When it comes to faith, we live in a time where terms like 'Deconstruction' 'Nones' 'Dones' 'Dechurched' and 'Used-To-Be Evangelicals' fill the conversation
So why are so many dechurching? And is there anything we can do about it?
This topic is what Dennis likes to call “The Disciple Dilemma.” @discipledilemma In fact, he wrote a book on it. Dennis answers many questions like 'why are young people leaving the church' and gets into topics like 'what is discipleship and why is it important?' Listen to Dennis and Brett talk about what the Bible says about discipleship and the cost of discipleship, and where the church went off-track.
Brett Snodgrass here on the Iron Deep podcast. Today we have Dennis Allen. Dennis is a six-time turnaround CEO helping Wall Street back companies in trouble get back on track. But today we're really going to be talking about his book called The Disciple Dilemma, because something is weird. Christ followers are experiencing struggles and symptoms across the country. Christians are walking out on their faith. There's 'nones' 'dones' 'deconverted' 'ex-evangelicals.' Why are so many who still claim Christianity acting as if they're on mute or inert or just not willing to talk about Christ outside their Church?
What's going on? This is Brett Snodgrass with another episode of The Iron Deep podcast. I got Dennis Allen on the episode with me today. What's going on Dennis?
Hey Brett! Thanks for having me. Life's going on and life's going just exactly like Christ said it would.
Amen. Man yeah. Different... different seasons, different things, different challenges, and we're all trying to have that singular purpose in following the Lord here. And uh... today's show is really going to be about that. Dennis you've written a book called "The Disciple Dilemma" which is very interesting. Really interested to talk about that. You've been a Marketplace leader. Been a businessman throughout your life. And today... we're going to dive into really what is true discipleship? What is this dilemma and... why are we even talking about it? Right? There a lot of churches in in Western culture, but you're saying we have this dilemma. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. True Discipleship. And I just want to dive into your book here, and it starts off with this in The Disciple Dilemma, you just start talking about something isn't right. I'm just going to start there. Something isn't right. Can you... start talking about that Dennis?
Yeah so the line that I use with people to try to get the conversation going often is we've been hacked there's a software virus loosing the system of discipleship in the Christian world and it's such a good virus that we don't even notice that it's operating around us it's shutting down our ability to communicate as followers of Christ it's shutting down our interest in communicating as followers of Christ it's shutting down our willingness as followers of Christ and it all looks good and right in normal because for 1,800 years this virus has been percolating around us we've been trained by people who were trained in the hack we've been living around operations that say it's just in the hack and so I guess the closing statement just before we kick this into some other gears is there's an idea in the business World a long time ago that said if we look to the church those people know how to handle people those people know how to get people motivated let's go do what they do well what they were looking at was the hacked version of Christianity which we can talk about however comma it wasn't much later than that that the church Community said those business guys have got this figured out if we just go watch the business guys they'll know what to do so we've got this do Loop in the virus that's hacking discipleship so to say it another way slightly is that leadership is responsible for dealing with followership and so leadership in this case has to rescue followership from the traditional institutional ship that's destroyed discipleship how's that for a bunch of ships that is a lot of ships you know that is that is a lot as it is a mouthful leadership needs to rescue followers ship and rescue them from um this institution ship so so you're saying that the church has been hacked and there's a problem um you talk about there's ex evangelicals there's nuns let's just talk about this group for example ex evangelicals nuns duns deconverted dechurched people are leaving number one let's just start there um so what's kind of you know what's kind of the problem there people are leaving the church people are not interested in faith and people that were interested in faith are not interested anymore yeah that's well put uh there's a very recent book that came out that validated some of the same statistics that you'd read in our book The Disciple dilemma but the new book that's out is called the Great de churching it's by Jim Davis Michael Graham and Ryan Burge and the statement is 40 million Millennials and genz have walked off on their faith walked out on their churches and walked off on any interest Christianity my thesis for us today to consider and by the way if anybody um hears anything that sounds like it's really offensive to you today blame it on Brett because he invited me that's fine but um we are absolutely not attacking in any way pastors and churches and Believers this is like Brett and I are on a board visit on your business and we're just asking provocative questions and suggesting some provocative thoughts so with that in mind why have 40 million people walked away I think a very straightforward simple but not simplistic answer is we don't know how to do discipleship we're doing a partial discipleship that's where start yeah yeah now if you think about the idea of the exvangelical the nun the done the deconstruct the deconvert it's really popular right now in in the UK to be
