Escaping the Norm: Young Adults and the Local Church

In this episode, Ruth Hovsepian interviews Jeff Pitts about the challenges the local church faces in engaging young adults. They discuss the over-politicization of the church, the disconnect between youth ministry and the transition to the larger church, and the need for authentic dialogue and mentorship. They also emphasize the importance of biblical literacy and contextual understanding of scripture. They address misconceptions about the church and the need to focus on the people rather than the brand or building. The conversation highlights the importance of reaching young people with the gospel's good news and the Holy Spirit's role in conviction and transformation.

Connect with Jeff Pitts:
Website:  https://jeffandrachaelpitts.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeff_pitts_
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeffrey.pitts1
Podcast: The Collectives Conversations with Jeff Pitts

Takeaways

• The over-politicization of the church and its involvement in divisive issues is a major challenge in engaging young adults.
• There is a disconnect between youth ministry and the transition to the larger church, leading to disengagement and a high dropout rate among young adults.
• Authentic dialogue and mentorship are crucial in helping young adults grow in their faith and navigate complex issues.
• Biblical literacy and contextual understanding of scripture are essential for young adults to anchor their faith and engage in meaningful conversations.
• The church needs to address misconceptions and focus on the people rather than the brand or building, emphasizing authenticity and the transformative power of the gospel.
• Reaching young people with the good news of the gospel requires a balance of love, care, and permission to bring correction in a relational and non-condemning manner.

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Transcript

Ruth Hovsepian (00:01.56)
Welcome to another episode of Out of the Darkness, the podcast where we explore faith, transformation, and the journey to finding light in the darkest moments. I'm your host, Ruth Hovsepian. Today, we're looking at a critical topic, young adults and the local church. Joining us is Jeff Pitts, a former church planter and pastor who now hosts the collective conversations with a deep heart for the next generation.

Jeff is dedicated to helping young adults grow as devoted disciples of Christ. Jeff, welcome to the show.

Jeff Pitts (00:40.357)
Thank you so much for having me. What an honor to be with you and your audience and hopefully something from our conversation today will help them and help us reach more young adults.

Ruth Hovsepian (00:51.062)
Amen. So let, let's kick this off with this in your experience. What are some of the biggest challenges the local local church faces when it comes to engaging young adults today?

Jeff Pitts (01:05.813)
wow. That's like, start right off the bat. Big questions. no softballs here. I think a couple of things. No, I think a couple of things. think we've, if you've been paying attention to the last eight, 10 years of culture, and I don't know that any of it's new. I think one of the biggest challenges we've seen is, and we can go there. We can not go there, but I want to address it right off the bat is the over politi, politicization of church and the church's involvement

Ruth Hovsepian (01:08.226)
Yeah. Listen, sorry.

Jeff Pitts (01:35.977)
sort of the political landscape and choosing a side. I'm not going to say who I vote for, who I don't vote for, who I'm for, who against. That's not the stance of this. But I think what young adults have seen is the church has gotten really involved in that in unhealthy ways. And while they're causational, young adults are very causational. They love a cause. They feel like the water's muddy between church and politics.

Ruth Hovsepian (02:02.169)
Mmm.

Jeff Pitts (02:03.529)
They feel like how the church has embraced certain topics and get angry at other ones and don't show love but don't show grace and hard on truth and certain things that are biblical but not like I think that's been one of the limiting factors of the church. I think when the other limiting factors is they and this is one of the things I think I've pushed on the lot is these are kids that grow up in youth ministry and youth ministry looks a certain way.

and they turn 18 and we go, now you're part of this thing that looks nothing like that. And we throw them into this sort of large church format, what we call big church, and they're not involved, they're not engaged, we've not invited them to participate, we've not invited them to lead in that space. And we see this usually at 16 or 17, this great disconnect of teenagers that become young adults who leave the church. And so I think...

those are probably two of the primary issues I see right off the

Ruth Hovsepian (03:04.706)
It's interesting because here in Canada, we don't have that much of, there are churches that politicize, you know, things within the church, but I think this is more of an American stance. Right or wrong, I'm just saying that's what I've seen. But I do, yeah, and I do agree with you. And I don't have issues about talking about my political stance.

