Change The Way You Think: A Conversation with Louie Giglio, Craig Groeschel, and Jennie Allen

[Music] hey everybody it's pastor louis giglio and i'm so excited that you are joining us today for this amazing conversation the idea today is that god wants you to know that you can actually change the way you think obviously uh me and my guest today are going to lean very heavily on the reality that god gives us the power to change the way we think but the end result is this that you're not stuck with the negative depressive anxious worrying toxic bitter thoughts that are rooted in your mind god is giving you the power to actually change the way you think so welcome to the conversation i have two amazing friends uh joining today and honestly neither one of them need an introduction jenny allen just led the if gathering a few weeks or so ago and i'm guessing there were millions of people linked together around the globe at this event not just women because we're in a virtual world now so guys can sneak in to the ift gathering but she's an amazing leader incredible author new york times best-selling author her book that we're going to talk about today a lot is get out of your head which i'm thinking a lot of you've seen or heard of or read and then of course craig rochelle is the leader of leaders and i'm so honored to have you on today craig his book that came out just in february is called winning the war in your mind and this came out of a series i think that you did at church a few years ago around anxiety but craig is the leader of the largest church in america that church gave birth to the youversion app that almost all of us probably used on our phone at some point today and in addition to that he is the current champion of the global leadership summit and a stunning author and just an incredible person so welcome craig welcome jenny i'm so glad you guys are part of this conversation today and i know people have linked in because they really want to hear how can i change my mind i'm in a pit of depression a spiral of anxiety i've got all this negativity going on in my mind and here's the thing that blew me away jenny in your book you actually say i've got little tabs on the pages i was going to read it in your own words but you say for an 18-month period you were in a hole and you were you were questioning everything in fact you say right here in your book that you got to the point where you were asking the question is god real and i'm like what this jenny allen wrote this this is jenny allen's book jenny allen is asking the question is god real and i just i think that's gutsy and i respect you for writing what really happened and then craig i'm reading your book and you talk about a time in 2019 where you were in the hardest season of your life and such that it actually encouraged you at some point to reach out to a counselor and i'm like craig rochelle wrote this craig rochelle's talking to somebody and people know my knows me knows i had a big mental collapse about a decade about a decade ago and didn't think i was ever going to come out of that hole again and when i was in that place i tell people this and they kind of say oh that sounds nice but i'm saying no no i'm not just telling a story i really thought i was losing my mind for a season of life i thought i'm going totally crazy and i'm not going to ever come back again and you guys have been in that place so let's just start today by talking about that place and talking about how god let us out well i love that you're starting here louie because i feel a little bit like i got invited to the cool kids club so i i appreciate that as leaders that are leading beautiful movements of god we're being candid about this because so many people feel alone and i would say in that season of 18 months where i was questioning my faith i definitely felt alone i think it was strategic of the enemy that i did feel alone so i was sitting every night 3 a.m i was waking up in the night and i was wrestling with questions like is this real does it fade to black there weren't other options i didn't feel like it was other religions i feel like christianity was it if there was a god but this humanistic you know approach to life was creeping into my mind and and so i walked through that season for 18 months and i end up having a pretty intense anxiety battle with death and everyone's to make it a little lighter here i i actually realized how bad it had gotten when i was watching a marvel movie and i'm sorry if i'm about to ruin this for you guys because if you haven't seen it it's been out for years so shame on you because i love marvel and you should have watched all of those um but i'm watching the second to last um part of the series and and what happens in that is a lot of the superheroes they turn into dust and they evaporate well i i had to leave the theater i had such a strong reaction to watching spider-man evaporate and it was this feeling of this is just what happens like we live we die and it's not going to matter and and when i had this strong reaction my husband said what is going on with you and and i started to notice that i had really gotten into this place of doubt that was taking a toll on on everything in my life and so i finally admitted it to one of my good friends um and boss camp some of you all know her and and we were in uganda and she looked at me and grabbed me by the arms and said you do have faith you have been under spiritual attack and i i start laughing i'm like obviously i was under spiritual attack for 18 months but it never occurred to me it never occurred to me and that is mind-blowing to me that i sat alone in the dark with the devil for 18 months and really let him say whatever he wanted to me and and that eroded my faith over time so i mean i'm coming into this conversation with really just a zealous heart and i'm so grateful for both of you men who have the same heart where we fight for people because it's not okay first of all nobody that's feeling anything is alone we're all spiraling universally right now right covet proved it we're all universally a bit anxious and so i get excited that this really could be a turning point hopefully in the church where we start bringing people in and just like i said to anne this is where i've been hopefully this will be a catalyst for a lot of people to to bring other people into this struggle yeah and craig you've experienced that because i know when i began talking about battling with depression and anxiety it was like a floodgate opened around me of people saying hey i can't believe you're saying that out loud in front of people and b thank you because i'm in that struggle and i was clueless a decade ago as to what people were up against and how dark it really was and when i fell into that hole of depression and anxiety i didn't think i was coming out of it but when i did start coming out of it i started understanding how many more people were in it and i know you hear people say that all the time thank you for being honest about your anxiety yeah i want to just say also thank you to both of you uh louis your transparency and your book i'm so glad it's coming out and so glad that that you wrote it it's um you you just you go to a place that a lot of people wouldn't go to and i think it's going to help so many people and jenny i can't remember the exact time frame but i was writing winning the war in your mind and yours was out and somehow i got it i read the first chapter and i just put it away like i am not going to read this it's so good i'll end up copying it and so i waited until i was finished writing the manuscript to go ahead and back and read your book and your story is it's it's it's just so honest and it's so incredibly helpful and so to since we're all fellow strugglers a little bit of my story uh it snuck up on me in in 2019 i uh like i think i've now learned it happens to a lot of people but i just um was going going going way way way too hard for way too long and my body kind of shut down what was odd is there was um about a two week period on the back side of it i looked back and i almost didn't remember anything that happened during that