Aug. 2, 2022 - Slightly Offensive - Elijah Schaffer
53:30
CRUSHING Antifa & The ANTICHRIST with BOLDNESS | Guest: @Sean Feucht | Messy Christianity Ep 1
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Today's world is getting darker every day, and it's getting more difficult to do what's right. Sean Feucht, author and worship leader, was attacked by Antifa, and was even fined by Chicago for worshipping God in public spaces during the height of the scamdemic. He has lives a bold life without fear of man. That's what he's here to talk about: Why he did it, how he did it, and the difficulties of going against the status quo.
Most of you know that I’ve recently been seeking God more in my life. Having been quite far from God, I am now trying to learn how to live more closely to what God wants for my life. That’s what these interviews are going to be about, just exploring the craziness of life and learning from people much wiser and more consistent than I am. I’m hoping you all enjoy the conversations just as much I do. These will not interrupt our regular podcast or weekend livestream schedules. If you enjoy this type of content, please let us know below. We separated it from our weekly show, as we understand SOBs are not all interested in this type of heavy spiritual content and just want to laugh at the craziness in the world.
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The Idea Of A Free Society...For Kids!
Head to https://teachrealprinciples.com for a unique book series that introduces the important ideas that schools no longer teach.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARs5oI-XR2U
Uploader: Slightly Offens*ve
At the height of the pandemic, when all churches were shut down and people were not allowed to worship in groups, Sean Foyt defied the scam orders and continued to praise God, being attacked by Antifa, fined by cities, and criticized by his peers.
Yet his love for God did not stop him.
This is our conversation about what Christianity looks like living bold and fearlessly.
unidentified
Tonight we came here, no matter who you are and what your intentions are.
You know, Sean, there's nobody I know more than you that has actually seen up front, up close the devastation that the political choices our leaders have made, the social choices that the people of our country have made over the last couple of years in the, I call it the scamdemic, but the pandemic of just how churches fell apart, how marriages fell apart, how people have fallen apart, and even an entire country divided by George Floyd, by the lockdowns and the brokenness.
But I don't know anybody else really other than you that chose to completely go against the grain from the start and just, you know, completely fight the darkness and go against the destruction and the chaos to continue keeping on with hope, to continue on being bold.
And I just got to say, I'm very, very happy to have you in the room right now.
Well, I think probably because last weekend I was in Detroit.
This is just an example.
I was in Detroit.
Lockdowns have been over.
People can go back to church.
There's not this drive or this angst to prove something to the government.
We had 5,000 people that gathered in a park just to worship.
You know, the week before that, I was in Johannesburg, South Africa.
We had the largest gathering, church gathering in three years in the whole country.
You know, so, and, and, and not just the gathering of people coming together, but like what God was doing in the midst of it is just phenomenal.
So I felt like maybe, maybe things would wane a little bit when we don't have the pressure of the election and the lockdowns and all that, but it just doesn't seem like it's stopping.
Yeah, I know we'll talk about your movie too that's come out.
Some crazy stuff, but I'm going to just jump right into this.
I don't understand the world right now.
And genuinely, my heart is hurting because I don't know about you, but I actually lost hope in the institution of the church at the start of this candidate.
Because I was somebody I was genuinely involved in church and I did not like miss a service and I had a strong community.
And one day, because I'm from Los Angeles, it was just like, hey, by the way, you guys can't meet together to serve God.
And I'm thinking, oh, hell no.
No, we're going to, we're going to praise God.
You know, we talk about if we lived in China and, you know, the government came against us and the communists, you know, we're going to, we're going to meet.
And, you know, I used to think when I was a kid, it was underground, actually in a cave, but it's like, we're going to meet an underground church.
We're going to actually get together.
We're going to fight this off.
And I got, you know, the email, hi, we're going into Zoom only.
And I think it shattered a lot of, I think that's where I started to shatter my idea and my vision for what I really thought Christians were going to be capable of doing in hard times.
Because I thought like, man, if a parent told their kid, hey, I'm going to, we're going to have a good relationship, but I'm only going to parent you over Zoom.
I'd have been like, well, that's not a family.
A family that communicates over Zoom is not a real community.
And that's not really true.
And I saw for the first time in my life, the big, bad, bold preachers, everyone that claimed to be fearless, to be strong, was suddenly like, you know what?
Not only are we going to comply with the government, we're going to push their narratives and we're going to shame people in our church who fight against it.
And I don't know about you, but until just a couple of weeks ago, I had not stepped foot back in a church since before 2020, like for an actual real full service to go attend because my heart had been broken.
But you didn't, you chose not to comply with that.
