>> DAVID NASSER: Well real quick let me just
introduce to you our guest for today, none other than--yeah--the Bachelor's Sean Lowe. In case you're wondering, Sean Lowe is the
gentleman to the right, that's Sean Lowe, all right? All right. I told him just look at the camera so all
the snow will just melt, right? All right. Come on, without any further ado, can we just
welcome Sean Lowe to the house, everybody. Come on up. >> SEAN LOWE: Thank you, everybody. I hear nothing but women out here. I see some dudes, but I don't hear any dudes. NASSER: Well buddy, I--first of all, I want
to tell you that I don't think I've ever received more texts for people wanting to get to come
and meet you, people who have felt led by the Holy Spirit to receive a rose from you,
and I keep saying, "He's married," and they're like, "She might die," you know, and I don't
even understand what's going on. LOWE: Yeah, I don't think that was the Holy
Spirit. NASSER: No, I don't think so. LOWE: That was Chris Harrison. NASSER: Well man, welcome to Liberty University. Obviously, for the few people in the room
that might have not watched the series when you were on the Bachelorette, and then the
Bachelor, catch us up a little bit about your history before the world kind of came to know
you man. LOWE: Yeah. Actually, so before I get started on that,
you guys do this three times a week? NASSER: Three times a week. Largest gathering of college students on the
planet. LOWE: Seriously, just--standing back here
for worship, you guys are so lucky. I wish I had this. NASSER: It's amazing. LOWE: If I had this in college, it would have
enriched my life so much, so you guys are really fortunate to be here. NASSER: Thank you, man. LOWE: Anyway, back to the Bachelor. NASSER: Hey, can you tell them real quick,
how did you--the first time you ever heard of Liberty, tell them about that. You were telling me the first time you ever
heard of us--where were you, K State? (Kansas) LOWE: Yeah, I had never heard of Liberty until
college. K State, women's basketball was really good--there's
one really loud K State fan here--K State women's basketball was really good, so everyone
would go to the games, it's a big party, and--we were like top ten in the country. A school called Liberty comes in and beats
us on our home court. I had no idea who you guys were, so, that
was my first experience with Liberty. NASSER: That's awesome. Take us back, so you, you're coming through
college, and then--did you audition for the show The Bachelorette, or how did it all come
about? LOWE: No. See, I never wanted to do reality TV. Never would I have ever dreamed that I would
be on a reality TV show, much less a ridiculous, cheesy, over-the-top, just, corny show like
the Bachelor. And I can say all those things cause I met
my wife on the show, so it's okay. It is absolutely ridiculous. I'm living a fairly normal life, I had taken
a big risk in my mid-twenties and I raised a bunch of money to start a financial service
company. Long story short, due to some government regulation,
it shut us down, and I lost all that money, the investor's money, and it was a really
big blow for me personally. And so, my family business is insurance, and
I always knew I'm not an insurance salesman, but my dad, my grandfather, my brother-in-law,
they've all been in the insurance business, done well for themselves, whatever. I just didn't want to sit behind a desk and
pedal insurance. It's not me; it's not in my DNA. But after this failure that was my company,
I said, "Alright, you know, I got to move on with my life, I need to get in to something
safe and secure, I'm going to give insurance a try. I hated it. It sucks selling insurance, I’ve got to
tell you. And I'm walking my dogs one day after work,
I got my cell phone on me and my phone rings, it's a Los Angeles area code, I don't know
anybody from LA. You know, they warned me if I said any city
people were going to cheer. Bismarck. Oh. Anyway-- NASSER: We represent, man. We got people from all over the world here. LOWE: So I've heard. A woman's on the other end of the line and
she says, "I'm a casting director for the Bachelor. We received your information, we want to talk
to you." "I'm sorry, what?" Totally caught me off-guard. What information? It didn't take me very long to figure out
that my sister had signed me up. She submitted the application and my picture
and the whole bit, and so this lady's talking to me and I told her, I said, you know, no
offense, she was very nice, but I'm not going to do a reality show, no way. And she said--before we got off the phone,
she said, "Well, just think it over, at the very least it could be a free vacation, you
could travel the world." All right, whatever. I go back to work the next day, I'm like pedaling
auto insurance and I'm thinking, "Free vacation sounds pretty awesome." And so I called her back, and I said, "All
right, let's do this," and after a couple other auditions I was on the show. NASSER: Wow, that's amazing. You were on the Bachelorette, right, and so
