Mark Clark [00:00:03]:
All right, ladies and gentlemen, Mark Clark podcast. Hundreds of you, tens of you listening to this. I'm just kidding. We are so glad you're part of this. Now I am interviewing the king of pastors, as a man once called him, in an event that we were at, Very funny story. He was sitting there listening to this comedian, Ed Young Jr. This is who I'm talking about. And he's sitting there, front row at this event that we're at.
Mark Clark [00:00:29]:
And this comedian's up there just riffing on stuff. He has no idea what any of us are, who any of us are. And he looks down at Ed and says, are you the king of the pastors? And the whole room started laughing because it's kind of true. Like, you've been in this. We're all looking to you going, what did. What did. What's Ed saying about this or doing about this? He.
Ed Young [00:00:46]:
I think it was the. I think it was the Gucci loafers.
Mark Clark [00:00:48]:
It might have been the loafers. It might have been the loafers, because you look good, and those loafers were. Were kicking so well. Anyway, welcome, sir. Glad you're here. I. I've been reading Ed's stuff. So for those of you who don't know, can you just tell us a little bit about.
Mark Clark [00:01:01]:
Give us the framework of, like, what you do, because your church. Ed runs a church in Dallas, A leader, founding pastor, preaching pastor of a church in Dallas that is so big. Bayside's parking team, I think, is the size of your church.
Ed Young [00:01:17]:
So it's.
Mark Clark [00:01:18]:
Tell us about what you're doing.
Ed Young [00:01:19]:
We help plant Fellowship Church. My wife and I did. Mark, sort of like your story in Canada, here in Dallas in 1990. I'm not sure you were born yet, but. But I, I. Dallas was a place I didn't want to go. I wanted to. I wanted to go to.
Ed Young [00:01:38]:
To Vancouver. I wanted to go to Sacramento. I wanted. I wanted to go somewhere in South Florida and never say never in God's economy, but I like Dallas. But I told my friends, Mark, there are too many churches, and there are 10,045 ministries and churches right here in Dallas, Fort Worth.
Mark Clark [00:01:55]:
Anyway, amazing.
Ed Young [00:01:56]:
We start Fellowship Church. And my heart, my passion is evangelism, like yours. And so it just began to grow. And here's why. I mean, obviously it's all God to totally God. But one of the things that God deposited in my life, I grew up playing sports. And when I was in college, I remember taking some of my teammates who were clueless to the church I was attending. And you've heard the story before, but I really saw it through their eyes in a way I've never seen it before.
Ed Young [00:02:33]:
And God just spoke to me, not audibly. I always get a little bit nervous when people say, yeah, God said to me, but you know, he, he. I like what Wayne Grudem said. God impressed upon my spirit in my life that that's the best way that I've learned.
Mark Clark [00:02:48]:
Yes.
Ed Young [00:02:48]:
So he impressed upon my, my heart and soul. You know, this, you know this, this could lead somewhere. So then I, right before my scene, right before my junior year in college, that's when I felt the call literally into ministry. So I left that Florida State, moved to Houston, started working at church where my father pastors. It's called Second Baptist Church. Is that a crazy name, right? Second.
Mark Clark [00:03:18]:
Second, right. Anyway, first was already, There was already a Baptist church.
Ed Young [00:03:22]:
There was already a First only in Texas. So dad pastored that church for like 48 years. He stepped down. My brother is now pastor. He's a couple years younger than me. He's brilliant guy like you, PhD and all that. So. So anyway, I worked there for seven years.
Ed Young [00:03:42]:
And then of course I was married and am married and from there.
Mark Clark [00:03:48]:
Awesome woman, by the way. Awesome.
Ed Young [00:03:50]:
Yeah, she's. I'm very way over my head. And so, so we, we moved to Dallas in 1990. But every time I've done anything at Fellowship Church, I've thought about my ungodly lost seeking teammates. And so we've kind of built our church, Mark, around the table, where I'm the dude with the food. I happen to be the lead communicator or others. Chair one is the chair that has really not been filled yet. It's the one who hasn't shown up yet.
Ed Young [00:04:25]:
Or you could say the, the, the person who's investigating the claims of Christ. The second chair will be those whose faith is fresh, they've stepped over the line. Third chair will be the full court Followers of Christ. So every time I serve the food or we do anything here.
Mark Clark [00:04:41]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:04:41]:
How about chair one?
Mark Clark [00:04:42]:
It's great.
Ed Young [00:04:43]:
Okay, how about chair two?
Mark Clark [00:04:44]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:04:45]:
How about chair three? Because we've all been to restaurants where we walk in, we're like, I don't speak Japanese.
Mark Clark [00:04:51]:
Right.
Ed Young [00:04:52]:
But I love the ones, the menus that are in Japanese, but also then they interpret it with English.
Mark Clark [00:04:58]:
Sure.
Ed Young [00:04:58]:
So let's don't just leave it at Japanese.
Mark Clark [00:05:01]:
Yeah, let's. Right, so I love this story. Sorry not to interrupt, but.
Ed Young [00:05:06]:
No, no.
Mark Clark [00:05:06]:
What is it that you felt when you were with your friends that Day. And you interpreted church through their eyes. I love this, I love this litmus test for church. What were the couple things that you felt were like, this, this needs to change or this needs to.
Ed Young [00:05:20]:
Well, I, I felt an overall urgency to, like, you know, share with them that that was one Another thing was I, I just thought the, the, the, the music, I mean, sure. Over their head. I thought the pastor, he was a great theologian, but I mean, he's speaking, he's speaking Japanese, man. He's talking about.
Mark Clark [00:05:47]:
You have Japanese on your mind right now. Are you going for dinner at a Japanese restaurant or something?
Ed Young [00:05:52]:
You know what? We probably will tonight because let me tell you why my son is married to a Filipino. And, and of course, they love Asian food. And we're going out to dinner, so you know what?
Mark Clark [00:06:03]:
We probably will for sushi. So it's on your brain. You're ready. You're ready for the Japanese. I love it.
Ed Young [00:06:08]:
So.
Mark Clark [00:06:08]:
But he was speaking over their heads. He was talking.
Ed Young [00:06:10]:
Yeah. And, and, you know, he, and then he was asking and answering questions that they're not right. And, and it was just convicting. So this is some things I, I, I thought about and then. Yeah.
Mark Clark [00:06:27]:
So we, we invited, we, we invited this server that we've kind of built a relationship with over the last couple years to church. And she's definitely on a different, you know, different journey. And so, so she came and I remember I was like, it'll be interesting to see. Cause of course, everything you're filtering is.
Ed Young [00:06:45]:
Yes.
Mark Clark [00:06:46]:
You're like, oh, my gosh, why did the announcement say that?
Ed Young [00:06:49]:
That's right.
Mark Clark [00:06:49]:
You know what I mean?
Ed Young [00:06:50]:
That's right. That's right. Everything.
Mark Clark [00:06:51]:
Which is great. Which is the way it should be. And she, I remember she came back after the first song, back to the green room and found me and said, can I just, can I just hang here? Because honestly, there is way too loud and way too. It is like a rock concert out there. And you forget the depend. This isn't for everybody. This isn't everybody's story. But some people, when they come to church, they're coming to, like, answer these existential yes, they are soul questions.
