Discussing Race and Ministry with Lee Wells

## Podcast Episode Summary: Embracing Cultural Diversity in Ministry

### Episode Title:
"Embracing Cultural Diversity in Ministry: A Conversation with Pastor Lee Wells"

### Episode Description:
In this insightful episode, we welcome back Pastor Lee Wells, a multifaceted individual who is not only a pastor but also an entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist. Pastor Lee joins us to tackle a vital and often sensitive topic: the role of race and culture in ministry. Listen in as two friends engage in an honest and courageous discussion about the importance of recognizing and respecting cultural differences within the church, and how to navigate these conversations with love and sensitivity. 

### Key Insights and Takeaways:
1. **Importance of Open Conversations on Race and Culture**:
   - The episode emphasizes the need for open, honest conversations about race and culture, especially in ministry.
   - Pastor Lee and the host stress that avoiding these discussions due to discomfort only perpetuates misunderstanding and division.

2. **Acknowledging Cultural Differences**:
   - It's crucial to recognize and appreciate the cultural differences within congregations.
   - Denying these differences can be seen as disrespectful and disingenuous.

3. **Building Relationships Beyond Stereotypes**:
   - Relationships should be built on understanding and celebrating cultural uniqueness rather than on stereotypes.
   - True connections are formed by recognizing and appreciating the individual experiences and backgrounds of people.

4. **Biblical Perspective on Cultural Inclusivity**:
   - The episode references Acts 10, where Peter learns that the gospel is for everyone, regardless of cultural background.
   - This biblical example underscores that the gospel transcends cultural and racial boundaries.

5. **Practical Steps for Young Ministers**:
   - Young ministers are encouraged to be bold and courageous in having conversations about cultural differences.
   - They should focus on building relationships based on love and respect, using wisdom and sensitivity.

6. **Embracing Counter-Cultural Aspects of the Gospel**:
   - The gospel itself is counter-cultural and challenges societal norms.
   - Ministers are reminded to prioritize the kingdom culture, which is inclusive and loving, above their personal or cultural preferences.

### Speaker-Specific Content:
- **Pastor Lee Wells**:
  - Shares personal experiences and challenges in navigating cultural conversations.
  - Discusses the impact of cultural diversity on his ministry and community work.
  - Talks about his ongoing efforts in disaster relief and the importance of community support.

### Trending Themes:
- **Cultural Inclusivity in Ministry**:
  - The episode highlights a growing recognition of the need for cultural inclusivity within the church.
  - Emphasizes that true ministry involves reaching out to and embracing people from all cultural backgrounds.

### Recommendations:
- **For Listeners**:
  - Reflect on how cultural differences are acknowledged and celebrated within your community.
  - Engage in conversations about race and culture with openness and sensitivity.
  - Support initiatives that promote cultural inclusivity in your local church or community.

- **For Further Reading and Resources**:
  - "Burger Brilliance" by Lee Wells: Explore the intersections of food, culture, and ministry.
  - Visit Lee Wells' [official website](https://www.leewellsofficial.com) to learn more about his ministry and philanthropic efforts, including the ongoing fire relief support.

### Call to Action:
- **Join the Conversation**:
  - Share your t

Transcript

Today's episode is a special treat. We've got our first returning guest  and I couldn't ask for a better friend to bring back then pastor Lee Wells, entrepreneur. Author, podcaster word when you're doing a good deed for people and you're trying to raise money for all the fires and 

am I a philanthropist now?

Philanthropist. That's the word I was looking for. See, I'm not educated enough for it. Philanthropist he's all that and a bag of chips.  Glad to have you with us today, Lee. Thank you for coming back, 

man. It's good to be, it's good to be here. I had a great time last time and  hoping to do that again. 

We were talking about real ministry behind the pulpit.

Now today's different from my listeners. I don't know if you caught on to the routine. Normally we my guest and I, we go ahead and share a little bit of notes so we can cooperate and talk together.  But today we don't have that  today. I know what we're going to talk about, but I don't have any notes in front of me.

I don't have anything written down. Lee called me with a topic on his heart that he thought would be a great outlet or thought would fit this podcast. And it does. And.  You're going to listen to two good friends talk about an important issue in today's society  and it helps in ministry because we need to be aware of the stigma.

We need to be aware of how to handle it and we just need to discuss it.  So, with that being said, Lee, I'm going to let you start it off.  

All right. Well,  I think it is important that we talk about it. And what we're going to talk about for a few minutes is, is race.  And culture in ministry, and I think the first thing that might come to someone's mind is what are two white guys doing talking about race, and I think that's.

Very fitting that we have conversations and not  just, just staged round tables on this topic. I feel like that we are getting  farther down the road, the more we can just have a conversation about this topic without all the prep work and all the making sure all the representatives are around the table and all that, which is all good, it's all, it's good to do that.

It's fine to have different perspectives. But I think it's also pretty cool to just  talk about it and be open about it and maybe share our experiences as white guys in ministry. And then how, how it should possibly be based on the Bible and, and based on how we've approached it. And then I'm always open to the discussion.

If someone has something to add or wants to follow up, I'm sure you're a. Always open to that as well, but I've had some experiences that I'd like to talk about and I think it's a it's healthy  to have those conversations  

Before you do I want to explain why it's important that two white guys are talking about it  Because I'm tired of people being afraid of talking about it 

exactly 



So we need, we need to have these conversations. It's okay. And, and get away from the stigma that we can't talk about it. So that's why it's fitting that two guys, two white guys are because we need to.  

I think it's, I think it's uncomfortable sometimes to talk about  things that are misrepresented and things that are uncomfortable for the wrong reasons.

And I want to have a conversation about it because of the right reasons, which if you boil that down, it's the gospel. It's,  we have to have the conversations because it's a, It's a political social  American topic, maybe global topic, but at the same time,  We have the gospel to share with the entire world, all of its cultures.

And the more we can discuss it, even if we get something wrong, or we get something that has a different opinion that someone might share a different way. Outlook on, I think it's still healthy to have the conversations and, and to be able to have those brave topic  conversations that you know maybe we haven't had over the years that we should have had. 

Absolutely. We need to teach people how to have those conversations.  

That's I'm okay. Making a mistake or two. If I do, if I misspeak or we say something that's maybe even misconstrued, I, I hope that people know us well enough to know. Our heart, our track record in ministry. The fact that what, what kind of upbringing we've had and how that shapes us into talking about these topics. 

Yeah, exactly.  

Yes, sir. 

Because there's a stigma and because people are afraid of it, that's why politics and people are able to use it to divide us because we don't know how to disagree. We don't know how to talk about things that makes us uncomfortable.  So, yeah.  

I'm dying to hear 

about your, the experience that you mentioned. 

Well, I, I just get real tired. I'll just say it. I get tired of  the talking heads and the, whatever these forces of social media and in our culture are, who tell us that  we can't see color, like people who say things like, I don't see color, or I don't see race.  I don't believe you,  and I believe that, first of all, you're lying because you do, everyone does, we have eyeballs that work, we have brains that work, we understand that there are differences between different cultures and different Races or different upbringings or, you know, different church environments, different home environments.

And to say we don't see that as disingenuous to say that  is a lie, because we do see it. And I think when two white guys are talking about it, we don't know what to say. A lot of times, like I was having lunch today with a black gentleman.  First time guest. You said the B word. I did. See, that's what I'm saying.

And I, I said to him, I said, man, sometimes I don't know what to say because the world has a so mixed up on what is proper. What is, what is Correct. What is politically correct? What we can say. And, and I said, man, I don't know. Sometimes do, do I say, you know, you're a black gentleman. Do I say African American?

And he looked at me and he said,  I don't care.  And now some might, some might have a preference. And that's what he said. He said, some might have a preference. They might want to be called. Black or some might want to be called African American. He said, but the best way to know is have the conversation and ask somebody.

Once you get to know them, ask them their preference. Just like I would ask you, do you want to be called Mike? You want to be called brother Yates? You want to be called Hey, that white guy over there. I mean, when we have that conversation between us, it's not a big deal because, because we're on that common ground.

But then when you step out into. Other cultures and it could be the same for Indian folks. That could be the same for anybody from any culture at all that might be differing from who you are. And I think we have those conversations. I told him this today, cause I said, I think I'm going to be on a podcast pretty soon, and I want to, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to say.

And he's looking at me kind of, kind of crazy. This is today at lunch, by the way, he says he says, all right, shoot. Now just remember, this is the first time I've met him first time guest. I did talk to him for 30, 45 minutes on the phone before he came to my church. And today was his first time coming, hit it off.

We're at lunch and he says, all right, shoot. What do you got? I said, all right.  I hate when people say  we, I don't see color  and he, and he says, all right, talk about, and I've talked to this, talked to a Mexican guy and another black guy  and another I talked to several people about this recently and I said the same thing.

I hate it when people say they don't see color because it's a lie. And he said, okay, talk about it.  I said, I do see color. I see.  For instance, you're a black guy and he grew up, you know, he's been in church. He was in he's from California. He was in Merced brother Sam Emory's church. And so we had a lot to talk about.

