Winning Hearts with the Truth

How To Tell The Truth: The Story of How God Saved Me to Win Hearts—Not Just Arguments by Preston Perry

Jeremiah Chandler: 

Welcome to The Table Podcast where we discuss issues of God and culture to show the relative theology to everyday life. My name is Jeremiah Chandler and I'm excited to be the guest host for today's episode through my internship here at the Hendricks Center. Today, we are going to be discussing something that I believe the world desperately needs, and that is the true, spoken and loved. I say that generally, but today we're going to focus on what that looks like in the context of sharing your faith. Oftentimes in discussions about evangelism and apologetics, the emphasis is on learning the right arguments and amassing a lot of knowledge. But in that pursuit, how we communicate that information gets missed. In other words, we are ready to give a defense for the hope that is in us, that's verse 15 of 1 Peter 3, but other times, we forget that verse 16 says, "We are to do that with gentleness and respect." And so to help me talk about just how to do that, I have joining me today, Preston Perry. Preston is a poet, evangelist, apologist, and speaker, and recently now an author. Welcome to the podcast, Preston. 

Preston Perry: 

Man. Yeah, my name's Preston. I'm from the south side of Chicago, and yeah, grew up with my mom raising me and my brother and my sister, and single parent household. I didn't grow up in the church. I didn't grow up around Christians like that. My grandmother would take me to church on Easter and Christmas and stuff like that, but it wasn't until I was 16 years old, I heard the gospel for the first time in the House Church in Atlanta, Georgia. This is all in the book. My story is in the book as well, but heard the gospel for the first time in the House Church in Atlanta, Georgia. And yeah, it rocked me. It was the first time that I realized that my sin was offensive to a holy and righteous God, and I deserved God's righteous wrath because of it. But one of the things that the pastor communicated that day when I was 16 is that God is a good God who's at the same time offering me grace through the free gift of salvation if I accept Jesus Christ. 

And I was like, "Whoa." I just remember being rocked with the gospel. Didn't give my life to the Lord at that time, but I feel like that's when the Lord began to pursue me heavily. When I was 18, a friend of mine got shot and killed, and I felt like the Lord was letting me know at that moment, this is me, I'm dead in my sin. From there when my aunt connected me with some strong Christians, and one of the Christians, his name was Gary, he was going to Moody College, Moody Seminary in Chicago, and God dramticially had changed his life. He was a couple of years older than me. He took me under his wing, discipled me, taught me how to read the scriptures. I mean, he was in seminary and I was a little hood street cat just fresh out of high school. And taught me the scriptures, taught me how to read the scriptures in context and all of those things, but he was also an evangelist. And so through him, I became an evangelist. 

And when I gave my life to the Lord, I gave my life to the Lord a year or so after I started to walk with him. And then when I gave my life to the Lord, it was obvious that the Lord wanted me to use my gifts for the body of Christ. I started writing and performing spoken word poetry, and those poems went viral. I ended up meeting my wife at a Christian poetry event. We were friends for three years, and God made it painfully obvious that she was my wife. And so our poems went viral the same week, and we started to travel the country as friends, doing poetry, and then we ended up getting married. And then I think that's how I'm here through, I think, the gift of spoken word poetry originally opened up a lot of doors for me and my wife to write books, to teach, to do podcasts, etc, etc. And so yeah, that's my story in a nutshell. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

Yeah, thanks for sharing that, Preston. I want to say I first found out about you in 2020. This was obviously a lot was going on during that time period, and one of the things I noticed about your content, especially evangelism, was just your conviction and your passion for, I guess, loving people well. So I found how you did it was so unique because it was not the average or typical evangelism content that I was used to watching on YouTube. I know a lot of them are more combative or aggressive, but I found that even though you were disagreeing with people, the way you were doing it was really intriguing to me. And so you've written this book, How to Tell the Truth: The Story of How God Saved Me To Win Hearts, Not Just Arguments, but could you just unpack how you came to that title, and then what inspired you to write this book. 

