As our Summer Replay Series continues, we revisit a January conversation with Shane Pruitt. Shane is the Next Gen Director for NAMB, and has a lot to say about today's young people. And, perhaps surprisingly, it's not all doom and gloom. Plus, a tribute to Titus. Check it out!
The Dan Scott Show Podcast
Dan Scott Show, Radio Episode 82 - Shane Pruitt (7-28-24)
The following program is a presentation of Grand Slam Ministries. It is that time again, hi everybody, and welcome to this week's dancescot show. As you just heard and as always presented by Grand Slam Ministries, I am Dan. Good to have you with us. Hope that you've had a great week so far. If you have, we'll try not to mess it up. If you haven't, maybe we can provide you with a little bit of a lift. And as I always say, we'll try to learn something we did not know, and that always starts right here in the alleged captain's chair. As we continue our summer replay series, we are going to, this week, revisit an interview from January with Shane Pruitt, who is the next-gen director for the North American Missions Board, a dynamic young leader in the evangelical church who is doing just incredible work in his role in bringing the next generation to Christ. And when we did this interview back in January, we had just lost our 9-day old grandson, Grant, and he was about six months into having lost one of his adopted children, Titus. That year anniversary of Titus' passing is upon us, and so we're going to be talking about some of that during the course of this interview, but talking a lot about what he is seeing in his ministry to young people, to the next generation. And I'm here to tell you, it may not be as bleak as you think. If you did not hear this interview the first time, I think you're really going to be encouraged about what you see, but he's also going to drop some reality on us. So it's a very wide ranging powerful interview with Shane Pruitt, the next-gen director for the North American Missions Board, and we'll get into that when we come back after you hear this from Grant Slam Ministries. Teenage boys and young men today are in crisis. Statistics show that a home without a father or male role model present is the single biggest indicator of poverty, behavior issues, drug and alcohol abuse, criminal activity, and yes imprisonment. At Grant Slam Ministries, one of our core missions is developing a mentorship program to teach boys how to become strong Christian men, and then teach those men to be the biblical husband's fathers and church and community leaders the Bible calls us to be. We need your prayers, we need your ideas, and we need your support. Visit our website, www.grantslamministries.org to find out more about our mentorship mission and prayerfully consider how you may be able to assist us. Again, that website is www.grantslamministries.org. Want to see a listing of our affiliates? Check out videos or listen to past shows and explore our archives. It's all available at our website, danscotchow.org, and now back to the show. This is episode 82 of The Dan Scott Show presented by Grant Slam Ministries, our 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Thank you for joining us on all of our affiliates. It is great to have you with us and thank you for tuning in. Wherever you may be across the nation and the world. Just a quick reminder as I always try to do that if you need to find out more about us if you have any questions you want to catch the archive of a past interview or find out where maybe you can listen live as they err on any of our affiliates. It's all at danscotchow.org. You can negotiate to the affiliates and archive page there and all of those questions can be answered. There's some bonus SoundCloud material there as well. My bio page is at the website and also www.grantslamministries.org is a page at the website. So it's kind of the one stop shop for finding out everything you need to know about us. If you have any questions, any comments, any prayer requests, you can email us Dan@danscotchow.org or if old-fashioned mail is your thing. Just drop us a line to Grant Slam Ministries, PO Box 35 Central South Carolina 29630. Grant Slam Ministries, PO Box 35 Central South Carolina 29630. And listen, we really want to hear feedback from you. Want to know what you think about the show? Want to know what you think about guests that we've had? If you have any guest suggestions? Or as I said, if there's something that you would like for us to pray about, I promise you that I answer each and every inquiry personally that comes in. Let's jump into the interview. As I mentioned in the opening segment, Shane Pruitt is with the North American Missions Board. He's the next Gen Director and is just doing wonderful stuff with his ministry role. If you follow him on social media, he is all over the place speaking and really doing great things for the kingdom of Jesus Christ through his role as the next Gen Director of NAMB. We began the interview, as we always do, by me just asking Shane to let folks know a little bit about who he is and exactly what he's doing. Well, hey Dan, it's an honor to be on the show today and spending some time with you. Really honored by that invite. My name is Shane Pruitt. I serve as the National Next Gen Director for the North American Mission Board, which means we are a network of about 50,000 churches, so I oversee and help lead our next-gen efforts for young adults, college students and teenagers. We love students and equipping students to know Jesus and make Jesus known, but really our target audience is coaching and resourcing and building tools for next-gen leaders. Those who we say are on the front lines of reaching and mobilizing the next generation with the gospel of Jesus Christ, so those that are youth pastors and student leaders and college pastors and on-campus missionaries at universities all across the nation. I love what I get to do. I don't know if you're supposed to have this much fun in ministry, but I'm having a blast. And then my primary ministry is my family of a wonderful wife named Casey. We've been married 19 years and we have six kiddos five on earth and one with the Lord, and we have two biological