time i just had almost no memory whatsoever and i realized i was kind of in i was in a real place of trouble so i called around got some referrals and found a performance psychologist he's in a different state and he works with people that need a lot of help and so i just kind of submitted myself to his care and what was interesting is the first place he started to go even though physically i was a wreck he wasn't treating me physically he was he started treating me mentally uh and really looking at where my wrong thoughts um and lies that i'd believed for for years led me into a productive and outwardly productive lifestyle but an inwardly destructive one meaning my thoughts could lead to good production but they were destroying me and so we really got into is kind of you know painful all the stuff of the past but digging up where do i have root beliefs in my mind that are that are lives of the enemy they're inconsistent with god's truth and even if they bring about a good result the result is compromised because it's it's not a god-honoring belief producing that and uh it's so it's been a process i still work with them today and um in in my mind if there's anybody who says you know why would you know leader like louis or jenny or craig why why would someone like you work with a counselor i would say it's wise for anybody if you're an athlete you get coaching if you're you know in entertainment you go to classes and if you're in life why not get wisdom from people that are wiser than us to help us grow spiritually especially when it comes to retraining our minds toward truth yeah absolutely and we might have time for a question or two today so if you want to put a question in the chat not sure if we can get to a lot of questions but we might can get to one or two and i also want to let you know that we're trying to resource you today so i have a new book coming out next tuesday it's called don't give the enemy a seat at your table this book along with craig's book these are all such great resources and you know i held him up on this little video that i did yesterday and not knowing that we were all coming down this road and i just went i think god's trying to say something to people and i think that it's time for us to let him help us win this battle of our minds and so right now if you've got two devices or after this conversation ends in about an hour from now we're offering for two hours all three of these resources for 25 dollars so that means it's costing us i think for to get you these books so we're not here trying to sell you something we're trying to resource you with something passionresources.com all three of these books for two hours for twenty five dollars and they're running a special on this book with the hashtag no seat so you you'll find that also on there uh for ten dollars but jenny you said it and i wanna go back to this moment um about a decade ago uh shelly and i'd come through a hard season this wasn't my pit of depression and anxiety it was sort of some fruit of just planting a church and the struggle of what that means and we'd come through a long season and some things have been said some things have been done and you know you never forget those little things and you want to be vindicated but you don't want to defend yourself and some months had passed and something happened that in a way vindicated us and i got some news and i was like i gotta share this with somebody because when you get news like that you do not keep it to yourself you want to commiserate with somebody and so i reached out to a friend who'd walked through this whole thing with us send them this long text i'm in the older demographic here today took me a minute to compose the text i send them the text i'm waiting at the top of our driveway i'll never forget it to get the reply and i just wanted hey that's great i'm so glad it all resolved and it all worked out and look you know all these things kind of come out in the wash and that's what i was looking for and when the text came back it was nine words and jenny you mentioned this just a minute ago and the nine word text i got back was the title of this book so i can't even take credit for the title the text said don't give the enemy a seat at your table and i froze and i realized that for the last season of life i had let the enemy just pull up a chair in my mind and i'd been talking to a killer to my adversary i'd been carrying on a conversation with him so jenny talk about that talk about when you realize who it is that's behind this process and what what's the first step when that happens louie when i saw the title of your book i thought yes like this is the problem and and it's specifically let's look at second corinthians 10 because this is what paul says about it this is the passage where take every thought captive is found in the bible but a few lines up from that he's talking about this war that we have in our mind and it says verse 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh and we're not fighting a fleshly war now medicine counseling all three of us have have thankfully you know experience with that and we're not part of the church that says hey just trust god and and believe that you can be healed you know there's this sense of these are tools that god's given right but what paul's really clear about and i think we're actually we have more room to grow now because i think counseling and medicine largely is more accepted now we have more room to grow in the fact that this is a spiritual battle and that we don't realize there is an enemy and he is after us and what a profound place to get us then i mean it's private he can say whatever he wants i love your imagery of table he just comes on in and and honestly for those 18 months i didn't even fight back and yet jesus is so clear in john 8 he describes him and he says that this this enemy he is a murderer from the beginning he does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him when he lies he speaks out of his own character for he is a liar that's barely a verse and four different ways he says the enemy is a liar and yet you're exactly right louis we're letting the enemy just say whatever he wants to us and and i think i look back at that season in my life and i don't believe that i had shame that i was struggling with that because i'm a pretty open book person like i would tell you right now like what i'm struggling with today but i didn't think it was a big deal i don't think i realized what a big deal that middle of the night moment was and how it was actually affecting me and and eroding my faith so that's my my plea with everybody and i know both of you're pleased as well of we've got to take this more seriously yeah we've been saying this all three of us in different ways and there are a lot of other voices too but if you are in this conversation somehow this came across your social feed or somebody told you about the conversation today you said i'm just going to give it a chance and you're in a dark hole all three of us want to say the same message to you we're going to break it down into different ways today but we want to say you are not alone you are not the only person who has thought that you were going crazy you're not the only person who thought you were going to lose your mind we're not you're not the only person who's been in that dark isolated incapacitated place and the second thing i want to say to you is you're going to make it the enemy is telling you you're not but your shepherd is telling you you are psalm 23 says he doesn't lead us to these valleys he leads us through these valleys and you need to hear that today i know you're saying hey louie that's not going to help me today i need something better than a nice little pep talk platitude no this is gritty this is people who survived you're looking at three people who who lived by the grace of god through the darkness and you're gonna make it through and that's what we're here to help you do today we're not experts on anything other than the fact that we know that god can bring you through and so craig what's this what's the step one somebody realizes the enemy's lying