Preston Perry: 

Yeah, man. So I knew I wanted to write a book about evangelism and apologetics, but a great writer, Toni Morrison, once said she wrote the book that she wanted to read. And I read so many books on evangelism and apologetics in the past, and there was always a high emphasis on knowledge and truth and arguments and tactics and stuff like that. But I wanted to write a book about truth, but at the same time teaching us how to deliver it in a way that the world can receive it. And so the book is a high emphasis on truth telling and giving the truth to the outside world and to the lost world. But I think that sometimes when we look at scriptures like 1 Peter 3:15 where it says, "In your hearts, always be prepared to make a defense for anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you," I think a lot of times we park at the defense part, which is where apologetics is derived from, to make a defense or give a justification for why you believe what you believe. 

But then we ignore the rest of the scripture when it says, "We do it with gentleness and respect." And so me, not only did I want to write the book that I wanted to read, but I also wanted to create the content that I wanted to see on YouTube. I do think that sometimes when we engage in apologetics and evangelism, we can posture ourselves like enemies and not people trying to reach the outside world. And so I wanted to write a book that was theological in nature, that taught the fundamentals of the faith and teach Christians how to give it to others. But I also wanted to write a book about how we deliver it, that if we give the truth to somebody in a garbage bag and not on a dignified platter, in a lot of ways, they didn't reject the truth, they just rejected the way we gave it to them. And so how can we give the truth in a way where the world can receive it? And so that's what I did, or that's what I tried to do. Yeah. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

Well, I think you did a great job. Real quick, what did you learn from this process of writing this book? This is your first book, right? Or you've written other ones? 

Preston Perry: 

No, it's my first one. It's my first one. Man. Well, that's a really good question. I mean, I learned a lot about myself, one, because I've been a poet, a spoken word poet, and an artist for so many years, and I am a writer. And so a lot of times when you're a writer, I think writers can have this assumption that when you switch to another form of writing, it's going to be an easy transition. And so I was one of those people who had that assumption, and it wasn't easy for me. When you are a poet, you learn how to communicate a lot in a whole little, and so I was writing five to seven minute sermons and poems for years, writing for ministries and writing my own content and stuff like that. But when you have to write a book and you have to have so many words in a manuscript, it can be a daunting task and especially for somebody like me who's an artist in a lot of ways at heart, who trained myself to write, but at the same time I write when I'm inspired. And in a book, you have to just continue to write even when you don't feel inspired. 

So that was tough for me. And so my theological brain and my artist brain was battling with one another for a long time. And so that was one task. The other task is because I'm a poet, not only did I want to create a book that talked about how to give the truth, but I also wanted to create a book that was creative in nature. A lot of times when you read theological books or evangelism books, the creative writing and the metaphors and the double entendres and the assemblies, the mechanisms that you find in spoken word poetry and even sometimes in hip hop is missing. And I wanted to tell stories. I wanted to paint words, paint visions with words, and I wanted to cast vision. I wanted people to see themselves in the stories. And so I wanted to intrigue the artist and the person who loves theology. I wanted to intrigue the person who loves evangelism and the person who loves creative writing, and I wanted to try to marry the two. And so that wasn't an easy task. A lot of the times I asked myself, "Man, should I lean back on not being creative right here? Should I be more straightforward right here?" So trying to balance creativity in a book like this, it was challenging, but I feel like we worked it out. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

Yeah, I thought so too. I would notice there was lots of stories, and I want to unpack some of those. But I think what's interesting about your story too, and you mentioned it a little bit in your background, was that you didn't grow up in the church. And so I know there's people that may be thinking that they have to have some kind of a reputation or repertoire in order to do what you're doing when you talk about writing books, traveling around the world, teaching evangelism, teaching apologetics. But could you just share with us a little bit specifically around your faith journey growing up and what did that look like growing up? And then how did you interact with your faith, and then when did you come to Christ? Because I think for many, they may think, "Oh, well, Preston's doing all of this, so he must've been a faithful follower since he was two." 

