^{October 17, 2024}

Preston Perry's UNLIKELY Journey to Evangelism

Inside This Episode

In this raw and honest interview with Maybe God guest host Justin Brierley‬, Preston Perry tells the story of how God chased him on the streets of Chicago, and how he’s since discovered not only the importance of the truth, but how to tell the truth in a way that speaks to someone’s heart. The apologist, spoken word poet, and co-host of "With The Perrys" talks about growing up in gangs, finding Christ, and how God convicted him about his old approach to evangelism. We also hear about Preston's life with his wife, Jackie Hill Perry, and why wrote his new book “How to Tell the Truth: The Story of How God Saved Me to Win Hearts—Not Just Arguments”.

Read Preston’s book: https://www.amazon.com/How-Tell-Truth-Hearts-Not-Arguments-ebook/dp/B0CL7NSWJS 

Transcript

Justin Brierley: Well, I wonder who is the most unlikely evangelist you've ever met? In Preston Perry's case, he might be tempted to say it's himself from being a kid hustling on the streets of Chicago alongside gang members, smoking weed, chasing girls. It was actually the tragic death of a friend in a shooting that sparked a huge change in Preston's life. We're going to find out what happened to Preston today on the Maybe God podcast.

Preston Perry is a poet, a performance artist, an apologist. He co-hosts the With The Perrys podcast with his wife Jackie Hill Perry. His new book, How to Tell the Truth, is a guide to how to share your faith with grace and truth.

Thank you for joining me on the show, Preston.

Preston Perry: Thank you for having me. It's a true honor. Thank you for having me.

Justin Brierley: Well I just wanted to say before we leap into the book, what does an average day in the Perry household look like? You're a very busy couple aren't you?

Preston Perry: Yeah. Sometimes a little bit busier than my liking. Man, it looks like taking care of our children, trying to make time for one another to connect with one another. You know, I'm going to close the line so you know making sure everything is running good with that.

Sometimes there's podcasts in the morning to the mid-afternoon. Our home never really looks the same day by day. But come like 3:30, 4:00 we try to shut everything off and just spend time with our children. That's the goal. So a lot of work in the morning times, we try to cut it off at some time.

Justin Brierley: That's a good approach. I know that family is very important to you. And that comes through actually in the book as well. I really love the book. It's so poetic. I mean you are a poet yourself obviously and the way it's written is just really beautiful.

Before we kind of explore some of the family that were quite influential in your life growing up, could you take us through that moment in your book which you write about so powerfully, the tragic death of your friend, Chris? Tell us what happened on that day and how it impacted you?

Preston Perry: Well, yeah, a close friend of mine, his name's Chris, he was my close friend. One day he got shot and killed. I explained in the book how when he was shot I ran outside to help him and my mom shortly followed after me. My mom's a nurse, my mom's an RN and she was trying to revive him the best way she could.

But I think I had been ignoring the voice of the Lord after the Lord called me. I felt like the Lord was calling me to Himself when I heard the gospel for the first time in a house church. And I feel like that was the Lord's way of saying, Preston, wake up, pay attention, you're dead and you don't know me.

So when my friend was laying there dying, I just kind of felt like the Lord was saying, this is you, you're dead, you're sin. So I feel like the Lord in some ways used that tragedy to draw me to Himself and to lead me to the faith. It was a real wake-up call for me.

It's a weird thing to talk about and it's a weird thing to even think about at times. I don't think it's as weird as it used to be because you try to make sense of why God would use such tragedy to draw somebody to Himself, right? But giving my life to the Lord was the best decision I've ever made but it came on the hinges of one of my close friends dying.

And even then I had to give my life to the Lord but I knew I had to make a change. I had to get out of that environment which ultimately when I got out of that environment I was able to be led to the Lord.

Justin Brierley: I mean, you talk in the book about the way there were a number of sort of people in your life who kind of fed into you, particularly your grandmother and auntie and others, who it sounds like even though you were holding God at arm's length at some level, they were praying for you. They were they were quite an important faith influence by the sound of it.

Preston Perry: Yeah, yeah, for sure. My grandmother was a very instrumental person in my life. She was a strong Christian. She wasn't extremely educated and she dropped out high school in ninth grade to take care of her sisters but she just knew the Lord. She loved the Bible, she loved the word, and she taught us scriptures. She would sing songs. Every morning I would hear her singing hymns and songs to the Lord. So she was the first person that taught me that this walk with the Lord is a relationship. She talked about Lord like she knew Him, like He was a a close friend.

And it was weird when I was growing up. I didn't understand it until I gave my life to the Lord myself. Like, oh, this is what my grandmother feels but she was very instrumental, like the seeds that she planted in my life to bear a lot of fruit.

