Birth, Death, Marriage: Embracing Every Moment with Wayne Prevett

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The number one characteristic used by families to describe a loved one

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who's passed away is the word stubborn.

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It's the most common word that we hear.

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And I began to realize there's probably a reason why.

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and most of the time, no one in the family was courageous enough, willing enough,

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open enough to peel back some of the layers and go, why was dad so stubborn?

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What truly matters at the end of a life well lived?

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Join us as we explore this profound question with Wayne

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Previtt, a distinguished executive life celebration coach.

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Wayne, a Canadian that is now in Lynchburg, Virginia, has

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orchestrated over 50 events.

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Four thousand life celebrations and funerals, gleaning unique

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insights into life's true priorities and lasting legacies.

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the founder of several impactful ministries and a coach, he

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empowers individuals to mark life's significant moments.

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With heartfelt ceremonies today, we'll explore Wayne's journey and the deep

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wisdom he shares about what people cherish most in the wake of loss.

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Alongside his advice on living a life that truly celebrates every moment.

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welcome to Seek, Go Create.

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Fantastic, Tim.

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Thanks so much.

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So glad to be with you.

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Looking forward to it.

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we haven't known each other that long.

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We met, had a lunch together at a conference in Sarasota,

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Florida few weeks ago.

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And man, I loved our time together.

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I do too.

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And I mean, we talked about some things and I said, man, we need, we

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need to record this kind of stuff.

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first question, kind of deep, but yes, kind of one I like

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to get started off with.

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you prefer answering the question, what do you do or who are you?

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Pick it and go ahead and answer.

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I don't like those questions.

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What do you do?

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I run away from them.

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Screaming is usually how I respond to them.

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I don't like titles and I don't like positions.

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And yet I realized we live in a society that lives and dies by those.

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The problem with that is, is that we have a tendency with our preconceived notions,

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presuppositions, paradigms, whatever you want to call them, we put people in a box.

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And I don't want to be boxed in.

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I want a little bit of liberty, a little bit of freedom.

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I asked this question and I challenged our good friend Vincent the other day.

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You do one of these on conferences again, Vincent.

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Don't, don't put that out there.

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Don't even make that a go to opportunity.

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You tell people you can't come to my conference if you're going to ask,

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where do you live and what do you do?

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We're defined by character.

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We are not defined by title, because title changes, positions change.

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But character, for the most part, kind of remains the same throughout the journey,

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unless we have a major course correction.

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And sometimes tragedy, sometimes loss, sometimes joy, sometimes birthday,

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sometimes certain circumstances in life has a tendency for us to be able

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to make some character adjustments.

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But, you know, you talked about the fact that I've done a lot of life celebrations,

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I've done a lot of funerals, and I think I shared with you at lunch that day, we

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end the journey with a handful of words.

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That's how we end.

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And one of those handful of words never includes your title, your position.

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It just never does.

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Jeremiah had a phenomenal word to the people of the day, if you know Jeremiah.

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And it was simply this, let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, or the

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strong man boast of his strength, or the rich man boast of his riches.

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You can also, you can add to that, don't let your title

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be the thing you boast about.

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But what are you going to boast about?

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You're going to boast about this, because you're allowed to boast.

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We're going to boast about the fact that I know God.

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And that he is a god of justice and righteousness.

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And justice and righteousness, Mishpah and Zedekah, are character words that only

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manifest themselves in a relationship.

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And that's the question that needs to be answered.

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The character of an individual is what we see anyway.

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You could have the greatest CEO, CFO.

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I don't care.

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You can have the title.

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You can be master coach of the universe, but be an absolute moron in terms

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of love and patience and kindness.

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Do you know what I mean?

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Like that falls apart for me at that point in time.

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So don't lead with your title lead with what's on the, really the cuffs of

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your shirt and that's your character, your kindness, your generosity.

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I love people.

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And one of those things that I love about people is I love

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the opportunity in the moment.

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I'm a moment specialist.

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My superpower is to be present in a moment.

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And in that moment, I believe that we have this incredible opportunity

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to speak words of encouragement.

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Sometimes they're words of exhortation.

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Sometimes they're words of empowerment.

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And I believe that that's what defines me.

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And that's how I want to be defined, and that's how I want to be remembered.

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I want to be able to equip you.

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I want to be able to encourage you.

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I want to be able to empower you And the receptivity of the spirit matters

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a lot for that individual, but I gotta tell you Tim we are a world desperately

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longing to be seen and we're a world desperately longing to know that somehow

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some way I matter to somebody and when we are Present in someone's life

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There's something powerful about that

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There's, there's so much that you brought up in there.

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I made about three or four notes and I, I, I agree with, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Let's, uh, that's a word that I try not to use, but I think unpack

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is actually a good word for that.

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There are a lot of things there, but I think the first question that I

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want to ask is as someone who does these celebrations, and we're going

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to talk a little bit more about that here in just a few seconds.

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How are you doing?

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How are you doing with that?

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I know you said you mentioned your superpower is being present.

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I agree with you because we had a lunch with, you know, there were 100

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people around us, but truthfully, you and I were the only two people

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in the room for, you know, 30, 30, 45 minutes or something like that.

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I would, I would.

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Agree.

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We even had a nice young lady that was at the table with us.

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And at times she wasn't even there between the two of us, I think,

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which might have been rude of us.

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But, How are you doing?

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Because one of the things I'm going to ask shortly is what do people

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say at the end of their lives?

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What, what is important and you know, you and I are, we've got a

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lot of, a lot of years ahead of us.

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But we're also at a stage where we're asking, have we achieved and accomplished?

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Have we done those things that we want to do?

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So when you, when you kind of look in the mirror and say, Wayne, you're doing good.

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You're not so good.

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What, how are you doing when you measure some of those things?

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Yeah, that's a horribly unfair question, so I love it.

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here's the absolute present moment reality.

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And that is on Monday, I turned 65.

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And so it's coming up.

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So I'm 64 right now.

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I turned 65 on Monday.

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And I am stuck navigating that.

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When I was 49, I made a list of 50 things I wanted to do before I turned 50.

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I went hard.

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I got 49 down.

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I didn't get all 50 down, but I got 49 down.

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And then I threw a massive party for myself on my 50th.

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I got to 60.

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I kind of went, eh, whatever I'm 65.

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And you know, it is there's societal pressure.

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There's expectations of, and literally yesterday, I'm not lying, literally

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yesterday, somebody said to me, Well, you remind me of one of my geriatric

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patients, and I thought, that is absolutely unbelievable that someone

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would say that right now in this moment.

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Talk about not reading the room.

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Talk about not being present.

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They didn't mean any harm by it, but it just causes you to go, what the heck?

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I don't want to be a geriatric patient.

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I don't even know what that means, but it sounds like it's an old

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person is what it sounds like.

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So yeah, where am I at right now?

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I am stuck navigating that.

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And it's not because of regret, Tim.

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It's because I want to finish strong.

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One of the things that I've learned so well out of walking away from so many life

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celebrations and thousands of funerals.

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And that is that almost inevitably I will sit in the car at the end of it and I will

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do a quick assessment and say, I have got a lot of room to be better at who I am.

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When you bump into peoples whose story is kindness and generosity and patience

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and thoughtfulness, that the privilege of leading a lot of funerals for homeless

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and the prostitutes and drug addicts.

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spent multiple years, my wife and I working just in the inner city.

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And one of the things that I discovered about the homeless was their generosity.

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It was completely the opposite of my paradigm.

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And we sat in this room of a handful of people and we eulogize this

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woman who was a, who was homeless and a prostitute and a drug addict.

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And the only word spoken about her was her generosity over and over and over again.

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One, I confess to God and apologize for my horrible spirit

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towards those who are homeless.

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And then secondly said, I've got an abundance and I will not come

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close to that being word spoken about me at the end of my life.

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And I need to step up my game.

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And I think when you hit milestone birthdays, and I think 16th milestone

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21 is, and I think 65 is, you know, And the narrative is, oh, I

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guess you're going to retire now.

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No, I'm not.

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I'm going to press the gas pedal and I'm going to move forward.

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And my prayer is, my hope is, is that I'll finish strong.

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And that includes my marriage being better.

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It includes me being better as a father.

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It includes me being better as a leader.

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We have a thousand people that are in our organization.

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It just means I've got room for improvement and I can start to

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etch in the headstone of life.

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The words that I want to be remembered by.

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And those are character words.

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So, there's my honest answer.

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I'm stuck, but I'm tenacious and I know that I will push forward and I believe

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I'm going to be victorious in all of this.

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Are you, are you anxious about being stuck or is it just a

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descriptive word that describes it?

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Cause some people would get all anxious and attempt to, put their hand to the plow

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and make things happen, blah, blah, blah.

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had, we might discuss it in a moment.

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I had quite a long conversation with the Lord this morning, woke me up early.

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I heard a knock.

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I literally heard a knock at 530 a. m. and I'm not in the mode of getting up early.

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And I kind of woke up and I said, Hmm, I think I need to

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get up and have some quiet time.

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But are you anxious about being stuck or it just is what it is.

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I don't, I don't think I'm anxious.

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I don't think I know what to do.

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don't think I know how am I supposed to act different?

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Am I supposed to be different?

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Am I supposed to wind down?

