Ask the Expert: Jim and Sherri McRae with Overcome Church and Teala Smith with New American Funding

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Excel Radio’s Ask the Expert. Brought to you by Beckshot Photography and Video. It’s your story. Make it awesome. For more information, go to beckshot.com. Now here’s your host.

Randell Beck: [00:00:30] Good morning, everybody. We have a power packed lineup today on Excel: Ask the Expert version. Robert, you want to introduce who all is here today.

Robert Mason: [00:00:41] We’ve got a very old friend of mine, Jim McRae, and his lovely wife, Sherri. Yes. Jim McRae and I go back to the 70s.

Randell Beck: [00:00:54] Did they have a radio back then?

Robert Mason: [00:00:55] AM. AM radio. Everybody was on AM.

Randell Beck: [00:00:59] I’m glad I can remember like to the 90s.

Robert Mason: [00:01:02] So that’s a good thing.

Randell Beck: [00:01:03] We had eight tracks and cassettes in our cars. Did we did we did. Kids right now are going what’s what’s an eight track. What is that cassette.

Robert Mason: [00:01:08] Yeah it was before cell phones right?

Teala Smith: [00:01:11] Different generation.

Robert Mason: [00:01:12] And so Jim is with Overcome Church and he’s got an exciting story to tell us. And so I’m really looking forward to getting into it with Jim.

Randell Beck: [00:01:21] And exciting new development, too, right, Jim?

[00:01:25] Yeah. Well, we’ll we’ll see if that comes out. All right. So it might not

Robert Mason: [00:01:29] I think we’ll get it out of him. I think we’ll get it out of him. Okay. And we also have Teala Smith.

Teala Smith: [00:01:34] That’s me.

Randell Beck: [00:01:35] Mortgage lender extraordinaire.

Robert Mason: [00:01:37] Mortgage lender extraordinaire. And Teala has been doing some really good loans for me. And on the investor side, some some really interesting stuff. And she’s been a huge, huge weapon for me as far as going after some of this investment stuff. So glad she’s glad she’s here sitting next to Jim. We’re going to we’re going to roll it up a little bit and see what kind of trouble we can start.

Randell Beck: [00:02:03] Probably a lot. Now, you said she’s she’s your secret weapon on investment stuff. You’ve been making a strong move into investment properties since our first episode. Right? We talked about that. Yeah. And you’re kind of all over North Georgia now doing the investment properties, the Airbnb type things and the rental houses and that sort of thing. Right, Right.

Robert Mason: [00:02:20] Well, it shifted. The market shifted, right. Interest rates raised up, but people are still buying houses. We’re still getting 120,000 people here a year. So, I mean, Atlanta is filling up. We’re mini California. People are going further out towards Rome, north Georgia, Cleveland, all over the state, going south Macon. So there’s opportunity out there for everybody if you work hard.

Randell Beck: [00:02:46] South Macon that’s kind of flat down there, right?

Robert Mason: [00:02:48] It’s flat, but there’s a lot of opportunity. There’s a lot of growth development, growth down, down south. So, I mean, developers are looking for land. You’re not going to find that in Greater Atlanta. So they’re going south.

Randell Beck: [00:02:59] I was talking grass the other day with a landscaper and he said, you know, once you get to Interstate 20, you have to start planting different kind of grass. It’s different soil, different weather, different everything. Once you pass 20. Yeah. So apparently everything’s different past 20. Everything’s just the weather, right?

Robert Mason: [00:03:15] That’s especially after 730, 8:00.

Randell Beck: [00:03:17] If you live here, everything’s different, you know, under 20.

Robert Mason: [00:03:20] So and Jim and I have lived here for a long time.

Randell Beck: [00:03:23] So Teala, tell us about your company and about yourself.

Teala Smith: [00:03:27] Yeah, so my company is New American funding, and it’s been around for about 20 years. I’ve been a lender for going on three almost four years now. I’m originally from Kansas. The Kansas area grew up in southeast Kansas on a flat that’s also flat. Flat. I grew up on a little farm there in Kansas and moved around quite a bit, landed here in Georgia, in Atlanta about five years ago. And I love it. It wasn’t planned. I wasn’t really planning on coming to Atlanta, but at the time I was traveling a lot with work and just landed here and I live on the Beltline and couldn’t have made a better decision for for where I’m at in my career and personal life.

Robert Mason: [00:04:06] How did you choose lending?

Teala Smith: [00:04:08] You know, I fell into it. I wouldn’t say that I chose it because you don’t really grow up thinking, Oh, wow, boy, I want to be a lender. Like, to be honest, probably before I got into this career, I didn’t know what a mortgage broker was and I fell into it. I was manifesting what I wanted out of a career. I was looking for a career change, and I was like, Hey, I want these specific five things. And I just kept focusing on it, thinking on them and looking for job opportunities anywhere that I could find one. And I ended up asking my neighbor at the time and I was like, Hey, do you have any companies that are hiring? And he was like, Yeah, actually, my company that I’m with and this was right before the pandemic, and he was like, Yeah, how about we just interview and interview you? So he set that up. I came in, interviewed, hit it off with the regional and southeast manager, and then they paid for me to get my license and it just took off from there.

Robert Mason: [00:05:00] And so here you are. Yeah. In front of the golden EIB mic.

Randell Beck: [00:05:04] The what?

Robert Mason: [00:05:05] The golden mic. You know, the Rush Limbaugh mic.

Randell Beck: [00:05:07] Rush Limbaugh. Come on now. And Jim, tell us. Give us a one minute bio on you. Yeah, well, I we started a church called Overcome Church here in Canton. And then we have another location in Peachtree City. And it’s been a we started it right before Covid. Oh, Lord, Yeah. Timing. Yeah, it was. Well, yeah, well, we we actually got the Covid notice and we went ahead and did it anyway, so. No, we didn’t, we didn’t know it was coming. And so it was. But it’s been a beautiful experience and we’ve got a lot of great people that worship on the north and south sides. Our goal was to start about as many locations as we could open and then Covid hit. And so it’s just that’s been obviously not as easy. But yeah, we got a great church family and then Sherry and I got married about, oh gosh, if I don’t get this right, last September, we got married last September. And so it’s it’s on Facebook.

Robert Mason: [00:06:00] Let me.

Randell Beck: [00:06:00] Check. It’s been wonderful working with somebody that you love. So it’s been a cool experience. Yeah, we’re doing great. Yeah. Glad to be here. And thank you.

Robert Mason: [00:06:09] Well, we saw back to Facebook for a second. I saw so many pictures of you guys together and I’m like, Well, did y’all get married? I mean, you didn’t announce it. It’s just I see you on the beach with, like, a nice shirt on and the water in the back.

Randell Beck: [00:06:23] I already live in a glass house, so we did not there’s certain things we tried to keep as privately as.

Robert Mason: [00:06:27] Possible to reach out to you and say, Did you get.

Randell Beck: [00:06:30] Married? We had to have the wedding. We went, we purposely put the wedding in Pensacola so that the church wouldn’t come because we were like, you know, we wanted a really small wedding. And then the church came. And so they all decided to do a vacation on Pensacola and kill two birds with one stone. So it was crazy. So, yeah, we had a it was fun. A lot of fun.

Robert Mason: [00:06:50] Yeah. That’s awesome. So Randy, Jim and I go way back. There’s some stories that we won’t tell on the radio. No, but Jim was a superstar baseball player back in the day. Jim, You want to?

Randell Beck: [00:07:03] Yeah, I wasn’t. But talk about your baseball days. No, we just had a lot of fun. I mean, you know that. Blackwell Was it. Blackwell That Starkville Field behind Saint John United Methodist Church. And we it was an incredible experience. This guy had a vision to bring all these kids together and start a baseball program. And that’s how we met all over the sort of the public and private schools. All those kids came together during the summer and we ended up it just started to we just went through the levels all the way up through high school. And, you know, we formed great friendships and competitive friendships and all went to different schools. But yeah, it was a it was a ton of fun. A lot of, a lot of. Good folks that we still keep in touch with.

Robert Mason: [00:07:46] And that’s when Atlanta was a lot smaller. I told you that David Dickerson called me on the way over here. Yeah, the big stick.

Randell Beck: [00:07:53] And. Yeah. And a lot of those I went to Georgia with a lot of those guys and, you know, it was and we unfortunately, my life sort of took a turn with the church and I didn’t keep up with anybody because it was just 80 hours a week full bore. And but I know that a lot of those guys still get I mean, you still get together with a lot of them. And it’s it’s cool to see how their lives have progressed. But yeah, no. And all that stuff was was awesome. It was.

Robert Mason: [00:08:17] Paramount. And so many of those kids went on to play college sports. Yeah, whether it be football, baseball, a couple of basketball players.

Randell Beck: [00:08:25] You know, when we were little. It’s interesting because you saw kids that just were different. Yeah. I mean, like, you know, like you, for instance. Like you were like something we were like, well, why is he always is? What does he do except lift weights, you know? And so, like, Robbie was like this this statue carved out of marble walking. I mean, he’s still there walking in. And I’m like this skinny little runt of a human being. And then there’s this. This, like, mini man, you know, and. But, you know, like Espo and some of these guys just had skills, just like they were born with them and Wesley Pritchett, Pritchett and all these guys. Yeah. And so, you know, those guys were going to do something and then other people like us had to really work at it. So but we were we made it. Yeah, we did. So a lot of fun.

