Christians as Joyful Outsiders, Finding Unity in Diversity, Engaging Culture Without Fear – w/ Keith Simon

Aaron Smith (02:27.053)

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the marriage after God podcast. I’m here with Keith Simon. He’s the author of joyful outsiders. got the book right here. Of course, an early copy when this goes live, the book will actually be live so you can go pick up a copy today, but Keith, welcome to the show. 

Keith Simon (02:43.244)

Man, thanks for having me, Aaron. It’s great to meet you. 

Aaron Smith (02:45.749)

Yeah, so you co-wrote this book. We’ll talk about this book a little later, but Patrick Miller is the other author. Why don’t you tell me about who you guys are? Mostly about you, but I’m not going to get a chance to talk to Patrick, so maybe you can just give me a little bit of insight on him. 

Keith Simon (02:59.118)

Yeah, I’d love to. 

Keith Simon (03:00.999)

So right now, I am a pastor of a church in Columbia, Missouri, which is smack dab in the middle of the state. It’s a university town, so kind of a blue dot in the middle of a red state. Our community is pretty progressive, but our state is pretty conservative, which puts us in a position of leading a church that is made up of all kinds of people, racially, economically, politically. 

Keith Simon (03:28.246)

And we’re trying to navigate that course of leading our congregation after Christ in a world that’s very fractured and very divided. But I became a Christian in college through a ministry that used to be called Campus Crusade for Christ, but now goes by the name Crew, and got involved in that ministry as a college student, went on staff with them for five years, went to seminary, and then started the church where I’m now a pastor. It was a team of us that started the church together. 

Aaron Smith (03:42.861)

Keith Simon (03:57.386)

And Patrick, my co-author, became a Christian through our church and is now a pastor in the church. And so we share an office together. We work together on all kinds of projects. So he’s kind of become a friend, although he’s much younger than I am. My wife and I, have four kids. They are all adults. And we love hanging out with them, spending time with them, but love leading the church. And we’ve got a good life. I always say, if I ever complain, somebody should punch me in the face because 

Aaron Smith (04:03.028)

awesome. 

Keith Simon (04:26.614)

I’ve been blessed to have a pretty good life. 

Aaron Smith (04:30.387)

Amazing how long you’ve been married? Did you say? 

Keith Simon (04:32.691)

I think 

Keith Simon (04:33.442)

in May it’ll be 35 years. I think it’s, yeah. 

Aaron Smith (04:35.373)

You think 35 years you 

Aaron Smith (04:38.936)

you man you zoomed past your silver anniversary. That’s amazing. Yeah. 

Keith Simon (04:42.432)

Well, yeah, we 

Keith Simon (04:44.263)

have been together a long time. We got married right out of college. My wife became a Christian through Campus Crusade in the same campus. Now, we didn’t know each other, but a couple of women in her sorority house sat down with her and went through a little booklet. You might be familiar with it called The Four Spiritual Laws. And it was the first time my wife had ever really heard that message put in a simple, clear way. And she put her faith in Christ as a freshman in the tri-delt sorority house at the University of Missouri. 

Keith Simon (05:12.032)

and started following Christ. we met on a mission trip overseas to the Eastern Bloc a long time ago. Anyway, we ended up dating and getting married and going on staff with Campus Crusade together, and have kind of always been in ministry together. 

Aaron Smith (05:28.309)

Amazing. And that’s my heart with my marriage. told my wife when I asked her to be my wife, said, I don’t care what we do or where we go. I just want to do it together. I want to do it for God. And we’ve kind of been doing that ever since, and in various ways. Now it’s this ministry of writing books and podcasting. So that’s awesome to hear that. 

Keith Simon (05:50.606)

How long have you been married, 

Keith Simon (05:51.372)

Aaron? 

Aaron Smith (05:51.917)

We just had our 18th anniversary in January, or this month that I’m recording this, so January 6th. And it is exciting, it’s weird, because it doesn’t, it feels like it’s been longer and it feels like it hasn’t been that long. It’s such a strange thing. Time goes by so weirdly fast. 

Keith Simon (05:58.222)

That’s exciting. 

Keith Simon (06:08.012)

Yeah, I understand. 

Keith Simon (06:09.714)

To say that I’ve been married for almost 35 years now, it just makes me feel like I’m 100 years old. And I’m like, I’m not old enough to be married 35 years, but it turns out I am. 

Aaron Smith (06:16.438)

It’s- 

Aaron Smith (06:20.499)

But what’s also weird about that, you probably understand this, is it’s so uncommon now. It’s more common that people have had multiple wives that aren’t married anymore, that aren’t married at all. But to find people that have been married long and still sound like they enjoy their marriage and they’re enjoying their family and they enjoy their kids, it’s a unique thing, that’s amazing. 

Keith Simon (06:42.626)

Well, whenever I do pre-marital counseling, which I’ve never thought that pre-marital counseling is worth much because you are talking to people who are in maybe their early 20s, and they are in love. They’re not going to any problems. And so I’ve got to a point where I just say to people, look, I’ll do your wedding, and we’ll do post-marital counseling. How about that? Because I think you’ll pay more attention. But I’ll do pre-marital counseling with them still if they want it. And one of the things I ask them, 

Aaron Smith (06:52.45)

Yeah. 

Keith Simon (07:10.696)

is if you found out, say, five or 10 years down the road that you have the marriage of your parents, what would your response be? Think of communication, affection, conflict, resolution, all those kind of things. If you had the marriage of your parents, would you be like, wow, that’s awesome? Or would you be like, OK, mean, not great, not bad. Or would you like, please God, no? And this goes to the question that you have about what you brought up about it’s uncommon to find. 

Aaron Smith (07:32.048)

That’s a good question. 

Keith Simon (07:39.462)

two people who both say we’d love to have the marriage of our parents. But of course, the reason I ask that is because the marriage that you grow up watching ends up having an impact on you, whether you realize it or not, right? It sets expectations. It shapes the people who are getting married in ways that they might not even realize. And so it leads to all kinds of good conversations. But I think one of the best gifts a person can give their kid is just to model a healthy marriage. Not a perfect marriage, a healthy marriage. 

Aaron Smith (08:09.065)

Yeah, and that’s a common thread that I’ve heard in so many relationships. Anytime people give it, like, you know, one of the best gifts you can give to your kids is a healthy, godly marriage. And again, it’s not perfect. Something I tell people all the time is like, the number one thing I probably tell to my kids is I’m sorry. Because I make mistakes and we have to remind our kids, and we just had a conversation with all our kids this morning about, you know, sin, choices we make. 

Aaron Smith (08:35.501)

walking in the flesh and we had to say, hey, we love you, we forgive you. These are things that we need to grow, we need to change, we need to repent of. But me and Mommy, we also need this. We need to be reminded that we make mistakes and we do these things. And God desires us to walk a different way because when we walk in these things, it hurts us and it hurts Him. so, yeah, having a healthy marriage is powerful gift. And it’s also, you know, we’re going to talk about being outsiders. 

