Fight For Them! Pt. I w/ Minister Calvin Preston

[00:00:00] Park. Coming up on the Change My Life Park has. We're fairly in one of the main. We truly are, you know, but that doesn't change the fact that sometimes our young people struggle accepting the fact that they are beautiful

[00:00:16] inside out and with social media, you can get yourself in a situation where you caught up in a spirit of comparison. She's prettier than I am. He's more handsome than I am, you know, the pressures are during the pressures to smoke the pressures to have sex.

[00:00:32] The pressures to do whatever just to be able to get the likes. These are things that our young people struggle with that our church doesn't really address but our young people are not being able to be targeted with the specific things that they are struggling with.

[00:00:54] Everyone this is MJ. Thank you for joining me once again. I hope you are having a spectacular day today. I just want to take this time to say thank you to all of our listeners.

[00:01:02] And subscribers and those of you who are new to the change my life family. Welcome. I hope that you will subscribe. There will be many inspirational episodes that will become in your way and don't forget you can stay connected with us on social media.

[00:01:17] We are on Facebook as well as Instagram at Change My Life Park has. So thanks again for your love and support. Okay, I'm super excited about today's episode in my very special guest. He is an active member of his local church where he serves as the youth

[00:01:34] minister, usher, mission worker leader of the young men's auxiliaries in the jurisdiction. His unwavering commitment to scholarship service and brotherhood and still him in the word of God and guys him in all aspects of life. Through his hard work

[00:01:52] and dedication he serves as an inspiration to those around him in demonstrating that with God for his little perseverance and uplift anything is possible. None other than minister Calvin. Press the thank you for being here today.

[00:02:10] Thank you for having me. My, my, my, I was just listening to that bio. You just gave me and I was wondering who were you talking about? I'm talking about you. I'm talking about

[00:02:20] you and ladies and gentlemen, I just found out that he is a degree in biology. Yes, yes, yes, I do have a degree in biology among many other things. There are a lot of

[00:02:31] secrets that people don't know about me, but I'm super excited to be here. I feel like I like the show prices right now always want to be able to go up there, you know, go see

[00:02:41] by a barca. I feel like that little kid right now that finally got there opportunity to be on a show. I'm here with MJ. I'm super excited. Yes, I am happy to have you. And yes, we're going to talk about something today that I am very passionate

[00:02:56] about and I know you are passionate about and we're going to talk about youth. The young people, the young people that are in our churches, the young people that serve in the ministry and then some of them they don't serve in the ministry

[00:03:12] because they don't feel like they have a place in the ministry, but the devil is a liar. God can use young people. And he can use them greatly, but I know that sometimes with young people there can be hindrances, there can be different things that may hinder them

[00:03:33] and just their progress in life in general. And so we're going to talk about that today. So I hope that after this episode that if you are a parent or a youth worker, if you work youth ministry in your church that you will be uplifted by this episode

[00:03:52] that you will be encouraged and inspired to be more involved in your youth and to go into a deeper level to give them the support that they need, whether that's spiritually or emotionally because, you know, we got to hold on

[00:04:06] on side young people man. We can't let the devil have them. Amen. Amen. Amen. We can't let them, like we have the power we have to authority so we got to use it. Okay, so minister Calvin, well let's start off with this.

[00:04:22] What birth your passion to working youth ministry? Because that's a reading your bio. That's currently what you do. Like how long have you done it and how did you start doing it?

[00:04:31] Oh my goodness. I guess we're going to be on this podcast and this question for the next two or three hours. That was a good question man. Well, I'm trying to be as sure it is possible. No, so I grew up, you know, church all my life.

[00:04:48] I was in the co-ject that's the church of God and Christ with those who don't know. So coming up, you know, that's when I was able to really like a learn like your basic Bible stories

[00:04:58] and I know as I may speak to people, you know, who may just have started going to church at this age in their life. They're wondering, well how do you know so much about the word?

[00:05:08] It's nothing that I really did. You know, just starting out coming up learning the basic things, basic stories of the Bible, you know, going from there. I was able to be a part of, you know, certain youth groups as I got older.