Jeff Pitts (03:13.226)
Mm -hmm.

Jeff Pitts (03:21.021)
Right. No, it is

Ruth Hovsepian (03:34.394)
But I have over the years and at my age, I'll be 59. At my age, I've come to realize something that a lot of the issues that we are dealing with here with young people feeling the way you've explained and talked about it is this. We need to keep church out of our schools, our public schools, not talking about the private schools.

And we need to keep politics and government outside of our churches. And the reason I say that is this, not that I don't want our children to be raised in a faith based environment in school, but there are a couple of things that I've seen, which goes back to your second point. And that is keeping young people and adult churching separate. And we, I want kids in school.

to learn writing and arithmetic. I want kids in church to be taught from the word of God. And we have seen that the moment you start to politicize what is going on in a school or in a church, you're asking for trouble in the sense that if I no longer permit a certain religion to practice their faith in school,

Who was to guarantee that at some point it will not happen to us? So I say, I rather not have it at all and not have to deal with it. And that is where I come from. And I'm a hundred percent that I'm from the generation where you were friends with everyone. You didn't know their political stance unless that was a subject that you enjoy talking about.

and it didn't reflect on your friendships. It was just that. And the other point you made, and I am so in agreement with this, years ago when my kids were little, we used to have Sunday school before church. And during church, we had junior church. I made a decision, I was a single mom with three kids. And when I became a single mom,

Jeff Pitts (05:51.167)
Mm

Ruth Hovsepian (06:00.376)
They were all five and under. My decision was my children would stay in church. It wasn't a popular take, but I really believed that my church, my kids needed to be part of the church and understand if they could sit still in school, they should be able to sit still in church. And you're right. Young people are not brought into the fabric of the church.

They need to be discipled and taught how to participate in church. Why not have them collect offering? Why not have them do scripture reading? If you follow some of those, you know, traditional things into the church.

Jeff Pitts (06:47.775)
Yeah, Ruth, have so like you have, you have young adults and probably I think adults that are now teenagers. They, my, I have five kids in my house and we're on this social platform here. We're promoting our podcasts and different things. My kids are natives to that. They know far more than I do for technology. They know more about culture. They are steps ahead of

Ruth Hovsepian (06:54.585)
Yeah.

Jeff Pitts (07:15.317)
So why not invite them into space to teach us or lead us or show us whatever it is because when we show up and I'll admit my age, I'm 47, trying to be relevant in a space that they already own, we just come off cringy. Like, why did you do that? Why are you like, so I think we invite them into this sort of like what's called reverse mentoring.

Ruth Hovsepian (07:35.3)
Yeah.

Jeff Pitts (07:41.279)
where they're teaching us something, now we have opportunity to invest in them as disciples. As we go along, I can pour into you the Word of God. As we go along, you can learn how to pray. As we go along, I'm learning how to run TikTok. It's sort of a mutual exchange that I think we can do. I want to address something else you said, especially with young adults. It's not that they're anti -politics in spaces or anti -political things. They're very political.

I think in the United States and in Canada, is that they want a space where they can have hard conversations, and have a dialogue, not somebody tell them what's right and what's wrong. They want a dialogue, and they're incredibly open to hearing what the Bible has to say about these things. They are way open to what Jesus has to say about these things, but they want it in a space where they can have a conversation. Absolutely. I mean, and look at

Ruth Hovsepian (08:20.207)
Yes.

Ruth Hovsepian (08:33.358)
They're hungry. Yeah,

Jeff Pitts (08:38.001)
The rise of spirituality is at an all -time high, at least here in the United States in young adults and teenagers. They're wearing crystals, horoscopes are back to high popularity. They are seeking. Yeah, they're seeking. So it's a perfect time for the church to step in and go, you're looking for truth. Let me show you who truth is in the name of Jesus.