[Music] if I'm just tearing down parts of my Christianity I'm deconstructed all of those suggest to us that we fundamentally are missing the core mission of Jesus and it is we don't know how to do discipleship what do you think we lost this at um is it a recent thing uh obviously even in even in my generation the church I feel has changed quite a bit with maybe not we do Church uh but just some of the elements and maybe the entertainment and and and just maybe the seeking the Seeker friendly style the bigger church is becoming bigger the smaller church is getting wiped out um but where do we lose this at I mean this is a great what Christ said it is exactly what Christ said and I love the way you set that up it is that really man is man we're always going to be sinful right but the the issue that I'd really like to lay humbly at the feet of your listeners today is we've been sold a partial bill of goods on discipleship and it started at least 1,800 years ago back in around the 3 Century we started trying to do things for the very best of reasons perhaps but with the lousiest of execution in other words we said huh here's what we think makes sense I don't think Jesus thought of this let's upgrade this whole thing we call discipleship and that's the beginning of the hack I would really suggest to your listeners that we are doing some things in discipleship in beautiful wonderful ways for example sermons today absolutely fabulous resources that you have online to become a believer in Christ or to pursue Christ absolutely phenomenal the kinds of seminars we have the kinds of small groups that we have wonderful wonderful things but small groups I hope this is going to come across as a little provocative small groups are not going to get you disciples ship sermons are not going to get you discipleship not as Jesus defined it they are necessary mission trips necessary Ministry necessary but that's not really a disciple that's just the symptoms of a disciple I mean you're exactly right I mean sermons I mean I can go on and hear the most amazing sermons I can pull up my phone right now pull up a Bible app and and not have to maybe dig through the Bible just say what what do I want to read uh about or I want to read this topic on filling the blank um small group wise my wife and I are getting you know we're we're actually getting ready to lead a small group and we haven't been in a small group in a little while and I I think the question that I kept asking myself is I just don't want to get into another thing that doesn't build depth and I think that's that's what I've been asking myself like I just don't want to do another thing that doesn't build depth with my walk with God or depth with other believers is that what kind of what you're saying that there's not a lot of depth that we're lacking some depth that's a good way to pursue it I think it's absolutely commendable and wonderful that you're building a small group we need Community we need these groups of fives tens twelves whatevers that are around us same age same stage same part of life maybe some bandwidth with age but but the point is we need Community we need it in very small groups where I know your name you can see me across the circle and we need it in large groups where I'm in church however comma back to your point we've truncated we've amputated we've hacked out some of the pieces of discipleship I'd really like to share a couple of ideas about why this is a problem and for those of you who are business people and I know Brett you've got a lot of Business Leaders listening to this call my world I came from the Dark Side of private Equity I'm I'm a Wall Street guy right so I'm I'm really part of the dark side I'm one of the Darth Vader guys but my universe is centered around the idea that if you don't really understand your mission you'll get distracted by everything that's not your mission and you will eventually be in the ditch you will be living with a partial I do turnaround work in corporations to rescue companies that are struggling and having problems and the thing that I see over and over again it's almost the same script every time I do a turnaround is they don't know who they really are but they're pursuing everything that somebody who acts like they know they're doing should pursue it'll kill your business it will kill discipleship if you don't know your mission wow yeah in the business world we kind of we call it the shiny object syndrome that we have a lot of opportunities I have more opportunities probably on my plate right now that look really good uh they look really good but if I do them all and I try to do them all I'm going to burn burn out and I say my team I was like I got we have to stay in our lane yes they do that and that's awesome but we do this talk about um again going back to discipleship the mission you're I think you're getting at that we're losing some of our mission we are absolutely losing our mission so here we go this is where you're going to start hearing calls for heresy and burn this guy at the Stak but my claim is that the singular Mission Christ gave us as individuals is precisely the same mission that he gave every local church and the church it's the same exact Mission and it's Matthew 28:19 we can argue a lot about all the things that we should be doing if we're on that mission but we cannot I think make a very strong case outside of go therefore and Make Disciples of all it doesn't say Nations actually it says ethnos and what that means is nationalities Go Make Disciples of any nationality you come into it doesn't mean that Brett has to go be a globe Trotter although it may mean mean that and it doesn't mean that you stay