to me um i'm i'm buying into some of the lies uh what's step one for them to start a process of change well that's a that's a great question and that is step one i think you have to recognize just like what jenny said is the devil is a liar and that's that that's his greatest weapon is to try to convince us of something that's not true and so what do we know how powerful is the mind um anything that we say that sounds self-help-ish it's not self-helpish when you recognize that god created the mind great and and we know that that your life is always moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts if your thoughts are god-honoring they're going to take you to the places that god wants you to be the problem is we're all vulnerable to our spiritual enemy to try to tell us what we're not what we can't do why we don't measure up why we're dirty why we're unforgivable why god couldn't love us why um why we'll never make a difference in life why we don't matter and you know the list goes on and on and on and on and so when you recognize there's the lie i would just give it a name and you have to clearly define this is something and what's interesting is if you've believed it for 10 years 15 years 20 years 30 years you may not know as a lie you may just absolutely completely think that is true and you have to recognize so much of what drives us um our our lives from the enemy so you define what it is this is not true then what i like to do is i like to find a spiritual truth you know something from god's word and counteract the lie with it this is what the word of god says and take the verse over and over and over again and what i want to do in in my own life what i've done is i try to take the truth and put it in a statement that i can say over and over and over and over again and the reason is this isn't positive thinking this is renewing your mind scripture says do not be conformed to the patterns of this world who is the devil he is the little g the small god of this world but be transformed now how are you changed you're changed by the renewing of your mind and so if i've believed alive for a long time i want to take a truth and i want to declare the truth over and over and over again and what we're doing scientifically to the mind that god created is we are developing new neural pathways science tells us and it's true according to god's word the more often you think a thought the easier it is to believe that thought and so if we thought a wrong thought for a long time we tend to believe the lie we can't just tell ourselves sometimes one time well that's not true this is true and believe it so we have to really work to renew our mind god's word is the most powerful renewing agent and so i want to renew my mind with truth and louis i wish i could tell you you know i did that for a week and now i'm better but there are there are some lies that i i've been working five years on renewing and i'll make progress and slip back a little bit progress and slip back but step by step day by day by god's power word by word he he can renew our mind and whatever whatever bondage you are whatever whatever you're believing you're not good enough you won't measure up you're full of shame god can't forgive you god won't love you you don't matter you know that's that's a lie and then what's the truth i'm fearful and wonderfully made i'm god's workmanship i'm created in christ jesus to do good works which god prepared in advance for me to do i'm an overcomer by the blood i can do all things whatever it is you take that and then we're going to start working consistently faithfully declaring truth to renew our minds i think that the one of the biggest lies probably is the lie that somebody's hearing right now which is this isn't going to work for you you know the enemy he's just got a a closet full of these lies and some of them are sneaky so somebody's listening to you right now you're talking about renewing your mind and they said i've heard that but that's not going to work for me and that might work for everybody else but it's not going to work for me so you have to start with that lie i can't even get to the lie because he's already telling me that there is any help for me in the lie jenny you you talk about this and then you have a lot of these diagrams and this one i don't know if people can see it or not but it's four boxes over here on the page and the boxes are kind of what craig's talking about and craig i'm like you i read jenny's book a little bit later than everybody else and after i read it i just went uh why did i write a book okay um in the the first box says grab the thought the second box says diagnose the thought take it to god and then make a choice talk about those four boxes for a minute yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna actually focus because i think craig that was good because that really is the question right what's true and what does god say about it but the last box was the one that got me right that was the one that i still struggle with is am i gonna choose to believe god like am i gonna make the choice to change and back to that same lie louis that you're saying everybody right now is questioning it's true i look at my life and i probably knew if you asked me do you have power over your thoughts i probably would have known take every thought captive yes scripture says i do but i never applied it i never knew how to fight back and i don't think i chose to believe the truth about god and i love your imagery louis if there's a table and god's you know those of us that are followers of jesus christ let's assume he's at the table too the holy spirit indwells us he's with us we have the word of god the power of god through the holy spirit so we would all nod at that and say yes god is with us the enemy is there lying to us we know that he attacks those that love god we don't get a pass after we trust christ that the enemy is now going to go bother someone else if anything it heats up the more we follow jesus so we've got the enemy at the table we've got we've got god at the table and then i would say that that other you know seat of just having people at the table that can say hey look back at god like don't go this way you know i picture the devil and the and the um and god you know here kind of fighting for us and and the greatest piece to me that has caused the dominoes to fall in the correct pos or correct direction is just the people of god fighting for me and and i really believe that that we don't need to be intimidated when i look back at that season that for 3 a.m wake wake-up calls and all of that time period that i was waking up and somebody even said that's kind of the witching hour and they they you know told me all this dark stuff around it at first i got overwhelmed and scared i thought you know to use your title again the devil has a seat at my table what you know like that's who was waking me up and talking to me at 3am and it scared me and overwhelmed me but then i realized gosh that choice of what what does god say is that that you know i mean just go to second corinthians 10 that that there are weapons that destroy strongholds that we don't have to actually feel paralyzed that we can move to the offensive position and we can actually fight back and these weapons that god's given us the people of god the spirit of god the word of god these weapons work these weapons destroy the darkness and i know some of you just like you said louis are not believing this right now you're watching us and you're thinking easy for you to say it isn't easy for me to say after 18 months of feeling like a bible teacher that lost my faith in that moment but i saw him deliver me from it and he he is more powerful and that's what scripture tells us and and we just have to choose to believe it yeah i was out of commission for four months of my life and and and really in bad shape for a lot longer than that but i mean i was out for four months of life and i managed the day okay and okay would probably be a stretch but i dreaded the night every night when i laid down and went to sleep i dreaded it because i knew for me it was two o'clock and