Shaping Young People for a Fantastic Future (with Dr. Mark Jobe, President, Moody Bible Institute)

If you don't know today's guest Mark Jobe, hopefully you'll get to know him after the episode. You can check out his podcast, Bold Steps, or check out his most recent book What Now? How to Move into Your Next Season. Links are provided below. As the president of Moody Bible Institute and as founding pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago, Mark has a unique vantage point for the next generation. He provides us with a ton of insight concerning our ambassadorship.

moodyradio.org/programs/bold-steps-with-dr-mark-jobe/

amazon.com/What-Now-Move-into-Season/dp/0802423418

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Transcript

Brad: 0:00

Hey friends, this is Brad and we are so excited for this episode of Go Mad with Doug and Brad. A couple of weeks ago at NRB, we got to sit down with the president of Moody Bible Institute, mark Joe. We're going to hear some about his experience as a missionary kid over in Spain. We get to hear his thoughts on the importance of a Christian college education, and we spend time talking about what he sees are the trends in this next generation, both the positive and the challenges, and that's something we all need to be listening to because we can make a difference with those who are coming after us. So make sure you stay locked in and tuned in for this episode of Go Mad.

Jesse: 0:43

What's up y'all Jesse here? producer for Go Mad. If you don't know today's guest Mark Joe, well, hopefully you'll get to know him after the episode. You can check out his podcast, Bold Steps, or check out his most recent book What Now? How to Move into Your Next Season. Links are provided in the description. As the president of Moody Bible Institute and as founding pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago, Mark has a unique vantage point of the next generation. He provides us with a ton of insight concerning our ambassadorship, If you're ready to make a difference then, let's Go Mad.

Brad: 1:20

Well, welcome back to Go Mad with Doug and Brad. We are having another amazing interview here at NRB And this time we get to sit down with Dr Mark Job from Moody Bible Institute. Mark, welcome to the show. Can we call you Mark? first of all.

Mark Jobe: 1:35

Yes, absolutely Mark. or in Spanish they call you Marcos, so you can go by Mark or Marcos.

Brad: 1:42

I like that. See, I don't think I'd get the R right.

Doug: 1:44

I never did in Spanish. President of Moody.

Brad: 1:48

President of Moody Bible Institute. Along with that pastor, he is an author. He has written a book called Bold Steps. He has a radio program called Bold Steps. And before we dive into talking to you a little bit about just life at Moody, what you're seeing in young people nowadays, can you just share with our listeners a little bit of your hope story, Because you grew up with parents that were make a difference people.

Mark Jobe: 2:13

Yeah, absolutely So. When I was six months old, my parents responded to the call of God.

Mark Jobe: 2:19

They left this country, went to language school in Costa Rica, then we ended up in Chile, where my father would ride a horse called Trompo up to the mountains because you couldn't get there by car, and so he would go up there to do Bible studies in these little shacks in Chile Felt like the gospel was exploding and Chile wanted to go to more unreached areas. So when I was six, he took a motorcycle, drove around Spain to find an un-Avangelized city, the most un-Avangelized city.

Mark Jobe: 2:54

There was a city of 140,000 people with no Protestant evangelical church And there he started. My parents started a church in a horse stable. Secret police would come in, our windows were broken, doors burned. He was taken into the secret police and interrogated him multiple times. But now there are many churches, probably thousands of believers, in that city, and he's buried in a cemetery right outside of that town that he labored to share the good news of Jesus with. Wow, praise God Great. And my mother is 85. She still lives in Spain.

Brad: 3:36

Wow, that is fantastic. So do you miss the food? is the question. Oh, I miss the food.

Mark Jobe: 3:40

But you know we, I visit her. She doesn't come to the States very often, So every summer we try I'll be visiting her in June. Oh, that's great.

Brad: 3:49

Well, i have to tell you that, as we have kind of seen, you took the ranger Moody grad yourself got your master's from there too, right.

Mark Jobe: 3:56

Yes.

Brad: 3:58

And then all of a sudden, moody is searching for their new president And I'm not sure if people would have considered you a wild card or not, or if they but. But I have to tell you, as we've watched from a distance and as we've met you there a couple of times, the difference you are making there is palpable. I mean, you see it in the students, you see it in the staff and they have caught your vision and your passion, i mean some of your pastor's heart for the school there. Let me ask this How did you wind up?

Brad: 4:32

there I mean from from overseas, and your parents and everything else to go into school there. How'd you wind up there?