Justin Brierley: And likewise you talk at length in the book about a kind of mentor who came alongside you called Gary. Obviously, it sounds like he was quite instrumental in kind of helping you to connect your life with God.

Preston Perry: Huge.

Justin Brierley: Yeah. Tell us about Gary because you tell us the story so well in the book about when you first met him and how he just kind of didn't come with the expectations you had of a kind of church-going Christian.

Preston Perry: Yeah, man. So I had this idea growing up that all Christians were older people who gave their lives to the Lord when their lives were over. It's like you have no more life to live and so of course you live for Jesus. I had that idea and then the young people that I saw in church I just thought they were brainwashed and they were forced to go to church every Sunday and forced to do the things that they do.

So when I met Gary, it was revolutionary for me because I think that he looked so culturally fitting in my context. Like he came from the urban community, he didn't really try to change his appearance but his behavior was different, the way he carried himself was different, the way he loved people was different while still looking like the average Chicago dude on the south side of Chicago. I'd never seen anything like that. I'd never seen any anybody in the urban context who loved Jesus and loved people who still look like he might go in your pockets and take some stuff. You know what I'm saying?

So for me, I was intrigued. And I think that God in his sovereignty knew that I needed that type of representation to draw me to the faith because I was a very skeptical person to say the least in a lot of ways. And so I think God knew I needed a Gary who wasn't phony, he wasn't a pretense about him, he was just a really honest dude, really transparent dude. And I just trusted him immediately. And so able to see Gary's life, I think, that's what ultimately made me think, Oh man, maybe this guy can have a relationship with me too."

Justin Brierley: I love the way you put it in the book. When you kind of came to the point of thinking about giving your life to God, you said, Lord, I want to love you like Gary loves you." It's really apparent in the book obviously how important he is as a mentor and a kind of spiritual guide at that point.

But I just wonder, do you think generally it's important for young people, as you were then, to have that kind of male spiritual mentor, especially I suppose young guys?

Preston Perry: . Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. There's a story in Scriptures where Jesus is walking past the river and John the Baptist is sitting there with his disciples and they go, look... they go to the Lamb of God and they begin to follow Jesus. And Jesus turns around and he says, what are you seeking? And they turn around and say, "Rabbi, where are you staying?

They wasn't asking Jesus where was He staying because they wanted to see what His house looked like. They were saying, Jesus, we want to see how you live. And so notice how they didn't say, Jesus, when is the next time are you preaching? Or Jesus, when is the next conference? Right?

Because the way that people learn from their rabbis and Jesus was by shadowing them, following them, the rabbis, dividing people into their lives so they can see what Christianity practically looks like on an everyday basis.

And so I think that if we could do the same, if we can find somebody younger in the faith who can come into our lives and invite them into our lives. Because if you look at it, and you know, watching Gary Lee's life and his successes mainly mimic him. I begin to look up to him. But I didn't know God showed me that I wasn't a Christian until he failed. It was when Gary failed that's when I realized, Oh, I don't love God like this.

Justin Brierley: Tell us about that, because this is a great story in the book. What was this failure that you're referencing that kind of led to this realization you had.

Preston Perry: It's very simple. In the book, I talked about how I tried to mimic Gary's life for a while, stopped doing things that I was doing, stopped smoking weed, stopped fornicating with women. I was a mini Gary in a lot of ways, right?

But it wasn't until we went to the bank to go play basketball, right before we went to play basketball, he drove into the bank, drive through to get some money out of the bank, and the girl flirted with him. And for the first time, I saw Gary, my mentor, kind of flirt back. And I was like, "Oh, this is gonna end well. Like you're about to get her number." And Gary kind of ended the conversation very abruptly, and he drove off. Around 10 minutes later, he puts car on side of the road, and he apologized to me. And I was like, "Why are you apologizing to me?" And he was like, "I wasn't being a good example to eat back at the bank when I was talking to that girl." I was like, "What do you mean? She was kind of flirting." He was like, "No, my thoughts were lustful. And what makes me even more convicted, I did it while you were in a car. Can you pray with me?"

And I was like, wow. I've never seen a young person personally feel convicted for talking to a young girl. The things that he said wasn't even overtly sinful. But it was his heart. He explained to me a state of his heart. And I never had anybody explain to me the wrestle. I don't even think at that point I even heard the word convicted. I didn't even know what that meant all the way.

And so I just remembered Gary just saying, "I feel so convicted." And it was during, actually the prayer, when he started to pray, it was like all of these thoughts start to race in my mind when he started to pray. And I was like, "Yo, I don't love God like this. I don't love God like this. I'm not a Christian." You know? It's like God kind of spoke to me, and was like, "This is what it means to love Me."

