Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Hi everyone. Welcome to Love Y' All get out conversations to help you get out there and live the mission. And you know what our mission is? Our mission is to know God and to help people follow Jesus here, there and everywhere. My name is Chad and I'll be your host. And I just want you to know that every time you press play on Love Y' All get out, what you'll get is something that is encouraging and challenging to your faith. Sometimes we'll do a deeper dive into the Sunday sermon. Sometimes you'll hear stories of faith from people in our community.
Sometimes we'll just talk church and the ideas and the decisions that help people who live in our community right here really give strength to and gain strength from one another. And so we're excited for you to be a part of our very first episode. And I hope that you'll like it, that you'll share it, that you'll comment on it and that you'll be able to share it with somebody, somebody that you know subscribe to it. That way you can stay connected every time we drop something new. This is our very first episode and I'm so excited to have a very special guest with us. It happens to be also the two. Well, the semi quintennial.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Semi quincentennial.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: That's not a real word.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: It's a real word. Semiquinscentale.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: This is my friend, Senator James Lankford and I am so thankful that you get to join us for our very first episode.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Thank you. We've known each other for three decades. I'm glad to come in as like your practice round and see if we can figure this out.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: It's nice to have a good practice round like that. That's really, really good. So thank you for being here. You just finished preaching one message, you're about to step in to do another message. But, but really before we talk about that, before you were elected to anything, you were the director of falls Creek for 15 years. And our students just got back from Falls Creek, our high school students, they just got back from Falls Creek this week. What an incredible camp.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: That is an amazing place.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: It really is. It's the largest youth camp in the
[00:02:01] Speaker B: nation, as far as we know, in the galaxy.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: I think you're right. I think that's exactly right. And while you were there, you led through some of the most significant transformations, some of the most significant changes that camp has seen. And our, our church has really benefited from that. We had 15 kids who made some kind of life defining decision just this week. At False Creek. So thank you for the leadership that you've had there.
Surely you've got some great memories from Falls Creek.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: What's one of your favorites? Ton of great memories from Falls Creek? On it. And I would tell you, serving at Falls Creek, when you serve in youth ministry, it's like, pinnacle of the place to be able to serve because you're with students all day long, you're with youth pastors all day long, and pastors and families and volunteers and the faithful cooks and the folks that are there. So is it.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Cooks are the best.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: They are the reason everything else works on it and they give so much time. But for Cindy and I, when we stepped into this role in Congress, this is not what we expected.
Cindy calls this life's greatest interruption. I don't have anybody in my family in politics. We don't have any background in politics. Didn't run for student council. This is not what we expected at all.
But this was God's call for us. And I'd resigned my position, spent a year away from camp to just be able to run, to be able to do that. So I look back very fondly on those days at Falls Creek, knowing those are days that I got a chance to be able to have the joy of being able to serve in a unique way. The best thing about directing the Falls Creek camp is closing out the invitation by far.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: That's a great moment.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. You've got 5,000 students in the room. They've all had a chance to be able to process all kinds of things during the day. And then the moment a decision comes, like, what am I going to do with this? I got the privilege of actually inviting students to be able to come to the altar and to be able to come to know Christ. I will never forget, ever, one young lady who was one, at one of the service of hundreds that I did, who was standing in the front just weeping. And on her shirt, it said, I love my bad attitude.
What was on her shirt? There she is at the front at the altar, weeping. And I thought, I don't know her. I don't know her story.
