The Impact of Faith on Community Resilience: Insights from a Hazard Mitigation Expert

, by Porter's Gate Collective: 00:00:22

Farmer, you are working for a table full of bounty. Painter, with each color you are teaching us to see. Nurse. Yours are the healing hands that touch the poor and broken. May God's kingdom come on earth.

His will be done.

TJ Blackwell: 00:00:54

Ephesians 4, 25, 29 in the Christian standard Bible say, therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor. Because we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger and don't give the devil an opportunity.

Let the thief no longer steal. Instead he is to do honest work with his own hands so that he has something to share with anyone in need.

No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need so that it gives grace to those who hear. In the book of Ephesians, St. Paul is explaining what it means to be the church.

And before this pericope, Paul wrote that the church is to work together in all of our different roles. Here he insists that the church builds one another up in word deeds, and he ties our occupational work to this idea.

Josh Patterson, do you think the way we present ourselves and work ties into the idea of building one another up?

Josh Patterson: 00:01:53

Yeah, sure, Absolutely. I think, yeah.

How we carry ourselves in general, you know, especially in the workplace, should matter and we should use it as an opportunity to build up others, which I guess, I don't know.

It can be annoying in some spaces that are more like competitive and business y I guess, where the kind of goal and motivation is to, you know, get the corner office and step on people. I don't do well in those kind of environments. Yeah, I like hanging out and being friends with everyone. So, yes, I'm here for it.

I think we should build each other up in the workplace. And here I use my very Christian language.

If we're image bearers and we're to reflect the character of God to everybody, then we should do that in our work as well.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:40

Yeah, Good stuff.

Josh Patterson: 00:02:42

I can still do pastor stuff. Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:45

Where's my applause button?

, by Porter's Gate Collective: 00:02:52

Be close to us, Lord. Have mercy on us, Lord. Please put your hands on us day by day.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:21

Hey, guys. Welcome to the Whole Church podcast. Doing the whole church job fair. Back with another fun one, a returning guest that you guys know and love.

The one and only, the rock star, the new Wayne Gretzky, but not that other guy whose name I already forgot, Josh Patterson. How's it going, man?

Josh Patterson: 00:03:43

Hey, what's up, man? How's it going?

Joshua Noel: 00:03:45

I'm good, man, I'm good. Excited to have you on talk about your work when you were a brewer as well as a hazard mitigation officer now. So it's gonna be a lot of fun.

You know, it all sounds real worky. Yeah, perfect. And the one who invented work. You know, in the beginning, God created everything. It was good.

But then Adam and Eve were like, God, we're kind of bored. And God was like, man, what should I do? TJ told him, give him a job. And that's how work was invented. The one and only tj. Top of your swan, Blackwell.

How's it going?

TJ Blackwell: 00:04:16

Good.

Joshua Noel: 00:04:17

Yeah.

Josh Patterson: 00:04:21

He says, proudly acknowledging the work that he has created.

TJ Blackwell: 00:04:25

That was me.

Joshua Noel: 00:04:26

He didn't interrupt us. He had somebody else do the job.

TJ Blackwell: 00:04:29

My bad, my bad.

But if you're here, you like us or you're new here, you should still probably check out the onazao podcast network website, the links below for shows like Ours or Not Like Ours that we like to like. So there's that. And you can also support us through a paid subscription through either want to say Captivate, Apple Podcasts, Patreon.

You get extra content. You can support our ministry. It's fun to listen to. And we just, you know, I think it's worth it, personally. Yeah, I'm not biased.

Joshua Noel: 00:05:00

Recently we've just been doing, like, random times where we're hanging out and hit record. That's been kind of fun. But, yeah.

And as you know, Josh, and hopefully most of our listeners know at this point, I do have a favorite form of unity, and it's the holy sacrament of silliness, which for this one, spectacularly, you know, we add on our Facebook group for this series specifically, we had what are the biggest theological topics that are being argued about in our seminaries and in churches that we could see whether or not it's relevant to people's work life. And then our good friend Samantha Perez says, I know, Is a hot dog a sandwich?

And then a lot of people in our group voted, and we're like, yeah, that's the biggest theological topic we want to hear about. So, jpatti, please spread your wisdom. Is a hot dog a sandwich?

Josh Patterson: 00:05:50

You know, it's funny because I was trying to think whatever the controversial answer to this question is, and then pick that one. But I don't actually know what's controversial, which way to go. So I want to.

I want to say, yes, a hot dog is a sandwich because you have, like, bread substance and then more bread. And that seems to be the makings of a sandwich. Yeah, you're right.

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:14

That's correct. A hot dog is sweet.

Josh Patterson: 00:06:18

I got it right. Okay. So glad I'm on the right side of history here.

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:23

Yeah. Yeah, my side. So in what ways, if any, do you think that this question is hot dog sandwich? How do you think that could be relevant to your life?

Josh Patterson: 00:06:36

Well, I don't know. I think perhaps in the classifying of things. I don't know. How could it be relevant? Yeah, I don't know.

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:48

Yeah, it could also not be.

Josh Patterson: 00:06:50

Yeah, it could not be. But also it can maybe help you think outside the box a little bit. You know, maybe we could ask, well, does the hot dog classify itself as a sandwich?

We could, you know, dig into, like, I don't know, we could do some ontology of hot dog sandwiches. Yeah, I don't know. It could be fun, but I don't know.

Joshua Noel: 00:07:13

Hear me out, hear me out.

Maybe this whole thing is to teach us about misdirection, because instead of wondering what's in the hot dog, now we're just wondering if it's a sandwich. Maybe the real question is, what's in that hot dog?

Josh Patterson: 00:07:25

Yeah. Why are we eating this in the first place?

Joshua Noel: 00:07:27

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:07:28

I think the real question is why do people make hot dog sandwiches? You know what I'm talking about? They, like, cut a hot dog in half and put it on white bread.

Joshua Noel: 00:07:37

I've done that, but not on its own because I was just taking literally everything that's meat and cheese in my fridge and made a sandwich. And that's the only way to make the hot dog part work.

Josh Patterson: 00:07:47

There's a guy here in Baltimore that has a food truck called, like, the Glizzy something. Captain Glizzy, maybe, I don't know. But his hot dogs are delicious. I have to say, I don't eat hot dogs often, but when I do, it's from that guy.

Joshua Noel: 00:08:03

I need that. The Dos Equis meme of Josh Patterson talking about hot dogs. Oh, man.

But anyways, so hot dogs aside, the reason we're doing this series, a lot of our listeners, according to stats and numbers and stuff that we just blindly believe because we don't do a ton of research, honestly. But a lot of our listeners are supposedly pastors, theologians, people who are attending seminary, different church leaders, stuff like that.

And we believe that our church leaders could benefit from hearing more and learning from people who are in different occupations other than just, you know, occupational ministry. So that's why we're doing this. Josh Patterson, to start off, a lot of our listeners might remember that you were a pastor turned brewer.