He was in the choir. We, we talked about. I used to play Fred Hammond music. I've been to like three or four Fred Hammond concerts over the years. And we got to talk in Oregon. Well,  maybe in Arkansas, it's an Oregon, but but Fred Hammond is a black gospel artist. He's one of the.  Fathers of black gospel at this point.

And started out in commission. He was a bass player. He started his own groups over the years and I've just followed his, his success and his music. So, I mean, if I, if I started naming off some of his songs, you would, you would be familiar with them. And  I said to him, I said, man,  I love  black culture.

I love black church culture. And he said, me too. I said, you guys preach different. You sing different, you have different lengths of service than white churches.  And when you're done, you've got something on the barbecue pit, or you've got something planned for dinner after, and your services go all day on Sunday. 

I love that. That's your, that's the culture. That's the black church culture. And if I say, I don't see that that's disrespectful.  If I say that, I don't see that that's short sighted. That's, that's.  That is so rude for me not to be able to recognize  there is a different culture of church than my own.  And if, and I had a, you know, I have Spanish speaking guys at Hispanic churches and, and they do Spanish ministry.

And man, they have different church than we do. If you're not, for the most part, screaming your message in your sermon,  God's not moving. They have their set of songs and worship style and tambourines and so far the, the, the big, you know, goat ram horn, you know, they've got their own style of worship. 

And then they are going to go have a big dinner a lot of times after church. And I know I'm broad brushing this, but just giving you some example, right, of difference.  If I don't see that.  If I don't see that culture, I  just, I submit to you that that's prejudice.  That's, that's me  being disrespectful  to the, to the men and women who love that culture and live that culture. 

And if I say I don't see that,  that's just plain rude.  I absolutely, absolutely do. My wife is Hispanic. You've met Linda.  She's very light skinned Hispanic. And  I love.  The culture that she  was raised up in  her mom is one of the best cooks. You will ever eat her food. It's she's amazing. She makes the best tortillas.

She makes the best New Mexico, red chili sauce. I mean, best enchiladas you ever ate. I promise you she can cook. Her rice is so good. Her Spanish rice is so good. You could just get a bowl of it. Like you go to a Mexican restaurant. It's like an afterthought. Do I eat the rice? Eh, it depends on how hungry I am.

A lot of times it tastes like rice dust or something, right? It's not even that great of a side dish. My mother in law,  you just grab a spoon, man. Get, get out of my way. Her rice is so good.  If I don't see that, if I don't recognize that,  that's not right. And so I think what we, what we do to be careful is we just back all the way out. 

We just back the truck all the way up and say, Oh, I don't see any difference here. We're all just the same and I think that that is so silly and I don't think that we win people  acting like that.  

So you're saying not all stereotypes are wrong.  

There's reasons that there's, there's types. That's right. And that's what reasons that there's a type and it's not bad reasons.

There's good and bad in every culture. There's good and bad in every race. There's trashy white people that aren't worth shooting.  That's a fact. I mean. There's a lot of them  and there's a, there's stigmas that go with, you know, certain you know, trailer parks and there's certain stigmas that go with certain parts of the country because of white people.

I 

mean, let's just be honest.  Not all white people are that way.  Not, not all  stereotypes are exactly right. All across the board.  

I've 

been placing, I'm pretty sure I heard banjos. I know what you mean.  So, so, so we get to know the person, right? That's what I'm saying. You get to know the person, you appreciate their culture, you appreciate where they're coming from.

And then you build that friendship  because of, and within  the cultures that you share and adjust and love that you can have with each other. I love. The food, perhaps of my mother in law and her, you know, for instance, I love that. I love the black gospel culture. I can get along with anybody. I love a good curry.

And so an Indian person man, we're going to find something to get along with. I love the guys in Louisiana. I mean, that's a whole other culture, right? I love a good crawfish boil. I love a good at Tufay. I love, I love some good shrimp and grits. I can get along with folks in church down in, in Lou, South Louisiana. 

Can't hardly understand them, but man, I love them because I embrace that culture. Some of the best food you'll ever eat is in south Louisiana.  Right. And, and so when we get together around the things that we love about each other, we celebrate about each other. We're not afraid to get into and talk about that's how we win people.

That's how we befriend people. That's how we move past the cultural stigmas. Of our day. And I think that we have to do that in order to be successful ministers in this day and time.  

We have to quit throwing the baby out with the bath water. That's what I was getting to when I was talking about, not all stereotypes are bad.

Right. It's just, it's just like, and I don't mean to change subjects or approach, but gun control because of a few bad apples, they're wanting to get rid of everything. But it's the same mindset  because of a few offensive stereotypes. We're not allowed to make any. Or recognizing we're not making the stereotypes are there, there,  you 

know, 



It's statistics and data.

Sure. 

Yeah. And when we need to recognize it's okay.  So we don't just because it's a stereotype does not mean it's offensive. And you're absolutely right. And the people of their culture, they know their stereotypes. Sure. If they're Hispanic, they know mom was going to pull that flip flop off.  And beat you with it, you know, and that's not offensive to him.

That's 

why it's a joke. That's why comedy works is because it's true.  They got the chocolate, man. They're going to throw it at your head if they run. It's and just like my dad will whoop his belt off and every one of those belt loops were smoking when he pulled that thing off. That's a stereotype. It's also true. 

So let's tie this into the ministry. 

Yeah.  

As an issue, we've got new ministers or young ministers that are listening to this, hopefully. Best to go.  What can we tell them? How can we tie this in and equip them to be better ministers? Are we telling them to have conversations? Are we telling them to be more aware,  less afraid?

What are we really telling them? 

I think all of that is absolutely a yes. We, we, all of those three things you just mentioned,  you, you build a bridge with people with commonality. That's what a bridge is, is a, is an arch that goes between differences and touches. The things that you have in common  and the thing that we have in common here is the gospel we we have to share.

The gospel with every single person that we can, and we can't be afraid to minister to a certain group of people, culture of people, color of skin,  because  the society we live in says it's taboo we can't just gray, wash everything and say that we're all the same when we're not. And so the way to build bridges is to embrace those differences and say, absolutely, we are different. 

But it's also a beautiful difference, and it's something that we can enjoy about each other. And I think that that's step one. Acts chapter 10, if you want to pull it into a spiritual context, a biblical context, Acts 10 is a perfect example. You know, you have Cornelius at the beginning of the chapter, he's non Jew.

The angel goes to him in scripture that happens first, right? And he says, go, go talk to Peter. And at that point, we don't even know if Peter is aware of this or has a revelation or not. We don't know exact time, but at about the same time or thereafter, Peter gets a revelation, right? He's up, up on top of the rooftop. 

And the vision that God gives him is cross cultural.  The vision is actually.  Against his own culture.  You know what I'm talking about? Where, where the Lord says, rise, Peter, 

and 

he says, I can't eat that. That's not my culture. That's 

not what I'm supposed to clean. 

Yeah. So it's not just that it's unclean, it's anti his way of doing things. 

And I think that that's kind of what we have to talk about is it's anti his culture. And his time in culture. So what we're talking about today is actually anti our culture to talk about this. Some would say this is a really dumb thing to do is have two white guys talk about race. Because what do we know?

Well, we know our perspective of how we're trying to minister to to groups of people who community and society says.  You can't do that. You can't bridge that gap. You can't talk to them. You you can't see their differences  and  their differences aren't bad.  They're beautiful.  And Peter's seeing this vision and he's going to get to eat, you know,  pork rib for the first time.

He's going to get to eat bacon for the first time. That's beautiful, man. Like what a revelation  to be able to  have a, have some shrimp, you know, that has been prepared by an angel.  Like, this is kind of cool.  Get up here, Peter. I got, I got some,  I got some smoked pork, but get you, get you some, get you a ham sandwich  and experience something outside of your comfort zone. 

And I think that that's what we have to do. I think we have to. Learn how to celebrate other people's cultures that are anti our way of thinking or different than the way that we were brought up. And I think that we culturalize ourselves. We educate ourselves on what it is  to be able to relate to people who are different from us.

And this isn't just black or white. It's it's every culture, whoever you're around, there's places in Dallas that are so Asian now  that you, every sign is.  I mean, there's some places where you're in an Asian market for blocks and blocks and blocks you're in. I was in a place over in Los Colinas a couple of weeks ago, and I don't know that I remember ever seeing as many Indian Middle Eastern and Indian people.

I mean, it was, it was amazing. I hadn't been over there in a while. Now, if I, my church was there.  I would have to be doing some deep diving into what that culture is, what they love, what they eat, how they, how they, how their families are structured, what their socioeconomic statuses are in their culture. I would have to educate myself to be able to relate to that culture.

And if that's true for, for them, which obviously it is. It would be true for anyone as if we're a missionary going into another country, you have to be educated on the differences on the similarities on how to relate. And so that's what Peter's getting. Peter's getting it from heaven.  He's like, Hey man, here's some cross cultural anti your way of thinking, but this is how you're going to reach  this vast majority of the world that you're about to minister to. 