Robert Mason: [00:09:16] Teela Tell me about the market. What’s the market doing? What what are people looking at mortgage wise or rates going up or are they going down? What’s the forecast? Tell me what’s in your crystal ball?

Teala Smith: [00:09:28] Oh lord, if I only had a crystal ball, I wish I could answer this question. I mean, I get it every single day. And if I could see the future, well, first of all, I’d be a millionaire. And then second of all, I don’t know what I would do with all that money, but with the market, I mean, it has been slightly volatile, but it’s just trying to correct really over the last two years, whenever we were having the pandemic, everything that happened during that market is just an anomaly. So now the market’s just trying to correct. And the main thing that I try to tell people, yeah, rates are higher than they had been during the pandemic, but still, I mean, I don’t think we’ve ever seen a 2% or 3% interest rate. And are we ever going to go back to that? Not without some sort of.

Robert Mason: [00:10:13] Those were the outliers.

Teala Smith: [00:10:14] Yeah. Disaster or catastrophe or anything like that for the future. I mean, it’s definitely predicted that rates are going to go down in the near future. There’s going to be a refi boom. I mean, we’re kind of going into this slow recession. But I mean, other than that, I wish I had a crystal ball because I sure would love to to see what they’re going to do.

Robert Mason: [00:10:34] I use the analogy. You date the rate, right? You fall in love with the house. You’re not that that rate that you’re going to go into now at 6.5, it’s 7.5. I mean, Randy knows an 8.5 deal that I think somebody here close to us put him in. Remember that one?

Teala Smith: [00:10:52] I sure do remember that. Yeah.

Randell Beck: [00:10:54] She’s killing.

Robert Mason: [00:10:55] Me. She’s killing you with that. Right. But. But you just date the rate when the rates go back down and we know the rates are going to go back down, you’re going to refi. And so there’s going to be opportunities for for that kind of business as well.

Teala Smith: [00:11:06] 100%. Yeah. I mean, date the rate, marry the house and break up with renting. That’s the big one. I mean, I have this conversation all the time and I think there’s so much fear mongering in the market that people are so worried about a market crash or a housing bubble because of what happened in oh seven, oh nine, that little era. It’s like people are still living with PTSD from the housing market and.

Robert Mason: [00:11:31] Fortunately 15 properties then. And I was lucky to get rid of all but one.

Randell Beck: [00:11:35] Yeah, well.

Robert Mason: [00:11:36] 15.

Teala Smith: [00:11:36] Properties not not as many people made it out as lucky. No, but for, for me, I just bought my first property in January and that was a huge deal for me because I was looking at, you know, I’m a single young lady and I was like, I don’t know if I’m really ready to make the big jump into purchasing. But for me, I was like, okay, so I could continue living in this area and I could rent for roughly 23 2100 on the Beltline, maybe a one bedroom or studio apartment, or alternatively I could buy for the same price. So even with having a higher rate, like a 6% interest rate, I’m still having the same monthly payment out of pocket. So it doesn’t make sense for people to continue renting if they’re in the right position.

Robert Mason: [00:12:20] You know, I’ve told people that the higher the mortgage rate, the the more you’re going to be able to take off your taxes because you deduct your your interest rate payments.

Teala Smith: [00:12:27] Yeah, that’s absolutely that’s absolutely true.

Robert Mason: [00:12:29] And so then you have the appreciation, huh? It’s a.

Randell Beck: [00:12:32] Little bit of a give.

Robert Mason: [00:12:32] Back. It is a little bit of a give back. Thank God. God, We’ll get to him later, shortly.

Randell Beck: [00:12:38] Who is that God.

Robert Mason: [00:12:38] Guy, anyway? Yeah. Who’s that God guy.

Randell Beck: [00:12:40] Oh, you’re about to find out.

Robert Mason: [00:12:42] But yeah, yeah, we’re going to, we’re going to. We’re going to get in the weeds on that.

Randell Beck: [00:12:44] Holy water out.

Teala Smith: [00:12:45] Can you send a message to God to make these rates come down?

Randell Beck: [00:12:48] I don’t have that.

Robert Mason: [00:12:50] Is there an open alleyway? We can talk to him about that.

Randell Beck: [00:12:53] Yeah, we can. There’s always a price for everything, right?

Robert Mason: [00:12:57] What would that price be? Jim.

Randell Beck: [00:12:58] Tell me. No. Send a check to the church.

Robert Mason: [00:13:02] Send a check to the church.

Randell Beck: [00:13:04] Oh, you’re Catholic. Yeah, we’re going to talk about that, too.

Robert Mason: [00:13:08] So go ahead.

Randell Beck: [00:13:09] You mentioned the 8.5 is really 8.3. Don’t cheat me now. But that was a unique loan because it was an investment loan. Right. Based on that was issued based on cash flow. Not, you know, not on credit. It’s all about the property and its value and its cash flow and DS.

Robert Mason: [00:13:26] Ds cr is that.

Randell Beck: [00:13:28] There are a lot of people that may not be aware of that sort of thing. So maybe you want to say.

Robert Mason: [00:13:31] What it is.

Randell Beck: [00:13:31] Explain a little bit about some of the investment, some of the cool investment programs that you have.

Teala Smith: [00:13:36] Yeah, I would love that. So a CR loan is a debt service coverage ratio loan. And really how that loan is, is calculated is going to be on the projected rental income of the property. And so we do analyze credit. It’s a no income doc loan and so the rates are a little bit higher because obviously it’s an investment property. Investment properties come with a little extra risk and then maybe a primary. But for the overall part of getting a DSR loan, the lender is looking at loaning based on the projected rental income that that property will be bringing in.

Robert Mason: [00:14:11] So it’s a higher rate. So let’s just say Randy wants to refi out of that because rates have gone down to say like 4.5%. Are there prepayment penalties in that loan?

Teala Smith: [00:14:21] That is an option. Yes, there are prepayment penalties on that loan. But going into it, you have the option to choose whether you want like a four year, three year or two year. Okay. So and it just gets rolled into the rate which one you choose.

Robert Mason: [00:14:33] Right? And who cares if it’s a commercial loan?

Randell Beck: [00:14:35] They generally have those kind of privileges because banks want to stabilize their their loan portfolio as well. But the good thing about it is, you know, yes, higher interest rate. But in our case, you know, I’m newer in this business. I just moved down here. My income had not gotten to the suborbital levels that it’s at now. Right. And so.

Teala Smith: [00:14:54] I mean I mean, even.

Randell Beck: [00:14:55] So, it made all the difference.

Teala Smith: [00:14:56] Yeah. Even in that case, because. Yeah, it got.

Robert Mason: [00:14:58] You what you wanted.

Teala Smith: [00:15:00] I mean, trying to qualify someone based on self employed income, they have to have a two year history. And if they don’t have that two year history or even if they do, I mean self-employed individuals, a lot of the time they take a lot of write offs to be able to not pay the IRS or not pay as much. So it’s kind of like a give and take, whether someone wants to take those deductions from the IRS or pay a little bit higher interest rate on the home. So it’s it’s really going to end up kind of the same way, just whether you want to allocate your money.

Robert Mason: [00:15:30] Or it’s a good product. So, Jim, I mean, you’re doing a new deal, you know, Overcome Church. This is a new strategy for you guys, for you and Sherry.

Jim McRae: [00:15:37] Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:15:38] Tell us how tell us how that’s going to work out.

Jim McRae: [00:15:41] Well, I mean, I think when we started the church, you know what, four years ago, four, four years ago. Yeah, right, right before Covid. So it was our goal was to do something completely different. I mean, we wanted to really niche down and and understand that we were feeling God calling us not to. I mean, we’ve done the big church stuff, we’ve done the entertainment stuff. We’ve I mean, Sherry, you did, you were running a thousand kids in a VBS kind of thing and, you know, running eventually all of the different departments of a church together.

Sherri McRae: [00:16:14] Challenging thing for us is that we have a vision of what we’re supposed to do. But you bring along people who have an expectation of what it’s supposed to look like. So when you’re driving change, when you’re leading change, it’s really hard to get people to understand, You know, we don’t have a building. We buy into it. Yeah, like we don’t want a property. We don’t want the overhead, we don’t want a staff. We don’t we want the money that comes into the church to go back out into the mission of the community and abroad.

Jim McRae: [00:16:43] Yeah. So that was what we niched down on. I mean we, we had had the blowback music, we had had the big choirs, we had had all the programing, we had all that stuff and we wanted to strip all that out. And so the people that we were going to say, Come and see, you know, we’re going to be in for a rude awakening as we did tracks off a screen. You know, we just didn’t have any of that stuff. And our main focus was The.

Sherri McRae: [00:17:06] Heart is beautiful.

Jim McRae: [00:17:07] Yeah, the heart is beautiful. The main focus was that we were going to hear the word passionately and then go out and do something with it and serve our communities. And so and again, with churches, the way they’ve developed over the last 20 years, the pastors just leadership just doesn’t ask or demand much from people because if they demand much, they don’t come back. And because they’ve already got a lot of demands in the world. So we just made that easier for them over the last 20 to 25 years. And that’s not gotten us in a really good place with with the church and how people, you know, act out in the world honestly. And so that’s what. Of niche down on.

Robert Mason: [00:17:45] Are we seeing more people in organized religion? I know you and I spoke about this. Yeah, no.

