Transcript of 2 Pastors Get Honest About Anxiety, Depression & Ministry (ft. Louie Giglio) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

I don't think I really had an anxiety attack or a panic attack. I think it was way more significant than that. I cracked. I didn't think I was ever going to be normal again.

When people tell the story of how God moved in my generation, it will be impossible to tell without talking about Louie and Shelley Giglio.

And I'm talking to the Lord. I said, "You didn't heal me yesterday, and You didn't heal me today, and I don't know if You're going to heal me tomorrow. But I do know You're a healer. So I'm going to praise You, not because You healed me. I want to praise You because You're a healer."

Louie Giglio, I've been waiting for this for a long time. Thank you for coming.

I am so glad to be here.

You know, we were talking a little bit before, we were rudely kicked off by Carlos Serrazo's false alarm here. You are never going to know how much... If people listening to Lift Free know, there's two things make my eyes sweat. When I started talking about Jesus, I started talking about Janna. You have probably influenced my life and ministry, even though we never met before today, more than maybe anybody besides my dad, grandfather, and one other man.

Wow.

And for people who don't know everything that you've been a part of, here's a sentence that I wrote, and then I'm just going to dive right in. "When people tell the story of how God moved in my generation, it will be impossible to tell without talking about Louie and Shelley Giglio." You know that's true, right? It's true.

Yeah. Well.

It's true. So let me just kind of set this up. And for people who maybe are not aware, because there's a bunch of Lift Free listeners that they're kind of newer to Team Jesus and they don't know this stuff. So if you've ever heard of the Passion Conferences, Passion Worship, Passion City Church, and then some other things I'm going to talk about in a second. And then people who don't even know... Man, I'm really... My heart is very full talking to you. People who don't even know that their lives have been shaped by You. They've been in churches singing songs that they had no idea You were a part of.

You know, my sister told me that all along. And my dad was a graphic designer, so he did packaging for his job, like Coca-Cola carton or something like that. But then he would freelance and do all these logos around Atlanta, I mean, landmark things when I was a kid. And my sister always said, "And yeah, Dad did the Chick-fil-A logo." And I'm like, we have all this artwork of my dad's, but no sign of Chick-fil-A anywhere. And sure enough, a few years later, Josh, the head of Chick-fil-A, faxes me.

I feel like a royal T-check is due something.

Anything. There is... Okay, we won't get into that. Chick-fil-A people are listening and they're my friends.

No, come on, man.

Well, there is a card, I found out. There is some kind of thing.

What?

Yeah. I don't know all the details, but I know there is one.

Mom and let's go on record.

And I know Josh doesn't have one. I know I don't have one. And so I don't know what it takes to get one. It's a mystery.

That's amazing.

Come back to that later, though. And if we get to talking about Passion at some point and ask me about the Chick-fil-A logo, because it is a crazy story in our Passion history, my dad's logo.

Okay. Well, I definitely want to come back to that. Well, that's a long way for me to say thank you for what you've done in my life and coming on the Lift Free pod.

Thank you. It means a lot. And I told you this just recently. A, I don't know how we had met before now. But I've been watching what God's doing with this podcast, particularly. And it is one of the most astounding things happening on earth right now. And You are so gifted. You and the team here. I know it's a whole team, but You are so gifted for this moment. And I just want to say that out loud. I'm watching going, "My goodness, You've got not only gifting, but You've got anointing for it." And God is using You in such an incredible way.

This feels like a... For me, this is like a John the Baptist moment. Like, "You should be baptizing me." So let me just kind of dive right in, because there's... So for people who are listening, let me just kind of pull back the curtain on something I've realized. What I'm trying to do right now a little bit is all the things that shaped me and that God used to disciple me, I'm kind of trying to all of our people just go, "Well, let me give You those things too." And it really is. Let me just say a few things about Your personal impact on my life, for people who don't know.

That's a good title.

It's pretty good. You've heard that before. "Don't Waste Your Life." The intro to the sermon was me telling the story of my college roommate, Louis Kurd, in 2001, handing me a burned CD that just said, "John Piper Passion 1 Day." Dude, it is impossible for me to talk about this without my eyes sweating. And I'm just going to repeat to You what I told them. I no joke, I listened to it in my dorm room. It's the only sermon I've ever listened to, and then immediately hit play again. I grabbed all my roommates and I was like, "Y'all got to listen to this."

Oh, yeah.

And then we listened to "Don't Waste Your Life." And then it was in my '96 Grand Am for the next four years. And every time I listen, I just listen to that. There's no way, Louie, there's no way that I'm doing what I'm doing today without that. And You, God, used to catalyze that. And so it's like, for real, I'm not probably in ministry today if God had not used You and Shelley. So thank You.

Yeah. Well, that means a lot. And you know the fact that we have that story in common, I didn't know that until recently. And it's just so awesome that we're in that together, You and me and Shelley. I mean, we're all in that. And it's amazing looking back. That moment in time, Josh, Passion 1 Day, 2000. It's on a field in Memphis, Texas.

Yeah, it's all I hear about. Yeah, go ahead.

And it was what the vision of Passion was. Passion, by the way, you know, didn't start as this, "Hey, let's go do this 30-year run of stadium events and a record label and all this stuff." We were showing our campus ministers, pastors, at a campus here in Texas, just on the crossroads with students every day, right here with 18 to 25-year-olds every single day. My dad was disabled in Atlanta, and he had been for seven years. And we've been asking God every year, "Can we please go help Mom take care of Dad?"

And what year is this?

This is 1995 when we moved to Atlanta. So seven years before that, '88 is when my dad got disabled. I got my math maybe wrong. Yeah, '88. Overnight, my dad has a brain virus. And he never goes back to work, never plays golf, never drives a car, never dresses himself. And the night that I got to Atlanta, they thought he was going to die that night. His brain was swelling up. And the neurosurgeon came into a little room with me and my mom, and he said, "I need you to sign this piece of paper.

Jesus, whoa.

Right.

Okay.

So Dad is disabled. We're in Waco. We're trying to get to Atlanta. It's always, "Stay where you are. I'll take care of Mom and Dad. Stay where you are. I'll take care of Mom and Dad." Until 1994, I'm spending some time alone with God, and He says, "You can go. You're free to go." I could not believe it. I ran to the phone to call Shelley, and I said, "We can go to Atlanta." Well, I thought, humanly speaking, long story short, we'll go at the end of the school year. We'll go in May. So we did. We made plans. We transitioned our leadership. We were going to Atlanta May 1st, the last Monday night, Bible study, Baylor, and then we're in Atlanta.

Oh my goodness.

Unrelated to his disability. It's gone. Just crushed me. So here we are, you know, in no man's land. We're in Atlanta. We got no job. We got no dad. Got no banner to fly. We got no ministry. We got nothing except frustration. That's all we got. Not with God. I was frustrated with me. Oh, when you said November, go to Atlanta, you meant go to Atlanta. And I just missed the last five months of my dad's life because I was thinking, you know, like human things. I was so frustrated, so cloudy.

That's awesome. That's awesome.

To a big youth event. And on the plane, sitting by the window, I'm reading a magazine, and then, Josh, I go away somewhere. I do not know where I just went, but I went somewhere and I saw something. And it was like, I've never seen this many college students before. I don't know where this is, but it was a generation on their faces praying for spiritual awakening in their generation. And just like that, I was back in my seat looking at that magazine, and I went, "Wow."

I love that sentence.

People came and they camped out in tents in these other campsites, and no one could even walk on the one-day field for three days, except for the wooden tower standing on it where people were reading the Scripture 24 hours a day over this field in preparation for this moment.

Were You doing like Nehemiah 8?

We were all about Ezra and all about Nehemiah.

Wow. I've never heard that before.

Yes.

For 24 hours.

24 hours a day for several days, people are reading the Word of God. That's all that's going into this soil.

Bro.

And when the day came for the students to come on the field, it was holy. I mean, there were no frisbees. There was no running around. It was just quiet ascension into God's presence on this field. And so we're praying side stage, and it's John Piper and some other speakers.

