Apologetics, Calling, and Identity — A Conversation with Alex McElroy

Show Notes

In this episode of The Church Around the World, host Dan Ehrman is joined by Alex McElroy—pastor, author, and founder of Proof For The Truth—for a thoughtful conversation on how apologetics strengthens local church ministry, shapes discipleship, and equips believers to engage culture with confidence and grace.

Alex shares how apologetics is not merely an academic exercise, but a pastoral tool that helps congregations address doubt, disciple the next generation, and remain grounded in biblical truth amid cultural pressure. The conversation also explores the landscape of African-American apologetics, highlighting its unique voice, historical context, and growing influence within the broader evangelical church.

In addition, Alex reflects personally on navigating vocational change, the challenges of redefining calling outside of traditional ministry roles, and the importance of rooting identity not in titles or platforms, but in who we are in Christ. His story offers encouragement to pastors, ministry leaders, and believers discerning new seasons of calling while remaining faithful to God’s purposes.

This episode will resonate with anyone interested in: • Using apologetics as a discipleship and evangelism tool in the local church • Understanding the role and contribution of African-American voices in apologetics • Walking through vocational transition with spiritual clarity and confidence • Finding lasting identity and purpose grounded in God, not role or profession

A timely and encouraging conversation for church leaders, educators, and believers seeking to lead faithfully in a changing world.

Learn more about Alex McElroy: • https://www.proofforthetruth.org/ • https://www.alexrmcelroy.com/ • https://www.facebook.com/pastoralexmcelroy/

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Host

Dan Ehrman

Director of Church Relations & Strategy - Tyndale House Publishers

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Here is your host for the church around the
world. Dan Ehrman.

Welcome to the church around the world. I'm Dan
Erman, honored today to be joined by an apologist, a Christian apologist, Alex McElroy.

He is an old friend. I've known him in ministry
circles for years.

Alex, you're a podcaster yourself and involved
in all kinds of different media and initiatives and work. Thanks for joining me and making time.

Yeah, thank you for having me. It's great to be
with you again and I'm looking forward to the discussion.

Well, we\'ve talked on all kinds of stuff over the years,
but for folks who may not know you, introduce yourself a little bit
and tell us about your work and background.

For a pastor or church leader — what do you do? So it's always a tough question to answer, right?

I am an apologist. I have an organization
called proof for the truth.

We were putting on a conference once a year
here in Chicago. I kind of took a break from it for a couple of years.

Well, first for Covid and then, most recently
just because of some job situations. I have a YouTube channel called Relentless Pursuit of Purpose, which also I need to get back on the horse with.

I'm actually editing a video right now,
hopefully to release before the end of the year. And I just try to, really help people, especially young people and young adults, understand the reasons for why

they believe what they believe, and to help
other people who don't believe understand why they should. So I do also co-pastor a house church here in Chicago, and I do a lot of mentoring.

I've been working with inner city youth in some
form or fashion for probably the last twenty years. So a lot of things going on, but all connected to getting people to know Christ and to serve him.

You come at this from a unique point of view
and just your background and your experience. Christian apologetics more broadly.

When I look at that for a long time, it felt
like the epicenter of that was like Ravi Zacharias Rzim. And that kind of blew up.

Obviously, the downside of that is like, you
don't have a locust point anymore, but the upside is like, there's fifty new things that have started in the last five years. And how have you been navigating

This season and like, what are what are the
things that have been both like disappointing and frustrating, but what have been like the opportunities that you've seen come up in this season?

I had the opportunity to
kind of get trained by Frank Turek, Jim Wallace, Shawn McDowell, a lot of these guys from Cross Examined Instructors Academy for three years.

And then I went to get a little bit of training
at Rzim, and I served with them on a missions trip. I wasn't employed there, but, yeah, that situation hit hard, hit me hard and hit some of my friends

Hard who did work there.
Because the fallout was left to those of us who were still here, right?

It's not a typical pastor fall situation where
the pastor is still alive to answer for what they did. This was a different situation.

So that made it probably extra difficult. But I
think in general, one, one takeaway is, don't put all your eggs in one basket or don't put all your hope in one person unless this person is Jesus.

And it wasn't that I was putting my hope in
him, but I did admire him. I did, love listening to him.