Well, for me, I think, you know, had I not had 20 years of missions experience in some of the most persecuted closed nations in the world, I mean, for 20 years, that's what I've been doing.
So my focus had not been America.
I've been a worship leader and on labels and doing events and stuff in America, but that wasn't largely my focus.
I mean, I had 30 international trips booked when COVID happened and they were all canceled, right?
But I had been spending time with the church of North Korea, the church of Afghanistan, the church of Iraq, the church of Saudi Arabia.
I'd been in these nations, right?
Started missions movements, learn what these these persecuted underground pastors learned about the power of their faith, right?
And how it means something.
And I felt like I was taking notes from them when we approached lockdown.
And actually, they were the ones, you know, trolling me in my phone.
They would, they saw what Newsom did, Gavin Newsom did in California and closed the church, but allowed, you know, casinos and marijuana dispensaries and to be open and strip clubs.
And they were the ones telling me, Hey, what are you doing there?
You know what to do.
You've been with us.
You've been in Jeddah worshiping in a place in Saudi where you could lose your head, you know, for and so I felt like for me, it was almost like the church in America, they the government said, You're not essential.
And the church took that and was like, Okay, you're right.
Instead of being like, dude, we've been around for 2,000 years through pandemic, through persecution, through horrible regimes, through Nero, through, you know, all of these crazy moments through Hitler.
We've worshiped through all of this stuff.
And now we have a virus with a 99.98% survivable rate.
And we're going to listen to the government to tell us to shut down.
It was like, it really showed, okay, do we mean what we sing?
Do we mean what we preach?
Like, this is where it gets real, you know?
And so for me, it was kind of, it was a sobering moment, but, but I'm thankful I had that 20 years in with the church, you know, in the persecuted countries of the world where I could like remember, man, these guys, these guys battle with this on a regular basis.
And how dare I, as an American, we come to this thing where I might get shunned or might get persecuted or might get censored or might get whatever because I take a stand.
Yeah, but what actually shocked me, though, and I'm going to tell you what, you gave me a lot of hope because at the time when the, when the, when the pandemic came around, like that is kind of sort of around around and near the time that I really totally realized that my trust and a lot of my walk with God was heavily based upon the church and my community and not on Christ like at all.
Like I, because I could tell when the church sort of shuddered, not only when they rejected me back in 2018 for, you know, for just messing up and getting involved in weird sexual morality and stuff like that, but like trying to keep, you know, I was like barely holding on.
I'm like, all right, everyone kind of was douchebags, but at least I know I can still go.
I can be there.
I can get involved.
I might not have great relationships, but I can, I can recover.
But I think when it, when it closed down, and when you go, you know, these pastors and these worship leaders who sing songs like, you know, I'm no longer a slave to fear, I'm a child of God.
And you're like, hell yeah.
You're like, I'm not a slave to fear.
I can overcome these things.
And then all of a sudden it was like, what about?
Nah, I could overcome things, but not a $400 ticket, you know, for worshiping God.
And I'm like watching churches and their excuses and talking to people why they're shutting down.
It's like, well, they're going to give us a $200 ticket.
You are so you are so stupid, but also so filled with God that like sometimes you got to do things that are stupid in the eyes of men to make an impact for God because it's like shutting the mouth of lions or like burning up an offering, right?
God does some crazy stuff.
And sometimes what makes sense, like Elijah crying in the cave, you know, being emotional like today and being in touch is not really what God wants us to do.
He wants us to do the impossible.
And I got to say this for people, you can YouTube this stuff.
I didn't want to put it in because I wanted this to be more of a conversation, but I mean, you went to San Francisco.
Yes, in the Chaz chop zone, which many who watch this channel over the years have seen the coverage that we did there for many days.
I lived there for a while.
Okay, it's one thing to say, hey, God, you know, people are shutting down.
I want to see God return and then going to Laguna Beach, you know, and doing a nice little thing on the beach.
Or hey, I want to see God reach New York and going up to the Hamptons area or something like that.
I mean, you went into the places that people don't even try to reach for God that people have said the devil has already taken over.
Can I just get into your head here and say, was this, does this God told you?
What did your wife tell you?
And what was your mind telling you when you decided to hold Christian praise things in the middle of George Floyd, this pandemic, in the most hellhole, Godforsaken cities in this wild country?
Well, I think, you know, we had been doing it in war zones across America.
We've been doing, you know, we were there at the height of ISIS in Iraq, you know, on the front lines with the Kurdish Peshmerga worshiping.
We were there in Afghanistan after shortly after 9-11.
Actually, I was just out of high school.
