No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
Mormonism vs. Christianity | Testimony From an Ex-Mormon Part 2
In Part Two of Josh Haskell’s journey out of Mormonism, we go deeper into the transformation that took place after he discovered Jesus. Josh shares how Scripture not only exposed false teachings but reshaped his entire way of thinking. From memorizing the Word to navigating the cost of leaving behind his Mormon roots—including family estrangement—Josh reveals what it really means to follow Christ.
His story is a powerful reminder that true salvation isn’t about letting the truth of God’s Word change everything.
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What's up, NSR? Welcome back to this week's episode. This is going to be the part two of the Josh Haskell interview. So if you haven't listened to the previous episode, I highly encourage that you go back and listen to that, because we are picking up right where we left off. We just paused on our conversation and then picked it right back up. So if you haven't listened to the part one, you might be a little bit confused.
Speaker 1:But this is more of Josh's testimony kind of his upbringing and how he came to faith and so super encouraging, so cool to just hear and as I was sitting through and just listening to his story, I was just so excited to share this with you guys and to share his story. It is probably one of my favorite episodes, Definitely up there. It's so interesting, so cool and I just want to thank Josh again for coming on and just sharing his story and sharing close and intimate and hard things that he's gone through. But just how the Lord has used him and worked through him is incredible. So I just want to thank Josh again and I hope you guys enjoy.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no Sanity Required welcome to no sanity required from the ministry of snowbird wilderness outfitters.
Speaker 3:A podcast about the bible culture and stories from around the globe everybody good, yep, um, okay, yeah, let's dive right in where we left off. Uh, your story starting with that. So you're? You don't remember this. You're a four-year-old kid, but your family wasn't Mormon. Mormon missionaries showed up at your door.
Speaker 1:Would you say your family just like?
Speaker 4:were you guys involved with another religion before, or just yes, I actually do want to back up even further, because there's a few things that I want people to learn from my story, mainly because there are things that I learned from my story, from my story, mainly because there are things that I learned from my story, and the first one is that without God's sovereign will, there's no way that I would have been saved, there's no way I would have even heard the gospel without God sovereignly guiding that. The other things that I really love from my story and it sometimes it seems like it's a different person's story and I'm like amazed at it is, um, just the power of God's word to save people and and the power of truth, the ability of truth to shine in a dark space and how far and how, how, just how God's word is able to give life is just amazing to me. After I get saved and we'll maybe get into that One thing that God has taught me is just the power because I didn't understand this, but as a mormon but the power of there are disciplines as a christian, once you, once you are saved, not legalism, but once you are saved, there are powerful disciplines to give the christian life and to sanctify them and to make them happy, not to burden them down, but that white yolk is there and so good, and then, through it all is just the glorious to god, because, again, there was. There's no way. So for for me to go back?
Speaker 4:Um, start with my, my dad's side. Um, his dad, my grandpa, he was actually a christian scientist, which is a different cult. They're basically, uh, buddhists with christian language. They deny reality, they deny truth, uh, very gnostic, and the flesh is bad and the spirit is good. If you're sick it's because you lack faith. Um, so already a very poor understanding of truth, um, and on my mother's side they were catholic, but the hippie movement strongly influenced all of the women on my mom's side of the family, all my aunts and my mom. They were like now, if you go to Asheville and you ask them what they believe in, they might throw out that thing.
Speaker 4:I'm really spiritual, like that vague, nothing meaning thing. I believe that spirits exist and I don't know there's nothing else there. So they were all like that, and my mom will talk about these spiritual experiences. You have like visions and and encounters with satan, and so very spiritual, um, but not a lot of big understanding. And so my parents got married. I'm the youngest of three. My parents got divorced when my mom was pregnant with me and then my dad actually later, when I was maybe like 12, he became a Seventh-day Adventist. Like 12, he became a seventh-day adventist. Um, so really I come from a tradition of man-centered religions, uh, and really we all do, but it's there like it's one cult. If it wasn't one cult, it was another. Like you, we had like a you know.
Speaker 3:christ. Seventh-day, Adventist, Mormon yeah. Latter-day Saints yeah. All of that in your immediate family.
Speaker 4:Yep, and then even the Catholicism and the New Age and New Age Wow.
Speaker 4:And that New Age is really the Mormonism. Mormonism is shifting and adapting and it's becoming more New Age and universalistic. And that's when it appealed to my mom. So my mom the way that she'll describe it is she was going, she went to lots of churches, she just loved going to church and she went to all of them because she was spiritual. But she'll just say this the doctrine I never understood was the Trinity. I asked a Catholic priest to explain it to me and he told me to shut up and stop asking questions, which probably happened, I don't know Um. And so she never believed in the Trinity and that was her big thing. She, she always loved going to church but didn't have good theology, clearly, um. So she married my stepdad and they, when they got married, we're like we need to. And it's funny because it just reminds me so much of what Paul says People will look for people to tickle their ears and they said we need to find a church that we like, that teach it, that we both really like. And it wasn't. We need to find it. I mean, christians might say that, but when they, when they say it, what they mean is we need to find a good church, church that teaches the Bible, church that teaches the word, church that holds us accountable. But they really meant we need to find a church that suits our preferences. And so they.