Jim McRae: [00:17:50] Less. It’s less. A lot is shrinking. Yeah. The denominationalism is. Yeah, go ahead. Let’s drill down on this a little bit. So without that, without the program centered, without the big music on stage and so forth, what’s the service like? Is there a worship time or. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of a teaching session or how does that characterize? Yeah, I mean, it’s we still have music, we still have time for prayer, we still read scripture, we still have all the stuff that’s in a normal service that you would go to, whether it be Catholic or Protestant, whatever it is, communion. We do Holy Communion, we do all of those things, celebrate all the high festivals. But it’s just, ah, the, the, the, you know, when you spend money on a, on a contemporary music, you know, that’s, that can be 20, $120,000 a year. You know, we we just didn’t we don’t do that And so people had to get used to singing off of tracks, off a screen or seeing seeing on the north side, we have just a guitarist that comes. It’s her daughter, Lexi, that’s just so talented.

Jim McRae: [00:18:50] But we pay her minimally to do what she does, you know? So that was we lost some people because of that. You know, they came and they they were all it was all a big deal. But then they had to have a choir or they had to have that entertainment factor. And, you know, that’s just not what we do. I mean, we are we we are dedicated to training people to hear the word of God, which doesn’t necessarily make us feel good all the time. It’s going to challenge us. But then to go do something with it out in the world. So we really want change-makers out in the world. So what are your thoughts? Like there’s this trend out there. The darkened church is what I call it, but essentially when you go in, houselights are down, stage is lit up, right? It’s very it’s a dramatic or it’s like going to see a play or a concert or something. It’s dramatic lighting, right? Yeah, like, like synchronized lighting and all of that is. That’s not what we’re about. We’re we’re an acts to model.

Sherri McRae: [00:19:48] And so what what’s happened we think with the western church is that has become very consumer driven. And so when you get that environment right, those musicians on the stage are being paid as musicians. So when you start asking your church, what are you spending money on, you know, you’re spending thousands every Sunday for worship service, but then where’s the money going out into the community? And so that’s what we’re up against, is a very commercial driven mentality when it comes to worship. Like I want the wow factor. Well, that cost money. So that money is being invested into Mike’s and music and yeah, so.

Jim McRae: [00:20:27] There’s a church.

Sherri McRae: [00:20:28] Musicians.

Jim McRae: [00:20:29] And automation and video.

Sherri McRae: [00:20:30] So generally lots of money and so when you start looking and so that’s why it’s, it’s not for everybody because we don’t have what we want. And the Asbury revival was just a reminder. They kept saying, it’s authentic and it’s real and it’s pure and the spirit is there. And so that’s kind of what we were wanting was something. And we started this four years ago that was just very authentic and real and pure and the word and not all the politics, not all the stage lighting.

Jim McRae: [00:21:02] And politics, power, all that.

Sherri McRae: [00:21:04] Stuff. Yeah.

Randell Beck: [00:21:05] Was the Asbury Park revival legit? I mean, how do you feel about that? Because it seemed like it might be this might be a whole different discussion in.

Randell Beck: [00:21:12] Another time, you know, on the whys and wherefores of it. But it seemed like that got captured.

Jim McRae: [00:21:16] I think it would be I think it’s very I think it’s very dangerous to say that it isn’t legit. I think it’s very dangerous to to to make there are a lot of opinions flying around about that. And then you’ve got religious leaders saying it’s not legitimate for for their own personal reasons because it’s taking away from their their focus on their ministry, because what they were doing was something that’s wholly different than what any other church is doing every Sunday. It’s spontaneous. It’s it’s it’s not organized. It’s not led by anybody. It’s it doesn’t have a hierarchy. It doesn’t have a structure. It was led literally from the bottom up. Okay. And so we see churches and church structures from the top down. And so that offended a lot of people. And, you know, but the main thing was to keep that open and organic and let God speak to everybody who was experiencing it. Now, do I think it got hijacked in the end and do I think a lot of good things get hijacked in the end? Yeah, I think that can happen and I think people tried to hijack it. And honestly, I don’t know what it’s doing now. I don’t know where it’s gone or what it’s doing. But, you know, it’s a lesson for us all that if something like that can happen in Asbury, why is it something like that happening in other parts of of of Christendom? And it can happen in different ways. And we did a whole series on that, that it doesn’t have to be this big explosive. Wow. Blowback. Mt. Sinai burning bush split the Red Sea moment but it revival comes in God speaking to your heart directly with. Than you. And how is he going to motivate you to do something powerful for the kingdom? And you put that together with about a million Christians around the world, then you have revival. Does that make sense? And then something powerful can happen. The thing that that.

Speaker5: [00:22:58] Shown out of that to me, that hinted to me that it was really something, Right? Not not a manufactured experience. And I mean, yeah, people will piggyback on or try to hijack or whatever, but I mean, you.

Randell Beck: [00:23:11] Saw Christian singers trying to piggyback.

Speaker5: [00:23:13] That’s not even necessarily a bad thing, although it could be. But the intentionality of the way the organizations started shutting it down real fast and ultimately capped that thing off just. Yeah.

Randell Beck: [00:23:27] And I think it smelled.

Speaker5: [00:23:27] Like an attack to me, which it hinted to me that it might have been a real thing. Well, what.

Sherri McRae: [00:23:31] Happened when Jesus started? Right, when he started walking and teaching and they started following and the Pharisees were overwhelmed by this following that he had. And Jim and I talk a lot of times about we’re Pharisee 2.0. It hasn’t changed. You know, you have Christian leaders today that are still anxious about people following the pure gospel and not a church or a pastor or a speaker or a personality.

Speaker5: [00:23:59] There’s a business model to the way church operates in America. There has to be a.

Sherri McRae: [00:24:04] Absolutely.

Speaker5: [00:24:05] A business of church as well as the ministry of the church. And they’re not the same thing. You can’t confuse the two.

Randell Beck: [00:24:11] Well, I mean.

Speaker5: [00:24:12] Yeah, it was challenging that.

Randell Beck: [00:24:13] Structure. More more so it was, I think, politics and power and than it was maybe money. But I mean, they had their own back then. They had their own money schemes that they were getting money and filling their coffers. But this was truly about power and politics with with Jesus. And it still is today. I mean, if you take your I mean, in the systems that I used to run in, you take your focus off of another person’s ministry or another. I mean, it’s just all it seems so competitive and so counterproductive because the goal is to get people to know Jesus. The goal is to get people to understand that God loves them. And yet you have all of these different egos and just people, human, human, human things happening. And it can be destructive for sure. But that’s not that’s why overcome is something very different. It’s very stripped down. It doesn’t have those power structures. It doesn’t have those political overlays. It’s and when people walk in, it’s just about two things. Hearing the Word of God, letting it challenge you and then us helping you find ways in which to make that real out in the world.

Robert Mason: [00:25:13] It sounds like you’re getting back to the basics.

Randell Beck: [00:25:15] Very much so. And that’s why we call it an ax to church. So if you go read Acts two and you see how the church was formed, you know, and that was that was Jerry’s brainchild that, you know, we it really is how they worshiped in the very beginning. You know, they came together, they broke bread. They helped one another. They gave of themselves so that nobody was in need. I mean, it’s just a beautiful expression of how people had community, you know, in the spirit of God. And, you know, that’s just now it’s competitive. Now it’s, you know, how can we overcome another person? How can we tear down another person? It’s just well.

Robert Mason: [00:25:49] Throughout history, the church has been weaponized as well. Yeah, for sure, for a variety of different reasons. Whether you’re talking Rome 2000 years ago or you’re talking now, the church can be scary to authority, can be scary to governments. I mean, communism, there’s a reason why.

Randell Beck: [00:26:06] You know, well, when you get people to think on their own and when you get people to not let somebody else think for them. I mean, what we’re suggesting, the church is always suggested that God needs to be the one that is moving in and through you and and showing what you should be doing. And that’s why we have these unbelievable thing that we call martyrs do unbelievable things that defy, you know, just I mean, they give their lives for people that we wouldn’t even blink an eye to. They go, do they deny themselves? They they Mother Teresa, I mean, they take vows of poverty. They just do unbelievable things because they’re being called by something that’s so much bigger than this world. And, you know, people get scared by that. Even the church got scared by the Jesuits. Even the church was scared by the Benedictine monks. I mean, you know, people reacting against the the church was scared with Martin Luther when when the Protestant Reformation occurred, obviously. So, you know, there are people with even within the church back, you know, 4 or 500 years ago that were reacting against those power structures that the church wanted to get rid of, as they did Jesus. And, you know, today it’s not you know, you have your denominationalism. You have it just seems like the church today is in such and it is it’s in such the back seat where it was in the front seat, you know, and showing people where to go and how to do this and most of it in a productive way, some of it not, obviously, but now it’s just not now.

Robert Mason: [00:27:29] So the bureaucracy is running the show.

Randell Beck: [00:27:32] The bureaucracy in Denominationalism certainly is running the show. But I mean, we have just so holy spirited out. We’ve just kicked the Holy Spirit out of the church pretty much. And now it’s just people.

Robert Mason: [00:27:43] Running out of schools, out of education.

