WHOA That's Good Podcast - Prayer > ChatGPT: Choosing What Shapes Your Life | Sadie Robertson Huff | Bobby Gruenewald

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

No one can deny that ChatGPT is super helpful in so many ways — but are we starting to turn to it more than we turn to God? For direction, help, or peace? Bobby Gruenewald, Innovation Leader at Life.Church and creator of the YouVersion Bible App, joins Sadie to chat about the app hitting ONE BILLION downloads (yep, billion), how to seek truth in 2025 when it feels like everything needs a fact-check, what it looks like to use AI in our Bible study, and the global revival that’s breaking out — not just in North America, but all around the world. Chapters:  01:35 Bobby's best piece of advice 05:06 How the YouVersion Bible app began 20:00 Global revival is happening 28:10 Seeking truth in 2025 35:00 Using AI 42:00 ChatGPT vs Prayer 51:30 1 billion downloads of the YouVersion Bible app! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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better. We are going to have such an incredible episode today, and we're actually celebrating something huge. If you have the U-Version Bible app on your phone, which I hope you do, if you don't, you're about to feel really left out when I tell you that one billion people just about have the U-Version Bible on their phone. And if you're not one of those one billion, now is a time to do it. We're celebrating that today with the founder of the U-Version By-Wat. We have Bobby Grunwald on the podcast, and I am so excited to get to chat with you about the whole story. and just celebrating this awesome moment. So, Bobby, welcome to the Well That's a Good podcast.

Thank you. Thank you, Sadie, for having me. So glad to be here. And congratulations also on your new edition. Thank you. Yes, we got to see you back in April. And it was super cool. You were sharing the whole story of how the Bible app started

and what y'all are celebrating. And I was like, I've got to get him on the podcast. And I was like, I want you to come on the podcast, but I'm about to have a baby. So I'm super grateful this worked out. Bobby, you might not be prepared for this question. And if you're not, I'm so sorry this is going to come out of left field. But one question that on the Well That's Good podcast, I ask every one of our guests to get started is what is the best piece of advice you've ever been given? Now, I know that's loaded. But if you can think it's some good advice, someone gave you, give it back to us. I don't know if it's the best advice I've been given, but it's the first advice that came to mind when you asked that question. It's actually the advice I got from Pastor Craig that he got from somebody else. And the advice was that we tend to overestimate what we can do in the short term, but we grossly underestimate what God can do with a lifetime of faithfulness.

And I think a lot of times, like, I need to hear that sometimes because I'm just striving to achieve something and focused on it. I just need to win the long game, basically, and be consistent and faithful over time. The other thing that came to mind when you asked that question is, most of the advice I feel like I've gotten, I've seen it lived and not spoken. It's like it's come through examples, like the people in my life and the way that, even I just mentioned Pastor Craig, but the way he is a husband and a way I get to watch him be a husband to Amy is like an awesome example. And I feel like it's like living advice like i get to kind of just watch it happen um there's business there's a guy named steve bailey that was um a guy that saw me as an entrepreneur before i saw myself as an entrepreneur

and i watched him lead his business with like christian values he was a car dealer but he's so good at what he did and um such an incredible example so it was not the words he said it was literally just like how he did it that became kind of like advice i live by so anyway those that's my quick, quick answer. I gave you more than one. No, I love that so much. And that is so real. One time, my mom was offended because someone asked, like, what's some of the best piece of advice your mom has given you. And I don't know why. It was like, we went blank, like, all the kids were, like, trying to think. And she's like, what? Do y'all don't remember? Like, I used to say this, and I always say this. And it's funny that we couldn't remember that, because if I think

about the most influential person in my life for good, it is my mom. I mean, she, is just a rock star. I respect her so much. I learn from her so much. I've definitely learned the most from her in life, not just because she's my mom, but because of how she has been my mom, because of how I've seen her, you know, as a wife, as a mom, as someone who works and runs a business and started something new. Like, I've learned so much from her, but it's hard to kind of think about the specific things, you know, that maybe she said here and there. But yeah, just her life is is something that I want to model. And I love that you said the long term because I think a lot of times young people, which are podcasts primarily like 20 year olds to 30 year olds, we don't always

think about that. We recently had my great grandma on the podcast and her friends and they're all in their 80s and 90s. And I was laughing thinking, this is such a different podcast and like what most young people's podcasts sound like. It's not clickbaity. It's not. It's not But, you know, those little pockets that sound good or jump at you. It was actually the most relaxed and peaceful. But I was like, but I want to give people a vision of the long run. You know, like, what is success in the long run? What does it look like when you're 94 and you say, this is what I would say to live a good life?

And so I love that you said that and get people thinking about that. That's a beautiful piece of advice. Like I said, with you starting the Bible app, you know, people are probably. probably so curious about that because so many people have this, but they don't know how it got started. And it's such a cool story. I would love for you to just kind of take us back to the beginning of how this idea became what it is today with almost, or maybe you all already have hit a billion downloads at this point. Yeah, no, I am, I'm happy to share. It's a total God story. It's not something any of us can take credit for. My background really quick was

in tech. I mean, I was actually, my degrees, my degrees in finance, but I became an entrepreneur when I was in college and the tech space. And I thought, this is what God designed me to do. I was like 23 years old, had started and sold a couple of companies. And instead, God led me on to staff at our church. It was our local church, and we loved it. And Pastor Craig Rochelle started it, and we were, it's called Life Church here in Oklahoma City. And so I fell in love with the church. I had an opportunity to come on the team. Felt like it was God's direction, but I didn't really know why. And looking back on it, he'd kind of given me all these unique experiences that let me do today what he created me to do every day.