Ruth Hovsepian (08:46.212)
Yes. New age, new age, yeah.

Ruth Hovsepian (09:00.41)
Yeah, I agree with you 100%. We've done a disservice to young people by just dictating to them. This is this is this is right because why I said so. Jeff, I was one of those kids that hate being told because I'm telling you so. You've got to believe me. I don't I want to come I love dialogue. love a good debate.

I still have them with our kids and people who don't know my family dynamics may think we're arguing. We're not. For us, we love a good heated conversation about something. And at the end of the day, we walk away saying, okay, I'm going to think about this or I totally disagree with that. But it's up for a discussion. And I think that's what the church has to do as

But I think if there's a generation, so my generation is really guilty of that. And I grew up in that environment where this was, you know, this is just wrong. For example, one of them was rock music. So I came from an environment and a church environment and family where any music outside of the church, maybe classical at best, was wrong. And I had

very outspoken about the satanic nature of any music outside of church music. But I was so naive. I had just taken what was said and spewed it out. You know what? I'm honest about things. I love music from one end of the spectrum to the other, except for punk, headbanger, you know, the stuff to that.

It's just noise for my ears. Yeah. See? Yeah. But I appreciate it. And, you know, as a believer, we're all on a journey. I want to admit I was wrong. I want to admit what I do. And if I need to be corrected, correct me. And I will make a decision whether it works or not, if it's biblically based or not.

Jeff Pitts (10:55.657)
I don't mind some 80s punk. I grew up with Childhood 80s. There's a couple songs, not the whole genre, but a couple songs.

Ruth Hovsepian (11:23.48)
And you're right, young people want that same respect. It's, it's, I think it's, difficult to balance.

Jeff Pitts (11:28.307)
Yeah.

Jeff Pitts (11:32.541)
It's funny you bring up the music thing. on my podcast, I had, her name is Dr. Leia Payne. She's a, actually an academic at the university of Portland university, some, no, it's a seminary anyways, but she wrote a book called, I forgot the name of the book. God gave rock and roll to you, which is actually a kiss song was funny enough, but it's sort of this academic book on the Christian music industry.

And Christian music basically was going, Hey, what was cool three years ago? We need bands that sound like that. So it, well, while you and I were in this sort of maybe eighties, nineties holiness movement that I grew up in Pentecostal by, by birth and trade and expression. And I was taught this is what is holy, not that, you know, and, and, and very clear lines on what was and wasn't culturally. Christian music's going.

Ruth Hovsepian (12:05.753)
Mm.

Ruth Hovsepian (12:15.148)
Yeah.

Jeff Pitts (12:26.175)
Hey, let's take what was unholy three years ago and make it super popular and trendy now. Cause we can sell records and we can make it safe for the whole family. That sound familiar? We'll make it safe for the whole family. which so, so culture is always around us. And so I don't think we can ignore culture. And especially in this conversations about young adults, we can't just bury our head in the sand and go like, you, you can't be on tick tock. Tick tock's all bad, or you can't whatever it is,

Ruth Hovsepian (12:31.749)
Mmm. Mmm.

Ruth Hovsepian (12:36.014)
Yep. Yep.

Jeff Pitts (12:54.363)
They want a space where they can go, hey, let's have a genuine dialogue about these things. Let's have a genuine conversation.

Ruth Hovsepian (13:02.638)
I yeah, and I think that gone are the days where we just say, this is what it is, and you have to follow it. Because there, we need to take things into context. I think we need to have these conversations with our young people. You know, there were so many things that were wrong. I grew up in a evangelical, conservative, Baptist, you know, environment.

And as I said, I had a lot of questions. And I looked around, I was one of those, I was considered a black sheep. I still hear it often. But I don't wear that as a negative thing anymore. I believe in questioning. I've always told my children, asking questions, there is nothing wrong. It's not a sin to question. You need to go back to the scriptures.

go back to the Bible and let the Holy Spirit speak to you. Look, you know, I've done a lot of things. My past is not a secret, but one of the things that I did through this journey of recovery and, you know, leaving my addictions in the past, I have a daughter that started and wanted tattoos.