Speaker 4:I remember going to a Lutheran church and a Catholic church and a Methodist church when I was really young, four years old, and then the Mormons came to our door and that was the doctrine, the doctrine of the Trinity is really what locked in for my mom. She was like she said I had this list of questions and I was waiting for someone to answer them all, the same way that I answered them. And that was the church that I was going to go to. And one of the big ones was I don't believe in the them. And that was the church that I was going to go to. And one of the big ones was I don't believe in the Trinity. And they were just like oh well, neither do we.
Speaker 4:And there was you know, oh well, we can be happy together because neither, none of us believe in the Trinity, the other things that appealed to her. I mean she did want us. You know, they're both raised christian. My stepdad was raised catholic in a catholic school, so strong moral, like foundation there still, and in both mormonism like there is rules, there's like a rigid moral structure, and they liked that as well. They liked one of the main appeals that the mormons will give is this tie to family unity, and one of their doctrines in that eternal progression of you being a God is you will be a God with your family forever. When you marry your wife in the temple. You are sealed together for eternity and so it's not till death do us part. It's beyond.
Speaker 4:For eternity. Yeah, we are married for eternity and so it's not till death, do us part, it's beyond eternity. Yeah, we are married for eternity, um, so that's one of their big things too, that they, they appeal, and I mean there's a part of that that at least, if you have a good marriage, it's like, well, yeah, I, I'd love to be with my wife forever, like that. That's appealing on the front end. You know, as Christians, we know we're going to be married to Christ, um, but that's appealing on the front end.
Speaker 4:As Christians we know we're going to be married to Christ, right, but that's appealing. So she liked not Trinity, there's no Trinity. And then she liked that moral structure and the appeal to family unity. She came from a really rough family Both of my parents did, but really rough, not a good, healthy life. My grandpa committed suicide when she was like 16. So really always wanted a healthy family. So it checked all those boxes for her.
Speaker 4:So we started going and uh, I'd say when I was young you know I was I caused trouble in a boyish way but I learned all the doctrines very well and I could articulate things well and so for many people's eyes I was progressing in the faith pretty well. My older siblings, they did what really every most Mormons not every most Mormons that I've seen that will go through this rebellious phase because they have all these rules but there's no explanation of why there's no relationship with Christ, there's no concept of salvation, even to work for it's just like I'm trying to get to this heaven at the end of my life, but it's about I kind of already have it. And there's no fear of hell, because hell doesn't exist for the.
Speaker 4:Mormon Hell is a temp they call it spiritual prison and you'll get out of it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's almost like a punishment, like a temporary punishment. Yes, it's a temporary punishment.
Speaker 4:If you are like for me, they might tell me that I'm going to outer darkness, and that's like for heretics and Satan.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 4:But that's like the heretics and satan, okay, but that's like the worst. The lowest people of the low might go to outer darkness but they don't use the term hell they will use it, but they at least when I was a kid they were steering away from it. They said they would write like when they would draw out the plan of salvation on the board. They would say spiritual prison and then in parentheses they would write hell and so they're using the word and the concept to teach really what they, what their doctrine is that's another example of the trying to masquerade as christian.
Speaker 4:So, um, my old I said my older siblings they began to rebel and kind of do what they want and I was the golden child for a couple of years of I'm not doing that stuff. Uh, I'm not getting intent and involved into being disobedient and and whatever they're doing. Um, but as I grew up, my, my brother and my siblings influenced me and I was like you know why not? And so I pretty quickly progressed in this huge rebellious phase where I was in the trouble with the law. I was smoking, I was drinking, I was in a party culture. My brother was in college and so, even though I was like 17, I was going and visiting him at college and going to college parties. I was going and visiting him at college and going to college parties and what happened was I ruined my reputation in the Mormon church and so they because it's all works-based they hated me in there, like I wasn't allowed to hang out with their kids anymore. I'd be walking down the halls and get glares. So I really stopped going as much as I could. My parents forced me to go a lot, but whenever I could not go, I didn't go. And then, when I was 17, I went down to Florida for like a spring break with my friends, and this is really when everything changed, where I got in trouble, and I'd been getting in trouble for a long time.
Speaker 4:But what was really happening is I was blaming other people. I was saying, oh, you know, this is my friend's fault, this is my family's fault. There's no responsibility in my mind, because the Mormon church taught me I was a good person, I was on path to Godhood. You know like I'm obeying the laws and ordinances of the gospel for the most part, and for the ones I'm not, I can just, you know, start doing good and I'll be fine. So I was a good person. It was everyone else's fault and we got in trouble with the law and just the way that it happened.
Speaker 4:I won't go into details. I don't really like talking about this part of my testimony a lot, but it was my fault. It was just very clearly my fault. There was no way for me to wiggle out of it, and God used that to hit me with the fact that other things were my fault, and so I was going back through all of the things I had done. I was like, oh yeah, that was me too. That was me too. That was me too. And in this car ride home, after I've just been, you know, in a lot of trouble, um I I said you know the phrase in my head oh I, I am a bad person, I need jesus. Um, and that's even remarkable in itself. You know, the mormons teach jesus, but not really in that way like you need jesus, but it's more like he's a model. He is, he is in our, our example, he's our example.
