Cesspool of Cynicism

00:00 Father, we honor you. What a privilege that we get to do this. We get to come together and we get to talk about you and talk about what's going on in our world and our culture. Father, we pray for our country. We pray for the world, the globe, Lord, that you would continue to pour out your justice, your truth, and your righteousness upon the nations. And Father, that even upon America, Lord, for revival and spiritual awakening in America, but all across the globe. And for our listeners who are in other countries, other nations, Father, we bless them. We thank you for them. And we pray that they can relate to us in our heart for our own country, just like they have the heart for their own.

00:42 So, Lord, we give this to you. We consecrate all that we do and say today. And Lord, we give everyone and everything to you. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. It's Wednesday, May 6, 2026. We get to do this. This is episode number 31. This is the life we've been blessed with. This is a gift for we get to do this. This is a chance we dare not miss. This is the life we get to do this. And once again, we get to do this. A day early. Well, I like it. I'm pretending that it's Wednesday. I know. It feels like Wednesday to me.

01:25 I mean, because we're sitting here, it feels like a Wednesday to me. We're in the Curry Compound studio because the church studio, just a little too noisy. It's a noise factory over there. You know, the feedback I got was, you know, it didn't bother us that much, but you guys were talking about it so much that bothered us. Like, oh, I'm sorry. We brought too much attention to it. I know. It's kind of like that. It's like, don't think about that noise. Don't think about that noise. It just gets louder. But look at how clean the studio is, man. Just look at this. I feel honored that the podfather cleaned up his studio for me. Nothing to lay my elbow on. Yeah, I'm sorry. It was never built for you. You got your own bell, though. You got your own bell. That's the keeper's bell. You got a bell. That's beautiful. Tina's bell. Yeah. They do have a different tone for sure.

02:10 Well, of course. You have that one. Yeah, ring your bell. Ring your bell. Yeah, that's there's this one and there's a digital one. There it is. I like that. I like your old one the best. It's old school. Yeah, yeah. I like it. I want to right off the bat. I want to say hello. A big we get to do this to the air traffic controllers of Indianapolis who sent us a note. The anonymous controller, the anonymous controller, and his wife are both air traffic controllers. I'm already excited. That's cool. Here's what he said. Adam, I wanted to write to you and Pastor Jimmy. We get to do this as a topic of discussion at times between believing controllers here in Indy.

02:51 Singing the intro song between transmissions randomly always gets a laugh and changes the tone of the day for the better. Oh, that is hilarious. Can you imagine that? Like, yeah, Southwest 1375. We get to do this. That is so cool. We need recordings is what we want. I want them to keep their attention on what they're doing, though. Oh, they know what they're doing. They know what they're doing. They're pros. That is so cool. Well, hello, guys. Brothers. That's awesome. And sisters, maybe? Yes. Oh, yeah. No, his wife is a controller. Oh, there's a lot of female controls. That's awesome. Absolutely. They're very good, too. I love it. Listening to the latest episode and the clip on Theo Vaughn was divine timing. I currently am in the Gospel of John. I'd just gone through John 5 and the pool of Bethesda the day before.

03:36 Thought you might enjoy that. And so we appreciate it. I like this so much. I'm nerding out right now. The controllers are doing that in between transmissions. That's fantastic. That's so funny. And then last week, somebody wrote us wanting to know where they could get the song, the theme song. Yes. Is it on Spotify? No. No, it's not. We do have longer versions, though. I could probably dig that up. We do, yeah. I remember when we got that. I didn't get this file. I got the one for Living Up in a Down World. That's okay. And there was a longer version. Yeah, I got the original from the Jeff Smith and Nashville Smith. Cool guy. So just for a moment, man.

04:20 My bride, with her testimony at the church during the women's ministry, how about that? She crushed it. I was so proud of her. And I was like. No one recorded that, did they? That's never recorded. They usually don't. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if it got recorded. I could ask Faith if anything was done, but I don't think so. Probably not. No. And I didn't really think about it. And I'm not, you know, I was like, yeah, I recorded the opening montage just because I knew she'd like to have that. Right. I wanted to be present. I wanted to be there. I know. Yeah. I didn't want to be handling your phone. No, not at all. Not at all. Well, I got to say, she did such a good job. I mean, all those ladies, I mean, those ladies work together.

05:00 They're like a well-oiled machine. They are. And Annette leads the charge on that. And they're just, you get Annette and Tina in the same room working on the same project. It's going to be a well-oiled machine. Period. You get me and together. Who knows? Me and you, brother. They got cheese. Everyone has sheets with like run of show. And this is the exact time. It's kind of 12:38. And we'll be done here. And we'll do that. I'm like, holy and they were nailing it. All of it. So I don't typically go to the flourish women's lunches. No, that's not for us. But I was going to be there for Tina, man. I had to support my friend and my brother and my friend, Tina. And I'm so proud of her. Yeah. There were things she shared in her testimony that I did not know.

