“Love Has A Name” with Adam Weber
Shownotes
Sometimes the tendency to preserve our image gets in the way of the type of raw, messy love that Jesus exhibited. Within the Church and Christian spaces, we place limits on our language out of fear, ignoring the painful realities of the people in the pews in favor of comfort and harmony. We get scared to open ourselves up to that pain and the reality of temptation within each one of us. When we open a door to embrace others despite our differences, and when we use our language to get into the depths of human experiences, we learn to love better. We learn to love more like Jesus.
Chris and Eddie are joined by Adam Weber, pastor of Embrace Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Adam’s most recent book, Love Has A Name, details the kind of healing love that draws people closer to Jesus and the true heart of the Gospel. His experience as a pastor has been greatly enriched by the work of ministry that happens right on his front porch. He talks to Chris and Eddie about his passion for mental health awareness, the problems and questions from people outside of the church, and how to use language to build empathy and trust.
Resources
Follow Adam Weber on the web:
The Conversation with Adam Weber on Apple Podcasts
The Conversation with Adam Weber on Spotify
Learn more about Adam’s book Love Has A Name here:
Follow Adam Weber on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/adamaustinweber
Full Transcript
Chris McAlilly 0:00
I'm Chris McAlilly.
Eddie Rester 0:01
And I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight.
Chris McAlilly 0:04
Today we have a conversation with Adam Weber.
Eddie Rester 0:06
Adam Weber is a pastor in South Dakota. They are not a lot of people in South Dakota. He's one of them. He was raised in South Dakota, has the Embrace Church, but also has a great podcast, Conversations with Adam Weber. You can check him out at adamweber.com. Chris, what was your takeaway today? What did you think about as he was sharing stories and his perspective on ministry in the church?
Chris McAlilly 0:32
I think the thing that I'll leave with is the need to be close to pain.
Eddie Rester 0:40
Hmm.
Chris McAlilly 0:41
Proximity to pain is important for the church. And maybe the second thing is that Jesus hung out with people that made folks question his character and Adam's trying to do a little bit of the same. And so yeah, I think those are those are a couple things. What about you?
Eddie Rester 1:01
One of the things he said early on, just kind of thrown out, a throwaway statement was "I'm so grateful my plans didn't work out." He talks early on about his plans for life and what he thought he might do, and definitely that he did not want to go back to South Dakota and did not want to plant a church and yet did both of the things that he thought were not in his plan. And for me, I think that's a powerful thing for us to think about when our plans sometimes crash and burn or take a left turn when we were planning on a right turn, that it's gonna be okay.
Chris McAlilly 1:35
Yeah, we talked about the need for the church to be more candid, honest, open and real. We talked about some of the people who do that, some of the people that inspire Adam and his work, and then we also talk about how, you know, a lot of of the most important ministry that he's doing right now he said is on his front porch and meeting people, even people that are hard to be in relationship with.
Eddie Rester 2:01
Hard to love.
Chris McAlilly 2:01
And hard to love where they are. And so yeah, I enjoyed the conversation. He talks about one prayer that you can pray if you want to mess your life up. And one of the people that has come across his path lately...
Eddie Rester 2:18
Messing his life up in some ways.
Chris McAlilly 2:20
So it was good, and we're always, and it's just so much fun. This is the kind of conversation that makes me just excited that we get to do this.
Eddie Rester 2:28
Exactly.
Chris McAlilly 2:29
A lot of fun.
Eddie Rester 2:29
Exactly.
Chris McAlilly 2:30
Hope you enjoy it.
Eddie Rester 2:30
Great conversation. Enjoy it, like it, share it, leave us a review. Let us know what you think.
Chris McAlilly 2:37
[INTRO] We started this podcast out of frustration with the tone of American Christianity.
Eddie Rester 2:44
There are some topics too heavy for sermons and sound bites.
Chris McAlilly 2:47
We wanted to create a space with a bit more recognition of the difficulty, nuance, and complexity of cultural issues.
Eddie Rester 2:55
If you've given up on the church, we want to give you a place to encounter a fresh perspective on the wisdom of the Christian tradition, in our conversations about politics, race, sexuality, art, and mental health.
Chris McAlilly 3:07
If you're a Christian seeking a better way to talk about the important issues of the day, with more humility, charity and intellectual honesty, that grapples with Scripture and the church's tradition in a way that doesn't dismiss people out of hand, you're in the right place.