I went home and I repented in my room and gave my life to the Lord that day. So that's how I came to faith.

Justin Brierley: I mean, Gary's influence is there through the whole of the book, especially the way... obviously, that the integrity that he had his faith and the way he was also completely at home, you know, among the young people that he was around. I mean, his example of how to actually just have good conversations obviously stayed with you. And I get the sense that you are a kind of conversational guy yourself, Preston. You love just striking up conversations with people, if you're at the airport, if you're done at the mall or wherever. So was Gary kind of helpful in how to kind of just connect with people, I suppose? Because often people think Christianity and evangelism is about standing on a street corner with a megaphone or something. What was his example to you of how to do it well?

Preston Perry: Yeah, man, his example to me... so Gary, one, he loved playing basketball and he loved using basketball to connect with guys on the streets. And so he would always use basketball as a means to connect. And so we would go on the court and9... I say in the book, man, the first time I've seen this guy evangelize was the first day I met him. He was like, "Come play basketball with me." And we went out there and we went to a very bad neighborhood in Chicago that I knew of that I never went in. I'm like, "Why is he taking me over there?"

And Gary would just start conversations. He would always start with his testimony, but always ask questions. What do you guys need? What's the cry in this neighborhood? What's the cry of your heart? You'll see some dudes, kind of like closed, and then I see some of them open. And it's like he just had an amazing ability to connect with people, because he was just this genuineness about him, this sincerity about him, also this... it was evident that he came from the same kind of community that they came from.

So I think it was intriguing to me to see that the same intrigue that people had about Gary when I first met him was the same they had about, you know? I think Gary is the first person that taught me that, man, having conversations with people is not as hard as I thought it would be, if I hadn't been mentored by Gary. It's really just an inquisitive nature, and which is the reason why I wrote in the book that, you know, every heart has a cry, you have to ask the right questions to hear it, you know? SO that's what I've learned, that if you ask the right questions, people will teach you how to minister to them and how to give the gospel to them. That's some of the things that Gary kind of modeled for me.

Justin Brierley: I mean you, you kind of leapt straight in once you sort of found God, and you were on this path of faith, and you were sort of eager and willing to talk to people about your newfound faith. Now, you tell these stories so well in the book of some of the debates you got into with classmates as particularly one person that's Jehovah's Witness in your school. And you would end up having these kind of debates in the cafeteria with people cheering you on both sides. It kind of sounded like quite an interesting situation. Tell me about this. And what were some of the lessons you learned as you encountered people with different ideas about God and faith.

Preston Perry: Man! Well, the first apologetic argument or evangelism conference I got into is with Jehovah's Witness in class and I tried to defeat him once he embarrassed me. Every week I came to class and I was just so concentrated on defeating him.

And what God showed me with that lesson is that apologetics and evangelism is not about necessarily tearing down somebody else's faith. It's about being able to properly explain yours. And it's not about, you know, winning the argument. It's about winning the heart. And I just lost sight of that because I was motivated by my wounded pride.

So I think I took that lesson throughout my life in giving the gospel. I've always asked myself questions. I think questions are so good. I think when we read the Bible, we should ask the Bible questions that allow the Bible to interpret it for us. I think that when we go out, we should ask other people questions, right? And so I'm always asking myself the question, Why am I doing this for? Is it to look smart, you know, is it to look like I know more than the next person, or is it truly to reach people? You know, with the gospel, it's a truly help somebody to see this great God that I serve. So I'm always reminding myself that question. So, yeah.

Justin Brierley: I mean, you tell the story of how you had a number of kind of debates, as I say, in the cafeteria, with this Jehovah's Witness, and you got to the point where you thought you'd really trumped him, you'd finally kind of beaten him in this long running battle over three or four months. And you then say how you went and kind of talked about this, and you were triumphant to Gary, you know, as he was kind of... and he kind of slightly took the wind out of yourselves, didn't he? What did he tell you?

Preston Perry: Oh, my goodness. I got in the car after school, he picked me up, and I was so excited. I was like, "Gary, this Jehovah Witness that embarrassed me some months back, I had an argument with him today in front of the whole cafeteria, and I destroyed him. I had all my points lined up." He couldn't say nothing back. And I thought that I just won a fight for Jesus. I thought I just won a battle. And Gary said, "Preston, let me ask you a question, are you still trying to win this guy's heart?"