i knew 2am was coming and i was going to feel like louie that's 3am my time yeah it's going to feel like a blanket of suffocating the witching hour of suffocation you know was coming and i just couldn't deal yeah and a lot of nights i'd be like i'd really rather just stay up all night and be miserable than to go to sleep for two hours three hours whatever it was and then it was an instantaneous waking up to um a cloud of doom that's the word i would put around it it was just doom like this is the end of everything no more life no more ministry no more normality no more light and i i know that in that moment god's word came to me and i tell this story that at um probably the breaking point and i wasn't thinking about ending my life but i was really really really desperate and shelley was asleep in the bed next to me and i just lifted my hands up to heaven and i said god i can't do this one more time i can't do it one more day i've i've been to two dozen doctors i've been down every road you can go down i've been prayed for i've been anointed with oil i've had the leaders of the church come i mean i've tried everything and i can't do this again and the spirit of god brought this verse from the depths of my soul that i had leaned on in another hard season of life about 20 years ago and the verse is an odd verse it's from job and it says god gives songs in the night and that verse just captivated me and i said to god if you'll give me a song i'll sing it to you i'll sing it to you right now and you know you would think having been around worship leaders like we had i could have just sung how great is our god or ten thousand reasons or something else but i wasn't thinking that way and my mind wasn't working and god gave me this little spontaneous song right then and there and just a verse and i started singing it to him and i sang it to him all night that night all night and just kept singing it over and over and over and craig i love what you said because people think when i tell that story that i'm going to say and when i woke up the next day a miracle had occurred and depression and anxiety were gone but when i woke up the next day i was in about the same shape as i was in the day before but when i went to bed the next night i already had a song and i knew two o'clock was coming but i was ready when it did and for a little season there it was cloud song cloud song cloud song but then it became song cloud song cloud song cloud and then it became song song song cloud song song song song song cloud and i think it's just getting prepared it's it's understanding we're in a fight it's getting a strategy and understanding that it's a process and that you don't sometimes see an overnight change so craig they're saying in science now it's like 60 something days to create a new thought to create a new habit and talk about the process a little bit and what people really need to lean into if they want to create that new neural pathway that you're talking about yeah well i love your honesty i think that's gonna you know really help a lot of people because sometimes i do think unfortunately even though we have great intentions in the church we say you know here's the truth and now we think it's all it just takes care of itself immediately and i think we all know that it takes a little more than that i like the way you defined it and that is that you are entering into a battle and jenny you talked about the reality you know here you were doing a lot and you didn't even recognize that you were in a spiritual battle and you would think that that would be like the first thing we would all recognize and so i i do want to echo on what what louis said earlier for anyone who's watching right now and you think this isn't going to work for me i've tried it this is all just religious talk maybe just step back and and ask yourself could it be that you're in this place because you're under attack that you you've got your spiritual enemy is coming towards you and so what do you do if you're under attack well you're going to you're going to devise both the plan of defense and a plan of offense and that's what we need to do in the process the way the mind works and louis suggested it can take 60 days interestingly enough i just did a real um thorough research on how do you heal the mind from addictions to pornography and that's more like in pornography it's more like a 90 to 120 days and i taught this to our church of what what actually goes through your mind and i think healing from pornographic lust is very very similar to healing from a lie of believing like i can never have a relationship or we're always going to be broke in our family or we're not educated so we can't make a difference or or whatever it would be and and what happens is as you start to think a thought you can have an immediate increase in the dopamine that's released in your brain you have a positive moment but the the old tracks the old neural pathways tend to absorb your thoughts and you easily slip back into points of um depression in the lust world you fall back into feeling overwhelmed with lust and your body is being changed by the thoughts you think if you're thinking the right thoughts you're you're releasing the right chemicals if you're thinking the wrong thoughts you're typically releasing the wrong chemicals and so you can go on not just a mental roller coaster but your body follows you in a very physical roller coaster so why am i feeling lethargic why am i feeling depressed and when you understand how the renewing of the mind it changes your life it changes your life it changes you holistically and physically and so it you know i'm not an expert enough to teach on all that happens to your body but when you do go and you research that um you can see okay i'm now just like you said now it's song um cloud song cloud song song cloud song song song that's what you can kind of expect you're you're detoxing the lies you're creating new neural pathways that are just they're weaker pathways with truth and the more you think them the stronger those pathways become and then the easier it is to stay off the old pathways and then your body is adjusting to the right beliefs meaning now you're starting to have more of the good chemicals released fewer the bad chemicals released you start to stabilize and then at some point you just become healthy it's a little bit like like weight loss you go on a diet and you lose five pounds and then you gain two and you go and you feel like you're stuck for a long time you you have to eat the right thing exercise the right way for a long period of time your body kind of does this and then you stabilize and guess what now now you're healthy now you have good rhythms um now you're now you're really you're fighting weight that's what's going to happen in your mind we're going to work on it we might be all over the place a little bit eventually we're thinking truth our body stabilizes we're walking by the spirit of god and we're finding joy and peace even though it may be chaotic around us so good and i i just want to say again we're going to say this a few times because i know people are jumping on and jumping off and we've got people from all over planet earth of course leaning in with us right now three resources we're basically giving them to you i know they cost money but trust me when you add it all up the way it works we're we're just trying to get things to you today so it's jenny's book get out of your head it's craig's book which is winning the war in your mind and it's my new book that's coming out next week don't give the enemy a seat at your table it's time to win the battle of your mind all three of these are 25 bucks it's at passionresources.com so go there check it out you'll find the bundle you can also get just my book for 10 there if you use the hashtag no seat and if you want to send a question in we would love to feel that we got a question i want to pitch it to you guys it's an interesting question it says how do you distinguish between thoughts that are better not to give energy to and thoughts that you need to engage with to realign them with truth that's from mansa anybody