Shaping Young People for a Fantastic Future (with Dr. Mark Jobe, President, Moody Bible Institute)

Brad:
Hey friends, this is Brad and we are so excited for this episode of Go Mad with Doug and Brad. A couple of weeks ago at NRB, we got to sit down with the president of Moody Bible Institute. Mark Job.

We're gonna hear some about his experience as a missionary kid over in Spain. We get to hear his thoughts on the importance of a Christian college education. And we spend time talking about what he sees are the trends in this next generation, both the positive and the challenges.

And that's something we all need to be listening to because we can make a difference with those who are coming after us. So make sure you stay locked in and tuned in for this episode of Go Mad.

Jesse:
What's up y'all? Jesse here, producer for Go Mad If you don't know today's guest, Mark Joe, well hopefully you'll get to know him after the episode. You can check out his podcast, Bold Steps, or check out his most recent book, What Now?

How to move into your next season. Links are provided in the description. As the president of Moody Bible Institute and as founding pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago, Mark has a unique vantage point of the next generation.

And he provides us with a ton of insight concerning our ambassadorship. If you're ready to make a difference, then let's go mad.

Brad:
Well, welcome back to Go Mad with Doug and Brad. We are having another amazing interview here Here at NRB and this time we get to sit down with Dr. Mark Job from Moody Bible Institute. Mark, welcome to the show.

Can we call you Mark? I like that. See I don't think I'd get the R right.

I never did in Spanish.

Doug:
But resident of Moody.

Brad:
President Moody Bible Institute, along with that, pastor. He is an author. He has written a book called Bold Steps. He has a radio program called Bold Steps. Yeah And uh before we dive into talking to you a little bit about just life at Moody, what you're seeing in young people nowadays, can you just share with our listeners a little bit of your Hope story because you grew up uh with parents that were make a difference people.

Mark:
Yeah, absolutely. So when I was six months old my parents responded to the call of God. They left this country Uh went to language school in Costa Rica.

Then we ended up in Chile where my father would ride a horse called Trompo. Up to the mountains because you couldn't get there by car and so he would go up there to do Bible studies in these little shacks in Chile. Felt like there was the gospel is exploding and Chile wanted to go to more unreached areas.

So when I was six, they m he he took a motorcycle, drove around Spain to find an unevangelized city, the most unevangelized city. It was a city of 140,000 people with no Protestant evangelical church. And there he started, my parents started a church in a horse stable.

Secret police would come in, our windows were broken, doors burned, he was taken into the secret police and interrogated multiple times. But now there are many churches, probably thousands of believers in that city, and he's buried. in a cemetery right outside of that town that he labored to share the good news of Jesus with.

Brad:
Wow, praise God.

Mark:
Yeah, I understand great haired. And my mother's 85, she still lives in Spain

Brad:
Wow, that is fantastic. So do you miss the food is the question.

Mark:
Oh I miss the food. But you know, we I visit her. She doesn't come to the States very often, so every summer we try I'll be visiting her in June.

Brad:
Well I have to tell you that you as we have kind of seen uh you took the ranger. Moody grad yourself, got your masters from there too, right? Yes.

And then all of a sudden Moody is searching for their new president And I'm not sure if people would have considered you a wild card or not, or if they but but I have to tell you as we've watched from a distance and as we've met you there a couple of times The difference you are making there is palpable. I mean you see it in the students, you see it in the staff, and they have caught your vision and your passion and some of your pastors' heart uh for the school there. Let me ask this.

How did you wind up there? I mean the uh from from overseas and your parents and everything else to going to school there, how'd you wind up there?

Mark:
So I I came to Moody when I was seventeen uh and just to do a year of Bible, I thought before I went to med school, God got a hold of my heart. I ended up pastoring, starting a little inner city church in the southwest side of Chicago with 18 people when I was twenty-one. And um anyways, that little uh church this past Easter we ministered to twelve thousand people over the weekend.

So the church has grown a lot. There's 27 locations in four languages, English, Spanish, Mandarin, and now Kachi. We do services.

We have 35 pastors, started a non-for-profit. We have 100 people on staff there working with At-Risk Youth in the city of Chicago. So I was really engaged, loving what I'm doing, and Moody called.

And I I tell you I have to be honest with you. I thought I love Moody, but I I don't see myself a present type at Moody. And so I kept telling them, uh no, I think you're wasting your time, but my wife said you need to pray.