But the U-Version story started back in 2006. It was in the O'Hare Airport in Chicago. I was in one of those long TSA lines where it wraps around the corner and it was before they had pre-check and things that let you go through faster. And for whatever reason, that day and this really long line. I would normally be crazy frustrated, but for that particular day, I was just asking myself this question. It's like, I wonder if there's a way to use technology to help me read the Bible more consistently. I was on staff of the church. I felt like I was not consistently in the word, like the way that I thought I should be and wanted to be. You can make a lot of excuses as to why. And I know some people that are watching or listening might be like, oh, that's, you know,

just got to have discipline to do it and you've got to, you know, make sure you have a rhythm to it. And I knew all that. But for whatever reason, it wasn't something that was connected to my everyday life when I wanted to be. So there in the line, I had this idea for a website, this predated apps and the app store and all that. This is before all that. And the idea for the website was it had kind of this way for you to take any type of media, any YouTube video, any flicker photo, flickers used to be a photo site, and attach it to any part of scripture. So you could say, this is how this scripture relates to my life. I want to show what it looks like.

And that was kind of the original idea. I came up with a name at the airport. Some people say where the name come from. It was like just the best name that I came up with, like, the 800 feet between the security line and the gate. and I registered the domain name youversion.com and got on the airplane that day and then started to talk to people about it and just said, here's the idea, here's what I'm thinking. Now, I have lots of ideas, but that doesn't mean they're all ones that we're going to do

and are going to try. I talked to Pastor Craig, talk to the other leaders at the church, and just said, here's kind of what I'm thinking. They liked it and thought we should try it, but then we had all kinds of obstacles that we kind of ran into immediately. The first obstacle is one that I just did not understand or see coming, which was that people actually own the Bible text. Like, I kind of thought the Bible is free. Like, it's been a bit of thousands of years. Obviously, people put care into translating the Bible, and some of these, some companies and even not-for-profits, you know, spend millions of dollars carefully getting all the right

scholars and all the right people involved. And so it makes total sense that they would get royalties at that time from selling the Bible and putting it in print Bibles and all of that, they'd get royalties that would help them pay for the translation work that they did. And so I just didn't know that. So the first thing I need to do is actually get permission from these publishers.

And in a way that only God could kind of do it, we had no relationships with any publishers. We had no connections. I literally knew no one. And if you try calling the front desk of Harper Collins or somebody, one of these big companies and tell them that you want a free life, license to their Bible. They don't, like, have a place they like to send you. It's just

no one answers and no one wants to talk to you. So anyway, what I did, though, is I decided I was going to just announce this website on a blog that Pastor Craig and I had. And it was a lot of pastors and church leaders that would follow this blog. And so I put together a blog post. And it had a picture, like, so we had a designer that just kind of mocked up what the website was going to look like. And we put the picture on the blog post. The team was like, what are you doing writing this blog post? It's like, yeah, we're going to just tell people we're launching the website. And they're like, well, but we don't have anybody to work on it. We don't have a permission. We don't have, we really don't have anything that you would need to build this website.

And I'm telling the team we're going to launch it in September of 2007. It was like three months away from the one I put the blog posts out. I said, well, this is how you do it. You just like tell people it's coming and then you go do it. Hey guys, it's Christian here back for Sadie, and I just want to tell you guys that, you know, I get it. Some mornings don't work out the way that you think it's going to, and some nights you just want to stay up late and watch movies, which is where I'm at right now. One thing that I've learned is that the way you sleep sets the tone for everything else. And that is why I've been drinking AGZ. AGZ is AG1's new nighttime drink, and it has become such a part of my nighttime routine

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And AGZ, the chocolate flavor has been a game changer for me. I recommend it to anyone that, yeah, maybe you have a hard time falling asleep or maybe you just want to wake up feeling more restored in the morning. AGZ does both, and that's what it's been doing for me. If you know me, I've been drinking AG1 now for years, even before they were a sponsor,

so I knew AGZ would be great too. But I honestly did not know or expected to become such a part of my nighttime routine so quickly. Adding in a newborn might add to that. equation a little bit. But if you're like me and you're ready to turn down the stress and if you want to focus on the rest, head to drinkag1.com slash woe to get a free frother with your first purchase of AGZ. That is drinkag1.com slash woe. We posted the blog post and little did I know God used that blog post. There's a guy in Florida that saw it. I'd never met this guy before,

but he wanted to talk to me about it. So I told him. him about the idea. He then called a friend of his in Oklahoma City, a guy named Mark Green, and told Mart about this idea. Mark Green is one of the family members of Hobby Lobby, and he also owned a chain of Christian bookstores called Mardell. And so Mard reached out to me. I knew of Mark Green, but I'd never met Mark Green before, and he wanted to hear about this idea. And he said, how can I help? And I said, well, I mean, the first problem is we don't have permission. from anyone to use a Bible text. And he's like, I actually buy a lot of Bibles from all these publishers.

And so I can make an introduction. I can't promise you anything, but I'll introduce you. And he sat and wrote emails and introduced me to the CEOs of every one of these companies with all the major Bible translations. And of course, that ultimately led to us having permission from one or two of them to be able to get started. but if you think about it, like the perfect person in the entire world to introduce me to all the right people lived in my town. I didn't know him, but God obviously knew that he was there. And that blog post was like a step of faith that God kind of met with his faithfulness.

