Coming to you from the Morning Star Mission sponsored studio. This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
I don't know what you're up against today and what kind of mountains need to fall, and what rivers need to dry up in your life. But there is a body of evidence from the life of Moses to the life of Peter, uh, especially at Pentecost, when he preached that powerful message. He moves from being pretty cowardly, pretty braggadocious, wielding swords, lopping off ears, to denying Christ in front of a girl in little campfire going there. I mean, it's a tough scene to being so filled with the
Holy Spirit that he's preaching the gospel. 40, 50,000 people, probably on the day of Pentecost. And the question is, how does that happen? Well, it's all about God. And that's what Patrick Mayberry is singing about. Watch what God can do. As you're getting up going on this Monday morning, you might need to hear that today. Watch what God can do. Our God is able man. Moses faced it. He's got Pharaoh's army coming out after him. He's got a bunch of grumbling kids standing around him going, why'd
you drag us out here, knucklehead? And he's like, God, what in the picking world is going on here? He says, be quiet, be still. Just put that staff right there. Watch what God can do. It's all about God, guys. Your fancy footwork and all of your attempts to try to square away situations. I'm not saying that we aren't responsible. And you don't have to have tough conversations, or maybe have to get a budget built or you name it, man.
For any situation, there might be things that God is saying you need to do, but at the end of the day, it's his work. Let him have it today. I got up this morning and it really began Friday, I guess, for me, so humbled. So with a oh my goodness kind of mentality, I'm like, oh my word And I can't get over it. Cher was epic and we are listener supported station and our theme is and
has been here for a few of our shares. The gospel changes everything and the amount of people, whether it's $25 or 365 or $10 a month, or 1000 or $20,005 and a few one dollars. It never ceases to amaze me, and frankly, it is so humbling. Ali. And we just want to say thank you. Right.
We do in the spirit of, of of your gifts, because we could see in the comments was that Moody Radio has has meant something in your walk with the Lord, whether it's how you came to faith in Jesus Christ, whether it was a family member who heard or you heard something that you were able to share with someone else.
Like all of the different ways that this tapestry is woven of of of how God uses Christian radio, the gospel proclaimed through the airwaves to people at different moments in the Holy Spirit works out how all of that works out. You hear a verse when you need it, you hear a topic when you need it.
And it's wild how that works.
And so the spirit of the giving was this means something. And I want to make sure that more people get to hear and grow and be saved the way I was.
It was it's unbelievable. Somebody wants to give virtual hugs if not physical. Oh yeah. To every person out there. So get in line on Wells Street, fly here to O'Hare, get on Wells Street, and, uh, she'd do it. If there's one event I'd show up is a thank you hug line. So I'd be at the front of that thing, man.
I oh. Hands down. Yes, yes.
Pretty cool. What do you what do you say, young Thunder? What's on your heart?
No. I'm just I mean, I'm so grateful because we do talk about you guys. Boone crew all the time.
Behind your back.
Behind your back. About how amazing you are. Because you are amazing. We. I don't think I've ever seen a group of people so on fire for what God is doing and and wanting to see God move more in the lives of people, you guys are on fire for that. And you show it every year in how you support us and how you support your local church. You're generous, you're giving, and many people are coming and coming to Christ and growing in Christ because of you. So thank you.
It's really cool. Um, I say this just because it's good information, but we we came up 10% shy of our goal. Are we anyone wringing their hands in there?
No no no no. Don't say.
It. No.
No one's wringing their hands. Nor is God. By the way.
Very true, very important.
But we wanted to give you that information because we came up 10% shy of our goal. And the reason I mentioned that is last week was crazy town for a lot of people. They had to get kids on planes or in cars, trains, automobiles, and they headed off down the road and boom, they were on spring break. And you might have totally missed last week. And if you are of the mind that it's like, oh man, I missed it, and you want to be a part
of this, we just offered that up to you. There is zero arm twisting here, but we just say if you missed it and you want to be a part and you hear we're 10% shy of our goal and we'd love for you to be a part. Right, Allie?
You can still call (800) 600-9624. If you missed it, 800 696 24. You can also go online to Moody radio.org.
Yeah. And just humanoid. Is that a word? Humanoid.
It can be. It is now.
Should be a humanoid. Thank you to everyone. Thank you. The story's epic. I mean, we could sit here and. Well, how fun would it be? Be horrible radio. But we could scroll through every one of those comments that we got when people were giving gifts. It was just outstanding.
It was.