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I think there's all these things that are just noise of the world and noise

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of society and noise of expectations.

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I also don't want to be set aside.

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And I think a lot of that has to do with my age and a lot of what

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I saw in my generation growing up.

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I literally watched people come to this milestone of life, and they

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were kind of shed on, set on a shelf.

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And I literally remember with such clarity, and this is probably

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what it comes back to, somebody saying one day, it's time for now

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the seniors to step aside and let the younger generation take over.

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And everything theological about me, in my understanding, is that is not true.

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If anything, my theology teaches me it's a great time for the

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older to teach the younger.

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I'm game for that, but I don't find a lot of young people standing in line

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going, Hey, wise guy, old dude, you know, geriatric patient, teach me some

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things that I need to know in life.

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And maybe if that was true, maybe there would be a greater

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sense of worth and value.

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And I think that that's what it's connected to.

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So no, not anxious, hopeful that.

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There is a tomorrow, and a tomorrow, and a tomorrow, and a tomorrow.

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But I don't get stuck usually, and I feel stuck.

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And I don't know if that's the right word, but that's where I feel right now.

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But not, not despaired.

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Yeah, I've often wondered, this is a question that's been going through my mind

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some, we're in a world where, you know, social media, your platform, you and I

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met with a great group of people, about a hundred people that were gathered together

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that are memberships or platforms to, you know, share whatever it is they do.

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And I'm sure you and I were there because we, I sort of believe the

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same thing and we love the people that we were able to hang out with.

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But one of the things I've thought through recently, we're in a 55 and

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older community here down in Arizona.

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I've

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Okay, yeah.

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few episodes, and this has been a bit of a theme, so it's really good

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we're having this discussion, Wayne.

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two episodes ago, episode 301 was Jim Cook, he's a Silicon Valley vet. One

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of the original founders at Netflix, he is a couple years younger than me,

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but he's still at a stage in life where he's got a lot of wisdom and younger

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people should be seeking him out.

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Mike Baer, last episode, I believe if I'm getting the order right, was about

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to celebrate his 70th birthday, and he's been a mentor to me in many ways.

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30 years ago, we coached and we were talking about how to transfer wisdom and

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knowledge and all to a younger generation.

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And that's sort of the theme here,

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Yeah,

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one of the things I've thought about, and I'll mention a word to you and you could

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respond is I think many of us have wanted to have impact and another word that ties

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into that is we want to be significant.

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We want to have significance with what we do and, and we don't want to, you

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Hopefully not do it with arrogance.

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We want to do it with humility and all.

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That's something that I've struggled with a little bit.

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But I think what I'm a little bit concerned about is becoming

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Not, not insignificant.

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necessarily passing away.

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I mean, I, I kind of know that story.

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I know what happens there, but I'm not sure about what's between here and there.

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When I bring up that word insignificance, what does that do to you?

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When I say, what happens if the two of us, 10 years from now, we meet up

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at a coffee shop the only thing we've done in the last 10 years is just, I

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don't know, hang out, play pickleball.

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They play pickleball down here all the time.

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That's what everybody does.

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Yeah, I've never played pickleball.

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I think I'd be pretty good at it, but I've never played.

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athletic.

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I bet you would be

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I played a lot of hockey and that's why my body's in such horrific pain all the time.

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Insignificant.

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Now I, you know why that's not going to happen?

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Because my significance is not based in title, it's not based in

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position, it's based on people.

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So I can't lose significance, Tim.

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Influence or inspiration or impact, which are three core

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values that Rosanna and I live by.

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We actually measure the success of our encounters with humans

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based upon those three things.

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Did we in that moment offer, some inspiration?

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Were we impactful in their life?

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And did we do something that might be influential enough that they

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leave the encounter with us and go and do something of greatness?

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And that's why life celebrations are so perfectly positioned for us.

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And that's not the only thing we do, but in those moments, they, all

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three of those things can happen.

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You've never been to a wedding where there's not some kind of inspiration.

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You're either inspired to love the person sitting beside you more, or you see how

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much the couple don't like each other.

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And you're inspired to, you know, end your relationship, get a divorce and move on.

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I don't know.

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Typically you're inspired.

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And most people don't go to a funeral without something happening in their life.

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So no, I can't lose significance.

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It's not, it's not possible because I, I measure it in terms of human encounter.

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It's the volume of, or the number of opportunities.

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So the context in which that is in the context now is smaller for me

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than it used to be because I'm not doing events the way I used to.

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We now train and certify equipment and power people to do events.

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And when we stopped doing that several years ago, we both felt that massive void.

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but it didn't change or challenge or question our significance.

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It changed the context.

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So now I look for it in other ways.

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And I am very much, I am a moment, man.

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I, my best work is in the moment.

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When I encounter you at a crossroad of life, because

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every encounter is a crossroad.

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If I encounter you, Tim, at the crossroad of life, The longing of my heart is what

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can I possibly do to inspire you to become everything that God's designed you to be?

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And no one could take that from me.

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Not age, not lack of hair.

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Cause I don't have any.

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have you always been that way, Wayne, or if not, when were you first aware

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that that was your superpower, that was something that was for the character

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you are, that focus on the present?

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Sitting in the chair of a psychotherapist room

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and I shared a story of abuse, physical, emotional, spiritual,

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And she looked at me and she said,

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she said, I am so excited for the little boy, Wayne, who was given

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the powers by God and the grace of God to navigate the impossible.

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And out of that came What Dr. Dennis Shackle, he's head of

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an Ivy, Ivy school of business.

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He said to me one day, I've never met anyone whose proxemics

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is as in tune as yours is.

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And the psychotherapist was able to say, because you had to learn

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to navigate the impossible.

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So I would say I've been that way as a child since a child,

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but it took a long time in life.

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I was well into my thirties probably, or if not early forties by the

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time Dr. Shackle was able to come along, and he put some pieces to it.

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Now I'm in my fifties before as a psychotherapist.

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Puts the rest of the pieces together, and I decided I'm going to step into that.

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Because I believe that I am where I am today because God gave me the Ability

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and the protection and the grace to be able to become that kind of a person that

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sees I I literally Can't help myself I'm standing at a cash at target the other

Speaker: 00:19:27

day and the depth of despair and the cashier led me to tears I mean, I was

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just heartbroken And everything inside of me I want to reach over and hold her

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and say I don't know what happened to you either in the past or today, but

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you need to know that you are loved.

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so yeah, I, I, it goes way, way back, but I mean, I, you don't make sense of

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it when you're nine 11 or 12, you're still clamoring to get through life.

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Right.

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I can hardly wait to get out of the household.

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Yeah,

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and when I did, I was so wounded, I'm wounding everybody else that's around me.

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And then you grow and you change and you develop and you strengthen and.

Speaker: 00:20:10

I think that answers your question, but it came as a result of great

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people like yourself coming along and going, I see this.

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I don't know if I understand why I see this, but I see this, but this amazing,

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wonderful, extraordinary friend of mine, who's a psychotherapist for the

Speaker: 00:20:26

first time ever didn't join my sorrow.

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She celebrated my victory and that Tim changed my life.

Speaker: 00:20:35

So what's interesting about that, tell me if this is a

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correct or incorrect observation.

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almost appears as if your ability to focus on the present almost this

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protective bubble that was around you because of things happening around you.

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My wife has a similar story.

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I think I was in a safer environment growing up.

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So, you know, I walk in a room and I see a hundred people, I'm like a hundred people.

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Yeah.

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fascinating, you walk in a room and you probably see one at a time,

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man, dude, I can instantaneously, instantaneously, instantaneously,

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you'll find me standing in a corner and I peruse the room.

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And there's two reasons why one of an introvert.

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And secondly, there's just something about that part of me in my life

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that knows for a fact with a hundred people in that room, there are one

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or two people whose pain is so deep.

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It, it, it drives some people nuts and I am, I've learned to be very,

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very sensitive, but there are times when somebody will tell their whole

Speaker: 00:21:49

life story in a very brief moment.

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We didn't even finish breakfast and I had a server in Alabama.

Speaker: 00:21:55

Tell me that she was abused, sexually abused, physically abused.

Speaker: 00:21:58

She's now gone through a divorce and she's found Jesus Christ and she's trying to

Speaker: 00:22:02

learn what the Bible has to say for her.

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And she's so lost and so confused and all of this happened by the time my,

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my eggs were finished and the plate was taken away and she came back and she

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sat down and she cried and she looked at Rosanna and I, and she said, can

Speaker: 00:22:14

you help me become more like Jesus?

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And it's in those moments that you realize that's, What the cry I think

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of the heart of most people is.

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So yeah, you, I learned proxemics so that you could control the environment of an

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angry father, or Abuse in the household in other ways that the spiritual abuse I grew

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up with, I told you a little bit about it.

Speaker: 00:22:42

Some really dark spiritual abuse backgrounds where the word of God

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and principles of the word of God weren't as important as the rules of

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the church and the rules of the house and the rules of everything else.

Speaker: 00:22:53

And so rules driven that we missed out on the grace of God.

Speaker: 00:22:56

And yet somehow God poured so much grace on me that I never became bitter.

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I never became angry.

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I was just heartbroken and confused.

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And then I began to realize that wow, around me are so many people

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and it might not be spiritual abuse.

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It might even be physical abuse.

