Have you ever found yourself tangled in the web of emotional baggage or addiction? Today, we are joined by a beacon of hope, Mark DeJesus. With his personal tales of transformation and healing, Mark, a former pastor, author, and now a podcaster, is on a mission to help those caught in similar struggles. We journey through his poignant experiences of leaving the confines of a church model that prioritized performance over grace and love. His deep-seated insights about promoting healing, stepping back, and creating room for grace are bound to touch your heart.
Building authentic communities within the church is a recurring theme in our enlightening conversation with Mark. He divulges his discovery of a different, more wholesome approach to ministering and connecting with people. This approach has united him with a supportive community of believers, enriching his understanding of what it means to live life to the fullest as believers. Hear about the significance of humility and transformation in Mark's life, how it led to a deeper understanding of his brokenness and became a stepping stone to breaking down family dysfunction.
Finally, we delve into the heart of teaching, healing, and humility with Mark. His journey from his thirties to his fifties is a testament to the power of humility in dismantling familial dysfunction and unhealthy thought patterns. Mark warmly invites everyone to connect with him through his books, website, and podcast. His inspiring shift from the pressure of performance to a mindset of kindness and compassion is a lesson in itself. If you're seeking to break free from the shackles of performance metrics or merely want to learn to be kinder and more patient towards yourself, this episode is a must-listen.
Connect with Mark
Website: markdejesus.com
YouTube: youtube.com/marktdejesus
Thanks for listening in!
Follow the host, Mary
Social Media: @maryjohess
Have you ever found yourself tangled in the web of emotional baggage or addiction? Today, we are joined by a beacon of hope, Mark DeJesus. With his personal tales of transformation and healing, Mark, a former pastor, author, and now a podcaster, is on a mission to help those caught in similar struggles. We journey through his poignant experiences of leaving the confines of a church model that prioritized performance over grace and love. His deep-seated insights about promoting healing, stepping back, and creating room for grace are bound to touch your heart.
Building authentic communities within the church is a recurring theme in our enlightening conversation with Mark. He divulges his discovery of a different, more wholesome approach to ministering and connecting with people. This approach has united him with a supportive community of believers, enriching his understanding of what it means to live life to the fullest as believers. Hear about the significance of humility and transformation in Mark's life, how it led to a deeper understanding of his brokenness and became a stepping stone to breaking down family dysfunction.
Finally, we delve into the heart of teaching, healing, and humility with Mark. His journey from his thirties to his fifties is a testament to the power of humility in dismantling familial dysfunction and unhealthy thought patterns. Mark warmly invites everyone to connect with him through his books, website, and podcast. His inspiring shift from the pressure of performance to a mindset of kindness and compassion is a lesson in itself. If you're seeking to break free from the shackles of performance metrics or merely want to learn to be kinder and more patient towards yourself, this episode is a must-listen.
Connect with Mark
Website: markdejesus.com
YouTube: youtube.com/marktdejesus
Thanks for listening in!
Follow the host, Mary
Social Media: @maryjohess
Hi everyone. Thanks for joining me for another episode of the Back 40 Podcast. I'm your host, mary Hess. Today's guest wears many hats. Mark DeHesus is joining me and he is a former pastor, he's a podcaster, he's an author several books. He has a thriving online presence where he spends time mentoring, training, equipping, counseling people who have walked through hurt, who have emotional baggage, who have addictions that they need healing from. He takes time to share on his website through lives that he does on YouTube and Rumble, and helping people become healthier versions of themselves. That's what we're going to spend some time talking about today. Stay tuned. Mark DeHesus is up next. Thanks for joining me everyone. I'm glad to have you for another episode of the Back 40 Podcast. Like I said in my intro, I have the infamous Mark DeHesus with me. Mark, always a pleasure to chat with you. Thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's awesome to be here, mary. I'm looking forward to our conversation and what comes out of it, so I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so I'll just have you start by giving us a little bit of background info who's Mark and what's he do, and what's life look like for you these days.
Speaker 2:Well, for about 30 years I've been involved in some type of ministry role.
Speaker 2:If we get into kind of what I do, I pastored at a large church for about 12 years on staff and then later on did some teaching work.
Speaker 2:I also pastored a small church for about six years and then really moved into more and more of what I'm doing now, which is full-time teaching, writing, doing one-on-one work with people and writing books and podcasting and YouTube and all that basically helping believers to experience greater healing and freedom. I love to dive into mental, emotional, relationship, health stuff like that, and a big part of it comes out of my own journey and recognizing the things I needed to work through and heal through. But most of all, I'm a husband to an amazing wife who also works with me on in the ministry and also in our podcast, melissa, and love my two kids, maximus, who's 15, going on at 16, and Abigail, who's 12 and going to be 13. So we're in the midst of teenage years and all that that brings and I love being a dad, a husband, I love being a son of God and I'm enjoying what I'm able to pour out into people's lives and I'm glad to be here too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad to have you on the show today, hey Melissa, because you know hey, Melissa, shout out. That's right.
Speaker 2:You hear somewhere.
