#36 | Are We Messing Up God’s Mission?, Pt. 1 | Scott Moreau

It's watering time, everybody.

It is time for Apollos Watered, a.

Podcast to saturate your faith with the.

Things of God so that you might.

Saturate your world with the good news of Jesus Christ. My name is Travis Michael Fleming and.

I am your host.

And today we have one of our deep conversations, a deep conversation with my friend Scott Moreau. Now let me tell you a little bit about Scott. He's married, has four grown daughters, and is a grandfather.

He is professor of Intercultural Studies and the academic Dean of Wheaton Graduate school in Wheaton, Illinois, where he has taught for 277 years. He's been on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, now known as Crew. Served 10 years in Africa teaching in Swaziland, and then later in Kenya.

After that, he came to his current position at Wheaton. He was the editor of the Evangelical Missions Quarterly and the general editor of Baker Book's Encountering Mission series.

He has written or edited over 20 books and and 300 articles and has been recognized in multiple ways for his writing, teaching, speaking, and service to society.

He is passionate about contextualization, which we're going to get to in a minute, as well as folk religions, spiritual warfare, tech and missions, and a host of other stuff. I wanted to bring Scott on the show because I believe that the subjects Scott has spent his life studying are blind spots for Western evangelicals.

They are areas that we need to pay greater attention to. How do we make disciples in this globalized world in which we find ourselves?

How do we interact with those who have different worldviews than we have? How do we interact with our current postmodern culture? What role does spiritual warfare play? It seems that we talk a lot about politics.

We talk a great deal about our walks with Jesus, but rarely do we address the subject of demonology and what that means for us in our world today. I have to say that my conversation with Scott was a lot of fun.

It was encouraging to hear someone so passionate about Jesus and was so ready to wrestle with issues that many within the church feel are simply irrelevant.

I hope and pray that you are as blessed by listening to this conversation as I was having it and pay attention after our conversation as I wrap it up a bit and also also talk about some great opportunities that we have coming up next month. With that in mind, here is my conversation with Scott Moreau. Happy listening.

It is a delight to have Scott Moreau on Apollos Watered. Scott, welcome to Apollos Watered.

Thank you. Glad to be here.

I'm so excited about this conversation. But before we get into it because you're the guy to talk to about really making the gospel known in different cultures.

And there's so much stuff that you know about. I've read some of your stuff over the years and I've always gone away.

Going, I gotta meet this guy.

Because it's just fantastic, all the stuff that you're doing. But before we get into that, we're gonna do our fast five. Are you ready?

I'm ready.

Here we go. Five things about you. I'm gonna ask you a question. Ready? Here it is. Number one, coffee or tea?

Tea. Tea.

Okay. What's your favorite tea?

I like Russian tea, but that's usually just Lipton with Tang and lemon juice mixed in.

Okay. Okay, here's another one. What was your first car?

I like that.

Okay, here we go. Because you're a cross cultural guy, what is your funniest cross cultural experience?

Wow.

It's probably easier to come up with my sickest experience than my funniest experience, but when I think back on the things that have happened and done, it's usually. It revolves around food and the ability to eat it or not eat it.

And that ranges from fermented mare's milk in Mongolia to cubes of lamb fat in Kenya to fried grasshoppers and peanuts in China. And while those are not necessarily funny, they're also part of the normal picture of adjusting to life in another setting.

Oh, no, those are funny. Fermented. Fermented mare's milk. Okay, you gotta describe what that is.

Well, number one, I don't like milk to begin with, but that's their kind of alcoholic beverage in Mongolia. And they don't have cows, they have horses. So horses also give milk.

You might not think of horses in that way, but they do because that's what their rural economy is built on. And so they take the milk. And of course, when you're in a rural area, stuff like that doesn't last.

So you learn that the more sour it gets, sometimes it starts to get a little bit alcoholic. And that's when it gets to be fun. Not fun for someone like me, but fun for the Mongolians who drink it.

Oh, I love that.

Okay, well, that, that actually, you steal my thunder for the next question. What's the strangest cultural food you have ever eaten?

Oh, well, I could go into donkey sandwiches or you Know, stir fried dog, you know, I just pigeon with the head on it. You got all kinds of things that are interesting to eat in various places around the world.

Oh, that's so good. Okay, here we go. This one's a little different. If you were a restaurant, what restaurant.

Would you be and why?