You know, like we just sort of stepped out and said we're going to do or committed to do it. And with like almost instantly, God provided the very first thing we needed to be able to make it happen. So fast forward, we launched the website 2007. Unfortunately, or maybe actually fortunately, the website failed. Like it actually didn't work. We worked really hard to build it. We obviously overcame all these obstacles and begin to realize that it didn't change how I read the Bible. I mean, I was forcing myself to use the website. It wasn't kind of a natural thing.

Other people would come to it, but they weren't coming back. and so in December of that year I was like look we need to we need to shut it down like this you know we're going to learn from failure but we can't just spend energy on something that's not working we need to put our energy behind

something that can work but in the process of talking about why it failed we thought you know we really should try putting on a mobile device at that time it predated iPhones and so the popular smartphone is called a blackberry and again probably a lot of people

that are listening to this have no idea what a black was, but it was a little smartphone. Remember your parents, yeah. Your parents might have had a BlackBerry, yeah. Brick breaker. Was that what it was called? Like, the game? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, they had the, yeah, what was it called? Yeah, you're right. On the Blackberry? Yep. I remember my dad, like, did not want to get an iPhone because he had such a high score on Brick Breakker. That was pretty funny. That's funny, though.

It had a physical keyboard on it, and so it was very popular. And they called them crackberries because they were like, really addictive you know like it was first time you could um answer your email on your phone and and messaging and all that so anyway um we designed it for a blackberry and we were really surprised but it really worked like it like it was natural how you would engage with scripture places you hadn't before it was so simple that you would think it would not work but it worked and that was early 2008 and then steve jobs announced that he was creating something called an app store and you're going to be able to build apps for the iPhone and so we thought

you know we should try to build an app for the iPhone i mean like based on what we see happening on blackberry well none of us knew how to build an app i mean i'm not an engineer i don't write code most people presume that i'm like the person wrote the bible app or wrote the code and i'm not that at all i just have ideas um but we found a 19 year old on our team who loved apple and those are like the only two things you had to have back then to build an app because no one knew how to build apps. And so this kid, who is awesome, we worked part-time nights and weekends working to build this app and submitted it to Apple. And I think we submitted to them in June of 2008. And then the App Store launched in July of 2008. And we were blown away because the very first day the

app store launched, the Bible app was there, the very first day. And there's only 200 free apps that were available. So today you go to the App Store. There's like millions of apps. But that day, we had the attention of everybody that had an iPhone because they were looking through the app store and there was a Bible and there weren't that many apps to even look at. And so we saw 83,000 people installed on the first weekend and just blew our minds. Yeah, we were like, couldn't believe that God did that. And we knew it was a God thing because it didn't make any sense otherwise. I mean, this is just kind of like this side project kind of thing. Wow.

That's how it started. It's so cool. It reminds me of, in some sense, like Noah, when he starts building the ark before it ever rain. And just how crazy that must have felt and looked for him to be building a boat, there's no rain coming. And yet then obviously when it did rain, so thankful you built the boat whenever God said build the boat. And it's like you building that website, it didn't seem to make sense at first because it's like, okay, well, that didn't really work. and what was this really for, but then, like, to keep going, and you didn't know that there was even going to be an option for it to be on a mobile app the way it was, because that wasn't even

there yet, apps weren't even there yet, and then all of a sudden here, there's an iPhone and an app store, and y'all already have everything you need to launch this Bible app because of the years of work beforehand. Like, it's so God. It's so who God is. That is. You're absolutely right, and I'm glad you drew that out, because I think that's something that, I think about a lot, you know, it's like everything we needed to be in position for that moment we had because God had kind of taken us on this journey and all the journey because of the failure, the journey didn't make sense. Like you're looking at going, God, why did you tell us to do this and why did you help us overcome these obstacles if it wasn't going to work? And it was because he

knew obviously something we didn't know. And he knew he had to put us in that position to be ready to be able to be a part of that. So that's how it started, but I'll be honest, I still, even at that moment seeing God do that, still did not have the faith to believe that we'd be celebrating what we're celebrating today, because it just seemed like, well, this is a really cool moment, but everything kind of has a moment, and then it stops. But in this particular case, it hasn't stopped. Like, it's been this kind of journey we've been on where what we're experiencing seeing today is the absolute biggest growth we've ever seen in the 17 years that we've been doing it. And we're celebrating a billion installs of the Bible app, which, I don't know, it's a bit

mind-blowing, but it's a total God story. We know it's not us, for sure. He could have chosen a lot smarter people and a lot of other places to do it. And if he had chosen some people in Silicon Valley, I think the world would have looked on and said, this makes sense. Those guys in Silicon Valley know how to grow things to a billion people or even the publishers in New York people that have that makes sense they have a lot of money and a lot of resources it makes a lot of sense but he chose a church in Oklahoma to do it and I think there's only one reason that is that it's impossible for us to take credit like it doesn't make any sense except for it being him and so anyway it's been such amazing that's so cool why do you think um now is like the most

growth you've seen just based on what's happening in the world. I've even heard you say, you know, this is one of the most exciting times to be a believer. And, you know, we got to connect at illumination. So we're also seeing the Bible being translated at such a rapid pace to all of these different languages and people groups that haven't been reached yet. So it is a really exciting time. But I feel like, you know, everyday person walking around listening to this podcast is like, why is this time so exciting? What is happening? Like, what is God doing that? we're missing. And so why do you think it is happening so fast right now? You know, I don't know the answer entirely. I just know what we were witnessing and what

we're seeing, you know, happen. You know, you've probably seen the stats, or maybe people have heard the stats, but Gen Z is connecting with scripture numbers that people just have not seen in the previous generation. Print Bible sales, you know, are up as well. And we love Bible engagement, no matter what the format is. So most people might presume we wanted to happen digitally. It's like, no, I just wanted to read the Bible more consistently, and technology was a tool, and it is

helping people, but people are connecting with print Bible sales as well. It's happening in parts of the world that are considered post-Christian, you know, where the church has struggled, you know, for maybe decades or maybe even centuries in some cases.