That at one point was part of the intro to your own podcast, Rethinking Faith. Shout out, everybody subscribe.

Could you fill us in some on, like, what it was like a spiritually minded person working in a brewery, and then where do you find yourself now?

Josh Patterson: 00:09:05

Yeah, so I think what was weird. So before I started brewing, I was a bartender first, and I was genuinely surprised how similar bartending and being a pastor were.

People, like, a lot of the skills that I learned as a pastor served me well at the bar. People kind of have a tendency to.

To come and sit down, have a beer and, you know, willingly share everything you could or don't want to know about them. And so that was always really interesting because the kind of the people aspect there, the solidarity aspect there was really cool.

And also, like, you know, once I did finally start brewing, after I did the bartending bit for a while, I ended up landing at this place called Full Tilt, which provided for me the kind of community that I was really missing after kind of stepping away from the church world. And so that was one of the things that again, also was very surprising and that I appreciated because, you know, my. My friend Jace, Dr.

Jace, or actually I'll give him his full title to respect him, the Reverend Dr. Jace Broadhurst, would always like to give me crap because I would talk about how much I really was enjoying this community at the brewery.

And I was comparing it to church, and he was like, oh, it's not the church, blah, blah. And I was like, well, we break bread together, we drink together, we sing songs together.

When somebody is sad, we sit in solidarity with them and are sad with them. When they're happy, we celebrate. Right? So this really cool, beautiful community was another really interesting aspect that.

That tied into the spirituality thing. And then I guess finally the. The one thing that also I said the one. The one thing.

But another thing that was really interesting to me is there wasn't. I expected some kind of, like, pushback.

I was often embarrassed to say that I used to be a pastor, that I, you know, still do theology podcasts or whatever, but people were really accepting and it was actually fun because people would ask you theology questions and. Or if they didn't care, then it didn't matter.

And they didn't, you know, they didn't care what my Christology was or, you know, how I looked at, you know, whatever. And so it was cool. I created a lot of really genuine, open dialogue with lots of people, you know, co workers included. And I grew a lot from that.

I benefited deeply from Hearing other people's spiritual perspectives, whether they grew up in church or didn't, whatever. So, yeah, those were some fun within the world of brewing.

Joshua Noel: 00:11:58

And you made a. I think my favorite beer I've ever had actually was probably the one that you made for the theology beer camp that one time.

Josh Patterson: 00:12:05

All right. Hashtag process party. Yeah, that was a fun beer to make.

Joshua Noel: 00:12:09

It's like a three way tie. That was like a. Was it Indian pale lager, that right? Yeah, that was interesting. That was really good.

Josh Patterson: 00:12:16

Yeah. Which is kind of made up style, if you will. But I did the best.

Joshua Noel: 00:12:22

Things are made up.

TJ Blackwell: 00:12:23

Yeah, all things are made up, actually. That's.

Josh Patterson: 00:12:27

Yeah, that's how they. Also true. Yeah. TJ's been reading some existential philosophy and phenomenology recently. Well done.

TJ Blackwell: 00:12:38

But this is our whole church job fair.

Joshua Noel: 00:12:42

Wait, wait, wait. How do we get from. From brewer to mitigation hazard? Mitigation officer, though.

Josh Patterson: 00:12:48

Yeah. So, well brewing, you know, full tilt, the place that I really loved, unfortunately closed due to basically Covid complications, a few other things.

And then I landed at another spot here in Baltimore, called Union, which is awesome for any of you baseball fans out there. Union is kind of like the official craft beer at Camden Yards.

And so the amount of beer that I made that is present at Oriole Orioles games was significant. So that was kind of cool. But that ultimately just wasn't financially sustainable.

And so I had to leave and I actually went back into the church world for a little bit.

I took a job not as a pastor, not as somebody who had to give theological advice or provide pastoral care, but as a humble administrator in a tiny little Episcopal church, which was amazing. I loved it. I was brought on full time.

But then, unfortunately, because, well, you know how churches are doing right now in general, I had to get cut to part time, and then I had to move on just because I have things like a mortgage payment. And so I had just been looking for work for a while.

I had a buddy who was already in this field, and he told me that they were hiring and encouraged me to apply. And so I did.

And it turns out a lot of the skill set that I learned in church world, or I spoke about it as kind of like working in nonprofit spaces, kind of carried over nicely into what I do now, which, like you said, I'm a hazard mitigation project officer for the state of Maryland, so. Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:14:25

Yeah, good state from what I hear. Nice crowd.

TJ Blackwell: 00:14:31

All right.

Josh Patterson: 00:14:32

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:14:32

So. So this is our whole church job fair. So before we get into it, if someone never heard of Hazard Mitigation P Word Officer that I forgot.

How would you describe the job? And how would you address anyone who might be interested in pursuing a similar career?

Josh Patterson: 00:14:50

Yeah, sure. So Hazard Mitigation Project Officer.

I basically serve as a middleman, as a liaison between local governmental bodies here in the state of Maryland and the federal government, specifically fema, while they still last. Yeah, I. If you want some spicy hot takes. Good Lord, I could drop some right now. But anyway, I work with them, and they're great.

And essentially, like, say, I don't know. Tj, you represented the city of Baltimore.

You're Baltimore's mayor, and you're like, hey, we noticed that it floods here a lot, and it didn't used to do that. What can we do about it?

I would help you secure grant funding to research the cause of the issue and then provide, you know, basically come up with solutions.

So a lot of the stuff I do is in combating climate change and doing kind of like, preventative maintenance, so to speak, to mitigate against climate change.

Although, again, my job is very weird right now because certain people in this country don't think that's a thing and are making it very difficult to do my job. But that's kind of what I do. I serve.

I serve as a middleman between the two and help communities get funding to basically to protect life and to protect property. Those are our two biggest, you know, goals or missions or whatever. So that's what I'm doing. And I mean, yeah, I mean, it's. It's. It's really cool.

It's. It's super neat to be able to work with.

So they're called subs, our sub applicants, because how it works is like, again, TJ Is the mayor of Baltimore. Baltimore needs a grant. I would apply as the State of Maryland on behalf of TJ to get the grant funding.

And then I kind of serve as a project manager overseeing that project.

And, like, the grant funding, again, between FEMA and the state, to make sure people are spending money the way they're supposed to, that the project's actually happening, these kind of things. So it's neat to.

It's really neat to see, you know, when communities that are in dire need get grant funding, you know, that helps them literally, you know, prevent them from being wiped off the face of the earth in the most literal way possible. So.

Joshua Noel: 00:17:18

So in some ways, you're overseeing a little bit of government efficiency.

Josh Patterson: 00:17:24

Yeah, a little bit, right? Yeah. Yes, something like that.

Joshua Noel: 00:17:29

Yeah. I know you have some family members who work for the state, then. One of my best friends actually is a science department.

Can't disclose a lot there, but I know a lot of the people who are really afraid for their jobs and stuff right now because of things.