Eddie Rester 3:22
Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]
Chris McAlilly 3:25
We're here today with Adam and I don't, I should have asked before we got on this if it's Weber or Weeber. You got to tell me man, how do you pronounce your last name?
Adam Weber 3:29
It is Weber. Unless you go to Weber State.
Chris McAlilly 3:39
There you go. Dude, thanks so much for taking the time to be with us today. How are things up in your part of the world?
Adam Weber 3:47
Life is so good and I'm honored by the way to be on the podcast just truly honored. But life, life... I honestly don't think that life could be much better. It's far from perfect, but it is, life is really, really good right now.
Eddie Rester 4:00
You are the founder and pastor of Embrace Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. That's a long way from us in Oxford, Mississippi. So and you're a native of South Dakota. So tell us a little bit just about your life and about your church.
Adam Weber 4:14
Yeah, so I'm born and raised in South Dakota, from the northeast part of the state originally. Grew up in the church. My earliest memories are me strongly disliking, borderline hating every part of church and so wanted really nothing to do with it. And I'm not even sure, early on though I just had big questions when it came to God. And it felt like things didn't add up. I would hear about an amazing God on Sunday morning, while it felt like everybody was falling asleep, and so my equation for God just didn't seem to work out right.
Adam Weber 4:54
So we moved after sixth grade, and I went to confirmation, and the day I got confirmed I told my parents that was the most I'd ever lied to just so many people at one time, because you had to say you believed in Jesus and I did not believe in Jesus. And so my folks switched churches. They got recommended by a couple of their friends. And God began to work in my life. And I was ended up raised at Methodist Church in South Dakota and really turned my world upside down in the best way possible.
Adam Weber 5:26
I went to college for business and marketing. I always thought I would do different things through the corporate world, through the secular world. And so that was my sole focus. I mean, I never thought I would do anything else but that. I even still wrestle with it to some degree today, just to be totally candid, of what would it looked like to work outside the church? I've never had a real full time job. I went right from college to seminary to starting a church and so I still even wrestle with it to this day. But the summer before my senior year of college, I filled in for a pastor up in Wahpeton, North Dakota, and within the first week, I knew it was what I was supposed to do, even with that wrestling match. So I finished my business degree. Went to Asbury seminary out in Kentucky, and we loved Kentucky. I got married the day before we moved. I technically still owe my wife a honeymoon. We went to extravagant cities for our honeymoon, like Indianapolis.
Eddie Rester 5:27
Life in the Dakotas. That is the honeymoon.
Eddie Rester 5:52
That's extravagance, yeah.
Chris McAlilly 6:07
That's the honeymoon.
Eddie Rester 6:21
It was extravagant. I'm like, "I've never seen this place called Indiana before!" But, went to seminary, did my M.Div in just under three years. I went through it about as quick as you can. But the year before I finished, my home pastor who led me to Christ and had this idea of starting a new church. I told him, no. And he said, "pray about it." And I didn't pray about it. But we still ended up having a service. Reluctantly, 32 people came. And that was really the start of this church called Embrace. We just celebrated actually, we're just coming up on our 15th anniversary, which doesn't even seem possible.
Eddie Rester 7:13
I started the church when I was 24. Didn't want to start a church, didn't want to move back to South Dakota. And yet, I'm so grateful that my plans haven't succeeded most of my life. So yeah. So we're a multi-site church. We have four campuses currently. And then we have our online as well. And then we have 13 churches right now, that are network churches. So there are separate churches that utilize our messages and other things--kids ministry. We're rolling out youth to those churches this fall as well. And so yeah. I got four kids. I live in the heart of Sioux Falls in a 1907 house. We just sold that as of Monday night, and we're moving to an 1880 house, which in South Dakota standards, it's like the beginning of time here. And so. So yeah, just absolutely love my life.
Eddie Rester 7:50
How old are your kids? What's the...
Adam Weber 8:05
My oldest is just starting his freshman year of high school. And then my youngest is starting kindergarten. And so we got the gamut. Three boys, one girl. Three biological, one adopted. All four of them are crazy. So it's been a huge joy in my life has been my kids. And I was just telling someone today, I feel like about four years ago, that shift took place. I'm naturally a restless, driven soul, and honestly, for too long, I kind of saw my kids as a checklist, which is terrible to say, but just so many different shifts in my life, and now my kids are my greatest joy. And I would have said that four years ago and prior; now it's actually the truth. I mean, I am so grateful for my wife, Becky, and our kids as well. But it was a huge shift that took place inside of me.