you go in there, you're a believer, you're not necessarily thinking, "This is my mission
field." You're thinking, "I could make cold calls,
you know, selling insurance or I could go on vacation.” You walk right in there. But they had (5:37), right, they had talked
to you and you talked to them about your faith and your convictions as a Christian and, tell
us a little bit about that, like, what was it like going to that process and then being
on the show as a Christian, what was that like? LOWE: I really had no idea what to expect,
I only did it because it was an experience. It was a free vacation, and I thought, "Why
not?" And, so, I walked into it a little naive,
I didn't really watch the show beforehand, I didn't know what to expect, and so I was
just trying to be me in that kind of crazy world that I was stepping into. And so, I knew, I was at least smart enough
to know if I'm going to walk into this world that doesn't really create a healthy environment,
it's not really going to nurture my spiritual life, then I better go in grounded and I better
go in with a game plan. So I knew I was going to have to stay in constant
communication with God, I needed to start every day with devotional, spending time in
the Word, and throughout the day I would just shoot out what my preacher at home calls little
"shotgun prayers," which is like, you know, just "God, help me," "God, lead me," "God,
give me discernment," that kind of thing. But, on the Bachelorette, you know, I'm one
of twenty-five guys, and so, we were in this great big mansion in North Carolina and I—I’ve
really got to stop naming places. North Carolina. And every day I would go out on the patio. There were no cameras or anything, but I would
just do my devotional and spend time with God, and then one day one of the other guys
comes out and he says, you know, "What are you reading?" And I told him, I said, "Yeah, I'm just reading
the Bible a little bit," and I was reading "Jesus Calling" at the time, which is a great
little daily devotional. And he said, "Well, do you mind reading me
a passage?" And so I read him that day's devotion and
I could tell, this guy wasn't a believer, but he was drawn to it, and I've always said
like the Truth is magnetizing and this guy--his name is Charlie--Charlie was just drawn to
what I was saying and he was asking me, "Can you read me some more?" And then Charlie kept coming back each morning,
and then, more guys were coming, and--I knew that I'd probably be the only Christian. I think there was one other. And some of these other guys had never even
heard the gospel; they didn't know what it was. And after a while, there were ten or twelve
guys out there on this patio who were listening to God's Word, who were being pulled in by
the Truth, and it was so amazing, because like I said some of these guys had no idea
who Jesus was, why He came to earth, if He was real, or is He just another fictitious
story that's been created and told over time. And so I thought, you know, this is why I'm
here, this is why God put me on this crazy show, it was to share His faith and Charlie,
the guy that came out the first time, eventually gave his life over to Christ after the show,
which is amazing. NASSER: It's amazing. LOWE: And throughout the show--to answer your
question--throughout the show I just tried to maintain that, and I tried to stay connected
with God throughout that entire crazy journey. NASSER: So, obviously some of that, or most
of that, ended up on the editing room floor. We didn't see those devotions that you were
doing. So, not only were you there to be a part of
the show, but you were there, and you were making a difference in the life of those guys. You were telling me a little while ago that
one of those guys who you led to the Lord, actually, you gave the devotion book, "Jesus
Calling," to? LOWE: Yeah, well, one of the guys—a really
brilliant guy, named Alejandro, and he was on Forbes' "30 Under 30" list, like, brilliant,
he did urban farming in Oakland, and he was one of the guys there--he just knew nothing
about Jesus or the gospel or about His saving grace. And so it was such a pleasure and, like, I
was just in awe of the fact that he wanted to hear it, and I was being used as kind of
the vessel to bring him the Good News. And so, I eventually gave him a copy of "Jesus
Calling" and that was two years ago, and today he still emails me and says, you know, "I
keep it by my bedside and read it every day." NASSER: That's amazing. Man, it's so great to see how, you know, rather
than making fun of something in culture, or rather than just kind of saying as a Christian
I just want to stay away from it, you decided to not be divided from it but be distinct
from it, but just go in there and be in it, not of it. You just kind of walked into that context
and then how the Lord used you. Eventually, people got to know you as the
"Virgin Bachelor," right? That wasn't--you didn't label yourself that,
