical ways and has just done

so much for God's kingdom. I love his humility. I love his posture. And I'm excited for you to get to know him and hear various aspects of his adventure, as he puts it, in Christianity. If you would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw, or you can just go down and look at the show notes, whether you're watching on YouTube

or if you're listening on the podcast. And if you are listening and want to watch this episode, you can go to my YouTube channel. If you're watching and want to just listen to it, you can go to my podcast. So without further ado, let's get to know the one and only Claire DeGraff. We go back, I mean, a few years now, Claire.

It's been four or five years, four years maybe? No, probably, yeah, about four and a half years now, Claire, it's been four or five years, four years, maybe? No, probably, yeah, about four and a half years since we connected. I'll never forget getting that email from you saying, hey, I'm working on this small group project, and I'd love to get your eyes on it. And so our relationship began as an editorial relationship. But gosh, I mean, I consider you family and I hope that I can be viewed the same way in your very large family. But why don't we go back to I would love to go back to when you're in your mid 30s, successful. Actually, let's just go back before that. I mean, you have entrepreneur entrepreneurial blood from the time you were a teenager. Let's just go all the way back there. And then we'd love to hear more about your kind of really conversion experience or at least your kind of conversion renewal to Jesus in your mid-30s.

And we'll go from there. Oh, thanks, Preston. Yeah, you know, probably the best way to start to talk about it is I'll read the first two paragraphs out of my book because it's the tale of two cities, it's the tale of two lives. And so here's the introduction, the first couple paragraphs, and it says, the title is, My Story and Perhaps Yours as Well. Up until age 31, I was your standard-issue Christian. The kind of Christian schools and churches in our conservative little town pounded out year after year like spiritual model tees, mostly in one color, beige. We were covenant children, born, baptized into the church,

so we figured we came with a cradle-to-grave salvational warranty. And in the mid-60s, every high school senior in my church was expected to make public profession of their faith unless they were an atheist or Democrat. And I was neither. But I had my questions. And here's why I had my questions. I knew when I was in high school what my God was, not who, but what my God was. It was success. And I grew up in a great family. I went to church twice on Sunday, went to Christian schools all my life, Christian college. I had terrific parents. In fact, I tell people the only gripe I have with my parents is I can't blame my dysfunctions on them. They're wonderful people, simple people. Actually, my dad was a carpenter and my mother's a cleaning lady for the Zondervan Publishing founders.

And yet somewhere, somehow in sixth or seventh grade, I just got this epiphany that if I wanted to have success and I wanted to have power and freedom, I needed to have money. And so I turned into a little yuppie in, you know, I don't know, sixth or seventh grade. I didn't have exactly sure. I joined Boy Scouts and, of course, three years later became an Eagle Scout. I was actually bashful, believe it or not, and just kind of an introvert. I wanted to be a forest ranger before that, but I figured foreign strangers doesn't pay very much money. So I needed to get over my being extroverts. So I started selling greeting cards, door to door, rubber scrubbers,

over the door hangers. And I thought I could sell brass knuckles to Gandhi. I mean, I just, I was just go, go, go. And, and, and so everything I tried, I just went for it 100%. My parents thought I was a little odd. But, you know, it was good, clean work. And, you know, I was shoveling driveways up in, I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan. So we had plenty of snow back then. And before climate started to warm up, ruin the business.

But I shoveled driveways, cut grass, and that kind of thing. And so, yeah, so I was raised around the church and believed everything about God to be true. I believed the Bible to be completely true. I believed Jesus Christ was the Son of God. I knew everything about God. He just wasn't my God. He was close enough to be a comfort, but distant enough to be not terribly inconvenient, is the way that I would say it now. But when I was in college, my dad had a chance to buy a small business from my grandfather.

We had eight employees, and we called it the shop, and it was the shop, and we made parts for office chairs that made office chairs go up and down. In the olden days, you had a screw underneath, and you had to turn a nut, and it'd make up and down before gas cylinders, and while that was a decent business, and my dad was reasonably happy with it, that wouldn't get me private jet money. That's where I was heading. And so in college, at Calvin College, I invented and patented a tilt mechanism that went on the top of that, that actually tilts chairs, that eventually became the largest selling mechanism in North America. But my dad got cancer and died a few years later at age 46. But my dad got cancer and died a few years later at age 46.

I took over the business while I was still in college. We grew it. I'm 30 years old. We've got 175 employees. We're running 24 hours a day. Cottage in Lake Michigan, Mercedes convertible in the garage, and the doctor walks in my hospital room and he says, Claire, you have lymphoma cancer and you have five to nine years to live. I don't think you'll see your 40th birthday. Well, even for an aggressive little

yuppie like me, a prognosis like that can really mess up a 20-year plan. And so I began to just, I mean, I was married at the time. We had three kids. We now have six kids and actually 20 grandchildren. But at the time, we only had three kids. And I was just having to reel this new information because I was on top of the world. And how could I get this information? So God used that, I think, to awaken me to some people in my church who were turned on to Jesus in a way that I wasn't. And, you know, they were always the first one to say, praise the Lord and give you big hugs and stuff. And that was not my scene at all. I was a country club kind of guy. I just thought they were like the Eagle Scouts of Christianity. Good for them. I just didn't see

the point. I didn't need box seats in heaven. How bad can the bleachers be? I was in, you know. But then I began to, then I started thinking, well, maybe what they actually have is the real thing. And I've just been playing at this. And most of my friends have been playing at this. So I went to a pastor friend of mine, not my pastor, I wanted a second opinion. And I said, what do they have that I don't have? And he said, well, they have a relationship with Jesus Christ. And I said, well, how does that happen? I mean, you know, I know he lives in heaven someplace on a galaxy far, far away, but I, you know, I wouldn't know how to connect with them at all. And he said,

well, how did you learn to connect with your wife and fall in love with your wife and have a relationship with your wife? And I said, well, I don't know. She looked good in high school one day, and I asked her out on a date, and we started talking, and that was it. And he said, well, how much time have you spent talking to God every day? You know, I'm thinking to myself, should I lie to a pastor? Better not. I said, well, you know,

I read, I mean, I pray before we eat three times a day. I go to church on Sunday, twice on Sunday, actually. And he said, would you think you would have fallen in love with your wife if you talked to her for maybe 30 seconds before you ate and went and heard a lecture on her twice on Sunday? And I go, no, obviously I didn't. He said, here's what I want you to do. I want you to begin reading a chapter of Luke a day for the next 30 days. Luke has 28 chapters, but, you know, he had a couple of days off if you get lazy. But just read a chapter a day. And before you read, I want you to pray this prayer.