05:44 Yeah, there was. Annette knew from the beginning. I mean, they were always transparent. But, you know, we just haven't, we don't get into the dark deep stuff. Sure. You know, as friends sitting around a table. But I'm just so powerful. I'm so happy that because we didn't know any of this stuff from each other, really, about the brokenness when we first got together and married. And, you know, there were always signs about, you know, baggage that we carried stuff that would trip or trigger or whatever or offense, offense, you know, as you explain. So I always, whenever you explain that from the pulpit, it's like a fence. It's like, it's like one of those fences that is about two feet tall, the kind that you don't see.

06:27 Like a tripwire. Basically, a tripwire. Exactly. That's what a fence is. And just to see, because it was good for me, too. I'm like, yeah, this is just so true. What Jesus has done for us and changed our lives in such beautiful ways. I couldn't help but think about you while she's sharing her story and just opening herself up to 105 ladies that were there and how much this must make you love her so much more. I knew I know that because I'm that same way with Annette. Whenever she's sharing her heart, it just makes me love her more. Yeah. You know, just it's like, yeah, this is why we do what we do. We do get to do this.

07:10 We do get to do this. Yeah. So proud of her. Yeah, me too. Both of you, actually, because that it's a testimony for both of you, too. Well, it was admitted she had a crush on you in the 80s. We could have done without publicly. Could have done without that. Okay. And all the ladies were like, oh, they were fawning, too. That's hilarious. I don't look like that anymore. I don't have that hair. I'm not quite the same. I actually liked your hair in the 90s. Oh, it kind of that middle. Clip from the BBC. That was good, bro. That was your look, man. That was a look for a while. But good look. But if you saw me like now, you'd be like, nah, nah. You know, you know, this like we have, we have still got good hair. Well, yeah, no, I got good hair. Absolutely.

07:53 There's not a lot of it. Well, it's cut off. You know, you have to understand pretty high in time. Being captured and held hostage by your hair for half your adult, you know, it's like, no, I just, I don't even can't even use the hair dryer. It's dried before I even get to that. I'm shaving. Like, oh, my hair's dry. No, no, no, no. But I never wanted to be one of those guys who had the ponytail, the long gray ponytail. Like, you couldn't quite give it up. I'm not quite sure what that is, but it's kind of the deadhead look. For some guys, it's a look, you know, but like, no, dead generation. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, some guys can wear it cool. Some can. Yeah. Some of those older guys look sharp that way.

08:37 Some don't. So, man, you sent a clip to me the other morning from Greg Laurie. And Greg Laurie, you know, just by himself, is such an impressive dude. He is the pastor in the Jesus Revolution. He was a part of the whole, you know, the real thing, the real deal. Where is he now, Greg Laurie? What church is he at? He's at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa. Okay. So he's still in California. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's a long time generational California guy. And this clip was good. And I wanted to share it. And I will say that it did not go unnoticed to me that he probably recorded this, sent it through some Instagram robot that added music.

09:26 And then I took it and gave it to my robot and said, take the music away because it bothers me. So let's listen to this and we'll talk about it. You know, it seems like we're a culture completely obsessed with ourselves. The Bible tells us one of the signs of the last days would be people would love themselves. I mean, isn't that what you'll see in social media? The very platform I'm on right now, spend five minutes on TikTok or Instagram, and you see people. see people chronicling every event of their life. Here's what I had for breakfast. Here's my latte in the afternoon. Here's my new outfit. A complete obsession with self.

10:07 Do you know that they've come up with actually a name for this? It's called main character syndrome. And so the idea is my life is a movie. I'm the star of my own movie. And everybody else is a supporting actor. I am the main thing, the main character syndrome. How did we get to this place? I think we built this. You could trace it back to the 80s and 90s, where instead of correcting children, we felt we should constantly be affirming them. You know, helicopter parenting, as it's called, giving participation trophies away.

10:47 Everyone's a winner. And this kind of mentality morphed into a complete obsession with self, and it culminated with the selfie. It's the most popular kind of photography out there right now. So where did that get us? Studies show that despite being the most affirmed generation in history, Gen Z reports the highest rates of anxiety, loneliness, and depression ever recorded of any generation. Listen, Jesus told with this 2,000 years ago, before there were social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok or X or any of the others, he said, if any man wants to follow me, let him take up his cross and follow whoever will seek to save his life will lose it.

11:34 And if you lose your life for my sake, you'll find it. What does that mean? To lose your life means to recognize God's plan for you is better than your plan for yourself. Stop being so obsessed with self. Lose the main character syndrome mentality and realize that the main character is Christ. You and I were in supporting roles. If we'll understand that and put God first in our life, we will find the life we're looking for. Get your priorities in order. It can change everything. There's a lot there. That's so good. There's a lot there. I read that to our staff this morning, the short form version of it.