[00:05:22] I recall, you know, my grandfather. He was in the Baptist church. So going to vacation Bible school every summer, you know, getting into the bus,

[00:05:31] a random bus just pull up to the neighborhood everybody hops into the bus and we go on down to church and just enjoy ourselves and have fun with people who went to church and who didn't go to church but they were all my age.

[00:05:42] Then as I got older, my mom had me in like a specific like mentoring groups where I was mentored by, you know, older men in the church.

[00:05:51] I'm who were able to groom me, to lead me and guide me, to being that man of God that I, you know, could be then going off to college.

[00:05:59] I went to a small Christian school. We had campus ministries so we're able to like do different things in the community and we would like get on planes and like fly like to other states and be able to do mission works.

[00:06:13] It was pretty awesome there. And I guess the common denominator if you will. There was always someone who was encouraging me to seek the Lord even the more. Whether I was a part of a religious organization or just something secular, I had coaches all along.

[00:06:34] You know, I had teachers all along. I had parents all along who could see the calling on my life and they were speaking to me. And I know even though I may have had a story that was somewhat like the prodigal of the sun,

[00:06:49] the reason why I was able to come back is because I did have someone actually witnessing to me and speaking into me. So quite literally I was trained up in the way that I should go so that when I did grow older, I did not depart from it.

[00:07:05] And I see that because it worked for me, I need to do that same thing for somebody else. Because those people in my life, I made either remember their names but got placed in my life for that time to speak to me and to witness to me.

[00:07:21] So who am I to say I am not supposed to be that same person for somebody else? So that is what birthed me, my ministry of view will. So since you've been in short, I've been doing this all my life. What keep on doing it. That's awesome.

[00:07:37] And I just see as you were talking, you just see such a coach, a mentor, someone really pours into the young people. Do you see this up doing it like a lot? Yeah, yeah, well I do have a teaching background as well.

[00:07:51] I taught science in the middle school of science for a while and I worked with my sons, local football team, coaching there. So I definitely would like to do that a bit more if I ever had time when I became the Lord Lee's in that direction.

[00:08:08] I would not mind. Okay, well, based on what you said, it seems like you're really destined for this kind of ministry. Yeah, it's kind of like duh, right? It seems like it just slap you in a face. You know though, I can not know right? But yeah.

[00:08:23] Okay, but that's good though. And I'm glad you're actually doing what you know you're supposed to do. So let me ask you this, it seems like I feel like people who are in youth ministry that are supposed to be in youth ministry.

[00:08:36] They have like a really special connection with young people. Like young people don't have a problem with kind of talking to them, you know, letting their hair down. They young people, they don't talk to everybody.

[00:08:49] There's like certain people who you seem like the type they'll be like man can we talk? I got this going on, I get that going on. So let me ask you because it seems like you kind of understand where they are.

[00:09:00] What are some of the struggles that you feel young people do with in a church today that the church, meaning, you know, maybe some of the older members of the congregation. Maybe they're not paying attention to the maybe you see it because you work up close with them.

[00:09:18] What are some of the struggles that you may see? The young people dealing with today. I would say one of the biggest struggles is more like, I'll call it think about the umbrella.

[00:09:33] There's going to be a whole lot of things under this umbrella if you will or a big tree with us a bunch of branches that could come from there. I call myself, you know, in my teens.

[00:09:47] There was a social media, I'm not trying to date myself until my age but it was called MySpace. So everybody wants to have a MySpace page for my young people who are listening. MySpace was similar to like your Twitter, like your Instagram.

[00:10:03] You could make your page, have you wanted to make it? Is on it, have you want to design it? You could have like your certain backgrounds, play music. You had your top 10 list or your top five list of your favorite friends that could be listed there.

[00:10:19] So I would be on my space and as I'm on my space, I see pictures. Now I'm a man. I was born a man. I'm a male, like 100% like that's what I am. Like X-Y-Crumbs was on with that's me.

[00:10:38] So naturally as a man, I'm attracted to certain things. And one of the things that I'm attracted to as a man are certain things on females. There are certain things whenever I see them at attracts my eye.

[00:10:55] Whether it's the type of young lady that I'm interested or not, it attracted me. So I may be scrolling on my space and as I'm scrolling on my space, there may be a young lady who is dressed in a way that might be considered provocative.