Just outstanding. So huge props. Huge thanks from all of us to you. We love you. And if you want to close that gap and you feel like, man, I want to get a I want to be a part of that, I totally missed it. And I know how that rolls. (800) 600-9624. (800) 600-9624. Or Moody radio.org. Boy, have we got a guy that's peeling back the paint and getting real honest with a compelling need out there, right, Ali?
Coming up, when you think about global care, orphanages around the world, there's a picture maybe, that you have in your mind. But our guest wants to dispel some myths that actually are not helping families. We'll explain. Coming up.
She's a choreographer Are extraordinaire and everything is Greek to her. Super die is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Fascinating that the half brother of Jesus tackles the issue of what real religion looks like. And in the first chapter of James, this is epic. You almost wonder how in the world does this go together? He said. If anyone thinks he's religious but does not bridle his tongue
but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. And then it appears it just shifts religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. It appears the age old thing is real. Ali.
You can.
You can talk it all day long. But sooner or later you got to put shoe leather to it.
When you look at the issues facing children globally, it feels like one of those problems that's so big and kind of what how do I even begin to help? Brandon Stiver joining us right now, a respected leader in the field of global care for children. You have a passion to help children thrive in loving families. First, give us a little bit of your backstory of why orphan care globally is so is such an issue you're so passionate about.
So for me, I mean, it started when I felt God call me to actually go run an orphanage in Africa and actually pursued that, and it landed me in northern Tanzania. And that was really a great spot for my own discipleship, because God taught me a whole lot. And, you know, in pursuing that global orphan care space, I realized that, you know, a lot of the kids in the nice Christian run orphanage that I was working at, most of the kids had families. Most of the kids
probably could be with their families. If there was some sort of family support that would be provided to them. You know, I love the passage from James that was just read. What's interesting is we often kind of gloss over the fact that it's orphans and widows. So what we're talking about is, you know, fatherless children and single mothers.
And one of the things that I learned a lot, and kind of how God has guided me within this space is to realize, and the best way to do orphan care is to help kids not be orphans anymore. And there are actual paths towards that, through.
That.
Reunification and through adoption. And and that's what God's been teaching me. And I've been involved in this space for, yeah, about 15, 20 years now.
Brandon Stiver with us right now. He's principal and chief community builder at Canopy International, which is a community of nonprofit professionals, missionaries and leaders from around the world.
Yeah. Brandon, I want to take you back to Tanzania, because you must have. I mean, when you land boots on the ground, you must have had preconceived ideas. And then some of those were confirmed, but about a bunch of them were blown out of the water. What did you learn initially? That's what I want to know about.
Well, again, I can't separate it from my own discipleship. I really kind of feel like a huge thing that I came to realize was almost a savior type of mentality that I was probably well know most certainly had succumbed to myself. And there's a lot of it's a humbling experience to live cross-culturally and to minister. And God was very gracious to me. So I think some of the blinders started to come off, um, especially when, you know, we were there and serving who we knew and understood
to be orphans. Um, and yet there was a little bench outside, you know, the orphanage where family would come and visit and you see stuff like that, and you start to realize, oh, wait, these kids have family. You know, it could be a mom, it could be a dad, it could be an extended family member. But why aren't we doing anything to actually just help them live there? Because I grew up in a family. I assume you
guys grew up in a family? Most people, most children do. Um, and I think a huge learning for me was just recognizing again that, yeah, these kids have families. They could go to family. And to be honest, even if they're not able to reunify with their family of origin, which sadly happens to actually pursue domestic adoption, to walk alongside some of these churches and pastors and congregants that that
were in our community that were local Tanzanians. How do we help them, you know, bring in the child that needs a family, right, to help that orphan not be an orphan any longer. So, yeah, these were some things that, you know, I was in Tanzania for eight years overall, so it was a long journey. But we also saw God move as we tried to align ourselves with his word.
So my big question is kind of the why. So I mean, I think when most people think about an orphan or by definition, you think of a child who no longer has living parents. But you mentioned that many children living in these orphanages, you discovered actually did have living at least one parent. So why aren't they living with their families?
Part of it comes from the misconceptions that we have. We'll hear the UN say something like, there's 150 million orphans worldwide, and we don't realize that they're also including single orphans, which just means they've only lost one parent. Right. So the vast majority of what we assume or think of orphans like Oliver Twist or Little Orphan Annie or whatever, that's not actually these kids experience. Most of them are already living in families.
So it's economic in nature.