Aaron Smith (09:03.629)

It’s a huge way being an outsider these days is enjoying your marriage, enjoying your children, teaching them about God. Those three things is like, you’re weird. You’re like, wait, you like your wife? I’m like, yes, I actually would rather spend time with my wife than almost anyone. 

Keith Simon (09:14.371)

Yeah. 

Keith Simon (09:20.078)

Keith Simon (09:20.799)

Well, I imagine you get looks like this all the time because you have six kids. I have four. But if you go to the grocery store and say, a dad with four kids, which I used to do all the time or do stuff. My wife, of course, would do the same thing. But people look at you funny. Like, what are you doing? Like, A, why do you have so many kids? And B, are you sure you should be out alone with them at a grocery store or Walmart or something like that? And I’m like, yeah, we’re going to be OK, people. 

Aaron Smith (09:27.153)

yeah. 

Aaron Smith (09:44.033)

Yeah. 

Keith Simon (09:48.354)

They used to this for thousands of years. It’s kids. We’re going to make it. They’re actually a blessing from God, not something to be avoided. They’re not a burden. They’re a blessing. But yeah, I think that it is a cultural marker of Christians that we appreciate families. We’re willing to make sacrifices, to make commitments. And that’s unusual because people want freedom. They want autonomy. want to… 

Aaron Smith (09:49.25)

Yeah. 

Keith Simon (10:14.19)

They want to do what they want to do when they want to do it. And of course, when you’re married and when you have kids, you sacrifice that freedom for a greater joy, a greater blessing. 

Aaron Smith (10:22.121)

Yeah, and we’re talking about engaging with the culture in this conversation because it’s probably, I mean, it’s always been relevant. It’s been relevant since day one, you know, the moment Jesus, you know, announced his ministry. It’s like, wait, something’s different. And Christians have been in the midst of this, you know, this whole in the world, not of it, you know, since the beginning. How is your, you know, your family, your marriage, your children? 

Aaron Smith (10:47.201)

helped start shaping a lot of this view you came to the conclusion of in this Joyful Outsiders book. How has that helped you navigate or helped you help shape your view of like, okay, we have this culture, but we’re supposed to be this culture. 

Keith Simon (11:01.016)

Well, my wife and I don’t come from Christian families, so that’s when we both became Christians in college, independently of one another. It was this big transition for us because we didn’t grow up going to church. We didn’t grow up praying around the table or talking about faith or anything like that. And so when we became a Christian, our lives, I’m not trying to say they instantly changed or perfectly changed, but there was definitely a dramatic 

Keith Simon (11:28.534)

experience where we were headed one direction and then we were headed a different direction. And we went from being very comfortable in the world because we kind of embraced the world’s values. And then we are in this position where we’re like, okay, gosh, we see all what was wrong with that. We can’t embrace all those things we did before, but now how do we respond to that community? How do we respond to the world that we lived in? How do we respond to the friends that we have who don’t have the same beliefs in all that? 

Keith Simon (11:58.274)

I think for us, for a long time, we saw ourselves, you this is part of the youthful zeal of being a college student and being a Christian and thinking you know too much. But we kind of saw the world as our enemy. Like, we switched sides. We went from one group to the next group. And we saw that which we had left as, this is bad. And I’m not sure that was very helpful. You know, I don’t think… 

Keith Simon (12:25.058)

being afraid of the world or trying to keep our distance from the world or fighting the world is probably what God’s called us to. There’s got to be a better way to engage the world that’s not combative, that’s not conforming to the world’s values. But it’s not also kind of cloistering yourself off and trying to stay separate from it. So we’ve wrestled this with this question of how do I engage culture? 

Keith Simon (12:48.918)

ever since we became Christians. But I think that’s the experience of everybody, right? Everybody has to wrestle with that question of how do I live my Christian faith and interact with this culture that doesn’t agree with me. 

Aaron Smith (13:01.057)

That’s a really good point and it’s true. We as believers were constantly wrestling with this. How are we going to respond to schooling and education? How are we going to respond to… My family does jujitsu. All my kids do jujitsu. Five of the six so far. The new one’s too young, but they haven’t started the infant classes yet. That’s a joke. 

Keith Simon (13:16.152)

No, so your little kids could beat me up probably. 

Keith Simon (13:29.87)

Ha 

Aaron Smith (13:30.253)

Aaron Smith (13:31.153)

You know this this concept of you know, there’s at some point and this is probably there’s probably been waves of this throughout history with the church of times of wanting to like hide want to be go into a hole and be like, okay, I just don’t want to engage with the outside world because it’s so deadly and dangerous and scary and painful and all the things but with our you know doing jiu-jitsu and we have our kids have to engage with not just engage with but actually get physical with 

Aaron Smith (14:00.319)

all different types of kids and kids who have been or being raised by different kinds of people and different kinds of relationships and single parents and gay parents and all different things. So the natural fear in me is like, well, let’s just avoid that because that’s too messy. But then they’re going to miss out on valuable education of physical fitness and how to engage with other people and how to have how to do jiu-jitsu, which we love. And it’s impossible for the believer to 

Aaron Smith (14:30.167)

totally withdraw from the world and avoid the culture altogether. The Bible says this. says, you I’m not saying that you should, you know, avoid, you know, these types of sinners because then you would have to remove yourself from the world to do that. He’s talking to me, like, there are certain people who claim to be Christians who act this way and those are kinds of people that I want you to avoid. Those are dangerous when they claim brotherhood, they claim Christ, they claim to be believers and yet they are behaving in such a way that 

Aaron Smith (15:00.045)

is so opposite. And then he’s like, but people that aren’t believers, like you can’t get away from them. You have to be near them. it’s an inevitable. Yep. 

Keith Simon (15:07.406)

Well, just think of the model of Jesus. mean, Jesus 

Keith Simon (15:09.748)

intentionally pursued relationships with all kinds of people, the religious people, the irreligious people, the moral and the immoral, the women, men, the rich, the poor. I mean, Jesus was willing to interact with everybody and not just willing. He actually pursued those relationships. And then he calls us to be in the world, but not of it. But that’s tricky. I mean, how do you do that? Because like you said, it is tempting to 

Keith Simon (15:34.168)

kind of cloister yourself off to separate from the world. And we’ve seen that throughout history. I mean, even if you go back to the, again, just stay in the life of Jesus, you have the Essenes, who some people think—I’m not sure it’s right—but some people think John the Baptist might have been a part of that community, and they just separated. They went off and lived in their own holy huddle and tried to avoid the world. And I don’t think that’s what Jesus called us to. 