Preston Perry: 

Yeah, yeah. No, no, I didn't grow up in the church, and yeah, I didn't grow up in the church, nor did I grow up around church environments like that. I grew up in a lot of poverty-stricken areas. I grew up on the south side of Chicago, the hood. My mom, she was church growing up, but she didn't raise me around those environments. And yeah, I think God and His sovereignty just planted me with the right people at the right time in my life. So I was led to Christ by young men who were not church themselves, but God found them. And so I think for me, it was just inevitable for me to be an evangelist and for the Lord to do what he did in my life because one, He wanted to, it was His sovereignty, but He planted me with the right people at the right time, like later on in my teenage years, that planted seeds in me, and those seeds later on took root and grew. 

And so, yeah, I didn't grow up in church, man, but I think the Bible says that God uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And even somebody asked in the scriptures, "Can anything good come from Nazareth? Can anything good come from Galilee?" And that's because that wasn't considered one of the most prestigious or the place where Godly people came from. And so I do think that God in His sovereignty raised me up in the culture that I came up on on purpose for His glory. I think even my evangelism videos, I think the reason why I'm able to talk to certain people in my evangelism videos is because I don't come in the package that I think some people may expect. And so I think God was just sovereign in bringing me from my culture. I say all the time that God didn't save me from my culture, but God saved me for my culture, to reach my culture. And so I think it was just God's design and desire not to let me grow up in church. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

Yeah, that's good. And you just mentioned it around coming in certain packages and in the book you mentioned you had a mentor, a friend named Gary who didn't look like who you thought the typical Christian was. And I want you to share that, a little bit about that story, but also after that I want to talk about the importance of why we need to evangelize so other people can see themselves represented or see that's possible, because I remember you had mentioned that in the book as well. 

Preston Perry: 

Yeah. Yeah. Gary came into my life and when my aunt wanted me to meet him, I found out he went to Moody College and I was just like, "I don't want to meet nobody from Moody College because I know they're going to preach at me. I know they're going to be the type of people that I typically don't rock with." When I met him, he looked like the typical hood dude that came up from the block that I came from. And he just took me under his wing. And one of the things that I said in the book was, "Man, I think for some people like me, we need to see people from our context walking with the Lord," because I do think that representation matters. For me, when I was 17, 18 years old, I had this misconception and this ignorant assumption that Christians only became Christian once they got older and their lives were over, or they was raised up in a church and was forced to go to church by their parents. 

And so you have an unchurched kid like me who felt like Christians judged him his whole life. I needed somebody like Gary to live his life out loud in front of me and for me to look at his life and say, "Man, he's not doing this for anything except his love for the Lord, but he's still culturally him. He's still wearing whatever. He's dressing how we all dressed in the hood," you know what I mean? He's driving a Mustang, seat laying back, bumping CHH music. I mean, on the outside he looks like the regular dude, but on the inside you could tell that his heart was new. And so for me, that was transformational for me because I'm like, "Man, if God has made Himself known to him, if God has a relationship with him, maybe He wants to have a relationship with me." And so for me, Gary's life just made a relationship with the Lord more tangible. So yeah. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

Yeah, that's powerful. And when I read that, I immediately thought of you because when I first started doing apologetics, a lot of the people I was watching didn't look like me. And when I came across your channel, it was like you were really the first black apologists I saw, at least from the videos I was watching. So it's funny that you say that because you had that exact impact on me. 

Preston Perry: 

Oh, wow. That's what's up, man. That makes my heart glad. That's the reason why I started the YouTube channel. And so that's dope to hear. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

Yeah. So throughout the book, I think you say there's deep conviction for you that you have to love people and one of the people that showed you that was your grandmother. And so my question for you is just how important was she in your life growing up, witnessing a woman of God who lived out her faith with conviction and compassion but also didn't preach at you? Because I think that's a really important message that's needed today because oftentimes we think evangelism has to be what you say, but it's also how you live. 