Jeff Pitts (13:59.633)
Absolutely.

Ruth Hovsepian (14:26.51)
Do you know what my first argument was? What are people going to think and say? And I held myself and check on that one. Now, I'm not talking about whether it's right or wrong, biblically, whatever, but my perception of it was, what are people going to say? Well, let me raise my hand. I've got tattoos. Would I do what my daughter did and have a full sleeve? No.

Jeff Pitts (14:44.233)
Right. I see that. I saw that earlier.

Ruth Hovsepian (14:55.322)
Why did I do this? And I'm asked this by, by parents, right? Because I'm 59. Why did you do that in your fifties? And for me, it was really to be an outward expression of this is who I am today. That Ruth that was there is dead. I am here. This is part of my story. Ask me why I have the cross made out of three spikes.

Ask me why I have the word prayer on the other side. Now they're discreet enough that many times people never notice it. It's only, you know, certain like pray. Nobody sees that one. It really was for me to remind me to pray. Why permanent?

Ruth Hovsepian (15:45.323)
And sometimes we tell our children things are right and wrong for the wrong reason. I really want us to disciple our young people in the church on the word of

Jeff Pitts (16:00.917)
100 % and and you bring up an incredible point and one of the other things we have to really address is biblical illiteracy and Well, they're also now calling biblical unfamiliarity So so you growing up you and I around a church or even if you weren't around the church You knew stories like you knew David and Goliath know in the ark you knew about Moses and the Exodus you knew these biblical stories at least by

Ruth Hovsepian (16:11.716)
Yes.

Ruth Hovsepian (16:16.566)
Mmm.

Jeff Pitts (16:30.569)
What we have now is a generation who don't even know the stories. And so they're not just biblically illiterate from like, they don't read the Bible. They don't know about the Bible. And so if we're going to anchor them in scripture, we've got to point them back to scripture. And we've got to help them also contextually read scripture, which is one of my big soap boxes. I love the verse of the day. It's great, but out of context, it may not make sense. One of my favorite questions to ask somebody is,

when they're reading scripture and everybody loves John 3 16 and they quote it everywhere and I've asked this to young adults, I've asked it to teenagers and I said well who is Jesus having a conversation with? And they're like you mean Jesus is having a conversation with somebody in that passage? Yeah, like who's he talking to and why is it important? Like why is for God to love the world so important to the person he's having a conversation with? And you have to unpack this whole idea like in the context of the passage he's talking to a religious leader named Nicodemus.

who the Jews are like, we are the ones, it's us, God's saving us. And Jesus goes, for God so loved the world, so to Nicodemus' mind is blown going, you mean God loves somebody more than Jews, as well as the Jews? And so it's not just we have to put them contextually in scriptural conversations. Read it, understand it, contextually understand it, understand the bigger picture of it.

Ruth Hovsepian (17:45.026)
Yes.

Jeff Pitts (17:59.699)
because we can't just stick a verse on our Instagram bio and be like, that's enough. And I feel, my greatest fear is like a generation who is, everything's short form, right? It's a quick, it's a real, it's this or that, has snapshots of scripture, but has no idea what it really means.

Ruth Hovsepian (18:05.741)
Amen.

Ruth Hovsepian (18:19.266)
Yeah, yeah, I I I'm in agreement with you on that, Jeff. I I'm on my soapbox about that as well about personal Bible studies about taking verses in context, not just the verse, the chapter, the book, the whole Bible and understanding why certain things were said and the way that they were said. Stop taking things that stop taking things.

Jeff Pitts (18:29.011)
Yes.

Jeff Pitts (18:36.287)
Mm -hmm.

Jeff Pitts (18:43.753)
Absolutely.

