Okay, hey friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology and the Raw. I have on the show today for the third time my friend BJ Thompson. Now I say my friend our friendship has been from a distance. We've been admirers of each other's work at least I've admired the voice of BJ Thompson for quite some time now.

And I think I hope you would say the same about me maybe not. But I BJ actually came out to Boise to be part of a film project called Christian sexuality conversations about Jesus, sex and gender. This is a comprehensive youth resource.

Well, I guess you can call the curriculum for youth in terms of giving them a comprehensive, compelling, beautiful vision of what it means to flourish as a sexual human living according to the creator's design.

We it's a it's a 12 week video based curriculum. You can check out more at centerforfaith.com and I had BJ come out. He's one of I mean a couple dozen different people who are part of this project. He is a life coach. He deals specifically with helping people have better marriages and more maturity as individuals.

And so BJ and I we we just it was during the filming we went into another room and I said, Hey, let's do a podcast. So actually a video recorded a conversation that I had with BJ.

We had no agenda. We didn't have any agenda of where to go. I just said, I'm just going to record and let's just start talking. So we start talking about church and that led to a conversation about why a good number of black millennials seem to be exiting the reformed.

Mostly white evangelical church. We we talked about that. They we talked about race relations in the church in America. It gets super raw. I just I'm not going to lie. I this is what I love about BJ. He doesn't do anything but raw.

So for and so you put two of us at a room together and disaster is going to happen. And that's what happens in this podcast. It's actually a great conversation. You're going to love it. If you want to check out the YouTube version of this, you can go to my YouTube channel.

And you can watch the video of us hanging out and chatting. But without further ado, for good or for ill, here's BJ and I talking mainly about race relations in America.

Oh, before we jump in, I need to let you know that this podcast was recorded a couple months ago. Okay. So this, I hope things haven't have things changed. Oh my gosh. This is so weird. Yeah. So if we reference, if it sounds like we're tone deaf to some catastrophe that has happened between the recording and the release of this episode, then that's what's going on. We're not tone deaf. It's just, yeah, recording a couple months ago. All right. Let's jump into our conversation.

Hi, hey, friends. I'm press the sprinkle and this is theology in the raw, the YouTube version. I'm here with a friend BJ Thompson. You're here live, man. This is the person who hung out person. That's crazy. Now you're a third time guest. This is your third time. We did to this is your third time.

This is like your biggest episode. Was it? It was what? I don't even know what we said. What we're talking about. I don't. It was something controversial. I don't know what we did talking about. It was good. That was good. Yeah, it was good. You're the first person to do three podcasts. This is now YouTube. That's great. They will be podcast. Hey, make sure you tell him to send my check. Tell us what you do. Tell us what you do. So my name is BJ Thompson. I'm a Dallas. They did not account boy. Hey, fan.

Heater services that executive director for organization called door to better us, which is all about growth and development. We create products, services and experiences that help grow people. Do coaching and transformation. So what kind of what kind of people are you coaching? I mean, all kinds of people. People. I mean, any aspect of coaching. So we do relationships. We work through hell. We have products for people who want to just do live coaching. Yeah, so we have just have the game. And so anything around code.

coaching and development. Yeah, that's what we do. So if someone wants that they want coaching, they contact. Build a better us.com. Click to get involved. Button. Click. Life coach. Find a coach that fits for you and your needs. The initial

constations for that. That's our open and commercial. All right. We don't need to do any ads on this. You also are a pastor. Yeah, sort of. Yeah,

something like that. Yeah. Well, it's written. It's right for us. Your pastoral ministry. Yeah. So I would say specific to my pastoral ministry. I am more of a faith leader, who was a catalyzer for faith communities. Right.

So that's more of my role is like, hey, we can create a community of people and develop it. But a lot of what I do is I share leadership. So I share a team's

structure just a whole night. I just ensure that a lot of times overall, we're going in the right direction. So yeah, no, you're the church. Your house church. Yeah, so tell us. So, so, so when some, when

a lot of people here, house church, yeah, they've got images in their mind of, I know in some cases, it's kind of like, ooh, that's weird. A bunch of weird people are what's going on there. You're not

weird. Are you anti institutional church? That's a bad way to put it. Okay, press. Well, okay, why would you plan specifically house church? Tell them, maybe tell us about your ecclesiological drive and passion. So I grew up in a missionary baptist church. I've always had value and appreciated that expression of faith.

Got to college was involved. Well, I was more so involved in a non-denominational slash reform kind of culture. And I think just being in that and then moving into a, you know, church planning network kind of culture. And in this

national community culture, I've seen a lot of expressions of how, you know, institutional church works. And at a certain point, you're supposed to grow up. You're supposed to be able to help leave important to others. You're supposed to be able to care and develop. And that's what I did. I grew up. Right. And so part of my growing up was saying, man, this doesn't fit me in a way that I can feel spiritually nourished.

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