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It might simply be the fact that they're just desperately lonely

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in a world of 7 billion people.

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So yeah, it is a protective bubble and sometimes somehow, some way, I think it's

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okay for us to walk up to someone's little bubble and go, I'm not going to break it.

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I'm not going to bust it, but I want you to see that on the outside of your bubble

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is actually somebody here right now.

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that's willing to love you and accept you.

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We all need redemption.

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And that was another key reality for me to overcome.

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A lot of things in life was

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No one is beyond the redemptive grace of God.

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Yeah, and

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working with street people for all those years, man, I

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gotta tell you, I had to learn.

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I had to grow up.

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I had to have a better theology.

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I'd have a Jesus theology and not a religious theology.

Speaker: 00:23:57

it's interesting you brought up that spiritual or what we can call it

Speaker: 00:24:00

religious This, this could be something that we could, you know, tailspin into

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a conversation we may not want to have.

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But it's interesting as I look back over my life, I wouldn't be one that dealt

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with, I don't think, a lot of abuse.

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I have this personality that wouldn't admit it even if I did, which is, there's

Speaker: 00:24:20

other issues there we won't go into.

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I'm asking the questions here, so let's keep it on

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yeah, absolutely.

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So we'll, we'll keep the focus on me right now.

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I have looked back over the course of my 61 years and have gone through

Speaker: 00:24:35

some difficult things business wise, relationships, different things like that.

Speaker: 00:24:41

If I were to rank, and it's not good to rank abuse situations, that's not a good

Speaker: 00:24:46

thing to do, but I'm about to do it.

Speaker: 00:24:49

I would say the worst, that damaged my soul more than anything else.

Speaker: 00:24:57

was what many would term spiritual or religious abuse that I experienced at a

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very mature age in a Bible school setting.

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Because it's the thing that still creeps back and rolls into my head and my psyche

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yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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And I kind of

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yeah.

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that, I'm not taking anything away from those that have gone through physical,

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Yeah.

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I mean,

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No, I hear you.

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stuff

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hear you.

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I hear you.

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that stuff can do a number on you, correct?

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Oh, it does.

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Very, very good friend of mine.

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We grew up together, went to the same church together, lived

Speaker: 00:25:30

in the same context together.

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He actually described our upbringing as being a part of a cult.

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And it was just a Baptist church, but he said, no, no, he said,

Speaker: 00:25:39

honestly, Timmy, it manifests the same characteristics of a cult.

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And I looked at him and I said, you know, give me a break, Bob.

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And he goes, no, no, no.

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Let me walk you through it.

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So he walked me through it and I went, holy crap.

Speaker: 00:25:49

I mean, I, I don't want to say I was part of a cult and he goes, well,

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we don't have to say that we can say we're a part of Baptist church.

Speaker: 00:25:54

But at the end of the day, the manifestations of it were very cult like,

Speaker: 00:25:57

but control, control of people, control of people, for the sake of the image.

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And I agree with you.

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so his perspective is abuses, abuses, abuse.

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So you can't measure one against another.

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It's context, it's experience.

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It's the journey of life.

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I just happened to have all three.

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So when I speak of emotional, spiritual, physical abuse, I

Speaker: 00:26:18

actually experienced all three.

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So never loved, never hugged, never said I love you.

Speaker: 00:26:24

emotional abuse is just manipulation, just shame and manipulation for

Speaker: 00:26:27

their image, for mom and dad's image, not for Jesus image or my image.

Speaker: 00:26:31

And then the religious aspect of it.

Speaker: 00:26:33

I went right from, I was born on a Wednesday, went to the church

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nursery on a Sunday and never left.

Speaker: 00:26:40

Went out to Bible school.

Speaker: 00:26:41

The Bible school was exactly the same as my home church.

Speaker: 00:26:43

They had exactly the same manifestations and Never do anything different until

Speaker: 00:26:48

I hit about 23 years of age I guess and I just sat down one day and and

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I just I just sobbed I just started to cry because I've been in Bible

Speaker: 00:26:56

school reading the Word of God going I can't find I Can't find some of

Speaker: 00:27:00

this stuff that you keep telling me.

Speaker: 00:27:02

I got to do to be righteous I can't find it and then I went holy crap.

Speaker: 00:27:07

You lied to me You You've lied to me and you've told me stuff that

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you think was spiritual and godly.

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And you lied to me.

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I, my hair can be over my ears.

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That's,

Speaker: 00:27:21

I can't hold hands with somebody and they're not going to get pregnant.

Speaker: 00:27:24

You lied to me.

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You can't tell me those lies anymore.

Speaker: 00:27:27

And I had this moment of incredible revelation.

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And again, this is this divine aspect.

Speaker: 00:27:33

Put into me when I was a child.

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So here's this protective bubble again goes on me.

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And for the first time ever, and I gotta tell you, that's catastrophic.

Speaker: 00:27:41

You break that bubble when the only thing you've ever known is spiritual abuse?

Speaker: 00:27:44

I was left devastated.

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I mean, that's a faith crisis right there.

Speaker: 00:27:49

Like a massive faith crisis.

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I'm like, okay, I'm out.

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And I could hear the voice of God saying, you're not going anywhere.

Speaker: 00:27:55

I got you and I'm going to redeem you.

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And I'm going to speak to you and I'm going to give you wisdom and

Speaker: 00:27:59

discernment and truth and understanding.

Speaker: 00:28:01

And it's going to revolutionize your life.

Speaker: 00:28:03

It's just going to tick off a lot of other people.

Speaker: 00:28:06

And it did.

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I would basically cast out family, church, college, and everything.

Speaker: 00:28:11

a, would that have been like a deconstruction that we use that word today

Speaker: 00:28:15

I hate that word with an incredible passion.

Speaker: 00:28:17

I hate it with it's disgusting.

Speaker: 00:28:18

But at the end of the day, it is,

Speaker: 00:28:20

it describes some

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know,

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this

Speaker: 00:28:21

it's

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about.

Speaker: 00:28:22

perfect.

Speaker: 00:28:23

If I, if you look that word up in the dictionary, my,

Speaker: 00:28:26

my bald head is right there.

Speaker: 00:28:28

People are like, Oh yeah, that guy went through that.

Speaker: 00:28:29

I know that guy went through that.

Speaker: 00:28:31

Here's the problem.

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Most of my friends, colleagues never did.

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Like, like never did.

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So I'm not angry that they didn't, but they never did.

Speaker: 00:28:40

And they stayed in the system.

Speaker: 00:28:41

They stayed in the, the trough, so to speak.

Speaker: 00:28:44

They stayed in the, the routines, the structures that were there.

Speaker: 00:28:49

And I will never, ever criticize the power of the Word of God.

Speaker: 00:28:55

And that's the irony of it was, so Bible based.

Speaker: 00:28:59

And so told over and over and over again in Sunday school and in youth group and

Speaker: 00:29:03

in Bible school The Word of God matters.

Speaker: 00:29:05

The Word of God matters.

Speaker: 00:29:06

The Word of God matters.

Speaker: 00:29:06

I memorized it.

Speaker: 00:29:07

I took it to heart I memorized copious amounts of it.

Speaker: 00:29:10

I took Greek Hebrew.

Speaker: 00:29:12

I became prolific in the Word of God studied You know got master's

Speaker: 00:29:15

degrees working on a doctorate degree And it was in that moment.

Speaker: 00:29:18

I realized I'm reading the Word of God going.

Speaker: 00:29:19

I can't find some of this stuff Like I can't find it And it was in that moment.

Speaker: 00:29:25

So here's the irony of it, right?

Speaker: 00:29:27

Listen, Wayne, trust the Word of God.

Speaker: 00:29:29

I did, and when I read it, guys, you know what I found out?

Speaker: 00:29:32

You guys told me some stuff that just wasn't true.

Speaker: 00:29:36

Chuck Swindoll wrote a book called The Grace Awakening, and we were told

Speaker: 00:29:40

never read it when I was in seminary.

Speaker: 00:29:42

Well, every book we were told to never read, I went and read.

Speaker: 00:29:46

And it was that that opened the flood gates in my life.

Speaker: 00:29:48

And I began to cry and I began to realize I am so legalistically driven.

Speaker: 00:29:52

I have no idea what liberty is at all in my life.

Speaker: 00:29:56

The spirit of God said with me with unbelievable clarity, the liberty,

Speaker: 00:30:00

God, the liberty that you need is to find the fences of the, of the word

Speaker: 00:30:03

of God, the absolutes of the word of God, and live right against that fence.

Speaker: 00:30:08

Live right there.

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Rest against it.

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Lean against it.

Speaker: 00:30:10

Rest in it.

Speaker: 00:30:11

Don't jump over it because you're going to fall off into

Speaker: 00:30:13

the abyss, but stay right there.

Speaker: 00:30:15

And I found green pastures that were a lot bigger than the ones they gave me.

Speaker: 00:30:19

They had my little box.

Speaker: 00:30:20

God had a vast kingdom of greatness.

Speaker: 00:30:24

And I lived in that liberty, but there's consequences to that.

Speaker: 00:30:29

You know,

Speaker: 00:30:29

Family, family don't like you.

Speaker: 00:30:31

yeah, you butt up against some religious spirits or whatever,

Speaker: 00:30:35

Hmm.

