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[00:00:17] The Missional Life - Dan: All right. Welcome back to Mission Life Podcast. Today we're honored to have Brent Wills with us. Brent is a passionate Christian leader, author, and founder of Eagle Rock Ministries, where he equips believers with practical tools to strengthen their faith, grow in prayer, and navigate the challenges of everyday life with biblical wisdom through his writing and ministry, Brent has helped many people deepen their spiritual walk and step boldly into their God-given purpose.

[00:00:42] The Missional Life - Dan: Brent, welcome to the show.

[00:00:44] The Missional Life - Amanda: Welcome.

[00:00:45] The Missional Life - Dan: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's an honor to have you, and we just so enjoyed our conversation with you. You were down here recently in Belize serving, and we just had such an amazing conversation and just were so amazed with how God was speaking through , and using you.

[00:01:02] The Missional Life - Dan: And so we're happy to have you on the show before we dive into the books in the ministry. Tell us a little bit about your journey. What led you to step into the calling of writing and teaching and equipping believers?

[00:01:15] Brendt Wills: So I've been in the ministry, my wife and I both, Kim is my wife.

[00:01:19] Brendt Wills: We've been in the ministry since about 1988 and, which is crazy 'cause I'm only 35, but I'm joking. And we, we have really, we've served under some pretty amazing people through the years. So, you know, as we continued to develop, we ended up out here in Kansas and the support system got lighter and lighter and we realized that we had to dig deep.

[00:01:47] Brendt Wills: We had to figure out. Things that we couldn't just run to somebody. And it's good to have covering and it's so important. But what we found is that we had a time where we didn't. And so we started digging in deeper and deeper. And then as we did that really discovered that some of the things we were unearthing no one else was talking about.

[00:02:09] Brendt Wills: And you know, and that's where the books begin to come into play. Actually, my first book when frenemies attack. Was a, was a real live test from start to finish. And it came about through my oldest grandson who he decided at five he was gonna write his own book and he wrote a series of books stapled them together and took 'em to the library so other people can check 'em out, read 'em.

[00:02:38] Brendt Wills: I thought, my goodness, if he could do that at five, I better get busy. And so that's, that's how they started.

[00:02:45] The Missional Life - Dan: Yeah, absolutely. Well, since you mentioned frenemy is attack, you explore in that book the conflict through the lens of the Psalms. How can believers navigate difficult relationships while still walking in faith and, and integrity?

[00:03:01] Brendt Wills: Yeah. You know, so many times, you know, as believers we, we take on the position of a, of a doormat and it's really hard to stand your ground when you're getting abused and beat up. And David lays out such a beautiful foundation on how to work through conflicts in Psalms three. And that's where that book came from.

[00:03:26] Brendt Wills: And when frenemies attack. It, it goes through the process, you know, the f it starts out with, oh, Lord, how my enemies have increased. Many are saying, of my soul, there's no deliverance for him, and God, the, the very first part of that is that when we're under attack, it's usually from one or maybe two people, but it feels like everyone is coming after you.

[00:03:50] Brendt Wills: And so in that book, I just lay out how you can walk through those. How, you know, it literally says that David's praying and he says he says that slap my enemies on the cheek and shatter their teeth. Well, that doesn't sound very godly, you know, when you think about it. But there is a time when we, we deal with conflict and then we allow, it says that I, I sought the Lord and, and he answered me from his holy mountain.

[00:04:21] Brendt Wills: His holy hill. And so when we change our perspective on what we're looking at. A lot of times the Lord's enabled to speak to us about that situation. We realize, Hey, maybe I'm not seeing this the same way they are. And then if that continues on through that, and the Lord is saying, no, this is an attack.

[00:04:42] Brendt Wills: There's that promise that is, he says that he's a shield roundabout us, and that word shield literally means the scaly hide of a crocodile. And so he comes around us and shields us so that he can work the situation out instead of us trying to figure out a way to, you know, to do it. So hopefully that's, you know, kind of in a nutshell.

[00:05:04] Brendt Wills: But we do, we run into so much conflict. You know, even you stamp pastor on your name, you, you might as well hang a sign around your neck. Say, come, come and get it, you know, and we, we have you, you know what I mean? You have to learn. Godly conflict resolution. And so, yeah, that's, that came out of that whole situation.

[00:05:28] Brendt Wills: The person that, that good portion of that book came from the conflict they ended up splitting our church down to seven people and starting something else in another town. And when it was all said and done, they had come back to repent. Because the Lord had showed me how to handle that in his way.

[00:05:51] Brendt Wills: I blessed him. I told him, you know what? I forgive you, but now you have birthed something new in another town and now you gotta, you gotta raise that baby. You gotta go back. And and the end result was what? The enemy meant to destroy one church. Now he's got two or three churches to deal with. And so I could have reacted very wrongly and crushed the whole thing, but, but now he's got more to deal with.