Anyways, after four months of praying, fasting, thinking through They basically said, hey, the board, the search team unanimous has voted for you to be the president.

Doug:
No pressure

Mark:
And so I still remember I said to them, okay, so I c if I can still be involved in ministry. While I'm a president, I'll say yes if I can still be involved. If I can't, then my answer is no. So I don't know if you've ever had a pa uh president that was still engaged in pastoral type ministry.

And so To their credit, they said if you have the bandwidth, you can do it. So I'm a president of Moody, but on the weekends every other week I preach. On the weekends I can Be given an altar call with uh my arm around up a a tatted up uh gang affiliated member weeping, giving their life to Christ, and during the week I can be in a theology class discussing the finer points of Calvinism.

Doug:
So um it's uh it's a great it's a great world to be in.

Brad:
I'll tell you uh Doug and I should confess real quick that we went to Wheaton, so I apologize.

Doug:
I was gonna ask my daughter Noelle had just finished her third uh semester at Wheaton. She was very close to coming into Moody. There are never any rumbles between Wheaton and Moody students or anything like that.

Mark:
You know, if I I had uh Dr. Riken Yeah, I've come and preach in chapel recently. So him and I are friends. I was sure.

I knew him before Wheaton, but he was one of the first college presidents to sat down and and I had coffee with him just after I was appointed president. And I said, Hey Talk to me about being president of a college because I've never been one. So wow.

And so he's he's a he's a friend.

Doug:
I want to share just for a moment here, you might know uh Mark Job as the president of Moody and as a speaker. We want to share just a little bit about his heart. Brad, you want to share what uh I do.

I've got a a heart for Native America if you know our Our ministry, our podcast, we love Native Americans. They are just warriors for Jesus. We've seen we're seeing amazing things happen.

as they get sold out for Christ and and going back to their communities and being an amazing light where it is so needed. And uh we just had a uh Something very cool happened along those lines. Uh Brad, why don't you share that?

Brad:
We did then this book volumes to your pastor's heart and your heart for the world because the reality is is that Native Americans are definitely underrepresented, especially at Bible schools, Christian colleges, and that's changing a little bit, a little at a time. But we have an amazing student, Caitlin, who is at Moody in her home stretch there. And she wanted to be able to share more with the student body about her people.

And so she had an evening forum and then she calls us and she was so excited and she's like We have a chapel. And I'm like, you mean like a side chapel or something? And she said, no, we have a chapel.

Dr. Job has given his chapel, the presence chapel. Two native voices. And so we went up there with so we couldn't miss this.

We hopped right in the car with our dad and with these native students and it was awesome because Ron Hutchcraft, a Moody alum. He's a lum of the year years ago and everything. He's on radio.

It wasn't him on the stage. Yeah. It was Caitlin.

It was Sarah and Seth who worked with us leading worship and speaking. And you don't get that usually. Your heart showed through huge there that you were just like, yeah.

Take it away and we so appreciate that.

Mark:
And they did such a phenomenal job and captured very well the the heart communicated great to the student body and the student body was exuberant over their presentation, just a lot of affirmation.

Doug:
So what a great day, yeah. You know, and and some more fruit that came from that. My daughter Noelle, I'm married to an Ava woman uh the most gorgeous Navajo in history.

You can look it up. Um and and she um our daughter Noelle has a heart for the same thing just to help God's people know what's going on in Native America. She was so inspired by her friend Caitlin doing that because it takes a lot of guts.

Caitlin is not someone who loves being in front of people. Neither is my daughter. But that led her to say yes to an invitation at Wheaton to do a symposium that a few hundred people came to about what's going on in Native America, brought some Native American friends, I believe and Caitlin was there.

And so that also happened at Wheaton because uh because of your willingness to open that up. Um so speaking of Noelle, yes, um, Gen Z. Um I've gotta hear if you've got any observations. I'm sure you do spending lots of time around this generation.

What are some words that might describe what you are seeing in uh this generation of young Christians? The reason I'm looking at my phone is because I I asked dad, I was like, if you had one question To ask Mark on a podcast, what would it be? And he said, This is what I would love to hear.

So I'm quoting him here. What encourages you, what concerns you? About this generation and what advice might you give to Christian parents who are shaping the life of Gen Z softball question right there.