So we'd done some pretty crazy stuff.
And then when it, when, when all hell was breaking loose in these cities across America, you know, there, it was just like, I knew good people in those cities.
Like I knew good churches in those cities, right?
But Portland was being painted as just this hellhole that's burning for 200 days straight.
And so it was a real, and yeah, for real.
I mean, it was, and I'm going to say this, like we've encountered some resistance across the world.
I've been held up at gunpoint with an AK-47 in my head in Uganda.
I've had crazy experiences.
Portland and Seattle, they were up there, man.
They were psycho.
I mean, we were right in Waterfront Park, you know, right next to the courthouse, you know, and we were right in the chop zone.
Because I know like New Orleans, Cantrell, find me, went after me, Nashville, whatever that dude's name went after me, contact tracing, a Phoenix, they went after me.
Yeah, I have to agree with you because this is where I want to say something interesting.
You know, we've been exploring on this show a little more.
People have, as I started to come back to Christ, have been calling this the Christian Howard stir in the show.
But because I know not everybody wants a paradoxical show, people want real conversations.
The biggest request we started having was like, please start talking to Christians who are doing real things.
Because a lot of Christians started, no, but a lot of Christians told me that they felt really convicted watching my show, but they'll watch it because the same reason why I think we elected Donald Trump was it was like, okay, he probably A, has had plenty of affairs.
It's looking like that's true.
B, Stormy Daniels thing, it looks like you don't pay a porn star off unless you probably did something with them.
And C, he's pretty crass and rude.
But like when he just says, hey, Rosie O'Donnell, she's ugly.
She smells, she's fat.
She's a nasty woman.
You're like, well, she, it's true.
And, you know, he's not conservative.
He's not Christian, but the Christians were like, at least finally, someone's kind of like speaking there, being honest, like clear about who they are.
And so we have been so traded with smut that we are like, as Christians are like, well, we'll just get behind this guy.
And the whole left didn't understand.
Well, why are you getting behind Trump?
And it's like, well, because at least we know what he thinks and he's saying.
And that's more virtue than anybody else in politics.
So like with a show like this, it's like where we've just been candid about how we think and we feel, even if it's went against people's consciences on like language or even some of the content, they'll still watch it.
But now that things have developed, we know the evil's there.
We know we've exposed it.
They're like, well, you're getting back to your faith.
Why don't you start talking to people who haven't left it or who haven't who haven't walked away?
Let's not look at the negatives.
Let's look at the positives.
And the one thing I love about your book, you know, it's like the phrase is being bold, right?
That's even the, for my understanding, that's like the actual just title, right?
Being bold.
And this is the difference.
If someone like yourself coming out the other end, like I said, it doesn't look like you have monkeypox yet.
It doesn't look like you're, you know, you have any problems.
You chose something that went against the grain, which is what God is calling us to do.
They said comply and you said deny.
You went, you didn't deny Christ.
You denied the state control.
You chose to be bold.
But I'm going to tell you this.
Most people, even in my industry, chose to comply.
Most people I know got vaccinated.
Most people I know, they only speak about the election.
They won't talk about it now.
They won't talk about anything.
I chose to be bold, but I made a lot of mistakes.
I started, I got back into sinful habits.
It weighed on me.
I let the world control me.
And now I'm coming out damaged.
I'm coming out broken.
And I'm coming back to God to be healed.
How did you choose to be bold, but still keep that commitment to Christ to not let the world tear you down?
I was honest, but my own morality got hit.
But you chose both, bold and strength together.
How does a man actually do that coming forward?
Because most people watching this are in one of our positions.
They either were like me or like my colleagues.
They were either afraid in fear or they were weak.
And now we're choosing to fight back.
So how did you persist?
How did you remain in the midst of such pressure, in the midst of such pressing, even from inside the church and from without?
I mean, I think, you know, the journey that God called me to and my family to, I mean, it's crushing, man.
Like, I think that it's you lose.
I mean, I was on a record label.
I was well-liked.
I was a worship leader.
I was a missions guy.
We were rescuing kids all across India.
We were going into war zones.
Like, what's not to like about that?
Right.
Even non-believers, even whenever, oh, yeah, he's a good guy.
And then I turned to like, yeah, it was basically like, these are the rebels against the government or against, you know, if you really love your neighbor, you will do da da da.
And who is it?
It's John MacArthur and me that are largely shown across America as the guys.
I mean, front page of Rolling Stone, Jesus Christ super spreader.
So that was a, that, that was like a crushing thing.
Like it was like, God, what am I?
Why did you lead me down this?
I had a really good thing going in my life.