[00:06:18] The Missional Life - Dan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Truly just appreciate the honesty and the authenticity of that, because I think. It's sometimes misleading. When we jump into ministry, we think, oh, we're, we're gonna be a pastor or a missionary or an author or something like that. And we, we almost think that conflict won't come or that, that the people that seem for us are always going to be for us.

[00:06:42] The Missional Life - Dan: And we sometimes find that, that there's wolves and sheep's clothing. And so just wondered how you dealt with that personally. What was that like for you? Personally going through those different situations where you felt like you've been hoodwinked or people had kind of turned the tables on you, and how did you deal with that when, when your, your friends now basically became your enemies?

[00:07:07] Brendt Wills: Yeah. That's a great question. Really, that was the whole process of beginning to dig deeper and, and really choosing not to be offended. And that's a hard thing. You know, sometimes we wanna walk in that offense and, and I think of it as like a little IOU. You know, we ride out these IOUs with different people and we think, you know what?

[00:07:33] Brendt Wills: You did me wrong. And, and it's gonna come back. And really, I saw the father just scoop up in, in a dream. I just saw him scoop up all those IOUs and he just wadded 'em up. He threw 'em away and he said, now what are you gonna do? And so the other aspect of that is really my wife and I, we, we have such a strong relationship that we could be real with each other.

[00:08:02] Brendt Wills: And there was a time of complete and total heartbreak where I, I considered leaving ministry. I was, I walked through some depression. That's not supposed to happen, you know? And so, you know, I walked through a big portion of that time where I had to seek the father and I had to get his perspective on it so that I can walk it out,

[00:08:30] The Missional Life - Dan: wow. Just thinking about this verse, Matthew 5 44 says, but I say to you, love your enemies or your fne enemies. Pray Yes. For those who persecute you, and maybe you're, you're probably much further down the road than me, but , I still struggle with that verse. I still struggle with praying for my enemies and I just yes.

[00:08:49] The Missional Life - Dan: Yeah. But, you know, but when we go through those kinds of conflicts, when we go through those different types of challenges we realize that we have to dig deep. Not just in friendships and relationships. We, we have to dig deep into the scriptures. We have to dig deep into the father. We have to dig deep into ourselves as well.

[00:09:09] The Missional Life - Dan: And yes, you have also written a book called The Weekly Reset and how that focuses on spiritual renewal. And so what are some key principles that maybe people that are going through, friends becoming enemies that they can kind of implement and take their daily lives and, and make. Them built on a stronger foundation, so that way they don't take that, that bait of offense.

[00:09:32] The Missional Life - Dan: That's the enemy. Often wants to throw our way.

[00:09:35] Brendt Wills: Yeah. Well, you know, I would say this in the weekly reset, basically what it is, is an outline to do a home Shabbat service. Okay. For, and Shabbat is just coming into the Friday night laying everything down. And starting literally Shabbat means to return to covenant.

[00:09:56] Brendt Wills: And so in that book I talk about how important it is that every covenant we're involved in. And let me back up just a little bit. I have not matured past the place where I don't get offended. Okay? So you guys are not ahead of me. I'm just, you know, I wrote the books, so sometimes the fingers point at me, I'm like, oh, I better get that take.

[00:10:16] Brendt Wills: Taking care of quickly, you know, I'm just being honest. But, so in the weekly reset to return to every covenant that we are involved in. And so in that book, I talk about each process or each blessing that's prayed during the opening of the Shabbat. And I write that with my wife more on the understanding of relationships.

[00:10:42] Brendt Wills: Because every covenant is a relationship. And so we have to examine those relationships. And what the Lord really intended for us is that every Friday night we would stop. We would lay down the week. And sometimes on a good week, that's hard to lay down as well. But on a bad week, you know, we wanna lay it down and allow him to restart us, reset us.

[00:11:09] Brendt Wills: And then as he resets us, we can look at every relationship that we're tied into, you know our, our wives, our husband, you know, our children, the relationships that God has put into our community. And when we look at that, we realize that we have to lay that down, and then we have to get back into alignment with the, the covenants that he laid out for us, and then move on.

[00:11:36] Brendt Wills: And so I think that that really does oh, it kind of lays out a pattern on how to release those things. I think of it this way, if I've been upset with my wife through the week, how can I pray a blessing over her on Friday night? I can't. And, and unfortunately we've modeled this in front of congregations and things were not okay.

[00:11:59] Brendt Wills: And so I said, Hey, are we okay? And she said, no, we're not. And so we had to, in public right there, we had to lay it down. I had to repent and bring that covenant into right standing so that I could pray a blessing over her. And I just see that not only in your close relationships, but also with in the body.

[00:12:23] Brendt Wills: That we have to do that every Friday night and realize that it's important. One of the things I say in there is that how do you end up in a marriage that's 30 or 40 years old and get divorced? Well, it's because you've never dealt with those things. A good friend of mine says it this way, is that people don't fall outta love, they fall out of forgiveness, and so, mm-hmm.

