Kevin Thompson [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to Change the Odds, a podcast where marriage and family were never meant to be a game of chance. My name is Kevin Thompson, and on today's episode, as we kind of wrap up 2024, start heading in to 2025, we're gonna go back into the worship center at Bayside Granite Bay, where a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to interview my friend and co worker and sometimes the butt of some of my jokes, Pastor Mark Clark. At some point in 2025, we need to get Mark and Erin on the show. A tremendous couple, great leaders. They do wonderful marriage conferences, all those. Just about to release the final book in his trilogy. He has the Problem of God, the Problem of Jesus, and now comes out the Problem of Life. And here's how this kind of relates to marriage.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:43]:
So the interview that we do is to a broad crowd. There's probably, you know, 700 people in the room. We talk about life in general, but this relates very specifically to marriage. And here's how it does. If you and I do not work through marriage, the issues of our own life, then we come into marriage expecting our spouse to solve the very problems they were never meant to solve. So you and I in marriage, we're supposed to bring something to the table. Yes, we get things from the other person, no question about it. But we're supposed to have some elements of life that are already kind of figured out, and we bring those strengths to the marriage.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:20]:
And as I bring the strengths, as Jenny brings the strengths, then our marriage kind of multiplies them. But so often what happens is you and I do not process what's going on own individual lives, and that actually hinders the connection that's happening. And so while the Problem of Life is not an explicit marriage book, it does have some very meaningful aspects whenever it comes to marriage. And so Mark's going to talk about in this book how to find identity, purpose, and joy in a disenchanted world. What would it look like if we could begin to bring back the wonder, the mystery of life itself? I think if you do that on individual levels, it. It will actually help your marriage. And so enjoy this conversation between me and Pastor Mark Clark. So what's interesting is we've been doing this series on Be Human, and it's material originally I did back in 2017 in the midst of a time of burnout within my own life.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:16]:
We've told some of those stories. But as we were looking at redoing this material at the same time, Mark wrote a new book. And so as I was reading his book. I saw so many overlaps between what was going on. I mean, the only real difference is he was quoting, like, some ancient philosopher, and I was quoting Garth Brooks.
Mark Clark [00:02:36]:
Or quoting yourself.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:37]:
Or quoting me. Yes. From previous works. That's exactly right. So I asked him to join us tonight, and I want, in part, it will kind of give you an overview of what his new book is like. It's called the Problem of Life. And so it's gonna come out in February. We're gonna do it here at the church and have plenty of opportunities.
Mark Clark [00:02:54]:
Yes.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:56]:
Give an appropriate amount of applause for that. Not ex, but you can click on the QR code and do all those things. But. So I'm gonna take kind of what we've been studying over these last few weeks, and Mark can weave into the thoughts that he's been having and then what's also going on in his book. And we're gonna highly encourage you, obviously, to look at it. So, Mark, here's what we've been talking about as you've been working. Here's what we've been talking about is the idea of Be human. Is the concept of this.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:23]:
That we are tempted to either devalue ourselves and think that we're just animals, just enslaved to our passions, or we overvalue ourselves and think that we can be a machine to produce endlessly or be a God and be in absolute perfection. And anytime we come into one of those three ways, the result of that is we tend to be exhausted, isolated, and distracted. Which I think is. Thank you. Which I think is exactly. What have you said? That's ridiculous. Which is exactly how I think we live, even in the church. And yet Jesus now invites us into a better way of being rested, connected and engaged.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:01]:
And we're taking the picture of the Samaritan woman who came to the well that day, isolated from all her community. Right. Exhausted from the weight of the sin and the shame that she was carrying and distracted away from what God is calling her to do. Has this interaction with Jesus, none of her circumstances change. And then she goes back to her hometown and becomes this great evangelist with this picture of rested, connected and engaged. So that's the concept of what we've been studying now.
Mark Clark [00:04:28]:
Thank you.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:29]:
And so in your book, one of the very first things you do in the earliest of chapters is you talk about how we are more than animals. So this very same principle. So what does that mean to you? Because we are animals in part, but then God made us more than that. What does that mean to you and what are you trying to communicate?
Mark Clark [00:04:45]:
Yeah, so what I'm trying to get at is first off, thanks for having me at your night. You're the man. This is a hard working pastor around here. I'm sure all these people appreciate all the time and energy put into this. So thank you, sir.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:57]:
Thank you.
Mark Clark [00:04:58]:
Honestly, it's really cool.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:00]:
No, more, more, more.
Mark Clark [00:05:00]:
Oh, ye. All right. So I'll try to give you as much kind of data for your notes to take back as you can. So I remember, you know, you read Genesis 1, 2 and 3 and you see that principle, it's like, what is the temptation narrative trying to say? It's trying to say we're human beings, obviously there's animals around and we're made on the same day of animals. And we share some things with animals, we procreate like animals, we eat, we habitate, we get ourselves in tribes. All that's legitimate. But then at some point, God comes and he breathes. Genesis 2, he breathes into us, and this being becomes a living being, a creature, a homo sapien, a thinking man is literally what homo sapien means.
Mark Clark [00:05:42]:
And so there's all kinds of versions of the creation story. And John Stott talks about the idea that it could have been the scenario that you had, like all those cavemen, you know, those cavemen images that we have where it's like Homo erectus, you know, and guys like hitting people with bats and making fire and he's kind of like, whatever. And then at some point he took that and he breathed into it and it became thinking man, wise man. And all of a sudden we became people that reflected the image of God. We have love, we have emotions, you know, all that. So we're not animals. We're made on the same day as animals. We share interesting things with them, but we're more than we've been breathed into.
Mark Clark [00:06:22]:
We have morality, we have these things about us. This is why we know cutting people off in line is wr. This is why we know murder is wrong. An animal, a lion kills a zebra, it's not murder, it's just food. But we kill each other and it's murder. There's something moral, something that has happened at the level of our essence, right? So we're not animals, we're distinct from animals, but we're also, as one writer years ago said, we're not angels either. So you have angels that are spirits without bodies, and you have animals that are body without spirits. And then you have us, which is this infusion of body and spirit together.
Mark Clark [00:07:04]:
Which I think is a thing. So I think when. Now we look at why is, you know, something you often talk about. Why are we anxious more than we've been in centuries? There's so much more anxiety, there's so much more suicide, there's so much more isolation. There's so much more depression, though. We've advanced in technology, sociology, philosophy, science. We're going to Mars. You know, Elon Musk, he's taking us to Mars.
Mark Clark [00:07:29]:
Kevin, we're going to Mars, man.
Kevin Thompson [00:07:30]:
I bet you I don't go.
Mark Clark [00:07:31]:
No, you're not going.
Kevin Thompson [00:07:32]:
But Elon Musk, I barely leave Auburn.