Real quick. Real quick. Because I want You to keep telling the story. I had never heard of John Piper before then. I don't know that anybody, none of my buddies had ever heard of him before then. I'm actually kind of, how did You even, how did You find John Piper? Because like, honestly, I don't mean, like, honestly, I mean this respectfully. He's very like un-Passion in a lot of ways. You know, he's done look cool and stuff, you know? How did You find him?

A friend of mine who helped us start Passion, one of the early guys in the vision of Passion, was a big missions guy. And he gave me a book called Let the Nations Be Glad.

Dude. Oh, dude. Great book.

And I opened the book, and the forward of the book says, "The reason that missions exists is because worship doesn't." And I said, "I don't know what the rest of the book is like, but I never even read the rest of the book." I knew right there, "Oh, that's what this book is about." And it blew my mind. I never thought of it that way before. But I had never thought of the glory of God before either.

Yeah.

And when I first got around John Piper, I mean, it was kind of going over my head a little bit, honestly.

Same.

And desiring God was, it was work, man. I know You got the original. Where'd You get that?

So dude, for people who are listening, so I'm going to show the, I'm going to show the seashells clip here in a second again. So after that moment, this is, I'm pretty sure this is the first edition of Don't Waste Your Life that came out.

Yeah, I haven't seen that cover in a minute.

Well, I bought that in college. So I'm pretty sure I bought that in college.

What year are we talking?

I don't know. I was in college '01 to '05.

Okay.

So somewhere around there. Whenever this came out, I bought it as soon as it came out. But then also because of that moment, I was so gripped, and we'll talk about this in a second, by just like, honestly, I had never been exposed to like this theology of like the massiveness of the glory and sovereignty of God. Like never in my whole life. So I'm gripped. His famous book, Desiring God, and I was kind of a nerd. And so I went on ABEbooks.com and found the first edition. This is the first edition, John Piper Desiring God.

Yeah.

So anyway.

You know what? At the first Passion, so before One Day, Passion '97, the first moment, He's speaking. And that is a great story in itself about how He came to speak there. It's a miracle. But one of my friends, who's still a really good friend, Pastor in Houston, he started Breakaway at A&M.

Oh.

Greg Mott.

Oh, dude. Greg Mott's an old Lakepoint friend.

Yeah. So Greg Mott has a big group at Passion '97, and he comes to me, because it's a four-day deal, he comes to me halfway through and he goes, "Hey, man, this John Piper guy is like going just right over our kids' heads." I mean, just like, and then he speaks the second time and he's like, "Yeah, this is just like going over everybody's head." This is no joke. I go to A&M three months later to speak, and this is back in the day when you could walk in a dorm and this kid says, "Hey, come up to our dorm. We got, you know, these quad things and come hang out up in our dorm and walk up there."

Really?

This is a true story. I look in this other room, John Piper book by the bed. Third kid, no. Fourth kid, John Piper book by the bed. And I went back to my friend and I said, "It is going over their heads, but they're reaching up for it."

That's it, dude.

And it went over my head.

Yes.

But I reached up for it because there was something in it that spoke to a part of me, Josh, You just said that You didn't know about this.

Did not.

I grew up in one of the greatest Bible teaching churches, period.

Charles Stanley, right?

That man named Charles Stanley preached every Sunday.

I still listen. I listened to him yesterday. I still listen to Charles Stanley.

I know. People in every country listen to him today. In every country on earth, people listen to him today. I grew up out of that, but I didn't know about the glory of God until Piper helped me see that. And then, you know, you have one of these revelation moments and I'm like, "Oh, it's on every page of the Bible."

Every page.

It's in every story of the Bible. This is about the glory of God. And I was like, and maybe there's people listening today and they're kind of thinking the same as we did without putting words around it. It's like, church is for me.

That's right.

It's like, no, church is for God.

Correct.

The Bible's for me. These are God's promises for me. No, this is the story of God. Heaven, oh, that's for me. Jesus up there build me a house right now. No. Heaven is for God.

Oh my man.

The cross is about the glory of God. All of it is about His glory. And yes, we're the beneficiaries in massive measure, but it's not about us. It's all about Him. And there's no more freeing message for a human being to absorb than that message. It's not about You.

That's right.

But You are in the story that it is all about.

That's right.

And that is the biggest blessing of any of our lives. And John Piper's helped a generation see that.

He did.

And he helped me see that. And I mean, the collision of that and Passion just.

It was Mentos and Coke, man. It was Mentos and Coke. Yes.

I went, started preaching that message, and I didn't, I wasn't John Piper, but everywhere I went, I'm just preaching the glory of God. And I'm in Arkansas. Shout out to Tim Smith at a collegiate conference in Little Rock. And I'm up there doing my best to preach the glory of God. I get finished preaching. I go sit down. The guy who's the head of the state convention, good friend, he's sitting next to me, and the worship hasn't really percolated yet because we're sitting. I don't know why we're sitting, but he has this huge Bible, and he opens it up, and he puts it on my lap, and he points to something.

Dude. Okay. So what, so the reason I'm explaining this here in a second, so because of Passion, when I'm playing intermirals in college, I still, I think I still had a ball cap. No joke. Because of Passion. Yes. I was, I'm just going to confess some sin. Like I, I can be overly competitive, and I would get in games and lose my temper and say unpastoral words.

No, my boy.

And so literally in intermirals in college, I wrote Isaiah 26:8. You know, yes, Lord, walking the way of Your law, we wait for You, Your name and Your renown of the desire of my heart because of Passion, John Piper, and Your ministry. All that stuff.

And so that was what's keeping You from saying the really bad things.

Correct. That was, that was the intent.

That was your repentance.

That was the intent. It's like, this will remind me.

Oh my Lord. Well, that, that verse, that guide, you know, that wasn't me. I didn't come up with Isaiah 26:8. A guide put his finger on that. But when He did, it all congealed right there. It just went, that's it. And that's what we're breathing right now. That's what Passion is still breathing 30 years later for Your name and Your renown are the desire of our souls. And man, You talk about flying in the face of humanity, which is all about my name and my renown.

Yeah.

Get a hold of that truth.

That's a foul preach. Dude, it's funny, because we're both preachers. When You're talking about Piper, I got a little thing that like when I'm teaching guys to preach, my little axiom is, "Hey, man, You'd rather teach big truths they have to grow into than small truths they'll grow out of."

Wow.

And that's like, You just, that's what John Piper did. They didn't have to understand everything.

Yeah.

But people have to have a sense. There's something way bigger for me to press further up and further into. You give them that, and they're going to keep coming.

Yeah. People want to take, if anybody's listening right now and they're like, "Man, I don't know what they're talking about exactly, but I want some more of that." Or if somebody's on the journey with God, like You and I were, we were way down the road with God when this glory of God thing happened. The pleasures of God from Piper is an unbelievable place to start. It's a lot to get Your head around, but my goodness, it's worth it.

So we're going to talk about a whole bunch of stuff. I want to ask You about like what You see happen in this generation. You know, people right now, they're kind of like, "Hey, man, maybe there's some seeds of revival happening." You know, all the things. And You can say whatever You want to say. I don't know what You're going to say. I'm just curious to hear from You. But I do, because in my lifetime, there's been like one or two moments that that one moment shifted the course of my life and generation. And that moment was one of them. So I want You to keep going real quick here. So like You were saying there was like a, You got up to the spot where Piper's getting ready to talk.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. So this was such a, this is, I'm trying to help You see where that talk came out of.

Yeah.

We're talking about three days' worth of people speaking the Word of God over this dirt where that man's standing. This is not, I have not been in a moment like this five times in my life. And we're praying over here. The thing I remember about it was we had a guy blowing a chauffard to start this gathering off, and he was a Messianic Jew. And it's just grass. You know, there's no green room. It's a tent cover and, you know, the speakers and worship leaders. Tomlins there, Crowder's there, Matt Redman, the Knuckles, myself, some of our Passion worship team and speakers, and we're all praying on our knees on the ground.

Was it just like fear of God and awe?