Chris McAlilly 9:02
You know, one of the things I've observed about your ministry through time is it's just I mean given your personal narrative and story, the burden of concern that you have for folks who view the church in a particular kind of way or have big questions that they wrestle with. What would you say, I guess, is the problem that most people outside the church bring to the church as you perceive it? What are what are some of those challenges or questions? And I guess the other side would be, like, how do you try to meet folks where they are?
Adam Weber 9:36
Oh, gosh, that's a huge question. I think for each person outside the church, it's something totally different. For some, it feels like the church is totally outdated. Totally behind in culture, really behind in reality. Other people have been hurt by the church. I mean, just been wronged by the church. You hear horrible stories where someone was hurt, and the whole thing was covered up. And so I think people are hurt by the church People are hurt by Christians. You know, one of my favorite quotes, "I have no problems with Jesus, it's his fan club that annoys the crap out of me." And so you've been hurt by Christians, and you end up kind of blaming God for that. And, you know, do that.
Adam Weber 10:22
Other people like myself, I grew up in the church, where it felt like God just wanted us to jump through a few hoops. I never heard about a relationship with Christ. And so I just thought you kind of graduate from God. The way we say it here is I got confirmed, or I made it through catechism. You know, a lot of people kind of, in a sense, "I graduated from God, and it's kind of irrelevant from my life."
Adam Weber 10:48
I think there's also a part of it, where we don't get to the true depths of people's pain. You know, on a Sunday, a pastor will talk about cancer, and it's almost like, gosh, isn't that a bummer? You guys got cancer, and the trials and tribulations come our way. And it's like, no, this sucks. Can anybody just say that this sucks? Or you read through something, Jesus says, and it's like, "No, I don't want to love my enemies. I don't want to go the extra mile. I don't want to turn my other cheek." And so I think not really coming to things, kind of, genuinely and candidly. And so some of the things I'm constantly wrestling with what's the right approach. Something that happened recently, we were talking about Psalm 1, like a tree planted by streams of water. Psalm 1 is one of my favorite psalms. And so we talked about being planted in God. And the first two services I just talked about storms that come out of nowhere, and they shake up your life and in those moments, you'll find where you're planted. And it's so important that we are planted.
Adam Weber 11:58
Well, the third service, I didn't plan on saying this. I have a group of people who hear my message on Tuesday and Wednesday, every single week. Eight people in the second one that totally annihilate every word, but there's moments where in the moment I add stuff. So the third service I said, I was talking about being planted. And I said, "When storms come out of nowhere, and they beat the hell out of your life. Like, they beat the hell out of you. Those are the moments." And as soon as I said, I was like, "should I have said, a storm come out of nowhere beat the hell out of your life"? And I was like, oookay.
Adam Weber 12:37
Well, we did baptisms that day. And the last two people who got baptized were two gals. So the first gal gets in the baptism tank. e have these horse troughs. And as soon as she got in, I recognized her. I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, I know you! I don't know why." And so I asked her, you know, "Why today are you getting baptized?" She said, "I'm going through this horrible time in my life, and I need Jesus." So I baptized her. Her friend gets in. I didn't recognize her friend, and I'm like, okay, "Why are you getting baptized?" And she said, she pointed out her friend that just got baptized, she said, "My friend's got terminal cancer and it's been horrible." And as soon as she said that, it clicked. I'm like, "Oh, my gosh! I saw her on Instagram." So I left the gal in the baptismal. She's standing in water, went back to the first gal. And I said, "I've been praying for you." It was all, you know, everybody in the service is like singing and stuff like that. So it's not just us and it's quiet. I'm like, "I've been praying for you. Someone, a mutual friend, shared about you, and I've been praying for you." She's like, "No way." And I'm like, "I can't believe you're here."
Adam Weber 13:47
So I went back to her friend in the baptismal, and I said, "Why are you coming?" She said, "Well, it's my friend's first time, and I've been here three weeks." And I'm like, "Are you kidding me?" So I baptized her. After the service, they came up, and the gal's like, "The moment you said, 'a storm coming out of nowhere that beats the hell out of your life,'" she said, "I looked over at my friend and said, "This is our church." And so moral of story, are you supposed to say, "beat the hell out of your life?" I don't think so, majority of the time. Do you know what I mean? I'm actually being honest. I'm not an edgy person who likes to say stuff and get like, "Oooh, he swore. He's so edgy." That's the opposite of me. I want to fly underneath the radar and have no enemies. But in that moment, that's the exact word I was supposed to say.