Ruth Hovsepian (18:47.318)
versus specifically and using them for your, whatever, your soap box. And I really want to, and I think that this is twofold, a responsibility that is twofold. I not encourage, I am telling parents that they need to step up and teach their children.

through their actions and teach them how to read the word of God. Don't just say, have you read the of the Bible? Have you done your devotions? It's not enough anymore, right? And like you said, it's great to have the verse of the day. It's great to have the five minute devotion, but there's more to it. want parents to sit down with their children at their level

Show them how to do Bible reading. And then I put the responsibility on the church. Stop giving kids just Bible stories. Give them more than, you know, like age appropriate. Right. I'm not saying sit down with a three year old and cover all of the book of Isaiah. Yeah. Yeah. Or Leviticus. Right. But I'm saying stop giving, you know, like a 12 year old.

Jeff Pitts (20:06.259)
Let's discuss Leviticus.

Ruth Hovsepian (20:15.594)
Just a snapshot, as you said, give them more, show them, make them hungry for more. Because kids, when they're hungry, look at how they know the internet. we were, just, you mentioned that right at the gate, right? How, how well they are with technology. They know how to search. They know how to look for things. So why not show them

You can do the same thing with the Word of God. We need to do.

Jeff Pitts (20:45.663)
Yeah, I mean they're learning high -level chemistry in high school, right? They're learning physics and high -level math. why do we expect to get... why are we going, hey, look, you can do high -level algebra, but I'm gonna give you elementary biblical understanding. Now, I think we have to, to age appropriate, I think we have to disciple them, moving them forward in it, because we talked again about biblical literacy. We can't expect them to understand the biblical law if they don't understand

Ruth Hovsepian (20:50.496)
Yes! Yeah!

Yeah.

Ruth Hovsepian (21:08.759)
Right.

Jeff Pitts (21:14.598)
gospel presentation, but I think we have to move people forward. It is a both and responsibility. is threefold—the individual, the family, and the church. We all have to partner in this sort of process of growing people up in faith, and then when that happens, I think we see the outcome of that, right? We don't see immature faith spilling out somewhere.

Ruth Hovsepian (21:15.714)
Right,

Jeff Pitts (21:44.349)
Now listen, I'm still growing. in this thing a long time. Learning something new every day and having to relearn lessons every day, right? Like the Lord speaks to me in scripture and like is like, yeah, Jeff, we got to figure this one out eventually. You know, you got to learn this one. You got to get this one eventually. but we have to be working at it, right? It's, it's not an end game journey discipleship. It's this process of life. It's, it's as I go and, and as, as I walk with somebody

Ruth Hovsepian (21:50.03)
Yes.

Jeff Pitts (22:14.369)
the church walks with me and I'm just trying to become more like Jesus and in the word Christian actually means small Christ. I'm trying to become like Christ in my character, in my life, in my expression. And I think when we talk young adults, I think the hardest thing they see is this is what you say, but this is what I see and they don't line

Ruth Hovsepian (22:19.022)
Right, right.

Ruth Hovsepian (22:40.836)
How do you see mentorship playing in the spiritual growth of young adults within the church?

Jeff Pitts (22:48.053)
It's critical. I mean, it's absolutely critical. think mentorship, discipleship is really... I saw this on another show, it's like taking a long walk with somebody. Like, that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take a really long walk, we're gonna talk about it, and we're gonna discuss biblical things, and we're gonna walk hand -in -hand, life -in -life, and I'm gonna shape you. And eventually, your responsibility is this, that you find somebody to walk with.

Ruth Hovsepian (23:06.084)
Yes.

Jeff Pitts (23:16.437)
The six words that changed my life. I was a 21 year old Bible college student, arrogant, prideful, all the things you think about being 21. I thought I was on top of the world. I had a man come to me. These are the six words. I'll give the short version of story. He came to me and he said, Jeff, I don't like you, but the Lord has told me to spend time with you. I was like, thank you? I don't know how to take that. I think that's good.

But this man became my mentor and is still a friend to me, but he said these six words have shaped my life. He said these and they're out of Scripture. He said, freely you have received, freely give. He said, anything I give you is your responsibility to give away. And I've spent the last 25 years doing that. And so I, what God gives me and what others who have invested me, my job is to give it away. And what I've found to be so true is that if I give that away, I make space for God to give

Ruth Hovsepian (23:49.998)
Right.