Yes. It was total awe. Total fear of God. No one wanted to set foot on that stage for fear that they might somehow crash this momentum of holiness that we were all feeling behind us. And I'm, I mean, You're around preachers and speakers and You're at big events. I mean, You've ever seen a speaker that was like, "Oh, I don't want to go up there and speak." They're like, "Oh, I'm ready to go. This is going to be great. 40,000 people, come on." Nobody wanted to set foot on that stage.

Okay.

And that helps You know now, okay, this thing had like a tsunami of spirit power behind it. And that's why it went the way it did.

So for people who are listening, there's Your backstory. I know this is kind of cheating, but I would be an idiot and it would be podcast malpractice not to show it again. So all of that leads up to what You're about to see is the three minutes of preaching that did not just change my life. It changed the course of my entire generation. So all that leads up to this. And then I want to ask You something about this.

One of the really sad things about this moment right now.

Is this a real watching this again?

There are hundreds of You in this crowd who do not want Your life to make a difference. All You want is to be liked. Maybe finish school, get a good job, find a husband or a wife, nice house, a nice car, long weekends, good vacations, grow old healthy, have a fun retirement, die easy, no hell.

I love looking at that sermon.

When Your life counts on this earth.

That's what I look like the first time I listen to that sermon.

That's a tragedy in the making. About three weeks ago, we got news in our church that Ruby Eliasson and Laura Edwards were killed in Cameroon. And I asked my people, is this a tragedy? Two women in their 80s, a whole life devoted to one idea, Jesus Christ magnified among the poor and the sick.

It still is like a bomb.

The hardest places. It is not a tragedy. I'll read You what a tragedy is. This is a tragedy.

The Reader's Duchess.

Title of the article, "Start Now, Retire Early." Bob and Penny.

Bob and Penny.

Took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball, and collect shells. That's a tragedy. And there are people in this country that are spending billions of dollars to get You to buy it.

To plead with You.

To plead with You. Don't buy it. With all my heart, I plead with You. Don't buy that dream, the American dream.

Nice house.

A nice house, a nice car.

He gone. He gone.

A nice job, a nice family, a nice retirement. Collecting shells as the last chapter before You stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account with what You did. Here it is, Lord.

Oh man.

My shell collection. And look at my boat.

My boat. Look at my boat, God.

Don't waste Your life.

That's what wrecked me.

Don't waste it.

That wrecked me forever. Hey, hey, thank You for making that moment happen.

Wow.

Thank You.

Praise God.

Did You, I'm curious, man. Did You have any, like that happens, did You have any idea what just happened?

Oh, I don't, not to the degree that I do now. I mean, I don't think anybody was seeing through that lens of that moment going, "Oh, I'm going to be sitting down with Josh Howerton in 2026, 26 plus years later, and we're going to be talking about the gravity of that moment." But I did know, and we knew, Josh, that what happened on that field was explosive. We knew that we were in a catalytic moment.

Well, hey, let me say.

But I know where one of them went.

One of them landed in Jackson, Tennessee, when I was in college as a freshman.

Yeah.

So I'm curious, man, like why do You think that sermon in particular just went off like a bomb?

A couple of reasons. I think one, it came out of John Piper. And I went to meet with him before the first Passion Conference. I did not know him. And I had written him and asked him to come to Passion. And he said, "I'm sorry, I can't. We do a prayer thing on the first week of the year every year. It's the most important thing we do at our church. I'm never not there." And this is through his assistant. And she says, "But You know what? I'm listening to Your heart right now, and I think You should write Him." So I wrote Him and I explained Him what Passion was going to be.

There He is.

And I'd gone up to meet Him after that and sat in His house. And this, You know, this is not really that important in the grand scheme of things, but I've never been around a more modest man ever.

Yeah. Cash savers.

I'm talking, I just walked out of there going, "Wow, what am I doing?" You know, don't have a car, has a very small wardrobe, very modest home. It does not, I don't know if a guy has 10 grand. And I could see in Him, "Hey, I'm living what You're hearing me preach. Like I'm stocking all my chips in eternity. I'm pushing all of my pile into eternity, and I am making one big bet.

Oh, yeah.

There was a season where it was on.

Poker championship.

Every night. And You would see these guys finally just do the big shove. And I was like, "This guy did the big shove." And so this message comes out of that. This isn't clever preaching. This is a passion of a guy who's thrown caution to the wind and, You know, sold out, who is not wasting his life. And I think that's part of it. And I think what we were talking about earlier is the other part of it. It just flies in the face of everything else You hear.

Yeah.

You know, who.

I've got that quote on my wall in my office.

You know, who genuinely chose the path of serving God over the path of fame and fortune.

So for, hang on, so for people who don't know, because this is a really cool story. CT stud was a, it was cricket, cricket player.

Big time cricket player.

He was like, yeah, he was like essentially like the British LeBron James of the 1800s.

Yeah.

For real. Like from what I understand, one of those.

Yeah, when he was early 20s.

Yeah. And then like at the peak of his career in Great Britain, famous everywhere, he, it would be like LeBron James retiring at 27.

Yeah.

And him just going, "I'm going to the mission field in Africa." And famously, I quoted it last week, famously somebody asked him, "Why would you do this?" And he wrote a poem. And one line in that poem, dude, I can't, it's on my wall. I write every sermon looking at this.

Only one life.

Only one life will soon be passed.

Only what's done for Christ will last.

Yes. Ma'am. And here we are 26 years later. So I'm curious, does that hit different? Like when You were there, You're in Your 30s, does that hit different in Your 60s?

Oh man, it hits. I will say that. You know, there's something about it that's still hitting right now. And I, I don't know. I just think every day we have the opportunity to either buy into the kingdom or to opt out of the kingdom. And that's all He was really imploring people to do that day. He wasn't really preaching against the world necessarily. He was preaching against falling in love with the world.

Yes.

And there's two, You know, and I just think that today You and I, both of us, just bringing it back down to this table, we have the opportunity today to buy into one kingdom or another. And He's imploring today. He's pleading. I love that. And I love the passion of it. And that day, I just can't, I keep going back to the day, Josh, because not too long after that, we brought this giant cross out, a huge, heavy, like railroad tie heavy cross.

Golly.

And everybody's just, and it's not like, You know, like it's some kind of, You know, sacrament, but everybody just wants contact, You know? And one of my close friends was there and he was sold out to Jesus, but he had a track record before that. And he'd had a hard time coming to terms with grace. And that day He said, "I just kept praying, Lord, let it come closer to me. Let it come closer to me." And it would come and then it would go and it would come. And finally it came and He could get His hand on that cross. And He said something happened in that moment.

Yeah.

The whole day. And so now seeing that clip, it's like, "Oh yeah, that's powerful." And I'm like, "No, it, the whole."

The whole day.

Day was like that. It was, yeah, it was special.

This is, I don't think I figured this out till literally this moment. So every year at, because a lot of our staff has been influenced by Passion, Passion Conference, Passion Worship. Every year at high school camp at Lake Point on the last night of camp, they pick a group of graduating seniors and they have them carry out a massive, I think it's like 20 feet, it's a railroad tie.

Wow.

And they do, they do, they set it right there. I guarantee we got that from You. I guarantee we got that from You. That's where it came from. It's amazing.

I tell You the thing, I was thinking about it, Shelley and I were talking about it. If You come to Passion, there's going to be a cross.

Yeah.

There's going to be the glory of God.

Most only in the cross.

And there's going to be a cross. Because that's where, that's where the glory of God truly is seen the most is in that moment where Christ gave it all.

So I'm, You know, I'm going to take this a different direction than I originally planned. So like people use different language. People, You know, sometimes people, they'll refer to, man, what's a revival? Or they'll use awakening or there's different words. I don't care what You, something, something happened. You might call it a, I don't know what You even call it. Something happened that became a wave, like in my generation. And I don't know if somebody tried to go, "Hey, how long did You feel like it?" Maybe, maybe 15, 16 years.

I was. I mean, I was a kid, but I got saved on a Sunday at church and got baptized that night. I don't know if You remember those days or not, but that's how it used to work. And that was in, You know, the 70s.