12:17 He compressed it into three sentences on the X. Yeah, we got to fill an hour. We go as long as the whole thing. Hey, maybe we'll be up to three and a half. Well, there's a fast forward button for a reason if people don't like it. But yeah, so you read that to staff this morning? Yeah, and because we were talking about that great term, main character syndrome. You know, that's, you know, it's a term that's out there: main character. There's another word. Well, there's, I actually looked it up to see if there was a clinical description, which there's not, but there are, there's different, there's a recognition of it,

12:58 but it kind of crosses over into narcissistic personality disorder. That's the consequence of it. Main character, a self-focus, validation dependence. This is another big one because it's not just the act of it, it's the validation of it. Yes. And actually, why don't you tell the story about the staff and then I'll follow up on that? Yeah, so share the short form with the staff. And they were like, wow, this is so accurate. This is what we see. We have our two youth pastors there in the room. Naomi helps out with youth. Of course, Pastor Brian. And then his wife, Leslie, does our children's ministry.

13:41 Of course, they're seeing it all. And you know, I love the way Greg starts. He says, we gave every kid a trophy, built platforms around the selfie, created a culture of main character syndrome. And that's happening, but it's not the kids that have done this. It's the parents that did not want to put, they wanted their kids' lives. I think it started off as a good thing. We want our kids to not have to suffer and go through the pain that we've gone through. Which is exactly what the cycle is. You know, weak ties make weak men. Exactly. Et cetera, et cetera. Yes, exactly. The thing I wanted to point out is that we are all talking about the kids, the kids, the kids.

14:24 Brother, this is adults. This is 30, 40, 50-year-olds. I know them. You know them. Yes, I do. They go to our church. We're susceptible to it ourselves. They're in our church. I'm sorry. I know. Backbenchers. The backbenchers. You don't really see them. Yes, of course. This is our friends. This is our family. We all do this from time to time. We all are doing versions versions of it. of it. And really, you know, this started out because I know how this evolved with Facebook initially started. The whole idea was a picture. You could find other people.

15:05 It didn't have a news feed. It didn't have a timeline that didn't exist. And it was college students mostly in the beginning. Originally, it had a.edu address to even to get on it. But it was a great way to take a picture of the grandkids or grandma and grandpa could see them. And your discovery mechanism was: oh, there's so-and-so from college. Let me see who that person's following. So you kind of jumped around and it was a good way to catch up on people. It became something completely different. And then absolutely, the selfie cam that did it. And that has triggered something in us. And Greg Laurie, at the beginning of that, he talked about the last days, which he kind of got away from in the end.

15:48 So I pulled this 2 Timothy 3 1 to 4. I got the King James Version, brother. This note also that in the last days, perilous time shall come for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures, more than lovers of God. And this hits because we did a survey at the church.

16:28 And I love this survey. And we said, hey, what are the topics y'all would like us to talk about and cover in a multitude of platforms? And do you remember the top three? Yes. I'm looking. Yeah, the top three. Number one was how to hear the voice of God. Yeah. Just how do I hear God? Yeah. I think that's a big one for everybody. The third one was prayer. How can I pray better? The second one was spiritual warfare. So those were the top three. And then right after that, end times. Yes, there was a lot of time. Number four was end times. End times. You're right. People want to know about end times. And I think it would be good because people are getting end times all over the internet.

17:10 And they're getting all kinds of versions of it. And I find it personally to be confusing enough that I stay away from it. Like, you know. Well, just so you know, we are actually going to, Pastor Brian and I have been meeting together and we're planning a whole series on eschatology. Or be the Wednesdays. No, no, we're going to do it for Sundays, but we're going to do it after we get back from vacation because, you know, summer gets a little bit weird, but stepping more into the fall, that's where we're going. Because you look at that. Now, of course, I'm sure people in World War II thought, dude, this is it. End times. We got to be here now. And you never know. As you would always say, we're one day closer than yesterday.

17:54 But this is a very interesting one. And again, I'm going to say we talk about the kids all the time, but this is us, brothers and sisters. This is us doing this. We are in this. And I did pick up two more clips about this. Good. Yeah. Because I really went looking. And the best way to combat a problem is first recognize it, you know, and admit that you have it. This is Dr. Romani Durvasula. She's a clinical psychologist, and she has an interesting take on this phenomenon. And wait for it at the end. She comes around to the real issue. This idea of main character energy is also about

18:39 main character energy. This idea of main character energy is also about making yourself the center of attention, the center of the story. It's as though all of the lights and the cameras are trained on you and everyone else in the scene is a secondary player or an extra. Some folks who embrace this main character concept almost view everything in their life as sort of a short film, whether it's going for their morning run, getting their groceries, going out to dinner, cleaning the house, going on vacation. It's the cameras trained on you. You're imagining the soundtrack. Here I am, single gal, buying the makings from my pasta dinner on my movie night alone.

19:21 Or look at me dressing up and making a grand entrance at dinner with my friends. That's the main character-ness of it all, right? In the more sort of ostensible way. Now, main character energy needs an audience. And that's where we see sort of the incessant posting of moments in a life. Hundreds of millions of little films about people's people's lives. lives every day on social media with them as the main characters. They're the central characters in their vacations, going to school, going to work, driving next to the ocean at a concert. It's a stream of consciousness broadcasting, and there they are, the star of their own lives.