So, yeah, myself, I am just going to ask everybody, just be praying for really good individuals like Josh and my family and friends who should not be afraid for their jobs that are doing really good things that unfortunately have to be with that aside, because we're not going to turn this into a political podcast, I believe in myself.

I did wonder, though, having worked in churches, having worked with the public, and now having worked with the state of Maryland, what would you say were the biggest positives and negatives in each of those different work environments?

Josh Patterson: 00:18:22

Sure, we'll start with positives, and I'll start where I started, which was in the church. I got to work with some really amazing people in the church world.

I absolutely loved all three congregations that I had the privilege of being a part of and serving with. Most of my negative experiences in the church came with other pastors and people who exercised power over me, not the congregation.

The people were always great. So, I mean, that's. That's what I miss the most. I miss the. The community, the relationships.

I had the privilege of working with students in two of those three churches, and I absolutely loved that. You know, the building relationships with.

Especially I liked working with some of the older kids, high schoolers, and college students that ask really fun, difficult, messy questions was always super neat. So those are probably my favorite things about working in the church.

The bummer side for me was just, you know, for those who know my story, and I'm not using these terms lightly, but I experienced spiritual, verbal, emotional, and borderline physical abuse during my time as a pastor at the hands of other pastors, people that I worked for. So kind of the. The power dynamics and stuff that can exist in unhealthy churches are not great.

Joshua Noel: 00:19:53

Yeah.

Josh Patterson: 00:19:54

Yeah. So, you know, stuff like that, I don't. I don't want to bemoan the church too much. I. I've done that a lot in the past.

And, you know, when things happen that need to be called out, I'm all here for it. But I also am more interested now in just trying to build a better way forward.

Um, you know, Richard Rohr likes to say the best critique of the bad is practice of the better. So try trying. I'm not good at it, but I'm trying to lean into that. Yeah, brewing was just absolutely the most fun job I've ever had. I love beer.

I'm a beer nerd. So I loved learning the process taking, like, how can we take just four ingredients and then come up with all these different recipes?

Totally different beers.

There was something special that I still love about, you know, someone coming into a brewery, had a long day, maybe it's been a long month, year or whatever. They sit down and they order a beer that I made, and it, you know, like, it brightened their day.

It made things just a little bit better for a little bit. I really miss that. I loved the. The ability to create something that brought people joy. Now, of course, that can be abused, right?

But that was really cool. Beer has a unique way of bringing people together.

I met a lot of really awesome people from all sorts of different walks of life with vastly different political leanings and perspectives. Some of my best friends from the beer world are the opposite of me politically in some very extreme ways that I'm not comfortable with.

Um, but I, you know, I've built great relationships with them, so I like that. But I mean, difficulties brewing is a physically demanding job. People think brewing is sexy, right? And they're like, oh, they had brewers here.

And, like, it's cool, right? We make beer, but it's hard work. It's intense, it's hot, it's sticky. You're constantly dealing with dangerous chemicals. You know, the hours are long.

It's. It's hardcore manual labor. So that was. That was that.

And then as far as mitigation goes, some of the positives I've already talked about, I really do genuinely feel like my job makes a difference in the state. I've seen it make a difference. And it's cool to know that, you know, I have a role to play in that. And, you know, it aligns with a lot of my values.

But then the things that are difficult is, you know, like, I'm dealing with right now.

There's, you know, sometimes there's a lot of political red tape that gets thrown up or just, you know, I don't know, the nonsense that happens when you do anything with government. And also, it can suck, you know, on days when, like. So recently, one of the programs that I worked with is called bric.

Building Resilient infrastructure and Communities. And there's some really amazing brick grants that are helping communities that desperately need it here in Maryland. And that just got pulled.

That program just got shut down like that overnight. And there are programs now that are half finished or, like, projects that are half finished and aren't going to be able to be finished.

And so having to break that news to people and have them be angry at you when there's literally nothing you can do about it really sucks. So that's probably one of the bigger downsides to mitigation.

Joshua Noel: 00:23:25

Yeah, man. You know, I can't quite think of any. Well, I guess it's because the only state workers I know are mostly are like my family.

But it's interesting because you were talking about how beer brings people together in a very similar way to like how the church can. And I just remember there was one week last year that I was just having like God awful work week. Like one.

You know, like sometimes you just have one that like every single day is bad.

And in the same week I had one day where my pastor that, well, the pastor of the church I attend sometimes in Rock Hill came in and said a prayer for me and it was an awesome moment. And then later the same week, the brewer at my favorite brewery, shout out Legal Remedy, literally stopped by and he was like, hey, guess what?

And I was like, well, because, you know, he, he goes by our Chipotle a lot because same city, he's like, your favorite's Lawtoberfest, right? And I'm like, yeah. He's like, I'm dropping it tomorrow. I was like, heck yeah. Like, like both of those moments, it was like the same experience.

A bad day turned good. It just like a moment, you know, and it's like, yeah, but I love it.

TJ Blackwell: 00:24:29

So.

Josh Patterson: 00:24:29

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:24:30

So, Josh Patterson. Cooler. Josh, what are some things that are normal in your occupation now that others might not often think about?

Because like, you know, in the restaurant we have the front of the house, the back of the house, you know, not always getting along. So.

Josh Patterson: 00:24:46

Yeah, yeah, I think, I think there's a lot more well intentioned people than I used to maybe think that there was working in some of these spaces. And again, I'm only speaking within my limited context, like you know, emergency management in the state of Maryland, specifically hazard mitigation.

But I mean it is super cool like that. The secretary, so which is like an appointed position of mdem. His name is Russ and he's.

What I really respect about him is that he's been appointed by both political parties. So he has not allowed that to interfere with the mission of mdem.

He has worked very closely with, with everybody and genuinely believes in the mission of people come first. That's what we're here for. So that's, you know, that's a cool thing. There's good people in this. In this.

TJ Blackwell: 00:25:41

Yeah.

Josh Patterson: 00:25:41

Also, it's things that people don't know. I don't know. It's slow. There's lots of processes. There's always red tape.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:49

So you would say it's always in process.

Josh Patterson: 00:25:52

Yeah, absolutely. It's always in process. There's a lot of people just trying to figure stuff out together. Yeah. I don't know.

I feel like there's nothing too, too, too crazy. I mean, there's a bunch of acronyms I could throw out, but.

Joshua Noel: 00:26:10

Yeah, I mean, I was gonna ask as far as, like, language, because, you know, like. Like at work, you know, when we work in the kitchen, it's pretty normal, you know, sharp hot pot. You know, we're just shouting stuff all the time.

And like, if you use the same stuff at home, you're just rude or weird. You know, it's like, just. Just say you have a knife, like, but. Or, you know, I used to work at a. In photo. You know, you talk.

Exposure was like, it was required to use the word exposure at least once a sentence, I think. Is there anything. And I think you already kind of using FEMA and stuff like that already.