but-- LOWE: Yeah, no, I didn't. NASSER: Tell us about that. LOWE: It's not a self-proclaimed nickname. You know, I--so after the Bachelorette, I'm
thinking I've got it all figured out as I'm on the show. I'm going to end up with this Bachelorette;
this is how my life's going to pan out. God put me on the reality show so I could
meet her, and I'm going to live happily ever after. Well, you know, every week there's a rose
ceremony, and if there's five guys there's only four roses, so one guy's not going to
get a rose; he's going to go home. There were three guys left; I'm one of three. The other two guys were Jeff and Arie, okay. And I--I'm so confident in what I have with
this woman. Rose ceremony don't make me nervous, I'm getting
a rose, you know, this is just a formality. And so, we come to the last rose ceremony,
and I've become great friends with Jeff and Arie, you know, it's kind of weird: you're
going after the same girl but—at the same time I think guys can kind of compartmentalize
this stuff and we can still be buddies and bros and what not. So anyway, she--I remember, she hands the
first rose to Jeff, and in my head, I kid you not, the first thing I thought was, "Ah
man, Arie's going home!" ‘Cause I - you know - I was going to miss
my buddy! Then she says, "Arie," for the second rose,
and I'm just stunned, like, I'm, "What?" And so, I got sent packing, and it hurt, ‘cause
I had never really, you know, said like, "I want to end up with this woman," and kind
of given her all of my heart and--to be sent home like that on a TV show, it's cruel, but
that's why this show is so great, cause they capture that, you know. They capture your misery. And a couple months afterwards, I went home,
and of course I’ve got great family and friends back home and they just loved on me
and I was able to get through that pretty quickly and it's - I wish everybody - here's
what I wish. Everyone who has experienced heartbreak, I
wish you could watch on TV the person that broke your heart make out with other people,
cause it helps you get over that so much faster. NASSER: It's a healer. Yeah. LOWE: Yeah. It's amazing. And a couple months after being home, the
producers call me; ask me if I wanted to be the Bachelor. And, you know, I told them, I said that first
go round didn't really go as expected and it ended kind of rough, I don't know if I
want to do this. And so, I said, "Let me think about it and
pray about it and I'll get back to you guys." And I called my parents. My parents, you know, they offer great wisdom
and they're good Christian people and so, I called them just wanting some advice and
I thought that they would say, you know, you gave it a try but it's probably time to move
on, and actually, they said the opposite. They said, "We think God has opened a door
for you and you probably owe it to yourself to walk through it." And that just resonated with me and so I called
the producers back and I said, "All right, let's give it a try." And so I go on the show, and I went with kind
of the same game plan, I wanted to stay grounded, I wanted to, you know, just walk hand-in-hand
with God throughout the whole thing and at times that can seem challenging. It feels very unnatural to date twenty-five
women at one time and--the funny thing is, it's like the guys, guys would come up to
me and they'd be like, "Bro that's incredible!" But once you experience it, you're like, "No,
I got to put up with twenty-five women; that's really hard." That's not easy. And, you know, I told myself I'm just going
to be me, and being me means putting God first, living an honorable life, treating each one
of these women with respect, and of course, it's a TV show and so there's going to be
crazy women and there's going to be drama but despite all that I'm still going to be
me and live for God. And, fast-forward I of course meet Catherine
and I reach a point where I feel like I--yeah, yeah, Catherine. She's awesome. I reach a point where I just know God has
placed her in my life and I cannot live without her. And it was really funny because I had an internal
struggle that said--my heart was saying, "She's the one for you. You’ve got to spend the rest of your life
with her." But my mind was telling me, like, "You idiot,
this is a reality show, this isn't real. You should not be proposing to this girl." But, toward the end God just gave me this
peace about the whole thing and I knew that she was going to be this incredible woman
of God who's going to chase after God's heart and challenge me in my own faith, which she
has done. And so, I proposed to her on a TV show, which
sounds absolutely ridiculous and, we got engaged in Thailand and then we--after getting down
on one knee and proposing, we rode off into the sunset on the back of an elephant. NASSER: Who hasn't? Honestly. LOWE: So, you know, for you guys out there
I dare you to top that one. You can't. But it wasn't my doing the producers did it,
so I can't take all the credit. And then after the show, you know, you got
to do a million interviews and you got to do the media circuit and all that stuff and