Mark Clark [00:07:21]:
And we're like, lights are going and being. Turn it up, turn it up. Get it loud, you know, and you're.
Ed Young [00:07:30]:
Like, that's very well said. Yeah. And some people tracking with. I've never, I've never heard it put as well as you just put it, but I totally understand what you're saying.
Mark Clark [00:07:39]:
Yeah. And it's just very interesting that we Want to show them we're cool. And we got a rock concert going into. But for her, it was too much stimulation. She was, like, freaking out, and she said, I did not expect it to be like this.
Ed Young [00:07:53]:
Mark, what do you think we could do? Great.
Mark Clark [00:07:56]:
Great question. I mean, that's why you're a great leader. I just go, this is what I think. And then I move on. And you go, how do we solve it?
Ed Young [00:08:05]:
I don't know.
Mark Clark [00:08:06]:
Okay, what if. What if? One of the answers. So when we were on your podcast, we talked about your Saturday night service. What if. What if there was. Saturday night became something that was a little bit more. It was different than what you were doing on Sunday.
Ed Young [00:08:24]:
Interesting. Yeah.
Mark Clark [00:08:24]:
You know, so it's not full on, you know, liturgy, you know, but it's. It's something a little bit calm. It might be more acoustic, a little bit more not like the traditional versus contemporary. That's not what I mean. Just something that's trying to hit some of those. I don't know, maybe that off the top of my head, but what do you think we should do? How. How do we.
Ed Young [00:08:45]:
Yeah, we. I. I felt like. I mean, I'm. I have numerous learning disabilities, and I have to drink caffeine to even. I mean, concentrate. Seriously.
Mark Clark [00:08:55]:
I'm.
Ed Young [00:08:55]:
I'm.
Mark Clark [00:08:56]:
I. I love it, Mark. I am all you are. I love your style, man. You were all over the map. Anyway, I love it.
Ed Young [00:09:04]:
I. I can tend. It's. And sometimes a weakness in my preaching is I get so excited. I'm too not yelling, but like, oh, me too. So I have in. In critique. I have learned to sometimes just chill, man.
Ed Young [00:09:26]:
Just. Sometimes just talk. It's fine to get excited, and I'm excitable person like you are, but I just talk. And also, too, we've even had conversations, a number of them with our. With our whole worship team about. Okay, awesome. The song is loud. It's like bam, bam, bam.
Ed Young [00:09:43]:
But between that song and the next, let's have a good moment just to breathe.
Mark Clark [00:09:49]:
Yes.
Ed Young [00:09:49]:
Maybe some. Some light instrumentation. Yeah, maybe You're.
Mark Clark [00:09:53]:
You're.
Ed Young [00:09:54]:
You're leading in sort of a soft, you know, prayer or what God is doing. So we've definitely done that. But we need to be. Mark, after talking to you, I've learned so much already. We need to be more intentional about that because I have. I. When you said that, I've. I've heard that before from.
Ed Young [00:10:13]:
From people is. I mean, even. Even those people that. That are not believers. Like, oh, my gosh, this is a I mean, they've said, right? Rock concert, loud.
Mark Clark [00:10:24]:
I mean, imagine. And of course, this isn't the criticism of us doing the music the way we do.
Ed Young [00:10:29]:
It's great.
Mark Clark [00:10:29]:
But imagine you and I got invited to a mosque and we walked in with our Muslim friend.
Ed Young [00:10:38]:
Yes.
Mark Clark [00:10:39]:
And we were going in to learn about Islam because our friend has invited us. So we're going in, thinking of we have all this stuff in our brain. Right. 9, 11, and everything we've seen on the news and all this stuff. And we walk in and instead of it being like, chill and, hey, guys, thanks for coming here. We're going to read from the Quran. You know, whatever.
Ed Young [00:11:00]:
Yeah.
Mark Clark [00:11:00]:
It was like you walked in. It's like you'd be like, what the heck is going on?
Ed Young [00:11:06]:
Yes.
Mark Clark [00:11:06]:
That's very interesting. I don't know if that's a good.
Ed Young [00:11:08]:
Analogy, but that's a great analogy.
Mark Clark [00:11:11]:
Yeah, that's really.
Ed Young [00:11:13]:
It really makes me think. Yeah, that's great.
Mark Clark [00:11:16]:
So, okay, so where we're at in your story is you come to the church, your brothers does second best, and you.
Ed Young Jr. [00:11:22]:
Yeah. So we. So we start Fellowship Church, and it begins to grow. We were in rented facilities for eight years, and then we were like, okay, let's get some land. And just through the grace, everything's by God's grace and mercy, but we were able to get this land. The economy had tanked. The government owned the land. They were dumping the land.
Ed Young [00:11:40]:
And the guy that made the decision for us to buy the land in the government was a follower of Christ. How about that?
Mark Clark [00:11:46]:
Let's go.
Ed Young [00:11:47]:
So we're able to get this land, and then over the years, we were able to build this facility. And we were in a situation, Mark, where we were doing a lot of services and we had issues with egress ingress, and that's when we decided to go to multisite. And also, too. I'll tell you something else that's interesting about our church. Our church is basically where five major freeways come together. Literally, when you fly into DFW airport, you fly over our church. We have our logo on top of our church. I love that.
Mark Clark [00:12:24]:
I love it. And your website.
Ed Young [00:12:28]:
Excuse me.
Mark Clark [00:12:28]:
Your website up there, too.
Ed Young [00:12:30]:
Yes, sir. He says. I think it says fellowshipchurch.com. yes, sir.
Mark Clark [00:12:33]:
Genius. Genius.
Ed Young [00:12:37]:
Speaking about life and death, they're flying.
Mark Clark [00:12:39]:
Exactly. I just. So I was preaching at our Orange county campus this weekend, and Orange county just bought a building, and literally every flight coming into John Wayne has to go over that building. So I'm like, we got to Put the problem of jesus.com up there or something.
Ed Young [00:12:54]:
Do it.
Mark Clark [00:12:55]:
We got to put something on the roof. So. Genius. Great idea.
Ed Young [00:12:58]:
And, you know, the city tried to shut us down, some crazy ordinance, which they just made up, but we just said, you know what? We're going to paint it. And we just painted it and did it.
Mark Clark [00:13:07]:
I love it. I love it.
Ed Young [00:13:08]:
But anyway, so interestingly enough, we go to the satellite model, and in front of our church. Mark. The largest highway construction project in Texas history.
Mark Clark [00:13:23]:
No, Mark.
Ed Young [00:13:24]:
Ten years shut. Mark. Mark.
Mark Clark [00:13:29]:
No. It took our attendance, stressing me out.
Ed Young [00:13:32]:
Oh, oh, oh, Mark.
Mark Clark [00:13:35]:
Oh, my gosh.
Ed Young [00:13:37]:
But thankfully, praise the Lord, they're done. And now it's. It's crazy. So.