But even within this kind of internet space of,
of apologetics, it's so many voices and so many people trying to grow their channels, which I, which I understand and it's great, but if the goal is that

Sometimes it bothers me when, the way to do
that is to, is to either attack somebody or to, be a little bit more aggressive than probably is necessary. I'm a big believer and I'm a big proponent of, relational

apologetics. Now, as somebody who speaks on
stages, so to speak, that seems like the opposite. But to be honest, most of my best apologetic work, if you want to call it that, no one's there to see it.

So when I put a flyer online and like I'm
speaking, like, for example, I'm speaking at this conference in LA next month, which I'm excited about. It's going to be great.

That's one tenth of the work. One thing I
didn't mention is I also do prison ministry.

So twice a month I teach in Cook County jail
and apologetics is just part of it's just baked into what we do every conversation because you have to be able to give answers.

There's people in there with disparate beliefs.
One guy will say, hey, come talk to my cellmate.

He believes this. And then we go over there and
that.

So obviously there's no cameras there and
there's no record even, and I'm not getting paid for it either. So those are the things, those are the conversations that really, I think more Christians

Need to be having conversations like that. You
don't have to go to jail to do it.

You can go next door. Your neighbor, needs to
hear these things too.

And our culture has, as, as it does, we
highlight the more famous quote unquote, people of the crowd or the best of the crowd. And that's, that's all well and good.

William Lane Craig is great. Frank Turk's
great.

But one thing Jim Warner Wallace used to say to
us is that we don't need another million dollar apologist. We need a million one dollar apologists.

In essence, that scripture we all quote first
Peter three fifteen. It's not written to some elite superhero group of Christians.

It's written to Christians. Like we're all
supposed to be ready to give a defense.

Now, if you can't, if you feel like you can't
do it as well as, whoever William and Craig or whoever you think is good, that's fine. And to be honest, most conversations, you don't need to

Know that much anyway. It's going to be very
rare that you come in contact with, a Christopher Hitchens or, like the average person.

We're not going to come in contact with them.
So understanding what can I, can I even expand?

You can expand on like that idea of like
getting after like it's the hope that's within you. And I think for so many of us in, in Christian circles, we can get into the subcultural

Identity and we haven't actually identified our
own hope we've had. We have like an assimilated hope that we're borrowing.

And some of that is valid in if its object is
Christ. But some of it is like, the proof of that the substance of that hope has to be gone through.

And we don't we don't accelerate the getting
through of that by reading another textbook. We have to like live it and it gets hard pressed and earned.

And like, when you've gone through the pain and
the suffering and encountered hope on the other end of what should not be hope, then you can share. I totally agree.

I totally agree. And some of the, some of the
people who are really great evangelists, they don't know all the technical information of a Hugh Ross or of a Pfizer or whoever, but it's the person who

They're talking to can literally see the light
shining from their, from their, from their face. And they can sense the hope.

And it's intriguing and it's attractive. And
you're right, we sometimes over complicate things.

Especially in apologetic circles. But there is
a certain niche of people who need that too.

And so it is good to have that information or
have people who can give that information. But, by and large, we used to be, we need to be able, be willing to be present with people and be willing to,

Honestly investigate the hope that we have and
make sure we really do have it. You know, Alex too, you are an African American in this space and, that's just not your average apologist, right?

Like I think apologetics and I think either of,
Ravi Zacharias or Josh McDowell from bygone era, William Lane Craig and, very academic and, very more formal or, maybe a little more like street level, like

In-your-face kind of stuff, like you mentioned,
Frank Turek and that kind of thing. I don't see a ton of African american apologists and but you've been in this space for decades.

And so not only you're cutting a new trail in
this, but I imagine there's probably a legacy that I'm just ignorant of too.

Well, yes and no. there is.

So I'm actually the conference I'm speaking at
next month in LA is a group of black apologists. all the speakers are.

And that's awesome. And so I've been kind of
full time, I think since twenty seventeen in my apologetics, but, during the pandemic, I don't even know how this happened.

I thank God for it. I stumbled across this
particular Facebook group where it was a lot of them in there.

And I always thought I was the only one. I
mean, not literally, but you feel like that sometimes out there.

