Ideas Have Consequences
Everything that we see around us is the product of ideas, of ideologies, of worldviews. That's where everything starts. Worldviews are not all the same, and the differences matter a lot. How do you judge a tree? By its fruits. How do you judge a worldview? By its physical, tangible, observable fruit. The things it produces. Ideas that are noble and true produce beauty, abundance, and human flourishing. Poisonous ideas produce ugliness. They destroy and dehumanize. It really is that simple. Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of Disciple Nations Alliance, where we prepare followers of Christ to better understand the true ideas that lead to human flourishing while fighting against poisonous ideas that destroy nations. Join us, and prepare your minds for action!
Ideas Have Consequences
The 2025 DNA Forum: Key Takeaways from Panama
Episode Summary:
In this episode, we reflect on our time at the recent DNA family Global Forum in Panama. We share personal highlights, moving stories, and key insights on the essential role of the local church in discipling nations. From the power of truth to the necessity of addressing social issues, the conversation explores why righteousness, not size or wealth, determines a nation’s greatness. Together, we unpack how ideas shape culture and why Christians must remain faithful in their discipleship, rooting God’s truth deeply in the life of their communities.
Who is Disciple Nations Alliance (DNA)? Since 1997, DNA’s mission has been to equip followers of Jesus around the globe with a biblical worldview, empowering them to build flourishing families, communities, and nations. 👉 https://disciplenations.org/
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Yes, we do need to reach the nations. We need to see people come to faith in Jesus. Churches need to be planted. But if we leave those nations and lots of nations come into my mind right now, nations like Rwanda, guatemala, nicaragua, paraguay, united States even if we leave those nations in lawlessness, injustice, tyranny of different kinds, we fall short.
Speaker 2:Hi friends, welcome back to Ideas have Consequences. The official podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. The goal of this show is to share with you the power of truth to transform nations, and to do that, we examine how our mission as show is to share with you the power of truth to transform nations, and to do that, we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nations, which, of course, is extremely important, but we also are called to go beyond that, because our mission also includes being the hands and feet of God to transform the nations to increasingly reflect his truth, goodness and beauty to the world. Tragically, most of the church has largely neglected this second part of our mission and today many Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures and nations. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God. My name is Luke Allen, I'm the producer of this show and today I am joined by our usual host, acting co-host today, and my dad, scott Allen hey, dad, hey, luke, thanks for joining us and as well as my colleague, co-host and good friend, tim Williams. Hey, tim, great to be here. Yeah, this is fun.
Speaker 2:We are all really fired up today because we are coming off of the DNA equivalent of a Camp High or Jesus High, because we just got back from the Disciple Nations Alliance's global forum down in Panama City, panama, last week. We all just flew back a couple of days ago, so we're still just feel very encouraged, filled up and just really excited for the work that we have ahead of us here at the DNA because of just such an encouraging time that we were able to spend with our DNA global family last week. It was such a fun time. We had four days together. There was, I think, over 100 people there and just every day filled with amazing conversations, with worship, with tons of teachings, with stories of what God's doing in and through the DNA around the world.
Speaker 2:So we wanted to share with you guys a little bit about the week for anyone who wasn't able to be there, and also we just wanted to thank anyone who was down there with us for joining us. I know it's not easy to fly that far for so many people. It's expensive and it takes a lot of time. So we're just super thankful and blessed that each one of you guys who were down there spent the time with us. So today we just wanted to share with you guys a little bit of our personal takeaways from the forum and give you guys a little bit of a behind the scenes on the week. For anyone who couldn't make it, dad, would you just share a little bit about just what these forums are, what they look like, who comes to these and your takeaways from the week?
Speaker 1:Sure. Thanks, luke. Yeah, so the DNA is Global Forum. It's something we do approximately every three years. I think there was a few times we did it every other year, but it's about every three years. It's something that we move around the world. Typically we will do it somewhere in Africa, somewhere in the United States. We've done them in Asia and in recent years we've been doing them more in Latin America, just because as we did this time in Panama because right now, for whatever reasons God's reasons there's just a lot of interest in the DNA's teaching and training in the Spanish-speaking world, and so the forum is a time where people that I call it the family time, and it's where people that are heavily invested in the mission of the DNA have gone through our training and in many cases, or most cases, people go beyond that.