Mark Clark [00:13:43]:
So is that why. Is that why they were getting rid of the land and y' all just didn't ask enough questions?
Ed Young [00:13:48]:
No, no, no, no. I. I don't think. You know what? Maybe. So maybe they're like, you're an idiot.
Mark Clark [00:13:55]:
Yeah, let's get rid of this thing. Give it to some idiot.
Ed Young [00:13:57]:
This idiot. But anyway, so.
Mark Clark [00:14:01]:
So cool.
Ed Young [00:14:02]:
So anyway, we went to multi site, and I don't know about multi site. I still. I still have as many questions.
Mark Clark [00:14:10]:
Oh, me too.
Ed Young [00:14:10]:
As answers.
Mark Clark [00:14:11]:
Yeah, Mark.
Ed Young [00:14:12]:
I mean, we've done. We've done the video thing for a while, but now more and more, I'm. I'm going into what you guys are doing. Having live speakers.
Mark Clark [00:14:23]:
Yeah. And so. And so for the audience, Ed is just. I mean, you can tell he's a genius communicator. And so leveraging. Leveraging your communication across video would be the most expedient way, which is what drove us at Village to do it is the urgency. Every day, people are dying.
Ed Young [00:14:40]:
That's right.
Mark Clark [00:14:40]:
And we don't have time to sit around and, you know, mess about. And so. But one of the cons we were talking about on your podcast is like, it doesn't force us to raise up live communicators. So when we die, you got six, seven, eight other preachers out there, you know, whatever. So. So you're starting to move a little bit more toward that. But you've got. You've been very successful with video, and you have a very large church and have been doing this for a lot of years.
Mark Clark [00:15:05]:
So let me ask you a question. What has kept your, like. Sorry, I don't mean that as an offensive.
Ed Young [00:15:11]:
I'm laughing at myself because.
Mark Clark [00:15:12]:
Well, there's. I mean, look, a lot of guys have bailed out a ministry at this point who've been doing it as. As long as you've been doing it, they've fumbled it. They've had moral failures. They've.
Ed Young [00:15:21]:
Oh, yeah.
Mark Clark [00:15:21]:
Completely blown up their lives or whatever keeps you just as passionate. Because what I love about you is you're a passionate guy.
Ed Young [00:15:29]:
Yes.
Mark Clark [00:15:29]:
I love that the reason you speak with volume is because you're jacked up. You believe what you're saying.
Ed Young [00:15:35]:
That's the thing.
Mark Clark [00:15:36]:
It's like, if you believe what you're saying, how can we not just go out there and do this thing?
Ed Young [00:15:40]:
That's right.
Mark Clark [00:15:40]:
So how do. After this many years in ministry, how do you keep. What is it about that kept that passion going?
Ed Young [00:15:49]:
I've gotta say, the person that does not know Jesus Christ.
Mark Clark [00:15:55]:
Come on.
Ed Young [00:15:55]:
And the opportunity that we have to engage him and to bring him into the life of our church, to introduce him.
Mark Clark [00:16:05]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:16:06]:
To Christ. And for him to become a full court follower, that is still the thing that drives me. No question about it.
Mark Clark [00:16:17]:
Love it.
Ed Young [00:16:18]:
So love it. And then, you know, we have a lot of people. Marcus, you know, in Dallas, I mean, it sounds weird, but you almost have to get them unsaved. I'm not sure if that's theologically correct. Anyway, you know, it's like everyone thinks it's kind of popular to be a Christian. Oh, yes, Mark, I'm a Christian.
Mark Clark [00:16:34]:
Right.
Ed Young [00:16:34]:
Where'd you go? To church. So there's more. We're the belt buckle of the Bible belt, but for a lot of people, we're so spiritually obese. The Bible belts on his last hole.
Mark Clark [00:16:48]:
Come on. Come on.
Ed Young [00:16:50]:
Woo. I mean, they don't.
Mark Clark [00:16:52]:
They're just genius. I love it. That's genius. I don't preach. I'm sure you've gone up and said that a few times.
Ed Young [00:16:58]:
I have. I've said that.
Mark Clark [00:16:59]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:17:00]:
And I've said that, you know, Dallas has more restaurants per capita than any place. This is what they say.
Mark Clark [00:17:07]:
Okay.
Ed Young [00:17:08]:
In America, okay. We have more obesity than any place in America. More spiritual obesity than any place in America. Because we have more spiritual restaurants, Right?
Mark Clark [00:17:22]:
Yes.
Ed Young [00:17:22]:
Than any place.
Mark Clark [00:17:23]:
Man, such a great analogy. So people just. They grow up in the church, they're born into the church. The church is part of their life. It's part of their social. Yeah, it's. It's belonging. It's all that stuff, so.
Mark Clark [00:17:35]:
Which is beautiful. But as we've talked about in the past, like, it can have the adverse effect of people thinking they're going to heaven or whatever. And they're not. They don't actually know.
Ed Young [00:17:47]:
Mark. One of the great things about the way you communicate is because you have a heart for evangelism, because you do rub shoulders with people that don't know Christ, because you do have conversations with skeptics and atheists and this or that. That translates into your preaching style.
Mark Clark [00:18:06]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:18:07]:
And I. I work hard at trying to engage people as friends. Not people.
Mark Clark [00:18:14]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:18:14]:
Trying to put a notch on my Bible, you know, But. But engage them as friends, Listen to them, talk with them. And again, I'm like, man, what am I doing preaching about this? They're not even. You know, they don't. But.
Mark Clark [00:18:29]:
But the great thing is, is you're picturing them when you're writing your sermon, though.
Ed Young [00:18:32]:
You're picturing them when you're up preaching every time. For me.
Mark Clark [00:18:35]:
Right.
Ed Young [00:18:35]:
And that's why I'm still. That's why I'm still in the game. Yes.
Mark Clark [00:18:39]:
So good. So you, over the years, because you're a big church and because you're a big personality, over the years, you have got criticism for whatever. Different things in life.
Ed Young [00:18:52]:
Oh, yes. How do you.
Mark Clark [00:18:54]:
How did you push through those moments of whether it's online or other? It's mostly. A lot of other. It's mostly Christians because.
Ed Young [00:19:04]:
Yes, it is. Right.
Mark Clark [00:19:05]:
Like, there's not a lot of non Christians going, I don't like Ed's preaching. It's like they don't even know.
Ed Young [00:19:10]:
Those are great questions. You know, I grew up. This is an advantage. I grew up in the fishbowl, the aquarium, because pastors live in a fishbowl. People watch us.
Mark Clark [00:19:21]:
Yes.
Ed Young [00:19:21]:
And sometimes they'll come up to us, but a lot of times they're just watching. They see what we eat, what we don't eat, what we drink, what we don't drink, what we drive, where we live, etc. Etc.
Mark Clark [00:19:32]:
Our loafers.
Ed Young [00:19:34]:
Yes. And I've gotten criticized for those. So I'm serious. So, you know, you know, I. In this, I promise you this is not trite, but. But, but. But I try to live for an audience of one. I.
Ed Young [00:19:51]:
I don't read. I. I never really have any negative comments or hate to say even any positive comments.