daughters, which just means they carry my wife and I's DNA, but we have four adopted kiddos that are equally our kids, and yeah, we're having fun. It's busy, it's chaotic, but it's a lot of fun. Yeah, we're gonna talk about one of them in particular a little bit later on in the interview, a young man by the name of Titus, but I'm interested because I follow you on social media and you are all over the place speaking in so many different places. How many miles did you log in 2023? Yeah, oh man, I don't keep up with it. I could go back probably to American Airlines, you know, because I live outside of Dallas, Texas, so that's the airline I'm on most of the time and find out easily. It would probably at the same time excite me that I've been that many places and honored and humbled that people invite me in and the Lord allows me to do that, but it also might be a little bit sad to see that too to go. Oh man, those miles are aging me quick. I feel like I'm getting old very quickly. Well, we're doing this via zoom, so our listeners can't see you, but I can't, you don't look like a guy just from an apparent standpoint who's old enough to have been married for 19 years. So the mile, the mileage isn't wearing you out too much. Well, yeah, I really appreciate that dad. That's very kind. My wife looks young as well for her age. We both do. And so when we say we've been married 19 years, we were like, well, did y'all get married at teenagers? No, no, no, we were at Meton College, so we're older than we look. Yep. I guess that's a good thing, especially for the wife. Yes, right. And we probably need to stop talking about that before both of us get in trouble. In your in your job, we're gonna talk about revival generation, which is something that's just just started, but in your job of ministering, not just to the to the youth pastors and what have you, but in dealing with the young people? What is the commonality that you see as you travel and you talk to the young people around this country? Yeah, Dan, I love that question. It's one of my favorite questions. It's probably one I get more than any others. What I've seen and I'm talking, you know, in broad statements, but here's here's what I've seen as I share these broad statements is I look back at the pandemic and I think a lot of people look at the pandemic go, Oh, you know, the pandemic 2020 that changed everything. I always say with young people, the pandemic did not create new problems. It just poured gasoline on the problems that were already there. So now you got a whole generation of young people, young adults, college students, teenagers, they realize very quickly that the world can change in a day. They realize very quickly that the world is broken and they're broken. So they're coming to the end of themselves at a much earlier age. So they're looking for hope, they're looking for answers, they're looking for truth, and Dan, when they don't find it in the world, which they're not going to find it in the world, then guess what happens? Depression rates go up, anxiety levels go up, suicide attempts go up. So that's where we as the church, as followers of Jesus, we need to slide into those conversations and go look the hope you're looking for, the truth you're looking for, the answer you're looking for actually has a name, and it's the name above every name. It's the name Jesus Christ. And this is true, Dan. I probably see more young adults, college students, and teenagers in the last four years make professions of faith in Jesus for salvation than the previous 20 years of ministry combined. I think it's a generation that is open to the gospel. It's just us as the church having to get outside the walls of the building and take the gospel to them. Statistically speaking, the generation of young people today are the least religious generation we've ever seen. So that means we can't just put up a sign and offer free pizza at the church and expect everybody to come. We're going to have to go to them, but I found when we go to them they really are open and receptive to the gospel. I think another phenomenon that's taken place, Dan, in culture is in the US, you know, used to, it was culturally advantageous for you to identify as a Christian. I don't believe that's the current case anymore. In fact, I believe our culture has got more aggressive towards Christianity, more aggressive tours at church. We've seen that. And so young people naturally do not trust cultural narratives. So I almost believe the more that culture says, "Hey, stay away from Jesus, stay away from the church, stay away from Christianity," the more curious young people get and go, "Maybe I should check that out," because they don't trust cultural narratives. So if the cultural narrative is Christianity's bad, the Bible's hateful and, you know, full of bigotry, I think that drives almost a curiosity level and young people are going, "Hmm, they don't want me to check that out. Why is that? I think I will." You know? It's like raising your own children. You tell them not to do something. And did we see this in the Garden of Eden? You know, God told Adam, "Everything here is open for you except for that one tree. You can tell your kids you can do all of this stuff, but you cannot go over there. And what do they want to do? They want to do the one thing you told them not to do." Yeah, you're so right, Dan. And I always say, you know, we were the same way when we were younger as well. It's like when you're young, you also want to be a little bit rebellious, right? You want to be rebellious against cultural norms. You want to be rebellious towards traditions and standards and all that. If you think about it for a young person a day, there's nothing more rebellious in culture than to say you're a follower of Jesus, that you believe the Bible is authoritative, that you believe that God determines what marriage is, that God determines who, you know, what sex engender is. And you're going to live like you really believe all that publicly. There's nothing more rebellious than that for a young person a day. Yeah, no kidding. Visiting with Shane Pruitt, the National Next-Gen Director for the North American Mission Board. You mentioned something a moment ago, and it brought to mind something I heard Aleister Begg say not too long ago, because we often hear in evangelical circles that we're losing the young generation, they're walking away from the church. And his point echoes something that you said, that's not exactly true. They're not walking away from something they've never been to. And you mentioned there that young people are probably the least in this generation, the least church generation of any maybe that's ever existed. You can't walk away from something that you've never been part of. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think things are just shifting. You know, like I said, I think, you know, there used to be this kind of cultural Christianity where maybe, you know, maybe more and more young people would show up at events or they would show up for a thing. But that doesn't mean just because they showed up for a thing at the church building doesn't mean they had a saving relationship with Jesus. That means they were truly following Jesus. And so I would say the true church, the true kingdom of God is flourishing and growing with young people. I just think there's been more of a line in the sand drawn, meaning that you can't just hang out in the middle. You're either going to be all the way in or all the way out. And I think that's becoming more relevant. I would say this, especially college students, if they're on for a lack of a better term, secular university college campuses or teenagers who are in, you know, maybe they're in the public school. On some level, they're counting the cost of what it means to be a follower of Jesus before they actually become a follower of Jesus. Because they're hearing all the negative things being said about Christians. They're hearing all the things being said about the Bible and about Jesus. So when they surrender to Jesus is where to save their life, they already know it's going to cost them something. So it's almost like a pure conversion because they're counting the cost ahead of time. So let's go back a little bit. Let's talk about your faith journey. When did you come to Christ and what was that experience like for you? Yeah, yeah, I didn't grow up in church. I grew up in Texas. So I think, again, you know, a lot of people think everybody in Texas is a follower of Jesus, you know, and that's not true. There's probably a lot of Texans who think they are, you know, they go, well, I believe in the big man upstairs and they're like God-countrying guns, but that doesn't mean they have a saving relationship with Jesus. And so if you were to ask me at 15 years old, if I was a Christian, I would have said yes, but I had no idea of who Jesus really was relationally. I had no fruit of the Holy Spirit in my life. My parents got saved when they were 16, or not when they were 16, when I was 16, my parents got saved and I would say they were probably the most moral lost people I've ever met. You know, they, you know, didn't have any huge vices or addictions. They didn't party and drink and all that. They had a healthy marriage. They just didn't have Jesus. And if they would have died not knowing Jesus, even though they were moral, they would have ended up in an eternity separated from all the goodness of God. But at, when I was 16, they became fathers of Jesus. They began to pray for me. I started attending church. I started going to youth ministry, but I didn't have a relationship with Jesus. At 21 is when God got a hold of my heart. That's truly when I repented of my sin, placed my faith in Jesus Christ's order and saved my life. The Holy Spirit came to live inside of me and has changed me from the inside out. I'm not perfect, but I am different. I'm no longer lost. I am found. I'm no longer dead. I am alive. And so at 21 is when God got a hold of my heart. So what was it at 21 that led you to making the decision and understanding that's what you needed? Yeah. Probably starting my senior year of high school is I was moving in and out of my parents' house. I was bouncing from job to job, relationship to relationship. I started going to college, and I was failing out at junior college. That's almost impossible, but I was doing it. As I always say, my Trinity in high school and college was not Father, Son, Holy Spirit. My Trinity were sports. I was an athlete, partying, and chasing girls. And I wouldn't say there was this crisis moment that made me surrender to Jesus. I was just lost in my sin. I knew my world was unraveling around me. I knew what I was doing wasn't healthy, but I went to a college event. I had some friends invite me, and I heard a guy preach the gospel. I don't even remember what all he was preaching on. I just remember the gospel being declared, an invitation given, and I went forward. And Dan, here's the thing. It wasn't my first time going forward. I'd probably done that a thousand times and made God all these promises I couldn't keep. I would say, "Hey, I'm going to do better. I'm going to try harder. I'm going to fix this. I'm going to change." I say, "Here's what the difference was." All the prayers before was me making promises to God, and it was about what I was going to do. That night it was full surrender because the prayer was different. Dan, instead of me saying, "Hey, I'm going to do better. I'm going to try harder." I literally remember praying this. It's been 20 years ago. I said, "God, you know what? I'm not going to try harder. I'm not going to do better. I'm not going to fix this. I'm not going to change because God I can't." And so, unless you take over, unless you come and live inside of me and change me from the inside out, unless you save me, then this is who I am. So, God, I need you. I quit. I surrender. I can't. And you know, I think sometimes those two words, I can't. We don't hear this a lot, but I believe this. I think those two words, I can't or sometimes the most beautiful words God can hear because the first step to knowing he can is knowing you can't. And so, I think that what the change was wasn't me doing a bunch of religious promises to God. It was full surrender. And instead of me trying harder, I stopped trying harder and started trusting him to do for me what I