Speaker 1:They're training others. They have integrated the DNA's kind of core training into the training that their organizations are using. These are often church leaders, organization leaders. It can be anyone. So if you've never let me just mention this if you've never been to a DNA Global Forum, the first step is to go through Cororum Deo, our core training, and you can get that by going online to quorumdeocom and there you'll find our core training, basics course number one and number two. Go through that and then, once you do that, you begin to put it into practice, and we've got ways that you can do that. That puts you into a category of engagement with the DNA that we call Kingdomizers, and the forum is really a gathering of Kingdomizers from around the world. So we would love to have you come, if you haven't.
Speaker 1:It's an incredible time of really the purpose of it is just learning. You know what is God doing. It's learning from each other. How have you put this into practice? What's really exciting, what's working well? Sharing kind of models of ministry, hearing from good teachers, really excellent teachers on topics that relate to the DNA. So we encourage each other, learn from each other. It's just it's a time to just kind of really grow the ministry exponentially through connection with one another. Luke, tim, do you guys want to add anything to that in terms of what the forum is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, how many forums have we done at this point? It's been quite a few, I should know that number honestly?
Speaker 1:Maybe 12, 15? Oh no, probably more than that, yeah, I mean, I'd say it's up into the 20s now, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what's fun is a lot of times when people kind of you know join the DNA family in a way. You know, have these ideas really impact them? Is it changes your life? It really does. It changes the way you see the world, obviously because it's worldview. But with that, a lot of the people that come to these have been coming for years and years and years and it's it's kind of like a family reunion in that ways.
Speaker 2:The guy I spent the first dinner with the first night, demolish from Ethiopia. He's been a part of the DNA since I think he said 1999. So right after I was born, and he's committed and he just comes back every year. So it's he's seen me grow up and now it's fun to talk ideas with him, now that I understand them too. So it's, it's fun just having such a history and because of that history it's fun to hear the stories of how, over, you know, almost 30 years now, god's just worked through the DNA and through all of these trainers around the world, each of us in our own settings, in our own lanes, in our own communities and nations, and at this point the seeds that were planted in the 90s have really started to grow and it's so cool to hear those types of stories of impact where it's years and years of God's faithfulness.
Speaker 2:Also just coming away from last week, let's just do a couple roundtable questions for everyone listening. First, the first one just overall highlight. You know that one takeaway you're coming away from last week. I guess I can go first. My overall highlight was just I just said it was the meals. It was the opportunity to sit down and I, yeah, the meals themselves.
Speaker 2:The food was awesome but your highlight was the food the highlight was the food after that I was good, it was good, it was really good food. It was amazing. Um, come to the forums, there's great food, uh, but no, the food was good, but the what I was doing while eating the food, the conversations that I had with people were super encouraging for us. Just coming out of the DNA headquarters we call it up here in the US a lot of times you can feel a little bit isolated, especially now that we're working remote.
Speaker 2:Just you know every day pouring into this ministry, and sometimes there's a disconnect between what we're doing and the actual boots on the ground work being done in other nations. So for me, I'm just always so curious to have the opportunity to just sit down face to face and hear about. You know what is God doing in and through you and your life, and you've been affected by the DNA's teaching and just the power of biblical worldview. Um, what is that looking like? And you know how's that being played out in Paraguay or Ethiopia, or you know wherever these people are coming from. It's that that, to me, is super encouraging and, um, it almost feels like a small slice of heaven. Cause, that's exactly what I want to do when I get to heaven is just ask people about their lives and the way God worked through them in their time and their place. Um, so that was my overall takeaway coming away from it. What about you guys?
Speaker 1:You know, I think for me, luke, my overall highlight from the forum. It's hard to answer that question because there was a lot of highlights, but actually you know it was a session and I know that's a question you want to ask later. What session stood out to you? So I'm going to answer both of these questions in one answer.
Speaker 1:My highlight from the forum was a session that was led it was a workshop by a woman from Paraguay named Luisa, and she was talking about what has happened in Paraguay since the first vision conference was done there. The DNA's core training was done at a live vision conference in Paraguay. I think this was about 15 years ago and I was stunned by all the ripples and the influence that had come out of that one vision conference that I wasn't aware of. She herself was a key person involved in that follow-up. She had a career in civil service. She was actually a police officer at the federal level in Paraguay. Just really wonderful person, very organized as well.
Speaker 1:But some of the things that I learned was that from her in this session was here's just a few highlights that kind of really stood out to me they formed a network. These are the people that organized that first vision conference followed up the vision conference by organizing a network, and the mission of the network was to integrate and empower local churches to fulfill the great agenda of God and be transforming agents through integral discipleship in all spheres of society. They actually had a strategy they divided up Paraguay into zones with the goal of, in each of those zones, having a network in the zones, with the specific goal of reaching the pastors and the churches in that zone, with the specific goal of reaching the pastors and the churches in that zone, and the consequence of all that over the years is that I mean, I don't think there's hardly a church in that nation that hasn't been exposed to the training.