Randell Beck: [00:27:45] Yeah, it’s everything. I mean, to to allow the holy. If I asked a normal person out of any denomination, probably, hey, what’s the Holy Spirit? They’d probably go. Um, and how does that work in your life? I mean, you would get like pindrop silence kind of stuff. And that’s the most active part of the Trinity that’s living within us, spurring us on, giving us new ideas, helping us live together in community and in love. And yet we ignore it. And, you know, preachers don’t want to if they say follow the Holy Spirit, then you’re not following who. Them. And so when you give power back to the Holy Spirit, then you’re really not. I mean, all the church model does today is focus on the person in the pulpit, which is now a personality and a and a celebrity kind of thing. And those just like it was 2000 years ago. I mean, that’s a lot of power and a lot of ego. And not all of them do this now. I mean, this is not everyone that’s in a pulpit, obviously. But I mean, when you get into those really big, big places, that’s that’s I mean, when people Revere a pastor in that way rather than the revering more so than they Revere Jesus, then there’s something there’s something upside down about. That is what I’m saying.

Robert Mason: [00:28:59] Are we seeing political correctness raise its head in the church?

Randell Beck: [00:29:04] Oh, good Lord. I’ve already been canceled once, so I guess it doesn’t matter. You know, it’s.

Robert Mason: [00:29:12] You don’t have to answer that.

Randell Beck: [00:29:13] No, I believe and this is where it gets even scarier is because political correctness. Doesn’t allow people like pastors and priests to be effective any longer. And so that’s that’s the obvious thing.

Robert Mason: [00:29:27] From holding people accountable.

Randell Beck: [00:29:29] No, just because when they’re supposed to speak the truth, they’re afraid. They risk their job. They risk their position. They’ve got families, they risk hurting them. And so it’s just easier not to say anything, you know, And I didn’t have a I don’t have a family. I mean, I’ve got a new family. I don’t have children, though. And I never had that. And I always promised God I would never take a knee and I would never be silent. And I’ve always lived by that and done that. And, you know, people don’t like that. You know, people in the bureaucracies of the churches do not like people that want to break out on their own. They’d rather them be a part of the herd. And if the herd mentality with a denomination is political correctness, then that’s the way the herd is going to go. And you’ll see the people that want to separate get called out pretty quickly.

Robert Mason: [00:30:20] That’s very unfortunate.

Randell Beck: [00:30:22] Yeah, well, I mean, and then, you know, what God is trying to do in churches right now is silence certain people and reawaken new voices. I believe that. I believe God is trying to do something brand new in the church today. And yet we’ve got voices that have been powerful before and spoken truth before, but now are not speaking. Okay. And God is trying to raise new voices up to do something brand new in a very in a culture that’s changing so rapidly. Okay. And it’s you know, I’m praying that we have enough courage to let those voices be heard.

Speaker5: [00:30:55] So during this past week, during our pre-production talks, Robert was explaining to me a new idea that you have a way of moving in a new direction and with a new voice. What can you tell us along those lines.

Randell Beck: [00:31:07] That we’re going to move to and live on a boat for the rest of our lives and go, you know, fish? I mean, I think for us, you know, we’re we’re really trying to explore new ways to evangelize and get the message that we’re being called to get out. And I mean, and that means that we love our local church and we want to still be a part of that. But I think we need to be thinking about new ways in which we can really inspire other people to whether they’re young, whether they’re old. I mean, our community, honestly, is much older, you know, and it and those people still have a lot of life left, you know, And how is their voice going to be heard? And normally in our society, we just silence that voice, don’t we? We put older people in community homes and because they, you know, we consider them old ideas and all this stuff. But no, they God uses more people that are older than he does anywhere else in the Bible, you know? And so how do we get these people thinking about new ways to. And so we’re we’re not going to let all of that out today because we don’t want to freak everybody out completely. But yeah, but we are really being led to think of new ways in which we can share, share this beautiful thing called love. And, and yeah, some people are going to not like it and some people are going to, you know, want to go back to the old ways in which we do things. But, you know, I believe that more people like us can be raised up.

Sherri McRae: [00:32:30] So I think what we have to pay, what we’re paying attention to is that the church is changing. It used to be open the door and they’ll come kind of thing, well, they’re not coming anymore. And so the reason and that’s not changing and it’s not a post-pandemic thing, it’s just the church is changing. And so the churches that will grow, the Holy Spirit movements that will happen are going to happen beyond that, going to church on Sunday thing. So when we start to overcome church, we named it Overcome because Jesus says in this world you’re going to have trials and tribulations. But fear not, for I have overcome the world. We do more ministry on the street, walking around, talking to people. We’ll have conversations. We’ll really hit it off with somebody. They’ll find out we’re pastors and all of a sudden a wall comes up. They don’t want to talk anymore because they’ve been hurt by the local church. And we’ve found that that is our biggest ministry is helping people that have been judged by moral standards of the church and cast out because the Holy Spirit is about restoration and renewal and bringing people into the fold. And so that’s why that word evangelism is really holding heavy on our heart, because we feel that we truly are coming into a call of evangelism. That’s a great way to put the.

Robert Mason: [00:33:46] Gospel a call back to evangelism.

Speaker5: [00:33:48] Call back.

Randell Beck: [00:33:48] Yeah, Well, and that’s the early church.

Speaker5: [00:33:50] I have heard this before back in those prehistoric days that Tyler was unfamiliar with in the 70s.

Randell Beck: [00:33:56] Tyler doesn’t look like she’s more than 22. What’s going on with that? All right.

Speaker5: [00:34:01] Robert Schuller, you know, he built a big church with that Crystal cathedral. Yeah, he did. But he had a thing going early on in a drive in movie theater.

Randell Beck: [00:34:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker5: [00:34:11] And on Sunday, during the day when they weren’t showing movies, people would drive in and put the speaker on their window and they could come and go as they wanted to and. It was a very nontraditional, very contemporary, you know, out of the box approach. You’re reminding me of that. Taylor, Would you go to church at a drive in? Would you drive in and listen like that? A lot of people do.

Sherri McRae: [00:34:30] A drive in.

Speaker5: [00:34:32] What’s a drive in?

Sherri McRae: [00:34:34] I was going to say that might be the first question.

Teala Smith: [00:34:36] That was really big during the pandemic, right? Like drive through.

Robert Mason: [00:34:39] Churches? Yeah.

Speaker5: [00:34:40] Or they had outdoor seating. So it was along those same lines.

Robert Mason: [00:34:43] Drive through closings.

Sherri McRae: [00:34:44] Jim actually did Radio Church. Yeah, we did.

Randell Beck: [00:34:46] Radio church during the pandemic. We also shared and I did our first service was in a theater, an AMC theater, and we, we did it for that one reason that we were we were wanting people that did not feel comfortable in a church to be feel comfortable. And we thought, well, what better place than a movie theater? And so, you know, it’s we’re all of that holiness sort of and self righteousness sort of evaporates. And we can just see people as people. You know, there’s some people that have done things that that they don’t feel that they’re even worthy, that God would love them. And that’s a sad way to live your life. And that’s what we I think that’s the the the call of the church is to seek those people out and to find them.

Robert Mason: [00:35:26] I don’t know if this makes sense, but whenever I get close to the church, it starts to storm lightning clouds, thunder. I think he’s trying to tell me you.

Randell Beck: [00:35:36] Haven’t tied Robbie. You just haven’t tied enough. I think.

Robert Mason: [00:35:39] He’s. Yeah, He’s like, you’re either not giving enough or you’re way wrong. Boy.

Speaker5: [00:35:43] Robert Mason.

Sherri McRae: [00:35:44] Thing. It’s our Airbnb.

Teala Smith: [00:35:45] Money.

Robert Mason: [00:35:45] Yeah. God, I don’t. I don’t get it.

Randell Beck: [00:35:47] Come to overcome. You’ll be. You’ll be pleased.

Robert Mason: [00:35:49] Come to overcome. I’ll be overcome.

Randell Beck: [00:35:52] Yeah. So I mean we’re excited about that. I think that that what we want to do is speak to I mean everybody’s got their flavor, you know, denominational isms. You’re not going to convince a Catholic to go to a Baptist church, right? I mean, they’ve got their traditions, they’ve got their stuff. And that’s not the people we’re looking for. We’re looking for people that have not stepped foot in a church that aren’t feel completely unworthy, that have been literally pushed out by the church. And that’s what Overcome exists to do is to bring a message of hope and love to those people.

Robert Mason: [00:36:26] So it seems to me the major battle is connection, connecting with enough people, letting them know what you do. It’s kind of like being in a mortgage business, right? Tyler If people don’t know that you do that, then you’ve got to push the envelope and you’ve got to market it right. You’ve got to get out there in front of people like on this radio program, Like, you know, I, I haven’t done it yet, but you brand yourself and whatever it is you’re doing and you go around and you don’t be afraid to tell people what it is that you do.

Randell Beck: [00:36:52] Yeah. I mean, one of the things that and I’m an introvert, complete, total, full blown, 100% introvert and Sherry’s not Sherry loves to be social in front of people. And I just when I go out in front of people, I get like, frog ish, you know, like Bugs Bunny. I sing, I can sing in the shower, but when I get in front of people, I go, Ribbit, You know, if I get in the pulpit, I’m in my element and behind the mic. I mean, I can do all that stuff. But, you know, but I believe that for us, we wanted to be out on the street. We wanted to preach open air. We wanted to just be spontaneous about where we put the message. It’s not we don’t want to be offensive just to be offensive, but we want to just to preach that a loving and accepting God. And, you know, I think that. The best way that that message can be heard and we’re just getting done with the Testify series is that everybody has a testimony to share that. So everybody has a testimony about how God has interacted in their lives and all they got to do is share it. And that affects people. And so it’s not about coming to see a preacher preach it for 20, 25 minutes. It’s about hearing different testimonies about how God has affected their life. And you get all those people doing that together. Then that becomes a powerful moment.

