Hello, hello, hello ladies and gents and welcome to this week's episode of the Bot and Beloved podcast. I'm so happy that you guys are joining me

whether you are subscribed to the podcast and you listen every Wednesday, whether someone sent this to you, whether you saw it on social media from me or my guest who will introduce you in a second. I'm so glad you're here. I really hope that with today's conversation, which you can see what the title is we're talking about, that you are left encouraged in your singleness and your dating life and God's truth in navigating this area of our lives. It's so important.

It's so real, it's so relevant and I'm just thankful that you guys decided to tune in here today and to get filled with truth and to be equipped. So without further ado, thank you. My name is Kirby Kelly. I have an amazing guest here with me today. My friend JP, JP, how about you introduce yourself who you are, what you do, what you're about. All those good things. So anyone who's listening can know a little bit about you and what we're going to be talking about today.

I love it Kirby. Thanks for having me on and I love the title bought and beloved and so so excited to be with you and just diving into God's word and God's truth and what he desires for us as it relates to relationships. And so as my friend said, my name is JP or Jonathan, precluded JP for short, and I was born in South Texas. I've lived the past 20 years in Dallas, Texas was involved with the church. They're called Watermark got to be a part of a ministry to young adults.

Millennials and Gen Z for the past, let's see, 12 years and then two years ago, I moved, our family was called to Waco, Texas to be a part of a church that has been in existence for 145 years out in a field outside of Waco.

And so we have a large college ministry here because of Baylor, Go Bears. And yeah, and so that's kind of that's our story in a nutshell, but just really passionate about the topic of, you know, helping young adults.

Thrive and understand God's word, his desires for their life. And then on the topic of relationship have recently been able to have the privilege of putting down some thoughts and a book called outdated subtitled find love that lasts when dating has changed where we just talk about, hey, what does it look like to date in a way that honors God in the 21st century. And so yeah, that's that's kind of been life lately.

That's so awesome. I didn't know that you were in Waco and you were serving with a church that that's that old, that's amazing. Yeah, so cool. But yeah, God is doing to work here.

I can tell I've so many friends that go to Baylor too. So odds are some of them are probably attending there and getting fed by you, which is funny because I feel like that's how I came across you on social media initially. I saw a bunch of my friends posting about this book, right?

This book called outdated and the little tagline for that is find love that lasts when dating has changed. And I saw everyone posting about it, everyone talking about it. And I was like, hold up. What is this? Like I got to check this out. And I remember looking into it and just the subject matter of it, looking at even your Instagram stories with just how you were addressing even really tough questions and relevant questions and real questions about not just real life.

And other things, but also dating. I knew I had to get you on the podcast because not only is that just relevant, but I feel like with my audience, something that I get requested about or comments about or questions about whether it's for the podcaster, other social media outlets, it's about dating because the Bible, you know, it's like, what does scripture say about dating? Well, like you said, it's a very modern concept. So how do we navigate that with the truth of scripture that we do have today?

So I guess, you know, I want to start off by saying what inspired you to write this book because I'm just curious as to, you know, was there a specific moment or a conversation or just a pattern that you've seen where you're like, okay, I got to put the pen to paper and pour some truth into these young adults.

Yeah, so in the intro of the book, I'll talk about how when I was a part of the beginning of the porch, there was about 100 to 150 people coming 150 on a really good night.

And I watched that grow to, you know, 4,000 young adults there in Dallas, but then 18 campuses around the country and so 50,000 to 100,000 young adults kind of watching tuning in every week.

And the series that would captivate the audience the most was always around relationships. And I'm a simple guy. I just teach the Bible. Like I get up, I read the scriptures, I explain the scriptures.

And as you pointed out, Kirby, the Bible doesn't say anything about dating, but it does say that God is love. He's the author of love.

He's the inventor of marriage. He made us male and female. He designed our bodies and the way that they work. He is designed our emotional quotients and the way that we feel those are all his brilliant ideas.

And so he has a lot of scriptures around the topic of relationships. And so I began to collect those scriptures over time as I would teach on this topic year after year after year.

And then I had this front row seat for, you know, tens of thousands of relationships. I saw people boys and girls get together, break up, heard each other. I saw boys and girls get together, get married.

I got to do or officiate some of those weddings over time. And so you just start writing down patterns. And I want to be helpful. That's why I got an ministry. And so it's like, oh, when people do this, it goes really well for them. When they do this, it doesn't go so well.

And so much of the this that doesn't go well is just the normal way that the world dates, like the number one place that most people take dating or get received dating advice is from Hollywood, from media, from movies, from romantic comedies, from sitcoms, from songs, like this informs the way that we think about love.

And yet Hollywood has the highest divorce rate of anywhere, just about anywhere on the planet earth. And yet they get to be the teachers of how to do the thing that they're not very good at.

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