Speaker: 00:30:35

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:30:36

like the journey

Speaker: 00:30:37

Mm,

Speaker: 00:30:38

I mean, good gracious, isn't that roughly what he went through when he,

Speaker: 00:30:42

nailed up his thesis on the, wall?

Speaker: 00:30:44

It's like, you know what?

Speaker: 00:30:44

this religious stuff, someone telling me what I should do instead of me

Speaker: 00:30:49

actually reading the word of God and

Speaker: 00:30:51

mm, mm, mm, mm,

Speaker: 00:30:53

so I want to ask that, but then here's the big question.

Speaker: 00:30:56

I mean, dancing has got to be off the table still, right?

Speaker: 00:30:59

You haven't danced, right?

Speaker: 00:31:00

Because that's like a big no, no.

Speaker: 00:31:02

Correct.

Speaker: 00:31:03

It's funny you'd even ask that question.

Speaker: 00:31:05

I'm musical.

Speaker: 00:31:07

I sing, play instruments and I cannot dance.

Speaker: 00:31:12

Like physically you can't or spiritually and emotionally you can't.

Speaker: 00:31:16

Physically I can't, but you know, it has to be because my youngest

Speaker: 00:31:20

has no problem because she's not been raising any abuse at all.

Speaker: 00:31:26

And literally, 22, she looks at me, she goes, It is simply a block in your brain.

Speaker: 00:31:34

And that's how bad it was.

Speaker: 00:31:36

I still see a deck of cards today, and I won't pick them off the table.

Speaker: 00:31:41

Interesting.

Speaker: 00:31:42

They're just pieces of paper.

Speaker: 00:31:45

I guess somebody might respectfully disagree with me,

Speaker: 00:31:47

go, no, they're Satan's tools.

Speaker: 00:31:48

I think they're pieces of paper.

Speaker: 00:31:50

I could probably use them to throw them in a hat maybe or

Speaker: 00:31:52

something to play a game that way.

Speaker: 00:31:54

But this is how deep this stuff gets seated in the spirit.

Speaker: 00:31:59

So because there's such non absolute dishes for me, I

Speaker: 00:32:02

don't lose any sleep over it.

Speaker: 00:32:03

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:32:04

But if you were to ask me to sit down and play a hand of cards,

Speaker: 00:32:06

one, I wouldn't know a single game.

Speaker: 00:32:09

I don't know a single card game at all.

Speaker: 00:32:11

Like not one.

Speaker: 00:32:13

I would love to learn to play poker, but I do drink alcohol.

Speaker: 00:32:18

I drink wine.

Speaker: 00:32:19

I love bourbon a lot.

Speaker: 00:32:22

I smoke cigars.

Speaker: 00:32:23

But at the end of the day, those things I don't mind, but dance, dance.

Speaker: 00:32:30

And I've got rhythm.

Speaker: 00:32:31

I have to come.

Speaker: 00:32:32

I'm a musician.

Speaker: 00:32:33

Music.

Speaker: 00:32:34

So,

Speaker: 00:32:34

but putting on a dance floor.

Speaker: 00:32:35

very good friend of mine.

Speaker: 00:32:36

And she ended up being at this multiple weddings that I had done.

Speaker: 00:32:40

And she was like the guest of the guest.

Speaker: 00:32:42

It was like she was stalking me or something.

Speaker: 00:32:43

It was the most bizarre thing.

Speaker: 00:32:45

Anyway, I ended up doing her wedding, her sister's wedding,

Speaker: 00:32:47

tons of her friends wedding.

Speaker: 00:32:48

Her name is Dana.

Speaker: 00:32:50

And I'm, she's at a wedding and I'm hanging around

Speaker: 00:32:53

cause they asked me to stay.

Speaker: 00:32:55

And you know, I'm eating a meal with everybody and I'm, I'm, I'm with Dana

Speaker: 00:32:58

cause she's become such a good friend and she goes, come on, let's dance.

Speaker: 00:33:01

So I go on the dance floor and I'm trying, she looks at him.

Speaker: 00:33:03

She goes, what the heck is your problem?

Speaker: 00:33:06

She goes, you suck, like suck.

Speaker: 00:33:09

She goes, go and sit down and stay away from me.

Speaker: 00:33:14

I laughed and let Roseanne and I went and took ballroom dancing

Speaker: 00:33:17

one session and we were out.

Speaker: 00:33:20

The instructor came up and said to us, said to her, you can't be led.

Speaker: 00:33:25

She's such a strong woman.

Speaker: 00:33:26

You can't be led and he can't lead you.

Speaker: 00:33:29

And both of you suck.

Speaker: 00:33:30

So I would highly recommend you find a new activity.

Speaker: 00:33:33

Oh my goodness.

Speaker: 00:33:34

Wow.

Speaker: 00:33:36

That is how deep seated it is in the psyche of some people.

Speaker: 00:33:41

no, no,

Speaker: 00:33:41

do I have a problem with dancing?

Speaker: 00:33:43

No, I don't have a problem with dancing.

Speaker: 00:33:45

I grew up in, Baptist culture, Bible Belt of the South, no

Speaker: 00:33:50

problem with dancing at all.

Speaker: 00:33:51

I mean, I was pretty rebellious and sounds like as, as things

Speaker: 00:33:55

started coming across, you were like questioning, questioning, questioning,

Speaker: 00:33:58

which is, which is, I, I believe, I believe it's a good thing to do.

Speaker: 00:34:03

But we, Gloria and I did the ballroom dancing.

Speaker: 00:34:06

We went, I gave it to her as a gift for Christmas.

Speaker: 00:34:10

at Christmas in 2019, we were in Colorado Springs for the

Speaker: 00:34:15

birth of our first grandchild.

Speaker: 00:34:17

We went to one lesson and COVID hit and they told us that we were

Speaker: 00:34:22

going to have to do ballroom dance.

Speaker: 00:34:24

Together with my wife of 30 something years in gloves and masks.

Speaker: 00:34:29

Oh my goodness.

Speaker: 00:34:30

No one else in the room, by the way.

Speaker: 00:34:31

Well, the instructor was there, but she kind of didn't care either.

Speaker: 00:34:34

And we were like going, you know, no, we're not, we're not going to do it.

Speaker: 00:34:37

But we actually heard similar things.

Speaker: 00:34:38

Wayne, this actually might be more, there more to it.

Speaker: 00:34:41

Glory heard.

Speaker: 00:34:43

You know, you don't really want to be led.

Speaker: 00:34:46

You want to lead.

Speaker: 00:34:48

I heard you're just kind of out here doing your own thing and you're

Speaker: 00:34:51

not good at leading her slight man.

Speaker: 00:34:55

This, this isn't freestyle.

Speaker: 00:34:56

This is partner.

Speaker: 00:34:57

And I'm going, man, I'm freestyling here.

Speaker: 00:34:59

I'm ready to get on the floor and do some and bump, you know, I'm

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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That's

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here.

Speaker: 00:35:06

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:35:09

similar story, but no, true, true, true story.

Speaker: 00:35:12

we were encouraged to go and find another, similar kind of, passion

Speaker: 00:35:16

that we could enjoy together.

Speaker: 00:35:17

So,

Speaker: 00:35:18

maybe it's pickleball or something like that,

Speaker: 00:35:20

I did it.

Speaker: 00:35:22

I'll play, I don't know if Roseanna will play or not, but.

Speaker: 00:35:24

so one thing that you brought up earlier, and I think you and I may

Speaker: 00:35:27

have discussed this when we first met, but the world we're in today.

Speaker: 00:35:34

Seems to be obsessed with quantity over quality, and I'll throw a few things

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out and I want you to respond to it.

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When I say quantity, I mean, how many followers or people are you

Speaker: 00:35:47

influencing on your platform?

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How many people are in your sphere or your group or your member

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or your or your congregation?

Speaker: 00:35:56

How many people are showing up on a Sunday morning?

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What's the number of employees in your community?

Speaker: 00:36:01

Company.

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And all of it seems to be related to quantity.

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And you have said that your superpower is being present in the moment.

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I don't think the two of those can mix together.

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I find it hard to believe that, let's just say Joe Pastor, pastoring a church,

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I actually spoke to one yesterday, that he's attempting to grow a church,

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but he's butting up against this.

Speaker: 00:36:34

you disciple and be present with, you know, 10 people, 5 people?

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And also pay all the bills by putting 500 people in the seats.

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I know, and I know you and I discussed some as far as challenges

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with traditional ministry and all.

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This doesn't, it's not just ministry, it's companies and things like that.

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But,

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how challenging is it for people to deal with large numbers, but still be

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present in the world we're in today?

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It was easy for us to navigate.

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we chose to do weddings and funerals at one point in time.

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So we stepped away from our street ministry.

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We did it for seven years with twelve people, ran out of money,

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shut the doors down, and moved on.

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What we moved to was something that we thought was somewhat familiar to

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us, and that was, well, why don't we do some weddings and funerals,

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because we had no money and no income.

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So that's kind of how the thing came, and we were at the right time, right place.

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The shift towards secularism was on a rapid, fast track in Canada at that

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point in time when we came along.

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So it was ideal for us.

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And we did 187 weddings that first year.

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We did three 50 the next year we did 500.

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We built up to 125 people working for us to the point where we were

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doing 1800 to 2, 500 weddings a year.