Mark:
And to Generation Alpha, who is the the generation after them as well. So I Like most older generations, I I feel like I hear a lot of people bemoaning the state of our youth. Yeah.

And and I've I've seen them sort of um wilt in front of people that talk about what they see wrong with our youth. But let me say I have uh a 24-year-old son myself, um, ministered to a lot of young people. So let me talk about, first of all, what amazing things I see among them.

I see a generation That is um passionate when when God captures the heart that's passionate about God I see a generation that's unafraid to worship God lavishly, more than the generation that I come from. I like that less reserved and more lavish in their worship. I see a generation that is driven by causes that are important.

Um I see a generation that um desires justice to happen and I think that's something that comes from a a God uh a a God focus. Yes. I see a generation that values family more than previous generations.

A generation that is willing to work for um purpose in life and has a less emphasis on money than previous generations. In other words, they'll take a l less paying job if they feel like it's more related to a cause that has significance. I see a generation that's very much more relational oriented that values relations more than previous generations do did.

And I think every generation Wants authenticity, but this generation especially desires authenticity. So those are some of the things that encourage me. Um uh these uh students that are studying and just willing to they want to make sure their life counts for something.

That's good. And those that are captured by God, they just want to make a difference Um and I think every generation has wanted that, but I see it more in this generation than I think previous generations that are looking more for security and significance. Some of the challenges that this generation faces, this generation has been raised with a Strong um onslaught of pluralism, which means that they have been taught since they were little kids that everybody's ideas should be accepted as equal, that there's really no truth.

It's truth is uh no absolute truth. Truth is what it means to you. And so They have been soaked in this idea that to take your truth and elevate it over someone else's truth is just wrong.

And so Um there's a little bit of um this uh sometimes n not a certainty about what truth is. Truth is very personal to people, right? Which causes a lot of confusion They've been raised in a generation where um this the whole topic of human sexuality and gender fluidity and just very confused.

So they've been raising a generation that says you need to try to respect everybody, whatever they think, however they define themselves. And so to try to define it more clearly is insulting or or or or it's bigotry. So so there uh uh more ambiguous about sexuality, even Christian youth.

They they've been raised in in culture where there's not clear teaching about it. Um there also because I think um they've been taught that uh everybody's truth is valid, sometimes they're uh more reluctant about evangelism because you know they they did a Barna did a survey among millennials um not not Gen Z or Alpha but millennials that attend evangelical churches and ask, is it wrong to share your faith with someone else that has different beliefs in order to convert them.

Doug:
Yeah.

Mark:
And they 70% believe that it was wrong.

Doug:
Scary.

Mark:
What's wrong? Evangelism. Yes.

They believe that evangelism is wrong. These are evangelical millennials going to church. Right.

Um that Uh so because they've been so soaked in a culture of respecting everybody's ideas as equal. Not just I respect you as a person, even you have different ideas. I have to validate your truth.

And I have to celebrate whatever you believe because if not I'm it's demeaning to you. That's what the culture has taught this generation. I think the other thing that I've observed about this generation is that Um especially coming out of the pandemic, the escalation of anxiety That's the right thing.

Loneliness, suicidal ideation. That combined with an over dependency on uh these devices. Since 2012 uh sociologists have studied a precipitous uh increase in uh anxiety uh loneliness, depression, especially among the college age and and in particular women, but not exclusively women.

And the only difference that they can tell is that this is 2012 is around when these smartphones became common to everybody. Uh-huh. And so we are hyper connected but very uh disconnected.

Yes. And so that has some effects on uh on on people's emotional well being as well So those are some of the challenges that just generation is facing as well as some of the beauty that this generation has as well.

Doug:
You know, as a parent of um several of these I can tell you that They are also listening. You mentioned earlier about how young people this age will wilt when they hear how they are being described by folks Around our age. Yeah.

And they're listening and they know how they feel about them. Yeah. And and it's a little self fulfilling prophecy that happens.

Well if that's what you believe about maybe maybe that's how valuable I am. So thank you for sharing the amazing strengths. Yeah.

That of this generation. Thank you.

Mark:
Yeah, they have some they have some great challenges, but I try try to tell our students on a regular basis, man I see your heart, your passion, and some of the things that I see in you give me a lot of encouragement for this next generation.