Then there is an economy to it, including, if you look at where these orphanages are placed, they're placed in high tourism areas because they attract tourist dollars, unfortunately. For an example, I lived in Moshi, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. If I say Kilimanjaro, you think, oh, the big mountain. Yeah, we get a lot of people that go and climb the mountain, and then they want to visit an orphanage because they've heard of HIV Aids and they want to help. And
all of that is, you know, altruistic enough. However, if you go to other areas of Tanzania that have the same amount of aids, the same amount of poverty, you don't find any, you don't find any orphanages because there's no economy for it, as you said. So the reason that we find kids going into orphanages, we tend to say it's poverty plus something else. Poverty is often ubiquitous,
so in and of itself it's not necessarily enough. But when you add, you know, a desire for an education or a child with a disability or a loss of a primary caregiver, or abuse or neglect or something that took place in the family that you can actually address and, you know, functioning child welfare systems will address those other issues. If you can solve that, then you don't have to remove the kid, because once they are growing up in
an orphanage, there's just enhanced trauma. There's attachment disorders that develop, and it's just not good in terms of adult outcomes for those children.
This is stunning. I think I'm learning a lot here in a in a very short amount of time. So there's a almost a tourism mystique to this thing called orphanages. And yet this comes back to your heart for this thing. You want to try to keep these families together, as opposed to try to get these kids farmed out to loving homes. How's that working?
Well, we want to see just kids and family. And to do that, we really need a range of options. A menu of options, if you will. No good child welfare system is just going to be stuck in a dichotomy of bad options, right. So we recognize that there is adversity in homes. And sometimes kids can be abused or neglected. And we do not want to leave kids
in that spot. We need to apply child protection. We also don't want to say, and the only other option is for you to spend your whole childhood separated from community, separated from family, living in a residential children's home. Right. So what we need to do is we need to build out a whole menu of options. Okay? Kid can't safely live with their parents. You know, in one of those. Now,
most of the time they can't. Right. We have loving moms that put their kids in orphanages because they want their kids to receive, you know, food and shelter and education. All of those things are good, but their vulnerability is not that they don't have a family. So why would we call them an orphan? Right. So first we look at that prevention piece. But if they do need to be removed. Then you look okay. Is there an anti? Is there a grandparent that could care for them? If not,
is there a pastor. Is there a teacher? Is there a mentor? Is there someone in their life that could care for them if they're not? Are there safe and loving foster families? Hopefully that we, you know, partnered with a local church to find. So all of these would be other placement options that would, you know, mitigate kids needlessly going into orphanages. And unfortunately, in the global South, you'll see kids as you know, that are days old
sometimes end up in orphanages. And that's just not an indicator of anything that's functioning well. And we want to see kids in safe and loving families.
So let's talk action steps. A couple stats for you. Us Christians give about 2.5 billion to orphanages annually. 21% of Christians who have gone on a mission trip have visited an orphanage. But you're saying this some of this support for orphanages could actually be redirected to support for family based care. Tell us what that looks like.
Yeah. So if there is, you know, a listener out there that is thinking, well, gee, I support an orphanage. What should I do? I would encourage you to reach out to those people that you're supporting. Ask them, do you provide family based services? What are the long term, you know, projected outcomes for these kids? The orphanage that I used to work at, they just stopped talking about the kids that go off the rails. Ask them, why
don't you talk about little Sammy anymore? Right. Ask them some of those hard questions and really kind of vet that out. And yeah, we do need to do some divestment. We need to redirect those funds. Look, in the United States, we do not allow kids to just go into residential care. Our foster care system has a lot of flaws, and yet it's predicated on family, right? So we also need to do the same. The private sector is the one that's going to fund a lot of the child welfare
in the global South. There just simply isn't the government infrastructure. So we as the private sector, as the donor countries need to actually reinvest towards family based care. So if that is repurposing the orphanage you're currently supporting, get them to transition to family care. That's great. That's great. Keep supporting that same organization because it seems like they do
have the kids best interest in mind. However, if they are really kind of set like, no, we're just going to keep kids boxed up and, you know, not able to be with their family and in a community, then it's completely okay. I'm a donor myself. It is completely okay to redirect your funds towards something that you do believe in. And I do think that family, especially for us as Christians, I do think that family is one of those things that we should be passionately investing in.
Yeah. Brandon Stivers, our guest, we're going to give you a link because you're listening to this guy going, whew, okay. He took an honest look at what's going on globally and locally and is spitting out the pits and swallowing the meat, so to speak. How did you hold on to what was good and not get jaundiced along the path here?