But are there any, I don't know, vocabulary that maybe you use more often than other people who just, like, specific lingo to the work?

Josh Patterson: 00:26:50

Yeah, I mean, all the different acronyms to different systems or organizations, like female or, you know, we have bric, we have fma, which is another grant program. You have hmgp, which is another grant program. You know, lpdm, another grant program.

Then there's just different, like, systems that we can access, like egrants or NIMAS or FEMA GO or whatever. So there's just. It's a lot of acronyms to learn.

And then also, I guess this is something I could have said in the other space is that currently, as in the day that we're recording this, emergency management in the country is all on the same page. And so there is shared lingo and the systems function the same.

So, like, for example, when the bad hurricanes happened recently in North Carolina, we could get these things called EMAC requests, where they're basically saying, like, we need help, like, we need people. And then I from MDIM could get sent to work in their scoc, which is like, basically an emergency operations center, to help with the.

The, you know, deal with the hurricane. And the language and systems and processes would all be basically the same.

And so that's the kind of help streamline these processes so that we're all on the same page no matter what. And so that's really cool. And it's also really cool to see how different states respond and send help, you know, to. To various places.

So that's pretty neat.

Joshua Noel: 00:28:27

Yeah. So that's awesome.

TJ Blackwell: 00:28:29

Do you ever, like, somebody ever bring up an acronym that you don't know yet and you just kind of have to fiddle your way through it until you're like.

Josh Patterson: 00:28:36

All the time.

TJ Blackwell: 00:28:37

Yeah, yeah.

Josh Patterson: 00:28:40

Google it. Like while they're talking on the side. Oh, yeah, got it. Okay. Right.

TJ Blackwell: 00:28:44

All right.

Josh Patterson: 00:28:46

Of course. Everyone knows that one. Yeah. That happens a lot because there's just. There's so many of them, and it's. I. I don't know. It's interesting, too.

I think this goes to maybe something that, like, people don't know or think about often, and it does have slight political tinge to it. So. Forgive me, but one of the things that recently happened is like, us having to scrub DEI language from our grants.

And there are certain people who. That was really shocking to.

Because, for example, we have edrc, that's another acronym for you, which is Economically Disadvantaged Rural Communities.

And that's one tool that we have to measure the social vulnerability of different places so that when we provide funding, we can provide it in places where the impact is the greatest? Well, that's dei. And so now we have farmers that are pissed at us because they thought, like, DEI just meant black people or something, when.

No, in reality, these programs exist to help everybody. Like, DEI is meant to help tons of people. Military veterans, people with disabilities, farmers. Right.

And so that was really interesting to kind of see how when some of that kind of stuff started to get taken away, how much of a huge impact it actually had on our communities as a whole. And who suffers, which is all of us.

Joshua Noel: 00:30:10

Yeah. Not to get TJ mad at me, but a quick side tangent, but the.

I think a lot of this kind of stuff you're talking about and, like, the DI stuff and what's going on, the government, I feel like there is a lot the church needs to learn from it, which is why I'm like, I feel like it's an important side tangent, because even thinking of, like, before Donald Trump and everything that's happening currently, there was a lot of debate in the country around this stuff and the places you saw doing the best with it, in my opinion.

Where there were schools in California that were like, okay, you're no longer allowed to say it's because of race that people come in, that they got creative and like, okay, so we're going to say poor individuals or rural areas. And that's what we're targeting. And they still got that same diversity, but not making it about the race.

And I just feel like maybe our churches need to get a little bit more creative in how we're helping people.

And it doesn't mean that you have to go find your token black person for the church, but, you know, like, maybe think more of, like, how are we helping, you know, like you said, the rural areas or something like that. And it might allow for more diversity and whole church unity and all the good stuff that we like here. So I don't know.

I think there's a lot to learn from that situation, and the church should keep its eye on what the government's doing.

Josh Patterson: 00:31:25

Yeah, yeah. Well, farms are super important.

And when they're being flooded with salt water because sea levels are rising, and then your farm is no longer farmable and your wells are being contaminated with saltwater because they're, you know, it's raising above and. And filling. People learn very quickly that, like, hey, maybe we should do something about this.

When we can't eat or have clean water, it becomes very problematic very quickly.

Joshua Noel: 00:31:51

Yeah, well, that's where, like, diversity unity, we talk about it in the context of church, but it's important for everybody because you can't just disadvantage one person and expect it not to impact anybody else because we're all entangled. As my pastor, Will Rose, would like to say.

Josh Patterson: 00:32:06

Yeah, amen.

TJ Blackwell: 00:32:07

That's how that works.

Joshua Noel: 00:32:08

I think we mentioned Will every episode so far this series.

Josh Patterson: 00:32:12

Oh, we have to cut that part out then.

TJ Blackwell: 00:32:14

I mentioned at least twice a day.

Joshua Noel: 00:32:17

It's important. Yeah, it's important. Just as. Just as important as my TJ's like God of the Universe bit or Francis Chan being on at the end of the season bit.

We now just have to include Will every episode, too. Yeah, yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:32:29

Mentioning Will is important to my spiritual health.

Joshua Noel: 00:32:32

That's true. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:32:35

So for the meat of the whole church job fair, we're going to walk through 12 big theological topics that often get debated by theologians or podcasters, pastors, and seeing how these ideas impact people's everyday lives. So we're going to go through those 12 that our Facebook group voted on because we only did the big one.

We already did hot dog, but they voted on those as the biggest theological hot topics of our time.

And we just need you to tell us if you find the topic either somewhat relevant, not relevant, really relevant, or if you've never heard of it, and then we'll pick a couple to talk about more in Depth. So how does that sound? All right.

Josh Patterson: 00:33:15

Yeah, sounds good. So not relevant. Somewhat relevant and really relevant or I don't know what you're asking me right now.

TJ Blackwell: 00:33:22

Yeah, got it. Yeah, super easy. Soteriology, Somewhat relevant. Free will versus predestination.

Josh Patterson: 00:33:33

This is Josh's opinion, but that's really relevant.

TJ Blackwell: 00:33:37

Atonement models, Somewhat relevant. Continuationism versus cessationism.

Josh Patterson: 00:33:44

I know that's a big one for a lot of people, but that's not relevant for me.

TJ Blackwell: 00:33:49

Christology.

Josh Patterson: 00:33:52

I'll still give that one. High relevance. Really relevant. God's nature, Very relevant.

TJ Blackwell: 00:33:59

Social justice.

Josh Patterson: 00:34:00

Very relevant.

TJ Blackwell: 00:34:01

The doctrine of imago dei.

Josh Patterson: 00:34:04

Ooh, very relevant.

TJ Blackwell: 00:34:06

The nature of scripture.

Josh Patterson: 00:34:08

Somewhat relevant.

TJ Blackwell: 00:34:10

Ecclesiology and missiology.