God, teach me everything you want me to know, and give me the guts to live it. And he said, when you get done, come back in a month and tell me what God has told you. It didn't take a month. A couple weeks into that reading, the kind of person Jesus described as one of his followers bore no relationship to me whatsoever. And I knew it and I knew I was in trouble, but I didn't want to be a Jesus freak. I didn't want to be, I didn't want to have to sell my Mercedes and go off and be a missionary and, you know, or get weird and have all my friends go, what's happening to Claire? Oh, he got cancer. So I got religion for a while, but don't worry, I'll wear off you know I mean I was still it was still all about me and how I was going to be perceived what I was going to lose him

I was literally the proverbial young ruler just sniffing around the trap desperately trying to find plan b a less intrusive less costly way to follow Jesus than actually following Jesus. And I couldn't find that. And so six, eight months into that, I got, I was up all night long because I knew this about God based on reading my reading in the Old Testament. When you make a vow to God, he takes it very seriously and he warns what happens when you take, and giving your life to Christ is a vow. It's not just something you do because you got all hot and bothered at an evangelistic meeting some night. And I'm not discounting what happens at a Billy Graham meeting or anything else. But I have been weighing this for a long time.

And I need, if I make a vow to God, it's a vow for life that he takes seriously for life. Just like marriage vows. And so I, basically what I would say, I pledged my allegiance to Jesus and his kingdom agenda, asked him for forgiveness. And my life changed from that point on. I didn't have any epiphany. I didn't. There's no L. There's no angels or, you know, some big experience. But I had an unquenchable thirst for Scripture.

And I began to read scripture by the hours and study and study and share what I learned with other people. About four or five years into it, my management team came to me and said, you know what? We're really doing great. We're very profitable, but your head is just not in this anymore. I had three patents to my name at that point, but I stopped working on them for a couple of years. And I said, you know, I think you're right. I don't think I would live to 40. And I was 35 at the time. So I put the company up for sale, a company in New York Stock Exchange and sold it. And I haven't had steady work since. That was 1980, 1984. People say, well, how did you stay so busy? I say, you know, when you work for free, I get every job I bid on. So I am plenty busy. freedom to not have a job, the theological curiosity to use my entrepreneurial skills

and my spiritual skills, hopefully for the advantage of the kingdom. And I've had an amazing life. People say to me, oh my gosh, it's so nice you do these things for God. And I said, you know, there are people who sacrifice for Jesus. I'm just not one of them. I get up almost every morning and do what I want. And, um, and I'm still in good health. I'm 72. So the good news is they didn't die yet. Uh, but I will someday, but, uh, yeah. So that's my short story of kind of, you know,

then I just have gone from one adventure to another for the last 37 years. Why don't you talk about some of those? I mean, you started, I don't know, close to 20 or maybe 20 nonprofits or been a part of getting those going. There's a lot of – you could drop a lot of Christian names too. You just have been kind of – I think I referred to you as kind of like the forest gump of christianity not the you know not not the the um i'm gonna take that as a compliment even though you didn't mean in the movie it just seems like he he pops up at the most random places you know like you know in dc and and you know the president's office and it's like you've you've kind of been,

most people probably haven't heard your name or maybe they've read your book, but they haven't read your book. They might not have heard your name, but you've been, I mean, behind the scenes of evangelicalism with some really movers and shakers, you know? Um, yeah. Why don't we start with one that everybody's going to recognize? I mean, you were at a church several years ago in Grand Rapids when some, you know, promising young, you know, charismatic leader, youth leader wanted to plant a church. So can you tell us when little Robbie Bell came to the elders and said, I think I want to launch my own church? And what was your involvement with that? Yeah, I was the chairman of the board, or chairman of elders of a church in Grand Rapids here,

a large church, and Rob Bell was on staff. And he kind of grew up in our church. So I had done some church planting in Ukraine for about three years. So I went back and forth to Ukraine for like three or four weeks at a time every couple of months. And I had an office in Kiev and just had a terrific, but that's the only church planting experience I had. And he came to me and

said, I think God wants me to start another church or start a church. So I said, all right, I've never done it in the States here, but you know, let's figure it out. So we began and he says, hey, and I want to start in three months. So I said, well, normally there's about a year runway. He says, yeah, I know, but I want to start in three months. I said, okay. So we had to, you know, we, hey, I interviewed elders, picked the elders. I wrote the constitution for them, picked out the chairs that they're still sitting on, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And it was a wild ride. Rob was, I admired him deeply. He's one of the best communicators I could possibly imagine. He was a faithful father. You know, I took care of, babysat his kids. They come up to our cottage

and hung out. And we don't have much relationship today because he lives in California. But God used Rob. I know he's very controversial in many ways, but I have no doubt that he loves God and that God used him. And there might be tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who are believers to this day. Do we have some theological differences? Yeah. And we've talked about Yeah. And we've talked about that and we've agreed to be friends in spite of that. But yeah, that was great training for me because then I had the opportunity to do three or four more churches after that based on kind of what I learned. So yeah, it was... How did you guys... I mean, because, yeah, Rob, he was always a forward thinker, thinking outside the box, kind of contrarian.