somewhere along the line, someone thought to ask me, "How's the sex?" or "How's your
sex life?" I don't even remember that question being
asked, but I must have answered it honestly and said something along the lines of, you
know, "We've decided to wait until marriage to have sex." From that moment forward, that's all anybody
wanted to talk about. Tabloids, talk shows, even the respectable
talk shows: Good Morning America, or whatever. That's all anybody wanted to talk about. And then they label me the "Virgin Bachelor"
and at first I got to tell you guys it really bothered me. Not because of the stance I was taking and
because I was ashamed of it, it's because I felt like, "They're just trying to label
me as an outcast, and they don't want to hear why I'm taking this stance." And it just, it kind of hurt, you know, like,
they want to label me as this weirdo. They look at me and they say, "Well, you look
normal, and, you know, you're the Bachelor, you're in this position where you have all
these women to choose from. Why are you acting so abnormal?" And after a few months, I started to realize,
people were coming up to me, and they were saying, you know, "Thank you so much for standing
up for your faith," or, you know, "I actually let my daughter watch you because of the man
of Christ that you are," and, you know, "What you've done has impacted my teenage son so
much." And so I realized, like, it became an incredible
platform to share Jesus' love. And so, that was a really long-winded way
of answering your short, simple question, but, you know, the "Virgin Bachelor," at first
it kind of seemed like something that I didn't want in my life and now I'm proud and for
me, I want you guys to know, that's just a part of being faithful. I want to live in God's blessing. I struggle with it a lot, you know, I sin
just like everybody else and I make a lot of mistakes but I want to try my best to live
in God's blessing. And being faithful sexually is just one aspect
of that, and there's many different aspects, but that's just one, but it's been an incredible
opportunity for me to share God's love with the world. NASSER: Absolutely. I'm grateful, you know, as a father of a teenage
daughter and just honestly as a pastor I'm grateful and I was never really personally
that interested in the show until your reputation preceded you. Your platform was more than just a guy on
a show but a guy with a conviction that's unlikely on that show, and that's when the
world starts to take note of what God's doing. So now, obviously, that's why you're here. Like, if you weren't on that show, both of
them, both seasons, we probably would have never been, you know, here and in this moment. But God has given you this platform. I’m interested in knowing how are you and
your wife, what are your thoughts about--I know you just wrote a book, tell us a little
bit about that, and then how else are you going to use your platform for the glory of
God? LOWE: Yeah, you know, my--this has been my
feeling long before I was the Bachelor. We're called to save souls. I firmly believe that. You know, God certainly wants us to experience
a lot of the wonderful things that this life has to offer, He wants me to be a great husband
and one day be a great father and to lead by example and to experience all of the wonderful
things this world has to offer. But at the end of the day, the only thing
that really truly matters is expanding the Kingdom of Heaven, and that's a thought that
I realized long before the Bachelor and that just kind of carried through and now I do
have this platform where I can share it with many more people than I was able to before. And so, I don't know what the future holds,
I don't know what it's going to look like, but I do know that no matter what comes my
way I'm going to continue to talk about God's goodness and His grace and try to infiltrate
the mainstream media and kind of the secular world and--here's the other thing: before
going on to the show, as I said my dad is just an amazing man of God, and he told me
something that didn't really resonate at the time but it did later. He said, "When you go on the show, you're
not going to have to go out of your way to preach." He said, "People are going to be able to see
Jesus in you," and it--I don't think I really understood it when he said it. And then after the show started to air on
TV, that's when people were coming up to me and saying, you know, "Thank you for standing
up for your convictions and being a man of faith," and all these things. And even non-Christians--non-Christians would
come up to me and they would say, you know, "It's so refreshing to see someone with your
kind of character or morals." And what they're really saying, they just
don't know it, is, you know, "I'm seeing Jesus in you and I'm drawn to it," they just don't
know it yet. So, I don't know what the future holds, but
I know I'm not going to stop talking about God's goodness and His grace and His mercy,
