Finding Your Voice w/ Morgan Treuil

Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
Hey, welcome to Mark Clark Podcast. Hopefully you're doing well. We're having a conversation today with the one and only Morgan May Treuil. Ladies and gentlemen. Say hello. I don't know if you can. I don't know if you can hear. I don't know if they can hear you.

Morgan May Treuil [00:00:12]:
Yeah, they can.

Mark Clark [00:00:13]:
There you go. Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [00:00:14]:
They probably can hear you too much.

Mark Clark [00:00:15]:
What do I do? What do I do? Every message.

Morgan May Treuil [00:00:17]:
Whenever you preach message or do a podcast or anything on film, you're always like, hey, guys, this is Mark Clark. I hope you all are doing well. Hope you're doing well.

Mark Clark [00:00:23]:
Is that my thing?

Morgan May Treuil [00:00:24]:
Well, it's your thing.

Mark Clark [00:00:25]:
I. I don't think it's a bad comment.

Morgan May Treuil [00:00:28]:
It's your. It's your intro thing.

Mark Clark [00:00:30]:
Well, I guess this whole thing is just going to be big critique of me. All right, well, for. For those listening who don't know you, Morgan May Treuil. Tell us what. What's your story, man? You grew up. Guys, this is going to be a great pod. We're talking to Morgan. She has a great perspective.

Mark Clark [00:00:47]:
She's a theologian, she's a preacher, she's a ministry leader, and she's one of my favorite people. And we have some things in common, some things not in common. So we're. We're going to have this, like, I'm going to be interviewing her, but she also, like, I want to interview. I kind of want to throw back you, too. I don't want this whole thing to be about me. So. So I'm just letting you know that's what.

Mark Clark [00:01:05]:
That's what's going on here today. So when you feel like she's grilling me about stuff, that's why we've given.

Morgan May Treuil [00:01:10]:
I'm not the guest. I'm just here to assess.

Mark Clark [00:01:14]:
And. And we assume because there's a million things we could talk about. We could talk about movies and life and books, but we know that the audience probably wants to get theology and, you know, things about God and faith in real life. So you're a perfect person to do that because you're into that. Yeah. Great preacher, by the way, people. If she had a podcast. I mean, she does have a podcast, but not a preaching one.

Morgan May Treuil [00:01:33]:
I don't preach on it.

Mark Clark [00:01:33]:
You should go listen to her podcast called Am I Doing This Right? with her and Leslie Johnson is fantastic. We'll talk about that.

Morgan May Treuil [00:01:37]:
We'll talk about that.

Mark Clark [00:01:38]:
Go subscribe.

Morgan May Treuil [00:01:39]:
But I have a question to start. What do you think people think your brand is? Obviously, it's Jesus, and you're a preacher, and that's what you do. But how would people describe your brand of ministry?

Mark Clark [00:01:53]:
I don't know. That's a great question. I think it would probably have something to do with Bible Y guy, but also, like, skeptics, apologetics. So fuses the world of, like, modern worldview thinking with biblical, gospel centered. He's trying to speak to the modern person, but he's, like, super orthodox, but he's trying to bring that into the real world. Practical blue collar Joe.

Morgan May Treuil [00:02:24]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:02:26]:
Illustrative. Probably too much. You think a lot of illustrations.

Morgan May Treuil [00:02:30]:
You think you do too much illustration?

Mark Clark [00:02:31]:
Probably. Someone told me one time, mark, by the time you're done, whatever issue you're talking about, literally the nail is already in the wood. And you just keep coming at it from this. And then you'll get over. You'll just hit it from every angle. It's like, we get it.

Morgan May Treuil [00:02:47]:
I've never gotten to the end of one of your sermons and thought that you beat a dead horse, which is the phrase we would say. I've never thought that. Yeah, I think you do. You do illustrations. That's like, part of your preaching brand.

Mark Clark [00:02:58]:
It's kind of the rhythm.

Morgan May Treuil [00:02:58]:
It's just like, yeah, your preaching brand is Bible. Very Bible guy. Illustrative, for sure. Ang can be angry, but not angry in a way that makes you feel condemned.

Mark Clark [00:03:12]:
Okay, yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:03:12]:
Angry in a way where you're. You say this, that you. In our preaching classes, you say every sermon should have a moment where you bleed in front of people. You bleed in front of people, but you also mix in vulnerability. And then you mix in a little, like, anger, A little jabby, a little, you know, morons, idiots. Shut up and sit down. That's kind of your thing. But it makes people feel like, oh, I can listen into this because I'm a mess.

Morgan May Treuil [00:03:39]:
I know I'm a mess.

Mark Clark [00:03:40]:
That's. That's.

Morgan May Treuil [00:03:40]:
He's leading.

Mark Clark [00:03:41]:
A little messy, too, I think. So. A lady described it like this one day, and I think this is helpful. She said, you punch and then you play. You punch and play. You punch. So. And as an audience, you're sitting there and, you know, you're gonna.

Mark Clark [00:03:54]:
You're gonna get. You know, are you actually. And then you pull back and you play with us and you make us laugh and you get us to. And then all of a sudden, when we're laughing, you come at us with, you know. So I think there's something to that. And I think it's. Here's what I would say about it. And I think you.

Mark Clark [00:04:14]:
You would agree with this if you just. You have to do your own style. Because if you take my words in a transcript and you hand them to somebody else and they get up on a pulpit and try to do it, it doesn't work. It's not going to work.

Morgan May Treuil [00:04:26]:
No.

Mark Clark [00:04:27]:
Because it could come across as. I think people can tell. There's a bit of a twinkle in the eye when. Even when I'm doing the hard stuff.

Morgan May Treuil [00:04:35]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [00:04:36]:
You know, I think he doesn't take himself too serious. He doesn't mean it.

Morgan May Treuil [00:04:40]:
And that's the key, I think, to all people's style of ministry, whether your thing is preaching or your thing is something else. If people can tell that you don't think too highly of yourself, you're willing to poke at yourself. You can get away with a lot

Mark Clark [00:04:55]:
of things that you couldn't very good

Morgan May Treuil [00:04:57]:
if you led more like arrogant, which you're not. The other thing that you have, that's different. And I don't know a lot of people that have it, especially in your preaching style, you have like a. A masculinity. Not that you lead golf. That's not like your. It's not even your vibe, but, like, you have like a masculinity. I can speak to the grown man.

Morgan May Treuil [00:05:16]:
I can call out men, and I'm authoritative. And at the same time, this, like, layered. I see the art in things.

Mark Clark [00:05:24]:
Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [00:05:25]:
I'm philosophical. You. You get energized by. By seeing the way that someone else thinks about something.

Mark Clark [00:05:31]:
Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [00:05:32]:
And then, like, seeing if you can put yourself in your shoes.

Mark Clark [00:05:35]:
Yeah, that's good.

Morgan May Treuil [00:05:35]:
Take it back to. But this is why the gospel works for a person like that.

Mark Clark [00:05:39]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:05:39]:
Which I feel like most men don't have both of those modes.

Mark Clark [00:05:43]:
And maybe. Yeah, that's what. So women. Women are probably looking for that a little bit. Like, hey, you know, call my husband upward. But also, don't be like a. Yes, Theo bro about it. And like, feel like men.

Mark Clark [00:05:55]:
Men. Men are all that matters. Women. Yeah. You know, it's like, yeah, that's not a thing.

Morgan May Treuil [00:06:00]:
No, it's both. Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:06:01]:
And we had, you know, there's probably a time where people used to say that, you know, men are, you know, if you can win the man, you win the family and all this stuff. And that's all good stuff and really important because oftentimes women historically were bringing the kids to church and the men were sitting at home. So there is something to calling men to a thing.

Morgan May Treuil [00:06:17]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [00:06:18]:
But what we're seeing now and I don't know if you have stuff to say about this, but in the church, we're seeing a lot of women actually leave the church.

Morgan May Treuil [00:06:26]:
Huh.

Mark Clark [00:06:27]:
Do you know that?

Morgan May Treuil [00:06:28]:
I didn't know that.

Mark Clark [00:06:28]:
Okay. Statistically, we're seeing women, especially women in their 40 pluses, leave the church.

Morgan May Treuil [00:06:34]:
Why?

Mark Clark [00:06:35]:
And men are actually in the church or coming back to the church, and we're seeing a lot of women leave the church. Well, it's a great sociological question. Did the church learn too well the lesson of men hate the church, and so we should go after masculine men and call them all these things? And so you have all these men's ministries, and now you don't have any women's things. Because the assumption, of course, is women are going to come to stuff, and they do, and they're going to volunteer and they do, and they're going to step up, and they do. But there seems to be. Well, just like there is sociologically a thing about women, you know, and I don't know what the numbers are, but they get to a certain age and they did a bunch of stuff and they raised their kids and then they. They're done with their marriages or they. There's a high.

Mark Clark [00:07:19]:
There's a. You know, even. Even people in their 60s. Like, there's all these little sociological things. I don't know what my life.

Morgan May Treuil [00:07:25]:
Like, I'm.

Mark Clark [00:07:26]:
I don't know what the woman thing is. What do you. What do you hear? What do you.

Morgan May Treuil [00:07:29]:
This. This is like the. And I'm not talking about.

Mark Clark [00:07:32]:
You're a woman. You tell me. What am I telling you? What am I, man splaining. I just started a podcast called Mansplaining, and we just sit here and I just explain things. You answer me. You answer. You ask me questions about why. Things that I explain.

Morgan May Treuil [00:07:46]:
We're starting a podcast called Mansplain, where I explain things to you. That would be a better podcast. Wait, so do you think there's anything to this that we've gone too long without women seeing? I'm not talking about preaching. I'm not talking about preaching, though. I'm talking in any role, probably. Like, there's underrepresentation, not just in yes roles, but also maybe in content deliver. Because like you said, I feel like we. We've.

Morgan May Treuil [00:08:11]:
We've become so excited about preaching to the man to get the man engaged.

Mark Clark [00:08:16]:
Now we say, right, that we don't even get in the body, that to your point, the content isn't even directed toward women anymore. It's just all rah, rah, Be a soldier.

Morgan May Treuil [00:08:25]:
Oh, women must be excited that their husband is being preached to, because women bring their husbands to church so that the pastor can preach them and call them out for things.

Mark Clark [00:08:34]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:08:35]:
Maybe women don't care about that as much anymore.

Mark Clark [00:08:36]:
I. Maybe that's all true. Maybe not. Now, we do have to give a caveat here. We're talking about Protestant evangelicalism for the most part, conservative Protestant evangelicalism. There's. The mainline denominations are still very feminine.

Morgan May Treuil [00:08:52]:
Mainline denominations being what?

Mark Clark [00:08:54]:
Like. Like the. Like the classic Lutheran.

Morgan May Treuil [00:08:56]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:08:57]:
Like, we're talking about mega churches and Protestant evangelicalism. Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [00:09:00]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:09:01]:
Which is like our worlds.

Morgan May Treuil [00:09:02]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:09:03]:
If you go to not 80 of the churches, probably still you walk in and they ain't talking like we're talking. Okay. It's. It's a. It's a. Hey, come bring your potluck. And we're all glad Susie's here. And who.

Mark Clark [00:09:16]:
Who's new? I'm gonna give you a loaf of bread and come to the knitting night. And let's bless our animals. Let's bring cats in. We're gonna bless them. And there's stitching in the audience.

Morgan May Treuil [00:09:27]:
Are there people that bring the animals in and bless them?

Mark Clark [00:09:30]:
Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [00:09:31]:
What's your yes.

Mark Clark [00:09:32]:
So you know what, you understand what I'm saying? Like, there's still a lot of churches that appeal, and I'm not saying that's what women are into, but there's a lot of churches who are doing things that aren't. Rah, rah, let's go get the men.

Morgan May Treuil [00:09:45]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:09:45]:
Okay. There's a lot. What we're talking about. We're just asking the question in the. In the worlds we exist in.

Morgan May Treuil [00:09:52]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [00:09:53]:
Are we doing enough? And I think what you're suggesting is actually interesting. It's. It's not even necessary that you just throw a bunch of women up on the stage like, oh, look, we checked our, you know, a woman off. We're good.

Morgan May Treuil [00:10:03]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:10:04]:
It's like, no. Even when guys are preaching, is there an ability to weave both worlds in, to call both out and to challenge both and speak to both and all that? And I think that's a great goal for young preachers out there.

Morgan May Treuil [00:10:16]:
Or if. If the voice you have in your preaching role on the weekends is going to be a man's voice, is there a way to layer stories, illustrations, and even go. Go more to, like, the human experience as a whole rather than your experience as.

Mark Clark [00:10:33]:
Yeah, that's good. A man versus just a bunch of sports analogies and whatever? Yeah, go ahead. Women don't like sports.

Morgan May Treuil [00:10:39]:
I feel like every. Yeah. I feel like even men are bored with the sports analogy at this point. Like, everyone's sort of scrapped that.

Mark Clark [00:10:46]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:10:47]:
But I just feel like it. It's something that. That I feel like. Needs attention for preachers that we. We're only speaking to this, like, one voice, one train of thought. So it actually doesn't. Like. I feel like we listen to you the most and other voices that are similar to yours that just had the ability to go into multiple zones of thinking.

Morgan May Treuil [00:11:08]:
But maybe that's an intentional choice that you're making that not a lot of people are making.

Mark Clark [00:11:10]:
Well, it's. It's an intentional choice in a sense. Yes. But it's also something. I liked it. Like, I'm gonna. The first person I'm preaching to is me, and if I'm bored. So let's.

Mark Clark [00:11:19]:
Let's mix it up. Yeah. If I'm just doing prose for 20 minutes, it's like, bored. I gotta illustrate. I gotta pull through, you know, so. But you are fantastic at this too. You are. I remember the first.

Mark Clark [00:11:30]:
Do you remember the first interaction we had?

Morgan May Treuil [00:11:32]:
The Bible study?

Mark Clark [00:11:34]:
Was that what it was? I was. I was a guest on the Bible study, and you were remote and I was remote. It was Covid. So we were in Canada. We couldn't leave our house, and I was in the Bible study, and you had just been hired or something, and you were running the Bible study, and I. My first interaction with you was just your voice.

Morgan May Treuil [00:11:50]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:11:50]:
As weird as that sounds.

Morgan May Treuil [00:11:51]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:11:52]:
But I could hear you off camera.

Morgan May Treuil [00:11:54]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:11:54]:
Kurt and I and Andrew were teaching.

Morgan May Treuil [00:11:56]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:11:57]:
And I could just hear you telling them some things to do. And I just remember, like, she's a nag. Like, what is she. Why is she yelling at everybody? No. And. And this is funny because, you know, they say the people make the joke. Like, you have a face for radio.

Morgan May Treuil [00:12:11]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:12:11]:
And it's like. I was like, oh, she has a voice for radio. Like, yeah, that's a radio. Whatever.

Morgan May Treuil [00:12:16]:
Radio voice.

Mark Clark [00:12:17]:
It's a radio voice. And I assume you've been told that before.

Morgan May Treuil [00:12:21]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:12:22]:
Have a great radio. And that was the first thought that entered my head about you. Never saw you. I'm like, whoever that is talking has an amazing radio voice, and they should do something. Read the Bible or. Okay, this is something.