Mark Clark [00:07:35]:
Yeah, that's true, but he's taking us to Mars. We're going to Mars, guys. We're gonna build civilizations. We're doing all these crazy things, and yet we haven't solved the problem of our own soul. We haven't problem solved our own depression, our own anxiety, where we're more afraid and more fearful and more isolated, all these things. And so I think the reason is because we've tried to answer the. These problems without soul, without God. We've answered them in secular ways.
Mark Clark [00:08:03]:
And when you only answer them without God, you don't have the, you know, it's like they say, you would know about this marriage, right? When you're married to someone, you tend to. The stats say you live longer when you're married. So why is that the case? It's partly because you can absorb life when it comes at you, because you have someone to absorb it with, statistically speaking, right? You get a cancer diagnosis, you go bankrupt. You're not just living life in isolation. You have somebody that you absorb all the pains of life with and it helps you get healthier. You have accountability. Hey, you're eating too much. You're drinking too.
Mark Clark [00:08:41]:
You gotta stop that. You have someone to help you along, whereas when you're single, you don't have that. It's the same with God, actually. That's a great analogy.
Kevin Thompson [00:08:48]:
I wish I would've wrote.
Mark Clark [00:08:50]:
I wish I would've wrote that in this book, man. That's for book four. It's like if you live isolated life, you have no sense of the transcendent. You're not connecting to God. You're not thinking of. Even the ancient people would deal better with suffering. Cause there were the gods, there was some sense of theology in their life. But now we've removed all of that and now we're just living these lives and we can't deal with anxiety and pressure.
Mark Clark [00:09:15]:
Partly because to come back to your Point, we have now put ourself in the place of being God. And if we're God, we have no one to look to when our life falls apart. So what happens? We now own the burden of life, the burden of suffering, the burden of pain, the burden of stress on us. And we have no one to hand it off to. We have no one to walk alongside of us. And to your point, we become. This is what the fall narrative in Genesis 3 is. It's humankind.
Mark Clark [00:09:47]:
They go, okay, what's that fruit over there? You can eat all the fruits. I can eat all the fruits. Any tree, any fruit, legit. There's only one that you can't eat from. Okay, what's that one about? Well, what's that gonna do? Well, it's gonna take you and it's gonna show you you have a limitation as a human being, and it's that you're not God. But if you eat this fruit, you will be like God. You will have knowledge of good and evil. Well, that's what I want to do then, because I'm not happy with the limitation of being human.
Mark Clark [00:10:25]:
I want to try to be like a God. And in that moment, all the depression and the anxiety and the isolation and the fear, all of that comes into our life literally. The fall narrative, the temptation narrative, is the story of our lives in many ways. So that's the whole idea that I think connects to what you're talking about.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:41]:
Yeah. So one thing we are going to do at the very end, we're going to take about 10 minutes to do a Q and A of literally anything you've ever wanted to ask me and Mark. And so it can be on topic, but it can also be more fun. So Jenny's back there. Just text marriage to 56316. That's just the type form we have access to. That's why we use marriage. So, yeah, we're not really taking hands.
Kevin Thompson [00:11:00]:
So just text marriage to 56316. What's that? Okay, sorry. Find a friend.
Mark Clark [00:11:06]:
We'll take.
Kevin Thompson [00:11:08]:
Don't be isolated. So find a friend, text it in. So marriage to 56316. There is no way we're passing a.
Mark Clark [00:11:14]:
Microphone, not thrown around here.
Kevin Thompson [00:11:16]:
That's scary to me. So you can text that in. Jenny's back there. She will ferret through them and then find kind of what we want to go with next. Talk about a little bit about the longing. What is it about the longing inside of humanity that really does point to the existence of God? Points to the truth of the Story, almost the incompleteness of us points to the fact that there is a completion.
Mark Clark [00:11:39]:
Yeah. So have you ever kind of turned on the news and gone, man, Life is a mess, right? People are murdering each other, people are dropping bombs on each other. There's wars, there's rumors of wars. There's pain, there's suffering. CS Lewis pointed out, he says that very fact, even though atheists use that as the reason why God doesn't exist. That is probably one of the biggest pointers in reality to point to the existence of God. Because the fact that you're bothered by murder and what you see on the news means. And he said this.
Mark Clark [00:12:16]:
You can't understand what a crooked line is unless you know what a straight line is, right? So the problem with saying the world is wrong is to say, you know what the world is supposed to be like. And then, of course, he says, the minute you say that, what you're admitting is that there's a way the universe is supposed to be. And for some reason, we're not living in that universe. You have something to compare it to. The longing that you have for the world to be other than it is means that you were made for another world. That's what Lewis says you were made for a world without pain, without fear, without murder, without strife, without division, without a situation where you haven't talked to your brother in 10 years because of that thing that he said at the Christmas party, you know, and your life has created all the fact that you have that longing in your soul. And so what happened in Genesis 1 and 2? And so much of the book draws on. That's why the opening cover is that famous painting of.
Mark Clark [00:13:11]:
It's called the Creation of Adam, right? It's on the Sistine Chapel, and it's God creating Adam. And it's like when God creates Adam, us, there's a soul. But then it broke. Then we entered into the fall. But we still have the soul. So what we have in us is the feeling of what it was like in Eden forever. And we wanna get back there, but things are so broken, we don't know how to get back there. So this is where the longing for.
Mark Clark [00:13:39]:
When you see a sunset and something in you goes, ah. But then it, like, disappears. Have you ever. Have you had that scenario where you, like, had a. Maybe you had a party or something and it was just the right people. It was the right moment, the right music. It was perfect. And it was like, you go to bed at night, you're like, man, that is why I was born.
Mark Clark [00:14:00]:
Like, that night that we just had was the sickest. My soul was on fire. And then you're like, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna invite the same people over, and we're gonna put on the same album and eat the same dinner, you know, whatever your situation was. And it's like a year later or six months later or whatever, and you do it, and it's just like. You're like, eh. That was kind of a dud, right? It was like. I just didn't connect at all.
Mark Clark [00:14:27]:
I don't know what happened there. What is that? It's you experiencing? What I would say is like. And this is what I talk about in the book. It's like a crack. It's like a piece of grass grew up through some conc. And you saw it, and you're like, that's perfection. That's pure joy. And then you went to grab it.
Mark Clark [00:14:46]:
And the problem is, it's elusive. Right? Augustine talked about the fact that it's. You know what that longing is? It's home. That's what he said. And your whole life is chasing home. You want to get back home. And every longing you have, whether it's. You hear music and you're like, this is taking me to.
Mark Clark [00:15:07]:
I don't know what you do when you write books. You probably have sports on or something in the background, right?
Kevin Thompson [00:15:14]:
Yes.
Mark Clark [00:15:14]:
Right.
Kevin Thompson [00:15:15]:
Absolutely.
Mark Clark [00:15:15]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I have, like. I have, like, you know, the Oppenheimer soundtrack in my ears, like, and physics balls are bouncing around in my head, and I'm like, it's Mozart. It's scores from Braveheart. It's like, because I want to be, like, welled up into, like, a transcendent where my soul's, like, connecting to beauty, you know, like, that's my whole thing. And, like, that's not how you write.