I lived on 15 acres, Northern California, great church, great missions program, raising my four kids.
Like life was nice.
It was manageable.
It was that there wasn't any pushback.
And then I step into this world where it's like daily the resistance.
And I think that for me, like I didn't have any choice if I was going to continue, but to like submit to God.
He was literally my only hope.
I mean, we lost so many friends, bro.
I mean, people that I had been in for years, people were speaking out.
My own friends were trashing me, you know, questioning my motives, da-da-da-da-da.
Resistance out here, resistance in here, resistance with my wife.
Should we do this or should we not?
We show all this in the film and I talk about a lot of it in the book.
And even this bold thing, I think what's so interesting is that people, people don't want to see a Christian highlight reel.
It's like, that's not even the Bible.
One of the favorite things I love about the Bible is it tells the whole story.
It tells you how jacked up everyone was and David and how screwed up he was.
And he killed a guy and had an affair and was a cheater and a liar, but yet somehow, some way, he found this place of favor in the eyes of the Lord to where God said, I'm going to name my son after you.
Jesus, the son of David.
I mean, that's what they were crying out in the streets.
Son of David, have mercy.
The son of an adulterer, the son of a murderer.
What's my point?
My point is that in this journey of bold, in this journey of following God, I mean, there's resistance.
It crushes you.
You do mess up.
You do have times of weakness.
However, I think there's something beautiful coming on the other side of that.
Like there's a resolve.
There's a strengthening.
There's a, we've been through the fire.
We've been refined.
Everything that could be taken out of my life, every amount of ego and every amount of wanting people to like me because I'm an artist and that's what we want.
We want people to like us.
And all of a sudden no one likes you.
And it's like, okay, am I living for the fear of God or the fear of man?
Did you ever doubt yourself along the way or doubt God?
Because I think a lot of people had bold boldness or they had strength for a period.
And then it was like, what if I'm wrong?
And what if I'm not hearing God?
And what if, and then I'll just comply.
And then maybe they even held out from the lockdowns, but then they got the vaccinations.
They got the boosting.
And I don't want to shame anyone.
If wherever you fall, if you fall seven times, I'm not saying getting the vaccination is falling.
I meant if you felt like God was calling you not to get it and then you got it, then that would be falling, right?
If you felt like God was calling you to get it and you didn't get it, it would be the same thing.
But I meant like there was a lot of people who I felt like the pressure got too much and the self-doubt became too great and they gave up along the way.
And my heart breaks.
There's so many people I know that are just, they don't know how to get back up.
Like, you know, and every new thing, you know, when we, for example, when we were, when, when I felt like we were supposed to go into Portland and the chief of police from Portland called me and is like, hey, I know you have a First Amendment right to do this, but, you know, if people get hurt, like we can't protect you.
And you're calling people into this place and they're going to get hurt and da-da-da-da-da.
And it was like, yeah, I'm doubting.
Okay, God, why would you call me to do this?
And then I'm going to be responsible for all these people getting hurt because we knew Antifa was going to show up.
We knew there was going to be.
And that moment it was like, okay, I got to listen to the Lord.
You know what?
We showed up and we outnumbered them so much, they could not mess with us, you know?
And not only that, but it gave it, it like released something inside of every person that was looking at the destruction of that city, seeing, okay, these guys aren't as hardcore as they say they are.
We have a call and a command as the church to be light and darkness.
Now, I will say this, for people that are battling with it, and I think it's important for us right now.
If you battle fear, we all battled it.
What a crazy season, right?
If you felt like that you didn't, looking back now, taking an inventory, I think now is a good time to take an inventory on how we responded 2020, 2021.
If we responded in fear, if we ended up caving on some of our convictions, you know what?
I tell people, look and inventory it, say, we didn't pass the test like we wanted to, because I promise you this, there's another test coming.
Promise you.
I mean, we've already been told this by every politician.
We've already been said that another pandemic's coming, other tests are coming, right?
Things are going to get crazier towards the end of the world.
I mean, it just is what it is.
However, we can look at what we did and say, man, I didn't do as good as I wanted to, but it's okay because there's another test coming and I'm going to get another shot at this.
And I like to tell people that because I feel like a lot of people are living in the shame of how they responded instead of just saying, man, I screwed up.
Whatever.
God, forgive me.
Give me, let me help me not do this again.
Get with friends that are going to hold you to the fire of your convictions.
And then when the test comes again, don't repeat it.
And I think people are getting wise.
People are starting to realize, okay, all their implementation of the masking stuff again.
I mean, even the libs in California are like, no, we ain't doing that.
You know, I mean, it's like people are wising up.