and you mentioned my book, you know, I'm proud of it. I'm not here to pedal my book by any means,
but I am proud of it and I share my message in my book and, you know, I'm so thankful
that it's been able to--it hit the New York Times bestseller's list, which is--I never
thought a normal dude selling insurance, hating life, would eventually be a New York Times
bestseller, but it happened and, you know, I know God's hand was involved in it all. NASSER: Now people can be critical all day,
but I was thinking about the reality that on the night that the Grammys were on TV,
you had your wedding on TV. Not everybody gets to have their wedding on
TV. And your father got to officiate your wedding. I'd love for you to tell them about what you
got to do on that night. LOWE: Yeah, well, first of all, a lot of people
asked me--what did I miss? I'm in the dark on this one. NASSER: What is it? LOWE: I don't know. NASSER: Just keep going, man. Just mention a state. North Carolina. Dubai. All right, let's get back on track. LOWE: All right, I'm going to find out afterwards
why everyone's laughing. I actually looked down to see if my fly was
open and I don't have a fly. The wedding. NASSER: Yes. LOWE: All right. So a lot of people asked me, "Why would you
have a televised wedding?" You know, that's something that's supposed
to be intimate and share with your closest family and friends and that kind of thing,
but-- NASSER: Six million people watched your wedding? LOWE: Yeah, I think so, somewhere around there,
and my answer is it's a free wedding, why would I not? Like, are you kidding? I'm a dude, that's just the way I think, you
know. They gave us this five-star wedding and I
don't have to pay a dime, I'll take it. Lost my train of thought. Alright, so, my dad officiated our wedding,
and I've talked a lot about my dad already but my dad, because it was a live wedding,
he had to submit his script to the producers of the show so they could make sure the timing
was exactly right, and they told him in advance, "We'll probably edit it and, you know, move
some things around, because we need it to fit our format, and this is ABC. You know, it's a major network, broadcast
nationally of course, and my dad just filled the script up with Jesus, I mean he was sharing
the gospel in his message at our wedding and so he submits this script, and I'm thinking
they're just going to rip this to shreds. I mean, you can't share this on ABC, you know,
maybe ABC Family, the 700 Club, but certainly not ABC Primetime TV. And they didn't change a thing, and it was
incredible because my dad stood up there and he talked about the saving grace of Jesus
on live TV with six or seven million viewers. And he just got to preach it, and so many
people were kind of drawn in to that because they wanted to see me and Catherine get married
and complete the Bachelor fairytale, and what they got instead--in addition to, is they
got to hear the Truth and that's really all that matters. NASSER: Yeah, they got to hear the gospel. That's amazing. LOWE: And, I'll say this, too: if you think
God's hand wasn't in that, you're crazy, because just being on TV the little bit I have, that
stuff doesn't make it. And somehow it made it in that circumstance
and I know that God was the One responsible. NASSER: So I've got my questions that you
and I discussed beforehand on my iPhone, so I'm gong through it, and now I'm getting blown
up why everybody was laughing. They're saying that I asked you how'd it go
your wedding night, and-- LOWE: It was awesome! NASSER: Come on. I think you and I are so heavenly minded that
we're no earthly good sometimes. But-- LOWE: Well, all right, let me go back to that
for just a second. NASSER: You don't have to, but-- LOWE: It was awesome, and so many people—all
right, this is, you guys know this, this is what the world will tell you: you have to
find sexual compatibility before you marry the person you're in love with. It's a must. You have to test-drive the car before you
buy it. That's what the world will tell you, and that's
all I heard when the whole "Virgin Bachelor" thing started up. "Are you crazy? You got to find sexual compatibility with
your mate before you marry them." And I know this is a Christian university
and so I know that most of you guys probably have your heads on right, but I want to say
this for those of you who are struggling with this, and I know for a lot of people it's
a major struggle: do not buy into that lie. It is a lie. It's a lie; I promise you it's a lie. If you center your relationship, your marriage,
on Christ, the sex will be amazing and that's just the truth. And if it's not the first time, give it some
practice and then it will be amazing. But don't buy into the world's lie. Any relationship founded on Christ, the sex
will be so much better because of it. NASSER: Thank you. I thought you're not pedaling your book? Apparently you're pedaling--there's a chapter
on that. That is so good, you know, because there is
a, there is this one moment here where it goes from a moment where we're just watching