Keith Simon (15:58.278)

Now was probably easier to do that for them. It’s impossible today for us in the day of social media or cable television or you just it’s impossible to hide yourself from the influences of the world at this point. So I think people probably try to do it but they’re not setting their themselves or their family or their church whoever it is they’re working with. They’re not setting themselves up for a lifetime of success of following Jesus. We’ve got to learn how to navigate the world but kind of almost just as 

Keith Simon (16:27.342)

problematic are the people who fight the world, who combat the world, you know, the angry people who are, feel like they’ve been betrayed. Someone’s taken their country from them and they’re going to take it back, take back America. And I don’t think that’s exactly what Jesus wants us to do either, but you see that in, in, the Bible as well. I mean, just think of the life of Jesus. You have the zealots. So these are the people who wanted to kill the Romans. 

Keith Simon (16:56.714)

as a way of establishing God’s kingdom. Like we’re going to establish God’s kingdom by fighting against the world. Simon the Zealot, who is one of Jesus’s 12 disciples, I think had to learn to lay down his weapons. know, just like when Peter takes out the sword and cuts off the ear of Malchus when Jesus is being arrested. And he’s like, put that away. That’s not the way my kingdom comes. It doesn’t come through violence. We’re not going to attack the Roman Empire. 

Aaron Smith (17:11.03)

Mm-hmm. 

Aaron Smith (17:19.403)

Mm-hmm. 

Keith Simon (17:23.596)

So yeah, it’s the separate, but it’s also the attack, I guess you’d say. 

Aaron Smith (17:31.177)

Yeah, there’s, you know, it’s interesting, I’m thinking about just historically, things happen in the world in history that cause the church to respond in different ways. You were talking about those, you know, that recluse that that urge to escape and we saw this in a really big way during COVID. I felt this like every ounce of me. I live in a fairly blue state, Oregon, and 

Keith Simon (17:58.274)

bright blue. 

Keith Simon (17:58.858)

Aaron Smith (17:59.159)

It’s bright blue. But the area 

Aaron Smith (18:00.93)

I live in wasn’t always that way and it’s quickly shifted. We’ve had a lot of people from other cities and states, lot of Californians move up here. Again, I’m from California, so I fall into that same category, but just a different political stance, spiritual stance. But anyways, you have this strong desire and I felt this during COVID. The way the policies, the way the leaders were 

Keith Simon (18:04.514)

Hmm. That’s interesting. 

Aaron Smith (18:29.503)

running things was painful. And it was getting in the way of my freedoms and getting in way of the way I wanted to run my life and things that I believed in. there was this urge to like, let’s just leave. And there were a bunch of people that did. And I’m not saying it’s wrong that they laughed necessarily, but I was thinking about that while you were talking about that urge to leave. then I also immediately thought about America was founded on that same idea. We had a bunch of Christians 

Aaron Smith (18:58.295)

fleeing Europe, fleeing England to start a new place because they wanted to have their own place and their own time. So would you say some of these urges that we have, because I think they are on many levels natural, like you talk about in your book, there’s these different kinds of outsiders, they’re different roles that they play. Are there going to be seasons where operating in this way, wanting to escape is, could be for a positive reason and a right reason and a right time, but 

Aaron Smith (19:27.039)

in general isn’t the right response. Does that make sense? Is that a clear question? 

Keith Simon (19:32.194)

Yeah, I think 

Keith Simon (19:33.114)

it does. think that the, let’s set it up in a little bit of context here. And I think the best way to realize it, to think about this, is to realize that Christians have always been outsiders. This isn’t new. Like, for example, in the 1950s, there was this cultural capital to be a Christian. I just think of what happened in the 1950s. You had the first president, Eisenhower, who was baptized in office. You had, under God, 

Aaron Smith (19:46.945)

Mm-hmm. 

Keith Simon (20:01.166)

added to the Pledge of Allegiance that happened in 1950. In God We Trust officially became the motto. Yeah, In God We Trust became the official motto of the United States. You know, it’s on the coin. And you have Billy Graham, you know, big in the 1950s. You have the Prayer Breakfast, the National Prayer Breakfast is established in 1950s. Remember in the 1950s, it was still allowed that you would have Christian prayers in school and Christian Bible reading as part of a public education. 

Aaron Smith (20:05.537)

Really? I didn’t know that actually. 

Keith Simon (20:30.54)

So if you kind of think of America as the 1950s version of America, then there was a big cultural capital to be a Christian. And to run for political office, you would probably join a church in most parts of the United States because it helped you. Now we live in a different world, right? We live in a world where to be a Christian makes you feel like an outsider, right? You might hide that you’re a Christian in order to advance in public life. 

Aaron Smith (20:49.067)

Yeah, a little bit, a little different. 

Keith Simon (20:58.166)

And so I think a lot of people, their memory only goes back to a time where Christians had cultural power, they feel like they’ve lost something and America’s falling apart and we need to fight to take it back. Well, here’s the thing. We’ve always been outsiders ever since Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. When sin entered the world and they left Eden and out into the wilderness, 

Aaron Smith (21:07.009)

Mm-hmm. 

Keith Simon (21:25.262)

Christians became outsiders, and that’s our story. There’s a certain sense of pressure and difficulty of navigating a life of being an outsider in the culture, but the Bible is full of resources of how to be an outsider. It is a book written by outsiders for outsiders. And instead of being a combative outsider, or the cloistered kind that hides itself and separates itself, or we haven’t really talked too much, some outsiders just conform, 

Keith Simon (21:55.17)

They just go along, they relieve the tension of being an outsider by becoming like the culture. Instead of doing that, we could be what I think the Bible’s called us to be, and that is joyful outsiders. We can be outsiders who embrace the calling that Jesus gave us. He went outside the camp to be crucified, and then He calls in Hebrews 13, He calls us to go outside the camp, outside the city gates. And so we’re called to be Jesus’ outsiders, but joyfully. This is the place He’s called us. We’re in… 

Aaron Smith (22:00.045)

Mm. 

Keith Simon (22:24.966)

you know, we might feel like, gosh, this isn’t the way it should be, but it kind of is. It will be this way until Jesus comes back to reestablish His kingdom. So if we get over trying to take things back, if we get away from our fear and we just say, this is the life God’s called us to, we can embrace it and be joyful outsiders. And when people see that joy, I think that’s part of the witness, that’s part of our sign that what we believe is true. 

Keith Simon (22:50.778)

Jesus is who he claimed to be and that we are willing to trust him with our life. And that’s why we can engage a world that can sometimes be hostile to us. Not always, but sometimes be hostile to our faith joyfully. We’re fine with it. For the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross. And for the joy set before us, we follow him in his path. 

Aaron Smith (23:13.613)

That’s really good. Do you think that a lot of our… Because you mentioned a lot of keywords, I would say buzzwords in your book. And I have to admit, every time I hear them, because they’re so politically charged, it’s like they make me feel uncomfortable. Like, where is he going with this? Why is he saying that? Well, when you bring up LGBTQ and you bring up… There’s words that shouldn’t be charged, but they are when you talk about injustice. 

Keith Simon (23:28.43)

Mm. 

Keith Simon (23:31.894)

Like what are you thinking? 

Keith Simon (23:36.558)

Mmm. 

Keith Simon (23:42.946)

Mm-hmm. 