And then he says the gospels for everyone,  and then God shows him this revelation  through cultural differences.  And then Peter opens his mouth and he says in 34 of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons.  But in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. 

Peter got the revelation, and then he said it out loud, every nation. They're all the same. God loves everybody. And you know, we know that, you and I.  That's the first time Peter got this revelation. He was an us for no more Jew.  Absolutely was. Yes, he was.  And he didn't even feel like he could share the gospel, like the gospel wouldn't even work with someone that wasn't a Jew.

That's right. Right? That's right. Because all he had ministered to, and all he had seen receive the Holy Ghost, all he had seen baptized were Jews.  And it took a heavenly intervention  to start seeing things differently.  And then he had the conversation with a man named Cornelius.  And this, Of the Italian band.

I guess that means he was Italian guy. He likes spaghetti. Was that a generalization? Yes, I think it was a stereotype. Yes,  I think it was. But now now we see this 1st time in scripture  where the proof is that God really does love everyone  and now  a Jew that would have never had even the thought process that someone outside of his race would be saved.

Is now going to be able to preach and see  a whole other nation saved. And, and here's the thing,  God didn't say  this Italian, this Cornelius had to conform  to the Jewish way of eating and living. You see, the beauty of the revelation was it doesn't have to be your culture your way. That's right. You really doesn't.

It can be okay to eat some things that you've never eaten before, to experience some things you've never experienced before, to know that there are cultures out there right outside your door. That are different than the way you were brought up and the way you were taught to look at people in the way that you were taught to judge people.

And I think that when heaven opens our eyes, we began to realize how much God loves every single person on the planet. Romans 10  and 12 says, but there's no difference between  the Jew and the Greek  for the same Lord over all. Is rich unto all that call upon him.  And so he doesn't say the Jew has to become a Greek.

That's right.  He doesn't say that the Greek has to now conform to the ways that the Jews eat, that the Greek are still going to have their, their chicken kebabs in there and they're all of their  desserts and all, all the stuff that they're going to always have. Right.  You tell them hungry. Yeah. All I'm talking about is food.

No. But you know, you see that there's no word in there. There's no revelation in there that says that one has to throw away their culture to become saved. And I think that when the Lord says there's no difference,  he means there's no difference. And then I'll, I'll just say this and we'll talk a little bit more in a minute, but  if there's no Jew or Greek.

And there's no bond or free, there's no male or female,  but that we're all one in Christ.  Then that means culturally,  anybody can be saved in any culture  whatsoever.  And I think the way we deal with that is  the kingdom culture first,  meaning love, the blood and the name are number one.  And then everything else falls into place. 

So once someone's born into the kingdom,  they can hold on to all their culture that they, that they can. That doesn't go against the word of God.  They hold on to all that culture.  It's okay for a Jew to still be a Jew and a Greek to still be a Greek,  but the, but the kingdom comes first  and then everything else, because that's true for all of us, right?

Yep. The kingdom comes first and then everything else falls into place. 

I like what you said about his counterculture, because that does go both ways  to the Middle East. Nurse.  They still have a hard time accepting the Gentiles because it's their culture, but the Gentiles have been so loved that we forget  that it started in the Middle East. 

Most of us in the U S we picture Jesus as a white man. We forget  

that full, the whole Bible was full of Brown people. Yeah,  there was, there was no Caucasians in there that we know. Exactly. 

But, but, but you walk around, you know what I'm talking about? You walk around the average Western church.  And they are not talking about picturing a Middle Eastern Jesus in their mind. 

The entire Bible is counterculture.  So  I like that everything about it is counter culture and that's what  that's what got him on the cross  Yeah, he got him. Yeah, he countered their culture and I don't mean to beat a dead horse I want to go back to the stereotype thing But I thought of another tie in that would illustrate my point one thing we one stereotypes that we do allow Mother's Day and Father's Day  Not every mother is worthy of a mother's day and not every father is worthy of a father's day. 

Those holidays are nothing but stereotypes based on the good.  And we 

all, that's true.  

And we, that's 

why my church, we don't do a big mother's day father's day thing.  To me, those are Hallmark greeting card holidays. And I'll get my mom a card and my kids will get my,  their mom, my wife, a bouquet of flowers and we'll honor them.

And I'll say, you know, glad to have mothers here. We wouldn't be here without you and stuff like that.  But then we preach the word and move right on. I don't give credence. If we gave credence to every.  Calendar holiday,  then about, I think it's about 40%. I did the math one time, 40 percent of our Sundays would be derailed.

Yeah. 

You're missing the  you're, you're getting too caught up on the  technicality of mother's day, but you see what I'm talking about with the stereotypes. So I do, and that's my point. So yeah, it's a society. They accept mother's day. So they, they are capable  of rightly dividing.  They're, they're capable of allowing stereotypes. 

But somehow  we've forgotten that. So we're capable of doing it. So young ministers, the gospel is counter culture  and we need that in our lives. I've got a good friend of mine. He works with me. He's from Pakistan. He is from the 1 percent Christian in Pakistan,  but  he does not eat pork.  As part of their faith. 

And that is,  it's a challenge for me because we eat lunch together a lot, you know, and  I got to remember, you know, okay, when we ordered pizza, you know, someone ordered pizza for the, for the office and guess what  they put sausage on the pizza, you know? So anyway, it's,  it, we have to, it's fun to me to learn and respect cultures and  it makes us better ministers.

If we're able to recognize and deal with. Different cultures. 

Right. And I think, but back to your stereotype comment,  it,  it's okay. I believe it's okay. Understand  a basic stereotype,  but we could never judge individuals. Based on stereotypes.  So yes, the culture that we live in, they're okay with some stereotypes.

They're not okay with some other stereotypes. Some are culturally correct and some politically correct is a, is a term we use and some aren't,  but even the ones that are or aren't  can't be part of.  How we build relationships with each other, right?  Right. So, yeah. So even though,  even though there's, there's, you know, white, white guy trait, there's, there's white guy stereotypes.

My relationship with you or anybody else in my life isn't based on that. It's based on me and who I am and where I come from and the things that we have in common. So a lot of times people use stereotypes as a reason to, to say they, they,  they can't build a church or they can't reach a certain group of people.

You're still working on individual levels anyway. Right. So individual.  Relationships go far beyond stereotypes anyway, because, you know, which kind of person they are based on who they are. So I think a lot of times that's just a, it's a scary thing to talk about this because we're going to get, we might get stereotyped into some, you know, some kind of  person, I don't know, but be all right,  I've been called worse, I guess, you know, it's talking about culture though, there's some cultures that are really, really.

Different than ours, like  siestas in the afternoon. Like I would like to kind of explore this a little bit. Did you know that there's a many, there's, there's probably more cult, more people that do siestas in the world than not. Did you know that? Yes.  I mean, it's, it's crazy, but historically the Metro, the Mediterranean people, Southern Europe,  Middle East.

Mainland China,  along with Spain, the, the Latin America and the Philippines. That's a lot of people who do siestas  and Americans us over here. We're, we don't have a clue. Like we just worked so hard and we're just like right at it till midnight, up again at daylight. And, you know, if we were to stop and just think about something that it was kind of a silly thing to think about, but we're in the minority when it comes to siestas, I think that, you know, maybe we should look at this a little bit and maybe we should start implementing it.

I don't know,  but the majority of our  planet. Takes a siesta  

that is gospel  that's anointed. We need to preach it,  

but you know, I, that's a silly thing to talk about, but they take it very seriously. They shut their shops down. They shut the factories down.  They put the almighty dollar on hold  for a siesta or arrest after lunch. 

I, I, that's pretty important to them.  And if you were a missionary over there, you better figure out how to take an app,  

how to 

shut it down or  you'd be caught. You'd be the crazy one. I think we do kingdom first,  then our personal preferences second,  and that's how we get along with each other. That's how we, that's how we get on the same page together in the church. 

Is what the Bible says first and then whatever can flow in after that is perfectly fine.  If you want to, if you want to preach with an organ behind you, a Hammond organ behind you, then by all means, you know what, if you're preaching the gospel, preach with a Hammond organ behind you, let's go.  Let the drummer stay up. 

Let, let's man, let's have, let's, let's, let's sing the gospel. I'm good with it  now. Am I able to do that? Not really, not really all that good at it,  but some people are  and that's cross culture. It's fine. There's nothing wrong with this. What I'm saying. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. And then the gospel gets preached.

You know, if you want to have dinner after church on the grounds every Sunday, okay. You know what? That's probably really biblical. Acts 2 42 says breaking bread and fellowship. It's part of the apostles doctrine.  Those are, those are good. You know what? The white person's probably wrong for not doing more of that.

If we were wanting to break it down into back to the black culture, white culture, we're probably the ones that are trying to jump out the door, but by before the pastor can say, man. We're beating the door down to get, get out of there and get on with our lives. I, I love the fact that there are still cultures in the Hispanic culture as well, where they stay after church and they fellowship and they hang out and they talk and they get to know each other.

