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This time of year has much historical significance for Biblical Christianity. On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther began what we call the Protestant Reformation by nailing his famous 95 theses on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Here at KLTT we have created historical re-enactments to capture the importance of remembering those who dedicated their lives to building the church. Today we continue with our conversation with early reformers from Switzerland. Previously we spoke with Uhlrich & Anna Zwingli (Zawingly) who began reforming the church in Zurich. Upon his untimely death, his successor, Heinrich Bullinger, (Hinerick Bull-inger) assumed his role in the church. Today we will visit with Mr. Bollinger to hear about the centrality of God's Word in worship and daily living
October 31st is a day that has grown to have merchandise and themed events that rival more than one or two national holidays. And the ways our culture promotes and engages in traditions of this day might ask if there are all turnitives to Halloween. If a person is not an enthusiast about graveyards, the grim reaper, or the undead, what are the other options? Well, today we're going to introduce a historic event that may surprise our listeners that it also began on October 31st. That's October 31st, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95thesis on a church store in Whitberg, Germany. Today we have the opportunity to speak with Heinrich Bollinger about the centrality of God's Word in worship and in daily life. Welcome to the show, Mr. Bollinger. It is a pleasure to have you with us. Where is home for you? Well, it's a pleasure to speak with you today. My home is in the city of Zurich, which is in the part of Europe which you call Switzerland. I was born July 18th, 1504 in a little town called Bremgarten, which is about 15 miles away from Zurich. And so where did you go to school? Well learning languages comes naturally to me. It's a gift. I learned how to speak clearly when I was just three years old. And I started attending Latin school when I was five. I studied at the University of Cologne in Germany. In 1519, when I was just 15 years old, I received my bachelor's degree and then stayed there a couple more years to finish my master's degree. Mr. Bollinger, this had the impact of the Reformation. Had that already begun for you? Yes. I was here in Cologne while I was a student that I first heard about the Reformation and where I read the New Testament for the first time. So then what did you do after you graduated? I came back home to Switzerland and took a job at a local monastery. There, I taught the monks the scriptures, starting in the Gospels and then working through the letters written by the Apostle Paul. Before I took the job though, I insisted that I would be allowed to teach the Bible as I had come to understand it using the teachings of the Reformation and the early church. After teaching here for six years, I then became the pastor of the church in my own hometown of Bramgarten. So you are now the head pastor in the church in the city of Zurich? Yes. You see at this time, there was no central government of Switzerland. Instead, there were a bunch of city states or canton's which would form alliances together. As the Reformation took hold of Zurich under the efforts of my esteemed predecessor Ulrich Swingley, there were other Swiss cities that remained loyal to the Roman Catholic Church. Things got very heated and ultimately there was war between the Protestant and Catholic cities. In 1531, the army of Zurich was defeated and Swingley himself was killed. The city of Zurich was able to sign a peace agreement, but one of the conditions was that I resigned from being pastor at Bramgarten. Because I had worked with Swingley before, the city council of Zurich invited me to become the chief pastor, also known as the Antisties of Zurich in Swingley's place. Mr. Bowlingert, I'm sure there were hard shoes to fill. Indeed they were, but God's grace enabled me to provide the guidance and stability that the city needed. I served as the chief pastor of Zurich for almost 45 years. In our work to learn more about the Reformation and the importance of that event on October 31st and 1517, last time we spoke with Ulrich Swingley about how important it was for God's people to recover the scriptures. Yes, and what Swingley said is very true. You see, before the Reformation began, we did not have the scriptures for us to read. So what assumptions might we have about God's word that we believe now and weren't true back in your day? Well, reformers like Swingley and I, we read in the scriptures that saving faith depends on the word of God alone, and also that the churches of God are built and preserved by the word of God and not by man's doctrine. Interesting. Tell us more. Well, we were convinced that God works through His word by His Holy Spirit, especially through the preaching of the word of God in church. This is why we changed the focus of our worship services. In the Roman Catholic Church, the high point of the service was the ceremony of Mass, where the priest made a great show of repeating Christ's sacrifice on the cross, as if the Atonement of Christ needed to be repeated over and over. No, we read in the scriptures that it is the word of God that changes the hearts and minds of those that God calls to Himself. Thus, when we hear the word of God and when the Holy Spirit exerts His power in our hearts so that we truly receive His word, then it has a mighty force and a wonderful effect on us. So Pastor Bologna, does that mean that faith increases as God's word gives ongoing power in a believer's life? Yes, that's exactly right. For God's word drives away the misty darkness of errors and addresses ignorance and immaturity. It opens our eyes spiritually. It converts and enlightens our minds and it strikes us most fully and absolutely in truth and godliness. Furthermore, the word of God feeds, strengthens, comforts and confirms our souls. It regenerates, cleanses, makes joyful and joins us to God. Yes, it obtains all things for us at God's hands, setting us in a most happy state so that there are no goods or treasures in the whole world that compares with the word of God. You know, that's remarkable. Thank you for sharing that with me. Welcome. Because we placed such a high emphasis on the reading and preaching of the word of God, it became one of the defining ways we could identify if a church was being faithful to or call Him. You know, Mike, in 1562, I wrote what's called a confession of faith, explaining what I believed the scriptures taught about the major doctrines of Christianity, things like the doctrine of God, the doctrine of creation, man's sin, how we're saved and the church. And this confession was later shared with others in Germany and Switzerland. And it was called the second hellevedic confession. So hellevedic is not a word that I and a lot of people are familiar with. Tell us more about it. Yes, it may sound strange to you, but in my day, all scholarly and ecclesiastical, which is really just a big word for church, all these documents were written in Latin first. And the Latin word "Hellevedi" referred to the people of Switzerland. So in other words, the second hellevedic confession was really just the second Swiss confession, the sequel to the first confession that I wrote in 1536. Anyways, in the second confession, I wrote that the true church is that in which we find the signs or marks of the church, especially the lawful and sincere preaching of the word of God, as it was delivered to us in the books of the prophets and the apostles, which all lead us unto Christ, who said in the gospel, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life." A stranger they do not follow, but they flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. And that comes from John chapter 10. This is why the word of God was so important for us and for the churches of the Reformation. We're speaking with Pastor Heinrich Bollinger, and our purpose is to talk about the Reformation and the importance of October 31, 1517, and so much that followed. And we're getting deep, and as we do that, Pastor Bollinger, what does this have to do? What you just spoke with Christians living from Monday through Friday, Monday through Saturday, right now and 2024. You know, that's an excellent question, Mike. The answer is that God's word, along with the work of the Holy Spirit, not only produces faith in our hearts and guidance for our churches, it's God's guidance for believers like you and me in our everyday lives. And this guidance is not just suggestions from God on how to be happy or how to have a good life. We believe that the Scriptures, God's word, is the highest authority in our lives because it came from the mind of God Himself as He inspired the human authors who wrote the books of the Old and New Testament. In other words, we believe that through the Scriptures, we have a God that is not silent or distant. We have spoken to us by the prophets and the apostles, and His message has been faithfully preserved in the Scriptures. So what that means is this, we believe that the Scriptures are to be taken as giving us true wisdom and godliness. They help us with reformation and governing our churches and providing instruction in all duties of piety. In short, we believe that the Scriptures confirm the doctrines of Christianity. They confute the errors against Christianity and they give us exhortations so that as Paul said in 2 Timothy, "All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine and for reproof." So when you're wanting to know how God would have you live your life Monday through Saturday, you can look to His Word for the answers. So Pastor Heinrich, what about the person that says, "The Bible won't tell me where I should live or what job I should take, so on what way does the Bible God's Word provide me guidance?" That's a fair question, right? The Bible doesn't list out things like that, but it's because God has given us principles, and list principles, around which we make decisions about how we live our lives, including things like where we work, how we raise our families, and even the way that we eat our food. We seek to follow what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth when he said, "Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." So if we were to break this down into an even more practical way, what would you say? Well this is how I taught people in my church in Zurich. In God's Word, like I said before, we're given timeless principles and general commands, which we then apply to our own particular situation. To help us know how God wants us to live, He gave us the Ten Commandments, which are a summary of His Law. For example, if you know your Ten Commandments, you'll know that the Fourth Commandment is to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. The Sabbath day is one day out of the seven-day week, which is dedicated to worshiping God and resting from our regular jobs. Christians observe the Sabbath on Sunday, and so that's the general principle from God's Law. Now, to apply it to my personal life, let's say I was offered a job that would require me to work every Sunday. If I took that job, it would mean that I would miss worshiping in church on Sunday. Now I don't have to wonder whether or not God wants me to take this job because I can look to His Word and find how God wants me to shape my life. From this Fourth Commandment that we just looked at, I can see that God wants me to prioritize resting and worshiping on Sunday. And so I would then apply that, and that would help me know what God's will is concerning whether or not I should take this job. You know during Christ's earthly ministry, He said that the whole of God, including the Ten Commandments, could be summed up in these two commands. First, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Second, love your neighbor as yourself. Obviously, we'll never be able to do this perfectly, and sadly, there will be many times that we fail. But this is again where God's Word reminds us that we're reconciled to God not because we obey, but because Christ obeyed on our behalf. And that His righteousness and His death on the cross is what reconciled us to God. And so as those who are reconciled, our calling is to yield ourselves to the one to whom we are reconciled, with an earnest desire and zeal to do God's will and pleasure. So in other words, Mike, we obey not to make ourselves right with God, but as a response of love for God's forgiveness. Second Timothy 316 says, "We are equipped to obey God, equipped for every good work through the God-breathes scriptures, the very Word of God." Pastor Bowlinger, thank you for joining us today, and thank you for sharing with us how God's Word is such a central part of our churches and our daily lives. I want our listeners to know that if they'd like to learn more about the Reformation and how it applies today, then check out the video series called Reformation Profiles from Ligonier Ministries. You'll find seven episodes that cover essential truths about the Christian faith and individuals that God used to help recover these truths. Go to store.liginear.org that's L-I-G-O-N-I-E-R and search Reformation Profiles. You'll even be able to watch the first episode online for free. Again, go to store.liginear.org for Reformation Profiles and find out why the Reformation mattered then and why it still matters now.