couldn't do for myself. You know, we've been doing this show for over a year now and I hear so many different stories about how our guests come to Christ and some who thought that they were saved early and had to come to the realization they weren't. You know, I went forward at a youth meeting at 14, got baptized in a creek and all I got was wet. It wasn't until I was 45 years old that that I finally surrendered everything to Christ. And we had Will Graham on the show a couple of weeks ago and his grandfather Billy used to always talk about the fact that he had a burden for our part of the country. I'm in South Carolina. He was from Charlotte here in the South and it sounds like Texas might be the same way because there are a lot of people who grew up thinking they were Christians because their parents were Christians or their grandparents were Christians. And he said that the church might be the biggest mission filled out there. I agree with that. And I think sometimes it's truly hearing the gospel. And when I say gospel, I'm talking about the life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus that we are sinners in need of a savior. And according to the New Testament, we must repent and believe. And I think sometimes if we're not careful, people just kind of hear these messages that are like, Hey, here's six ways to get over a stomachache. But you know, there's not the true proclamation of the gospel, lifting Jesus up and letting him draw people to himself. Visiting with Shane Pruitt. So how do you go from sports and partying and chasing women to wanting to go into the ministry? How did that happen? Day and I love that question. So I had a sweet pastor, you know, I grew up in the country. So the church I got saved in, you know, was probably ran 100 people on Easter Sunday mornings. It was, you know, a pastor that was much older than me. I was 21. He was in his late 60s. It was a, he was, you know, King James only, you know, we couldn't have been, you know, we were just so different and how we dressed and our backgrounds. But our common ground was the gospel Jesus Christ. He loved me. And so I knew Dan, I couldn't continue to party, you know, with my friends, because I'd fall right back into the same junk. So I started sharing the gospel, my friends, praying for them. But I started spending all my time at the church and with him. And I'd make hospital visits with him. I'd go witnessing with him, not necessarily because I felt called to the ministry at the time, but because I just wanted to spend time with him and kind of avoid all the temptations that came with my circle of friends. And so one day he says, hey, Shane, what are you going to do with your life? And I said, I don't really know. And he goes, hey, well, why don't you move up to Dallas? You know, I grew up outside of Waco, Texas. He goes, why don't you move up to Dallas and go to Bible college and learn the Bible until you figure out what God's calling you to do. And I was like, okay, you know, so a couple weeks later, he takes me to Dallas. We visit this Bible college. Dan, I looked at the degree programs, didn't see any math classes. And I was like, the Lord has spoken. This is what I was supposed to do. So, you know, the next semester I enrolled and started over, you know, I was a 21, 22 year old freshman at Bible college, you know, people and they were like, do you want to transfer some of your credits, you know, from junior college? I was like, no, that's under that's under grace. I was felling anyway. We'll leave that one at the cross. Let's just start over. So here I am a 21, 22 year old freshman. I've been a Christian lesson a year. Didn't know anything. And here's all these Bible college students. They're doing what Bible college students do because they're there for ministry. So, Dan, they were in the coffee shop debating Calvinism and Armenianism. And I had no idea what they were even talking about. I was still calling Psalms, palms, you know what I mean, in Job job. I didn't know anything. But I had some professors that began to disciple me, began to pour into me. I always say, Bible college, you know, learned a lot, got a great degree. But really that was where I was discipled. And probably about two years in I felt God calling me to ministry, felt God calling me ministry leadership, and specifically to teaching and preaching God's word. So I remember going back one weekend, Dan, and telling my home church pastor that pastor, I think God's calling me to preach and teach God's word. And I'll never forget what he said, and he goes, Hey, I've known that. I've seen the hand of God on his on your life. I was just waiting for him to reveal that to you, for him to call you, and you be obedient to that call. And then the next thing he said, scared me to death. He said, Hey, you said you're called to preach and teach God's word. So you're up in six weeks because, you know, it was a small royal country church that had Sunday morning services, Sunday night services, Wednesday night prayer meetings. So it was a Sunday night. I think there was probably 30 people there, 27 of them were my friends and family. Dan, I stumbled through Psalm 23. You know, I think we all think back to our first sermons. I stumbled through Psalm 23. It took me 14 minutes. And I think I said amen 82 times, not even with the exclamation point, but almost with the question mark looking for affirmation. You know, I was like, the Lord is my shepherd. Amen. Listen, it was terrible. It was awful. But I'm so thankful for a pastor and a leader in my life that gave me opportunities. He walked to me, taught me how to walk deeply. Jesus gave me opportunities. Knowing I was going to fail, knowing I wasn't polished, but he was using the serving opportunities and leading opportunities as a way to disciple me as well. And then the Lord opened the door for me to be a youth pastor and then a lead pastor of a church and now doing a lot of itinerant ministry and working with leaders and pastors all over the nation and equipping churches to reach the next generation with the gospel. And I love it. It's been a great, great journey with the Lord. Your pastor is a better man than I am because a few years ago, I