Coming to you from the Morning Star Mission sponsored studio. This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
I'm excited. I'm fired up this whole week. I feel like I'm getting more thrilled about this morning show with every passing month. Amen. I came in here, remember when I walked in and we had a we had a pretty good hour. I forget what was going on. And I said, finally, we're doing good radio. And now he goes, you are something else, man.
You used to say that all the time.
Yeah, it's kind of a catchphrase. My first.
Year here, every day. Every good day, you would say, we're finally doing good radio.
And good radio for me is getting out of God's way. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
That's what it is.
Getting out of God's way. And let him drive the bus, man. All right, I got a wingnut idea for you guys.
Oh.
I'm a little nervous, but sure.
Super die. You're gonna be to be muttering under your breath after this one.
Great.
No, it's not that bad. I think we need to take this CRC 2025 trends outlook, and I think we need to make a link and send it to the peeps to all of our boom crew.
That's not.
Crazy. That's not.
Crazy. I think that's.
Okay.
It's a lot of pages, man.
Oh, how.
Many pages in this sucker? Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Seven pages of of single spaced, small font. It's worth reading, though. I mean, if you just read the first couple of pages, you got enough. But this is good content.
It is, it is. We will. Let's work on that and we'll get that.
So cherry, pick a couple of hot items off their alley that have really driven us this week here.
Well, this this CRC, the cultural research center out at Arizona Christian University. They do these kind of world view research where they they look at different trends. And so this bar with George Barna, they're describing faith and cultural trends likely to emerge in this year, so one of them deals with discipleship. Unfortunately, how discipleship, even though many churches talk about it, um, very few go beyond just encouraging personal Bible reading, uh, attendance at church, maybe note
taking through sermons. It also looks at this idea of syncretism, where only 4% of adults have a Christian, a actual biblical worldview. But many more 92% of people are doing what's called syncretism, where they sort of customize their own version of faith, where they're blending lots of different ideas. Taking a little bit from here, basically a God of our own making, making God into what we would like him to be, and then kind of having developing that
as a worldview. Like, I like that God is love. I don't like really like the judgment part. So let's borrow some other philosophy and put that in. And that's how I form my worldview. Interesting stuff in stuff in this study.
Good recap. Yeah. The one thing that stuck out to me that you alluded to here, but I'm going to quote it, thousands of the of the nation's Christian churches say they are committed to discipleship, but strikingly few do much beyond encouraging note taking during sermons. Independent Bible reading during the week in attendance at church initiated small groups, which research indicates are generally ineffective at making disciples. Ooh! That hurts.
It does. It does.
It's true. But. But the numbers don't lie. This is why I like to measure the important stuff in life. So anyway, we're going to get a link made up for you guys, and we'll have it for you. I promise you, it'll be later on this hour. We'll have a link. I know that's a wing nut thing to throw on you guys there, but I think this is good because we got a lot of thinking people in the in the boom crew who want to go. All right. What are the numbers? What are they telling us? Okay,
coming up here, we got a special guest, though. We're talking faith and culture rally.
So let's get a faith and culture analyst to join us to come in on some of these trends coming up.
He was running from God, but God's love brought him home. Carl is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Well, if we're going to make faith not get dominated by culture as we're talking about this week, we got to drill down on what the word is faith here anyway. Ali.
What do you mean, what is faith?
Yeah.
What's faith? I think that's what we got to surmise here. What in the world is faith? What is it to have a biblical worldview? We've been doing some deep dives on that, haven't we?
Let's bring in our special guest to weigh in. Doctor Alex McFarland. He's an apologist, author, evangelist, religion and cultural analyst. Is our understanding of the word faith. Do you think that that has changed in terms of how people use the word.
You know, the word faith really means trust. And in terms of the Christian faith, we're believing what God said about Jesus, the Son of God, who rose from the dead. You know, the book of Hebrews tells us that faith is hope and evidence. You know, the hope that we put in the Lord. The evidence, the proof of our relationship with him. So humans, throughout history, we have a God shaped hole in our heart, and only Jesus can fill that hole. So, you know, the culture changes, but
we still need to put our faith in Christ. And fortunately, I think more people than ever are doing that.