Speaker 1:She's there. Yeah, she's here somewhere. I thought for just a moment. I thought I should have said something to her in text this morning before recording and been like, hey, pop your head in for a minute if you want Right.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's talk for this just for a minute, about this, how, how you said earlier that you got into what you're doing now A lot of what you're doing now simply from your journey. I know a little bit about your story. You don't have to go into the whole story but what did prompt you? Was it? Was it a specific moment? Was it a culmination of things? What did prompt you to go? You know what? There are so many believers in the world today who don't know that they can live more free and healthier and in a better mood than what they currently do. So tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Well, I was working on staff at a church and I'd been a youth pastor for a number of years, was moving up into then being like an associate overseeing worship, and we did church productions and all these things that churches growing in numbers and all these great things as far as metrics were happening. But I was crumbling inside, I was anxiety was increasing. I was dealing with a lot of obsessiveness, a lot of pressure, depression, up and down, anxiety that wasn't budging and I would cope for as long as I could. When you're in your 20s you can kind of still live out of that I'm invincible kind of mentality. You know that you can kind of just keep going with the thought process and the ways that you survive off of.
Speaker 2:But it was in my late 20s that I really I need some help. There's stuff going on here, there's stuff happening. This, this, this ain't right, this is, this isn't healthy. So I began to open myself up to start to get help and healing in a variety of ways. It started off in getting counseling. I went and received inner healing help and deliverance help. There was a lot of different pathways that had their pros and their cons, but basically it was out of that Like I was getting to the point where I couldn't get through the day. I wasn't functioning, my thoughts were were taking me out. So, as I began to start experiencing healing and breakthrough, I would share just a little bit of my story with people around me. And like crazy, everyone's going. Yeah, I battled that too. I have anxiety too. I have depression. This is like it just started coming out of the woodwork and I realized like, yeah, most of the church is battling this stuff, like, if not everybody, but the difference between each person was who was hiding it better, and so I. So, being a pastor, that was a big step too of saying, hey, I got these struggles in these battles, but it was very inviting for other people to then, secondly, many were coming forward and going. I struggled with that too. I should thank you, thank you. I thought I thought I was a bad Christian. I thought I was. You know, I thought I was crazy. I thought, thank you, it's good to know somebody battles it and they're working through it.
Speaker 2:And it was out of that. I said I want to go in a whole new direction. I got I can't. I couldn't do church the same way anymore. I couldn't stay within the current matrix of kind of just in that, that mode that we, many of us, can relate to, like I want to go help people. I didn't have a clear map as to exactly what it would look like, but I said I want to go teach people, help people, whatever it looks like.
Speaker 2:So I actually left a very stable pastoral position on staff at a very, you know growing church with a large staff and resources and stepped out into the unknown.
Speaker 2:I said you just kind of started over and so I want to just help people. We need healing in our hearts, we need renewal. We're playing a lot of games, we're all deeply struggling, but there's so much shame over having a struggle and so so it was out of that that then led me into a lot of heart healing work, but also figuring out what is it, what does it look like as far as how God's using me in this area? Because when you talk about heart healing or mental health, there's kind of these certain little boxes people put you in, and it's understandable. But I had to learn, like, what is it that I'm passionate about? What is it that I'm wanting to do and help people. So that led me to this day now in my late forties still going about helping people in that way, but learning what does it look like for me to flow out of how God's wired me in helping people. So that's kind of the quick snapshot to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's great. That's great, and I think about that myself in the sense of whenever I was younger and was going to go to college for the first time. I have always had this passion in me too. I wanted to be a counselor, but I wanted to be one in the denomination that we were in, because the penicostal denomination we were in I always saw all these people, specifically in ministry, when they would burn out or make a misstep, fall, whatever you want to call it. We didn't have a way to restore them or help them stay on the path, maybe not still doing the same things, but at least stay viable and stay active and healthy. We would just kick them out.
Speaker 2:I used to say, when all students just kick them out?
Speaker 1:Just kick them out. We didn't know what to do. It's the same thing with people when they have hard questions. We don't always do a great job of knowing how to navigate that. I have always had this passion that I wanted to find a way that that would happen inside the church. How can we find ways to make that happen? That's always been inside of me. I love how creative that you've been with finding your niche and finding how it works and still changing things and re-upping them and taking things away and moving them around in order to reach people, because we have just not done a great job of that. While the trend has gotten better to do that, we are still lagging behind in many areas of that. I just really want to see the body catch up to what that looks like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's an aspect of recognizing that the church carries a lot of brokenness, that we become professional at hiding it and masking it. I found you mentioned pastors or church leaders having a certain falling out or whatever that's going on in their life. I don't think we ever took time to step back and go look at the system of what we've created. As far as the institutional model of how we do church, is it adding to the pressure and adding to a lot of things that fuel broken patterns? We come into ministry. There's still broken areas of our lives. God uses us anyways, but it's how we do life as a church, actually inflaming those broken areas.