I've been on a decline. And so there's definitely this revival that's happening globally and you're watching it happen in college campuses and obviously you've been a witness to it here in the United States as well. So there's this momentum, this building. I do think there's some factors that are contributing to it. I mean, I do think AI is a component of what's causing it to happen right now in a way that maybe people might not expect, but it's different for this generation and for us today than it was 10 years ago, five years ago and that we actually have to question the veracity or the truth and almost everything

that we consume. Things that look real aren't real. And that's unusual. That's like not a normal thing that we've had to do. I mean, there's always been untruthful things, but never at the level where they look so believable, they look so trustworthy, and they're completely false and completely not true. So the kind of a positive consequence of that, if there is a, if you could call it a positive consequence, is I think people are hungry for truth. Yep. They're hungry for anything that can, they can count on that is stable, that is not, not sort of built on that foundation. Yep. I can attest to that. Well, fam, it's almost Christmas shopping season again, which means I'm already making my list for

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have. So that's what gets me excited because I feel like, you know, everyone rightfully is kind of concerned about about those challenges in the moment that we're in. But I feel like the Bible's like the answer to it. Like all of a sudden, it's going to get people, it is getting people interested in exploring, like, what is this thing called the Bible? What is God's word? Like, that people call it God's word. What does that mean? And is it a source of truth I can trust? And can I find answers because I cannot trust any of the other answers that I get. But this thing has existed for thousands of years. It has moved carefully from generation to generation, where the translation work we're just talking about is, I mean, there's such care that's gone

into every word and every punctuation mark. It's not so. something that that got generated by a chatbot. It was something that's been carefully translated. So it can be relied upon. In fact, here in November, at the Museum of the Bible, they have the Dead Sea Scrolls on display. And you can go and see that thousands of years ago, this artifact, the words on it are consistent with the words that we actually see in our translations today. Obviously, it's a different language, but when you look at kind of the meaning and the translation of the words, it's very, it's the same. And so there's not, there's really nothing else like that, you know, that we can rely on.

So I think that's one of the factors that we see happening. There's also kind of a convergence of stuff happening with technology. If you see like what Elon's doing and Starlink and high speed internet that's sort of covering the entire globe, you can take a small little dish into, in a solar panel into the most remote part of the world, and you can be connected with technology quickly. And that's happening. The Bible is being translated, like you just mentioned, in these languages at a pace that we've not ever seen before, partly because of technology, but mostly just because of cooperation and coordination. So you kind of say, what's God doing? You know, God's getting all these

languages finished, Bible translating these new languages. He's creating the pathways for, the Bible to actually get to all these places, you know, in the world like you've never seen before. And he's creating a hunger in a generation for truth, which is making people open to the Bible that have never been open to the Bible before. So it just feels like it's a big setup for something pretty cool. It does. It really does. It's really cool how you explain that. Because on one hand, AI has caused this problem in a sense of you don't know what's real and you don't know what's true. And on the other hand, AI has also rapidly helped the situation by giving, you know, the tools to, I don't, so it's, it's interesting how there is so much good and also so

much potential for bad. And I think about that with the truth. I mean, we were talking about this and even my mom and grandmother were speaking this into my life because they, you know, have always spoken into our life and helped us so much. But now in this season of motherhood, they've just been saying, man, y'all have it. really a lot harder in some sense than we did because we didn't have all of this information coming at us. So, you know, we weren't overthinking every little thing we did. Whereas for us, it's like there's so much information out there. And it's like, you know, and it always changes. Like for them, it was the best to put your baby to sleep on their belly, you know. And now it's like,

don't ever let them sleep on their stomach. And it's like, okay. So do I need to warm the bottle? But how are you going to warm the bottle? And is it vaccine or no vaccine? Can you take Tylenol? Can you not take Tylenol. It's like there's so much stuff. And so like as a mom, you're questioning every single thing because there's so much information out there. And then there's so much false information out there and things that look real that aren't real. And for me, I was just like, okay, I got to like tune that out. Like that is not what's going to teach me how to parent. Chat GPD is not what's going to teach me how to parent. Like the Holy Spirit is my counselor. The word of God. You know, God knit my baby together in my womb. And he allowed me to be their mother. And so I have to lean in to the word of God, truly, to be like a stable mom who feels just a confident mom and the choices that I'm making for my kids. And I think for everybody, whatever age you are, whether it's high school, college, motherhood, singleness, moving somewhere, whatever it is, like there's this tendency to want to go to the internet to help you navigate how to go through life.

based off how everybody else is doing it or what chat says or all the stuff and not that there's not a place for that that can be some of those voices can be good but that cannot be the driving force of your life or you will be confused and it will leave you anxious and even even depressed in some sense and so for me like i find myself if you're not constantly in the word or constantly saying discipline like you said you just naturally gravitate to the advice of the world or the ways you're of the world, but the words is don't be transformed, you know, don't, sorry, conform to the powers of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And so I do think to your point, like, the Bible is so necessary, it's always been, but the fact that we have something that is true, that has been the same from beginning to end, that he is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. And this word that was written so many years ago, thousands of years ago, still holds true, still stands true. Like you can still read it and it's so applicable to your life today.