Learn about what evangelism means and looks like from the teachers you trust on KLTT. Learn how to share the gospel, exegesis that makes things make more sense, and news about evangelism around the globe here on the mighty KLTT!
This time of year has much historical significance for Biblical Christianity. On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther began what we call the Protestant Reformation by nailing his famous 95 theses on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Here at KLTT we have created historical re-enactments to capture the importance of remembering those who dedicated their lives to building the church. Today we continue with our conversation with early reformers from Switzerland. Previously we spoke with Uhlrich & Anna Zwingli (Zawingly) who began reforming the church in Zurich. Upon his untimely death, his successor, Heinrich Bullinger, (Hinerick Bull-inger) assumed his role in the church. Today we will visit with Mr. Bollinger to hear about the centrality of God's Word in worship and daily living
October 31st is a day that has grown to have merchandise and themed events that rival more than one or two national holidays. And the ways our culture promotes and engages in traditions of this day might ask if there are all turnitives to Halloween. If a person is not an enthusiast about graveyards, the grim reaper, or the undead, what are the other options? Well, today we're going to introduce a historic event that may surprise our listeners that it also began on October 31st. That's October 31st, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95thesis on a church store in Whitberg, Germany. Today we have the opportunity to speak with Heinrich Bollinger about the centrality of God's Word in worship and in daily life. Welcome to the show, Mr. Bollinger. It is a pleasure to have you with us. Where is home for you? Well, it's a pleasure to speak with you today. My home is in the city of Zurich, which is in the part of Europe which you call Switzerland. I was born July 18th, 1504 in a little town called Bremgarten, which is about 15 miles away from Zurich. And so where did you go to school? Well learning languages comes naturally to me. It's a gift. I learned how to speak clearly when I was just three years old. And I started attending Latin school when I was five. I studied at the University of Cologne in Germany. In 1519, when I was just 15 years old, I received my bachelor's degree and then stayed there a couple more years to finish my master's degree. Mr. Bollinger, this had the impact of the Reformation. Had that already begun for you? Yes. I was here in Cologne while I was a student that I first heard about the Reformation and where I read the New Testament for the first time. So then what did you do after you graduated? I came back home to Switzerland and took a job at a local monastery. There, I taught the monks the scriptures, starting in the Gospels and then working through the letters written by the Apostle Paul. Before I took the job though, I insisted that I would be allowed to teach the Bible as I had come to understand it using the teachings of the Reformation and the early church. After teaching here for six years, I then became the pastor of the church in my own hometown of Bramgarten. So you are now the head pastor in the church in the city of Zurich? Yes. You see at this time, there was no central government of Switzerland. Instead, there were a bunch of city states or canton's which would form alliances together. As the Reformation took hold of Zurich under the efforts of my esteemed predecessor Ulrich Swingley, there were other Swiss cities that remained loyal to the Roman Catholic Church. Things got very heated and ultimately there was war between the Protestant and Catholic cities. In 1531, the army of Zurich was defeated and Swingley himself was killed. The city of Zurich was able to sign a peace agreement, but one of the conditions was that I resigned from being pastor at Bramgarten. Because I had worked with Swingley before, the city council of Zurich invited me to become the chief pastor, also known as the Antisties of Zurich in Swingley's place. Mr. Bowlingert, I'm sure there were hard shoes to fill. Indeed they were, but God's grace enabled me to provide the guidance and stability that the city needed. I served as the chief pastor of Zurich for almost 45 years. In our work to learn more about the Reformation and the importance of that event on October 31st and 1517, last time we spoke with Ulrich Swingley about how important it was for God's people to recover the scriptures. Yes, and what Swingley said is very true. You see, before the Reformation began, we did not have the scriptures for us to read. So what assumptions might we have about God's word that we believe now and weren't true back in your day? Well, reformers like Swingley and I, we read in the scriptures that saving faith depends on the word of God alone, and also that the churches of God are built and preserved by the word of God and not by man's doctrine. Interesting. Tell us more. Well, we were convinced that God works through His word by His Holy Spirit, especially through the preaching of the word of God in church. This is why we changed the focus of our worship services. In the Roman Catholic Church, the high point of the service was the ceremony of Mass, where the priest made a great show of repeating Christ's sacrifice on the cross, as if the Atonement of Christ needed to be repeated over and over. No, we read in the scriptures that it is the word of God that changes the hearts and minds of those that God calls to Himself. Thus, when we hear the word of God and when the Holy Spirit exerts His power in our hearts so that we truly receive His word, then it has a mighty force and a wonderful effect on us. So Pastor Bologna, does that mean that faith increases as God's word gives ongoing power in a believer's life? Yes, that's exactly right. For God's word drives away the misty darkness of errors and addresses ignorance and immaturity. It opens our eyes spiritually. It converts and enlightens our minds and it strikes us most fully and absolutely in truth and godliness. Furthermore, the word of God feeds, strengthens, comforts and confirms our souls. It regenerates, cleanses, makes joyful and joins us to God. Yes, it obtains all things for us at God's hands, setting us in a most happy state so that there are no goods or treasures in the whole world that compares with the word of God. You know, that's remarkable. Thank you for sharing that with me. Welcome. Because we placed such a high emphasis on the reading and preaching of the word of God, it became one of the defining ways we could identify if a church was being faithful to or call Him. You know, Mike, in 1562, I wrote what's called a confession of faith, explaining what I believed the scriptures taught about the major doctrines of Christianity, things like the doctrine of God, the doctrine of creation, man's sin, how we're saved and the church. And this confession was later shared with others in Germany and Switzerland. And it was called the second hellevedic confession. So hellevedic is not a word that I and a lot of people are familiar with. Tell us more about it. Yes, it may sound strange to you, but in my day, all scholarly and ecclesiastical, which is really just a big word for church, all these documents were written in Latin first. And the Latin word "Hellevedi" referred to the people of Switzerland. So in other words, the second hellevedic confession was really just the second Swiss confession, the sequel to the first confession that I wrote in 1536. Anyways, in the second confession, I wrote that the true church is that in which we find the signs or marks of the church, especially the lawful and sincere preaching of the word of God, as it was delivered to us in the books of the prophets and the apostles, which all lead us unto Christ, who said in the gospel, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life." A stranger they do not follow, but they flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. And that comes from John chapter 10. This is why the word of God was so important for us and for the churches of the Reformation. We're speaking with Pastor Heinrich Bollinger, and our purpose is to talk about the Reformation and the importance of October 31, 1517, and so much that followed. And we're getting deep, and as we do that, Pastor Bollinger, what does this have to do? What you just spoke with Christians living from Monday through Friday, Monday through Saturday, right now and 2024. You know, that's an excellent question, Mike. The answer is that God's word, along with the work of the Holy Spirit, not only produces faith in our hearts and guidance for our churches, it's God's guidance for believers like you and me in our everyday lives. And this guidance is not just suggestions from God on how to be happy or how to have a good life. We believe that the Scriptures, God's word, is the highest authority in our lives because it came from the mind of God Himself as He inspired the human authors who wrote the books of the Old and New Testament. In other words, we believe that through the Scriptures, we have a God that is not silent or distant. We have spoken to us by the prophets and the apostles, and His message has been faithfully preserved in the Scriptures. So what that means is this, we believe that the Scriptures are to be taken as giving us true wisdom and godliness. They help us with reformation and governing our churches and providing instruction in all duties of piety. In short, we believe that the Scriptures confirm the doctrines of Christianity. They confute the errors against Christianity and they give us exhortations so that as Paul said in 2 Timothy, "All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine and for reproof." So when you're wanting to know how God would have you live your life Monday through Saturday, you can look to His Word for the answers. So Pastor Heinrich, what about the person that says, "The Bible won't tell me where I should live or what job I should take, so on what way does the Bible God's Word provide me guidance?" That's a fair question, right? The Bible doesn't list out things like that, but it's because God has given us principles, and list principles, around which we make decisions about how we live our lives, including things like where we work, how we raise our families, and even the way that we eat our food. We seek to follow what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth when he said, "Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." So if we were to break this down into an even more practical way, what would you say? Well this is how I taught people in my church in Zurich. In God's Word, like I said before, we're given timeless principles and general commands, which we then apply to our own particular situation. To help us know how God wants us to live, He gave us the Ten Commandments, which are a summary of His Law. For example, if you know your Ten Commandments, you'll know that the Fourth Commandment is to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. The Sabbath day is one day out of the seven-day week, which is dedicated to worshiping God and resting from our regular jobs. Christians observe the Sabbath on Sunday, and so that's the general principle from God's Law. Now, to apply it to my personal life, let's say I was offered a job that would require me to work every Sunday. If I took that job, it would mean that I would miss worshiping in church on Sunday. Now I don't have to wonder whether or not God wants me to take this job because I can look to His Word and find how God wants me to shape my life. From this Fourth Commandment that we just looked at, I can see that God wants me to prioritize resting and worshiping on Sunday. And so I would then apply that, and that would help me know what God's will is concerning whether or not I should take this job. You know during Christ's earthly ministry, He said that the whole of God, including the Ten Commandments, could be summed up in these two commands. First, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Second, love your neighbor as yourself. Obviously, we'll never be able to do this perfectly, and sadly, there will be many times that we fail. But this is again where God's Word reminds us that we're reconciled to God not because we obey, but because Christ obeyed on our behalf. And that His righteousness and His death on the cross is what reconciled us to God. And so as those who are reconciled, our calling is to yield ourselves to the one to whom we are reconciled, with an earnest desire and zeal to do God's will and pleasure. So in other words, Mike, we obey not to make ourselves right with God, but as a response of love for God's forgiveness. Second Timothy 316 says, "We are equipped to obey God, equipped for every good work through the God-breathes scriptures, the very Word of God." Pastor Bowlinger, thank you for joining us today, and thank you for sharing with us how God's Word is such a central part of our churches and our daily lives. I want our listeners to know that if they'd like to learn more about the Reformation and how it applies today, then check out the video series called Reformation Profiles from Ligonier Ministries. You'll find seven episodes that cover essential truths about the Christian faith and individuals that God used to help recover these truths. Go to store.liginear.org that's L-I-G-O-N-I-E-R and search Reformation Profiles. You'll even be able to watch the first episode online for free. Again, go to store.liginear.org for Reformation Profiles and find out why the Reformation mattered then and why it still matters now.
