In this all-too-honest conversation, Mark Sanders of Harvest USA joins us in this conversation where he shares his personal faith journey, why he strived to overcome sexual brokenness, and how the gospel teachings and Christian values shaped him to be who he is now.
Can the struggle of sexual brokenness be one’s pathway to redemption?
In this all-too-honest conversation, Mark Sanders of Harvest USA joins us in this conversation where he shares his personal faith journey, why he strived to overcome sexual brokenness, and how the gospel teachings and Christian values shaped him to be who he is now.
He introduced the organization Harvest USA, rooted in the Presbyterian Church in America, and how it aligned with the principles of the book “Thank God for Bitcoin,” which discussed the common grounds of faith, finance, and economics. This serves as a jump-off for him to share his journey.
As a filmmaker, he has a big love for movies and this great desire to get married, but it dawned on him how they turn out to be idolatry, redirecting his worship to something that can’t satisfy him eternally and forgetting his relationship with God.
He then touches on how media can impact one’s life and why seeing everything through the Christian lens is important.
As he shares his work in Harvest USA and what they offer to help people with sexual struggles, he gives his insights on the challenges of being a Christian in a secular society and how God’s mercy continues to be evident even in these circumstances.
There’s so much to unpack in this episode as Mark discusses Christian stewardship, the reality of secularism, and why there’s a need for healthy skepticism.
So make sure to tune in to the whole episode!
Here at TGFB, our mission is to educate and equip Christians to understand Bitcoin and harness its potential for good. We spread this message through high-quality, inspiring content.
If you want to start your podcast or take your existing show to the next level, I highly recommend connecting with my friends at Juliana Barbati Consulting. They are total pros when it comes to podcast production, marketing, and growth. Check them out at julianabarbati.com and mention me for a Bitcoin payment discount!
Don’t forget that the Thank God for Bitcoin Conference is also coming up on July 24-25 in Nashville! This conference brings together the brightest minds exploring the moral, spiritual, and philosophical foundations of Bitcoin. Get your tickets for the TGFB Conference: https://tgfb.com/store/TGFB-2024-Early-Pass-p596963746
Learn more about Harvest USA: https://harvestusa.org
Jordan
Mark Sanders, welcome to the Thank God For Bitcoin podcast.
Mark Sanders
Thanks. It's good to be on.
Jordan
All right, Mark, this is our second time hanging out and talking we got connected through. Man, one of the people I honestly respect most in the world, the Reverend Tim Fox. So why don't you kind of give us an intro to who you are what you do. And on top of that, how you met Tim?
Mark Sanders
Yeah, so I'm coming from the Philadelphia area. This is kind of where I was born and raised. And I'm still here. I had a brief stint in South Korea, which I'll talk about a little bit later. But yeah, I work at a ministry called Harvest USA, which is a ministry that deals with issues of sexual struggles in sexual brokenness and how the gospel brings about hope and transformation to people who are affected by these issues, and also their families and churches that are affected by these things as well.
Mark Sanders
And so we exist both to minister to individuals and families who are dealing with these things, but also help the church, help pastors, help ministry leaders, know how they can minister to their congregations, because we really do believe that these issues are fundamentally something that the church is called to disciple their people in, and that the gospel speaks clearly and profoundly into them. And so yeah, that's kind of what I'm doing. I'll definitely give a further history to kind of how I got to where I'm at in this ministry, for sure.
Jordan
Awesome. Appreciate you sharing that. And so how'd you meet Tim? I mean, listeners to this podcast know Tim, Tim spoken at both of our thank God for Bitcoin national conferences. Again, I'm hoping he's going to be there be there this year, as well. So but how did you come across Tim?
Mark Sanders
Yeah, this bleeds into my bitcoin story, for sure. So long story short, I got your book, thank God for Bitcoin. And that was one of the first books I got and really appreciated it. Had my dad read it. And so it was through the book that I learned about your organization. Then I started finding the conferences and I think it was the the conferences that I found out about Tim and listened to his messages and really appreciated them and found out that Tim was in the PCA and Harvest USA is not officially connected the PCA but we are very much that's kind of our roots. So we were birthed out of temp Presbyterian Church, which a PCA church in Philadelphia. So I was going to the PCA General Assembly last year. And I emailed him said, hey, I've gone down the Bitcoin rabbit hole. I'm wondering if you're going to be at the General Assembly if you are able to grab lunch with you. And he said, no, I'm not going to be there. I'm going on sabbatical for a little while. But I'd love to connect outside of that. And so we connected after the GA and I think it right off. And then he was mentioned to you. And I was like, oh yeah, I'm very familiar with Jordan and their podcasts and their book. And so yeah, that's kind of how things happened.
Jordan
That's so funny. Did he tell you, I'm sure he did. Did he tell you that he presented about Bitcoin at the previous General Assembly?
Mark Sanders
Yes, actually not you're jogging my memory. That actually might be the first time I heard him. So I thought he did a great job. I'm wondering how much he was in a hostile environment in that setting, because he definitely got a fair amount of pushback in the Q&A. But I thought he did a great job representing realistically faithfully.
Jordan
So yeah, the General Assembly is that June every year, when is it?
Mark Sanders
I think it's in May this year, but roughly May in June. It might be June but yes around that time.
Jordan
Wanted to go, I was like interested in going this past year, but it was right before our conference. I might go this year because again, I want to get out to some more Christian events. I've gone to a few Christian conferences, and it's we've had good feedback. And I went to one conference couple, like a year and a half ago, I guess. And it was a three day conference. I sat and stood for six hours a day for three straight days, and just answered questions about Bitcoin to varying levels of skepticism and, okay, but yeah, it's all figured out to the PCA and orange pills and Presbyterians. But yeah, okay, so let's kind of get into what your backstory like, how did you get to the place where you know you're working in the context of you are what did that look like?