Josh Patterson: 00:34:14

Man. I thought I was gonna say put it lesser, but I actually think I'm kind of convinced that it should be really relevant. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:34:20

Yeah, I could see that. Demonology and angelology.

Josh Patterson: 00:34:26

I. I don't have categories for it, so for me, it's not all that relevant.

TJ Blackwell: 00:34:31

Yeah. And eschatology.

Josh Patterson: 00:34:34

I used to think that was the most important theology question, but now I'll put it as somewhat relevant.

TJ Blackwell: 00:34:40

I can see being in hazard mitigation. I could understand how that might be relevant.

Josh Patterson: 00:34:44

We got guys. It's coming. We got to mitigate the rats.

TJ Blackwell: 00:34:48

Yeah, it's happening. And I need to help the state.

Joshua Noel: 00:34:51

Of Maryland through the apocalypse. I just wanted one person, when we asked the angel demon question, be, like, really relevant. I. I have to admit that I am the archangel Michael.

Like, I just want someone to reveal themselves. Either. Or a demon.

Josh Patterson: 00:35:05

Yeah, my buddy Jed. That's Jed's whole thing. You got to talk to him.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:10

Yeah, perfect.

Josh Patterson: 00:35:11

Super relevant. Church. Church and other drugs.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:15

I.

I think this is how I know that, like, I am just contrarian by nature because, like, we're doing this thing, and pretty much everyone's like, yeah, angelology, super not relevant. And I'm like, well, man, now I just want to do an episode about angel.

Josh Patterson: 00:35:30

Yeah, yeah, I know.

TJ Blackwell: 00:35:31

It's relevant to me. Constantine is, like, standing over there.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:34

He's your roommate.

Josh Patterson: 00:35:36

Actually, it's just physical manifestations.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:41

But, Josh, if you had to pick, let's go with two of the above theological topics that you think are relevant to your day to day life. What two would you choose out of that? 12 to just talk more about? That had to be, like, the top two.

Josh Patterson: 00:35:53

Yeah, well, my top one would be nature of God. I think that's the most important.

I don't often quote Tozer, but when Tozer says, like, the most important thing about Somebody is what comes to mind when they think of God. I'm sold. I think that's 100% true. So I think that's really important. And then another one that would be super fun to talk about. I don't know.

I mean, really, any of them. I mean, like, we can just sit.

Joshua Noel: 00:36:20

On nature God, if you want. I feel like you could spin out some stuff about it.

Josh Patterson: 00:36:27

I could, yeah. Yeah, whatever. Well, let's start there and then we'll see. We can throw in another one if. If we have to. And it could be dealer's. Dealer's choice.

Yeah, Maybe one that you guys haven't talked about yet. Yeah, there's a lot we actually have, except demonology.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:44

Yeah, most people kind of gravitate towards, you know, God's nature. Imago Day, Butteriology yet?

Josh Patterson: 00:36:53

No, we could do salvation. That'd be fun to throw that in there.

Joshua Noel: 00:36:56

Yeah, that could be.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:57

So first we're going to do God's nature. Nature of God. Why is that super relevant to you?

Josh Patterson: 00:37:02

What is.

TJ Blackwell: 00:37:02

What's it, you know, what's up?

Josh Patterson: 00:37:05

I think it's because we become what we worship. And when we have to be charitable, less than stellar images of God, we become less than stellar people.

And we can use our image of God to justify, and I think it has been used to justify demonstrably throughout history, all sorts of not great things like genocide and slavery and oppressing people. And so I think that's.

That's why I think for me, religion, Christianity, which is, you know, my tradition, you know, transformation is really important to me.

And I think being transformed into the image of God as we talk about so much, if that image of God sucks, then it's not worth being transformed into is the blunt way of saying it. So, yeah, that's why I think it's important. And then obviously we can get into different models of God or whatever.

Joshua Noel: 00:38:11

I have a question about that, the character of God stuff that I think you might actually be able to answer. So one thing that's interesting and I am going to pull from pop culture tropes because I'm a nerd.

But you see a lot of the times this idea portrayed whether pop culture, books, whatever, what we believe about God, that's what makes God God to us specifically. And this is weird. Kind of like in Marvel comics, enough people believe in Thor, that Thor exists. And there's some weird lore.

Sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not. I'm confused about Marvel lore, but how much you believe in gods determine whether or not the God's real.

And I think that's some other books I've seen too. And then, like, there's a lot of different fandoms. I can't think of anything specifically, but I know I've seen it a lot of times before.

But, like, your fear manifest, and what we fear is what the demons actually are. They're just our fears manifested, basically. And you see this trope a lot of, like, what we believe about something is what makes it what it is.

But it sounds like what you're talking about is rather almost like the opposite of, like, what we believe about God actually makes us what we are. Do you want to unpack? Like, how. Like, how. How true is that? And then.

And if that's the case, does it matter if God's actually God, or is it just a matter what we believe about God?

Josh Patterson: 00:39:25

Man, that. That is a good question. That's interesting because I. I mean, I do. I agree with.

With the idea that people, I mean, create and project images of God all the time. You know, what. What is it like?

I forget who said it, but there's this quote that's like, in the beginning, you know, God made humans in God's image, and then humans return the favor, right?

God in our image, which, I mean, and this, again, this is coming from my very specific, very specific standpoint and, you know, philosophical presuppositions and such. But I think we're always kind of constructing an image of God.

I don't think we have access to God as God is in God's self, which, you know, the mystics talk this way. So, like, I think I'm in good company with something like negative theology, right?

Where instead of saying God is this or God is that, it's more like God is not this, God is not that. And it's just a recognition that our language is finite and not able to capture fully who God is. It's.

It's often, you know, Thich Nhat Hanh would use this image of, like, a finger pointing to the moon. So, like, our language, our theologies are kind of like the finger and the moon is. Is God, right?

And so oftentimes we confuse our finger with the moon itself. And so I think all of us are doing this. And so then I don't. So basically, I think we all construct images of. Of who we think God is.

I don't think we can get around that, but I think there are better and worse ways to do that. And when you're within a tradition, there are ways that are faithful to the tradition and ways that are not right.

So within Christianity, the claim is that Jesus is the ultimate revelation of who God is. If you want to know what God is like, look at the person of Jesus within Christianity.

If you have a God that doesn't look like Jesus, it's not really faithful to the tradition.

Joshua Noel: 00:41:32

Yeah.

Josh Patterson: 00:41:33

And so that can, you know, that can become problematic. But I think, you know, I don't know, I think assessing worship worthiness is important. Not everybody will agree with me on that.

You know, there they could take like the perspective of Job and be like, I'm God. You don't understand, that's just who I am.

But I think that if there are images of God that exist within a variety of religious spaces, Christianity included, that are not worthy of worship, which maybe makes me arrogant or something like that, but I think God ought to be worthy of worship if God exists. So that's, I think, another thing we should keep in mind.

Joshua Noel: 00:42:11

Yeah, yeah, I. This is a sidebar, not a side tangent. That's different.