Morgan May Treuil [00:12:35]:
Maybe this is a hot take, maybe it's not. I don't mean this to be a hot take. I just. This is sort of like my. My strategy for communication, because before preaching on a regular basis is only A thing that I've been doing in the last probably three to four years.

Mark Clark [00:12:48]:
Yeah. Which is crazy because you sound like you've been doing it for a decade or more.

Morgan May Treuil [00:12:52]:
Yeah, I'm learning a lot while I'm here, but there's been probably like 10 years of doing communication as a part of my job, whether. And I started as a school teacher in high school, so then that was part of that too.

Mark Clark [00:13:04]:
You were a school teacher?

Morgan May Treuil [00:13:06]:
A Dan. A high school dance teacher. My major was dance.

Mark Clark [00:13:08]:
Open your textbooks. I mean.

Morgan May Treuil [00:13:10]:
No, no, it's actually. I could get into some of that. There's actually some really cool aspects to teaching dance and then translating that into teaching sermons. Because everything that you do while you are teaching dance involves you saying something and you matching what you're saying with

Mark Clark [00:13:25]:
physical representation, which I think more preachers. Can I tell you my biggest. Yes, I want to wait. But you have your track.

Morgan May Treuil [00:13:33]:
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

Mark Clark [00:13:35]:
No, no, go. I got it.

Morgan May Treuil [00:13:36]:
I was just saying I pride myself in communication off of being a female that has a very neutral sounding voice and neutral storytelling capabilities. So, like, I don't ever include anything that's just strictly girl.

Mark Clark [00:13:57]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:13:58]:
Or if I am. If I am doing something that is strictly girl.

Mark Clark [00:14:02]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:14:02]:
I have a system where I appeal to different members of the audience in different ways. I become the person's daughter. I become the person, whatever.

Mark Clark [00:14:09]:
Yeah, it's. It's super smart. And because I've heard you tell stories and you. The way you tell the story. Story is you're telling the story, but then you're giving commentary on the story, which is actually not something I do very often. If you think about. I'll just tell a story and I'll emphasize certain parts and make them funny.

Morgan May Treuil [00:14:24]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:14:24]:
But what you do is you tell a story and then you look to the audience and you make a little comment to the audience that brings them into the story. And then you keep telling the story.

Morgan May Treuil [00:14:32]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:14:33]:
Instead of just straight telling the story.

Morgan May Treuil [00:14:35]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:14:36]:
So the thing that's annoying me about preachers right now. Are you ready for this? The way they use their hands. And I know you're handsy as a preacher. You're like. But remember one of the things we were going to make you do is like, lock your. Was it you or Amy? We're going to lock your hands down.

Morgan May Treuil [00:14:51]:
We're both hand preachers.

Mark Clark [00:14:52]:
But it's not that people are using their hands. It's. And this could be a sickness. It's. I think they're using their Hands. Like, they've seen other preachers use their hands and they're mimicking them. And the reason I know this is because I was, I used to be there, like, 20 years ago. There was a certain preacher that I watched, and the way he moved his hands, I started doing that.

Mark Clark [00:15:11]:
And now I watch preachers online and I see how they use their hands. I'm like, oh, he's copying that other. And it drives me crazy.

Morgan May Treuil [00:15:17]:
Right? Like, nothing.

Mark Clark [00:15:18]:
Be yourself.

Morgan May Treuil [00:15:19]:
Are there any original preachers?

Mark Clark [00:15:21]:
Yeah, I think so.

Morgan May Treuil [00:15:22]:
But if everyone's always. I mean, you're always learning. You're, you're always forming your thing by watching somebody else's thing and then making small adaptations.

Mark Clark [00:15:29]:
I, I, I try not to do that anymore. So I wouldn't tell people not to do that because I did it for 10 years. I stopped 10 years ago watching other preachers, and I probably shouldn't say this, or listening to other preachers. I don't listen to anybody preach, and I don't watch anybody preach, and I haven't for 10 years.

Morgan May Treuil [00:15:45]:
But the stance I just read isn't that you're done learning because you read.

Mark Clark [00:15:49]:
I read, I read, I read.

Morgan May Treuil [00:15:51]:
The stance on that is like, I have to maintain the voice that's mine.

Mark Clark [00:15:54]:
I would rather read a sermon transcript than watch a sermon or listen to a sermon.

Morgan May Treuil [00:15:58]:
It's so easy to fully adopt somebody else's communication style and lose your own. Have you ever listened to Brian Hopkins talk?

Mark Clark [00:16:06]:
Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [00:16:06]:
And then the next conversation and you're

Mark Clark [00:16:08]:
doing, yes, yes, I do that with Brian.

Morgan May Treuil [00:16:10]:
Brian. It's like, it's so.

Mark Clark [00:16:12]:
Yeah, there's something.

Morgan May Treuil [00:16:13]:
His voice in particular.

Mark Clark [00:16:14]:
I'm like, great example.

Morgan May Treuil [00:16:15]:
I become his voice.

Mark Clark [00:16:17]:
Yes, it's a great example. I was.

Morgan May Treuil [00:16:18]:
I forget who I am.

Mark Clark [00:16:19]:
Yeah, well, the other day I did it with Trump. It was so funny.

Morgan May Treuil [00:16:23]:
That's a specific voice.

Mark Clark [00:16:24]:
Yeah, I was like. I was preaching and I said. And, And I did. I, I'm forgetting what I did now. And I said it exactly like Trump would say it.

Morgan May Treuil [00:16:32]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [00:16:32]:
So then I stopped and I just said, wow. I just sounded like Trump right there. And then I mimicked him again. And that's funny. How did you get. Okay, so, so the, the dancing thing then leads to the preaching thing. How did that, how did that, how did the dancing thing become the preaching?

Morgan May Treuil [00:16:46]:
I actually, I'm not a good Dan. I wasn't great. I really wasn't. Like, part of the story with that

Mark Clark [00:16:50]:
is that I didn't challenge you. You know, I just took your word for it. I didn't. You're like, I really wasn't. I'm like, I'm just.

Morgan May Treuil [00:16:57]:
There are people that had that natural ability, and then they were like, that's what I should do with my life, because I'm this good at this.

Mark Clark [00:17:01]:
But that's like Black Swan types. You got to be.

Morgan May Treuil [00:17:04]:
You have to be really.

Mark Clark [00:17:05]:
You have to be obsessive. And I was throat.

Morgan May Treuil [00:17:07]:
And I felt nothing about the thing that in my life that I have felt the most passionate about to date. I mean, besides the people that I love and Jesus is communication. I think that has something to do with the anxiety, because for childhood, I felt this thing that never had a name and never had a solution, couldn't figure out how to communicate what it was that I needed, and found myself in all kinds of.

Mark Clark [00:17:31]:
So talk about that. What was the thing? So. Yeah, so.

Morgan May Treuil [00:17:33]:
So I have.

Mark Clark [00:17:34]:
I don't know. She. She's struggled with anxiety most of her life.

Morgan May Treuil [00:17:37]:
Yeah. Well, I got diagnosed in college with a generalized anxiety disorder, a clinical anxiety disorder, and a panic disorder. The generalized anxiety disorder is not situational. It's not like certain thoughts or certain feelings. It's like a. A chemical adrenaline imbalance that leads to these panic attacks, panic episodes.

Mark Clark [00:18:01]:
So you don't. It doesn't have to be circumstantial, like, you get in an airplane or you.

Morgan May Treuil [00:18:06]:
Anxiety.

Mark Clark [00:18:06]:
You have to speak or something like that. It's.

Morgan May Treuil [00:18:09]:
It's funny because, like, it can be that. And recently there are certain things in certain situations that trigger. But for the majority of my life, it's been completely random. Like, you can't track it, you can't trace it. I could be sitting on the couch or in an airplane or on a stage, and the same possibility of a panic episode can. Can come up.

Mark Clark [00:18:29]:
I remember you saying to me one time, you were out doing announcements, and you said, you know, it's not doing the announcements because you're very good in public, but there. There could be a scenario where you're out doing announcements and something. You're just like, just. Just be ready, just in case I. Because I'll literally just walk off. Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:18:48]:
I'll just leave. Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:18:49]:
You're like, all right, so we got Easter, sir.

Morgan May Treuil [00:18:51]:
Yeah. So, yeah, literally leave. Here's what's crazy.

Mark Clark [00:18:56]:
And then you're like, just be ready. I'm like, what?

Morgan May Treuil [00:18:58]:
You're like, sorry, what would that be? Yeah, yeah. It's so. It's so weird. And I'm writing about this now for the first time, so I'm starting to Put. I'm starting to put.

Mark Clark [00:19:07]:
Because you're talking exactly. To anxiety.

Morgan May Treuil [00:19:09]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [00:19:10]:
Personification.

Morgan May Treuil [00:19:11]:
And in a way, I think I'm healing something in my childhood, Morgan, that could never put words. So all I had as a kid were massive outbursts that could let my parents know. Hey, what I'm feeling feels so severe. I need out of whatever it is that I'm feeling right now. So all I have was outbursts. And I got in trouble a ton. Was very loud. Was always the sister in trouble.

Morgan May Treuil [00:19:33]:
My other sisters are just quieter. So they were just as terrible as I was. They were just quiet about it, could never communicate what it was. Got the formal diagnosis in college. Started medication, which is a whole other like thing that I was uncomfortable with then, but it helped a ton. All that to say the thing.

Mark Clark [00:19:50]:
Did the medication have side effects?

Morgan May Treuil [00:19:53]:
The first one did. And there's a whole thing too. We're like, I have emetophobia, which is.

Mark Clark [00:19:59]:
What does that mean?

Morgan May Treuil [00:19:59]:
Fear of throwing up. But to the point of.

Mark Clark [00:20:02]:
That's called metaphobia.

Morgan May Treuil [00:20:04]:
No, metaphobia. E M, E T. A phobia. Emetophobia.

Mark Clark [00:20:09]:
Okay, so is. Is that like the Greek for throw up or something? I don't know what it is. I mean, these words, usually words.

Morgan May Treuil [00:20:14]:
Yeah, I think all. Don't all words have a Greek thing?

Mark Clark [00:20:17]:
Yeah, I mean, a lot of English words. A lot of English words. So a metaphobia. Okay, okay, go ahead. A metaphor.

Morgan May Treuil [00:20:23]:
A metaphobia. The obsessive fear of throwing up. So for the, for the. For all of my life, what do you say this? Like, no one likes to throw up.

Mark Clark [00:20:32]:
Yeah, exactly. It's the worst feeling in the world. But you're saying the fear that you'll just ought. You'll just out of nowhere throw up.

Morgan May Treuil [00:20:38]:
Yes. So I would not do certain things, would not go certain places, could not be a part of certain conversations. Would rehearse in my mind. Throw it. Sorry. Rehearse my mind. And for the people that have. Metaphorically that are listening to this, have to turn the shutting off, because they can't.

Morgan May Treuil [00:20:52]:
Right. It's like the, the. If somebody says the word throw up at school. In elementary school, I left. I had to go home that day. If, if someone threw up around me, like.

Mark Clark [00:21:02]:
Oh, yeah. Well, that's.

Morgan May Treuil [00:21:03]:
Yeah, it's like, not only that. Like, I, like I, I. You have a character flaw to me. Now, I will never enjoy being around

Mark Clark [00:21:09]:
you, but I would probably be like that.

Morgan May Treuil [00:21:11]:
Okay. Or like, I would. I would rehearse in my mind.

Mark Clark [00:21:15]:
Oh, my God.

Morgan May Treuil [00:21:15]:
Every situation in my life, I Have rehearsed a plan for what happens if

Mark Clark [00:21:21]:
you're going to throw.

Morgan May Treuil [00:21:22]:
I'm going to throw up. Or let's say like, I have like a little twinge in my stomach immediately. It's a stomach virus. This is going to end bad.

Mark Clark [00:21:28]:
Hold on.

Morgan May Treuil [00:21:30]:
It's a.

Mark Clark [00:21:31]:
What do you think? Right? As a guy with ocd, I get that.

Morgan May Treuil [00:21:34]:
You get it?

Mark Clark [00:21:35]:
What, why that? Why throwing up out of now. What is that?

Morgan May Treuil [00:21:40]:
I.

Mark Clark [00:21:40]:
Has a psychologist ever told you?

Morgan May Treuil [00:21:42]:
I have no idea.

Mark Clark [00:21:43]:
Because there could be a hundred things that fill in that blank, I assume.

Morgan May Treuil [00:21:46]:
And I.

Mark Clark [00:21:46]:
A crazy fear of.

Morgan May Treuil [00:21:48]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:21:48]:
Pooping my pants.

Morgan May Treuil [00:21:49]:
Crazy fear of. That's the phobia thing or whatever, whatever your thing is.

Mark Clark [00:21:52]:
So what again?

Morgan May Treuil [00:21:52]:
And I would never go to a, to a psychiatrist about this because somebody told me once they had been, they had taken their child to a psychiatrist for the same fear and the way they helped them overcome it was exposure therapy.

Mark Clark [00:22:06]:
Oh, gosh.

Morgan May Treuil [00:22:06]:
And I'm like, I'm not doing that. I would never.

Mark Clark [00:22:08]:
Exposure therapy, meaning they make the kids,

Morgan May Treuil [00:22:10]:
they make you do it. Oh, until you're.

Mark Clark [00:22:12]:
That sounds like something in the 80s throw up kid.

Morgan May Treuil [00:22:18]:
They probably don't do that anymore. So I, So, so I don't know why that.

Mark Clark [00:22:22]:
Okay, okay. You didn't have like a crazy episode when you never had a situation puked on you?

Morgan May Treuil [00:22:26]:
No, never.

Mark Clark [00:22:27]:
Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [00:22:28]:
Now moving past that for all the people that are like, I'm disgusted.

Mark Clark [00:22:30]:
Yeah, I'm shutting this off. My numbers are going with the panic.

Morgan May Treuil [00:22:33]:
The panic disorder piece of it has always been a problem. I've gone through different seasons where it's like obsessive thoughts that I can't get out of. I've gone through seasons of it where it feel like a heaviness and like a general like thought pattern feels very like dangerous and you know, whatever those kinds of. I've gone through all those seasons. The most consistent thing across my whole life is the panic episodes that come out of nowhere. And it's a full blown panic attack. Hands are numb, lightheaded, throat closing. You feel.

Morgan May Treuil [00:23:04]:
I feel like I'm going to die. Like, it feels like death, dread. And if it's happened to you, if you know what it is, it's like for me, it's never been situational. Now, now I say that there are certain things now where like I've had a panic attack in a certain situation. My amygdala has captured the scene in which I've had the panic attack and it will recreate those same feelings or the fear that I'll be in the same situation, and the panic attack will trigger.

Mark Clark [00:23:31]:
Of course. Yeah. My one was on an airplane now. I didn't love flying anyway already. I was already anxious about flying and, you know, would take Atavan or whatever when I flew.

Morgan May Treuil [00:23:41]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:23:42]:
But this one, I was. It might have been this scenario. I was going to visit my grandfather, and it was probably the last time I was gonna see him.

Morgan May Treuil [00:23:49]:
Yeah, yeah. I've already told the story.

Mark Clark [00:23:50]:
And I got on the plane and sat in the plane in my window seat. All the little hacks that I normally do.