Mark Sanders
Yeah, so basically, I have always had this passion. I always wanted to do a job that wasn't just a job, but something that I truly was passionate about. And so I always had that sense that was where the Lord would lead me in one way or another. And initially, I thought that was going to be through making films. So I was into acting a lot and doing video kind of work. And so all throughout my senior year of high school into college, I was making movies constantly. I like to joke that I'm kind of a pioneer of YouTube. Most of my videos are not on YouTube anymore. But back in like 2004, I was uploading student films onto YouTube. And I thought, yeah, this is what I'm going to do is going to be really meaningful. I'm going to make kind of Christian themed films that were probably edgier than normal Christian films, but definitely had a message that was deep and meaningful. And so that's what I thought I was gonna do and grew up in a Christian home, a great solid biblical church.
Jordan
Did you grow up at 10th?
Mark Sanders
I did not. So yeah, I grew up in the suburbs of Philly in a denomination called the Bible Fellowship denomination, which is a really small denomination that's really mainly in Pennsylvania. And it was around middle school where I really started taking my faith seriously. And I remember just being like, you know, if God really is real, if he is true, then this is amazing. And what greater joy could I have been getting to know him better and live for him. And that had actually come out of the season of a lot of skepticism in my life, about God, about the Bible. I remember fear is my first memory of God because I was fearful with hell. And I would, I would tell people, I said, I haven't been sure if God was real, but I was pretty convinced Hell was. And if I didn't believe in God, then I was probably going there.
Mark Sanders
And so I remember being like seven years old, and being in my pastor's office and like, show me Golgotha, like crying to me that this really happened, because I want some empirical evidence to kind of rest on. And I would say, over a season, the Lord just again, I would say, the theme, and my story is one where His goodness, His beauty, his glory, His love, for me, just kind of has dealt with so many issues in my life, including doubts. And I would say, I've had doubts throughout my life. Even in college, I started really doubting the question of God's sovereignty and and if he's truly sovereign, how can you let these things happen if he's good, and all these questions, but I would say the theme that kept coming back over and over again, is that mark, right, you're trying to rest and ultimately, is your own understanding, you know, I'm doing the exact opposite of Proverbs 3,5, and 6.
Mark Sanders
I'm trying to listen to my own understanding, and not in the character of the Father who loves you, who cares for you. And more than trusting in your own ability to grasp these things, trust in me as you come to me and abide in me. And so that's been a theme that he continually, I come back to by His grace. And so it was around middle school that I would say a lot of those initial doubts were not so much an issue. And it was much more of the joy of God, I remember I had my first brother in Christ, I went to a Christian school as well, that in elementary school, we had Bible class, but I did not have Christian friendships, I would say our friendships were based on anything but Jesus.
Mark Sanders
But it was around middle school where I started really connecting with one classmate in particular. And I was just like, do you pray? Do you actually love God? And he was like, you know what I do. And I was like, wow, like I do as well. And so we were just trying to connect, we are reading a book called by Jerry Bridges called the Pursuit of Holiness. And he actually lived on Westminster Seminaries Campus, his father worked there, and we would, so I would hang out at Westminster, in middle school, just walk in the grounds. And we would just talk about our relationship with God. And pretty early on, I started feeling like, you know, my relationship is growing with the Lord. But around that same time as where sexual sin started to become an issue for me through things like masturbation and through just anything I could find on TV, basically, or trying to find movies that would have salacious scenes in them. So I shared you know, I'm struggling with this issue in my life. And he kind of became my first accountability partner, if you want to call it that.
Mark Sanders
And he just found that when we started to truly be known in these areas that typically produce so much shame and hiding, it actually deepen the relationship, it brought our relationship to a deeper level, and God and His plan for me just happened to bring more and more of those types of relationships into my life, as I went to high school, is I would just have deeper Christian friends. And the majority of my friends, I found we're in similar place with, we wanted to walk with Christ, and we wanted to honor him. But this issue of, of self control was really difficult for us.
Mark Sanders
But it was also something that there was grace in that. And there was a desire to know Christ more through that, and the desire to have relationships that weren't surfacey. And so I've never been one who wanted to have surface level relationships. I enjoy sports to a degree, but it's not what I want a relationship to be based around. So I'd much rather get to meaningful conversations with people. I think that kind of experience of my life really set me up to be able to relate to people on deeper levels and talk about things that most people typically are not quick to share. And what I found at harvest, and in my life in general, is if you're willing to start, typically, people feel safe to say, oh, man, he's willing to go there. Maybe I can share with this person. They seem like someone who could understand and who wouldn't quickly jump all over me and all those things.
Jordan
Yeah know, I have a very similar story. I shared this the last time we were talking and just kind of experienced a lot of the same things on both sides of that, you know, like having come through and like by God's grace been given grace to kind of exercise self control in these ways. Like I have seen, having walked through there being able to kind of help others to talk about these things and navigate them and again, think about them and frame these issues. Not in just how dare you, you know, these kinds of ways where instead of that looking at this like okay, no, but what are you actually trying to pursue? Like, what are you actually trying to pursue in your life and how are you pursuing it? What is your goals for what you're doing and not doing? So throughout middle school, high school, you grow these ways? Where did you go to college? At what point were you What did you want to do beyond those things, what did you want to study and work in? I guess what was the point at which you kind of get to the point where you realize, hey, I really want to do this for my job, I think this would be an awesome thing to do.
Mark Sanders
Yeah so I mean, yeah, the work I'm doing is very much so interrelated with the growth that God has brought about my life. And so I would say, you know, I was looking to go the film, well, the indie route. So I went to Geneva College near Pittsburgh, and Dyneema had a communications program with some video, but no one really who was really serious about like going to Hollywood typically would go to that school for that. And so I happened to just have kind of the entire film equipment to myself, I kept a lot of things in my dorm room, because no one else really needed it. And so it was a great place to grow in that area, and just have a lot of freedom to do what I wanted to do.