Kevin Thompson [00:15:48]:
Stay in your lane. I'm just saying, this isn't rocket science I'm dealing with here.
Mark Clark [00:15:55]:
So it's like, I'm a guy who chases beauty, and I think we all do. We all do. Even if you're Kevin and you're not.
Kevin Thompson [00:16:04]:
You know, I already found her.
Mark Clark [00:16:05]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. But that's the thing, right? We're all chasing after, you know, people go, you know, aesthetics don't matter. No, no. There's a reason why God, like, has 20 chapters in the Book of Exodus where he's like, this is where the curtains are supposed to be, like. And this is the color of the. This beauty is actually one of the great. One of the Great pointers to the existence of God, actually.
Mark Clark [00:16:25]:
And it's goodness, truth and beauty are the classic apologetics for the existence of God. And so in our life, we're always chasing beauty and the joy beauty brings and that longing that was built in us. What my hope is, is my argument is, chase the longing. Don't deny the longing. That's what religion tells you. The longing is bad, right? Pleasure is bad. Stop being a bad boy. You like pleasure.
Mark Clark [00:16:51]:
Bad boy. You know, it's like, no, no, no. Pleasure is beautiful. Pleasure is great. Pleasure was put in your existence. There's a reason when God created the world, not everything's black and white. Right? Not everything's beige. Right.
Mark Clark [00:17:04]:
It's like when Kevin orders a bagel at the cafe. He orders a bagel and it's just dry, untoasted, with no cream cheese. That's not the way God intended it. Right, Right. He created colors and. And tastes.
Kevin Thompson [00:17:20]:
So somebody one time said, if a movie was ever made about me, it would be called 50 Shades of Taupe.
Mark Clark [00:17:25]:
Yeah. Yes, exactly. Whereas your wife. Your wife, I watch her Instagram, and it's like she loves the flavors and she'll mix in things to the stew and the this and the that. Like, she gets it right. Whenever we see her standing up here beside you, we're like, how did that happen? Right. It's like she's dressed all beautiful and wonderful and you're, you know, so. So it's like there's that.
Mark Clark [00:17:51]:
But that chasing of beauty you're chasing, and that longing for that eternal place where we're home, where there's no more crying and pain and divorce and suffering and beating on kids and all the stuff that our world got filled with. Your longing. Every day that you get up, chase. My argument is, chase the longing. Don't deny the longing, because the longing is leading you to the. To the one who put that longing in you. Right? So that's.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:19]:
And probably our smartest coworker has a great book, by the way. He's a pastor over at Santa Rosa named Dominic Doane, and his book is called you'd. Longing has a name. It speaks exactly to what you're talking about there. So on the COVID of the book, you talk about this idea of disenchantment, which isn't a word I see on ESPN a lot. And so you talk within your book that many of us are kind of asleep at the wheel of life, which is kind of the whole argument of what this class is, is that we're living in this constant, perpetual State that keeps us asleep.
Mark Clark [00:18:50]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:51]:
So is that what the problem of life is? And if so, what do you mean by disenchanted? And what does an enchanted life look?
Mark Clark [00:18:57]:
Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:58]:
And don't forget, text me your questions. Marriage to 56216.
Mark Clark [00:19:01]:
Yeah, that's great. So, yeah, subtitle of the book is how to find Identity, Purpose and Joy in a Disenchanted World. So. So of course disenchanted is like. It's a world without magic. It's the pure, naturalistic, secular answers, atheistic answer, agnostic answers to your problems. So two of the longest chapters in here are suffering. And so life is filled with suffering.
Mark Clark [00:19:27]:
Right. Every single one of us in this room has suffered. Right. Like, raise your hand if you've suffered at all in life. Right? Yes. Pain, agony, tragic things have happened. And if we went and handed a microphone around. So how do you face.
Mark Clark [00:19:41]:
And how do you deal with life when you suffer? Well, the disenchantment is what I talked about earlier. You can either look at the world as if there's no magic to it, God's not in it. There's no such thing as spirituality. It's just the world is what it is what it is. And so you better figure out and. And be moral and suck it up. Because life is. One day the whole universe is just going to be a nothing and the sun's going to melt down into the world and we're all gone into nothing and none of this meant anything.
Mark Clark [00:20:12]:
Well, if that's the case, there's no purpose, there's no morals, there's no understanding of origin. There's no understanding of destiny, there's no understanding of eternity. There's nothing. You're not a soul. You're just a body. And so if that's the case, then you're going to live a disenchanted life. There's nothing. There's no match.
Mark Clark [00:20:27]:
There's nothing. There's no God to walk with in the cool of the day. One day there's no meaning to. You know. So I'm saying the disenchantment has created a situation where we're the reason why we're so anxious. So one of the sections in the book is called SeaWorld. Why your view of SeaWorld might be connected to how anxious you are in life. And you're like, what? So.
Mark Clark [00:20:55]:
Right.
Kevin Thompson [00:20:56]:
That. By the way, that's my favorite thing that you do is that thing. Yeah, I have it on my phone.
Mark Clark [00:21:00]:
Do you really? Okay, that's wonderful.
Kevin Thompson [00:21:04]:
I can't do it, right?
Mark Clark [00:21:06]:
So it's kind of like, okay, so I have this friend who's hardcore atheist and just naturalist and ergo, an environmentalist. Now, I think obviously you can be a Christian environmentalist who cares about the world and doesn't want the animals killed and put in cages and all that's wonderful, but he is an atheistic version of this. So he hates God. He hates the concept that I like God, but he believes SeaWorld should be shut down like SeaWorld is. It's awful. You take this whale and you put it in the thing and we all go there and pay hundreds of dollars and sit there and our kid goes, man, look at the whale. And this whale's like, I hate my life. I just want to be gone into that wide, vast ocean.
Mark Clark [00:21:46]:
Free Willy. Free Willy, right? So I'm having this conversation with him and I'm saying, why do you want to Free Willy? What's the point? And he's like, well, because housing whales is immoral. And right there I'm like, but you don't believe in God. And he's like, right, but housing whales is immoral. And if you don't believe in God, of course you have no moral construct to argue why I shouldn't just kill all the whales. They make good soup. Me and my friends will go around, we'll hunt them, we'll make soup out of their fins. Who cares? Who cares about this world? I wanna burn fossil fuels because it helps me drive a big truck around.
Mark Clark [00:22:25]:
Who cares about any of this unless God ex. If God exists now, we can have a moral conversation. But if God doesn't exist, then we're all just doing what we need to do to get ahead in life. And our tribe needs to get ahead. So I'll kill that guy and do whatever I want to any animals. It doesn't matter. And so if you have. So here's the point.