Speaker 2:For example, I realize for me I can't keep going on the healing journey I've discovered while still in this church model of constant performance mode, like go, go, go, do, do, do, with the very little margin. It's like every week, every Sunday, every Saturday, wednesday night, thursday night, this it's constant. And then there's metrics, there's achievement metrics and it's like, oh, we had more numbers this week. God is good, he's moving. It's like, is that really the soul metrics we're serving? So I realized if I want to be healthy, I had to unplug from it and kind of carve, a whole new. What does it look like to serve people but still have a rhythm where I'm flowing out of a healthier heart, versus chronic burnout which I lived in? Burnout every week. Every week was burnout. Every week was just like trying to get by. Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that makes complete sense. Yeah, I think, for like whenever I was younger as well, in just watching. And then, of course, I experienced it when I got a divorce. My practice husband and I were both simultaneously excommunicated because no one knew how to balance anything, and so it was a big deal for me because of the fact that I was 27, 28 years old, had been doing this my whole life, had been devoted my whole life, and so it adds layers, right?
Speaker 1:It's not just the initial issue of, oh, I'm walking through a hard time in a divorce, but now everyone, everything I've known is gone, and so now I have church hurt, and now I have my normal brokenness from my family line, my generational, all the things which just creates this perfect storm. And I just recognized pretty early on, toward the end of walking out of my divorce and before I met Shannon, that we just our systems, were just not great, and even trying to change the system from within can be quite a hard thing to do when everyone has been used to the system as it was. I had no idea we were going here today, mark. This is a great topic.
Speaker 2:Well, it's like there's so many directions we could go, because when there's just a simple thing of a pastor moving on from a church, right, there's so many things of I've seen where it's like there's like shut down in communication. They don't, you don't speak to them anymore. There's like your gangs, yeah, yeah, right, like your gangs, like you're not here anymore.
Speaker 1:You're not in here. Yo, you don't get.
Speaker 2:And if I, if I sit down and break down the motivations and reasons, it's like, okay, I get it, but we've, we've lost the relational component, Like when somebody's marriage breaks down, that ought to be, you know, we're, we're. Grace and love come in, even more so because that's such a vulnerable experience to go through. And I think it goes back to we're more focused on how things look. So so somebody, for example, gets a divorce, it's like it's it's a ministerial PR campaign to kind of go, okay, how can we, you know, how do?
Speaker 2:we say this you got to move on right and it's not. It doesn't become okay. We got to A, we got to help, we got to step back to and look, okay, were there things along the way we missed? And let's, let's all have a. Just a sober. You know, understanding of what's happening here. So so when I watch, it kind of goes into like when I watch on TV or in the news, somebody has a you know, I don't know pastors. They find out he's an alcoholic. I go, yeah, I'd be an alcoholic too if I had to run that giant church the way they run it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:We're just quick to go oh, my goodness, that's terrible and we don't get to. Hey, what's going on that led in the trail of this? How can we be more sober in our lives of, of, of, of creating culture in a way that doesn't? No, listen, we all have to do business with our own choices and our own brokenness. How can we live in a way where we're actually increasing health in the people around us? Right, like people are getting more and more healthier?
Speaker 2:Right, there's this tension, though, that we have in America, especially in in achievement culture. We sacrifice that on the altar of God's doing a work and we're growing and we're getting big. You got to get on board, so we use a lot of these, we use a lot of terminology that's more like you know what Google and YouTube and Facebook would use, and like you're getting on brand and getting on mission and getting out like let's go, go, go, and it's like no, working with people is messy, it doesn't work in a machine and it doesn't drive through. It's messy, it's painful, it's, at times, inconvenient, it's hard. Grace, grace, rolls up its leaves when people are are broken, but in our, a lot of our structures, we don't have time to deal with your mess.
Speaker 2:So does be right. Right, we got to service, we got to think right and I understand, but where's the space for life? Where's the space to sit down and and and do life together and and be connected together and realize we're going through stuff and that takes it takes more margin than we're allowing. So, yeah, it caused me to go. How do I want to carve my life? Where A I'm making room for what I need in my journey, my family needs, and and and pace out how I can, because you can easily get in this kind of work and fry yourself out trying to change the world, right? So there's, there's a lot I think that we can learn and adjust to and how we, how we even look at brokenness. There's a lot of learning that needs to be done, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just thinking about the fact that you know you. It's hard for people to grasp, I think, what it looks like to actually that phrase do life together it's. I say this all the time, but I think a lot of times we've done ourselves a huge disservice and we're almost probably more dangerous than helpful when we get just a slight taste of something and or the terminology for it because it's the hippest, coolest, on trendiest way to say things. Now, you know, you're my people, we're a family, we're a tribe. I'm working on my heart. You know blah, blah and people will use all of the phrase ology.
Speaker 1:But to really do that, to really accomplish that, that requires some major intentionality on everyone's parts to dig in to Each other's lives and not in a nosy kind of way, just in a realistic.