We've been looking at a Barna report that's forecasting where we're going here. It's been sobering. I mean, 4% of the population in America has a Christian worldview. A lot of synchronization is going on there synchronizing the gods of this world. And and Ali is big on this. It's not new age anymore. It's new thought. But there's a lot of spiritual talk. You know what I mean? And there's. And even the word faith. You ask people, what's your faith?
And it's a system by which they believe in. But it's certainly not entrusting themselves to someone very often speak to that, Alex.
Well, the greatest thing for our faith, the thing that will give us strength and spiritual nutrition, is the Word of God. You know, I think for a lot of people, you know, I meet a lot of people that they'll say, well, you know, I'm really spiritual. And I'll say, well, what does that mean? And if you died and stood before God and God said, why should I let you into heaven? What would you say? It's this kind of amorphous, fuzzy hope.
And I understand that. But at the same time, the Bible tells us that we can know where we stand with God. The Bible tells us that we can have certainty. That's first John 513. So I would just encourage people to not just have maybe some vague faith or wishful thinking. Now put your trust in the Lord Jesus who loves you. Jesus is as close by as a prayer. And that's the kind of faith that will change your life and give you stability in your soul.
Doctor Alex McFarland with us right now. You know, last time we had you on with us, we talked about this Bible sales booming in 2024. A surprising statistic given what we're talking about. 4% of people have a biblical worldview. There's declining church attendance, but a 22% increase in Bible sales in 2024. Is that the spiritual sort of interest? That's maybe driving people to open the Word of God, even if they're not yet a believer?
Yeah. I mean, people just it's part of the human experience. They want some solid ground on which to stand. And I am very encouraged that so many people are reading the Bible. More and more people are spiritually open. So what we churches have, you know, pastors, churches, uh, church members. What we have is an opportunity. But, you know, LifeWay research and many other organizations show that almost 90% of all the people around us, it's in the high 80s.
But they said that they would strongly consider going to church if somebody invited them.
I know, that's just shocking.
Isn't that awesome?
Yeah it is.
Let's build relationships because, hey, you know, it's like, um, if you buy a set of weights, that's great, you're going to work out. But it helps to have a fitness coach. Well, the church, good churches that believe the Bible and teach it, they're like our spiritual fitness coach and it's great to buy a Bible. I encourage people to read it. The Holy Spirit will help people read the Word of God. But church, we need that community.
It's an opportunity for service, but also good teaching and the ministry of the word churches help us grow in terms of discipleship. So I encourage everybody, if you're spiritually searching, find a good church. Yeah. If somebody's listening, if you are a Christian, be an inviter. Be a habitual inviter. Because nearly 90% of all the people around us that don't have a Christian background are saying, I want to know more if somebody would just reach out and invite me.
All right. I'm going to pin you down, Alex, because you're an evangelist. You've spoken over 2200 churches throughout just North America. Do you think we have a rebellion? Kind of Romans one people shaking a fist at God issue? Or is it more of a searching? But no one's taken me there issue because the stats you're giving us 80% of the alley, does that blow your mind a little bit? Yes. That, if invited, would come to church.
Yes.
What's going on here? I think a lot of us in the church look at the world and go, oh, man, they're just shaking their fist at God. Your stats say no. They might not have had a fair shot at the gospel.
There is Romans one. I realize that, but I think our culture is much more like in the book of acts. Remember Philip met this Ethiopian eunuch and the Ethiopian man was reading Isaiah. Philip says, do you understand what you're reading? And he goes, I don't know. How could I unless somebody would teach me. And I truly think, because, I mean, I'm with people all the time, you know, once a year I'll meet somebody who's, you know, angry at God
and shaking their fist in God's face. But every single day, literally, we get emails from people saying, I know I need to get right with God. Uh, I'm not sure how to even find a church, but wow, what does it mean? In fact, I've got one staff member full time and then another person part time, simply helping me with the daily slew of emails of people that basically what they're what they're saying is, how do I know that I really have Jesus in my life? And you know, the
Lord said, the fields are white unto harvest. And guys, I think that's true in any generation but relationships, you know, psychologists tell us that a true relationship has trust, honesty, respect. And I have found, look, with people that are very far away from Christ in their worldview. If you build a relationship and there's trust, honesty, respect, you can share even the hard truths of God's Word. And people will respond because they know that you care about them.