Preston Perry: 

Yeah, for sure. My grandmother was a great example of how Christians are supposed to live and to be. She didn't try to give us her religion before it was time to. She didn't expect anybody to live in the way that she lived. She just lived out her life in front of us. And of course she had standards and she had certain principles that she lived by, but she didn't make us feel condemned for not adopting her faith, but consistently just offered us a relationship with Jesus. But she loved us well, she loved us well, and she was the first really person who always was prepared to give a defense of why she believed what she believed. She couldn't tell you what presuppositional apologetics was, she couldn't tell you about propitiation in the most fancy way, she couldn't tell you about these things, but at the same time, she loved people well, and she always had an answer when you ask a question. 

And so she modeled 1 Peter 3:15 where it says, "Always be prepared to make a defense for anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you." She early on showed me that apologetics and evangelism is not about knowledge, but it's about being ready, that if God gets our yes, the world experience, our boldness. And so she was just always ready to give an account for why she believed what she believed. And I think at the core, and its in most simplest form, I think that's what apologetics and evangelism is about. It's not more about knowledge, but about having a heart that's willing to say yes. It's not about being bold, doing what men are afraid to do, but more so about obedience. And so I think watching a life like that lived out and being able to look back at her life taught me a lot about loving people well and giving the gospel to people when the time calls for it. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

That's good. One of the things you mentioned I think is really interesting or really important, especially as I mentioned, apologetics and evangelism often become intellectual, and I think sometimes we forget that God also wants us to engage with these people relationally as well and I think you do a really good job at that. But in your subtitle, The Story of How God Saved Me To Win Hearts, Not Just Arguments, and there was a funny story you mentioned, or at least I thought it was funny, with you and John because I saw myself in it, in the cafeteria with you debating the Jehovah's Witness. But stories like that, and I'll just say my own, I could relate to the idea of, man, I thought I was cooking. I thought I had a lot of arguments that went my way. But then the conviction that Gary gave to you, I felt like did the same for me as I was reading. It was just like, "Hey, are you actually trying to help the person come to the faith or are you trying to just win an argument?" But my question is how did you come to that conclusion? Was it experiences like that with John in the cafeteria? And then how did you learn eventually to be like, "Hey, I need to actually relate to this person as a person, not just trying to win the argument." 

Preston Perry: 

Yeah, that story that you just said is when the Lord first checked my heart. The Jehovah's Witness, my first year as a Christian, I was a Christian for five, six months at the time, and he challenged me in front of the whole classroom. I didn't even know he was a Jehovah's Witness, nor did I know what the word apologetics mean. I never even heard of it at this time. And so not only was I a baby in the faith, I was a newborn in faith. All I knew was John 3:16 and a couple other scriptures and I was just walking around giving people my testimony at the time, but I was in a vocational college and I never backed down for a challenge. And I went home and I studied and over a course a couple of months, I became so familiar with what he believed I was ready to take him down. And it wasn't until our sixth or seventh debate in college where I stumped him and it made me feel good. 

Gary picked me up from school one day and he was like, "Yo, P, are you still trying to win this guy's heart though?" And I thought to myself, I was like, "I was never trying to win his heart. I was always trying to win an argument." And the Lord checked me early on and it became very obvious that the Lord wanted me to do this work, but He wanted me to check my heart why I do it. And I think for a lot of Christians, I think they need to ask themselves the why. Because what Gary did was he made me question my why. Why am I doing this? Am I doing it to look smart? Am I doing it to mend my wounded ego or am I doing it to try to reach somebody and try to teach other people around me? When we think about apologetics too, if we look at Jude, but if we look at one of the most quoted passages when it comes to a apologetics 1 Peter 3:15, it starts off with saying, "In your hearts, honor Christ, the Lord, as holy." That's what it starts off at. And so the writer there is highlighting heart. 