your life to all of a sudden you're giving advice to a bunch of bachelors and bachelorettes,
right? You're--and right now, you're just kind of
investing into them and just saying to them, "Man, seek purity, trust that the ways of
the Lord are better than the ways of the world, don't buy the lie that you have to just--you
have to be about the things of this world, that's God's design is greater, right, then
man's-- LOWE: Yeah, and--you know, I--this is something
that I've struggled with in my younger years, college. Here's the deal; I accepted Christ at an early
age, and I was always a Christian. I knew that Jesus was in my heart. I knew I was supposed to live for Him. My parents drug me to church, that kind of
thing. And I'm the classic case of, you know, kid
goes to college and he's free and doesn't know what to do and self-destructs. So, you know, I slacked off in every area
of life: in the classroom, skipped a lot of class. Did terrible on tests, really just went to
church sporadically, whenever I felt like it. Slept in most Sundays, just--I wasn't being
the man that I knew I needed to be. And so I just became a really lazy Christian,
and when you become a lazy Christian and you've been really dependent on your parents like
so many people are in college, leading up to college, you start to slip in every aspect
of your life. And so, I--what I found is, I didn't make
a conscious decision, like I'm going to--I'm just going to go out and I'm going to start
hooking up with girls. I just kind of slid into it unintentionally,
and that's because I really lost my grasp on my relationship with Christ, and it wasn't
until after college, I just reached a point where I realized, like, "This is all cyclical. I'm starting here where I'm not happy, and
I'm going out and doing these things that I think are going to make me happy, but after
it's over I come back to this point where I'm unhappy again. And I realized I've got to take ownership
of my own faith. I'm not a Christian because my parents drug
me to church when I was young, I'm a Christian because I have Christ in my heart and I need
to seek Him. And that's when I really started to mature
in my faith, and that's why I feel like I was so well prepared to go into such a secular
environment like the Bachelor, and really walk hand-in-hand with God through that crazy
world. And so here's my plea to everybody in here:
don't wait like I did. If I could go back--you know, I was a college
football player at Kansas State, and in college, or at Kansas State, college football is king. I mean the players are celebrities. I could have reached so many people and I
could have had such an impact if I had lived for Christ during college, and I didn't. And I know there are people that are lost
today because I didn't witness to them, because I was lazy. And I would do anything to go back and relive
those years so I could make an impact for Christ, so--don't do what I did. Realize that you're job is to seek Christ. Everything else will fall into place. NASSER: Yeah, that's great. That's great advice, great wisdom. Sean, you're such a testament, buddy, of what
good is it for man to gain the whole world but to forfeit his soul? And you have stood on your convictions. Your marriage, you know, is viewed by many
of us, and I think your greatest testament, your greatest sermon that you're going to
preach is not going to be how you weathered through those couple of seasons of the show,
but how we're watching you live a Christ-centered marriage, and how we're watching you use the
very platform God's given you in moments like this, where you're just speaking into their
lives. And I actually do appreciate the fact that,
you know, you're not afraid to talk about the very topics that God's not afraid to talk
about in the Bible, including sexuality and including purity and including who they date,
you know, in this very season of their life, and honestly I think the big takeaway for
some might even be, just being lazy in their faith and being lazy in their academics during
their college years, but I would love--I would just love for you if you would, just to pray
over these students--you know, you're former bachelor, but we have a lot of bachelors here,
you know, and I'd love for you to just pray over them and just, would you do that, man? Would you pray for us? LOWE: Yeah, absolutely. God, thank you so much for bringing us here
this morning. Thank you for allowing me to take about your
love and your goodness and your forgiveness. Jesus, I just ask that you please speak to
each and everyone's heart in this room, and everyone watching. Lord, light them on fire, let them know that
you, God, are the one they should be chasing after, above all else. Lord, I just pray that you guide us, direct
us in all that we do. May we be a light in a dark world, Jesus,
we love you, we pray all these things in your name, amen. NASSER: Amen. Can we put our hands together for Sean? Great job, bro. LOWE: Thank you.