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So I did 250 of those myself.

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So the volume was there, but the uniqueness of the reality is,

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is that I'm front and center.

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I'm right there.

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You could not get more intimate.

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I'm not the photographer with the telephoto lens.

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I'm not the DJ at the back of the room.

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I'm not the florist who walked away.

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I'm not the guy in the kitchen preparing the meal.

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All great people playing great roles.

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I'm not the bridal planner.

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I am actually at the front of, and you know what I'm talking

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about, front and center.

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I got a view from the front that no one else has.

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And it's just the three of us.

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I don't even think about anybody else.

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I don't think about the Brada party.

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I don't think about the hundreds of guests or two guests.

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I just, it's just me and them.

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And you can't get more intimate than that.

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When we do a funeral, it's the same thing.

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It's me.

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I'm on the stage all by myself, but there might be a hundred people.

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I've done funerals for people where there's thousands of people

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there, like thousands of people.

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But all I see is the family in the front row.

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That's all I see.

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I really don't see anybody else.

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So this, this thing about being present, Tim, it, we can be present.

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The problem I have with social media is like, I, I didn't know you.

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And if I bumped up to you on social media, you and I would never

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have what we're doing right now.

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I bumped up to you in person and that's how it works.

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And it's, it's, and I mean, literally someone the other day

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said to me, okay, boomer, like I, I wanted to come through the screen.

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I was like, back off Bambi, right?

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You gen Zed little weenie.

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Like, you know, you can have all of your 10 million followers on Instagram, but

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the depth of emptiness and sadness and loneliness is pervasive and we know it is.

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I saw it when a hundred people got together in Sarasota,

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Florida, including you and me.

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And I looked around the room and I saw pseudo relationships based upon,

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and you know what made it amazing?

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Listening to people say it is so good to see you in person.

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It is so good to meet you face to face It's so good.

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You're not on zoom and you're a lot smaller than I thought you were, right?

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You have

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Or man, you really are tall.

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Holy crap.

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I didn't know you were six foot nine Like when did that happen?

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And the gloriousness of that is true I am that guy that I don't

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want to I don't want to pursue likes

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I want to be present in people's lives and it's hard with social media and I

Speaker: 00:40:23

right now in consuming copious amounts of books on growing your email list

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and growing your sphere of influence.

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And I listened to the specialist tell me that I've got to do

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social media posts every day.

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And I sit and I look at my screen and all I can think about is that I got to get out

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of here because I gotta go find somebody right now that's standing somewhere.

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what we pray every day, Rosanna and I, before we leave the house

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is, you know, what God allow us an opportunity to be used of you in the

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encounter of someone else's life today.

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And that's how we do it.

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And it's really hard to do it.

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I despised.

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church conferences where pastors again would share

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their titles and their numbers.

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And I also know this.

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I also know that for the most part, most of us fabricate a lot of things.

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And we add another zero and another 10 and another 50.

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And we, we do it because somehow, some way we believe that our worth

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and value is connected to that one.

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In fact, it is not at all.

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I promise you, I promise you.

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that the funeral of the greatest Instagram influencer in the end of

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the day, the number of people in her account or his account will never

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be spoken about at their funeral.

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Never.

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Not once.

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Well I've never mentioned someone's bank account.

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I've never mentioned anything they've accumulated.

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Never.

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Just goes back to that Jer, Jeremiah nine passage.

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We just don't do it.

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But how they made them feel.

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how they interacted in relationship.

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That's all that matters.

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And that's what we've got to strive for.

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So I think we're on the cusp of, and I just woke up this morning,

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like you wasn't a knock at the door, but it was a knock on the head.

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And I've got a radio on beside me.

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It's four 30 in the morning.

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And this guy's talking about how gen Zed and the alpha generation are

Speaker: 00:42:21

moving back to tactile connections.

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The Ringing Newspapers.

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They're actually going and they're buying journals and they're

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writing them with pen and paper.

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They're buying albums and putting them on because they can hold

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them and they can touch them.

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CD players are still available.

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People are buying tapes and they're touching stuff and they're feeling stuff.

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What is that?

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It's a manifestation of the fact that I am so lost and so empty that

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I will do anything I possibly can.

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They call it, you know, reinventing analog.

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Well, we never lost it.

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But what it does speak to, I think is this desperate need with inside of our

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spirits and our hearts and our souls to be somewhat more tactile than we

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possibly could ever be in a world that's become so digital in so many ways.

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Yeah, that,

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So I don't know if that answers your question, but a wedding and a funeral

Speaker: 00:43:11

are not done unless you're present.

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Yeah.

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You can do a funeral via zoom.

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You can't do any weddings in Canada via zoom.

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It's illegal.

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You can't do it.

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So there's you.

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I have to be there.

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It's the most glorious thing in the face of the earth.

Speaker: 00:43:23

So any listener listening to this, that's going, I desperately

Speaker: 00:43:27

long to be with people.

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Let me put you in that position to go and stand with people

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at weddings and funerals.

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I'll tell you, it'll change your life because it changes their lives.

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Because you

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Because you can't do it any other way

Speaker: 00:43:38

and we'll get to this in a little while.

Speaker: 00:43:40

But you teach and train people to do this.

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Performing

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we've trained thousands

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I was just thinking our 30 year old son got all of my

Speaker: 00:43:46

vinyls and he has a turntable.

Speaker: 00:43:48

He lives in his RV too, but he has a turntable with all my vinyls

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and truthfully, man, there's some, I'm sure you may not have

Speaker: 00:43:55

been able to listen to him.

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There's some good rock and roll stuff in there.

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I'm telling you what, there's some

Speaker: 00:43:59

I don't know if you've ever heard of sticks or not.

Speaker: 00:44:01

Have you ever heard of sticks?

Speaker: 00:44:02

a Solomon concert, at the Omni in Atlanta.

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Okay, so I went into dorm in seminary and I took my, took my record player

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with me and I took my vinyl with me.

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And I'm out one day, I'm in class and, and we're living in this, this house.

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There's 15 of us in this house and it's like a frat house

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and I can hear sticks playing.

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And it's my stereo system.

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And I had a beast of a stereo system.

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It's set up on the window and it's blasting out of the third floor.

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And it's just screaming across the, let's just say that it didn't take long.

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I went back, the Dean of students came, confiscated all

Speaker: 00:44:41

my albums, took them all away.

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And our administrator several years later was a girl named

Speaker: 00:44:50

Marcy and she was a road manager.

Speaker: 00:44:54

So I'm telling her the story and she calls Larry and she goes,

Speaker: 00:44:57

Larry, my boss needs an album.

Speaker: 00:45:00

And she goes and meets them and he signs this thing.

Speaker: 00:45:04

It gets all the guys to sign it.

Speaker: 00:45:07

and all it said on there was, sorry about your seminary, dude.

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Yeah.

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Sorry you were hanging out with all those religious people that

Speaker: 00:45:15

got rid of your stereo and albums.

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The only thing, and I will say, you know, we talked about, you

Speaker: 00:45:20

know, cards could be Satan's tool.

Speaker: 00:45:22

I think eight tracks are satanic.

Speaker: 00:45:25

And if we go back to that, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be really ticked off.

Speaker: 00:45:29

Okay.

Speaker: 00:45:29

to see another eight track.

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I'm with you.

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I, I do like my cassettes though because I can get my pencil in

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there and I can tighten them up.

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I,

Speaker: 00:45:38

Right?

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I liked making, mixtapes, I guess is the word,

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Mm.

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a

Speaker: 00:45:43

Mm mm.

Speaker: 00:45:44

player and I could make some jams.

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I'm telling you what,

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Well, I would record off the radio, right?

Speaker: 00:45:51

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:45:55

Remember?

Speaker: 00:45:55

about half the people that were listening, Wayne.

Speaker: 00:45:57

Sorry, people just dropped off when they said we recorded stuff off the radio.

Speaker: 00:46:00

Oh, man.

Speaker: 00:46:02

You mentioned a couple times putting God in a box, and when I wrote box,

Speaker: 00:46:08

I wrote it right beside you being a chaplain and going through, I don't

Speaker: 00:46:11

know, 4, 000 plus, is that an okay number that you've probably officiated?

Speaker: 00:46:17

Yes.

Speaker: 00:46:18

There was a word that you shared with me when we had lunch that you

Speaker: 00:46:22

said it was the word that was most commonly as a descriptive word

Speaker: 00:46:27

of people that had passed away.

Speaker: 00:46:31

do you remember what that word was?

Speaker: 00:46:33

Stubborn.

Speaker: 00:46:34

Stubborn.

Speaker: 00:46:35

I wrote it down right here.

Speaker: 00:46:38

those that are still listening, is that the word you want to be used to describe,

Speaker: 00:46:43

to describe you upon your demise?

Speaker: 00:46:46

what else can you tell us?

Speaker: 00:46:47

We've got a few minutes left here and I want to go over some of the things

Speaker: 00:46:50

you're working on now and what you could do to maybe help people on their path.

Speaker: 00:46:54

But, what are some other just like key things you could share that you've learned

Speaker: 00:47:01

from officiating all those services?

Speaker: 00:47:06

Man, there's, it would take forever, but let me, let me do the things

Speaker: 00:47:09

that come to mind instantaneously.