I would be a greasy spoon in my hometown, Wheaton, called Smokehouse. Why? Because the average weight of the person going in is above £250 and it just is as wonderfully greasy as it gets. And I love that type of food.

Now that has nothing to do with stir fry, dog or donkey sandwiches.

That's just if you were to ask me my favorite food, that my favorite restaurant, it would either be that or it would be a sweets restaurant because I have a huge sugar tooth.

Okay, that's good. Okay, well then that's my next question then. What is your personal addiction?

What are you addicted to? I've got two things that I am absolutely, thoroughly and completely addicted to. One is science fiction.

I love science fiction and that's what I spend a lot of my free time doing.

As a matter of fact, my wife doesn't want me to retire because she fears seeing me lying on the couch all day reading science fiction instead of doing anything productive. And my second addiction ties to my sweet tooth. And that is chocolate. I am so addicted, I finally pulled the trigger two days ago.

And I ordered from Amazon a 10 pound Toblerone bar. And I can't wait to get it. It's about a yard long and about 8 inches high as a triangle. It's just a big size bar.

I don't know how long it's going to take me to eat it, but doggone it, I'm going to do it. That's what really matters. It doesn't it?

Oh, that's so good. Okay, well, I feel like the show can go nowhere but down from here. But let's hear your story. I mean, you got a sweet tooth.

You've been admissions, you're an academic dean at one of the most prestigious Christian universities in the United States. In the world. At Wheaton College. But I mean, what's your story?

Tell us just about where it may be, where you grew up, your family and just your passions. Let's hear a little bit more about Scott Moreau.

I grew up kind of all over the us My dad had a worked for a company that moved him whenever he got a transfer. So I had three brothers. So there were four boys separated by five years.

You can imagine what that was like growing up and it was eight interstate moves by the time I was 13. So part of the framework of that on the downside is you'll learn to make friendships really quick, but you learn to let go of them really quick.

It's hard to build long lasting friendships in situations like that. I can say, thankfully, the last place we moved to, it's a town called Naperville, which is just south of Wheaton.

We live there, my parents live there almost 20 years and I've got friends from junior high that I still meet with every year. So there are five of us that get together.

So there's a long term friendship set of friendships that's there that I cherish because my entire life was short term friendships up until that stage. So growing up the third boy of four in a family, my brothers, I was voted weirdo of the family for four or five years in a row by my brothers.

I mean, I can laugh at it now like you are. It was scarring at the time because every time I went into it I thought, I'm not going to be voted this year. Stupidly I said that.

And then brother number two and brother number four always voted as a block and they were not going to vote for brother number one because he would have beaten both of them up. Guess who was it every year? Well, that was me. And part of it was my reading.

I didn't enjoy watching football, I enjoyed sitting in the room thinking somehow I was involved with people, but really in my own world all the time. And so growing up, science and math were gigantic loves for me. And that prompted me to go to engineering to start off with my bachelor's degree.

And then I moved. I got called in, literally a vision to go into full time ministry.

And so I left University of Illinois and, and went to Wheaton College where I ended up majoring in physics.

I, even though my area is this technical field called missiology, and I know that's a mouthful and it's not chasing women, it's, it's the study of missions and, and that is part and parcel of who I am. But physics and science is also part and parcel of who I am.

I grew up in a family that church played a nominal role in our lives after my youngest brother was confirmed and my parents decided they didn't need to go to church anymore. And they never went to church except for weddings and funerals for the rest of their lives. And that's the reality as well too.

So I came to Christ when I was in high school through the ministry of a high School organization called Young Life. A lot of my friends were coming to Christ. I came to Christ my senior year and it just transformed me. I still love science.

It didn't change me from being a basic nerd or geek or whatever the right term is these days. But it did give me a new set of convictions that I needed to follow and eventually that result in heading into missions.

Actually, I taught physics my first two years in a public high school in Swaziland. So I got to apply both loves at the same time and then eventually realize this is not the path God would have me go the rest of my life.

Frankly, my second year of teaching high school physics, I got bored. Because the same basic material, doing it a second time, even a third time, is boring. And I realized when I am bored, I am boring.

And I knew if I stayed as a high school teacher teaching physics the rest of my life, I probably would end up committing suicide as a 26 year old. And I'm not meaning to tease about something as horrible as suicide, but the reality is it was that bad for me.