But her story is changing, and I'm getting a chance to watch it right now.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: That's really cool. Those are such great moments. I love that. Now you're also a percussionist.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: I am a percussionist as well. Thanks for saying a percussion is not a drummer.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Right. There's a difference. All my boys are percussionists. So someone in my house is getting hit all the time.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: All the time. Everybody's Thumping on a table somewhere, beating on the. On the steering wheel.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: Steering wheel on each other. Something like that. And. And truthfully, I do have somewhere in the video archives in the annals of False Creek, video video of you playing the timpani to the song Saved, Saved, led by Bill Green. It was a phenomenal moment.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: It was a good. It was so funny. Bill Green, when he would do Save Saved every week at False Creek. And back in those days, we always got a student to do it, but he. He knew I was a percussionist in high school and would say, if we get a drummer that can't really do it, I need you to do it.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: And you stepped up.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: There were several times that he would come to me midweek and he would go, yeah, I don't have anybody that can do it.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Number of things you don't expect in ministry. That would be one of them.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: That'd be one of you. Play the skill in the tip.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: That's awesome. Those were really great moments, and I'm just thankful for your leadership there. That's awesome. And then today you. You stepped into our services and you preached from Psalm 67. Great job, by the way. It was so good. And you really highlighted the fact that God has blessed us, and out of that blessing, he's given us a purpose. And so I'd really love you to just take a minute, because sometimes it's easy to hear God's given you a purpose, but then you sit kind of idly, wonder, okay, what is my purpose? How would I discover my unique or my specific purpose? Not the broad one that kind of every believer has, but what. How do I discover God's purpose?
[00:05:39] Speaker B: For me, every person has a responsibility to live morally in the teachings of Christ, that you're going to live to be able to serve others, to be able to give your life and as a sacrifice to others, to be able to serve. That's a general. But you're right, it's the number one question every high school student asks, every college student asks. And quite frankly, there are still a lot of adults that are still asking the same question.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: I'm still wondering what I'm going to be when I grow up. No, I got it.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: So people confuse vocation with calling on it. And I try to always remind people that my calling, my responsibility is to get up today and follow Christ.
Now he assigns me the task that I'm going to do that may look like my vocation, but I'm not called to a job. I'm called to a person. And that's Very different.
So you've got to begin with the most basic thing of your calling is to listen to Christ.
I mentioned before that I'd served at False Creek for 15 years, and then now I'm serving in Congress. Those are two very different roles.
But I'm literally. I tell you, I'm doing the same thing today I did 15 years ago. I'm getting up every day and following Christ. That's still my job. That's still what my task, my calling is, is to do that.
So for. For people that feel so blessed. And there are folks, there are folks that are retired, There are folks that have time or that have a young family, and they're like, they're stressed. They don't know what to do with all the. The different stresses. They've got or they've got lots of time. They don't know what to do with their extra time.
The responsibility is still the same to get moments of quiet, to be able to pray and to have eyes wide open and pray a very simple prayer, and to not lose track of it. God, what is it you're calling me to do?
Because there's this belief that calling is all about being a pastor. Calling is all about being a Christian.
Because Jesus said to all of his disciples, come, follow me. That was the very simple statement he came back to over and over again. Come follow me. Come follow me. Assumes one, he's going to speak, and two, we're going to listen. And so the most basic aspects of that is slowing down enough to go, God, I'm listening.
What is it you want me to do? And trusting his Holy Spirit will actually guide us. He says, my sheep know my voice.
So getting quiet enough to be able to listen go, God, what are you calling me to do? Should be the task for every single believer. If you don't know what your purpose is, your purpose is not to make money and have a nice car.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: Your purpose is much bigger than that. You've been blessed for a purpose. Go find that.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really good. And you really have. You've been blessed for something so much bigger than just the daily mundane things. And. And those blessings are remarkable. It sounds to me like one of the things you're saying is that.
That knowing God's purpose for our life is far more about following him than it is about finding something.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Is that it is. And I tell high school students, especially, because they get the pressure all the time, people saying to them, where you're going to college, what are you gon next? Where are you going? And they typically just want to scream and say, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And I go, okay, just take a deep breath.
Are you going to follow Jesus?
Yes. Okay, then go listen to his voice and his direction. He has a right time to let you know the next step. He has a right place for you to be able to take that step. Trust him enough. The first things first. Learn how to be able to listen to and interact with the creator of the universe, who has a plan for every single person.