was doing college baseball games broadcasting on the air for the school I worked for and we had a pitcher who had had Tommy John surgery and couldn't pitch. So he was doing all kinds of different things, including wanting to learn broadcasting. So we were playing at the University of Georgia. And it was the first road trip he took, even though he wasn't playing. And so I brought him up to the booth just to talk to him to see how his rehab was going. And he had mentioned he wanted to be a broadcaster someday. He would love to broadcast baseball. So we went to a break and we came back. And I said, it's, you know, two to one Georgia on top of firm and whatever the score was as we moved to the top of the third inning. And here to call a play by play is Drake Brown. And I got up and walked out and left him and throw him in. And to his credit, after he got over the shock, he actually did a, did a pretty good job. Your pastor didn't do that to you. He didn't say you're up tonight. He gave you six weeks. No, no, no, he gave me six weeks. Yeah, that's right. And you know, and, you know, and of course, you know, I believe in education and, and, and, and school and obviously there's a lot you can learn in the classroom. There's a lot you can learn from reading books. There's a lot you can learn from watching others who are really good at it. But there's no kind of learning like just doing it yourself and getting in there and people giving you the opportunity to do that. That's what I tell you. And that's awesome that you did that for him. That's a great opportunity for him. But that's what I tell young broadcasters all the time when they ask me. I said, the only way to get experience is to get experience and these days with podcasts availability, you have so many more opportunities to learn and make mistakes. And, and but anyway, that's another story for another time. And you know, it's funny. That's, I feel like, Dan, what, you know, you're talking about that you did with that young man, what my pastor done with me is really that's, that's biblical discipleship. You know, I think even sometimes when we think of discipleship today, we think of getting in a classroom, right, a classroom setting and, and doing a Bible study together or whatever. And, and that's good. That's great. But really discipleship is getting out and doing it. You know, I think it's one thing when you tell young people, Hey, you should go share your faith. You should go share the gospel. You need to go evangelize. It's one thing to tell them. It's another thing to take them with you and go, Hey, we're all going to do it together. I'm going to go with you. You're going to watch me for a while. And then, you know what, we're going to do it together. And then I'm going to watch you for a while. To me, that's discipleship is when we go it out and do it together visiting with Shane Pruitt. I want to shift gears for a little bit. You talked about the makeup of your family, two biological children and, and four that you have adopted before we talk about Titus in particular. How did you get the heart for adopting children? Because that, you know, not just one, but four. Yes, sir. Yeah. You know, so I was an only child growing up. My parents desire to have more kiddos, but when my mom was pregnant with me, she had a lot of complications and, and the doctors told her it would not be safe for her to have children again. You know, and so she wasn't able to. And so, probably starting my middle school years and on my parents started doing foster care. So I had, you know, foster care brothers in and out of the house all the time, all the way from middle school through high school and then even graduating out. And my parents continued to do that even after I moved out. And so really, I saw the need of that, the, the, the beauty of truly, you talking about serving people, you bringing people in your house. There's not a greater way to serve people than bringing people in your house. And I think the Lord, even when I didn't know him began to put that in my heart by watching my parents do that. And then my wife, when we were dating before we got married and talking and we were in those courting months together, I brought it up and said, hey, this is really something I'm interested in passionate about. She said, hey, me too. So we even had those talks before we got married. So when we got married and about a year over a year into our marriage is, you know, we got, you know, pregnant with our oldest daughter and then had another biological daughter. And after having two biological kiddos, we said, we really believe now is the time that God's calling us to adopt. And so that's how we jumped in. And so we did an international adoption first, adopted a little boy named Titus from Uganda. And then we adopted our son and our youngest daughter from Texas. And then about a year and a half ago, we were able to bring our son home from Liberia and adopted him from Liberia. And we were in the process, Dan, with him for a long time, because we began the process, got matched with him. And then a thing hit called COVID. I don't know if you heard about that, but basically remember, yes, slowed the process way down. So we were actually matched with him for multiple years before he got to come home. Titus is one that obviously had a lot of impact, not on just you and your wife and the rest of your family. But as the story unfolded, has had an impact on countless numbers of people, he was a special needs young man, a young man of a different race in a wheelchair. And I watched on social media with just the pride with which you spoke about Titus and not only the love and joy you had for him, but the joy that he brought into your life and your wife's life. It's one thing to adopt someone. It's another thing to have the heart to adopt someone with special needs like you did with Titus. Yeah, you know, we so we, you know, we entered a process to adopt and, and you know, long story short, we were able to adopt this young man named Titus, who had severe special needs, mainly from a traumatic birth. His mom died during child delivery. And his dad was not married to his mom. And, and so by the time they were able to