Speaker 1:Hey, I'm not just seeing you on Sunday morning, I'm not just Checking on you because I want to make sure you're not doing some kind of great sin and I can't let you up on my stage. You know, just whatever those things are, but it's super messy and it's super frustrating and can also be absolutely rewarding at the same time. But but it's. It requires a commitment and an intentionality that I don't know that. I Think that, especially since COVID, we've had a hard time digging back into, because we've Learned that we can do things like this right, like I can sit here and chat with you over zoom, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if I'm not being intentional in the way I'm talking to you, if I'm not interacting with people, then then I don't have to show up to do those things, and and so I find that it's been really hard to kind of break back into that mold, especially Coming from everybody's being isolated, and now we don't have to be anymore, you know.
Speaker 2:I thought COVID was gonna be a great opportunity for the church to reboot. I Thought you know what the things got shut down for a while right.
Speaker 2:I thought, you know, this be a great, great opportunity to Shed off a lot of excess stuff, things that don't matter, things that kind of got in the way, and get back to the fundamentals. And instead we just got better at live streaming, I know, you know, and we just kind of we kind of doubled down on the stage rather than Doing more of this, even if it has to be remote, even if it has to, where, where, you know, we just kind of kept that mode. We just want that, we want to, we want to sit in an audience, have somebody on stage tell us something or give us a good experience, and then we, we connect that as well. I've been to church now, I'm connected, or whatever. Whatever the phrase Yalogy is right. Yeah, here's the thing I discovered. That's very startling for me. It's a very sober Awareness.
Speaker 2:I worked at a larger church. When I say larger church, it's like New England larger, which was like 1500, which is really big, and in Connecticut, you know, down south is like you know, but there's one there, there's one there, yeah, anyways, right, but a large pastoral staff, so forth. And I also pastured in a small church setting. I think at the top it would maybe 80 people Okay. So I've had both settings right. Then I've done like kind of the teaching route, you know, kind of going to different churches, teaching, doing that kind of work and stuff too. I find in what I do now, which is weekly podcasting, but I do a lot of one-on-one and then I do I have a online community. I'm part I Pastor and shepherd people more now Then I ever did in any of those other roles With my official pastor title person. Well, that's startling.
Speaker 2:I was back then many in, especially in the, the first church. I was just more putting events together or Like I didn't know what people were going. I mean, people could have been Having, you know, suicidal thoughts, depression, could have been losing their marriage. I wouldn't even know. I wouldn't even know it was like hey, I need you to show up to run the live board, hey, I need you. That that's about it. It was startling to me that I realized why I didn't really know any of these people. I, I, we were so busy doing we were never Actually connecting. Yeah, and and when I say do life, I don't mean like I'm all up in your business and I know, you know, you know like, like, but there's a, there's a sense of, of I'm learning to, to be encouraged and sharpened and strengthened and and built up when I'm around, like if I'm interacting with Mary, I To meet to me. This is kind of how I define Believers life together when.
Speaker 2:I'm around, when I'm around you, I walk away and I'm I'm better. Yeah, absolutely right, like yeah, I don't like to. I don't like to use the word sharpening, because sometimes people take that as, like you know, did you read your Bible today? Did you kind of like that kind of thing? And it's like no, I want, when I'm around somebody, that there's just that, there's the seasoning of my life, enhances the flavor of their life.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, yeah, absolutely yeah. I agree with that. I think that's that's a very, very good definition of that. You, you're learning from one another, you're encouraging one another, you're edifying, exhorting one another. It's and that can look a variety of ways depending on where you are, what you're doing in life, and you know, but there is, it's just it goes back to that intentionality. There is just an intentionality that that comes from doing that, where Just showing up and interacting with one another on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday night or a Thursday night, you won't get.
Speaker 1:Because we've been, we were preaching about this even on Sunday. We went to church for years with people and we didn't know them. You know, we would go to lunch together, we'd go out to eat, but everything was just kept at this very surface level and you just, I can remember walking away so many times going. I'll never be that kind of Christian. I, if they knew what was really going on inside of me, they probably would kick me out because how are they doing this, how are they doing this and not struggling and not having questions? And Something must be wrong with me because clearly, clearly, they're not experiencing that, or surely they would tell me.
Speaker 1:But you know, the atmosphere wasn't there Right to have any kind of reciprocal. Hey, are you, you know? Are you struggling with? Are you like you said? Once you opened the door, you were shocked at the number of people that came rushing forward and was like let me in. Yes, yes, this is me a thousand times over. How are you fixing it? What do we need to do? Help, so that's. That's been a real outpner for us since when we started going to New Day in Charleston, the church we were going to. We had never experienced anything like an Atmosphere like that, where inner healing was celebrated, like they cheered you on while you were dying inside. Oh, my gosh, that's so good, you know, and you'd be like you know, so I. What was a, what was a meaningful?
Speaker 2:What was a meaningful reference or experience for you where Interacting, whether it was somebody in ministry or somebody just in church life? Where did you find an experience where you're like oh, this is what I long for. Do you have like Something that you're like this? We need more of this, yeah, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, so Probably early on, when we were, when we were first attending this church plant, you know, in Charleston New Day, I had started Leading worship and, where I came from, if you had any issues or problems or things didn't go well, they would just sit you down. That's what they did. They would say you know what, why don't you you know he was, I don't know, you may be not praying enough or something why don't you sit down and take a break? And of course it was punishment. It wasn't in the hopes that you would get better, it was just to remind you that that they, you know, that's just how it's gonna be.