And they're the new saints are, are brought into the family. I mean, there's really, really good things there that should be happening probably in all of our churches,  

but, and this thing about culture, we can have cultures within our own,  some churches. The preaching is at a certain pace and that becomes a culture.

The, the music's at a certain pace. I know some churches worship a lot slower  and then it's hard if you're, if you worship at a certain upbeat pace and you go to that church,  you know,  but we can't say it's wrong. We have to,  but yeah, so we can't base things right or wrong based on our culture.  And it goes a lot further than race. 

Absolutely.  So young, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think we get, I don't think we I don't think we behold ourselves to the fear  of our society that says we can't talk about this and that we can't meet people where they are and that we can't appreciate  the culture that they, that they love. As long as it doesn't violate scripture, and as long as it's able to be done in a way that's decent and order, I, I just don't think that there's anything that we should be afraid of discussing in our local churches among ourselves, if we could help reach another soul.

Absolutely.  I was just trying to make sure we've covered everything. Don't be afraid of stigmas.  Be bold, be courageous.  Don't let society tell you how you can and cannot reach a soul.  Don't let society put,  put up the caution tape. So you can't win a soul this way.  Basically that's it. If, if society is setting the boundaries, we know we're lost.

Yeah.  

Society has no right to tell us what is a normal conversation.  

Absolutely. And if we do it in love and we meet people in love, And we talk to them, they know our heart.  And  that's, that's the way the gospel works.  And the gospel works the same way  for all nations.  So there's some, there's some things that we,  we just have to talk about.

We have to figure out as we go.  But I sure want to encourage young ministers not to be afraid of having those conversations.  Especially if it comes down to the fact that you can win a soul or ignore a soul. That's, It, it, it has to be overcome.  

So listeners, I hope you, if you ever see Lee Wells in person, you better not tell him you don't see color.

You better not tell him you don't see his culture. Tell him you see those love handles from all those burgers he's been eating.  He wants you to see that and recognize that.  

I was told yesterday, I look like a man who enjoys a hamburger  and I could not say anything to the contrary.  That's what I was told by a guy.

He's like, he said, he said, you look like a man that enjoys a hamburger. Which one should I get on this menu? And I said, well,  I made the whole menu. So pick one. They're all good.  

I haven't tried the peanut butter one yet.  

That's good. I  have four with peanut butter on them,  four different burgers.  

My favorite's the Western, I think, or the cowboy, something like that.

Western. Yeah, that's, that's a top seller. That's a good burger.  All right. Well, Lee, have we have we satisfied your 

itch?  

I think I want, I just want people to, I just want people to not be afraid.  I want people to be bold and courageous, and that means  even, even in a culture like this, that means having those conversations with people because you love them enough to have that conversation, even if they're a different culture than you and come to the understanding and agreement.

This is how we can work together. This is how we can celebrate each other. Even our differences.  

Make sure you do it in love, young minister. 

Absolutely. 

At the right time. Okay. Yeah. Can't just have the conversation for the sake of having conversation. Can't walk up to somebody and say, Hey, you're black. You know, you got to have a reason for having the conversation.

Use wisdom. Sure. Sure.  Absolutely.  And there's, you know, sometimes it doesn't even have to be a physical conversation as much as just getting to know someone you can pick up on the sense of where you stand with them. By having a relationship with them and not be afraid to have that relationship, not be afraid to have conversation and,  and then get to know someone to the point where you're comfortable with each other and then having that conversation.

But  instead of conversation, I should say relationship, we should have, we should build those relationships.  With all kinds of people, even people we don't understand and,  and just be honest with them and tell them that  I had a, I had a Spanish work for a while and I'll tell you it was, it was eye opening the difference in a Spanish service Spanish speaking service and a,  a white service or whatever, just regular what I was used to. 

It's completely different. They had a different flow, they had a different cadence, a different pace. And like I said before, you weren't having church. If you weren't having church at that pace and singing those songs at that speed and preaching at that volume, man, that's fine. It's awesome.  But if I'm winning someone and I don't have that,  they have to understand the gospel works. 

At all speeds,  at  all languages,  and sometimes without a dinner on the ground. 

And sometimes with it,  I'm always, I'm always good. I'm always good with eating  anyway, man. Thank you for having the conversation today. I hope some, I hope it helps somebody at least get their mind open to the place where they can deal with these things on their terms, the way they choose to do it. And sometimes just having a conversation is not necessarily telling somebody what to do as much as it is telling someone to think about something and figuring out what they're going to do with the Holy Ghost, helping and directing them.

So, maybe having this conversation isn't as much about step 1, 2, 3 for you, but it's about, hey, pray about this and don't be afraid.  To reach out across that culture, even if you're a completely full white church, when that black person or that Indian person or that  whoever Hispanic person comes in,  show them the love of God, teach them to teach them the gospel  and their culture is actually second  to the kingdom culture anyway.

And so, however, that works. Do it in love.  

Absolutely. And I'm hoping  it helps somebody, but I want to get, I'm trying to get some feedback, not just a thumbs up. Of course, I appreciate your thumbs up, but I want someone to give us a comment.  What did we say that you liked? What did we say that you, that sparked your curiosity?

Let's have a conversation, get, get on Facebook, get on Instagram. Talk to us. Lee's podcast is the ranch and the table. But he would probably rather have this conversation on this one, because it fits this  environment better. I don't know how he wants this conversation on the, I don't know what it has to do with beef. 

This don't have anything to do with beef. Does it? 

Well, I mean, I, I serve all kinds of cultures and you know, it's funny. You, you, you say that jokingly, but we're kind of, I mean, it's my mom. It's me, it's my daughter. It's my aunt. We're a pretty white bunch up there at Wells Cattle Company at our restaurant.

And you know what? The greatest compliment for me is, is when people of color of other ethnicities of other countries of origin, when they come into the restaurant and feel comfortable and leave a good review and, and, and I get to be friends with them, I have, I guess I can just say this cause we're having this conversation, I have a very old, I don't know how old she is, a very  old, she's a grandmother, great grandmother.

She's a black lady.  And that lady brings a different person to that restaurant almost every time I see her. And every time she says, let me introduce you to my friend. And she's gotta be,  she's gotta be in her upper eighties. I don't know. And she's like, let me introduce you to my friend. And she always has to have a hug and she's always just so sweet and so kind.

And I'm just a big bearded white dude and she feels comfortable.  And I love that.  I absolutely love it. I love it. When the gang, the gangster guys with the. With the, you know, the, the gold teeth and the earrings and all that in the, in the, the dreads and they come in, their pants are sagging. They, I don't know if they've been to prison or not.

I really don't know who they are.  I love it when those guys come in to my restaurant and order burgers and sit down and I go by and talk to them and we have a conversation and they're talking about how good it is or what they're enjoying about being there  because I'm,  I couldn't be more culturally different than them, but we come together. 

And we build relationships.  And then all of a sudden our color of our skin doesn't matter anymore.  You see what I mean? Yep. It doesn't matter. What matters is that's a good hamburger or that's a, that's good peach cobbler or whatever it is that, that they're enjoying at the time. And I think if we can get to that point in church,  where we are celebrating the gospel, we're celebrating what God's doing  instead of focusing on the differences.

I think it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And that's what Peter's talking about, not being one or the other, but coming together in this way that  is a, is a beautiful thing to every nation, all people,  

I'll let you, I'll 

let you wrap it up, brother.  

Well, I was  hated. You put it that way. 

I'll be, you don't have to wrap it up at your podcast. 

Well, I'm,  this is embarrassing.  I forgot the name of your book, burger brilliance. Yes. See, I told you guys, I have no notes. Okay. I'm shooting from the hip here. I have no notes. You're doing a good job. Check out his book, burger brilliance his restaurant. He told you as well as cattle company there in Rockwall.

More importantly, check out his church landmark epistolic. Off of 

landmark fellowship, 

landmark fellowship, sorry. Landmark fellowship off of I 30 there in Rockwall. Check out his podcast, the ranch and the table podcast  and anything he, are you still working on the fires or raising money for them? 

Yeah, we've sent a load of feed this week to the Texas panhandle.

22 ton load of feed. We are still,  I'm still working on that. We're I'm writing a documentary right now, full length documentary on it. And we've got most of that filming complete. So now we're going into the first rough edit of the, of the documentary. So  trying to document the  experience of the ranchers and then also Those who help provide aid and.

Bring in supplies and  get them through this season.  It's been a,  been a thing,  been a lot of, a lot of work.  We've also brought a lot of hope. You don't see a lot of smiles and a  

lot of  humanity.  

You know, it's, I'll say this and, and you might edit it out later, it's okay. But suicide rate in ranchers is higher than than you would ever imagine. 

It's twice that of what veterans are  and the pressure  suicide rate. I know, but is it because of the pressure because of the pressures, because of the disasters that hit are so big. And they're so, they feel insurmountable because the banks are still going to call notes and there's no  harvest to come in or like these guys, there's 20, 000 head of cattle that were, were either killed in the fire or put down later.