76 is what I thought I read. Is that when You got saved?

No, I graduated from high school in 76. So I would have gotten saved in around 70, 1970. And the Jesus movement was definitely in full swing still. I mean, the hippie movement was going on. You know, I went to church downtown Atlanta and that time it was kind of a flip-flop. The city was a little bit upside down and near our church, a lot of the buildings boarded up and that's where all the hippies were. And on the way home every Sunday, I'd ask my mom to go a certain way so we could go by the hippies and see all the peace and love. But all that percolated from that, the Amy Grants of the world that kind of started percolating up.

Wow.

And then there was just kind of a groundswell, You know, Expo 72 happened here in Cotton Bowl.

Yeah.

That was a game changer. I didn't know about it necessarily right then.

For people who don't know what that is, I'm just giving a little commentary. That's the largest gathering of Christian young adults I think that's ever happened from what I understand.

Maybe so, yeah.

Around 100,000. And if You, if You want to see some pictures that'll run a chill up Your spine, Google, it was 72.

Yeah.

Google Expo 72 Cotton Bowl. I think Billy Graham preached.

I think it was something to cover a Life magazine maybe.

Correct.

At the time. I mean, it was a moment. And that whole Jesus movement revolution, that was, You're talking about waves. That was a wave for sure.

Chuck Smith with one finger in the air.

Yeah.

So here's, here's the question I want to ask. Like this is really interesting to me because I'm a bit of a church history nerd. There have essentially been either four or five, what people would call like awakening revival in our nation's history. You got first great awakening. I've, I got them right here. First great awakening dates generally 1730, 1740. By the way, a lot of people don't think about this. When people hear revival, a lot of times they think like, "Oh man, big explosive event." Dude, a lot of these revivals like were eras in history that lasted 40, 50 years.

We're on the doorstep.

Man, honestly, man, that's like, You know, You know, it's, You know, again, there's just a few things that when I talk about them, eyes are going to sweat. And just, You know, seeing an inbreaking of the spirit of God in my generation that, that changes, You know, my kids' lives and the world my grandkids grow up and, You know, Christ exalted, I'd give anything. So like, You know, You've, You were alive for that and I wasn't. And then You've been around some of that and You've, and I'm going to show one of them here in a second. You know, there've been moments at Passion, I think multiple times that's like that, that wasn't normal.

Well, I think that we, it's going to be different than we, anything we've seen before. So we're, I think that we're seeing stirrings for sure. Asbury, a couple of years ago, I went myself because I wanted to see with my own eyes. And so I went and spent a night there.

Well, wait a second. I want to pause on that. What'd You think?

Never seen anything like it. And I, You know, You can, people can say, well, it's this or it's that. Well, I was there and man, it was a lot of tears, a lot of repentance.

Repentance.

Is what was happening. The altar was full of people repenting, confessing their sin. It wasn't a, just a sing-along. Although it was almost continuous worship, but it was contemplation. There's somebody over here just on the ground on their face. There's somebody over here just sitting with their Bible open. There's a hundred people at the altar. And there's a line of people out the door. We, I went with a friend of mine and we got there and figured out we went in the wrong door. We went in the back door and we were in.

Did You pull the Louie Giglio card?

No. No, we went in low as we could. That didn't last very long. So we got up in the balcony, got up in the corner, got out where we were, got where we were not anywhere in view practically. Because I didn't go there to make a scene out of anything. I didn't, I went there to see what is God doing. And I want to see for myself. I don't want to hear about it because the commentary coming down immediately on anything right now, Josh, is 50/50. You got Your naysayers.

Correct.

And You got Your yea-sayers. And we got two weeks' worth of people showing up in the middle of nowhere, overwhelming this little town. They eventually have to shut this thing down because the town can't contain the people.

Yeah. So for people who don't know, and I want You to keep going. For people who don't know, how many years, was that three years ago, four years ago?

Yeah, I think it was three. I was trying to think about that yesterday. I think three, two, two minimum, three maximum.

So that, is that Asbury College in Kentucky? That's my home state. And it's, it's just a chapel service, normal college chapel service.

Service ends, people go back to class, except a little handful of students, 15, stay, pray. And by that time the next day, campus is shut down, chapel's packed, and God's moving.

Students never left. They just kept worshiping. And then it steamrolled into mass repentance of sin. Everyone from all over the country. Honestly, I was.

From the world.

From the world. I was going to go and then that was the day they announced, "You can't come."

You know, it's so crazy. And this is, it's probably not that helpful, but social media and revival is going to be an interesting crossroads because none of the things You just talked about happened in an instant era. None of them. And so now we have an all-night worship night at the church and it's revival.

Yeah.

And it's on social media and revival's happening. Look, people are still here all night long. And, You know, Asbury was all over the world. And I have some close friends who were actually shepherding it because there were elders shepherding the process. It wasn't just kind of willy-nilly. And one of them is a close friend of mine. I got there and he was like, "Yeah, the Asians are here today." And I was like, "What?" He goes, "Yeah, the Asians have been here since Wednesday." And I was like, "Okay." And he said, "Yeah, a few days before that, the Europeans were here.

Yeah. Eastern Kentucky, right?

Was it? Potentially, yeah. I don't remember where. I just remember they were saying that the animals, the donkeys in the coal mine were so used to them cursing at them that when they all got saved, that they, the animals didn't know what they were saying anymore because they all, the men in the coal mine stopped cursing. And the animals were like, "Wait a minute. What, we're kind of not, we're not used to this." That's revival. Revival is, the crime rate went to zero.

Yeah.

The bars are empty.

Yeah.

The families are being reconciled.

Yeah.

That's revival. And it shuts down things. And I have a friend of mine who's in a major city in the world and he's praying more for revival than anybody I know on earth.

John? Is it John?

Yeah.

He's a dear friend of mine.

And he has the look on his face, You know it, when he starts talking about, the phrase he was using recently, he says, "I am jealous for Jesus to get the attention of New York City."

That's right.

And he said, "And Louie, when it does, people are going to hit the streets when the glory of God comes." And that is what we are all waiting for.

Yeah.

That's what we're looking for. That's the ultimate, when Jesus comes back.

Yeah.

It's not going to be all night prayer. It's going to be all on their faces.

That's right.

And that's what the fruit of revival is, is it, it spills outside of church and the altar is full, but eventually the whole town is changed.

Dude, what's so, You know, I was thinking about this, what's so interesting when You see like those moments in history. So like, or I'm talking about biblical history. So You got, You got Nehemiah 7 and 8. You got another one when Josiah takes the throne and discovers the book of the law. Obviously, You have something in Acts 2. For listeners, I just want to like, like be a pastor for a second and highlight something Pastor Louie just said. Like, did You notice what He said there at Asbury is people started repenting of sin. Nehemiah 8, that's the first thing that happens.

Wow. Yeah.

And that's when You know the spirit of God just moved in this place.

Yeah. You know, I said the other day in a message, You know, we want the goosebumps, but He wants a people. And that's two different things. You know, to be set apart is what He wants, is a set apart people who He can say, "These are my people." And there's all kind of people out there. You can pick and choose, but these are my, if You want to see what my people look like, this is what my people look like. This is how they act. This is how they, You know, conduct their lives and how they view people and how they treat people.

Yeah. So let me, I want to ask one more question, then I want to talk about like something that You and me have both walked through a little bit with some of the anxieties that, so I want to get there because that's very interesting to me. But there's, there's like, there's a few, literally all I did for this conversation is I sat down and I didn't even really think about Live Free Nation, I love y'all, but I was just going, what do I want to ask about? So there was another moment that I want to ask You about. And if You don't got anything to say, just say, "I don't know if it's just real cool, but I just want to ask You about it."

Yeah.

There's a moment from a, it's a more recent Passion Conference. It's a, it's like a 16-minute YouTube video. And I watched it, I watched it working out a lot. Will You pull this up? And it's, this is going to look familiar to You. It's the, it's the Agnes Day.

Oh, wow.