I try to flow in so many different circles and
I was was pleasantly surprised. And not not only that, they've taught me a lot about other things, about just other, brand, not even brands, but

Other things that we need to be apologetic have
apologetic arguments for, such as comedian and, Hebrew Israelism and stuff like that. Yep.

And so we need that full scope. And so what I
was looking for was this book called Urban apologetics.

Now there's one by, what's the pastor in
Detroit? Chris Brooks and then Eric, eric Mason and Philly spearheaded, two volumes actually.

And several of my friends wrote chapters in
those books. And literally every chapter is a different ones on Islam.

One's a Jehovah's Witness, one's on. So I
remember there's been a lot, I remember seeing him go through a bunch of stuff with black Hebrew Israelites and yeah, a couple like pandemic era a few years back.

And, that was wild. That was like a, like I had
heard about it, but I'd never seen it.

And I was like, whoa, this is a whole nother
world. It is.

It is. And so now here's the other part with
being, black apologist, I guess you could say, is there, it's kind of like you're fighting on four fronts at a, at a, at a time.

And that extra layer is, I think, something
that maybe some other apologists don't have to contend with. So I'm naturally going against naturalism, atheism, the typical stuff, Islam, those things.

And then I have some black, some african
Americans who are anti-Christian because they think it's a white man's religion or whatever the case is. So you got to debunk that on this side.

And then on the other side, you have, maybe the
more extreme white nationalist, evangelical, whatever you want to call it. You know, we got to kind of combat that.

And then so it's like, there's there's all I'm
for truth. My organization is called proof for the truth.

And I don't care if this side is wrong or this
side is wrong or my side or whatever that, like, I just want the truth. And so, that has led to in the past, as you say, this

History where if you think about, James Cone or
liberation theology and stuff like that, I think was necessary at the time, but I think it had a bit of an overreach to, to an extent as well.

Same with, Latin American liberation theology.
So all these facets and all these different, ethnocentricity ethnocentric groups getting involved in this work of apologetics or theological discussion.

Brings more things to argue about. And as a
black apologist, you can kind of feel like ping pong ball, like I'm arguing with you here, but against you here, but also with you here and against you here.

And, and you know that I haven't even mentioned
the political part yet. And so that's why I love this shirt.

Jesus is king. That's the only that's the only
government I gotta worry about.

That's not that hasn't been politicized either.
Right.

Right, right. Oh, man.

Well, it's I mean, some of it too is like
you're journeying people in who may not have exposure to all of, of, of that too. And so, that most pastors thought I made the word up when I was pitching my

Workshops to them when I was saying, hey, we
have apologetics workshops. And I called a lot of like any church, but a lot of minority churches all over this country.

This was before the pandemic. So I mean, not
necessarily, I don't know if they thought I made it up, but they hadn't, they had no idea what apologetics was.

And so, it's hard to get people a cure for a
sickness they don't know exists. it's coming from you.

It's like you're a doctor with a specialty with
a word that I've never heard of. But you do a thing that I need you to do.

Yes, exactly. And we started seeing as, like
these with with these it's different than youth ministries in the past because the kids couldn't literally Google what you're saying as

You're talking and now they're exposed to so
much. We can call it information, but, but data, that they're, it's hard to decipher through.

And so they have a lot of questions. And so
where do they go to get those questions answered?

Well, they're probably going to go right back
to Google or chatGPT or something. And if we, a youth pastor or a parent or an apologist or whoever is not there to help them navigate that information,

They'll still be led astray. So we need
apologetics now more than ever for several reasons.

One, the cultural shift. Two, our youth are
overexposed to data of all kinds.

Just data, data. I think the study I read
recently said fifty percent or seventy five percent of kids now get their news from TikTok.

And I think twenty five percent of adults,
which is even scarier. people don't read books as much anymore, at least not, theological or, or nonfiction books.

And so how do we get this information in a way
to the people who need it, who don't necessarily know they need it right now because at some point you're going to get challenged. At some point you're going to

Have the the dark night of the soul. You're
going to have your faith challenged.

And if you're not sure on your foundation,
you'll crumble. So we don't want that to happen.

Well, you've you've navigated this now for a
couple decades. There were questions early on that drove you into this pursuit.

What was kind of were the like a cataclysmic
moment or what was that for you to journey into like going deeper in apologetics? So it's interesting my story because it had nothing to do with apologetics.