Morgan May Treuil [00:23:55]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [00:23:56]:
And I was in the Tarma, and then just. I was supposed to go Dallas and then Dallas to Toronto. I just start freaking out, and I'm sitting there. I can't. I can't do this. I was texting Aaron, and you know what? Aaron, for some reason, her intuition, she text me back and just said something. So clarifying. And she had never texted me this before, ever said this to me before, because it's never happened.

Mark Clark [00:24:19]:
She just said, you're having a panic attack. It's like she knew over the phone. I wasn't even. And she was like, all right, you're right. And I just stood up and I grabbed my. They were. It was at the point where the. It was about to start.

Mark Clark [00:24:29]:
Like, we're gonna shut the door.

Morgan May Treuil [00:24:31]:
Oh, yeah.

Mark Clark [00:24:31]:
And I just stood up and this lady was talking to me, and I grabbed my. Yeah, yeah, it's great. I just started walking. I just walked up and they were about to say, sir, are you. So I was like, yeah, yeah, just give me a sec. I just need to grab something. Like, no, no, no. I said, yeah.

Mark Clark [00:24:43]:
And I got off and I just walked down the tunnel and I went home and I called my mom. I said, I'm sorry, I'm not coming. She's like, what are you talking about? You're gonna be here by five? I'm like, I can't do it. I don't know. First time I've ever had. I don't know. It's a good question.

Morgan May Treuil [00:24:57]:
I wonder. I don't think she knew because she had had one before.

Mark Clark [00:24:59]:
Maybe. But it's so I've been anxious in my life. That one was. Anyway, I'm just trying to tell you I'm not trying to make this about me. I'm trying to tell you I'm. Let's make my anxiety sympathetic to if that was even 1 10th.

Morgan May Treuil [00:25:11]:
Yes. So you know the feeling.

Mark Clark [00:25:12]:
Yes, that's my point.

Morgan May Treuil [00:25:13]:
So that happens that that's my life Crazy. Multiple times a day in certain seasons, multiple times a week in others.

Mark Clark [00:25:22]:
So what's been constantly for the listeners? Give us one or two things that helped you get over that.

Morgan May Treuil [00:25:30]:
Well, one of the, One of the parts of the story that is hard, that's like, not the, not the cute part. Not that there is a cute part to anxiety, but one of the ones it's like you have to learn what are the. The bad. Because there's always coping mechanisms. There's ones that are good for you, there's ones that are not good for you. I used to. I used to scratch and pinch and things like that to try to, like, what was that?

Mark Clark [00:25:51]:
Yeah, what is that?

Morgan May Treuil [00:25:52]:
Like you're trying to get out of your head. If I can feel something external, then I can pull myself out. It doesn't. Not helpful. Doesn't work. Not healthy. Obviously. I, I will.

Morgan May Treuil [00:26:02]:
I. I try to numb or fill my head with so much stimulation that I don't have enough space to have panic or think anxiously, like, scrolling. I'll listen to a leadership podcast while I'm watching Keeping up with the Kardashians, while I'm playing Sudoku on my ph, while I'm, you know, like, while walking on the treadmill. Like, just do everything at once so

Mark Clark [00:26:26]:
there's no room for anything drowning it out.

Morgan May Treuil [00:26:27]:
Those are the unhealthy things. Right. Then there's the stuff. So there's the whole, like, scientific gratitude principle of, like, it's actually really hard to think anxious thoughts or have anxious thought pathways while you're also practicing gratitude Thanksgiving, whatever. So. And, and doing that out loud is. Is a huge part of it too, because whatever thing you need in your brain to start saying something out loud, it helps to take you out of whatever thought process. So I read the Bible exclusively out loud.

Morgan May Treuil [00:26:58]:
I never read it in silence. Even if I am, like, in a sermon, I'm listening to you preach or whatever. It's like while you're reading the text, I'm also reading it out loud under my breath. It just helps for some reason. It's like a drawing out whatever I can even get out of my head.

Mark Clark [00:27:10]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:27:11]:
So that's a big thing. Medication has been super helpful. I'm on something now that has been the most helpful thing I've taken since I was diagnosed in college, which is awesome because it maintains my personality. That's the hard part about this kind of stuff is, like, you get on stuff.

Mark Clark [00:27:26]:
Yeah. You become a robot, you become a zombie.

Morgan May Treuil [00:27:28]:
Well, and there's the whole, like, faith question. Of like, are we supposed to do that?

Mark Clark [00:27:32]:
And if we ever take a Tylenol.

Morgan May Treuil [00:27:35]:
Right. Which I couldn't live without Tylenol.

Mark Clark [00:27:38]:
Really? I don't know.

Morgan May Treuil [00:27:39]:
I love painkillers. Don't you love painkillers?

Mark Clark [00:27:40]:
Headaches all the time or. What do you got?

Morgan May Treuil [00:27:42]:
Well, that's another part of the health anxiety. Like, I just always want to know. I always want to know that I'm covered from anything that might come up.

Mark Clark [00:27:47]:
Yeah, but aren't you, like, all. Aren't you all paranoid about any sick. Like, you. You had shared with me, like, your. I don't know if you want to share this or not. I'm open, but over. Overshare. But you would.

Mark Clark [00:27:57]:
Like, what was that time? You tell me. You're like, what was it? Oh, you're. You're terrified of, like, any. Like, if someone says, I got some sickness, you're like, oh, I got that. I got that.

Morgan May Treuil [00:28:06]:
I got it.

Mark Clark [00:28:06]:
Yeah, I got. I'm dying. I'm.

Morgan May Treuil [00:28:08]:
Don't ever describe a symptom to me. Never tell me you're freaking. I don't want to hear anyone's symptoms. Yeah, I've got it. I've got it. Somewhat on grace anatomy. Someone's got a brain tumor. I've got it.

Morgan May Treuil [00:28:19]:
You're terrified of dying, which is funny because I'm not. Terr. Terrified of being dead. I'm terrified of the process. Process of dying.

Mark Clark [00:28:28]:
Yeah. So, okay, so you're married. You have a new little baby.

Morgan May Treuil [00:28:32]:
No, no, no.

Mark Clark [00:28:32]:
I'm gonna. No, no, I'm gonna. I'm gonna connect this. Okay. I'm married to Benji, doing guy named

Morgan May Treuil [00:28:36]:
Benji, who's the best.

Mark Clark [00:28:37]:
Who's, like, the opposite of all this.

Morgan May Treuil [00:28:39]:
He is.

Mark Clark [00:28:39]:
He's just calm and chill and hunter and let me hunt the ducks and.

Morgan May Treuil [00:28:43]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [00:28:44]:
Okay, so. So. And you got little whale.

Morgan May Treuil [00:28:48]:
Brand new.

Mark Clark [00:28:48]:
Five months, four months, six months, three and a half. He's awesome.

Morgan May Treuil [00:28:53]:
So he looks like he's six months, which is why I lie. Yeah, he looks. He's a big boy.

Mark Clark [00:28:56]:
Yeah. So with all this craziness in your. Sorry, that's probably not the right word. You know, craziness of life. Not your crazy, but this craziness of life that you're living.

Morgan May Treuil [00:29:07]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:29:08]:
How did that affect your dating life? And then how did you ultimately meet Benji in the midst of all this.

Morgan May Treuil [00:29:15]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:29:16]:
Stuff going on with you? And you're like, okay, I gotta be cool. I gotta be chill. I gotta be normal. I can't be going out for dinner with this guy and then Going, I'm afraid the puke or whatever. Run away. Like, how did you ever meet somebody and like, was dating weird before you met Benji? Bunch of fails.

Morgan May Treuil [00:29:33]:
No, we need to ask this question for you too, with the Tourette stuff, because that's.

Mark Clark [00:29:37]:
I mean, I'm sure that they hear enough about that.

Morgan May Treuil [00:29:40]:
No, but that. That's a good. I mean, that's all this.

Mark Clark [00:29:42]:
How did.

Morgan May Treuil [00:29:44]:
That was the kind of. So I didn't think that I would ever get married or because children. Because of this.

Mark Clark [00:29:49]:
Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [00:29:50]:
In my mind, I'm like, how. Like, I couldn't go to a sleepover.

Mark Clark [00:29:53]:
Right. Especially being pregnant.

Morgan May Treuil [00:29:55]:
Oh, my gosh. If you haven't ever imagined, like, I wanted to be a mom.

Mark Clark [00:29:59]:
Fear of throwing up. Pregnancy.

Morgan May Treuil [00:30:02]:
Having. Having a baby is not worth it. Right.

Mark Clark [00:30:04]:
That's fascinating. Did you throw up a bunch when you were with whaling?

Morgan May Treuil [00:30:11]:
Constantly. I think it defeated the fear, actually.

Mark Clark [00:30:13]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Wood. Yeah. Because also. Let me mansplain to you for a sec, please. So it also for you would be. And this is kind of a principle of life.

Mark Clark [00:30:23]:
It's worth the thing you're getting on the other side of. It is worth it.

Morgan May Treuil [00:30:28]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:30:28]:
That's what makes suffering bearable.

Morgan May Treuil [00:30:31]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [00:30:32]:
Right. You know you're getting Waylon out of it. So you're willing to puke.

Morgan May Treuil [00:30:36]:
Yep.

Mark Clark [00:30:37]:
So I'm not saying something deep about that. I'm just saying you're doing a cost benefit ratio as you make the decision to get pregnant and you go, okay,

Morgan May Treuil [00:30:45]:
now that I know Waylon, this sucks, but now that I know him, I know that he's worth it.

Mark Clark [00:30:50]:
Sure. Oh, but you didn't know. Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [00:30:52]:
So I would. I would.

Mark Clark [00:30:53]:
I never ultimately made the decision to get pregnant.

Morgan May Treuil [00:30:56]:
No.

Mark Clark [00:30:56]:
Well, it was a mistake.

Morgan May Treuil [00:30:58]:
Not a mistake.

Mark Clark [00:30:59]:
Hot guys, you're hearing it here. First of the Mark Clark pod. Hold on a sec.

Morgan May Treuil [00:31:03]:
It wasn't a mistake.

Mark Clark [00:31:04]:
You weren't planning on having children, though. You were.

Morgan May Treuil [00:31:06]:
We were planning on having children.

Mark Clark [00:31:07]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:31:08]:
We were not planning on having children then.

Mark Clark [00:31:09]:
Oh, okay. But you were ultimately going to have

Morgan May Treuil [00:31:11]:
to face at some point eventually. That was like, gotcha, gotcha. And to be honest with you, I've never felt the maternal thing before this. So, like, I always wanted to be married. And I always mourned the idea that I didn't think I would get married because of anxiety. I always mourned that. I have never thought about being a mom.

Mark Clark [00:31:28]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:31:28]:
Never had. Dating was actually kind of the. The God thing in all of it is that I sent myself into relationships so unhealthily as like a numbing agent for anxiety that I did. Relationships, all really unhealthily up until Benji, basically. I had not dated anybody for a very long time before Benji. And I remember feeling very confident that Benji was the person I was supposed to be with.

Mark Clark [00:31:59]:
Where'd you meet him?

Morgan May Treuil [00:32:00]:
Here at Bayside. So we met at a middle school girls night out, which was an event I was speaking at. And he was on our production. Production at the time.

Mark Clark [00:32:10]:
That's cool.

Morgan May Treuil [00:32:11]:
So we were just there and then we casually just went out to get a burger afterwards.

Mark Clark [00:32:15]:
Just the two of you?

Morgan May Treuil [00:32:16]:
Just the two of us.

Mark Clark [00:32:16]:
So no one was setting that up.

Morgan May Treuil [00:32:18]:
Michael, someone had left. Lee were friends of ours.

Mark Clark [00:32:20]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:32:21]:
They thought it was a good idea.

Mark Clark [00:32:22]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:32:23]:
They had mentioned it to both of us. So kind of a setup. Like we didn't just come out of nowhere and think about it, but. But yeah, we just. We went out.

Mark Clark [00:32:30]:
Love it.

Morgan May Treuil [00:32:31]:
I knew that he was probably the one after the first date or first couple of dates because of how with him, all of a sudden it felt like those were not insurmount anxiety problems. Were not insurmountable problems. He just felt so comfortable to me that it was like, he doesn't. Also, what's really refreshing about him is he does not need me at all. Like he would say that he does now.

Mark Clark [00:32:55]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:32:56]:
But I don't know that he.

Mark Clark [00:32:58]:
So that takes the pressure off.

Morgan May Treuil [00:32:59]:
Fell in love with me until after we were married.

Mark Clark [00:33:02]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:33:02]:
And it takes the pressure off, like I. To be needed.

Mark Clark [00:33:05]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:33:06]:
Is such a problem for someone like me because I need the exit strategy

Mark Clark [00:33:09]:
to the point of.

Morgan May Treuil [00:33:10]:
Right, yeah. Well, so then did you think you weren't going to get married because of Tourette's?

Mark Clark [00:33:15]:
No, I don't ever. I always wanted to be married and have kids. And there was no part of you

Morgan May Treuil [00:33:21]:
that was like, oh, this is gonna disqualify, not disqualified.

Mark Clark [00:33:24]:
Not really.

Morgan May Treuil [00:33:25]:
That's awesome.

Mark Clark [00:33:25]:
Which is kind of.

Morgan May Treuil [00:33:26]:
I wish I thought less now that I.

Mark Clark [00:33:27]:
Now that you think of it, maybe I should be more concerned. Yeah, not really. I mean, the trusting was weird because it was. It was bad for certain seasons of my life, certain ages and stages and seasons and stress. And I was like. But for some reason, you know, by God's grace, I always still had the social world. Like, I was still a cool kid. How's that possible?

Morgan May Treuil [00:33:51]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:33:51]:
How was I part of the cool gang when I like more? You have to understand, there was a season of my life, probably a year or 2, where three times in this conversation I would have already done this if I was wearing a hat. I put my hat up in there and then stand up. But I'd be smoking cigarettes. We gotta talk. And then I'd go down my. I go down my knees, I guess. And so I walk around with big patches on my pants because falling down on my knees was the way to stave off sickness, disease, death, hurting thing. Anything going through my head.

Mark Clark [00:34:27]:
And I would walk down the street and a bang, bang, bang, bang, right on the concrete, all the way down the road. Probably shouldn't be a cool kid at that point. So I don't know.

Morgan May Treuil [00:34:37]:
How do you. How did you make Tourette's cool?

Mark Clark [00:34:40]:
It never became cool. It's just your.

Morgan May Treuil [00:34:43]:
Your thing with Tourette's is not uncool. I mean, it is uncool is the cigarettes. It didn't.

Mark Clark [00:34:49]:
No.

Morgan May Treuil [00:34:49]:
Like, I can do crazy stuff. Like I'm smoking a cigarette. No, no.

Mark Clark [00:34:52]:
But, like, Tourette's.

Morgan May Treuil [00:34:55]:
You're cool with Tourette's?

Mark Clark [00:34:56]:
Well, the friends that I had and were able to get and keep were people who were cool.

Morgan May Treuil [00:35:02]:
So do you feel like you always owned it in a way that we're like, I. Oh.