strictly at home although it may mean that it means as you are going Go Make Disciples and where this gets really serious for us I think in the church where I think we've completely lost it for the as you said shiny objects is we have decided that certain things are no longer necessary in discipleship and if I'm just a membership guy in a church if I have membership I've got discipleship and that's not what Christ was telling us so we could talk shiny objects if you want to run down that trail or we could talk about the partials that we're perhaps just simply missing out on what's pleasure uh let's do the let's do the first one yeah let's go let's go there shiny objects in the disciple dilemma we talk about six things certainly we can come up with others but I think these are the indicative six I'll list them very briefly in history and then uh we can either toss that aside move on or try try to Deep dive something number one is optional lordship I go back to the third Century with uus and the problem is I want Jesus to save me but this thing about having him be the Lord surrendered to him I'm good don't need that I'll just take the Salvation coupon and move on that's one optional lordship number two that we talk about Catch and Release Christianity which is I want to get you saved and as soon as I get you saved I'll hand you a Bible get you to be a member of the church push you aside I'm going for the next guy who needs to get saved and we certainly hope you as a newly orphaned believer in Christ who has just come to Jesus makes it have a nice day we're off to the next salvation moment that's Catch and Release Christianity third shiny object this goes to Constantine in the fourth century and it's the idea of power we think that if Christians can simply be socially powerful we can have justice as the primary weapon that we use or we can have morality as the primary weapon that we use or intellectual theological IAL horsepower is the primary weapon that we use we can banish all of our foes and everyone will fall subjugated to Christ that's power it's not biblical but that's the way that we use it today that's a shiny object uh fourth shiny object is a thing called clericalism that's a big phrase uh we took it from basil in the 4th century and that basically goes like this no liturgies without a license the pros get to go up front and be behind the pulpit the pros get to bury the in-laws they get to do the wedding ceremonies and the baptisms the of you sit in the pews be amazed at the Ted Talk and the Coldplay that's clericalism telling the pastor you're completely responsible and if you don't do it all it doesn't happen and everybody in the pews you're here for concierge Christianity have a latte drop the kids at Sunday school and be amazed that's clericalism it sounds like my f shiny yeah yeah yeah we took uh the fifth one um from the pandemic uh you heard heard of herd immunity we call it we call it herd community and uh we were looking at Pope Gregory in the sixth Century on this one and it says basically if you slash around in a small group of 12 or in a worship service of a 100 or thousand or 10,000 you're a disciple not true lastly we have and this is so important for entrepreneurs uh this is called not the main thing and we took that one to borrow from cyprian in the fifth century and it basically says if you chase the wrong stuff in other words if you set the mission aside and start running everything on the tyranny of the Urgent rather than the mission you're called to you will be in the ditch sooner or later so those are six shiny objects how we doing no it's awesome man yeah I mean I definitely can relate to a lot that I see a lot of that uh we talk about yeah just that last one just the trading the the most important for the Urgent the mission for uh the Urgent what's in front of you so this is throwing us off of discipleship um you know we're doing a lot right I think we're doing Church probably more and bigger than we than we ever have been right we're doing Church where people are going to church and we can see church with a click of a button so we're doing it but we're we're missing it and I think that was obviously your very first chapter we're missing that just that true discipleship so can you just dive into that uh you know obviously you talk about in your book about there's no short-term fix where we're all looking for this oh what's what's the problem how can we short-term fix it how can we uh swiftly fix it and you're and you say that there is no this is a long-term solution because so I want to just kind of flip it over and I think we would all agree there's something off there's something going on now let's go into that let's go into that long-term solution what are some of of the things I'm going to talk about the idea of churchianity and here's how I'm going to lead off with it it's like looking at your kids at the age of 12 and saying where is the switch that I flip just so I can get them to 37 and I don't have to worry about all this stuff anymore the answer is doesn't exist you're going to walk every day every hour every year that's the way you're going to go with your kids if you want your children to develop into the people you want them to be it's you with them as they develop there's no microwave answer it's all also true when we think about discipleship in this churchianity context Brett that um if I told you Super Bowl is coming up as we're recording this broadcast we're not too far off from the Super Bowl so I if I said you're supposed to be an NFL player and here's how we're going to make you an NFL player we're gonna let you watch a lot of videos we're gonna let you go sit in the Huddle we're gonna let you sit on the bench once a year we'll send you out on the field you get to run five yards