Speaker 1:They continue to use the Quorum Deo online Spanish version to kind of spread the training and get it out, have replicated the live vision conferences by training trainers, so they have trained trainers. Now in Paraguay we end those vision conferences and our core training with encouraging churches to kind of collectively do what we call seed projects, do strategic actions that are aimed at discipling nations. Luisa said they have literally hundreds of stories of seed projects that are being done all over Paraguay and in addition, she mentioned that they've done retreats for young people in Paraguay. They have reading groups. They have brought in a really close DNA partner, work for a Living, and so they have a Work for a Living strategy, working in impoverished communities to train people not only in biblical worldview but in job skills training. They have a database. They have a database of all the people that have been, you know, kind of connected through and they have a communication strategy. A couple other things and I'll pass it off to you. They actually work with a group called the let me see if I can get this correct here. It's called ISEP, which stands for the Association Iglesias Evangelicals Paraguay, that's the Association of Evangelicals Churches in Paraguay.
Speaker 1:Many nations have these kinds of associations of evangelical churches. This is the main one for the nation of Paraguay and they work so closely with that network that that network essentially has made the DNA's core training their mission, and that just kind of blew my mind. So they've adopted completely this strategy for all evangelical churches in Paraguay. And I think another thing that really stood out to me is that not only are they spreading and following up and doing so much to disciple the nations I mean, one of the young ladies that was there at the forum is a part of this network. She's got her law degree and now she's working at very high levels in the area of law in Paraguay in order to bring alignment between the legal systems and structures in that nation in a biblical worldview. That's just one example. But yeah, one other thing was they actually part of that network includes some very wealthy individuals in Paraguay, mennonites who in that country have, you know, have been very prosperous, and now those people are their local funders for the movement.
Speaker 1:And it brought to my mind. You know my research on the Clapham sect in England and how the Clapham sect, you know, had a clear strategy for discipling England, but it included bankers like Henry Thornton, really wealthy people that gave their money for the cause and I just was really stunned by the fact that they had cultivated the local resources to fund the work. So they're not coming to the United States or Europe, they've cultivated the resources and if you know anything about Paraguay, it's one of the poorest nations in South America actually. So it's not something you would expect. It's not Brazil or Argentina, this is a quite impoverished country but they're completely locally funded. I could go on, but that was just hearing. That blew my mind. I was incredibly grateful, I was shocked, I didn't know it and, yeah, I can't wait to kind of write this up.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah. Speaking of which we hopefully will have that in story form for you guys soon no-transcript. A fascinating little interview that Tim and I had the opportunity to do and you can keep an eye out for here on. Ideas have Consequences, so stay tuned, tim. What about you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that interview with Yasmeen was definitely a highlight, just hearing how God orchestrated her vocation. And you know that's something that we like to talk about a lot too is just how you know God has his people where he wants them. You know, much of the problem is they're not being his people where they are, you know. So it's not about being his people on a Sunday morning only or, you know, during church services. You know God wants his people in in the school system, he wants his people in government. He wants his people, yeah, taking care of the family, all of the different places in the marketplace. And so you know, she had a career that was just very instrumental in international relations and law. And then she got a job offer and she started working for, like someone who was kind of like a retired Supreme Court justice and all of these bills were coming through and she's evaluating these policies and looking for, you know, things that were coming in subtly, that were totally against a biblical worldview, and they don't just come right out and tell you, you know, oh, we want to introduce these terrible laws. They just kind of it gets very gray. So she had the opportunity to work in that field and to just very discerningly detect these and kind of alert policymakers about what's in them so that they could be aware.
Speaker 3:One of my favorite interviews that we had the chance to do with was with a couple of guys from Nicaragua and they are at a place called the Nehemiah Center, which exists because of work that DNA did and it was fun to see them and you know they approached Ken Ekstrom as they came up on that first night and was like hey, you don't know us, but 30 years ago you came and did a biblical worldview conference and you know we're still doing ministry the way we do it and with the direction and impact and connection as a result of that vision conference from 30 years ago and just a profound ministry really focused on in that area.
Speaker 3:Many pastors are just kind of sent to lead a church if they're literate and you know they're maybe one of the only ones that kind of. You know here's a Bible you can read. You know like, go lead a church. And so this Nehemiah Center's working with like more than 80 pastors just trying to get them trained, help them really understand what is the mission of church, what is the mission of God, how can you be a pastor? Well, you know how should you care about your community?