You can read it and it's still the same hope of heaven and none of that is changing is like a breath of life in a world that's constantly changing with different advice, different opinions, different voices, all the different things. And so for me, yes, that is like my stability. That is my peace. That is where my confidence is found. And so I think you're absolutely right. I'm interested to hear too just with you being a tech guy and also appreciating tech for what it is. I love how you said. you know you can trust this it's not some chat bot and all this stuff when using AI with what y'all

are doing if you do like what does that look like how do you how do you not be afraid of technology because i do think sometimes in the church uh people are hesitant towards like technology in the sense that like even when the bible up came out i remember everybody's like not everybody but a lot of people are like you know are you just reading it on your phone or like do you have the word of god like the print it's almost like that's a negative theme it's not a negative theme but they paint that or even with chat GPT it's like there's something good in that but people are like no if you're a believer like you can't use this like how do you find that balance of having discern it and doing things um i guess using it in the balance way that's actually helpful and beneficial and not hurtful

yeah no that's a that's a really good question so um you know i think first thing i would say is you know technology is a tool and tool it can be used for good and it can be used for evil it can be used in healthy ways and it can be used in ways that are not healthy you've just even talked about some you know kind of in what you're just describing there and the types of negative things that it can it can cause and you do need discernment and man it's really hard you know sometimes to kind of navigate um what we what you should do um I've been a big proponent for a long time of saying we've got to use these tools for good like we really need to use these tools in a way that can advance the kingdom. And that's what I've pretty much spent my entire life,

you know, trying to do. And the Bible app is an example of where I feel like we've successfully done that or seen God use that as a tool. We said, look, let's figure how we can use technology to take advantage of some of the unique attributes about technology that could help you form a positive habit around scripture. The ways that people can be reminded about being in the word, maybe when they forgot to this morning. And your print Bible has a tough time reminding you, you know, sometimes. But we have the ability of technology to be able to do that. So we want to take advantage of all those things. AI is really, really interesting, though, because I think there's a pretty big gap right now between what the promise of AI is and what actually AI does, you know,

today. And we hear a lot about the promise of AI, everything that it's going to do. but I don't know they're always aware of the current limitations, you know, of the technology. And because of that, there's a bit, you know, we have to be thoughtful, you know, somewhat cautious or use discernment, as you're saying earlier, to try to say, okay, well, it's not normally do we have technology that is maybe not accurate, a significant amount of the time, but seems to be accurate 100% of the time because that's sort of the nature of some of the way AI works. it seems like a very believable answer that's completely not true but it may be true most of the time so then you're like going to go how do I know because I'm used to not having something

that is not that type of technology I think it's probably just people having the awareness that this is a time that you just need to be thoughtful about how you use it not everything just simply because it's new needs to be used and not everything

or almost everything needs to to have boundaries, you know, on it. And even, um, you just mentioned kind of in the way you were talking, I thought it was like perfect. It's like, there comes to a point it's like, I need to have a time where I don't have the noise of all that in my life. And if you, if people listening don't have that time, like don't have a place where the technology isn't controlling, you know, their every moment of their life, then that's not a good thing. It's not a healthy thing, you know, for them. We're not, we as human beings aren't designed, you know, for that. Okay, y'all, I have a confession. I am already dreaming about pumpkin spice lattes. I love this time of year, but the cooler weather hasn't always been great for my skin in the past. So combine that with one of the busiest seasons of life, postpartum, all the things, not get enough sleep. Your skin's just going to be a little unhappy, but it's kind of crazy because it's not dry or irritated. It's actually thriving right now, and I have to tell you why, because it's so amazing. It's a Blue Lagoon Face Bomb from Adele Natural Cosmetics, and it is everything. It's water,

and waxless so it just melts onto your skin. And I love that. I can use it as a night cream under my makeup, around my eyes, all the things. It's so hydrating, feels so good and soothing whenever my skin starts to get dry. It's also packed with blue tansy essential oil, which is amazing for calming your irritation. And the best part is it doesn't clog my pores up or make me break out or anything like that. It just soaks in and leaves my skin super soft and glowy. And I've really been loving everything I've tried from Adele. Honestly, this brand has really surprised me. Every product I use from them is amazing. They're a Christian company that makes small batch, uh, toxin-free products in Texas, and they emphasize ingredients sourced from local farms, which I think is so awesome. They're all

about creating skincare that's rooted in love and purpose, and their products are super high quality. It's the kind of brand that you just feel really good about supporting. They even have, um, like Bible verses on their makeup and on their skincare, which I just love so much. So yeah, they have skincare that's incredible, make you feel so glowing, so beautiful, but also their makeup is really, really, really good quality and become some of my favorite. It kind of gives you the natural look, but so really pretty. So visit adele natural cosmetics.com and use the code Sadie for 25% off your first order. That's Adele, A-D-E-L, Natural Cosmetics.com, use the code Sadie for 25% off your first order.

Be sure to follow Adele Natural Cosmetics on Instagram for tutorials, updates, and encouraging content, and use my code Sadie for 25% off your first order. And so we, at U-Version, we've been very thoughtful. We use AI in many different ways, and without getting kind of super technical about it, there's already things in our app that AI is kind of helping make better because we're able to use it kind of in the background. But what we've not done, and quite intentionally, is we've not had an open-ended chat-bought conversation with the Bible.