They're realizing how outrageous and the brainwashing that happened, the fear-mongering that happened.
And I feel like it's a good opportunity for us to not repeat some of the mistakes that we did in the last season.
And I think this is the way out of anything, whether it's a personal sin, like from like porn to adultery, to outward, from, from something like, you know, eating something, you know, that you didn't cook all the way through, like a simple mistake to eating too much over 10 years and getting obese and getting a disease from it.
You know, like, I mean, sins can weigh in being internal, out, external, or small or large or whatever it is.
But the key thing is, is like, you might think your sin or your mistakes are the biggest ones in the world.
You have to realize like that person that's never done those horrible things you've done, sometimes their sins even weigh more on them.
They feel more guilt and more pain and more shame.
And sometimes it's even the problem.
Sometimes they'll do worse stuff and don't really feel regret.
And so I think, you know, to encourage people on that note, like that's a powerful understanding of redemption.
That's going to be a reoccurring theme here on the show.
It's like, you do realize, this is what's helped me is I always say the problems that we have in America is not that people don't want to come to Christ.
It's what they do once they know him.
Because once they come to him, we have this single-use garment, you know, fast-fashion, plastic wrap Christianity where it's like, oh, you got saved, once saved, always saved.
And then you get stuck in all these sins and problems and issues, and you don't know how to be used anymore because you feel abused by the church.
You have abused your own soul.
You get caught up back in sin.
And there's no like a, hey, what's your ongoing story of your relationship with God?
Not what happened in 1983, but you know, what's happening in this 1984 dystopia that we're all living in?
And how are you, how is God helping you overcome?
And so sometimes, you know, like practical, you know, advice, and I want to hear your side on this, is I think that what that point you brought out is the important part of like, even if the world remembers your sin and you're having a hard time forgetting it, you confess your sins to God that you can be healed and to one another.
Confess it.
Find karate, but also confess your sins to God and you be healed.
And you have that healing and you have to realize that you got to trust God and move on from that and know that the reason not just why God forgave you because he loved you, but it's also now learn from that.
It's the idea part of being a Christian is learning and God lets us learn.
And that's a gift from God is that there is redemption.
We can find good out of evil and we can grow in the grace of God.
So I want to ask is through this, what have you learned about yourself, about the church, about this country?
And how has it changed, you know, not only your theology, but just your approach and where you're going to be and what you're doing going forward?
I feel like it's exposed, and I think this is good, right?
At first, I'm disheartened, but I actually feel like it's good.
It's really begun to expose what we truly believe.
Like, is this just religious rhetoric?
I'm talking about the church now.
Is this just religious rhetoric?
Are we just going to punch our time card?
Are these sermons and these messages and especially like the hype celebrity pastor vibe?
Like this thing shattered that, right?
Like the life coach, the life coach vibe happening right now across America in the church, like the, the, you know, you know, we're just, we're just here to kind of have like a Christian club and we're so cool.
We're like the world, but we're kind of not, but we kind of are and we're so relevant and hip.
Like COVID really annihilated and exposed that, right?
And I think it's really good.
I think it's good for America.
It's good for America to see, you know, the true colors of the church.
It's the sifting that we read about in the Bible that's going to happen, you know?
And it also shows us people with genuine faith, you know, people that really believe.
And I think in our journey, I tell people, you know, and this is an encouragement to your last point about people that are walking through stuff.
And then the last season, they didn't do so well.
It's like, I tell people, if it's not good yet, it's not the end of the story.
You know, and the theology behind that is that he works together all things together for good, right?
So in this season, I thought, I literally thought, dude, like when the pandemic happened and we took a stand and all hell broke loose, I thought, no one's going to listen to my music.
No one's going to invite me to do ministry.
No one's going to trust me.
No one's going to believe me.
And it's like, God, turn it.
It's like the exact opposite.
Like the amount of people that trust us blew up.
We had three albums that went number one on iTunes over every genre in America for the first few days they were released.
We had the most phenomenal doors of influence open.
And it was like people actually began to take us seriously.
It was like, I don't know.
It was like this distinction from the past season.
It was like this leadership vacuum in the church where people just wanted genuine leaders that were going to speak the truth.
And so, you know, I feel, again, as I started out this talk saying I feel incredibly hopeful.
Now, I know church attendance is down.
I know that, you know, 30% or more of Gen Z struggles with their sexual identity.
I know I see this in every city across America.
We've been to 160 cities.
I've seen it, right?
I've seen the destruction.
I've seen the depression.
I've seen the suicide, the anxiety.
Our altars are filled with every city we go to with people getting free and delivered.