He's not saying, "In your mind, honor Christ, the Lord, as holy." He says, "In your heart, honor Christ, The Lord, as holy. And so, one, apologetics has to start with a heart that honors the Lord. And then it goes on to say, "Always be prepared to make a defense," which is where we get the Greek word apologia, apologetics, from. To make a defense, to always be prepared to make a defense for anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you. And then it goes on to say, "Well, yeah, do it with gentleness and respect." 

And then it goes on to say, "But having a good conscience, so in those who will value your good behavior in Christ may be put the shame." And so this apologetic, this argument that the Bible tells us to always be prepared to make a defense for, it first starts off with the heart that honors the Lord, then it goes to the defense, and then it ends with conduct. And so our heart posture matters so much in the argument that if we have all the true things coming out of our mouths, but our conduct or orthopraxy doesn't look like or model Jesus, we make the God that we claim we believe look like a liar. And so this is the reason why our conduct is just as important as the stuff that we say. And so, yeah. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. And there's been times where I, because I do evangelism as well, but there were times where sometimes I'll be in the comment section and I'll say something off the cuff and I'll be like, "Dang, that's probably not the best way I could have said it." Or there'll be times when I'll come back to a conversation, I'm like, "Dang, I said that?" And then the Lord's reminding me like, "Hey, your heart wasn't really… You said it, and it may have looked good to other people, but your heart really wasn't in the right place with how I said it and the tone." And so I echo that. There's a lot of times where God is checking me on not just what I say but how I'm saying it, and my heart and motives for saying it, because there've been times where people will like, "Is Christianity the white man's religion?" 

That's a question that comes up a lot. And sometimes I'm like, "Why are we still thinking about it in this way?" Especially when it's people I've engaged with. And so sometimes I could be like, "Christianity was in Africa," and all this stuff, but the Lord's like, "Are you saying that just so they can look dumb or are you saying that to actually help educate them?" 

And so yeah, I just echo what you said there, and transitioning a little bit in your chapter, Too Close to Home, you made a really good, well, for me, it was a really interesting distinction that I never made in terms of how do we evangelize to strangers versus how do we evangelize to our family? And when I first found out about apologetics, I used my family as practice. So I'm just being honest, they did not like me that first month and a half because I was testing out all my arguments and like I was saying, trying to win arguments and not really trying to listen or trying to win their heart, but trying to catch them in different things. But can you talk a little bit about how do we evangelize or what is another way, a better way to evangelize those we're closest to? 

Preston Perry: 

Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that everybody's called to necessarily go out and talk to strangers. And I also think that a lot of times we have it in our minds that to be an evangelist, we have to talk to strangers or at least street evangelists, but evangelism doesn't have to look the same for everybody. I think a lot of us are called to give the gospel to our family members and co-workers or just people who we do relationship with. And I think with one of the things I said in the book is that when that happens, we have to understand that God allows us to have an impact in somebody's life with a slow cook. Sometimes it would be like when Jesus meets the woman at the well, He gives her the truth right then and there, and He tells her to go, then she goes and tells everybody what she heard. But then you'd have Jesus meeting men in the scriptures who we don't really know even walk with the Lord, we don't even know when they were converted, but He walked with them and He loved them well, and He shadowed them. 

And so this is one of the reasons why I talked about in that same chapter, discipleship. Because I say this all the time, that the moment you tell somebody that you're a Christian, in a lot of ways you're an evangelist. The moment they start asking you questions, you become an apologist, but the moment they're willing to follow you is when you become a discipleship maker. And so I think when you live your life out loud in front of your family members and you love them well, and you model Christ well, you can be evangelistic to them over a course of time. And so even if they're not rocking with you at first because of whatever reason, when life starts life-ing, I think Christians should have the most stable lives. And everybody's going to go through suffering, which is what 1 Peter 4:12 tells us, that even the whole world will go through suffering, but we don't suffer like the world suffers. 