Mark Sanders
I spent my senior year making this, like feature length film, and a lot of people got involved in on the campus. And there's just a great time. So I really enjoyed that. But I would say two things that were not sexual sin related, but very much tied to the deeper heart issues that the Lord was starting to show me was number one, that I didn't read my Bible every day in college, but I watched a movie every single day. And there was this idea of trying to find my worth, my value, my identity, and my performance. And particularly, could I make it in the film industry. And so there was clearly a distraction, in that sense, from pursuing the highest good and kind of settling for something that's not inherently wrong, but is not ultimate.
Mark Sanders
And on top of that, there was also a deep desire to be in a relationship, to be in a dating relationship. And throughout middle school, high school, college, I never had a serious dating relationship. And it wasn't for lack of trying. There were many times where I would kind of put my heart out there and get the friend card played. So I was like, oh Mark, you're a great guy, you're a great friend. And so my heart was getting more and more mangled with every rejection. And I think that did play into, okay, well, I keep getting rejected here. But pornography never rejects me, my fantasy world, I never get rejected there. So there are definitely these idols going on in my life where I was saying, God, you've been good to me on many levels, and I do want to live for you. But I'm kind of going to compartmentalize you, and you're going to have this space in my life. But you're not truly all to me, you know, Jesus talks about forsaking all else. And if you can't, you can't be my disciple. He even talks about hating your father and mother. And, you know, a lot of theologians were saying, but Jesus means by unless you hate your father, and mother can't be my disciple. They think he says, what you love Jesus so much that in comparison to that, it looks like hatred. But I think that makes sense.
Mark Sanders
But on some level, I think the deeper understanding of that is, when you come to Christ, he is your all in all, which means that you love your father and mother, you love others, for the sake of Christ, through Christ, that He truly is all in all. And so that was just not the way I was living. He had his corner in my heart. But there were a lot of other things vying for that supremacy. And so, basically, after college, I go off to South Korea to teach English. And I did that, mainly, I think out of the sense of I just wanted to have some adventure. I found some Korean friends in college who got me interested in the movies and the culture. And so I was like, let me just go here. I tried to make a film in Philadelphia, the summer after I graduated, I just hated the process. They were talking about, you got to have a budget for catering. And I'm like catering. What are you talking about? Like? So I was just like, you know, I just need to step away from this. I fully stepped away. I did not touch a video camera for years after college. But I went to South Korea to teach English. And if you're an American in Korea, usually 99% of the time you're either teaching English or you're in the military.
Mark Sanders
And at the time, it was very, very popular thing to do. And one year turned into five years. And I didn't initially expect that. But that's what the Lord had for me. And it was in Korea where I would say he was doing a combination of showing me that all the things I was living for weren't worth it. And he was so showing me that he is worth it. It was particularly in my third year that I was there. And my first year was pretty lonely. I had some friends but not really a community. I was going to church every week, but it was a large church and wasn't really having a community I would say there.
Jordan
Did you go over to Korea with anybody that you knew or did you just met people when you're there?
Mark Sanders
Yeah, I had some friends actually, the friends I knew in college had gone there to do this mandatory military service in Korea. So they were there doing their mandatory military service. So I knew some people there but I kind of went on my own by March. But it was in the second year that I was there that I got involved in an evangelistic On Campus outreach at one of the universities in Seoul, and it was basically English club that we were trying to build relationships and show the gospel, invite them to church. And it was there that a community really started to form for me. And it was also during that time that I started really getting into podcasts for sermons. And so just downloading and kind of binging a lot of different sermons, especially my third year that I was there. And a combination of all of these things, I started leading a small group in my church, but still having ongoing struggles with lust and temptation, and giving over to those things.
Jordan
Let me ask you real quick, who were you listening to? What kind of sermon?
Mark Sanders
I talked about as my John Piper phase. That was he was definitely he was definitely the most frequent one, and particularly what I really appreciated, he would do these pastors conferences every year, and every year, he would do a biography of a different church, church history figure. And those in particular, were extremely impactful for me, I would ride my boss at the school I was at, gave me a bike, and I would just ride my bike through so has these amazing rivers and streams throughout the city. And so I would just write for hours and listen to sermons and biographies and just get so yeah, like the classic, I want my life to count. I want to live kind of abandoned to the Lord's purposes for me, and seeing that if you do that, suffering will be a very big part of that.
Mark Sanders
But saying that I'm willing to do whatever it takes, and having, I think somewhat of a rosy picture of that at the time, but also being somewhat open to the idea that, yeah, this won't be easy, but Jesus is worth it, I would say, and so. So yeah. But the way I described kind of what God was doing that third years, that he was really me, through His goodness, through His love, in a way that the things that sin was offering me just weren't comparable anymore. And so the Thomas trauma sermon, the explosive power of the new affection, is really what I was experiencing, and I was experiencing it on the water levels. So a few ways I was experiencing this was, I would take a bike ride somewhere, and just be in this deep time of worship and abiding in Christ, then I would go back to my apartment, and be like, okay, am I going to give him the sin tonight, or am I can just going to watch some TV that's clearly just not glorifying to God, and just unhealthy. And I started seeing the emptiness of that more and more.
Mark Sanders
And also, I was getting involved in these ministries. And so I would have these rich deep times of fellowship of God's people getting to share the gospel, and just like, This is what life is about, and then have a contract to buy a bar and be like, but this is, as she was telling me that this is life, that this will give you life. And I'm like, and I'm starting to just the veneer started to come off. And the reality of what it really was, was being shown more and more to me. And on top of that, were delivered and still not brad anyone into my life. And I was seeing just the I think it was during that time that I was really seeing how much the idolatry of a relationship of getting married, was starting to become much more clear to me that this was a something to repent of, I need to do repent of a disordered worship that was going on in my heart.