Speaker 1:So we were at this church and we had been there probably Probably a year and was getting to know people, but I was pretty standoffish because I didn't trust People's motives. Because of what we came from. I had never seen a working model that was healthy, and so I just thought everything was a little too Fake. That can't be real, that someone really cares about me like that. And I had when I would get in situations where I didn't know how I felt about the atmosphere of what was being discussed or talked about.
Speaker 1:I'm a very talkative person. I'm a very extroverted person in most settings, but when I'm uncomfortable I become very introverted and I withdraw down to keep from saying something that I might have to apologize for later. So I thought I was doing this really cool thing of Showing my wisdom by being quiet, but I didn't realize that the way I got quiet sucked the life out of the room. You know what I mean. It was more about, like, everything that got quiet still said the thing that I was trying not to say with my vocal chords. Right, I was still very much.
Speaker 2:You could, you may, you may throw in their a bless your heart.
Speaker 1:So my pastor, she, she, she said to me one day hey, let's go for a coffee. And I thought we were literally going for a coffee. And so we met at a coffee shop and and she said, she said to me hey, listen, um, you know, I just want to talk to you about something that I've observed. And I was like okay, and she said I've observed several times when you're in a situation that you're not either comfortable with or you're not happy about, or you disagree with, you withdraw into yourself. And I'm like, okay, I didn't even know, I did it. Honestly, I had never had anybody pointed out to me and I said, okay, until she named the specific times and I could remember what she was talking about. And I was like, oh, yeah, I did. And she said why did you do that? And I said I did it because I didn't agree. But I didn't know what to say or if it was okay not to agree. So I just shut, I just kind of got quiet because I thought there's, I don't want to say something wrong and get punished for it, and so I thought it was better to say nothing. And she goes. Well, you know, she said I don't know if you realize this or not, but but you have influence. People pay attention, you're an influencer and I had never had anybody tell me that before. I'm 37 years old and I've never had anybody tell me that. And I'm like, okay. She said so people watch you and you affect atmospheres. When you walk into a room, if you're being gregarious, everybody's laughing and talking. If you get quiet and shut down because you're upset, it literally she used the phrase sucks the oxygen out of the room. And I went I am so sorry. Well, I start crying because I think here it comes, she's gonna sit me down because I've done a bad thing, and. And so I said I'm so sorry, how do I fix it? And and she said well, let's, let's figure out why you're doing that. Let's talk about that. How about we get together next week and we'll talk about the wise and we'll just see if maybe you can remember the first time you've ever done that and we'll just.
Speaker 1:She started really just kind of digging in and I'm sitting there crying and I said okay. I said, well, I Mean what do you want me to? Do you want me to not lead worship? I mean I'll sit down. That that's fine. I mean, I don't have to be up on stage. I realize that this is bad and and I've done a bad thing.
Speaker 1:So I and she looked at me so incredulous and said Mary, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1:What are you talking about? And I mean, I said, what do you mean? And she goes you're, you're not in trouble, this is not who you are. We're gonna fix it, we're gonna work on it. I'm here to help you do that, but you need to pay attention to it and try not to do it. Think about what you're doing. This is something that's just being brought to your attention, and I'm sitting there and all I can think is is I have never had someone correct me and help me, and still, I still felt like they loved me and they were in my corner, and so that was the moment I went. There is a way you can do this that changes people's lives, and I mean, at that moment, she could have told me a thousand things I did wrong, and I would want to change them, because I knew that Somebody wanted me to, for the right reasons. Mm-hmm, make sense. Yeah, that was. That was not thought. That's when I thought how can I do this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting because where, where the story went, she, she moved from initially a Relationship based on correction when it could have just repeated the typical pattern, right. That's one of the things that's frustrating in church. Our relationships are, especially leadership. It's based on correction. It's kind of like, okay, everybody, just do your thing. But when we meet it's gonna be correction.
Speaker 2:Like if the average pastor called somebody said, hey, could I, could I have a talk with you, can I cough? It's immediately like I'm going to the principal's office. What did I do? Here we go, I'm getting kicked out, I'm getting confronted right. A lot of times, it's true, a lot of times it's like, yep, you're gonna be, and and there's, there's no relational band with being built because I corrections, built out a relationship right, and built out of like, leading in the flow. So, anyways, so there's a there's, there's a point where that could have Really really gone, that that pattern, but in the midst of it you made a decision of this can be more invest I, I more care, I'm more one like and and this isn't just about whether or not you're gonna fill a position or not, I really want to be a help to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah and I think, um, in the church we approach a lot of relationship out of what do you bring as far as service or contribution here, because we got a, we got a, we got a thing we're doing that we need you to contribute to, and, and so then either you're doing that or you're not, and then, if you move in to another position, instead of the relationship being, um, knowing and being known, and Now there's bonding taking place, right, right, and it's like, no matter what happens, I want to, I just want to be a blessing to you. Um, it's a struggle and it creates this pattern where, um, people are petrified over interacting even with authority figures, because, yeah it's of our experience, we're so this, this is, this is terrifying.