Mark Clark [00:22:45]:
If you have. What they've tracked is high levels of anxiety in groups of people, again, who don't have the absorption of having a transcendent metanarrative of suffering pain. What's gonna happen when I die? I have been in the hospital with people who are dying, and I've been in the hospital with atheists. And they're confused and they're not sure. They're scared about what's coming next. You know, all of the unknowns are the thing, right? That. That's the scary part about life, you know, all philosophy, they say, is born out of the question of death. That's what drives us all crazy every morning when we wake up.
Mark Clark [00:23:23]:
The thing behind the thing behind the thing is the question of our own death, and it's driving us. And if you have a version of death where you're going, you don't know what's gonna happen. You don't actually know what's gonna happen. Versus I've sat with people who really, truly believe in the resurrection of Christ. They really actually. They don't think it's a metaphor for some corn God back in the first century that he actually rose from the dead. Not like an archetype for rising from the dead, you know, in your life or whatever. And so they don't fear death.
Mark Clark [00:23:51]:
They're like, I'm about to die and I'm gonna meet Jesus. Let's go. And they're excited, and the only thing they're scared of is who they're leaving behind and all of that, but they're not afraid. And those two versions of life are gonna create less and more anxiety. So we have these high levels of anxiety, high levels of depression, and I think it tracks with high levels of atheism, agnosticism, naturalism, where we've abandoned. So there was this. And I talk about this. There was a guy who came and gave a speech, and he's talking about a communist country, and he's talking about how communism basically drove a situation where nobody believed in God.
Mark Clark [00:24:27]:
Ergo, morality was just whatever. Everyone was steel. Basically, his whole country collapsed because it couldn't hold onto itself. And the comment that I make is everyone views that through a political lens. You know, communism fell. But that's actually. He's doing a speech at the UN or whatever, and he's like, no, that's not what happened. It was that spiritually we died.
Mark Clark [00:24:49]:
And so what he found happening in his next generation was there was a. What he called a revolution of the soul against soullessness. And he said what the young people were starting to do was say, we want to figure out how to order things because God exists versus not existing. And they were building meaningful, flourishing lives driven by the fact that God exists versus doesn't exist. So that's the idea of, like, these. These beliefs that we have have consequences.
Kevin Thompson [00:25:17]:
What does it mean? One of the things that even in this class that I kind of have fought for is when the first people looked at the title Be Human, they're like, no, I don't. I hate that title. That's not what I want to be. I'm like, that's my point.
Mark Clark [00:25:27]:
Right?
Kevin Thompson [00:25:28]:
What do you think about this idea of God is the very thing God has created us to be is the last thing we actually want to be. And so we strive to be all these other things. And then specifically what does that look like here in our new home of the greater Sacramento region, Granite Bay. How do you see that played out in people's lives where we're denying our own humanity?
Mark Clark [00:25:49]:
I think there's a quote in the book by an Old Testament professor named Ian Proven on Ecclesiastes. And he says, if you read Ecclesiastes, it's basically us saying, I think I actually can be God. I think I can build heaven on earth. Because it's by getting more money, more cars, more women, more pleasure, more and more and more. And of course Ecclesiastes says, I've done all of it. I replanted gardens in ways that you guys could never imagine. Like you guys go out there and you get your whole garden all set up and you're like, oh. And you spend your money on redoing the backyard and you got to redo the kitchen and redo the kitchen again.
Mark Clark [00:26:20]:
Honey, it's been two years. And you redo the kitchen and you get the new Tesla, cause the old Tesla's and you keep doing those. Or you get the multiple relationships and the girlfriends and the boyfriends and the money and you trade out spouses and you're going after it, and you're going after it. And Ecclesiastes Solomon, 700 wives, more money than all of us. Gold beyond. He is the richest guy in the ancient world. He's got the money, he's got the women, he's got the gardens, he's got everything. And he gets to the end of his life and he goes, all of it was meaningless vanity, like chasing after the wind.
Mark Clark [00:26:49]:
It didn't do what it was supposed to do. And Proven says, see here's the problem. The universe is actually not set up for gods and heroes. It's actually set up for humans to recognize their own limitations and live within those limitations under the rulership of God, instead of trying to be heroes. And I think one of the things that you and I screw up is that we try to be the hero. And you know this, if you've heard me preach, you can't get 10 minutes in without me telling you you're a disaster. Right? Jesus is the hero, you bunch of morons. You know, whatever.
Mark Clark [00:27:25]:
It's like, like where does that come from? It comes from a real desire that if I cast you like self help does in the hero role, you're very quickly gonna find out your limitation when you hit up against a wall and you can't save yourself, right? And that's the problem with pantheism. The philosophy of pantheism is that everything is part of God. That's New Age philosophy. Everything is part of God in the God consciousness, which means tsunami and cancer cells and mosquitoes are all part of the God consciousness and all part of the divine. Well, that's a problem when the world goes corrupt and you need to go find a savior. You can't find one because you're it. It's all just you. And so I think what we've got ourself into is a situation where we're so wanting to believe in the human soul and human potential, which is great.
Mark Clark [00:28:13]:
I love positive thinking and got to go after it and believe in yourself and all that. But when you become. You try to be gods and heroes in a universe that won't allow it, it's nothing but trouble. So you gotta figure there's a. One of the chapters talks about sacred order, and it talks about how no society has flourished when it is denied sacred order. And one of the guys, one of the philosophers, talks about sexuality a lot. He talks about what we're doing with sexuality, that we're trying to take power over our own bodies and change them to how we feel inside, internally. And the problem with that is, is that what we're doing is we're playing the role of gods, that we're saying, I'm gonna chase how I feel and I'm gonna adapt my physical body to how I feel internally.
Mark Clark [00:29:00]:
But he says the problem with that is, is that all through history, no one has ever done this. This is brand new. And any culture that kicks against sacred order doesn't survive. Because there's a way, you realize God has set up the world where things work in a particular way. And the creation story has all these binary realities when it starts, right? So Genesis 1, day one. What does he create? Light. And what? Dark. And then he creates the sky and the land, and he creates sea creatures and animal creatures and the sun and the stars.
Mark Clark [00:29:39]:
And he goes through all these. It's all these binary things. There's the water thing and then there's the land, and there's the light and the dark and the space and the earth. And then finally, the whole creation story climaxes with one final binary creation, which is male and female, which are the light and dark to each other. They're the land and sea to each other. And the creation Narrative is pointed to this binary thing and said, okay, now you gotta hold onto these binaries because actually, right at the end of the Bible, in Revelation 21 and 22, Jesus Christ comes back for his church, and it's a wedding of a male and a female getting back together again. You know, it's the bridegroom coming for his bride kind of image. And the whole last image of the Bible is again, a marriage.