And I say that in a positive way. I feel like I can be contrarian in some ways. But then, you know, he really pushed the envelopes and certain, you know, he started tipping over more and more evangelical sacred cows, you know, and one might even say some Orthodox sacred cows. But when he really started to, you know, challenge some of the, you know, maybe traditional beliefs of Christianity, how did you guys as a relationship work through that? You know, did you ever raise concerns and how did he handle that?

Or what did that look like on a relational level? Well, he started coming under the influence of Brian McLaren a number of years ago, about three years into this church planting experience. In the meantime, by then, I had actually stepped back into my church, was still an elder of my church. I never intended to leave my church. I just helped him start this church. So, you know, I didn't notice it on a day to day or week to week, even month to month basis. But then he started giving me some of Brian's books. And then we started meeting and talking about them. And alarm bells went off because Brian is a very thoughtful person, knows the scripture really well, a great writer, you know, so I have a lot of respect for him. In fact, we had coffee together one time

when he was in Grand Rapids, and he asked me, he said, because we were kind of debating some things, and he said, did you ever read my book, Generous Orthodoxy? And I said, I did. He said, what did you think? I said, I think it's too generous. And that was the problem. That was the problem that I think that they've broadened Christianity to mean so much that, well, there are some areas that they actually helped me, enlightened me on. And because I do believe the tent of biblical Christianity is bigger

than most of us think it is. And the reason for it is just, you know, confirmation bias is an amazing thing because almost all of us who have grown up in the church have grown up in denomination. We have our favorite radio programs, our favorite Christian authors, podcasts, and everything else. So we have a particular worldview about the Bible and about Christianity. When we hear someone saying something different, it strikes us as either wrong or liberal. And it might not be either, but it sounds wrong to us. And so the minute something, someone challenges that, then oh gosh, you've got a problem with Christianity. Well I don't have a problem with Christianity, I may have a problem with how it's been interpreted by some denominations, but I

think the tent of biblical Christianity is bigger than we can imagine. And so when I started meeting with Rob, we actually, our first grandchild was born that same year. And so I remember thinking, I was sitting in this coffee shop at Starbucks in Grand Rapids, old school, new school, and no school. And Rob was saying things in a way that nobody else was. And I said, I want to begin to learn to teach my grandchildren with stories and ideas that are different than their parents taught them, different than what I grew up in, but are going to be more relevant to them so that they're still in love with Jesus and not in love with religion. So I just met my grandsons last night for dinner, actually, five of them. So I bought them dinner. We talked about the Bible. But you've heard me say many times that I am a recovering religious person. So I probably would not have said that

before Rob Bell. But I'm more flat out in love with Jesus than I've ever been in my life. Yeah. Wow. I'm sorry. it's kind of a long explanation. No, that's really helpful. And I, yeah, I mean, it's, um, it's, it's, it's pretty unusual as you know, um, the, you know, the older you get, uh, the more you can become a little more narrow minded, black and white and not open to considering whether an idea, a new idea, a fresh idea, you know, is biblical or not. Sometimes it's easy just to not even consider it. But as I've known you, I mean, you've always said, yeah, I'll take anything and match it up to

scripture. And if I need to change my previously held convictions, I'll do it. If not, maybe this new idea is just a new idea and isn't actually biblical, but you're willing to be open to considering that, which is, I think it's pretty rare these days. What about, so after you're 35, you sold your business and now you have the financial freedom to do whatever you want to do. And one of the things you have wanted to do is start or help start, I mean, a lot of different nonprofits. Can you talk to us about some of the ones that really stand out in your journey? Yeah, there's an Episcopal evangelist by the name of John Guest. And I'd never heard of the guy, but he was the bunch of people in Grand Rapids who wanted to bring him into town to do a series of what we call evangelistic

crusades. I can't imagine we actually used that word 40 years ago, but we did. So there it is. And so I just sold my business. So I volunteered to be chairman of it and kind of get it going. I had never seen an altar call live in my entire life, But I was just arrogant enough and just, I figured out, I could just figure it out. And so, you know, God used that to be very successful here in Grand Rapids. There was an article in Christianity Today, and so people started calling saying, oh, could we have one in our city? So, well, so John said, well, would you be president of the John Guest Evangelistic Team? I said, well, I'll try that for a while, but he's lived in Pittsburgh. I said, I'm not moving to Pittsburgh. I'm not that

spiritual. I said, I'm going to stay in Grand Rapids. You can live in Pittsburgh if you want. So we put a team together. We did large meetings in Cincinnati, like Riverfront Stadium, and, you know, in Cincinnati, San Antonio, Orlando, Chicago. And God really blessed us. You know, we'd have 50, 60, 80,000 people out. And we were, you know, people were coming to faith. And it was exciting. And then about four years into it, we were asked to go to Russia in 1989, before the Berlin Wall came down.

In fact, about four months before that. And we were actually sponsored by Dynamo Kiev, which is the premier soccer team in Ukraine. And they were, oddly enough, under the auspices of the KGB. So they paid for our whole trip, believe it or not, because they could see that handwriting was on the wall with communism. They were trying to make links to people in the West. And this was the quickest way they could do that. So that led to doing three weeks of meetings in Kiev and in Moscow and Gorky Park. But there were so few evangelical churches that we started a church planting ministry in Kiev.