Mark Clark [00:35:07]:
For some reason I. I didn't let it bug me to the point of, like, I'm so insecure. I don't want to put myself out there.

Morgan May Treuil [00:35:15]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:35:15]:
Which is probably what most people do.

Morgan May Treuil [00:35:18]:
Right. That's a cool. That's.

Mark Clark [00:35:20]:
You know, I'm not gonna approach those people. I'm not gonna go out and hang with those people because this thing will make it. But also, by God's grace, I've seen, like. I can't watch it, but there's a movie that just came out where this guy throws F bombs around every two seconds because he has Tourette's. And he, like. Have you seen this? He just won an Oscar. No, not an Oscar. He won a British acting award because.

Mark Clark [00:35:41]:
And it's a. It's a movie about a real guy who has become successful in some area of the world. The politician or something. And he swears all the time. The movie's called I Swear. And. And he, like, full on, like, sitting in his car like that.

Morgan May Treuil [00:35:58]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:35:59]:
In rooms. He'll scream.

Morgan May Treuil [00:36:00]:
Yeah, right.

Mark Clark [00:36:02]:
It actually. He got. He. What happened recently? Did you see that thing recently? He was in the room and. And two African American guys got up, Michael B. Jordan and the other guy, and he screamed out the N word in the room to them. That's the guy the movie's about.

Morgan May Treuil [00:36:16]:
But he had. He actually has Tourette he has Tourette's. Right? That's so.

Mark Clark [00:36:21]:
Bro.

Morgan May Treuil [00:36:21]:
That's brutal, bro. Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:36:24]:
I'm like, all right, if I. If that's me.

Morgan May Treuil [00:36:28]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:36:28]:
I'm not going out.

Morgan May Treuil [00:36:29]:
No.

Mark Clark [00:36:30]:
You know what I mean?

Morgan May Treuil [00:36:30]:
Like, yes, yes, I'm not going.

Mark Clark [00:36:32]:
So.

Morgan May Treuil [00:36:32]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:36:33]:
I think there was seasons where that was me, but not like that, those kind of words, but it was like, I would swear randomly, but I think I, by, again, by God's grace, could control it enough that I could still socially do my thing.

Morgan May Treuil [00:36:46]:
You have this phrase that you've used before. It's like, correct me if it's wrong. Take your brokenness and. And aim it at something.

Mark Clark [00:36:54]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:36:54]:
Like, is that the way you said?

Mark Clark [00:36:55]:
Yeah, I think I said that. The problem of life, but I think we worked on that sentence, whatever that.

Morgan May Treuil [00:36:59]:
Whatever that is. You have a choice whenever it comes to whatever the thing is that life has dealt you, whether it's.

Mark Clark [00:37:06]:
Yeah. Take your brokenness and aim it at something.

Morgan May Treuil [00:37:08]:
Take your brokenness and aim it at something.

Mark Clark [00:37:10]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:37:10]:
For me, it's. It's the. It's the panic disorder thing. It's the anxiety stuff. Whatever. The thing is, in a way that.

Mark Clark [00:37:16]:
That connects to an audience.

Morgan May Treuil [00:37:17]:
It either overcomes you and it defines all of your choices, all of your trajectory, your future, and the way that people see you. Or you wield it.

Mark Clark [00:37:25]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:37:26]:
And you figure out how to. To turn it for something good. I feel like the. The. I'm probably just reaching the point in the last, like, five or six years where I've learned what it is to wield this.

Mark Clark [00:37:39]:
Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [00:37:39]:
But the tension I think that I live in is always riding the line of, like, I. I've got this. I can. I can use this. I can wear this as something that makes me relatable and makes me a more effective preacher and, you know, leader or whatever. And then there are those things. Marriage and kids was one of them. Preaching sometimes currently is one of them where I'm like, ah, it might just take me out of that.

Morgan May Treuil [00:38:02]:
And I'm okay with that.

Mark Clark [00:38:04]:
That.

Morgan May Treuil [00:38:04]:
I'm okay with it.

Mark Clark [00:38:05]:
Yeah. Don't let. Don't let it take you out of preaching, because that's. And you should read Spurgeon's story. Go and find a good. A good book, a short one, if you can, on Spurgeon and his story. Because he dealt with. You're not dealing with depression, but he dealt with massive.

Mark Clark [00:38:22]:
You know, he's. He's called the Prince of Preacher. He's one of the greatest preachers to ever live yeah. And he dealt with massive levels of depression, like to the point where he would describe it as if a serpent had bit him and sucked out all the pleasure and joy and inserted nothing but destructive and dark thoughts. And he said, this is my thing to own. And he would get up and preach in this massive cloud of depression for a lot of his life. But it didn't make him not preach. So don't let it take you out.

Morgan May Treuil [00:38:54]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:38:55]:
Just use it. Use it. Give people permission. That's what the Tourette said for me. It gave people permission to be broken and real.

Morgan May Treuil [00:39:01]:
Absolutely.

Mark Clark [00:39:02]:
And be like, oh, okay, if he can. Yeah, if she can do this, then

Morgan May Treuil [00:39:05]:
I think there's that thought too. You might feel so about Tourette's. I feel so by anxiety. It's that thought too, where you get to the edge of doing something and you're like, if I let this be the thing that makes me not do this, what I'm doing has officially become about me, my limitations, my abilities. And the whole thing of preaching is that it's meant to be nothing of you. You're just meant to be.

Mark Clark [00:39:28]:
It was funny. Yeah. Very good. I'm reading this devo right now by John Calvin. 365 days of devotions. So he's my. It's. Well, it's.

Mark Clark [00:39:38]:
It's two separate books. There's two. Two of them. There's. There's J.C. riley and John Calvin. So two good reformed guys. And.

Mark Clark [00:39:46]:
And every day they have their devos. So, you know, you read and. And the opening of the introduction to the John Calvin one was out of every sermon he ever preached, every book he ever. And he wrote. You know, his volumes like this. Right. He only mentions himself and anything to do with his life twice. And in fact, he.

Mark Clark [00:40:07]:
He was buried in a tomb or a. Just a gray. And he said, I don't want any markings on it. I don't even want anyone to know where I was buried.

Morgan May Treuil [00:40:16]:
Wow.

Mark Clark [00:40:16]:
And I'm like, okay, that's not true about my servants.

Morgan May Treuil [00:40:20]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:40:21]:
My motive is pure. I believe that before God. My motive is just to help the audience get through the day and make sense of the text.

Morgan May Treuil [00:40:30]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:40:31]:
It really has nothing to do with. I want to look one way or the other. What I would much rather do is just get up and teach theology and not have to. The grind is the illustrating the thing and making this dude who works.

Morgan May Treuil [00:40:45]:
It's the worst part.

Mark Clark [00:40:45]:
50 hours a week. And it's just struggling to keep his marriage together and raise his kids, make him care about this by illustrating it and telling stories. I'd rather much get up with a whiteboard and go, let's go.

Morgan May Treuil [00:40:57]:
Yeah, yeah.

Mark Clark [00:40:58]:
Like we're doing Ephesians in a day. Just give me that.

Morgan May Treuil [00:41:01]:
I feel like eight hours of teaching

Mark Clark [00:41:04]:
the book of Ephesians with no notes. Just go with a whiteboard. That's the dream.

Morgan May Treuil [00:41:08]:
The comedian that we had at Thrive, Michael Jr. Yeah, Michael Jr. He has this kind of principle for his comedy that I thought was super interesting. If you listen to him, none of his jokes are based off of his own life. It's all universal things that you would experience. So he makes jokes about restaurants and, you know, human experiences that everyone can relate to. But I'm just thinking through that, and I'm like, I think it's very hard to search into the recesses of your own mind and your own experiences and pull stuff out that you've experienced and then make that connect to the text, you know, relatable to people. Whatever.

Morgan May Treuil [00:41:43]:
I'm like, I can't imagine pulling out things to help illustrate points that have nothing to do with me. That feels like even, like, way harder work. But his whole point is.

Mark Clark [00:41:53]:
Yeah, you got to make it.

Morgan May Treuil [00:41:54]:
It's like selfish comedy to make it about you. It's unselfish.

Mark Clark [00:41:58]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:41:58]:
To bring everybody else into it. Right. But for preaching, as a. I think that's a really cool principle for comedy. And the harder work.

Mark Clark [00:42:05]:
Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [00:42:05]:
Or preaching isn't part of the beauty of it that you're seeing the grace of God intersect with the. The brokenness of a real human that you can relate to.

Mark Clark [00:42:17]:
Yeah, but that's actually. But that's. First off, I've seen comedians tell stories about themselves, and it'd be very funny.

Morgan May Treuil [00:42:25]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Mark Clark [00:42:26]:
And I think the thing with. I think what you're drawing out there, which is really good. I don't think you've been articulating some of the preaching courses I've done and stuff, which is, if you're going to tell a story about you, make it one that the crowd so universally connects with. It's not just funny because it happened to you. It's funny because they'd be like, that's totally what it is. That's totally what y. That's totally a thing.

Morgan May Treuil [00:42:46]:
Yep.

Mark Clark [00:42:46]:
Like, that's happened to me.

Morgan May Treuil [00:42:48]:
Yep.

Mark Clark [00:42:48]:
Or the way I would react.

Morgan May Treuil [00:42:50]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [00:42:51]:
I think that's what makes it funny. Okay, so now you're one of the great leaders in America. What's your education? This isn't a job interview. What is your. Yeah. What do you? Because you, you're a preaching beast. Everyone thinks you're top 50, 60 preachers Bayside.

Morgan May Treuil [00:43:15]:
I remember exactly.

Mark Clark [00:43:16]:
I remember a guy introduced me one time I was preaching at a church in Vancouver and you know, there's only a handful of churches in Vancouver.

Morgan May Treuil [00:43:22]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:43:22]:
And he's like, mark Clark, everyone. Top 40 preachers in Vancouver.

Morgan May Treuil [00:43:26]:
Was he being Easter?

Mark Clark [00:43:27]:
Yeah. Yeah. So.

Morgan May Treuil [00:43:29]:
But my degree was in dance education.

Mark Clark [00:43:31]:
Great. I have no theological education.

Morgan May Treuil [00:43:33]:
No. Fired. I, I.

Mark Clark [00:43:39]:
So you want, I'm assuming you want to, you want to become even a better preacher and is that your plan?

Morgan May Treuil [00:43:48]:
I eventually I would love to.

Mark Clark [00:43:50]:
Right. Theological school.

Morgan May Treuil [00:43:52]:
I would love to. To go to seminary. I do really well at being self. I'm a reader, I'm a researcher. I take the text really seriously. I spent a lot of time in study.

Mark Clark [00:44:07]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:44:08]:
So I would love to go back to school. I would love to get my degree. I would love to.

Mark Clark [00:44:13]:
Only because you think it hinders your.

Morgan May Treuil [00:44:15]:
I don't. Not at all.

Mark Clark [00:44:16]:
Your future or because you want to

Morgan May Treuil [00:44:18]:
know stuff and I want to know stuff and I want to, I want to get into some of the things that, that I don't think it's, it's tough because I've been in settings where people would love for me to have a degree and I've been in settings where people have made it very. Leaders have made it very clear we don't care if you have a degree. We care that you have experience. And at this point I have experience in ministry, not necessarily in, you know, some kind of like.

Mark Clark [00:44:43]:
Yeah, you took a young adult group from X to Y in a. Great. It's killing, it's growing four or five hundred young adults coming out.

Morgan May Treuil [00:44:53]:
Well, I feel like God's doing something.

Mark Clark [00:44:55]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:44:55]:
Amongst young people.

Mark Clark [00:44:56]:
But your leaderships just crucial to that.

Morgan May Treuil [00:44:59]:
Yeah. I don't have a desire to have further education because of like a, the credibility that, that gives me something.

Mark Clark [00:45:08]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:45:08]:
I don't feel like I'm being held back. I'm doing what I want to do right now. I don't want to do much more than this. Like.

Mark Clark [00:45:14]:
Yeah, we were trying to think of ways we got to get stuff off here.

Morgan May Treuil [00:45:18]:
I want to keep preaching. I want to write things. So I would love to go back to school or take class and further education for the sake of making those things more rich.

Mark Clark [00:45:32]:
So as people, so we've talked about this. There's people in ministry or just life in general that like have a certain, you know, you look at certain things when you hire people. Right. Character Culture, chemistry, all the Cs. There's 14 Cs.

Morgan May Treuil [00:45:45]:
14.

Mark Clark [00:45:46]:
Well, I just came up with that. There's a lot. There's a lot of Cs. There's a lot of Cs.

Morgan May Treuil [00:45:49]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:45:50]:
Come up with a lot of C words that are like, things that are actually good for an organization. Character also. Yeah. So one of them is capacity.

Morgan May Treuil [00:45:59]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:45:59]:
People have different capacity.

Morgan May Treuil [00:46:00]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:46:02]:
We see it in the staff we hang with. We could go, oh, that's a. You know, one guy I heard explained, it's a terrible use of the parable of Jesus. 30, 60, and 100 fold. There's certain people that are 30 fold. People, certain people that are 60 fold, certain people that are 100 fold. There's just different capacities. You have a high capacity.

Mark Clark [00:46:19]:
You can go from a strategic leadership meeting to helping me redesign a booklet for a thing. You have an eye for that. Then you could jump over and preach a thing. Then you could fill a room. All this stuff, which is priceless in ministry. So how do you select the things that you're like, okay, this is now a maxed out. I can't do this, I can't do that. Because you're going to be interested to do all of it.

Mark Clark [00:46:46]:
You don't want to chase all the opportunities.

Morgan May Treuil [00:46:48]:
Do you feel like your lane was so clear right from the get?

Mark Clark [00:46:53]:
My lane?

Morgan May Treuil [00:46:53]:
Yeah, your lane. The thing that you were meant to run in the most.

Mark Clark [00:46:58]:
It's a good question. Trying to think back.

Morgan May Treuil [00:47:03]:
You have different hats that you wear, which is like you're. You're not one of those senior pastors that's like, I'm just vision. I'm like, no weeds and I only run in these lanes. Like, you have a lot of lanes that you run in also. But I do think at this point in your career, your lanes are close enough together that you don't have. You're not spreading yourself too thin.

Mark Clark [00:47:22]:
Yeah, I'm trying to think back. I think mine evolved, which is interesting because when people ask me about calling, remember you've heard the story a million times. But the calling originally was youth ministry, and then it was go to Vancouver to go the academic route. So it jumped from youth ministry to becoming a professor, because my professor took me under his wing and said, this is what you're going to do. And then I was a ta and then I was lecturing at the school. The guy, 20, I was 21 years old, he said, I want you to three hour lecture at the school. These people are paying good money to come and listen to him lecture three hours. I want 21 year old kid to get up and lecture them on this historical document and all these resurrection arguments.

Morgan May Treuil [00:48:06]:
It's crazy, crazy.

Mark Clark [00:48:07]:
So they would, he'd get me to do that every year and then he did it with John 15. I had to do a whole three hour lecture on John 15. I would mark papers, do all these things. So I wanted to become an academic. That's the road. He was like, this is what your thing is going to be and you should write footnotes. Because when I'm reading your papers, I assign you three books and you read 10 and you're coming up with original stuff, stuff I don't want to steal. I wrote this particular thesis on John 15 and he was like, I've never heard this before and I think you're right and I don't want to steal it.