Mark Clark [00:30:27]:
Starts with the marriage, Adam and Eve and the garden, and ends with the marriage of Jesus and the church. And so the way order is set, when we kick against it, we completely start to shrivel as human beings and culturally speaking. So anyway, all that to say that all the sacred order, all these pieces go, they're all trying to get us to flourish. Joy, purpose, and identity are things that you can only find when you posit God and your spirituality and your soul and the transcendent into your story, versus just thinking you're the God. And you get to define reality and move through life without those things.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:05]:
So we talked a little bit about what a distracted life looks like, especially here in Granite Bay and all those things. What would a truly engaged life look like? So a human being who is flourishing, who is now engaged not in perfection, but has truly caught the concept of the gospel. What's the potential that is out there for us that we are turning down at this moment because we are choosing to be distracted by all these other little things that really don't matter?
Mark Clark [00:31:33]:
Well, I think one of the things we talked about in staff today, take the example of money.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:38]:
I wasn't paying attention.
Mark Clark [00:31:39]:
Okay, well, one of the things we talked about in staff meeting today was being generous with your money. And I think one of the things that. I think I told the story a week or two ago in church about Erin and I, even when we had nothing, we organized our budgets so. So that we were generous. Even if that generosity was $1,000 a year, we would figure out a way. And that freed us up spiritually to experience God in ways we never would have. He showed up in ways and did things where my soul and my faith soared because of that experience. If we try to hoard all the money and all we want is new, shiny things and we're not generous and da, da, da, da, then we're going to actually experience less of.
Mark Clark [00:32:16]:
Of God and less flourishing and less joy, and we're never gonna find ourself in regard to identity. We're gonna actually have less passion in life than if we're generous. So that's Just an example of money. But it applies to everything. Sex life, how you run your family, how you do your marriage. All these different things. You fuse God into it and you follow the way that he laid it out. You're gonna flourish versus flounder.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:36]:
Yeah. And to me, just such an awareness of God's presence in every aspect of life. That whenever we're distracted, we just lose sight of Him. And whenever we're engaged, suddenly we see him and he's everywhere. Whenever you think about. I mean, if you had to define the problem of life. Right. What is it? And is it a problem? Or is it much broader than that?
Mark Clark [00:33:00]:
Yeah, I think it's what I said earlier. It's the problem of life. When does the problem show up? Genesis 3. Problem of life is we didn't recognize our own limitations. And we tried to be God. And in so doing, there was a separation between us and Him. He wanted to walk with us in the cool of the day. We sinned.
Mark Clark [00:33:19]:
Shame and guilt and sin followed. And every problem since has become the problem. This is why we long and we can't find the longing. This is why. You know, there was a great philosopher years ago. He said every man that walks into a brothel, in our terms, every man that walks into a strip joint is searching for God. That's the problem that God solves. Our brokenness, our shame, the thing behind the thing that we don't know.
Mark Clark [00:33:51]:
So anyway. Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:53]:
So the book is kind of built around 11 principles.
Mark Clark [00:33:55]:
Yes.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:56]:
So what's the principle that fires you up the most? And then what's the principle that you're actually working on? Personally, a little bit more. And yet you're writing about it nonetheless?
Mark Clark [00:34:06]:
Yes. Yes. Okay. So what I wanted to do was write a book that, like, at the end of the day, it looked out at you as the reader and said, based on sacred order. If you just do these 11 things, just here's some lessons, some principles, some exhortations, some rules for your life. Just do these 11 things and your life has far more statistical odds of flourishing than floundering. Right? So here's the 11 things. And you don't need to write these down.
Mark Clark [00:34:36]:
Cause you'll read the book later. So find out where you came from. Listen to that old ache inside of you. Right? So find out where you came from. You gotta go back and figure out your origins. Where did you. And so I talk about the origins of humankind. Where did we come from? Why do we have a soul? Why are we that the image of God? What about creation and Evolution, all that, kind of all that.
Mark Clark [00:34:59]:
A whole chapter on that. Going back to your origins, because you got to figure out who you are. If I say I like. I like football, all right, If I say I like football and I'm Andrew McCourt, I'm gonna mean something different than Kevin Thompson, right? Kevin Thompson is from Alabama, right? Arkansas. We know. I'm just kidding. He's from Arkansas. He never touched a soccer ball in his life.
Mark Clark [00:35:29]:
Nobody cares. Football means, you know, 100 yards to Andrew. He thinks it's the stupidest game ever invented. You dumb Americans. Don't you know what true football is? It's soccer. Because that's what it is. You know, 2 billion people play it. Nobody cares about football other than you Americans.
Mark Clark [00:35:45]:
The World Series. Great. Who's in there? The whole world comes to the World Series. No, it's just Americans and two Canadian teams. Oh, okay. So.
Kevin Thompson [00:35:54]:
And it's currently five to five. Yeah, yeah.
Mark Clark [00:35:57]:
So. So. So finding out where you come from is actually super important. You gotta figure out, oh, here's what I'm talking about. So that sets the context for all of life. Listen to that old ache inside of you is the thing. I just talked to you. You have an ache toward a longing toward pleasure and joy.
Mark Clark [00:36:14]:
Follow it versus deny it, right? And then I get into the problem of identity. And so don't try to be God, which is stuff we just talked about. Look up, not in. So don't look to yourself to solve yourself, you actually have to look to the transcendent. Because Alison McGrath, who's a philosopher, he says every. If you look at cultures, every culture that takes God into the equation, he says, transcendentalizes something. So, meaning you make something else your God. No one just lives in the vacuum of not worshiping anything.
Mark Clark [00:36:41]:
So if you take God in equation, what are you going to sub it in with? Some cultures or people sub it in with? Money. And so they worship money and that kills them. Some people do sex. They worship sex, and it kills them. Some people worship nations and they think this nation state, I mean, look at Nazi Germany, right? This nation state is the most important nation state in the world, and we'll do anything to keep it pure. Japanese culture, in many ways, worships the nation of Japan, right? So it's almost a religious Shintoism. It's almost a religious way tied to the nation. You'll always transcendentalize something if it's not God.
Mark Clark [00:37:18]:
But what we've done is we've divinized ourselves, and that's just nothing but trouble. So. And then the fifth chapter is called Live as a Victor, Not a Victim. Talks a lot about in our culture, especially university level, you know, there's the coddling of the American mind, right? That fantastic book that talks about what we've done at university cultures and culturally is we've treated everybody like a victim. We cast you all as victims of something. Victim of the system, victim of your background, victim of your parents, victim of your kindergarten teacher. Victim, victim, victim. And what it does is it makes you.
Mark Clark [00:37:50]:
I'm a victim. And it shrivels up inside so you never win. But actually what the gospel does is says, yes, you're gonna beat up in life. And not all of you are winners, right? I've talked about this as whole section here. Fact, most of us are gonna be losers. And what you need to do is actually accept that identity because in Christ, you are more than a conqueror, no matter how life has beat you up. And so you can be a victor and you can be empowered, but if you have a mentality where you're a victim, victim, victim all the time, I'm a victim of my circumstances. I'm a victim of my job at work.