Mark Clark [00:19:59]:
Sure.
Ed Young [00:19:59]:
I mean, if. If it's a letter where someone has had a radical salvation, I'll. I'll. My. My assistant might read it to me or I might just glance at it, but if I read that stuff, I'm on a roller coaster. Oh, you're a heretic. You're terrible. You're greedy, you're materialistic.
Ed Young [00:20:21]:
Oh, you're the best. You're the next Billy Graham. None of those things are true.
Mark Clark [00:20:26]:
Right. Nor are they helpful. Yeah.
Ed Young [00:20:29]:
So I just do that. And that's helped a lot for me because I'm insecure. I mean, I am. I am so insecure that I know if I dive into that, into the comment section, I'll dumpster dive with the best of them. So I try. I just try not to do that.
Mark Clark [00:20:49]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:20:49]:
And. And I do know, too, that persecution, as we know, is part of the Christian life. I mean, we're going to suffer. We're going to go through times where. Where people, especially the mean Christians, and we have a number of them here in Dallas, just don't dig what you're doing. Whether it's the volume in your service, whether it is. You're probably not sty. Of your.
Mark Clark [00:21:14]:
Right. I mean, all the Christian. You're not Bible enough. You're too b. All. All the stuff.
Ed Young [00:21:18]:
All the.
Mark Clark [00:21:18]:
The.
Ed Young [00:21:19]:
I mean, from, From. From clothing to. To what? I. It could be anything. I can't believe you. At least to live in this neighborhood while I'm going. Well, you know, we've been married for 43 years, and we've saved money and we've invested and we flipped houses.
Mark Clark [00:21:38]:
I mean, they don't know what. Yeah, I know.
Ed Young [00:21:41]:
Why am I even saying that? You know what I'm saying?
Mark Clark [00:21:44]:
Why I have to defend myself as if I'm supposed to live in abject poverty? Because I'm a pastor.
Ed Young [00:21:49]:
Exactly. So I just try to roll with that. But I'd be lying to you, Mark, if I said over the years that it still hurts to this day when people leave the church. You know, people. People ask me sometimes, well, do people leave Fellowship Church? I go, man, they've been living for 35 years.
Mark Clark [00:22:10]:
Yeah, exactly.
Ed Young [00:22:11]:
We'll leave your church.
Mark Clark [00:22:12]:
Yes.
Ed Young [00:22:12]:
No matter what you do. Yes, no matter what you do. And as a pastor, this is part of the. Being a pastor is mostly positive, but the negative part would be the betrayal.
Mark Clark [00:22:27]:
Yes.
Ed Young [00:22:28]:
You. You give your heart, soul and mind to certain people, whatever, and then they turn and go. So that. That's been. I've. God's taught me a lot about that. And that kind of segues into the answer to the question I just gave you.
Mark Clark [00:22:43]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:22:44]:
So people holding them, holding people loosely, loving them. But. But, but, but not. It sounds like harsh, but not letting everybody in.
Mark Clark [00:22:55]:
No. For sure.
Ed Young [00:22:56]:
You have to protect yourself.
Mark Clark [00:22:58]:
And you and I both know. I mean, we got kids. We got.
Ed Young [00:23:01]:
Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
Mark Clark [00:23:03]:
You're trying to protect them.
Ed Young [00:23:05]:
That's right.
Mark Clark [00:23:05]:
And there's been times when you open yourself up to friendships or whatever and then those people turn on you or like you said, leave the church or whatever. And you learn a bit of. Whether it's healthy or not healthy. You just learn, okay, our family's a tribe that we need to protect ourselves. You get a little bit of thick skin once you've been turned on a couple times or whatever. Coming back to the criticism comment, you go, you know who Larry Osborne is? Larry Osborne, San Diego.
Ed Young [00:23:32]:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.
Mark Clark [00:23:33]:
Brilliant guy. He was one of my mentors and he, I remember there was a time when in Canada we were baptizing a whole bunch of people.
Ed Young [00:23:40]:
Yes.
Mark Clark [00:23:40]:
And, and our, our Baptist denomination started being critical of me. And what they would say is the reason he has so many young dudes who are coming to his church is because he puts good looking women, young women out at the connect desk to draw all these young guys in. And I'm like, dang, that's genius. I mean that is, I don't do it, but it's genius.
Ed Young [00:24:02]:
That is genius.
Mark Clark [00:24:04]:
And so, and so they said he's not, so he said he's not baptizing people. Right. Okay. And what they meant was we used to go out in the Pacific Ocean and baptize people. Okay. It'd be, it'd be 40 degrees in the water and cuz it was February because we didn't have a building. Right. So we're just, we're, we're not like, you know those, those hot tub baptisms, those aren't even real, you know, it's like we're going out in the real world, the Pacific Ocean, there's a thousand people on the shore and we're baptizing these people and when they go in that water, they're feeling like they're actually dying and we're rising them into new life.
Mark Clark [00:24:40]:
And it's like this is real baptism anyway. So these, so what happened is people started wearing wetsuits. Okay.
Ed Young [00:24:48]:
Okay.
Mark Clark [00:24:49]:
So I would baptize them in wetsuits. And my Baptist denomination saw these photos and decided that I wasn't baptizing people properly because the water wasn't touching their skin, their body. So there was like meetings about this, the denomination. And I remember Larry Osborne said something to me I'll never forget. I'll probably hack it. But it's a great, great thing when criticism comes. He said, you know what? I like the wrong way that you're baptizing people better than the right way that they're not baptizing anybody.
Ed Young [00:25:22]:
Oh my goodness.
Mark Clark [00:25:23]:
I was like, okay, that'll. That helps the heart.
Ed Young [00:25:27]:
That's great.
Mark Clark [00:25:29]:
I, I like the wrong way you're doing ministry that's reaching a whole bunch.
Ed Young [00:25:34]:
Of people better than the right way.
Mark Clark [00:25:36]:
That they're not reaching anybody. So yeah, he's, I'll give him the credit for that one.
Ed Young [00:25:42]:
So I love that line about 40°. They were dying temperature and then, and then the wetsuit and they were dying.
Mark Clark [00:25:52]:
They're actual dying heart attack. So we. You're a world class communicator. Let's talk about preaching for a few minutes. My audience gets into this a little bit. Carrie Newhoff and I just released this course called the Art of Preaching.
Ed Young [00:26:08]:
Oh, great.
Mark Clark [00:26:09]:
And it kind of gets into the mechanics and the heart of preaching. So talk to me about, you've been doing this a long time preaching. What are some of the things you've learned over the years that you would go, these are the things that work for me. Maybe the things that don't work for you. Talk about preaching for a few minutes.
Ed Young [00:26:24]:
I try to set aside a time during pretty much every day, at least six days a week where I'm studying. Usually it's in the mornings, but it could be at any, any time. I think, I think that's been, that's been good just to shut down everything, say, okay, I'm going to spend 30 minutes, maybe an hour, maybe, maybe could go into two or three hours preparing for, for the text. I mean I. Right now we're going through the book of Romans, which is unique for us and we're doing it in eight weeks, which is probably stupid. But anyway, we're doing it and, and we're taking, you know, obviously the, the big, the big passages. So it's more of a. This series quotes expositional series.