Speaker5: [00:38:06] Jim Years ago, I read a book and I’d like to get your reaction to this based on what you’re saying, because this Testify series plays right into it. Frankie Schaefer wrote a book called Addicted to Mediocrity. His dad ran that big fellowship over in Switzerland. And Frankie, later on, you know, he’s out there pretending to be an atheist now. But I don’t think that invalidates his book. The point of that book was, was bringing, you know, the work of the Holy Spirit outside the walls of the church and presenting it in real life with excellence. And the thing that stuck with me was when he said, and I’d like to get everybody’s reactions to this, he said, the world does not need more Christian, let’s say musicians. It needs more musicians that are Christians, right? Yeah, not more Christian real estate agents, more real estate agents that are Christian. And by this he was getting at don’t just slap the Jesus label on something cheap or or mediocre and make it mean something, right?

Randell Beck: [00:38:55] Well, the Gen Zers can smell that out in a heartbeat. The Gen Zers are the future of our country, the future of our church. And they are fleeing from the church they are in because it’s not authentic, because they they see a label slapped on and they can smell that out. They can they can smell out a person preaching from the pulpit who doesn’t mean what he what they mean.

Sherri McRae: [00:39:19] And I think there’s a lot of of moral high ground to I think.

Randell Beck: [00:39:22] There’s hypocrisy and judgment. And also and this just flies all over them because what they would like and if you’ve heard what they’re saying, they’re saying, give me the gospel in action. Give me God in action. I’d rather see God in action than hear you tell me about it. And so what they’re really saying is, is that we want the church to wake up. And the church is very content on sitting on its heels and trying to do the same thing. It’s always done, which is say, come and see, Come sit in your pew, give us some money and let’s do the same thing. I’ll program you, I’ll program you, I’ll program, I’ll program your children, I’ll program your your adult life. I’ll not like I mean, I’ll give you programing for it. Okay. And you can be happy and we’ll make you happy. And the gen sayers are saying, we don’t want any of that. We want to see action and we want to see change happen in the lives of people because of what you say. So Teela.

Speaker5: [00:40:17] How does that resonate with you? I don’t know if you’re Gen Z or maybe why, but.

Teala Smith: [00:40:21] She’s seeing am I know I’m a millennial, I’m over 2022. What’s your reaction to under 39 years? Oh, don’t be mean. Not 39.

Robert Mason: [00:40:32] I said under.

Teala Smith: [00:40:33] 39. Oh, I thought you said over. I was like, oh, you’ll look like us. I’ll kick you under the table here.

Speaker5: [00:40:37] I’ll look.

Teala Smith: [00:40:38] Like us.

Randell Beck: [00:40:39] Shot like Stoner. And I one day.

Teala Smith: [00:40:41] Robert.

Speaker5: [00:40:41] Robert is not 39.

Robert Mason: [00:40:42] I’m 39. I know. Yeah. You’ve been telling me that for years now.

Teala Smith: [00:40:45] 21. That’s what he told me. Yeah. He knows what side of the bread the butter goes on. So I’m over here listening in. My little wheels are turning and I’m like, okay, taking it all in because I didn’t know who you were coming in here. I mean, I watched a ten second video on you before coming in here. I was like, Okay, well, now I know what he looks like. He has white hair. Cool. I got this. We’re going to have an hour conversation and cool.

Randell Beck: [00:41:10] But to needs to tithe more too.

Teala Smith: [00:41:13] Doesn’t she really need more money?

Robert Mason: [00:41:15] She I’ve heard that twice.

Speaker5: [00:41:16] She got something against white hair.

Teala Smith: [00:41:18] It’s not the only thing. But yeah. And before coming in here, you know, Robert had given me just kind of a heads up. I mean, I wasn’t supposed to be on this podcast until Wednesday. That’s when I got invited to come over here. And what.

Robert Mason: [00:41:30] I told you about Jim, you were like, Why are you telling me.

Teala Smith: [00:41:32] This? Correct? Yeah, I was like, okay. So this is what he told me. Tell me if this is true or not, because everything that I’ve heard today kind of goes against what Robert has told me. So he was telling me, Robert’s a liar. Just kidding. I’m not saying that. But there may be misunderstanding on my part. So I was informed that you were going against basically. And you said it. You got canceled for a belief that you have that other people didn’t have about transgender, maybe gay queer.

Randell Beck: [00:42:03] Well, I mean, not to to get into that as much, but I.

Teala Smith: [00:42:06] Mean, I put you on the.

Randell Beck: [00:42:07] Spot when you when you speak up against the, the, the bureaucracy of the church and you tend to you get, you know, you become a target for a lot of things. And it didn’t have to be you know, I have my thoughts on transgenderism and gender ism and sexuality and all those things. But you know, that wasn’t necessarily the lightning rod moment as much as it was. It it doesn’t take much to make the people in power upset. Okay. You just have to. Stand up against what they’re saying. And and if it’s enough, they they will move. And they did. And that’s fine. I mean, we started a beautiful church and, you know, I decided this wasn’t for me any longer. And, you know, I pray for them and I pray only. But good things for them, you know, But for me, it’s it’s about I mean, I think I came to a point in my life where I said, am I making a difference? Am I really making a difference where I am? And the answer was no. I mean I mean, I could fill a church, fill a church all day long, thousands of people. But, you know, in the end, am I really making a difference? And, you know, I feel like I’m making more of a difference where I am right now, so. Sure. Sure.

Teala Smith: [00:43:15] That makes sense. I guess that wasn’t really answering my question because I was thinking more on the sense of just everything that you said here today. You’re like, I’m going after the people who are judged and kicked out and pushed out of the church. And so you’re wanting to target these people and bring them back to the gospel of God. And, you know, those people would be I guess what I’m thinking because let’s just face it, transgender, queer, bi, whatever you want to call it, all of the different of, you know, outside of the heterosexual. Yeah, they’re normal.

Randell Beck: [00:43:46] They’re completely welcome in our church.

Sherri McRae: [00:43:48] In fact, my daughter is our worship leader and she’s getting married to her fiance, who is a female.

Randell Beck: [00:43:55] So. So they’re.

Teala Smith: [00:43:56] They’re totally misguided.

Sherri McRae: [00:43:58] This they they.

Randell Beck: [00:44:00] They they are our church is open now. It doesn’t mean that we still don’t struggle with issues. It doesn’t mean that we don’t. But the one thing we don’t do is we don’t judge people. The one thing we’re not going to do is is say to you, we’re not going to shut the conversation down. And I think that’s what’s happening in our cultures today, is that it’s just the conversation gets shut down, lines get drawn where where the church would say, okay, if you’re conservative, you’re saying, okay, we have no need for you. Okay. Well, so well, what would Jesus say about those people? I mean, Jesus would say, actually, those are the people I came for. In fact, I came for you as well. You’re sick. We’re all sick, all with sin. Paul said. None are righteous. No, not one. But so you get people who are who who begin to say the church. The purpose of the church is to be the judgment of morality. With the purpose of the church was to be solely a dispenser of grace. That’s it. To solely tell people about Jesus’s love and that the Holy Spirit then works in everybody’s heart individually. Okay? And so that we don’t we don’t have the ability to judge those people in the way that God can judge those people. We are solely commissioned to go out and tell people about Jesus and love.

Sherri McRae: [00:45:08] God and love.

Randell Beck: [00:45:09] God and love people.

Speaker5: [00:45:10] So basically you’re the arena where the Holy Spirit works instead of being a gate guard to the faith. Yes, there you go.

Randell Beck: [00:45:15] Instead of telling people how the Holy Spirit works, which I have no ability to do, I’m asking everybody to take a deep breath and look at people as God would look at people that I died for. That person, that person might not look like you come from where you come from, believe in the same things you believe in. But neither they did 2000 years ago, and Jesus and the disciples were irate that Jesus was going to all of those people. The sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the the Phoenicians, all the all these people that they thought were unclean. Jesus says, those are the people I want to be with. And that’s what Overcome wants to do.

Sherri McRae: [00:45:53] And that’s what I think the Gen Z, like we talked about, they see through the political systems of the world and the church look so alike. They battle over these things where grace covers a lot. And so I think that’s where we’re passionate about, is that, you know, we’ve had people come to our church that said, I I’m gay and I’m told I can’t be a door holder or I can’t be a host to greet people in. And our heart is, do you love Jesus? Do you love people? You have a place.

Robert Mason: [00:46:26] And so that’s all that counts. So I had.

Randell Beck: [00:46:29] I had I don’t know how much more time we have, but.

Speaker5: [00:46:32] We’re not really on a time clock. But I wanted to get Robert’s reaction to this idea of taking it outside the church, too. But I think Tesla should should be the one to ask him. Actually, I think, you know, if you get tired of this mortgage thing, you’ve got a real career as an investigator, as an interviewer out there.

Sherri McRae: [00:46:47] Now. She had a great in fact. Were there other questions you wanted to ask about it?