I mean, God knew, I didn't know. So I'll tell
briefly.

Since this is public, I was, let's say a very
different person in college. And I was involved in some stuff that I shouldn't have been involved in.

Um, this is if I go further back, like my dad
passed when I was eleven and issues with my stepdad after that. And so there was a lot of stuff going on in my life and I didn't handle it well.

And my mom would always send me books and I
would just throw them in the back of the closet and never look at them. When I graduated college, finally, I was kind of trying to

Clean myself up, clean my life up, not ever
pursuing ministry that was never that was never even a thought. And I was like, let me just go get a book out of the closet.

Let me go be a good son. And the first book I
pulled out the closet was The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, and I had I still, at this point had never heard the word apologetics.

I didn't even know what I was reading. But I'm
a very analytical, logical type person.

So as I'm reading it, because I did know God
from an early age, I just had, I just, for a variety of reasons went astray, but it, I didn't even know people were doing this, that people were were

Quantifying and finding evidence for God, for
the empty tomb, for the resurrection, for the scientific evidence, for all these things. And as I read it, I'm like, man, this is cool.

Like, do other people know about this? Like,
but, I just read that book and I was kind of self taught at first, reading different books and different books here and there.

And then I found, or somebody told me about
this guy named Robbie. I found him online and started watching a lot of his stuff.

And then I kind of went and got formally
trained or semi formally trained with, cross-examined and Rzim, as I said, and I went and got my master's in apologetics through liberty. so it just kind of was this

Journey that I never planned to be on. It
wasn't my, my roadmap, so to speak, like, hey, I'm going to do this and this.

I wasn't, I didn't have any of that. I was just
kind of following God's lead.

And so even had my conference first started. I
had this vision because I was coming from this kind of big megachurch, and I was thinking of, man, if we get everyone here to know this

Stuff, man, how awesome would it be? And I was
so excited.

And then it kind of, got nixed from me doing it
at that location. So I did the first one at North Park University, but I didn't know what I was doing.

I just knew there was information in me that I
had to get out. And I wanted people to, to know it and benefit benefit from it.

And that kind of just caught on. And then,
several years later, here we are.

But I never envisioned talking to you on a
podcast about anything like this. None of this was in my Alex plan for life.

I was working in the mortgage industry then I
was working in insurance and financial services, and I would go serve in ministry in the evening when I had to, I was, I was fine for me. And, God saw different.

If you take on a big project and you work on
something for a thousand hours, you'll spend like two hours on this little thing on the along the way. And all of a sudden that has like a one thousand X impact.

Out of those two or three hours, there's an
element of, of God taking those little things in our lives and doing, the thirty six, one hundred fold out of it. Absolutely.

Even recently I was telling my, my girls, I can
say it now. So I, the organization I was working for, I had to part ways with them.

And, the job market is not great if you follow
the news at all. I hear stories every day, people looking six months a year and, I couldn't sustain the family for that long off reserves.

And so I had prayed, this is the end of
September thirtieth, that I would have a job by the end of the year. And, it wasn't.

In fact, the job I did think was going to
happen. I interviewed for and I and then that fell through and I was really broken about it.

And then a week later, I got the one I'm about
to start at, next week. I had never even thought of this organization.

I had never planned to do what I'm about to be
doing. And, but I actually think it's really a God move, and I can see him in it, even though it's not a ministry position, quote unquote.

I can see the connections to how I can help the
community and help kids. And so there's, there's a point, as you look back over your life and somebody was telling me about this, at

Our church on Sunday, she created these
journals. And I'm, I'm not the best journaler I try to write stuff down when I can, but if, if I go back and look at some of those prayers from two thousand

And six, two thousand and seven, and he
answered, if I go back and look at some kind of miraculous type things where the one time we were about to close on the house on our condo, somebody, robbed our account

At a bank, like somewhere out of state. but it
was all our earnest money that they took.

So I'm like, God, this is happening in a week.
What are you going to do?

Then that night I was teaching at church. I go
home the next day or I go home, I checked the mail.

There's a check for what we need to be able to
cover the difference. And I don't even.

I don't even know why we got the check to this
day. I mean, I know it was a it was a settlement for something that happened with a computer company.

I don't know, it was it was something that was
like years and years and years ago. But like the check comes this specific moment.