[00:12:47] Brendt Wills: When we stop and even towards the relationships, and what I mean is like the covenants, even in the body that you're connected with, I know a lot of people have home groups or churches or wherever you're tied into. When we do life together, you're gonna step on each other. And so when that happens, we have to take that back to the bare covenant and forgive that and move on.

[00:13:14] The Missional Life - Dan: Yeah. I love the idea of a weekly reset and on Friday, because so many people wait until Friday and they are, wow. TGIF. Thank God it's Friday. Yes. And yeah, it's the end of the work week, and they get to have their fun and do the things that they really, really want, but really in God's mind.

[00:13:33] The Missional Life - Dan: He had this thing like, yeah, thank God it's Friday. I get to reset myself. I get to rekindle that flame with my partner or with my creator, and I get to just rest and allow myself to focus on the things that are very impactful and so important in our lives. And so I just think that's really important.

[00:13:56] The Missional Life - Dan: Such a great concept.

[00:13:58] The Missional Life - Amanda: Yeah, and it's so interesting too to take that, you know, knowing that that's actually the beginning of what God began as the Sabbath, that the reset begins the beginning of the time of rest, that God recognized that we would need that time to reset in order to rest. As best as we can during the Sabbath.

[00:14:17] The Missional Life - Amanda: So with that just looking at your ministry and everything, , we we're taking notice that you also share excerpts from the Torah. And we just wanna ask you, you know, as Christians, as you know, disciples of Jesus, what is the significance of Judaism that Christians can apply in discipleship today that.

[00:14:38] The Missional Life - Amanda: Maybe many of us are not aware of, and we're missing out on understanding some biblical context and, you know, various ways to become even closer to Christ.

[00:14:51] Brendt Wills: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I, I'll say this, is that what, what has happened in the Torah community is that people have gotten that revelation and then beat the snot outta everyone else that's not doing it.

[00:15:05] Brendt Wills: So first of all, I would start by saying, forgive us. And second of all, that there is a richness in walking in biblical things the way that God intended for us to do that. For me, it all began with, with tattoos. I know that sounds crazy, but one of the, one of the. Preachers or pastors that I really, really looked up to.

[00:15:29] Brendt Wills: He started a process of, of getting all these tattoos and man, I wanted one so bad. And so I, I, I got a tattoo and then I was sitting there thinking, you know what? I want another one. And so I actually got two the first time I got a tattoo. And I know this is kind of taboo, but and, and every time I, I was just getting more and more.

[00:15:51] Brendt Wills: And I would get convicted and I'm like, wait a minute, God, if if we're not under the law, then why am I being convicted about something that's only Old Testament type things. And, and I'll be very careful. I have no problems with, you know, if people are walking through that, you know, the tattoo thing. But for me, it brought me about to the place where I realized that the father was saying, wait a minute, I have I have things lined out.

[00:16:20] Brendt Wills: For a reason. And what was happening is, is that the lines were getting blurred on. What I found offensive, and, and I'll, I'll put it this way in the church, by and large we have found over the last 20 years that things used to offend us, that they don't offend us anymore. And in that process, I started looking at the Torah.

[00:16:44] Brendt Wills: I started looking at God's word in its entirety. And I began to discover a few things that, first of all, that my, my personal earmark for sound doctrine is, is that you can find, with sound doctrine, you can find two or three witnesses for everything. But the incredible thing is, what I found is that in the first five books, I found the first witness for everything.

[00:17:13] Brendt Wills: I started to apply that. So healing, speaking in tongues, prophecy, all those things I found in the first five books. And then I was able to apply that to the back of the book. And so as I was working through the process of, of what I was intending to do is, you know create sleeves, you know, and tattoos and stuff.

[00:17:32] Brendt Wills: And I, I kept coming back to the father. I'm like, why am I getting so convicted? And what he showed me is. Is that the, the earmark, the, the things had changed from what was offensive to no longer being offensive. And then what he showed me is this is in the Muslim community, which for quite a while has been the fastest growing religion in the Gen Z and younger.

[00:17:59] Brendt Wills: Or, I'm sorry, just the, the next generation before Gen Z. And so as I started studying that out, the Lord showed me the reason why it was growing is 'cause there's absolutes. And when we move on just what is offensive instead of offensive to me, when we look to see what's offensive to God or what he's actually saying, then it's not about what's offensive to me.

[00:18:24] Brendt Wills: It's offensive to God. And so hopefully that kind of makes sense. But that started our journey and then we begin to dig out all the richness that was there, the feasts, you know, Leviticus 23, it describes the seven feast. And then for me, I'm a, I'm a pattern and a numbers type guy. And so when I see a pattern.

[00:18:49] Brendt Wills: I start to see it fall, you know, completely, you know, all over the place. And there's seven feasts seven days of creation. Seven churches in Revelation seven gifts listed in one Corinthians 12. And I started seeing all this. I'm like, oh my goodness. This stuff all fits together. And that really ignited me.

[00:19:13] Brendt Wills: Even you know, right now out of Ephesians chapter four in verse 11, it talks about the five what some people call offices. And as I've been looking at that, number five, I realized that those five gifts are, are, they're describing the Torah, genesis, Exodus, you know, numbers, the Vaus and Deuteronomy that mm-hmm.