Chris McAlilly 14:36
You know, what's powerful about that, to me, is I had a conversation with a guy who researches the opioid crisis in southern Appalachia. So like, you know, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, and this is, you know, a part of the country that has just really been just decimated in a whole lot of ways, economically and otherwise. And this guy was interviewing a series of people that were in a kind of a peer recovery group, a local recovery workshop about kind of the experience of being in addiction. And this one woman who, he changed the name in the thing that I was reading, but her name is Allie as he told the story. And she was giving a description of her life, and she described her situation as, you know, if you're in addiction, you're in the grips of hell, and that's what it is. It's actual hell and nobody wants to do that, and there's no way to get out and nobody wants it's no fun, etc.
Chris McAlilly 15:43
And I do think you know, sometimes, there's a way that the church is language. It just comes up short at description, at describing the real experiences that people are having. I mean, I grew up in the church. My dad's a pastor. I remember being in college and just began looking at all of the Christian symbolism and the words and the language and it just didn't, it wasn't hitting my life. I couldn't find a way into the language or into the church. I found my way back in, but I think it's so hard. I think that, and the way you put it, I appreciate because you have to describe the pain. You've got to describe what people are actually experiencing before they're open to the possibility that there could be any way out of it.
Adam Weber 16:30
No, that's it. That's so good. I recently got asked about preaching and how to grow in preaching. And I said, it wasn't a profound thought, it just came, like, it just came out of my mouth, "Stay close to pain." You want to learn how to preach well? Just stay close to pain. Because Jesus, I'm grateful that he stayed close to pain. But there's something that brings about our neediness when we're close to pain. I mean, it just changes how we share words like even Savior. It's like, man, you stay close to pain, you stay close to someone in addiction, it changes things. And it even changes the ways that you lead. We might lose some people.
Adam Weber 17:23
We had a network church that was joining us, and I was so bummed. We had a network church that was joining us. And we had actually--so all our network churches actually get my manuscript before I preach them. I finish it on Wednesday. They immediately get a copy, just so they can see it and also plan worship around it, this kind of thing. And we even gave a heads up, but I shared a story, we restored a guesthouse behind our place. And in the upstairs of the garage, there was all these papers. And so I'm up there with a broom, just, like, trying to knock it down. All of a sudden, I knocked down this thing that I didn't realize was a magazine. It hits the ground and like explodes everywhere in the air. It's like I grabbed a stack of paper and tossed it. Well, there was was a wind outside of my little garage. And so it was like I tossed papers, and then a wind came and blew it all over the place. It was a stack of porn.
Adam Weber 18:25
And so I shared that. And I'm like, it was like porn was falling from the sky, because that's literally what was happening. And I just talked, I can't remember what the point of what the message was--I think it was about temptation and how it kind of comes out of nowhere. And one of the most conservative guys in our church, not politically, but just lifewise, one of the most conservative people, you know, like, tucks his shirt in, like button up, comes up to me, he said, "That story right there. That's the reason we call this church our home." You know, because he said, "It's real. It's real. What you just said, it actually happens in life, but we never share that kind of thing."
Adam Weber 19:10
And after that Sunday, I got an email that next week that we had lost a network church because of that story. There was one family who felt like it was greatly inappropriate. Their fifth grader or sixth grader was in the room. And, you know, I feel like--and hopefully this isn't the case. Hopefully that fifth grader or sixth grader isn't already looking at pornography in their parents' home. I'm gonna bet my money that they've seen pornography, even though mom and dad very strongly want to assume that they haven't. But like, gosh, I so I hope they're not battling that. Gosh, like, that's the opposite thing they need to hear. Like, a sixth grader? No, mom and dad. This is a challenge for you to talk about pornography with your sixth grade son. "It's too early." Too early might be three or four. You know, it's a battle right now. And so just to talk about those things.
Eddie Rester 20:04
My wife's a middle school principal, and it is a battle. I mean, yeah. You know, you talk about staying close to the pain and there was a bishop in the United Methodist Church in the 1800s. I can't remember his name. But at one point in his early career, he was offered to move to a large church, and they promised him all he would ever have to do would be preach, that they would have other staff that would do all the visitation and everything. And he finally realized that he couldn't go do that, because he could not, he could not disconnect his preaching life from what people are enduring in the pews and in their homes. And I've always remembered that story.