And I looked up, and I was like, "Oh, I was never trying to win his heart. I was always trying to win an argument." And he was like, "Nah, that's not what we do it for, P." He was like, "What's the guy's last name?" And I was like, "I don't know his last name." Was like, "You've been talking to a guy this long and you don't even know his last name."

That was just a reality check for me to know that I looked at him as a person to defeat, not a person to reach. Gary showed me, in a lot of ways, that even though I had the knowledge down pack, I did a disservice to him, because I didn't know how to give the knowledge in a way that he will receive it, because I was so busy trying to defeat him instead of trying to reach him.

I just took that with me the rest of my ministry. I want to reach people with apologetics. I don't want to defeat which is the reason why when I did my YouTube videos, I didn't put Preston versus a Muslim like it's a UFC fight. No. Preston has a conversation with the jawless witness that I'm trying to reach, that I want a part of this fold, that I want a part of the family of God.

Justin Brierley: I guess it was learning to kind of read beyond the first part of 1 Peter 3:15 which obviously is important. We need to give a reason for the hope that we have to anyone who asks us about the reason for our faith. But we often forget that bit at the end, don't we? But do it with gentleness and respect.

Preston Perry: Yeah, do it with gentleness and respect. I think we forget about the second part. Well, really the third part of it. Because when I read that scripture, I see it in really four parts. I think we forget about the first part, right, when it says, "In your hearts, honor Christ, the Lord is holy." Apologetics first starts off with a heart that honors the Lord.

One, it's a heart issue. It's not a mind issue. So I think that's one thing that we have to understand, that apologetics is a heart thing. And I think that we start here, and we think, Oh, I'm an apologist, and so I have to know a whole bunch of information. But God is apologetic and His apologetics text is saying, honor Christ the Lord.

So are you showing up honoring God by the way you honor His people? And then are you prepared to make a defense for anyone who actually... for the hope that is in you. And then it goes on to say, but do it with gentleness and respect. So one, it starts with the heart that honors the Lord. Then it moves to the defense, and then it ends in conduct. And then it goes on to say, but having a good conscience, so that, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. And so it's like, man.

I think we focus so much on a defense, but this whole defense, this whole apology, apologetic argument, is surrounded around conduct, it's surrounded around behavior, it's surrounded around love.  I think that if we look at apologetics like that, I think our approach will be changed. I don't know if that makes sense. I'm sorry. But-

Justin Brierley: It does. It makes a lot of sense. In a way, you put that into practice, just to wrap up this story of this Jehovah's Witness in your school, by actually putting that into practice. And you actually tried to have a conversation where you actually did find out more about him. And that kind of changed the whole perspective, actually, on the debates you'd been having. Didn't it?

Preston Perry: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I was like, Man, if I'd known this about him, I probably would have been able to give him the gospel in a way that he would have received it. I had known but I was so busy trying to feed him, I wasn't trying to get to know Him.

And when we got the chance to know each other, we actually liked each other a whole lot. We respected each other. We both were studious people. I think I was the first Christian that went back and forth with him with theology. A lot of Christians didn't. So he respected that. But we really liked each other once we got chance to know one another.

Justin Brierley: It's great, I mean, in How To Tell The Truth, you talk about growing up on the south side of Chicago and just all the different kind of world views that were on offer there. You know, on the street corners, you had the Hebrew Israelites at Nation of Islam. You would have Mormons coming around. You had Jehovah's Witnesses.

I mean, I guess before you became a Christian, maybe Christianity was just one more kind of thing, kind of saying, Hey, we're here and so on. What changed once you became a Christian, as you encountered all these different worldviews on your doorstep? How did you kind of try to go about engaging them, and what were some of the further lessons you learned, I suppose? Because these are all very different ways of understanding God and culture, aren't they? And you do a good job in the book of explaining just some of the specific differences between these outlooks?

Preston Perry: Yeah, for sure, that's a really good question. I mean, I tell people all the time my apologetics was birthed out of my evangelism. I also say all the time that the moment you tell somebody that you're a Christian, in a lot of ways, you're an evangelist. The moment they ask you questions, you become an apologist. And the moment they're willing to follow you, you become a discipleship maker. So evangelism, apologetics, and discipleship-making is not the same thing, but I think could definitely hold hands.

So for me, when I first became a Christian, being led to the Lord by an evangelist, I was compelled to just give the gospel to people. I just had a heart for the laws. It wasn't until I got connected with a guy named [Brian Dyer?], when he put me over the evangelism team in my local church, and we would go out on the streets, and we would talk to people in the neighborhood, and we would run into other religions.