Jeff Pitts (24:16.701)
Like I can't be like, I'm a hoard that that was so good. I'm going to hang on to it. No, it's, it's my job to go. I'm going to give it all away. Whether I give it away in a writing, whether I get away yet on a podcast, if it's one -on -one over coffee, I'm going to give that away. Here's the beauty of mentorship and friendship and that that man who I told you about who didn't like me is now my spiritual father. He's still a good friend and we're going through a season personally. And, he comes up to me and sits down.

Ruth Hovsepian (24:21.664)
Yes. No gatekeeping.

Jeff Pitts (24:46.725)
pew over and kind of motions to the chair, puts his arm around me and just says, Jeff, you're not a failure. We just walked out of our church, we just stepped down from the pastor we were in, and had just really wrestled some things, and he came to me with loving kindness and a word from the Lord that just melts you. You know, for my friends who are maybe Pentecostal Charismatic, you know that moment. It just melts

Ruth Hovsepian (24:57.988)
Mmm.

Ruth Hovsepian (25:01.893)
Mmm.

Jeff Pitts (25:17.237)
And so we've been on a long walk for 26 years. And so my responsibility is to take, it is, it's the penny in the bank that you gotta watch multiply. We can't be quick and fast with it. So there are people in my life that are pouring into me so that I can pour out into the others. And it's the only way we perpetuate this.

Ruth Hovsepian (25:23.884)
It's an investment of time.

Ruth Hovsepian (25:46.35)
Yeah, you know, I really do believe you can call it whatever you want, mentorship, whatever, discipleship. I really believe those of us that have received much need to give. And where I am and what I have been through, I don't take that lightly. That is part of, I believe, part of our commission.

right to to go out to tell others to help others. I hate is a strong word, but I hate seeing older Christians sit back and say, I've done what I've had to do. I'm just going to now relax.

There are so many people, so many people, young people who need someone just like this gentleman did to you, put their arm around you and say, you know what? I'm here for the long haul. I'm praying for you. I'm here for you. And when necessary, you say, mm, Ruth, really? Is that how you're going to deal with that? But they have the right to say that because they've

Jeff Pitts (26:41.823)
Mm -hmm.

Ruth Hovsepian (27:07.222)
into me so much or invested. So I don't take it lightly. Those that I, the Holy Spirit, and again, I don't take this lightly. Those that the Holy Spirit leads me to come alongside, they are in my prayers the way my children are in my prayers. I've become the older woman.

Jeff Pitts (27:07.997)
Right.

Jeff Pitts (27:22.238)
Mm -hmm.

Jeff Pitts (27:29.651)
Yeah,

Ruth Hovsepian (27:32.726)
the older woman now that disciples younger women and honestly all of those young women are my children and I pray for them as I do my own and I think we need to understand the importance of it and and the effect it has on the church you know it I think

Jeff Pitts (27:57.141)
Yeah, I think it's a both and Ruth. I think it's the long walk and I think you have moments where you just get to be the voice in the short moment. And so I'll tell another story about that. I got young adults that are in my life that I'm constantly in contact with, but I had a guest on my show. Her name is Kirby Kelly. I love Kirby. She's a great social media follow. She's a young adult doing great things. She wrote her first book. I had her on the show, but she told the story

Before she talked about the book her grief. She had just lost her mom a year before she lost her dad when she was a teenager and We get to the end of the show we say all the closing remarks whatever and we're just chit -chatting and and the Holy Spirit prompts me and I go As a dad, I know I'm not your dad. But as a dad, I'm proud of you She just began to weep and weep and I'm like, I'm not your dad, but I'm a father figure in the

Ruth Hovsepian (28:49.986)
Mmm. Yeah.

Ruth Hovsepian (28:55.79)
Right.