If you're reading the book of Job and your takeaway is, wow, Job was wrong for questioning God, you're not reading it right. I just want to throw that out there because God does say Job was right. So want to point that out? Job was correct. That's part of the meaning.

I don't know why people read this or preach this and they're like, see, you shouldn't but read the book before you preach it. That's all.

TJ Blackwell: 00:42:41

It's because bad stuff's not supposed to happen to me. That's why it happened to Job.

Joshua Noel: 00:42:45

Oh, well, that's like all the pastors who were like, Paul, whose name used to be Saul, and I'm like, read the Bible before you preach the Bible. Like that's pretty non consequential.

But I'm also like, dude, you're supposed to like, you're coming up here like as the expert and you're coming off as though you haven't read the thing, man. Anyway, I was trying not to make that a side tangent, but okay, so God should be something worthy of worship.

And I want to get this back to how it's practical to your daily life. And I'm going to go ahead and tie in soteriology because something you were mentioning is how what we view of God says a lot about who we are.

Or like you used the tozer quote earlier. Is the character of God necessary for us to understand, for salvation to even matter?

And how does any of this relevant to the daily life as A mitigation hazard. Mitigation project officer. There we go.

Josh Patterson: 00:43:38

Yeah, I have to write down relevant. So I remember to answer that part of the question.

Joshua Noel: 00:43:43

It's fine. It might not be relevant.

Josh Patterson: 00:43:46

No, I think it very much is. Because like I said, I think how we view God shapes who we are because we become what we worship.

But how does salvation, or, yeah, the doctrine of salvation tie into it? I don't know, because I'm not. I don't fully know what I think salvation means. I don't.

Like, I think salvation is an invitation into a way of existing in the world. I think salvation is an invitation into being human. Like, I think one of the things Jesus did was show us what it means to be truly human.

And the invitation is like, and so can you. And so to be transformed into the image of God, if we believe Jesus is the image of God is to be transformed into that way.

And so I think for me, salvation is more of. It's more this worldly than after worldly. It's less of a, you know, after death insurance policy and more of a way of orienting oneself in the world.

A way of being a way of existing, you know, living into the kingdom of God. I think that's salvation. And so I don't. I don't know if it necessitate like how that and our image of God are connected.

I mean, I guess, like it would shape how we believe, living into the kingdom looks like. Right. Like if we believe God is this big patriarch in the sky, then our kingdom is going to be a patriarchy here on earth or whatever.

And so I think they're definitely connected. But as far as, like, you know, relevancy to everyday life goes, like, I.

The way that I exist within the Christian space is it's an existential decision that I make every day. I think that's what faith is. Right. Aaron Simmons, who I think has. He's done stuff with you all before, right? Oh, yeah, yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:45:36

So Aaron defines faith as super close to Aaron, actually.

Josh Patterson: 00:45:39

Oh, sick. Nice. Yeah, Aaron's wonderful. He's a great dude. And he defines faith as risk in a direction. Right.

And asks us what's worthy of our finitude and then says, like, is that thing worth risking yourself in the direction of.

I like to throw in a little bit of Tillich with Aaron and say that what's worthy of my finitude is that which is of ultimate concern to me, which is love. Which is convenient because I also just happen to think God is love.

And so every day the choice that I tried to make is risking myself in the direction of love, as if that is true and that should shift and change how I carry myself, how I treat others.

I mean, I, I would argue that the kind of work that I do in mitigation is, you know, to go back into again, some Christianese language like is kingdom work, caring for the least of these and helping them prevent, you know, the little that they do have from flooding or being destroyed in a hurricane or whatever. I think is part of what it means to build the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven and can contribute to. Yeah, I have to be careful with that.

I'm going to get destroyed for saying this. But it can contribute to the, quote, salvation of others.

If by salvation we mean living into the kingdom of God in this kind of fundamental disposition in the world. I'm not saying that I can, like, impugn righteousness on somebody. So, like, you know, put your theological guns down.

TJ Blackwell: 00:47:12

Yeah, Josh Patterson can impugn righteousness onto somebody.

Joshua Noel: 00:47:16

It is, it's accurate. But he didn't say.

TJ Blackwell: 00:47:18

He said that word for word. Actually.

Joshua Noel: 00:47:22

No. I do want to point out, though, just because this is interesting, you didn't tie.

You said you weren't sure how to tie, like, salvation or soteriology and God's character together. But what was funny is how when you're explaining God's character, you point to Jesus as the example of the image of God.

And then when you're talking about soteriology, you point to Jesus as the example of what it means to be truly human.

And if we were doing like a Joe Rogan style podcast and trying to make this like three hours long, I'd be like, well, then now we have to talk about Christology, because clearly that's where it's all connected. But we're not doing that podcast, so I'm just gonna let you guys know that that's what we would do if we were doing a three hour long podcast.

TJ Blackwell: 00:48:03

Yeah. If this was a studio and we had a day set aside and like a couch and, you know, refreshments on hand.

Joshua Noel: 00:48:09

Josh had brewed beer specifically for.

Josh Patterson: 00:48:12

Yeah, right.

The short, the short, quick answer, though, is that Jesus was faithful to the divine lore in every moment of Jesus's becoming to the point where he literally becomes the image of the invisible God.

Joshua Noel: 00:48:26

All that was missing was for you to say, maybe after God. God maybe.

Josh Patterson: 00:48:29

Perhaps. Yeah, God maybe.

TJ Blackwell: 00:48:35

So are any of these topics that we mentioned, you think, particularly irrelevant to your life?

Josh Patterson: 00:48:41

Ooh. I mean, I don't want to yuck people's theological yums. But I. The demonology stuff, yeah, I think used to be super relevant.

I have crazy stories that is a different podcast for a different time. But I don't think about that much today anymore. So, like, that's not super relevant. The Holy Spirit question.

So, like, for what it's worth, I think the Holy Spirit is still doing the Holy Spirit's thing, but like that, I don't know if that's necessarily super relevant. I guess depending on what we, you know, where we're talking about. I think within the Christian framework, all of these are important questions.

I think if we were to go ask my, you know, one of my brewer friends, like, hey, Bryce, soteriology, how relevant is that to you? You'd be like, I don't know what that means.

And so it's not like sometimes we can get so caught up in our own, like, Christian bubble that the things that seem really important to us aren't all that important to other people.

And it like, that was one of the weird things when I left church and stepped into the brewing world was like a lot of what we talk about and care about is weird. And like people outside of the church world.

Joshua Noel: 00:49:59

Yeah.

Josh Patterson: 00:50:00

Don't give a shit about things that I've read too many books about. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:50:06

And that's what the series is about.

Josh Patterson: 00:50:08

That's what this series is for.

TJ Blackwell: 00:50:11

So what do you think that churches should be focusing on instead of some of these more in depth theological topics that aren't particularly relevant to most people?