And I saw Christians avoiding them so much, and it reminded me of the encounter I had with Chris in college. It was just like, no, like, if the Bible tells us to make a defense for why we believe what we believe, but it also tells us to make disciples of all nations, we have to understand that the word "nations" means people. Make disciples of all people. And other religions are included in those people. And so how can we be evangelistic, even in apologetics? How can our evangelism fuel our apologetics, to say, man, it's not just about winning an argument with these other world views, but it's also about reaching them.

And so I love to hear testimonies of just Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormon who converted to the faith, because it's always a person who showed them the right version of Christianity that led them to Jesus. I think those stories are powerful.

Justin Brierley: Can you explain for those who maybe just are not very familiar with, for instance, what Hebrew Israelites are, what the basic kind of views are there, and why is it attractive to a certain number of young men, especially, maybe from that kind of African American context?

Preston Perry: Well, yeah. The Hebrew Israelites... there's a growing number of Hebrew Israelites in UK. Well, I don't know for sure. I had an event in London last year, and a group of Hebrew Israelites came to my event to talk to me after the show. So I know they're out there as well.

Hebrew Israelites are a group of men. They're different sects, first of all. So before I say what I'll say, I want this to represent them fairly. Every Hebrew Israelite camp doesn't believe in what the next camp believes, right? But typically, the Hebrew Israelites, the lawful that you will see online, they believe that they are the descendants of Israel. They believe that they are the lost tribe of Israel.

There's a scripture in Deuteronomy where it says that the children of Israel would be put in ships and scattered all over the earth. And so essentially what they believe is that the Israelites who landed in Africa were sold into slavery to the White man doing a transatlantic slave trade. So they believe that that scripture where it says that they will be put in ships was a metaphor for the transatlantic slave trade that happened in 1916.

So they believe essentially that the Israelites that landed in Africa was sold into slavery in America and sold into slavery in other parts of the world. And so they believe that they're not African American, that they're being awakened. They feel like they're going through what they're called the Great Awakening, where God is revealing to them that they are the law children of Israel.

And so a lot of them believe that the White man, the Asian man, and I forget, the other nationalities, cannot inherit the kingdom of God. They believe that salvation is only reserved for ethnic Israel. They believe that the White man is the Edomite, which is like the devil, because of the evil that they have done with Black people for so many years. A lot of them, believe it or not, are African American, and they don't like African Americans, nor do they like Africans, because they believe that Africans are the one who sold them into slavery. And it's just sad, because I think a lot of them in you know, genetically are African American, but they convince themselves that they're Israelites.

So because they believe that their culture, their identity, their lineage, their heritage, was stripped away from them, there's a lot of anger coming from those camps, a lot of rudeness, a lot of foul words and behavior. In the States you've seen them do things as low as making White people kiss their shoes in Times Square, New York, to pay, you know, for what they what their ancestors have done.

So you have a lot of people in the African American context who are converting to Hebrew Israelites because they're searching for some type of identity they feel like it was stolen from them. So this light is a very growing thing in the United States.

Justin Brierley: So you're obviously responding. And it's worth saying you have a popular YouTube channel where you do conversations and you put training out and that kind of thing. Obviously, one thing that kind of, I'm aware of, though, is that the general, bigger picture, if you like, whether it's Hebrew Israelites or Nation of Islam or some other kind of more kind of Black consciousness movements, frequently, the thing kind of behind it is Christianity is basically the White man's religion, and you need to kind of... if you're in that, then you're kind of just a victim of that kind of colonial, White Eurocentric kind of thing.

So how do you respond generally to that criticism that you're just a stooge for these kind of religion of the White man basically?

Preston Perry: Yeah, a lot of ways. One, I think to be empathetic to people who are hurting. Because I do think it's hard to be empathetic to some Hebrew Israelites when they're so rude. But at the end of the day, and beneath it all, it is just a hurting person who's probably tired of the American church that responded to injustices the way they feel like they should, or, you know, them feeling like the Black man... They call themselves the so-called Black man, because black is only a color. That's what they say. You know, how so-called Black man has been treated throughout history.

And so there is a hurt. So I think one meeting them with empathy, and yet trying to get to the reason of what drove them to be Hebrew Israelites in the first place. But also too I think meeting them with truth and logic and grace.

One time I was downtown and these Hebrew Israelites realized they were just going in. They were so loud. It was so vulgar. They were so angry. I engaged in the conversation with one of the guys and he starts giving these hypotheticals about the White man and is like, Hypothetically if... Well, not about the White man. He was just saying, "Hypothetically, if somebody beats you, somebody rapes you, somebody yadda yadda this, somebody did that, yadda yadda that, would you trust them? Would you let them in? And I was like, "Well, yeah, if God told me to. And He was like, "Well, no, you're just saying that because you know where I'm going. That's a whole bunch of BS." And he's like, "That's the same thing the White man has done to you, yadda yadda yadda."