And so when I think back on those things, when
I'm in my current situation, I'm like, okay, I don't know how he's going to do it, but I know he's going to do it and I know who's going to do it.

And so though the reason that they set up,
altars and stones and markers in the Old Testament is so they could have remembrance. God did this thing.

And the same God who did this thing will do the
next thing. So we we live in a very what have you done for me lately type of a mindset.

And that's, that's a really dangerous mindset
to, to live in with God because he's the ultimate multitasker. And so there's so many things working that somehow I don't

Know how somehow our conversation right now is
connected to something else happening in China, which is connected to something else happening in England. I don't know how those dots connect, but the God of the

Universe does, and I simply have to trust him.
And it kind of gives you a peace and a freedom when you when you know it's not all on you bring the Lord into it and it becomes exciting.

It's seen people a couple times in the last
month Talk about early church fathers and how, Gregory of Nyssa, one of the desert fathers, had an idea about eternity, a full embodied life. Yes.

And that not only is it full embodied life, but
we have a God who is infinite and that the there's always another horizon in infinity. And it's not like it's not a Sisyphus like, pull,

Push the boulder to the top and do it again.
but it's like God is with us on the journey and present with us at the top, but we never arrive and we're not made to arrive.

We're made to, to be present with him and
reflecting his image and doing good work into eternity. And like, there's a delight in that where it's not labor and toil under the sun in vain, but

It's flourishing and delight forevermore. And
that there will always be a new horizon.

And like when we shift into that, like, for me,
that's been so helpful to like reframe my vision of God can be infinite and there's always a new horizon.

And it's not that we never arrive, but we're
always there. And there's always a delight of another pursuit for tomorrow.

Have you are you familiar with the book? I
think it's by Dallas Willard.

It's it's really small. The freedom of self
forgetfulness.

No. I think that's what it's called, but it's
basically, kind of an exegesis of one passage in, in Corinthians, second Corinthians, I believe, but Paul is talking about, um.

I don't worry about who judges me. And he says,
I don't even judge myself.

And the the book expounds on it, but just
getting to the point where even in failure, you can still feel close to, to him, even in, when things don't work out exactly how you want it

Or the ministry event didn't go exactly as
planned. You.

It doesn't cause you to feel like a, like you
failed God or that he doesn't love you anymore. But it's hard in our culture because when we track likes, we track followers, we track, pay paid attendees, we

Track, we track all these things. And even when
we tell ourselves, don't get caught up in the numbers, don't get caught up in the like you work at Tyndale, right?

How many copies did your book sell? Like those
are all the questions and they're important questions.

But when we get to heaven, God's not going to
ask us, how many books did you sell? Or, how many, how many donations did you get or how many like the things that are going to matter if we're reading

Scripture are not going to be those things. And
even when we're, we're, we're hanging out with KJ or something.

That's, that's k J Johnson, he's with the C.S.

Lewis Institute. he's a mutual friend.

Yes. Those are, those are important times of
fellowship that further enable us, each of us, to do the kingdom work that we do because we need we're humans, but nobody's going to classify that

As a ministry event. And I don't think you
should.

I'm just saying there's a more there's a more
full Christian life than I think a lot of people know or realize. And I feel like some people are missing out because I do agree with you.

We're coming back here like, like, yeah, it's
not just going to be singing in the clouds all day. We're coming back to earth.

It'll be a new heaven and new earth. But we're
I think we're going to be working in some form or fashion.

I think we're going to be playing having fun in
some form or fashion. It's not going to just be sitting around.

One of the instrumental moments in my life was,
I lead church relations here at Tyndale, and fifteen years ago I was coming off of having worked for my dad's company, designing and building churches for over a

Decade, off and on for two decades. And I said,
God, I'll do anything as long as it's not with the church.

And so I took a job and I was working at a
retail store and I was there for a couple of years. And it was a really good like God's provision.

It was good people. But my last hour there, I
was like, God, like the last week or whatever going into it, I was like, God, if there's stuff you want me to learn from this experience that I haven't

Learned yet, help me to help me to get it. And
yeah, I just sense God say to me in that moment, Dan.

Who you are and me is who you are in me right
now in this lowly job. And no matter what position you go into all the rest of your life, you cannot attain a higher place than you are in me.