get him into an area that had a hospital, he was almost in a comatose state. And so Titus was a fighter from day one. So he fast forward and Titus had a rare seizure disorder that was tied to his traumatic birth, called Lenny's Gasso syndrome, which means he suffers from multiple forms of seizures. Every day, he was having, you know, 10 to 20, 25 seizures every single day. So we adopted him when he's six months old. He, we got to have 10 sweet years with him. But in those 10 years, he had over 20 major surgeries in and out of the hospital, constant therapy visits, seizures every single day. We tell people it was by far the hardest 10 years of our life, but also by far the sweetest 10 years of our life. And then I say this all the time and I really believe it. I said this when he was with us and now he's with the Lord, you know, last summer, he went to be with the Lord where we believe he's fully healed now. And so, besides the Holy Spirit himself, the greatest teacher and discipler in my life is my son Titus. He taught me to be a better father of Jesus. He taught me to truly trust the Lord day by day. He taught me to be a better husband, better father, a better leader, a better follower, a better pastor, a minister, a better proclaimer of the gospel. The Lord taught me so much through him. And here's the great irony of God in, in all of this then is for 10 years, my wife and I, we would lay hands on our son and pray for God to heal him. I believe God that can physically heal people. I believe God does it all the time. So we were praying for God to heal Titus every single day. But here's the great irony of God. As we were praying for 10 years for God to physically heal our son Titus, God actually used our son Titus to heal us. I said the Lord used him to mature us and grow us in ways that we can't even imagine. And gosh, and I look today and know that he's with the Lord and that ultimately the Lord did answer our prayers because he is fully healed today. He's perfectly healed. Titus, when he was with us, he was in a wheelchair, a bright yellow wheelchair. He couldn't communicate and talk like you and I do. He was fed through a G-tube seizures every day. And we know today he's not having seizures. He's running for the first time and playing for the first time and singing worship songs unto the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We believe he is fully healed today. And it's been six months since he went to be with the Lord. And so we're in our journey of grief, a pastor friend of mine, Dan said it like this. He said grief is going from really difficult days with a few good moments to good days with a few difficult moments. And we're somewhere in that journey. I don't know where we're at, but we know this, that he is with the Lord and the Lord's with us. And we feel the sustaining presence of the Lord. And we have the Lord's peace, hope, and joy and comfort, knowing that Titus is with the Lord and the Lord is with us. The one thing that I both admire you for and commend you for is that you shared with those of us who follow you on social media, the journey of Titus' life. And now you're sharing with us these stages of grief and the other things that go along with his passing six months ago. And I went back and looked at the date because I bookmarked your tweet on August the 2nd of last year, which I think was just a couple of days or so or not too long after he had passed. And you had used that opportunity to answer questions about do babies or young children go to heaven. And you laid out the biblical case in that tweet that yes, they do. And I bookmarked that tweet to make sure that I saved it. And my thought process was maybe I'll be able to use this to comfort somebody sometime. Never dreaming that I would be using it in the month of January in 2024 to comfort my own family. But I did. I shared that with my daughter and her husband just a few days after our nine-day old grandson grant passed away. God works in very strange and mysterious ways. So this is a way for me to say publicly thank you because by your sharing your grief and your heart, it enabled me to take a part of that and use it in a way to comfort my own family. And it's something that I'm grateful for. And I know it's not easy for you to do. But I told you this privately, but I wanted to make sure that that I did it publicly while we were talking about Titus because what you went through and your wife went through and are still going through has not been in vain because it has, I'm sure it's helped countless people. But I'm telling you face to face on Zoom the effect that it's had on our family. Yeah, Dan, thank you so much. And you did. You shared that with me. And immediately, I just thank the Lord. I give all glory to God. And it also reminds me just how amazing our God is. Yes. You know, I shared this several weeks ago with our entire staff. You know, they asked me to share a little bit about kind of what I've learned, you know, in those six months and that journey of grief and reflecting back on what the Lord has taught us. And this is what I said. I think one of the things that's reminded me of the most of how great amazing, awesome and powerful our God is. Because I look at my son, Titus, and to go, you know what, for 10 years, here's this 10 year old boy who can't walk. He can't talk. He can't feed himself. And yet the Lord used him to minister to so many people and still is. Yeah, still is. And through the years, we would have total strangers walk up to us, you know, whether it be at a restaurant or grocery store and just go, hey, y'all don't know us, but we follow your son and Titus is such a blessing to us. Or we have a child with special needs or or I've had pastors, they had pastors, grown men pastors come up to me and go, hey, I've never really shared this publicly, but I suffer with seizures. And the way I would see Titus journey with this blesses me so much. Here's this 10 year old boy ministering to pastors, you know, and then at his celebration service, Dan, at his celebration service, it was standing room only. Our home church who posted that publicly said since then there's been over 30,000 people watch his celebration service. But at his celebration service alone in person, 14 people gave their life to Jesus at his celebration service. And then we've heard countless stories since then of people watching online. And I look at that and go, you know what, if the Lord is so good, so powerful, so amazing that he can use a 10 year old boy who can't walk, can't talk, can't feed himself to minister to others, to witness to others, to reach others, then how much more can that God use people like you and me and those who are listening, meaning God is good, God is faithful, and God wants to use you as well. And it's convicting. I feel the same way about the nine days that we had grant. What's my excuse? Yeah, you know, what's my excuse? I don't have one. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I just wanted to make sure that I got that in because he has been such a blessing and your willingness to share and in case he's willing us to share has been an incredible blessing. Trying to be respectful of your time, getting ready to wrap up here. Tell me about revival generation. Yeah. So about two years ago, two and a half years ago, our team at the North American Mission Board, our next gen team, which is called Jensen, that's what we call the next gen ministries, the name Jensen, which stands for generation sent to know Jesus and make Jesus known, which you can find all kind of reef sources free that are free at Jensen dot Ori. That's just G E N S E N D dot Ori. But, you know, we would refer to young people publicly as Generation Z because that's what culture understood. And then you got the alpha generation coming up after them. But we within our team meetings started referring to them as the revival generation that it was a prayer request, but we're getting to see that prayer be answered. We see sparks of it taking place across the nation that we pray would turn into a raging inferno for the name, fame, and the glory of King Jesus. So through that, just the journey of we're seeing, like I mentioned earlier, more people come to know Jesus is or save their life as young adults, college students, teenagers right now than any time I remember in my ministry years. And so with that, I partnered with my good friends at Lifeway, and we wrote a Bible study for young people, for young adults, college students, teenagers, for next gen leaders, those youth leaders and collegiate leaders, to use. And here is the premise that revival generation. It's a Bible study. It's eight sessions awakening to a movement of God. And here's really the idea is that it's so easy for us to say our nation needs revival. And that's true. But our nation will never see revival until the churches in our nation see revival. And our churches won't see revival until the individuals who make up the church see revival in their life. You mentioned Will Graham earlier, you know, and Graham lots. The daughter Billy Graham said it like this, revival happens when you draw a circle around yourself and make sure everything in that circle is right with God. See revival comes from God, but it always comes through his people. G Campbell Morgan said it like this, we cannot organize revival, but we can sure prepare ourselves in case the wind of the Holy Spirit decides to blow upon his people once again. So we can't make revival happen, but we can prepare ourselves to be ready for when God moves. So really, it's a seeking of a personal revival that we believe would turn into a corporate revival. And so revival generation is a Bible study. And it's eight sessions in each week, or each session focuses on a word in the scriptures that are associated with revival and awakening in a moment of God. Words like repentance, holiness, obedience, surrender. Dan, I kind of joke that sadly it's a lot of words in many churches today. You'll hear the word love a thousand times before you hear one of these words one time. But in the scriptures, these are the words associated with revival and awakening in a moment of God. And so yeah, there's Bible studies, we put devotionals in there, prayer guides, there's even teaching videos that I've done that go with each session. And you can check that out more at lifeway.com/revivalgeneration just lifeway.com/revival generation and all those things are available there. Hope people will do that because we need to be more intentional than ever before about reaching every generation, but particularly the young generation. I'm so inspired by your passion for that age group. And I just hope and pray that that A, you never lose that passion and B, we continue to see the the fruits of not only your work, but the work of many others with that age group. How can people find out more about you, your ministry, what you're doing, or if they have any questions about revival generation? Absolutely. Yeah, thank you for that Dan. Yeah, you can find me on Instagram or X, formerly known as Twitter. It feels weird calling it X still, but my handle is just Shane underscore Pruitt, P-R-U-I-T-T-78. So Shane, underscore Pruitt-78, you can find me on Facebook at shampruit.my website is just shampruit.net. And then you can find all kind of resources as well at jensen.org. You're like me, I named this show The Dance Scott Show, so I wouldn't forget the name. Yeah, that's right. You see, I can't overcomplicate it. Yeah, if I overcomplicate it, I'll confuse myself. It's funny as you get older, that becomes more of an issue overcomplicating things and thereby confusing yourself. In any event, no confusion about our thanks for Shane Pruitt giving us some time and just talking about his ministry through the North American Mission Board and his role as the next Gen Director, Shane again. Thank you for that. Hope you're enjoying the summer replay series. We're working on the next set of brand new interviews that will start sometime in the next three or four weeks, but more about that coming up in a bit. We need to take a break and upon our return, we'll get into the final segment of today's show. Don't go away. Here at Grand Slam Ministries, our goal is to share the love of Jesus Christ through multiple platforms while at the same time executing our core missions of mentorship and helping children in need. The primary