Mark Jobe: 4:40

So I came to Moody when I was 17. And just to do a year of Bible, i thought, before I went to med school. God got ahold of my heart. I ended up pastoring, starting a little inner city church in the southwest side of Chicago with 18 people when I was 21. And anyways, that little church. This past Easter we ministered to 12,000 people over the weekend. Wow.

Mark Jobe: 5:11

We've grown a lot. There's 27 locations in four languages English, spanish, mandarin and now Kachee. We do services. Wow, we have 35 pastors started a non-for-profit. We have 100 people on staff there working with that risk youth in the city of Chicago. So I was really engaged, loving what I'm doing, and Moody called And I tell you I have to be honest with you, i thought I love Moody but I don't see myself a president type at Moody, and so I kept telling them no, i think you're wasting your time. But my wife said you need to pray. Anyways, after four months of praying, fasting, thinking through, they basically said hey, the board, the search team, unanimous, has voted for you to be the president.

Mark Jobe: 6:02

No pressure And so I still remember I said to them okay, so if I can still be involved in ministry while I'm a president, i'll say yes, if I can still be involved. If I can't, then my answer is no. So I don't know if you've ever had a president that was still engaged in pastoral type ministry.

Mark Jobe: 6:25

And so, to their credit, they said if you have the bandwidth you can do it. So I'm a president of Moody, but on the weekends every other week, i preach. On the weekends, I can be given an altar call with my arm around up a tatted up gang affiliated member weeping giving their life to Christ, and during the week I can be in a theology class discussing the finer points of Calvinism.

Brad: 6:59

So it's a great world to be in. I'll tell you, doug, and I should confess real quick that we went to Wheaton, so I apologize for that. I was going to ask my daughter, noella, just finished her third semester at Wheaton.

Doug: 7:12

She was very close to coming to Moody. There are never any rumbles between Wheaton and Moody students or anything like that. You know, in fact.

Mark Jobe: 7:19

I had Dr Reichen. Yeah, I've never come and preached in chapel recently. So him and I are friends I knew him before Wheaton, but he was one of the first college presidents to sit down and I had coffee with him just after I was appointed president. I said, hey, talk to me about being president of a college, because I've never been one. Wow.

Doug: 7:40

And so he's a friend. I want to share just for a moment here. You might know Mark Job as the president of Moody and as a speaker. We want to share just a little bit about his heart. Brad, you want to share what?

Brad: 7:54

I do.

Doug: 7:55

We've got a heart for Native America If you know our ministry, our podcast. we love Native Americans. They are just warriors for Jesus. We've seen amazing things happen as they get sold out for Christ and going back to their communities and being an amazing light where it is so needed, And we just had something very cool happen along those lines. Brad, why don't you share that We?

Brad: 8:22

did And this spoke volumes to your pastor's heart and your heart for the world. Because the reality is is that Native Americans are definitely underrepresented, especially at Bible schools, Christian colleges, And that's changing a little bit little at a time. But we have an amazing student, Caitlin, who is at Moody in her home stretch there, And she wanted to be able to share more with the student body about her people, And so she had an evening forum and then she calls us And she was so excited And she's like we have a chapel, And I'm like you mean like a side chapel or something, And she said no, we have a chapel. Dr Job has given his chapel, the president's chapel, to Native voices And so we went up there with it. We couldn't miss this.

Doug: 9:10

We went up there. We hopped right in the car. We went right up there.

Brad: 9:13

Yeah, with our dad and with these Native students. And it was awesome because Ron Hutchcraft, a Moody alum He's the alum of the year years ago and everything He's on radio. It wasn't him on the stage, it was Caitlin, it was Sarah and Seth who worked with us leading worship and speaking, and you don't get that usually. Your heart showed through huge there that you were just like yeah, take it away.

Mark Jobe: 9:40

And we so appreciate that. And they did such a phenomenal job and captured very well the heart, communicated great to the student body And the student body was exuberant over their presentation. Just a lot of affirmations. So what a great day Yeah.

Doug: 9:59

And some more fruit that came from that. My daughter, noel I married to a Navajo woman the most gorgeous Navajo in history.

Doug: 10:07

You can look it up And our daughter, noel, has a heart for the same thing, just to help God's people know what's going on in Native America. She was so inspired by her friend Caitlin doing that Because it takes a lot of guts. Caitlin is not someone who loves being in front of people, neither is my daughter, but that led her to say yes to an invitation at Wheaton to do a symposium that a few hundred people came to about what's going on in Native America, brought some Native American friends, i believe, and Caitlin was there.

Doug: 10:38

And so that also happened at Wheaton because of your willingness to open that up. So, speaking of Noel, Gen.