And so I thought, where do I go from here? And then I took a course and learned in the midst of that course that they were starting a seminary in Africa.

And all the bells started going off in my head and I thought, that's what I'm going to do. So I came and went to seminary. I didn't know what I was going to focus on. I knew I had to go on through doctoral work.

But I decided just to look around. And every time I looked at the electives, it was the missions electives that were the most interesting.

Now this is after two and a half years of living overseas already. So it's no wonder that they were the most interesting to me.

And by the time me ended up completing it, I was by then a doctorate in again that secret word, missiology. I study missions, and that's what my doctorate's in.

I'm still laughing over the definition you gave of missiology. Oh my goodness, that's so good. Okay, so just explain. I mean, you talk about the history of missions, but.

Or the study of missions, but elaborate that further because it. I think when people hear that term, they just kind of tune out, but.

Eyes glaze over.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I found on an airplane, if somebody asked me what I do, if I want them to shut up because I'm reading, I'll just say I'm a missiologist. Would you like to hear more? And they immediately shut up. They're scared of what that means.

But it's a person who studies, who wrestles with, who understands what it means to bring the gospel to another culture.

And God is so amazing in that we've got all these cultures and societies around the world, and in everyone, people are able to glorify God in ways that make sense to them. And so missions is the study of bringing the gospel, of receiving the gospel, the story of the gospel.

So it's kind of a jack of all academic disciplines and a master of none.

And that's part of the reason the discipline can be challenging, because you got to know history, theology, anthropology, intercultural communication, religious studies. Every one of those is their own doctorate. And so I know a lot of things, but in a shallow way. They used to say of Lake Victoria in Africa.

It's, you know, a child can play on the shores, but an adult can drown in the depths. Well, the study of missiology is more or less staying on the shoreline, if I can put it, of a bunch of different lakes.

And some missiologists go deeply into certain lakes, but they're still missiologists. I tend to be one who stays on the shore of a lot of different lakes.

Well, and I think that's pretty awesome.

Matter of fact, I think that missiology is going to play and already is playing such important part in our culture, because what we see is just so many nations all around us in the.

West, in the east.

You're seeing with such as the diaspora has gone on with refugees and seeing so many people being displaced and then being resettled and placed in Western Europe and in the United States, and not just refugees, but immigrants, students, that we're encountering people from all over the world all the time. And even our own culture in the west is being reshaped, as is the world, with globalization.

So I think missiology plays such a really the tip of the spear when it comes to sharing the gospel and living out the gospel, because our culture is always shifting. And one of the things that you mentioned a little bit earlier was contextualization. I know that's one of your fields. What is contextualization?

Can you give a description or just a definition of it?

It's fitting in a context. And so what that means is what would the gospel or church or leadership look like in Kenya, in Korea, in Brazil, in Russia?

And number one, how would that be different than American leadership? And then, number two, what components of Kenyan leadership really cohere well with the gospel, and what parts do not.

But the same question is asked of American leadership of Korean leadership of Brazilian leadership.

So contextualization is being able to ask the questions, what does it mean in this culture for people to praise God in a way that they say, this is who I am versus now I'm being an American?

And it's a really important question because to the extent we make people in our own image, we're robbing them of their own cultural joys to be explored in light of the gospel. You know, the vision in Revelation 7 is people from all tribes, tongues, nations, languages, worshiping before the throne.

Do you think that's going to be a Presbyterian service? I don't. I don't see it that way.

And do you think there are, you know, we're all going to be, dare I say it, a Willow Creek service or a Saddleback service? And again, my answer to that is no.

It will be something that we can't imagine, but it's something in which all cultures will have a voice in ways that make sense to them. And we will all rejoice in that. We don't right now, but we will all rejoice in that.

Do you think, though that we're starting to see that in pockets? Because I think that. I know in my church, when I was pastoring at my last church, we had a church that was predominantly white.

When I started, it was, I mean, really Caucasian, about 95%. And by the time I left, we were 40% white, non white. And we had all these different nations, many of them first generation.

And then we started attracting second generation as well. And it was incredible. That changed our worship. And I mean, we were even. I was even hoping to incorporate perhaps like a. Because many.

We had so many Africans like our own tribal dance, if that makes any sense. And of course I had no idea on how we were going to be able to do that, but I just knew that every tribe had their dance.