Paul and Mike Triem discuss the financial miseducation that leads young people to go into debt for college expenses and how that puts them behind the curve with their financial future. Paul also talked about alternatives, including going to work out of high school and building wealth faster by purchasing a home at an earlier age, or trade school where the student can work at the same time they are learning at the trade school.
Liz talks with Mike Thompson, prophet and author, about his new book titled “Third Heaven Authority.” Jesus gave Mike Thompson a tall assignment: “Teach people third-heaven authority.” Jesus continues to take him to heaven and talk to him about authority and spiritual warfare. In this book, Mike shares his incredible story so that others can be encouraged and equipped for the good fight of faith. With a degree in Bible theology from International Seminary, Mike Thompson did graduate work in Christian counseling and has a certificate from Rhema Bible Training Center. He functions as a prophet to the body of Christ intent on hosting the glory of God and revival on planet Earth.
This is Liz Renzel with Crawford Media Group and today our guest is Mike Thompson. Author and profit to the body of Christ with over 40 years of full-time ministry experience. We'll be talking about his new book titled Third Heaven Authority and how to pray from Heaven's perspective. Welcome to our program Mike. Well thank you very much Leos. I'm just excited to be here. I was love to talk about Jesus. Amen. Mike I've had the privilege of watching you on Elijah Streams and I'm almost done reading your book which is so enlightening but Mike you had an an amazing experience happened to you in 2010. Tell us about that before we talk about your book. Sure. I actually at that particular point was in a city where there were holding a big evangelistic crusade and my wife and I had gone there as church leaders and we were helping the host pastor. We had a prayer meeting the night before and during that prayer meeting I experienced the vision that the book is based on. I've experienced so many different visions and words from the Lord, dreams etc. But in this one it was very impacting the life changing because the Lord just caught me to heaven. I went up through the atmosphere and saw a bunch of spiritual demonic beings and atmosphere that over the city went right on up into heaven itself, third heaven and I would found myself standing there looking around this room. That was absolutely amazing. And right in front of me there was a throne and it was Jesus who was seated on the throne and there were all these rainbow colors swirling masses of colors that made up the room. There were sounds of heaven. There were a lot of angels on both sides of the throne and it was just just absolutely awesome breathtaking at the time. And when I had that experience, Liz, what I wanted to share with your listeners is that the very first thing that I felt, I'm talking about in my being. Now this was this was a kind of a could we say an out-of-body experience? This is a vision you're having. I'm going to say yes. Okay. And of course that scriptural with so many passages confirm those kind. But I did not know. I was unaware of it until after it was all over because I was in a room full of about 50 people. We were all under seating for that evangelistic crusade. Nobody noticed I was gone. So that's the only reason I say it must have been spiritually out of body. Okay. But I wanted people to understand that the very first thing that I felt was looking at Jesus was a complete absence of any kind of fear. You know all the things that we struggle with here on earth just being human beings even though we're saved. We have to deal with the flesh and all of the hooks and the pressures and the things here. And all of those were just stripped away and I felt completely loved, accepted and valued in him. And I learned through this experience that God has the ability by the presence of the spirit of God within us to give us that same experience here. That through the spiritual realm that we can actually rise up in our own lives and I tell people in the book quite a bit about that and how to accomplish it. Where we just know who we are in the Lord Jesus Christ and that's preeminent. But the second thing that I felt in heaven is that during the encounter he turned me around and he had me to look down a portal and this portal went all the way down to the earth. And I could see below me those demonic spirits that were in the atmosphere. They were low-level demons. There was quite a number of them. And I could see the prayer group down below continuing to pray from their perspective below on the earth kind of in the spiritual realm and looking up. But I saw something they couldn't see. Up above them between the lower-level demons of myself, I saw a large demon that the Lord said was a general. He was commanding the others. So like the principalities of the air, right? All that's it. Exactly. And quite a bit, scripture is full of those things, particularly like in Ephesians 6, where it talks about the principalities, powers and all the wicked spirits, brewing spirits in heavenly places, etc. Right? And so he told me, "Launch your warfare from here." And that's a key. The first key was feeling complete in Jesus. Love except and valued. The second key was in the authority. But within that second key was perspective. Perspective is so important, everything that we do as believers. And so my perspective, unlike the prayer group down below looking up, was from me in heaven looking down. My perspective was heaven's viewpoint. And through this whole encounter lives, I walk the people in my book through the process of learning how to allow the spirit of God to raise us up and give us that perspective, even though somebody may not have the kind of encounter that I did and actually be in heaven. The Holy Spirit is within each and every one of us, allowing us to have that perspective, because we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. And one of the things that the Lord told me toward the end of the vision, that encounter, because I was there, he said, "I want you to teach my people third heaven authority." I never heard that phrase before. It came from the lips of Jesus. Teach him third heaven authority. And he said, "Remember, this is 2010." He said, "From this point forward, there is going to be an increase in supernatural encounters." Those people in the body of Christ, they're going to have more visions and dreams. And you know, gifts of the spirit, miracles, all kinds of encounters. They said, "Also, it's going to happen in a negative side, you know, among fatements, new ages, and just the world, all of those things." And so it's important for us to learn how to navigate these experiences, how to understand what the Holy Spirit is doing, and how to walk in complete authority in that tremendous. Yeah, you know, reading in your book, when you were talking about this, praying from the throne room and being seated, you say, actually visualize yourself being seated next to the Father and Jesus. And I've read about that, and I've actually done that a little bit, but reading your book has me doing it more. And I have to tell you, it brings such confidence in my prayers when I visualize when I, because I am all about spiritual warfare and binding and breaking powers in this and that. And so when I do that, knowing that I'm, you know, visually, and we are, the Bible says, we are seated next to them. And we rule from that place. And I have to say that it brings such confidence knowing, and in my mind, seeing me sitting next to Jesus and the Father, as I'm commanding, I'm, are binding demons doing this or that. And it really does make a difference in my prayer life. And I want to thank you for that. So I actually want you to go into explaining our authority and how to walk in it. Just a little bit, I know we don't have that much time, but for you to just touch on that a little bit. Let's do. Well, you know, in God, we have power and authority. Power is the ability to act, and authority is the right to act, the permission to do so from God. And that's all in him. There are, and I teach in the book that there are four levels of authority. The authority of man is that dominion on the earth that God gave to Adam and Eve, that we have dominion here, authority. The second type of authority is what we call the Believer's authority or spiritual authority. Now through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice, He now has given a spiritual authority, go into all the world, preach the gospel. You know, bind demons, cast them out, lands on the sick, all of those things, that's spiritual authority. And there's authority of position, which is just God's responsibility. You know, a pastor has authority, a husband, a wife, you know, bosses, different things, different levels of authority. And the last one is what I call authority in the glory, and that authority in the glory is that when you have an encounter like I did, encounters from God when He touches us in whatever form always leaves us with an assignment. And that assignment carries by grace the authority to go and fulfill whatever it is that God gave to you. The writing this book was a fulfilling of that for me. And so every Believer has those senses of authority and Liz, I'll make this quick because I know the time, is that third heaven authority is about perspective, which is praying from heavens view point down with heavens understanding wisdom and enlightenment and empowerment. But it also invades every area of our life. It's attached to everything we do. And people who learn to walk in third heaven authority, it changes everything about them. How they approach their relationships, how they love their children, how they do their job, if they're business owners, how they administrate that business, how they move in their own gifts and annoyance and ministries. It affects everything and lifts it up to a plane. They become the most effective that they've ever been in their lives. And it's true. I absolutely agree, you know, your book and your book you talk about the activities of angels and their involvement in our daily affairs and how they actually help us in spiritual warfare against demonic spirits and influences. And we have a little bit of time if you want to talk about that. Yeah. Well, you know what's interesting to me. I've been a minister for a lot of years over four decades. And in my perspective, I see that there are more books that are written about the origin and operation of demons than about the operation of angels. And so the Lord's catching that up at this point. He's teaching the body of Christ that the angels are there as ministers for us. And they actually help us. They work in line with the Holy Spirit who is in charge of all of these things. And what they do is they can strengthen, they can empower. But spiritual warfare, the Lord said, he told me at that point, I want you to learn and to see about how the angels do spiritual warfare for you. So when we pray, if we rebuked demon or we're in prayer about a situation in our life or someone else's, how that the angels respond to the word of God and to faith commands that come forth from our mouths. And they harken unto the word that is coming through us. And how that they're the ones that literally drive away demons and change circumstances as well as the Holy Spirit moving. I love that. We've been visiting with Mike Thompson, author and prophet to the body of Christ with over 40 years of full-time ministry experience. And we've been talking about his new book titled Third Heaven Authority, Teaching Us How to Pray from Heaven's Perspective. Mike, where can our listeners go to learn more about your ministry and more importantly get this book? Well, I would encourage them to go to Mike Thompson Ministries.com and there they can find out a bit about me and of course a link to the book. But the book that Amazon any place that books are sold, they can certainly find my book. Well, I encourage all of our listeners to get Third Heaven Authority and start your journey of walking in the authority that God gave you. Mike, thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate it so much, Liz.
Scott Whatley talks with Ked Frank, President and Founder of Safe Places for Women. Safe Places for Women offers Safe Housing and life-changing resources for escapees of sex trafficking.