Brandon, I think and I know I've alluded to this multiple times, but I think there's a reason why Matthew 28, talks about making disciples my own discipleship journey, understanding that it is a journey. I could have received that word that I felt God tell me on Father's Day in 2007, in a church, go run an orphanage in Africa. And I could have taken that and said, hey, this is my place and time. I'm going to arrive at this spot. And then that's fulfilling my calling. And the reality is,
that's just not how it is. It is a discipleship journey. It's about learning. It's about God getting our feet moving and then continuing to say, hey, you know what? I did pursue that. And what God told me got me to get going. But when we, as I believe as Maya Angelou, that says, when you learn better, you do better. And so I think that that's helped me keep grounded. I'm an adoptive parent as well, so I know this
space very intimately on that front as well. And I do think that, you know, being one with my wife and tapping into our church community, all of those things strengthen us to work in what can be very challenging situations within child welfare, again, both globally and domestically.
Our guest this morning, Brandon Stiver. He is principal and chief community builder at Canopy International. They are working with missionaries leaders from around the world on this issue. If you want more information or want to get connected with ministries that you can support, just text the word care to 800 555 7898. Text care to 800 555 7898. Get the link. Explore the website. And then, Brandon, you're inviting them to reach out to your ministry or your
organization directly if they want some more. Next steps. Correct?
Absolutely. Yep. Just hit the contact Us button and we'll get back to you and any number of ways that we can support and direct and help you.
Do you feel.
Stuck or paralyzed with victory just out of reach? Here are your questions answered. It's time for ask, Pastor Carl.
Got a lot of different kind of emails. This one's more of a comment with request. A question asking me to do something and that is to pray. I'm going to use this as a teaching opportunity here today. This is a beautiful story. I'm just going to grab excerpts. It's quite long, but woman texted me about 20 year old son been a drug addict for two and a half years, recently became homeless. Their younger son looks like
he's about 18 or so. Who's a Christ follower. We were going to take him out to breakfast and asked him if he wanted to go to rehab, so they drove by to go pick him up off the street, and they pick him up and they throw him in the car and they're heading to a breakfast joint and he just passes out, sound asleep. She felt compelled by the Holy Spirit to keep driving for 3.5 hours. They drove all the way to the city that had the rehab. I was at this point reading this thing, getting a
little dicey on this thing, but it goes on. It gets good. He woke up and he was ticked off, but the younger son started talking with his big brother and calmed him down and decided to go in and get a bite to eat. Younger son showed him the video of the place that they were looking at for him. Oh, this almost makes me cry. Our younger son asked if he could pray for his 20 year old brother. The brother said yeah. After prayer, Big Brother looked at the
younger son and said, you think I should go? Our younger said, yes, I think you should go. And when we got to the place, she says he was really happy. He was there for 28 days. Now he started at another place yesterday that goes even deeper in their relationship with God. God has been answering prayers left and right pretty much daily. He goes on. She goes on to explain his name and what it means. I'm going to
leave that out. Up to this point in time, this could be any number of thousands of people out there. Will you pray that the hounds of heaven will go after him, and that he would dig in to go full on with Jesus? What a great cry of a mama! He dedicated his life to God just a few days ago and he's doing really well. That's a huge praise.
Wow.
So of course I'm going to pray here in just a little bit for your son. I want to use this as a teaching moment. You know, a lot of you have wayward kids or you know about wayward kids, and the tendency is to try to rescue. But it's a fine balance, because if you look at the story of the wayward sons in the Gospels, what you find is a father that went ahead and let that son go get his full appetite of the big city living.
And it wasn't until that sun was broken and headed home that we find God in a hurry to go rescue him. There was a brokenness. There was a point in time when the sun was done, and it's a fine balance because he wanted to go to breakfast and talk about rehab. And but I think this mom struck it. Well. Number one, she was listening to the Lord as she was driving. In fact, she said in this letter here, if the Lord had told me at any point to turn around, I was ready to go. But she kept
driving while her sons passed out cold in the back seat. Notice, too, that the mom took a back seat and let the little brother do all the talking to the big brother. She felt like, this is not mommy time. This is brother to brother time. Precious man. So I think the tendency is to look at this and think, I'm going to go get my wayward kid and get him off to drug rehab. I think there's an element in this story that you see that a son was nudging toward.