[00:19:38] Brendt Wills: Those five gifts are mirrored or they're a mirror of the first five books. So then if a person say, is a is a pastor and I'm struggling as in the office of pastor, that pattern is there in the Torah that I can run to the first five books and I can see in numbers, which isn't that interesting, the pastor.

[00:20:05] Brendt Wills: Is correlated with the book of numbers. What does a pastor do? He is always counting the sheep, Hey, what's going on? You know, where, where were you? And, and so I could read through numbers and it gives me a deeper depth of what I need to be doing in walking in, as, you know, as I, you know, move on. And then what was interesting to me too is that you can move that forward and Matthew, mark, Luke, John in Acts.

[00:20:35] Brendt Wills: There are five commissionings and every time the Lord commissioned somebody in, you know, the great commission, you know, one was for revival, one was for reformation, and you know, as you go through that, you realize that those five correlate with the first five books, which correlates with. The, the five gifts or the five offices in Ephesians four 11.

[00:21:00] Brendt Wills: So anyway, hopefully I didn't just go completely off. Hopefully that made sense, but if you can't tell, I get passionate about it. It is. I love it. I just, I love God's word. .

[00:21:12] The Missional Life - Dan: I love how you, you get passionate about those things, and I. It's really interesting because you are so passionate. You've written a book about one of these that you found, and it's a book about the Lord's Prayer. Tell us a little bit what you discovered and just finding out about digging into the scriptures.

[00:21:29] The Missional Life - Dan: What did you find there? I.

[00:21:33] Brendt Wills: So it was kind of interesting. I was with my wife during Covid and everything was shut down. So I said, let's take off. So we're in a tent on the side of a mountain in New Mexico, and I woke up and I saw the Lord's Prayer with the first 10 letters of the Hebrew alphabet superimposed over the top of it.

[00:21:56] Brendt Wills: I got up and, and I started reading through it. And I was so excited that in those patterns, like I said, I love patterns. And there, there were the first 10 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which, you know, really coincides. I'm gonna grab this real fast. It really coincides with the Lord's Prayer and how, you know, it says, our father who art in heaven, how would be thy name?

[00:22:22] Brendt Wills: And that is really in the image of Olive, which is the first letter of the Hebrew. And it literally means the strong leader, but God's name is encompassed in that letter. His full name Yohe Vahe, which I'm not trying to, it, it's really not a deep book. It sounds deep, but that the gria or the number value.

[00:22:50] Brendt Wills: God's name is 26. Well, the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet, if you take the parts of that letter apart, it is equal to 26. And so anyway, I begin to see that if I'm going to hallow his name, that there were several patterns there. Psalms one 19 the first eight verses is, is stamped with olive. As I begin to read through that, I realized it's telling me how to hallow his name.

[00:23:24] Brendt Wills: And then the, you know, as we go through your kingdom come would be the letter bait, which means the house, his kingdom is the house. And sometimes we think, oh, is, you know, your kingdom come, you know, is like this this pie in the sky, you know, just beautiful thing. It's us. His kingdom is us. And that just began to change my thinking on how he views us.

[00:23:51] Brendt Wills: And then the next part, it says that the kingdom come thy will be done. And, and that's pictured in the letter gimel, which means camel. It means to rise up like a rich man. His kingdom coming and his will being done on earth is literally for us to rise up like rich men and women and to operate in the things of God so that the world begins to see that.

[00:24:21] Brendt Wills: And so anyway, yeah, that book, I won't go through all of it, but it's just so amazing, the one that really got me. It says, give us this day our daily bread. I realized that the letter, hey, which means to reveal, 'cause we're asking him to give us this day, our daily bread reveal the bread, but there's two letters that are connected to that.

[00:24:42] Brendt Wills: The next letter is V, and what I found is that as he gives us his daily bread, he's revealing it to us. But he never reveals anything to us without the understanding that he intends for us to establish something with that. So if the Daily Bread comes in and say the Daily Bread is, you know, is a meal, then he intends for us to establish something in our body that's gonna be long lasting with that.

[00:25:15] Brendt Wills: You know, a lot of times from ministry, the Daily Bread is, you know, ties, offerings, things that come in. He's not revealing that provision for us to sit on. He's revealing that provision for us to establish something with that. And it really happens a lot, you know, when we're studying God's word and he gives you that little nugget.

[00:25:38] Brendt Wills: As you get that little nugget, that's Revelation that's giving us to stay our daily bread, but he revealed that to you, not for you to sit on it and go, oh, God spoke to me. That was really cool. He gave that to you with the understanding of. What are you gonna do with that? Where does that apply in your life?

[00:25:56] Brendt Wills: Or maybe your children's life or your wife's life, or those that are closest to you. And so, yeah, it's it's a, it's a really neat book. I like it a lot. Lemme just tell you a little background on that too, is that you know, growing up, I, I grew up in a real, you know, I shared my testimony when I was in Belize, but I grew up in a really rough in a rough way.