And I turned it over to somebody else about 25 years ago. That person has carried on. They've actually planted 1,342 registered churches in Ukraine. I mean, this guy is like the 800-pound grill of church planting. So, you know, most of my life, I have not been the initiator of most of these things. I've just found really talented people that I sensed were led by God, that loved God, and said, how can I help come around and put the organization around and think through fundraising, organizing the board and all of that kind of thing, just like the way you and I met. I mean, you're the brains of the outfit and I'm just put together

the board and some of the organizational stuff. So God has allowed me to come along with side of some really talented people. And, but probably the longest ministry that I was in is 20 some years ago, 25 years ago, a guy walked to my office, raising money, he's trying to start deaf churches. And he told me that there was no Bible in the world, even in American Sign Language, in sign language, video sign language. And this is back in VHS days. I mean, this is long ways back. And I said, well, that can't be. And I asked a million questions. And so he said, yeah, we've got, we have some families living in an abandoned orphanage in Union Mills, North Carolina, in the mountains. And we're trying to figure out how to translate the Bible into sign language. Would you come visit us?

So I said, well, okay. So I went down for four days and just hung out with Zeph. And I won't get into all that I discovered, but I came back, and I said to my wife, I think I found my next ministry, and she said, the deaf? You don't know anything about the deaf, and I said, apparently nobody else does either, so I may have a shot at this, but I said, I think they do. I think they just need some help to come alongside, so these are just, they had one full-time person, and all the rest of them just lived in this orphanage and shared communal baths and everything else. So I left that, actually, to go with you.

So you ruined that career. When I told my wife I was going to help you start an organization, she said, what are you going to stop doing? And I said, well, I really hadn't stopped doing anything. And she said, well, you going to stop doing? And I said, well, I really hadn't stopped doing anything. And she said, well, you need to stop doing something. So DOOR International, which they call, today they have, well, I was on a conference call last week, they have 212 full-time people all over the world, 90% of whom are deaf, who are evangelizing and translating the Bible into sign language. So that's one of these things where, again, it was talented, gifted people that just needed someone to kind of help behind the scenes to help organize things. So I've had a ball.

And you, I mean, ministry-wise, you've had just a global influence. But even on a personal level, I mean, seems like just you you have a very global mindset um and even that comes into like through adoption and you said you have 20 is it 20 grandkids and how many nations are represented in the 20 do we have a i don't know if we do you have a yeah i do my wife keeps track of this stuff better than I do. But I think roughly we have we have 20 grandchildren. I know that six of them are international special needs adoption. And we have three of our own biological children. And two, we adopted from Korea as infants, who are now in their mid 30s. And an Albanian daughter, my wife found dying in Albania, and called me up and said, I'm coming home with

three kids, have a doctor at the airport with some oxygen. Back in those days. Can you go back and give the context of that story? Because that really kind of blows me away. Well, my wife was in Albania with an adoption organization, Bethany Christian Services, and she had been raising money, helping them raise money for some organizations in Philippines. In fact, there's still several going on where Cribs International is an organization that helps get young girls out of sex trafficking, give them a home and get them on their own with a new identity

and everything else. They're still going on. And she helped start that and raised some money for it. And so they wanted to do the same thing in Romania and Albania. She went to Albania and went into the children's hospital and it was just miserable. It was just, they had no medicines. People had to bring food in. They had no food service.

If your family didn't bring you food, you couldn't stay there. They had to bribe the doctors. This is 1992, and so communism had just fell. This was just a poor country. Wonderful people, but just a poor country. So she asked the doctor, are these kids dying? They said, no, we send the dying ones home. We can't do anything for them.

She said, well, any of those dying ones, if they came to the States, could they get maybe get life saved? And she said, yeah, we keep a short list of about 25 kids who, if they got good care in the West, they could actually maybe be saved. So she said, well, I think I'll take some. And he said, well, how many? She said, three. I don't know if it was the Trinity that was in her mind. I forget what the story was, but it was three. So bless her heart, they assigned three kids to her,

but in the two days while they were arranging all the visas, two of them died and two more had to be replaced. So literally about four days into this, she gets on an airplane and she flies with these kids. None of them spoke English. They had a visa, but they had no passports because Albania was just that. But we had gotten special permission from the Albanian U.S. Embassy in Albania. They stopped her in Amsterdam and said, you can't fly because one of these girls is going to die. So they pulled her off the plane, literally, and checked her into a hotel and brought a nurse, KLM did at the time, brought a nurse over,

gave him an IV, got her good enough to bring her to the States. And we met her at the airport. All three of the kids had operations. All three were saved. But Mervetta, the one who we took to live with us for the next nine years, still has parents in Albania. They're all Muslim. She gave a muslim background she was 15 years old and came to faith watching the jesus film in albania and uh we we sent her to college at cornerstone college here in grand rapids she then she became a missionary in kosovo among gypsies for five years and finally married in norwegian and lives in norway Now I adopted two kids from Korea, from Columbia. So like I tell you, we've had a great life. There are people who actually sacrifice for Jesus.

We're just not one of them. It's just an adventure. No, there's times when I'd like to hide all sharp objects. I mean, it isn't always always easy raising that many kids or raising money or anything else but i've had yeah i'm i'm blessed why don't you so let's i want to come back and ultimately i want to spend some time you just speaking to people who may be at that you know midlife maybe not it's a crisis but just kind of middle life maybe later in life,

maybe they're, the passion just isn't there anymore. Maybe they're like, yeah, I kind of want to just ride this thing out, you know, kind of coast on my spiritual fumes. I want to ultimately have you speak to those, that group, which might be a lot of us, but why don't we give some background to how we met and why you became interested at, I mean, at that time you were in your mid to late 60s. And all of a sudden you wanted to understand the LGBTQ conversation a little better, which isn't necessarily the cup of tea for every, you know, 65-year-old Christian in Grand Rapids. How did that come about? five-year-old Christian in Grand Rapids. How did that come about? Well, about every other year for the last 20 years, I took groups of college students and high school students backpacking through Europe. Now, it wasn't really always backpacking, but

literally we'd start out in Oxford, Paris, Geneva, Krakow, Poland, and Budapest. And I had friends in all of those cities, and I would teach a biblical worldview and history. I'm a history buff. And so I would take these young men and be about a week and a half of mentoring. And so I began to notice 10, 12 years ago that a lot of the young guys I were taking, when you talk to them about LGBT people, they wanted nothing to do with a church or a religion that was unkind to LGBT people. And so again, I thought of my grandchildren And I want to prepare myself to actually have an answer for them that's true to the Bible, but it's also gracious and intellectually honest and kind. So I started going to conferences of LGBT people, Christians, to hear what they had to say.