I'm Scott Wattley with Crawford Media Group and glad to welcome in studio Kid Frank, president of Safe Places for Women. You can check out their website SafePlacesForWomen.org. Kid, good to see you sir. Yeah, thank you Scott, good to be with you again. Interesting time of year. Well, it's hard to believe we're wrapping up another year just to end life. I mean it's crazy with all the things going on. Oh my goodness, well, elections everything. Well, and I'm not going to lie to you. My wife has already set up our Christmas tree, which I know, I know, I know, I'm like, you have to be the first one in our neighborhood or at least maybe the state of Colorado to have their Christmas tree up already. She said, you know what, I've got a lot of stuff going on, just going to go ahead and get it up right now. So we're in the Christmas mood. We're in the holiday season already. A lot of old jump right into it. Exactly. Well, hey, you and I met several weeks back and I actually got to come to one of your kind of meetings a little bit just to let people know more and we thoroughly enjoyed that. But for those that have not heard about Safe Places for Women, give us kind of an introduction for that. Yeah, exactly. It was great having you on property as well to Scott. And love sharing the vision of what we're doing to help women. And so, you know, more and more people are hearing about sex trafficking. It's obviously just a horrific thing that, you know, here lately has been in the news more and more, you know, the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitzgerald's just arrested the other day with sex trafficking charges against him. And Sean Combs did he just arrested here a couple weeks ago, sex trafficking charges. And so it's in the news and people are talking about it and we're trying to help women who are victims and survivors of sex trafficking. And so many people, you know, are just amazed and blown away that this kind of stuff is happening today. They're shocked that, you know, are these Americans, you know, where they come and from. And yeah, we're we're we have a chance right here in Colorado to serve women who are just have overcome so much and have been through so much and are wanting to rebuild new lives. And we have the opportunity to work with them, walk alongside them day in and day out and we have a home here in Denver that we have 10 beds in. And they can stay with us as long as they need to stay with us to recover and to rebuild and dream again about the future. And yeah, when you hear the stories of just their journeys, it's heartbreaking. And so it's a real gift and an opportunity to walk alongside them. Sure. And you know, you you said, where do they come from? I mean, when we first met, I was like, you know, and you hear about on the news, but this does take some education. Yeah, exactly. From from you to us because we all picture this happens different. And but you think, man, this is the United States of America. Yeah. And it's rampant. Exactly. Well, and I think I shared this with you before, Scott, that no nation on earth purchases sex the way the United States purchases sex. There is a demand that is just it's not it's not great. It's something that's not necessarily out and sometimes it's out in the open. Sometimes it's not, but there's a demand. And unfortunately with that demand comes a lot of people who you know, perpetrate and who exploit that situation. And you know, you'll hear about stuff happening or you'll you'll see you'll drive pass a strip club or you know, you hear about some of the dark web and some of the things going on online. But with all of that, there are victims. There are real live victims who are getting the worst end of what's taking place here. And that demand has a downside. And it's that children and women primarily, some men are affected by this as well. But primarily it's women and children are taken advantage of or exploited or used for the purpose of people's satisfaction. And there's there's a lot of damage that's done in people's lives as a result of this. And so yeah, it's going on in every state. Colorado is certainly not exempt to it. Right now in the within all 50 states, Colorado ranks 25th in the nation with services for survivors. And so we're right in the middle of the pack as far as what we're offering to help people. Statistics show we have about 15,000 women that are trafficked through Colorado every single year. And so this is going on. It's going on here. And my desire is that 25th is not that's not okay. Like it's hard services provided. We can't just be 25th. Right. We have to get to be number one at some point. So my goal is over the next couple of years that from educating law enforcement to working with service providers to the continuum of care, continuing to make sure that we're providing the places for them to come and heal and begin again. I want to make sure that we're moving up the ranks as far as nation as far as states within this nation that are providing services. And yeah, they're all they're all everyone that we're serving right now is a citizen. They it's amazing. People wonder how do they find you? How do they get to Colorado? Like how does all that work? And it's pretty cool. It's it's pretty amazing how it works. And there's an organization called Rescue America who has a national hotline. And so one way or another, women will come across this hotline in the call. And there's 24/7 staffing on that hotline. And then it's pretty amazing. It's a pretty cool. And that is a Southwest Airlines will partner. Yeah, you're catching that. They will partner and fly the women anywhere in the country that they need to go to for safety. And so just a shout out to Southwest Airlines for doing that, you know, but so we'll go to the airport. We'll pick up a woman. She might be coming from Florida, New York. She might be coming from California. She'll come here. The the location of our property is not advertised. And so she'll go off the grid. She'll go off the grid. And she has a she can feel safe. And for many of the women to feel safe is really maybe the first time in their life that they've ever actually felt safe. And they can start to heal and start to realize that there's people who care about them that want the best for them. And start to go what would you like to be doing with your life if you were able to choose and not maybe feeling forced to do certain things that you've never really wanted to do anyways. And so it's a real gift to be able to give to them. Right. Right. Once again, Ken Frank is with us. He's the president of Safe Places for Women. Again, check out the website safeplacesforwomen.org. You know, it's funny. I mentioned the word safe. I actually had that written down as my number one point because during our few interviews and then coming to the meeting there, I heard that word over and over and over. And I got in the car and told my wife, I said, you know what? I don't think in 66 years live and I've ever thought I'm unsaid. Now I've been in some precarious thing. Yeah. I mean, hunting or something like that. But never get out of I ever thought about am I safe? Boy, that must, I can't even imagine what that must feel like. Yeah. You know, there was one time Scott that I was in a major city here in the United States and I took a wrong turn in that city. And it was, it was, it was after dark. It was, it was on a Saturday night. And I was in a part of town of that city. And I immediately had this feeling of I need to get out of this area of town. And I just had this feeling go through me of this is not safe right now for me to be here. And and I, it was a little bit of like this realization of going, what if you were in a situation where that was not just a one time experience and you weren't in a vehicle and it would only last a 10 minutes, but it was a feeling of a regular kind of thing that you encountered where you never knew the people you were going to be around. You never knew the people that you were going to be in a hotel room with. You never knew the people you were going to be getting into a car with. It's hard to fathom the danger involved in that and the vulnerability involved in that or you think that somebody cares about you and their level of care is just so sick and dysfunctional. And until you get around people who really do care, you don't always know that you're in a situation that is so disgusting and so sick until you're in a healthy situation. You go, I can't believe that I I stayed. I can't believe that I thought that person cared. I can't believe that you know, I let that go on for years and years. And so anytime a woman picks up that phone and says, I'm, I want to get out of a situation. He's gone for a couple hours or I ran and I'm at a bus stop right now where I'm at a restaurant right now and I want help. The courage that it takes for her to leave. Sometimes to get on an airplane and they've never flown before. Sometimes to get into that Uber to go to the airport, to go to a place they some of them have never been to Colorado. Some of them have never even heard of safe places for women. And so they're coming to a place because that's how bad of the situation is. And so again, what a gift that we have to walk alongside them to be able to offer them hope, to be able to say we want to address the things that are keeping you from moving forward. Is that, you know, getting a GED? Is that taking care of maybe some warrants? Is that helping you with the addiction that you've developed because of the grotesqueness of what you've been a part of that you check out every single day. We want you to know you're safe and loved and three meals a day and a roof over your head and people who care about you and we're a Christian organization. We're a Christian organization. And so again, this is what we think Jesus would want us to be doing is clothing people feeding them and visiting them and taking care of their needs and that's what we're doing. Well, you and I both know, I mean, if it wasn't for that aspect, I mean, we could talk about a lot of things today, but if it wasn't for that aspect of what God can do, you might have a so-called ministry that it'd be impossible. Yeah, I mean, it really would. Exactly. Well, they've been through so much Scott. And so we can do a lot, but at the end of the day, there's nothing that we're going to be able to do for them that the Lord is going to be able to give them hope and give them a sense of inner peace and give them a sense that the past is gone and the new is here, the future is here. We can do a lot, but there's nothing that a spiritual change of heart is going to be able to do for them. Right. Now, you know, a lot of times, husband goes off to work, wife does her thing where that's work or are being a housewife, but I imagine with this is a huge joint venture with you in your family. I mean, she's in everything every day and you actually brought me a book. I did. Leading after loss by Michelle Frank. Yeah, I'm super proud of my wife. I mean, I think she's a rock star. We've been married 26 years and and she is just such a partner and also a leader in this in the space of helping women. And yeah, she just she documented our journey over the last 18 years of being involved in human trafficking and and providing housing. And so Scott, I you know, said before this this house that we've got here in Denver, it's our 12th house that we've been able to open up in our eighth different state. You know, so we've been trying to, you know, provide local places for women to go. And so she's documented that and it's on Amazon. I just came out last week and she's getting some awesome feedback from people and super proud of her. And I I think anytime you put things on paper and you put yourself out there, it's a little scary, but she's been getting some awesome feedback. You can find it on Amazon leading after loss by Michelle Frank and it's a it's an awesome story. Okay, great. Our time's kind of short on this segment. Let's talk about who getting that time you repeat. Yeah, exactly. Yep. Yep. We're we're one of the charities for Colorado Gives and it actually starts this week. November and December, two thirds of most nonprofits budgets get made in the final quarter of the year. And so for that time of the year where people are thinking about where do we want to give a year end gift? Where do we want to, you know, support and what charity and this, you know, again, for people to have a heart for women and children, I would really encourage you to check out our website. I'd really encourage you to think about, you know, on Colorado Gives Day and just throughout the next two months, supporting a local charity here that's making a difference, really investing in women's lives and and especially for those who have really developed a hard, or been curious about sex trafficking or seeing the movie sound of freedom or heard about this, heard about this, you know, maybe it's resonated with you and you don't really know where to turn to or where to where to go to really support how to make a difference. I would love to be that charity that you consider here during this next two months of Colorado Gives. Right. And you know, I was looking to do some things this morning, thinking about donations and see what people leave to animal shelters. Yeah. A year. Yeah. Is mind boggling. Yeah. Hundreds and tens of thousands. Yes. Yes. Folks, this is something to change a human being's life. Yeah. Yeah. Right here. Yeah. Every, every gift helps. It's it's $250 a day per bed. And so it's $2,500 a day to do what we do to support these women coming out of sex trafficking. So if you could support one day, one day, one bed, $250, maybe you say I'll support two beds. Sure. $500. Again, every, every gift matters. It's just under a million dollars to run our program here in Colorado. We'll be very, very appreciative for every, every donor who wants to partner. Okay. We appreciate your time, sir. Thank you. Thank you for what you're doing. You're in your wife and your whole team as well. A kid Frank president, safe places for women.org, check it out, and folks, hey, really pray about this matter and, hey, let's help them out. Let's change, let's help change some lives for safe places for women. Thanks for being with us today. My name is Scott Wattley, I want to thank kid Frank, president of safeplacesforwomen.org.