Doctor Alex McFarland with us right now. Apologist, author, evangelist, religion and culture analyst. Coming up, I got a tough question for you. The label of evangelical or even Christian is taken a bit of a hit as of late. We've seen public scandal. We've seen lots of things linked to that word that may or may not be true. How do we Reclaim the word and even describe or even separate ourselves from some of the things that people assume to be true about us. That may not be
true at all. Let's talk about it coming up.
He was sharing the gospel on the radio and then he got saved. Young thunders in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
We've got a religion and culture analyst to Doctor Alex McFarland with us right now. You know, when you tell somebody these days that you are a Christian or an evangelical Christian, they are likely going to make a lot of assumptions about you, about me that may or may not be true. This can make conversations a little bit more challenging. How do we navigate the terms evangelical Christian? That's become pretty loaded?
Yeah, there is baggage around the word evangelical right now, and that's unfortunate because evangelism is telling the good news. And an evangelical Christian has traditionally meant one that believes in the Great Commission telling people about Jesus. You know, there was a time they used the word soul winner or just one. That's a witness for Christ. Now, in the last 25 years, the word evangelical in the minds of many people has, you know, become a politically charged word.
It's not that there's anything wrong with the word evangelical, but people have so many misconceptions that I really just tend to use the word Christian or, you know, Christ follower. But I think that one of the ways we get around the misconceptions people may have is just to show that we are authentic. This consistency validates authenticity, and when people see that, it's not just talk that the Lord Jesus Christ is the absolute foundation of everything we are
and we do share truth. And we live God's Word and we are people of integrity, and we are people that we're not in the business of using people, but of loving people and loving people enough to tell them the saving truth of Scripture. You know, whether or not we rebuild the word evangelical doesn't matter to me so much, but maintaining the purity of the word Christian, I think that should be every Christian's priority. Really?
Yeah, I'd love that. Doctor Alex McFarland is our guest right now. We're going to have a link for you in just a moment, but I want to give you the floor. You want to riff? I know your heart is family. What are we going to do? And here's here's the big rub. My bride and I have a list of ready for this. People that we know whose kids were raised in church. Good kids, great parents. Not not Pharisees. I mean imperfect, but going for it with God.
Whose kids left high school? left the home and they've walked away from the church. Most of whom now look back and go, these kids were never born again. How do we bust through cultural Christianity and get this family unit back on track with discipleship in the Lord Jesus Christ?
A lot of prayer and a lot of consistent living. You know, the divorce rate among professed Christian families is at or maybe even higher than the divorce rate of the unchurched world, and that's a tragic thing. And, you know, we are in the lives of 1200 teenagers every summer. And I can really tell you, the state of the family really does shape the spiritual outcomes in the lives
of so many young people. So I would say this now, having been married myself for 36 years and having counseled a lot of couples, I know marriages go through seasons and rocky spots. I would just implore everyone listening If you were married, the marriage that God wants to bless and save is the one that you're in. And I would just encourage husbands and wives, you know, don't be looking for greener pastures. Really believe God to save the marriage that you're in. If Jesus can resurrect the dead,
he can resurrect relationships. But in terms of the hand off, for one, I realize that there are godly moms and dads and they do everything right, and their kids sometimes wind up in atheist humans, have free will and even look, even, you know, the first family ever. You know, Cain and Abel. Cain killed his brother. So the first human family ever. And we've got a homicide on our hands. You know, we're sinners. That being the case, I will say this.
I want to make a plea to men, have a daily devotion with your wife, and let your kids see that it is absolutely Real. It's not just a perfunctory, you know, hour or two on Sunday morning, once a month, but that you are a Jesus man. And I thank God for Christian moms. Thank God for the the godly women. But so much of the spiritual outcome of children flows from the dads relationship with Christ. Role model it. And men.
I want to say to the men out there, the best favor you can ever do your kids, is to love their mother and lay down your life for your bride. As Christ laid down his life for his bride, the church.