And I came off my first one. And in fact, my second one, my wife said, didn't that kind of creep you out a little bit? You know, because we were raised, we were raised in the 60s and 50s. You know, when, when, you know, we were, we just thought being gay was the worst thing that could ever happen to you. You know, I am not, I mean, you know, you and I have talked about the fact that I was a redneck evangelical, but thought to myself, is there a way to be true to the Bible, but to be more gracious and kind? And so I kept, so I just then start asking people at those conferences who self-identified as being gay, or having families as gay, could I have a cup of coffee with you? Could I have dinner with you?

Could I talk with you? Help me understand your experience. Just the kind of thing you did, Preston, you and I had not met at that time. But I just started hanging out with LGBT people. I said, I don't want to argue theology with you. I just want to understand you. I want to understand how scared you were. Well, how you were scared with people like me. And, and, uh, cause I want to see once how close I can come to you, um, uh, without violating what I actually believe the Bible

teaches. And so that led to me getting with Lori Krieger. You've had on the podcast. You've had many, many times. I was her youth group leader, actually, at a church. And she has a same-sex attraction. Really whip smart. You know, Oxford. Went to Oxford. I mean, just super smart. And married to a guy named Matt.

Has a mixed orientation marriage. And I said to her, I would like to write a six to eight week guide for churches to educate people. And my tentative title is leading your church to be as gay friendly as the Bible teaches. And I ran that, even that title up the flagpole at my church, and I've got terrific elders in great church, you know, they go, well, why in the world do we want to be gay friendly to people? That's a provocative title. Lord, forgive them for they know not what they say. But so I just realized that that most people, older leaders of churches in particular, people, older leaders of churches in particular, and pastors were raised like I was on stories of Sodom and Gomorrah and, you know, just awful things that made us predisposed to want nothing

to do with LGBT people. But I came to the conclusion that Jesus wants everything to do with LGBT people and other sinners like me. And my sin just looks more sophisticated and spiritual than LGBT. So that's how we got involved in it. So when I got done, when Lori and I got done writing it, I said, you know, I don't know that we actually have my theology straight, but we've quoted from this guy, Preston Sprinkle, a bunch of times. So I'm going to call him and see once if he's willing to edit this, I'll be happy to pay him to do it. And you were, it was during the summer. So you didn't have much going. You were teaching at, at, at, at Eternity Bible College at the time. So you took the,

you took the bait and you edited it for me and taught me an awful lot. And literally we were doing the edits the last day. And you said, I just lost my job. They just decided to shut this campus down. And I said, what are you going to do? And you said, well, I don't know. There's not much use for a theologian in Boise, Idaho. Boise, Idaho, my family's here and everything.

And I remember calling you the next day or two and said, don't take another job yet. Come to Grand Rapids and let's pray about us partnering with something. Because I've been on the internet. I've listened to you speak. You're a way better speaker than I am. You're obviously a way better writer than I am. You are a PhD in New Testament. So you have gravitas with pastors. You're young, cool, and hip, and I'll never be again. You should be the face of this ministry. I'll help you put things together. And so you came to Grand Rapids graciously, trusted me to do that, and we spent a week together, and

within a few weeks, we decided to start The Center, which is really your baby. You thought through almost all the facets of it. And I've been delighted just to come alongside of you and be your Barnabas. Well, let me set the record straight a little bit for people listening. I mean, this ministry wouldn't have gone anywhere without you. I mean, there's no way. I mean, you have operated largely behind the scenes, but it's like I'm more like the drywall of the house and you built the entire structure.

So, yeah, people don't see the studs of a house, but you have been that stud. I didn't plan it that way. That was a good line, wasn't it? You're the stud. You're the stud of the 72. Not anymore. Not a 72. Only in my dreams. I remember one of the things that I think, well, I said up front and you kind of saw as well.

I said, hey, look, I'm not a fundraiser. I'm not going to I don't want to spend all my time and energy just like asking for money. And but you with your business background, the one thing I really liked is you said, let's let's build this thing to where it will, in a sense, fund itself so that the work you're doing, writing and speaking and training and producing everything actually will help fund the ministry. And that, I've been really excited. I mean, COVID, you know, hit us pretty hard with that. But even there, the Lord's been super good. And have you seen this kind of, I mean, you've done so many nonprofits. And I think ours is, yeah, it's really exciting that I don't have to spend so much time asking for money. And people have been so good and generous.