want to take a shot at that that's a great question because i tend to push away negative thoughts that's kind of my personality i don't want to dwell on negative things and yet that has been a problem in my life as well because god does use the difficulties in our life to unearth sometimes things we need to learn and i love what both of you are saying which is you didn't run from that season and and i've walked through season with anxiety where i had to get some counseling and walk through that and face it right and and i think what we've got to realize is that strongholds are are something that is binding us that we are we're paralyzed right that we can't go any further and we need to pay attention to that and we need to do the work around those things so that we can live more free so that other people can be set free for our lives one day if you're a believer in jesus christ you're going to go to heaven and and you are going to be whole and well and the tears will be dry so we know there's a day coming where everything's going to be made right in the meantime here it's our job to throw off the sin and the weight hebrew says the sin and the weight sometimes it's sin and sometimes it's like depression and anxiety and doubt i don't think all of that was a sin when i walked through that for 18 months i think some of it was just attack and and now the sin was not bringing people into it right but it was a weight it was just something that was holding me back and it changed my my influence and those in that year and a half to two years i was not preaching as boldly because when i would i felt insincere because in the back of my head i was questioning is this true so god wanted me to turn to that place and do the business of of that doubt and to bring it to him and so i don't think we need to be so afraid of difficulty and and negativity in our lives we need to just confront it and say is this from god is this a place where we can do business where we can fight better and grow and and mature because honestly so much of my dependence on the lord has come through suffering right it's come through things that are difficult that if i had avoided them and not pressed into him i wouldn't have healed and i know you all feel the same way 2020 was the year of years and if you weren't uh struggling with mental health before that year you probably were as a result of it and leaders are in bad shape right now every time i get a have to have an honest conversation with a leader right now i'm getting about the same thing which is i think i can sum up last year with a couple of words i lost it seemed like nothing was the right answer no decision was the right decision it was very hard to navigate a polarized world and yes we saw a lot of people come to know jesus in fact i think probably more people heard the gospel in the last 12 months than in the five years before that and that's been a big win but for leaders they're tired they're beat down they're depressed they're struggling i think a lot of leaders craig i think a lot of pastors have written their resignation letter maybe literally but definitely in their minds and as soon as they can get their people back to a more normalized world they're going to be like hey i did my best i hope you guys have a great future i'm out how do you think your book your message and where leaders currently are like today trying to navigate the endemic that we're in where what do you think is um a key step or two for them to to make the right decision they need to make today yeah that's a great question and louis i'm seeing the same thing in virtually every leader in in every sector obviously you know we're all in ministry and ministry changed so much in in the last year and you know if you did gain something in one area you probably lost a lot in some other area and the same is true in in for business leaders there were winners and losers and those who lost it was to no fault of their own most of them just in the changing of the world and had massive losses and many went out of businesses and then those that were lucky enough to be in a good field they're dealing with all the challenges of the growth and and then when you step into the middle of culture and try to lead toward anything meaningful it's impossible to get right right now so what do we do as leaders in so many ways it really comes down to mindset mindset mindset mindset mindset mindset and i would just say to leaders right now you can't get it right you won't get it right so take the pressure off and just do it do what you believe is right and i can't tell you how many times amy said this to me like should i say this should i do this should i step in the middle of this and she's like you're going to have to answer to god and you're going to sleep at night and you can't please them so you know your mindset needs to be do what you believe is right and trust god with the results and so i've really tried to lock that into mindset a couple of other things is like let's take the church world in most churches depending on how long they've been reopened uh maybe 80 of their people are not showing up or maybe 50 are not showing back up or whatever and so you feel like you have this massive loss well what do you do most of the pastors i talked to said we've got to rebuild the church we've got to rebuild the church we've got to rebuild the church well it may never get back in that format to where it was in 2019 so if your goal is to rebuild what you had you're going to lose for the rest of your life and i don't want to wake up feeling like i'm losing for the rest of my life so my mindset louie is not rebuilding i don't want to go back to what we had anyway the world is different we're not rebuilding we are building that's the same thing we were doing before and that little shift in mindset takes me from the point of i'm failing every day and i got to get back to something that may not even be achievable it takes the pressure off it says we're just preaching the gospel and leading people to christ so i don't know how that would apply to someone who's watching right now and whatever you're doing it might be it might be in in your marriage it might be when you're trying to train your your body physically if you can if you can lock in the right mindset that helps you know god is with me he's for me we're taking ground it matters so much in sports you can have equally talented people and those with a better mindset tends to win more often your life is moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts the question is do you like the direction your thoughts are taking you if not let's find truth let's adjust let's grab a mindset that motivates us that propels us that helps us to have faith in god to follow him and so that's what i'm working on my right it's it's a it's a mind battle every day and i'm fighting for anything that kind of gives me the faith to say yes we're still taking ground and finding joy in that you mentioned it a few times already but it's the first two sentences of your book and i like it when i can get a real sense of what a book's about in the first paragraph and your book opens and you say our lives are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts not just some of the thoughts but the strongest thoughts what we think shapes who we are and i talk about it and don't give the enemy a seat talking about eventually our thoughts become actions and the strongest thought is going to lead the way and become the action that's the outcome so jenny talk about that just a little bit and talk about how how to navigate that process of taking that thought and as you said taking it captive so we heard the text you read it for us we all have it in our story and in our books but how do you actually take that thought captive and as the text says make it obedient to jesus christ well i i do think that idea that you know all three of us have talked about we all use this right and we looked at the science and it says the same things and and what i love is that we are talking about this more and the the thought that proverbs is pretty clear like as a man thinketh so he is and so what you're