Mike Triem and Scott Henke with Onsite Consulting talk about common mistakes with scammers and ID theft, and how to protect yourself and your family. Scott also told listeners how his company can be a resource to help listeners with questions and with computing issues, often without them purchasing a new computer. They have plenty of used options.
Hey, it's Mike Trin with Crawford Media Group, we're joined by Scott Hanky with Onsite Consulting Scott. We're going to talk computers. Thanks so much for taking the time. Well thanks for having me. I'm so awesome to have you here. We've year on frequently with Scott Wattley with Hastach, Hal Bolver and KLC. And you give such great information. You help a lot of people with your company. One of the things is ID theft. An ID theft is such a worry. I have a 90-year-old mom. There are always people trying to scammer, steal their ID. Fortunately she's really savvy about that. But she and others, like myself, how do we protect ourselves? What do we do? First, you know, you should assume that the person trying to contact you is not who they say they are. You should be more paranoid. You know, when I grew up 25 years ago, we've been doing this for 42 years. And 25 years ago, you know, you shouldn't be paranoid about everybody. But today, you should assume that the phone call you get from the Denver police or not the Denver police. The email that you got from Amazon is not from Amazon. The phone call you get from your Chase Bank is not your bank. You got to assume on the negative rather than the positive. And people always assume these people are there to help me. But what you get a phone call from Amazon to fix your computer and they start going through why they need to fix it, you have to stop for a second and think Amazon doesn't fix computers. They sell stuff. Right? The US Postal Service does not fix computers. This is the silliest thing. But people fall for this and they let them in their computer and it just goes on and on, you know, before it used to be 40 years ago, it used to get something in the mail that said, hey, you want to contest or whatever. And then it moved to emails and you got to email that said this. Now we're getting text messages and phone calls. So text messages is kind of the thing that's been more up and coming in the past year. So you'll get something that says your package is delayed. Your IRS refund is delayed or something and click here. Well, because it says the word IRS, everybody freaks out. So they click there and it takes you to a page that looks like the IRS and isn't and asks for your social security number and all this gets worse and worse and worse, right? But we've had people scammed out of tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. With starting with something so small with, hey, we need your help with this thing or can you give us this? What's your password? You need to change your password. So a lot of little things and I'm going to do something that Mike just kicked off the error. Okay. Fine. Let's go for it. But if somebody calls you and they're saying, hello, if I'm Amazon and we've noticed a very big problem with your computer. Okay. Not making fun of any country or anything like that, but that person's from another country. And that's because the call center set up in other countries that are specifically trained to scam you out of money. They're not trained to fix your computer anything. They're trying to get you to get to this point where you let them in your computer, you give them your password, you give them your social security card. Only a few times can we stop somebody before they get in there. Like you were asking before, how can we help these people? We can't help you before it happens because other than listening to this radio show, this is what you need to listen to. Okay. If somebody has an accent, have a little radar go up. Okay. Don't let them in your computer. Don't give them a credit card. Don't give them access to your bank accounts. This is crazy that people would do this. We have about two to three people per day come into my business that has done that. That's unbelievable. Now we have like 16,000 customers in Denver. I've been doing this for 42 years. A lot of people come to us, but it's too late. Okay. You got to think about this ahead of time. We had a customer who was zero, zero, zero, seeing his driver's license and passport, sending it to Apple to get his refund when his wife walks in and goes, honey, what are you doing? Oh, I'm sending it to Apple. Don't worry. Apple. What are you doing? It takes somebody from outside who's not on the phone conversation at the time to say, honey. Objective. Right. Doing that. Yeah. It's... Now you're talking about where someone calls us. If you call a help center and you know you're calling the help center, no big deal, right? No. No. No. You don't know if you're calling the help center. Yeah. Because you're getting a pop up on your computer that says call this number. Gotcha. It's a legitimate help center. So when do you know it's right? When you go to, let's say you need help from Wells Fargo, you go to Wells Fargo website, you call the number. Is that usually pretty safe? You go type in your initiative. www. Wells Fargo.com. Find their phone number. If it says, here's Wells Fargo's phone number, don't believe it. You got to go Google the website with a known website that you go to and see that phone number. Good. That's smart. Look at your credit card. Turn over the credit card and call that phone number. But don't do what the scamber just told you to do and think that that's legitimate. So an email text, that kind of thing. Don't assume it's right. Don't assume it's legit. Correct. And the big companies are used to this. They're expecting somebody to call them. A big thing now is title companies. When you sell your house, I don't know how this is happening, but hackers are hacking into your closing documents before you close your house. And before the closing, they said, oh, we're having some issues right now. We need you to rewire your money for the house to a different number or a different bank account. People will forward hundreds of thousands dollars to the wrong bank account. So when they get to the closing, the people that close and go, okay, now where's your check? Oh, I already wired it over to you. Go. And the money's gone. The money is gone. You can't go to the FBI. You can't call the police on these people. They're out of the country. So just be super careful and call the title company. Call your bank and just confirm, hey, did you just send me an email that said I need to change my password? And I'm guarantee you they're going to say no. You're speaking with Scott Henke with on-site consulting. Scott's our computer guy. He's who we lean on 40 years of doing this. You're young, dude, though. I don't know how the heck you've done this for 40 years. It's a concealer and moisturizer. Mad. I just love it. I'm younger than I am. Amazing. And you're helping us not fall into a scam. You know, ID theft. The ID theft part of it is their nuances with ID theft partners. It kind of the same deal. It's same scammers. It's kind of the same scammers. The key to is never, ever, ever let anybody remote in your computer. Because you don't want to, they're in there and you hang up the telephone. They're still in there. People think when you hang up the phone, they're disconnected from the computer. If you already let them in there. And they can, with that, there's places in there you can see your saved passwords. So they could see your bank and your credit card and your IRA and your financial accounts. And when you're not on the computer, they're going to get those passwords. They're going to go somewhere and go to that account and take your money on. Don't let anybody remote in the computer. So unfortunately, we help people after they fall in for it. They come in and say, hey, let somebody in my computer. I don't know if I should have done that. Yeah, he shouldn't have done that. That's too late. It's too late. And we say, I've told people, you need to go to the bank right now. Immediately from my store to the bank, close your bank account. Now there are people that think ahead of time, not just this area, but ministry folks and people that need hardware. And you help them. Talk about that for a minute, too, because I don't want to, we get to the end. We don't have enough time. You help but ton of people. So sometimes you don't have to buy a new computer. There are some people that have a lot of money and just want to buy a computer every time something goes wrong with their computer. That doesn't make any sense. Fix your computer. It gets my like us to help you out with fixing it. We also have refurbished computers. That means you can save 25 to 50% off a computer that's used maybe three or four years. Okay, has a brand new hard drive. So the computer is fine. All the software is cleaned off and you got a new fresh computer at half the cost. But a lot of times you don't have to get a new computer. We could just go in there. We could remote in. So we should be the only people that should ever remote into your computer. I'm just letting you know. You and your kids are your grandkids. Okay. But somebody who's physically related to you can come and go yell at them if you know who they are. Don't let anybody, no matter who they say they are, FBI does not remote in your computer. This is silly. They don't do things like that. So we could remote in and fix things most of the time over the phone. So we've helped people, especially through help your radio station all over the state. So we'll remote into somebody on the western slope or something like that and say, hey, 15 minutes. You don't have to buy and you could be here. This is a 15 minute fix. So when do people know I need to call Scott? You should always have the name of a computer person, whether it's me or some other company that's near you. You want to find somebody that you trust, develop that relationship ahead of time. Like you're more than welcome to call us. We've been in Denver for 42 years. We won the top IT company in Colorado for three years in a row. So we're reputable. We're not going anywhere. But you find somebody like that. Sometimes it's for the small things. Hey, I just got an email from Wells Fargo saying I need to change my password. Should I do that? And it doesn't have to be me. Please don't all email me the same email. But ask your friend. Ask your kids. Your grandkids, your husband, anybody to think about this with somebody else in there. Get somebody involved that they just you. Yeah. So when they call you, your team, you or your team, somebody jumps into it. It's one of the most common things people call you for. We have 10 people on the team. We have one person that answers the phone. So that's why when you're saying everybody calls, it's going to be a monster. Because you know you have a lot of people listening. But I'll just tell you the most common things that if you only hear this on this segment, you should restart your computer when something goes wrong. It's kind of simple. But sometimes in the middle of things you don't think about it. Hey, my Microsoft Word won't send, won't save anymore. Do you restart it? No, I started yesterday. No, but your problems today, restart your computer. Call me back if it doesn't work. We have that on our voicemail on our outgoing thing when you call us. It says restart your computer. If that doesn't work, then push to or whatever. Okay. You should change your passwords once a year. It's unbelievable how many people's passwords are hacked into. Interesting. So you should just change them every year. Your email and your financial stuff. Definitely. And if you have time, you change your Chick-fil-A1 and your R.E.I. sports and your deliveries. Okay. And the ones first, the ones that get tossed to you the most. Yes. Okay. And Amazon and eBay and Facebook. Because if those things are hacked into your Gmail and what's it called, iCloud for Apple, if somebody's in that account, people don't think about this because they set it up 15 years ago with their phone. If somebody gets into that, they know your location, they know your passwords, they have all your files, they have your credit card numbers and stuff like that. So you need to change your iCloud and Gmail passwords too for your phones. Do that once a year or two. They pay, right? So they have your stuff and... Have a lot of... Yeah. You got to change those that people don't even think about that you don't see and you don't type in but once every 15 years. So we've covered ID theft and just being wary. The whole thing of ID and scammers, that kind of thing. Let's... And then we've talked about you guys. Don't just go buy a new... I think people just say, "Oh, I got to buy a new computer. Got to go to Costco and get a MacBook." And you're saying, "Hey, hang on a minute here. There might be a great solution for a lot less, am I right?" Oh, definitely. Yeah. And a lot of people, we tell people, some people have more money than they have brains. It's not one insult to all your people. But well, that only sold a couple hundred people. Yeah. Sorry about that. But I mean, some people recycled... Oh my gosh, my... Whatever browser doesn't open, I should buy a new computer. Yeah. And it's a two-year-old computer. Yeah. You can fix this. We could fix this remotely and sometimes 15 minutes. We need to fix the human, right? Yeah. We could probably fix it. So you can call us for an estimate. We could do some stuff over