Moment.

Yeah.

So go ahead and start playing it. So, so for people who, this was a moment, what, what year was that?

2024.

Georgia?

Mercedes Benz Stadium, yeah.

All right. So keep watching this if, if, if You're on YouTube or whatever. So this was like just a normal.

Just want to show You right now. Those are not our lights.

Hey, will You go back to that training? Go back to the, go back to those sunbeams. No, just go back like, yeah.

Dude.

That is, that is my light. So is that Christian?

That's Christian.

Christian Stanfield. So You just planned, pause it real quick, Trinity. So this was just planned to be, we're singing Agnes Day, which is one about, about what?

20-minute worship set. Christine Kane's going to speak.

And it's just, that's what's planned.

That's what's planned.

But then if You watch this video.

But that's not what was hoped for. That's what was planned.

Why do You say it like that?

Because going into it, we hoped that God would come and break into what was planned with something that wasn't planned.

And He did.

And He did.

So if You go watch this video and we'll put this in the link to this YouTube video in the caption, if You go watch this for like the first five, six minutes, it's a great God-glorifying worship song. The song ends and then it's a moment where the, it feels to me like the stadium won't let them move on. And then they finish the song and how many people are there?

In the stadium?

Yeah.

50,000-ish?

So then they just, they take over. They were just, essentially they went to all the worship leaders and went, "We'll be taking over now." And they just start singing this Agnes Day.

Yeah.

And then what You're seeing for the next 10 minutes is something that cannot be manufactured. You cannot plan a moment like that. Now go back about before He starts reading, just click back maybe 20 seconds here. And then, so this is the room takes over and then this moment happens. Keep going, Trinity.

And I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me.

He's reading Revelation.

And when I turned around, I saw seven golden lampstands. And among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe, reaching down to his feet with a golden sash around his chest. And the hair on his head.

Dude, He didn't plan to read that, did He?

As white as snow and his eyes were like blazing fire.

Did He plan to read that?

His feet were like bronze, glowing in a furnace.

They've been reading that for a month.

His voice was like the seven golden waters.

They've been on their knees in rehearsals around that text for a month.

And coming out of his mouth was a sharp.

But He didn't have to go look for it when He was ready.

And his face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

Look at that.

Where?

Just the sun.

I fell at his feet as though dead. And He placed His right hand on me and He said, "Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am the living one."

I can't, I literally can't watch it without breaking down. I can't do it. And neither can He.

I am alive forever and ever. And I hold the keys of death and Hades. Jesus, You are holy. Jesus, You are.

Have a conversation right now.

Holy, You are holy.

You can take it, Trinity. So let me just ask You, like, first of all, if You got anything to say about that, I'll hear about it. But like, in a moment like that, like what's happening spiritually in those moments and what makes it like different than what we just planned for?

Well, I mean, it's interesting and I, I know what You're saying about like the crowd kind of took over, but it's, it's slightly different than that. God took over. I mean, He took over. He just took over. And it, You, it's hard to put words around it. I would encourage people to watch it and then make what they can out of it because I, I can't explain it.

Yeah.

I was up in eye level from where You could see across Christian, a hundred yards from the stage, not anywhere near like, "Oh, I'm going to do something." I'm, there's no way I'm doing anything. I'm over there. I don't want to do anything. Shelly and I are way up here. And then we realize at some point, it's not just the crowd keeps singing, like heaven is descending. And how many times have You been there?

Yeah, dude.

In that 16-minute moment. She was there with her parents, not really even of her own accord. She just went with them. And she said, "I'd heard about it, didn't went really for it, wasn't against it."

Yeah.

And in, in that 16 minutes, all of what had happened to her.

Yeah.

Got touched.

Yeah.

And then we met another friend's daughter who had been through it.

Yeah.

And in that 16 minutes, she got healed.

Geez.

Things put back together.

Yeah.

Trauma undone.

Yeah.

And that's what happens in a window like that. It's not just, "Oh, that was a cool moment. That was a cool worship moment." It's like, "No, that was a God moment."

That's right.

And all kind of things happened in that moment, most of which we will never know what they are.

That's right.

But wow.

Do you marvel at Jesus?

Very, very, very few moments in life like that. We had another one recently at Passion. It wasn't quite the same, but that's what we're praying for.

Yes.

That's what we're praying for. We had all our worship leaders and speakers on a prayer call a few weeks ago. We'll do another one before Passion. We do them every year. This is not a, "Hey, let's get the best speakers we can find and see if we can get people in a building." We're trying to make a way for God. And I said to them again this year, I said, "I just need to ask one more time." And these are my friends, our friends. So I just need to ask one more time, are you willing to not play? Are you willing to not speak? Because I need to know, even though You've prepared and even though You're ready, that if God comes.

That's right.

And it's like, "Hey man, I'm sorry, but you're not going to get to talk today or you're not going to get to play your worship set today. Will You be okay?" And to watch these guys on this Zoom call just do this.

Oh, that's beautiful.

Like this is, this is why, because we're trying to say to God, "We're going to plan, but we want You to do something that we can't plan."

You were talking about this, the two people You know of who like just something. You heard that Martin Lloyd Jones quote in his book on revival where He says, He says, "God can do more in a minute than man with his organizing in 50 years." It's like, that's what You just, it's that whole thing.

You know what I say? Like that, God does what He wants to do in the time He has allotted to do it.

That's a great sentence.

And if He has.

That's a great sentence.

A subway ride that's four stops long, He can change somebody's life.

Wow.

If He has five days at youth camp, He can change a kid's life. He does what He wants, when He wants, with whatever time He's allotted, with whomever He chooses to do it. And it is so beautiful to watch. He can do it just like that. You know, the crazy thing, Josh, I think the worship set lasted about as long as it was supposed to.

Really?

And the speaker spoke and the session ended when it was supposed to end. And I was like, "We got transported somewhere and it still all worked because it doesn't have to be totally weird for it to be totally supernatural."

So one of the things it's like, that like I've really appreciated about You is because we have, we have like a little valley of the shadow of death that, that both of us have kind of, kind of walked. You're talking about God healing things inside of people is You did, first of all, will You make sure this is, this link is in the YouTube video too? You got that, You got that sermon that like just went everywhere. Don't give the enemy a seat at your table. So please put that. Yeah, it'd be awesome in the, in the description link.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I was like You, You know, I didn't, when people talked about they suffered depression or anxiety, I would sympathetic, I think.

Yeah.

But definitely not compassionate and understanding until I thought I was going to die one night. And the next night I thought worse, I was dying. I was having these physical symptoms that were crazy.

You mind me asking what?

Well.

I want to see if we had the same ones.

Yeah. Well, A, heart blowing up.

Yeah, that's right.

Then face totally numb.

Oh.

Arm totally numb.

Yeah, that happened to me.

Legs convulsing like I have electrodes plugged into my legs and they're just doing these convulsions. And it's like midnight on the second night. And I say to Shelly, well, Shelly's looking at me and she goes, "You need to stop doing that."

That's good. That's good counsel.

That's good counsel.

That was like.

I would like to too.

I was like, babe, I'm not doing that. I don't have control over that right now. And she said, "We're going to the hospital." So we went to the emergency room and it started a domino effect. You know, they put something in my IV at the ER, which was wonderful. I mean, like in 20 seconds, I was coma as it, You know, can be. And they sent me home with some of that. But, and I thought, "Oh, okay, this is, this is going to be this. We're going to be okay." And man, we were not okay. And yeah, short version of it is, I think if we were in another era and using a pejorative term, which we can't probably use anymore, I think I had a nervous breakdown.

That's what I thought.

And I, I, I think it's good to say to your listeners, You're not going crazy.

That's right.

They're 100% is probably crazy in it, but You're not crazy. And, You know, by the grace of God, I found my way out. He led me out. Worship led me out. Worship was a big part of me coming out. And on the other side of that, and it took me probably six months to get back to quasi-normal. I was taking some medicine that was helping me level out. And I said to the doctor, "How long am I going to have to take this medicine?" And He goes, "Till You forget about taking it."