It's not because we couldn't do it. It's not because the technology is not there to go and make it available. could have done it three years ago when it first came out. But I said no, because I really felt a check that it wasn't the right thing for us to do. Some of it is around safety. We have people that turn to the Bible app every day that are hurting, that are going through deep depression, that are suicidal, and they're looking for answers. And it's just not responsible to hand them over to a chatbot to have those conversations. because it's not equipped to do that effectively,

and we're better off pointing them to resources and pointing them to Scripture and not doing that through a chat conversation. And then the other side of it is, right now, most people don't know this, but chat bots actually don't quote scripture accurately. Most, the best chat bots that are out there, the best chat interfaces,

miss quote scripture at least 15% of the time, and some of them as much as 40% of the time. But it looks like it's real. It looks like it's exactly right. But if you don't have every word of scripture memorized already, you don't have a way to know that it's not, like unless you go and check it every time. And part of the reason is how the technology works. It's been trained on Reddit. It's been trained on, you know, X or on, you know, social media. And so if you can just take all the times that people might have misquoted scripture out there and all the times that these words kind of seem like they go together,

that's sort of how it gets its answers and how it derives the response. So it sounds like I'm anti-AI, and the truth is I'm not anti-AI at all. I'm just thoughtful about the limitations that it has. And I realize, though, it's a challenge, because I happen to know quite a bit more about it than some people do. And I would just say it's probably wise with anything that's new to kind of ask, like, how, could this be used to help advance a gospel? How can this be used in a positive way? I think that'll probably yield the right answers, but we also just have to understand the technology the best that we can and seek to do that. I think I want to be a lifetime learner, so no matter how old I get,

which I'm starting to get old now, Sadie, but no matter how old I get, I used to be the young guy in every room. I was literally like the youngest person, and I had this kind of thing where I got into rooms that I should never have been in because I was like 24, 25 years old, and now I'm becoming the person that's the old guy in the room. But I'm committed also to being a lifetime learner. And I think that sometimes that tension of resistance around new technology kind of comes because we sometimes lack the humility that we need as we get older to just say, I want to be in posture of learning, not being the expert. But we're kind of, as you get older, you kind of think you're the expert.

I want to become the expert at something. And so I've tried to always find new things I can learn. I became a pilot five years ago. And I wanted to take on a challenge and learn something new. But I've committed, even with new technologies that come out, not just because I'm involved in technology, but even if I wasn't, I would want to just spend time learning it and spend time understanding it and finding out how I can use it.

But I do think that requires humility. It's just so easy to feel like I should be able to know all the right things. I do know all the right things. And you think that way. So my son, who's 17, he is like an expert at this AI stuff. Like he, I mean, and I talked to him. In fact, last night, I probably talked to him for an hour and a half or two hours last night. And it just been great because I'm learning from my son.

And he's teaching me just like some of the very technical things about it. and I'm able to ask him questions and learn, which is awesome as a father to be able to just have time to be able to do something like that. But it's also something I think we should just model in terms of how we learn. And I think that'll keep us from having that just general resistance to change that happens because we have this posture

of saying, how do we do it? But you still always have to be wise because it really can be used in ways that aren't great and aren't healthy. It's true. It's so good. It's such good advice. I just started a

Instagram account for my 94-year-old great-grandmother But she's like wanting At first it was like me doing it And then she wanted to learn how to do it herself So it was so cool I set up the tripod at her house taught her how to log in How to respond to people

And I just have been watching her Like take off with it and have so much fun And I was like telling her I just like think it's so cool That you are willing to learn that that I could have done it for you, but I love that you are doing it for yourself and learn that because not every older person takes a time to understand social media. And what the end, they don't have to. They don't want to. But I feel like it keeps her so, you know,

it gives her just even more excitement for her days, you know, because she's like, oh, wow, like this is even, this is fun. Like now I have something they look forward to. And it's a way to connect with my granddaughter, my great-granddaughter. And it's a way that I can be an inspiration to the world and I'm like even at 94 like you're never too old to start something new and like that is so cool and you're never too young to start something like you said you were the young guy for so long and that was me and it still was me I mean I'm only 28 but what's really funny I was like preaching at something recently with college students and I've always like been in the room of college students high schoolers and also in rooms with a lot of people that are a lot older than me and whatnot but it was

funny because I was going in it and I was giving these examples and I got off stage and my friends like, hey, a little tweak for the next time. All of your examples were about motherhood and you're speaking to college students. And I was like, oh, like, that's so funny because I've been in that setting for so long with college students. I've been the young person and now I'm a mom, but I'm like, okay, I need to think about that, you know? Because sometimes you just don't realize like, oh, I'm in a new stage of life. This is crazy. life just happens and you're not really thinking about it like that. So that was kind of funny to me. But I love everything you just said about the guard line, the garb rails and the boundaries.

And I think it's so cool to hear someone who does know a lot more about it, not be against it, but also just say, hey, use wisdom. Because for me personally, like, I don't know much about technology. I'm just like your average girl who has chat GPT on my phone. So I can speak into it from that perspective of what I've seen is that it has been a helpful tool for me. I love how you said, it is a tool. That is what it is. It can be helpful for me whenever I'm studying the Bible, whenever I say, hey, give me places that Peter is mentioned. So I can go as I'm studying the life of Peter and read all these different places and parts that I might have missed, you know, that I might not have thought of.