Mark Clark [00:38:22]:
I can't believe my boss. I can't believe my siblings. I can't believe my kids. It's like, no, you have to take your own life into your own hands and under God, go for it, right? So then the problem of pain. Look pain and suffering square in the eye is the first principle. Transform struggles into strengths. And I talk about my life with my Tourette's and my dad leaving me when I'm, you know, when I'm 8 years old and dies when I'm 15 and kind of go through the story of struggle. I talk about all of our struggles and pain and how suffering can actually be used to enhance your life versus destroy it.
Mark Clark [00:38:54]:
And you can actually turn suffering into something great. So I. Looking at my. All my mental stuff, I had to lean into my Tourette's and my obsessive compulsive disorder, and I turned it into a life where I communicate for a living. I obsess about small things. I love to sit and read footnotes and figure out problems, which is the problem. The problem. The problem I'm always solving, trying to solve problems.
Mark Clark [00:39:14]:
It's like, okay, I can sit around and go, I got Tourette's the rest of my life. Or I could go, let's try to actually aim this. I talk about this in the book, aim your disadvantages at something and you're gonna get something out of them, right? So don't be a victim. Be a victor. Turn your struggles and strength. And then the problem of purpose. Live out what you were made for, not someone else. So you have a calling, you have a purpose, you have giftings, you have a history, you have a past.
Mark Clark [00:39:43]:
Use that to actually move you into what God is calling you to. Not me. You're not trying to be me, you're not trying to do. Every single one of you is made by God to do something you're not supposed to. Compare yourself to others. Become the best in the world at the following three things. And I talk about sex, God and gardening. If you become a professional and focus your whole life on becoming good at sex, God and gardening, you will actually flourish in life.
Mark Clark [00:40:06]:
And of course, those are symbols for relationships, worship and stewardship, right? If you steward the world and money and relationships and God, well, you will actually kill it at life. And you will flourish versus flounder. And then the last two chapters are under the problem of death. You only live twice now, live like it and prepare yourself for death. And the whole idea is we have to live backwards from the day of our death and the question of eternity. And we have to answer those questions. And it actually goes in. There's a whole section where.
Mark Clark [00:40:35]:
Where it goes in. And it rethinks the doctrine of hell and it rethinks the doctrine of heaven. It doesn't say they don't exist, it says they do exist, but here's the way to think about them. And then work your life backwards, because every single one of us is gonna die, or we've had people who die. And you have to answer the question of death. And that whole chapter starts with a story about my friend going to Hawaii. January 2018, he's in Hawaii with his family and his phone goes off and he looks down and it's a text from the US government. And it says, ballistic missile inbound for Hawaii.
Mark Clark [00:41:09]:
Take shelter. This is not a drill. And he's with his kids and they all start crying and he's looking down and all of a sudden everyone's phone around him goes off. And everyone says, and like, they're sitting in the lobby and like, all the religions start to break out in their, like, prayers, like, oh, la la la la la, you know, whatever. And everyone like him and his kids are accepting Christ again. It's like, come here, kids. Do you know Jesus? Shut up. I don't know.
Mark Clark [00:41:38]:
Let me do it again, Daddy. Let's do it again to make sure you know? And they're all praying again, but they can't find his wife. And so they go up to the hotel room, and she's not there. And they go to the lobby, and she's not there. And they're waiting for this missile to. From North Korea to blow up Hawaii. And so they just went out to the beach and looked up, and they're like, what else are we. Where is it coming from? Nothing to do.
Mark Clark [00:42:03]:
Hawaii is a speck of ground just peeking out of the middle of Pacific Ocean. There's nowhere to go. It's terrifying. Beautiful place. Wonderful place. Terrifying. So there's a missile inbound. It's gonna blow them all up.
Mark Clark [00:42:18]:
Everyone. They're accepting Christ. All the religions are connecting with their gods. Hundreds of people in the lobby crying on their knees. And then they get to Texas, 36 minutes later. This was a mistake. You know, Tommy hit a button. Sorry.
Mark Clark [00:42:33]:
Whatever. I don't know what. Yeah. Oops. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I'm really sorry. Blah, blah.
Mark Clark [00:42:40]:
So they're like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. And they go upstairs, and his wife's just getting out of the shower, and they run in, and she's got her clothes on. The kids run, mama.
NA [00:42:50]:
Mama.
Mark Clark [00:42:51]:
She's like, what are you kids? What's wrong? And they're like, where have you been? And she's like, oh, I was running on the treadmill down in the workout center of the thing, and I met this really nice lady and shut my phone off, and she shut her phone off. And we just been talking for the last hour. What's going on? What happened? You know? And I talk about the fact that the differences between those two experiences are the differences between every two human being. Every human being walking around planet Earth, right? You either are super aware of your own vulnerability and the imminent reality of your own death, and it causes you to ask massive questions about your soul, or you're all running on treadmills and you're distracted by all the things she was talking to this woman about. Where do your kids go to school? You gonna redo the kitchen? I'm gonna redo the kitchen. Oh, we're thinking about buying real estate. Can you believe the weather? Who do you think's gonna be elected? And all the stuff we talk about all day long distracts us from the imminent bomb that is headed for all of us, that causes you. That rises all the important questions to the surface versus just distracted.
Mark Clark [00:44:07]:
Walking through life on a treadmill, talking about nonsense that doesn't matter. All of us are in those positions. And so the whole question of the two chapters on death are that famous saying, you only live once. Yolo. You know, yolo. Go to a yolo. Yolo. That it's actually not.
Mark Clark [00:44:26]:
That it's actually not true. You only live twice. YOLT is just not as catchy, right? Hashtag yolt. But you actually live twice. You live this life, and then you die, and then you face judgment. And the Book of Hebrews says, appointed once for a man to die, and then judgment, and then the rest of your life. Guess how long it's gonna be? Billions and billions and billions of years. And it will all be defined by what you did with the 80 that you got gifted in this life.
Mark Clark [00:44:58]:
And so, Dallas, Willard, I go into the concept of heaven and what heaven's gonna be like. That it's gonna be all. It's gonna be a continuation of who you were. This is what Willard says. This is not how we think or talk about heaven. Heaven is gonna be the new heaven. The new earth is going to be a continuation of who you were in this universe, carrying on in the same universe, just in a different way. So what you did here, actually.
Mark Clark [00:45:20]:
So he takes a parable to talents. I gave you $5. What did you do with it? I turned it into 10. Awesome. Now you're gonna oversee 10 cities. What does that mean? It means heaven is gonna be a place with cities and culture and things to do, things to rule over. You might get 100 cities, I might get five cities based on what we did with our life. And so Willard says, when you're thinking about the question of heaven, you might want to ask the question, how would I do if I was handed Liverpool or Baltimore right now as a responsibility versus just what's my harp gonna sound like? Cause that's not actually what heaven is like.
Kevin Thompson [00:45:54]:
So there's not one thing I'm working on. 27 minutes.