Doctor Alex McFarland, our guest this morning. If you want more, he's got resources on his website. You can link to what's available. Just text Bible to (800) 555-7898. Just text Bible to 855 five 7898.
A basketball mom who's mastered the dad joke. Ali is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Guess what? Bottom of the hour. You know what that signal is, young Thunder.
Oh, you know I do.
Making herself laugh no matter who joins her. It's time for Ali. Thinks it's funny.
I applaud you, though. Laughing at your own material when it's good.
Yeah.
That's him. Play. You ever seen the stand up comedians that are pretty straight faced? But then they crack a good one and everybody's roaring, and they they they they just smile a little bit.
It's like I actually kind of like that a lot. The fact that they smile, it's like, okay, they know it's funny and it makes me laugh even more.
I'm working on my delivery guys. Is that what you're trying to say? No. No need.
To.
Laugh. Laugh less?
No, I'm saying no, no, no. You laughing at your own jokes makes it funny.
Ah, okay. Got it.
Yeah.
Got it. And dad, jokes are laughable if you're doing stand up comedy and you started roaring your own stuff, I would call you down and go, sister, we gotta change this.
I do not have a future in stand up comedy, that is for sure.
But dad jokes are a totally different category. All right, Ali, ready?
Nobody wants to go to jail.
Right?
Nobody. The belt.
I did.
What?
But anyway.
Okay. It's another story for another day.
Continuing.
Ali, why did the belt go to jail?
Huh? I don't know.
Why did the belt go to jail? Was found guilty of holding up a pair of pants.
Ha!
That is really good. That's good. Wow.
That's good, I like that.
Oh, what do you mean, that's good?
And you're sitting there.
Groaning.
Like what? No. It's good. I'm not groaning. That was super.
Laugh out loud funny. That one was.
I gave you a smirk.
A pair of pants. Oh, that's a dad joke. And a half out. I'm crying in here.
I got a little, uh, a little warning for you. Um, you got to be careful, because there's some fake spaghetti that's been making its way on the shelves. And you have to be careful that you're getting the real thing. What do you call this? Fake spaghetti?
I don't know.
An imposter. Okay. She is gone. We've lost Ellie for sure. Text jokes to 800 555, 7898. Text jokes to 800 555, 78, 98. You're welcome. You're welcome. Diana. Thank you. I know you especially look forward to this segment.
Thank you. Yes.
Just wait for my jokes. What's she going to come up with next?
You should be roaring. That is funny. Get out!
Impostor!
Do you get it, di? Do you get.
It? Yes.
Thank you. Young thunder. Yeah. You're welcome. Oh, boy. The delivery says it all. I love it. I wish we had the visual of her telling these jokes.
Come on, get this link. You two can torment.
Your friends and family.
Oh. That's funny.
Text jokes to 855. Oh, let me do it again. Jokes to (800) 555-7898. That was. Those were two. Just.
Boom.
I, I think I.
Was.
Six for six today.
Ali was on. Don't you always think you're six for five.
Six.
Five for six. I, I sometimes they don't land.
Well that's true.
I still think they're funny, but I today I really think everybody should have thought they were funny.
That's so good. What's wrong with you?
Her public opinion is if you don't think.
If you don't think they're.
Funny, there's something wrong with you.
It's your humor.
I will, I will say it was a strong day. A strong day for Ali. Jokes.
Thank you. Thank you.
Somebody just texted. Can you please explain the Amazon.
Chicken egg joke?
I still can't figure it out. I love your.
Jokes.
Okay. I told a joke in one of the hours I said, I went on Amazon and ordered a chicken and an egg.
Yes.
I'll let you know. It took the team a minute. Apparently, it's taking others.
It took me a minute. It took me.
Think about it for a.
Minute.
The classic saying.
Classic.
What comes first? The chicken or the egg? So the joke is, I ordered a chicken and an egg off of an Amazon and off of Amazon. Then you pause and I'll let you know. Dot dot dot. Which comes first?
That's a great that's a.
Really.
Is a good.
Joke.
That's intellectual.
It's intellectual.
That's generous.
Oh, for.
Goodness.
Sakes.