Brad:
Well I think that that is so key because When as you were saying, Doug, it's kind of that confirmation bias they talk about that as you you're gonna see p things the way that you have been told and everything else and for them to have people pouring into their lives and it Starts from the top down. You're setting a tone where from the top down you are saying, you know what, you are valuable.

Mark:
Yeah.

Brad:
What people have told you isn't where you have to settle. kind of brings up for us the importance then of being in the right environment and right setting for further education. Yeah.

So what would you say to the parent or student that might be listening to this the that is saying, you know what, I can go anywhere for school. I I can do whatever because there's so many choices out there as president of Moody Bible Institute, but more importantly, as a dad who has had Someone make a choice of what school to go to. What would you say is the importance of that that environment and where you go to learn?

Mark:
Yeah. Absolutely. So l let me say this.

Obviously I'm the president of a Bible college and the importance of sound Theology, a biblical worldview cannot be overestimated. Now having said that, I also had a son that went to a secular university. And um and I have a d daughter that went to a Christian liberal arts college, not a Bible college.

So we've experienced but here's what I would say. I would say number one, I think that if if you have a Christian son or daughter I I told my son, who I knew was thinking about uh secular university, I said, if you're gonna go there I want you to do a gap year first. Um so I would strongly encourage you if you have a teenage son or daughter and they're gonna go to a secular university.

You need to make sure that they're solidified in their faith and strong enough because there will be a lot of temptation. Christian schools or non-Christian But m a lot of non Christian schools, I mean, a lot of people know this, they're just party ho houses right and there's a lot of peer pressure. So uh my son went to he took a gap year because in high school I'd already started to tell him you need to take a gap year, you need to take a gap year.

So he actually went on a missions trip and he was in Australia for a training, then he went to Mozambique and he went to Nepal. So he was six months doing mission. He uh living in community, doing Christian mission type work, and so God really got a hold of him.

So when he went to go to a Christian college, he uh or uh secular college, he looked for to see if there was like a Christian dorm or some Christians. So he connected with that, jumped into a campus crusade and other type ministries like that. So I would strongly encourage if they're gonna go to a secular college that they be grounded, that they be trained.

Um there's a power to a Christian college because uh first of all And this may seem very uh simple, but uh a lot of times people meet people in college that they marry. Hello. That's true.

And uh you know there's a lot more Christians at a Christian college that share your values and worldview. The other thing is that A lot of college students are developing just their understanding of the world. And so if in their science classes and biology classes and philosophy classes and political science classes If they are bombarded by people that r they respect with a secular world view, you have to be pretty strong to resist that.

That's true. And if not, it's easy to get enculturated by by uh the the society around us. So I'm not advocating that every kid has to go to a Christian college, but I'm saying that you better make sure that Your sons and daughters are grounded in their faith, connected to a body, uh intellectually understanding what they're going to be taught and how to discern it if they go to a place that's not a Christian college I I I do think that there's a a powerful place for places like Moody Bible Institute, for example, that every single professor is no matter what subject they're teaching, they're gonna teach it from a uh Christian world view.

Um there's chapels There's spiritual life development. There's people that are praying. And I think there's something powerful about that for their grounding, for their instruction, especially in those formational years.

Brad:
Mark, you're uh insight on the generations of Gen Z and Alpha and just helping parents have some practical things to consider when helping nudge their Children, whatever decision, I'm trying to make the decision for them. This is bite-sized digestible info. So thank you for the way you're sharing.

Doug:
I've never heard it put better. Thank you. You're helping a lot of parents who are trying to get this figured out.

Yeah. Um, so you uh uh you use the word enculturated. That's It's one of the coolest words I've ever heard.

I don't think I've ever used it myself. It's a president level, you have to. I'm gonna Google it later, figure out what it means, and then I'm gonna start using.

Oh, great word. Um I think we have time for one more question. Um Such rich missions history at Moody, at Wheaton, uh to college is known for.

What are you seeing? What's happening? We we're so aware of the Great missionary stories from the fifties and in the past.

What's happening now?

Mark:
Yeah So yeah, at one time I'm told that one out of every ten missionaries in the world was a graduate from the Moody Bible Institute. Wow. Wow.

So believe that. And and you know, I hear stories like This is a little side note, but I think it tells you the power of this. The first year that I was a president at Moody, there was a delegation from Korea that wanted to meet with me.

And I'm like Okay. I was so busy I could I barely listened to why do they want to meet? I said, sure, let's have lunch.