Mark Clark [00:46:00]:
All of them are good, Kev.
Kevin Thompson [00:46:02]:
27 minutes ago, I said, hey, Mark, what's one of the. All right, Jenny, let's have some fun.
Mark Clark [00:46:09]:
Come on.
Kevin Thompson [00:46:10]:
Anything they want to ask?
NA [00:46:13]:
Well, we got several questions about who's the better golfer, how much money is owed.
Kevin Thompson [00:46:18]:
Let's dig in. Go ahead.
Mark Clark [00:46:19]:
Yeah, let's sit there for a while.
Kevin Thompson [00:46:22]:
Go ahead.
Mark Clark [00:46:22]:
Kevin's the better golfer. Definitely.
NA [00:46:25]:
Who's the better golfer?
Mark Clark [00:46:26]:
Yes, Kevin is definitely the better golfer. Harder I work longer hours, so I don't get as much time out in the golf course, you know, so it just goes to show, pays off pays off. No, he showed up, and he's an amazing, amazing golfer. He really is.
NA [00:46:45]:
All right. How do I forgive someone that I no longer have contact with or don't want to have contact with, either through death, divorce, or someone who is unsafe to be in contact with?
Kevin Thompson [00:46:55]:
Yeah, so this is going to what we talked about earlier. So the idea of actually forgiveness is not dependent upon the other person. It is actually dependent upon us and what God has actually done for us. And so, I mean, this goes back to the old therapist viewpoint of you have a parent who has died, and yet you need to forgive them of some things. How do you do that? Well, write them a letter of what you wish you could have said, go to the grave site, you know, give it to them, then tear it up and throw it away. And even that's a cathartic kind of process. So don't think that you have to have the other person to express forgiveness. It's actually something God does inside of you, not something that necessarily happens with another person.
Mark Clark [00:47:33]:
Yeah, that's great. I always think of the. I know I talk about CS Lewis a lot because he's the one I read the most. But he has this great line where he says, if you ever question whether you could forgive someone, just realize. He said, I came to realize. I know I can because there's one person I forgive every single day of my life, and that person is me. He says, I look in the mirror and I somehow justify all the nonsense that I do in life, and I realize I'm forgiving another person is just an extension of what I do to myself every day. You know, I think that's super helpful.
Kevin Thompson [00:48:03]:
That's very good.
NA [00:48:04]:
As a follow up, how important is it to forgive someone who has passed? Like, what is the importance level of that?
Mark Clark [00:48:16]:
Yeah. So my dad, he divorces when I'm eight or nine, passes away when I'm 15, and never calls my brother or I to tell us that he's sick. So basically, I don't see him for two or three years and he dies. Right. My biological dad. So for my whole life, Since I was 15, my narrative was, what a loser. What a piece of junk this guy is. Like, the guy doesn't have enough.
Mark Clark [00:48:47]:
His ego is so he doesn't call his own kids and, like, give me the right to say goodbye to him. What kind of disaster. You know, he didn't even tell his own father he was sick. Like, a lot of huge narratives in my brain. And I actually talk about this story in here, too, because then A couple years ago, someone made an off comment to me, a friend of mine. He said, you know, I don't think you should be so hard on your dad. You know, you don't know what he was going through. And as I thought about that comment over the year or two since, and even I was, As I was writing, I decided to like, what if I write a chapter on what my dad actually faced, I wonder where it would go.
Mark Clark [00:49:26]:
And so I did some research. I called my mom. And my dad growing up had a sister that was older than him, and she had schizophrenia. So what she would do constantly is try to kill herself. And she would take too many pills, she would slit her wrists. And he was always the one that found her in those situations. And she would try to jump out of the car when they were driving on a highway, and he'd be beside her, trying to wrestle her back into the car. And then finally she leapt off the top floor of the apartment complex that they lived in in Toronto.
Mark Clark [00:50:02]:
And then they actually moved from Ottawa to Toronto because she needed treatment. And they didn't have treatment in Ottawa, so they had to move to Toronto. So. And the sovereignty of God, weirdly enough, the only reason I exist is because of this schizophrenic woman. If she didn't have schizophrenia, I wouldn't. Cause he meets my mom in Toronto. And that's a whole. So.
Mark Clark [00:50:22]:
But what I realized in that was, here's a guy. Every one of us has a story. And every one of us, unfortunately, is impacted by the sins of others. And oftentimes the sins of the people closest to us, not because they wanna hurt us, but because we happen to be in their orbit, morbid. And my dad was not a perfect person, but he also had his own story and the reason he turned out the way he did. And so that created a lot of grace in me when I looked at his story and went, you know what? I can forgive you. Even though you've been long gone, I can bring myself to a place to forgive you.
Kevin Thompson [00:50:59]:
What we often say in here is that whatever we are most prone to blame our parents for is not probably something they did to us as much as they passed on to us. So they in all likelihood had many of the same scenarios of what was going on.
Mark Clark [00:51:14]:
Yeah, very true.
Kevin Thompson [00:51:15]:
What else, Jen?
NA [00:51:17]:
Are there any other ways to tithe besides giving to the church?
Mark Clark [00:51:26]:
I don't want a pay cut, so I'd say no. The principle I always lived by was 10% of the local church and then everything else over and above that. So we always went 10% of the local church. Because in the Old Testament, you know, you gotta pay the priests and the people doing the religious work and the mission of the church. Right. We're going out, we're reaching people for Christ. Someone Dina gave a great analogy in staff meeting today. She said, I can't solve the mental issues and I can't solve the marriages in our church.
Mark Clark [00:52:00]:
But what I can do is when I give to Bayside, I fund a bunch of counselors that will this year serve 8,000 counseling sessions in 52 weeks at our church. 8,000. Over 1,000 people in 8,000 counseling sessions. So when you give to Bayside, you're funding counselors to help solve the problem of people's lives. And so she started to go through all this data of this stuff Bayside does that she, as a human being, couldn't do. But when she gives to Bayside, it increases our capacity to do all this amazing stuff. So. Which is why I think the local church is issue number one for me.
Mark Clark [00:52:41]:
And then over and above that, I think I have six or seven kids that we have in different countries in Africa, you know, all of that kind of stuff and stuff we do, we show up to the golf tournament. Okay. Mexico, Mexicali. Here's another check for that and check for this. Things come up and we wanna be generous, but the 10%, for me at least, was the local church. And then everything was over. And above that. I mean, it's a debate.
Mark Clark [00:53:04]:
Cause there's no, like, straight up Bible verse that says, da, da, da, da. But that's the principle that we live by.
Kevin Thompson [00:53:08]:
Yeah. And I think also importantly is just the principle of stewardship over every aspect of life. So tithing is just one aspect, but we're supposed to be stewards and to give back to God in every element of what life is.
Mark Clark [00:53:19]:
Right. Our talents are. Yeah. All of that. Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:53:21]:
Let's do. Let's do one more. You got one good closing question or. I like the pause as she looked at me like, what are you doing?