Eddie Rester 20:47
I think sometimes we get scared in the church. I mean, I'll just be honest, we get scared sometimes in the church, to delve into some of the pain or the temptation or the fears of life, for is it going to offend the woman with the sixth grade son? But on the other side of that--and we know this from the recovery communities that we deal with and have here in our church--people need to know that they're not alone in those spaces and those places. And one of the things that you do, you've got a great podcast, Conversations, one of the things I see that you do with your podcast a lot is you talk a lot about mental health issues. You talk, particularly in this past season, I think, depression and pain and difficulty. Is that something that you just see and you want to make sure people are hearing those voices? Or is that just, I mean, is that intentional on your part? Or is that just kind of who you're able to get on to the podcast?
Adam Weber 21:49
Yeah, no, it's... I'm so grateful for all everything you just said. It's definitely intentional. You know, I don't think I've battled true depression, maybe some anxiety here and there. My wife, she's been very vocal about it. So she has and does battled depression. So there's that element to it, of just seeing seeing the impact it's had on her. Even greater, though, I've lost two different friends through suicide. One of them is Jared Wilson, a pastor friend of mine. It still impacts me to this day. And, you know, I just to carry on his heartbeat, and also, just to know that struggle--anytime we do anything around anxiety or depression as a message series, it's our largest thing we have. It's like, our last time we did it probably a year ago, year and a half ago. It's the most watched message series that we've ever had.
Adam Weber 22:57
And so people are constantly battling and struggling with depression and anxiety. Just the ability to open that door and to be able to hear someone say they struggle that you look up to, it's an encouraging thing. Hopefully, it's a life-breathing thing. It's also you know, to hear Michelle Williams from Destiny's Child, to hear someone at the peak of their success still wrestling with and struggle with depression, it kind of puts to bed the idea of like, "Man, if my life was only X, Y, or Z, I wouldn't struggle with this." And I guess I just hope that it encourages even one person just to reach out and get help.
Adam Weber 23:40
Kind of similar vein, being emotionally and spiritually healthy is something that's been really a huge passion point for me, and you'll hear that throughout my episodes as well. Just that's a journey that God took me on about three years ago. Went through hardest season of my life, and for the first time really had to deal with some emotional unhealth and spiritual unhealth. And I find that so many Christians have never dealt with their emotions. And, you know, my friend, Steve Carter's got a new book, "The Thing Beneath the Thing." We never deal with those things. And so I only hope to start that conversation, and again, to get to the people's pain, and what they're really wrestling with.
Chris McAlilly 24:26
I wonder what you're learning about kind of the difference in engaging in ministry online or, you know, the internet expands, I guess, the capacity of any particular person. It doesn't have to be a pastor. I mean, anybody's got, you know, you get a social media account, and you've got something to say, and you can say it, right?
Adam Weber 24:50
Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 24:50
If you're answering the questions that people have, you know, if you're meeting people where they're in pain, and if you're pointing them to good resources, you become an authority. There's no seminary or denomination or any of that that is authorizing you, but you find consistency and credibility online. I wonder, you know, as a pastor that's done a little bit of both, the in-person, 32 people in a room, growing a multi-site church. And now you're also... I think increasingly I observe you kind of thinking about ministry in an online or digital context. What are some of the things that you're thinking about, or some of the things you're learning?
Adam Weber 24:52
I am a work in progress in both areas. I feel like I have nothing figured out. And I feel like I'm asking the same question of where, even as a society, where are we headed? Like, what is the future? I just interviewed for the podcast the guy who started the glorified daily worship app. And I was just like, "Hey, where do you think things are headed?" I think it's an exciting time to experiment and try new things. One of the in-person services, one of the things I really want to try--and it's nothing earth shattering, there's probably a ton of churches that do this--but preach a sermon and then have q&a afterwards. Maybe not have the singing component, but just have a service where I either come up and preach the sermon, or we watch a recording of the sermon from earlier that year or week, and then have a chance to dialogue and actually talk about it. So that's one part.
Adam Weber 26:35
The other physical thing that I would say is the most exciting ministry that I do right now is right on my front porch, right in my neighborhood. Right, like, I interview a lot of people who have written books, but who I spend a majority of my time with, in world standards, are absolute nobodies, and those are the people that I am so drawn to. There's a guy right now in town that is known by every police officer in Sioux Falls. And yet I'm trying to somehow become his friend. It hasn't worked out quite yet, because he's hard to track down. But that's been the greatest source of joy, of just going out and interacting with people who no one else knows.