down the field and line up and then we'll call time out and we'll pull you back off the field and let the pros keep doing what the pros do now you're an NFL football player we'd all laugh about that yeah we've learned a lot we've been right there when stuff's been happening but we aren't actually living the life of disciples so let me place a model on the table to talk about if we have to really short circuit the conversation of the disciple dilemma and heaven forbid anybody should should get the uh stuck with with uh this as the only answer but I think this will I think this will help us the major missing components of discipleship biblically in churchianity are first of all the individual does not recognize that they are in an identity change a transformation a metamorpho as the New Testament describes it this is not becoming a member or doing stuff this is a fundamental change in our identity and we see Christ describing it as you're going to be denying self taking up a cross counting the cost and you're going to get abused for it it's just going to get tougher as you start living this life out but you are becoming what we call A Duos that's a Greek word for bonder servant and for those of us in the business World it means you're bankrupt you are absolutely bankrupt incapable of paying back the incredible indebtedness Christ has taken on for each one of us and we are largely missing in Christianity in churchianity the identity of the disciple and I can give some statistics about that that that kind of Boggle the mind if we want to explore that but if I just told you two of them it would help make the case 90% of the people in the pews today do not have any track record sharing who Christ is in their own life with anyone 80% of the people in the pews have no prayer life no Bible study no Fellowship they attend church 1.7 times a month that's 80% of the people in the pews then there's a whole bunch of empty seats in those pews and that's because 65% of people from the age of 54 down who grew up in the church are no longer there they walked out so if you pile all that together we look at this idea of a fundamental identity change never took place because if that identity change has taken place as Christ said that new creature is going to want to be where the action is that's one piece of the puzzle that's that's one side of the coin now let me take it to the other side of the coin and this is my plea to those of you who are leaders if you're a leader in a church that one that individual can only begin that transformation if you put enough oxygen in the room water in the soil for that individual to flourish to be able to flourish and that's a leadership problem it wasn't your fault the disciple dilemma came to be but it's your responsibility now to start changing the culture to say it begins with me one on one with another walking alongside that person and expecting however you use the word expecting in your particular Church expecting everybody else in the church also team up go out and start talking about the reason for the hope they have with them so we have the individual and we have the culture leaders have to change the culture but you as an individual if you think churchianity is Christianity you're probably actually not a disciple you're probably a member there's a long explanation but there you go wow wow W yeah I would just I was kind of baffled by reading your book and and reading about the statistics 90% don't have an interest I think that that was a thing that kind of baffled me they don't have an interest in sharing their faith they don't think it's important um and nine out of 10 I mean you just got to go wow what's with that yeah yeah and that's not one statistic that's Bara that's Pew that's IPP that's the humanist Society they're they're studying us and they're going yeah you nine out of 10 of you guys don't by this yeah definitely so you're talking about just identity I mean obviously that's what we uh you know I wrote this book about identity you know our our organization is about identity is and your identity in Christ and and what's the what's the mission and purpose behind that I want to maybe ask you about your own personal life um Dennis uh did you have someone that discipled you did you have someone that had an interest cuz obviously you're very very passionate about this was this just something that you saw this problem or was there somewhere along your own Journey experience what did that look like what what did that disciple do and if not have tell us about someone else that you you've done this with the fantastic news in my life is yes I've had some wonderful people who came up to me and said you you're coming with me and they took me out into life now this is very biblical as we watch people making disciples somebody walks up and says you know Brett walks up to Dennis and says Dennis you're coming with me and I'm going to show you how to live on the street as a follower of Christ in the vocational world that you and I sink up in so um part of my in my in my early years right out of college I I was involved in this ministry um as um our ministry was was uh I was flying fighter jets in the Air Force and so we said that our ministry is to introduce Russian fighter pilots to Jesus now that's kind of a joke in a way right and U so I hope nobody just got really mad at me for saying that but the point was in that world I had I had someone like I had in high school like I had in college and like I had shortly after I was out of college but I had someone in the Air Force walk up to me a Jedi knight in my jet the F-15 and he said you're coming with me and we're going to go walk live and fly for Christ then after that more men in my life coming aboard not groups of men men although I do have groups of