[00:26:16] Brendt Wills: And when I graduated high school, I could not read. I couldn't write. And so I learned how to read and write, reading the King James Bible. And it was just amazing. So when I, when I'm writing these books, they're, they're written so somebody can grab and run with them. They can opener teachings.

[00:26:39] Brendt Wills: They're not super deep. And what I mean by a can opener teaching is if I can give you a concept. It's like a can opener. You can take it other places in the scripture and open up new levels of understanding for yourself that you can run with in your own life. Wow.

[00:26:59] The Missional Life - Dan: The book, strategic Prayer Listeners, make sure you get that.

[00:27:02] The Missional Life - Dan: Go out there and get that one. Yeah. So you said you love patterns. What is. One of the patterns that most stands out to you, and maybe it's one that God's revealing to you now, or if there's another pattern that you maybe haven't written about that when God revealed it to you, , you never were able to see things the same after that.

[00:27:20] Brendt Wills: Yeah. Well, it definitely is the pattern of, of sevens. Is, is my passionate. That's, I love that because when you apply that from one Corinthians 12, you have a list of seven gifts there, and then you can apply that, you know, so if, when you find your gift, do you see where you live? So the first one is prophet and then servant teacher, exhorter giver.

[00:27:50] Brendt Wills: Mercy, or I'm sorry, ruler and mercy. And for the longest time, honestly, I thought I was prophet until the Lord showed me that I was not prophet. I was just wounded. And so when he revealed to me that I'm exhorter and the exhorter in, in that pattern in the temple, the exhorter is embodied in the menorah.

[00:28:18] Brendt Wills: An exhorter operates by receiving oil from the Holy Spirit and then bringing, bringing light to what has already been taught sometimes from the teacher, which is straight across as the table of showbread. And so a lot of times when I go and speak different places, I'll speak on that. Seven, the patterns.

[00:28:43] Brendt Wills: As an exhorter, that's the fourth in the list. And I can find that, say I'm, I'm struggling with things. I can go to Revelations and find the fourth church that God wrote about, and I can see correction for my life and I can also see direction and it, it just kind of smooths things out. So yeah, that would be my most.

[00:29:07] Brendt Wills: And I have not written about that. There are, there are books out there on the redemptive gifts that come at it kind of from a little different direction. But if somebody wanted to dig that out it's there. And then I would say that the most recent pattern I've been seeing is you know, we just left even 2024 or in the biblical calendar 57 84.

[00:29:35] Brendt Wills: That number four means a doorway. And so the pattern that I've been seeing here lately is this, is that we have been striving and, and fighting the last year for a doorway, and we've been contending for doorways, but now we've come into 57, 85, or 2025, and we are now through the door. So what happens with that is sometimes we contend for something so long that once we get to it, we don't know what to do because we've been fighting for it.

[00:30:13] Brendt Wills: And so what I've been seeing in this new pattern is, is that as we go through the doorway we need to stop contending for that doorway because we're going through it Now, we need to ask the Lord, what do I do with this doorway?

[00:30:27] The Missional Life - Amanda: Hmm.

[00:30:28] Brendt Wills: And , now that you've opened up a new thing, how do I handle it?

[00:30:33] Brendt Wills: What do I do? How do I walk in it?

[00:30:36] The Missional Life - Amanda: Yeah. That's so good. It just makes me think of the Israelites walking through the doorway of the Red Sea, you know? And truly being cut off from the Egyptians in that moment. But then God had to teach them how to not simply contend for, for their physical freedom, but , their spiritual freedom and their identity.

[00:30:54] The Missional Life - Amanda: You know, learning who they were and how to not just escape, but then go and conquer and receive the promised land that he had for them.

[00:31:04] Brendt Wills: Yes. Yeah. And you know what in, in that is it's the pattern of the seven. Because the first thing that happened was the blood sacrifice, which is the brazen altar.

[00:31:16] Brendt Wills: And then they went through the Red Sea, which is the brass Laver talking about the tabernacle in the wilderness, the brass laver, where he washed the blood off from the sacrifice and allowed them to see who they really are. And then the next thing he did is he took them to the mountain and. Gave him, gave all of them his teaching, which is the teacher, .

[00:31:41] The Missional Life - Dan: Yeah. For a listener who's listening to this and saying, wow, this is, this is amazing. I never heard some of this. What are some different entry points that people can begin to learn more about? The, the, the Jewish traditions and just how God is revealing and himself and interwoven throughout scriptures in so many different different ways.

[00:32:04] Brendt Wills: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, it is so simple. And, and I know it doesn't sound simple, but honestly the best way to do it is to find yourself a a Hebrew calendar and start reading the Torah portions for each week. What I've found in that is that as you read through those portions, God begins to relate those, those deep hidden things and relate those things that previously we read through and we're like, this, I, I don't get any of this.