saying is is biblical this is this matters and and what i see over and over again is when i notice my thoughts when i when i jot them down when i start to think about what i'm thinking about that's the beginning because those 18 months i didn't think about what i was thinking about and it was having a power over me and it began to take on a life of its own inside of me and so we've got to notice what we're thinking about the next thing i encourage people to do is to to give that a theme what is the theme of that you see all these random thoughts you know science will tell us 9 000 to 60 000 thoughts we have in a day so average that to 30 000 thoughts that's a lot of thoughts so when we look for a theme what is what is the main thing we're worried about and what's the fear that's underneath that psychiatry 101 says that all humans believe three lies i am worthless i am helpless i am unlovable and in my mind i'm thinking no there's there's way more than that i believe like a hundred in a day but but one of the therapists that helped me with this said hey jenny every single fear you have pretty much goes down to one of those things and and so i think being able to give a theme to it what is the lie that you're really believing that's kind of the most you know the highest um getting the most attention like you talk about craig and then you know let's start to fight that and the way the greatest way i've seen to do that is the word of god but also confessing it to someone until we bring someone in and god built us for community right he built us to depend on other people i've talked a lot about that in this conversation because it was such a powerful force for me once i wasn't alone in the dark with the devil i could see the truth better i could fight better and they fought for me in fact they they prayed and they fasted for me so we treated it like a spiritual war they treated it that seriously and they gave up food for me they gave up a day or two for me where they said listen fighting for you is is is the goal of these two days and and i just appreciate having people fight for me and i think we're scared to say our deepest darkest thing that should last two percent but what all three of us are saying that lead things and have a lot on the line when we talk about our weakness you know it's a lot on the line for a bible teacher to say i almost became an atheist but i really believe that all of us can say that last two percent because of romans 8 1 that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in christ jesus yeah people ask a lot of times so how would i know if the enemy is at my table and it's interesting jenny because i i have five lies in here but they're all tied into the same three you're talking about and i just say back to people if you have a voice telling you or a thought telling you it's better at another table than the table that god set before you in other words if i could get out of this marriage and get out of this situation get out of this town and get over at that table that would be where life's at the enemy's at your table i say if you're hearing right now that you're not good enough you're not smart enough you're not pretty enough you didn't come from the right family you don't have the right background you're just not good enough the enemy is at your table because the shepherd who prepared the table before you he gave his life for you so that's how much he loves you if you're hearing that you're not going to make it through this season the enemy is at your table if you're hearing that you are surrounded and there's no way out for you done the enemy is at your table and if you're hearing any of those lies then god is right there he's in the midst with you and i love that it says he prepares the table in the presence of our enemies so right in the middle of the circumstance the darkness the hardship he is in it with you and like jenny said all you have to do is look up and see his face and start listening to his voice locking onto his words and letting him be the one who creates the narrative and craig you talked about in your book i loved it at the end of a lot of the chapters maybe all of them but at the ones that i was focused in on you would give people something to actually say out loud and i want to talk about that for a minute because that can go weird in spiritual culture when we start talking back to the devil out loud or talking to god out loud or talking to anybody out loud but i think it's helpful sometimes to say things claim them out loud name them that's a lie i see it and i bind it in the name and the power of jesus i want to choose to take authority over that lie in jesus name and you've got us reading things out loud you want to encourage us to read them to ourselves declare them over ourselves out loud why is it important that we use our voice as we're changing our mind well i i think maybe we went to the same church at some point in our life because it does get weird sometimes i've been around you know people that can that can get kind of weird and so i want to acknowledge that but putting the weird stuff beside if if faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of god then you can you can read the word and that's powerful and then you might you might say it and it might be powerful in a different way and so what i want to do um if if we're in kind of a holistic war if the spiritual enemy is attacking every part i don't want to just think something i want to think it i want to give life to it and then i want to hear myself say it i want to see myself say it even if i'm thinking a thought like if i'm thinking you know the power of god is with me and his holy spirit if i'm just thinking that i might be here but if i'm saying it my posture is going to going to change the power my stance is going to change and so i want every part of my being to be consistent with the truth of god the starting of my mind and his coming coming out in my mouth and then i also want people around me who are saying the same truth and both of you um really you know talked a little bit about this jenny you mentioned confession i think as christians we tend to forget there's there's really a couple of types of confession that helped change change us and we typically i for years i only thought of one if you confess your sins to god he's faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness so we confess to god for forgiveness but there's another type of confession and that's to people and we confess to people for healing confess your sins one to another and pray for each other that you might be healed so i want to say truth around others i want other godly people saying truth around me um for some of you right now if you really feel like you're stuck in unhealthy thought patterns i would ask i would ask you who who are the voices that you're listening to if you've got the wrong voices speaking into your life and you're hearing that then maybe change those voices if there's a truth you want to believe maybe consider not just thinking it but declaring it if there's power in the spoken word and then again that helps drive your thoughts um new neural pathways even deeper and so it's to me again it's like it's full body comb bad it's every part of me i want god renewing and changing uh the mouth in the mouth is the power of life and death both of those are in the tongue and it's amazing to think that we can speak out that narrative and you know jenny it's funny it's not funny but it's really sad but the way you know that you're believing one of these lies is just by listening to what you're telling people and so if somebody says hey how you doing right now and your answer is man not good i don't think i'm gonna make it through this i mean i'm not sure i'm gonna make it through this this series of events or through this prognosis or through this uh season and at work or this i don't think my marriage is gonna make it i don't think i'm gonna make it and when when i hear myself say that where did i hear that well my shepherds surely didn't tell me i wasn't going to make it there's not been a day in my life that i looked to my heavenly father