I need help, you know what I'm saying here, guys? Yeah, he's nudging toward I need some help. But there was never any strong arming. It's that one question that big brother asked. Little brother, should I do this? What do you think? Yeah, I think you should go. It's one of the most precious things going. Got a lot of wayward kids out there right now. But as hard as it is, you got to let them hit bottom. And it might be a little bit nuanced because I've pastored
a ton of years now. I've seen a ton of these situations. Thousands. And there is that time when they're nudging toward, I think I'm at the end of myself, and we can't become ambivalent to those wayward kids until they show up at church on Sunday. It might mean that they just want to do breakfast with you. Slash hear about rehab, you know? But we need to be ready and available and allow God to use us if
the time is right. You know, caring for people that are far from God or that have absolutely destroyed their lives, or who knows, it could be wayward and homeless. It could be wayward and climbing corporate ladders, praying that their heart would be troubled and that they would get their full of whatever they're chasing so that they could see that life without God is hopeless. That's a great prayer
to pray. But living on that fine edge of letting them break enough where, yeah, they're there and being there when it's just a breakfast. It was a risky thing for that mom. She knew it. She felt it. The reason she's asking the Holy Spirit. Tell me if I should turn around is she was. She was not. I'm going to get my son into rehab. She's going. I am going to listen to God to see if this is the time for rehab, but we're going to park
it in front of that place. And notice in this thing, there was a sense of if that son had said, no, take me back to Chicago, put me on the streets, she would have done it. You got to hold these kids that are wayward with an open hand like that. I promised I'd pray, and I'm going to do that right now. Father, this son is doing well right now. We ask for your protection around his heart. I ask you that you would gather around him people that are
just really on fire for you. I want you to protect him from shame and allow him to understand quickly his identity in Jesus Christ. And it's such a rejoicing that email that the son is on the right path. I know this mama's probably holding on, going, oh God, please let it be real. But Lord, we do cry out to you and we say, please let it be real. Make yourself real to him. And thank you that he's getting clean, coming clean, and that it's because of the
power of Christ that's at work in him. And the fact that this young man wants to live out his name. And what it means is beautiful, man. That's beautiful. That's your work to God. So our heart goes out to this family with rejoicing. My heart goes out to many who are listening right now that do not have a breakfast date set with their kid births, but God, you can set that up. Break the wayward right now, God,
bring him to the end of themselves. Show him that they're living with in a very real spiritual sense, pigs. And that life in the kingdom is so much grander. And I pray it in Jesus name. Amen. What a story, huh, Ali?
Wow. I mean, that one. I know many people feel deeply because so many parents can relate with their young adult or older adult children. If you've got a question, though, if along any lines of spiritual growth transformation, if you're feeling stuck, you've got one of those questions for Pastor Carl. Just text pastor to 800 555 7898. We've got a link for you. You can just submit your question. We'll keep it anonymous. We don't use names. Just text pastor to 800 555 7898.
Yeah. Isn't God good, guys?
Amen.
Aren't you almost in that car with them as they're driving down the road?
Yes.
Wondering, should I turn it around, Lord? Do I keep going? Hour after hour after hour. Young son, probably talking to mom, going. We're doing the right thing? Oh, man, I'm in that seat with them.
Yeah.
Yeah. Text me your questions. Love to answer them. Bottom of the hour every Monday. Really? The questions related to discipleship. Save all those. How many angels can fit on the pin of a needle? Save those for Michael Ray Dolnick. One Saturday's.
Fair. Fair.
Questions about discipleship. Your spiritual growth. If you feel stuck in some area, just text pastor to 800 555 7898.
Do you feel.
Stuck or paralyzed with victory just out of reach? Here are your questions answered. It's time for ask, Pastor Carl.
I got one of these questions that any pastor just loves to hear.
Uh oh.
This is a great one. Oh, this is this is actually a good one.
Okay, good.
Yeah. This is someone who has been working in the school district. School system, public school system, for goodness sakes. Better part of 17 years and they've been doing she's been her words the lunch lady for 17 years and a school bus driver now for 13 years. Dozen. Both guys.
Wow.
That's amazing.
That's a lot of kids.
Incredible. Exactly what I was. Incredible servant's heart. That's a lot of kids. That's exactly.
And, you know, there's there's some subplots in here. One is that. And this happens, man, we're in a spiritual war. She says she's been, uh, moved in the lunch line because she loves to interact with the kids, and the kids love to interact with her and whoever her director doesn't like. And this happens this way. Doesn't like that she's mixing it up so well with the kids. Sometimes there's envy.
Yes.
What? Kids think you're hip.
And yeah.
Who thinks, you know, it gets dicey. So they moved her to the cash register so that she'd she's actually cordoned off from the kids and can't see them now as much and can't interact with them, and it breaks her heart. Yeah, but she's like, so here's the bottom line. Number one, you're in a spiritual war. Pray in a new director. That's what I'd say. Number one, no doubt. Go full imprecatory prayer. God, take this bastard I've got that didn't want me interacting with kids in a healthy way.