Jordan
Can you unpack that a little bit? So I mean, were you actively thinking if I just get married, this is gonna fix everything, it's gonna fix all my problems, or?
Mark Sanders
Yeah, you know what, sadly, I don't even think I was thinking so much about marriage fixing this, it was a simpler design I've just, I'm lonely, I want to be married, and I want to be in a relationship. And I joke with people that you know, I grew up in the era of TV shows, like Saved by the Bell, and Bring Me Through. And these sitcoms that were geared at a kids to say like, what's the ultimate experience in life? It's having a girlfriend, it's having your first kiss all these sorts of things. And so yeah, it was really as simple as God, you're not enough for me. And I remember thinking to myself, if God said, Mark, you could have me where, where you can have this thing that you want, but you have to choose, which would you choose?
Mark Sanders
And I remember thinking like, I'm not sure which I would choose, because clearly what I feel right now is that you are not sufficient for me and probably read to some degree under the thought that maybe that was a worthwhile trade. And it reminds me of in Hebrews chapter 12, where it says do not give them a sexual morality and be like Esau, who traded his birthright for a bowl of lentils. And that's like, that was in Bitcoin language. That was high time preference thinking right there. It's just this idea of okay, this leading pleasure, whether it's sex or a relationship that could be great for many decades, but it's not eternal ultimately, that whatever you're saying, I'll exchange eternity with the Lord. That beatific vision for a bowl of lentils, basically, is just and sadly, many people make that trade.
Mark Sanders
And really, whenever you aim for anything that's not eternal. You're making that trade whenever you're waiting for anything that will ultimately be taken from you at death, you're making that trade. So I would say he was really showing me the depth of my worship sin and where my worship was being directed and places that cannot satisfy that will not last. And so I would say this, all these things were coming together where his goodness was being more more clear to me, my sin was being exposed. And for the deeper issues that were going on that it wasn't just going to be a behavior change, it had to be a heart change.
Mark Sanders
And I would say, as a third year that a lot of that heart change started to happen. And by God's grace, I started seeing, and I would say, you know, if I could go a couple of days without giving over to send that was good at the time. So when I started getting a week, two weeks, I was like, well, like this is new for me. And I knew that there was a momentum of positive momentum in that growth and self-control that growth in pursuing Christ that I wanted to ride as long as I could. And so the longer that I was going, the more and more I was like, I want to maintain this. And typically, for people in my situation, when you're really feeling yourself stuck in this habitual pattern of sin, you're counting the weeks, you're counting the months initially.
Mark Sanders
So it was around maybe three months that the Lord did start to open up an opportunity to date my future wife, and I had seen the destruction, that sexual sin things like pornography had in marriages of people that I knew. And I wanted desperately to be able to not have this issue, impact our relationship. And the reality is, it impacted it, even if I wasn't giving in because the history of it is going to impact it. But by God's grace, there was a very healthy, probably sometimes unhealthy fear there to say, like this will destroy me, this will destroy this relationship. And this is poison to avoid at every cost. And God has been just greatly faithful and gracious to me in that.
Mark Sanders
And again, the best thing I can say is, all of those sins, the idolatry of relationships, the idolatry of movies, the idolatry of sex. In the moment, it feels like, if I give this up, life will be completely drained of any yeah, it's over. But the opposite happened every time. And the best thing, the one example I can give is, one of my favorite directors was Quentin Tarantino. And I'm not going to make a judgment about whether or not a Christian should watch his movies. But for me, there was a point where I said, you know what, Tarantino is really probably not what my heart needs right now. And his movie, Inglorious Basterds had just come out.
Mark Sanders
And it was the turning point to say, will I watch this movie, because I'd seen every single movie he'll ever made before then, and he's like your, if you're falling director, of course, you're gonna watch every movie they make. And I decided I'm not gonna watch this movie. And I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know what life after that would mean for me. But the way I describe it is my life went from black and white to color. And what I realized is that your world is only as big as what you worship. So if you worship the creation, if you worship movies, well, that's the extent of your world. That's the boundaries of your world. But if you worship the Creator, the infinite God, your will, is expanding and will never stop expanding. So God's been so faithful to show me the truth of those realities.
Jordan
Yeah, maybe unpack some of that. So like, when you say, like, against people who aren't necessarily Christians who listen to this. And so when they hear like, I idolized movies, like that just might sound insane, or like, you know, preposterous. Like, did you have a shrine to Tarantino? I guess you could argue with movies, you kind of do, you actually do have like, this little location where you can keep your DVDs or like, you know, you sit at this place and watch their movies. But like if you had to unpack and explain that to somebody who maybe who wasn't a Christian or something or didn't just understand what you meant by that, like, what were you doing with Tarantino movies that you felt like, wasn't helpful? Or what was it that you thought, man, this is just not great. This isn't helping me.
Mark Sanders
Yeah, I think behaviorally, idolatry can work out in a variety of ways. So I think at the heart of idolatry is this idea that this thing, whatever it is, is a source of life or the source of life, getting this, obtaining this, worshipping this, living for this, is what animates me. It's what gives me the desire to get up another day and do and live. And without that, life loses its purpose, loses its joy, loses its value. And whatever is your idol you will make sacrifices for, you will sacrifice money for, you will sacrifice your time, your heart and your affections. So I think for me, it worked out in a lot of ways. I mean, as I'm a pretty nerdy guy. So one of the ways the adultery worked out is I would keep spreadsheets of every movie ever watched. And I would categorize them by like country. So here's how many Korean films I've seen, here's how many European films I've seen so. So it would work itself out in different ways.