the phone, bring it into our shop in Southeast Denver. Whatever it is, we're going to... I'll tell you the website. It's on site Denver.com. That has all the stuff. It's got more phone numbers. It's got my email address on there. It's got our directions. Stuff like that. You could bring it in or we could remote in. But we have a lot of ways that we could help you. And I think developing people that you trust around you is the key. You don't have to pay me. Okay? You could pay your grandson to remote it. Give him a pizza. And have him change your passwords for you on your eye cloud. You don't know how to do that. But he does. And he wants pizza. Right? So it doesn't have to be defined somebody now that you trust. So when you have something weird, you pick up the phone. Hey, is this what I should be doing? You know? So we have a lot of ways to help a lot of people. So nice. You know, that's one of the things that we have learned in your work with Scott. You help a ton of people. You connect them. Yeah. You're just in our community. You really end Denver in the Denver metro area. You see people and making sure that you do your blessing to them. Right. And that's what I thoroughly think that I'm gifted to do is connect people and help people out. If I ever retire, I'm still going to help people out. I'm just not going to get paid to do it. You can't retire. I've definitely. You just can't. So I love doing that. In fact, we had a client. We help a ministry called Mission Ministries. They helped some that's got a huge campus down in wires, Mexico. We got them about 75 laptops at our cost, which was about $75 to put batteries in and adapters and reload windows and stuff like that. So we got them about 75 computers. And while they were distributing them down in wires, Mexico, one of my other clients emails with me and says, Hey, I'm down here in wires, Mexico. And I've got a computer with your name on it. How did this happen? It's funny. But even in Mexico, those people have used on-site connection. That's crazy. Well, our listeners, it's Scott Hanky, on-site consulting. Scott, give them the connection points as well. How to get to it? On-site Denver, onsitdember.com, our phone number is on there. All the other stuff you could just come into our showroom. We've got refurbished computers. We could remote in if we have to. We'll even give you some kind of discount. I don't know what it's going to be. Free tune up. If you just mentioned that you heard us on this radio station, bring it in. If you don't have a clue how old your computer is, is there something wrong with it? Should I buy a new computer? Should I not buy a new computer? Should I fix it? Whatever. Please just bring it in. We'll just do that for free. That's awesome. Thank you so much. You're such a blessing to us and so many of our ministry and business partners. Thank you, Scott. I am a national treasure. You are.
People new to Reformed theology may wonder just what it was about a five-hundred-year-old historical movement that affects our thinking so much today. So join Dr. Stephen Nichols for an inviting, approachable take on "Reformation 101," as he explores the events of the Protestant Reformation from the perspective of important figures from each of four key countries in this seven-part teaching series. More than a history lesson, Dr. Nichols helps believers understand why the Reformation mattered then and matters now.
So, what do you know about October 31st? Perhaps there are Halloween activities that spring to mind, but how familiar are you with the Protestant Reformation? Well, many of the freedoms and blessings most Christians enjoy, even the accessibility of the Word of God in one's own language, is the direct result of the Reformation. At its beginning in Germany and Switzerland, several priests sought freedom from the Roman Catholic Church. It was clear to everyone, desiring assurance of pardon from sin and eternal life that the church was in need of reform. People had little knowledge of what the Bible taught, and superstitions held people in profound darkness. Those who led the church were often corrupt and immoral, but God was at work even during these dark times. These men, and in time many women, labored and sacrificed at times even to their deaths. To see the church return to biblical practices. Join us as we hear the stories of two such devoted Christian heroes, Ulrich and Anna Zwingli. October 31st, a day that has grown to have merchandise and themed events that rival more than one or two national holidays. In the ways our culture promotes and engages in traditions of this day, might ask if there are alternatives to Halloween. If a person is not an enthusiast about graveyards, the grim reaper or the undead, what are the other options? Well, today we're going to introduce a historic event that may surprise our listeners that it also began on October 31st. On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. To illustrate this, I'm going to speak with Ulrich Zwingli and his wife Anna today about their part and the Reformation. This reenactment will be a wonderful opportunity for you to hear more about the Reformation, and we're so excited to have you here. Thank you, Mike. We had a small part to play, but found ways to bless the work of God in his church and in our city of Zurich. I'm really grateful you both came today. Please share with us some of your story. And Anna, I'm going to come to you next. Thank you, Herd Trim. I was raised in Zurich. Before Orra came to the city, I had already been married and widowed. My family ran and in, and it was when I was 17, when a young nobleman and I were married in secret. Because of my social status, it was unacceptable to his parents. He was a political figure in Zurich. But due to financial hardships, he became a soldier and he died in battle. I had three children at the time. After Anna's husband died, I arrived to be the priest for the church in Zurich in 1518. And I tutored Anna's son. He was a talented student. So tell me, how did you become married? Marriage was forbidden for priests. But I could not find in the Bible a clear command not to marry. In fact, I found that marriage was held up as highly honorable and that the Bible even included being a faithful husband as one of the qualifications to be a pastor. But to avoid arrest, we kept our marriage a secret. This was my first public controversy in 1522, though not many knew of our marriage. It came to light in 1524, just before Anna and I had our first child. So what happened next? We want our listening friends to hear what is memorable about the Reformation. Well, in Switzerland, which is my country, many were hungry to hear God's word. I began preaching that salvation was found in Christ alone by grace alone. Beginning to teach only from the Bible in church was a new idea. In my first position at Zurich, I found as I preached from the Bible that the people, even unfortunately the clergy in the church, had a poor understanding of the truth from God's Word. How so? Well, they didn't know that the Bible teaches how to be saved from our sins. Okay, so give me an example. I had never seen a Bible in my life. I knew very little about what it taught. I could pray prayers that church required us to learn prayers like Ave Maria, but it was not God's word. We tried to earn God's approval. We thought that by doing things like giving money, saying many prayers over and over again, or helping others would make us better people and make us acceptable in God's eyes. So this event, the Reformation from October 31 to 1517, how did it change that? And why and how is this still important now? Well, let me ask you a question that I think will help answer your question. If I asked 10 people today about how a person can be saved, how many different answers would I get? Yeah, I'm not sure. And if I asked even more people, I'd get even more answers, all different. Well, in my day, you might not have gotten as many different answers, but they would not have given the correct answer. The Reformation brought God's word to us and with it, the answer to how we are saved. And we find that answer in the Scriptures. We discovered a new that salvation is in Jesus Christ alone. Without the Reformation, we would have continued to be ignorant of this life-changing truth. So getting the truth proclaimed is challenging in the 21st century as much as it was in the 16th century. And there are many ways to get something wrong, but only one way is right. Exactly. I desire to promote the Christian faith as it's described in Scripture. And I learned this by studying the pages of God's word. Through the influence of centuries of church tradition, the Christian faith had become almost unrecognizable. The Reformation emanated from Zerad through gospel ministry. So you encountered opposition to this and were there those who would prevent the truth from being shared? Sadly, yes, there were many reasons to keep people in ignorance. I wrote a letter to our bishop, Hugo of Holen-Lindenburg, our most reverent father, begging him to help us. I appealed to him, pleading that he would see how the message of salvation has been hidden for many years, and that we have been working hard to restore it and share it with others, but that there were many who were trying to stop us. How did they try to stop you? Oh, in so many ways, the opposition attempted to harm the Protestants as we had become called. Oric lived in the continual threat of assassination or kidnapping. He could not leave our home after dark alone. I had to arrange for men to escort him back home if he was out late. He had to be careful where he ate or drank, for fear of poisoning. One time, when I was at home, some of those who would not yield to the truth and were opposed to the message that we were trying to spread came to our house and they threw stones at our windows. That must have been alarming and very concerning to you. Yes, the children and I were terrified, but Oric challenged our foes. He was not one to back down, and he yelled to them to come back in the morning if they wanted to do battle. To preach our protector, I also understand that you worked on translating the Bible onto the Swiss German language. Is that correct? Oh, I thought the people needed to have God's word in their own language. I began the work in 1525, and as I copied a page by page, I would give the sheets to Anna so that she could read and proofread them before we went to bed. This work took many years, but it was finally finished in 1529. We had it published and gave them away to the people of Zurich so that they could read the Bible for themselves. It was magnificent. People could read the Word of God and know the love of Christ straight from the Bible. I even gave Anna a copy as well. That was the best gift Oric ever gave me, except for maybe our children. But to have the Word of God was such a treasure and it became my favorite book. I think there's so much about the Reformation that so many people don't know and having the opportunity to talk with Oric and Anna today about their partner Reformation that's helped illuminate for all of us so much more about this event that happened October 31 in 1517. Thank you, Mike. Not called me to preach for several years while I was in Zurich, giving the people nothing but the true, pure and clear Word of God. The joyous message of Christ by the aid of the Holy Spirit, but I was maligned as a heretic. I was called a deceiver and a liar. I would only ask that those who think these things would give reasons and speak kindly without anger. I desire peace, so I know that things may end in conflict. Well we know that the conflict intensified and finally burst on October 11, 1531. On the 9th news came that the Roman Catholic army was approaching Zurich, so wingly went along with the Protestant forces as a chaplain. And Anna came out of the parcinage to say goodbye to her husband and she burst into tears. The hour has come that separates us. He said to her, "Let it be so, the Lord wills." He died in battle with many others. His labors had come to an untimely end. The Protestant Reformation brought vital change to the church founded by Jesus Christ and the Apostles. God restored his Word to his people and he revived and renewed them. The process was long and difficult and as we heard from Ulrich and Anna Zwingli and as the word of God teaches, those who take the name of Christ will be persecuted. Many men, women and children suffered and lost their lives to live as God in his Word calls his people to live for him. If learning more about the Protestant Reformation interest you, there are a couple resources. One is the online library of Liberty. You can go to oll.libertyfun.org to find translated writings of Ulrich Zwingli himself. Then there is another excellent resource from Ligonier Ministries. You can go to their page and you'll find Reformation profiles that have Zwingli and actually a number of other reformers that are commended as well because many men and women labored even and too death for the changes that we now enjoy. You'll find seven episodes in their series called Reformation Profiles at Ligonier Ministries that cover the essential truths about the Christian faith and the individuals that God used to help recover these truths. Go to store.Ligonier.org that's L-I-G-O-N-I-E-R and search Reformation Profiles. You'll even be able to watch the first episode online for free. So again go to store.Ligonier.org and search for Reformation Profiles. And find out why the Reformation mattered then and why it still matters now.