Speaker 4:That's, that's really what they like to say about him. And, and some of them will even say Jesus got married because marriage is big in the Mormon church, and how could he have left us? That's, how could he be our perfect example If you didn't get married? Weird, crazy thoughts about Christ marrying someone and and having people who are descended from him here on um on the earth today, um, but anyway. So I was like I'm a bad person, I need Jesus.
Speaker 4:I started going back to the Mormon church and I was re, uh, rebuilding my reputation a little bit, and I did that for a few months and then I was like this stinks. You know, I was really depressed. That whole, my whole, really my whole childhood. Um, you know, I would. I would have conversations with God as a child and be like why did you make me? Why'd you make me? Just to hate me. Like my life stinks, like I've suicidal, wanted to kill myself. I'd had opportunity to, but by god's grace, I just didn't. Um, and so when, when, when that happened and I realized that I was a bad person and we're back to where you're recognizing.
Speaker 3:I need jesus.
Speaker 4:Yes, so when I, when I, when I got to that point and I started doing the good Mormon things, I still had no idea what the gospel was. I started doing all the good Mormon things and then I was still miserable. That's why I brought it up. I was still depressed. I was still depressed.
Speaker 3:You're back plugging in at church at this point trying to go through all the….
Speaker 4:I was doing what I need to do to be happy. I'm doing all the right things, doing what I need to do to be happy, like I'm doing all the right things according to what the mormons would teach. Okay I should be happy now I should be fulfilled. And then I was like I guess I'm not, I'm just gonna go back and start doing all these crazy things again sovereignly. A friend invited me, like that week, to go to hillside and I started going and it was immediately a difference in the culture that our listeners.
Speaker 3:Hillside is a church, a partner to snowbird.
Speaker 4:They've been coming to SWO becoming a snowbird for since, really since the beginning, longer than any other church yeah, um, and this really speaks volumes to that ministry where, when I walked into the youth group, all of these people are people that go to high school with me. They know me probably more because I was hiding what I was doing from the Mormons, but all the high schoolers like they go to school with me.
Speaker 4:They like there's rumors, like everyone knows exactly what kind of things I'm doing, and they see me and they are so excited that you're there they're, like you know, so glad you're here and I immediately feel loved and welcomed and I have friends, and so I just kept going, really just for that reason. Yeah, um, now Steve Brooks, the youth pastor uh, awesome man, love him and respect him so much and he was very clear to preach the gospel every Sunday, but that was when I told you that buzz would go up, so I'd be hearing lots of things that I liked.
Speaker 4:And then, whenever he got into something I didn't like or that, spoke against the Mormon church. It would just be they don't have the full revelation. They don't have the full revelation. So I was sitting in there for months, you know, listening to the preaching good preaching, but that counter evangelism is going off, wow.
Speaker 3:It's so programmed into you at this point.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's like I mean when I memorize scripture. Scripture speaks to me whenever you know. Temptation comes or situations come, and those, those phrases are repeated so much that they, they come to speak to you instead of you know, like Proverbs says, you know, bind them on your heart and they'll come speak to you.
Speaker 4:Instead, it was these, these lies that are that are coming to speak to you. So around that time we came to Snowbird and you know, this is where I, this is where I see God's sovereignty in all of it. But I just love this part of it where my counselor just felt the desire, the weekend before I get there, I'm going to go research Mormonism and how to share the gospel with Mormons, and I mean, what other reason would there be except God sovereignly preparing him to bring the gospel to me? And he did. And so I came and, like I said, that Isaiah six story was really big. It was like you know, this isn't the God I worship Really really important. The other sermon that I remember that week was Kahuna. He actually was preaching a sermon on leading a double life, like saying that you're a christian but living different, and I and I was like I'm convicted that's what I'm doing. I was not what I was doing.
Speaker 4:I was not a christian yeah, like I don't love jesus triple lock, yeah, and so I raised my hand to like respond and get to go talk, and, um, I started with another and get to go talk, and um, I started with another counselor. But my counselor found me. His name's Matt Anderson. Um, and he came and found me and I was real emotional and he was really good to kind of get past that emotion and to really just start talking about the deity of Christ. And this is this was the real, like real turning point for me. I don't remember anything he said except this one question, which was, if Jesus had not have been God, how would he have been able to live a sinless life? And so the only doctrine that I knew that Christians differed from Mormons was the Trinity. That was the only one I really knew, and the only doctrine that I had solid Christians differed from Mormons was the Trinity. I was the only one that I really knew, and the only doctrine that I had solidly in my mind is that people are sinful, like I just had that in my life and that was the one thing that I had just realized. I am a bad person, Right, and so that was the exact question that needed to be asked and I was like I don't have an answer for that, that's a really good question. I don't have an answer for that, that's a really good question. I don't have, I need, I need to think about it.
Speaker 4:And so I went back home and I was thinking about it and I had this group of friends that were really good to me, speaking into my life and caring about me and praying for me. And then I had some Mormon friends still and my family and I knew they were on opposite sides. It was the first time I realized, like I was going to the Methodist church, thinking this is just something I'm adding to my faith. It's like we're on the same team and for the first time it was. They're different and I've got to choose.