Jeff Pitts (28:56.127)
who can come to you and go, I'm proud of you. And Kirby and I stay in contact. I'm not mentoring or discipling her, but in that moment, I was used by the Lord to do something. And I think as saints in the faith, as those of us reaching an age of being saints in the faith, and I'll say this, let me say it this way about the larger church. I have to put my preferences aside to be an ambassador to Christ to the next generation.

Ruth Hovsepian (29:04.441)
Yes

Jeff Pitts (29:25.351)
It's okay if I don't like the music. It's okay if I don't necessarily like the aesthetic. My job, my faith's going nowhere. I'm rock solid. Me and Jesus, we're good. A bad church experience isn't burning me. But there's a generation that needs the church to be who the church is. And so, my hope for senior saints, people even beyond us, are going, I don't need us to sing Victory in Jesus anymore.

Ruth Hovsepian (29:32.193)
I hear you.

Jeff Pitts (29:55.687)
sing that elevation song or sing that Mav City song and let me love on, let me care for the next generation. I'm putting my preferences aside because they need to know the

Ruth Hovsepian (30:11.672)
Yeah, I can't agree with you more on that, you know, and with my story of overcoming addiction and it being porn and sex and all that, young people are what I am so passionate about reaching. There's a, you know, they're so hungry. They're so empty. They're so alone.

And I wanted to ask you about something because it goes along with this and that is the misconceptions because I hear about this from young people frequently about the misconceptions that they have about the church. What do we do to address those misconceptions? Because man, we've said, we set ourselves up for that, right? But what do we do?

How do we overcome that?

Jeff Pitts (31:12.415)
Well, I think we ask ourselves the very first question, is the misconception true? Like, is what the young adult or the young person saying the actual facts of the truth of what maybe we don't think or see about the church? I think we have to ask ourselves that question. I don't know that we're ever going to fix the branding issue the church has. I think there are always going to be brand issues. I think there's just...

churches that do it good and churches that do it bad. It's just going to be part of what we deal with. But I think in that regard, I think we have to re -conceptualize church to be less about the brand and the building and more about the people. And when a young adult goes, like, I got misconceptions about the church, I'm going to go, like, so do you have misconceptions about me? Like, do you have misconceptions about somebody else? Because we are the church.

Ruth Hovsepian (32:03.224)
Yes.

Jeff Pitts (32:06.591)
So let's talk about that. Let's talk about how the body is the church and not the building or the brand. Because I think, and this is one of my, again, I got lots of soap boxes we can talk about. I think we've been so busy building brands that we quit building people. And I think we have to get back to this life on life at the table kind of faith. Like I love Sunday morning or whenever your expression is, Sunday night.

Ruth Hovsepian (32:12.57)
Yeah.

Ruth Hovsepian (32:34.895)
Yep.

Jeff Pitts (32:35.597)
Whenever if you get a Thursday night church cool Tuesday night church awesome That and then when you come to the table with somebody that's still being the church And I think we have to redeem some of that you look at you look at the Gospels you read the Gospels and Over and over we see Jesus at the synagogue and as somebody's table at the synagogue in the marketplace at the synagogue eating dinner with sinners and tax collectors I Think it's a both and

Ruth Hovsepian (32:59.192)
Yep.

Jeff Pitts (33:04.925)
So if we're only making church about this Sunday expression, then we're missing half the story. It's also, this is church at my house. Like, when we have dinner together, when we have coffee together, that's being the church. And I think, well yeah, yeah, right, yeah. And so I think we have to redeem that. And so the miscons... and there are...

Ruth Hovsepian (33:21.262)
Well, we are the church, right? It's not the building. It's not the brand.

Jeff Pitts (33:31.667)
I wouldn't say they're misconceptions. I think there's truth about what people are saying about the larger entity and organization of the church, and there are some bad things that have taken place. We have seen black eye after black eye of leadership and organizations make huge errors. Those things are true, and I think as a church we have to like, those things are true. I'm sorry. But that's not who Jesus calls us to be. That may be who some people are, and some men in some organizations and some leaders have been.