Speaker 2:Hi friends, I wanted to take a quick minute to tell you about the Kingdomizer training program, which is the DNA's most popular biblical worldview training course. It's available in seven languages and it's completely for free, and it's not one of those courses that's going to take you months to complete. In fact, most people finish the entire Kingdomizer 101 course in about seven hours total. These courses were created to help Christians live out their mandate to make disciples of all nations, starting with themselves and working out from there. I would recommend this course to any Christian who wants to stop living in a sacred secular divide that limits their faith to only some areas of life and start living quorum Deo, which means before the face of God, in all areas of your life.
Speaker 2:This course is great for individual study or it can be used by a small group or in a church class. We've had many churches use this course as a discipleship resource over the years and, by the way, as a quick heads up, we actually just began our next rendition of this course. So stay tuned as that will be coming out in the next year-ish To sign up today for the Kingdomizer training program. Head over to quorumdalecom and begin to have an impact for Christ on your culture that, if it's anything like mine, is in desperate need for truth and direction right now Again. To sign up, head over to quorumdalecom or tap the link in the show notes.
Speaker 3:And there's a second part of their story that really stands out to me, just because it's just incredible. You know, a lot of times to kind of something you said earlier, luke, we'll hear OK, I did the training Right, and so that's kind of like day zero, right, like what's going to happen now. I did the training Right, and so that's kind of like day zero Right, like what's going to happen now, what's going to happen after the training? And and to find out, ok, you know, like this training led someone to work with an unreached people group whose culture was filled with thievery and poverty and they didn't know Christ, and to live in there, you know, trying to help them come to know the gospel.
Speaker 3:And then, over the course of eight years, you know, continuing to teach and live and embody a biblical worldview. And now they, you know, see, I understand now, based on the Bible, personal property rights, I, you know, respect my neighbor, I work diligently and it's been a totally transformed society. Took, you know, eight years of time. Uh, but the people all the way through say, dna and its teaching, uh, was really an important, important part of the influence that's in here.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so yeah again, stay tuned. We'll have that full interview for you guys here in the next few weeks as a bonus episode and you can learn a little bit more about what Tim is sharing there. Um, as far as there was a bunch of the whole thing with sessions, essentially most of the days were filled up with sessions. We got to hear from a bunch of amazing speakers and hear these types of stories, and then also just trainings and encouragement, um, from people around the world. Um, out of all those sessions guys, obviously I think I enjoyed everyone I went to. I did enjoy everyone I went to, but some of them stuck out. You know, you're just like oh, that really was helpful for me, that that piece of information that that person shared. Dad, did you go to a session where you had that kind of that takeaway? I know you were just sharing about Louisa, but did you have another one that you you're going to take something away from and apply it into your life this week or this year?
Speaker 1:well, yeah, I mean there was some really powerful sessions, as you said. There's just one thing that really stood out to me for some reason. You know, I think it just depends kind of where I was at at the moment, but it was something that Ina Richardson, who's the founder and president of Work for a Living, the ministry I mentioned earlier, she was there, she spoke and she actually quoted Land to Cope and I thought it was very profound.
Speaker 3:I wrote it down.
Speaker 1:She said we fall short. We being the church, we fall short when we reach the nations and yet we leave them in poverty, tyranny, lawlessness and injustice. And again it spoke so powerfully to our ministry. It's yes, we do need to reach the nations, we need to see people come to faith in Jesus, churches need to be planted. But if we leave those nations and lots of nations come into my mind right now, nations like Rwanda, guatemala, nicaragua, you know Paraguay, united States even If we leave those nations in lawlessness, injustice, tyranny of different kinds, we fall short. We fall short. I just thought that was very powerful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I took a picture of that quote too. Her whole talk was really helpful. But just that importance on the fuller understanding of discipleship. It goes beyond Bible study, it goes beyond the gospel of salvation and it should have an effect on societies.
Speaker 1:Right. And again, it doesn't mean that those societies are going to be somehow perfect. There's going to be no perfect society on this side of Jesus' return. But if we don't care enough that we leave them in the condition that they're in these nations and if they're struggling with poverty and justice corruption, we fall short. You know it needs to make a difference, not just at the personal level, but at the family, community and national level as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean. A lot of the countries represented there last week are perfect examples of this if not, I mean the. Us as well. There's so many of these countries in North America, south America, central America, the countries themselves, most of them, the majority of the population, is Christian when they take those polls. Some of the countries. It's north of 90% of the country says they're christians and yet we still see just corruption, poverty, a lot of violence a lot of violence, a lot of government corruption, right, um, and it's, you don't.