Speaker: 00:47:12

The number one characteristic used by families to describe a loved one

Speaker: 00:47:15

who's passed away is the word stubborn.

Speaker: 00:47:17

It's the most common word that we hear.

Speaker: 00:47:19

And it took me a little bit of time, but not too long.

Speaker: 00:47:25

It took me a little bit of time to dig into that.

Speaker: 00:47:29

And I began to realize there's probably a reason why.

Speaker: 00:47:32

and most of the time, no one in the family, because we're too close to it,

Speaker: 00:47:40

no one in the family was courageous enough, willing enough, open enough

Speaker: 00:47:44

to peel back some of the layers and go, why was dad so stubborn?

Speaker: 00:47:51

you know, classic case in point of a, sitting with a family

Speaker: 00:47:54

and that's all they gave me.

Speaker: 00:47:55

Like, that's all they gave me.

Speaker: 00:47:56

But the son in law's sitting there and he goes, I've actually got a

Speaker: 00:47:58

little bit different perspective.

Speaker: 00:48:00

And he shared this most extraordinary story of how he went over every Friday

Speaker: 00:48:03

and cut his father in law's lawn.

Speaker: 00:48:05

And dad would sit on the front porch with his arms folded, scowling,

Speaker: 00:48:08

never said thanks, never anything.

Speaker: 00:48:10

He did it for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Speaker: 00:48:12

And finally, the last week, just before he passed away, he called

Speaker: 00:48:15

his son in law to the front porch.

Speaker: 00:48:17

I'm shortening the story for you.

Speaker: 00:48:19

And he handed him a Mr.

Speaker: 00:48:20

Big Bar with a smile on his face.

Speaker: 00:48:23

He said, thank you.

Speaker: 00:48:25

He said, in that moment, the son in law realized no one has ever served this guy.

Speaker: 00:48:30

no one could get close to him.

Speaker: 00:48:33

And the family just sat there in shock.

Speaker: 00:48:36

And I said, well, what do you think it was?

Speaker: 00:48:37

And he goes, I believe he was so deeply wounded and so deeply hurt, he put

Speaker: 00:48:41

a bubble of stubbornness around him.

Speaker: 00:48:44

A porcupine like spikiness that said, you'll never hurt me again.

Speaker: 00:48:50

But it took a son in law, an outsider, to come in and go, I think

Speaker: 00:48:54

there's something more to the story.

Speaker: 00:48:57

Stubborn defines someone surviving the 30s, depression.

Speaker: 00:49:03

Stubborn defines a family that grew up in poverty.

Speaker: 00:49:07

When I did the funeral for one of them, I began to realize that poverty

Speaker: 00:49:11

was such a massive part of it.

Speaker: 00:49:12

They were stubborn enough to him to say, I will never be like that again.

Speaker: 00:49:16

And all they did was work and work and work and work and work

Speaker: 00:49:19

and never saw their family.

Speaker: 00:49:21

And something drives these things.

Speaker: 00:49:23

And if we're courageous enough, we can look behind it.

Speaker: 00:49:25

I learned that about standing and talking about people's

Speaker: 00:49:28

lives and people's journeys.

Speaker: 00:49:31

I learned from this that it's the simplest things that matter and we

Speaker: 00:49:34

do not and we cannot live life in a vacuum and we cannot live it alone.

Speaker: 00:49:39

You cannot live in the top of a pole, Simon Stylitis, and have anything

Speaker: 00:49:44

eulogized about you at the end of the day.

Speaker: 00:49:46

Because you fail to live in a relationship and when we fail to live in

Speaker: 00:49:49

a relationship, when we live in wealth or we live in strength or we live in likes

Speaker: 00:49:54

or we live in, in volumes of things that we want to collect and we miss the people.

Speaker: 00:49:58

I got to tell you, none of that stuff will ever be eulogized about

Speaker: 00:50:01

you at the end of the day, ever.

Speaker: 00:50:04

And in terms of couples, I got to tell you, one of the things we

Speaker: 00:50:06

learned so quickly about all of this, this might be a bizarre thing.

Speaker: 00:50:08

We don't want to really go down this rabbit hole, but I got to tell you a

Speaker: 00:50:12

couples that live together more than eight years and get married, their

Speaker: 00:50:16

chances, the divorce increased by 85%.

Speaker: 00:50:20

And I got to tell you, we've sat with dozens and dozens, hundreds, thousands

Speaker: 00:50:24

of couples where I've been able to be courageous enough now to look at them and

Speaker: 00:50:27

say, are you sure you want to do this?

Speaker: 00:50:30

Have you had a conversation about expectations that you

Speaker: 00:50:32

think are going to change?

Speaker: 00:50:35

Because we do.

Speaker: 00:50:36

When we marry after we've been together for eight years, we're doing it because

Speaker: 00:50:40

we expect that this event itself will produce some kind of significant

Speaker: 00:50:43

change in the life of the other.

Speaker: 00:50:44

And it's going to be just like it was during the two years of courtship

Speaker: 00:50:48

where the euphoria were so strong and so real that we were dense to

Speaker: 00:50:52

the reality that there was something other than that that might become

Speaker: 00:50:54

a reality two years down the road.

Speaker: 00:50:57

And I learned from that.

Speaker: 00:50:58

I learned a lot from that to be able to have those conversations

Speaker: 00:51:02

with my wife and with Roseanne.

Speaker: 00:51:03

I walk away from weddings and funerals and one of the greatest determinations

Speaker: 00:51:07

of my life is to be a better person.

Speaker: 00:51:08

I know I have to do better.

Speaker: 00:51:13

Hmm.

Speaker: 00:51:13

And that's pretty cool.

Speaker: 00:51:15

That

Speaker: 00:51:16

Not too many other things in life.

Speaker: 00:51:17

I don't literally write a post on Facebook, post it, walk away and

Speaker: 00:51:20

go, I need to be a better husband.

Speaker: 00:51:21

right.

Speaker: 00:51:22

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:51:22

And so it does have that impact and that significance that we

Speaker: 00:51:26

think it has to.

Speaker: 00:51:28

No, I, I think it has to.

Speaker: 00:51:29

Yeah, they are the most malleable moments of the human experience.

Speaker: 00:51:32

Birth, death, and marriage.

Speaker: 00:51:33

Hatch, match, and dispatch.

Speaker: 00:51:34

They are the most malleable moments of the human experience.

Speaker: 00:51:37

So one thing, Wayne, before we get off of it, I've got like one or two more

Speaker: 00:51:40

questions we need to wrap up here.

Speaker: 00:51:42

One of the things that's interesting to me is that I believe that I looked

Speaker: 00:51:47

at the word stubborn as a negative.

Speaker: 00:51:50

But the way you just described it, I'm not sure it's a negative

Speaker: 00:51:53

descriptor of the person.

Speaker: 00:51:55

It might be a negative observation that we had about that person.

Speaker: 00:52:00

Did I hear that right?

Speaker: 00:52:02

I think they're still stubborn.

Speaker: 00:52:04

Oh, okay.

Speaker: 00:52:05

But it's not as much of a negative as we thought?

Speaker: 00:52:09

Maybe?

Speaker: 00:52:12

It's still negative.

Speaker: 00:52:13

Okay.

Speaker: 00:52:14

But why don't we take a little bit of time to figure out what's behind it?

Speaker: 00:52:20

It didn't take long.

Speaker: 00:52:21

when I bump into a 20 year old who's deemed stubborn, which

Speaker: 00:52:25

has actually never happened.

Speaker: 00:52:26

But if I were to do that, I would probably be able to pull the back

Speaker: 00:52:29

of the curtain and look at abuse.

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we manifest, our character manifests a lot of our experiences.

Speaker: 00:52:35

Let's just be honest.

Speaker: 00:52:37

And at the end of the day, I hear stubborn a lot I hear it all the time.

Speaker: 00:52:41

But I now no longer draw conclusions.

Speaker: 00:52:43

Oh, well, they're just obstinate bitter miserable human beings that should have

Speaker: 00:52:46

got their act together I now look at it and go maybe there's a lot more of the

Speaker: 00:52:50

story than anyone ever know Or does know And when you start to dig in a little

Speaker: 00:52:56

bit of do you begin to realize why?

Speaker: 00:52:58

Hmm.

Speaker: 00:52:59

Yeah, and I'm some unbelievable stories like some absolutely

Speaker: 00:53:04

unbelievable overcoming stories That happened to produce a character

Speaker: 00:53:09

of protective stubbornness that was placed within their lives.

Speaker: 00:53:13

So, I don't jump to those conclusions as much as I used to.

Speaker: 00:53:16

And I think that's a good thing.

Speaker: 00:53:18

Right.

Speaker: 00:53:18

I think we need to learn that skill set.

Speaker: 00:53:20

Let's not conclude too quickly.

Speaker: 00:53:23

We might not have all of the pieces of the puzzle that form the picture that we have

Speaker: 00:53:29

or the image that we've created for you.

Speaker: 00:53:31

Let's, let's give a little grace and maybe let's find out

Speaker: 00:53:34

a little bit more information.

Speaker: 00:53:37

quick question.

Speaker: 00:53:37

they can still be stubborn, though.

Speaker: 00:53:38

quick sidebar question.