Because you're in me, man. And so find your
identity in God and God in, in the the low place of cleaning out urinals at a retail store.

Yes. Met me and said, you are my own and I
delight in you.

And so now coming and doing what I've done now
for over a decade and, I'm not in a higher place in God today. I look back fondly on that moment as a high point in my life.

That's really good. Wow.

We can, um. Remain humble or be humbled.

Right. and I think those experiences like that
you just described, and I've had things that have humbled me and I've tried to stay that way throughout my, my time.

And I pretty much do because I'm not, I don't
really like the fanfare anyway, but it's I heard a story at church. It's not real.

No, it's not real. I've been to the end of
fanfare.

I've seen the echelons of, evangelical,
subcultural fame and fortune. And like the end of fame is like, you have to find Christ at the end of fame.

The end of fortune is how do I steward this
toward God's purposes? Like, there's not an arrival point in that.

Our arrival point is in Christ, in God into
eternity. And, the pursuit of, of these things that the world lies to us along the way.

Is just not it. It's, it's, it, it like it's
weak sauce.

Does it does. And you have to keep, going
higher and higher, right?

Because you have to outdo your last thing that
you did. And it's a never ending cycle.

Good work is a delight and a gift from the
Lord. We don't arrive in this life.

He there's there's no the world lies to us and
says that finance is a security. And it's it just isn't.

Sorry, I'm not interviewing you. I'm I'm doing
a really bad job here, Alex, but no, no, no, you got me.

This is good. I was a little bit.

Well, you reminded me as you're talking, I've
been reading this, so I read a certain part of Proverbs, for the whole week, and then I read somebody else and, New Testament, but it for this week.

I'm on Proverbs twenty one. So really, you can
read this whole thing.

I'm not going to read it all now, but I mean,
it says getting treasures by a lying tongue. The violence of the wicked will destroy them because they refuse to do justice.

So much about that. It's connected to the the
inner well, not the inability, because the ability is there to do justice with the more money, but the lack of intent, seems to go up as well.

And that that's the frustrating part. I think
that's what God's frustration is with, the people.

It says, for riches certainly make themselves
wings. They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.

Right? It doesn't last, as you said.

Do not desire his delicacies for they are
deceptive food. when you sit down with a, with a ruler or whatever that, whatever that, so there's so many warnings.

Not that money is bad and we, want to be clear.
You need money to do things in life.

But if the if the pursuit of money is driving
everything we're doing in ministry, I think that's very dangerous and bad. So yeah, I agree with, it's, yeah, the end of those things is not an end.

You're still a, a tree that's planted, that's
going to bear fruit in its season. And in the stresses of this, it brings out the best fruit in it.

Amen. So, I'm encouraged and hopeful in you and
your work and your faithfulness, even in the light of, this, this transition.

And I'm excited, what is God going to do? I'm
excited as well.

Yeah, yeah, no, I'm excited. And, this is a
great discussion.

I think that the, the need of for apologetics,
it changes generation to generation. societal things happen.

And so the questions become slightly different.
But what doesn't change is people need to know Jesus.

And apologetics is not, I know we think of it
as this kind of specialized thing, but it's really removing the barriers that are preventing someone from knowing him or walking with him.

If those barriers are they believe it's white
man's religion. Okay, let's, let's remove that.

If it's they think it's science has ruled him
out. Okay, let's remove that barrier.

If they think all religions are the same, let's
remove that. So whatever the issue is the goal is not to win.

The argument is to win the soul. And if we
remember that as we go about our days, and I really do mean go about our days, because the most important conversations you'll have are not on the stage.

In fact, you really can't have a conversation
from a stage. Really.

Right. except for Q and A, but the the most
important ones are the ones we see.

And my friend always talks about the natural
rhythms of our lives, where you work, where you sleep, where you eat, where you go to school, where your kids go to school, whatever.

And not to be pushy with it, for example, my
kids friends know who I am. They know what I do.

I'm here if you want to talk, but I'm not going
to show up at the New Year's Eve party with my hat on, like, right. You know, just laying out all the evidence.

But, I've had, that'd be an awkward. So, have
wisdom, obviously, but be prepared.

That's a good word. Alex.

How have like you wrestled with God, in this
season? So man, so many things.