20:03 So, okay, as a shrink. And not a young one. I love the idea. I got to tell you, I do love the idea of people grabbing the bull by the horns, viewing themselves as key players in their own lives, setting goals, putting themselves out there, honoring their voices. I think that's all great, especially young people. My generation carries different burdens than this young generation does. And I have to tell you, I love seeing empowerment at younger ages and living life on your terms. That part I think is great. Where this main character-ness runs the risk of veering into narcissistic territory is when it becomes about needing the audience.

20:45 So, my question is: can a main character-driven person who has posted the quirky little, look at me buying the ingredients to make my sourdough bread, or being the central character in their various vacation pictures, would it be okay if there wasn't a lot of validation or if there weren't a lot of likes and comments? Because if the main character energy person gets upset that nobody is tuning into their life, that's when I think it has taken a left turn onto narcissism lane. And there it is. And that's really the critical point. It really is.

21:24 I like how Greg Laurie gave us the answer to this by saying, Hey, look, this is Mark 8:34. And when he called the people onto him with his disciples, also King James, he said unto them, Whoever will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Now, how do we apply that in our daily life to this specific? Well, there's another passage of scripture that talks about think of others better than yourself. And people go, oh, well, then I need to put myself down in order to elevate others. That's actually not the issue. The issue is we elevate those around us, but it doesn't mean we self, you know, depreciate ourselves.

22:06 And that tends to be the thing. And so the flip side of the coin is what we see is that it's easier to put people down so that it somehow lifts us up. Oh, this is like the format of social media. It is. And yet, if you can fight that and resist it by saying, wait, I'm not going to put myself down, but I'm not going to put down others either. In fact, I want to lift others up. You've heard me use this. We even talked about it an episode or two ago about putting lift underneath people. How do we lift others? Good leadership lifts those around. They elevate those around them. Like I always intentionally brag on our staff to church.

22:47 Boy, didn't Pastor Brian do a great job last week? Let's give Pastor Brian a big hand. I mean, our boy, production team, if they weren't there, you wouldn't hear us. I mean, this constant elevating others, but I'm not putting myself down. Is that elevating or validating? Yes. It's both. It's both. Because when you do it publicly, it's very much validating, right? And when you do it personally, it can be that as well. But it's really elevating them to build them up. That's what we're supposed to be about. How can we remember to do this? When we're on social media, we're looking at that one person and you're ready to just go cynical because that's the currency now.

23:28 Was it you that said cesspool of cynicism? Yep. Yeah, I like that. I wrote that down: cesspool of cynicism. And like, how can we, what can we do to remind ourselves? Like, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Don't do that. First of all, practice, practice, practice. Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. And there's a Jimmyism if I'm not sure. I ever heard it is. There it is. I've said that for a long time. Practice does not make perfect. It makes permanent. And so the more I do it, the more it gets, obviously, I'm from a physical standpoint, I'm producing deeper grooves in my gray matter, right? The record grooves get deeper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They get entrenched. So the more I do it, the more natural it becomes.

24:12 And it's okay to start doing a new discipline and it have to be work in the beginning because anything is new. But you also need to place reminders around you. I mean, even if you have to put on your phone, make it work for you instead of against you. Put an alarm that says, who have you encouraged today at three o'clock? Oh, man, I'm way behind it. I got two hours of work. I'm going to go find somebody and build them up. This sounds elementary, but I'm telling you, when you become the person who builds others up, you become the person people come to and people want to be around.

24:49 Yes. You become a life giver. I just found out, by the way, that Don Fento from Caleb Global is going to come when the team is back this summer. Oh, excellent. He wanted to come hang out with us, which is amazing because he's literally one of my heroes in life. Didn't you work with him? I didn't work with him. I've just been around him. And I used to attend a meeting at his house in Nashville. And people can hear his entire session that he did on the Godcaster if you go back into Bridge Church sermons. I think we put that on there. No, that was Todd. Oh, that's good. Don Finto is the 96-year-old giant. Todd's coming too. Don is coming. He's bringing his daughter. God, Don, Bob, I know, right?

25:31 So Don Fento is like one of those just heroes of the faith. He's a general. But the reason I bring him up is because when I think about people who lift up others, who build up others, I think about a guy like Don Fento. He elevates everybody around him, but he doesn't put himself down. That's the thing: this whole self-validation, this need for validation, I get enough validation when I see Pastor Brian succeed. When he hits a sermon out of the park and everybody's cheering him, and I get something out of that because as a father, I get to see my son go to the family. But that is the most difficult thing for people to do because it's our life has we've been trained to be in competition.

26:13 That's true. We've been trained in all these ways. I like the practice makes permanent because that's the brain scientist in you talking. And what is it? Habit creates character. I think if you put that into the whole line of different things. Right, right. One leads to the other. I mean, but it is true. When you do that, it changes your own life. It does. It really does. So how do we apply that to what Jesus is saying? It's like, you know, pick up your cross, put down, deny everything else. Yeah, well, first of all, I love the way that Greg Lowry, Pastor Greg, put it. He said, he said, we're in a support role. That was the word, the term he used in terms of filmmaking.