So in my experience in giving the gospel and evangelizing to my family members, it is just me being available, me living out my humanity, me being human, not being so Christian where I cannot relate to human experiences and pain and struggles, and them coming alongside me when life gets hard or when they have questions or challenges and me being ready, at the same time being ready, like the scripture says, to give truth to them. And so being consistent, not thinking that we have to shove the scriptures down peoples throats in our family and friends as soon as we get around them, not feeling the pressure to just give the gospel every single time we are around them. Allow your light to speak for you, and then when the time calls for it, when people come to you and ask you questions, be ready to give truth. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

Yeah, that's powerful, Preston. Yeah, it reminds me of, I read a book called Tactics by Greg Kokul, and he talks about putting the pebble in someone's shoe. And honestly, that really freed me because when I first started evangelism, I thought I had to get to the gospel every single time with whether family or friends. And so this chapter really helped me see that you can do it a different way or at least approach it in a different way that, like you said, takes a little bit of the pressure off of you as you're trying to evangelize to your family. 

Preston Perry: 

Yeah. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

And then Preston, you mentioned earlier that you can evangelize. A lot of people think evangelism looks like going up and talking to strangers, and oftentimes when I talk about evangelism and try to encourage my friends to do some type of evangelism, it's more of like, "Oh, I don't have that gift of evangelism." But what would you say to someone, because you just touched on it, but what would you say to someone who feels like they can't do evangelism because they don't have the gift for it? 

Preston Perry: 

Yeah. I tell this story a lot. I told this story also in the book, but I think God is going to use all of us how He has uniquely made us. And so for example, I'm an extroverted person, and so for me, when I see some Jehovah's Witnesses or when I see some Hebrew Israelites or when I see just some dudes on the block or whatever and I spark a conversation with them, if I feel led, I'll be like, "Man, what do you think about Jesus? I'm a Christian." I spark conversations like that all the time, and it's very natural for me. My wife, she's a great speaker, great writer, great poet in her own right, but she would never talk to any strangers. That's just not her thing. But one time we was in the airport and we were leaving Virginia and we had 40 minutes before we caught our flight and I see two Jehovah's Witnesses in the airport next to a stand. And so I go over there and I'm like, "Babe, I'm about to go over there and talk to them. And my wife was like, "Okay, I'm about to go get us something to eat. Peace." 

She just left me. And so I had a great conversation with the Jehovah's Witnesses. I ended up leaving to find where my wife was, and when I found her in a restaurant, she had her head bowed praying with the waitress. The waitress basically asked her, "Who are you getting food for?" She said, "I'm getting food from my husband." She said, "Where's your husband?" "Oh, he's over there talking to some Jehovah's Witnesses." Oh, she said, "I used to be a Jehovah's Witness and they excommunicated me and I've been done with religion ever since." And so my wife was like, "I gave her the gospel then and I prayed for her, and that's how I got into the prayer." And so notice that my wife didn't pursue a conversation, but she didn't avoid one when God laid it on her lap because evangelism is not about gifting all the time, it is about obedience. Because some people are called to go out and fish and some people are called to prepare the fish and others are called to serve the fish, but everybody is called to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all God commanded them. 

That great commission that Jesus gives us in Matthew 28 is for every Christian, whether you have the gift of evangelism or not. How are you producing other Christians like yourself? That's the call for every Christian. So it's not always going to look the same, but blodness is not doing what men are afraid to do. Boldness is about doing what God told you to do. Boldness is more about obedience to God than it is fearlessness before men. And so it's not about going out and pursuing conversations or sparking conversations, but it's like, no, if you live this life long enough and you're a Christian, God is going to give you opportunities to share Him. And God know how He has made us, and so God is going to use you how He has uniquely made you. And so don't feel the pressure for your evangelism to look like everybody else's because it's not going to look like everybody else's, but you should have a burden to be obedient to the Lord when he tells you to do something. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

Right. That's good. Preston, you also mentioned there's a chapter it's called Do Not Give Up, and you mentioned a little bit about the boldness and how we're called to be obedient, but what would you say to someone who feels like they've been obedient but they're feeling discouraged because they're not seeing any of their fruit in their friends' lives, or maybe people are rejecting them or turning down their conversations. How would you encourage someone who's feeling like, "Hey, I'm stepping out on faith. I'm trying to be bold, but I'm not getting the results"? 