That reminds me of. That or, hey, sometimes I'll say like the scripture on this. Give me some context. And again, you have to check it. It's not always accurate. But that has been really helpful for me. Where it has gone not healthy for me, I'm not going to say not helpful, because it feels helpful, but not healthy, is whenever I use it for, like, reassurance or to give me a peace

or, like, a guide in the sense of, like, health concern or, like, something with my kids or whatnot. Not that I can't give good advice. It's just that I don't need to use that for, like, my assurance or my peace or my comforter because that's what the Holy Spirit does. That's what God does. And I think unintentionally, instead of taking that time to pray through things, we go to chat for those things because with chat, you get a faster answer. You get a right now, this is what you do and this is how you do it. And with prayer, sometimes it takes a little longer. You get a spirit check.

You need to ask the Holy Spirit. You're going to have to listen and wait. But I was thinking about this this morning. It's funny we're talking about this. Those that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall rise upon wings like eagles and sore. They should walk and not faint. That shall run and not grow weary. And I was like, okay, there is something to waiting. Like, waiting renews your strength. When you wait upon the Lord, that's whenever, like, you walk and you don't grow weary. You know, and I was thinking about with chat, it's like, okay, I get this fast answer and I might feel like assured in the moment, but then I don't actually have peace. It's like a false sense of assurance, a false sense of peace sometimes.

because it's not necessarily, not always necessarily right. And so I'm not going to say it's not helpful, but I don't know that it's always healthy. And I do think it can unintentionally replace prayer in your life and replace the need for the Holy Spirit or you think the need for the Holy Spirit and God because you're getting these fast answers that make you feel okay in those moments of panic

or okay in those moments of questioning or okay in those moments of doubt. And so for me, I'm just now, I'm getting it as a normal person. I don't know if that's helpful for other people to hear, but that's something I've had the check in my spirit. Like, okay, this doesn't need to ever replace my prayer time. This cannot, this doesn't need, it cannot replace my prayer time.

It cannot replace the Holy Spirit. And if I'm not careful, because it's so easy and accessible, it can become that if I'm not guarding my heart. Absolutely, yeah. No, it is. At the Nissan All In Clear Out, there's nothing more chill than financing an award-winning Nissan. For just zero percent. Enjoy the soothing relaxation of zero stress, zero worries, zero indecision.

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And it's definitely not the Holy Spirit. And, but you're right, it can be, it can be convincing or even reassuring like you're talking about, which is what's unique about the technology. It's part of what makes it amazing and kind of cool, but it's also what makes it, you know, something that we have to kind of use a lot of wisdom around. Yes. Because we're, you know, we're relational people. And it talks to you so personal.

That's the weird thing. Yeah. When you have a technology that's very relational, you can kind of mistake it, you know, for something that's not. So I think sometimes it's just keeping that perspective. Somebody sent me something yesterday. There's a law, I think, in California that they're trying to pass. And one of the provisions of it is that they want the chatbots to tell you that it's AI and not a person. And they want them to remind you of it every three hours of use.

Because it's obviously become a concern that people lose sight. or lose track of it not being a real person and they actually then begin to takes on those attributes and of course the same would be true if you were using it like you're just mentioning where like this is the this is like God speaking to me or I'm getting wisdom about a decision that I need to make you're right the instant answer for it just is is pretty attractive the fact that you can kind of get something quickly but I love I love you using the verse they're about waiting. I'm the type of person that likes to go fast.

Like, everything in my life has to move faster than it actually moves, and I've just always a bit impatient. One of the things that I realized when I got to, I don't know when I became an old person, Sadie, but it happened somewhere. It was older than 28, but I'm not yet 50, but somewhere in there is when it happened. And actually, I know when it happened.

When it happened was I was doing a Q&A one day with a group, and I was on stage. And then someone asked the question, how do you learn from younger people? Like, how do you, you know, and they want to know, like, how do I make sure I'm getting perspectives from young people in my life? And that was the moment that I realized I was the old person because I was not the person that they were asking me about how I do that. And so, but one of the questions I do get is, like, what advice would I give the 20-year-old

version of myself? That literally was going to be my next question. I love that. My answer, I've thought about that a lot, and my answer is always the same, which is I would tell the 20-year-old version of me absolutely nothing, because I know that if I had told the 20-year-old version of me like what was coming, like what I get to do today, that version of me would have wanted to take a shortcut, would have wanted to kind of just go straight for what I'm doing today, but yet God wanted me to actually go on the journey that I was all. because he wanted to teach me things that I needed to learn. And I so much wanted to prove that I could do things that others thought I was too young to do. I wanted to prove that I could be the first to do this or the best at this. And so I needed to actually go through the failures.

I needed to go through the parts that were hard. I needed to go through the times where I did what I thought God wanted me to do, but I didn't understand why. and I needed to, like, have the waiting, like you're talking about, where it felt like I want an answer now, but I had to wait for an answer, or maybe even I'm still waiting for an answer, you know, on it. And those, all of those things are like what God used to shape me and to be able to do what I do today. And I just know that if I gave, it'd be really hard for me to give any advice to the 20-year-old version of me and have him not take it and just go the wrong direction with it.