But I spend most of my time doing what I feel like I'm called to do. Yeah. You know, when I first started raising money for this organization, because it took us a year to kind of just get up and running to write all the materials, to think through the whole idea of a leaders need can come in through the sale of materials and seminars that we do, leaders' forums that we do. Now, I said, here's my disclaimer. An economically sustainable ministry is the unicorn of ministries. We all believe it exists, but no one's actually seen one. And in all my years, I never had one. And so God has blessed this ministry to where I think

we get pretty close to 70% of our income except for new projects that we're doing from the sale of materials so that we don't have to have bake sales and banquets and stuff like that anymore and so this is God blessed this in a unique way and we've never had this kind of thing before. So it isn't like, well, I do this all the time. No problem. We just follow this formula. God had his hand in this ministry

in a way that I've never seen it in any other ministry I've been involved in. He has provided for us just shockingly generously. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. I just, last couple of weeks, was making phone calls to people that have given to the ministry. And, you know, we did an end of the year campaign to kind of get us through the end of the year with COVID, you know, the last eight months, you know, it's been a slow drain, but man, I'm seeing names of people I've never even heard of,

like giving, you know, to the ministry. Sometimes it might be 500 bucks, thousand bucks. Sometimes it's more or monthly giving. I'm like, who are these people? So I'm making phone calls and, you know, it's, it's, it's great to get the financial support for the ministry, but to hear the stories, like why they have found value in what we do. I mean, people all over the country that a lot of them are parents with, you know, kids wrestling with their sexuality and you just, you can't put a price tag on seeing and hearing stories of people that have really been helped by the work that we're doing. So it's been a challenging ride.

It's been an exciting adventure. But yeah, who would have thought five years ago when we first met that it would have turned into this? Who would have thought? Can you speak now to, yeah, somebody listening? Maybe they're, so I'm 45, you're 72. Maybe somebody my age, between our ages, you know, maybe they're my age, maybe they're kind of midlife. Maybe they're on the other side of midlife.

And maybe they're just kind of like, hi, still go to church, not sleeping around. I'm trying to be faithful to my job, but I'm just kind of coasting. I'm riding on fumes. I don't, I don't, I feel like I'm kind of on the other side of living this adventure of, of Christianity. And, um, what would you say to somebody like that, that may be kind of coasting in their spirituality? Well, you know, there's two issues. First, what you're doing is if you're coasting your spirituality, pray about getting a spiritual mentor. I've had three or four of them over my life, and I just said,

help me move from wherever I am to wherever you think God wants me. And, you know, most of us, if we wanted to get good playing the piano, we'd hire a piano teacher. We take guitar lessons or go to a yoga studio or something. We'd find somebody better than us, smarter than us, more experienced than us. And, you know, and unfortunately, I think the substitute is for a mentor. It's just going to Bible studies forever. And well, in fact, I wrote a blog one time, the danger of too much Bible study. And, you know, most of us, if we had kids that went to college for 10 years, at some point, we'd say, George, you need to get a J-O-B. I'm tired of you going to college. You need to go out and do something with it.

And there are guys I meet with who go to three Bible studies a week and think they have a ministry. Well, unless they're leading the study, they have no ministry. They're being ministered to. They're growing in their knowledge. But how smart do you need to be to actually impact the world for God? Not terribly. to actually impact the world for God, not terribly. You just need to be in love with Jesus, have some basic knowledge,

and care more about other people than about yourself. And it isn't all that complicated, frankly. I think part of the problem is that a lot of guys my age have been raised in the church to think, well, you know, you work hard all your life. You retire at 65, retire to Florida someplace and kill time pleasantly in warm places. And that's my worst nightmare. My wife and I are actually going to Naples next week for three weeks. It's the first time we've ever done that. We've never been gone for even two weeks on vacation.

Well, one time was two weeks, yeah. But that's about enough for me, and then I'm on to doing things. But I'm already setting up meetings down there with guys because in between these activities, I have tried to be a mentor to men. So I've got about a dozen guys that I meet with regularly and just kind of cheer them on to doing something more significant with their life. Some of them are small business owners, some of them are teachers, but just helping them figure out how to move from here to there. Bob Buford,

years ago, wrote a book called Halftime and actually a better second book called Game Plan. and actually a better second book called Game Plan. And Bob was a friend. I read some of his early drafts of his book. He and I traveled together and spoke together for a time. And he started the Halftime Institute, which actually helps men and women move from success to significance because he saw how difficult that is because it's so tempting to do what everybody else does and go down to Orlando and play in the men's golf league at First Baptist

Church. And nothing wrong with First Baptist. I've been there. So I don't need any cards and letters. But God did not create us for that. So I think part of it is begin to do something. Nike has it right. Just do something. Pray about something. I have done dozens of things that I started working on that eventually I saw that wasn't my gift. It just wasn't working. I wasn't excited about it. I wasn't passionate about it or something. So be afraid. Don't be afraid to make some mistakes. elevator pitch on the message, because that very much is woven into everything you're saying about kind of just responding, not overthinking things and responding to the spirit that is typically prodding us to do things a lot. And oftentimes we just kind of wait too long and let the feeling pass and then move on to more comfort. But yeah, what led you to write this book and what's the

gist of it? Well, the book is called The Ten Second Rule, and it's not my idea. I actually learned it from a pastor in China who came speaking, and I had been wrestling with a definition for what a follower of Jesus was. And I've been asking a lot of people for a nice pithy little, you know, a sentence or two that I could tell people what a follower of Jesus was. And he said, well, so I asked him, how would you define a follower of Jesus? And he said, you know, I don't know how to define it, but I know how you can become one and stay one the rest of your life. I said, okay, give it to me.

Obey the 10-second rule. Well, nobody can let that go. I mean, you've got to ask, what's the 10-second rule? Just do the next thing you're reasonably certain Jesus wants you to do and do it quickly before you change your mind. And so I, hence the 10 seconds. And so I began thinking about that. This is now 15 years ago. And as I thought about it more and more, I just figured, why don't I respond more faithfully when I have this impulse to do something? And so I'll just give a simple example that all of us can understand. You're driving down the road.

You see a car broken down the side of the road. For most of us, we have this impulse. Maybe I ought to stop to see what the problem is. The minute you have this voice or this idea in your head, God's never spoken to me audibly. So when I talk about voice, I'm talking about an impression that I think sounds like it comes from one of the members of the Trinity. But, you know, maybe I ought to stop and help them out. And the minute that happens, there's another voice that comes in your head. They probably have a cell phone.