Mark Sanders
And there's a sense in which whatever you're worshiping, there could be correlations to addiction with it in terms of just, yeah, one day with how that feels like, you start to get a little kind of like itchy, like oh, can I really go to bed tonight? I haven't kind of serve my quota type of thing. So I think it really is, where do you find life in it. And I think what we see in Scripture is in Matthew 13:44, the parable of that treasure hidden in a field, I think, is a good example of worship. And if you're worshipping an idol, that treasure, if that's movies, you're willing to sell everything you have to buy that field, to get that treasure. Nothing's gonna stop you that no, no amount of sacrifices too great to obtain this. Now, obviously, if it's right worship, that's a good trade, you know, you sell all that you have with joy to go and buy that field. But that's the way I would describe it.
Jordan
So how would you differentiate? Just again, for somebody who's trying to navigate how to think about this? You know, how would you distinguish maybe a right way, a healthy way to appreciate movies or anything else, like what distinguishes a healthy way from maybe an unhealthy way? I obviously, like if you're, you know, like watching porn, like this is taking this good gift sex that God's given us. And we're divorcing it from the context of a intimate relationship with an actual person. And here we are feasting on the digital representations of bodies of untold quantities of women or men. So like, what would distinguish that if you tried to try to unpack. Where does watching a movie go from being quote unquote, okay to elicit?
Mark Sanders
Yeah, you know, the Bible talks about the heart is deceitful above all things, you can understand it. And so I think often we don't even realize it's happening. And so one practical thing could be if you're not sure where you're at with that, do a fast from whatever activity that is, for a week or two, and see where you're at, kind of see how it impacts your life. And I think that's a good starting point, to just say, can I take a season and not have this and see what it does, see how I'm feeling, see how my outlook on life is after that. So I think that can really just be a simple way to gauge the value that has in your life. I think a few places in scripture we can are helpful as well, is I think it's first Timothy, Paul talks about, you know, don't reject marriage, don't reject food, these are good things, you know, people who tell you to refrain from them. They're teaching the teachings of demons.
Mark Sanders
So clearly, asceticism is not biblical. And it says, These things are made holy through the word of God and prayer. And they're to be received with thanksgiving to God. And so I do believe it's a question of, as I do these things, whatever it is, if I watch a movie, if I'm listening to a podcast, if I'm whatever it is, is there a way in which it's done acknowledging God in it, I'm acknowledging God, I'm thanking him for it. And it's done out of a place where one way I've thought about it is, I'm already satisfied in him going into this, whatever activity I'm going into, it's not this thing that's like I am empty without this. And now I need to go fill up. It's more of I'm already in a place of contentment, Gabi contentment, and this is just a way that I'm going to acknowledge God enjoy him, thank him through all the good gifts that he gives. And he does give many gifts.
Mark Sanders
And I think the key is that a good gift is meant to enhance the relationship that the giver has to the recipient of that gift, not detract from it. So when a father gives his child a birthday gift, the father wants a shot to enjoy the gift. He doesn't want him to say, well, I can't play with that. Because then that would mess our relationship is like no, enjoy it, play with the lego do whatever you're gonna do. But the ultimate effect of giving that kid the lego is that their relationship grows, is not detract it. And I think that's where the it's sometimes it's a long term question is okay, I've been enjoying this gift of God for the year now. What does my relationship with God look like, after a year of enjoying. Is it deeper or suffering as a result?
Jordan
Yeah, I think that's helpful. I think the test of like, have a fast is to helpful thing again, in like, this is convicting for me, honestly, because like, we talked about this the first time we talked, I think, for me, it's the phone, like just like having the phone and just always being connected. And it's easy to justify, when you know, I work largely in social media, and I work on the phone with these things. But like, it gets to the point where it's just unhealthy and like my kids will recognize that my wife will recognize it. And so I think like the ability to say no, that just demonstrates, I think this is again, maybe the framework that is helpful for people to think through this is is that everyone has bosses. The biblical term for them would be lords, you know, lords or gods who basically are there who say yes and also say no.
Jordan
Anod so you know, you're mentioning with like Tarantino this is this is your point where you're like, hey, you know Jesus is Lord ultimately Tarantino isn't. And so like Tarantino is saying yes to certain things that I see Jesus saying no to and so I can't follow two masters. I can't serve Quinton and Jesus. And so I'm going to do this, I think for me, the person who's like this who, again, I appreciate film as well. And so like one of the people is Paul Thomas Anderson, like incredibly brilliant, but like some of his most famous movies. Again, I'm just like, it doesn't make any sense to watch these things just because like he's taking using this brilliance.
Jordan
It's just basically like, we're called to approve of what is good. And I can't remember the actual wording of this, but basically filter out what is evil. And there's just things within some of his stuff, some of his movies, where I'm just like, this is like eating a rock garden that maybe has like one potato in it. It's like, I have to swallow too much things that aren't helping me that are just not great in order to benefit and get access to his brilliance. And so, and I think this is also just thinking about, I have friends who work in film as well, and just was actually talking to one last night.
Jordan
And I think just thinking about filmmakers as gods is an incredibly helpful and accurate picture. Because these are literally people who frame they create movies where they control every minut detail of what is pictured on screen, they control the color, the lighting, the all these things. And so functionally they are god's who say, let my kingdom come and my will be done and who like shape and portray a vision of the good life or you know, what is real or the way that the world should be through their eyes. And so these oall things that these are all competing, they're making competing, or at least they can make competing and rival claims and trying to shape people's hearts and minds of the world.
Jordan
And sooo I would contrast that you have people who are trying to, you have directors who are trying to be gods, and then you have directors who I would say are more faithfully trying to be stewards. And so I will think of he directed a hidden life. Do you know that movie Terrence Malick, so if somebody like Terrence Malick is I believe he's a Christian, like a bit like I mean, that movie hit like you haven't seen it, it's about this guy who during World War 2, basically they're telling him the Germany, he's I think he's Austrian, the Germans are trying to conscript them into service. He just basically says, no, I'm not going to do it, I'm not gonna go and so he ended up enduring hands up and doing all this suffering because he refuses to go along with what they're asking do.