And so I guess the summary of all that is my advice is to actually really recognize the sort of step-by-step day-by-day nature of what a relationship with Jesus is like all about and how that being in tune with the Holy Spirit, just like you mentioned, the not chat GPT version of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is actually such important advice. and it seems so frustrating for some people because it seems so slow and it seems so it seems so in the moment, which is people's minds are often in the future and they're not like in the moment. And I think that that's just really, really important. And looking back on it, I just, I wouldn't trade any of it, all the bad parts and the good parts. Yeah, that's good. Oh, I love that so much. I feel like the Lord is teaching me that right now because, you know, you look back and like you regret things or you're like oh why did that happen why did that happen and um then you get these moments every now and then to see like oh wow if that wouldn't have

happened i wouldn't have met that person or i wouldn't have had this idea or this wouldn't have you know wouldn't have worked out the way that it did and and really sitting here now i wouldn't change anything because i'm so grateful for where i'm at and what i've learned and who i am and the family that i have and we actually just had a conversation about that last night as a family we were looking back at um we had like a prayer night last night as a family was very very powerful and we just saw the thread of god's faithfulness so beautifully as we just began to tell stories and we were talking about some of the hard things that happened years ago and we were like do you not realize if that wouldn't have happened though we would literally not be sitting here right now

having this conversation and those are the moments you just see like okay wow god you heard me in that space you know you were with me in that space it was hard and it was confusing but you never left and had a plan. And you've got to remind yourself at those things sometimes, especially when you're going through it to realize, okay, one day, God, I'll look back and I might get to see the threat of your faithfulness in this. And I will because that's who you are. So I love that. I want to talk about because I know, like we said, we're celebrating one billion downloads and there is a global Bible month thing happening. How can everybody else get involved? How can we be a part of what God's doing on the U version Bible app?

Yeah, absolutely. So normally we're terrible about celebrating things. That's just kind of not been a good thing for us. When we did half a billion, the milestone for half a billion, I think I had a dinner with 30 people. That was like our big party to celebrate half a billion. I felt like, and I really felt like this is God's prompting on this. I felt like we really needed to use this moment to celebrate the Bible and to help the whole world see that God's word is alive. milestone is literally just one data point. I mentioned kind of several others of like these incredible things that he's doing globally. And so we just said, let's make November a global Bible month that we're going to celebrate the milestone on a big arena event that we're doing in the middle of November and it'll be broadcast in the app and on TV and it'll be a moment to really celebrate the Bible. But let's make the whole month a celebration of the Bible and issue a challenged everyone to try reading the Bible for 30 days in the month of November. So maybe you read the Bible every day right now, which is awesome. It's great. Then just

invite somebody to do it with you in November. Maybe you've never read the Bible before. Maybe you've never ever, don't know a single verse from scripture. You've tried everything else. Why not try the Bible for 30 days in November? Just see what God does. See if it does something in your life. And there's lots of easy ways to do it. You don't have to use that. the Bible app, but we're happy to have you use the Bible app. We've got, I think, 400 partners that have created 30-day Bible plans for the month of November. So there's just lots of different options to choose from. You can just do a proverb a day. You could read through the entire New Testament in the month of November. Whatever, like if you want to do five minutes, 15 minutes,

whatever, there's going to be a lot of options for you to be able to be engaged. We try to make it easy. But if you want to use your print Bible and you're going to do it for 30 days in November, we're awesome. Do that. Hallow, glorify. Other apps are doing 30-day Bible challenges in their apps as well to join us. On November 1st, we're lighting up Times Square, celebrating the Bible, and we're going to be at other places as well. Some of them not allowed to even name yet because they told me they can't name them until it's up there, I guess. So we'll see, but it's coming. It's going to be just a really fun time. And we've got influencers and politicians, and athletes and all kinds of fun people that the Bible has impacted that are also taking the 30-day challenge

and going to read the Bible for 30 days in November. So anyway, we just want this to be a moment to celebrate the Bible. It's not about us. We're just using the milestone as a catalyst to kind of bring a lot of energy around it. I also mention Amazon Prime is also celebrating Global Bible Month. So if you go to Amazon Prime video, you'll see featured Bible content on the whole. home screen of Amazon Prime. So it's a lot of fun. And we hope that this isn't like just a big party, but really at the beginning of something for people where they kind of turn and go,

man, what is going on with the Bible? Why is everybody talking about it? Why are we seeing so many people mention that they're doing this 30-day challenge? And maybe that's the on-ramp that God uses to get people into scripture. This is awesome. Back to why we're excited about the days we're living in. This is crazy. I hope every listener is catching this. This is going to be a celebration of the Bible really globally. I mean, he said time square. They're lighting it out with the celebration of Bible. All of these people taking the journey of 30 days. Hopefully that's just the start. Hopefully that launches them into an everyday thing. This is incredible. So if you are a believer, I hope you're celebrating this alongside of Eversion Bible app and what's going on

there. This is a win for the whole kingdom. And so celebrate it, tell a friend about it, do it yourself, pray for it. This is an incredible thing that we're getting to be a part of. And like I said, even in the prayer before we started this podcast, thank you for what you do on a day-to-day basis to create a space for people to grow in their relationship with the Lord. It's such a blessing. And I so believe that to make the world a better place is for people to know who God is, to know who created them, to know their purpose and why they're here. And so the fact that the work you're doing is introducing so many people to that through the Bible being in their in their pocket is a huge blessing and so thank you for being on this podcast thank you for

what you're doing I'm grateful to be a part of it myself thank you Sadie we're so grateful for you and thank you for living out your faith so boldly for everybody to see and thank you for helping me tell the story it's been an honor thank you so much Oh yeah