Adam Weber 27:22
Online, I think just being as candid and honest and open and real as you possibly can. Those are probably all overused words. Someone that I'm learning a ton from in that area is Carlos Whittaker right now. And Carlos is crushing it. And I'm constantly trying, because I think one of the things I've been trying to do is how do I share what is happening on my front porch through social media, in hopes that other people might do it in their neighborhood? I'm trying to figure out how to do that. And I'm not good at it. Like right now, I'm epic failing. I'm like, Carlos, I don't know how he can record people without feeling really weird. And yet he does it so well. I'm just trying to figure out how to communicate some of those stories, in hopes that people will realize their stories, just right where they are, and that's the coolest adventure of following Jesus is when you begin to tap into that, and you begin to try to become friends with the guy that every cop in town is annoyed with.
Adam Weber 28:29
And so, I'm not even sure if I'm answering your question, but I just think more than ever, just being genuine, sharing stories, letting the Bible come alive, trying to paint the picture of who Jesus actually is... The Chosen film, I talk a lot about that. I think it's the one of the most winsome portrayals of Jesus I've ever seen. And I'm like, if we could be more like that, if that's what our discipleship processes look like, it would be pretty stinking cool. So I'm going all over the place
Eddie Rester 29:05
But what you're really talking about right now is your book, "Love Has a Name," which is really about learning to love in the world that you are with the people that are given to you in some ways, the people that you encounter, even the ones that are well known by the cops. And I think for some reason--and there are historical markers for this--and as we're Methodists, we're Wesleyan, and if you look back at our roots in our the journey that the church has taken over the last couple 100 years, I mean, the entry point for John Wesley and his early pastors was that we're going to be love to people. And we've somehow made that complicated. I think. What are ways that you help your congregation, the people around you, really strip awa--whether it's barriers complicating factors the "yes, but" moments--how do we encourage people to live that kind of love that is healing, that draws people to Jesus?
Adam Weber 30:11
Ah, great, great question. We're actually, as we record this, we're in the heart of a series called "Here I Am." And week one, I talked about the priesthood of all believers and said, "You are a pastor. You're an ambassador of Christ," and trying to level that playing field, because we've created this huge division between pastors, clergy, and church people--regular people, lay people--when it's just, no, all of us are called to be pastors. And so this week, we're talking about finding your people, picking your people. Who do you pick? Those who are closest to you. Just begin to intentionally pastor and shepherd the people around you. Look for needs that they have. Look for ways that you can bless their socks off.
Adam Weber 31:01
One of the things I pray--this will make it even simpler. One of the things I pray, and I've said this a bunch on Sundays, every single morning, I try to pray the prayer, "God, help me to find one person that I go out of my way to love and serve today." And I'm just saying, you start praying that, and God will do the craziest things. So this one guy that's downtown, that's known by police officers, he's known for yelling, and singing at the top of his lungs. Constantly. And when he yells, he typically yells horrible, racist things. I mean, the most vulgar things that come out of his mouth. All of that equals I want to get to know you. You got, like, a bumper sticker on your forehead that says "new friend."
Adam Weber 31:55
So one day, I closed out Starbucks and they they had some bakery items leftover and they're like, "Do you want any of these, Adam? We're gonna throw them away." And I'm like, oh, I bet there's someone on Phillips Avenue, that I could just give it to. Somebody hanging out on a park bench. So I'm driving, and I get out of my car, because I see that there's a man who looks like he's on meth. I'm pretty sure he's on meth, playing the keyboard. I'm like, "I think that guy needs a pastry from Starbucks." So I get out. And as soon as I get out, the yeller guy starts cursing out a driver that's driving by. He's actually, the driver is actually parked at a stoplight. He starts yelling horrible, racist things. Blah blah blah blah blah to this to this random stranger, as I'm walking up to another guy to give him a pastry.
Adam Weber 32:44
So I get up to him. And I walk up to the guy and I'm like, "Hey, man, I just had some extra, like, donut things. Would you want one?" And he looks up and he's like, "I'd love one." I was like, Oh, perfect. And as soon as I gave it to him, the guy yelling, went from yelling, he turned to me and he said, in the kindest voice ever, "That's so nice of you." I mean, it was like, oh, my gosh, what just happened? You went from dropping fbombs, n-bombs, every kind of bomb to, "That's so nice of you." I was like, "Well, I just got them from Starbucks." And he's like, "That's so kind of you." And I'm like, "Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah."