Ed Young [00:27:15]:
But then again, what is exposition? That's a whole nother subject.
Mark Clark [00:27:18]:
Right.
Ed Young [00:27:18]:
So, so I am, when I'm studying, not preparing a message, let's say even like this, on, on the book of Romans this past week I spoke On Romans chapter 3, verses 21 through 28, which Martin Luther said is the most important paragraph in the Bible.
Mark Clark [00:27:36]:
The center of the center. Yeah.
Ed Young [00:27:38]:
And so I was, I was flying on an American Airlines flight from Atlanta to Dallas and I love to study on planes. And I was, I had my Bible open. I was like, lord, give me an angle or how can. I mean, I'm thinking about that person that doesn't know Christ. The person who's a brand new believer and the person who has their, you know, PhD like you.
Mark Clark [00:27:59]:
Okay, I do not have a PhD.
Ed Young Jr. [00:28:02]:
What's the best, what's the best way, you know, to do this? And so I'm looking through it, and I started seeing these words. Boom, boom, they just popped out. I go, marketing. That's God's marketing strategy. Marketing. So I just start writing down the words In Romans, verse 3, 21 through 3, 28. And, you know, it's like revealed, set apart, demonstrated, whatever. So I just kind of went into the whole thing.
Ed Young [00:28:35]:
So I started thinking about marketing. Who are the great marketers? And that's, you know, Bezos and Steve Jobs. Yeah, Steve Jobs, Jerry Jones. And then I ended up. This is a little bit goofy, but, you know, cheese work sometimes. I ended with Phil Knight, and I went back to the just do it campaign.
Mark Clark [00:28:54]:
Sure.
Ed Young [00:28:55]:
And, and so, so then I stopped and I said, do you know who's the best marketer of all time? I mean, do you know our great God? So the whole thing was about marketing. Like, like when you market, you've got to have a product. Who's the product? Of course, Jesus. What's your roi? I mean, the metrics, all that stuff. So that was my outline. So the outline, I believe, connected with a wide range of people.
Mark Clark [00:29:26]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:29:27]:
And, and obviously the, the, the content is, I mean, wow. Book of Romans. You can just read it. So, so I concluded, and I'm going to circle back and tell you why I told you this. No, I concluded with Phil Knight, and Nike said, just do it. But do you know what God said? It's already been done.
Mark Clark [00:29:54]:
There we go. That'll preach.
Ed Young [00:29:56]:
So here's, so here's where I've learned.
Mark Clark [00:29:57]:
About just do it as religion. He's done it is the gospel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. I like that. That's even better. That's good.
Ed Young [00:30:04]:
Okay, so, so here's what I learned about preaching. The introduction maybe is the most important part. If you don't capture, if you don't capture that up front in the first two or three minutes, I mean, it's tough sometimes to get the audience back. That's one thing. A conclusion. And I was so weak on conclusions.
Mark Clark [00:30:25]:
Mark.
Ed Young [00:30:26]:
I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed. But, you know, recently, recently I've improved. Praise the Lord. I have. The last couple years, I've gotten better. So introduction, conclusion. Yeah, I, I, I try to say, okay, what do people need to know? And what should I, what should they do? You know? So, so the application.
Ed Young [00:30:50]:
I would say that, I would say in preaching, I enjoy using just a kaleidoscopic range of personal stories, even historical illustrations. The best illustrations, as we know, are biblical illustrations. Oh, that's great. I try to do a lot of biblical illustrations. I'm naturally. I naturally make weird noises and sound effects. I always have people go, you work on those, right?
Mark Clark [00:31:17]:
No, no, that's just. No, that's just on the spot. Yeah.
Ed Young [00:31:21]:
So I would tell people, be yourself. Don't try to.
Mark Clark [00:31:24]:
Yes. I mean, very good.
Ed Young [00:31:26]:
Don't. Don't try to be Carrie. Don't try to be Craig. Don't try. Just be who you are. You can learn from them. Learn from you. You can learn from me.
Ed Young [00:31:35]:
But there's only one mark, so you beat you.
Mark Clark [00:31:37]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:31:38]:
When it comes. When it. When it comes to preaching. So I would just say that. I would say that even in our topical messages, we've done. Even within that. It's. It's the text drop driven, you know?
Mark Clark [00:31:51]:
Yes.
Ed Young [00:31:52]:
It. And. And we've done all sorts of. I did. I did a series one time. It's an old one. I just saw it. Everything you need to know about life is in your aquarium.
Mark Clark [00:32:04]:
Okay.
Ed Young [00:32:04]:
And I. And I Talked about the 10 most popular fish in aquariums, and I compared them to different characters in the Bible.
Mark Clark [00:32:11]:
Interesting. I love how your brain works.
Ed Young [00:32:15]:
I'm going to redo that one.
Mark Clark [00:32:17]:
That's good. I like that.
Ed Young [00:32:18]:
Because I used to have an aquarium mark in my office. Nothing fancy. You won't believe this. I had 50 piranha in it.
Mark Clark [00:32:25]:
What?
Ed Young [00:32:28]:
A guy drove to Oklahoma. You're not supposed to have them in Texas.
Mark Clark [00:32:31]:
Okay.
Ed Young [00:32:32]:
And dumped him in my aquarium. And they lived for two years, but finally they just killed each other.
Mark Clark [00:32:40]:
That's crazy.
Ed Young [00:32:41]:
Church member. Hey, kind of like church members.
Mark Clark [00:32:42]:
Yeah. You just have to clean out a piranha every couple weeks and be like, oh, he got killed.
Ed Young [00:32:47]:
Brutal. Brutal.
Mark Clark [00:32:48]:
That's crazy.
Ed Young [00:32:50]:
So that's where I got the idea.
Mark Clark [00:32:51]:
Right. It's genius. Okay, so let me ask you this. So you're a. You're a guy who's lived through ministry in the 90s, the OTS, all this stuff you've gone through these different decades. You've seen, you've built an amazing church, a mega church. What are some of the shifts you've seen happen? Whether it's in the last five years, or maybe you go back to 2018 with the economic challenge, or maybe you go back to 2007, 2008 with the invention of the iPhone. What are.
Mark Clark [00:33:22]:
What are some ministry shifts that you've seen take place that have made you go, man, the church, the church I lead, but also the church in America needs to pivot or do this or do that in light of these.
Ed Young [00:33:35]:
Brilliant question. Brilliant. Okay. In the 90s, just generally speaking, I would really, really. We would. I, we would really, really think about titles. Like, I think people came to our church, right. Because of a lot of times, compelling titles.
Ed Young [00:33:50]:
And we would do door knockers, direct mail, whatever.
Mark Clark [00:33:53]:
Sure.
Ed Young [00:33:53]:
Well, I think with the invention of the iPhone, et cetera, we're not as title driven, topic driven as we used to be because you can just, you know, you, you can get it on your phone.
Mark Clark [00:34:08]:
Sure.