[00:11:10] Because I'm naturally attracted to that. Now I couldn't do it on my space but what our young people can do now is they can like that picture. Right? Now that same picture that we liked or put a heart on, because of the algorithms now.

[00:11:26] All of my close friends shot up to John and shot it to D.I. Love you all God, love you. He wants to spend your turn to with you. They also see the same pictures that I just like and they can like it as well.

[00:11:38] Now so since they're like in these pictures, before you know what? There's young lady who may go to my school or may not go to my school, she has hundreds of likes.

[00:11:47] But now there's another young lady who might like me or she might like John or she might like D.

[00:11:54] And she sees that all of the pictures that I'm liking are of young ladies who look a certain way, who dress a certain way, who's body shape or a certain way. So what that bring is on is what we call body shaming.

[00:12:10] And that's not something that we really discuss in the church, you know what I mean? Because you know, we're fairly unwornfully made. We truly are, you know, but that doesn't change the fact that sometimes our young people struggle accepting the fact that they are beautiful inside out.

[00:12:29] And with social media, you can put yourself in, you can get yourself in a situation where you caught up in a spirit of comparison.

[00:12:37] She's prettier than I am. He's more handsome than I am. Why come? Why is he able to take his shirt off and show his ass, but I can't. I have a belly, you know?

[00:12:47] Not to, I mean since we're talking about social media already, like I said, there's an umbrella and I won't go into much more details for our Zaskan Surren, but you know, the pressures are during this pressures to smoke, the pressures to have sex.

[00:12:58] The pressures to do whatever the other young ladies are other young men are doing and saying, on social media, just to be able to get the likes. These are things that our young people struggle with that our church doesn't really address.

[00:13:13] And it may be because I'm going to get the church benefited down because on Sunday morning they feel like the most important thing to communicate to the mass is that Jesus does love you.

[00:13:24] He did that in the crossfall and he wants to spend a turn to you for with you. And that is extremely important, but our young people are not being able to be targeted with the specific things that they are struggling with.

[00:13:35] Well, well, okay, I was just like so tapped in when you were talking. That's good. So it sounds like there's a lot of insecurity, depression, all of those things that you talked about, that's what it leads to.

[00:13:53] And so they devalued their own self. I mean, I feel like that's the whole trick of the enemy anyway. And once you hit a certain place of depression and insecurity, that's when you do start devaluing yourself because you want to feel that worth that value.

[00:14:13] And instead of going to God to get it, we go everywhere else. Because there are a lot of young people we feel like because they're so young that they cannot be depressed and that's so natural.

[00:14:27] Like you could be 13 years old in depressed. You can be 15 years old in depressed. They feel like, oh, they're so young and you got your whole life ahead of you, but even with the social media and other things,

[00:14:38] it's so real, like there's so many young people that unfortunately and I'm not saying in the church, but just period. They are committing suicide. It's happening, like, it's not make believe. So that's one way that the enemy, what you write out, which was so good.

[00:15:00] He puts you in this. You got to compare yourself to other people and it really, it just, it weighs your spirit down.

[00:15:07] And you're almost like that generation right now, you're under pressure. Like if you don't have a Facebook, if you don't have a Twitter, if you don't have an Instagram, you're like nobody almost.

[00:15:18] In my right of body, like you're like a nobody. But when you get on there, it doesn't make you feel good. Now I will say this everybody that is posting all these wonderful pictures on Facebook and Instagram.

[00:15:30] A lot of those pictures are not even real. Everything is fabricated because they want to portray this image.

[00:15:36] Like they're living just this great life and I'm just living life like it's golden, my best life and it's not even real. Those, those people are someone the most depressed people on there. The ones that's posting all those pictures. So let me hear your thoughts on that.

[00:15:53] What are some of the ways we can help the young people get through depression if they're feeling just like not value. They're not worthy those kinds of things.

[00:16:06] So as you were talking, praise God. I did not come two tears, but tears ruined my eyes just thinking about that because these are real people. Yes. They have real lives and they have real feelings and they have real emotions. And I hope I don't get off topic.

[00:16:24] But they struggle with these things like depression and anxiety. And often they are told the same things that I was told, well you're not praying enough. You're not fast enough. You know what I mean?

[00:16:40] But reality is, you know, like 12 years old, they probably don't even know how to pray in the spirit. No window praying in the spirit or even understand what that means to pray in the spirit.