Get them out of here. And she went on to say, and the truth is, I was the fastest server in the line. Even though I'm talking with these kids because you can be slamming down some black beans in a little tin, you know, and still having a great conversation.
That's true. Sure.
I mean, come on.
You ever.
Been through a Chipotle line and the guy's carrying on a convo and he's stacking up everything just beautifully. You get down to the end, feel like you know the guy, but you got your, you know, you got your bowl.
Everything's good.
Yes.
So she's kind of that way. And I get a little bit of Pastor Carl vibe. I want to go meet this. I won't go down there, but it gets me a little bit defensive, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. So her question, though, goes on. She goes on to ask Pastor Carl, what should I do? I feel like I want to go deeper with these kids. I feel like I got a kid connection big time. But I want to go deeper, and I want to find myself in areas where I can have more direct spiritual influence.
Two things. One is you're having huge spiritual influence where you are.
Yes.
You're letting your light shine. And trust me, the Holy Spirit can absolutely draw the line between your love for Jesus and them and the power of God. Holy spirit has an amazing ability to connect those strings like big time. That's number one. Number two, I don't I don't fault you at all for want go a little bit deeper and the question is, should I go to Moody or another Christ following school possibly kind of bolster my education, get more geared up toward mentoring. There's two things I
want to say here. Oftentimes, we move to more formalized education when we don't need to. The greatest equipping I ever received in my life was not at Bible college or seminary, got great knowledge, great understanding, had phenomenal professors not diminishing that, nor Bob Moody Bible College. But the greatest influence on my life was a mentor that took me under his arm for five years, and I still kick things around with him today. His name is Robert Lewis.
Brilliant guy. The education I got from this guy, watching him work, being in meetings with him and then him having weekly meetings with me, coaching me up. Oh my word. So here's an idea I've got for you. Find a ministry like gripped. Is that right?
Grip, grip, grip.
Find a ministry like Grip or one of these other ministries that got hands on experience with kids, spiritual mentoring and maybe go volunteer there. I know you got a lot on your plate, but maybe go volunteer there, or at least get a coaching session with one of the directors down there. And trust me, if you call up saying, this is my situation in life, I want to go
to the next level and invest in kids spiritually. They will give you 30 minutes over the phone, and that 30 minute talk might be better than 40 hours of classes. No joking. Because they're going to they're going to give you guidance that I can't give you here because some of these folks are just unbelievable experts at coaching kids spiritually.
Second thing I'd say is, if you're coming to Moody, I would interview the profs that are directly related to the area of learning you want to go after to make sure this is the right thing for you. I am a big believer in Moody Bible Institute, big believer in this thing here, mainly because of the quality of professors. No joking. You know, it's not didactic. Learning only. That's
very Socratic. They get into discussions. And how do how does this worldview work its way out, and how are we going to get equipped to, in your case, really a spiritually invest in this next generation. So your heart is right on, sister. That's why I started with any pastor that has a pulse is like, come on, this
is great stuff. Yeah. And that leads to a third thing that I want to give you, and that is go to the pastor of your church and make that your first point of contact, because it could be that right under your nose at church, there might be something going on with students. There might need to be something that needs to be started. And God's given you a leadership to get that going. I don't know, but go
talk to your pastor about it. Pastors love it when people come to them saying, you know, I'm dying to give my life away more around here. Do you have anything for me?
And they sure.
Will. Good. Yeah. Really? Uh, yeah.
Here's an offering. And they pull out all the flyers for everything under the sun that's not fully equipped. Um, so we want a pastor wants to hear from you. So three things. Find a mentor, maybe get some good formal education. I would interview the profs in the emphasis of learning that you'd be taking at Moody, even before you come here, make sure it's the right thing to do. There's nothing like grabbing a phone and making a call,
or getting an email and setting a zoom appointment. I promise you, the profs here in any emphasis of learning, would love to spend a few minutes with you on zoom to tell you what they're trying to do here and how they do it. I promise you that I'm signing you all up for it, by the way, right now. But I promise you they'd do that. So there's three things that I want you to do. But more than anything else, I want you to hear. Way to go, sister.
The fact that you're hungry to invest in kids and you're for 17 years, you've not grown weary in lunch lines and bus driving. And the other thing I want to know is what kind of vitamins do you take?
Because that's that's.
One of the most astounding things I've ever heard.
No doubt bus driving and lunch lady are dealing with kids at the most critical junctures.
What supplements are you on? I for me to get a busload of kids behind me, and I'm responsible for driving them down the road, and I'm a pretty good driver. Yeah, that is enough. My day is done at the end of that bus trip, let alone going to the lunch line.
That's eight hours of work in one. I mean, I'm done.