Liz talks with Craig Huey, CEO of Creative Direct Marketing Group, author, and he appears often on Fox, Newsmax, C-Span, radio, and podcasts nationwide. They will discuss the fact that 104 million People of faith—including 32 million Christian regular churchgoers are projected to abstain from voting in the 2024 Election and how their votes will make a difference. For more information please visit: Craighuey.com
https://kimmonson.com/2024-colorado-voters-ballot-guide/ Kim Monson’s 2024 Voter’s Guide offers clear, independent analysis through the lens of Freedom vs. Force, Force vs. Freedom to help you make informed decisions at the ballot box. This guide cuts through the complexity, focusing on what matters most—your rights, your money, and your future.
I'm Rachel mains with Crawford Media Group and joining me today is Kim Munson with the Kim Munson show the airs on our sister station AM560. Kim welcome Rachel great to be with you. Great to have you to discuss the 2024 Colorado Voters Ballot Guide. Kim you've done the legwork you know it is voting season this is really necessary for us to really understand the issues I've said to you multiple times they make it confusing. You think right? I think Rachel that people have ballot fatigue as you look at just on the state issues not including any of the local issues or county or school district issues there's 14 issues on the state ballot alone and people are busy they want they want to do their civic duty they want to vote they want to be informed and then you have all of the this chatter out there and all of these campaigns that are coming up people to try to convince them to pass something the probably isn't in our best interest so that's why I did the voter's guide. Yes Kim how many years have you done a voter's guide? I think I started in 2015 and Rachel it was one of the first voter's guides out there now there's all kinds of voter's guides but I think people have come to really trust this because I'm not paid or quote earth to take a position I look at each of these issues as what is best for the individual and also how does that match up with our American idea of limited government where the individual has liberty and so that's my lens that I work on as I put this voters guide together how long does it take you to study the issues hours the hours and hours between Zach my media marketing guy and we put together he put together something beautiful if you've taken a look if you go to my website KimMunson.com just request the guide you all you need to do is put in your name and your email and that way if something changes or some update we can let you know but then you'll get a link you'll receive a link for the one page summation of everything and then also the online version and Zach went through and actually chose historical and Renaissance paintings that had some relevance to the the actual issue and so it makes it somewhat pleasant to go through and do that research but it took us hours and hours. Well thank you for doing this so many of us we don't have time within our busy lives but we want to be good citizens and we want to make sure that we're voting correctly and with the value system that you have and that you talk about on your show now can let's go over we can't we don't have time to go over all of them but let's highlight some really important issues here. Okay let's go through one that was really difficult first of all amendments to the constitution should be very few and far between and there's one two three four five six seven questions on the ballot as amendments to the constitution and I'm a no on all those and we shouldn't be cluttering the constitution with a lot of different amendments but the the first one was difficult for me to take and that was it's a tax a property tax break for unemployable veterans and Rachel as you know I love our veterans I love our military and it's almost like they use use our veterans to get us to pass things that are not good so the underlying issue here well two things is first of all putting people into groups dividing us and then taxing people differently is unfair and it's based in Marxism and so the bottom line though is we really think about it as property taxes are too high and so ultimately what we should do instead of passing amendment G is lower property taxes across the board for everyone that way then are unemployable veterans get a tax break but also we need to lower that for everyone so that's the premise that I took and it was gut wrenching to to take that position but I think it's the right thing to do yeah that's what happens the language with a lot of these amendments it confuses you because you think yeah I love veterans and then if you don't really take the time like you've done to really look at that and have the proper lens we end up voting yes and we don't really know what we voted for right and so that's it's so important to delve into this another one this um let's see is amendment 79 and that would enshrine in our constitution taxpayer funded abortion so this is not really the abortion question uh although that that is certainly part of it but to enshrine in the constitution that taxpayers pay for someone else's abortion that should not be an amendment to the constitution right really good okay what's another one Kim uh this has been one that has actually been supported by a number of Republicans and conservatives and as amendment 80 which is school choice and initially when I read the ballot question of course we love the fact that we could have school choice but we link the text to what you're really voting on because the ballot question is just a summation and if you go to the text the second bullet point uh well the first bullet point says that parents should have the right to direct the education of their children um school choice and that sounds good but the second bullet point says uh children K through 12 have the right to school choice that looks to me like it is boxing parental rights out and when I asked the the organizers that have put this on the ballot I said I'm very concerned about this language and they said well we've talked to our attorneys and they're just fine with it I see this is danger danger to enshrine this in the constitution where it's ambiguous regarding parental rights or does the child have the right to school choice because it is probably well intentioned but poorly written I recommend a no yes really good Kim thank you let's talk about another issue uh let's go to proposition 131 which is ranked choice voting and that is being sold as modernizing our elections are you tired of the parties fighting with each other all that rhetoric and of course people are tired of politics but what rank choice voting would do is basically take away your one person one vote uh it is uh there's actually two questions in this uh ballot question one is first of all what's called jungle primaries so you could have 10 15 20 different people on your ballot first of all Rachel how are you going to research each each and every one of them and then many times politicians don't tell you who they really are right so it would be very difficult to research all of these people in this jungle primary and you can only vote for one but then out of that the top four vote getters then go to the general ballot and you would rank them one two three and four and so you do that and so a person might get 49% of the vote they might be the top vote getter but then there's all these different rounds of computer calculations of the lowest vote counter uh they are removed from the ballot their second and third choice is recalibrated and uh they go through another round and ultimately you could have a candidate that maybe only got 25 or 30% of the vote uh ultimately being declared the winner because of this computer algorithm recalculation very difficult to audit and it really takes away your dilute your vote of the person who you really want to get elected so it's very bad but there's big money that is being put into it last I checked just under 11 million dollars to try to get people to vote for it and people from both sides of the aisle are supporting it which is very disappointing but uh bear in mind that kind of money coming in is not because they want to make sure that we the little guys our voices are heard what will happen is only the rich or the candidates that the rich choose will ever be able to get onto the ballot so I'm a strong no on prop 131 ranked choice voting yeah sounds so confusing and that's a red flag to me it's like I I can't even understand this you know it's like this percentage and that when when it gets real confusing it's like why are we trying to make it confusing simple is always best in my opinion well and I think it was James Madison one of our founding fathers said that at the law should not be so voluminous that we can't understand them right and that's how we've gotten into this position right now we have all these laws and amendments and propositions and we need to have less not more exactly all right Kim what's another issue well I guess I'll go big picture a rapaho county Jefferson County and R.T.D. and Lakewood they are all asking to detabird now taper is our Colorado's taxpayers bill of rights and you hear respondents all the time talk about greedy businessmen or is it Thomas Sol the economist said is it really greedy for me to want to keep more of my own money but so this detaboring would mean that excess revenue above a very generous formula under taper of inflation plus population growth if these entities want to keep that additional revenue then they just need to ask us well they want these questions are saying we don't want to ever have to ask you again and also under a rapaho and Jefferson County they have property tax caps and this would get rid of that as well so the answer on all of those a rapaho county Jefferson County R.T.D. and Lakewood detaboring should be no and the reason is so that you can keep more of your money in your pocket instead of greedy governmental entities wanting to keep it all yeah that's good Kim and I'm talking to Kim Munson the host of the Kim Munson show and you can go to her website Kim Munson.com also we have some great resources including Kim's voter guide if you go to our website 670kltt.com/vote that's 670kltt.com/vote so Kim what's another issue a proposition KK which is an excise tax on firearms and ammunition and this is a direct assault upon the second amendment and what I'm really concerned about is that it is going to make it more expensive particularly for that single mom that might be in a neighborhood that is dangerous and right now we're having our neighborhoods become more and more dangerous and she may want to have a firearm to protect herself and her family this excise tax would make it more difficult for her to do that and so that is why I am really recommending a strong no on proposition KK because it is unconstitutional but it also makes it more difficult for law-biting citizens to protect themselves and the bad guys are not going to pay this tax it's only going to be us the law-biting citizens that would pay it so we're strong no on that as well great what's another issue Kim I would say that this proposition 127 regarding limiting the hunting of predators of big cats and there still will be management of those cat populations but it will be done by government which means we'll be paying taxes to do that right now we have a very healthy management of predators between the Colorado public while wildlife and our hunting industry which brings a lot into the economy and so this is really I think trying to prevent hunters from being able to hunt these big cats and keep those populations in check and Rachel a man hunting predators has been part of the big circle of life since the beginning of time and so when you take that out of the equation then the predator populations grow makes it more dangerous for our livestock producers but it also makes it more dangerous as people like to go to the mountains to hike and so that's a strong no on prop 127 as well and I just want to mention once again you can go to Kim's website KimMunson.com and learn more about her radio program where she talks about these issues daily and has great guests on and you can put your name in and email and sign up for the butter guy as well Kim anything else we can go over we have a couple minutes left okay basically on my voters guide I am recommending a no on all of the state issues except proposition 128 which seemed like it made sense to me that violent offenders would serve most of their sentences before they were eligible for parole that seemed to make sense to me I've had some some people that have reached out and said that know that they would disagree with me on prop proposition 128 but that would still make sense to me so I am a yes on that otherwise I'm recommending no on everything but don't take my word for it look at my reasoning see if it makes sense to you great if if you see it differently I'm not offended I just want you to think about these issues right get us involved in the process thank you so much I've been talking with Kim Munson you can go to her website KimMunson.com learn more about her radio show also go to our website we have a link to Kim's voter guide but we also have more resources at 670kltt.com/vote Rachel thank you