And I said, "Well, let me give you a hypothetical." And I said, "Hypothetically speaking, if you erase what White man have done to Black people throughout the history of humanity, do you still have a religion?" And he goes, "What do you mean?" And I was like, "No, no, no. If you just erase everything that happened in the 16, 17, 1800s, Jim Crow South, if you remove everything, do you still have a religion?" And I was like, "The answer is no, because your religion is based on what men has done, not what God has done. So in actuality, you're more a slave to the White man's teachings than I am. And it's not righteous White man teaching. It's the slave. Because they refer a lot to the slave Bible, which was different than the regular Bible.

It says, the slave Bible in the 1600s, 1800s, it says, slave, obey your masters, but they took out the part where it says that masters don't be cruel to your slaves. It was a real Bible, right? So they accuse Christians and the Orthodox Christian faith of being a slave to the White man's teachings. And I'm like, well, if your religion was built on what man has done, and you shape the whole ideology based on reaction, like you have a reactionary faith. So in the most loving way, I try to get them to understand the truth.

Is that when you look at your signs, there's nothing there that represents the gospel message. There's nothing about Jesus' death, burial, or resurrection. There's nothing about that He died for sinners, that He came to be the propitiation for our sins. It's all about what a White man has done, right? So this religion has made you find a false identity, but not a true savior. That's what I try to get them to understand the most. It doesn't always work out.

Justin Brierley: But you're there and I'm incredibly impressed by the way that you do, you know, in the face of a lot of vitriol. You're kind of trying to be as gracious and Christian as you can in that circumstance.

The thing I wanted to kind of talk about as well is the fact that so much of this is about, as you say, identity. And I get the sense that a lot of young guys especially are joining these movements kind of for the same reasons sometimes young guys join gangs or whatever. It's because they're looking for something that can give the meaning and identity in their life.

I met a young guy here in the UK about a year ago, young White guy who's just kind of was interested in Christianity. I gave him a copy of like a book that I thought might help him. Well, about a year later his mom gets in touch with me and says he's become a Muslim and I was kind of quite shocked. I was like, "Oh, I wasn't expecting that.

She said basically he's on TikTok a lot and the guys he who are there to basically answer his questions about faith in God were Muslims. And then you know he got reached out to in his local area by someone from a mosque and suddenly he's in there and he's calling himself a Muslim now. He said the shahada and everything. And I'm like, "Wow.

I mean, that's really interesting, isn't it? Because I just get the sense that whether you like it or not, in some ways, in some parts of the world, here in the UK, sometimes the Muslims are doing a better job of kind of reaching out for an identity and a kind of sense of belonging than sometimes the church is.

And I think that's a kind of a real lesson for me certainly that actually how do we as a church kind of offer the kind of identity and belonging that is often so attractive in some of these other groups.

Preston Perry: That's so true. That's so true. In the States, we have something called, I'm pretty sure you've heard, the Nation of Islam. They're like a sect of Muslim. Most traditional Muslims will tell you that they're not real Muslims, but the Nation of Islam is like Black and Muslim faith. And they have a leader called the Honorable Minister Farrakhan. He preaches against homosexuality. He preaches against a lot of stuff that Christians preach against, but he just has a false God, right?

But one of the things that you see is so many rappers quoting Minister Farrakhan because I think that he just does a really good job of engaging the culture in ways that the traditional Christian pastor in America doesn't. And so he's on the Breakfast Club, you know, when rapper gets arrested, and... he's not condoning their sinfulness, but he is meeting the need. He is going out there, talking to them, meeting with them. And so he's mingling with the outside world in ways that I feel like the church can learn from, you know?

And so people were like, Well, he listens to me, Minister Farrakhan. And I see Christians online arguing with rappers and stuff like that about, you know, you're in the wrong faith and you're following the wrong leader. And it's like, well, no, if your pastor would do what Minister Farrakhan is doing, maybe he'll be able to reach these group of people, just like they're reaching.

And so I do think that sometimes, you know, we have to be humble and say, we can learn from the faithfulness of Jehovah's Witnesses and how diligent they are. We can learn from how Muslims engage the culture. We can learn how the Mormon faith raises up missionaries at a young age to go out and give a false gospel, but their message, right? We can learn. These religions can teach us a whole lot.

Justin Brierley: It's interesting to hear you say all that. And what I love is the passion that you bring to your own faith and the way that you're engaging a whole generation, I think, of young people to stand up their faith more boldly in that way. But you're not doing that alone. You're doing it with Jackie Hill Perry, who is your wife, obviously, and has her own flourishing career as a spoken word artist and author and teacher. Do you mind telling me how you guys met and kind of what your joint ministry looks like now?