But I applaud you now on this moody piece. I want to drill down on this for a second because we've got a link for you. But there's some of you that definitely feel like, man, I wonder if I should dig a little bit deeper here. This is one of the most affordable educations you're going to get if you're if you're maybe you've been in a new career slot for years or you've got a kid coming out of high school, there's a lot of you in different
situations in life. Moody might be a just a phenomenal opportunity. Now, I want to tell you, before you get signed up to come here, the goal coming out of Moody is that you're going to leverage what you've learned in the marketplace or in direct ministry, either in the church or on the mission field, marketplace, church or ministry on the
mission field. So I'm really wanting to encourage you because I think if there's anything Satan wants to do is keep us from spiking the fact that Moody Bible Institute is training the next generation of D.L. Moody. That's what's happening. Um, Mary Bethune, next generation of those. We're asking you to consider being a part of this. And for some of you, you're like, man, I wonder if I need some moody education. I've never recommended this before on air, but I do
it personally all the time. So now I'm going to do it on air. Get the application process going, but then interview the point people or two that are in that area of emphasis and just double check. Is this for me? Is this going to fit the situation that God's calling me into? So Ali's got all the goods there. You want to add anything to what I shared there, Ali?
No, I think that's great. We've got the link for you. You can text Moody to 800 555 7898. Text Moody to 800 555 7898. And a cool thing that we have for the boom crew is there's a promo code that we have included in there that allows you to waive the application fee. So just text Moody to 800 555 7898.
Pretty cool. And I love getting these questions by the way I really do. And Ali's going to give you a link here in a moment. But the questions that I want to deal with are not related to how many angels can fit on the pin of a needle. That's Michael Wright downlink on Saturday mornings. Mine are all discipleship oriented. I'm stuck. I've got an addiction. I've got a problem from the past in my life that I
can't seem to shake. Whatever is holding you back from taking your next step with Jesus, I want to be able to answer those questions on air Monday mornings at the bottom of the hour, and this one isn't far afield from this at all. This is in the wheelhouse because you're taking your next step. I love these and the fact that I get to do this with you,
young lady who sent me this email. Everybody remains anonymous, by the way, when they send me emails like this of any kind, and I've gotten tough ones like infidelity and everything else, I want to tackle those questions on air, as many of them as I can get. And now he's got a link for that as well.
So if you want to submit a question for the Ask Pastor Carl segment on Monday. Just text pastor to 800 555 7898. Text pastor to 800 555 7898.
Yeah, what a cool opportunity. The the various questions I get aren't they run the gamut don't they?
Yes, yes. I mean, I don't typically get to see them in advance. So I'm hearing them for the first time and I'm always drawn in going, oh boy. Okay. I'm thinking in my mind.
Like.
How would I answer this one?
It's pretty cool. And I do want to hit that mentoring one one more time, because some of you have an aspiration to go do something, find someone who's doing it well and ask them for 15 minutes. That's it. Just ask them for 15 minutes. It'll blow your mind. All right. Coming up here in a few minutes. Speaking of a mind blown.
We're there, we're there.
We'll give you details coming up.
She was trying to earn her way to God, but God showed her she didn't have to. Ali is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Okay. Had a mind blowing, really humbling experience here last week during share, and I've been ruminating on it over the weekend, just in awe of people who graciously and joyfully plopped down $25, $10 a month, 50 bucks, a thousand, $20,000 and just humbled by it. Seeing people that doubled down. They were still listening throughout the week, and they're like,
you know what? I was listening, and one guy, one guy made a comment when I was it was late in the hours of Friday and he said, you know, I gave a gift earlier this week in the Spirit of God has just been telling me there's more there. And so I give it to you today and I'm like, oh my goodness, it's just epic to watch what God does during the year, right?
It really is. We had one guy give for the very first time. His name is Andy and he left a comment. He told us he was a new listener and he said, I'm trying to rebuild my relationship with Jesus. I'm done trying to find my way on my own. And so his gift was to what is helping him as he's trying to figure out life. And he's finding here that he's being encouraged and that he's starting to grow. And the fact that even after listening for not very long,
he decided this is important. And so I'm going to give to it. So the fact that there were people like Andy Brand new to us, but going, I'm trying to figure things out and this moody radio is helping me.
It's huge.
It's a blessing.
Uh, there's one other name in my mind right now. Do you remember what that one is? Young thunder.
Uh. Stephanie. Right?
Yes.
You better tell the whole story.