Speaker 4:And the main thing is I need to know if Jesus is God and I was trying to figure out how do I tell? Like, like, if I ask them, they're obviously biased. I've asked them, they're biased. And what I came to and this I think that this is again just a sovereign thought that God brought to me was I'm going to read the Bible, because they both say they believe the Bible Mormons don't actually, but they say they do and whatever the Bible says about Jesus, that's what I'm going to believe. And so what I started doing is I just Googled scripture that says Jesus is God, and I would read all these articles and find all the verses and read them all and I'm like, okay, these say Jesus is God. And then I Googled verses that say Jesus is not God. And then I looked through all those and when I read them and people were saying these say this, that Jesus is not God. I read them and I was like you don't read, well, that's not what that says.
Speaker 3:That's not what that says.
Speaker 4:In fact, some of these verses that I was reading as evidence that Jesus was not God, I was like putting over here in this category for verses that say Jesus is God. Because once I read this in context, you like this is saying Jesus is God. You're confused, you cherry pick this verse out and and you did not understand it, and so very quickly.
Speaker 1:When in the mormon church do they use the same bible that we would use like? Is there anything added or taken away, or is it the same?
Speaker 4:well, there's definitely things added. Uh, first of all, just in the book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, they'll have this thick book. That's got. They'll call it all four. They've got a name.
Speaker 3:So you've got the King James Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Law and Covenant or the Doctrine, and Covenant.
Speaker 4:The four are Old Testament, New Testament.
Speaker 3:And that's King James.
Speaker 4:Yes, that's King James. And then Book of Mormon Doctrine and New Testament. Okay, and that's King James. Yes, that King James. And then book of Mormon doctrine and covenants. And then there's like a little book called the Pearl, of great price, but we don't need to get into that.
Speaker 3:That's a different animal, yeah.
Speaker 4:Okay. So I was reading King James, okay, and I also had an NIV Bible that I'd grabbed, but I was just reading the Bible and they've they. But I was just reading the Bible and they've got in their Bible, in their King James. They have what they call Joseph Smith translations, where he's very carefully found as many verses as he could that disagreed with his doctrine and changed the wording, and he's actually even wrote himself into some prophecies in the Old Testament.
Speaker 3:So it's not like a footnote. He changed the actual text. It is a footnote. I don't know why it's a footnote he changed the actual text.
Speaker 4:It is a footnote I don't know why. It's a footnote okay it doesn't make sense to me. In my mind, you know, it would be like the watchtower, where they just completely erase it, but they have at least. When I was a kid, they had the original king james and then there'd be a little header there and you'd go down and you'd read the Joseph Smith translation and anytime that you disagreed with what the Bible said, you'd be looking for the Joseph Smith.
Speaker 4:If there was a Joseph Smith translation to shed more light because Joseph Smith had the true revelation and I tried to find passages when I was doing this that didn't have a Joseph Smith translation, to try to be more objective and unbiased. But pretty quickly I had this huge list of scripture passages that talk about Jesus being God and I came to the conclusion the Bible says Jesus is God. Like that's just what it says. It is very clear. I spent a ton of time in John. I spent a lot of time in Isaiah, and that was mainly just understanding who God is. You know, I read Isaiah 53. I read some Psalms, I read some prophecy.
Speaker 3:You read Isaiah 53.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And our Be Strong conference coming up. We're going to be in Isaiah. I mean it's penal substitutionary atonement yeah I'm assuming they totally reject that yes, absolutely and you ended up in isaiah 53.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, and another one that I really love and still love to this day just, and I'm excited we're we're going through genesis, for in our school, uh, where abraham is goes to sacrifice isaac, and I'd always been confused by that passage when I read it, because I was like there's no concept of typology or anything like that in the Mormon church they don't teach that. But I always just read. I was like this seems to be about Jesus and it absolutely is, and so I was reading that and I love the past. What Abraham says to Isaac the Lord will provide for himself. A sacrifice Like that is so good and it throws all of man-made religion away. It's like.
Speaker 4:I'm going to do it, I'm going to bring the sacrifice, but I mean very early on in Scripture. God is the one who is making a way for salvation.
Speaker 3:The point being if I could get your, I would like for you to speak to this. Isaac doesn't represent Jesus in the story.
Speaker 4:No, the Ram the Ram.
Speaker 3:The Ram is Jesus.
Speaker 4:We are Isaac. We are Isaac yeah.
Speaker 3:And how many times, and, and and. You're coming from the Mormon side, but I'll tell you that and JB and I are a generation apart, but we're both raised in a church, in the Christian church, in the evangelical Orthodox Christian church. Most of us are taught as children that the parallels Isaac to Jesus, but Jesus is represented in the story by the ram. We're Isaac.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely it's powerful. Yeah. And I mean I thought the same thing. As a Mormon, I knew it was about Jesus. I didn't get you know the distinction there, but it was clear enough that I was like this passage is confusing to me, it doesn't fit with my theology, and so I spent time in there again Colossians, Hebrews and just tons of evidence. And so there I was, and so I was like, okay, Jesus is God, that's what the Bible says. And then I was just like looking kind of like look around, like what next? Like what do I do now? Like what is? Now? I know the truth, so I'm going to stop going to the Mormon church, All right? Like how does my life really change from this truth?