[00:32:38] Brendt Wills: When you read it through in that in that pattern, what begins to happen is he begins to apply it to your life. And you just see it and it's not that deep. I can't remember the scripture, but it's in the New Testament. It says that these things are not difficult. They're not difficult, but our entire lives in Christianity, we've, you know, been, you know, when you get first born again or, you know, whatever your relationship is with the Lord starts, the first thing they say is, we'll start in John.

[00:33:10] Brendt Wills: And we miss that, the beginning of that pattern. And so, yeah, it's, it's really. Just start reading it and just allow the Lord to reveal. And like I said earlier so many times people want to, to bring in a heavier weight. And that's exactly what Paul was talking about. He was talking about the fact that here you have these people that are just discovering the depths of the Torah.

[00:33:36] Brendt Wills: Then the religious leaders were coming alongside and just smacking 'em upside the head and said, well, you're not doing it right. Well, of course we're not. We're just learning it.

[00:33:48] The Missional Life - Dan: One of the things that strikes me about how you're sharing this is that you're not sharing it as a person who's just trying to. Amaze everyone with your, the deep spiritual wisdom, but you're looking for a practicality of how can, how can I apply this? How can I put this into a daily life activity?

[00:34:05] The Missional Life - Dan: And so that's one of the, actually the passions of Eagle Rock Ministries. So we'd love to hear more about Eagle Rock Ministries and how, how you equip people to walk in spiritual authority and step into their God-given calling.

[00:34:19] Brendt Wills: Yeah, so honestly, repetition, repetition, repetition. We, we were just a regular charismatic church.

[00:34:29] Brendt Wills: And then in 2007 we started coming into the rhythms of Torah and just teaching that little by little and what we were seeing as we started to do that I saw a lot of times that the people had a. Knowledge of the Lord, but they weren't walking in that relationship. And so a good portion of what we do at Eagle Rock is try to bridge that gap between information that we're reading in the word and application that we're bringing to the world around us.

[00:35:06] Brendt Wills: And we do I gotta be honest with you, I mean, we go down some, some rabbit holes. I mean, we really do. And I love to dig out different aspects and, and understandings that are going to be a applicable to people's lives so that I can see that in their lives. One of the things I run to a lot is that I wanna see verifiable sustainable.

[00:35:30] Brendt Wills: I wanna see things that, you know, if I teach you this, what is it gonna react? You know, like a practitioner. I wanna see if, if I put this into your life, what is that gonna cause? Is it sustainable? You know?

[00:35:44] The Missional Life - Dan: Yeah. One of the things that the enemy loves to come in as we start digging deeper into the scriptures and God starts revealing things to us, it's almost like the enemy has this GoTo tactic and it's distraction.

[00:35:58] The Missional Life - Dan: Especially that distraction nowadays, it's such a big deal. So I'm just wondering what are some common ways that we can stand against that? How can we begin to. Go into the depths of the father and the scriptures and stand against the distractions of this world and all the activities that we have nowadays because that's really something that many of us struggle with.

[00:36:21] Brendt Wills: Yeah. The best way I can kind of tackle that is it's really held in identity and destiny. And, and really God has laid out our destiny for us. You know, he is like, I'm for you. I'm, you know, but our identity gets attacked by the enemy and usually that identity is attacked through lies. And, and so a lot of times you know, we'll be feel called or directed towards a certain place, but then we'll feel worthless or stupid, or not enough.

[00:36:53] Brendt Wills: And really, that's a lie of the enemy. What happens so many times is that we've never stopped to check those life patterns that are running behind the scenes in our own lives. Like we, we run out to do something and there's always that feeling of inadequacy or maybe there's that feeling of I'm the dumbest guy in the room, you know, whatever it is.

[00:37:18] Brendt Wills: It could be fear. All those are really lining up behind a lie that the enemy has planted. And so my answer to that would be is if we stop and attack, and I mean attack that lie, if, you know when we're going through life and maybe the lie for men, maybe the lie is man, I just fall into lust.

[00:37:43] Brendt Wills: Well, why? That's, that's there for a reason why that the enemy knows that scheme. And if, if you think about it, our entire job as, as Christians or as believers, is to observe and report. We observe what's happening in our world, report to the Lord, and then he gives us direction. From there, the enemy is no different.

[00:38:06] Brendt Wills: He is always observing us. And then he reports and they devise a plan, they're gonna throw more things at you, you know what I'm saying? On, in the, in the evil realm or, you know, in the enemy's realm. And so when we remove what the enemy can attack you with, then you're able to move about this earth without all of those little hindrances.

[00:38:33] Brendt Wills: And so, you know, if a, if a man's like you know, wow, I always fall into lust. You know, if you could go back to it. A lot of times I've found that when people fall into lust or pornography or whatever, all that stuff is, it's usually rooted in a feeling of boredom. Not good enough. See that identity gets attacked.

[00:38:54] Brendt Wills: Maybe they don't measure up. One of my friends and I write about this in the, my book Sin. That he would get attacked with these things, and it was always surrounding fear. And so the enemy had given him the the tools to deal with fear by running to pornography. But when the, when he realized, I, this is not a pornography problem, this is a fear problem.