Yeah, this one is great. So Stephanie gave a gift just before share started. And when she gave a gift, she left a comment saying I was saved through listening to Moody Radio. She said she had the illusion of salvation, and that now she tells other people to listen to Moody Radio as well. And then she ended with this. She said, I believe the Holy Spirit is absolutely working through Moody Radio. And I love the heart. The heart is, you know, she came to Christ through listening to the
gospel preached here. But then she's got such a heart for Jesus that now she wants to tell other people to listen to Moody Radio as well. And so the gifts don't go to just people like Stephanie. They go to people like Stephanie who know more Stephanie's, who can then tell people to come and listen to the gospel being preached.
Stephanie's story is full circle stuff, man.
Yeah.
Yeah, it really is.
While she was far from God. People are plunking money down. She's the guy who's been getting work in her heart, and she lands on her radio station and didn't even know what she's doing. Yeah, and next thing you know, boom. Breaking through the illusion of salvation is born again. And now growing strong with Jesus and now giving back to share. Wow. It's pretty amazing what God does and we are so grateful for you. So grateful. Super dies forming a line
out on Wells Avenue right now. Oh, you're still here. Okay, I knew you were going to get down there soon.
Yeah, they're getting the the the ticker tape and everything set up just to kind of cordon it off a little bit, and then she's gonna go out there and hug people.
Absolutely.
What's your heart on this one?
That is it. That is.
My heart. I mean, in all seriousness, if I could just hug everyone, I would, because it just touched my heart so deeply to see just the boom crew and people just reaching out, knowing the hope that they have in their new transformed lives because of the salvation of Christ, that they want others to know that same. Transformation and have that same hope. I mean, it was a very emotional share and the messages that were left. You shared
a couple of them already. I mean, this share especially, just really stood out for me on a very high emotional level. And there are not not enough words to say thank you there. Not.
So who do we want to thank? 600 prayer warriors.
Oh yeah, 600 prayer warriors.
My goodness.
Thank no doubt.
With us the whole time.
No doubt. And faithful ones.
Those of you. Yeah. Go ahead.
I was gonna say there's also a group that I noticed specifically this year. I think we all did a little bit was people who are already giving a, you know, a certain amount a month here with Moody partnering with us. And then during share, they increased their monthly gifts.
That was huge this year. Yeah.
And and I'm so grateful for that because you have already been faithfully partnering with us. And then you felt the calling of God on your heart to partner more. And you did. And I mean, we already couldn't thank you enough for your original gift, but then you increased it and we my goodness, we're so grateful.
Yeah, we really are. You know, there's we are getting some questions like, hey, did you guys hit the watermark? So here's the news. We did not this year. We landed at 90%, which is hold on a second. Let me check. Is anyone. Nope. No one here is wringing their hands.
No, no.
And let me.
Check. Not at all.
Yeah. God's not wringing his hands.
No, everything's okay here.
But I know that because of spring break and everything that's going on. My goodness, the streets of Chicago on the weekend were just crazy, man. Saint Patty's Day, bar crawls and everything that's going on.
Downtown near.
The green.
River.
Man, when was the. When was the Chicago River for Saturday morning? Chicago. They dye it green.
Yeah.
Because it doesn't matter how much more polluted it can be.
It's already.
Very.
Much a Kelly green when they do it.
Though. Oh man. So yeah.
They dyed green. But, um, there's some of you that were gone. I spring break is in motion here. It's been a while since I've had kids that are in spring break, but spring break is in motion and you might have been gone and you feel like, shoot, I missed it, and God's Spirit might be just prompting you today. There is zero arm twisting here, but just an open door saying, we're not done yet. We can. We can take those gifts, receive them, and we'd be grateful we
did come up 10% shy of the overall goal. And you know our heart. We don't want to hit a goal of numbers. We want to reach people. But we appreciate every gift that came in and we only spend what we get around here. We're good stewards with dough. But Ali, for those that missed out and say, shoot, I want to be a part of that. How did they do that?
Easiest way. Just text the word share to 800 555 7898. Just text share to 805 five five 7898. You'll see the links to give the number to call, so just text share to 800 555 7898.
Yeah, and if you love URLs you can go to Moody radio.org. So that's easy as well. But we're grateful for every one of these gifts that came in. And let me just do this right now. Father, thank you for the lives of those people who gave and those that couldn't, because they might have felt I'm just too strapped. But Lord, we're grateful for those that jump in, knowing that they know the gospel changes everything, and they gave from an overflow of gratitude to you, God. And only
you can do that in us. I mean, we'd be out of our minds to give money to something that we're really not connected with at a heart level. But but we are, and we give you praise and thank you for every boom creator. In Jesus name, Amen.