But sometimes it has to get so bad.
Sometimes it has to get so gnarly for us to find the truth and the light and hope and for us to really see God for who he is and for all the religious BS to be torn off and to be shredded and for all the cool church stuff to be removed and for us to find God and authentically.
That's actually an extremely good point right there of that.
If it's not good yet, then it's not finished because God is going to make things good when he's going to finish that work in you.
And that's such an encouragement.
So you're saying, you know, and this is like such a big, a big encouragement for people like myself is that we can trust the scripture and we can know that God is faithful to complete the work that he began.
And I mean, it doesn't mean that it's not difficult.
It doesn't mean that it's that the journey is not isolating.
Doesn't mean that you're going to be perfect.
And sometimes even that definition of working all things together for good, sometimes that's a stripping away of stuff.
You know, I mean, sometimes it's like a freeing of you of things.
I mean, we had a discussion, you know, this season that you're, I mean, I'm letting people, letting people in on your life, but, you know, you're coming into a season where you had to remove things, maybe friendships, events, things that you would go to.
Like, like, literally, like, because like, I'm like, I don't, like, I've told people, it's like, I was like dabbling back and out of things.
And like, I was like, I would just like take edibles sometimes or like smoke pot occasionally.
Like, I wasn't like being super into it.
I wasn't like some pothead.
It's just like casual again.
Like, and I'm like, why am I doing, like, why am I, why am I getting high?
Like, I should just stop getting high.
And so I decided, I'm like, I'm not going to get high anymore.
And I didn't even think, even now, it's not even my conscience was.
I'm just like, I don't think God wants me to like, I don't think this is helping my life in any way.
And I've got to like start learning and like looking at what is, what is benefiting my life and what is not.
I'm not ashamed of it.
Like you can't ever do an expose Elijah Schaefer video.
Like, if you want to say anything about my personal life or my life, I'll go say it on my own show.
Like, I don't have anything to hide from the world.
It's like, but I'm like looking at my life and I'm like, what is producing anxiety?
What is producing depression?
It might not be controlling my life.
I'm not walking around like needing to go to some clinic.
It's like, but is this bringing me closer to God?
Is this helping me align with where God wants me to go?
Or is this just a distraction?
Like, is this just stupid?
And I've got a lot of distractions in my life, Sean.
And I'm probably like a lot of Americans or a lot of people watching this.
There's a lot of things that it's like, because we're all so isolated now, we can kind of get away with like living our own version of Christianity, our own version of reality.
We don't not in church anymore, 50% lower population.
We're not, we don't even, our pastors are talking to us through Zoom.
Everyone's hurting inside.
People have gained the COVID 30, the 50.
People are struggling.
We're all barely getting by.
Inflation is making us barely survive.
And in those kind of situations, you can kind of sit around and just be like, well, I'm creating my own version of life and I have no accountability to be doing anything different.
So I'm having to say, you know what?
I'm just going to have to admit it.
God, I'm wrong.
I shouldn't be doing this.
I'm not going to do this.
And I'm going to just try to do better with my life.
I'm going to try to find those areas and just go.
So what?
And I want to encourage people with that.
It's like, stop being so ashamed of your sin before Christ.
Like, not before him.
Like come to him and bring it and say, Lord, remove the shame, remove the guilt.
Cause he's not like upset.
He's not, he doesn't hate you.
He wants you to be healed.
And it's like, there's so much freedom to just be like, you know, admit you're wrong.
And, and, and, and even your struggles, you know, your struggles, your doubt, your, your, your, your addictions, your stuff.
It doesn't disqualify you.
I mean, it's like, it, and I think that that's what people, that's what reading the Bible or even, you know, reading the story, people's stories throughout history, my story in this book, it's like you see the struggle.
Like you, you, you have a firsthand experience with the vulnerability.
We see this in the scripture.
Like it's it, their full story is told before us so that we can see it's only by the grace of God that they did what they were called to do.
They were all messed up.
And so I don't think people kind of let these things disqualify them.
But I do think that coming out of this season, it gave us an opportunity to see, okay, how do I respond in the shaking?
And it allowed us to see, is church important?
Like, for example, is church important?
What is church to me?
Is it a social gathering?
Is it a thing where we just come together to feel good?
Or is it necessary?
I need believers in my life.
I need to grow in God.
And I think that all of that stuff is being redefined post-COVID.
And I tell people, listen, it may look like the church is 50% less or whatever, but the post-COVID church is way different than the pre-COVID church.
The post-COVID church doesn't play.
I mean, it's like, you got to go because it means something to you.
It's cost you something, you know?