26:57 We are in a support role of Jesus. He's the main character. We make him the hero of the story. If you notice, whenever we talk about ourselves, we make ourselves the center. We make ourselves the hero of the story. One practice I learned, and I can't even remember where I got it, but I remember it changed the way I talk to people. And I catch myself, even in church, even preaching a sermon, I'm careful about how many stories I tell where I make myself the hero. So you'll notice I'll tell stories that sort of make fun of me or mistakes I made. I do that because it takes me out of the hero position and it puts me in the sub, you know, I'm a sub supporting role.

27:37 But when you're talking to people, if you make them the hero of the story, it switches the whole conversation. So in terms of putting, you know, laying down my, my, you know, laying down my life and picking up my cross, that means if I spend more time validating others, I'm honoring God in that because I'm honoring his heart for people. But I'm also positioning myself in a support role instead of the main character and energy role that she talked about. It sounds a little convoluted. I hope that made sense. No, it made total sense. But again, it's not about beating yourself up or making that's an that's a mistake a lot of Christians, well-meaning, do, and it's even implicitly taught sometimes in churches.

28:23 Yeah, people have come up through mainline, you know, well, we got to be humble, brother. Don't get all puffed up. And I mean, over time, those things are used and they actually begin to beat people down. Right. And then you start living that way and talking that way and projecting that way. And you become very bent because you're afraid of having any form of self-confidence. So Bill Lovelace, our mutual friend who passed away, God bless his soul. He's with Jesus now. He used to say, we don't need to have self-confidence. We need to have a Christ confidence. So we're confident in him, but we're also confident in what Christ is doing in and through us.

29:04 We co-labor with him. We co-operate with him. So we get to be a part of the equation. But that doesn't mean that we're like all that in a bag of chips. Yeah, and I'd say that there's a balance in that tension. Probably social media is not a good place to practice this because it probably just won't work out very well. Oh, you're just going to end up in an argument with somebody. Let's debate your position on women in ministry or something. I mean, I get that crap all the time. I don't even give a tip to it. I had somebody get all over me for promoting radio. Randy Brilly to be mayor. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. And by the way, hello. Congratulations. Congratulations. Mayor. Elect. Yeah. So our church got to play a role in that.

29:48 I did what churches have been doing all along, but been told they can't. Yeah. And that is I promoted him because he's from our church. He's one of our own. I didn't disparage any other people running, but I said, look, he's us. Yeah. And don't we, we know him. We know his character. Don't we want him? So I was just real, but I did that on social media and several people came after me on that. Because saying what? The church should not be promoting a candidate. The separation of church and state. Or I'm on the hook for a podcast with him now. I know. I saw you floated that out too on our little text chain. I'm going to do that. That looks great. Can I be a part of that? Of course. Man, I want to be in. We want the podcast with the mayor.

30:29 Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't have to be every week, but periodically on some regular basis. Man, how good? What a way to learn about what's going on in our community, right? Yes, every small town, every city, everyone should be doing this. The one thing I did say is that with these people that were disparaging me for supporting a candidate, and here's what I said: so I said, I hope the other candidate that's running, I hope her pastor is lifting her up in front of her congregation. I hope he's telling them to go vote and to go and support her. I said, if he's not, he's making a mistake. Amen. He's missing it. Amen. Yeah. Back to this

31:09 to the main character energy. Although we inherently know this, I think it's always good to be reminded that this is by design and this is something that is in your hand and is drawing you in every single day. The guy who literally has written the book on this, the books, is Jonathan Haight, H-A-I-D-T. He wrote the anxious generation. He wrote Coddling Our Kids, Coddling of the American Mind, I think it's titled. And so he just pulled one clip from him from CBS where he talks about the design of this main character energy and what it does.

31:50 Again, he's going to talk about kids, but think about yourself. Now, one of the catalysts for the social media addiction debate was a 2024 book called The Anxious Generation by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He argued children's addiction to social media was literally engineered by the platforms. His new book, The Amazing Generation, tries to help parents and kids break free of screens. Jonathan Haidt joins us now to talk more about this. Jonathan, thank you so much for your time. Excited to talk to you about this topic. You have argued for years that social media companies are responsible for causing children to become addicted. But then Mark Zuckerberg, he testified there saying there is no scientific proof that social media causes mental health problems.

32:33 So what is your take on the testimony and about this trial? Yeah. So he just keeps saying that. And it's just completely flat out not true. I had dinner with him in January of 2020. We had a long conversation. I said, Mark, there's actually a lot of evidence now. He said, no, it's just correlational. I said, no, it's not. Well, here we are four years later, six years later, rather. It turns out Meta has done dozens of studies. And those have only come to light because the attorneys in these lawsuits are able to do some document discovery. And so, for example, Meta itself had conducted a very good experiment in 2018 where they asked people to get off of social media for a week.

33:11 And here's what they found: quote, We found that those who stopped using Facebook for a week reported lower feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and social comparison. That's just one experiment. There are 20 or 30 other experiments that we found done by academics. So there's a lot of experimental evidence of harm. There are self-reports from the kids. If 25% of teen girls say that it's damaged their mental health, that's not a correlation. That's direct testimony from victims. They designed this. They designed it. They knew it. Their internal documents show it. They're in some actual legal trouble, $375 million in one state alone. There's thousands of these lawsuits from people.