Speaker 2:And then we wonder why we're afraid of god and we avoid god, and we, you know, his holiness, is like Uh, something to, something to be scared of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's, that's so true. I, um, I think that that that actually lit this thing inside of me that switched it from um, you know that, um, when I mean because you do like, when you have the gift of discernment or you are Apostolic in any kind of way where you see systems that are broken that you want to Fix, you know, like I'm all about systems how can we make this run smoother? What is the ways that we can make this more efficient? How, what are we doing wrong here? Because this doesn't seem to be working. But it switched something in me from that. Okay, I see all the wrong things and we need to fix those to.
Speaker 1:Oh, the, the, the Joy and the I'm going to use the word satisfaction, but it's not quite the word I'm looking for of seeing people grab a hold of something and run with it when it comes to inner healing and working on their heart, issues Like that catalyst being just that catalyst that causes them to flip and go. Oh. So this is a good thing. This is, this is something that causes me to grow and in the process, the relationship is Bonded in a way that that I don't. I don't know it's. It's very different.
Speaker 1:I find that when you walk with someone through things like that, it changes the way you look at relationship in general and the way you value relationship in general, and I value that interaction and I think, from that point forward, anytime I mean I had to practice it. I'm not perfect at it, but anytime in leadership that I've ever had to have hard conversations, I've always tried to approach them from a this is not who you are. Here's what I wanna do to help you in the process of walking through this. But this is just a blip in the journey. This is not a definition of who you are, and to watch people grab that and change is very much a. That's training and equipping. To me, that is making disciples and growing people in maturity in the kingdom of God, because we have a lot of really immature believers and it's because they've never had a fair shot at someone helping them mature and grow, and a lot of that happens in relationship.
Speaker 2:I had to. I found in when I was in like institutional, official, pastoral capacities, I if that's a thing I found that I had to deal with compulsive confrontation and compulsive like we gotta talk about this issue. Part of it was my own struggle with compulsive, where I had always had this sense of like pressure that I gotta fix things in me and other people. But I also saw it modeled a lot too, a lot of like the sit downs. You know, you see something going on, you go after it, immediately, confront it and deal with it. And I found that as I began to let that compulsive behavior get addressed, where I delay that you know what I mean Like I'm not just gonna jump on this, I'm gonna, I notice it. You know I talk a lot about OCD and mental health and stuff like that. But there is this thing where as Christians we compulsively correct people, we compulsively jump on things and we don't look to build relationship first. And then I found when I would withhold not withhold but delay that sense of like I gotta talk about this I'd go, god, you know what you see it. You see what's going on. I would see the Holy Spirit do so much more work. It's not that I was avoiding the issue, it was. I let love and grace surround it because it puts in perspective.
Speaker 2:For example, I in the church the second church, the one that I had pastored there were many people that were. You know other pastors were sending people to our church. Hey, you know, that guy does this stuff. Go there, like, okay, thanks a lot. But there's all kinds.
Speaker 2:I deal with all kinds of battles and stuff that people were dealing with, from mental health battles to deep trauma, pains, and you know, everybody has their goofiness, you know. And when I would sit down with someone and process for a bit their story, it's like you'd stand back and you go, I get it, yep, I get it. Then you go to church on Sunday and somebody's like, hey, you know so-and-so and they'd be complaining about whatever their quirk is of that person. And I'd be like, if you only knew Right, if you only knew Right and I'm not saying it excuses, you know irresponsible behavior, but it really does when you get a lens of compassionate grace and you get a taste of somebody's journey.
Speaker 2:That's why I'm a big believer in people, people, the why, why people do things you know they're just doing just because, just a thought just dropped on them. There's just history, there's patterns, there's, and when you recognize that, it gives you a lot more patience for people. But I realized, in my fast-paced world, not only did I not even know what you were struggling with, I had no time for it, and I found that God has had me in this journey of slowing down more and more and more to not only, you know, smell the roses, but actually see that there's roses there.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly, yeah, no, that's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like it's easy to throw stones. It's easy to, like you know, just tear people down. It's easy to just write a quick sentence of what people struggle with. There's stuff going on that when you get even a picture of it and I would tell some of these people in church, if you only knew what they've been through, Right, you know, if you only knew the pain and struggle that they've had, that you'd actually go while they're a miracle, they're as far as they are.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah so it changes your perspective. Definitely. I think it gives you grace to actually walk with somebody versus trying to pull them along with the expectation that you can fix it, you know, by simply correcting a behavior or a thought pattern or whatever. It's a process, it's a journey. It takes time and I think God is way more concerned and interested in our journey than he is how quickly we can get from point A to point B, you know. I think we have to change our mindsets to that.