Adam Weber 33:30
So I say goodbye to the guy that I gave the donut to, playing keys. I offer it to the yeller guy. He's like, "Oh, no, no, no, I'm good. I'm good. But thank you so much." That was my first exchange with him. I'm like, "I met him. I've been trying to meet this guy for six months. Perfect!" So a couple weeks later, my wife made these dessert things and I'm trying to lose weight and watch my figure because I'm 39 going on 89 right.
Eddie Rester 33:56
Wait till you turn 50. Just wait.
Adam Weber 33:58
It's terrible.
Eddie Rester 33:58
It's the worst.
Adam Weber 33:59
I can't even imagine. Both of you look younger than I do. So I'm concerned. My birth date's actually [INDECIPHERABLE], but she has some leftovers and I'm like, "Oh, let's go drive around. We'll will give them out if there's somebody who needs an ice cream sandwich." So we're driving, all of a sudden, I hear the town yeller singing. And I'm like, "Where is he right now? Where is he?" And I'm looking because his voice is bouncing all over the place. And I found him. My wife's like, "You're not gonna go talk to him." I'm like, "He's my new friend."
Adam Weber 34:34
I pull over there. I get out. And before he recognizes me, you can tell he's just about ready to curse me out. When all sudden, I get out and I say his name. I'm like, "Hey! Dude!" And he's like, "It's you again. That was so nice of you." And I'm like, "Oh, actually, I brought something for you." And he's like, "Oh, no, I'm not, like, homeless or anything." And I'm like, "Oh, no, I don't care if you're not homeless. These are the best cookie sandwiches and I can't have it because I'm trying to watch my figure." And he's like, "I don't know." Then he said, "Why are you so nice to me?" And I was like, "I don't know, you, well, you were really nice to me the other day. And so I wanted to be nice to you back." And he's like, "I'm sorry for swearing at that guy. You know, I just, sometimes I swear at people and I don't know why I do it. Like, I just, I can't control myself. And I sing loud, because I like how the sound hits my ears. It sounds good. And it feels good on my ears." And I'm like, "Oh, okay."
Adam Weber 35:42
And he's like, "You know what? Maybe I will have an ice cream sandwich." And I'm like, "Oh, perfect." And I said, "Well, I probably should go." And he's like, "Hey, I write poems. Would you want to read one of my poems?" And I said, "Um, I should probably go," and he's like, "No, I have a print off, I can give it to you." And so he gives me this print off. I get home, and I'm like, I end up reading this thing, and it's all about how he's a broken man and he wishes that someone could make him whole. Basically, it's the whole thing. And, I'm like, here's this guy, who legitimately is a terrible person. I mean, like, the most wretched, vulgar, horrible, racist words come out of him. And yet, he's broken, and he wishes that someone can make them whole.
Adam Weber 36:33
Next time I saw him, I cut off like four people to cross traffic to get by him. I roll down my window, and I yell out, and he's like, "You're my second biggest fan!" That's what he said back to me. And I'm like, 'Dude, I'm going for number one!" And so, all this to say, it's crazy. And yet, I know he's been a huge source of joy in my life, minus the horrible, racist things that he said that I've heard. But he's been a huge source of joy. And the other night, I just ran into him again the other night, and he said, he's like, "I love you, man! Thank your wife for ice cream sandwich!" And I said, "We need to grab lunch sometime!" is what I yell back at him.
Adam Weber 37:19
But I think, you know, Jesus wouldn't be a fan of the things that he yells at people and says to people, but I think Jesus would walk by most of us, and he'd hang out with him. And so there's something about Jesus that this guy has to teach me. And so I'm just trying to get as close to him as I can. I'm not even sure why I started that story. But crazy things happen--this is where I was going--when you begin to pray, go out of your way to love one person today. Well, that day, it was him.
Eddie Rester 37:51
And I feel like, if we could not just pray that prayer, but understand that, to offer that in a way that would lead us to the people who aren't easy to love. You know, I can see myself praying that prayer and being glad I've ran into Chris, but to find the person to actually with eyes to see, see the person who may need you. And as you pointed out with that story is, a lot of times there's brokenness in people that's driving the brokenness that they're giving to the world, and that they need someone to hear their brokenness, so maybe the brokenness they're giving to the world can be healed.