33:53 They're talking about addiction. The addiction is just a part of the whole system. And we get addicted to it. We get addicted to, that's the narcissistic part. You get addicted to the likes, the validation, being the center of your own universe, your own movie. Put down your screens, pick up your Bible, scripture before screens. And there's more that is going on. And this is in a weird way because, like any tool, it can be used for good, for bad, indifferent. Right. So Greg Lorry actually was the target of a geo-fencing.

34:29 geofencing campaign. Yeah, I know. That's the look I had when I first heard this term, geo, because I know geofencing is like, well, so my dog can't leave the yard. He gets zapped, which Phoebe does not have a collar. You know, you can geo-fence your car so it won't start somewhere, et cetera. Right. But geofencing is an advertising strategy that you can buy on all the big social networks. And I first heard about this term in this context of advertising at the Heart of the Hills gala that we went to. Do you remember talking about this? So the Heart of the Hills, which is a fantastic organization here,

35:13 they give young, well, they give all women, doesn't have to be that young actually, the opportunity to come talk to them about alternatives to abortion. And they don't force anyone down a path. They don't do abortions, but they certainly will try and bring you into a more godly frame of mind about it. And they've had great success. And the thing that hit me there is the executive director, she said, we have had a great success with geofencing, where people, and so it is based on geographic location, were searching for planned parenthood and they pop up.

35:56 So, and when I heard that, I'm like, wow, that's really smart. I heard that. Now that you mentioned that, we looked at each other and I went, whoa, like, wow. And so, you know, this is not a cheap system. You know, we talk about CPMs, cost per mil, or cost per thousand. So for mobile and desktop, that can be $15 per thousand impressions. It can run in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of times. Every time I drive by the wellness center, my app pops up. I get a notification driving down the street. That's probably geofencing. It's got to be. So Greg Lorry was a target of geofencing in California.

36:36 And again, I'm a little on the fence about this, but there was, so this has become big news on social media because Israel. The Israeli government hired a company in the United States to geo-fence thousands of churches, mainly on the West Coast. So that's why Greg Laurie was, you know, would target it as well. Some in Texas as well, particularly Austin. Bridge Church was not on the list that I could see, but who knows how accurate the list is. And they were doing two things. One was, so if you were just on social media and you were within this geofencing area, it would pop up messages showing how Israel is important to be a Christian.

37:21 I'm paraphrasing, but also a lot of anti-Palestinian messaging. And so I'm kind of on the fence about what I think about that, but it's more, I say it more for people to understand that this is taking place and you are being targeted. And if you're being targeted for good, trust me, the enemy's out there targeting you for something else. How do they call the information for their demographic target? Well, in this case, they were doing it purely by church. So within a geographic area of a church, what that church represents. There's a lot of data on Bridge Church. I mean, you don't have to go over it. You can just look at the website and know what we're about.

38:03 You can find out the demographics of who's going there. Just having your phone on you is already telling the data brokers who you are. They are they know what Uber you take. If you take the X, the Uber Black, or if you take the Cheapo one, they know everything. They know everything. And for the same reason, you're getting a pop-up when you pass the Wellness Center. I was telling people about this stupid bot on my phone called Bixby, and it literally would pop up and say, Do you want to, do you want to install me? So it's listening full time. So it's important to understand that there are actors out there. And again, I gave you two examples that I'm not against per se.

38:48 Right. But it can be used for all different reasons. And we have to be cognizant that this is happening, people. This is happening. And just be aware of what is going on and always thinking why. Why did this show up? Or better yet, just use it for phone. Just use it to text. It's been a long time since I've had a phone call on this thing. I've got two I need to make this afternoon. It's going to be odd. It feels weird to tell you. I get a lot of scam calls. You know, whenever there's elections going on, like, oh, okay, New Jersey calling me. Yeah, no. I don't think so. Oh, I've been called by Trump before. Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, what did he say? I didn't take it.

39:31 I thought he could leave a message. So it's just something that I wasn't really even aware of. I've seen how effective it is because literally the executive director of Hills of the Heart of the Hills, she told us how effective it was. I'm like, that's really amazing. And small town America. And save unborn children through this, which is great, but it can be used for all kinds of things. And I'm always a little worried. Make sure that when you feel like all of Texas is being taken over by Muslim and Islam is on your roof, just know that there are all kinds of all kinds of actors, political mainly.

40:10 I'm not even saying, you know, it's a nation state, political mainly, who may even be friendly to you, who are just trying to do stuff to get to mold your mind. It's just the warning shot I'm throwing out. Over the bow, bro. It bugged me when I heard that. It needs to be a shot heard around the world. You know, we talk about that in Lexington, obviously. But it's like this net that gets cast out, and you can get caught in the net very easily. And I think when we choose and learn how to respond as opposed to react to everything, and again, practice makes permanent, not perfect.