I got a stomachache from those two. Oh. That's good. Hey, you two can work your ab muscles and have a six pack. Listen to Ali every bottom of the hour on Wednesdays. You two will have a six pack before it's said and.
Done.
By June.
Jokes by June.
6th. Pack by June. Just by listening.
For the summer.
Tex jokes 800 555 7898.
Embarrassing. Going to the beach. Listen to Ali thinks it's funny.
There you go.
Get your summer bod ready with Ali.
Thinks it's funny.
Right now we've.
Gone.
Off. Okay, see.
Now, dude, that's a little too.
Far.
That was too far, Jonathan.
Way too far. Okay. Went over the edge there. Sorry. Sorry. Apologize. Yeah. Please forgive me.
You got to tell the back story on that one because.
Oh, yeah. So, Carl. Carl has this habit, and this is when we're off air. Carl has this habit of saying, saying things, crazy things. And he's getting us all riled up and going and laughing. And then someone adds something, particularly when it's me. Adds something to the joke, and he goes, nope, you can't do that. It's too far. You you killed it. You're done. It's done. You can't. That's too far. You can't do that. And and he goes so deadpan.
Variably, invariably.
Young thunder turns.
Bright red.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because the.
Thought of I have done something.
Wrong. The thought of I've crossed some type of line is like one of my, one of my painful. I'm like, oh no, I can't do it. I embarrassed myself in front of everybody. But Carl knows he can get me that way.
Oh, I'm just dying. Oh, I.
Love you, dude. You know that.
All right.
We got a important link coming up for you.
This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
We have got a resource for you. I had a brainstorm here at the top of the hour, and I'm like, man, let's just get this content out. Now, this is, what, seven pages. Right, Ali?
It's a it's a link to a website. So this will you can scroll through it probably a maybe a 5 to 7 minute read. I would guess if you want to take a look at these cultural trends likely to emerge in 2025, just text trends to 855 52898. Text trends to 855 555 7898.
Okay. We want you to get that link trends. And this is this is good reading. Why? Why is this important to read? Would you say Ali.
I think being aware of where I mean, no, research is perfect, but when you have a general sense of like take something like only 4% of people having a biblical worldview or the fact that many, many people have developed a worldview that blends a belief in God with a lot of other things, syncretism, then it affects how you view conversations. To be aware of that, that's going to be the predominant viewpoint, is a blend of a
lot of different faiths. That's going to help guide how you talk to people when you talk about Jesus.
Ali just built a good case. Come and get it. Trends to 855 five 7898 855 five 7898. Get this in hand. We're going to cherry pick a couple of these things coming up.
She's a choreographer extraordinaire, and everything is Greek to her. Super die is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Yes. Yes. Yes, yes. She's Greek, she's crazy. She's fun, she's winsome. She's lost her mind at times. Oh, she is super die. Only because you're working with Ali. That's what you were.
Perfectly.
Normal.
Until you.
Started working with Ali.
That's what.
It was. Everything went south.
That did it. Yep.
Yeah. Well, I want to thank you for making this link. I'm blown away at how many people are grabbing this. Okay. We've we've been using some content, and we're not going to withhold it from you no more. Ali told me, Carl, we shouldn't give it to him. Actually, I shouldn't even.
What? Wait wait, wait.
Ali. Ali was right on with this thing, man. We gotta we. If we get this out to you, you're going to be able to have a way to look at our culture and then go, whoa, what's this mean about our faith? And and don't underestimate your power to influence culture. Don't underestimate it. The amount of the amount of movements of God that have started with a humble few are pretty staggering. So coming. Get this link. Spread
it around. This is one of these things that when you when you read it, you'll have a now a new metric by which you can measure, how are we doing with faith in the culture in which we live? Text the word trend. You'll get the entire link here to CRC research. It's George Barnes's latest kind of really forecasting what's going on in 2025 based on current trends. Text trend to 855 five 7898. So what this causes us to do is think about, well, it's kind of
the Francis Schaeffer question, how shall we then live? I had a great dialogue with Jim Coakley. I'd heard him say this. I forget when it was and when he said this supposition that I'm going to share with you, I'm like, wow, that's one of those insights that you've got to just hold on to and not lose, ever. And here's in a nutshell, here's what we find. The apostle Paul begins in Philippians three, and he starts talking about his kind of pedigree. And he said, I was
a Hebrew of Hebrews. But as he gets older, things change. And it's Jim says it's four year increments chronologically following the letters. And then he says, I'm the chief of sinners of the apostles. And then he says, I'm really the the chief sinners of all the saints. And then in his letter to Timothy, he says, I'm just the chief of sinners, period. Which is an amazing thing. And you've got to ask the question, what is going on here?