Speaker 2:You don't look at the country exactly and say, oh, that's, that's a thriving christian nation, even though it's majority christian. So there's, there's a, there's a drop off there. Why no? Why so? That's it's a big reason the dna exists, right. So it was encouraging to meet the people that were, like us, excited about changing that tim. What about you? Sessions wise?
Speaker 3:yeah, I, um, I. I could talk about a number of sessions. You know, one that stands out was our very last session and with our co-founder, bob Moffitt. You know, bob, just you know he has a wisdom and a kindness about him that people just experience. You know it's profound, there's a weight to his words, there's an unhurriedness about the things that he says and there's a clarity in that.
Speaker 3:And he kind of got us started and it's funny, you know we have a sign, a DNA sign, you know, transforming communities or something. He's standing in front of the sign. He doesn't even realize the sign's behind him saying this. And he's like you know, transforming, you know, communities or something. He's standing in front of the sign and he doesn't even realize the signs behind him saying this. And he's like you know what, our job is not transformation. And everybody in the room's kind of like where is he going? What is he thinking about? We're about transformation. What do you mean? Our job's not transformation.
Speaker 3:And as he went on through the conversation he just talked about, the job of transformation is too great for humans. This is God's reality. Transformation is God's reality. Transformation is God's work, and you know so. Transformation is not in our hands. There's so many factors, there's so much human brokenness, there's so many layers to be considered. He said we've got a calling, we have a responsibility. Our responsibility is discipleship. We disciple, we teach people to obey all the teaching. And you know all the biblical teaching, the teaching of Christ, the principles of the Bible.
Speaker 1:That's our job you know, tim, not to, but I, you know, I thought biblical teaching, the teaching of Christ, the principles of the Bible, that's our job. You know, tim, not to, but I, you know, I thought. I thought what Bob said. I agree 100% with the idea that if you somehow think it's up to you, then you're off base biblically. These are any kind of transformation at the level of a nation or the world even smaller than that, honestly, at the level of a nation or the world even smaller than that.
Speaker 1:honestly, your family I mean. There's just so much that we are utterly dependent on God, for and he is the one that does the work, and at the end of the day we give him all the praise and the glory, because we can't but the idea of saying and again, I want to be a little careful in what I say here, but it's only discipleship I just shared what Louisa was doing in Paraguay. You know the strategy. Or I think of people like the Clapham sect in England.
Speaker 1:It went beyond personal discipleship, and I just want to make sure we leave space for that too, yeah.
Speaker 3:I think that's a great interjection and, you know, it really ties into the story I was telling earlier about the unreached people group. I mean, the reality is is that transformation did come through the faithful work of people, by God's grace you know, but it's easy to be overwhelmed by thinking that it's our responsibility or something that we can control and maybe just kind of scaling back just a little bit and having the vision right. You know like and trusting God with the responsibility.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's a message for people that feel the weight of trying to bring about the change and they need to hear the message that you need to be faithful and trust in God. He'll bring about the good fruit. And that's a very it takes a load off people's shoulders, you know. But then there's another message for people who feel like you know it's all up to God and I just need to. You know, I just need to trust in him and be kind of very faithful. In my very little sphere you know of my own life and maybe you know, discipling a friend or two and anything beyond that is really entirely up to God and I don't need to engage in it and I think those people need to be challenged as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it was fun to hear you know Bob's strategy of he's really big into what he calls microgroups and discipleship and he's in his 80s now and he has 15 of these you know discipleship microgroups that he's doing and there's a requirement built into that that you know like within a week's time, the person that he's working with needs to be doing a you know microdiscipleship group with someone else, and so you know he's got a strategy for multiplying disciples. You know, and, yeah, may God give each of us you know the calling and strategy that we need to be part of his transforming work.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, I I. I enjoyed that session as well, tim Bob's. I think Bob was just trying to address a room full of people that wanted to change the world and to remind them that God's in control here and God's, at the end of the day, the one that actually brings the transformation. But, like you were saying, Dad, I think a lot of Christians maybe it's just in the US a lot of Christians have way too small of an idea of what they can of what their life can do, um, in bringing about transformation.