Mark Clark [00:48:36]:
And so it was about this idea of abide, the word abide and how everyone uses that in some kind of spiritual. Like I'm going to abide in Jesus and I'm just going to go, I'm going to sit here and abide and let's call our ministry abide. That's good. But in once I had read enough. Sorry, I'm just going to do a geeky little theological, you know, side road here for a second. Yeah. Once I'd read enough scholars that dealt with first century Israel and first century theology, the world that Jesus was going into, and they had reconstructed that world for me, E.P. sanders, N.T.

Mark Clark [00:49:16]:
wright, James Dunn, a lot of these guys. Once that world is constructed and then you put Jesus into it, you realize half of what he was saying is nothing that we preach about. I'm just being honest. He's not talking about half the stuff we're talking about.

Morgan May Treuil [00:49:31]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:49:31]:
He is talking to first century Jews about a situation like, when's the last time? Let me ask you, when's the last time you preached a sermon? I'm talking about about the fact that in 40 years the temple is going to be destroyed and it's the most significant thing that's ever going to happen.

Morgan May Treuil [00:49:48]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:49:48]:
When's the last time you preached that sermon? It was literally a third of Jesus ministry.

Morgan May Treuil [00:49:53]:
Right? Right.

Mark Clark [00:49:54]:
So once.

Morgan May Treuil [00:49:55]:
What are we doing?

Mark Clark [00:49:56]:
So what are we doing? So once all that gets messed up in your brain. Right now you're reading Luke and you're like, oh, that's what he's talking about. He's saying Rome's gonna come in, he's gonna sack this whole place. All you are dead. He should flee out to the mountains. And by the way, that's what this parable is about. That's what that thing's about. That's what the fig tree's about.

Mark Clark [00:50:12]:
That's what the temple action's about when he throws the table over. Oh, and it has nothing to do with the second coming, by the way. That has to do with the destruction of the temple that's gonna happen in 40 years. And everything it means for this national identity, their whole identity is gone. All of Israel's done. It's okay because the sacrifices mean nothing anymore. Because the cross is all this stuff. You do enough of that reading, then you're reading the Gospels and your mind gets blown.

Mark Clark [00:50:34]:
Because every time he says, the kingdom of God, it doesn't mean what we say, it means this. And every time he says, I want you to do this, all this stuff gets rearranged your brain. So by the time I'm at John 15 and he says, I want you to abide in me, I went and looked up the actual etymology of the word abide like I was trying to do with your throw up thing, because etymology matters. I want to know what words mean. Because sometimes you realize if I don't understand what a word word means, I'm going to get it wrong. And CS Lewis said, here's the problem with modern people, they assume what a word means. And what you'd be far better off is do using words that they have to go look up what they mean, right? Rather than change the word so that they think that, you know, propitiation, for instance, in the New Testament, we just, we, we describe it, but we never capture what it means. So I said this word abide, it doesn't mean some kind of like let me sit with Jesus and drink my morning coffee though, that's awesome too.

Mark Clark [00:51:22]:
He's looking at first century Israel. The actual etymology of the word is to remain. Remain. Remain what? Yeah, so he's looking at first century Israel and he's saying, listen to this point. You have been in the vine, right? It's Psalm 80 and all. You've been part of this vineyard and it's the true vine dresser. And all of a sudden, and if you choose to remain in me as the new Israel, then you get to stay. But if you choose to detach from me as a Jew in the first century and you choose to reject me as Messiah, guess what? You're not part of Israel anymore and you're getting cut off, right? Well, if all you're talking about is you should believe in Jesus.

Mark Clark [00:52:05]:
And you were never part of Jesus, so it makes no sense. But he's talking to a group people saying somehow they were part of a thing.

Morgan May Treuil [00:52:10]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:52:11]:
And now a crossroads has happened. And now if they want to be, remain part of that thing, they have to believe. But if they don't remain, then they're going to be cut off anyways. So I write this paper and he says, so now it's academics. That's what I'm going to be. I'm going to move to Oxford. Then I moved to Vancouver. Then it's planted church.

Mark Clark [00:52:28]:
So I abandoned the Oxford thing and now it's planted church. And then it's come down. And then after 12 and a half years or 13 years of that, it's come down here. So my point in saying all that is the calling aspect of my lane.

Morgan May Treuil [00:52:38]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:52:39]:
Evolved.

Morgan May Treuil [00:52:39]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:52:41]:
I think what was always clear as I wanted to study ideas and communicate them.

Morgan May Treuil [00:52:45]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:52:46]:
In whatever context.

Morgan May Treuil [00:52:47]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:52:49]:
Where that was gonna be. I, I evolved over time. But what, where we do connect is there's a capacity level where I feel like I can do a bunch of different things.

Morgan May Treuil [00:52:59]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [00:53:00]:
So I have to constantly be like, what am I not going to do? What am I not going to do? What am I not going to do?

Morgan May Treuil [00:53:04]:
How do you make those decisions?

Mark Clark [00:53:05]:
Well, I'm asking you how you make.

Morgan May Treuil [00:53:07]:
I don't think I do. Well, I, I think that I'm at the place right now where the lanes are too many and they don't, they don't fit well enough together. Not all of them do.

Mark Clark [00:53:18]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:53:18]:
They don't fit well enough together for it to be long term sustainable.

Mark Clark [00:53:22]:
So I have, you got to figure it out.

Morgan May Treuil [00:53:24]:
Administrative part of my brain that I love. And it's a very easy, safe space for me to be. And I have a project management side of my brain. I have a leadership side of my, I have a, A creative communication. There's so many different things. They don't all work together.

Mark Clark [00:53:36]:
No.

Morgan May Treuil [00:53:37]:
And I don't know this and I'm not, I'm not even saying this to, to sound, to say that I'm good at all of those things. I'm saying it like I love doing all of those things and I love the variety that one day can hold five different kinds of meetings in which my role in those meetings is different per thing.

Mark Clark [00:53:55]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:53:55]:
I love that there are days. Oh yeah. Forgot about him.

Mark Clark [00:53:59]:
That's, that's. And you have a baby that's throwing in the mix.

Morgan May Treuil [00:54:02]:
So how are you supposed to decide?

Mark Clark [00:54:03]:
Right. Well, I Remember our conversations? Because Morgan and I started working pretty closely together around a bunch of projects that I was working on, and it was like, she's gonna have this baby, and is this. You know, is this gonna end?

Morgan May Treuil [00:54:16]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:54:16]:
Like. Like she's just gonna call me up. I'm not coming back to work. I look at this child's face, and I'm never gonna work another day in my life. Which sometimes happens.

Morgan May Treuil [00:54:24]:
Yeah. And it's not a bad thing.

Mark Clark [00:54:25]:
It's not a bad thing.

Morgan May Treuil [00:54:26]:
No.

Mark Clark [00:54:26]:
But. But, God, praise the Lord, that hasn't been you. You've seen this little thing, and you've said, this is. I'd give my life for this kid. But you. You stay here eight hours a day, and I'm gonna go to work. No.

Morgan May Treuil [00:54:39]:
Only two days a week.

Mark Clark [00:54:40]:
I'm just kidding. You're afraid to be judged. I love it.

Morgan May Treuil [00:54:46]:
I'm not negligent.

Mark Clark [00:54:47]:
But to that point, as I have on my list, because we have to talk about being a woman.

Morgan May Treuil [00:54:51]:
Oh, yeah.

Mark Clark [00:54:51]:
To that point. That's a good segue. Because you're like, oh, yeah. I don't want people to think I'm a bad mom.

Morgan May Treuil [00:54:56]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:54:57]:
Just because I work.

Morgan May Treuil [00:54:58]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [00:54:59]:
I wrote down a couple questions. So what's uniquely hard about being a woman of ministry? Well, this is. That people don't see. But whatever. Let's just.

Morgan May Treuil [00:55:06]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:55:07]:
What's. What's uniquely hard about being a woman in ministry in general.

Morgan May Treuil [00:55:13]:
Ministry in general. Is that for the male. And I don't want to speak in sweeping generalizations, because that can get.

Mark Clark [00:55:22]:
There's always. Yeah, of course.

Morgan May Treuil [00:55:23]:
So hear me when I say I understand that these things can be different for different people. Typically, care of the child falls to the woman. And biologically, that makes sense, because at first, the woman is the only part of the parents that can physically care for the child.

Mark Clark [00:55:41]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:55:42]:
Unless I'm not saying you shouldn't do formula.

Mark Clark [00:55:43]:
Yeah. You do formula bottles. And there's so many. So many little nuances. We get it. Yes. Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [00:55:52]:
So I get that. And I want that. I want to be Waylon's caretaker. I want to be his mom. I want all of those things. The hardest general ministry principle of being a woman who's at my. Actually, I'll go backwards even to when I was single and unmarried. Being a male who is single, unmarried, I'm sure comes with a certain set of challenges.

Morgan May Treuil [00:56:15]:
But I do think that in the church, pretty classically, the male is trusted a little bit more than the female. In general, I will just say that that Seems like it's true. Before marriage, I felt like being a woman and being single equated to, like, a little bit of immaturity in the eyes of people watching. Then you get married, and that gives you a little bit more credibility, it seems. And yet you don't have the life experience of being a mom.

Mark Clark [00:56:49]:
Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [00:56:49]:
That. I feel like, every step of the way in my, like, character arc.

Mark Clark [00:56:54]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:56:54]:
If you will. There's been, like, a little bit of immaturity, inexperience, and, like. Like a knock against you.

Mark Clark [00:57:01]:
Sure.

Morgan May Treuil [00:57:02]:
Just for the fact that you're a female.

Mark Clark [00:57:04]:
Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [00:57:06]:
I actually don't mind that because I'm not the kind of person that's like, I am woman. Hear me roar.

Mark Clark [00:57:11]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:57:12]:
I would way rather give my spot to somebody else.

Mark Clark [00:57:15]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [00:57:16]:
A man.

Mark Clark [00:57:16]:
Right. Or a woman.

Morgan May Treuil [00:57:18]:
Or a woman. Or then be the person to save

Mark Clark [00:57:20]:
you for being canceled.

Morgan May Treuil [00:57:21]:
I don't need. Sorry.

Mark Clark [00:57:23]:
We got to talk about your sheet story, by the way.

Morgan May Treuil [00:57:26]:
I. I don't need to be the. The person that's never been my heart. I don't care. Like, wherever the gospel comes out of someone's mouth, it doesn't even mine. I don't care.

Mark Clark [00:57:34]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:57:35]:
But I would say, like, the fact that I do feel burdened to do this by God, because I believe that. That who Jesus is and people knowing him is that important.

Mark Clark [00:57:45]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:57:46]:
And I believe that you can control.

Mark Clark [00:57:48]:
You can control. Sorry, go ahead. But you have gifts. You have a calling. You can control that. That's what you can control.

Morgan May Treuil [00:57:53]:
So you're going to disobedient to not use those things in order to further the gospel. If I have something to give, I should be able to give it.

Mark Clark [00:57:59]:
Yeah. And. Yeah. And work on it the best and become the best version of it. Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [00:58:02]:
I think overcoming people's perception of what

Mark Clark [00:58:05]:
you are is probably what's. What's the most. I didn't ask you any of these questions before, so you might not have an example of this, but do you have an example of, like, a sexist scenario that happened with you that you can think of that was like, oh, yeah. That was clearly like, oh, you're a girl, so you're not gonna.

Morgan May Treuil [00:58:20]:
Usually you. Usually. My examples have always involved preaching.

Mark Clark [00:58:24]:
Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [00:58:25]:
Either before I'm about to preach or after I'm about to. Or after I have preached, I have scenarios in which people come to me or tell other people before that they're leaving because I'm there and because I'm preaching, or people who have come to me afterwards and have apologized for what they said or thought about me before

Mark Clark [00:58:40]:
I preached and about you. Meaning you are a woman or a particular kind of young and a woman young.

Morgan May Treuil [00:58:46]:
I've always. In ministry, I'm only 30 in ministry. I've always been both a woman young and for the.

Mark Clark [00:58:53]:
You've always been a woman?

Morgan May Treuil [00:58:54]:
I've always been a woman.

Mark Clark [00:58:55]:
Breaking news, Breaking news.

Morgan May Treuil [00:58:56]:
I've always been female. I've typically. I've always been young. Like, I don't know what the threshold is for when we start to think that people are like, like maturing. Maybe it's 30 right now. And there are days where I look at them, I'm like, they were right.

Mark Clark [00:59:09]:
Can I tell you something funny, though, not to make this about me again?

Morgan May Treuil [00:59:14]:
This is the Mark Clark podcast.

Mark Clark [00:59:15]:
Yeah. I was preaching last, I don't know, last year, and I, and I, and I made some comment like I was the audience looking at me preaching and, and said like, oh, what does this kid with Tourette's know? Or something like that.

Morgan May Treuil [00:59:31]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [00:59:32]:
And then after, Kevin Thomas is like, you know you're 45 years old. Right? And I'm like, what? Like, he's like, you, you talked about yourself in the first part. You said you're a kid.

Morgan May Treuil [00:59:43]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:59:44]:
And Morgan, I'm here to tell you I'm dead serious. I still think of myself as a kid. That people, when they're looking at me on stage, see me as super young.

Morgan May Treuil [00:59:54]:
Right.

Mark Clark [00:59:55]:
Why do I do that? I'm 45 years old. Old. Do people see me as young? I mean, I hope they do, but why do I picture myself like I'm 20 years old up there still? Is that imposter syndrome coming through in my.

Morgan May Treuil [01:00:09]:
I mean, I could make a Kevin Thompson joke here since he was the one who, like, there are some people that are younger than they look and there are people that are older than they look.

Mark Clark [01:00:16]:
Right. So you, I think. Do you think the audience goes, why, why did he say that about himself? He's super old. Like, not super old, but he's middle aged. Why does he keep talking to us of his kids?

Morgan May Treuil [01:00:26]:
Did. I mean, what do you think?

Mark Clark [01:00:27]:
They were just kind of on the train and

Morgan May Treuil [01:00:30]:
I mean, he wasn't saying it critically.

Mark Clark [01:00:33]:
He was just. It's almost like a funny.

Morgan May Treuil [01:00:35]:
Like, I think people think that you're young.

Mark Clark [01:00:38]:
Okay. For the, for, for the 45.

Morgan May Treuil [01:00:40]:
But what you think, like, people think that you're younger than you probably are.

Mark Clark [01:00:43]:
Right. Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [01:00:44]:
Is what I'm saying.

Mark Clark [01:00:45]:
Have you ever watched the West Wing?

Morgan May Treuil [01:00:46]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:00:47]:
Okay. Toby Ziegler Brilliant. The guy with the beard and like no hair and he's like his right hand man and always yells and screams.

Morgan May Treuil [01:00:53]:
Is that the actor's name or the character's name?

Mark Clark [01:00:54]:
The character's name. Toby Ziegler.

Morgan May Treuil [01:00:55]:
Is that Rob Lowe? No, Rob Lowe never ages.

Mark Clark [01:00:58]:
No, Rob Lowe looks the same. No, but Toby Ziegler is the character in the show. He's got the beard and the receding hairline and he's one of the community. He's the communications director. Anyway, I've watched this show.