Was He right?

He was right. A few months later, I was speaking at a youth camp and I realized about Thursday, "Oh, I haven't taken any medicine this week. Just don't need it. Not leaning on that anymore. Things are normalizing." Guy was telling me, "Your brain's stuck in 35th gear and we got to get it back down to like first gear or second gear." And it's, and it took a minute. And I write about it in the book. This book's about fears. And this guy was coaching me through this, Josh. He wasn't my doctor. He was actually Shelly's doctor. Her back had gone out right before all this happened.

Wow.

I think I have a brain tumor. And He'd go, "Okay, I'll set you up with my friend, a neurologist, and we'll go do an MRI." And lo and behold, I don't have a brain tumor. And then I was like, "I think I have a tumor in my back." Okay, well, I'll set you up with my guy and he'll do a dang CAT scan and, "Oh, I don't have that. I think I have cancer." I thought I was dying for real for about three months. And He just kept sending me to doctor after doctor after doctor. And once we got done and I didn't have all those things, He said, "Louie, You have something called the fear of death syndrome.

I never heard of that.

And He said, "You have the fear of death syndrome." And I couldn't tell You, "You have the fear of death syndrome. It's a thing. You're not dying. I can't tell You that. The only way You can get through it is to go to every one of those doctors and not die." And so that was my thing, Josh, when it, You know, because You know, it kind of wants to come back.

Yeah.

And You can feel it, You know, like 40 miles over there.

You.

You can feel it coming. And mine, especially those early years after that, this was 2009, when it would start coming back, I'd be like, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to die." And then I'd go, "No, wait a minute. I'm not going to die." And I would just turn around and say that. "I'm not going to die. I'm not going to die." I know that sounds like a simple phrase, but it's important when You thought You were. And, You know, the enemy's told me a lot of times that I wasn't going to make it, but guess what? It's all fake news.

That's right.

Every time.

That's right.

Every single time He told me I wasn't going to make it, it was fake news.

I'm not distracted. I'm going to pull up something because I didn't plan to do this. So in a second, I'm going to ask You like main stuff for me. Oh, please let me find this. Valley. I have an iPhone note because it is, You feel like You're going crazy. And it's like, it's the weirdest, I don't know if it was like this for You, where half my brain knew every single thing that You're afraid is going to happen.

Wow.

And it's the, I don't know if You had that, but it was the weirdest.

That's more like about 80/20.

80/20.

Well, right. On the day.

Dang, I can't find it right now. But what all I could do is, is honestly shout out to this guy. There's a sentence I first heard from Levi Lesko.

Oh, wow.

Where Levi, He'll, Levi and I have met one time and He doesn't even know this. In a sermon He preached probably 15 years ago, He had this little sentence. He said, "Forgetfulness is the greatest enemy of faith because when You forget what God did, You stop believing what He'll do."

Wow.

And so.

Wow.

When I started going through these, that little thing and I knew like, "Hey man, my big thing, I want to ask You about it." My big thing was, this is only sports people will know what I'm talking about, that I was going to become the Chuck Knoblock of preaching, that I would like Chuck Knoblock was a second baseman who hit the Yips and he lost the ability to throw to first.

Yeah.

And it literally ended his career. And I literally, my brain was like, "You're going to be the Chuck Knoblock of preaching. You're never going to be able to preach again. And you're going to have to go be Aaron Brockett's executive pastor." Like literally, I'm going to call Eric Geiger and be his executive pastor if He'll let me and You'll have to walk away. And I remembered that Levi Lesko, quote.

Wow.

"Forgetfulness is the greatest." And I just started writing down every time I would think of a true thing, I would write it down in an iPhone note. And like You would turn around and say, "You're not dying." I would pull up the iPhone note and read all the promises of God and what was true.

Yeah.

It's like if for somebody that's like, when they're in it, because I know this is like, this is why if You're walking through it, You need, You need, You need that. But for somebody that's in it, like what's, what's the core message that it's like You're trying to get to somebody like, "Hey man, if You're there, here's what You need to do."

Yeah. Well, I think, You know, Josh, it sounds simple and we already said it, but I think the first thing if You're in it right now is that You have to speak truth to Yourself. And it's kind of a weird thing, but, You know, You had people speaking all kind of truth into You. You're, I mean, Your family was speaking truth to You, Your pastor friends, You had all this input coming, but it didn't matter. What mattered was what You were speaking to You. And that's what the psalmist teaches us. "Why be downcast, O my soul?

Yeah.

And then once we get in it, we start preaching all the negativity and amplifying that. And I'm not saying again to people, I'm not belittling whatever You're going through. You just have to take the mic.

Yeah.

You have to take the mic and say, "God is with me."

Yeah.

And I am not crazy. God did not make me crazy. God is with me. God is with me. That is the bedrock. That is the, the anchor point for living and being saved.

Yes.

God is with me. God is with me. God is with me. I, it doesn't look like it. The last, the last night that broke me, 2:00 a.m., I would get this wake up elephant on my chest every night. I dreaded it. I could go to sleep, but I couldn't stay asleep.

Yeah.

2:00, suffocating elephant. And this is months in. This is after I know I'm not dying. Months in. And I say to God, Josh, I say, "God, I can't do this one more day."

Yeah.

And I wasn't going to make some desperate decision. I just was broken. And I said, and, but then I preached to myself and I don't know how. I said, and I'm talking to the Lord, I said, "You didn't heal me yesterday and You didn't heal me today. And I don't know if You're going to heal me tomorrow, but I do know You're a healer. I do know that You're a healer. So I'm going to praise You, not because You healed me. I want to praise You because You're a healer."

Come on, man.

And I said, "If You give me a song to sing," Job said, "He gives songs in the night." I said, "If You'll give me a song to sing, I'll sing it to You." And I could have picked a Matt Redman song, I could have picked a Chris Tomlin song. My wife leads a record label that's raised up a lot of great worship artists.

I'd say so.

And I could have picked any one of these songs, but this little spontaneous song dropped into my heart and I started singing it. And it was like a little pinhole, Josh, in the canopy of the darkness. And a tiny ray of light came in that night. Tiny little ray of light. But a tiny ray of light is powerful. And worship, You know, it's a weapon. And that night it was a weapon. And it didn't, I didn't wake up the next day, take a shower, put on a suit and go, You know, to dinner with friends.

Yeah.

But I had a song the next night at 2:00. And eventually the song overtook the cloud.

Come on.

And then the beauty of it all, You talked about songs, the beauty of it all is with two other amazing writers, that little, You know, bit of a song became a Grammy nominated worship song.

Which one?

"I Lift My Hands."

No way. That came out of that?

It came from that night.

I had no idea.

Yeah. And lost to another Chris Tomlin song in the same category.

That's like Chris Tomlin's like Newman.

Chris Tomlin.

Tomlin.

But, You know, isn't that.

Amazing.

Isn't that the, I know every story doesn't get a bow. We know that.

That's right.

We've been down the road with a lot of stories that.

That's right.

We don't know till heaven what that story was about. But man, to think that God could bring me through that valley.

That's right.

And then I went on tour with Chris not long after that. And we were doing like basketball arenas. And every night I would stand up and tell that story every single night. And I'm telling You, Josh, people did not expect a Christian speaker at the concert.

Yeah.

To talk about falling in a hole of depression. And I was just seeing this, this wave of freedom go across people. And like You did, You know, people were like, "How are You doing with Your situation?" I'd be like, "I'm doing a lot better. What do You contribute that to?" "Well, God, the Bible, truth, and I'm taking this medicine right now that's really helping me." "Oh, what is that?" And I would say, "It's such and such." And they'd, "Oh, that stuff's amazing. My wife takes that. Oh, that's incredible. My son takes that. Oh, that's phenomenal. My business partner tells me that really helps him." And I'm like, "I had no idea.

Yeah.

Is taking something to help them manage, call it what You will, depression, anxiety. So, You know, to write a book called Fear Not, somebody asked me, "Why'd You write this book?" And I'm like, "Why not?"

Yeah. That's right.

Yes.