Ed Young [00:34:08]:
Also, I would say for our church, 911 was interesting, Mark, because we had a massive. I mean we, we groaned, but we kind of stopped around 2001. 9 11, Mark, the growth. I, I call it stupid growth.
Mark Clark [00:34:28]:
I like, what do you remember? Do you remember what the number. Like, give us an example. Thousands more showed up next weekend.
Ed Young [00:34:36]:
Oh yeah. Thousand. Thousand. Literally. For us. For us. Yes.
Mark Clark [00:34:39]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:34:40]:
And. And so, so that was interesting.
Mark Clark [00:34:44]:
But what did you, what did you do? Like, how did you handle it? Like, what did you. Because they stayed.
Ed Young [00:34:50]:
I assume they did.
Mark Clark [00:34:51]:
Yeah. Amazing or.
Ed Young [00:34:54]:
Mark, I don't know what I did. I have to look back.
Mark Clark [00:34:58]:
There's three things we did.
Ed Young [00:35:00]:
Yeah, I go, I go, wow, look at these people. You know, I don't know what I did. But. But then 2008, when the economy crashed, I was looking for another 9 11. And here's the deal. They did not come back.
Mark Clark [00:35:17]:
Right.
Ed Young [00:35:17]:
And a lot of those people came in for 9 11.
Mark Clark [00:35:20]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:35:21]:
Kind of drifted.
Mark Clark [00:35:22]:
So they left in 2008.
Ed Young [00:35:24]:
Yeah. Left and just didn't show back up.
Mark Clark [00:35:27]:
Interesting.
Ed Young [00:35:28]:
First time I've seen it. So I'm like, okay, that's, that's interesting.
Mark Clark [00:35:32]:
So they didn't.
Ed Young [00:35:33]:
So then.
Mark Clark [00:35:33]:
Yeah. Okay.
Ed Young [00:35:35]:
And I'm not, I'm just telling you the obvious. And then recent, as after, after co. Was a major. For. For a culture, obviously a major seismic shift. I mean, the geological plates changed in so many people's lives and nations etc.
Mark Clark [00:35:54]:
Yeah, we were.
Ed Young [00:35:58]:
We were one of the first churches to open. And, and people really, they, they were drawn to that. So we, we, we. We had another growth.
Mark Clark [00:36:11]:
How long were you closed for during COVID.
Ed Young [00:36:16]:
Eight weeks.
Mark Clark [00:36:17]:
Wow. You know, you know what we were closed for in Vancouver? How long do you think we had to. People could not come to the building.
Ed Young [00:36:26]:
Okay.
Mark Clark [00:36:27]:
In Vancouver?
Ed Young [00:36:28]:
Three months.
Mark Clark [00:36:29]:
18 months. A year and a half. I preached to a video camera for a year and a half, Mark. That's unbelievable, isn't that crazy. And we, we had a $10 million budget at the time, and we still hit it, which is how no one showed up to one. You could not come into a building. No youth ministry, no sermons, nothing. It.
Mark Clark [00:36:54]:
I mean, what.
Ed Young [00:36:56]:
Mark, you're a great leader.
Mark Clark [00:36:58]:
No, that's just God going, hey, let's, let's just, let's. Let's give you some encouragement during the most depressing season of your life.
Ed Young [00:37:08]:
So from there, Mark, I would say and. And this has been studied and written about a lot recently talked about, but there's definitely a hunger like I haven't seen with young people for spiritual things, for the word of God, for worship. And over the last three years, our student ministry, I would definitely say revival. And through that, today we probably have more young families than I've ever seen at our church. This is a strength and a weakness back in the day, Mark, and maybe just, I don't know, you could comment on this. Over half of our church were singles.
Mark Clark [00:37:59]:
Wow.
Ed Young [00:38:00]:
Half. Like 54%.
Mark Clark [00:38:02]:
Wow.
Ed Young [00:38:03]:
And now we've seen a shift demographically. I don't know what the numbers are, but it's not anywhere near that. But anyway, those are some things that I would say. I would say that people are. Are more open. Hey, I want to hear. I want to hear the Magna Carta of the Christian faith, the book of Romans. I want to hear that.
Ed Young [00:38:22]:
What is that about, really? Theology. I explain what I. I even did a series called no Theology K N O W. Okay. Yep. Where I tried. Attempted to go from even the chair one, chair two, Chair three, and I talked about why theology matters, and I tried to.
Mark Clark [00:38:43]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:38:44]:
Anyway, so some of those series for us have been. Have been really good.
Mark Clark [00:38:54]:
Well, I just think people. I think we think sometimes in leadership about these things, to your point, about series or titles and, and all of that is important. Of course. You know, you don't go on YouTube and like, and just type in, what does Mark have to say? But you type in how do I fix my sink? Or whatever.
Ed Young [00:39:12]:
Yes.
Mark Clark [00:39:12]:
So it's like, very topical. But I think like, people, week to week, no matter what you title things or whatever, they know Ed is going to get up and do something. And that.
Ed Young [00:39:22]:
That's right.
Mark Clark [00:39:23]:
That something, whatever it's titled or whatever book it's in or whatever is something that they feel is going to be useful and helpful to them and important to gather in here. And I think those years of faithfulness are going to be your best marketing versus a great title or a door knocker or whatever.
Ed Young [00:39:46]:
And, Mark, you know, one. One thing I did mention that probably overshadows them all, our daughter died suddenly five years ago. Our oldest daughter. And, yeah, I didn't want to ask.
Mark Clark [00:40:01]:
About that because I don't know how open you are to talking.
Ed Young [00:40:03]:
Oh, I'm totally open about it. But it's. It's weird when I talk about it. Sometimes I get emotional, sometimes I don't. It's just. Grief is unique.
Mark Clark [00:40:11]:
Sure.
Ed Young [00:40:11]:
But she was one of our best staff members, and she started binge drinking. She had some relationships that kind of went crazy. She started binge drinking, and. And she would mix that with Adderall. So we kind of went through these battles. And then one weekend, Lisa was out of town, my wife seeing her mom, who's in a assisted living home in South Carolina, and our daughter, Lee Beth, had one of her binge moments. So I went over there and got her. And.
Ed Young [00:40:49]:
And this is on a Monday, and took her to a therapist. And, you know, we got her sobered up and everything. And. And so she had a. She had a house in the area. But I said, lee Beth, you need to spend the night, you know, in our house. It was. It was me and my son and his wife.
Ed Young [00:41:10]:
They were staying with us at the time. So I made a little bed out for her in our. In our playroom that we have for the grandkids. And I was in my study doing a message on Abraham and Isaac. And I just wrote these words I like to write, and Abraham placed him on the altar. Boom. I heard a sound, went in there, and in essence, she was. She was dead.
Mark Clark [00:41:33]:
Oh, my God.
Ed Young [00:41:34]:
Obviously, she went to heaven. Oh, my goodness.
Mark Clark [00:41:37]:
I am so sorry.
Ed Young [00:41:38]:
So. So here's. Here's what happened, though, Mark. I. Okay, I. Lisa and I both decided we're going to tell the church and everyone it was because of alcohol and Adderall, you know.
Mark Clark [00:41:53]:
Right.