Jordan
And so you see this portrait of this man who is driven by things other than just expediency. And so this is representing a faithful stewardship of in creative imagination and faithful historically chronicling a real life story of somebody. And so I think there's, you know, not all films are created equal, it's, I think that you can approach filmmaking and this is like you can film consuming or you can approach from a variety of different perspectives that can be either healthy or unhealthy.
Mark Sanders
Yeah, just two quick things on that. I love what you said. And I think the one thing I would say as as two ways to judge where your heart is at is whatever you said about you know, we all bosses, we all have lords. And if you're in a good place with your worship of God, the true God, then when he says, no, it's going to be easier to say, okay, yeah, I don't need to watch this movie. It might life is going to be over if I don't, the noise become much easier. And you can say, okay, yeah, I'm not ruled by this. I'm not enslaved to what these directors saying, you have to watch this to be satisfied in life and say, no becomes easier. The other thing I would say is you do start to appreciate movies for the ways in which they can. Many do point us to the deeper truth of God. And I don't know if I can spoil one movie on this podcast or not. But I actually used in the ministry, and I've used his films, often in papers I've written in seminary.
Jordan
Mark, real quick, spoiling this movie will help people not idolize it. So go for it go.
Mark Sanders
And hopefully most people have seen if you haven't, you maybe deserve it to be spoiled. So I appreciate my new kind of favorite directors, Christopher Nolan. And his film Interstellar, I think is his best in my opinion. And the movie is all about this relationship of a father with his daughter. And the deeper structure of the film is that the Father has said I'm leaving, but I'm going to come back, but I don't know when. And she is wrestling with deep anger, doubt, really regret hatred of her father, and because he's left her to die in a room that is crumbling around her, and there's no way to get any assurance from him that of when he's come back if he's even alive.
Mark Sanders
And you know, there's all this crazy time travel stuff has always happened to Christopher Nolan movies are all sort of short. You know, she's really old. She's in like, over 100 at the end of the film, and he's still young because of the way the black hole and all that kind of stuff works. And he meets her on her deathbed basically. And she says nobody believed me, nobody believed me that you were going to come back. I knew he would come back. And he says, Well, how did you know? And she says, because my father told me so. Because my daddy said so. And it's just like, that blew my mind. Because on one level it captured so well, the challenge of faith. Faith is a battle. But ultimately, what do we place our faith in? Do we place it in our experience of what we can see right now? Or do we place it in a word in what God has spoken what he has promised? And it's like, my spiritual heavenly Daddy told me so that is how I know. And I shared that with a man I was ministering to. And he like, changed everything for him. He could not see God as Father before that. And we would talk about Interstellar then constantly after that.
Jordan
So again, that's fantastic. Like, that's so good. I appreciate him too. I will say, I cannot in good conscience allow any movie to be claimed as Christopher Nolan's best movie, except for the Prestige. I'm sorry, the Prestige is his hands down. It's just so good. I love it. I could watch it over and over again. Okay. But okay, so let's move into and let's kind of unpack some of your work, the work that Harvest is doing. So you end up spoiler alert, getting married, you have kids, you end up moving back to the States at some point. How did you get involved with Harvest?
Mark Sanders
Yeah, so I did to clarify, we don't have children. We want children. He hasn't provided yet.
Jordan
I'm sorry. I thought I thought you said you had kids.
Mark Sanders
Yeah. So it's a long story. So we moved back to the States. And I go to seminary, and I get my counseling degree there at Westminster seminary. And I knew I wanted to do ministry, mainly because I was just loving doing ministry in Korea as a volunteer. And as I didn't want to teach English rest of my life. So I decided to do that. But I didn't necessarily feel called to do pastoral ministry in a local church directly. The Lord might still have that in the future. But right now, that's not the track. So I did the counseling program as opposed to an MDiv. In when I was in South Korea, the pastor of the church I was attending had a huge heart for sex trafficking issues in Asia. And I did not feel called to move to Thailand to rescue sex slaves.
Mark Sanders
As important as that is, I didn't feel that was the work I was going to do. But I realized the people who go to Thailand to do these things to take advantage of these people, there's a demand that grew over time was like, people don't just wake up one day and do that. Typically, probably pornography is the genesis of those types of things. And these types of sins, they always take you further than you ever thought you'd go and keep you there longer than you ever thought you'd be there. So I realized maybe I'm going to address some of the demand side of the way that sexual sin has so many victims and victims on every level, not only in sex trafficking, but the pornography in the industry, in general is full of victims on similar levels.
Mark Sanders
And so I felt this call that okay, for words, done this work in my own life in my own heart, maybe he's going to bring redemptive purposes out of what he's doing. So I finished my casting degree. And I did an internship at a counseling organization called CCEF, which is connected to the seminary. And along with that was doing an internship at Harvest USA. And at Harvest, I was basically doing one on one discipleship with men and leading biblical support groups.
Jordan
So just real quick CCF. Is that at Welsh involved? And then who's the David Patterson?
Mark Sanders
Yes, yeah. David Patterson passed away a few years ago, but he's yeah, one of the big kind of not the founder, but kind of the main guy there for a long time.
Jordan
Yeah. If you're a listener, and I mean, haven't read David Patterson, or haven't seen any of his stuff go. I mean, you can just tell by watching this dude speak. Just like you can get a sense of both his character and stuff. There's times where I just I'm like, I have to go listen to this guy. Like, go speak on an issue speaks about anger, and he speaks a number of different issues. Where just his existence, you're just like, wait a sec, okay. It just is kind of like a reset. He's just one of the most calm individuals like it's not like he's some, you know, ha, you know, hovering above everything. But he just is a very unique person. You just have a different, a different tenor. And so anyway, yeah, go look up some of his stuff and benefit from it.