Louie, I'm honestly proud because of part of my story. I'm really excited about it. Will You guys make sure the link to that is in the, that'd be awesome. I'm really excited. Let me, let me click on something You just said, like, because Your, Your life and ministry are so interesting. There's a few guys, honestly, my buddy Jonathan McClude is like this too. There's a few guys who for whatever reason, there's like an anointing on them. And it doesn't matter how old they are. It's like they are the spiritual fathers of young adults.

How do You know You don't have it?

I don't know, man. I don't know. I just, I just feel like I generally connect with dudes and husbands and fathers the most. I don't know. Maybe not. But You, You have that thing. And You've been around, You know, many, 30 years of generations of, You know, young adults, that kind of thing. With as much honesty as You are willing to have, I'd like to hear two things. What scares You about the rising generation of Christians?

Okay. Well, let me do my disclaimer.

Okay.

Which I always do. I am not an expert on any generation. And I, and I know that You're going to be like, "Okay, we don't need that. Just can that and get to the point." But we do because there are experts. I'm just not one of them. I read them and I like what they say because it helps me know who I'm serving. But I'm not an expert. I'm a servant.

That's right.

I am a servant to this generation.

That's right.

And if You said, "Hey, give me the eight characteristics of Gen Alpha," I'd be like, "Who are You talking about? You talking about Josh or are You talking about Julie?" Because they're completely two different Gen Alphas. So let's don't lump them all in a big pile and act like Louie's the expert because he and Shelly have been doing ministry to 18 to 25 year olds for 40 years now.

That's wise.

So I don't know. But let's just talk about humans for a minute. And I think that's an easier way to answer it. I am incredibly concerned about the fact that people don't realize that every great thing requires a great cost.

Preach the essence.

And this is basic, basic. Ask a mom who's had a child if it was costly to have the child and then to have the child. Incredibly worth it.

That's right.

But incredibly costly. Ask anybody who's been a part of anything great and they will tell You the behind-the-scenes story. You know, passion, the thing that has annoyed me the most in is people say, "Oh, passion. You just put Your name on it and the arena fills up." And I'm like, "Oh, man, you have no idea. You have no idea." I'm going to a dinner after this podcast today to implore kind people to help us make passion happen this year.

By the way, Lakepoint Church is going to be one of those people.

Oh.

I just wanted You to know that we're going to contribute to that.

Thank You. You have. And thank You again. But we are hustling.

That's right.

We are knocking on doors. We are believing God. Somebody said, "What does it feel like doing two stadiums this year?" I said, "It feels like going up Everest and Kilimanjaro with flip-flops on." That's what it feels like.

Wow.

It's the hardest thing we've ever done. Why are we doing this 30 years later? Why, why are we still doing this?

Yeah.

Because there's a calling on our life.

That's right.

But it is costly, Josh.

Amen.

Everything great requires a cost. And what this generation has a tendency to do is say, "If it's hard, it's not God. If it's difficult or there's opposition or there's a roadblock, oh, that must mean it's not God." And I'm like, "I'm sorry, but have You read the Bible?"

Yes. Right.

Tell me a story in the Bible that didn't have a steep climb.

That's right.

So I think that's one of the things I'm concerned about. And how, how do You get that across to people? You and I just grew up working hard.

Yeah.

And we didn't, we weren't watching social media to see what somebody else was doing in their lane.

That's right.

We were just over here trusting God in our lane.

That's right.

For me, it was same as You. It was, I set the chairs up for the youth meeting.

Every week.

Break the chairs down and put them in the storage closet when it's over. Drive back to Atlanta because the youth thing I'm leading is 55 minutes away on a Tuesday night when I'm in college. Nobody's applauding that.

That's right.

Nobody's celebrating that. It's not on any social media because there is no social media. It's just following God. And it's, it's knowing there's a calling and saying, "I'm willing to give it all." So that's the thing that I'm most concerned about.

Before You get to what encourages You, I just want to like, and it's not what He said, it's how I think people misused what He said. So do, if You're listening, do not take this as a criticism of what this guy said. But I, You, You probably know him, but there's a, I spoke at a conference with John Mark Comer and dude, had a great experience with John Mark. It was amazing. And he wrote that Ruthless Illumination of Freedom book. And I, John Mark would be the first person to be like, "Yeah, man, some people, they'll misinterpret what I said."

Wow.

Honestly, dude, the verse that like landed on me probably the most is where the Apostle Paul gets the end of his life and he says, I love this language. He says, "I am being poured out as a drink offering on the altar of Your faith." And it's like, man, if, You know, I have, I'm in a season like this right now where it is a little extra and it is a little faster and the weights are a little heavier and You go to bed a little more tired. And sometimes people can get to that spot like, man, if work or an endeavor is really tiring, something must be wrong. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Wow.

That's what we're supposed to do. You're supposed to find something that's worth giving everything You got with the, I'm going to quote Jim Harbaugh, with an aggression previously unknown to mankind.

Wow.

And then get to the end of the day and be like, dude, I am tired. Did I do something wrong? Nope. I was being poured out as a drink offering on the altar of somebody's faith.

Where was Paul when He wrote those words?

Manor Tin Prison.

Yep.

Getting ready to have his head chopped off.

Yep. Last days of his life in the subterranean dungeon of a Roman prison chained to the wall.

Yeah.

Writing to a guy to encourage him. Hey, hang in there. Don't give up. I know there's a lot of friction around You right now. Timothy didn't have an easy road.

That's right.

And He's trying to help him, encourage him, breathe life into him. He's, He's right there at the end proving the point.

That's right.

And I think, You know, that just, You know, I, I think about Moses all the time when God found him in Midian and told him what He was going to do. You know, it was, I, I've heard, I'm going to come down, I'm going to rescue, I'm going to deliver, I'm doing it all.

Yeah.

Now You go.

Yeah.

And all Moses heard was go. He didn't hear, I'm doing it all, You know?

Yeah.

And He said, "Who am I? You know, who am I to do this?" And God, I think if it had been today, He would have said, "Oh, buddy, come here. Come here. Come here, buddy. Moses, my man, I got You.

Yeah.

You can do this. I believe in You." And all He said to him was, "I'm going with You."

There You go. There You go.

And I just think we've, we've inverted a lot of the call.

Yeah.

And it's, You know, man, we just got to keep everybody pumped up right now instead of encouraging everybody just to keep being poured out.

Amen.

And there is obviously boundaries and parameters.

Yeah, dude, we're not saying that.

I mean, there's all that. You know, Shelly and I are looking for balance and we try to go hard and rest hard. And we do. We, we are good at going super hard. We both go to work.

Yeah.

I'm 68. I don't have to go to work.

Yeah.

But we, we go to our calling and we go to work and, and we know how to find rest and find that balance as well. I just think in today's generation, it's a lot more, man, I just want to, I just want to go to Italy.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I'm 24 and my friends have already been twice. And I think I'm, you know, time for me to go. I was like, okay.

Yeah.

Well.

Dude, have fun.

You know, and I'm not knocking anybody with that.

Of course.

Because I, we go to Italy. I love Italy. I'm not knocking that at all. I just think that the potential, this is what I'm most excited about is the potential because I feel like in this, again, I'm not an expert, but I feel like Alpha and Beta are the most clued-in generation to the fact that the world's not it.

Amen. Come on, man.

They're way more clued into that than my generation.

Come on.

Who's, You know, got seashells.

Yeah.

Way more clued into it than Gen X millennials. They, they, they've figured out that ain't it.

This ain't it. Yeah.

That's just not where it's at. And it's, it's causing problems in certain industries in America.

Yeah.

Because they're like, yeah, no, that's not it. That might have been it for my mom, my dad, but that ain't it for me.

Wow.

And so they're, I think they're poised to, You know, have You ever seen kids with bigger Bibles?

Yeah.

In your life?

It's fact. It's fact.

I, I roll in with this guy and I'm like, sorry, but, You know.

My daughter's Bible.

I carry it around everywhere.

It's a cinder block.

Yeah. And it's got nine highlighters and, You know, it's just like.