Speaker 2:I mean again, the theme of this podcast is the power of truth to transform. Truth transforms, guys. Biblical truth brings about biblical flourishing and, um, are we the ones that bring the flourishing? Nope, that's God. But we can still bring the biblical truth to the table and then see what God does with it, um, every day, uh, in wherever we're at, in our work, in our families, in our communities. Uh, that's our role is to continue to disciple the nations, um, in a way that we hope will bring transformation, and that's the goal. So, um, I I enjoyed that talk. It was, it was a great, just a reminder of our role as believers in the great commission.
Speaker 2:One of my, one of my favorite talks also was brought to us by Juan Valdez. He's a partner of the DNA. He trains at a lot of the DNA conferences down in Latin America. He's from Miami, florida. He's a pastor there and works with a apologetics group. He's actually going to be on the podcast soon, guys, so we're excited to share him and his wisdom with you guys.
Speaker 2:But he, he at the, he at the forum, gave I think it was the second session and his session was all about um truth and uh truth's uh relationship with freedom on society, and I just had so many helpful takeaways from that. The way he explained it, I think as an apologist, gave me, uh, new words and a new view on the relationship to truth and freedom. Um, one thing that I think was really helpful for me specifically is when he was talking about how, when you understand truth, um, it's like in my mind. The analogy that came to my mind was uh, it's like standing on a rock amidst a sea of raging water, and as long as you're standing on that, you know what is right and wrong. You know what God's morality looks like. You understand the way God created the world and how we should live in it. You understand what true human rights are. You understand truth. I mean that rock represents truth, right and so, and as long as you're on the rock, you're free, because you're free to live in the way God created you to live, so you can move around the rock. There's a lot of freedom there, but you but you don't fall into the chaos of thinking that freedom is jumping off of truth and leaving truth and jumping into the raging sea when you do that.
Speaker 2:That's what people nowadays think is true or freedom. That's not freedom. That's what we call that license. It's really a rejection of freedom. You left the freedom behind, essentially. Now you're just in chaos and you think you just are good to go. No, you're not. You can't find anywhere else to land. That's the problem with leaving truth behind. Is people think they can go find their truth or build their own truth, or find a different truth, you know, like another religion that might make sense of this world. Nope, it's just raging seas, it's just chaos.
Speaker 1:Confusion is a word he kept using. Confusion and chaos when we abandon.
Speaker 2:It really is and to me I thought when, as christians, when we get into these debates around, what is what is moral, you know? What are human rights, what's right and wrong, what's evil, what's good? Um is, as christians, we all agree on those things. There's a lot of unity there, and when you look out at the world, all these people swimming around in his raging sea trying to find those things like good and morality is, they never know where to land. So there's such disunity. So when people come to christians attacking us for you know, you don't know what morality is, you don't know what good is we we don't have to get defensive and think we need to present our argument in perfect, you know form is we're standing on the rock. What we can do to you is very easily point out that you're not coming from a place of authority here and you have nowhere to land. You have nowhere to back up your arguments, not to mention you can't even find anyone else you agree with out there because there's nowhere to land, so everyone else is just moving around. He gave the example of abortion, pro-life, pro-choice arguments that I thought was perfect in this the example of abortion, pro-life, pro-choice arguments that I thought was perfect in this.
Speaker 2:Most Christians have a very.
Speaker 2:I wish we had a clearer, but we should have a very clear idea of what is right and wrong when it comes to abortion, you know, have the same understanding of what it means to be human, have the same understanding of when human life begins, have the same understanding of who gives life, who takes it away, whereas when you look out at the world, they can't ever land.
Speaker 2:They have no idea where to draw the line, essentially, of what's right and wrong when it comes to that argument. So they're all over the map, you know. And instead of getting defensive, I think as Christians we can just point out the obvious elephant in the room, which is you don't have any moral standing here or any moral ground, and it kind of switched. It switched in my mind, the way I go about these types of discussions is you can, you should really just dive down into what is truth right away and try to and try to help the person that's disagreeing with you land on that and point out to them. If you can't land on that, then you can't really present an argument to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Luke, I couldn't agree with you more, so it was just a helpful format for me, a helpful framework for how to talk about those things. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Well, just the power of truth, you know. I think at the end of the day, you can say something like discipling nations is just to the best ability that God gives us understanding the truth, speaking the truth and living in the truth, and that's how nations become discipled. Truth and living in the truth, and that's how nations become discipled. You know, you talk about firm like a rock, and the actual Hebrew word for truth is emet, which means literally rock.
Speaker 3:And I thought that was really fascinating.