40:52 So the more you resist what those things are trying to lure you into, you know, because sure enough, if you hit, you know, you hit the notification pops up, hey, wellness center, you know, boom, boom, pick it up. I haven't been a member there for two years. Oh, and I'm still getting them. And now it pops up as a text message. It comes on on my phone, like it comes up as a banner on my phone. Do you have an app? Probably. Okay. All right. Probably still have the app on my phone. I guarantee you. That's why. Because you know how it is. I'm not always going, okay, what apps do I not use anymore? Because I have so many now. Advertising used to be so simple. Do you want these girls to like you? Buy this car.

41:34 You know, it just used to be simple. It was the easiest way. Hey, you want to be liked? Drink my beer. I mean, that's how we used to do it. It's gotten so sophisticated. And it's not good. It's not good. I agree. Do you have anything you wanted to bring up today in particular? Not specifically. I mean, I did, I wanted to mention that we're going to be going to the Calov Awards, and I'm really excited about that. This is a different, way different turn from what we just talked about. But I mean, hard right. But I was talking to some of our staff about that. This would be our, Annette and I, this would be our fourth year to go. And our third, I think? I think so. The reason we like it so much is that

42:20 it's the power of context and the power of story. So I'm saying this for a reason because this matters in everything we've been talking about. When I know the story behind something that someone's trying to give to me, like a song. Yes. If I know the story behind that song, I have now a massive appreciation for it. You know, when I hear the story behind a particular song that our church is singing from Brandon Lake or from whoever. Boy, did that hit Sunday. And it was so good. Then I hear I know the story behind it. Wow. You know, why? Because context is king. But that translates even into what we're talking about with social media.

43:02 You get a bite. You get a soundbite from somebody. You don't know what the context is. You don't know what the story is. I think that's why when someone disparages me online because I make a comment about my faith and then I just get blasted, it hurts only because I care about people. I'm not so jaded that I just writing the world off. I even said this on Sunday. I said, guys, I'm going to blow your myth bubble right here. I'm going to be a myth buster. There are actually good people in the world who want to do good things, who have good hearts, and who are trying to make a difference, a good difference in this world. I know it's shocking because since COVID, we've gone down this track of just being suspicious of everybody for everything.

43:46 Especially government, authorities, cynicism, Simon Cowell syndrome. 1.0, 2.0, Simon Cowell's a lot nicer. He's gotten older. Friendlier softer. He's passed it off to others. It's exactly right. Well, he created a whole generation of Simon Cowles. It's weird seeing Lionel Ritchie doing a Simon Cowell. I don't know if you've ever seen him. He's not. It's like, wow, YNL. No, no, no. No, no. I know. I know. It's cute. But all I had to say is that when we learn the context and story around things, we see things different. And in terms of terms the world, of social media, this is why I'm so wary of social media. I like using the internet.

44:24 I like information research. I loves reading. I'm becoming a big fan of Substack because there's not a lot of drama on there. These are just people for now. In my experience with it, limited as I'm getting deeper into it, I'm just finding good writers. There's also people who are appreciating writing and not pictures and self-news articles. I think that's why it feels different. Yeah, I haven't seen any vacation pictures on there. Not that there's probably, there probably are some who do that, but I'm not even going to disparage that. I'm just saying it's a community built around somebody wanting to better their craft and finding supportive people to do it. I think that's awesome. It's fantastic. So that's a different kind of social media.

45:08 But what's happening with meta, Instagram, and I am susceptible to it as anybody. You get me on a run of surfing videos on Instagram, and an hour can go by, but I've watched some of the biggest waves in the world going, how do you do that? Or flying. I love airplane stuff. I mean, I just threw it out. But then you walk. This is why this influencer crashed and burned. I'm like, no, I don't want to see those videos. It always turns. There's always a turn. But all I'm saying is that the power of story, the power of getting to know things, is why I like going to something like this.

45:48 What we're about to go to. We're going to enjoy ourselves. We're going to run a lot of positive people who love God, who are good people, just coming together to enjoy something and learn stories. But the power of story translates into our life. I mean, you pause long enough with the people that work around you and you begin to learn their backstory. It'll change the way you talk to them. It'll change the way you react to them. You learn their algorithm because we all have one. And we need to do that. We got to take time to do that. And with K-Love in particular, what's nice about that is they have these writers, roundtables, and so they're all sitting on stage, eight, sometimes 10 of them, and they're talking about the song and how the song came to be.

46:35 That's why I appreciate Nick so much, who does the bandkind on Hello Fred Sunday night at seven. And she's great. She's in-depth with the artist talking about the songs. And you're absolutely right. That is, and the two things I love about K-Love is the worship, just pure worship with a thousand people or 2,000 people. That's crazy. But really, hearing the artists talk about that, we don't have enough of that. I agree. We need to do more. There needs to be more. When we lived in Nashville, some of the venues would host writers' rounds with some of the top guys like Dean Dillon, Phil Robertson. I mean, some of the big Bernie Nelson, the big writers. Bernie Nelson lives in Fredericksburg, by the way. He goes to our church.