Morgan May Treuil [01:01:08]:
I haven't watched all of West.

Mark Clark [01:01:09]:
Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [01:01:09]:
I've watched some of West Wing in school.

Mark Clark [01:01:11]:
He's in every episode anyways. Okay, well, then, yeah, on last night's episode that I'm watching because he says I'm 44 years old and I'm like. 44 years old. You look 65.

Morgan May Treuil [01:01:20]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [01:01:21]:
By modern standards.

Morgan May Treuil [01:01:22]:
Yes. Yeah. Anyway, no one listening to you preach right now thinks that you're too young to be up there. No one.

Mark Clark [01:01:28]:
Right. Fair enough. And that's not even really. I'm just. I'm interested that I referred to myself Freudian Lee as a kid.

Morgan May Treuil [01:01:35]:
Well, you started early. You started preaching very early.

Mark Clark [01:01:38]:
Maybe. Maybe what I think too, as I talk this out loud, psychologically, maybe I think my audience is like 65. So maybe I'm in their old. Maybe I'm.

Morgan May Treuil [01:01:48]:
It's not that you're young, they're old.

Mark Clark [01:01:50]:
I'm in the head of a 65 year old.

Morgan May Treuil [01:01:52]:
So.

Mark Clark [01:01:52]:
Ergo.

Morgan May Treuil [01:01:53]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:01:53]:
This kid up here is messing about. Anyway, not about me.

Morgan May Treuil [01:01:58]:
Point is, the woman being a woman at Bayside, the. The. The rooms in which I preach in are almost always not my age. They're older than me.

Mark Clark [01:02:08]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:02:08]:
So you. I have to make those. Anyways, I would say

Mark Clark [01:02:14]:
I was asking you about sexist moments in your life in ministry where I was like, clearly

Morgan May Treuil [01:02:18]:
I wouldn't even say that those are sexist moments or whatever.

Mark Clark [01:02:20]:
Whatever the term would be.

Morgan May Treuil [01:02:21]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:02:22]:
Where you were being held back or whatever.

Morgan May Treuil [01:02:24]:
So I don't feel like I've been held back because I'm a woman. I don't think I've held back if

Mark Clark [01:02:31]:
I was a man. What's the Taylor Swift song? I love that song. I don't know.

Morgan May Treuil [01:02:34]:
What is it?

Mark Clark [01:02:34]:
If I was a man.

Morgan May Treuil [01:02:35]:
Like, if I.

Mark Clark [01:02:36]:
If I, you know, you know the song.

Morgan May Treuil [01:02:39]:
Sing it.

Mark Clark [01:02:39]:
Yeah. I'd be cool. Like Leo, you know, if it was me and I was just.

Morgan May Treuil [01:02:43]:
Yes, yes.

Mark Clark [01:02:44]:
Sleeping around and sitting in San Tropez, I'd be cool, but because I'M a woman. I'm not. You know. But the critique on that song is you wouldn't be where you are if you were a man, Taylor Swift. Cuz you are a woman and you are able to appeal to 13 year old girls who fill your standing.

Morgan May Treuil [01:03:00]:
Made a great living off billions of dollars.

Mark Clark [01:03:02]:
Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [01:03:03]:
Most women would say their things are like, cool.

Mark Clark [01:03:06]:
Okay, Sorry. Just, just.

Morgan May Treuil [01:03:08]:
Most women would. Most. I'm powering down. Most women would say it. What's the joke?

Mark Clark [01:03:16]:
Nothing. Go.

Morgan May Treuil [01:03:17]:
Most women would say that they feel like they're not invited into certain rooms, they're not given certain opportunities, they are looked at like not as good of contributing members of the team. I have not felt any of those things.

Mark Clark [01:03:31]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:03:32]:
So I think. Yeah, I don't. I would say the. What I'm currently figuring out is that the assumption for women is that they are the ones who are the primary caretakers of the children. The assumption is that your first ministry is to your household. And I agree with a lot of that. I also happen to be somebody who wants to do a lot of things at the same time. I don't just want to stay home.

Morgan May Treuil [01:03:57]:
I don't think that's a bad thing to want to stay home. I don't want to do that. I still want to work in the job. I still want to do all things. It's harder for me to do that. Like, Benji and I had this conversation a couple weeks ago where like we're both back at work. Who's meeting or whose thing takes priority when it comes to the baby. Like, which one of us.

Mark Clark [01:04:15]:
Totally.

Morgan May Treuil [01:04:15]:
And usually it's me. I'm the one that is not held back. But I'm the one that watches Waylon, right? I forfeit my thing so that he can do his.

Mark Clark [01:04:25]:
So in Canada. Talk to me about your. Your view on this. In Canada, a girl like you, which we had a lot of them at village, you have a baby, you get a year off. One year you're at home taking care of your baby. We have to hold the job for you. We pay you like, which is insane, right? We pay you half of your salary or whatever it is. The government takes care of the rest.

Mark Clark [01:04:44]:
So I think you get. I should probably look this up and have known this. I think you would get three quarters of the what you were making, if not all of it. I'm not 1000, but a year off standard. No company can make you come back here. You got a week and a half and then, you know, let's get back to it, so. Or Six weeks or whatever it was.

Morgan May Treuil [01:05:05]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:05:05]:
How do you feel about that? Do you like. Because. Because the reason I'm asking you is because you're not a normal. You're a go getter kind of gal who. You came back to work and you hit the ground running and you're working and you like it.

Morgan May Treuil [01:05:19]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:05:19]:
You can tell you like it.

Morgan May Treuil [01:05:20]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:05:21]:
If you were forced to sit at home for a year, you probably wouldn't have loved it.

Morgan May Treuil [01:05:25]:
No. The time that I had away was the perfect amount of time.

Mark Clark [01:05:31]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [01:05:32]:
I could not have done more.

Mark Clark [01:05:33]:
I'm gonna tell Scott Connor, our executive pastor, that he's gonna build a website with your face and a.

Morgan May Treuil [01:05:38]:
But the caveat to that is that's my personality.

Mark Clark [01:05:42]:
Yeah, of course.

Morgan May Treuil [01:05:43]:
So I was thrilled with it.

Mark Clark [01:05:44]:
That's not everybody.

Morgan May Treuil [01:05:44]:
But that's not everybody. And. And also there are people out there. Not that work at Bayside that don't love their jobs. They work because they have to.

Mark Clark [01:05:51]:
Yeah. And so a year.

Morgan May Treuil [01:05:52]:
It's like in a year. Thank goodness I also do. So. So let me. Let me. I'll caveat that statement with this. It was perfect for me.

Mark Clark [01:05:59]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:05:59]:
Do I think it was enough time? Do I think that that's a post modernist time?

Mark Clark [01:06:03]:
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:06:04]:
To. To establish the things that you need to establish in order to come back to work. No, no. But. But my husband and I have jobs that make it to where there's. There's some flexibility to it. To where we could make it work to come back then. And I was fine with that.

Mark Clark [01:06:18]:
Yeah. That's great. What do you think the church. And then I got. I got a couple other questions around podcasting. So on the. On the women thing, last thing about this. We'll wrap up all things women in church.

Mark Clark [01:06:30]:
What. What should the church, like, more clearly say to women or do better with.

Morgan May Treuil [01:06:40]:
It's so hard for me to turn my, like, female brain on.

Mark Clark [01:06:43]:
Yeah. I feel like more like I'm just not that. Tell me I'm wrong.

Morgan May Treuil [01:06:47]:
I'm the wrong spokesperson. Women.

Mark Clark [01:06:49]:
I feel like you have. You are doing such a good job. Like, the dudes around here are super excited about you and what you do and are supportive. Would you say that?

Morgan May Treuil [01:07:04]:
A hundred percent.

Mark Clark [01:07:06]:
Yeah. So it's like, it's cool to see that, actually. Oh. Where it's not like, keep people out of rooms.

Morgan May Treuil [01:07:12]:
Not at all.

Mark Clark [01:07:12]:
And don't. What she up there doing. Like, everyone's super jacked up. Like, you did a divoyo. So everyone's cheering and yelling and supporting you and texting about, like, it's. And that's cool to see. And I just wish that happened.

Morgan May Treuil [01:07:23]:
I use this story often. This is the first time that this has happened, maybe the only time this has happened. And I don't fault anybody for this because sometimes I'm there to. To fill in for somebody who's gone. But I preached at our Blue Oaks campus for the first time that I was at Blue Oaks. I've been there a few times, but it was the first time that I was there. And the first message of the day. Jason Kane, who is the campus pastor there, came and sat in service in the front row with his journal and his Bible and check notes the entire time.

Mark Clark [01:07:51]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:07:52]:
And that was everything, because he gave everybody in the room permission to listen, to learn. And I think that that's probably. And that's happened to me countless times at Bayside. And I think that's probably the thing that if we're talking in the context of, like, you have females on your staff that you need to figure out how to empower, it's that it's like, if you're willing to learn from them or to be led by them, then everybody else will follow suit.

Mark Clark [01:08:16]:
That's great. Okay, let's switch gears a little bit. You have a podcast.

Morgan May Treuil [01:08:20]:
It's called am I doing this right? And the answer is, we are not.

Mark Clark [01:08:25]:
Why?

Morgan May Treuil [01:08:25]:
I don't know. It's a stupid thing we say.

Mark Clark [01:08:28]:
So am I doing this right? Why that title?

Morgan May Treuil [01:08:31]:
We actually.

Mark Clark [01:08:32]:
Is that, like, a girl thing?

Morgan May Treuil [01:08:33]:
No, it's not a girl thing. It's a human thing. Right. Like, I think that's. That's the sub. And maybe this is part of the anxiety brain. Leslie and I both have a constant internal narrative of questioning all life choices, direction. It's the am I doing this right? Question.

Morgan May Treuil [01:08:48]:
And so it kind of birthed out of this desire to ask that question in different areas of life. Faith, relationships, purpose, all of those things.

Mark Clark [01:08:55]:
It's super fun. Everyone should go listen. Am I doing this right?

Morgan May Treuil [01:08:58]:
We love it.

Mark Clark [01:08:58]:
You guys have great guests, but mostly it's just you two chatting about different topics in life. Yeah, well, no, no, actually, sorry. The majority of it's guests, but they're just listening to you guys banter.

Morgan May Treuil [01:09:09]:
We've done more, just the two of

Mark Clark [01:09:10]:
us, to your hot takes and whatever.

Morgan May Treuil [01:09:12]:
And the whole thing is like, we're not. We're not coming to as the experts on anything. We're coming to you as, like, fellow question askers.

Mark Clark [01:09:19]:
So what is the gap you're trying to fill with that podcast. What is it that you think, hey, there's no pod out here doing this.

Morgan May Treuil [01:09:27]:
I'm gonna say it differently than I've been saying it for other things because I think the other way is offensive. But

Mark Clark [01:09:34]:
I like the offensive one.

Morgan May Treuil [01:09:35]:
Well, it's not that offensive. I think it's more so like the podcast that's for buttoned up women's ministry. Like, polished.

Mark Clark [01:09:44]:
Gotcha.

Morgan May Treuil [01:09:45]:
You know, we come here, we get straight. That exists.

Mark Clark [01:09:48]:
Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [01:09:48]:
What doesn't exist is the safe space to make jokes that are like normal people jokes. It's not like your church lady joke. Yeah, it's the space to.

Mark Clark [01:09:56]:
Yeah, it's great. You guys talk about the Bachelor and a bunch of nonsense that you're not supposed to.

Morgan May Treuil [01:10:02]:
Or like. Yeah, like it. You know, we make a joke about the sheets thing, but it's like, how many. How many podcasts do you know where you get on? This one has been like that too. We're like, you listen to it and it feels like you would be shooting the breeze in your living room with your friends.

Mark Clark [01:10:16]:
Is that your phone just making noise? Do not disturb. My OCD is kicking.

Morgan May Treuil [01:10:20]:
It's like, I have a child hour

Mark Clark [01:10:22]:
and a half in. I mean, we both have children. Do you need to go? Do you need to leave?

Morgan May Treuil [01:10:26]:
Anyways, I'm back.

Mark Clark [01:10:27]:
Do you have a child that's texting you right now asking you to come on.

Morgan May Treuil [01:10:29]:
Whan doesn't have a phone. He's a 3.3month old. Do you have one that needs to go? No, sorry, I. I don't hear that stuff. But you clearly do. Yeah, I. I think. I think the.

Morgan May Treuil [01:10:39]:
The hole we're trying to fill is like, it's the podcast that you can listen to, and it feels like you're shooting the breeze, like, with the smartest guys. Like, they just. They just banter and it's fun and it's hanging out. It's not education. We go into modes that are more like spiritually driven education. This is who we're get. We're. We're getting into the stuff.

Morgan May Treuil [01:11:00]:
It's both of those things.

Mark Clark [01:11:01]:
So you went. You brought up the sheets thing. You got. You got a little. No, but this, this. It's kind of a funny story, but it makes. It makes a point. Very interesting point.

Mark Clark [01:11:10]:
So it was your first episode, I think. Was it?

Morgan May Treuil [01:11:14]:
You went viral, which is crazy.

Mark Clark [01:11:16]:
You probably haven't had downloads like that since then. Then it went viral in. In all the wrong. All the ways you don't want it to. Unless.

Morgan May Treuil [01:11:23]:
Unless you do.

Mark Clark [01:11:24]:
You're just trying to get some. Some eyeballs and some ears, which.

Morgan May Treuil [01:11:26]:
That isn't why we did it.

Mark Clark [01:11:28]:
No, of course not. Because it was just naturally.

Morgan May Treuil [01:11:29]:
But that is what happened.

Mark Clark [01:11:30]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:11:31]:
And that means that that whole thing, like the negative impact of that.

Mark Clark [01:11:34]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:11:37]:
Say what you're gonna say.

Mark Clark [01:11:37]:
No, let's tell the audience first. What. And then. But I want to hear what you're about to say. What you're about to say. I want. I want to hear it. So, yeah, basically you're on a pod, you're chatting, and Leslie says you tell

Morgan May Treuil [01:11:48]:
the story in this room. We were having a conversation and. And the question was, how often do we're talking about skincare? Because girls are really into skincare.

Mark Clark [01:11:56]:
Sure.

Morgan May Treuil [01:11:57]:
And I just so happen to be one of those girls that I'm like, I'm. I'm re. Adding makeup to my face every day. I'm not taking it off, I'm just

Mark Clark [01:12:02]:
adding more because you mean when you go to bed at night with makeup, you're not, you're not cleaning your face?

Morgan May Treuil [01:12:06]:
I'm not.

Mark Clark [01:12:07]:
While you're going to sleep, you just wake up in the morning.

Morgan May Treuil [01:12:09]:
Exhausting.

Mark Clark [01:12:09]:
Right. You put more makeup on. Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [01:12:11]:
So it got us on the subject of hygiene. And then the question got. Because that's gross. Right. And to our point, this is the pot. Like, this is the kind of environment we're trying to make.

Mark Clark [01:12:22]:
Exactly. This is right out of the gate. Girls, we gotta talk about 100.

Morgan May Treuil [01:12:27]:
No one's talking about it. And I feel like that's so relatable. Like, I know whether I want to be friends with you based off of things like this. I made this, this statement. If your socks are too clean and white, I know for a fact we will not be friends.