Ed Young [00:41:54]:
Some people said, oh, you need to say that she had a heart problem. Or you. No, no, it's not so.
Mark Clark [00:42:00]:
Right. Wow.
Ed Young [00:42:01]:
We, you know, we tried to be very open about it, and it was almost like all these people in our church are like, okay, Ed, you've spoken for 30 years. Let's, you know, not. You're going to live it. Are you going to live it out?
Mark Clark [00:42:15]:
I mean, do you.
Ed Young [00:42:17]:
So.
Mark Clark [00:42:17]:
So do we really believe this stuff?
Ed Young [00:42:19]:
Yes.
Mark Clark [00:42:20]:
That we preach. Yeah.
Ed Young [00:42:22]:
So our church grieved with us. So I would say that Mark, over The last, obviously, 20 years, would have been the most cataclysmic moment and change for our church being More cognizant and aware of the transcendence of God. Whether it's worship, preaching, all of that, no doubt about it. And Lee Bath is the one who had the idea for our preacher's kid camp that we do every, every July. We have a, we have a retreat center in East Texas. A camp really. And then, and then.
Mark Clark [00:43:00]:
That is so cool.
Ed Young [00:43:02]:
So, so yeah, so that's. But, but she has many things that, that, that she, that she did. She was very, she was very creative and she was one of the, the unique creatives that had good discernment. Most creative people. Discernment is not our.
Mark Clark [00:43:17]:
Sure.
Ed Young [00:43:19]:
So.
Mark Clark [00:43:19]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:43:19]:
Yeah. So anyway, so I, it's like, yeah.
Mark Clark [00:43:22]:
There'S three people in the audience that are going to like that video.
Ed Young [00:43:26]:
So I've tried to talk openly and honestly in messages.
Mark Clark [00:43:28]:
That's beautiful.
Ed Young [00:43:29]:
About her. So is my wife. And so. No, we have no, there's, there's, there's no.
Mark Clark [00:43:34]:
How did that, how did that change? Like, I don't know.
Ed Young [00:43:38]:
It changed me.
Mark Clark [00:43:39]:
Yeah. Did you go through like a season of doubt or was it.
Ed Young [00:43:43]:
Oh no, it looked maybe some more anger. More like, hey, God, I've given, you know, we've given our lives to you, blah, blah, blah, you know, and of course. So this happens really. You know, and, and that, you know, what's happening happens in marriages usually when you have a child who dies an out of order death, usually the husband and wife become close and then after a while they grieve in their own ways.
Mark Clark [00:44:09]:
Sure.
Ed Young [00:44:09]:
You have separation and many times you have divorce. So thankfully, by God's grace, great biblical counseling, etc. Lisa and I have, although we've, you know, we grieve in our, on our own way.
Mark Clark [00:44:25]:
Sure.
Ed Young [00:44:26]:
We, we have. I would say our marriage is stronger now.
Mark Clark [00:44:30]:
Wow.
Ed Young [00:44:31]:
Than it was.
Mark Clark [00:44:32]:
That's beautiful.
Ed Young [00:44:33]:
Than it was prior to her passing from, from earth to heaven. So.
Mark Clark [00:44:41]:
So did you guys go, Were you in counseling at all before that event?
Ed Young [00:44:48]:
Yeah, we strongly believe in Christian counseling.
Mark Clark [00:44:51]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:44:51]:
And we, we went through counseling and our church was kind enough. I mean, I kind of disengaged for about two months.
Mark Clark [00:45:01]:
Sure.
Ed Young [00:45:01]:
You know, and, and we have again, great leaders and communicators here, so we didn't miss a beat. But.
Mark Clark [00:45:09]:
I bet, yeah. That, I bet God's used that from an audience perspective of okay, this guy knows pain.
Ed Young [00:45:20]:
Yes. It changed. Yeah, Mark, it changed the way I as a pastor view people and view pain prior to that. I'm not saying I wasn't sensitive to it. I mean, I was Sensitive to pain. But going through what we've gone through, I. I tend to be. I might have run away from pain.
Mark Clark [00:45:54]:
Sure.
Ed Young [00:45:55]:
Prior to. And now I don't mind, you know, engaging with people in it. So. Yeah, that would be.
Mark Clark [00:46:07]:
Wow.
Ed Young [00:46:08]:
It's funny, I didn't even think about that when you asked me the question. That would be the. Obviously the biggest thing. Oh, this happened in our church, I would say.
Mark Clark [00:46:15]:
Oh, yeah.
Ed Young [00:46:16]:
Even in our church for the last. Whatever.
Mark Clark [00:46:20]:
Well, thank you for being a good dad and, and for. For using her life and legacy to impact people versus burying it away somewhere. And just. I'm not going to talk about this like, what a. What a beautiful thing. So thank you for doing that. Well, it's a good spot to probably end conversation. I had.
Mark Clark [00:46:43]:
I had a few other questions in regard to the mechanics of ministry, but I think that. No, what you, what you've shared is.
Ed Young [00:46:51]:
Okay.
Mark Clark [00:46:51]:
It's such a beautiful testimony to what real life and leadership is.
Ed Young [00:46:56]:
And, and you know it. We wrote a book, Mark, about it.
Mark Clark [00:47:01]:
Yeah. What's the name of that book?
Ed Young [00:47:03]:
It's called A Path Through Pain.
Mark Clark [00:47:05]:
A Path Through Pain. Okay.
Ed Young [00:47:06]:
And it's not just the death of our daughter. It's divorce, it's depression. It's, you know, being betrayed. It's all those things. And we just really felt a leading. So Lisa and I both wrote it.
Mark Clark [00:47:19]:
Wow.
Ed Young [00:47:20]:
Now, the books I've written, they're all right. When Lisa writes, they're good people. People are like, man, this is really good.
Mark Clark [00:47:28]:
Well, what. What's your latest book? Is that your latest book or what's the latest book you got?
Ed Young [00:47:33]:
I think that's it. Do I. Have I written one? I'm sorry, I. I've written two of them, but they're. They're like. One's called in the Zone.
Mark Clark [00:47:42]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:47:43]:
And then another one is called the Table.
Mark Clark [00:47:46]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:47:47]:
Which is a metaphor about what I talked about regarding how our church is set up. The Table.
Mark Clark [00:47:52]:
I love that. And what's in the zone about.
Ed Young [00:47:55]:
It's about finances. It's about being generous in what is generosity. And, and, you know, there. There's so many things out there about being blessed and all that. Yeah. God blesses us, but it's not always going to be with that cash money. Right. You know, now and then he does.
Mark Clark [00:48:16]:
Right.
Ed Young [00:48:16]:
I'm not saying, obviously he's God.
Mark Clark [00:48:18]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:48:19]:
But just how. What is the journey of generosity? And why, as Christ followers, should we be generous? Right. And what is it? So.
Mark Clark [00:48:29]:
So talk. Talk a little bit about that. I literally Just at our Orange county campus this past weekend. The assignment was go preach on generosity. Now I'm a. I'm a kind of like, I'm a just a brass tax kind of. So I just got up and I said, hey, listen, I know I'm not your pastor and I've only preached here twice, but you're $200,000 behind, and if you don't make it up, we're gonna have to shut the doors anyway. Be more generous.