way we can effectively do all those things is through The Dance Scott Show, our weekly Christian radio show that airs in multiple markets around the nation and the world. We're asking you to partner with us not only to sustain what we're currently doing, but to grow both our on-air online presence and our ability to fund those core missions. Can you spare as little as $25 a month? How about $10? If we can get 200 partners to join us each at those small, sustainable levels, we can begin to accomplish everything we believe God has called us to do. So can you help us today with a donation of either $25 or $10 per month? Go to Grand Slam Ministries.org to donate to get more information or to ask questions that's Grand Slam Ministries.org, a 501(c)(3) tax deductible organization. Thank you for supporting The Dance Scott Show and Grand Slam Ministries. Every day there are children who leave school on Friday and eat little and sometimes nothing until they come back to school on Monday. It happens in every community, including yours. Many of these children live in circumstances that deprive them of basic needs necessary for a quality life. At Grand Slam Ministries, we want to change that. We want to invest in our children, giving them hope for the future. That investment includes necessities such as food, clothing, school supplies, and a safe environment to play, to study, to live. Please visit our website Grand Slam Ministries.org to find out more about our ministry and how you can help. We're just getting started. Will you come alongside us for the children's sake? Again, that's Grand Slam Ministries.org. Follow us on social media, search Grand Slam Ministries on Facebook and Grand Slam for God on Twitter. And don't forget Dan's personal and public figure sites on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You're listening to The Dance Scott Show presented by Grand Slam Ministries. This is the final segment of this week's show, episode 82 of The Dance Scott Show presented by Grand Slam Ministries, our summer replay series continuing over the course of the next probably two, three, maybe four more weeks like we did last year. And then we've got a whole set of brand new interview subjects that we are getting ready to get recorded and bring to you with some wonderful stories about what we talk about here all the time, Jesus Christ doing amazing things in people's lives. And that's the one thing that I hope that you glean from what we do here. If you get nothing else out of it, when you look at the wide range of guests that we've had since we started this show back in January of 2023, the main premise is to show that Jesus is still on the throne and is still doing amazing things in the lives of men and women everywhere. And if you have been listening since the outset, you have heard some wonderful, inspiring stories about people who have been rescued from everything, from atheism to drugs and alcohol to sex trafficking, prostitution, or just people who are living everyday normal lives and didn't even think anything about Jesus or God or religion of any kind, didn't think they needed that and come to find out that they did. That's has always been the main premise of this radio show is sharing those stories of the transformational power, love, grace, and mercy of Jesus Christ. And God has been faithful to continue to bring us just guest after guest after guest. And when we start the next series of new interviews that will run over the next few months, you're going to hear more of those. It's just amazing the people that God continues to bring onto this show. And he gets all the glory for it. And I'm just thankful to be the conduit to get these messages out to you across all of our network. Some things that I'm going to ask you to pray about as we move forward. By the time we get to next week's show, we will have been in a position to have made a final decision about whether to have Lee Strobel come in and do the fundraiser for Grand Slam Ministries. And as I mentioned briefly in a couple of previous episodes, it comes down to finances and being comfortable with being able to bear that expense versus what we believe we can do if Lee comes in. He's already agreed to it. We've got some tentative date set, but we've got to make a final decision as to whether or not to bring him in. So I'm going to ask you to pray about that above and beyond anything else. And then if you'd like to contribute towards some of those expenses, we've got a figure in mind that we need to get to as of this recording of the show and what's airing this weekend, we still need to raise about another $5,000 to feel comfortable about bringing him in. And as I've told you, if God doesn't want him here, I don't want any part of it. But the door seemingly has been opened at least partially. And now we need to find out if it's going to be open or shut completely one way or the other. So pray about that. If you feel like you would like to contribute toward that or anything that we've got going on, you can go to the website, Dan Scott Show dot org, navigate to the Grand Slam Ministries page. There's a donate tab there, self-explanatory, and you can help us out that way. Or again, if a regular mail, snail mail, as they say, is your thing, Grand Slam Ministries, P.O. Box 35 Central South Carolina, 29630, P.O. Box 35 Central South Carolina, 296300. But just pray for that, pray for some things we've got going on with our regular job and the ministry and guidance that we're seeking from the Lord about where He would have us spending the vast majority of our time, and above all, just seeking His glory and not ours. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you again to Shane Pruitt for your time, and we'll be back with you again next week. Until then, I'm Dan Scott. God bless you. So long, everybody. Thank you for listening to this week's Dan Scott Show. Here and again, catch up on past shows or find out more about Grand Slam Ministries, please visit our website, Danscottshow.org. And while there, carefully consider making a gift to help us in our mission to share the love of Jesus Christ. That's the Danscottshow.org. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]