men but I have individuals so I my shout outs are to people like Dr Calvin Miller who was a pastor a poet a physicist and a painter fantastic early experience in Christ Sly Ken Fox one of the great fighter pilots in the F-15 who said you're coming with me Dr Glo St F I mean but you you have got to have these people in your life and if nobody is walking up to you and saying come with me go find them and if they start blubbering about well I've never done this before say I don't care we're g to go do life together in Christ that's so important and that was that was my story that's the start no I love that um I I I added someone did the same thing for me in college that he uh put his um you know his life on hold certain certain times and and discipled me uh was this just huge impact and then years later uh I had gotten baptized and he was the the first one that I call and it's just so funny that that you just don't see it happen I mean I look at my own life I look at other people's lives people don't just Reach Out and um you know build that relationship build that Brotherhood um here's a killer statistic for you too 95% of pastors have never been discipled wow well let's talk about pastors for example um you talk about in your book and I can definitely see this too is just there's a there's a high burnout rate amongst pastors and um you relate this let me relate to the business world that I build a team because I know that I can't do everything I used to do everything and it's a lot of work and so let's talk about just this burnout rate of pastors I mean I couldn't imagine like our pastor just even to to come up and and and to study and to do a sermon every single week that's one one some of these pastors are doing three four five I could imagine the marathon every every week of that uh but talk about pastors I mean you're in this world talk about the burnout rate pastors leaving doing something else what is it look like for their life we're putting so much on them so much pressure if they make one mistake you know we're we're we're all looking at them talk to us about the whole Pastor world right now why is it that for every Seminary graduate that comes out saying I want to be a pastor we have two pastors below retirement age walking off saying I'm not doing this anymore and the answer is they have to put up with people like me Dennis like Brett and like all you guys listening to this thing we're hard to get along with right for so many different reasons now pastors are called to be those Shepherds of a flock but one of the things that I notice is we've talked to Seminary presidents and walked and talked in front of a lot of these professors in the seminaries is that we're teaching pastors how to be intellectually theologically counseling wise sharp wise and wonderful but what we're not doing is we're not preparing them to have to actually live with folks like us and we're teaching them in a lot of the seminaries today stay away from those people personally preach to them but as soon as the sermon is over head for your office lock the door right number two it is a tremendously toxic world for pastors as they get every week notes from people trying to help them improve the way they think act and behave condemning them for what they've done not being willing to help support and cheer for them um I'm I'm I'm just running through in my head right now as we're talking we've interviewed 20 n pastors on the disciple dilemma and of 29 24 of them want out and are in despair that's a lot of pastors now that could say for one or two Life's a little hard in my church yeah but something statistically significant about that you know in so if if you if you were the CEO of an organization and every day members of the board walked in and they said you're a lousy CEO I don't like the way you're doing things we're going to come for you we're g to get you and by the way we think your family's all dorked up that wouldn't go over very well yeah that's the like Pastor yeah yeah I mean I just see it uh it's it's funny um sometimes me and uh my wife will go to a movie and we'll watch the previews of the movie or before the movie and we'll be this critic about these particular previews like that's that does not look good I think we do the same thing with pastors like that that sermon didn't do it for me or you know we just don't like uh certain things that that they're doing and they're in this yeah Rat Race they have to put up put up with uh with us in the congregation I can imagine um just the negativity that kind of comes with that Denis here's one other piece of the puzzle that really drowns this out too we were talking a few minutes ago about clericalism the message goes like this you as a pastor everything everything is dependent on you if you aren't at all the meetings if you aren't leading all the charges and by the way if you aren't making the disciples they ain't no disciples disciples only come from pastors now that's a lie but we're transmitting that you've got to do the sermon you've got to make everybody happy you've got to make the disciples you've got to go on the mission trips that's a tough life it is yeah yeah no it is um would you say that is there some is there and this whole discipleship and you say you say it's based on the some of the leadership is it just how do we raise up these leaders So like um and I know you know we come to Christ born again we you know we're in the word but is there some way to that you're seeing that hey to raise up the congregation to raise up leaders to raise up the pastors not to have everything dependent on them like me for as a business owner I mean that's one of my jobs I mean one of our complete missions is to raise up leaders on our team so I so I'm not the bottleneck is what I call it like I