And I thought, well, we're part of God's tribe. Can we do a way to even engage the body more and worship in a way that is so at home to them and involves. I mean, David danced before the Lord.

Why couldn't we? But are you seeing some of that now with just the bringing of nations together?

I'm seeing some of it now, but let me acknowledge the fact that I'm a white man who cannot dance.

And, you know, I was a groomsman in a wedding in Swaziland where we had to do kind of a two step shuffle going into the church with, as we were escorting one of the bridesmaids and somebody cracked a joke. In Seswati. And I didn't understand what they said. And I thought. And everybody started laughing, I wondered, is my zipper down?

Do I have a hole in my pants? And I later found out he just said, those two are going to get married. Now, that's not who I married.

But the reality is, working in a new cultural setting is going to bring awkwardness.

And so, in response to your question, it's a long way of getting back to your question, but developing a truly multicultural church is going to require us to be able to be willing to be awkward, because, as you said, a tribal dance. If you tried to get me to dance the tribal dance that your church developed, even though it didn't, but if it did, I might find another church.

It's absolutely not in my gift mix. And that's not a statement against you. That's a statement where multiculturalism runs head to head with what I can call American tribalism.

If you want to say that we're a nation like no other in that the vast majority of Americans are migrants and they're the descendants of migrants. Some came willingly, some came as a result of persecution. Some were dragged across against their will.

And so we've got this nation comprised of this set of peoples, and melting pot, it's recognized, is not the right term.

So can a church be a melting pot, or does the church need to be a stew in which there are chunks of people, groups, or will it be a salad, which the dressing brings together? And I would say we have an opportunity here in the United States and globally to participate with people in ways we never have before.

And yet sociologists tell us continuingly that the church hour is the most segregated hour in the United States.

You know, I've heard that stat.

And that's one of the things that I really tried to fight against, because we saw that our community was diverse and we wanted to be a reflection of our community. And by the end of my time there, that's exactly what happened.

We were extremely challenging environment from a ministry perspective because we had people that couldn't read. We had people that working two jobs at a factory or a warehouse. And we had other people that they just.

I mean, they were making six figures and they were the kind of typical suburbanite. And so bringing those together was not easy. It was extremely difficult.

But we were always trying to find creative ways to honor the cultures that were there.

I, for one, would preach in different cultural garb that if someone were to give me something from their culture, I would preach in it because I wanted to honor their culture, to let them be known that God values all the nations. And I find that when we just stay segregated in our own little cultural tribe.

And I say that not to shame people, especially if your community doesn't have that diversity, but if your community has that diversity, I would hope that it becomes a reflection of that community. And when we do that, I think God's name is glorified because I see something through their cultural eyes that I miss from my own cultural background.

But that doesn't happen without conscious intention. Yes, and I think we used to talk about how hard it could be for a church to go from a traditional church service to a seeker type service.

And that is a transition. But it's harder to go from a monocultural church to a truly multicultural church.

And most of our churches are afflicted with what one missiologist called ethnochitis. It sounds like a disease, but it's a disease built on the ethne, the people of the church.

And it's hard to break that down and to lower the boundaries so that other people feel welcome and want to come in.

And I can say, you know, I attend a church that is consciously multicultural, but I would say I'm not sure we're socioeconomically diverse in the same way we are ethnically, racially, linguistically diverse. And that remains a challenge for us in some respect. We're reaching the suburban.

Well, Wheaton is a suburb, and it's a reasonably well to do suburb in western Chicago. And we have to consciously recruit, dare I say it, invite welcome. And it's more than getting them to the service.

If they don't see people like them up front, if they don't see things that they can resonate with, they won't stay very long. And that takes a lot of work. And that, to me is missiology.

It's asking this question, what does it take for people to feel welcome into the kingdom of God despite the fact that they're sinners, but Christ took their shame on him, and they now can come into the fellowship purified in Christ. But in order for it to be home for them, they have to feel at least somewhat comfortable. Not completely comfortable, but somewhat comfortable.

You're speaking my language right now. I mean, that's one of the things that we try to do.

And one of the reasons why I started wearing different cultural dresses because we wanted people to know that they were valued in the sight of God. And some people didn't like that. But I want to go back for a moment because you Said something that we did in our service.

Almost at the conclusion of every service, we would have this benediction and I would say start a conversation with someone that might look different or be different. And that doesn't mean just ethnically, socioeconomically, personality, whatever, it might be, whatever.

