Have started to get more questions about why I do stuff like this. Quick response...
1) Not every pastor should, and not saying I'm doing it perfectly. Guarantee I'm not.
2) I've come think of discipleship in terms of "Air War" and "Ground War."
- Air War = applying the Word to PEOPLE and FAMILIES "down there"
- Ground War = applying the Word to culture "up there"
Just like in a military conflict, if you have no Air War it doesn't matter how many battles you win on the ground, the Enemy just flies in, bombs your wins, and un-does everything you did.
I feel like that happens with Christians: If we don't combat the lies they are inundated with in culture, Enemy "air war superiority" is undoing for the next 6 days (via social media, journalism, entertainment media, higher ed, etc) what we did on 1 day.
3) Many of the "false teachers" of this era are not in pulpits. They are on podcasts, YouTube pages, Twitch streams, etc doing reverse-discipleship and frequently twisting the Scriptures to do so.
In 1960 a pastor could generally keep his sheep from wolves by controlling who he allowed in his pulpit. In 2026, people are carrying entire packs of "wolves" in their pockets... so as a shepherd I'm trying to go there too.
4) I refuse to let my pulpit get hijacked by the issue of the week. On weekends I'm preaching verse by verse through books. Stuff like this gives me the ability to combat bad teaching my people are hearing without letting my pulpit get hijacked.
(Not saying everything Tucker said in this clip I reacted to = bad teaching, listen to ep)
5) If pastors refuse to help their people think Biblically through the issues of the day, someone else will help them think UNbiblically about them.
If godly people don't, godless people will.
6) It is counterintuitively an avenue for evangelism. One takeaway I had from watching the effect of Charlie Kirk's life was that what is often called "the culture war" can be a PLATFORM for the gospel, rather than a distraction from it.
7) Last year I read a book that touched on church leadership and pastoral ministry during the era of the American founding. Pastors leveraged Sundays to preach through books of the Bible, but many leveraged the mid-week gathering to teach their people about "Christian statesmanship" (applying Biblical principles to society, local politics, culture, etc.)
We accidentally backed into doing that with Live Free.
*All that to say, I GUARANTEE I'm doing it imperfectly and this is not going to be every pastor's "thing." I've always been drawn to "Christ and culture" thinking.
But I'm doing my imperfect best for the above reasons.