Because of the fire fencing is all gone for the most part. And fencing is about 15, 000 a mile. And some of these ranchers have 40 miles of fence, 55 miles of fence. It's it's so big that it's, it swallows them up in despair.  And I believe what we have been doing by sending feed and hay and not just me hundreds of people.

Thousands of people around the country have helped. And I think that amount of hope has kept that number down,  but I know of, I know of two one when I was there a couple of weeks ago  and then another one since. And, and they say out there and it won't be the last is what they say when they hear of another one.

And it's it's heart, heart wrenching to think that someone would give up on life.  But they're also five, you know, six generations deep in these ranches that they're not just letting down their immediate family, but they feel like they're letting down,  you know, four, four grandfathers and,  you know, it's just, it gets to be a lot.

And 

so we've been trying to help share that hope. And encourage them and,  and keep them going long enough to get them back on their feet.  You know, it's just, it's just a lot, but I felt called to do it. And as of this point, I think I'm up,  I think we're up over 160, 000 raised. And 

where can someone go if they wanted to help with that? 

Lee wells, official. com. It's my front facing website. And then there's a fire page on there's a fire relief page and you can see that the counter the statistics of what all the number of bales of hay, the number of tons of feed, all the work that we've done, we've built 5 miles of fence out there for ranchers and.

That's an 85, 000 value right there. So just a whole lot of things like that, but leewellsofficial. com is where you can see that at.  

Well, listen to this. There you go. So again,  check, check out everything he's involved in. Leave us some comments, talk to us  and keep listening. We appreciate you. 
 



 



 





 









 







 

 

 

 





 

 

 Today's episode is a special treat. We've got our first returning guest  and I couldn't ask for a better friend to bring back then pastor Lee Wells, entrepreneur. Author, podcaster word when you're doing a good deed for people and you're trying to raise money for all the fires and 

am I a philanthropist now?

Philanthropist. That's the word I was looking for. See, I'm not educated enough for it. Philanthropist he's all that and a bag of chips.  Glad to have you with us today, Lee. Thank you for coming back, 

man. It's good to be, it's good to be here. I had a great time last time and  hoping to do that again. 

We were talking about real ministry behind the pulpit.

Now today's different from my listeners. I don't know if you caught on to the routine. Normally we my guest and I, we go ahead and share a little bit of notes so we can cooperate and talk together.  But today we don't have that  today. I know what we're going to talk about, but I don't have any notes in front of me.

I don't have anything written down. Lee called me with a topic on his heart that he thought would be a great outlet or thought would fit this podcast. And it does. And.  You're going to listen to two good friends talk about an important issue in today's society  and it helps in ministry because we need to be aware of the stigma.

We need to be aware of how to handle it and we just need to discuss it.  So, with that being said, Lee, I'm going to let you start it off.  

All right. Well,  I think it is important that we talk about it. And what we're going to talk about for a few minutes is, is race.  And culture in ministry, and I think the first thing that might come to someone's mind is what are two white guys doing talking about race, and I think that's.

Very fitting that we have conversations and not  just, just staged round tables on this topic. I feel like that we are getting  farther down the road, the more we can just have a conversation about this topic without all the prep work and all the making sure all the representatives are around the table and all that, which is all good, it's all, it's good to do that.

It's fine to have different perspectives. But I think it's also pretty cool to just  talk about it and be open about it and maybe share our experiences as white guys in ministry. And then how, how it should possibly be based on the Bible and, and based on how we've approached it. And then I'm always open to the discussion.

If someone has something to add or wants to follow up, I'm sure you're a. Always open to that as well, but I've had some experiences that I'd like to talk about and I think it's a it's healthy  to have those conversations  

Before you do I want to explain why it's important that two white guys are talking about it  Because I'm tired of people being afraid of talking about it 

exactly 



So we need, we need to have these conversations. It's okay. And, and get away from the stigma that we can't talk about it. So that's why it's fitting that two guys, two white guys are because we need to.  

I think it's, I think it's uncomfortable sometimes to talk about  things that are misrepresented and things that are uncomfortable for the wrong reasons.

And I want to have a conversation about it because of the right reasons, which if you boil that down, it's the gospel. It's,  we have to have the conversations because it's a, It's a political social  American topic, maybe global topic, but at the same time,  We have the gospel to share with the entire world, all of its cultures.

And the more we can discuss it, even if we get something wrong, or we get something that has a different opinion that someone might share a different way. Outlook on, I think it's still healthy to have the conversations and, and to be able to have those brave topic  conversations that you know maybe we haven't had over the years that we should have had. 

Absolutely. We need to teach people how to have those conversations.  

That's I'm okay. Making a mistake or two. If I do, if I misspeak or we say something that's maybe even misconstrued, I, I hope that people know us well enough to know. Our heart, our track record in ministry. The fact that what, what kind of upbringing we've had and how that shapes us into talking about these topics. 

Yeah, exactly.  

Yes, sir. 

Because there's a stigma and because people are afraid of it, that's why politics and people are able to use it to divide us because we don't know how to disagree. We don't know how to talk about things that makes us uncomfortable.  So, yeah.  

I'm dying to hear 

about your, the experience that you mentioned. 

Well, I, I just get real tired. I'll just say it. I get tired of  the talking heads and the, whatever these forces of social media and in our culture are, who tell us that  we can't see color, like people who say things like, I don't see color, or I don't see race.  I don't believe you,  and I believe that, first of all, you're lying because you do, everyone does, we have eyeballs that work, we have brains that work, we understand that there are differences between different cultures and different Races or different upbringings or, you know, different church environments, different home environments.

And to say we don't see that as disingenuous to say that  is a lie, because we do see it. And I think when two white guys are talking about it, we don't know what to say. A lot of times, like I was having lunch today with a black gentleman.  First time guest. You said the B word. I did. See, that's what I'm saying.

And I, I said to him, I said, man, sometimes I don't know what to say because the world has a so mixed up on what is proper. What is, what is Correct. What is politically correct? What we can say. And, and I said, man, I don't know. Sometimes do, do I say, you know, you're a black gentleman. Do I say African American?

And he looked at me and he said,  I don't care.  And now some might, some might have a preference. And that's what he said. He said, some might have a preference. They might want to be called. Black or some might want to be called African American. He said, but the best way to know is have the conversation and ask somebody.

Once you get to know them, ask them their preference. Just like I would ask you, do you want to be called Mike? You want to be called brother Yates? You want to be called Hey, that white guy over there. I mean, when we have that conversation between us, it's not a big deal because, because we're on that common ground.

But then when you step out into. Other cultures and it could be the same for Indian folks. That could be the same for anybody from any culture at all that might be differing from who you are. And I think we have those conversations. I told him this today, cause I said, I think I'm going to be on a podcast pretty soon, and I want to, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to say.

And he's looking at me kind of, kind of crazy. This is today at lunch, by the way, he says he says, all right, shoot. Now just remember, this is the first time I've met him first time guest. I did talk to him for 30, 45 minutes on the phone before he came to my church. And today was his first time coming, hit it off.

We're at lunch and he says, all right, shoot. What do you got? I said, all right.  I hate when people say  we, I don't see color  and he, and he says, all right, talk about, and I've talked to this, talked to a Mexican guy and another black guy  and another I talked to several people about this recently and I said the same thing.

I hate it when people say they don't see color because it's a lie. And he said, okay, talk about it.  I said, I do see color. I see.  For instance, you're a black guy and he grew up, you know, he's been in church. He was in he's from California. He was in Merced brother Sam Emory's church. And so we had a lot to talk about.

He was in the choir. We, we talked about. I used to play Fred Hammond music. I've been to like three or four Fred Hammond concerts over the years. And we got to talk in Oregon. Well,  maybe in Arkansas, it's an Oregon, but but Fred Hammond is a black gospel artist. He's one of the.  Fathers of black gospel at this point.

And started out in commission. He was a bass player. He started his own groups over the years and I've just followed his, his success and his music. So, I mean, if I, if I started naming off some of his songs, you would, you would be familiar with them. And  I said to him, I said, man,  I love  black culture.

I love black church culture. And he said, me too. I said, you guys preach different. You sing different, you have different lengths of service than white churches.  And when you're done, you've got something on the barbecue pit, or you've got something planned for dinner after, and your services go all day on Sunday. 

I love that. That's your, that's the culture. That's the black church culture. And if I say, I don't see that that's disrespectful.  If I say that, I don't see that that's short sighted. That's, that's.  That is so rude for me not to be able to recognize  there is a different culture of church than my own.  And if, and I had a, you know, I have Spanish speaking guys at Hispanic churches and, and they do Spanish ministry.

And man, they have different church than we do. If you're not, for the most part, screaming your message in your sermon,  God's not moving. They have their set of songs and worship style and tambourines and so far the, the, the big, you know, goat ram horn, you know, they've got their own style of worship. 

And then they are going to go have a big dinner a lot of times after church. And I know I'm broad brushing this, but just giving you some example, right, of difference.  If I don't see that.  If I don't see that culture, I  just, I submit to you that that's prejudice.  That's, that's me  being disrespectful  to the, to the men and women who love that culture and live that culture. 