Aaron Smith (23:43.125)

I mean, 

Aaron Smith (23:43.475)

I know I hate injustice, but when I hear the word, it’s charged. It’s charged in a different way because everyone’s got definitions. And I feel like a lot of what believers these days. I mean, you mentioned that you said it so well in the book. You’re like, you we’re not now outsiders like you were just talking about. The world has shifted so much just for us recently that it feels like we’re all of a sudden outsiders. 

Keith Simon (23:48.782)

You’re suspicious. 

Keith Simon (23:52.014)

Right 

Aaron Smith (24:12.289)

because everything’s changed. I think there’s something to be said with that. But I think a lot of… I know for me as a believer, as a father, as a pastor of a small home church, as friend to many couples and as a husband, I see the world and I have all these natural responses like wanting to escape, wanting to fight back, wanting to change the system because the system’s bad. 

Aaron Smith (24:41.395)

is because I know deep down that it’s not God’s system. It’s not right. Right? And I feel like a lot of people think that the solution is something that we can do here now. We think that we can establish God’s Kingdom in the moment rather than the Kingdom being in me and me being a part of His Kingdom. And so what do you have to say to that? How do we reconcile this as believers to be able to see the injustice? 

Aaron Smith (25:10.461)

the true injustice, not the world’s definition of it. And see these things that are taking place, see these transformations that are happening right before our eyes, and be able to, I don’t know how to say it, put ourselves in the right place, mentally and spiritually. 

Keith Simon (25:26.21)

Well, I think God has called us to engage our culture. Like, we’re supposed to have influence. We’re supposed to be salt and light. And sometimes that can look like calling out injustice. But it can look a lot of different ways. Like, it might look like sharing the gospel with a neighbor or a friend. It might look like building a business that employs people and treats people well, pays the living wage. So there’s all kinds of ways that we can engage our culture. 

Keith Simon (25:55.694)

One of things that Patrick and I do is we pastor a church of real people, like ordinary people. And so we don’t write to pastors or theologians. We write to just everyday average people. Like I went to public school, right? I’m just your average guy trying to communicate biblical truth on what God has taught me, what God’s revealed in the scripture, and what God has kind of given me the opportunity to learn to other ordinary people. 

Keith Simon (26:24.62)

And what we’ve said is in this book is we’ve said, okay, now we’re joyful outsiders. There’s a bunch of different ways that you could engage the culture. So some people I think are called to be ambassadors. And those are the people who just have a heart to change the culture by sharing the gospel with people and seeing people come to faith in Jesus. And the person who’s the ambassador says the best way I can make a difference and push back against the world and build the kingdom of God is through sharing 

Keith Simon (26:54.402)

what Jesus has done in my life with other people. And then there’s the trainer, and the trainer says, hey, we’re going to change people’s habits. The only way we can really change is through helping people learn to follow Jesus and practically in every day of their life. So they’re kind of the discipleship-oriented people. And there’s the builder who says, I want to build a PTA, or I want to build a school, or I want to build a business. And it’s like I already said, as they build what God has given them to do, maybe it’s a nonprofit. 

Keith Simon (27:23.624)

they make a difference in their community, they are being salt and light and representing Christ to their world and influencing the culture. There’s the protester, and maybe that’s you, Aaron, just from listening to you talk, the protester hates injustice, and they call out injustice. They just can’t live with seeing wrong things happen without drawing attention to it say, this is wrong, this needs to change. You could think of somebody like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a protester. 

Keith Simon (27:53.022)

Or you could think of someone like an advisor. An advisor wants to be in the room where it happens. They know they’re not in charge, but they can be representatives of in the room where decisions are made that affect policy or affect the cultural moment. So think of somebody like Daniel, who was an advisor to King Nebuchadnezzar. He’s living in a pagan kingdom. He’s working in a pagan court. 

Aaron Smith (28:16.94)

Mm. 

Keith Simon (28:21.048)

But he’s got Nebuchadnezzar’s ear, and he gets to speak truth to Nebuchadnezzar. Or the last one is the artist, and this is the person who influences culture by creating beauty. And I think instead of saying there’s only one way for Christians to affect culture, influence culture, and so it’s a one-size-fits-all approach and a cookie-cutter approach, and everybody’s got to be the same. It’s kind of freeing when you realize God has more than one way, and we can have our way that God’s wired us to do it. 

Keith Simon (28:51.008)

and respect other people who have a different way and realize they’re contributing to influencing culture for the cause of Christ in a way different than me, but a way that still honors and pleases God. 

Aaron Smith (29:03.885)

I love that. want to bring that up real quick. So in the back of your book, I’m sure this is going to look different in the final draft of the book because I got an early copy. But so if I can show there’s like a test in it. Yeah. 

Keith Simon (29:12.642)

Yes, you have a advanced reader copy, but the new books are out with all the edits made. 

Keith Simon (29:22.611)

yeah, an assessment that you 

Keith Simon (29:24.036)

can take to try to figure out what you are, which of those six. 

Aaron Smith (29:26.741)

So I did it. 

Aaron Smith (29:28.182)

I’m going to read you my answers and you tell me I’m gonna read you my numbers and you tell me what I am. No, you don’t think so? No, just because it had me total because it my highest one was trainer percentage wise point wise. My second highest one was protester. 

Keith Simon (29:32.341)

I know. I don’t know if this is gonna work. You’re gonna read me your numbers. 

Keith Simon (29:41.942)

okay. Mm-hmm. 

Keith Simon (29:48.427)

Mm-hmm, I saw that coming. 

Aaron Smith (29:50.221)

Which is so funny because I’m not the kind of guy that goes and necessarily goes and stands and wants to actually outwardly protest, but when I watch Injustice, I see videos on social media of Injustice happening. I get so angry. And when I think about the abortion topic, I get so frustrated and angry and I get sad. And so I can see that. And then my third highest is builder. 

Keith Simon (29:58.958)

Mm-hmm. 

Keith Simon (30:05.326)

Mm-hmm. 

Keith Simon (30:17.07)

I love that. And the assessment that we put together, it helps people kind of try to figure out the best to their ability, what they are at that given moment. I think, of course, the best way to do it is to read the descriptions that we have in the book and then sit with people you know and process it, talk about it. And if you read the chapter, you’ll probably go, yeah, that’s me. That sounds like things that I care about. But one of the things I think is interesting 

Keith Simon (30:45.672)

is that you can change over time. Like I shared earlier when I became a Christian on campus, I just had this heart to share Christ with everybody, and I probably would have been in that ambassador role. I just thought of myself as somebody who didn’t care about politics, didn’t care about education, didn’t care about art or music, or didn’t care about anything other than can we help more people believe in Jesus. And that’s awesome. But now at this point in my life, I probably wouldn’t 

Keith Simon (31:15.266)

consider myself an ambassador. I probably have more inclination to the advisor. I like being a part of conversations to help steer influential people to do the right thing. But then as a pastor of a church, I find myself in the position where I’m a builder. We’re built together with a group of people, a church that serves our community and involved in all kinds of nonprofits in our community in really significant ways. So I don’t think there’s just one that we can identify with. And I think over time, 

Keith Simon (31:45.258)

we could actually change. This isn’t trying to pigeonhole people and lock people in for life. It’s just trying to help you see where do I fit in best so that you can embrace that fully and you know unapologetically. 