Teala Smith: [00:46:52] Just kind of more a comment, because leading into what you’re saying, you know, Gen Z, that there are a different generation. I mean, I, I think it’s great. I think it’s beautiful. It’s the the, the future that we have. Yeah. They’re so open, they’re so non-judgmental. I mean, and that I think is kind of where there’s so much fluidity with that generation. I mean, in the sense of gender fluidity and, you know, open relationships, that’s like a very prevalent thing. And I’m a millennial, so it is a different generation for me. And I’m like looking at these young individuals and I’m like, wow, they are so full of love. But because of that, they are kind of against more against like judgment. And they sniff it out and they don’t want to feel judged or guilted. And I think I think.

Robert Mason: [00:47:38] Judgment is that is a key word for this conversation.

Randell Beck: [00:47:42] That’s huge.

Robert Mason: [00:47:43] You can’t you can’t be a judger if if you’re preaching the gospel. Right. If you’re preaching God because he doesn’t care about your sins, he just wants you to open your heart, right? Yeah.

Randell Beck: [00:47:53] He cares. He cares eternally about our sin. That’s why he gave us Jesus. He, he. But because of that, where we lose the message is, is that because Christ died on a cross for us, all of a sudden we seem to be able to say, Well, he died for you and not for you. Right? And Jesus and God said, No, I died for you all because I love you all. And so that’s where the church misses it. The church says, well, okay, let’s let’s start separating people, because that’s where we’re comfortable. And so the church is really faced with a huge problem with this.

Robert Mason: [00:48:26] Which is kind of what I was talking about the other day when I was describing. I must.

Teala Smith: [00:48:29] Have misunderstood.

Robert Mason: [00:48:30] Yeah, you did. You missed that.

Randell Beck: [00:48:32] You got taken up with the white hair. I know. It’s okay. It’s overwhelming at times.

Sherri McRae: [00:48:36] We pick and choose. And I think that’s what people that’s why I think the church, the Western church is struggling is because we pick and choose like God has a lot to say about gossip and slander a lot. And people do it every single day. And mainly Christians, then they want it. Yeah, exactly. No, they do. In fact, you know, the you know, bless your heart. I have a prayer request is typically a gossip session is typically what it is. But I think that’s what the gospel of grace is. What we’re really passionate about is because we how can you have a conversation about Jesus with someone if you’re not willing to get to know that person first? And so if you cancel them or close them out, Jim and I do have a big part of our story is we were hurt by the local church. And so I’ll never forget after it happened, I remember driving to a church, sitting in a parking lot and saying, God, why did you let this happen? Why? Why am I here? And it was an audible voice, and I do believe it was the Holy Spirit that said, I want you to see how my people are treated by my church and I want you to love them.

Sherri McRae: [00:49:40] And so I think that’s what our call is on our life, is that we’ve seen what the church can do spiritually to abuse people by pushing them out. They’re not worthy. They’re not good enough. They they they struggle with this or they struggle with that. And then where does the gospel of grace get preached? And so I think that the Western church could you know, we could see thousands baptized daily if we really got back to, like Robert said, to the basics, we got back to the basics and allow the Holy Spirit to have movement in this place that we live and breathe. We I worked for a church who was like, I wasn’t an elder, so I couldn’t consecrate Holy Communion. Yeah. And I went toe to toe with a pastor and I said, Well, wait a minute. Jesus said, Take and eat. And when you do remember me, what about a person out in a field in Africa that’s not an elder? Should they not be able to take Holy Communion because an elder didn’t bless it? So this is the same Holy Spirit in me is in you.

Randell Beck: [00:50:42] Or sniff out that self-righteous hypocrisy where I have self ordained myself as more spiritual than you. Therefore, I have more power over certain elements that people are hungry for. They’re hungry. We’re spiritual beings in human bodies, not the other way around. I mean, we are first spiritual beings, I believe, and we’re desperate. Our spirit is hungry for spiritual things. And yet we have people like that. And I don’t know if that’s the majority. I mean, we ran into them. I mean, it felt like the majority for us. But that believe that because they have sort of self ordained themselves Apostolically from the very beginning with going back to the disciples that they have some sort of magical power that others don’t possess. I sent people out to laity to serve communion and they got, Oh my God, you thought I would have. Satan had rose up out of the ground himself. You know, all the clergy were going, You can’t do that. I go, Why can’t I do that? What’s I do not fit in this round. Peg does not fit in this square hole any longer. There’s something wrong with this, you know?

Speaker5: [00:51:46] So I’m a history nerd. I always go back to the historical. So this was essentially the Reformation, right? 500 years ago. We’re pulling that power away from the church institution.

Randell Beck: [00:51:55] Martin Luther nailed it on the door. And, you know, and here we are.

Speaker5: [00:51:59] Still fighting the same fight.

Randell Beck: [00:52:00] Hundreds of thousands of people died because of that. But it it’s a lot of the same thing. But the problem with it today is it seems like I feel like just congregations go along with it now. It just feels like I don’t see many congregations standing up and questioning it, you know, and saying, why does this doesn’t smell right, this doesn’t feel right, or maybe they just haven’t read their Bible closely enough. I mean, or maybe they haven’t prayed it, but. It just it’s just like people just go with the flow and it’s kind of like the, you know, a doctor comes in with a white jacket and says, okay, I know what’s best for your, you know, your body and your in your disease. Well, I trust that guy because he’s wearing a what? Yeah, wearing a white jacket. The guy puts on a pilot hat and I trust the guy can fly the plane. Plane, you know, and same thing with religiously. You put on a robe and all of a sudden a collar. You. You have got their attention. And that’s a very dangerous place because, trust me, clergy are just as susceptible to pride and ego more than any other person in any other industry, in any other vocation. And it’s and.

Robert Mason: [00:53:04] So the white jumpsuit, if you put on a white jumpsuit, you know, old suit, polyester suit, Saturday Night Live, that you just get pegged for that.

Randell Beck: [00:53:12] Yeah, we haven’t done that yet. But it’s we might if it attracts people.

Robert Mason: [00:53:16] Are the jumpsuits coming back? I’ve still got like three of them.

Speaker5: [00:53:19] I don’t think so.

Randell Beck: [00:53:20] We don’t own one. Yeah we but, but, you know, so it is a it’s an exciting time in the history of the church, really exciting time for people that really want to do something different. It’s it’s a very scary time for people that think that they can do the same thing and reach people with the same tools. Okay. In their repertoire that they’ve been doing for so long and think that they can ignite people again. And I just don’t I think we’re past that. I honestly do. And I think the church is going to wake up and find itself totally out of the picture because if you look out in denomination denominationalism, you’re going to see people’s hair just like me and stone or white. They’re all white. And eventually that generation dies off and then who’s left? And so they’re saying, okay, I’m fine with just meeting the needs of this generation. They’re not thinking about the next and they’ve got to be thinking about the next.

Robert Mason: [00:54:14] Well, you should be educating for the next generation. Oh, very much so. And you can’t forget history. You can’t forget where we came from.

Speaker5: [00:54:21] You know, let’s say Jim’s right about this. And and it’s this idea actually catches on and the denominationalism kind of fades, you know? Oh, it already.

Randell Beck: [00:54:31] Is now right in front of you. They’ll say it’s not, but it is. The Pew reports prove that people are fleeing denominationalism.

Speaker5: [00:54:38] And doing something else. So now what does that mean? Well, they’re a good one.

Randell Beck: [00:54:41] Non denom or they just are out of the game completely. They love Jesus, but they don’t know. They don’t trust the church to to to that they can lead any longer.

Speaker5: [00:54:49] So so so outside the church, out in the business world, you know, you’re a real estate broker. You’re a mortgage broker. Stone’s a radio producer. Right. What does that what does that mean out there?

Robert Mason: [00:54:59] I think it’s getting back to basic morality for me. You know, do what you say. Say what you’re going to do. Don’t be judgy. And, you know, I like that. I mean, I don’t care who people sleep with or who people vote for or what you eat, but just don’t, you know, just don’t be judgy to me if I don’t if I don’t agree with it, that’s what I take from it.

Randell Beck: [00:55:22] I think I think that if I could put it if you if you took a congregation and you made them close their eyes and put their heads down and they they were asked these very difficult lightning round questions, do you have do you know, a gay person? Do you know somebody? Do you have a gay child? Do you have a gay cousin? Do you you know, a lot of people would raise their hands and have sympathy and are sitting in silent horror about the treatment of whether it’s homosexual or or whether it’s somebody on another political spectrum or whomever or wherever. You know, people are sitting in silent horror because to speak out gets you. What? Canceled. Canceled. It’s not just it’s not just a conversation. It is now canceled. So, I mean, it’s just it’s horrific where we are with that stuff. So it’s an interesting world in which we live.

Sherri McRae: [00:56:15] And I woke up this morning like, why can’t we just focus on being a good human? Yeah, let’s.

Robert Mason: [00:56:20] Get back to that.

Sherri McRae: [00:56:21] Like, let’s just be good human beings that like because the first, the hardest thing is you got to look in first, right? Because we all have our junk. So when we work on our self, then we’re able to give out a beautiful, you know, expression of love to other people. And so I just feel like everything is so divided right now. Politics, the church is no different. It’s divided as well. And so, you know, we do need to look at the new generation coming up and they see that division and they don’t want anything to do with it. It’s already stressful in their jobs and their career and their families and their friend groups. And so why would I want to go into a church and have that same division placed on?

Robert Mason: [00:57:00] It’s like watching sports, you know, when they start getting political and it’s a football game, you know, I don’t watch sports to to get politics out of it. Leave it out of it.