And if I say I don't see that,  that's just plain rude.  I absolutely, absolutely do. My wife is Hispanic. You've met Linda.  She's very light skinned Hispanic. And  I love.  The culture that she  was raised up in  her mom is one of the best cooks. You will ever eat her food. It's she's amazing. She makes the best tortillas.

She makes the best New Mexico, red chili sauce. I mean, best enchiladas you ever ate. I promise you she can cook. Her rice is so good. Her Spanish rice is so good. You could just get a bowl of it. Like you go to a Mexican restaurant. It's like an afterthought. Do I eat the rice? Eh, it depends on how hungry I am.

A lot of times it tastes like rice dust or something, right? It's not even that great of a side dish. My mother in law,  you just grab a spoon, man. Get, get out of my way. Her rice is so good.  If I don't see that, if I don't recognize that,  that's not right. And so I think what we, what we do to be careful is we just back all the way out. 

We just back the truck all the way up and say, Oh, I don't see any difference here. We're all just the same and I think that that is so silly and I don't think that we win people  acting like that.  

So you're saying not all stereotypes are wrong.  

There's reasons that there's, there's types. That's right. And that's what reasons that there's a type and it's not bad reasons.

There's good and bad in every culture. There's good and bad in every race. There's trashy white people that aren't worth shooting.  That's a fact. I mean. There's a lot of them  and there's a, there's stigmas that go with, you know, certain you know, trailer parks and there's certain stigmas that go with certain parts of the country because of white people.

I 

mean, let's just be honest.  Not all white people are that way.  Not, not all  stereotypes are exactly right. All across the board.  

I've 

been placing, I'm pretty sure I heard banjos. I know what you mean.  So, so, so we get to know the person, right? That's what I'm saying. You get to know the person, you appreciate their culture, you appreciate where they're coming from.

And then you build that friendship  because of, and within  the cultures that you share and adjust and love that you can have with each other. I love. The food, perhaps of my mother in law and her, you know, for instance, I love that. I love the black gospel culture. I can get along with anybody. I love a good curry.

And so an Indian person man, we're going to find something to get along with. I love the guys in Louisiana. I mean, that's a whole other culture, right? I love a good crawfish boil. I love a good at Tufay. I love, I love some good shrimp and grits. I can get along with folks in church down in, in Lou, South Louisiana. 

Can't hardly understand them, but man, I love them because I embrace that culture. Some of the best food you'll ever eat is in south Louisiana.  Right. And, and so when we get together around the things that we love about each other, we celebrate about each other. We're not afraid to get into and talk about that's how we win people.

That's how we befriend people. That's how we move past the cultural stigmas. Of our day. And I think that we have to do that in order to be successful ministers in this day and time.  

We have to quit throwing the baby out with the bath water. That's what I was getting to when I was talking about, not all stereotypes are bad.

Right. It's just, it's just like, and I don't mean to change subjects or approach, but gun control because of a few bad apples, they're wanting to get rid of everything. But it's the same mindset  because of a few offensive stereotypes. We're not allowed to make any. Or recognizing we're not making the stereotypes are there, there,  you 

know, 



It's statistics and data.

Sure. 

Yeah. And when we need to recognize it's okay.  So we don't just because it's a stereotype does not mean it's offensive. And you're absolutely right. And the people of their culture, they know their stereotypes. Sure. If they're Hispanic, they know mom was going to pull that flip flop off.  And beat you with it, you know, and that's not offensive to him.

That's 

why it's a joke. That's why comedy works is because it's true.  They got the chocolate, man. They're going to throw it at your head if they run. It's and just like my dad will whoop his belt off and every one of those belt loops were smoking when he pulled that thing off. That's a stereotype. It's also true. 

So let's tie this into the ministry. 

Yeah.  

As an issue, we've got new ministers or young ministers that are listening to this, hopefully. Best to go.  What can we tell them? How can we tie this in and equip them to be better ministers? Are we telling them to have conversations? Are we telling them to be more aware,  less afraid?

What are we really telling them? 

I think all of that is absolutely a yes. We, we, all of those three things you just mentioned,  you, you build a bridge with people with commonality. That's what a bridge is, is a, is an arch that goes between differences and touches. The things that you have in common  and the thing that we have in common here is the gospel we we have to share.

The gospel with every single person that we can, and we can't be afraid to minister to a certain group of people, culture of people, color of skin,  because  the society we live in says it's taboo we can't just gray, wash everything and say that we're all the same when we're not. And so the way to build bridges is to embrace those differences and say, absolutely, we are different. 

But it's also a beautiful difference, and it's something that we can enjoy about each other. And I think that that's step one. Acts chapter 10, if you want to pull it into a spiritual context, a biblical context, Acts 10 is a perfect example. You know, you have Cornelius at the beginning of the chapter, he's non Jew.

The angel goes to him in scripture that happens first, right? And he says, go, go talk to Peter. And at that point, we don't even know if Peter is aware of this or has a revelation or not. We don't know exact time, but at about the same time or thereafter, Peter gets a revelation, right? He's up, up on top of the rooftop. 

And the vision that God gives him is cross cultural.  The vision is actually.  Against his own culture.  You know what I'm talking about? Where, where the Lord says, rise, Peter, 

and 

he says, I can't eat that. That's not my culture. That's 

not what I'm supposed to clean. 

Yeah. So it's not just that it's unclean, it's anti his way of doing things. 

And I think that that's kind of what we have to talk about is it's anti his culture. And his time in culture. So what we're talking about today is actually anti our culture to talk about this. Some would say this is a really dumb thing to do is have two white guys talk about race. Because what do we know?

Well, we know our perspective of how we're trying to minister to to groups of people who community and society says.  You can't do that. You can't bridge that gap. You can't talk to them. You you can't see their differences  and  their differences aren't bad.  They're beautiful.  And Peter's seeing this vision and he's going to get to eat, you know,  pork rib for the first time.

He's going to get to eat bacon for the first time. That's beautiful, man. Like what a revelation  to be able to  have a, have some shrimp, you know, that has been prepared by an angel.  Like, this is kind of cool.  Get up here, Peter. I got, I got some,  I got some smoked pork, but get you, get you some, get you a ham sandwich  and experience something outside of your comfort zone. 

And I think that that's what we have to do. I think we have to. Learn how to celebrate other people's cultures that are anti our way of thinking or different than the way that we were brought up. And I think that we culturalize ourselves. We educate ourselves on what it is  to be able to relate to people who are different from us.

And this isn't just black or white. It's it's every culture, whoever you're around, there's places in Dallas that are so Asian now  that you, every sign is.  I mean, there's some places where you're in an Asian market for blocks and blocks and blocks you're in. I was in a place over in Los Colinas a couple of weeks ago, and I don't know that I remember ever seeing as many Indian Middle Eastern and Indian people.

I mean, it was, it was amazing. I hadn't been over there in a while. Now, if I, my church was there.  I would have to be doing some deep diving into what that culture is, what they love, what they eat, how they, how they, how their families are structured, what their socioeconomic statuses are in their culture. I would have to educate myself to be able to relate to that culture.

And if that's true for, for them, which obviously it is. It would be true for anyone as if we're a missionary going into another country, you have to be educated on the differences on the similarities on how to relate. And so that's what Peter's getting. Peter's getting it from heaven.  He's like, Hey man, here's some cross cultural anti your way of thinking, but this is how you're going to reach  this vast majority of the world that you're about to minister to. 

And then he says the gospels for everyone,  and then God shows him this revelation  through cultural differences.  And then Peter opens his mouth and he says in 34 of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons.  But in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. 

Peter got the revelation, and then he said it out loud, every nation. They're all the same. God loves everybody. And you know, we know that, you and I.  That's the first time Peter got this revelation. He was an us for no more Jew.  Absolutely was. Yes, he was.  And he didn't even feel like he could share the gospel, like the gospel wouldn't even work with someone that wasn't a Jew.

That's right. Right? That's right. Because all he had ministered to, and all he had seen receive the Holy Ghost, all he had seen baptized were Jews.  And it took a heavenly intervention  to start seeing things differently.  And then he had the conversation with a man named Cornelius.  And this, Of the Italian band.

I guess that means he was Italian guy. He likes spaghetti. Was that a generalization? Yes, I think it was a stereotype. Yes,  I think it was. But now now we see this 1st time in scripture  where the proof is that God really does love everyone  and now  a Jew that would have never had even the thought process that someone outside of his race would be saved.

Is now going to be able to preach and see  a whole other nation saved. And, and here's the thing,  God didn't say  this Italian, this Cornelius had to conform  to the Jewish way of eating and living. You see, the beauty of the revelation was it doesn't have to be your culture your way. That's right. You really doesn't.

It can be okay to eat some things that you've never eaten before, to experience some things you've never experienced before, to know that there are cultures out there right outside your door. That are different than the way you were brought up and the way you were taught to look at people in the way that you were taught to judge people.