That's who Jesus asked us to be. And let me tell you about what Jesus asked us to be. Biblically, let's look at this together. Again, that long walk. Let's look at this together. Here's like, and I have to admit on my side, like, you saw me get angry with somebody and say some things that probably weren't very Christ -like. Yeah, I was wrong. Forgive me. I ask the Lord to forgive me, asking you to forgive me. You know, because I think authenticity...

Ruth Hovsepian (34:11.041)
Right.

Jeff Pitts (34:30.641)
is the critical component of everything we do. In everything we have right now, there's an AI world, right? AI can come in and fix... This is like we are on Riverside. I think Riverside is on SquadQuest. AI can fix my eyes to always be looking straight at you, right? It's a crazy thing. So in a world where everything's inauthentic and fixed by artificial intelligence, there's a generation going, just want something authentic in my life. And I think the church has to redeem authenticity.

Ruth Hovsepian (34:42.23)
Right? Yep.

Ruth Hovsepian (34:59.363)
Yeah.

Yeah, I want to reach that young person's heart and tell them about this amazing gift that we were given salvation.

I don't want to address individual sins. This is my take on it. Before I tell them this is wrong, I will allow the Holy Spirit to touch them. I, but I believe my mission, my commission is to go out and tell the world about him, everything else.

is secondary. And we're seeing this, I think, you know, in this political world. And we started our conversation with that, where we are picking and choosing on on particular sins and going on and on about that and basing political parties and our political choices on that, rather than talking about how

this person needs to be saved from, you know, there. And I think that that is, if we put that in the forefront of our actions and allow the whole, and be open to the Holy Spirit putting us into situations where it's uncomfortable, we are doing a disservice to our young people.

Jeff Pitts (36:41.877)
The gospel, Ruth, simply means good news, right? I that's how we define the gospel. And you've mentioned this mission commission idea of the Lord is to spread the good news. And what I've learned in 26, 7, 8 years of serving the Lord pretty faithfully is the Holy Spirit's better at his job than I could ever be. Like, I'm not a very good Holy Spirit. I'm just not good at it. It's not my job,

Ruth Hovsepian (36:52.121)
Yep.

Ruth Hovsepian (37:06.231)
Amen.

Ruth Hovsepian (37:11.569)
Right.

Jeff Pitts (37:11.677)
And so if I trust God to lead me by His Holy Spirit, and I trust the Holy Spirit to bring conviction and not condemnation, if I trust the Holy Spirit to prick a heart and to weigh heavy on them and let the words that He gives me do that, that's where I want to be. What I've learned about young adults especially, you don't have to tell them they're sinners. They typically know. Like, I don't have to point it out and be

Johnny, let's talk about that sin issue you've got with pornography. No, they know. Let's talk about you sleeping with your girlfriend. No, he knows. He doesn't need me to step into that space because he already knows. He needs me to go like, hey, this is what God says about it, and God loves you. God loves you endlessly and gave his life for you. And then when they come to Christ, right, if they're a person of faith, now, we'll be talking about permission. You mentioned that earlier.

I've got permission to bring correction because I've loved them and cared for them, but I can't just hold up a banner and say, Hey, you're a sinner. Quit sleeping with your girlfriend. That's not going to

Ruth Hovsepian (38:16.43)
Yeah, yeah, we put the cart before the horse in many instances. Jeff, this has been so interesting, really, and talking about and discussing the role of the church, you know, in reaching and discipling young adults. It's such a subject that's close to me, but I want to thank you so much for being on the show today and having this, this, you know, the tip of the iceberg on this.

Jeff Pitts (38:40.501)
Thank you for having me.

Ruth Hovsepian (38:45.286)
So many conversations. But to our listeners, I encourage you to go and to listen to Jeff and listen to his podcast. And if you want to connect with him and learn more about his work, be sure to check out, as I said, his podcast called The Collective's Conversations and follow him on social media. Don't forget to subscribe to Out of the Darkness.

for more conversations and stories every week. Together, let's continue to walk out of the darkness and into the light of God's love. Until next time, I'm Ruth Hovsepian and stay blessed.