47:19 They're due to our church and amazing, but he's got a long history. Goes up and does writing sessions with these guys. And just sitting hearing the backstories of a George Strait song that you've heard on the radio a billion times, number one hit, and Dean Dillon's talking about writing it on a napkin in a bar. That's how the biggest hit over a beer. It's the biggest hisket, man. But what it does, it makes you value and appreciate things. And if we can do that with each other and learn to learn to say, you know, to be able to default, again, practice makes permanent, to default to, you know, I don't like what that person just wrote or said, but I don't know their story.

47:56 I don't know their, I have no context for this. You know, even if it's Ducker Carlson Candace, oh, I mean, just these people losing their minds. And I'm like, there's a story there. I wonder what the story is. Something has created a domino effect in them that's turned them dark. And I would love to know the story behind that. And it really is, for me, it's the most difficult part of the model prayer is forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors. As we. As we. Key two words there. Yes, as we. As we forgive. Explain. Yeah. So I always say it when I say my version of it, because it all is legitimate.

48:35 I'll say, Father, forgive me for my offenses as I forgive those who offend me. As I forgive those. At that very moment. And if I'm not willing to forgive, why would I expect someone to forgive me? I always say, Lord, this is the hardest one. I trip up on this every single time. I know. It's like, well, practice makes permanent. That's it, brother. I've gotten better, but it's just like, you know, social media. It's like you, you know, why don't you just go out there without a shield on and say, shoot me? You know, it's like, that's kind of what it is when you're doing that. Well, we throw something out and then we get shot. shocked when people dogpile us. Yeah. You know, and then, well, okay.

49:19 I mean, I really, I'm, I own, I don't give opinions ever on social media because I don't work for Elon Musk. You know, I work for the No Agenda Nation and for the We Get To Do This ecclesia. You know, these are the people that I'm doing this for, and so I'll give my opinions to them. But I do use it to promote. Right. And then it's always disheartening when someone says, oh, well, you still did boomer. You know, the boomer thing doesn't bother me because I am boomer adjacent. But, you know, but it's just like, wow, you know, and that, and that's when I'm like you always say, put a mark on that person, pray for them.

50:00 But there it is. It's still hard. It's still hard. So we're leaving for the Netherlands tomorrow. Yes. I was hoping that because we're on this filming schedule for the kids, they got a reality show. And, you know, it's like we're helping them out to give them a good start in life with the new human resource. But maybe we can record Tuesday and I'll do it Tuesday night from there because I really do not like skipping a show. No, I don't want to skip it. So yeah, you just figure it out. Yeah. And we'll do a show. Yeah. We'll make it work. Yeah, I really want to because I love doing this and we get to do this, brother.

50:41 I love it so much. And I got to tell you, I love the people that are listening to our show and are writing to us, whether it's, and sometimes it's on social media where somebody will write. Yeah. Had a great, can I share this? This came via, let me see, which one was it? Gosh, I think this one was. Yeah, this was okay. This is somebody named Karen, and this is on X. So check this out. She writes and says, Just watched what she just watched. She was responding to me promoting our church's worship services for Sunday. She wrote, Just watch, amazing and lovely. I live in a very small town. She's in Canada.

51:26 Less than 300 people. And this gave me a feeling of belonging to your church. Thank you so much. The references to Adam made me smile because I called you out on Sunday for whatever I did. Yeah, yeah. I think it was writing about the car. No. No, it was about the car and the testosterone and all that. So yeah, we were having fun with that. The references to Adam made me smile. God, through him, brought me here. Wow. So, man, be encouraged. But just thank you to Karen for taking a moment to actually encourage us. I'm just so appreciative. There's a whole group of folks now that I'm starting to connect with on X that watch our show, listen to our show.

52:09 And that usually leads to them watching a service or whatever. And so it always makes me happy just to see people showing up. I might as well say thanks to all of them. Yes. And thanks to Bo Lacoste, Louisiana Dill Pickles, who has been selected as one of the vendors for the 2026 Texarkina Pickle Fest in October. Come on. Yes. Yay for him. He's going to need a bigger building, a bigger factory. He'll be teaming up and sharing a booth with his friends at Dream Hunt Foundation, a Louisiana-based nonprofit providing guided hunting and fishing experiences for

52:47 special needs children. All right. Wow. So LouisianaDillPickles at gmail.net, it says here. G really gmail.net.com. I don't know why. No, I think it's.com. LouisianadillPickles at gmail.com. Very cool. Yes. Brother, we did it again. We did it. We done. We just landed the plane. We just talked like we normally do when we hit record and a show drops out the bottom. One last story here. So Sunday, you and I are at the women's event, right? Saturday. Saturday. 105 women show up to this event, and several of them are coming over, you and me, sometimes together, sometimes different, saying, we love the podcast.

53:32 We love listening. We're like, wow. Thank you so much. That means so much to us. People have no idea how much that means. No, it's powerful. It's nice to know that people are out there. We don't look at stats. I just love when people show up and say, I can't look at the stats. No, you don't have actions. I don't have action. It's better for me. We get to do this, and we're glad that you are doing it with us. We'll see you next week, everybody. Amen. This is the life we've been blessed with. This is the gift. light of we get to do this move.