It's a lot of work applying for jobs. I didn't
realize, I mean, I don't know how many cover letters I had to write.

And, you look through twenty postings before
you find one that you actually want to apply for that's already worked because you look at the company, what they. So it's a lot of work.

So I understand why people are burnt out from
it. thank God he had mercy on me.

But there was, like I said, one job, I won't
name the organization in ministry related field. I was like, man, like, if you could write a job description for Alex, this is it.

Like, this is for me. And it was, I thought,
and, I got an email that I didn't get it.

And I was really kind of confused, had some
questions for God, I had some tears. But, when this next position came along, I just wanted to investigate it.

And I'll be honest, I didn't think about this
until you just asked me that if I had if this was the first opportunity that I had looked for right when I lost the job.

I don't know if I would have entertained it. I
didn't even think about that.

I think I had to go through the pain of getting
rejections and not even getting anything back. No callback, no email.

And then when this came, I was like, okay, let
me entertain because not a lot's coming. And I didn't even think about that until you just said that because he had to kind of release my heart from this

Mindset that I had, I have to be in ministry, I
have to do this, which I've worked most of my life in secular professions. But here's the other thing that was crazy.

So I, so I go through the initial interview and
then I'm coming to the facility because I have to do like a part of my job is to do presentations in schools. So I do a mock presentation, a

Short like a ten minute version, and my now new
boss and his boss, who's like the regional guy he was, happened to be there. So I'm in with the big boss, I will say, and I'm doing a

Presentation in front of him. And before.

Was it before or after I did it? We're just
kind of talking and somehow being a oh, because I mentioned FCA and then I he's like, oh yeah, my cousin or brother or somebody in there.

And so we started talking about that. Then we
start talking about ministry.

Then he starts talking about how he looks at
his job here at this company, this new company as ministry. And he and he started talking about how he's been, like maybe twenty years, twenty five years.

He's like, how can I bring Jesus in here and
into the workplace and into the things that I'm doing? And I'm like, Holy cow.

Like this guy's about to be my boss or,
indirectly. And, this is my first interview and here's what we're talking about.

It's not even about the company or the job.
that was like the icing on the cake.

That guy was like, okay, now do you see? so
that's how I reconcile it.

Because, I mean, wherever people are, God needs
a representative. So we tend to think if it's not working for a church or working in a ministry or parachurch organization, we're not serving

God or we're not doing our best for God. And
that's not true.

If you're a teacher and a Christian, hopefully
you bring now, you can't preach him in the class, but hopefully you're bringing his presence with you to the classroom.

Wherever you go, whatever you do, whatever job
you work, we should be representing him at least and bringing, being willing to give answers for the hope that's in us.

If and when we're asked on our job or wherever
we are. So we tend to think in this kind of bifurcated, okay, I'm the Christian over here, and then I'm the regular secular person over here.

Just a few years ago, there was, the data that
came out that like forty percent of pastors are thinking about leaving their job in ministry and going back into secular work.

And just like, it gets pressure cooker. It's
tough ministry being hard.

And I think our conversation can be
encouragement to a lot of pastors who are either suffering or laboring through and struggling through that. Like, yeah, there's the apologetics work, there's the

calling to preach. And these are high and often
holy callings, but we're not in heaven yet.

And, the local church isn't heaven. The local
seminaries apologetics program isn't heaven.

Christian publishing isn't heaven. But we're
on mission and we're serving a good God who delights in us even today.

And so, when we get knocked around,
if we hold fast to him, he's an anchor in the storm, and that anchor is going to hold. And it's a place of delight and flourishing and joy.

And the tree planted will bear fruit in its season.

I'm delighted in what God is going to do in
and through you, even still.

Amen. I'm excited for you.

You've been consistent and held fast on this
for decades. And I just want to honor your faithfulness in that and say thank you for it.

Thank you for joining me in this conversation
here too. Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

Yeah, I'm always excited to connect with you
and look forward to more in the future. Really an honor to, to have you join me here today.

And yeah, excited for this new year ahead.
Thank you.

Appreciate it. Have a good one.

You too. You've been hearing from Alex McElroy.

Proof for the Truth — the website is AlexMcElroy.com, and we'll have links to all that in the show notes.

So, thank you for joining us here on the church
around the world. I'm Dan Ehrman.

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