Mark Clark [01:12:40]:
Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [01:12:40]:
Your socks have to have like, like

Mark Clark [01:12:42]:
a little like a day or two

Morgan May Treuil [01:12:43]:
of like, they need to be gray, not white.

Mark Clark [01:12:45]:
Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [01:12:46]:
They need to have started white and then gotten gray really quickly. Because you, you're lived in. You're like a well lived in person. That's what I'm going for. That's my thing.

Mark Clark [01:12:53]:
Yeah. So you.

Morgan May Treuil [01:12:55]:
So I tell her that I probably washed my sheets at that point in time every like six to nine. Six to nine months. Because I'm not that dirty.

Mark Clark [01:13:05]:
Six to nine months.

Morgan May Treuil [01:13:06]:
If something happens, I'll wash them. But, like, as a general rule, I'm not like washing my sheets all the time.

Mark Clark [01:13:11]:
Yeah. Now at this point, she wasn't married

Morgan May Treuil [01:13:13]:
and it got a lot of negative online. And I don't. Leslie Is the one, by the way, that that clip affected Leslie in no way. And she.

Mark Clark [01:13:20]:
Oh, no. She got all the benefits.

Morgan May Treuil [01:13:21]:
She's the one that clipped it. And then.

Mark Clark [01:13:23]:
Oh, of course she did.

Morgan May Treuil [01:13:24]:
Which we think is funny.

Mark Clark [01:13:25]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [01:13:25]:
She asked me before, and then it got all this negative. Now there was like a. So. So go to your. To. Then your lane of this was like, okay. So. Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:13:33]:
So what I was trying to do in that.

Mark Clark [01:13:35]:
Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [01:13:35]:
Is it's all relatable.

Mark Clark [01:13:36]:
So people online just started caught, like, the hunt. Thousands of comments, millions of views, and it was this. Mostly negative.

Morgan May Treuil [01:13:44]:
Yeah. Yes.

Mark Clark [01:13:45]:
And. Oh, yeah, this is disgusting. This girl. Gross.

Morgan May Treuil [01:13:49]:
Yeah, I do that, too.

Mark Clark [01:13:50]:
No one said that was like nine months. No, that's nothing.

Morgan May Treuil [01:13:53]:
No one said that.

Mark Clark [01:13:53]:
Yeah. So how. First off, as. As someone who's a people pleaser and anxiety. Did. Did. Was there any. Or did you go.

Mark Clark [01:14:01]:
This is the Internet that.

Morgan May Treuil [01:14:02]:
It's not. It's not that. That's the Internet. It's like, to me, there are integrity things. Yeah. And then there are things that do not matter.

Mark Clark [01:14:09]:
Right, right. Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [01:14:10]:
That is one of those things that does not matter. And also, like, growing up in our household, it was like, your hygiene. Now, I'm not a dirty person, so maybe that's part of it. Like, if I was like, a dirty person that didn't shower and didn't wash her sheets. Okay. Flag. I'm not a dirty. I smell good.

Morgan May Treuil [01:14:27]:
I've got clean hair. Like, it's.

Mark Clark [01:14:29]:
I. You told another story about you. So growing up, used to get into your car and no one had brushed their teeth, and you go.

Morgan May Treuil [01:14:35]:
And I'm like, that's not weird.

Mark Clark [01:14:36]:
That is so weird. Anyway,

Morgan May Treuil [01:14:41]:
guys, whatever.

Mark Clark [01:14:41]:
Yeah, all right.

Morgan May Treuil [01:14:42]:
Anyway, that's exciting.

Mark Clark [01:14:43]:
I'm not a dirty.

Morgan May Treuil [01:14:44]:
That's. I'm not like, a dirty person.

Mark Clark [01:14:46]:
Right, Right.

Morgan May Treuil [01:14:46]:
So in my mind, it's like, the she thing is the one thing about me that's like, that's pretty gross.

Mark Clark [01:14:50]:
It was more about work. It takes a lot of work from

Morgan May Treuil [01:14:53]:
who I am as a person that I'm like, this is nothing. I don't care. And I don't care. People think it's like, if I can throw that out there, and then someone is like. Because I did have. People didn't comment, but lots of people send me messages saying that's the most relatable thing that I've ever heard. Because they're the same way. They would never comment and be like, yeah, go.

Morgan May Treuil [01:15:09]:
They don't want to get by the Internet.

Mark Clark [01:15:11]:
Yeah, I'm disgusting. Too.

Morgan May Treuil [01:15:13]:
So that was why we did it. And I feel nothing about that because I'm, I'm related to that in no way.

Mark Clark [01:15:18]:
Yeah. Good. So then you were going to say something else, but.

Morgan May Treuil [01:15:20]:
Yes, but you brought up a leadership principle in it because you corrected it.

Mark Clark [01:15:24]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:15:24]:
Well, you were like, that's not the like. And you're. And your train of thought was really good. You were like, hey, you should think about this through the lens of like, the way that you put yourself out there is how people receive you as a leader or, or would receive you as a leader.

Mark Clark [01:15:39]:
Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [01:15:39]:
Is it possible that the people that might. Might listen to you teach or whatever might feel a different way about that than you do?

Mark Clark [01:15:47]:
Yes. Might. It might now feel a different way about you every time because of that stage. And they go, oh my gosh, she's teaching the Bible. This girl just lives in her own filth for nine months at a time. And so. Yes. So you wanna, you wanna make sure you're not saying things that make people go.

Mark Clark [01:16:03]:
And it's the same principle when, when we talked earlier about the, our friend Gabe and his story and cocaine, you know, he mentions cocaine as part of his story. And when he, when he preached that, I went to like the third sermon.

Morgan May Treuil [01:16:18]:
Yep.

Mark Clark [01:16:18]:
And he still had two left. And I said, don't use the word cocaine.

Morgan May Treuil [01:16:22]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:16:23]:
And he said, well, but that's the story. I'm like, I know. But yeah. The audience now. And I could be dead wrong on this. I'm not saying I'm, I'm omniscient.

Morgan May Treuil [01:16:32]:
This is, well, this is the debate.

Mark Clark [01:16:33]:
But now the audience pictures this guy with a rolled up 100 bill in his nose.

Morgan May Treuil [01:16:38]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [01:16:38]:
Sniffing a line on a mirror.

Morgan May Treuil [01:16:40]:
Right.

Mark Clark [01:16:41]:
For the next 10 minutes.

Morgan May Treuil [01:16:42]:
Yep.

Mark Clark [01:16:42]:
As he's preaching.

Morgan May Treuil [01:16:43]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [01:16:44]:
So what is it that you can help the audience.

Morgan May Treuil [01:16:47]:
Yep.

Mark Clark [01:16:47]:
Grab. But you don't have to distract them because there's.

Morgan May Treuil [01:16:51]:
Because, because vulnerability or like relatability.

Mark Clark [01:16:53]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:16:54]:
Can get to the point of distraction.

Mark Clark [01:16:56]:
That's a great principle. Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [01:16:57]:
How do you go too far?

Mark Clark [01:16:59]:
So that's what that was for you.

Morgan May Treuil [01:17:00]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [01:17:00]:
Anyway, it made the pod very interesting and cool because now you had a lot of attention. A lot of people were listening and watching the clips and commenting. Negative mostly, but still got you attention.

Morgan May Treuil [01:17:10]:
There is something beautiful, which again, that was not the, the intention, but to me, I'm like, and this is my, my brain works. That's so what this podcast is trying to do, that someone comes across that clip because they're like, on the, like the amount of people that were exposed to a podcast that's actually about faith. Like, I'm thinking the person that scrolled through, saw that clip and was like, what the heck is this podcast about? Clicks into it. The last thing they would expect this podcast to be about is faith.

Mark Clark [01:17:39]:
Right?

Morgan May Treuil [01:17:39]:
That's. That's like. They're like, so separate.

Mark Clark [01:17:41]:
It could be filth and faith. That's. You should do a filth and faith. But what's great is then you came on in the couple weeks later and you did. Not an apology to her, of course, but a. I've realized now, like, you did a little bit where you've put in Tide in your thing, and you. And I almost feel like. Tell me.

Mark Clark [01:18:02]:
I almost feel like. Like you read a bunch of comments, you talk to people, and you realize, oh, this probably actually isn't the best way to live. Like, you. You realize, oh, I probably shouldn't. I should probably wash my sheets more often. And then you went public with.

Morgan May Treuil [01:18:18]:
Moment.

Mark Clark [01:18:19]:
Yeah, you went public with the Internet. Taught me something. Maybe I should.

Morgan May Treuil [01:18:22]:
If I'm. If I'm not teachable, like, what. What am I? Also, it's funny how different people thought different things. Like, you were like, hey, you should anticipate how people might think. Think of you as a leader.

Mark Clark [01:18:33]:
Right?

Morgan May Treuil [01:18:33]:
Pastor Ray's like, I'm using this in my next sermon. Like, because. And he loves different. Like, hygiene's one of those things. It's a gray area. Hygiene is a great.

Mark Clark [01:18:42]:
Hygiene is not a gray area.

Morgan May Treuil [01:18:43]:
It is a gray area because. Because your. Your whole thing of, like, the teeth brushing thing. A lot of people don't agree with you on that. It would be totally fine.

Mark Clark [01:18:52]:
Subjectively.

Morgan May Treuil [01:18:52]:
It's not.

Mark Clark [01:18:53]:
But hold on.

Morgan May Treuil [01:18:55]:
That says nothing about my character.

Mark Clark [01:18:57]:
Okay, but there comes a line. Okay. What? With the teeth brushing thing. Come back. No, it doesn't say anybody. Your character, but come back to the teeth brush. What are you talking about? If you were sitting there right now and you looked at me. Oh, hopefully.

Mark Clark [01:19:10]:
Okay, maybe this is true. I don't know. Okay, you're saying at some point people shouldn't come to work without brushed teeth. Right? Are you.

Morgan May Treuil [01:19:18]:
No, I would never come to work

Mark Clark [01:19:20]:
without brushing their teeth.

Morgan May Treuil [01:19:20]:
No, I'm not saying you.

Mark Clark [01:19:21]:
I'm saying.

Morgan May Treuil [01:19:22]:
But you're fine. I think everybody thinks, like, if someone came to work without brushing their teeth, I don't think I would think much of that. Like, I don't think.

Mark Clark [01:19:28]:
I think we're objective. We're in objective territory right now. We are in.

Morgan May Treuil [01:19:32]:
No, we're not.

Mark Clark [01:19:32]:
Yeah, I think we are.

Morgan May Treuil [01:19:33]:
And my opinion is that hygiene, Hygiene is subjective.

Mark Clark [01:19:36]:
No, no, no. Hygiene.

Morgan May Treuil [01:19:38]:
I don't think you're right on this.

Mark Clark [01:19:40]:
No, I'm right because there's a, there's an objective line where someone's disgusting.

Morgan May Treuil [01:19:46]:
If I don't think that's.

Mark Clark [01:19:47]:
No. If you come to work, okay. And you haven't washed your hair, brush your teeth, clean your clothes. You're what? You look, you're dirty and disgusting.

Morgan May Treuil [01:19:54]:
Clip this part.

Mark Clark [01:19:55]:
You, you, you can't do that. Not in a professional environment.

Morgan May Treuil [01:20:00]:
But what if you didn't brush your teeth, but it didn't smell? Know, like, like, do people always know

Mark Clark [01:20:05]:
when you don't brush your teeth fall out? And, and you're disgusting? Why are you working here?

Morgan May Treuil [01:20:11]:
Yeah. If you're, if you're disgusting, you're professional visually and like smells and all this.

Mark Clark [01:20:18]:
Yes. Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [01:20:21]:
But I don't think that all hygiene issues are that obvious.

Mark Clark [01:20:25]:
No, I agree with that. But I'm saying if you work at a church or anywhere. Anywhere. And you show up and you look disgusted. You, you, you aren't. You don't keep yourself up hygienically.

Morgan May Treuil [01:20:36]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [01:20:36]:
You are not going to get ahead in life. And you're objectively.

Morgan May Treuil [01:20:39]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [01:20:40]:
Not. It's not appropriate.

Morgan May Treuil [01:20:42]:
Okay.

Mark Clark [01:20:42]:
That's all.

Morgan May Treuil [01:20:43]:
I mean, but there are certain things that are not as clear cut, obvious as that. Like, so you wouldn't know by looking at me that I don't wash my sheets that much.

Mark Clark [01:20:49]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [01:20:50]:
You wouldn't know by talking to me that I don't brush my teeth that much.

Mark Clark [01:20:52]:
Fair enough.

Morgan May Treuil [01:20:52]:
I do brush my teeth a lot. I'm just saying.

Mark Clark [01:20:54]:
We'll be back.

Morgan May Treuil [01:20:55]:
I'm just.

Mark Clark [01:20:56]:
So if I. Okay. So, so if I got up at staff meeting and I said, is it, is it okay for someone to come to work, this will probably all be

Morgan May Treuil [01:21:05]:
cut and not shower and not.

Mark Clark [01:21:06]:
No. And not brush their teeth. What do you think that the. And it was completely anonymous. You could vote on an app. No one would know what you think.

Morgan May Treuil [01:21:15]:
I think it's more split than you think it is.

Mark Clark [01:21:17]:
You think it's even, it's even close to 9010. You think it's 50, 50, 60, 40.

Morgan May Treuil [01:21:23]:
No, no, it's probably, it's probably 92 do. It's.

Mark Clark [01:21:27]:
If that.

Morgan May Treuil [01:21:29]:
It's probably more like 80. 20.

Mark Clark [01:21:30]:
Really? Maybe you think 20 of rational human beings go, I don't care if Morgan brushes her teeth, she comes.

Morgan May Treuil [01:21:36]:
I don't think hygiene is as central to everybody as you think. It is. You're blind. I don't think it is.

Mark Clark [01:21:45]:
I think it is. Because nobody. There's a reason. You see that painting. It's beautiful. You see these chairs? They're beautiful. You wore those shoes today because they're aesthetically something for you. Nobody wants to stare or experience smelly.

Morgan May Treuil [01:21:57]:
But you might not think that these are beautiful shoes.

Mark Clark [01:21:59]:
Fair. But I'm making a point about.

Morgan May Treuil [01:22:01]:
But that's what I'm saying.

Mark Clark [01:22:02]:
Aesthetics matter.

Morgan May Treuil [01:22:03]:
Not everybody. Yeah. But not everyone thinks that. Not everyone thinks that way about. About all. Like everybody thinks. There's nothing that's objective.

Mark Clark [01:22:11]:
There's smells that are objectively bad.

Morgan May Treuil [01:22:13]:
But is that true? Do all people think that? Bad smells.

Mark Clark [01:22:16]:
I could come up with a list. Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [01:22:18]:
No. Because there are people that actually enjoy the smell of bad smells.

Mark Clark [01:22:22]:
But it's. It's pretty rare. It's the number

Morgan May Treuil [01:22:26]:
than you think it is. We're not. We're not going to agree on this. And that's fine.

Mark Clark [01:22:29]:
Practically spe. Okay, look. Practically speaking. Well, let's just do the pragmatics of it. The pragmatics of it are. It will hinder you getting ahead in life.