And Jim texting me early this morning, I'm so glad this doctor, Jim Coakley, my buddy, is up early because he's got some great content. He said in every one of those passages, the word grace is found. The more he understands grace, the less he thinks of himself. Then he goes on to say, This is Jim Coakley. Honestly, I'm not even sure it was intentional for him to
do this. I just think it is a natural byproduct of humility and deeper understanding of grace, so that the wild thing about a deepening faith is obviously a deepening dependence. But you got to ask the question why the dependence and the deepening dependence is a byproduct of a deepening awareness of what kind of a sinner I really am. Isn't that awesome, Ali?
Yeah. I mean, you think about I have a I have this magnifying mirror that I use to to do my makeup in the morning, and sometimes like the when you can flip it. So there's the one side that's just like the regular mirror. But then when you flip it and you get closer to it and every everything is magnified, it's almost a little intimidating because you're like, whoa, that's there and that's there. And it's like.
What a great.
What a great analogy. It's like one of those things, I mean, in a lot.
Of a lot of us ladies do, if you if you like to put a little, as Carl likes to say, paint on the barn, you use a nice magnifying mirror and you make sure that it goes on evenly and that it's blended super nice in here. Dying.
Oh.
No. No, it's in there. This is this is real stuff.
It's like a it's like the magnifying mirror, like you, you you start to see more and it's, it's sometimes it's hard, but it's like the closer you get to God, you, it's like the magnifying mirror and you see more of the ickiness that's there. And, and it causes you to be more dependent on God because you know that you can't change yourself.
Yeah, I looked at I used my wife's mirror one day and I'm like, wow, I don't need to do that again. I mean, good gracious, it looks like Mars. It's like, what in the world is going on with this lunar surface? But, you know, I'm with but you're. But the analogy is perfect, Ali. I mean, the closer you get to God, it's like the closer you get to the sun, the more impurities. Right? Get revealed. Pretty cool. What do you say, young Thunder?
Well, I love seeing this progression from Paul, because I think that a lot of us err, sometimes in the way we think about what it means to move closer to God. Sometimes we equate moving closer to God with doing more spiritual things, and when that's kind of our equation to it, the more spiritual things we do and the more we measure ourselves based off of that, the more prideful we get. We don't get more humble. We
get more prideful. And so I love seeing this progression from Paul saying, hey, the closer he got with Jesus and the and the more his relationship with him deepened, the more humble he got, the more he realized his need for Jesus. And I think that that's a great marker that let you know you're on the right path to moving closer with Jesus is that you genuinely recognize I need him so much.
I mean, if you take what he says at face value, he begins with this progression of, all right, my pedigree is I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews, born in the tribe of Benjamin. With regard to the the law of God, I was faultless. Yeah. But then, you see, is this progression every four years he goes from, man, I'm the chief of sinners to the apostles, then I'm the chief of sinners and saints. Then it's the final one to Timothy. Dude, here's the deal. I'm the chief of all sinners. You
know what spiritual maturity says? I see my sin more and more. Whoa, whoa. I see more blemishes. The closer I get to Jesus, the stronger I get in get in Jesus. The more I see my need for him. I mean, how beautiful is that?
Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's hard. It's beautiful and it's hard.
It's hard. But if you can keep looking in that mirror, which, by the way, is a great metaphor, because that's exactly what we find James using. Don't walk away forgetting what you've seen. Mhm. I mean everything changes. It's this is one of these hidden gems in the word that the decline into humility was the evidence of Paul's spirituality. Man. Guys that will carry you today. I know we sometimes resist humility because it's like, oh, Carl, for crying out loud,
I've been beat up enough. No, biblical humility lifts you up. First Peter five. Let's go guys.