Doug: 10:45

Z, i've got to hear if you've got any observations. I'm sure you do spending lots of time around this generation. What are some words that might describe what you are seeing in this generation of young Christians? The reason I'm looking at my phone is because I asked Dad if you had one question to ask Mark on a podcast, what would it be? And he said this is what I would love to hear. So I'm quoting Amir what encourages you, what concerns you about this generation And what advice might you give to Christian parents who are shaping the life of Gen Zers?

Brad: 11:25

Softball question right there.

Mark Jobe: 11:28

Well let me say I would speak to both Gen Z and to Generation Alpha, who is the generation after them as well. So, like most older generations, i feel like I hear a lot of people bemoaning the state of our youth, and I've seen them sort of wilt in front of people that talk about what they see wrong with our youth. But let me say I have a 24-year-old son myself, minister to a lot of young people. So let me talk about, first of all, what amazing things I see among them. I see a generation that is passionate When God captures their heart. That's passionate about.

Mark Jobe: 12:22

God. I see a generation that's unafraid to worship God lavishly, more than the generation that I come from.

Jesse: 12:29

I like that.

Mark Jobe: 12:30

Less reserved and more lavish in their worship. I see a generation that is driven by causes that are important. I see a generation that desires justice to happen, and I think that's something that comes from a God focus. I see a generation that values family more than previous generations, a generation that is willing to work for purpose in life and has a less emphasis on money than previous generations.

Mark Jobe: 13:05

And others don't take a less paying job if they feel like it's more related to a cause that has significance. I see a generation that's very much more relational oriented, that values relations more than previous generations did, and I think every generation wants authenticity, but this generation especially desires authenticity. So those are some of the things that encourage me, these students that are studying and just willing to. They want to make sure their life counts for something And those that are captured by God.

Mark Jobe: 13:42

they just want to make a difference And I think every generation has wanted that, but I see it more in this generation than I think previous generations that are looking more for security and significance, some of the challenges that this generation faces. this generation has been raised with a strong onslaught of pluralism, which means that they have been taught since they were little kids that everybody's ideas should be accepted as equal, that there's really no truth, no absolute truth. Truth is what it means to you.

Mark Jobe: 14:28

And so they have been soaked in this idea that to take your truth and elevate it over someone else's truth is just wrong, and so there's a little bit of this, sometimes not a certainty about what truth is. Truth is very personal to people, which causes a lot of confusion. They've been raised in a generation where the whole topic of human sexuality and gender fluidity and just very confused, so they've been raised in a generation that says you need to try to respect everybody, whatever they think. However they define themselves, and so to try to define it more clearly is insulting or it's bigotry. So they're more ambiguous about sexuality, even Christian youth.

Mark Jobe: 15:26

They've been raised in culture where there's not clear teaching about it? They're also because I think they've been taught that everybody's truth is valid. Sometimes they're more reluctant about evangelism because, they did a survey among millennials, not Gen Z or Alpha, but millennials that attend evangelical churches and ask is it wrong to share your faith with someone else that has different beliefs in order to convert them? And they 70% believe that it was wrong. What's wrong? Evangelism?

Doug: 16:08

They believe that evangelism is wrong.

Mark Jobe: 16:11

These are evangelical millennials going to church Because they've been so soaked in a culture of respecting everybody's ideas as equal. Not just I respect you as a person. even you have different ideas. I have to validate your truth and I have to celebrate whatever you believe because if not, it's demeaning to you. That's what culture has taught this generation. I think the other thing that I've observed about this generation is that, especially coming out of the pandemic, the escalation of anxiety, loneliness, suicidal ideation that combined with an over dependency on these devices since 2012,.

Mark Jobe: 17:04

Sociologists have studied a precipitous increase in anxiety, loneliness, depression, especially among the college age and, in particular, women, but not exclusively women, and the only difference that they can tell is that this is 2012 is around, when these smartphones became common to everybody, and so we are hyper connected but very disconnected, and so that has some effects on people's emotional well being as well. So those are some of the challenges that just generation is facing, as well as some of the beauty that this generation has as well.

Doug: 17:49

As a parent of several of these folks, i can tell you that they are also listening. You mentioned earlier about how young people this age will wilt when they hear how they are being described by folks around our age. And they're listening and they know how they feel about them And it's a little self fulfilling prophecy that happens. Well, if that's what you believe about, maybe that's how valuable I am. So thank you for sharing the amazing strengths of this generation.

Mark Jobe: 18:24

Thank you. They have some great challenges, but I try to tell our students on a regular basis man, i see your heart, your passion and some of the things that I see in you give me a lot of encouragement for this next generation.