Whereas I think before the culture of church that we had, I think in many ways was very powerless.
No, and I think, see, and that's the difference too, is I think Christianity is getting to a more real place because, like you said, in order for people to hold on to their faith, I think this is the first, one of the first recent times the Christian church, the Christians were actually challenged in the United States of like, does your faith really matter to you?
And like, I'm thanking God that I think a lot of it actually is like almost working opposite where maybe there's less people pretending to be Christians, but it is at the same time waking a ton of people up where I'm seeing a ton of people, a ton of friends of mine who have tons of vices, tons of issues, tons of problems.
They haven't solved all of them yet.
They haven't figured them out yet.
But here's one problem they did figure out.
And I like, I kind of got goosebumps saying this because it's like, it's, it's a personal thing to me.
And it's very freeing when you don't need to look good to people.
You just need to know that you have to keep your eyes focused on God is that they realize their need for God and the need to know their creator.
Like people are like, I'm royally effed up, but this is the first time in my life I've been able to say that out loud to somebody and also admit that there is a solution outside of who I am.
And it is Christ.
It is Jesus.
And it is like broken, shattered, sick people who are like, you know what?
I admit it.
It's Christ.
I don't need SSRIs.
I don't need more counseling.
I don't need more therapy.
I don't need more pot.
I don't need more alcohol.
I need Jesus in my life and to trust him.
And it's like they're starting a journey.
And then because it's not fake Christianity, there's not this like, oh, brother and my brother in Christ.
You need to heal up today.
You know, don't come to church tomorrow until you're healed up.
It's like, you know what?
Come hung over to church.
Confess your sins to the Lord.
Come take communion.
Let's let's do this.
Like your marriage is broken.
You're stuck in this.
Let's let's bring healing from Christ.
Let's be honest about the brokenness because how can we be and know be honest about needing a healer until we're real with ourselves.
And I feel like that's that's what my understanding is.
We're getting a real church is emerging, a real fundamental faith.
And it's like full of two years ago, people that would never have even been allowed back in those doors or to serve.
Well, and that's one of the amazing things about the lettuce journey, right?
Because we did all, we hosted these gatherings outside.
So we're in parks, we're on beaches, we're in street corners, we're, you know, like church in the wild.
And people would come.
Like, I remember, you know, being on heroin highway in South Chicago, you know, like worst drug crime, whatever.
And those people wouldn't probably not step into a church, right?
People in LA and these places we go probably would not step into a church.
However, they're like, what is this gathering of people?
And they would be drawn in and then experience the presence of God and the simple presentation of the gospel.
Very simple, right?
And it's mind-boggling to me still how many of them came down to the altar because we do like old school altar calls.
Like we go, it's like old school where we just say, man, if you want Jesus, if you want to surrender, come down here.
And people would come down.
They would throw their drugs on the stage.
We had heroin, meth.
We had, you know, of course, weed.
We had all needles, all kinds of stuff thrown on the stage, people getting free, people getting delivered.
And then we would baptize people.
And what's amazing is I think we forgot the power of the simple gospel, right?
The power of the simple gospel to free people.
And when we brought, when like our tagline for let us worship was the church has left the building, right?
Because we were kicked out of our buildings.
It was like the church left the building.
And now, got to be honest with you, I don't even know if I want to go back to a building.
Like we've seen the power of God in downtown streets.
We've seen it on beaches.
We've seen it all over America.
And it's like, that's where it's at, man.
Rob people.
I remember the first guy ever.
We kind of accidentally started this movement of baptizing people.
And it happened in New York City.
We were in Washington Square Park.
We're gathered together.
It was a height of the rioting and COVID.
And the city was just so jacked.
And we picked this spot under the archway.
We gathered together.
There's a couple thousand people that came and we worshiped.
And it was amazing.
Because one of the things worship does is it gets your eyes off of yourself, gets your eyes on God.
It reminds you he's on the throne.
He's in control.
Yes, it's jacked up down here, but he's in control.
Then we gave an altar call.
People came down.
There was a guy strolling through the park.
This is one of like a million testimonies, but he's strolling through the park from Honduras and he was about ready to go commit suicide.
He had the pills in his pocket.
He was just like, I'm done with this, this life.
He hears the music.
He comes.
He goes down to the altar, gives his life to the Lord, puts his suicide pills right there, like on the front.
And then he looks at me and he goes, Isn't baptizing the next thing that you guys do?
And I was like, oh, yeah, we do do that.
You know, and we didn't have anywhere to baptize him.
I looked around.
The fountains were right behind us there in Washington Square Park.
And we went and we baptized this guy in the fountains.