Chris McAlilly 38:31
Yeah, I feel like that, so much of the world, man, is just beyond your control. I mean, that's one of the things that I'm struggling with and thinking about these days, and seeing the way in which, you know, I react in the situations where I don't have much agency, I don't have much control, coming to terms with that, I think has been... You know, parenting is really... I think that's the thing, man, it's sometimes it's, for me, much easier to stand up and preach a sermon on Sunday to you know, a bunch of adults. It's so hard for me to be completely present with my kids and receive what it is that they're bringing to the table that day. And, you know, not react in ways, when they are acting in ways that are beyond my control that I can't get them into the right shape or whatever, or get them moving in the right direction. And I just feel like I can't... I don't know. I don't have much to give on any particular moment or any given day. But I think that what I'm learning is that, you know, I have to step back and make sure I'm sleeping well and, you know, trying to be present with Christ in such a way that I you know... You put yourself back in the position of receiving grace in the midst of your own brokenness, and that opens something in you.
Adam Weber 39:59
That's so good. And I, oh, gosh, it's all about, for me, it's all about staying close to Jesus. On my own, I have little love, little patience, little grace, little kindness. But God within us, the Holy Spirit is a source. He's the beginning of all those things. And so it's like, I need that in my life. And then I think for us, as Christians, there's this weird thing that the longer we follow Jesus, the nicer our lawn gets, the bigger our house gets, the cleaner our lives get, the more put together our friends get. And not in some, like, you know, "you got to live out in a desert." But it's like, gosh, the longer I follow Jesus, the messier my friends get. The more hard my relationships get like, "Man, I'm progressive and I'm friends with all these conservatives." "I'm conservative and I'm friends with all these progressives."
Adam Weber 40:58
And gosh, our lives should just get messier and messier and messier. And if we don't have anybody in our lives... We should have a select core group of people who are our confidants, who are our pastors. They sharpen us. That should absolutely be there. And we should be wise as well. If we struggle with alcohol, we probably shouldn't go trying to witness at bars, you know, like, there's some wisdom there. But if our relationships, if we don't have relationships with people who disagree with us, don't look like us, all that stuff--and I'm talking challenging the progressive and the conservative, here. There's nobody who's winning. In that area of our lives, we look nothing like Jesus. In that area of our lives, we're actually an incredibly shallow follower of Jesus. If there's not anybody who we hang out with them, and someone says, "Dude, you're friends with that guy? Have you not heard about that guy?" If we don't have a "that guy" or "that gal" in our lives that people question our character because we're around them, in that area of our lives--and this is intense--we're a shallow person who looks nothing like Jesus.
Adam Weber 42:09
I only hope that the people I hang out with make people question my character and question, like, "Gosh, what does he believe?" If they don't, there's something missing. And so that's the place where I'm like, man, I just want my life to look like Jesus. And it's really messy, but I have nothing figured out. So take everything I just said with a grain of salt.
Eddie Rester 42:34
I think that's a great place for us to kind of draw to a close. I know you've got to be somewhere else in just a couple minutes. But I think that idea of if we want our lives to look like Jesus, then we're gonna have people in our lives that people wonder, "Why in the world are they hanging out with him?" I think that's a good word for us individually as Christians, but maybe even the church that tends to lean far one way or far the other, and yet, the church of Jesus in its earliest days drew all of the opposites into the room together to figure out what does it mean to live like Jesus together.
Chris McAlilly 43:10
Adam, thanks so much for taking the time to be with us today, man. We really appreciate it and if you want to hear more conversations with Adam, you can check out the podcast. What's the title? WHere can folks find it?
Adam Weber 43:22
Yeah, you can find, it's called The Conversation with Adam Weber. You can find it anywhere, Spotify, iTunes. Yeah, I'd be grateful if you tuned in. And Chris and Eddie, thank you both just for being kind hosts. I only hope anything I've said has just encouraged even one person in some way. That would be a huge success to me, man. It's
Eddie Rester 43:43
It's been great. We just appreciate you, what you're doing, the way you're letting God use you. Thank you, man.
Adam Weber 43:48
Thank you both.
Eddie Rester 43:51
[OUTRO] Thank you for listening to this episode of The Weight.
Chris McAlilly 43:53
If you liked what you heard today, feel free to share the podcast with other people that are in your network. Leave us a review. That's always really helpful. Subscribe, and you can follow us on our social media channels.
Eddie Rester 44:05
If you have any suggestions or guests you'd like us to interview or anything you'd like to share with us, you can send us an email at info@theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]