Speaker 1:But it's the idea that it's fixed, it's immovable and it's unchanging, and in other words, it begins with God. He spoke all things into existence. God never changes, you know, his word never changes. And so that's the fixed, immovable nature of what's true. It will prevail, you know. In the end people say, well, the truth will come out, the truth will prevail. Well, that's true, because God exists and that truth that he spoke about human nature and when life begins and everything else, that's fixed, firm, immovable. So you said it just right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that was a fun takeaway for me. As far as takeaways, guys again from the week. Any more takeaways before we get into our last questions here. I know I have some.
Speaker 1:Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Luke. One for me was Tim and I had a fun time on the last day walking around a little microphone doing just kind of man on the street interviews, uh, and getting a couple, getting a couple highlights from people. One of the questions we were asking is when you first went through the dna's training, what was your number one takeaway from that? You know, a lot of times we call it the aha moment, the moment that biblical worldview makes sense like oh wow, because it to me it was really a light bulb moment. A lot of people describe it that way is whoa, what was that training?
Speaker 2:um what was the wording that that stuck out to you, and it was so interesting for me as the producer of this podcast, to hear. The vast majority of people's response to that question was one line ideas have consequences that'd be a good name for a podcast yeah, wouldn't it, I know, yeah, yeah, maybe we should name a podcast and it's so and that, just that simple idea.
Speaker 2:I remember mom used to tell us that, growing up, all the time, ideas have consequences and when you look at history, when you look at cultures, when you look at the advancement of ideologies that promote lies and countries that tear them down, it's ideas having consequences.
Speaker 2:And the only way us, as Christians, can live in societies that are free and flourishing and present God's goodness, truth and beauty is for God's true, good and beautiful ideas to be rooted in that culture, so that the consequences that affect people's lives uh, that affect their children, that affect their schools, that affect their law, is for those god's ideas to be rooted in the culture. And if it's not god's ideas rooted in that culture, it's going to be someone else's ideas. Therefore it's going to be unbiblical ideas, and therefore it's going to be ideas that tear ideas and therefore it's going to be ideas that tear down, destroy and dehumanize. And that teaching is just so powerful, just that one line. Ideas have consequences so profound, and it was interesting to hear how many people. For them, that simple concept was the aha moment that really made biblical worldview and just the importance of understanding worldview come alive to them for the first time. Any other highlights, guys?
Speaker 1:You know I think it was Ina again in her session she brought up Proverbs 1434. It's a passage or a verse that I know, but when she spoke it it really spoke to my heart again. It goes like this righteousness makes a nation great. Righteousness makes a nation great and I thought, you know, it's not the size of the nation, it's manpower, it's military, it's money. You know, these aren't the things that make a nation great, it's righteousness. And so to me, there was something that I thought was so just, beautiful and practical about that.
Speaker 1:You know, what is it? It leads you to the question what is it in my community that is unrighteous, let's say unjust? Evil, that is, when it comes to ideas having consequences, is destroying lives, harming people. What's going to make my community, my nation, great is righteousness. And then what can I do to you know, god, what are you calling me to do to bring about righteousness in the face of this specific thing that's unrighteous? So I just really love that. And you know, again, maybe it's because in the United States we, you know, trump's motto make America great again, you know, is so embedded now in the culture. It leads to the question well, what makes America great, or any nation great, and the Bible answers that very specifically it's righteousness.
Speaker 2:I really enjoyed that talk. I always enjoy. Ina. She's going to be coming on the podcast too soon, guys, so stay tuned, guys. The theme of the week, the theme of this year's forum, was the essential role of the local church in discipling nations. I kept that theme as best as I could at the forefront of my mind throughout the week, trying to answer that big question of what is the essential role of the local church in discipling nations. I feel like I got a little clarity on that from the talks. I just want to hear from you guys, as you were thinking about that theme throughout a lot of the talks. The talks were kind of framed roughly around that theme. What did you guys learn about that, about the local church's role?
Speaker 3:One of the things that stands out to me. Richard Nelson came and gave a talk and you know he said churches do what the government cannot do and he talked about a variety of things. Churches do what the government cannot do. He talked about a variety of things.
Speaker 1:so that was kind of one point that he made and then another in terms of Just on that, tim, before you go off of that, because I think it's really profound and you're raising the question what is it that churches do that governments can't? Do you want to answer that question?
Speaker 3:You talk to me. What are you having?