[00:16:51] Maybe parents listening right now. And those listening right now who have never been taught how to pray in the spirit. But just telling a young person, you don't pray enough or you don't fast enough to come to church. There immature brains, undeveloped brains would receive it differently.

[00:17:13] I'll liken it unto this. If you have been playing a specific sport for 20 years, you have experienced an understand certain things that the person on their first day of trials does not understand.

[00:17:27] And you'll receive it differently as well. Our young people are extremely intelligent, but sometimes when you place information in front of them in a certain way where they cannot fully understand their comprehension, they can cause them to act or react differently.

[00:17:43] And that is how social media actually control in their minds. What it's doing is, as I mentioned before, it's causing them to think that they must be a certain way. They must act the certain way.

[00:17:54] I promise you that the reason why social media is doing this is not necessarily because they have an alternative agenda although we know Satan is behind it, it's because of algorithms.

[00:18:06] They want to get followers, they want to get likes, they want to get the money. I guarantee you if we somehow made it so that what got the most likes and what got the most follows was everything that was positive and we began to stop liking everything that was negative and that was contrary to God's word.

[00:18:25] I guarantee you social media and social media influencers would be different. If I know I get paid to make a video that I make you look at it for 20 minutes because I'm pouring Cheerios into a bowl, I'm going to pour Cheerios into a bowl.

[00:18:37] Versus if I know that I'll get a million likes if I talk about the goodness of Jesus, that's exactly what I'm going to do whether I believe in it or not.

[00:18:45] One of the things that we can do and one of the things that I try to do is to combat that I know my young people on social media.

[00:18:52] I can't stop it, my son he gets into what we call it forever scroll. I'm sorry young people have this kind of cringe when I'm explaining what forever scroll is. So forever scroll you pick up your phone and you look at it and then you just start scrolling.

[00:19:07] And before you know what you've been looking at your phone for 10 minutes, doing absolutely nothing just scrolling. So my son who getting the forever scroll on YouTube shorts, you know, so I know he's going to be looking at that information.

[00:19:19] I know he's going to be watching these videos constantly. I pray in our hope that he's looking at good stuff, but you really can't control what the next video is that comes up on the device now this point.

[00:19:31] So the best thing that I can do is I try to put content out. You know, I try to post the positive videos.

[00:19:37] I see repost the positive videos. I see make my own videos as well and I send them to the young people because I'm their friends at the automatically come up on their timeline. I try to do that as much as I can.

[00:19:48] That is one thing we can do to combat depression. There's a whole lot more things that we can do. I don't know if I should go in the more detail. I can, though, you let me know MJ.

[00:20:00] All right, because I'm glad you said it because I did not say the main thing that we have to do that we need to do when a young person does come to you and they're talking about they are depressed. We have to pray.

[00:20:15] And we're not just praying God fix it. You know, as I've mentioned before, they may not know how to pray in the spirit. So since they don't know how to pray in the spirit, we have to intercede in the spirit for them.

[00:20:28] For those who may not understand the concept of intercession, literally, MJ while I'm on the stairmaster yesterday did a stairmaster for our woohoo to me, right? So I'm on the stairmaster and while I'm on the stairmaster, it's getting tiresome and I want to quit.

[00:20:46] But as I'm going, I'm literally thinking about my young people's names. I'm literally calling them out by name in the middle of the gym, praying about them in their specific situations that they have come to me with.

[00:21:00] That is how I can help them to overcome because I'm not with there. I'm not there with them all the time. I don't think that we're also going to try to equip our young people with the knowledge and the ability to be able to pray in the spirit.

[00:21:13] As they pray in the spirit for themselves, things can actually change as well.

[00:21:18] But we're not even going to get to the point where we can teach them how to pray in the spirit or we're not even going to get to the point where we're praying for them in the spirit about the specific things they are struggling with if we don't build that relationship.

[00:21:30] Now, if I have to build a relationship with my Savior to be able to talk to him and he's perfect. He knows everything. Why would I think that I don't have the ability to do this young person who as you mentioned before is always quiet. They stand off.

[00:21:47] They don't have anything to say to me even though they have everything going on through their minds. So if I have to build a relationship with him, that's the foundation there though. You know, I learned how to constantly try to talk to God all the time about everything.