Josh Patterson: 00:50:22

I mean, I think there is a community vacuum, so to speak, that has opened up in the world. Especially post Covid. People long for human connection and community and the church has a really big opportunity to help facilitate that.

Because churches, you know, and I'm, you know, I said I think things like social justice are very relevant.

I think the church, like, you know, has the unique ability of like, who else comes together once a week around a common set of values and you're already kind of organized, that then has the ability to go out and impact the world, which is what I think the church was supposed to do anyway. But I think the opportunity is there.

And especially if the church is willing to participate in a mode of mutual transformation, which means that when people come in through the doors that look different than them, that think different than them, that believe different than them, whatever, they're willing to allow that person presence to genuinely transform the community that's there. It's the difference between, you know, going to prom with somebody and then actually inviting them to dance.

And so if we're willing to open our communities and we're willing to learn and ask questions about, you know, why are people. So many people leaving the church and not get defensive, but actually be really curious and then give people spaces to belong genuinely as they are.

I think if the church focuses on that, then a lot of really good things can come from that. So I benefit from communities like that. Yeah. Anyway.

Joshua Noel: 00:52:09

No, I'm with you.

It's shocking how often I hear people our age talk to me that are, like, literally just don't know how to make friends because it's like, we're not in school anymore. Work these days is a lot more isolated than it used to be. And it's like, well, now what? And, you know, it's rough.

Especially, like, the area I live in. It's like the people my age who are in church tend to be in the churches that I don't want to tell people to go to.

The churches that I'm like, these are great churches. I gotta be honest. Like, when I go, it is majority older people. Like, I. I recognize where I'm at. I just am comfortable anyway, so. Yeah, no, I agree.

I definitely agree. I think community is a huge opportunity. The church needs to, I don't know, grab better.

Josh Patterson: 00:52:58

Right.

Joshua Noel: 00:52:59

I don't know. I don't want to say take advantage of. Because that sounds bad.

Josh Patterson: 00:53:03

Yeah. Healthily participate in. In ways that are not seeking to gain, you know, or take from others, but genuinely create a space of.

Of solidarity and belonging and, you know, Etika. Etika, insert. The Book of Acts, Kingdom of God.

Joshua Noel: 00:53:26

It's going to be an audiobook. Just. Josh Patterson's going to read Acts here, and then we'll finish.

Josh Patterson: 00:53:30

Oh, geez. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. And we're back. That was a great reading. Thank you so much for that opportunity.

TJ Blackwell: 00:53:39

Yeah, anytime. If you want to come back and, like, read Titus for, you know, just.

Josh Patterson: 00:53:43

Oh, nice.

Joshua Noel: 00:53:45

I thought you were gonna say Leviticus.

Josh Patterson: 00:53:46

But it's much shorter than ax.

TJ Blackwell: 00:53:48

Yeah. Something we want to encourage him.

Joshua Noel: 00:53:50

You know, I was going the opposite direction. Like, you know, Leviticus, Isaiah, maybe, you know, that'd be a. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:53:58

I actually, I was wondering if you could read Psalms for us really quick.

Joshua Noel: 00:54:01

Yeah. Or. Yeah, just the entire thing. Let's just start at Genesis and.

Josh Patterson: 00:54:06

All right.

Joshua Noel: 00:54:07

But, Josh, one thing we're asking everybody in this, you know, everyone sees the world through different eyes. You know, pastors, construction workers, etc.

Is there anything that you think in your work that you See that maybe our pastors, church leaders, and theologians could benefit from seeing for themselves or learning about.

Josh Patterson: 00:54:27

Yeah, I think. I mean, it was always an idea that I talked about when I was a pastor, and I mean, I still do, especially as a process person.

But within my line of work, it becomes so obvious how deeply connected we all really are.

You know, to use a metaphor from a book I was reading this morning, which is the Quest for Thin Places by Dana Robert Hicks, who I'll be having on the podcast soon. But anyway, he uses this metaphor of, like, fecal matter in the swimming pool and tells the story about his.

His daughters and how mortified they were when they realized they were swimming in a pool with fecal matter in it. And that, like, that's how, like, a state or a community functions.

And so a lot of the times we think that, like, oh, this issue that's happening, you know, I live in Baltimore City, which people describe as fecal matter all the time. I will fight them on that. I love it here.

But something happening in Baltimore City, people in, like, say, Westminster, which is about an hour from here, they think it doesn't affect them. But, no, we're all in the same pool. The fecal matter is still all in the same water that we're swimming. So that that problem is all of our problems.

And, like, actually seeing how deeply connected these different communities are. Right. Like, all the different little counties.

I know we break states up into counties and townships and all this kind of stuff, all those lines are arbitrary. A hurricane does not give a. That I live in Baltimore City and they live in Westminster. It's going to come and do what it wants to do.

And so we're all genuinely in this together. And I think recognizing that and actually living into that and seeing that, like, no, my neighbor's problem actually is my problem. It really is.

And it impacts all of us.

So I think that's become more and more clear in very tangible, everyday ways, you know, as I work with all these wonderful people throughout the state. So it's not just fancy theological language. It's real life.

Joshua Noel: 00:56:41

Yeah. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:56:42

I do think it's really funny to see that, like, where we are in South Carolina. Whoa, camera malfunction. Because people aren't willing to help people who live in North Carolina. It's the same. It's the same state.

It's just north and south, and it's all so extremely different. But, like, come on, that's as neighborly as you can get. We share a name.

Joshua Noel: 00:57:06

Yeah. It's actually just as an antidote. Really fascinating because every big hurricane that goes hits Florida, I pay attention to.

Because I lived in Florida, and I always pay close attention because I lived in Florida and I'm like, yeah, I know what it's like. Some. A lot of the times it's like nothing happened. And a lot of the times it's like the entire community is destroyed now.

So I always pay really close attention. And it was just really interesting.

After the hurricane went through, literally, South Carolina, everybody's like, wow, this is why you pay so close attention to that stuff. I'm like, no, actually, it's not because it hits the Carolinas. It's because it's the same thing. It's just happening down there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:57:47

So, Josh, one thing we do before we revving up is for, you know, you've been on the show, we ask to provide a tangible action to engender church unity.

However, for this series, when you want to know, what could anyone in the church, lady or ministerial do to help someone in your occupation in their daily life? How do. How do our churches help our hazard mitigation project officers?

Josh Patterson: 00:58:15

Yeah. Be nice to your emergency management workers in the state.

Oftentimes, you know, depending on your county and stuff, it's one person doing the work of 15.

And so, I don't know, I think learning who those people are and supporting them or, you know, writing to your congress people and be like, let them know that, hey, emergency management really matters. I think it's cool that if there's a fire and we call the fire department, they come. That seems to be important.

So we continue funding, finding things like this.

Joshua Noel: 00:58:51

Yeah.

Josh Patterson: 00:58:52

And so, yeah, I think just, just, I think speaking out, especially in today's state of the world, speaking out on behalf of people within the, like, doing hazard mitigation because it's a really important field. It's come a long way recently, and to see it kind of blow up would be really sad because it helps a lot of people. And so I just.