Correct.

We want the meal.

That's it. Yes.

Give it to us.

Yes.

And, You know, a few years back, there was a phrase with YA, they would be like, You know, come at us, You know?

Come at me, bro.

Come at me. Come at us. And You were, and I'm like, man, I don't ever, no one, no one above 35 ever said that in a church.

Let me ask You one last question and then I want to rapid fire some, some questions from listeners.

Great. Sounds exciting.

This is one I just always, again, these are all just things I'm like, if I'm ever with Louie Giglio, I'm asking this question. You've been all over the world. You've stood at the center of Moves of God. Tell me a couple stories of when you've seen the Spirit's power at work with greatest intensity.

Wow. Okay. I think we've talked about a couple of them.

I bet. I bet. I bet.

Two of the ones that are way up at the top of my list would be one day, one day '03, another, another moment for us. You know, different field, Texas this time, horrendous storm. People are already in those camp grounds we talked about, but not on the field yet. The night before, massive storm. I mean, terrible. You, You live here, Purple Dot, You know, just right over us all night.

Wow.

And we had, as Beth Moore said, we asked God to come and meet with us. We just didn't know that when He showed up, we'd be terrified. And it was a powerful, powerful picture of what we've been talking about of the glory of God. And, You know, the crazy thing about it was this is before internet, before cell phones. And so we would guess 10,000 kids probably turned around and went home. We had several thousand have to go to a high school gym, spend the night that night.

He prayer walked it.

He just walked over and asked that person right over there if their ministry would be able to give a gift. And they said yes. And he came back and told us, yes. So we had it the next day, paid all our bills, but we forgot, Josh, payroll was like three days later and our rent on our office and our overhead, and we had nothing. And literally that day I realized that we just got home on the Monday from this wedding, my phone rings and it's this guy in Chicago and he says, "Hey, I feel terrible, but our foundation gave a gift to One Day and I was supposed to get it to You and it's been on my desk.

Wow.

He said, "I feel terrible. It's a check for $75,000 and I'm overnighting it to You tomorrow."

Unbelievable.

So, You know, it's moments like that. There've been a lot of them where God's Spirit just turns stories around and turns people around.

Golly, amazing. Okay, let me rapid fire some of these. Kind of let me finish like this. These are from Live Free listeners, Pastor Louie Giglio, if you had one last sermon to preach ever, what would it be on?

Wow. Ooh, one last sermon to preach ever. Well, my message, my heart message is know God is about knowing God. So I would probably preach that we are created by God and for God and everything in life makes sense when our lives are lived for the glory of God. And I would preach, live for the glory of God.

Come on, man. I'm going to cheat and not just rapid fire you one because there's a question I have to ask. Okay. Okay. So this is a side note and then I'll get back to you.

I love your smile all the way during this podcast.

I'm having so much fun.

Let's, people don't know where are we coming from right now. Because you were, you were just got, okay, okay, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I got one.

I do. I do. I got one. I got one. Okay. So this is another, this is another classic. So You, You gave this, You preached a sermon and I think I was at the Passion year You did this called How Great Is Our God, where You looked at the laminin thing and it like it seared itself into my brain. Okay. So for the Live Free audience who never saw it, would You do the thing, break, do the thing. Can You do it?

The laminin thing?

Yeah, do the laminin thing.

Just break it down.

Yeah, break it down.

Where'd it come from?

Yeah, break it down for us. Tell it.

Okay. All right.

If they never saw the sermon.

Okay. Tyler, Texas, Chris Tomlin concert, a lot of my life, Chris Tomlin concerts. We get through the night. There's nowhere to be, no backstage. And the Oil Palace, if anybody listened from the Tyler, You know, area, not the greatest venue in the world, no backstage. I'm just standing around because Chris's family's all there. He's from East Texas. Guy walks up, conversation, "Hey, I see y'all are finishing in Austin tomorrow. What's next for You?" Said, "I'm going to go home and preach for my pastor next Sunday."

Come on, man.

And man, when I got to the end of that talk and through that left hook, I mean, it's still hitting.

I'm bringing it up right now in 2026.

I will see someone at the airport tomorrow and they will go, "You're the laminin guy." And I'll go, "No, Kevin, Professor Kevin is the laminin guy." I just did a Zoom call with him. I connect with him about every five years. And I just did a call with him to update me. He wanted me to know about this doctor in Brazil who's healing people with laminin protein molecules.

Unbelievable.

Yeah. Crazy.

All right.

Kevin Langford, shout out.

Thanks for the greatest hits. Here's the last one. The most frequently asked question from Live Free listeners they submitted is this. It was some version of this. You have spent the last 30 years of Your life birthing one of the great moves of God in our nation's recent history. What's in Your heart for the next 20 years of Shelly and Louie Giglio's life?

That's the top question.

That was the number one.

Number one question. Why are people, oh, okay.

They really like You, man.

No one has ever asked me that question before.

Welcome to Live Free.

How long do I have to think about it?

You're as long as You want.

10 seconds?

You're Louie Giglio. Here, okay, here's what we're going to do.

Okay, here's what we're going to do.

Here's my answer.

Okay.

Okay, go ahead.

To give You five seconds to think, I was going to finish with this. Actually, I'm going to ask You to pray for me to finish because I just want Louie Giglio to pray for me. We have a mutual buddy, Luke Lazon.

Yeah.

So Luke's in one of my cohorts. He's a friend. And he just, he texted me this when he heard You were coming. He said, "Bro, I'm going to tell You this. I don't even know if there's a theological framework or this or not, but any crowns that I end up casting at the feet of Jesus are going to be because there were elements that the Lord gave me for my life, but Louie Giglio helped refine them into something that was actually worthy of being cast at the feet of Jesus. The man is a hero of the faith to me and I am really, really grateful that You're going to get an interviewing for Live Free.

Yeah.

Y'all are two generations deep. Two generations deep inspiring the next generations of pastors. We're very grateful.

Yeah.

You know, it's, it's crazy. The grace of God, 15 years ago, somebody would come up to us and say, "Ma'am, this is my son. He's seven. This is my daughter. She's 11. Can't wait till they are old enough to go to Passion. Have their lives changed." And I'm just looking at them and I would just smile and I wouldn't say what I thought, which was, oh, there ain't not going to be any Passion when these kids are old enough to go to Passion. Passion was supposed to end, I think after One Day maybe is what we thought.

That's why they called it One Day for a reason. It's going to be One Day.

I saw the vision. It happened. And then lo and behold, their kids came and went to Passion, the seven-year-old and the 11-year-old. And then now we're still doing Passion, which is crazy to Shelly and me that we're still on this corner 30 years later. But what I'm going to be doing in the next 20 years is I'm going to be waking up by the grace of God because that is a gift.

Amen.

My favorite guy at my lunch spot in Atlanta, when I see him, he always, "How You doing?" I woke up.

That's awesome. That's awesome.

So for the next 20 years, if that is in God's plan, I want to wake up and I want to know God.

Amen.

More.

Amen.

Paul prayed for me and You. And He said, "I pray that You will have the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that You may know Him more."

Amen.

So there's more.

Amen.

There's more revelation of who this beautiful, wonderful God is.

Yeah.

And I want to wake up into that every day for the next 20 years. And I want to be able to say, this is my plan. So I'm kind of letting the cat out of the bag. I want to be able to say, "Here am I.

There You go.

Send me."

Amen. Amen. Thank You, Louie Giglio, for Your faithfulness over many, many years. Would You pray for me before we're done?

I will.

Thank You, man. Would You do that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank You. Lord, we just come to You right now in absolute awe and amazement that we know You, that You know us. What a thought that the God of all creation calls us by name. And You don't just call Josh Howerton Josh Howerton, You call Him Son. And I thank You for His life, the impact. I thank You for the way that You are using Him right now to bring attention to Jesus, to introduce a lot of these people listening right now, introducing them to the most important person in history and in the world, to Jesus Christ.

Amen. Amen. Louie Giglio, thank You for Your life and ministry.

Man, blessings. Thank You.