Speaker 1:So, on that note, let's talk for just a minute about how we can, how we can, in the second half of life, live full and well and legacy-wise, like what we can do for people around us, because I, you know, I hear this a lot of people who haven't started experiencing any kind of freedom in their lives and they're in their 50s, they're in their 40s, they're in their 60s, 70s, whatever. Well, this is just how I am. I've been this way for 40 years, bless God, or, you know, it's too late, it's just I got a lot of baggage. This is I've already been doing this. You know what would be the point at this point? That kind of thing. What do you find in your teaching and in interacting with people the way you do through your website and through all of the podcasts and everything. What are you finding? What could you offer? Just give us some insight on that.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll start with myself. I became passionate about heart healing in my late 20s but I still had no idea the brokenness that I was dealing with. I thought I did, but I didn't. So when I turned 30, I was like Jesus His ministry started when he was 30. I'm just I'm getting, I'm getting going, it's gonna happen. And really it wasn't until my 40s and I had children and I really started to have very effective, fruitful awareness of things in big ways. And you have to understand, like all of my 30s, that's all I did was help people teach on inter healing, do sessions with people, write books. That's all I did, right, and it was still probably a good.
Speaker 2:13 years later, I remember crossing into the 40s and there is a different awareness that I began to have. I slowed down more. I started to see my history in renewed ways. So we see older years as a disadvantage, but it's often in those years now you're entering into the age your parents were, when they were goofy in their parenting, right, and now I start to go. Okay, I still don't think that was the best way to go about life, but I get it more. I get what you were going through more. So I feel that as I entered, I feel that now my the bracket of 40 to 50 that I'm in now has been for me. There's been another notch, another level, and I think that going into the bracket of 50 to 60 will have even more of that. I have a lot of people write to me. As far as those that take in my materials, you know, I'm in my fifties, my sixties, in my seventies and I don't know. I feel like it's too late. There's too much damage that has been done.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I find that's a game changer, no matter what age you're in, is the power of honest humility. Humility has a very powerful family dynamic that people don't understand. I'll sit down with somebody who has like just a lot of family dysfunction. They come from right. Parents are old. How old's your parents? I don't know, maybe they're 60, 70 years old, right, I said how meaningful.
Speaker 2:What would it do for you if your dad sat the family down and said I need to talk to everybody? I'm going to tell you I've done some damage. My parenting wasn't healthy and I wasn't a father I needed to be. I didn't get what I needed to do and you know what? I didn't pursue it and I see how it affected you, I see how it affected your journey and it wasn't right, it wasn't God. I'm sorry and I'm healing. I've decided to take some steps. I got to work on myself and I know you need to see it. So I'm not going to make talk cheap. I know you need to see it, but I got some work to do and I'm not going to force anything or force any agenda on any of you. I got to work on myself and I say, what would that do? And most people would say, well, after I got done, balling my eyes out for about an hour like ugly crying yeah, we do a lot. So I think that you can.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's, there's a, there's, there's a collection of debris that collects, you know, more and more over the years. Sure, it's more that, it's more that patterns getting grained, but we think they're more ingrained than others and it's like you know, in 30 days you can create a habit. In 30 days you can move a new habit. From a technical standpoint, I know it's not easy, but but I think a the power of humility can break down a lot of strongholds and break down a lot of patterns.
Speaker 2:True humility, not just well, I'm sorry I made you feel that way. That's not humility, you know, that's what you know, that's that's, that's the, that's the opposite effect. But but true, like I've got to work on myself and I'm, talk is cheap, I just, I just want to let you know and I'm deeply, deeply sorry. Now we position ourselves for generational healing in profound ways, because we're not defensive. Humility lowers the defenses of our survival. You know well, I was. I was a single mother and I only knew what I already did. Okay, we get it. We get it. It's not about the reasons why it's stuff happened.
Speaker 2:And humility goes, man, I'm sorry I wasn't, I wasn't in that place. That that so I. So I think humility is huge, but but also recognizing thought patterns. Any thought pattern in your life can shift and change, provided your teachable. It's going to take relearning and it's going to take practice. So I think you know, humble and teachable are the, are the secrets that.
Speaker 2:That's what has helped me at any stage in my life, because it's usually the broken areas of my life are not only hurting my journey, but they're also stubborn. They don't want to quit. That stuff doesn't want to just leave. It wants to stay intact. It's familiar, it's toxic, it's, it's unhealthy, you know, but it's. It wants to stay there, it wants to keep its influence. So there's a stubbornness to it. But when, when I humble myself and go, all right, I want to learn, I want to grow, I try to communicate that to my kids.
Speaker 2:That Sure, no, the way I went about it, that way, max, that that wasn't right. I'm sorry, I apologize, yeah, because because the previous generation struggled with that, with the sense of I was wrong, I'm sorry. You know, there was this like you got to keep the veneer that you're the parent, you're the authority figure, and we got to keep that untouchable. So mistakes, violence, you know inappropriate things, showing one thing in church and showing a different thing at home wasn't acknowledged. That hey, we get that. That was confusing for you and you know so I think. I think the humility and teachability is is dynamite kingdom power at any stage and I think the older you get, the more you can have a bigger picture view of how stuff affected you. I find as I get older I start to become more, as the years go on, more and more aware. Oh man, when that happened when I was 12, I get it, my goodness, and I also go. I get why my parents were exhausted all the time.