[00:39:21] Brendt Wills: When he removed what the enemy was using, then he didn't run to pornography anymore. And so that's, that's a long answer, but that's a good one, I think.

[00:39:32] The Missional Life - Dan: Yeah, absolutely. I think that for so long the church has been playing defense and really we need to be playing offense, right? And so we've been taught, I think you mentioned this earlier, the beginning is that we, we, we wait for this, we wait for those, those hits to come in.

[00:39:48] The Missional Life - Dan: And then we, you know, we, we defend ourselves and, and sometimes that defense actually just means, like avoiding Right. It, we, we blocked that, but, but we never attack back. And I think that's such a great visualization. And, and the picture that came to my mind was David, because we, we were told in the scripture, if I'm, if I'm not mistaken, that David ran towards Goliath, I.

[00:40:09] The Missional Life - Dan: And so for me, that's a picture of what the church really should be doing is running towards those those oppressors, running towards those accusers, running towards those things and attacking, not necessarily waiting for the, the attack to come, but going on the offense. And so I think that's such a, an amazing position.

[00:40:27] The Missional Life - Dan: And really the church is supposed to be making. The, the advance. And so even Jesus talks about, he says, look like the, the gates of hell are not gonna prevail , like when people are in me my kingdom is going to move forward and it won't be able to prevail against that.

[00:40:40] The Missional Life - Dan: And so that's really the church in these latter days that we need to, to be, is advancing and knowing who we are in Christ. And, and you're absolutely right that knowing that identity. And knowing it. So deep down, we've been talking about going deep in this conversation, knowing that deep down and then acting out of that.

[00:40:57] The Missional Life - Dan: And when those accusations come, we, we don't just block, we don't just go off the defense, but we attack those. And with the word of God, with the identity . , with the scriptures and the things that God has equipped us with. And, and not only that, but we can fight with, with our friends and our, our brothers and sisters in Christ because we don't always have to fight alone, do we?

[00:41:16] The Missional Life - Dan: So many times we think that we need to fight this battle or fight this thing by ourselves against the enemy. And in, truth, we are the body of Christ and we are meant to be standing with each other and fighting with each other.

[00:41:28] Brendt Wills: Yes. You know, that's why I love James. James Ford says, you know, if someone's sick, you know, get the elders around them.

[00:41:35] Brendt Wills: And then it says if they've sinned, you know, confess that sin and healing will come. And so many times we, we are well, we're tricked to believe that in this world we're the only ones that have that sin. And so we don't confess it. But when we, I, I think of it this way, the enemy loves to expose us publicly.

[00:42:01] Brendt Wills: I mean, if you think about it, he loves to expose us publicly. What? We could take a preemptive strike and expose him publicly to say, you know, Hey, I'm, I'm dealing with this. I'm struggling with this. I know it's an attack from the enemy. I'm gonna expose him. I'm gonna confess this so that it's out in the open.

[00:42:19] Brendt Wills: He can only work in, in the realm of darkness. But when we bring it into the light, the father's like, all right. Let's get, let's get on with this. Let's get this thing taken care of. Yeah. Amen. Absolutely.

[00:42:35] The Missional Life - Dan: Well, it's not always that we get to sit down with somebody who's done ministry, so to speak, for an extended period of time and at such deep levels.

[00:42:44] The Missional Life - Dan: And so I'm just wondering, looking back on your journey, what has been one or two of the most defining moments in your faith journey?

[00:42:55] Brendt Wills: Yeah, that is a really good question. I would have to say deciding to, to stick through it. Mm-hmm. You know, deciding that there is no plan B, there's no other option.

[00:43:08] Brendt Wills: What we signed on for is, is a life long thing. And that really flows into the second part is that in our marriage. When we got, when we got married, I looked at my wife and we weren't even safe. We weren't Christians. I looked at her and I said, this is either for life or let's not do it. And I really feel like those two defining moments, what we founded our marriage on was the Lord.

[00:43:36] Brendt Wills: It took six months of marriage to realize that we were missing that element, but that when we made that decision that this is life. There's no plan B, we can't go back in marriage, we can't go back in ministry. We're gonna ride it out. So many times I've said to my wife, listen, either God provides for us or he doesn't, but I'm not changing what he told us to do.

[00:44:01] Brendt Wills: We can't. And so, yeah, that's, those, those two things have been really defining. It's just no plan B marriage and no plan B in ministry.

[00:44:12] The Missional Life - Amanda: Yeah. That's so good. You know, and we just need to ask a couple questions as we wrap up this amazing interview with you and Yeah, just ask, what is one piece of biblical advice you wish you had listened to sooner?

[00:44:30] Brendt Wills: You know, honestly I, I use this a lot, but when I first became a pastor, I, I started out in youth ministry for years and then I got demoted to senior pastor. Mm-hmm.