Aaron Smith (31:58.773)

Love that. Something that I think is, for me personally, I’ve been going through a journey of learning to identify with the body of Christ more openly. You were just talking about this, like sometimes we think there’s this cookie cutter way, like you got to do it my way, you got to think my way, and that’s really hard because, you know, like the Bible says, that’s like the… 

Aaron Smith (32:24.653)

ear telling the eye it’s not needed, know, or the eye telling the ear it’s not needed. And it’s like, well, no, actually we need to hear and see. We need to have hands and feet. We need to have a heart and lungs. And I’m just, as I’m getting older, I just turned 40 last year and I’m just realizing things, not prejudices, but ways of thinking in me that closes my mind to certain things and makes me hard pressed on a single 

Keith Simon (32:28.13)

Exactly. 

Aaron Smith (32:53.803)

understanding of something. And I think we do this often as believers. You know, we go to our church and then we can have, you know, judgmental thoughts or think like, that other church down the street, they’re not right or they’re not as… And you know what? On some levels they might not be. But if we’re faithful in thinking of that process through, we can probably look at our own church and be like, well, actually there’s stuff that we’re not right in because we’re full of people. 

Aaron Smith (33:21.761)

But I’ve been just lately embracing the whole body of Christ more. I just keep realizing that we’re going to spend eternity with all believers, not just the ones that are like us, all believers, the ones that live in Europe, the ones that live in Africa, the ones that live in Asia, the ones that live right down the street and next door, the ones that you don’t like their theology, we’re going to live with all of them for eternity. And I believe that you mentioned this idea of unity. 

Aaron Smith (33:50.445)

Paul’s main message almost through all of his epistles is true unification through the gospel of Christ, that we are all equally washed by the blood of Christ, and in reality we’re all necessary too. All those who believe in Jesus, all those who profess their faith in Christ are absolutely necessary to the mission of God and are part of his body, equally and most importantly. 

Aaron Smith (34:18.061)

And, you know, so I think about what you’re talking about with these different aspects of like, you know, there’s certain kinds of believers that they might be good in this realm of building. And there’s other believers that are might be good in this realm of artistry and creating beauty and drawing people. And my wife’s a poet. She loves poetry. One of the ways she loves to bless our church is she’ll write a poem out and she shares that. And I could do that, but I have no desire to do that. I have no passion to do that. It’s not like I’m sitting down. I just need to write. 

Aaron Smith (34:47.277)

you know, even though we’ve written these books. But I do have a passion to sit with people and encourage them and give them wisdom and advice and direction and things that I desire. I like those things too. So how can we reorientate our hearts and our minds to have this more global, unifying perspective of the church? Because it’s scary to try and just blank and like, I’m just going to accept everything. 

Aaron Smith (35:14.093)

Because I think we can look at stuff and assess stuff as believers and be able to remove the dross, say, actually, these aspects I’m not going to receive because I don’t think they align with what the Bible says. But these other aspects I’m absolutely going to. I’m not going to just throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’m not just going to blank, carte blanche, get rid of this thing over here because it doesn’t fit the whole perfect picture. I think there’s a way, like, would you help us walk through that as outsiders that we can be… 

Aaron Smith (35:43.615)

fellow outsiders with each other and not combative against each other. 

Keith Simon (35:48.194)

There’s so much good there, so much good stuff you just said there. I don’t know where to start, but I’m just going to pick one, and then we can come back to other parts of that if you want. So I think the metaphor that you mentioned, the body of Christ, we’re all familiar with that in the sense that we need one another because we have different gifts, different abilities. And so a church made up of only hands would be unproductive and ineffective. So what 

Aaron Smith (35:50.148)

Sorry. 

Keith Simon (36:16.878)

we naturally think of when it comes to spiritual gifts, we want to take that same principle and apply it to an engaging culture. And so we need ambassadors and trainers and builders and artists and advisors. We need all of these because that’s the way God has equipped us. And we see different people have different roles in the Bible. I mean, they’re not the same. Nehemiah isn’t the same as Daniel, isn’t the same as Esther. There’s not just one way to do it. 

Keith Simon (36:47.118)

So let’s just take an example. Let’s take the advisor and the protester. Now remember the protester calls out injustice. The protester draws attention and makes a big deal and causes everybody to stop and pay attention to this problem. They’re unwilling to move forward with life as normal with this problem existing as it is. Now what’s the advisor doing? Well the advisor is sitting inside the room where it happened. 

Keith Simon (37:15.998)

you know, if you’re familiar with the Hamilton musical, that’s the room of power where the decisions are being made and the advisor has to be careful of what they say. If think of Daniel, he probably didn’t agree with much of what Nebuchadnezzar was doing, but if he made a big deal out of every time he dealt with or disagree with Nebuchadnezzar, he’d be kicked out of the court. He wouldn’t have had his position. He wouldn’t have been in the room anymore and able to influence Nebuchadnezzar. So you can see that the protester 

Keith Simon (37:45.774)

could look at Daniel inside the king, the pagan king’s court, and say, you’re compromised. You’re a squish. You have abandoned your true values. Now, did Daniel do any of those things? No. I mean, Daniel is one of the very few people, of course, other than Jesus, in the Bible, maybe the only one, who nothing negative is said. He served God by serving in the pagan king’s cabinet. 

Keith Simon (38:11.422)

So Daniel had not compromised anything. He was willing to go to the lines, and his friends were willing to go to the fiery furnace. He didn’t compromise, but he had to sometimes keep his mouth shut. He sometimes had to do things he didn’t want to do or didn’t agree with. He had to pick and choose his battle, know where to draw lines, and where not to. So now how could the advisor look at the protester? Well, they could look at the protester negatively and say, look guys, all you do is throw a fit, but you don’t change anything. 

Keith Simon (38:40.608)

All you do is pick it, but you don’t change laws. You don’t really bring about much good. You just throw a big hissy fit. Well, is that true? No, we need protesters. We need people to say, this is wrong and draw attention to it. So the advisor and the protester, it’s very easy to see how they could be enemies. They could look down on one other, judge one another, or they could look and say, hey, we’re kind of on the same team. We’re on team Jesus. 

Keith Simon (39:09.72)

We’re on Team Kingdom of God. We have different roles that we play. And we need one another, just like the body of Christ needs one another. The hand and the foot and the eye and the ear all need one another. But that takes a level of maturity, and it takes a level of understanding that there’s not one way to do it, that the Bible is full of stories of different ways to engage culture, and therefore we need to have room for people who do it differently than us, but still biblically. 