And so there was a delegation from Korea. And they said we're tracing our denomination's birthing place. Wow.

Turns out that in 1890 something A Japanese man by the name of Juji Nakata came to study at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. God got a hold of him, this evangelistic fervor, went back to Japan and wanted to evangelize door to door to door to door. Every Japanese on the whole island that became his thing, inspired by his time at Moody Bible Institute.

He started the um Tokyo Bible School. Some people from Korea, students, two students from Korea came over. They were so encouraged, touched by the zeal that they went back to Seoul.

And now there was There's I don't know it was like a a thousand churches and almost a million people a part of this denomination that started by a student that I'd never even heard of, Juju Nikata and the ripple effects. And that's the power of One person going out with zeal, the repercussions of that. And I think mission still works that way.

Now, I think the change in mission is this. Is that we still have countries that are unreached, but we have more natives now uh indigenous people now in those countries. And so I think mission is shifted somewhat to how do we empower the indigenous people to reach their areas, their communities.

And so n now there's still a place for uh American missiones to go to some places and and be out there to support and help. But I think the the focus of missions is much more on how do we empower indigenous leaders to reach their area? How do we come along and support and empower them?

And so I think that's a little bit of the shift. I think the other thing is that especially in closed countries, we have people that are going in as as professionals, workers. And they can't enter into these countries just as missionaries.

And so they have to go in in like that, but they need Bible training. So what I find is that a lot of the um Students at Moody that are going towards missions have a little bit that's a new focus, maybe that 50 years ago, 40 years ago wasn't there. That is how do we come alongside Indigenous leadership and help them and empower them and support them in them reaching their countries, their people, and how do we raise and give opportunities to indigenous leadership?

Doug:
That's Moody.

Brad:
It is, and Moody is doing that, as I've seen on social media recently. You're empowering indigenous leaders around the world. And as we said at the beginning Indigenous leaders in Native America and we are so grateful for that.

Mark, thank you so much for taking this time with us. I think we even Took a couple extra minutes from you. So thank you because to hear your heart, I'm sure will be a blessing to our listeners.

Doug, would you pray for Mark and Moody?

Doug:
Uh Mark, tell us how we can specifically pray for Moody and for you.

Mark:
Yeah, so I would say uh first of all, Moody is a conservative ministry in the heart of a very secular city. We're in the heart of the A secular state and a very, very secular city. So you can imagine there's a big uh target on us from the outside.

And so pray I I always pray Protection. I have a limited amount of energy and I don't want to fight I don't want to spend my all my energy fighting off battles. I want to put it into the mission.

So I say God you need to protect us because there's a lot of people around us They don't necessarily like what we stand for, like our values. And so pray for protection. Okay.

And um, you know, every student that comes to Moody They pay their uh room and board, but it costs us thirty-three thousand dollars a year to train a student. They pay fourteen. We raise the rest, so it's by donors.

So every year I we believe God for the resources to come in because we basically supplement um half of what it costs to uh uh uh train a student through outside donations. So protection and provision are two things that I continually pray for.

Doug:
Well let's pray together. Uh Emil and Father, uh first we just I thank you for how good you are. We see it all around us.

We see it in our families, in your provision for us. Thank you for the cross, the resurrection, for the promise of heaven. Lord, you know my heart, you know how honored I am.

Uh that um you'd uh allow us to spend some time with uh Dr. Joe Beerlord. Thank you so much. Um Lord, we we just want to pray that whatever wisdom has has come across here today, that it would permeate, penetrate the hearts of those that hear it You would give wisdom to parents that are trying to best help their kids make a decision about where to go, what to do with their lives.

Lord, we do pray for protection for the students at Moody for Mark and his family. Lord, pray your great blessings. um your anointing on Mark is teaching, his leadership.

And we pray it, Lord, it is such an amazing thing how Moody has for so long made it so possible for so many to go and be trained in the word of God and go become leaders for you and and a light. uh in this world by charging so much less than other colleges um and make it so available but we know it's not free for them. So we pray you would put Moody on the hearts of your people as they decide where to give and how to pray, who to pray for.

We um pray for an even greater and a richer history uh for Moody as far as uh sending out those Students into the world that is so desperate for you. Thank you for this time together today. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen.

Brad:
Make sure you check out Bold Steps with Mark Job. It's a great program. You'll be glad you did. And until next time, go mad.