Speaker 4:And you know, talking to my friends, I was going to a small group with them that they met on Sundays and I was like what's going on? Like what do I need to do? Is there something I'm missing? I feel like there's something I'm missing still. And they're like, oh, you need to get saved. And this is what I was talking about. I was like what does that mean? And they tried to explain it to me, me, they may have explained it perfectly well, I mean they're high school students. They may not have done it well, but either way it was over my head, like I did not get it. There was no framework in my mind of I have to submit to christ and be born again and have the holy spirit come in me and be saved from my sins. That was just not a concept, because there is no hell, there's no real lasting punishment. And so I was like, all right, I'll try, Let me try to get saved. And so I'd go try to get saved.
Speaker 4:God saved me, just praying over and over. And God saved me and I'd really through that study habit and even continuing on. I just started reading the Bible a lot, and so I'd come home it was not my senior year I'd come home from school and I wouldn't do any of my homework. I would read the Bible and I would listen to the songs that we sang at Snowbird and I would cry and I would pray. I'd be like I need to get saved, cry and I would pray and be like I need to get saved. And I was just doing that over and over and over again.
Speaker 4:I was not getting saved yet, but like I was still, you know, just looking and seeking, and one night, just in my room, by myself, that same pattern of just reading, worshiping, praying. I was just like all right, like here, here I am like this. This God brought me to this moment of humility where I was like, okay, I do not understand. I don't understand anything. I don't understand what's supposed to do. I don't understand what salvation is. I don't understand any of this. I understand one thing Jesus is God. And I submit to that.
Speaker 4:And that was when I it was. I felt like I was hit like a by a load of bricks, like in a in a good way, if that's possible Like I felt the spirit come in and I felt new life and I was like, okay, I don't I still don't know what salvation is, but it happened, it just happened. Like I could not articulate anything, anything other to my friends, I just told him hey, I got saved. I don't know what that means.
Speaker 4:But like I'm saved now and that that was like that's the end of like me coming out of Christianity it's so amazing. Or coming out of Mormonism to Christianity, and it's so amazing. And then immediately, what I, what I think is even maybe not more gracious, but just even more wonderful to me it just keeps getting more wonderful the older I get. God has always had, with very few exceptions, people speaking truth into my lives since that moment of me becoming a Christian. So I had those friends who were with me and I was in their small group and so for the first year of me being Christian really more than a year, and even sometimes still there's hidden false doctrines or false thoughts that are that are just like tucked away. But especially that first year, we'd be in our small group and I'd be saying, oh yeah, something, something, something premortal existence, and I'd get like the head turns from everyone in the small group like what are you talking about? And I'd have to be like, oh, that's a Mormon thing, I guess I've got to, I've got to unlearn that.
Speaker 4:So I have to throw away. I had to throw away all my doctrine, because it really is. It just doesn't fit, and so that was that first year. And then I came into old school and that was probably the most important just just three months, one of the most important three months of my life. That's where I learned about Christian community what it actually is like, that it's not perfect and that I'm going to get annoyed with other Christians and there's like like we have to apologize and reconcile, like in my mind at that point it'd been like now that I'm a Christian, everything is perfect and we're all happy and love each other all the time, and that's just not true, you know, we still have sin and I learned.
Speaker 4:This is when I learned those disciplines and I learned more theology, but I learned those disciplines. This is really one of the most life-giving things that's happened to me since becoming a Christian is practicing scripture, memorization for large chunks of scripture. That was when I think it was maybe something Zach had said, or maybe Brian Kaufman, and I was like, yeah, I do love scripture, I want to write it on my heart. And so I memorized the book of 1 John. It was just one of the shortest books. I'm going to memorize that, and when I say memorize, I couldn't give it off to you right now, but it's like I spent a long time reading those words over and over and over again and getting them into my heart and the word just bringing me life, and this is what I really love.
Speaker 4:You know, for cults, your mind is being shaped. You are being taught to think in certain modes, taught to think in certain patterns, and as I memorized scripture and meditated on scripture, I could literally feel my brain beginning to work. I feel, like ephesians says, be transformed by the renewal of your mind, like I could feel that happening in real time because I was like I immediately as soon as I became christian, I read through the bible in three months. I was like reading lots of scripture. I started to memorize and it was like the word had that effect. I was washing myself with the word and it was so good for just the way that I was thinking and the way that I was processing, and there were so many doctrines I needed to unlearn.
Speaker 4:And then I worked my first summer and I learned. Really, the big takeaway from my first summer is and you may remember this, brody I learned the weight of being a teacher, because it wasn't a huge issue, but I taught something that wasn't true to campers. You remember this, don't I? I taught, I told a bunch of campers that babies go to hell and it's kind of ringing a bell and one of the kids had like, had lost like they'd lost a sibling.
Speaker 4:Yeah, like they're miscarriage and there was uh, I mean they were. They're upset, like like not just upset because I taught something that wasn't true, but like it was a, a lie that was causing them grief, hurtful, yeah, and and this is like this was. This was the last week of camp and I heard I was in trouble and I was like, am I in trouble? And you came and told me what I did and I was like immediately started crying because it just the weight of the fact that I not only do I know truth now, but I have the power to preach the gospel, and there's a huge weight for that. And if we make people stumble, like there's there's judgment for that, there's a fear for that, and like that was really big for me and, as someone who is a teacher now, like that was a very, very important thing for me to realize. And so I worked several summers. The other big thing when I left Snowbird, I realized that ministry at Snowbird was really, at least for the staff like the summer staff is really kind of easy because someone's always telling you what to do and where to be and if you want to be obedient, it's easy because everyone's doing it. And then I left and I realized how important the church is, because I went to a place that there wasn't.