and he said louie i got news for you man you're not going to make it through this one and so i learned like a little technique in my journal of speaking and writing and both of you encourage a lot of writing and i would just write down the the lie like for example i'm not going to make it through this and then i would cross it out and write a truth above it and the truth i wrote above it was i've made it through everything i've gone through in life that's a pretty big shift and so therefore i have a new thought and a new summary and the new summary is i'm most likely gonna make it through this because the odds are a hundred percent in my favor so far that god has brought me through every trial i've faced in my life so my new narrative where my old narrative was i don't know if i'm gonna make it my new narrative has now become by god's grace i'm gonna make it thanks for asking it's really hard right now but this is the main story i'm going to make it and all that requires is just a little work and a little observation a little con confrontation and it requires us being committed to the process and a lot of us just are stuck in that moment of saying things like well my mom was a warrior my grandmother was a worrier therefore our family's always been warriors and that's why i worry so just get used to it that's me we got a question and i'm going to let you guys take a swing at this someone asked at what point did you feel like you were ready to open up and talk about your battle with anxiety or depression for the sake of helping other people that came from jeremy i i would say for me uh it's kind of crazy but it was it was right in the middle of it and so part of my anxiety is it sounds silly to most people but i we we named it content anxiety after 30 years of preaching uh you know you tend to how do i say similar things in new creative ways and so i felt a lot of pressure and oddly enough louis i know you're friends with pastor steven furtick i was at his house and we were you know i was just stuck in this i can't come up with um a new message series it was like way late i never it was never late for a deadline and uh instead of just some i got so much anxiety and he said there's your message series right there just go into what you're what you're facing and so that's that's for me is what i is i recognized that sometimes the most powerful um story of god's work is in the middle of god's work not just in the hay 20 years ago here was my deal but in the middle of it and so i i would encourage you know other other people right now that if you're in the middle of it don't wait till you're out of it to open up now is the time that not only can you help others by opening up but it also helps you to verbally process where you are how you need god how you're learning to depend on him what he's saying to you what he's showing you how he's comforting you how he's strengthening you so there may be healing for others in your transparency and there also may be healing for you jenny you want to add anything to that no i just love this conversation i'm actually going to take it a different direction because what i love about this is we're three leaders largely on the conservative side of the church right but we're talking about the devil and we're talking about naming stuff out loud and i just think this is a moment for the church to really tie together spirit and truth and authenticity that that as leaders if there's a plea we would be making for you in this season it is do not be alone in the dark with the devil like this is not okay and that he's coming for us and we're at war and i do think there is so much on the line as i think about both of you being such leaders that i respect that so many of us respect and yet the enemy has come for you in such obvious big ways and and i think about two where we sit in history right now and the the chance that a lot of the things that need to happen before jesus come back comes back have happened now and so there is this sense of we're preparing the church and this is kind of the last frontier like this the recesses of our mind where we haven't done war where we've just let everybody sit there and we haven't talked about it a lot so just even this conversation is so inspiring to me because i do think you all being so candid about your struggles it's going to help a lot of other people that may not have felt permission to talk about lust and talk about the things that they're thinking about and struggling with in a really authentic way so maybe just that i'm smiling really big and hopeful for the church yeah and i think it's important to keep saying that i i know that when i started talking about this the very first time i did we were planning a church shelly and myself and a handful of about 20 people and it's uh i don't know maybe that's what was the final straw in the whole thing part of that but we were meeting in some people's living room and shelley was driving and i was in the passenger seat literally shaking as we were driving to this little bitty cell meeting for this church that hadn't even come to life yet and i didn't want to go that night i just want to tell shelly tell them i'm not feeling good but i just decided to go anyway and i walked in and i sat down and here were 25 people that i was their pastor and we were going to plant a church and i said guys look at me i'm your pastor and i'm a mess and i mean i literally was trembling but not because i was nervous but because my body was kind of freaked out at that season in that moment and it's so funny and i won't tell the whole story right now but um another person spoke up and said you know it's weird since we don't have church now i went to this other church today and they had a guest person who showed up there and they randomly spoke on this verse and they said the verse and it was like god just dropped hope into my heart and there i was in horrible shape and so i came out of that went on this big tour where we were in basketball arenas every night and i was telling this story about my depression and then when that ended i kind of thought you know okay i did that i did my part i want to move on from that because i'm a guy and guys don't want to be weak so i got to move on but i think it's important for everybody watching today and i'll just speak for me to know that these books are not about hey we we smoked anxiety and we put it in the dust and it's no longer a part of our story these books are about the promises of god they're about the truth of god they're about applying god's word they're about taking seriously the stewardship that we have of our minds and it's something that i'm still in every day anxiety doesn't control my life every day but craig this is so funny the other day i walked out of my office and i just gotten you know the book in for the first time and i don't know about you but i get it in and i pull out your your book which looks amazing by the way it's just like the coolest looking most awesome book ever and i put mine up next to it and i'm like man i'm an inch shorter than craig and i'm about a half inch you know skinnier and my cover isn't got a dust cover on it and i literally this is truth and i'm sorry that i have to be you know so remedial but i walked out of my office and i thought nobody's going to be helped by this book i just wrote a book called don't give the enemy a seat at your table and i just had the thought nobody's going to want to read this book and nobody's going to like it that's a that's a lie your book is powerful and so i'm asking did either of you at any point when you finish writing these books have a thought i don't even know if this book's going to help anybody that's why i put jenny's down and did not read it i was through with it because i'm not going to read this book i'll quit writing mine if i do well you know i mean i was reading the audiobook which you all know is just about the last thing you do in the process of writing and you're reading it out loud and i had to sit there and read it you know every line and i was embarrassed because i had put my whole soul out there and i thought this is this is too much my editor