Preston Perry: 

I would challenge them to re-examine what they think fruit looks like because we have an idea of what fruit looks like, and maybe you are looking for oranges when God is producing strawberries in somebody's life right now. Maybe you're looking for grapes when God is producing blueberries and maybe there's no fruit right now. One of the stories that I gave in the book was the first time I heard the gospel was when I was 16 years old in a house church, and this evangelist slash pastor told me that if I believe that God being a God of love means He won't destroy everything that He hates, I don't know what love is, that if God is a God of love, He must hate all evil. And I remember that rocked me to the core. It wasn't until… I didn't give my life to the Lord that day, but I became keenly aware that the Lord was watching me. I became keenly aware of my sin. 

And it wasn't until 2019 that same pastor, an evangelist, came to my show in Atlanta when I did poetry and he said, "Man, I used to give the gospel to y'all every day on the block, and I never thought y'all was listening," and I told him, I said, "The day you gave me the gospel," I told him, I said, "I didn't get saved that day, but I became keenly aware of my sin and I believe that was the day I felt like the Lord was pursuing me. He started pursuing me until He had me." And he just got emotional and broke down in tears. And I say that to say this is that I think God wants to raise up a generation of evangelists who are okay with being seed planters. 

He wants to raise up a generation of evangelists who are okay with not seeing the fruit of their work until we get to glory. I think a lot of times, I think the church in a lot of ways has conditioned us to more right now results, which is the reason why we do things, we praise things like altar calls and we praise testimony sermons. I gave the gospel to this person. He fell down and said, "What must I do to be saved?" And I think that's good because I think it speaks to how much the Christians, we expect God to move and perform, but at the same time it's like, no, what if God wants to use a generation of evangelists who are just seed planters, who are okay with just going out there and giving truth? Not only that, I'll say this and I'll end, not only that, I think we feel the pressure because in a lot of ways we have a savior complex. I think that's a lot of the reasons why we feel that pressure, that it's not our job to save people, it's the Holy Spirit job to save people. 

It's not our job to make people make a decision. It's our jobs to bring them to one. And if you brought someone to a decision, you are faithful and God is pleased with you. So there's no need for condemnation. Right? Paul said this when he was arrested in Rome when he was writing to his mentee Timothy in the faith he says, "I'm bound in prison," he said, "but the word of God is not bound. The word of God is unchanged." Then he goes on to say, "Therefore, I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they might obtain salvation through Jesus Christ with eternal glory." What is Paul essentially saying? Paul is essentially saying, "Timothy, don't be afraid that I'm in prison. Don't be sad that I'm in prison. The same way God was using me out there, it's the same way God is using me in here. If I have His truth, I know my preaching is not in vain, even in prison, because God has people in here that will hear and will respond eventually." And so he wasn't worried about seeing conversions like that. 

He just wanted to be faithful with the message. And so I do think that if Christians are just faithful with the message, don't be so fixated on seeing right now results and just be faithful. You will never understand how much you bringing people to a decision, how much you asking them questions that they never heard before, how much you making them think about the gospel in ways that they never had to think before, but asking them questions that would make them examine their own heart and their own life that they never even thought before, you will never know on this side of heaven how much impact you've had for the kingdom. Don't look for right now results. Don't look for right now results. Just be faithful. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

That's good. That reminds me, I have a story. I used to do evangelism when I first moved here to Dallas, and one of the things I did before I moved was I loved just walking the streets doing evangelism, but when I got to Dallas, it was a little like, "Well, maybe I should get a group or something," but instead of going by myself. And so I started going with this church, and on Friday nights we would go downtown. It was like we were in clubs and stuff, nightlife basically. And we would just evangelize to a lot of people who were drunk and weren't paying attention, or at least I thought weren't paying attention. But I have two encounters. One guy I was with was my partner, and we were going out sharing the gospel with people, but halfway through the night I realized he wasn't a Christian, he didn't know the gospel. 