[00:22:01] So now I know that when I come to this young person, I gotta keep trying. I gotta keep trying because not every time when you pray, you can answer back right then.

[00:22:10] Just like not every time when I'm trying to witness to my young people, I'm going to get to answer back right then.

[00:22:15] But if you continue to talk to the Lord, your persistent, like the persistent widow, if you continue to try to talk to the Lord, you will get an answer.

[00:22:25] It may not be the answer that you want, but you will get an answer and you'll know how to move forward. The same thing with these young people, if you continue to try to talk to them over and over, you may not get an answer when you want or you may not get the answer that you want, but you will get an answer so you can know how to continue moving forward.

[00:22:41] Once you know the information is you have, now you gotta know because now you can pray for whether they see you or not.

[00:22:48] I got young people now that haven't seen in two years, I'm still praying for them. I have young people, I told you I told you I told you I told you I haven't seen in over eight years, I still pray for them and they can't do a thing about it. I got them now.

[00:22:59] That's good. That is good. That whole building relationship thing. I don't think people think about that. I think it's important, that's very, very important. I think young people need to feel that you care. They need to feel it.

[00:23:21] Sometimes it's just little things. How are you doing in school? We take advantage of these young people, they get all these friends and stuff.

[00:23:33] Some of them don't really have people to talk to, confide in all of that. All of those things. Sometimes if it's just hey how you doing in school, how you're grades.

[00:23:45] What you doing in school, I got a game. I'm going to come and go again. Just those little things that can really boost a young person self-esteem that can make them feel like they have some kind of self-worth.

[00:23:57] Something like that. In addition to what you said because prayer is very important, it's very important. But sometimes just a conversation can go a long way.

[00:24:10] Some encourage me. If they're in your church and they're playing a musical instrument, compliment them. You sound really good. Keep up the good work. If they're ushering me and I saw you ushering today. Keep up the good work.

[00:24:21] Just some encouragement on what they are doing, build up that self-esteem that can really encourage young people to. Or if they see that you really care. What do you want to do? What do you like doing? I like reading. I like writing. I like doing this.

[00:24:37] I'm going to talk to the pastor and say we can get you to do something like this at the church. I'm going to talk to the pastor and say we can find it out what their gift is and really pushing them in their gift.

[00:24:49] It's said it's having them sit on the side that I can help them too. So it's so many ways. It's so many ways and I just feel like we have to be active and doing these things. We can't just talk about it.

[00:25:03] We have to do it. We have to do it. Good stuff. I want my favorite quotes is people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. I can know all the Bible stories that I want. Come on.

[00:25:21] I'm not trying to listen to what he has to say. He cares about me. Now he is someone who I trust. He is what you might call a trusted advisor.

[00:25:37] Now when he actually does speak, I actually can't listen to the thing about young people is whenever it's new information, the first person to present it usually becomes expert. I saw it on Twitter so I had to be true. My mama told me this.

[00:25:53] So until you read different to no different, oh my friend told me that. So do I want the world to teach these young people? Was writing was wrong or do I want to teach the young people about what's writing was wrong?

[00:26:07] The world, what are they using as that guideline? Trusting yourself. Be yourself. Trust your heart. Listen to your heart. What am I using as my guideline? And I'm a valuable written word that was here over 2,000 years ago and it still works today. Yes. So good.

[00:26:28] And I think I like what you said about how you post videos and stuff like that. I feel like more of us need to do that stuff. We need to bombard social media with our message. It's amazing. It's like okay. So we're the most popular.

[00:26:44] I guess whenever you look at the statistics and everything like that, Christian is the most common religion in the country or at least people you know, Professor whether they're practicing Christians or non-practicing Christians.

[00:26:55] So you have this many people that say that they believe these things why are we not seeing more post about it? Exactly. But you're right. We can bombard it. We can do it.

[00:27:05] I just, I don't know what's wrong as we are going to be scared. Don't be scared. Don't be scared. Okay. So loved what you said. But some of these parents, guardians, what have you? They just bring their young people to church and that's it. Is that enough?

[00:27:31] You quiet. You broke quiet over there. Is that enough to just bring you? Are we going to have a service for the young people? Okay. You just bring them to the service for the young people. But when they get home, there's nothing.