They probably called already. They probably have a cell phone, they probably called already, they probably have insurance, and you have this little dueling voices in your head. By the time you are past them, you look in the rearview mirror and they're gone, you're on to other things. And I thought to myself, you know, the problem is in those kinds of situations, when I say no to these impressions more often than I say yes, I'm actually training myself to be disobedient. And because I just know intuitively obedience is going to cost me something, time, money, embarrassment, inconvenience, something. embarrassment, inconvenience, something. And if I say no to that impression to do the next thing I'm reasonably certain Jesus wants me to do, I can save myself all of that trouble. And so just like water flows to the lowest level, obedience does the same thing. And I was actually training myself to be disobedient. So I thought, well, you know what, the rule might be an actual way to train myself to be more obedient. You know, here I am in church

singing these songs. I surrender all hands in the air, singing with gusto, knowing full well that there isn't a single person in this church, including me, that plans to surrender all. I'm thinking, God must just puke at this. I remember sitting in church one morning thinking that. But I thought the 10-second rule is a way to learn to surrender more. And so I didn't intend to write a book. In fact, I said to everybody, the last thing the world needs is another Christian book. And I'd never write a book. But a friend of mine said to me, you've been teaching this 10 second rule thing,

but I've got all kinds of questions. Would you, it was just a paragraph that I had that I sent out to people on fax machine, believe it or not. And so I said, remember those? So I started writing what I thought was going to be like a half a dozen pages, maybe a dozen pages with some explanation about how the rule works and some samples and stuff like that.

And I came up from my office in the basement and said to my wife, I think God wants me to write a book. And she said, well, you said you'd never write a book. And I said, yeah, but it's on obedience. Think of the irony of that, if I refuse to write a book on obedience. And I still have to see Jesus someday. So anyway, so that's how I became an author. And I've only written one book, and I don't know if I have another one in me.

So the 10-second rule, just do the next thing you're reasonably certain Jesus wants you to do, and do it quickly before you change your mind. Now, here's my disclaimer to what you said when you introduced me. Don't ever use the 10-second rule to decide who you're going to marry, what investments to take, to make, what ministry to do, because that's not an impulsive thing. You need godly counsel, read scripture, prayer, fasting, all those kinds of things. But I will say this. If you learn, you know, Jesus said, if you're faithful in little things, I'll give you much. That's a quick paraphrase.

Why in the world would God trust us with big ministry things that we all think we'd be happy to answer if we actually, if God actually asked us to do something, when in fact, we aren't if God actually asked us to do something, when in fact we aren't willing to be faithful in the small things. Yeah, and the book sold, I mean, you originally self-published it, but it sold, like people just kept buying it, that a publisher picked it up, and it, I mean, it did really, seemed to really resonate with a lot of people. Is that right? Yeah, it's interesting that, you know, we think of the Christian publishing business. It's first and foremost a business. I don't mean,

I think they're wonderful people. I had great editors. It was great. But yeah, I had to, I self-published it because I couldn't find a publisher at all. And then I sold, so then I just put it on Amazon and send out to people I know and I sold 23,000 in the first six months then I get two offers from Thomas Nelson and from Simon & Schuster and so I said well why do I need you guys I'm I'm doing fine thank you very much you know and they they they convinced me that I would have a broader platform, and it was true. So I ended up selling it to Simon & Schuster. And interesting enough, they sold it to a German publisher, and they've sold almost 18,000 copies in German. And I don't know a single German at all. And so, yeah, so it's – but, you know, as you know, in ministry, you can't explain how these things happen.

And because it has to be God. I'm not that good an author. I mean, you've read the book, so you know. I mean, I think I'm okay. I think you're a good author. It isn't just platform. It's God. And if we try to claim different, we're going to pay a price for that.

So I think I've tried to hold things loosely. I think the purpose of my life is to—two things, well, actually three things. The purpose of my life is to make God look good. So I want people who don't know Jesus to look at me and say, you know what? I might consider taking a look at that. The second purpose is to make life better for other people. And the third purpose is to introduce people to Jesus and his kingdom agenda. And if I can do those three things without embarrassing myself before I die, I think I can die with my boots on. And so I have no intention of retiring.

My wife said, when are you going to retire? And I said, why would I do that? I hope my last office is a coffin. I'm having too much fun now. You've been engaging Kingdom work for several decades. I mean, from before the communism fell all the way through 9-11, pre-internet, post-internet, pre-smartphone social media, post this, and now in the age of Trump. And now as we emerge into the post-Trump era, whatever that means or looks like. I mean, you've seen the American evangelical church go through some changes. Um, what would you say are some maybe changes that,

what are some of the big changes you've seen in the church? Like what is the church? How is it looking? How's it different than it was say 35 years ago? And then my next question is going to be like, I would just love for you to kind of, do you have any concerns with like, what are you like, man, we really need to do better at this, given some of the drastic changes in culture? Are you hopeful? Are you discouraged with the direction of evangelicalism? Or yeah, I don't, those are kind of really broad, open-ended questions, but would love to get your perspective on just kind of evangelicalism as a whole, as you've been through many decades of involvement. So like in 30 seconds or less? We'll start there. Yeah, I'm sure this could probably take another hour. Okay, so I'm going to give you the short version.

I think that younger people, younger Christians don't hug the theological trees like we used to. I mean, I was grown up, you know, I had to memorize the Heidelberg Catechism. I mean, I was doing a hard time, you know, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and that's what we did. And even though I can't say that actually shaped my life, I knew what a biblical worldview was, or at least a covenantal worldview, and I was schooled in that. And so today, kids just not only don't know that, they generally speaking don't care. They care more about does Christianity make you loving and kind and just more than doctrine. And to some extent, they're not that far off.