Speaker 1:Right, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Right, I can see those moments where they went. Yeah, I'm not going to bother talking about it. You know right. Yes, I get, I made a different decision. You know that I want to actually dive into some of these areas with my kids, but I get it, and now I become less judgmental and it frees me up to heal more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so good. So so good, mark, so good. I love that. Well, we could do this forever, and we've almost done it for an hour now, so apparently we have no problem talking.
Speaker 2:That's true. That's very, very true. Yeah, now, this is great. You can go in a lot of different directions.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I'll have to have you back on and we'll go some different ones, because there's just so much to talk about when it comes to the second half of life and how we, how we do this. But I cannot end this podcast without asking you the question that I ask everyone, and that is if you could go back to your 20 something year old self with all of the wisdom, knowledge and experience that you have right now, what would you say to Mark?
Speaker 2:Here's the problem the young 20 something wouldn't listen to me. Yeah, but if some part of this miracle equation means it's a miracle, mark's going to actually listen and take this in, because he's in survival mode. He's invincible.
Speaker 1:He's invincible.
Speaker 2:Correct Christian survival mode.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I had the mindset of yeah, I'm good, I'm good, right, I'm good. You know, you good, I'm good, we're all good, it's fine, it's just cute, just keep moving on. I would say, I would say, well, this gets into a big part of my journey. I would tell him you live under a lot of pressure in your thoughts, within your emotions, within your life, and you don't have to live to that. You're going to need to learn what it means to be loved by your father in heaven, because you're struggling in connecting to that and you're going to have to learn how to be kind, patient and more compassionate to yourself. It's going to be a big theme. It's going to be really, really important, because a lot of stuff that you are pressuring yourself over it's hindering you more than it is helping you. But again, I would have to be willing to listen to that and try to pay attention.
Speaker 2:I need you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, little whippersnapper.
Speaker 2:I mean, I have to take my cheeks and go. I need you. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Look at me, grab him right under the chin, oh my.
Speaker 2:God Holy, please listen to me right now.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to save you some heartache and you won't listen.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and I would. I would also tell him if I was listening. When I look back at my journey, I felt this call to help people, to to be in ministry, and my only options that I thought was either I was going to be a missionary, you know, and be, you know, barefoot and poor that was just kind of my mindset. Be a pastor, or maybe a traveling evangelist Right, those are my only three options that I thought of and it's taken me well since then, you know, 30 years to walk this journey of it doesn't have to look like that, right. How has God wired me? And let me step into that, even if I have to, you know, pioneer it. I had to do a lot of pioneering. That was very, very difficult and I'm still on that journey, but I would have liked to have seen more permission, for I had a lot of creative avenues and a lot of things that maybe I would have gone outside of just a church mold and but that wouldn't be seen as ministry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is you know, I'm right, I am in God Sure and so, anyways, I could probably see a few more things. Can we have some dinner? I need to. We only have a long talk. No, it's so good.
Speaker 1:Well, tell everyone how they can get ahold of you. Some of your books give us a little synopsis. I'll have all of this in the show notes as well, but do a little selfless plug for you, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, markdahesuscom. M-a-r-k-d-e. If you can spell Jesus, just put a D-E in front of it. M-a-r-k-d-e-j-e-s-u-scom. They can get a free ebook on experiencing God's love. As your father, I do a lot of work on mental health topics. I have a topic section you can go to and I have hundreds and hundreds of broadcasts that are topic related. They can search and go through those. But a lot of heart healing stuff, relationship stuff, and we do a Sunday night live, my wife and I. I dress a topic, we dress questions and then throughout the week I post videos and it's available in podcasting on YouTube Rumble stuff like that. But you can check it all there at the website. And my latest book is on the OCD healing journey, which maybe, if we get together another time, I can spend some time talking about that. Yes, we will definitely do that.
Speaker 1:I got that book. I really enjoyed that book. It was great I love on your website. I was going back through it a while ago before we hopped on to record this and I was like, oh, that's right, I forgot he had that page with all those topics you can literally click on. This is brilliant. I love it. It's just so succinct and easy to access and full of really, really, really, really good stuff. So thank you so much for for pioneering in the kingdom and being willing to step outside of the traditional roles of what ministry looks like. The body is better off because you are doing this and super excited to have this as a resource and just you're such a gift to the kingdom mark and I'm really glad that our paths have crossed and you're just you and Melissa. We just love you guys are fun to talk to anyways, just hilarious.
Speaker 2:It was great talking to you as well too. Yeah, time flew by, so that's a good thing I know.
Speaker 1:I looked down my clock and I went no, we have not been on here for an hour.
Speaker 2:Great. It's great and thank you for your heart in ministering to this specific aspect of the journey, because it is deeply needed. So keep it up and there's any way I can be an encouragement. You know you can holler anytime.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that. I appreciate that so much. Well, thank you everyone for joining me for another episode of the back 40 podcast. Stay tuned, join us the next time and, in the meantime, check out everything about Mark and the show notes, and we will see you later.