We all esoterically believe God has a plan for every person.
But in practicality, when you talk to a lot of even adults, you say, what's the plan for your life? You're like, I don't know. Yeah, slow down enough to listen to the good shepherd and he'll guide you.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: That's exactly right. I love that. That's so good. It's so encouraging. And it's. It's just very helpful.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's each day today.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. It's each day today. And. And right now, you're in an environment where you're surrounded not just by elected officials, but by the staff who serves them and the. All the bureaucrats and all the people who live their lives kind of inside the Beltway and those of things. A couple of months ago, you invited me to do something pretty special. I got to be the chaplain for the day for the U.S. senate.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: And you didn't mess it up. We're still working.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: I wore a tie and everything. Had OU all over it, but I wore a tie and everything and got to pray for the Senate. That was such a privilege. Thank you so much for doing that. And it was just an observation that when I was there, really, with that purpose. I've been to D.C. before, but, you know, you go as a tourist, you see things differently than when you go with the responsibility.
And one of the things I saw there is that there is a remarkable number of people who have followed their faith into that place. And whether they're young and kind of driven by vision and passion, or whether they're more mature and maybe they're elected and they've been walking this path for a long time. It's such a high pressure glass house.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: It is.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: And every decision that you make, every word that you make is scrutinized. And that's true not just for the elected officials. It's true for the staff that serves by their side.
And so how could. How can we pray for you and your team? How can we pray for other elected officials and their teams? How can we pray for people who have followed their faith right there?
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it is just people that are there. There's sometimes there's a belief that in Washington D.C. everybody's smarter. It's just people that are there. It's, it's, it's people in a different spot. They're in that spot for that season. And because God placed them in there for a purpose, to be able to be there for that season, and then they'll not be there. And so a couple things. I always go back to Nehemiah's prayer when he sensed that he was supposed to go to Jerusalem to go help, but he's a slave cupbearer in a foreign land. There's no way he can go. So first thing he asked for was God's favor.
He said, God, I sense this, what I'm supposed to do. I need your favor to be able to actually get that done. Each one of those young staff need wisdom to be able to know what to work on and what to ignore, quite frankly, because there's going to be lots of things that say that's just a distraction.
They need the ability to be able to hear God's voice, honestly, because though they come with their faith, they're plugging into a new church, they don't have the same people. And I would tell you Washington D.C. is a crowded, busy place, but it's an incredibly lonely place for a lot of staff because they'd say, I'm in a place with half a million people all crammed into one little spot. And everybody seems busy and connected except me.
So lots of young staff come there and make stupid mistakes they would never make back home because they get lonely. And so just praying for connection with the churches that are out there. And there are some great churches that are there, there connection with other believers. There's Bible studies all over the hill in different places so they can get a chance to be able to be connected in their faith. But the wisdom to be able to know what to do and not to do and the favor to be able to actually get it done is what you'll constantly hear believers there say, wow, that's really good.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: So favor, wisdom, endurance, some time to
[00:12:16] Speaker B: listen and don't do dumb things.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: And don't do dumb things. Don't. Don't be stupid. Yeah, that's always good advice.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: I tell people all the time Washington D.C. is in a bad mood all the time because there's no Brahms in Washington D.C. makes everything and there was a Brahms. Everybody be more relaxed in D.C. but they're not.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: You're exactly right. They need, we need to move Brahms there.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: I love it. Well, James, thank you so much for joining us for our very first episode. Thank you for being here today. We are praying for you. We're praying for your team. We're actually praying for all of those who are elected and serving and their teams as well. And it is such a privilege to be able to start our very first episode with you. So thank you.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Thanks.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: I hope that you will that you'll subscribe to this so that every time love you all get out out drops that you can be notified of it, that you'll like it that you'll make comments that you'll share it with someone and we'll, we'll drop another one of these very soon. But in between now and then love y' all get out.