Preston Perry: Yeah. Me and my wife we originally did poetry before we talked, before we wrote books? It was a huge ministry back in the day around 20... between 2007 to like 2014. It was like, for seven years straight, it was the largest Christian spoken word YouTube channel on YouTube. It was called P4CM, Passion for Christ Movement.

And all of these poets from around the country would send their stuff in to be a part of this event called Rhetoric every year. And it was the biggest event. It was like 5,000 people every year would come to this one church to just hear the best poets from around the world.

One year I got selected, one of our close friends, Ezekiel, got selected, and Jackie got selected to do poetry because we sent our selection in. So the night would be these poets, they would get up, they'd try it out, they got selected, they would get up or whatever, and they would take the three best poets, or the best poems of the night, and they'd put it on YouTube.

That night is the night I met my wife. The night they introduced her to the world, her poem got selected, my poem got selected, and our friend Ezekiel's poem got selected. And that was the night I met my wife. I met my wife on stage. First time I saw her, she was on stage doing the poem. Her first viral video. And it was my first viral video the same night.

 

Preston (Adam):

Woman! You were brought forth from my side,

Created to support me like the gravity-stricken moon

Does the brisk breath of nightfall.

But when fear clawed its way into my heart

When He called my name in the Garden,

You shrunk and hid your shameful body!

Both: Where were you?

Jackie (Eve):

When the Prince of Night found his way to your star?

You watched him lie!

And I watched you sit and set like Sunday morning of a man . . .

You can’t even see the nightmare you have become!

Preston:

I was there, standing in the distance

Having a conversation with my backbone.

I wanted to stop you, but

You let that evil reptile with eyes,

Slow dancing with deceit in tongue,

Swift as breeze woo you dumb

To think that we could be wiser than

The God Who thought the galaxies into existence.

And so because, you know, we had viral videos that went viral at the same time, we started to get bookings to do poetry around the country at the same events. So we just became friends through just being at Poetry events conferences for one another and stuff like that. So we developed a friendship.

And so through the years, you know, God has theologically grown us, emotionally, spiritually. And so later on came the teaching and the podcast and you know what we soonly came to realize that poetry was just an avenue in which God just wanted us to Just communicate the gospel in multiple ways, not just poetry.

Once I just thought I was gonna be a poet. I never thought about doing books or podcasts or teaching, the workshops, you know, but God had other plans. But God definitely used poetry as a way to open a door for us to do the things that we're doing now. So we have a ministry together where we podcast together, we do events together at times. We're about to go on tour together, our first podcast tour at the end of May. And yeah, it's just been a good time, man. God has really had His hand on us and allowed us to do a lot together.

Justin Brierley: I guess when God reached you, there weren't that many podcasts and YouTube channels around where you could kind of maybe be following the kinds of issues that you're now dealing with all the time.

Preston Perry: Right.

Justin Brierley: But we now live in this world full of YouTube videos and personalities, influencers, and so on, and in a way you've dived into that yourself. The both of you I'd say are very influential. So what are you kind of seeing happen in terms of the people who are following you? Do you feel the pressure as well I suppose of kind of now, kind of in an online way, being very influential? I know you can't disciple people because that has to happen in person but certainly lots of people are looking to you and to Jackie as kind of helping them as they take their first steps in faith, aren't they?

Preston Perry: Yeah. I mean, it is always some measure of pressure, I think, when you know that God is giving you influence to steward, you know? I try to cast that care on the Lord because ultimately it's not my efforts, it's what God will do in the heart. But I definitely always want to make sure I'm living a life that's worthy of the gospel, publicly and privately. I think that's the main thing for me. But I'm just honored, man.

One of the reasons why I started my YouTube channel was because when I first got into apologetics back in college, I would go look for resources and I didn't see people look like me. I originally did it to just inspire people who came from where I came from to know that they can do it. But then as my platform began to grow, I just had so many Christians, Black, White, Asian, Native American, you know, started to travel throughout the country and started to get more followers throughout the country. So many races that followed me were inspired. So it was like, man, okay, now I'm moving to Atlanta. I see that my White brothers and sisters, they are in communities with Mormons. How can I teach them? I started to have conversations with Mormons.

I'm just honored that God would just use me to inspire people to make disciples in their local context and be evangelists. I've had so many testimonies of people saying, yeah, I became an evangelist watching you. That's the biggest compliment. The two biggest compliments is "you made me think that I can do it" and not "you know a whole lot". When people say, you know a whole lot, I really don't care about... you know, I meet people who know way more than me. It's about what you do with what you know.