Mark Sanders
Yeah. And he's got an amazing story of coming to Christ too, his story is amazing. Yeah, so doing an internship and both and this is kind of God's goodness is I hadn't touched a video camera for like a decade. And then I go to Harvest and like, oh, you have the background and video, we need some people to do some videos work for us. So while I was an intern at Harvest, I was doing contract video work for them. And what's funny about many industries, is it when you're out of there for a while, it's changed so much so I had to like learn suddenly things from scratch for the first time. So yeah, I still to this day, as a president, the ministry continued to do our vegetable work, and probably eventually needs to shift but I'll explain a little bit more about that at the very end.
Mark Sanders
So yeah, I'm one of the few people I feel like has very different undergrad and graduate degrees and can use them both in my job on a fairly regular basis. So what I was finding it at Harvest was, the people who came to Harvest, typically, the majority of them are in a pretty desperate place, the destruction of sin is really very evident in their lives and their families, perhaps they've lost their job, perhaps they're in a hotel room, looking at divorce papers, whatever is the case. And in that place of desperation, you saw God's severe mercy over and over again.
Mark Sanders
And the many of them would say, I don't know, if I would have changed if God had not let it get to this point. Like he's allowing me to experience the consequences of my sin because I am a legitimate child, you know, as we've talked about in Hebrews 11, in Proverbs eight is the fact that you're being disciplined right now in a very painful way, shows that he hasn't given up on you. And being able to offer that hope to people was just you saw lives transformed time and time again, in a very, very dramatic way, often now, again, like that doesn't mean it happens every time with everyone that comes. But there's a sense in which, being in these really raw places with people, I just got to see very powerful experiences of God.
Mark Sanders
You know, initially, people often come for help because of the consequences. But then seeing how that leads to a deeper heart change. It's not just about my life is painful, and I need to change this. But I really, truly love God and want to follow him now. And some of the most profound things we're aware of, for example, these married men come in, and they're there initially, because they don't want to lose their marriage. But then their marriage still ends. And they're still working out their salvation with fear and trembling. So they initially came to save the marriage, but they've realized there's something bigger to strive after.
Mark Sanders
So yeah, I explained a little bit about the ministry. I explained a little bit already. But we do have basically two types of ministry. We do work in our offices. And we mainly do that through one on one discipleship we called targeted discipleship, because we're targeting a very specific area of sanctification. And we ministered to men who are struggling, to women who struggle, women are often assumed in the church, especially that women are trolling these things. But pornography amongst women especially has had a huge up ramp.
Mark Sanders
And we're not just dealing with pornography issues, really any type of sexual struggle, whether it be same sex, attraction, infidelity, pornography, gender issues, we're going to offer the same gospel, the same hope to everyone, because one thing we say at Harvest is that we're all much more alike than we are different. And maybe the external behavior might look a certain way for you, that the heart issues are all common to man. Temptations is what First Corinthians 10: 13 says, and so yeah, we administer the men to women, to though specifically the wives of husbands who are struggling, we will minister to husbands as well, but the reality is, husbands don't reach out to us that much, but many wives do. And then we ministered to parents whose children identify as LGBTQ plus, and that is, as you probably know, one of the most explosive ministries we have right now in terms of the volume of parents coming to us.
Mark Sanders
And a lot of that, I think, is the direct result of a lot of the social contagion going on right now, particularly with transgenderism. So that's our direct ministry. And we do biblical support groups for all of those four ministries. And then we also provide resources, we provide books, many books, articles, blogs, and magazines. And now we just launched a new initiative for online courses. And those are now we just launched a new website this last week. And on that site, we have two free online courses, and they're into parents. And they're preventative courses, meaning for parents who have young children, and they how do I raise my child in an environment where so many unbiblical messages about sex and sexuality and identity are coming at them all over the place? And it's interesting in our parents group, we have parents who homeschool their kids, parents, who private school, a public school, and they're all getting indoctrinated by the same things. And the common factor of all this is social media exposure. So we have two courses that are in debt. How do you proactively get ahead of all these things and raise your kids and one of them is called Amazing Sexually Faithful Kids. The other one is called Parenting Boys and Girls in a Gender Confused World. We really think these are timely things that we see a lot of demand for.
Jordan
So are you helping like write some of these curriculums? Are people from the seminary, you know, from Westminster, local nearby are like who's kind of helping?
Mark Sanders
Yeah, well, really, it's our staff. So I'm one of the people writing some of the material but we have basically all of our staff who create our resources are practitioners first. And that's really where we're trying to kind of say, like, we're in the trenches with people. We're seeing this firsthand. And out of this ministry, we're seeking to then help the church say, how can you glean from what we're seeing on the ground, but we do hire a lot of our staff through seminaries, a lot of counseling backgrounds and things like that on our staff.
Jordan
Man, I would love to talk to you like another hour just about like these issues, because again, I think there's a ton of overlap in terms of, again, like what you're describing as social media. There's lots of these things that are the product of either misaligned or nefarious economic incentives, you know, just the nature of some of these things, you know, they're fostered by a desire to make money. And the message is the nature of social media, the nature of things like YouTube, and just the ability for people to speak authoritatively. And present there, these messages that have been around for as long as people have been, but that have been in like, they've been on the fringes, but with having cameras in our pockets that are, you know, HD cameras, all these other things. It just basically enables anybody to paint this rosy picture of something that is at core, in actuality, far different. And so yeah, and to speak, authoritatively and speak normatively and normalize things that again, the day to day reality of something like a transition, quote, unquote, transition, like the reality of what that looks like, is far from the sunshine and rainbows that is portrayed on by many people on social media and entities.