Speaker 4:I couldn't find a church and I and I looked, I was trying hard and trying to find friends. I couldn't find them and I and I started to fall into sin. I was still a very young Christian. Um started to fall into sin and I moved over specifically to another part of uh, into another city, to, to, to go live with a friend I do. I knew like I need to get out of this. I need community around me and this friend let me live with him. And and I was going back into depression because I was, you know, no Christian is happy in sin and he just said hey, get up, you know, come with me and we're going to go share the gospel. And that was a really sweet time of me just kind of following him around and learning how to be obedient in the real world. And so evangelism is very important to me. You know I've always, ever since I became a Christian, passionate about bringing the gospel to people. But it's especially valuable to me because I know from that experience like no one is happy when they're not living their intended purpose and our intended purpose for us as Christians right now we need to be worshiping God ourselves, but bringing other people to worship him, and that was really really good.
Speaker 4:So then I lived there for a little bit. I came back here. I was still trying to figure out what to do. You know what direction to go. I always want to be in missions, but God taught me at that time I needed to learn how to be faithful where I was and to be working wherever I was. And so I came back here and I worked the best I could.
Speaker 4:I was going to school to be a teacher because I just thought, you know, this is what I love doing and this is what I have experience doing. I think I do it well. I think I do it better than other things that I do. I became a teacher. I worked one last summer. I met my wife. That was a huge blessing, obviously. Then we moved over to Statesville and had a sweet time there with building good relationships. Right now we're over in Fayetteville working at a Christian school in the Bible department, and you know our goal long term is to be missionaries. But because we're trying to be faithful wherever we are, we just we're just always finding work to do wherever we go, that needs to get done, and, and, and trying to do that work, and I always have a hard time ending a testimony.
Speaker 3:Well, let me, um, there's a couple of things that uh, right there at the end that popped into my mind because you always have been very intentional about evangelism. When we first started snowbird, you know we would, we would load up, uh, we'd take all of our staff and we would go to downtown ashville and we would walk the streets and share the gospel and our staff would be 20 people. We could do it in a couple of vans and uh, but everybody would go and and we would, we would, we would say, hey, if you're not comfortable, walk along with someone, that is. And we would just do street evangelism, just sharing the gospel, people in that context. And so, um, the staff grew, it got so big it got logistically impossible.
Speaker 3:We shifted our schedule. The schedule used to run run Sunday to Friday. We would spend all day Saturday in Asheville. And then we shifted the camp schedule Monday to Saturday so everybody could worship on Sunday. And we planted a church. It just changed. It got very difficult to take. It was easy to take 20 people, it was hard to take 120.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And because we'd feed them, we would all stay over there, we'd crash, we would camp out and sleep in people's yards family members of mine that were close to that area. So you, you pick that up, you revitalize that and and it and it's, it's continued to be ongoing. There's been guys that have carried that mantle and so we've always got snowbird people going into downtown Asheville in the summers and yeah, I was actually going to say your last summer was my first summer and I thought that was cool.
Speaker 1:I remember you taking groups of people to Asheville and just street evangelize.
Speaker 4:When I really went, that was I got it from old school Cause you guys still did it, yeah, in old school.
Speaker 3:Old school was a program that that the Institute has sort of displaced. We merged our intern program and the old school program into one, but the old school program was similar to the Institute.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we would go do it. I remember going to Asheville the first time I had a journal of all the people that I spoke to that week and it was very forming for me when I left and struggled to be obedient in the real world and had to figure that out. The whole reason that I wanted to revitalize it is because, like I don't want anyone to struggle like that, I want them to learn how to go talk to real people, cause talking to campers like they're expecting you to talk to.
Speaker 4:Jesus. They want. Some of them want you to, and you know. But if respecting you to talk about Jesus, some of them want you to. But if you go to Asheville, it's not like that. This is just real people and they're strange people.
Speaker 3:There's all sorts of. There's the sticker Keep Asheville Weird.
Speaker 3:It's on all the Subarus that are driving around town and Volkswagen vans. That mindset, too, is why, you know, I I've I brought Josh into a couple of conversations. I we had a Mormon family that started coming to Red Oak through relational connection with people in our community. They had moved to the area, they were attending the LDS church and, uh, the mom got saved. We baptized her, grafted them into our body, got them into solid discipleship program and they had one of the older children in that family was preparing for mission and we went to lunch and I asked you to come.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember that, yeah, man, and you can pray for him. He hasn't embraced the gospel but he walked away from Mormonism. He's just kind of floating. He's in a non-gravity place, you know, nothing's grounding him but um, but but two things that I'd like to end on one, could you?