Aaron Smith (39:39.647)

Yeah, there’s a scripture I think of when you’re talking about this is that I believe it’s the disciples come to Jesus, they say, hey, these people over here that are not your disciples, they’re casting out demons in your name and they’re preaching your name and they’re doing these things. And he’s like, if they’re not against us, then they’re for us. And it’s such a hard truth to recognize is there are ministries and there are people doing things out there for Christ. 

Keith Simon (39:56.962)

Mm-hmm. 

Aaron Smith (40:06.433)

Like genuinely they want to do it for Christ and they’re presenting His name, maybe not the way I think they should. Maybe not the way that I think is effective. Maybe in a way that I think is unhealthy. And Christ is like, as long as Christ is being preached. And also trusting that the Holy Spirit is capable of totally working in those people’s lives and doing what He desires and convicting where conviction is necessary and transforming where transformation is necessary. And not that… 

Aaron Smith (40:35.091)

if the opportunity didn’t arise that I wouldn’t bring a correction if necessary. Like it’s not and or it’s all the above. can… 

Keith Simon (40:43.822)

It’s not being 

Keith Simon (40:44.802)

relative. You’re not saying truth doesn’t matter. You’re just trying to say that you don’t have a monopoly on truth. Of course truth matters. Of course we should pursue the truth and live in light of the truth. But we have to recognize that we don’t own the truth. That there are things that we have right and things wrong. We see through a glass darkly. One of the things I’m most embarrassed about in my Christian life, there’s a lot of things by the way, but way up on the list is 

Aaron Smith (41:10.903)

We’re going to talk about those 

Aaron Smith (41:11.584)

next. 

Keith Simon (41:12.238)

It’s fine with 

Keith Simon (41:13.539)

1. Way up high on the list is that there have been seasons of my life where I thought that I was going to be a lot closer to Jesus than all those other bad Christians, right? That in the throne room of heaven, there were gonna be the true believers, the one who made the sacrifices and commitment. And that was, of course, me and my friends and our inner circle. And I really thought that the organization I was on staff with, that we were the 

Aaron Smith (41:27.021)

. 

Keith Simon (41:41.998)

the righteous, the few, the remnant who were willing to do the bold things for God, and that other people had gotten things really wrong. And I couldn’t imagine why God still allowed them to, you know, have their ministry. And at different points in my life, I had my eyes opened that God is at work in a lot of places that I wouldn’t have expected, at least the old prideful me. 

Keith Simon (42:11.222)

wouldn’t have expected. That God is at work in the Charismatics and the non-Charismatics. That God is at work in the Calvinists and the Armenians. That God is at work in churches that ordain women and those that don’t. That God is at work in places. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t truth and that we shouldn’t try to pursue truth. And it doesn’t even mean I don’t have real hard convictions on those things. I do. All those issues I just mentioned, you know, I pastor a church. We have to have 

Keith Simon (42:40.696)

positions on all those issues, but I can respect that God’s at work on their places, and He doesn’t need me to evaluate and criticize His church. That’s not my gift. I’m not some prophet from God that’s supposed to go around and correct everybody. I’m supposed to faithfully follow Jesus and root for His kingdom wherever it might manifest itself. And whenever I realize I’m not the Holy Spirit, I’m not in control, this is Christ’s church, He loved the church, He died for the church, then it takes a lot of pressure off. 

Keith Simon (43:09.952)

and it takes a lot of judgment out of me. And I just root for the kingdom of God wherever it’s manifesting. And I know that I can learn a lot from people who disagree with me on some things, but I might learn a lot from them on something else. And, you know, I might even change my mind on something, because they just convinced me that the Bible teaches what they always said it taught, and not what I thought it taught. 

Keith Simon (43:36.334)

Keith Simon (43:36.894)

I’m thankful that over the years God has pierced through some of that pride and showed me that He’s at work in places that I would have said earlier that He wasn’t. It’s kind of humbling to realize how small I am, how little I know, and how much grace I need. And to see believers who are mature, love Jesus, and are doing great things for Him in different traditions, it’s good for me. 

Aaron Smith (44:05.599)

And it’s so true, if we assume God’s not in a certain place, then we’re denying some basic truth about God and his omniscience and his omnipresence. He is everywhere. He is in all things. This is his world. But what you mentioned specifically about the different traditions—Calvinism, Arminianism, you know— 

Aaron Smith (44:33.453)

Protestants, you you name all of the different things that they’re out there and we all have our positions. There’s a difference between blanket Unitarian equality like you know the way you do it is 100 % right and the way I do it is a hundred percent right and we’re all equal and we’re not gonna have any positions on anything ever is not the same thing as being able to have strong doctrinal positions Believing certain things are true 

Aaron Smith (45:03.551)

and certain things are false and still being able to engage in love your brothers and sisters in Christ. 

Keith Simon (45:10.946)

Well, I like that a lot and it comes down to what I think it was Francis Schaeffer. I could be wrong about this, but I think it was Francis Schaeffer who distinguished between organizational unity and relational unity. Jesus doesn’t call us all to be a part of the same church, right? I mean, we have different worship styles. We have different beliefs. All kinds of things might separate us. Different forms of church government, different views of baptism. I mean, you all that is 

Aaron Smith (45:29.389)

We can’t possibly. 

Keith Simon (45:41.088)

up to each individual church to kind of figure that out on their own, and they can have their own beliefs and their own structure and their own mission, and that’s good. I think that can please God. So I don’t think the Bible calls us to organizational unity, but I do think it calls us to relational unity, and that is the piece you’re saying of love one another, of speak well of one another, of root for one another, of not being critical and judgmental toward one another. Now, 

Keith Simon (46:08.788)

you can enter into a conversation with another church or with another Christian. Maybe you work with them or live in the same neighborhood and you see things differently, and you guys can respectfully talk about that and say, well, why do you believe that children should be baptized and why do you believe they shouldn’t? And let’s go read a couple books on it and let’s study it and see what does the Bible have to say about this. 

Keith Simon (46:32.234)

And then come back and maybe you agree to disagree. Maybe you go, gosh, we both learned things. We have greater respect for each other’s position, but we didn’t change our mind. Or maybe you do. But you can have conversations about truth. Pursue truth together, but do it in a way with a generous spirit. 

Aaron Smith (46:50.111)

Absolutely. And I think there’s very few things actually, biblically, that gives us a right to break off and stop having relationship with another believer. There’s much more grace is given, much more patience is given. That’s literally the fruits of the Spirit and it’s how we’re to walk in love with one another is in those things and love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, and self-control. And that we would 

Aaron Smith (47:17.163)

treat each other that way, loving each other as yourself, treating each other as better than your own, putting others’ interests above your own interests. Those are the base, that’s the general relationship that we have to one another. And there’s very few things that the Bible gives us permission, and it’s also through a process to cut someone off, to push someone away. And it’s something I think it’s a hard thing for believers to do because it’s so much easier to just be like, well, I’m not going to deal with that. 