[00:27:44] It's just like we just bring them the sunny morning and that's it. We just bring them to whatever we have gone on and that's that enough. So I don't want to overshadow. I don't want to force say the assembly of the church.

[00:27:59] I don't want to make it seem as if it is not an extremely important thing for our parents to bring our young people to church Because in reality, people in my generation I follow y'all. You know what I mean? Yeah, I'm a friend. I party with y'all.

[00:28:16] You know what I mean? So I definitely know that the majority of my generation or at least that's the way it seems anyway. As far as my circle is concerned, and people can tell me if I'm wrong.

[00:28:28] But the majority of my generation is not going to church at the same rate that the previous generation I went to. I've been in the number of cohorts, a number of classes, a number of programs where we've done the statistics and we see it.

[00:28:42] Although church attendance is growing in the African American community overall. Millennials don't go to church the way they used to go to. So now if millennials are at the age where they're having children and they're not going to church, how the children suppose to be in church.

[00:28:57] You know what I mean? I'm supposed to be a youth men, and I'm supposed to be witnessing. Don't get me wrong. I witnessed out here on the streets, but how can I witness to my young people?

[00:29:06] If my young people are not there for me to witness to them? Wow. You know. So we definitely want to make sure that our young people are there present and account for whenever we're having events. Now is it enough just to come to church? No.

[00:29:23] It took me a long time. You remember I told you, I had you know, I grew up in the church all my life and I saw like different. If you think of not not looking glass, what is it? I can't even think of the terminology.

[00:29:39] You look inside and there's like a prison on the inside of it. There's a bunch of different colors, almost like a stained glass window if you will. That is the way I am able to look at Christianity now.

[00:29:53] As I was growing up, I saw being in the Presbyterian church rather than it wasn't so important that I could remember that I can do all things through Christ's strength as me.

[00:30:06] It was in Philippians and you know, it was a letter, you know, one of the letters, you know, the Paul wrote that wasn't as much as important as it was for me to feel in my heart. Don't give up. Don't quit.

[00:30:18] There was a message that was being sent. So I saw different things as I was in the, the different churches but you know to come back to the point is it enough.

[00:30:31] I was also able to see over the years that there are people regardless of the denomination and regardless of the race who had been in church all their lives. And they are like that sports player that I told you on their first day of triums.

[00:30:48] They've been playing the sport for 20 years but still are trying to figure out how to do the stretches. It's time to get in the game. Satan is not here trying to take our young people, we don't have time for that.

[00:31:01] So to say is it enough just to bring our young people to church? Is it enough just for our adults to come to church? No, no. We need you to serve in the church.

[00:31:12] We need you to work in the church but we need you to develop a true relationship with God. If our young people are not having a true relationship with God and what are they doing? That's it right there. That's it. I think that's it. That's it right there.

[00:31:28] And the young people they don't, I guess they're not really told like Jesus wants to have a relationship with you, not just you need to be safe. You need to go to church. You need to stop hanging out with your friends and come to church.

[00:31:46] Jesus actually loves you and he wants his own person. No relationship with you. Not me and you. He wants a relationship with you. They're not, you know, and I think sometimes it's hard for them to really perceive that because they look at salvation as a child.

[00:32:07] Just one big rule book and that's it. And not as, well I am loved. Like for me, like loved, like loved beyond my own comprehension and they're not taught to really tap into that love. They're taught to tap into, you can't go here. You can't do this.

[00:32:28] You can't do that. And so they feel like man I'm young. I want to have fun.

[00:32:33] But how can I have fun when I got to be in church all the time and how can I have fun where you, you know, they make salvation seem like it's just this big boring. You can't do anything instead of encouraging them to tap into the love.

[00:32:50] Man, man. Tap into the love that got and once you yields your life and you tap into that love, that's the best life you can have because God will be against it.

[00:33:02] I mean, I remember me, God started dealing with me when I was 15 and he would give me dreams and that's how he spoke to me. You know what I mean? So he'll speak to somebody else, maybe with music.

[00:33:19] He'll give them music, you know songs or he'll give this one there but God spoke to me through dreams and that is how I started to build my relationship with God through that. You give it and I'm saying so we is not like a one-size-fits-all.