I think if Jesus had a choice between us being doctrinally correct or kind and loving, I think he would choose kind and loving. Now people say, well, you can still have both. Yes, you can. But I think that an older generation is far more concerned about theological correctness and willing to go to the wall over that and being unkind while they're doing it. And so here's the thing, and this has nothing to do

with Democrats or Republicans, so please don't send hate mail to Preston. we have five college age seniors, I mean, grandkids, and a couple of them that are actually out of college. And I meet with a lot of high school and college age young Christians. evangelicals being willing to put up with some really unkind behavior in the last number of years, some shrill behavior. And it's confusing to them. They just don't really know what I do. I don't want to be a part of that. Just like they said they don't want to be part of any church that was unkind to LGBT people. They don't want to be part of any church that's unkind to LGBT people. They don't want to be part of any church that's unkind to anyone. And so I think part of the problem, evangelicalism in a broad term has the United States, we've got a really bad image, particularly with younger people. And I think the church is going to pay a price for years to come. and I don't really know how you get away from that.

Because it's gotten to the point where if you don't have conservative views on everything, almost everything, to abandon those is to abandon the faith. And in some ways, politics and evangelicalism has gotten tied up, at least in the minds of many people, that I'm not sure it's going to be easy to extricate. Yeah. And I'm trying to be as delicate as I possibly can. But, you know, my grandkids go, gee, you know, I don't mean, I still love Jesus, and I love Jesus, but I don't know if I want to be a part of the church. That's just, these people have gone off the rails. Some of the people in church have gone off the rails. And it's the loudest and most shrill that are the most obvious.

And they read Facebook and everything else. And they go, boy, these people are just goofy. I don't want to be that way. I have no credibility with my friends. I couldn't evangelize people to be Christians at gunpoint at this point. So I don't know if you're experiencing the same thing. You and I have talked about some kinds of things, but this is a generational problem. And frankly, the only way I can see, humanly speaking, to solve it is my generation needs to man up and say, we went off the rails for a few years. We need to get back

to being loving and kind to each other. We don't have to agree. I don't think we're going to find unity. Biden's calling everyone for unity. I don't think it's ever going to happen because the things that are important to Christians are not important to every American and every, you know, so I don't think we're going to have unity, but can we be civil to each other? Can we be compassionate? Can we be kind to one another, even if we disagree? I think that's achievable.

Yeah, no, yeah. And I don't mind talking politics, Claire. I talk freely about, I'm very just nonpartisan, independent. I look on from an Alphansam in exile living in Babylon, and I find Babylonian politics to be disturbing and entertaining at the same time, and never more so than the last couple of years. From my vantage point, and I haven't really been, I haven't really paid too close attention to politics until the last couple of years. I mean, just off and on, but it seems extra polarized right now.

Is that because I'm just haven't been following it for the last 30 plus years? Or would you say in your experience that we're at an all time high of kind of political polarization that has also kind of taken over the church. Are we in a unique time? Yeah, you know, of course, every generation thinks, you know, this generation is going to pot. But I actually think in the last year, particularly with COVID, you get the maskers and you get the vaxxers and you get, I mean, we're just split in so many ways that have nothing to do with Christians, actually, but just ugly and unkind. And I think social media has allowed people to be ugly and opinionated in public where they used to be able to do it privately and not contaminate everybody else. So I think here's my advice to older Christians, I mean, when I say older Christians, anyone who's got kids, you are going to have to take a breath, and you're going to have to think through,

how can I win my kids back to, not to the church, and not just to, but win them back to considering Christianity as the most important thing that should govern their lives. Because whether you realize if your grandparent, your grandkids are slowly backing away from the church, and in doing so, they may be also slowly backing away from Jesus. And just like I had to spend time at, you know, LGBT conferences and everything else. This is not where I wanted to necessarily be. I just knew there was something wrong. I knew that I probably didn't have it right. I needed to learn to articulate a biblical worldview with kindness and compassion to my grandchildren. So I actually did it for my grandchildren. I didn't do

it because I was flat out in love with LGBT people. I did it because I wanted to have a voice with my grandchildren. I wanted to actually be an influencer for them. Because if you just sit back and cross your arms and just hope they come to their senses someday, they won't. They may not. I mean, the Holy Spirit can do anything to be sure but you need to learn whatever you need to do to undo some of the damage that's been done by high profile political

and religious people who have not been very kind that's a good word to end on we're just across the hour mark so I I know you've got a lot of, well, you're unemployed. So maybe you've got an open-ended day, but I'm sure you've got- Yeah, Sudoku. The rest of the day is just nothing but Sudoku. much for coming on, Claire. This is a long overdue. Yeah, we talk so often that I'm like,

man, I forget that you haven't actually spoken to my podcast audience. So thank you so much for giving us your time and many blessings in your ongoing work, ministry, and the adventure of Christianity that you continue to pursue. I got one more thing to say. Sure. It's to your audience. Okay. And by the way, I work for free, so I don't get paid to do this, but Preston and Chris are the real thing. I have never seen a husband and wife team that work like they do. And Preston and I don't always agree on things. There's times that, you know, I'm not going to take this man's call, you know, but we love each other. We respect each other. And what you see and hear on these podcasts is exactly how he lives his life.

And I am honored to be part of this organization and to be your friend. Thank you, Claire. That means a lot. I really appreciate that. Yeah. Okay. And I'm Claire DeGraff, and I approve this message. Claire DeGraff, you have a website, right?

That you blog still? Yeah, claritygraph.com. Clarity Graph. Yeah, your name's in the podcast title. Yeah, C-L-A-R-E-D-E-G-R-A-A-F, claritygraph.com or the10secondworld.com. So look him up and he's got great blogs. He's still very active. So thanks again, Claire, for being on Theology in the Rock.

Thank you, Preston. you