Aaron Smith (47:47.309)

I don’t want anything to do with it. I’m not going to even engage with it. Rather than saying I want to fight for that spiritual biblical Christ-like unity, but also not be afraid to speak the truth in love. Like, here’s what I believe the truth is, and I’m going say it out of love to you, and I’d love to have a dialogue about it. And so I think we’ve often operated in such a way that a lot of the little things that are not permissioned for 

Aaron Smith (48:17.465)

severance or cutting off, we, elevate, we make the molehills into mountains and we make the mountains into molehills. We don’t focus on the main things. We focus on the little things and we make those the things that we are going to, you know, that’s the hill we’re going to die on. We’re going to fight against that one thing. something recently, you were just talking about all the different, you know, kind of denominational sects, these ideas, these varying biblical point of views and 

Aaron Smith (48:45.385)

I have very strong positions on many of them. Almost all of them. actually hate when anyone tries to put me in one of the categories. They’re like, then you’re a… I’m like, don’t say that. And I guess I’m probably also my own category. This idea of there’s probably a lot of people that don’t want to be put in any category. But though I have strong positions and I can have a conversation and a dialogue and I can argue my perspective on biblical doctrines, 

Aaron Smith (49:14.731)

I also know that there are ways that God reaches people that He didn’t need to reach me. He reached me one way, and He reaches another person another way. And if those doctrinal… if those church traditions, ways of preaching the gospel, those ways of understanding Scripture captured someone’s heart and turned them to Christ, whether I agree with all of the things or not, praise God. 

Aaron Smith (49:43.917)

That’s good. You know, and then I’ll have a conversation with that person. Yeah, I want to root for that. 

Keith Simon (49:45.836)

You should be rooting for that. 

Keith Simon (49:49.344)

If you find yourself disappointed that God used a church different than yours or a Christian with a different set of beliefs to reach a community or to do something good to help flourish, people flourish, if you find yourself disappointed with that, like, I wish that was on our team, somebody on my team that did that, that is a bad sign about where your heart is, right? We should be rooting for other churches to prosper and other Christians to prosper regardless of their set of beliefs, as long as they 

Aaron Smith (50:07.533)

you 

Keith Simon (50:19.306)

are orthodox Christians, know, following Jesus and kind of believing the core essentials, what Paul says, the things that are of first importance, then I think we should be rooting for that. You know, I think one of the things that helps us to find what we have in common is when we see ourselves as outsiders, because we are all outside the culture. That’s something every Christian has in common, is that we’re all outsiders. And there’s different ways to do it. I mean, just think for a second. Think if you had 

Keith Simon (50:48.61)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Teresa in the room. And you asked each of them, how should you engage culture? Well, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the guy who was a theologian, a German theologian, who lived during the rise of Hitler and Nazism. And he really struggled with what’s the right response here. He trained pastors in an underground seminary. 

Keith Simon (51:13.994)

kind of hidden from the Third Reich. He was training pastors so they could lead their congregation to resist Hitler, resist the evil by cultivating the good inside their churches. Eventually, after much, you know, prayer and wrangling with his conscience, he joined, it looks like he joined an assassination plot against Hitler. He was arrested for that and put in a concentration camp, and he was killed just right before the Allies liberated that camp. I believe he was hung. 

Keith Simon (51:43.789)

So here’s a guy who is a serious Jesus follower who joined an assassination plot to kill Hitler. Now, also in our room, though, remember, is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Now, he preached nonviolence. We’re going to engage culture to push back against evil and cultivate the good, which is what Bonhoeffer wanted, too. He says we’re going to do it through what? Through nonviolence. We are going to be beat up. We are going to be whipped. We’re going to have the dogs put on us, the fire hoses. We’re going to go to jail. And all we’re going to do is love our enemy. 

Keith Simon (52:13.516)

Well, then you got Mother Teresa sitting there. And how does she push back against the evil in the world? And how does she cultivate the good? And it’s by serving the poor, by sacrificing for the people in need, by giving little children that no one cared about life and an opportunity to live, and being there with people who are dying, touching the lepers, washing the feet of the homeless. So which one of those is wrong? Well, none of them. 

Aaron Smith (52:42.187)

Yeah. 

Keith Simon (52:43.064)

But they all did 

Keith Simon (52:43.614)

something really different, didn’t they? They engaged the culture of pushing back against the evil and cultivating the good in different ways. I think God was pleased with all those ways. And so my point is that when you see that, when you see that God’s kingdom is bigger than you, that you don’t have all the answers, that you’re called to do your thing, but you can respect the people who are called to do something else and value them and appreciate them and see how they contribute in ways that you don’t. And hopefully they’ll reciprocate. 

Keith Simon (53:11.448)

then I think there’s kind of a unity. It’s not a unity that’s saying we all believe the same thing. It’s a unity of purpose that we’re outsiders, we’re joyful outsiders, and we are called to engage our culture in the ways God’s equipped us to do it in concert on the same team as all these other Christians. 

Aaron Smith (53:30.261)

Amen. And at the end of the day, like you were saying, as long as our core truth of who Jesus Christ is, what He did, and what it means to believe in Him, there is a lot of gray. And it doesn’t mean that each one of us have to surrender our black and whites. It doesn’t mean we have to bow down and just say, I’m just going to say, well, that’s true and this is true and everything’s true. We can still 

Aaron Smith (53:59.725)

believe and have our convictions as long as they’re founded in the Word of God. Like if we have convictions that are from a book we read or if we have convictions that we just developed from our parents and kept and never allowed them to be challenged, never allowed them to be tested even, that’s something over my lifetime I’ve realized that we all have belief systems that get challenged by the Holy Spirit. 

Aaron Smith (54:25.837)

Like, oh, what do you know about this? Well, what about this? And then I go to the Word of God, I’m like, oh, I don’t even know why I’ve been believing that other thing over there when the Word says this. So we can still be connected and unified, like you said, in purpose that it’s His Kingdom that we’re building. It’s people coming to faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. That’s the end result, end goal when we stand before Him one day. That’s it. That people are there with Him and us. 

Aaron Smith (54:55.591)

so how, and so something I want to, I want to end on is, how can we encourage couples? have a lot of marriages that listen to this podcast. have kids and we live in a current culture that has shifted dramatically. And I, and there’s going to be some urges right now. We have a new president and many of us voted for it. Many of us are excited about his presence presidency and what it might mean. But I see this, this, potential of like, we can like, we, got what we wanted. 

Aaron Smith (55:25.611)

Right? Now we fixed things. But in reality, we’re still, like you said, outsiders. Whether the political climate currently is now shifting in our personal convictions and our personal ideals direction, that doesn’t truly make us insiders now. And we need to recognize this. So how can couples who love God and are raising children in this current world, you know, because the world is going to continue to fight against our ideals. It doesn’t matter who’s in office. 

Aaron Smith (55:56.105)

How can we cultivate our home and our family and orient in this direction of like practicing being joyful outsiders and positioning our minds and our hearts on the main thing? 