Mark Clark [00:48:52]:
Yeah, you got to talk to your church.
Ed Young [00:48:56]:
You. Many times. I have. You have to be direct about it because here's what's so interesting. Everyone else is direct about it. In the marketplace, in the secular world, it's all they're talking about. Money. How much? You all can make this deal, that deal, and we come to church.
Ed Young [00:49:13]:
Well, no. Right. You don't just suggest it. Sometimes you can, but you have to hit it. And, and you have to say, hey, you know, obviously. What is, what does it mean to be blessed anyway? It means to be on the receiving end of the intangible and tangible favor of God.
Mark Clark [00:49:32]:
Oh, say that again. That's good.
Ed Young [00:49:34]:
Be blessed is to be on the receiving end of the tangible and intangible favor of. Of God.
Mark Clark [00:49:41]:
That's so good.
Ed Young [00:49:42]:
And then you can go in there and, And, And I have this whole thing that I do about. I have this God cam. When I talk about finances and, and generosity, where you're. You're looking at me from the ceiling and we have. Have our stage decorated as a zone. And we, we talk about God is the bless or. And we are the blessed and he wants us to have and to be blessings. And so we just kind of start rolling, rolling from there.
Ed Young [00:50:15]:
And we say, don't live in the land of ing. Too many people live in the land of ing. You're outside the zone, my man. Once you step into the zone, God will put his bless on your ing.
Mark Clark [00:50:29]:
What's the ing? What do you mean, the ing?
Ed Young [00:50:31]:
I don't know. It's made it up. No, no. You know what it is? Earning.
Mark Clark [00:50:37]:
Oh, gotcha. Yeah.
Ed Young [00:50:39]:
Sewing.
Mark Clark [00:50:40]:
Yeah.
Ed Young [00:50:41]:
And then I. What else was I say?
Mark Clark [00:50:43]:
Earning.
Ed Young [00:50:44]:
Earning. Sewing.
Mark Clark [00:50:45]:
I gotta get this book. Listen, listen.
Ed Young [00:50:48]:
I'll send it to you, brother.
Mark Clark [00:50:49]:
No, no, I'll go on Amazon. You will get my. You will get the $2 from my purchase.
Ed Young [00:50:55]:
No, Mark, sadly, these. These not. Sadly, these books are self published. The last two, I just published them myself.
Mark Clark [00:51:01]:
So you get the whole. You get the whole 15 bucks. I remember when I.
Ed Young [00:51:05]:
Well, you know, I did though. Here's what I told the church. And, And I don't. I've not given all the books to the church. I'm not. Don't. I'm not trying to.
Mark Clark [00:51:13]:
You gotta. You gotta humble brag. Yeah, you gotta get that. You gotta get the loafer.
Ed Young [00:51:16]:
Because that, Because I've written what, 20, 24. I don't know, 24 books or whatever.
Mark Clark [00:51:21]:
Okay, amazing.
Ed Young [00:51:22]:
So the one on blessings and the one. And I'm not saying this to toot my horn and you don't have to. I hope you make millions on books. Awesome for you. But I thought, you know, I do not.
Mark Clark [00:51:34]:
He is hypothetically talking about somebody, because that ain't me.
Ed Young [00:51:38]:
If I'm. If I'm writing, I go a book on blessings. I mean, I'm gonna give that to the church. And we did the same thing with Path Through Pain. Now, sure, I have taken money, received money from other books. Sometimes your pastors is like, wow, really?
Mark Clark [00:51:57]:
Oh, I had.
Ed Young [00:51:58]:
You've given everything away. And it's like, well, you didn't tell me that you have a side hustle and you're making 10 million. You know, Right? So I. I know.
Mark Clark [00:52:06]:
So I remember when I was at Village and Canada is. Is more. Oh, is more.
Ed Young [00:52:10]:
Imagine, right?
Mark Clark [00:52:11]:
They have this hermeneutic of suspicion with everything. Okay, so. So it's tall. It's tall poppy syndrome. All right? One little poppy goes up, like cut down.
Ed Young [00:52:19]:
I know it, I know it.
Mark Clark [00:52:20]:
So I love. I love Canada. But so it is.
Ed Young [00:52:23]:
Yeah.
Mark Clark [00:52:24]:
So I wrote Problem of God. Of course, I spent six years probably between the research and the publishing of this thing through Zondervan. And that was a whole story about how they came together. So anyway, so we published the book, and obviously we have it in the church lobby and people can buy it, all right, for 20 bucks or whatever. And I make the deal I cut with Zondervan. At the time, I think I made a dollar and 40 cents off every book sold. Okay. So anyways, so we get some emails to the church complaining that we're selling my book in the lobby, all right? Because I'm going to become a big millionaire through selling these books.
Ed Young [00:53:01]:
So, yeah, right.
Mark Clark [00:53:02]:
So I get up two weeks later or whatever, I preach this sermon and I basically say, so this is what you think I did? You think I got saved at 19, all right? And chain smoking and gang, blah, blah, blah. Okay? Then I went. Then I went to Bible college and spent a hundred thousand dollars reading books and writing papers to become a youth pastor. Then I moved out to Vancouver to get a master's degree to spend exactly 30 grand a year on that. Yeah, I did all of that. Then I. Then I left ministry, planted a church, risked everything, came. I did all of this.
Mark Clark [00:53:39]:
So I can make a buck 40 off you at the lobby, you bunch of morons. What are you talking about?
Ed Young [00:53:45]:
I know.
Mark Clark [00:53:47]:
Crazy.
Ed Young [00:53:47]:
They are morons.
Mark Clark [00:53:48]:
Yeah, morons. And that's.
Ed Young [00:53:50]:
You know the word fool. The word fool in the Greek in the book of Romans is morano. We get the word moron from it.
Mark Clark [00:53:57]:
As you probably built a whole ministry on this exact point. So. And I'm the. So. So all that to say. So you're. You're writing these books in the zone. I got to get that one.
Mark Clark [00:54:13]:
That sounds fantastic.
Ed Young [00:54:14]:
I'll send to you.
Mark Clark [00:54:14]:
I. I love it. And then. And then bathroom pain table.
Ed Young [00:54:20]:
Yeah.
Mark Clark [00:54:21]:
And the table's the latest one. And that's kind of a ministry philosophy on.
Ed Young [00:54:26]:
You know. It is. This is written for people in that first year. You just kind of read it and go, what?
Mark Clark [00:54:33]:
Love it. Well, jump on Amazon, guys. Get that. This is one of the. One of the most important leaders in America at this moment, to be honest, and a blessing to me. So thank you, sir. And how many people you are blessing and loving and reaching. So really appreciate you.
Ed Young [00:54:47]:
Well, Mark, thank you for having me, and I look forward to many great times together. I'm so proud of what God is doing in your life, and we're going to get that situation taken care of. We'll do it, brother.
Mark Clark [00:54:58]:
Please, Lord, come through. Thank you. Thank you, sir.