Brad: 18:39

Well, i think that that is so key because when, as you were saying, doug, it's kind of that confirmation bias they talk about that as you, you're going to see things the way that you have been told and everything else, and for them to have people pouring into the lives, and it starts from the top down. You're setting a tone where, from the top down, you are saying you know what, you are valuable.

Brad: 19:00

Yeah what people have told you isn't where you have to settle, it's not where you have to land, and so that kind of brings up for us the importance, then, of being in the right environment and right setting for further education.

Mark Jobe: 19:15

Yeah.

Brad: 19:15

So what would you say to the parent or student that might be listening to this? the that is saying you know what? I can go anywhere for school. I can do whatever because there's so many choices out there. As president of Moody Bible Institute, but more importantly as a dad who has had someone make a choice of what school to go to, what would you say is the importance of that environment and where you go to learn?

Mark Jobe: 19:42

Yeah, absolutely. So let me say this obviously, i'm the president of a Bible college and the importance of sound theology, a biblical worldview, cannot be overestimated. Now, having said that, i also had a son that went to a secular university And and I have a daughter that went to a Christian liberal arts college, not a Bible college. So we've experienced. But here's what I would say. I would say number one I think that if if you have a Christian son or daughter, i told my son, who I knew was thinking about secular university, i said, if you're going to go there, i want you to do a gap year first. So I would strongly encourage you if you have a teenage son or daughter and they're going to go to secular university, you need to make sure that they're solidified in their faith and strong enough because there will be a lot of temptation.

Mark Jobe: 20:41

Christian schools are non Christian, but a lot of non Christian schools, i mean a lot of people know this. They're just party houses, right, and there's a lot of peer pressure. So my son went to. He took a gap year because in high school, at university, he started to tell him you need to take a gap year, you need to take a gap year. So he actually went on a mission strip and he was in Australia for a training. Then he went to Mozambique and he went to Nepal.

Mark Jobe: 21:09

So he was six months doing mission He living in community, doing Christian mission type work And so God really got a hold of him. So when he went to go to a Christian college or a secular college he looked for to see if there was like a Christian dorm or some Christian, and so he was connected with that, jumped into a campus crusade and other type ministries like that. So I would strongly encourage, if they're going to go to a secular college, that they be grounded, that they be trained. There's a power to a Christian college because first of all and this may seem very simple, but a lot of times people meet people in college that they marry Hello, that's true, you Christians at a Christian college that share your values and worldview.

Mark Jobe: 22:00

The other thing is that a lot of college students are developing just their understanding of the world, and so if in their science classes and biology classes and philosophy classes and political science classes, if they are bombarded by people that they respect with a secular world view, you have to be pretty strong to resist that And if not, it's easy to get inculturated by the society around us. So I'm not advocating that every kid has to go to a Christian college, but I'm saying that you better make sure that your sons and daughters are grounded in their faith, connected to a body, intellectually understanding what they're going to be taught and how to discern it. If they go to a place that's not a Christian college, i do think that there's a powerful place for places like Moody Bible Institute for example that every single professor is no matter what subject they're teaching, they're going to teach it from a Christian worldview.

Mark Jobe: 23:09

There's chapels, there's spiritual life development, there's people that are praying And I think there's something powerful about that for their grounding, for their instruction, especially in those formational years.

Brad: 23:21

Mark your insight on the generations of Gen Z and Alpha and just helping parents have some practical things to consider when helping nudge their children. whatever decision, not trying to make the decision for them. This is bite sized, digestible info, So thank you for the way you're sharing.

Doug: 23:43

I've never heard it put better. Thank you. You're helping a lot of parents who are trying to get this figured out. Yeah, so you used the word inculturated. That's one of the coolest words I've ever heard.

Jesse: 23:54

I don't think I've ever used it myself.

Brad: 23:57

It's a president level You have to.

Doug: 23:58

Google it later, figure out what it means, and then I'm going to start using Oh, great word. I think we have time for one more question. Such rich missions history at Moody, at Wheaton, to colleges known for what are you seeing? what's happening? We're so aware of the great missionary stories from the 50s and in the past. What's happening now?

Mark Jobe: 24:25

Yeah, So yeah, at one time I'm told that one out of every 10 missionaries in the world was a graduate from the Moody Bible Institute.

Doug: 24:34

Wow, i believe that.

Mark Jobe: 24:37

And I hear stories like this is a little side note, but I think it tells you the power of this. The first year that I was a president at Moody, there was a delegation from Korea that wanted to meet with me. I'm like, okay, i was so busy I could I barely listened to. why do they want to meet? I said, sure, let's have lunch. And so there was a delegation from Korea and they said we're tracing our denominations birthing place.