Then my second biggest compliment that I love is, I love the way you treat people. If people can watch me and they can be more impressed with how I treated someone, more than the knowledge that I have, I think I've won. That's what I ultimately want to inspire people to do, which is the reason why I named the book How to Tell the Truth.

Man: So if the Bible was written over in the eastern part of the world, you know, Christ was born, lived, and died in it. I have research that you guys believe that God visited the Prophet Joseph Smith in the Americas? That was in the Americas. Okay, okay. Was it God or an angel?

Preston Perry: The very first time it was God and Jesus Christ. It was side-by-side talking to Him.

Justin Brierley: I guess as well, that example is very different to what's often going on in the popular culture, where it's often about kind of, how can I put down the other person? At the time of recording, there's this beef going on, a rap battle kind of thing between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, isn't there? And all this stuff. But that's kind of the culture very often in youth culture. It's very confrontational. It's very kind of "I'm better than you." You can see why that's so attractive to young people at one level. It feels, you know, interesting and edgy and everything else.

I guess, how do you kind of continue to be relevant, but without kind of, I suppose, adopting the standards of the world in the sort of world you live in, where you also want to be reaching that same person that Kendrick Lamar and Drake are speaking to, you know?

Preston Perry: I tell people all the time, people don't make you do anything, they just bring what's in you out. So when I go out there, I beg the Lord to take pride or pride is going to show up. I tell the Lord to take the arrogance away. The devil's going to use somebody to bring the arrogance up.

And then when I've done that, I've realized that when I've truly done that, I was able to actually reach people, to truly reach them with the gospel and to heal their heart. Because what's happening with Kendrick Lamar and Drake, it's entertaining, but nobody's being served, right? Nobody's being truly heard. For me, I just want to meet a need, right? I need to show up different in the world to meet that need.

I think that in order to reach people, we have to be like Jesus, who came and was counter-cultural. At that time, they never heard anybody say, if somebody slaps you on the right cheek, turn and let them slap the other, or bless your enemies. They was like, bless our enemies, you know what I mean? In some ways, it's still kind of like, whoa, what do you mean, you know? I just try to make sure I'm like Jesus in every way, you know, like walk with culture.

Justin Brierley: Final question, if I can, Preston, which is just a lot of people feel like, hey, we're living in a more and more secular culture, Christianity is on the decline, the nuns, you know, the people say they've got no religion are on the rise. What do you see? Do you think that that's true of young people, or do you think there's actually a spiritual openness that we can still tap into there?

Preston Perry: That Christianity is on the decline?

Justin Brierley: Well, I suppose that Christianity is on the decline in the West, you could say is just a fact numerically when you look at the statistics. I suppose I'm wondering whether that's the end of the story. Because I sense, and I don't know if you feel this, that actually something's changed in the last few years, that there's a kind of a real spiritual openness among a lot of young people. I just wanted your thoughts on what you're seeing from where you are.

Preston Perry: I think the numbers do show that church attendance is low, but like I think that we have to be careful to not look at the culture and look at the things that's around us, but look at the consistency of the God in this group. That God works a lot of times beneath the surface, you know, and that He's doing work in His people. That can't be measured by numbers in the seats.

Also, too, I do think it's a danger in measuring Christianity by how many people are in the pews, because the church can be full, but it doesn't mean that they're full of Christians. There are a lot of people at the church, but are they being discipled, right? Are they being truly converted? You know, there's a lot of cultural Christians who just go to church because their mom went to church. And I do think that in a lot of ways, people are just more real about faith.

Social media and TikTok, I think in a lot of ways, did a disservice to us because this is shortening our attention spans. But I also think that it's allowed people to be more honest with who they are with the Lord. So I do think that this generation has a level of honesty that past generations didn't.

I think they just went there just because that's what they had to do. And people aren't doing that anymore. And I believe that God can do a work with that type of modesty, that God can actually get some real conversions out there. And so we don't want to just have a church full, we want to have a church full of real converted believers.

And so I do think that this generation is not as messed up as a lot of people think it is.

When we think about how God is able to capitalize on a generation that's honest about where they're at, and how he can reach a heart like that.

Justin Brierley: And He reached your heart, He can reach anyone's heart.

Preston Perry: Absolutely.

Justin Brierley: We can rejoice that there are people who are going to go out and continue to tell the truth in the way you are, Preston. Thank you so much for spending some time with me on the Maybe God podcast today. And all the best. It's great to catch up with you and I hope many people really benefit from the book as well.

Preston Perry: God bless you. Thank you, sir.