And then I said, and it's going to be awkward, but awkward is. And the church would finish it. Awesome. Because that was becoming a part of who we were.

Because I just saw that a lot of churches weren't that way and they didn't want to be that way. Now, part of that, again, I don't want to begrudge and I just want to reiterate this.

I know that there are communities where there's not that type of ethnic diversity, but there is that diversity from a socioeconomic standpoint, from a, from, from different cultural standpoints.

And I want to go back on that for a moment because there was a principle that was that you're very familiar with called the, the homogeneous unit principle.

And many may not be familiar with that, but that the idea was, is that if you were to plan a church, you want to aim it at people that are alike, right? Is that what I'm. And then that would be the church. But what was the problem with that?

Because I think now we're seeing that that is a problem for the church in a multi ethnic world.

First I would say it was misnamed. I would have named it the homogeneous unit observation.

And the observation was that people like to gather with people like them when they go to church. So people like to gather with people who are like them when they go to church is the homogeneous unit principle.

But the basic idea was it was built on an observation that was made by missiologists who saw that people like to gather with others like them and without anything to motivate them in a different direction, naturally they would comprise churches that were like, where people were alike.

Now the long term problem with this is when you turn it into a principle, then you're saying this is what we should do rather than this is what we observe. And that's where you start to get into trouble.

Because soon as it becomes, that's what we should do, that becomes the basis for, I'll use some big words here, an ecclesiology, an ecclesiological apartheid. In other words, a church that is built on the idea of separating rather than gathering.

As a matter of fact, the South African government used some of this principle to say we need separate development of each race in the heyday of apartheid and Apartheid has been decreed, rightly so, a heresy.

And so the question we have is the homogeneous unit observation, I'll use that word again, tells us we lean into a type of apartheid when we don't think about it. We have to think about it.

We have to make, we have to be consciously intentional or we will become a church of like minded, like looking, like earning, like education people.

Now I'm tracking with you on this, but I want to bring this out for our listeners because why is that? Some people are asking themselves why is that bad? Of course we want to be like like minded people. I mean, why would we want to be different?

Elaborate on.

On why we want to try to be. And I say different. And again, that means that your community is representative. It has that in it meaning to me.

Your church should be reflective of the community that you're in. And if your community is diverse, then your church should be diverse.

If it's one thing, if you're in a town and you don't have a lot of diversity and it depends on how we define diversity.

There's.

But why and how should a church be diverse?

First, I'm going to say something that might offend some people. A church in a diverse community that is not diverse is like a pimple on a face.

It just, it sticks out and it draws attention, but not in a positive way. Sorry, I've never heard anyone say describe.

It, it's like a pimple.

I've never described it that way myself, but I realized, okay, that, that and, and draws attention, but not positively.

Now I would say this though, on instead of just avoiding looking bad, which I don't think is a good motivation, the reality is the more diverse we are, the greater I see a reflection of the kingdom of God. And for me, living and working and being part of a multicultural church, that's a foretaste of heaven.

But heaven won't have the frustrations and the anger and the bitterness and the histories that we have. It's just we're demonstrating to a watching world that we are experiencing what God is calling us to.

That's a positive benefit, but also as a result of seeing how sisters and brothers of mine worship, preach, sing, pray, gather together, socialize, eat. You can continue to name anything that happens in a church.

And being with sisters and brothers who are different than me is always an opportunity for me to grow.

Because then I'm not caught in my own narrow little niche or my box or my bubble in a way that stops me from seeing the true glory of God's Multi hued church.

So elaborate on that. How does one see the glory of God displayed? I mean, we know that from a scriptural standpoint, we have all the nations that are there.

But how is God's glory displayed in this awkward conversation that I might have with my brother or sister who might be coming to the church? They may not speak my language. They could be from a different ethnic background or different culture.

Obviously, if they're speaking a different language, they are. How is God's glory displayed in my awkward conversation and getting to know them when they don't speak my language?

Well, when they don't speak your language, you're not. It's going to be hard for God to be glorified because all it is is gobbledygook to you.

But let's pretend that you both speak English because we know they have to speak English if we're going to understand them. Unfortunately. No, bring it out. That's good. Yeah, yeah. And I would say from Africans, I learn of the power and the majesty of God.

My African sisters and brothers teach me that God is to be feared and not to redefine that word, fear.