Randell Beck: [00:57:10] Yeah. And I think, you know, it’s interesting with the older generations that really seem to I mean, I’ve had more people over 60 say, you know, we don’t like change. And it might be that the goal of the church is to start maybe the first line of the first front that we’re on, the battle line that we’re on, we’re on is to really get those people to understand what baton they’re trying to pass and getting them to understand that if if if we if you continue to dig in instead of fill in, then you are going to miss the opportunity to pass this baton to the next generation. Yeah. And and you might not agree with them. You might not understand them, but that’s no reason to not hear them. Okay. Well, you know what?

Robert Mason: [00:57:56] We we fear change so much, Jim. I mean, change is can be a little scary. And, you know, we don’t know what we don’t know. And when you’re when you’re when you’re faced with something that you’re not used to or seeing or whatnot. Yeah, there is a little of.

Randell Beck: [00:58:13] Yeah, there’s fear and there is. You know, it scares me because I don’t necessarily fall, you know, like I can’t affirm certain things that are out there right now, like some of these things are, are, are in my mind, just where are they getting this? You know, how are they? But you know what my job is not to. My job is to give my opinion and to back it up the way I can back it up and speak truth the way I think I can speak truth. But it’s not to condemn them with the truth. It’s not to shout them the truth. It’s not to bludgeon them with the truth. It’s to love them in and bully them. It’s to love them, to draw them in. And what I’m hoping on the other side is they will be able to do the same with me. Right. Because where I was hyper conservative, you know, ten, 15 years ago, I’m not liberal by any means, but I’m not hyper conservative any longer. You know, I’m like, throw the baby out with the bathwater, you know? No, not at all. The the the bathwater is where we all are.

Randell Beck: [00:59:10] We don’t need to be emptying anybody out of the bathwater. You know, we need to be playing fairly and in love and in grace. And so I’ve come much more to the left and much more center in my beliefs, both theologically and, you know, just in general. And I think when you have more conversations like that, then more people can be one and at least we won’t fight about any longer, I think. And I think that’s the way we’re going to fill our churches again, and that’s the way we’re going to see and maybe not fill our churches, but at least getting people gathering together to do ministry in the name of God. Does that make sense? It might not be the basics. It might not be in a church on Sunday. It might be on something on Monday where they’re going to serve food to somebody. It might, but I think Sundays are gone. I think they’re not sacred any longer. I don’t think that I think people who are begging people to come to church on Sundays are playing out of an old sandbox, you know.

Robert Mason: [00:59:57] And it’s it sucks that it’s come to this because spirituality is different for everybody. Oh, no, it doesn’t.

Randell Beck: [01:00:05] It’s in history. Every forest fire. Has been perfectly planned to bring you think to burn it all down, start over. But look at.

Robert Mason: [01:00:16] All of the people that have been helped throughout the ages from just having that spiritual strength.

Randell Beck: [01:00:22] Yeah, agreed. But I think that every I think that when a church because if it’s like a center line, if a church goes too far, right to far left, God is always trying to pull it back to the middle. Okay, so you see different people stand up. Martin Luther, you’re seeing. And so every time the church goes or society goes left or right, you see brave men and women standing up to do something incredible. Generally, what happens is there has to be a fire, a metaphorical fire to I mean, God did not let that generation enter the promised land. He wait for them to all die off before they could enter the promised land. All those people that were bugging him and in the wilderness for 40 years, the rough neck, the stiff neck, he let all those people die before he let the new generation go in. And I think that that’s a lot of what’s happening here. We’re seeing that in-between time, I think of stirring, letting the old die off, you know, whether it’s, you know, whatever. And I’m part of the old, by the way. I just happen to be a voice trying to pass the baton, you know, and helping other people to understand how to pass the baton. But I do think God is going to close some doors and close a lot of doors and open new ones.

Robert Mason: [01:01:35] This has been a very good discussion.

Speaker5: [01:01:37] Covid might be the wildfire. Right, Or Covid plus politics. Right. We’re seeing a whole new. Iteration of the workplace. Right. The work from Home Revolution. Content Marketing Revolution. This ad age is dying. The church is changing like you’ve been talking about. Everything’s changing, right? Everything across the board.

Randell Beck: [01:01:59] Yeah. And so just to comment on that, the problem with the way we’re handling social issues now is that we’re speaking politically and socially instead of biblically and spiritually. Does that make sense? And so the language now is not about, well, what would God say? The language is not what does my party say? The language now is what does my party believe in or what do I socially believe in? We’ve broken.

Robert Mason: [01:02:25] Up into.

Randell Beck: [01:02:25] Teams and tribes and stuff like that. Yeah. So that’s that’s a real danger we are right now.

Speaker5: [01:02:30] When we started this whole thing, Robert, we said no sacred cows. You know, political correctness does not apply. There’s nothing off limits. We got there today, didn’t we?

Robert Mason: [01:02:38] We sure did. Oh, Tina and I, we still. I guess we got to go.

Speaker5: [01:02:42] Will you lend us money?

Randell Beck: [01:02:43] Money for a boat and not a car? Our house. You’ll lend money for a boat?

Sherri McRae: [01:02:47] Same thing, actually. I was like, Oh.

Teala Smith: [01:02:50] No, but I’ll help you with a refinance so you can get money out.

Speaker5: [01:02:53] Yeah, well.

Randell Beck: [01:02:54] We rent.

Speaker5: [01:02:55] So, you know, it used to be. It used to be that a boat or an RV, if it had the right living facilities on it would qualify for a mortgage, didn’t it? Is that not true anymore?

Robert Mason: [01:03:05] Yeah, it is. It is. And it has a.

Teala Smith: [01:03:07] Millennial bathrooms.

Speaker5: [01:03:08] Bathrooms.

Robert Mason: [01:03:08] Has to do with bathrooms because RVs are the same way.

Randell Beck: [01:03:11] Okay. Yeah. So it has.

Sherri McRae: [01:03:12] To have a catamaran.

Randell Beck: [01:03:14] Yeah. They have bathrooms in.

Sherri McRae: [01:03:14] Monohulls, but not as many.

Randell Beck: [01:03:16] I’ve enjoyed this conversation.

Robert Mason: [01:03:18] Yeah, it’s been great.

Randell Beck: [01:03:18] I’ve had. Thank you for having us on. Or do we want to say, are we. Can we. Do you want to talk more or do we talk more?

Speaker5: [01:03:25] We’re not we’re not out of memory card yet, as far as I know.

Robert Mason: [01:03:28] So Stone’s not up there waving his hands.

Randell Beck: [01:03:30] Oh, we got to. What time if he.

Speaker5: [01:03:31] Starts jumping up.

Sherri McRae: [01:03:32] And down? You said about Covid being, you know, Covid has changed everything. And now not to bring in another whole topic, but I is going to change things. And so I think we have to be, like you said, aware that that change happens, growth happens out of change. And so I think it’s an exciting time for the church. I think it’s an exciting time to be alive right now because there is a lot of things happening. And so I think that’s what we have to remember, is God always uses all things together for the good, right? So even a pandemic, even something like this.

Speaker5: [01:04:07] Manufactured pandemic, look, I was I am the great resignation. I had a career in the Navy, which is as bureaucratic as it gets. And then I was 20 years in corporate real estate development, you know, and and during Covid.

Randell Beck: [01:04:18] I said, so you own a bar.

Speaker5: [01:04:20] Enough is enough. Right? And I became an entrepreneur and I’m doing something creative and I’m completely divorced at this point from the corporate structure.

Sherri McRae: [01:04:31] And. Are you happy?

Speaker5: [01:04:32] Yes, but terrifying also. Right. It’s a scary thing, but it’s terrifying, right?

Sherri McRae: [01:04:36] It’s scary to jump, But when you jump, you find out. And I think that’s why you’re untethered.

Robert Mason: [01:04:41] Yeah, You’re not tethered. That is true.

Speaker5: [01:04:43] In a very real sense. And and it’s exciting and everything. I mean, listen, it’s a great but everything is changing. So around us, whether we want it.

Robert Mason: [01:04:50] To or not. So like Tesla’s a mortgage broker. I’m a real estate broker. You guys are now brokering the gospel. You’re a videographer, film broker. We’re all independent.

Randell Beck: [01:05:02] We’re different from you. We’re very poor. Yeah. All right. We’re a lot different from y’all. We our commissions are a lot lower.

Robert Mason: [01:05:10] That’s probably true. But, you know, I told a gentleman today, I said those who can’t do for themselves work for others. We work for ourselves, right? Where focus goes, energy flows. So we have to be sniper focused on what we’re doing to be successful. And that includes getting into discussions and debates like this and and talking to different people with different philosophies. Because the more people that you rub up against, the more information you’re going to get. And more information is certainly needed, especially for you, Randy.

Sherri McRae: [01:05:40] But I think that’s balm to our soul.

Speaker5: [01:05:43] I’m the mirror. I just hold it up and make pretty pictures of it and let it out there.

Robert Mason: [01:05:47] You’re the information gatherer. Oh, I see what you because of your camera.

Sherri McRae: [01:05:51] But this is what I think the world needs more of is table conversation and not We might not all be on the same page, on the same book, same chapter, but we can have a conversation. I think that’s the biggest problem right now.

Robert Mason: [01:06:06] And that’s what we’re.

Randell Beck: [01:06:06] Missing right now.