And man, it ignited a movement, a baptism movement across America.
I mean, we baptized thousands and tens and thousands of people after that moment.
But one guy, just hearing the truth of who God is, I'm still in touch with that guy today.
You know, it's just so powerful what the gospel can do.
And I think we've sanitized it.
We've told people that if you really love God, you're going to sit in your room by yourself with the mask on, watching a live stream, because that's probably what Jesus did.
Even though we see Jesus going into sickness, going into darkness, putting himself in harm's way, we see Jesus telling his disciples, you're all like sheep among wolves.
Like the gospel shines the brightest in the darkest, most gnarly times.
And I know that, you know, even when you're trying to come out of this, everything comes against you, you know, to remind people that are watching this that you can get his book bold wherever you can find it.
And you also, this movie coming out called Super Spreader that comes out in September.
At the time, I was super pissed because I'm like, you know, every dream of a musician, you know, to be recognized in a, you know, world-renowned publication or whatever.
Now they're totally woke and they're so left, you know, their whole magazine.
But at the time, I was like, my face was at the front of the thing.
And they were talking about.
these rallies we were doing and how we were going to infect millions of people.
Anyway, we took that title, Jesus Christ Super Spreader, and some guys created a documentary off of it.
And so it basically documents the Let Us Worship Movement.
But here's a cool thing.
We interviewed all of my haters, all the trolls that hate me, the people with big online followings.
We said, okay, come share your side of the story.
Harvard professors who railed, said that I, you know, wanted to whitewash, you know, black people in America with my colonizer religion.
We interviewed that guy.
He did a whole lecture series on me at Harvard.
You know, we interviewed these pastors that didn't like me.
We interviewed leftist people, but we also interviewed people that just got saved or just got freed or were bound in addiction.
We interviewed some crazy people on the ground level of these cities.
And so you kind of see the story, both sides of the story.
You see the opposition.
We go really internal into our me and my wife's marriage and the battle between us and that season.
And it's pretty raw, man.
It's pretty raw.
And so anyway, it comes out in theaters, 500 theaters across America at least.
And yeah, I'm excited.
I'm excited for people to hear it, see it.
I think even people that don't like the church and even people maybe that don't like us are going to watch it because they know that they're going to hear maybe even opinions they thought about it, you know.
And at the end of the film, it kind of leaves it up to you.
All right.
What do you think?
You know, and it's, it's, it's pretty, it's, I think it was done very well.
And to all the SOPs out there, the slightly offensive backers, let us know in the comments what you thought about this.
You guys have requested more real hybridization between what we do on a daily basis in this studio, which is probably illegal in some states in this country, but also, you know, it's too illegal to tell the truth, you know, and that's what I'm saying.
It's crazy.
It's nothing bad.
Actually, we do a lot of good.
And it's all because of you guys and your support for us.
Don't forget to support this channel.
Support Sean first and everything he's doing.
Check it out.
Get a copy of the book.
Make sure you plan to take the family to the movie.
Really, really bring a friend, anybody, no matter what their faith is or whatever.
It's a cool movement for people who like it.
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We're going to keep trying to bring a variety of different kinds of content.
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So you guys use your resources to support us, and we are always eternally grateful.
And we are so privileged and appreciate the consistent support you've given for this show over the years as we've fought literally the federal government in court.
We've gone through a lot of things, and you guys have just been there for us through it all.
Huge shout out, Sean.
Thank you so much for coming on.
And it was a privilege.
If you're ever in Dallas, I'm sure you're out here sometimes.
Make sure you come back by the studio, come back on the show, give us an update, tell us what's going on.
And may God just bless your family and keep you.
I'm going to, this is, we don't do this.
Amosis, could you leave us with some sort of a encouragement, a blessing?
Like, you don't have to close your eyes and pray, but just some sort of a last word.
Yeah, I think I want to circle back and just tell people, like, this, if you're in the dark night of the soul, and a lot of Americans are in that right now, like you mentioned, inflation, the economy, gas price, just the mental illness, that thing that's just come on a whole generation.
Like, I just want to say there's a lot of hope for you, you know, and there's a lot of hope.
And your story's not over.
Like, your story is not over.
You're not disqualified.
God can use your life, as broken as you may think it is, and he can use it and do something amazing.
And that's the story of all of us.
You know, so that's my encouragement.
Don't give up.
People that are out there, do not give up.
God has a plan for you.
He loves you.
He's got good things in store for you.
And I'm not being prosperity gospel cheesy stuff.
I'm talking about somebody that's walked through the fire.
I'm telling you, his plans and his purposes are good for your life.