Speaking out on behalf of your emergency managers and mitigation peeps, I think would go a long way.

TJ Blackwell: 00:59:26

Yeah. What happens if we don't and we just let hazard mitigation as a whole dissolve?

Josh Patterson: 00:59:33

Well, then when a hurricane happens and you're like, hey, where are all those nice people that used to come and help us take care of this? No one will come to save you. It won't exist. And so it's. It's important. Yeah. The.

TJ Blackwell: 00:59:48

Yeah. Much to think about.

Josh Patterson: 00:59:50

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:59:51

Always listen To Josh is what I've learned today.

Josh Patterson: 00:59:54

So that's bad advice.

TJ Blackwell: 00:59:56

Before we wrap, always do what we call the God moment.

So we just ask everyone to share a moment where they've seen God recently, whether that be a blessing challenge, a moment of worship, and, you know, I always make less cool. Josh, go first. So, Joshua, do you have a God moment for us today?

Joshua Noel: 01:00:17

Yeah, probably. Let me think. I already have the one about my. I already did the one about my manager's nosebleed. Right? You did I do that yesterday.

Okay, I'll go with my dog because, you know, that tends to be a reoccurring one these days. The last couple days, Copper has been maybe the most annoying dog alive because he just wants to play so badly.

And it's been raining, and I'm like, dude, we can't.

And it just in a weird way makes my heart warm that he's able to be so annoying because I'm like, yo, you have just as much energy as always, and you really shouldn't. Like, you would have no idea. This dog was shot in the face. You know, it's like, he's just a dog. So, yeah, that's a blessing.

TJ Blackwell: 01:01:08

He is. He is just in a challenge not.

Joshua Noel: 01:01:10

To act so annoyed.

TJ Blackwell: 01:01:13

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one, though. For me, my God moments a little different than what I usually do.

I recently had someone ask me if I could co sign for them to get a loan, which is insane to me because, you know, to me, I don't feel like I project that kind of. Hey, man, my credit score is 800. You know, that's not the vibe I feel like I give off to people. But it's.

It really has been making me think about, like, what my image is, which I almost never think about. So that's been really interesting to me for the past couple of days.

And it's challenging a little bit just to try and understand what my public perception is. I have no clue. Clearly.

Joshua Noel: 01:02:03

Yeah, yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 01:02:05

So, Josh Patterson, the cool one. Do you have a God moment for us?

Josh Patterson: 01:02:10

Yeah, but it's. It's gonna require me to spoil a part of a movie. So if you haven't seen the movie Heretic, watch it now and then come back and I'll explain it.

But anyway, the. It's a great movie. It's a thriller, so if that's not your style of film, I wouldn't recommend it.

But basically the gist of the movie is that these two Mormon missionaries show up at this dude's house doing their missionary thing. And the guy invites them in and kind of traps them in this cat and mouse job, or a game, rather, and tries to show them how their faith is false.

Like, he's, you know, pulls out all the things. It's really interesting. And anyway, at the end.

Not the end, but there's a scene where one of the missionaries who appeared to be the one that had the strongest faith, that believed the most, etcetera, her and the. The guy are both dying together in this room, and he asks the girl to pray for him. And she looks him in the eyes and she said, prayer doesn't work.

And he, like, is flabbergasted because the whole time she's been sticking with her faith, right? And he was like, what? And she's like, yeah.

Have you heard of, like, such and such study where they had two groups of people going through, like, medical treatment? Basically, one group got prayed for, the other didn't. It didn't make a difference. It was conclusive. Prayer doesn't work.

And the guy, it infuriates him so much that, like, as he's dying, he's crawling across the floor with a knife to kill this girl. And what does she do? It made me cry when I watched it. It's gonna make me cry now. She starts praying for him and like that.

When I talk about faith as an existential experience every day, an existential choice that one has to make. That's what I'm talking about. She prayed for her enemy as he was crawling across the floor to kill him after saying she doesn't think prayer works.

That made me cry. I was on my sofa by myself, and it very much was a God moment for me. And, I don't know, it was beautiful and deeply moving.

So now I ruined the ending to.

Joshua Noel: 01:04:25

Watch that movie, though.

Josh Patterson: 01:04:26

Go watch it. Go watch it.

Joshua Noel: 01:04:27

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 01:04:28

Well, thankfully, we all did stop and go watch it together and then come back.

Joshua Noel: 01:04:31

Yeah, yeah, I just hit pause on the recording. No one noticed.

TJ Blackwell: 01:04:34

Yeah. So if you liked this episode, please consider sharing with a friend. Share with an enemy, share with a cousin. All of the above.

Some of you at least probably have a cousin that is a friend and an enemy. If you're listening on the YouTube channel, hit, like, hit subscribe. Thank you very much. Your check will be in the mail.

Joshua Noel: 01:04:52

But there. There's no check unless you write just a check on a paper that we might send that to you.

But, hey, check out other shows on the Amazon Podcast Network. We do want to shout out some of them, particularly Brandon Knight's Kung Fu. Pizza party. Systematic geekology. TJ and I are both on that.

And the Bible after hours has been back. Finally. I did the voice for it, so it's my fault that it hasn't been back but still took it a while.

TJ Blackwell: 01:05:19

Did you do the voice for it?

Joshua Noel: 01:05:20

I'm mad at me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I read a script. I'm great at reading. Turns out.

TJ Blackwell: 01:05:26

Not true. We hope you enjoyed the show. At least not out loud. Not good at reading out loud.

Joshua Noel: 01:05:32

That's true.

TJ Blackwell: 01:05:34

We hope you enjoyed the show. Next week, we're going to be joined by Brandon Knight to wrap up the series with the most important job one can get in the country.

He is a ninja coach. That's the big leagues.

After that, we're going to be doing an encore for the series with Andy Walsh from systematic Ecology about his career as a scientist.

And later, we're going to have a round roundtable discussion of pastors and professors to join us to reflect on the series and the things that we think they should start talking about more. Yeah. And at the end of season one, Francis Chan will be on the show, of course.

Joshua Noel: 01:06:07

Yeah. As soon as pastor Will Rose tells him to be on the show, he will obey and then do so.

TJ Blackwell: 01:06:13

Yeah. Close. Good friend of Francis Chan.

Joshua Noel: 01:06:16

Everyone, really, everyone's a good friend of Will Rose whether they know or not.

TJ Blackwell: 01:06:20

You know what it says. I think he's like Arthur.

Joshua Noel: 01:06:23

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 01:06:24

The aardvark.

Joshua Noel: 01:06:25

Yeah.

, by Porter's Gate Collective: 01:06:44

Mercy on us, Lord Please put your hand on us day by day.

Josh Patterson: 01:07:05

Lord.

, by Porter's Gate Collective: 01:07:10

To us, Lord have mercy on us, Lord Please put your hand on us day by day.