Speaker: 00:53:40

I'm hearing something that sounds like scratching.

Speaker: 00:53:42

Is that coming from your end?

Speaker: 00:53:45

I didn't think you could hear it.

Speaker: 00:53:52

uh, you've got man's best friend there with you that is digging

Speaker: 00:53:56

a hole underneath your desk.

Speaker: 00:53:57

Is that what I'm hearing?

Speaker: 00:53:58

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:54:03

I don't know what it is.

Speaker: 00:54:04

Is there some kind of divine thing that God places in dogs?

Speaker: 00:54:06

We talk, he squeaks.

Speaker: 00:54:08

Like, what the heck?

Speaker: 00:54:09

All right.

Speaker: 00:54:10

Well, we're,

Speaker: 00:54:10

Anyway, I apologize.

Speaker: 00:54:12

we're gonna have to leave it in, so the listener, I just

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want the listener to know that,

Speaker: 00:54:15

Listeners should know that it's not me, it's not my stomach,

Speaker: 00:54:18

it's not anything other than that my dog has got this squeaker.

Speaker: 00:54:21

not to be crass,

Speaker: 00:54:21

like that with this

Speaker: 00:54:22

no, no, no.

Speaker: 00:54:23

hey, Wayne, what type person Does it take to do what you do to

Speaker: 00:54:30

officiate weddings and funerals?

Speaker: 00:54:32

what type person you say should reach out to you if they would be

Speaker: 00:54:38

interested in, in learning more?

Speaker: 00:54:41

You know, the ideal person, Tim, is the individual who finds

Speaker: 00:54:45

themselves naturally at crossroads of life, wanting to serve people.

Speaker: 00:54:51

I believe that's how broad it can be.

Speaker: 00:54:53

Yeah,

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I believe that if you see yourself as somebody that wants to serve

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others, then this is an incredible opportunity to be able to do it.

Speaker: 00:55:04

and,

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of the time, pastors never do it because it's more obligatory than it is blessing.

Speaker: 00:55:10

And we just saw it as a blessing.

Speaker: 00:55:12

We just realized that for most people, they don't have someone

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to serve them at these crossroads.

Speaker: 00:55:18

And we just said, you know what?

Speaker: 00:55:19

We want to be there.

Speaker: 00:55:20

Sign me up.

Speaker: 00:55:20

I want to be there.

Speaker: 00:55:21

And literally thousands of people have come with us.

Speaker: 00:55:24

There's a lot of people that shouldn't be there.

Speaker: 00:55:26

right,

Speaker: 00:55:27

They're there for the wrong reasons.

Speaker: 00:55:28

They're there because they want to be a standup comic.

Speaker: 00:55:30

They're there because they want their name in lights.

Speaker: 00:55:32

They're there because they feel like they're God's gift to the universe.

Speaker: 00:55:35

You got to look at it and go, no, that's not why you're there.

Speaker: 00:55:37

You're there to serve them.

Speaker: 00:55:38

So if inspiration is a part of who you are, you love inspiring

Speaker: 00:55:41

people, do a wedding and a funeral.

Speaker: 00:55:43

There is no better opportunity to inspire people.

Speaker: 00:55:45

Hmm.

Speaker: 00:55:45

think of, again, think about the malleability of the heart.

Speaker: 00:55:49

People are on the edge of their seat at a wedding.

Speaker: 00:55:51

People renew their vows at a wedding.

Speaker: 00:55:53

You start the vows and you see arms go around hands are held tears run

Speaker: 00:55:57

down people's cheeks You get to then I now pronounce you husband

Speaker: 00:56:00

or wife people are jumping up and down and there's this celebration

Speaker: 00:56:03

That's powerful.

Speaker: 00:56:04

That's life changing That's influential.

Speaker: 00:56:06

That's impactful And I believe that anybody who has those kind

Speaker: 00:56:10

of inspiring passions within their life impactful passions.

Speaker: 00:56:13

They need to be here We need a lot more passionate people

Speaker: 00:56:16

so they don't have to necessarily be a preacher, pastor, or

Speaker: 00:56:20

no, actually, they're the,

Speaker: 00:56:21

all that kind of stuff's good?

Speaker: 00:56:23

it's best to have people come to us who have no baggage, no previous,

Speaker: 00:56:28

I don't think I know anybody like that.

Speaker: 00:56:30

most pastors, but,

Speaker: 00:56:33

But,

Speaker: 00:56:33

I say it because I lived in that world for years, full time pastor for years.

Speaker: 00:56:37

thing about this, and, and again, this goes to the motive.

Speaker: 00:56:41

It's not about the money, but there is money involved.

Speaker: 00:56:44

Correct.

Speaker: 00:56:44

This is a business, right?

Speaker: 00:56:45

Is there, I mean, there's a business component to this, correct?

Speaker: 00:56:49

Well, yeah, we've made millions officiating weddings.

Speaker: 00:56:52

I mean, you just don't get it.

Speaker: 00:56:55

just think about it, right?

Speaker: 00:56:56

We're doing a couple of thousand weddings a year at 500 each kind of thing.

Speaker: 00:57:00

You do the math.

Speaker: 00:57:02

certainly we're, we're paying people to be a part of that, but year after

Speaker: 00:57:05

year after year after year, and we know lots and lots of people who are

Speaker: 00:57:09

self sustaining being able to do this.

Speaker: 00:57:11

People are always going to get married.

Speaker: 00:57:13

People always die.

Speaker: 00:57:14

And when babies come along, we now, Our society has replaced everything that we

Speaker: 00:57:21

used to do with babies with gender reveal.

Speaker: 00:57:27

which I got to tell you, I loathe seeing those things pop

Speaker: 00:57:31

I, I'll loathe them too, but you know what?

Speaker: 00:57:32

We are a society that must celebrate.

Speaker: 00:57:34

We are, we are a culture that must celebrate.

Speaker: 00:57:37

Right?

Speaker: 00:57:38

Am I right?

Speaker: 00:57:38

We have to.

Speaker: 00:57:39

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:57:39

and I'll tell you, you know what's happened in the funeral world?

Speaker: 00:57:42

Is because there's no great quality people leading funerals,

Speaker: 00:57:45

people are doing nothing.

Speaker: 00:57:46

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:57:46

They're choosing to do nothing,

Speaker: 00:57:48

so Wayne, I've got one more question and, But before I do that, tell people

Speaker: 00:57:53

if they want to find out more about this chaplaincy role, which is able to

Speaker: 00:57:59

marry and bury and officiate these life events, where can they go to find out more

Speaker: 00:58:06

about this and connect with you on that?

Speaker: 00:58:08

You know, we have so many websites because we're so diverse.

Speaker: 00:58:11

The best thing to do is just Google my name and you'll find

Speaker: 00:58:15

about five on any pages on Google

Speaker: 00:58:17

Okay.

Speaker: 00:58:18

you'll find something in there that will allow you to connect with this either

Speaker: 00:58:21

the wedding world, the funeral world.

Speaker: 00:58:22

We don't usually combine them together, but I believe that if you're doing

Speaker: 00:58:26

weddings, you should be doing funerals.

Speaker: 00:58:27

And if you're doing funerals, you should be doing weddings.

Speaker: 00:58:29

But let's be honest, there are some people wired better.

Speaker: 00:58:32

Rosanna's phenomenal at funerals.

Speaker: 00:58:35

I'm a little unpredictable and that kind of scares people.

Speaker: 00:58:39

I'm concerned.

Speaker: 00:58:40

I would go off script and and and also I'm I'm a I'm a bit of a wing

Speaker: 00:58:45

it, you know I'd like to say I'm moved by the spirit, but it would

Speaker: 00:58:49

Moved by the spirit.

Speaker: 00:58:50

you mention, you know, some people think they're stand up comedians.

Speaker: 00:58:53

I'm going gosh that

Speaker: 00:58:55

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:58:56

you know what I

Speaker: 00:58:57

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:58:58

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:58:58

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:58:59

school and they were teaching us how to marry and bury, I said, can

Speaker: 00:59:02

I do one at the same, can I do, can I combine those two services?

Speaker: 00:59:06

And they, they didn't really care for that.

Speaker: 00:59:08

They really, the Bible

Speaker: 00:59:09

What?

Speaker: 00:59:09

did not really like, no, that no sense

Speaker: 00:59:11

see they're out of bounds.

Speaker: 00:59:13

I've done tons of funerals at gravesites.

Speaker: 00:59:15

wow, wow, wow, wow.

Speaker: 00:59:16

all right.

Speaker: 00:59:17

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:59:18

last question.

Speaker: 00:59:19

Tons of weddings at gravesites.

Speaker: 00:59:21

What did I say?

Speaker: 00:59:21

Funerals at gravesites?

Speaker: 00:59:22

I've done tons of weddings at gravesites.

Speaker: 00:59:24

Really?

Speaker: 00:59:25

at gravesites.

Speaker: 00:59:26

Yes, tons.

Speaker: 00:59:27

So, we're gonna, I'm gonna get a couple links for you and we'll put down in

Speaker: 00:59:30

the notes on both YouTube and on, the podcast platform so that someone

Speaker: 00:59:34

can get more info if they want to.

Speaker: 00:59:37

When we had lunch, you commented that you're from Canada, which is already

Speaker: 00:59:41

a post christian nation, you now live in the United States, I think

Speaker: 00:59:45

in Lynchburg, Virginia, and you say that we are close to being that.