Speaker 1:I remember a pastor at one of the churches that we worked with very closely for many years in Uganda answered that question the church Wetodo Church, a really influential church in Uganda and he put it this way. He said you know, government can do a lot, you know, but it can't love.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's well said can do a lot, you know, but it can't love. You know the role of the local church is to come alongside people and to express kind of, in kind of an incarnational way again, the hands and the feet of Christ to love people. You know, governments can do things in the area of justice and in policy and those can be incredibly important, but it can't love people. I thought that was a good answer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well said, as I thought about it, it's like you know I mean government. Oh well, we can assign tasks and do this, and kind of do it in some kind of structured, non-loving way right where we're trying to be helpful. But I mean, the church is empowered by love. Another thing that he said that really stood out to me. You know people sometimes ask like, well, how? Or I've seen churches that they don't want to address social issues, right.
Speaker 3:It's just a hot topic. They've got congregants on either side of it they're concerned. You know. Side of it they're concerned. You know, and Richard just put it this way. He said you know if we don't address it directly, you know, kind of at the forefront, at the front door, it's going to show up in broken lives of people coming to our church later on. You know you're not going to be able to avoid responding to these social issues. You will respond. It's just a matter of you know. Can you do it now, where you can guide people and guard and protect them and help them know and understand you know what's true and leads to flourishing, or are you going to leave them to sort through these lies on their own and make mistakes and and reap the consequences of it?
Speaker 1:he said you know, uh, deal with the issues. You're right, that's really powerful.
Speaker 2:Do the hard work of dealing with it up front yeah, yeah that it was fun having rich Richard down there at the forum. He works for a policy center in Kentucky. We'll actually have an episode with him coming out next week here on the show. But he came down and talked from the US. We think all of our, you know battling over ideas and ideologies here in the States, whether it's Marxism and feminism or climate change, extremism, is like a localized issue here in the US. All these culture, war topics it's like nope, this is. These are global conversations. If you go to Argentina or Chile or you know, kenya, they're having the exact same conversations today. So talking about Christians' engagement in politics is really a global question right now. So it was fun hearing just discouraging and also interesting hearing how global these conversations are and how we as global believers are all kind of on the same page of why we need to do something. Now. There are some dangerous ideologies at play in the world and things are shifting fast, so what can we do? And just having those conversations with people from all over the world was really helpful. It gave me a lot of perspective as a US citizen who's also thinking about these things, but just hearing the same thoughts coming from people in different contexts For me, I guess, on the question of the local church's role in discipling nations, there was a talk that Alejandro Moreno gave that was helpful for me.
Speaker 2:It was a long talk, he covered a lot, but one of my takeaways was just the importance of, as Christians, knowing that our role in churches is always changing. So don't get caught in the motion, get stuck in the motions and kind of of a wake up call to Christians who just go to church every week and go to their Bible studies and serve in church. You know all super important things, but as Christians like always be ready to be used by God in discipling your nation, and what that's going to look like is different every year. Um, so have flexibility, be prepared, be ready, you know, work with other people in your church to always be just pushing against that constant pull. I think of getting caught in the motions and stuck in the motions Because I don't know, I feel like in the church bubble. That is such a common occurrence. I know for myself I definitely do that way too often.
Speaker 2:And yet when we think about words like discipleship, that's a word that requires a process to it. We're never going to be fully discipled, so you always are going to be changing when we think about transformation again, we talked about that earlier. No Christian is going to be fully transformed into the likeness of Jesus. Only Jesus was like that. So it's a process. It's an upstream type of process. We're always our whole lives's going to be paddling against this.
Speaker 2:So just understanding that, um, and, as best as possible inside of our local churches, being ready and being prepared to be used by God and whatever the new season uh presents, was a good reminder for me and, yeah, just a good wake up call. So I guess, uh, we're wrapping up. Uh, we're getting low on time here, guys, but far as anyone who wants to hear a little bit more about those couple interviews that Tim and I had a chance to do, we'll just be releasing those here on the podcast soon. There, I hope, like us, you're pulling away some takeaways that you can be applying into your lives, your communities and your nations as we continue to disciple the nations and hopefully be used by God in that process of discipling our nations. And for anyone who wasn't there, like we said at the beginning, we would love to see you at our next DNA forum, whenever that happens. We don't have a date yet, but we are already thinking about it, so we'd love to see you there Again.
Speaker 2:Just an encouragement, if you are curious about what this training is. We're talking about the DNA's. Training is called the Quorum Deo training courses. The first one of those is the Kingdomizer 101 course and it really just lays out what a worldview is, why there's only one worldview that works, why that's the biblical worldview and how you can begin your process of discipleship in a biblical worldview. If you'd like to check out that course, I'll have that linked in the show notes below and I guess that's it for today. Guys, tim, dad, thank you so much for joining. I really enjoyed this discussion and for everyone listening. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode here on Ideas have Consequences. You.