Keith Simon (56:09.262)

Patrick and I wrote a book previous to this one called Truth Over Tribe. And one of the things we wanted to help people do in that book is to put their loyalty to Jesus above their partisan loyalties. Like we didn’t say that you can’t be political. What we said is that you have to have your politics be subservient to your relationship with Jesus. That Jesus was political, but he wasn’t partisan. 

Keith Simon (56:35.488)

And so many people today, they jump on to a candidate or a political party and they put their hope in them. So it’s like you said, we have a new president and some people are really excited about him and other people are really disappointed. And I get it. And to some extent, that’s fine. But to those who are, well, really to both groups, understand this. Jesus is still King and he’s still on his throne. He’s not trying to be president. That would be a big demotion. 

Keith Simon (57:04.53)

King Jesus, because right now He doesn’t have a four-year term. He has an eternal term. He’s not looking to be in the Oval Office. He’s sitting on the throne of heaven. He’s in control. And when we put our hope in a politician or a government or a political party, I think what it shows is that we’ve missed what the kingdom of God is about, and it puts us in a sense of like, well, my candidate is in, whichever that one that was. 

Aaron Smith (57:09.687)

Mm-hmm. 

Keith Simon (57:32.054)

My candidate is in, therefore I expect to be more like an insider. No, no, no, no, no. We are always outsiders. Ever since Genesis 3 and Sin Entered the World and Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, we’ve always been outsiders, and we always will until Jesus returns and establishes His kingdom. So now that we’re outsiders, are we going to be angry? Are we going to be scared, fearful? Well, I don’t think so. Jesus was an outsider. He was the ultimate outsider. 

Keith Simon (58:01.172)

yet he was full of joy. And so I think if we can, inside of our families, inside of our marriages, inside of our church communities, if we can help people embrace the role of outsider, this is what Jesus has called me to do. This is what he’s called me to be. So I’m not fighting to get on the inside of political power, inside of cultural power, whether it’s Hollywood or Washington DC. I’m content being an outsider, and I know that is a hard road to some extent. 

Keith Simon (58:30.872)

But I’m willing to follow Jesus there, and He gives me His joy, and I can engage the culture. I can make a difference. God can use me to be salt and light in my community. I think if we could give our kids, we could give them confidence in Jesus. Like, He’s King, He’s on His throne, so we don’t need to be scared of the culture. But we could also give them a sense of joy that— 

Keith Simon (58:57.774)

That would be a huge gift to our kids. That would be part of the way we could pass our faith down. Imagine if we raised a generation of children who weren’t scared of the world, who were in the world but not of it, who were confident in their King and confident that they could be salt and light and make a difference, and that their representation to the world was one of joy. You can take everything from me, but I’ve got Jesus. So you can have your 

Keith Simon (59:26.382)

president in office, and that’s not the one I voted for, that’s okay. Because you know when the church thrived when Nero was on the throne of Rome? The church thrives right now in China where they are oppressed. The church is thriving all around the world where their political party is out of power. Sometimes power is the last thing Christians need. Christians sometimes thrive better when they’re not in power than when they are. 

Aaron Smith (59:34.847)

Mm-hmm, killing people. 

Keith Simon (59:53.356)

So if we could give our kids a sense of vision for how to influence the culture without being afraid, being full of joy, I think we could make a real impact in our world. 

Aaron Smith (01:00:06.893)

Amen. I love that. And that’s something that we try and teach our children. We were just talking about this, that the church grew during persecution and often the church grows the most during persecution when there’s… when the policies and the politics and the people are against what God’s doing. That’s when God’s people activate for some reason. We’re not comfortable. We try… 

Keith Simon (01:00:31.224)

God is not without a witness. God is at work in our world. 

Keith Simon (01:00:33.747)

There’s a vibe shift happening. I don’t know if you’re feeling it, but know, Wall Street Journal had sales of Bibles are on the increase and they’re on the biggest increase among Gen Z, right? 

Aaron Smith (01:00:41.463)

I think they’re record. Yeah. 

Keith Simon (01:00:51.214)

The guy here with the God delusion, what’s his name? I just lost it. Dawkins, big atheist, one of the big new atheists, now calls himself a cultural Christian. He’s not a believer, but he recognizes the beauty of Christianity. I have a hard time saying this woman’s name, Ayan Hursley. She’s a Somalian woman who grew up Muslim, was abused. 

Aaron Smith (01:00:54.281)

I don’t know. 

Aaron Smith (01:01:04.087)

Really? That’s interesting. 

Keith Simon (01:01:16.28)

became an atheist, she now is genuinely a Christ follower, believes in the resurrected Christ. There’s a vibe shift happening. People are more open, Joe Rogan, more open to faith than ever before. This isn’t the time to shrink back, but neither is it the time to fight. It’s the time to joyfully engage the culture. This is the generation we’ve been put in, so let’s stop complaining about it, and let’s be faithful to Jesus in it. 

Aaron Smith (01:01:21.975)

Mm-hmm. 

Aaron Smith (01:01:26.673)

huh. 

Aaron Smith (01:01:42.121)

Amen. Keith, that is really encouraging and it’s something that we need to be reminded of. It’s not that we can’t operate in the gifting that God’s given us, it’s that we do it for the purpose of growing His Kingdom and we can have joy recognizing that we’re outsiders, that Jesus is in it with us, that He’s with us. He understands it. says, He’s like, if the world hated me, it’s going to for sure hate you. So that’s a part of the whole picture is we can 

Aaron Smith (01:02:11.573)

remind our kids, we can remind each other, like, hey, whatever persecution we feel, whatever things that we hate about this world, God, this stuff’s gonna get taken care of in eternity. God’s given us a role now to walk in joy and peace and the fruit of His Spirit that He’s put in us. 

Aaron Smith (01:02:28.621)

And we can, we can be joyful outsiders. I really appreciate the conversation. Is there anything you’d like to share with our audience about where they can find you, where to get your book? With airing this episode, your book is live, probably on Amazon and everywhere books are sold. 

Keith Simon (01:02:42.606)

That’s exactly right. So if people find it interesting and they want to pick up a book, they can do that at wherever they like to buy their books. And I think they’ll find an assessment in there that will help them kind of figure out where they are in this, what role that God would have them play. And we have a bunch of small groups in our church and other churches who have taken this on to discuss in their small groups. So that might be. 

Keith Simon (01:03:07.318)

something you should consider if you find this topic interesting and would like to talk about it with other people. Thanks for having me on, Aaron. I really appreciate it getting to know you. 

Aaron Smith (01:03:15.723)

Yeah, it was awesome. Do you have a website they can visit? 

Keith Simon (01:03:18.478)

The website is joyfuloutsiders.com. 

Aaron Smith (01:03:21.869)

Perfect. Keith, thank you so much. This time was awesome. I pray that it was encouraging. It was encouraging to me. So I have a feeling it’ll be encouraging to our listeners. maybe I have you and Patrick on again at another time. 

Keith Simon (01:03:34.038)

We’d love to. Take care, man. 

Aaron Smith (01:03:35.967)

Awesome, God bless.