Morgan May Treuil [01:22:39]:
Yes. If it is.

Mark Clark [01:22:40]:
So let me give you an example.

Morgan May Treuil [01:22:42]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [01:22:43]:
Morgan May. We're going to do a campaign.

Morgan May Treuil [01:22:48]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:22:48]:
Okay. And I need you to get on stage at your campus.

Morgan May Treuil [01:22:52]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:22:53]:
And raise $10 million.

Morgan May Treuil [01:22:55]:
Yeah. I need to look a certain way.

Mark Clark [01:22:57]:
You need to look and smell. And smell a certain way. Because pragmat. Right or wrong. Let's forget the virtue of it.

Morgan May Treuil [01:23:04]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [01:23:04]:
People are going to walk in and go. This person's asking me to do. And so I would say the same about office space.

Morgan May Treuil [01:23:10]:
Yep.

Mark Clark [01:23:11]:
How can I ask people to give money to the church when they come and visit and they walk in and your office looks like a piece of trash and it reeks. What are you doing? There is a certain presentation that just as part of this world.

Morgan May Treuil [01:23:24]:
Y.

Mark Clark [01:23:24]:
That we're trying to. Anyway. All that to say.

Morgan May Treuil [01:23:26]:
Someone told me I was doing announcements here one time and somebody. I did the offering moment.

Mark Clark [01:23:31]:
Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [01:23:31]:
And someone reached out about how my shoes had. The soul was coming off bottom of my shoes.

Mark Clark [01:23:37]:
Okay.

Morgan May Treuil [01:23:38]:
And they were like, I'm not giving.

Mark Clark [01:23:39]:
Right. Fair enough. You look like a hobo. You just walked off the hobo. Anymore. I don't think you look like a. What is it called now?

Morgan May Treuil [01:23:49]:
What is it? Display.

Mark Clark [01:23:51]:
No, you. It's like you chose it unhoused.

Morgan May Treuil [01:23:54]:
Unhoused. Unhoused person. Which. But those are the shoes that I had at that Point.

Mark Clark [01:24:00]:
And there's been, I mean, there's been people here that I've seen their photos on what they. And I'll get in touch with them and say, hey, look, just next time please don't xyz. Yeah, mostly with like guys. It's not.

Morgan May Treuil [01:24:10]:
I, I'm mostly doing it for the bit. I agree with you. I do think that, that, that it is one of those things that. Never mind.

Mark Clark [01:24:17]:
No, no. I, I. You're saying there's an objective and a

Morgan May Treuil [01:24:21]:
subjective part of this relatability to things like that that should be, I think, accessed church than it is. I think the church gets a bad rap because it is so polished to the point of like sometimes lacking any human relatability. That's my point.

Mark Clark [01:24:38]:
Agreed. Agreed.

Morgan May Treuil [01:24:39]:
I like to push back against that. I also like the fact that, that girls are known for being like, polished.

Mark Clark [01:24:45]:
Yes.

Morgan May Treuil [01:24:46]:
Barbie types. And I'm the opposite of that.

Mark Clark [01:24:48]:
Right. And the reality behind the scenes is girls are a mess. They're play. Their bathrooms are a mess.

Morgan May Treuil [01:24:54]:
You know. You have three daughters.

Mark Clark [01:24:55]:
I have three daughters. All right, last one on this topic. Last one. And then you gotta go take care of baby. And I have family to go back to.

Morgan May Treuil [01:25:01]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [01:25:01]:
What is a conversation that you're scared to have publicly but feel called to? This is like a random chat GPT type question. I don't know if you can even think of this off the.

Morgan May Treuil [01:25:12]:
Do you have one?

Mark Clark [01:25:13]:
Well, it's. I. It's similar to what? Similar to kind of what? This is probably this conversation. Yeah. The one we're having now, which is just like this. Unspoken things, unspoken expectations that are like, like what is right and wrong? What is. You know, Remember when I got here, I didn't grow up in the church, so I'm not Mr. Polish put together.

Mark Clark [01:25:36]:
Right. But when I got here, like, I would wear suits and things for Easter and Good Friday and Christmas Eve and people were like, oh, you're supposed to just wear nothing. And yeah, just wear whatever. And I was like, why? Yeah, it's like people come here and they're all dressed up and they know it's Christmas Eve and they. I, you know, and there was this. So I think for me it's like it's kind of this. Yeah. What's subjective and objective? Like, no, there's actually a right way of do.

Mark Clark [01:26:02]:
And then every culture is obviously so different and bold. So I just think those are fascinating conversations about ministry and executing.

Morgan May Treuil [01:26:09]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:26:09]:
In different contexts. Whatever.

Morgan May Treuil [01:26:12]:
I'm not usually in positions where I. You would be in More positions like. Like these to have these conversations than I am. Because I'm not. I'm not. I don't preach as regularly as you do, obviously, but there have been a couple times where the message falls on a particular subject in a particular time in life. One of those was during a really tense election season. And it was.

Morgan May Treuil [01:26:36]:
I can't remember what the text was, but it was like heavily political. And the outline was like going for

Mark Clark [01:26:43]:
people's, you know, political angle.

Morgan May Treuil [01:26:46]:
Loyalty to their political parties over whatever. Anyways. And I was like. I felt so unequivocally ended up being really powerful message. But I felt so unequipped towards it because I was like a. I'm at this point very young, like too young and too. Not the campus pastor to be having this conversation with people. There was a million reasons why the setup wasn't great.

Morgan May Treuil [01:27:04]:
Ended up being fine, I think to that point though.

Mark Clark [01:27:07]:
Yeah, that's a great example.

Morgan May Treuil [01:27:08]:
I'm scared to have conversations that remove me relationally from people that I love. I went. I was a dance major, like I said, I spent a lot of time and a lot of friendships with people who believe very different things than me, who are not people of faith. Any kind of faith. And I think. Yeah, like the. The conversations where you. Where you come out and you say the exact correct, like biblical stance towards something that.

Morgan May Treuil [01:27:39]:
That hurts or breaks somebody's heart.

Mark Clark [01:27:42]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:27:42]:
Because they think and believe and live their lives so differently. Those are the conversations that I would be scared to have.

Mark Clark [01:27:49]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:27:49]:
Because.

Mark Clark [01:27:50]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:27:53]:
I don't know. Yeah, I think. I think because of the nature of those con. Like there are things that we don't preach about as a Sunday morning conversation, like a Sunday morning topic. And there's a reason for that, because if that person just so happened to be in the room, it's an immediate turn off for them. Not that we're ever avoiding saying what's true when it comes to.

Mark Clark [01:28:11]:
You have to. You have to be. The balance is you have to be biblical. And there's all kinds of tensions around this, especially in the US but can't do. But you have to be biblical and. But you can't get. People want you to become super political so that they can either write you off or back you. And I think there are times when you have to be political only by inference from the text.

Mark Clark [01:28:38]:
And you have to obviously make a strong stand on certain issues. And then there's other issues. The people are looking for you to throw the meat to lions so that they can rah rah and the Republicans have their talking points, the Democrats have their talking points. And if you, as a preacher say that little phrase, they're going to love it. And if you don't say that or you do say this, and I just find that. So I know there's, there's people out there, you know, podcasters and preachers out there saying if you're not straight up, but you're, You've. You're. You've lost the gospel and you're not a Christian and you, you should leave those churches on both sides.

Morgan May Treuil [01:29:12]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:29:13]:
And I just think that's unfortunate because I think, yeah, there are times when you got to do it and, and probably you could be more strong at certain times and whatever. But, you know, to Tim Keller's point, you always have both younger brothers and older brothers in the prodigal son story in the crowd. And you got the liberal, irreligious younger brother who doesn't even believe in God and doesn't care and thinks all these things. And then you have the, the conservative older brother who does his devos every day and goes to church and votes his way. And both of them need to repent and both of them need to respond to the gospel. And if you take a side, again, like I said, there's times where you take a side.

Morgan May Treuil [01:29:51]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:29:52]:
Right. But week in and week out, you got to preach the gospel. So both the liberals and the conservatives are actually coming to know Jesus. That's the eternal work.

Morgan May Treuil [01:30:01]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:30:02]:
You know, that's the work that's going to last. And yes, of course, creating a great country and creating laws that go for the general shalom of society, all of that's crucial. And I think the church hides from that sometimes. Right. Like, let's, let's just talk about heaven. And it's like, well, no, there's actually some human trafficking happening, and maybe we should do something about it, or there's. Maybe we should change slavery and cite the Bible and do something about it. And people are like, yeah, but that doesn't matter because that's just the world.

Mark Clark [01:30:30]:
And it's like, it matters for millions of people and how they live their general shalom out for the next. You know, so there are times. It's just sometimes those things aren't what you think they are.

Morgan May Treuil [01:30:41]:
Right.

Mark Clark [01:30:41]:
And everyone loves to grab their little issues and go, see, this is Jesus for me. And then Jesus for me. And it's like, yeah, so. So anyway, I agree with you.

Morgan May Treuil [01:30:50]:
Yeah.

Mark Clark [01:30:50]:
I think there are times where you got. You got to be a Little more nuanced. And you can't just get up and rah rah these things publicly. It's a little bit more of a private, hey, here's what I think about. There's. There's issues and things that I, People are still trying to figure out what

Morgan May Treuil [01:31:04]:
I believe about them, which I, I think that is really interesting about you. There are things that you, you're like, totally fine with getting into. You have interesting views. What you were just talking about this before, like your interpretation of the rapture or things like that. You're like. And you'll go there. You're like, whatever. And there are certain things, like, even

Mark Clark [01:31:21]:
like, I don't believe, I don't believe in the Rapture in the way that the, the classic traditional right view is, but the traditional view, it's only 150 years old. That's what people think. Nobody believed in the rapture before 150 years ago. So we could go on a think about that, but.

Morgan May Treuil [01:31:36]:
And you can, you can edit this out if you want to. But then, like, as counter example to that, like, you're totally fine going there. And then yet when you were going through your list of examples of like, things that we shouldn't get up and do raw or whatever.

Mark Clark [01:31:49]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:31:49]:
There are things that you feel comfortable saying politics, Republican, Democrat. And then there are words that you intentionally are not using while you're on this podcast for other things.

Mark Clark [01:31:58]:
Like what?

Morgan May Treuil [01:31:59]:
I'm not going to say them either, because I feel the same.

Mark Clark [01:32:01]:
Well, we could cut it.

Morgan May Treuil [01:32:01]:
We could cut it like, like, more like, like, like lifestyle orientation, like things that people choose to do, things that people would not call sin versus things that other people would call. Those kinds of things, like sexual choices you don't publicly, like, make. But I think, I think what you just said is really interesting. It kind of comes down to, like, who do you think you're preaching to? Who do you think is in the room? Did you ever watch Elephant Room, the super old, like, debate format that. What was that guy's name that hosted.

Mark Clark [01:32:31]:
Oh, James McDonald's? Donald. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:32:34]:
Between.

Mark Clark [01:32:34]:
Chandler.

Morgan May Treuil [01:32:35]:
The debate actually was between Furtick and Chandler. Chandler.

Mark Clark [01:32:40]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:32:41]:
You watched it about like, what's the purpose of the message? And, and is, is it like for the seeker? Is it for the churchgoer? Because their perspectives were different. Like, church gathering sermons are for edifying the church.

Mark Clark [01:32:54]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:32:55]:
And then Ferdick's like, there are non believers in here. They need to get whatever. Both arguments were. Were whatever. But at the think it's I think it's that principle of, like, who's. Who's in the room? Because if you think that certain people are in the room, you'll preach certain things if you think others are in the room. But to your point, the fact, like, I would never want something that I said to get in the way of somebody understanding the gospel and also trusting that God's word goes where it goes. I have this really crazy story.

Morgan May Treuil [01:33:24]:
We were teaching Exodus. There was nothing about the particular chapter we were in or the content that would have led this couple to this place. But we had a couple who was in the room, living together, engaged. We were preaching something in Exodus, and they came to me afterwards and was like, God convicted us over the past couple of weeks and through this message. We're not supposed to be living together. We're engaged. We're gonna get married this weekend. Will you marry us this weekend?

Mark Clark [01:33:51]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:33:51]:
And I'll. I'm like, what the heck? Like, we're preaching, we're in Exodus.

Mark Clark [01:33:55]:
Nothing to do with anything.

Morgan May Treuil [01:33:55]:
Nothing to do with anything. And the text goes there. The Holy Spirit goes there. So I'm not saying that you shy away from. From taking strong stances against sin. That's clearly something that we're called to do.

Mark Clark [01:34:04]:
Yeah.

Morgan May Treuil [01:34:06]:
But to make that the headline and the whole point of why you're preaching to the. To the extreme, to where you kind of like, give the gospel the second place.

Mark Clark [01:34:15]:
Right.

Morgan May Treuil [01:34:16]:
That's the. Yes. That seems to be the problem. Right.

Mark Clark [01:34:19]:
And I think the thing is you have to. But, you know, on the other side of it, I have no problem being very clear about what I think about sexuality. I think it's between a male and a female in the context of marriage exclusively. I talk about that often.

Morgan May Treuil [01:34:31]:
Yeah, I was.

Mark Clark [01:34:33]:
No, no, but that's the point. But that's the way I talk about it.

Morgan May Treuil [01:34:35]:
Yes. Right.

Mark Clark [01:34:36]:
And then anything outside that is sin. And I've described that from my own life.

Morgan May Treuil [01:34:40]:
Yes.

Mark Clark [01:34:40]:
Aaron and I dating, you know, first Thessalonians. And the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God. Also, I got no problem because I think. Think the weak view of things is because I love people, I'm not going to give them. I'm not going to say this, but. But what is really loving? It's like, I think in sermon prep a couple weeks ago, remember, I shared that we're preaching, we're prepping a sermon on unity. So all we did was talk about unity for an hour and how important it is to be unified. And then I pulled out this quote from a guy.

Mark Clark [01:35:10]:
I can't remember what it was. It was basically saying, the devil loves when we're unified. As long as we abandon truth in the desire for unity. So we can champion unity all we want and say it's the most important thing. But unity around untruth is not good.

Morgan May Treuil [01:35:28]:
Right.

Mark Clark [01:35:29]:
So in the same way, you have to be able to talk about sexuality or whatever, because it's not even loving. No, ultimately, it's not loving to just let people go around with any idea they want and go, well, at least I didn't challenge it. Yeah. You know, so I think that's the balance of, like, you got to be able to call that stuff out. Well, calling out every. Every spectrum of every kind of sin so that people meet Jesus in the midst.

Morgan May Treuil [01:35:54]:
Absolutely.

Mark Clark [01:35:55]:
Morgan, mature. You are crazy.

Morgan May Treuil [01:35:58]:
That was crazy of that went so many places.

Mark Clark [01:36:00]:
Oh, we were all over the place. Thank you, ma'. Am. We'll do it again. I'm gonna have you and Leslie on your. Your. Your co laborer.

Morgan May Treuil [01:36:07]:
My co labor.

Mark Clark [01:36:07]:
Thank you. Hopefully, you enjoyed it. Guys, Guys. All right. Thanks, Morgan. You rock. Go get that baby.

Morgan May Treuil [01:36:11]:
Go get the baby.