don't want to have to be the bottleneck of the organization because if I get hit by a bus what the organization is completely dead so that's the that's the crucial piece of the puzzle for us if you want to do something about discipleship the first thing that I want to encourage you to do is look at your mission if your mission statement is talking about values and visions and how we're going to be really nice people and we're going to win the whole world for Christ I'm going to provocatively suggest you got the wrong mission statement because that's not the mission that Christ gave us so first of all do you actually believe that you know if you don't then you know peace be with you and you've made your decision but in the area of discipleship if you really as a pastor want to unload the pain of having to be the dude or the dudes that do everything you've got to make disciples not delegates not staff members you've got to make disciples and it starts you first even if you've never been discipled bring bring one alongside you and make the rest of the church realize this is the coolest thing because this is what Christ called us to do and if you do that if you start that long slow walk with one or two in discipleship and their job then is to go get one or two in discipleship your life over the course of a year or more is going to start unloading because disciples are going to start springing up who are making disciples and they're going to start dragging the tasks away from you you won't have to kill car them they're going to take them away from you and off you're going to go that would be CEO advice to pastors no I love it I love it because people want to to to lead they want to be they want to own something right they want to be captains and I think it's just we don't just don't give them that opportunity I love what you said about that as a leader I love that you're handing that back to your people and saying I'm not the bottle neck you guys carry these balls yeah no definitely um and I'm I'm a big I don't watch to like a lot of sports but I grew up playing basketball and sports and I just related to you know you got Maybe the owner on a professional sports teams you got him and then you got the coach but then you got the captains on a team and that just always say this is your team you go what plays do you want to run anyways um Dennis as we as we wrap up this podcast I just want to like wrap it up with this and so obviously this is a podcast for a lot of business guys business owners we talked about that and uh I think one of the reasons why wrote this book not only for just pastors and leaders within a church but also for business owners trying to make a work some sort of a place of discipleship so can you talk about that I know you've been helping CEOs businesses um you've been in a lot of churches as well but as far as business owners and entrepreneurs that are leading people that have a team can you talk to them right now about workplace discipleship absolutely wonderful question too the most important thing that I've learned in my career in the business world is my job is not to sell Jesus to anybody in my office but my job is to be what first Peter 3:15 tells us to be and here here's the statement and if you already know this great you got to memorize but let me just let me just rattle this off for you in your heart set apart Christ as Lord so there's your mission you got your priorities set. Always be prepared to give to anyone who asks you the reason for the hope that's within you. The word 'hope' is certainty the reason pointing to Christ. The point is, I don't have to go around preaching. I don't necessarily have to go around handing out Bibles, but I have to live weird. I have to be that whack job CEO who just doesn't live in despair, anguish, overload. Of course I'm a sinner of course I'm going to screw some of this up, but in the workplace, what I notice is more people come walking into the office going like you should be totally freaked out right now or you should be totally amped up about this right now why what's going on and you can look at them and say because my hope is not in the corporation my hope is in this reason here's who I'm for you want to talk about that some yes some no that's not necessarily saying we all have to be evangelists but it is saying every one of us every one of us in Christ is a disciple every one of us is to be prepared with the reason for the hope as a CEO or as a Sluggo in whatever I'm doing.
Awesome! I love that. I love that. Dennis thank you so much for being on the Iron Deep podcast. It's been an absolute honor and a pleasure. Wish this book Stills you know so many copies I think it's just such a great topic. I want to just give you the opportunity because I know you also you are a businessman you wrote this book you do some some talks to help out so how can someone maybe like learn more about you and and what you're doing?
Yeah, thanks for asking. And by the way, thanks for the ministry that you got at iron deep. What a beautiful crowd, what a beautiful set of topics you got. Guys are running on, go for it man. The disciple dilemma. that's where you can find the website. The disciple not 'discipleship' 'the disciple dilemma.com' You can also see it on YouTube the disciple dilemma Instagram the disciple dilemma LinkedIn the disciple dilemma Facebook you get it we're out there and we're trying to have these conversations we're trying to say what's going on in 'churchianity' and what would be supposed to be about as disciples in Christianity.
Awesome! Well thank you so much. We're going to put that in our show notes on our YouTube channel and our website. Thank you so much Dennis for being on the Iron Deep podcast today. God bless you buddy.
You too, Brett. Run the race well.