Mark Sanders
Yeah there's a lot of videos on Tiktok and, and other platforms where they'll chronicle their entire transition story. And these videos get 30 million likes or 30 million views, tons of likes, and and it is very glamorize. It's interesting, because it's with glamorized in terms of wow, like, look at how liberated this person is. But it's also seen as very heroic. And it's painted that way as a trailblazer, and good for them. They're really doing something very courageous. And yeah, the economic incentives are very obvious, not only obviously, the pornography industry, incredibly lucrative industry there, but also the transition industry. And one thing that's interesting is, you know, a lot of European countries are banning transition surgery for minors. And I believe one of the reasons they're doing that is because the economic incentives are different there than they are here. We're here, it's right now currently a $2 billion a year industry, and projected to be $5 billion by 2030.
Jordan
Yeop. And that's 100%. Again, it's like we're the governor Bitcoin, again, more than the name like we're trying to look faithfully at economics more broadly. Bitcoin is just one aspect of this. But I just think like, this is something that people are just totally underestimating is following the money in terms of the the monetary incentives for doctors, and hospitals, and all these kinds of things. If you have somebody who makes the decision to transition, they're now taking these drugs for the rest of their life, these expensive drugs for the rest of their life. And so it's sources of revenue for these pharmaceutical companies.
Jordan
So people are acting like these are just interested party, the primary concern is helping people figure out their true self and do all these things, when in reality, there's so much money that's desired on the other side of this. And so I think just kind of shining a light on those issues is one way to help people kind of develop some healthy skepticism and to shine light on something that is far different than it's being portrayed.
Mark Sanders
Yeah and on a very, like, understandable individual level, the incentive of I don't want to lose my job, I've got to feed my family. And there's so many coercive tactics being used on so many fronts that probably a lot of people would not, don't feel fully comfortable going along, but they feel they have to, in order to keep their job. And so I heard, if you know, the Coulson center, I just heard Johnston tree, say something recently, where he said, we need to develop a good theology of getting fired. I thought that was very interesting.
Mark Sanders
And again, these are really hard issues. They'll always have easy answers. But I do think the church in general in America is having to face the reality that for the first time in our lifetime, it's not advantageous to be a Christian. And it's a liability now, in a way where it used to be if you were a faithful member of your church, if you were an officer, you got the job over the person who didn't. And now it's the opposite. And so I think we have to look back at church history and say, okay, the church has been here before, and they probably have some things to teach us about how to remain faithful in an environment such as this.
Jordan
Yeah hundred percent. Are you guys involved officially with the Coulson Center? Are you just primarily you listen on your own time to their podcasts and stuff?
Mark Sanders
Yeah, we're not officially connected. I would love to be more connected to them. We do go to their conferences and exhibit there. I'll be exhibiting there this year in May. So it's like right before the GA I'll be at Coulson Center, and then we'll go into GA after that. So yeah, yeah, we think there's been a lot of great work.
Jordan
Do you know, Gregory Shane Morris, do you know him are familiar with him?
Mark Sanders
No, I don't think so.
Jordan
It's either upstream or downstream. Sorry, Shane. I can't remember what your podcast is. But it's one of the Coulson Center. He works on staff there. He's a friend of a friend. And yeah, just appreciate those guys. So shout, Shane. Yeah, definitely. And then actually, speaking of that, I want to, again, just really appreciate your time, brother, and thank you for spending time with us. Hopefully, this won't be the last time. In conclusion, I also just want to let our listeners know that the TGFB 24 conferences coming up in Nashville, July 24 and 25th We will actually have among other people, among other speakers, we're going to have Dr. Glen Sunshine, who is a fellow at the Coulson Center for biblical worldview is going to be speaking.
Jordan
Again, we haven't even haven't even publicly announced all these people. But Dr. Ben Merkle, who's the president of new St. Andrew's College in Moscow, Idaho is going to be there speaking about why their school doesn't accept government funds. They don't accept grants from outside of that, because of the entangling effects of accepting government money, they can tell you what you can and can't teach. And we also have Pastor Thomas Terry, who is formerly of the still of the group, beautiful eulogy. It's like spoken word poetry. He's now a pastor out in Portland. And so he's going to be we're going to be speaking as well.
Jordan
And so we have just a number of other people we're going to be announcing so you can grab your tickets at tgfb.com/store. Again, we'd love to see you this is going to be a combination, Christian conference, casting a robust vision for economics, a Christian vision of economics, what money is, what economics is combined with a Bitcoin Conference. So the goal is to have something for everybody. And these things will it's not going to be forced. It's there's logical relationships between these things. And so we would love to have you come out and visit with us. So go find out more information either on our Twitter page or @tgfb.com and, again, we'd love to have you there. Mark, thank you so much. Again, hopefully, this won't be the last time we'll have you back soon to kind of go more in depth on some of these issues.
Mark Sanders
Thank you so much, Jordan. It's a privilege to be with you and love the work you guys are doing.
Jordan
Yeah and actually, I'll give you the last word kind of tell people where they can find you and find out more about Harvest and anything else you want to share.
Mark Sanders
Yeah, so I am not personally on social media in terms of posting things or anything like that. So the best thing to do would be you can check out Harvest USA on a variety of the social media platforms, we're hoping to get better at it or audiences pretty small on social media, but the best place to go to would be harvestusa.org and there you can find all of our resources. If you need help we do minister via zoom for people who are not local. So even if you're not in the Philadelphia area, we can provide a measure of support for you and there's actually a lot of resources available including those two new free online courses for parents so harvestusa.org there's to check it out.
Jordan
Awesome. Guys, go check those things out and benefit from those tools that are available. Again, appreciate you guys listening to think for Bitcoin and we'll see you again soon.