NA [00:53:27]:
To me, a new Christian here. I know life is not without suffering, but how bad does it have to get before Jesus returns? Was that fun enough for you?
Mark Clark [00:53:44]:
Feels like an what she sing.
Kevin Thompson [00:53:48]:
So, I mean, here's what we know. A third of Europe died from the plague, and that wasn't the end. Right. And so the idea that. I mean, this is an aspect of the book, the idea, the concept that it's worse today than it's ever been does not actually fit A lot of the reality of what we are experiencing. And so, I mean, Mark talks about that at length. And I mean, even selfish plug back to me. So since I wrote about this first in the whole concept of fearless families is there has never been a time to be less afraid, and yet there's never been a time in which we've been more afraid.
Kevin Thompson [00:54:27]:
But that does not now take away the reality of individuals and what we are experiencing and the suffering that we do now experience. But I do think it's important to recognize that we are not going through a unique experience apart from the generations who have come from the past, especially not us, especially not where we are in this moment. And yet there is this hope that one day God is going to come and make all things right.
Mark Clark [00:54:53]:
Yeah. So first Peter asks this question and says, you know, you have all the suffering and all the pain. And then he says, you know, there's skeptics that look at all the pain of suffering, and they say, what is God, stupid? Is he not paying attention? And is he slow? Right? Is God just slow? Like, at what point is enough suffering gonna pile up in the universe that he goes, okay, enough. Let's shut this down? And Peter's answer was, the reason he hasn't come back yet to the question is because he wants as many people as possible to repent. That's the reason for his slowness. So what that means is I became a Christian probably somewhere in the summer of 2016. 17. Somewhere in there.
Mark Clark [00:55:46]:
But what if Christ had come back in 2015? You know, then Mark Clark doesn't get to repent and become a believer. So for all of our. Hang on.
Kevin Thompson [00:55:55]:
I'm sorry, you became a Christian when, 2000?
Mark Clark [00:55:58]:
No, that's not right. Cause I. I've been a pastor for 10 years, and I was in a service preaching one day and went, wait a minute.
Kevin Thompson [00:56:08]:
I need to raise my hand during the interview. So 1990.
Mark Clark [00:56:15]:
1997.
Kevin Thompson [00:56:17]:
Yeah, sorry. Okay.
Mark Clark [00:56:20]:
I was 17. What if he'd come back when? 1990.
Kevin Thompson [00:56:24]:
We had the. We had the three girls in these years. And then I got married to Erin, and then suddenly I just got a promotion.
Mark Clark [00:56:32]:
Yeah. Yeah. So point being, you know, we want him to come back. We're jacked. For God to come, Jesus to come back, all of that, wrap this up. And he's saying, I'm delaying because I have long suffered. I have patience. I'm literally looking at this.
Mark Clark [00:56:57]:
Eight billion people on the planet, and most of them don't know Jesus. Why are you. Of course John says, come Lord Jesus, come on the flip side. It's like, go reach as many people as possible. And so I think that's why I don't know how much suffering is ultimately gonna lead to that moment. The book of Revelation has these. All of the martyrs are under the altar. And.
Mark Clark [00:57:21]:
And it's like, hey, the number isn't complete yet of these people who are gonna die for their faith. And it's like, what does that mean? You know? And they're, you know, so he's waiting. And every time the sun sets and then rises again, it's Jesus going, okay, we got another day here. Let's go get it. You know, so.
Kevin Thompson [00:57:39]:
So Mark, we have. So this is like our. I don't know. I've been here three years. So six. This is like our 50th big Wednesday. And we have one rule here. We always stop at 8:00 because I don't want to work children's ministry.
Kevin Thompson [00:57:50]:
And I don't know if you've ever noticed, there's a clock right there. See that clock right there?
Mark Clark [00:57:53]:
Yes.
Kevin Thompson [00:57:54]:
And so it just lets people know what time it is. So a couple things. We got two minutes. So let's do talk about this. Here's what I find. Are you okay?
Mark Clark [00:58:06]:
Yeah, I'm just waiting for the question.
Kevin Thompson [00:58:09]:
Here's.
Mark Clark [00:58:10]:
You're eating up precious time.
Kevin Thompson [00:58:12]:
There's a few misconceptions people have about us.
Mark Clark [00:58:15]:
Okay.
Kevin Thompson [00:58:16]:
I hear all the time.
Mark Clark [00:58:17]:
Yes.
Kevin Thompson [00:58:17]:
Do you and Mark actually get along?
Mark Clark [00:58:19]:
Right.
Kevin Thompson [00:58:21]:
We don't.
Mark Clark [00:58:22]:
Right.
Kevin Thompson [00:58:22]:
No. So we do something most people don't know about. At least half of the jokes we say about the other. The other one is actually written.
Mark Clark [00:58:34]:
Yes, that's true.
Kevin Thompson [00:58:37]:
People all the time are like, I cannot believe Mark said that about you. That is so cruel. And I'm like, I wrote it.
Mark Clark [00:58:44]:
Yes. Oftentimes I'll preach on a Saturday night, or you'll preach and we'll go backstage and then you'll go, hey, when you said that thing about this, you could totally take a dig at me and like, say this. And I'm like, okay, yeah, that's good. You know, so. No, it's very true.
Kevin Thompson [00:59:00]:
There's also.
Mark Clark [00:59:00]:
But Hallie, who runs our cafe, she has this brilliant idea, and for some reason she's nervous to do it. And I don't know why. Cause I think it's genius. Do you know this?
Kevin Thompson [00:59:12]:
No, I have no idea.
Mark Clark [00:59:13]:
Her idea is to have two tip jars, one with my face and one with your face at the cafe, and then see what happens every day. Right. I think that's funny.
Kevin Thompson [00:59:24]:
That's funny, right? No, that's very funny.
Mark Clark [00:59:27]:
We love each other deeply. We do love and respect.
Kevin Thompson [00:59:29]:
And here's another thing about Mark after Jenny, he's the one that touches me the absolute most in life. I never touch him ever.
Mark Clark [00:59:40]:
Wow. That's funny.
Kevin Thompson [00:59:43]:
But it's true.
Mark Clark [00:59:45]:
Very true.
Kevin Thompson [00:59:45]:
It's true.
Mark Clark [00:59:47]:
Very true.
Kevin Thompson [00:59:49]:
So, hey, a couple things. We are very excited about this book, and you're gonna hear a lot about it in the months to come. It does so tie in to what we talked about here on a Wednesday night. And listen, y'all hear me say this all the time outside of his presence, it is an honor to work alongside of him. His heart is far better than you even know. And you know that it's good. He is far more energetic off stage than he is on stage, but he truly cares not only for you, but also his staff. And so it is a privilege to have him as one of our leaders here.
Mark Clark [01:00:23]:
We're grateful for that. Everything's the same to.