My Asian sisters and brothers teach me, and Africans do as well, too, what it's like to have a true body life together and to be so deeply connected to each other that Western psychologists will call you enmeshed and label you as having a problem. But in your culture, that's not a problem. That's a way of life.

My European sisters and brothers will help me think more clearly and more deeply about the theology that I express. Sometimes as an American who can be shallow.

And I will say this, around the world, people would characterize those who have experience with Americans. They would characterize American friendships as going very deep the first week and then getting stuck.

And so in the long run, they feel shallow because you've never gotten past the first week's worth of depth in the friendship. That's also what I learned from Africa.

So in one sense, it is God's glory, but at the same time, it's me learning about myself, positive and negative things, and me trying to figure out how to deal with those things.

I'm still trying to figure out how.

Well, I'm actually rethinking some of the relationships I've developed with brothers and sisters in Africa right now, because I know that they've contacted me on Facebook, and usually for me, it's out of sight, out of mind.

I'm the same way. I've got a former Indonesian student who I called Once my Indonesian son, I don't have any sons. I have four daughters.

And he started calling me his American dad. And I know that that comes with an obligation. The rest of my life, I'm going to be connected to him.

And so he was here in the area and we met for lunch once a month. This is three years ago after graduation, but we're still doing that now. He just recently moved to Virginia, but he and I are in touch.

He will text me, he emails me, and it's anticipated that he and I have a relationship that goes through the rest of my life because I'm likely going to die before he's a lot younger than I am. The Chinese have a proverb, a teacher for a day is a father for life. And I tend to be a person who wants to disconnect.

I want to go read my science fiction on the couch. Leave me alone.

But the reality is it's people like my Indonesian son, whose name is Evan, who don't let me stay there because I don't think in eternity I'm going to be lying on a cloud reading science fiction all day. Somehow that's not my vision of what heaven is, but it's a vision of connecting with people. And to the extent I do that here, I'm reflecting.

And it's being taught to me that we connect, therefore we are. And as a matter of fact, that's a saying you'll hear in Africa. It's not I think therefore I am, but it's I have relationships, therefore we are.

And the frame of reference is who are you? If you ask a question and nobody answers, well, the answer is you're nobody because you're not connected to people.

That's it for today's episode. I want to thank Scott for coming in again.

It was a great opportunity for us to dialogue and also to invite you to tune in next week as we continue this conversation together. I also want to let you know about an opportunity that we have in front of us again.

We have our first ever Apollos Watered Men's Retreat weekend coming up February 19th through February 21st at Phantom Ranch Bible Camp in Mukwonago, Wisconsin. Our theme is Thriving in Babylon. Come out. Join with some other men, some fun.

We're going to be doing some outdoor activities and opening the word of God together, getting to know one another and discovering what it means to thrive in the middle of this world.

As we open the Bible to the book of Daniel and saw and look and examine how Daniel learned how to thrive in the middle of his world that was really hostile and antithetical to the very gospel of God.

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And when you support us at this level, you get early access to new content every month. The next level up is our drench level. That's $10 a month.

And think about the difference you can make because sometimes you want to do more than play in the rain. You want to dance in the puddles. And when you support us at this level, you also get access to exclusive bonus content from our conversations.

And the fourth level is the flood level of membership. That's $25 a month. The waters are rising fast and to show our appreciation, consider yourself invited to our quarterly livestream event.

It will be a grand tour of what we are planning next and an opportunity for you to tell us the things that you want to hear about the fifth level up. This is our $50 a month level of membership. Now let's look out for this level.

A wave of ginormous proportion is headed your way and you know what that is? It's our gratitude. We are so grateful that you have partnered with us. You get everything from the lower levels plus your name in lights or pixels.

We're going to put your name up on our website and we want to thank you so much. And of course feel free to surprise us if you want to knock our socks off. Or is there a different number category that you'd love to support us with?

It could be a one time gift or monthly support, more than we have listed. Please partner with us to help saturate the world with the knowledge of who Jesus is. And again, I want to give thanks.

We're thanks is due my ministry running mate, Kevin O'Brien, our executive editor, Chief Strategy officer, our social media mavens, Eliana Fleming and Rebecca Badal and then last of all, Brian Dana, our audio engineer who always makes us sound good. That's it for today everybody. Water your faith, water your world.

This is Travis Michael Fleming signing off from a Palos Watered, Stay watered everybody.