[00:33:35] You really have to tap into the love and God will unfold, you know, his will for you. And that's where the peace and the joy and that's where all this stuff is.

[00:33:49] But you got to present it in the way to them that they were wanting and that is inviting. Not just, you can't do that, you can't do that. That's not inviting.

[00:33:59] That's not something that I want just to be locked up all day and you know what I'm saying? You know, the Bible is alive, it's alive and it has so much life in it.

[00:34:09] And once you tap into that, that you know your life will breed all of that. You know what I'm saying? I do. Yeah, so that's good. I think we want to say one other thing. My mom, we have a conversation the other day.

[00:34:27] Shout out to my mom, so go to G. I love her. She knows that. I don't say this much as I share, but I'm saying it now. Hey, Mom. My mother, she said to me the other day, she said Calvin. Have you fell in love with Jesus?

[00:34:41] I mean, she has never asked me that so that's where she's supposed to do. Of course I have, you know what I mean? And then we begin to have a deep conversation about that. We need our young people to fall in love with Jesus.

[00:34:58] Not just hey, I like him, not he's just cool when you're in love. You want to be with that person all the time. When you don't love, you're going to do whatever you can to be around that person.

[00:35:08] When you're in love with something that's trying to stop you from being with that person, you're going to do whatever you can to stop them from stopping you from being with that person. Or you are in love, you're talking about that person all the time.

[00:35:21] When you love it's clear that you're with that person and that that person is with you, not just to you and to that person, but to everyone who is around you because you are in love. I am people have to be in love with Jesus first.

[00:35:33] So now after you are in love with that person, if they want, if they're saying hey look, I need you to do certain things. If you love me, it ain't no problem because you and love with them already. You know what I mean?

[00:35:47] They put the stipulations on after you've already fell in love. You know what I mean? Been married to my wife now. So now the certain things that she says hey Calvin, I need you to do this. She didn't ask me to do these things before we were married.

[00:35:58] But now that we're married, hey I'm in love with this. So look, if I really do love her when she says Calvin, can you take this best close down stairs? Well I didn't want to or not, doesn't matter because a lot of girl knows too late.

[00:36:10] You know what I mean? So it's the same old with our young people. But I think a common misconception is that when you get saved, you have to stop living. There are so many things. I mean there's 50 states in our country. You know what I mean?

[00:36:23] And that's just one country. You know what I mean? We have seven continents. You know what I mean? We have an entire world, right? And there are so many different things that we can do. Do you think the one who created the Sun, the Moon, the Stars,

[00:36:35] the one who said let that be light and that be light? The one who actually created this Earth and created everything beautiful on this Earth. Say hey look, you can't do anything this stuff. You think you can make anything for us to do?

[00:36:46] There are so many things that we can do just as children of God that everybody else in the world gets to do too. That's only a few things when you think about it. When you number all things that we can do and we cannot do,

[00:36:59] it's really only a few things that we're not able to do and they have no comparison to the beautiful things that we are actually able to do. Travel out, get somewhere.

[00:37:08] If you strive and go to a vacation with your friends who love Christ and go do some other stuff in the world, there's a lot of things you can't do other than getting caught up in the same sins. They've been tricking people for the past 2000 years and plus.

[00:37:21] You're pretty good. And we could really go in like another two three hours just on that alone. But I will say this, the devil never shows you the aftermath of anything.

[00:37:32] So if you are on that side and you feel like you have an atomic alive and you get in high and you don't go into all the parties and stuff, it may feel good now but trust me, that stuff will catch up with you later.

[00:37:46] And the devil never shows you the aftermath. It is always a trick, it is always a trap, he's no one's friend. He's no one's friend. So it may feel like I said, may feel inviting now, like you living your life now but trust me,

[00:38:01] there is something attached to that that's going to bring total demise to your life. Total incomplete demise. All right, this is good stuff. Right, right, because you're not me, it's you. I'm listening. I hope you enjoyed part one of our interview with Minister Calvin Preston.

[00:38:22] Please subscribe because I don't want you to miss part two where we will continue our discussion about fighting for our youth. In the meantime, you can check out Minister Preston's info I left it in the show notes as well as our website links. Wow. Who knew?

[00:38:38] Biting for the youth. Would change my life.