And I think that when heaven opens our eyes, we began to realize how much God loves every single person on the planet. Romans 10  and 12 says, but there's no difference between  the Jew and the Greek  for the same Lord over all. Is rich unto all that call upon him.  And so he doesn't say the Jew has to become a Greek.

That's right.  He doesn't say that the Greek has to now conform to the ways that the Jews eat, that the Greek are still going to have their, their chicken kebabs in there and they're all of their  desserts and all, all the stuff that they're going to always have. Right.  You tell them hungry. Yeah. All I'm talking about is food.

No. But you know, you see that there's no word in there. There's no revelation in there that says that one has to throw away their culture to become saved. And I think that when the Lord says there's no difference,  he means there's no difference. And then I'll, I'll just say this and we'll talk a little bit more in a minute, but  if there's no Jew or Greek.

And there's no bond or free, there's no male or female,  but that we're all one in Christ.  Then that means culturally,  anybody can be saved in any culture  whatsoever.  And I think the way we deal with that is  the kingdom culture first,  meaning love, the blood and the name are number one.  And then everything else falls into place. 

So once someone's born into the kingdom,  they can hold on to all their culture that they, that they can. That doesn't go against the word of God.  They hold on to all that culture.  It's okay for a Jew to still be a Jew and a Greek to still be a Greek,  but the, but the kingdom comes first  and then everything else, because that's true for all of us, right?

Yep. The kingdom comes first and then everything else falls into place. 

I like what you said about his counterculture, because that does go both ways  to the Middle East. Nurse.  They still have a hard time accepting the Gentiles because it's their culture, but the Gentiles have been so loved that we forget  that it started in the Middle East. 

Most of us in the U S we picture Jesus as a white man. We forget  

that full, the whole Bible was full of Brown people. Yeah,  there was, there was no Caucasians in there that we know. Exactly. 

But, but, but you walk around, you know what I'm talking about? You walk around the average Western church.  And they are not talking about picturing a Middle Eastern Jesus in their mind. 

The entire Bible is counterculture.  So  I like that everything about it is counter culture and that's what  that's what got him on the cross  Yeah, he got him. Yeah, he countered their culture and I don't mean to beat a dead horse I want to go back to the stereotype thing But I thought of another tie in that would illustrate my point one thing we one stereotypes that we do allow Mother's Day and Father's Day  Not every mother is worthy of a mother's day and not every father is worthy of a father's day. 

Those holidays are nothing but stereotypes based on the good.  And we 

all, that's true.  

And we, that's 

why my church, we don't do a big mother's day father's day thing.  To me, those are Hallmark greeting card holidays. And I'll get my mom a card and my kids will get my,  their mom, my wife, a bouquet of flowers and we'll honor them.

And I'll say, you know, glad to have mothers here. We wouldn't be here without you and stuff like that.  But then we preach the word and move right on. I don't give credence. If we gave credence to every.  Calendar holiday,  then about, I think it's about 40%. I did the math one time, 40 percent of our Sundays would be derailed.

Yeah. 

You're missing the  you're, you're getting too caught up on the  technicality of mother's day, but you see what I'm talking about with the stereotypes. So I do, and that's my point. So yeah, it's a society. They accept mother's day. So they, they are capable  of rightly dividing.  They're, they're capable of allowing stereotypes. 

But somehow  we've forgotten that. So we're capable of doing it. So young ministers, the gospel is counter culture  and we need that in our lives. I've got a good friend of mine. He works with me. He's from Pakistan. He is from the 1 percent Christian in Pakistan,  but  he does not eat pork.  As part of their faith. 

And that is,  it's a challenge for me because we eat lunch together a lot, you know, and  I got to remember, you know, okay, when we ordered pizza, you know, someone ordered pizza for the, for the office and guess what  they put sausage on the pizza, you know? So anyway, it's,  it, we have to, it's fun to me to learn and respect cultures and  it makes us better ministers.

If we're able to recognize and deal with. Different cultures. 

Right. And I think, but back to your stereotype comment,  it,  it's okay. I believe it's okay. Understand  a basic stereotype,  but we could never judge individuals. Based on stereotypes.  So yes, the culture that we live in, they're okay with some stereotypes.

They're not okay with some other stereotypes. Some are culturally correct and some politically correct is a, is a term we use and some aren't,  but even the ones that are or aren't  can't be part of.  How we build relationships with each other, right?  Right. So, yeah. So even though,  even though there's, there's, you know, white, white guy trait, there's, there's white guy stereotypes.

My relationship with you or anybody else in my life isn't based on that. It's based on me and who I am and where I come from and the things that we have in common. So a lot of times people use stereotypes as a reason to, to say they, they,  they can't build a church or they can't reach a certain group of people.

You're still working on individual levels anyway. Right. So individual.  Relationships go far beyond stereotypes anyway, because, you know, which kind of person they are based on who they are. So I think a lot of times that's just a, it's a scary thing to talk about this because we're going to get, we might get stereotyped into some, you know, some kind of  person, I don't know, but be all right,  I've been called worse, I guess, you know, it's talking about culture though, there's some cultures that are really, really.

Different than ours, like  siestas in the afternoon. Like I would like to kind of explore this a little bit. Did you know that there's a many, there's, there's probably more cult, more people that do siestas in the world than not. Did you know that? Yes.  I mean, it's, it's crazy, but historically the Metro, the Mediterranean people, Southern Europe,  Middle East.

Mainland China,  along with Spain, the, the Latin America and the Philippines. That's a lot of people who do siestas  and Americans us over here. We're, we don't have a clue. Like we just worked so hard and we're just like right at it till midnight, up again at daylight. And, you know, if we were to stop and just think about something that it was kind of a silly thing to think about, but we're in the minority when it comes to siestas, I think that, you know, maybe we should look at this a little bit and maybe we should start implementing it.

I don't know,  but the majority of our  planet. Takes a siesta  

that is gospel  that's anointed. We need to preach it,  

but you know, I, that's a silly thing to talk about, but they take it very seriously. They shut their shops down. They shut the factories down.  They put the almighty dollar on hold  for a siesta or arrest after lunch. 

I, I, that's pretty important to them.  And if you were a missionary over there, you better figure out how to take an app,  

how to 

shut it down or  you'd be caught. You'd be the crazy one. I think we do kingdom first,  then our personal preferences second,  and that's how we get along with each other. That's how we, that's how we get on the same page together in the church. 

Is what the Bible says first and then whatever can flow in after that is perfectly fine.  If you want to, if you want to preach with an organ behind you, a Hammond organ behind you, then by all means, you know what, if you're preaching the gospel, preach with a Hammond organ behind you, let's go.  Let the drummer stay up. 

Let, let's man, let's have, let's, let's, let's sing the gospel. I'm good with it  now. Am I able to do that? Not really, not really all that good at it,  but some people are  and that's cross culture. It's fine. There's nothing wrong with this. What I'm saying. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. And then the gospel gets preached.

You know, if you want to have dinner after church on the grounds every Sunday, okay. You know what? That's probably really biblical. Acts 2 42 says breaking bread and fellowship. It's part of the apostles doctrine.  Those are, those are good. You know what? The white person's probably wrong for not doing more of that.

If we were wanting to break it down into back to the black culture, white culture, we're probably the ones that are trying to jump out the door, but by before the pastor can say, man. We're beating the door down to get, get out of there and get on with our lives. I, I love the fact that there are still cultures in the Hispanic culture as well, where they stay after church and they fellowship and they hang out and they talk and they get to know each other.

And they're the new saints are, are brought into the family. I mean, there's really, really good things there that should be happening probably in all of our churches,  

but, and this thing about culture, we can have cultures within our own,  some churches. The preaching is at a certain pace and that becomes a culture.

The, the music's at a certain pace. I know some churches worship a lot slower  and then it's hard if you're, if you worship at a certain upbeat pace and you go to that church,  you know,  but we can't say it's wrong. We have to,  but yeah, so we can't base things right or wrong based on our culture.  And it goes a lot further than race. 

Absolutely.  So young, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think we get, I don't think we I don't think we behold ourselves to the fear  of our society that says we can't talk about this and that we can't meet people where they are and that we can't appreciate  the culture that they, that they love. As long as it doesn't violate scripture, and as long as it's able to be done in a way that's decent and order, I, I just don't think that there's anything that we should be afraid of discussing in our local churches among ourselves, if we could help reach another soul.

Absolutely.  I was just trying to make sure we've covered everything. Don't be afraid of stigmas.  Be bold, be courageous.  Don't let society tell you how you can and cannot reach a soul.  Don't let society put,  put up the caution tape. So you can't win a soul this way.  Basically that's it. If, if society is setting the boundaries, we know we're lost.

Yeah.  

Society has no right to tell us what is a normal conversation.  

Absolutely. And if we do it in love and we meet people in love, And we talk to them, they know our heart.  And  that's, that's the way the gospel works.  And the gospel works the same way  for all nations.  So there's some, there's some things that we,  we just have to talk about.