even called me and said jenny are you sure you want to go public with this like this is this is pretty dark stuff and i had this fear and just paralyzed like this could ruin me like just and it didn't feel good enough i mean i read it and and it was interesting the team that was recording the audio none of them are christians and they would even make kind of snide comments to me as as i was reading it and and so yes i i feel like we all three picked a fight with the devil specifically on this topic in fact this is the first interview i've ever done that there hasn't been some technical difficulty with with because i think the enemy absolutely hates that that we're saying no more like we're not gonna allow this to be a place where you're fighting alone like we're gonna come beside you like i picture those three books louie and and knowing both of you that that this is us as a team saying hey we're gonna fight for you like we we've been there and we've been pinned down by the devil and not fought back and experienced that and this is us kind of raising up and saying hey because of this book and because of our god like we're gonna fight for you and so yes i do think there has been more insecurity around this project than i've ever had around another project yeah i got ready to come to church a few weeks ago and i was so uh under attack all the way from my house to the building and i was like this message this message this message and then you know the lord just brought this word to me from a soap that i'd been doing and it was him saying to joshua as i was with moses so i am with you and i took that for the whole day i must have quoted that verse over my life a hundred times that sunday as i was with moses so i'm gonna be with you and that became my attitude not just my verse for the day became the attitude that sort of brought up the fight in me to go and lead the way god had called me to lead and so i'm just saying that so that we're all on the same page in this conversation and you're not sitting on the other side of the screen going you know i can't relate to these guys because i'm in a different spot we're all in the exact same spot the same access to the same spirit the same word the same truth the same victory that christ has already won for all of us and we have that same mandate that craig talked about you can renew your mind and you can change the way you think so i want to close out craig with you giving your what you do best which is um just helping us know what to do right now as leaders whether that's a family or leading a business or leading a church or leading a nation what's the game plan for right this minute and jenny i want you um to give us the jenny allen shrunk down exhortational word for the day right now because i know that's what your heart is all about so before you do that i'm going to say one last time all of these books okay jenny's book get out of your head craig's book which is powerful and amazing winning the war in your mind don't give the enemy a seat at your table comes out on may the 11th all these are for 25 today for about one more hour i feel like qvc when i said that but uh passionresources.com all three books for 25 bucks and um our new book is ten dollars if you use the hashtag no seat and grateful for you jenny i'm going to let you go first i'm going to let greg have the last word well this is it i'll make it really simple we have a choice we have a choice in romans 8 lays it out and it says hey there's there's two ways to go you can live in sin and death and towards it or you can live in life and peace and what you set your mind on you set your mind on the spirit you go towards life and peace you set your mind on the flesh and you're gonna go towards sin and death and what we're saying is biblical you're right it's not self-help there is a way to change our minds and and it's that interruption where we don't just allow ourselves to spiral but we interrupt it with god's word with god's people and believing god's spirit that he can change us so powerful thank you both for your messages and and your ministry and your friendship you guys have helped me and amy loves you jenny so much she loved her time with you recently um and louie you asked me to talk just for a moment on leadership and i would just say to um everyone watching right now i hope that you internalize and embrace that you are absolutely completely a leader you might say you know but i don't have a title or a position and leadership is never title and position leadership is mindset leadership's not something that we do a leader is who you are what is leadership leadership is influence and you absolutely completely have influence because you're a leader don't let the influences of this world lead you you're not a victim to your thoughts you're not a victim to your past you lead yourself toward godly truth if there's any thought that is inconsistent with god's word you grab that thought you take it captive you make it obedient to christ you lead yourself toward the truth of god you'll find that life and peace that jenny was talking about and then ultimately why do we do it it's not just so that we can be happier or be free of anxiety or not be depressed but it's so that we can experience the goodness of the grace of god through jesus and then make him known to other people he is the son of god he's the good shepherd that louis talked about he leads us besides still waters and he'll set that table before us with all of his blessings before our enemies if your enemies are at your table get them out of your table don't give the devil a seat at your table and we know that god is his power is greater and you can find victory and freedom in christ man i just want to honor you craig and jenny and i both do we both look up to you so much and so many leaders around the world do and you've helped me you've helped our team shelling i love you and amy and jenny thank you for being fierce and leading such a beautiful movement if has really been stunning i know shelley has been around from the very beginning and she loves and respects you so much we love you and zach a lot and thank you for your time today i know everybody applauds you and i've got an incredible team of people that no one is seen here in atlanta craig has the same uh where he is today jenny has a team around her today so just hats off to everybody jenny for the first non-technical glitched interview around winning the battle of your mind and we thank you all of you guys for helping make it possible thanks for joining in with us you'll be able to re-watch this conversation share it with a friend it's easy to do that on the link on facebook and you can watch it at the passion city church youtube page as well hope that you'll share it with as many people as you think it'll help but these resources i guarantee if you dive into them along with the word of god that you are going to see a change in your life it won't happen overnight but nothing happens overnight but if you commit to it god will change the way you think and your mind will start becoming a garden filled with all kinds of amazing things like he asked us to think about things that are lovely things that are pure things that are good things that are praiseworthy things that are honorable things that are of good report this is what god gave us to do to use this mind uncluttered by negativity to create the future for his glory so you've got a part in that and i hope today encouraged you we're honored that you took time to join us today and we'll see you next time [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Passion City Church

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Keywords: louie giglio, passion city church worship, louie giglio sermons, passion city, giglio louie, city church, passion, giglio, passion city church sermons, Atlanta, passion church, louis giglio, cumberland, temptations, live church, live worship, live worship songs, live worship music, live worship songs 2020, passion city online sunday gathering, craig groeschel, jennie allen, mental health

Id: jyAXH4NMRlI

Length: 66min 33sec (3993 seconds)

Published: Thu May 06 2021