Well, hey, it's Mike Traim with Prophetic Media Group. Today we're joined by Pastor J. Ewing. J is the Community Life Pastor for Calvary Bible Church and Ery. J, thanks for taking some time with us. Yeah, Mike, it's really good to sit down and chat with you. It's pretty cool to be in this arena with you and this this medium. And we're talking about pastors appreciation month. And J, it just seems like it's become a perfunctory treatment for pastors appreciation month. Everybody says, yeah, we appreciate our pastors and maybe there's some no cards and people remember and other people just flies right by them. And I want to talk about what a pastor really feels like and what you appreciate. Some of the assumptions that we make in the church, that kind of thing. Yeah, Mike, that's great. Yeah, it is a month. I mean, I've been in ministry for 20 years now and when I was in nowhere, Kansas preaching that for a year, pastor appreciation month with double plate of cookies each week. Which at the time, my roommates, my roommates enjoyed on a Sunday afternoon watching football, but it's definitely changed in the years. Yeah, and what does it feel like now? What do you see? And does it feel like a different month or is it just, you know, it's okay, but whatever. No, I think actually most pastors would like the recognition during that month and most of them assume that no one knows that it's actually in October. In fact, I was just talking to my wife the other night about it and she was like, I didn't know there was a month for you. Right. I'm sure she said that really snidely too, right? Yeah, I don't know that there should be a month for you, but I guess there is, right? Well, my sixth grade daughter was like, so are they going to make you a gift basket or something? Because she wanted some of the candy that came, that would come in the basket, right? She knows what it comes with appreciation and that church, I think. Yeah. Food. Food. No, but actually I, I think it's a really great month, especially for someone who's in a congregation to realize that, you know, they have pastors in their midst who they love, they appreciate that it's a place where we can pause and write a card, especially handwritten card in these days. Yes. And make sure our pastor understands that we really do see them and appreciate the work that they do. I think the handwritten card is, that's so important, such a good suggestion or recommendation on your part because it's an email these days. If you're lucky or somebody in the hallway got, appreciate you, bro. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. But to have a note where somebody thoughtfully wrote down, and you know Pastor Jay, I really appreciate this about you. That matters a lot. Well, yeah. And those notes as a pastor, I was taught long ago is to keep them in a file, keep them handy for those reasons where it is dry and it is hard. And you forget sort of why you do this at times. It's good to go back to those notes and make sure you remind yourself that you are making a difference and that the kingdom of God is deeper and broader than you think it is. You know, one of the things that we talked about just for a minute before we started is, for pastors, it is, it isn't all easy. And you know, coming on Sunday mornings and in our other interactions, whether it's 55 plus night or, you know, whatever's going on, a men's retreat, we can get as people congregants coming to the church. We can get that impression that, you know, this guy is positive, he is upbeat, it's always good. You know, being a pastor at church, maybe that's a pretty not easy gig, but you know, everything is rosy and that's not the case a lot of times. That's right. That's right. That's right. I think that most people don't realize that we have normal lives just as those in the congregation. We have to make grocery lists and we have to do and schedules beyond even our work commitments. In fact, you know, we even have to dust them back in our house at times and, you know, do those simple chores and they forget that we're just normal people who outside of that normalcy are just stewards of God's grace and messengers in the kingdom. And so, you know, we have issues, we have medical needs, we have personal stories of disappointment with our own family members, just like probably you do and many of us do. And so, yeah, you can see them in the polished light on Sunday or at an event and think, gosh, they have it easy, but reality is they're really normal people just like you and I. He's the speaker with Pastor J. Ewing. He's the community life pastor, Calvary Bible Church Erie. It's CalvaryBible.com. That's the website CalvaryBible.com. And Pastor J, it's, I remember sitting out with the pastor a couple of years ago and he said, let me tell you what's gone on my family and I thought he was really, really transparent. And he just shared some things and I got the sense that maybe he doesn't have that many people to share this with because he's always got to be on. And is that something you see and how do you deal with that? Yeah, that's a really, really good observation, Mike. I think the reality is that pastors are guilty on some of this of not being known and not having themselves in a community where they can be real and authentic and have a place where those individuals can really lift them up and encourage them to listen without judgment or disappointment in their own perceived leadership or whatever that would be for pastors. It can be a very lonely and isolating thing if the pastor chooses not to have that community. And then also a church, a congregation, an elder board that makes sure they ask the question, are you in communities somewhere and where are you and does someone know who you are and what's going on in your world? And Mike, you've seen the headlines, I've seen the headlines. I feel really awful for some of these churches that have these major revelations of pastors. And I just think man, they must have just been isolated for way too long for things like that to surface. Yeah, I've heard that question a few times from really in tune people, hey, how are you really done? I mean, is there anybody speaking? And do your life, is there anybody encouraging you? And if we have pastors and I think what we're identifying is there are pastors across Denver, across Colorado that would have to answer that if they're being honest. No, not really. Because all the reasons we just talked about. Yeah, definitely. And some congregations just don't have a lot of people for you to be in the community with. You know, a lot of these great pastors who are, dear saints, are obscure and they live in places, maybe in small towns in Colorado, small town towns here. And maybe they're in smaller communities with churches. And that's got to be really hard to be the only individual there who's called to that place, which is a beautiful thing. But also the reality of like that can be very isolating. And so to those guys and gals and those in ministry, I would say find it outside of that town. And find it within maybe those individuals you went to school with, seminary with, those individuals that you meet at conferences and have a community no matter what size of the congregation or fact the size of the town. We're speaking with Pastor Jay about showing appreciation. And Jay, how does a pastor want someone in the church? And like you said, it's not just pastors. We really need to talk about and include the lay people, the volunteers, the people that are working with the senior and teaching pastor that are involved. And they have a lot of these needs too. How do we show that sincere appreciation? What are some of the ways that we might not think of? Yeah. I think there's several ways. One is appreciate their family. So that person in ministry, make sure that your congregation, your church is treating their spouse, their kids, their extended family with a lot of honor and respect. Knowing that that individual has to give up, part of their relationship, or their spouse to serve in ministry. And so making sure you're honoring them, making sure that they know that they're valued, their family's valued, that you appreciate the time that they sacrifice away and vice versa. And so that's one thing. And in Pastor Appreciation Month, I would say pray for the pastor's extended family, spouse's kids. And then there's some creative ways. I think if you're a healthy congregation, you're moving towards grading a rhythm where pastors and ministry leaders can get rest. So either that's a one month or two month or even if you can find a way to make it three months of like a sabbatical, that's a regular rhythm at your church as totally natural for your congregation. That has been one of the greatest gifts I have received in ministry. And each congregation has its challenges, has a budget, has needs of making sure there's someone filling the pulpit every week. However, your pastor's longevity will be due to some regular rhythms of rest. And then finally, I think creatively, especially in this month and even in this year, find ways to really encourage them. Okay, what are their favorite hobbies? What are their interests? You know, if they are a book lover, get them a gift card to Amazon so they can buy books that they like. If they love to be active and outdoors, get them a state, Colorado State Park Pass or a national park pass. There's also ways to make sure you're teaching your pastor and ministry leader to stay healthy. The congregation takes the tab on a gym membership. Those are little subtle ways to really say we see you, we acknowledge you, we want you to be healthy, we want you to be here, especially in past appreciation month. Those are also good. You know, I love the family, the kids just knowing that person's wife or spouse, if it's one of the female staff members and just having that partnership, that relationship, then the rest. And I know with Calvary, Calvary makes that a priority. So you guys go on sabbatical every seven years? It is. It is. Six years. Six years, okay. Yeah. Yeah, right in the seven. You know, actually, that's a big thing for me. If my family loves the church, so if my kids are excited, if my spouse is excited to be at church as a pastor, that makes my job so much more easy and leading and being present at church. And so the congregation has a lot to do with if a kid, you know, can they run around on the weekday and be a little churchmife and no one actually gets on to them? You know, can my wife enjoy coming to Sunday because she's not being criticized for the pastor? You know, those are little things that really lead up. That's really good. Yeah, if your wife's happy, it sure helps, right? It's like, yeah, honey, I love you working here. Totally. Totally. And you know, kids, if they think they walk through the door and see that their parent is honored among these people, they're going to be excited to be there as well. Yeah, that's really good. It's Pastor J. Ewing. He's the community life pastor for Calvary Bible Church. Erie. It's CalvaryBible.com, CalvaryBible.com. J, if somebody wants to reach out to Calvary, if they're in our neck of the woods and don't have a church home, what contact information should they know? Yeah, you can always get ahold of us by our website as well as know that we have a weekly podcast called The Weekly, where we sort of talk about the rhythms of the message that we preached on Sunday with the preacher. The things that they leave behind, it's a really fun conversation. You can tune in at calvarybible.com by going to The Weekly, as well as if you're in the area, if you're in Northern Colorado, we would love to see you there. Calvary is, like it said, it's named as the Bible as the Word of God is centered to our faith community and we would love to see you there. Yeah, Bible church, wonderful families and ages, all age groups represented. It's pretty amazing. So Pastor Jay, thanks for taking the time with us. Yeah, Mike, I really appreciate this opportunity. Thanks so much, Jay.