[00:44:44] Brendt Wills: And, when, when I was ordained the first time one of the people, I don't even remember who, somebody said I want you to understand that sheep bite and you're gonna have to learn what to do when they bite. And, and at first I thought that was just the stupidest thing ever. But I've used that over and over again.

[00:45:04] Brendt Wills: And so that has been a defining, di defining statement that she, that sheep are gonna bite and as they bite, if I'm their leader, all that does is it, it qualifies me for the fact that I'm in front of them and I just need to learn how to, to train that differently and, and to learn something different in me so I could bring that out different in the sheet.

[00:45:31] Brendt Wills: So I know that's kind of a silly thing, but when you think about it, I mean, even in your guys' ministry and the people that you're reaching out to and, and others that we need to remember that people are people and sometimes they, they get hurt and they hurt back,

[00:45:46] The Missional Life - Dan: well, one more question here.

[00:45:48] The Missional Life - Dan: This is a little bit lighter as well, but Yeah. You're, you're a guy who's studied the scriptures pretty intently, right? You've, you've spent time looking for those different patterns and things and so you probably know a lot of different biblical characters that. Not most of us know about. And so I'm just wondering if you could have coffee with any of those biblical characters or figures besides Jesus, .

[00:46:09] The Missional Life - Dan: Who would it be and why?

[00:46:12] Brendt Wills: Well, okay. Okay. Well, first I, I, I wanna make this really clear. The more I study, the less I know. All right. And, and I mean, really honestly, I study, study, study and I'm like, oh, father, I wanna know you more and more and more because I feel anyway. So I'm just, you know, being honest there.

[00:46:30] Brendt Wills: I really it ignites more inside of me to learn. But the one, and this is kind of an obscure guy, but in job there is there is a character in Job and his name is Elihu. And if you were to ever look at my Bible. Instead of my name on my Bible, it says Elihu. Mm-hmm. And so anyway, he fascinates me because when everyone was telling job what he had done wrong or just curse God and Die, Elihu came along and he said, listen, I know the patterns of God.

[00:47:07] Brendt Wills: I know who he is. I know what he's done, and I know how he operates. And regardless of what you're seeing, regardless of what's happening to you, I know God, and he was the only one of the friends that gave him biblical direction, spiritual direction without putting it on God or on. Joe. And so I would love to, to just sit down and talk with him.

[00:47:35] Brendt Wills: You know, that I, I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I'll give advice and I'm like, Lord, I know that's what you said, but how are they gonna walk that out? You know? And so I think that he was kind of that guy, you know, he spoke the truth and as he spoke the truth, it was one of those that he went home and said, oh God.

[00:47:53] Brendt Wills: Please fulfill what you told me to say. Yeah, so he would definitely be one that I would love to to sit down the other one. To me, you know, we think of Samson as being the strongest man in the Bible. I truly believe that King David was he operated in superhuman strength. I really do. You know, when we, there's a scripture that says that he ran on a city, he leapt on a wall.

[00:48:21] Brendt Wills: What did the walls look like back then? They were, how did he leap on a wa I mean, we're talking 30, 40 feet and I think that a lot of times we get enamored with, with you know, how strong, you know, certain people are in the Bible and stuff like that. But I think David was he operated in his superhuman strength, you know, even some of the battles that you read about and you're like.

[00:48:46] Brendt Wills: Man, that was not, that was not him. That was not him. And so I would love to sit down with David as well and say, you know, so tell me, you know, the story behind this story, you know, were, were you shocked when, when you ran through the wall and all of a sudden you found yourself on the top and you were battling and, you know, so that Yeah, he's, he's the other one that I would love to talk with.

[00:49:11] Brendt Wills: Wow.

[00:49:11] The Missional Life - Dan: They'd be fascinating conversations, wouldn't they?

[00:49:14] Brendt Wills: Yes, yes, yes.

[00:49:17] The Missional Life - Dan: Well, Brent, what an honor to have you on the show today. Tell us how our listeners can connect with you. Where can they get your books, and how can they follow you on social media?

[00:49:26] Brendt Wills: You can find us on Facebook at Eagle Rock Ministries, coffeeville, and you wanna put Coffeeville in there. And you can find us, you can find all my books on Amazon.

[00:49:38] Brendt Wills: Just put in my name, spelled right, B-R-E-N-D-T-W-I-L-L-S. All my books pop up there. You can all, you can also just google my name and, and all the links will come up that way as well.

[00:49:54] The Missional Life - Dan: Yeah, listeners, we'll have those in the show notes for you as well, Brent, perfect. Amazing conversation. Thank you so much for being faithful to what God has called you to and just equipping believers around your area and around the world, and just writing books of the revelation and the different things that God has revealed to you.

[00:50:11] The Missional Life - Dan: So we just speak blessing over you and over your ministry, and we're excited to see how God continues to use you. In Kansas, but also in Belize again, hopefully. And then around the

[00:50:21] Brendt Wills: world. Yes. Yes. Amen. I'm looking forward to that. Amen. Thank you. Blessings.