Robert Mason: [01:06:07] We’re missing the ability to have the conversation based on bias, based on prejudice, based on on, you know, political correctness.

Randell Beck: [01:06:19] And you don’t know how many times we when we talk to people, we’ll go, do you go to are you a believer? And they’ll go, I’m a methodist or I’m a Baptist or I’m a Catholic and there’s your problem. And so it’s it really becomes a. It becomes worrisome when we’re not identifying with who we really are, who we really are. I might be a pastor, but I’m a Christian. I’m a believer. And what we want people to say is I’m a believer. I’m a believer in Jesus Christ and God. That created me. And yet we go back into these places that we get dumbed down in. So every denomination is dumbing those people in the seats down. In a way, they’re saying this is the doctrine, this is the way it’s supposed to be done. This is the polity. Don’t don’t move outside of the way things flow.

Robert Mason: [01:07:16] Well, tribes you said it earlier.

Randell Beck: [01:07:18] Tribes, teams. And I think it becomes very that that does not allow for conversation. That certainly doesn’t allow for the Holy Spirit to move in. And that was my last sort of cry for people, laity and pulpits excuse me, laity and pews and churches around the world. Please be constructively critical of your church and your leadership of your church. All right. Remember that you have the Holy Spirit trying to speak in and through you and don’t let anybody silence you. I think that, you know, and I think we all should be able to learn that lesson. Yes, there will be you could pay a heavy price for it, but please have the courage to stand up and speak.

Robert Mason: [01:07:57] Good stuff.

Speaker5: [01:07:58] Now, there’s a new alignment in this room, too. I don’t know if you guys realize this or not, but Teela and I are from flyover states. We’re out there where it’s flat. There’s nothing going on. And we migrated to areas we wanted to be in, right? Entrepreneurially. Correct over a long period of time. One of us is young. One of us is slightly older.

Teala Smith: [01:08:17] I thought you were 39.

Speaker5: [01:08:18] Slightly older, but you know. So change is happening in every.

Randell Beck: [01:08:25] Yeah.

Speaker5: [01:08:26] It’s a it’s a cliche. In the business world, the only constant is change. But right now, there’s nothing but change in sight. Nothing but.

Robert Mason: [01:08:33] Right. Everything that lives and dies changes your grasp. Changes every single day. Everything is changing. You know, the temperatures are changing. The oceans are changing. Your hair color is going to change.

Speaker5: [01:08:44] Interest rates are.

Robert Mason: [01:08:44] Changing. Interest rates.

Speaker5: [01:08:45] Are business practices changing? Yeah. The whole way of communicating your business to the marketplace is changing.

Randell Beck: [01:08:51] Just go read who moved my cheese. That’s the greatest book ever.

Robert Mason: [01:08:54] Human. My cheese.

Randell Beck: [01:08:55] Yeah. Who moved my cheese? Who moved my.

Speaker5: [01:08:57] Cheese. Oh, okay. It’s a great book. Who moved.

Randell Beck: [01:08:59] My cheese?

Robert Mason: [01:09:00] Yeah, I said human cheese.

Speaker5: [01:09:01] That’s a great book. And he’s absolutely right. Yeah, because. Because while we’re talking about this church denominational model, I wake up, write something up. What we’ve what we’re watching in the marketplace is the advertising model dying. Right. And when did it hit its highest point? Joe Isuzu lying to you? Laughingly, Right. The whole ad agency, the whole ad industry was making fun of its own lies. Right? Because they knew they had no credibility. So that started changing. Right? And now we have an entirely different content marketing. We have an entirely different way, as Jared was telling us in that episode, entirely different way of communicating.

Robert Mason: [01:09:36] Like what we’re doing.

Speaker5: [01:09:36] Right now.

Randell Beck: [01:09:37] Yeah, very much so.

Speaker5: [01:09:38] And it’s all because the old model died.

Robert Mason: [01:09:42] Well, media is that way as well. The mainstream media is just lost total credibility.

Speaker5: [01:09:46] So the old model is dying.

Robert Mason: [01:09:47] Yeah, you could.

Randell Beck: [01:09:48] Be a Kodak. Watch out. You could be a Kodak.

Teala Smith: [01:09:53] I had to think about that for a second.

Randell Beck: [01:09:55] You don’t even. You don’t know Kodak.

Teala Smith: [01:09:57] I think it’s a camera.

Speaker7: [01:10:00] There we go. We’re not.

Robert Mason: [01:10:03] Are you talking about the bear in Alaska?

Speaker7: [01:10:05] Old bless her little heart.

Teala Smith: [01:10:07] It’s the. What’s the other one? The we made. It’s not. Oh, it’s Klondike.

Speaker7: [01:10:11] Oh, Klondike. Klondike bar. Hey, Boo Boo. Yeah.

Randell Beck: [01:10:15] I mean, yeah, that’s Kodak. Yeah, that’s how we used to. So when we were.

Speaker7: [01:10:19] We were young, silent movies. We actually had to tell her that our film into a.

Randell Beck: [01:10:23] Place to have it produced and manufactured into film. And now we obviously have digital uses it, but nobody uses it. But Kodak did not see that and they could have seen it and they chose not to see it and they could have spent all of that new money into marketing in a new way. And they decided to stay in the old blockbuster video.

Robert Mason: [01:10:40] The same thing. There’s been a number of of examples of that wolf camera.

Randell Beck: [01:10:45] I don’t even think Wolf cameras. I mean, blockbuster. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people that could have been around.

Robert Mason: [01:10:51] But the music industry, Jim, I mean, you know, look how changed how changed up that whole thing is. Well.

Sherri McRae: [01:10:58] We have I have a lot of, you know, seniors in my Bible study. And one lady was talking about just the times. And it’s so stressful. And it’s so I said, well, first of all, do you watch the news all day? Yes. I’m like, stop. There you go. That’s the first problem. You know, 24 over seven news cycle doesn’t mean you need to watch it. 20 It’s.

Speaker7: [01:11:15] Called a boob tube.

Sherri McRae: [01:11:15] For a reason. Exactly. And so I said to her, you know, and she was just like overwhelmed by, you know, all the hot topics in the media right now. And I finally just looked at her and said, okay, you can’t control those things and you’re driving yourself crazy thinking about them. So how would you enter into that conversation with Grace? Like, how would you how would you? So instead of looking at the whole world and what’s going on, look at your own self and how would you interact as a woman of faith in a conversation with someone about that? And so that song Hold on loosely. You know who sings that? Hold on.

Randell Beck: [01:11:50] 38 special dude.

Sherri McRae: [01:11:51] Is it 38 special?

Speaker7: [01:11:52] Yeah.

Sherri McRae: [01:11:52] I mean, if we hold.

Speaker7: [01:11:53] On so tight, know what it is. But we should know that.

Teala Smith: [01:11:56] Hold on loosely. Yeah, you got.

Speaker7: [01:11:59] You go. Yeah. So we got to hold.

Sherri McRae: [01:12:02] On loosely, right to the things because it’s like sand, right? Running through our hands. Change is good.

Speaker7: [01:12:08] It’s like time.

Robert Mason: [01:12:09] It’s our number one.

Sherri McRae: [01:12:10] Commodity to it. Yeah. Don’t hold on to it. Let go, let it, let it be fluid. And. But you got to have something solid to believe in. And I think that’s why we’re passionate about what we do. You got to have something solid to believe in. And change comes over.

Speaker7: [01:12:24] Come, baby. So, yeah.

Randell Beck: [01:12:25] Over. Come, guys. Thank you for having us on.

Robert Mason: [01:12:28] You’re welcome. Yeah. This has been fantastic.

Speaker5: [01:12:30] Yeah. Sum it up, Tesla. What are you taking away from this discussion?

Randell Beck: [01:12:33] That buy more houses.

Teala Smith: [01:12:35] Buy more houses? Yeah. That overcome is very open to the different types of people that are out there. Good deal. Which was not my belief going in. I was under a different impression.

Randell Beck: [01:12:47] We’ll even take you. You, you silver haired judger.

Speaker7: [01:12:51] We had a we.

Speaker5: [01:12:52] Had a paradigm.

Speaker7: [01:12:53] Shift right here on the show was white. It is white.

Speaker5: [01:12:56] What’s the takeaway for you?

Robert Mason: [01:12:57] My takeaway is conversation is good. The more you understand other people’s point of view is important. We don’t want to judge because I certainly don’t judge. And I am judged. Quite often.

Teala Smith: [01:13:13] Dodgy MC.

Speaker7: [01:13:13] Judges Judgey.

Robert Mason: [01:13:14] Mc Judger and you are.

Speaker5: [01:13:15] You’ve been judged recently.

Robert Mason: [01:13:17] I have, Yeah. About 35 minutes ago. Um, but no, no. I appreciate you guys coming out. This is going to be a really good program. I can’t wait to cut this up and get this out for everybody and and do it again.

Speaker7: [01:13:30] Definitely. Jim and.

Speaker5: [01:13:31] Sherry from overcome church shattering models and changing paradigms in in real time and and Teela Smith excellent mortgage broker and apparently investigative journalist.

Robert Mason: [01:13:45] Investigative.

Speaker7: [01:13:46] It’s my side we are we are.

Speaker5: [01:13:47] All we’re all about changing things up here. Shaking it up.

Randell Beck: [01:13:51] Roger that. Thanks for what you all do.

Teala Smith: [01:13:53] Thank you.