Brad: 25:05

Wow.

Mark Jobe: 25:06

Turns out that in 1890 something, a Japanese man by the name of Jujinakata came to study at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. God got ahold of them. This evangelistic fervor went back to Japan and wanted to evangelize door to door to door to door, every Japanese on the whole island. That became his thing. Inspired by his time at Moody Bible Institute, he started the Tokyo Bible School. Some people from Korea, two students from Korea, came over. They were so encouraged, touched by the zeal, that they went back to Seoul And now there was I don't know, it was like a thousand churches and almost a million people apart of this denomination that started by a student that I'd never even heard of.

Mark Jobe: 25:58

Jujinakata and the ripple effects. And that's the power of one person going out with zeal, the repercussions of that, and I think mission still works that way Now. I think the change in mission is this is that we still have countries that are unreached, but we have more natives now, indigenous people now in those countries, and so I think mission has shifted somewhat to how do we empower the indigenous people?

Mark Jobe: 26:33

to reach their areas, their communities, and so now there's still a place for American missionaries to go to some places and be out there to support and help, but I think the focus of missions is much more on how do we empower indigenous leaders to reach their area, how do we come along and support and empower them, and so I think that's a little bit of the shift. I think the other thing is that, especially in closed countries, we have people that are going in as professionals, workers, and they can't enter into these countries just as missionaries And so they have to go in like that, but they need Bible training.

Mark Jobe: 27:14

So what I find is that a lot of the students at Moody that are going towards missions have a little bit. That's a new focus. Maybe that 50 years ago, 40 years ago, wasn't there. That is, how do we come alongside indigenous leadership and help them and empower them and support them in them reaching their countries, their people, and how do we raise and give opportunities to indigenous leadership?

Brad: 27:44

Which is a lot of wisdom right there It is and moody is doing that, as I've seen on social media recently. You are empowering indigenous leaders around the world and, as we said at the beginning, indigenous leaders in Native America, and we are so grateful for that mark. Thank you so much for taking this time with us. I think we even took a couple extra minutes from you So thank you because to hear your heart, i'm sure we'll be a blessing to our listeners. Doug, would you pray for mark and moody?

Doug: 28:12

Mark, tell us how we can specifically pray for moody and for you.

Mark Jobe: 28:16

Yeah. So I would say, first of all, moody is a conservative Ministry in the heart of a very secular city.

Jesse: 28:26

We're in the heart of a secular state?

Mark Jobe: 28:30

Yeah, very, very secular city.

Mark Jobe: 28:32

So, you can imagine, there's a big Target on us from the outside. And so pray, i always pray. I pray Protection. I have a limited amount of energy and I don't want to fight. I don't want to spend my all my energy fighting off battles. I want to put it into the mission. So I say, god, you need to protect this, because there's a lot of people around us They don't necessarily like what we stand for, like our values, and so pray for protection. Okay, and You know every student that comes to moody. They pay their room and board, but it costs us thirty three thousand dollars a year to train a student. They pay fourteen.

Mark Jobe: 29:11

We raised the rest, so it's my donors so every year I we believe God for the resources to come in, because we basically supplement half of what it costs to Train a student through outside donations. So protection and provision are two things.

Doug: 29:29

I like that and you'll pray for. Well, let's pray together. Heavenly father, first we just Thank you for how good you are. We see it all around us, we see it in our families, in your provision for us. Thank you for the cross, the resurrection, for the promise of heaven. Lord, you know my heart. You know how honored I am that you'd allow us to spend some time with Dr Joe. Be your Lord. Thank you so much, lord.

Doug: 30:04

We would just want to pray that Whatever wisdom has, as come across here today, that it would permeate, penetrate the hearts of those that hear it, you would give wisdom to parents that are trying to best help their kids make a decision About where to go, what to do with their lives.

Doug: 30:28

Lord, we do pray for protection for students at Moody, for Mark and his family. Lord, pray your great blessings, your anointing on mark is teaching his leadership, and we pray, lord. It is such an amazing thing how Moody has for so long Made it so possible for so many to go and be trained in the word of God and go become leaders for you and and a light in this world, by Charging so much less than other colleges and make it so available. But we know it's not free for them. So we pray you would put Moody on the hearts of your people as they decide where to give and And how to pray and who to pray for. We pray for an even greater and richer history For Moody as far as sending out those Students into the world that is so desperate for you. Thank you for this time together today. Jesus name amen.

Brad: 31:44

Amen. Make sure you check out bold steps with Mark Job. It's a great program. You'll be glad you did and until next time go mad You.