He is asking me questions, so I'm evangelizing to them, and he's asking, "Why'd you say that? What did you do?" And so halfway I'm like, "Oh, wait, you must not know." So I shared the gospel with him and I never saw him again that night, and I got his number, but I couldn't remember his name. And two years later, I guess the same thing happened to him. He couldn't remember my name, but he texted me and he's on fire for God and he loves the Lord and he's plugged into a great church, and I was just super grateful that God allowed me. Like you said, we don't often see the fruit, but God was able to let me see this person, the gospel I shared, I didn't see him again, but the Lord obviously spoke to him and now he's walking with God. And then that same- 

Preston Perry: 

That's very nice. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

Yeah, the same street I would evangelize in, a different night, there was a girl, and these were two encounters. The first guy was very inquisitive. He was asking me a lot of questions. He wanted to know more. The second woman I met, I evangelized, it was just stone-faced. She wasn't responding, just nodding. And normally when I'm talking to people, I don't want to bother them so I'm like, "Hey, if you don't want to listen, I'll just go." But I asked her, she had a cross on her neck, and so I asked, "Hey, do you know what that means?" And I just shared the gospel. It took me probably, I don't know, 30 seconds. She didn't say nothing, just went about her business. A year and a half later, my wife and I are doing evangelism down the street, and I see this woman carrying a big Jesus sign walking down the same street where I met her and I'm like, "Hey, we should go pray for her. We should go pray for her," just because, like I said, it's late at night and it's a sketchy area, so we should just pray for her and make sure she's safe. 

I get up to her. I don't recognize her immediately, but when she speaks, I recognize her voice and I'm like, "man, do you remember me? I shared the gospel with you." She didn't remember me or anything, but she just was like, "Yeah, I'm out here sharing the gospel with people. I just got saved three months ago." And so those two stories are just super encouraging to me that God is always moving, even though I… Because like I said, I didn't really think she even paid attention to what I was saying. And so God just brought those people back into my life to share with me, like what you were just saying, we may not see the fruit, but God is always working, so. 

Preston Perry: 

That's good. That's super encouraging, super encouraging. Good. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

Yeah. Well, we're just about wrapping up Preston, but one quick thing I wanted to ask you, what is your major takeaway from writing this book and what do you want your readers to take away? 

Preston Perry: 

To not over-complicate, apologetics and evangelism, to know that God uses normal people. If God used tax collectors, fishermen, just everyday Christians, we shouldn't believe that we have to be seminary graduates to share truth with people. If we are seminary graduates, praise God, because God does a lot with knowledge, but He wants to use normal people. That if we really want to advance the kingdom and to make disciples of all nations, meaning all people, we have to know that God wants to use us. I wanted to encourage the people not to just look at people on YouTube and to say, "Man, that what they do is great." It's like, "No, how can we do it?" How can you, when you get to glory, say, "Man, God played an instrumental part of you leading someone to Jesus." And so I just wanted everybody to read the book to know that God is calling you to be faithful with what you have, with the knowledge of Him that you have, that you can go out and make disciples and that you can be evangelistic even if you don't consider yourself an evangelist. 

And to just be faithful. Be faithful and be bold. I'll say it again, boldness is not doing what men and are afraid to do, but boldness is about obedience. Be obedient to the Lord. When the Lord gets your yes, the world will experience your boldness. And so I think those are the main takeaways. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

Well, thank you, Preston, for joining me. And I just want to say thank you just for your heart, and like I said, you've been a huge role model to me, even though this is, I think our second time meeting, but I've been watching from afar, so I just appreciate all the work you're doing and thank you for writing this book, 

Preston Perry: 

Man. Thank you, man. You keep up with the good work. Y'all keep up the good work over there, out there in Dallas, man. Thank you. Thank you for having me on. 

Jeremiah Chandler: 

And thank you, our listener, for being with us today. If you liked this show, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. That will help other people discover us. And we hope you'll join us next time as we discuss issues of God and culture.