Speaker 3:We joke around here, people, people will have for years have said we'll say that snowbird's a cult, you know, and it's, it's, it's cheap, lazy criticism by local people. I say it's cheap and it's, it's, it's cheap, lazy criticism by local people. I say it's cheap and it's lazy. It's cheap because you can say anything and some people will. If they don't even maybe believe it, they'll raise an eyebrow and go maybe there's something to that. So it's cheap, it's. It takes. It takes energy, intellectual bandwidth, articulation to speak truth. It's very cheap and easy to speak lies.
Speaker 3:So I try to tell my kids and the folks at our church and our staff when people say if somebody says no, we're just a cult man, that's cheap, those words are cheap, that's just lazy. And it's lazy in that all you got to do is it's not hard to figure out if something's a cult. Ask them what they believe about the deity of Christ, the personhood of Jesus, the work of Jesus, press into Christology. That's ultimately what brought you to Christ and removed you from the Mormon church. It was the person and the personhood, the identity, the work of Jesus. And so how would you do if somebody said to you well, what is a cult? How would you define it? Cause I'll a lot of times I'll say we're not a cult, we don't even meet the criteria of a cult. We worship Jesus. Um, what, what? What is a cult? Because you, you said you named three or four different, four or five different religious affiliations and refer to them as cults, which all I'm in agreement with. How would you define it briefly?
Speaker 4:There's kind of the Christian definition and then the secular definition, and that's, I think, where people get confused, and I mean, we're neither. But the Christian definition is just that, like someone who takes one of the core doctrines of Christ and perverts them and preaches a false gospel. So jehovah, witness um and mormonism they both deny the deity of christ. Seventh-day adventism what do they deny? Or, uh, they really are, what's their big? They're legalistic, they're man-made religion, they they think they are, yeah, they think they are righteous through obeying literally obeying the law.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:And Christian science, like they really deny all truth as a concept and like we believe. You know we believe truth is that which corresponds to reality. Don't even believe in reality. It's like everything is fleeting and fake. So how can you talk about anything in Christ without the concept of truth? It's just nonsense. And then from like maybe the social one, it's still still Christian. It would be like the things that I would look for, other than doctrine, are things like controlling whether people are allowed to leave. Is is definitely a big one and we really aren't like that. Like Christian, christian, solid Christian churches practice church discipline where, if you do not agree with these things and you do not practice Christian holiness, we invite you to leave and go somewhere where you can pretend to be a Christian somewhere else.
Speaker 3:It's the opposite of making you stay. Yes, I mean yeah.
Speaker 4:If you don't want to be with us. You know, as John says, they were of us, but they went out, went out from us and we welcome that For a cult.
Speaker 4:They are grasping souls and locking them in as good as they can. They prey on weak-minded people. You know, we bring the gospel. The gospel has great power to people who are hurting, who are weak emotionally and going through pain Like there's. That's just there's a lot of history in people who are humble coming to faith. But cults specifically pray on people who are the weak-minded people who can be easily led astray and controlled.
Speaker 4:And so if you find a group that is determining what someone is allowed to think, to be part of the group in terms of like we're going to shape the way that you think in a restrictive like you can't think critically. That's the main thing. So when I came to Snowbird and I started talking to you guys, I would hear things like this is what I think read the Bible and find out what it says. And there's always this appeal to a higher authority. That's not human and a unwillingness for a human to shape someone's mind too much Like.
Speaker 4:We want to speak truth into people's lives, but I don't necessarily want everyone to think the exact same way. I think I want them to think the way the Bible thinks, and so I'm going to tell them what I think the Bible thinks and then encourage them to read the exact same way. I think I want them to think the way the Bible thinks, and so I'm going to tell them what I think the Bible thinks and then encourage them to read the Bible more. And so when I hear you guys preach I heard this a lot when I was first there is those warnings, hey if you don't agree with what I say, check my work, kind of thing.
Speaker 4:So those are the big things. So letting people read the word for themselves and interact with god and have a personal relationship with him, and not controlling the mind it's free to be shaped by christ. And then, uh, having good doctrine. And then the fact that we're not clutching anyone and begging, we're not looking for numbers Like the church, is Christ's decision, and if you're not walking with Christ, we call you to repent, repent and believe. But if that's not something you want, then you're not one of us and until you are, you need to walk away.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's good, that's helpful. Last thing what has this all done? I mean I wanted you to go. We, we, jb and I, had talked about this. We wanted you to go through that entire story up to where you are today, cause I wanted people to see. This all happened over a decade ago and this trajectory you're on has you teaching the Bible at a, at a Christian school? That's a snowbird partner. Um, I mean, you are as you are, as much you you can't get any further into Christianity because you're you're making disciples. We have a video of you.
Speaker 3:A lot of people know that there's an area in the Himalayas that we do a lot of work and a lot of us have been to that area. Is that we do a lot of work and a lot of us have been to that area. We have a video where you and another guy from this ministry were doing a trek and ended up sharing the gospel with a group of village leaders. It was all men and boys from that village. That's one of the coolest things I've ever watched.
Speaker 3:I've showed that before in a, in a more closed setting here, where the Himalayan.