Speaker: 00:59:51

If you had a message in about, oh, I don't know, 60 seconds, that you would like to

Speaker: 00:59:56

share with people south of that border, in the lower 48 or United States, about what

Speaker: 01:00:03

post christian and where we're headed.

Speaker: 01:00:05

If you, if I gave you just a little bit of final word before we wrap

Speaker: 01:00:09

here, what would you want to tell us?

Speaker: 01:00:11

Secularism is at your doorstep.

Speaker: 01:00:15

And the first thing you need to do is acknowledge that.

Speaker: 01:00:18

you have to embrace the reality that socialism is, and secularism

Speaker: 01:00:22

is knocking at your door.

Speaker: 01:00:23

Let's just take socialism off.

Speaker: 01:00:25

Let's just talk secularism.

Speaker: 01:00:26

It's at your door.

Speaker: 01:00:28

It's already there and you're surrounded by it.

Speaker: 01:00:31

You can just simply look at the political climate.

Speaker: 01:00:33

You can simply look at a map that's thrown up on TV and you can go, Okay,

Speaker: 01:00:37

well, I kind of see where secularism already has established roots and

Speaker: 01:00:40

they're very firmly, very clear.

Speaker: 01:00:42

And then you can look at other parts of the country, the U.

Speaker: 01:00:44

S. and go, Okay, well, maybe secularism is not there.

Speaker: 01:00:46

It's those group of people that scare me more than anything else.

Speaker: 01:00:49

Because if you live with a sense of naivety, you're going to miss

Speaker: 01:00:52

opportunities of being able to be influential and impactful

Speaker: 01:00:55

and inspirational in a world that desperately needs it.

Speaker: 01:00:58

Secularism, I despise theistic globalism.

Speaker: 01:01:03

I absolutely despise it.

Speaker: 01:01:05

What I believe is that we need to be present in people's lives.

Speaker: 01:01:08

I don't think the answer was to Christianize every nation in the world,

Speaker: 01:01:12

it's to go and preach the gospel, it's to go and share Jesus Christ,

Speaker: 01:01:15

and it's being able to impact people's lives with the truth of Jesus Christ.

Speaker: 01:01:18

Go to all the nations and preach the gospel.

Speaker: 01:01:20

That's the only thing I see that's there.

Speaker: 01:01:22

Doesn't say go to all the nations and make everybody, right, come

Speaker: 01:01:26

on board with what you believe.

Speaker: 01:01:27

So here we are in a world that literally, we're so mad about the

Speaker: 01:01:31

fact that secularism is in such a fast pace that we just circled the

Speaker: 01:01:35

wagons, closed our church doors.

Speaker: 01:01:37

put little barriers around us and said, well, if you don't want to

Speaker: 01:01:40

abide by how we want to do things, we want nothing to do with you.

Speaker: 01:01:42

That's the, that's the worst decision.

Speaker: 01:01:45

And that's what caused Christianity and the church to be completely

Speaker: 01:01:49

non influential in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.

Speaker: 01:01:55

We closed the doors, circled the wagons and said, sucks.

Speaker: 01:01:58

It's horrible.

Speaker: 01:01:58

It's awful.

Speaker: 01:01:59

I can't believe how bad secularism is.

Speaker: 01:02:01

People won't come to church anymore.

Speaker: 01:02:03

We've done everything we know how to do.

Speaker: 01:02:05

No, you haven't.

Speaker: 01:02:06

Close your doors.

Speaker: 01:02:08

Shut, shut the buildings down.

Speaker: 01:02:10

Get out into where people live.

Speaker: 01:02:12

Get into the hot tubs in your 55 plus community and start

Speaker: 01:02:15

talking about Jesus Christ.

Speaker: 01:02:16

Now I'm dead serious.

Speaker: 01:02:17

Listen, missional communities is the path forward.

Speaker: 01:02:20

Nobody can stop a missional community.

Speaker: 01:02:22

Nobody can stop a Tim and his wife and a handful of other Christians that you

Speaker: 01:02:26

might find around you from influencing people for the kingdom of God.

Speaker: 01:02:29

No one can stop that.

Speaker: 01:02:31

No COVID can stop it.

Speaker: 01:02:33

No political party can stop it.

Speaker: 01:02:35

Nothing can stop it.

Speaker: 01:02:37

But we see these catastrophic things happening.

Speaker: 01:02:39

900 churches a month closing in the U. S. And all I see is a bunch of

Speaker: 01:02:42

people sulking over in the corner.

Speaker: 01:02:44

Going, we're going the wrong way.

Speaker: 01:02:46

You know what?

Speaker: 01:02:46

Shut up.

Speaker: 01:02:47

Maybe it's best for you to shut it down.

Speaker: 01:02:49

Go back out where you belong.

Speaker: 01:02:51

Live life like Jesus did.

Speaker: 01:02:54

And maybe you'll find that you can have an influence.

Speaker: 01:02:56

But, when we live with such delusion, That it's never going to happen.

Speaker: 01:03:01

If we put more energy into globalizing Christianity, we've

Speaker: 01:03:05

got ourself a massive problem.

Speaker: 01:03:07

We are in absolute denial.

Speaker: 01:03:10

It's coming and it's coming with a vengeance in the U S faster

Speaker: 01:03:14

than it ever has in anywhere else that secularism has ever advanced.

Speaker: 01:03:19

We should be afraid of it.

Speaker: 01:03:21

Secularism, Tim, in Canada has allowed us opportunities to talk about

Speaker: 01:03:23

Jesus in the ways that we couldn't back in the seventies and eighties.

Speaker: 01:03:27

We can now talk about Jesus Christ freely.

Speaker: 01:03:29

I'm talking to people in Canada who've never even heard about Jesus Christ.

Speaker: 01:03:32

How cool is that?

Speaker: 01:03:34

I'm in the belt buckle of the Bible Belt in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Speaker: 01:03:37

I'm telling you, 450 churches with 75, 000 people, and there's not a single

Speaker: 01:03:42

person in the city of Lynchburg that believes the message I tell them, not one.

Speaker: 01:03:46

not one, not one pastor, not one Christian I've talked to.

Speaker: 01:03:48

They're like, what do you mean?

Speaker: 01:03:49

Church is fine.

Speaker: 01:03:50

Everything's fine.

Speaker: 01:03:50

Look at all the people come to church.

Speaker: 01:03:53

Okie dokie.

Speaker: 01:03:54

It's good.

Speaker: 01:03:55

Well, it's good.

Speaker: 01:03:55

And I'm not anti church.

Speaker: 01:03:58

I am pro people, not really pro buildings where we gather and hide.

Speaker: 01:04:06

it was a great message.

Speaker: 01:04:07

I appreciate it.

Speaker: 01:04:08

I'm glad I pulled that string because, I did hear a passionate tone in your

Speaker: 01:04:12

voice that I really, really liked.

Speaker: 01:04:14

Um,

Speaker: 01:04:15

of prophetic when it comes to things and it does it annoys some people

Speaker: 01:04:19

but I think there's too much at stake I I really do and I and I mean

Speaker: 01:04:23

that honestly God came to earth.

Speaker: 01:04:26

He didn't need to do that, but he did he came and he said I want you

Speaker: 01:04:28

to do it this way I'm, just going to make it as clear and crystal clear

Speaker: 01:04:31

as I possibly can for you And then we kind of looked at this amazing

Speaker: 01:04:34

example of jesus and went the other way

Speaker: 01:04:38

wow.

Speaker: 01:04:38

were like no, I don't think we're going to do that, you know,

Speaker: 01:04:41

well, why wouldn't you do that?

Speaker: 01:04:43

Do what he did.

Speaker: 01:04:45

5, 10 or 8 people.

Speaker: 01:04:47

I don't know.

Speaker: 01:04:48

Find three people.

Speaker: 01:04:49

Turn the world upside down.

Speaker: 01:04:51

He did.

Speaker: 01:04:54

I love it.

Speaker: 01:04:55

you, Wayne.

Speaker: 01:04:56

Thank you.

Speaker: 01:04:57

That's a great glimpse of the future.

Speaker: 01:04:59

Thanks for joining us here at Seek Go Create.

Speaker: 01:05:01

We release new episodes every Monday.

Speaker: 01:05:04

We also appreciate all the support you've been giving us.

Speaker: 01:05:07

You can tip us, buy me a coffee, get me a sip of whiskey.

Speaker: 01:05:10

Wayne mentioned wine and whiskey.

Speaker: 01:05:11

That's

Speaker: 01:05:11

Ooh,

Speaker: 01:05:12

I

Speaker: 01:05:13

bourbon.

Speaker: 01:05:13

offer financial support.

Speaker: 01:05:15

Just go to SeekGoCreate.

Speaker: 01:05:16

com forward slash support

Speaker: 01:05:19

You could also leave a comment, communicate with us.

Speaker: 01:05:21

We appreciate it.

Speaker: 01:05:22

So just go to seek, go create.

Speaker: 01:05:23

com forward slash support and send some money my way.

Speaker: 01:05:28

I will put it to great use.

Speaker: 01:05:30

Thanks for joining us again.

Speaker: 01:05:31

We will see you next week.