We have to figure out as we go.  But I sure want to encourage young ministers not to be afraid of having those conversations.  Especially if it comes down to the fact that you can win a soul or ignore a soul. That's, It, it, it has to be overcome.  

So listeners, I hope you, if you ever see Lee Wells in person, you better not tell him you don't see color.

You better not tell him you don't see his culture. Tell him you see those love handles from all those burgers he's been eating.  He wants you to see that and recognize that.  

I was told yesterday, I look like a man who enjoys a hamburger  and I could not say anything to the contrary.  That's what I was told by a guy.

He's like, he said, he said, you look like a man that enjoys a hamburger. Which one should I get on this menu? And I said, well,  I made the whole menu. So pick one. They're all good.  

I haven't tried the peanut butter one yet.  

That's good. I  have four with peanut butter on them,  four different burgers.  

My favorite's the Western, I think, or the cowboy, something like that.

Western. Yeah, that's, that's a top seller. That's a good burger.  All right. Well, Lee, have we have we satisfied your 

itch?  

I think I want, I just want people to, I just want people to not be afraid.  I want people to be bold and courageous, and that means  even, even in a culture like this, that means having those conversations with people because you love them enough to have that conversation, even if they're a different culture than you and come to the understanding and agreement.

This is how we can work together. This is how we can celebrate each other. Even our differences.  

Make sure you do it in love, young minister. 

Absolutely. 

At the right time. Okay. Yeah. Can't just have the conversation for the sake of having conversation. Can't walk up to somebody and say, Hey, you're black. You know, you got to have a reason for having the conversation.

Use wisdom. Sure. Sure.  Absolutely.  And there's, you know, sometimes it doesn't even have to be a physical conversation as much as just getting to know someone you can pick up on the sense of where you stand with them. By having a relationship with them and not be afraid to have that relationship, not be afraid to have conversation and,  and then get to know someone to the point where you're comfortable with each other and then having that conversation.

But  instead of conversation, I should say relationship, we should have, we should build those relationships.  With all kinds of people, even people we don't understand and,  and just be honest with them and tell them that  I had a, I had a Spanish work for a while and I'll tell you it was, it was eye opening the difference in a Spanish service Spanish speaking service and a,  a white service or whatever, just regular what I was used to. 

It's completely different. They had a different flow, they had a different cadence, a different pace. And like I said before, you weren't having church. If you weren't having church at that pace and singing those songs at that speed and preaching at that volume, man, that's fine. It's awesome.  But if I'm winning someone and I don't have that,  they have to understand the gospel works. 

At all speeds,  at  all languages,  and sometimes without a dinner on the ground. 

And sometimes with it,  I'm always, I'm always good. I'm always good with eating  anyway, man. Thank you for having the conversation today. I hope some, I hope it helps somebody at least get their mind open to the place where they can deal with these things on their terms, the way they choose to do it. And sometimes just having a conversation is not necessarily telling somebody what to do as much as it is telling someone to think about something and figuring out what they're going to do with the Holy Ghost, helping and directing them.

So, maybe having this conversation isn't as much about step 1, 2, 3 for you, but it's about, hey, pray about this and don't be afraid.  To reach out across that culture, even if you're a completely full white church, when that black person or that Indian person or that  whoever Hispanic person comes in,  show them the love of God, teach them to teach them the gospel  and their culture is actually second  to the kingdom culture anyway.

And so, however, that works. Do it in love.  

Absolutely. And I'm hoping  it helps somebody, but I want to get, I'm trying to get some feedback, not just a thumbs up. Of course, I appreciate your thumbs up, but I want someone to give us a comment.  What did we say that you liked? What did we say that you, that sparked your curiosity?

Let's have a conversation, get, get on Facebook, get on Instagram. Talk to us. Lee's podcast is the ranch and the table. But he would probably rather have this conversation on this one, because it fits this  environment better. I don't know how he wants this conversation on the, I don't know what it has to do with beef. 

This don't have anything to do with beef. Does it? 

Well, I mean, I, I serve all kinds of cultures and you know, it's funny. You, you, you say that jokingly, but we're kind of, I mean, it's my mom. It's me, it's my daughter. It's my aunt. We're a pretty white bunch up there at Wells Cattle Company at our restaurant.

And you know what? The greatest compliment for me is, is when people of color of other ethnicities of other countries of origin, when they come into the restaurant and feel comfortable and leave a good review and, and, and I get to be friends with them, I have, I guess I can just say this cause we're having this conversation, I have a very old, I don't know how old she is, a very  old, she's a grandmother, great grandmother.

She's a black lady.  And that lady brings a different person to that restaurant almost every time I see her. And every time she says, let me introduce you to my friend. And she's gotta be,  she's gotta be in her upper eighties. I don't know. And she's like, let me introduce you to my friend. And she always has to have a hug and she's always just so sweet and so kind.

And I'm just a big bearded white dude and she feels comfortable.  And I love that.  I absolutely love it. I love it. When the gang, the gangster guys with the. With the, you know, the, the gold teeth and the earrings and all that in the, in the, the dreads and they come in, their pants are sagging. They, I don't know if they've been to prison or not.

I really don't know who they are.  I love it when those guys come in to my restaurant and order burgers and sit down and I go by and talk to them and we have a conversation and they're talking about how good it is or what they're enjoying about being there  because I'm,  I couldn't be more culturally different than them, but we come together. 

And we build relationships.  And then all of a sudden our color of our skin doesn't matter anymore.  You see what I mean? Yep. It doesn't matter. What matters is that's a good hamburger or that's a, that's good peach cobbler or whatever it is that, that they're enjoying at the time. And I think if we can get to that point in church,  where we are celebrating the gospel, we're celebrating what God's doing  instead of focusing on the differences.

I think it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And that's what Peter's talking about, not being one or the other, but coming together in this way that  is a, is a beautiful thing to every nation, all people,  

I'll let you, I'll 

let you wrap it up, brother.  

Well, I was  hated. You put it that way. 

I'll be, you don't have to wrap it up at your podcast. 

Well, I'm,  this is embarrassing.  I forgot the name of your book, burger brilliance. Yes. See, I told you guys, I have no notes. Okay. I'm shooting from the hip here. I have no notes. You're doing a good job. Check out his book, burger brilliance his restaurant. He told you as well as cattle company there in Rockwall.

More importantly, check out his church landmark epistolic. Off of 

landmark fellowship, 

landmark fellowship, sorry. Landmark fellowship off of I 30 there in Rockwall. Check out his podcast, the ranch and the table podcast  and anything he, are you still working on the fires or raising money for them? 

Yeah, we've sent a load of feed this week to the Texas panhandle.

22 ton load of feed. We are still,  I'm still working on that. We're I'm writing a documentary right now, full length documentary on it. And we've got most of that filming complete. So now we're going into the first rough edit of the, of the documentary. So  trying to document the  experience of the ranchers and then also Those who help provide aid and.

Bring in supplies and  get them through this season.  It's been a,  been a thing,  been a lot of, a lot of work.  We've also brought a lot of hope. You don't see a lot of smiles and a  

lot of  humanity.  

You know, it's, I'll say this and, and you might edit it out later, it's okay. But suicide rate in ranchers is higher than than you would ever imagine. 

It's twice that of what veterans are  and the pressure  suicide rate. I know, but is it because of the pressure because of the pressures, because of the disasters that hit are so big. And they're so, they feel insurmountable because the banks are still going to call notes and there's no  harvest to come in or like these guys, there's 20, 000 head of cattle that were, were either killed in the fire or put down later.

Because of the fire fencing is all gone for the most part. And fencing is about 15, 000 a mile. And some of these ranchers have 40 miles of fence, 55 miles of fence. It's it's so big that it's, it swallows them up in despair.  And I believe what we have been doing by sending feed and hay and not just me hundreds of people.

Thousands of people around the country have helped. And I think that amount of hope has kept that number down,  but I know of, I know of two one when I was there a couple of weeks ago  and then another one since. And, and they say out there and it won't be the last is what they say when they hear of another one.

And it's it's heart, heart wrenching to think that someone would give up on life.  But they're also five, you know, six generations deep in these ranches that they're not just letting down their immediate family, but they feel like they're letting down,  you know, four, four grandfathers and,  you know, it's just, it gets to be a lot.

And 

so we've been trying to help share that hope. And encourage them and,  and keep them going long enough to get them back on their feet.  You know, it's just, it's just a lot, but I felt called to do it. And as of this point, I think I'm up,  I think we're up over 160, 000 raised. And 

where can someone go if they wanted to help with that? 

Lee wells, official. com. It's my front facing website. And then there's a fire page on there's a fire relief page and you can see that the counter the statistics of what all the number of bales of hay, the number of tons of feed, all the work that we've done, we've built 5 miles of fence out there for ranchers and.

That's an 85, 000 value right there. So just a whole lot of things like that, but leewellsofficial. com is where you can see that at.  

Well, listen to this. There you go. So again,  check, check out everything he's involved in. Leave us some comments, talk to us  and keep listening. We appreciate you.