Speaker 3:It looks like you're sitting on the precipice, like on the edge of a cliff bigger than the Grand Canyon, behind you Himalayas and all these guys are sitting around crisscross applesauce and you're sharing the gospel and you get to that point where you say that Jesus rose from the dead and they just freaked out. They're just chattering and going crazy and I'm like this dude was in darkness under false doctrine, false teaching, and now he's shining the light to others in a far place. I want people to hear the trajectory of your life and now you are doing what I think is the most faithful and noble work a person can do. You're instructing and teaching the next generation, which is the church, which is obviously what we're passionate about and student ministry, but teaching them the Bible. Not just giving them a good time, but teaching them the Bible. What has all that done to the relationships with your family? Not your wife, amazing your, your family, your, your mom, your siblings, like, like that, that side. So they're, by the way, they're local to this area.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they moved here right before I left. Um, at least my, my mom and my stepdad did. Most of my. The rest of my family is still in Georgia, but yeah.
Speaker 4:So when I first became a Christian, I was very nervous about approaching my family at all with this. And I didn't. I didn't want to and I was. I was praying about it and my youth pastor had had me write down my testimony this is like the first three months of me being a Christian and so he asked me to write down my testimony to share at the youth group. And, uh, my mom had just gone to my room for something and found it on my desk and read it. And I just came into my room and she was sitting there crying and said is this really what you believe? And that was like you know, I didn't want to have. I don't want to hurt my mom, even even though this is true. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.
Speaker 4:But I had to make a decision to be like am I gonna, am I going to compromise on truth to make someone feel better, or am I going to preach the gospel and hope that they repent and believe in trusting in Christ? And so I was like, yeah, that's what I believe, that's the truth. And so, really, god forced me into sharing the gospel with my family. And since that conversation, that first year that I was there that was my senior year I had tons of conversations with my mom and with my siblings about the gospel and their response that year was anger. It was. You know, you are the youngest one, you're arrogant and I mean I'm a little arrogant. You're arrogant and I mean I'm a little arrogant. Uh, you're arrogant, you know. You're just, you're on your high horse and just telling us you know that you're better than us and I was like that's not what I'm saying at all.
Speaker 4:And so throughout the years I would kind of go through cycles of being really bold and vocal and telling them the truth, calling them to repent, talking about the deity of Christ, and then trying to balance that with times where I would pull back and just talk to them about life, just hang out with them and try to keep that relationship instead of just hit them over and over again. And so I've been a Christian for 16 years now, so that's what it's been up until really the past three months. And then I don't want to give too many details here, but I had found out that my stepdad had had a cancer and that they'd known about it for a long time and didn't tell me. Because in my mind they didn't tell me because they don't really like talking about serious things, they just kind of want to have they were, they're optimistic in their, in their own mind, and but for me I felt very convicted because I was like no, they really are dying. Like Like, even if this, like I think the cancer is dealt with, but even if it is like they're dying, hell is on its way for them. And I felt very convicted and I was like praying through.
Speaker 4:I think I need to just only talk to them about the gospel, like I'm not, I don't have time to waste, and so, um, trying to communicate with that to my family really didn't go well. Um, essentially they were like, uh, you know, I was like I don't want to talk to you unless about the gospel, and essentially they were like, okay, we don't want to talk to you. Then you know, my they're assaulting my character. My brother had, like I make posts on Facebook that are, you know, preaching the gospel. My brother commented on something trying to assault my character. I had to delete it and block him because I didn't trust him to keep private things private.
Speaker 4:And my mother the last words I have in a text from my mom are her calling me a zealot of Satan. Because I told him hey, I love Jesus and you do not, and that is offensive to me. It's offensive to me that you do know, because Romans says you know, you know who God is and you refuse to worship him. This is the thing I care about most in the world, the thing I love most in the world, more than I love you, and I'm calling you you know. You need to repent and trust in that. And if you don't want any part of that like I'm not interested really in talking about anything else I want you to know this truth. And so they're. They were pushed off and we're like you know, we're, we're done, we're. So we're pretty much officially estranged. For me, the door's open. As soon as they want to talk about the gospel, I'll be there.
Speaker 3:I'll be there to bring the gospel to them and tell them the truth and we're here and you've moved away, but they live in earshot of where we're sitting right now and I've told you I'll drive over there any day, any minute, to do anything we can to minister, and I would ask our listeners to, even right now, pause and just hit pause and pray for Josh's family, cause I believe they're going to come to faith in Jesus.
Speaker 3:Um man, thank, thank you, thank you, thank you. I've I've wanted to do this for so long and I've mentioned it to you several times and it's like but I didn't want it, I didn't want to do it and not do it right. I wanted to be able to sit down, carve out a whole morning, not getting it, take some breaks, not getting a hurry, um, so I really appreciate it yeah, my pleasure it.
Speaker 3:I will tell you this having been in ministry for now three decades, um, I and I would say this, of all four people behind the camera, in front of the camera, um, y'all are what I would call trophies of ministry. Like, there are those stories where I'm like, if, if, if, I'm gone dead out of the picture and somebody needs to represent the work that has been done here, it's an honor that you two would would represent that and I'm just grateful for the gospel in y'all's lives. So I appreciate you coming on and, uh, go get some quesadillas.
Speaker 3:Yes, and you make quesadillas, yeah, they're good they're amazing and you're going down the river today yeah, never gets old, awesome man thanks thanks for listening to.
Speaker 2:No sanity required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at swoutfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources, and we'll see you next week on. No sanity required.
