Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
#245 Mathew Chan: When Your House Burns Down And Grace Shows Up
We trace Matthew’s journey through a house fire, church leadership conflict, and a deeper surrender to sonship, contentment, and the “unattached life.” Loss becomes seed as he releases bitterness, receives love, and watches new freedom take root in others.
• moving from legalism to identity and sonship
• the evacuation, radical peace, and living unattached
• humility in receiving help and generosity
• leadership meetings, labels, and lack of due process
• guarding conscience without becoming combative
• embodied healing, confession, and letting go
• gratitude, new community, and fresh gospel fruit
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The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can. And that's why we want you to hear these stories: stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is death to life.
SPEAKER_03:But um, you know, we start to talk, and he just brings up just some random stuff as we're getting to know each other. He's like, hey, by the way, are the fires affecting you in any way? I tell him, you know, actually, my house is actually in flames right now as we speak. And like literally, his jaw like dropped. And and I'm just sitting, I'm actually surprising for some reason I was able to maintain a lot of composure because I'm I'm pretty focused on him. I'm here to listen to him and try to help him. But his jaw drops. And his immediate reaction, I'll never forget his first question back to me was, What are you still doing here?
SPEAKER_00:Yo, welcome to the Death to Life Podcast. My name is Richard Young. And if you are a fan, like a big time fan of the Death to Life podcast, you might see this episode popping up and be like, Wait, hold up. Didn't this episode come up a few weeks ago? And then I couldn't go back to listen to it. And you would be right, and maybe there's only like four of you that I know it got like maybe 200 or something listens, but four of you that maybe started it and then couldn't go back to listen, and that's because uh we recorded an episode with Matthew Chan, and then we had to go, and we just had to put it on pause for a little bit, and then I got word back that we were ready to go ahead and finish the episode. So this is Matthew Chan. If you heard the first the first time it was up, I think you should keep listening. Uh, you might want to go past to the end of the commercial break. If you haven't heard it, then listen to the whole thing. If you had heard the first one, go past the commercial break and listen again because uh more of the story has taken place. And I know with the Death Alive podcast, it's never like a full story, it's always just a snapshot in time. But we thought that this snapshot was important. So this is gonna be Matthew Chan's third time on the Death Alive podcast. Uh, but second, I don't even know how to explain it. So uh buckle up and strap in. Love y'all, appreciate y'all. This is gonna be Matthew. I man, I haven't put anything on YouTube. Like I'm backed up. I don't people don't watch it, but now that you say that, I'll probably upload the last 20 episodes that I haven't and put yours on there. It's all good. All right, man. It has been a minute, and I have Matthew on here. Matthew, when was the last time you were on the Deads Alive podcast?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, well, let's see. I think uh we recorded it in I want to say November of 23. I don't know, I don't know when it actually aired though, when it actually posted.
SPEAKER_00:It was probably it was probably right afterwards. I used to be like three or four ahead, uh, but that it's November of 23, and then I saw you. I've been out to California a couple times since then. Yeah. One, I had to make a trip for the Super Bowl. You had to, right? I had to. And then I uh you know, I was doing a thing up in in Arroyo Grande, but man, what has life been like? Well tell take me to November 2023, and what was going on then? What has happened? Nothing, just yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I'll tell you, Richard, it's been real swell. It's been real good. No, it's been good, man. God has been good. He's been continually growing me and maturing me in ways that I think I could have never foreseen. Um, I feel blessed. You know, it's been an incredible journey. I'll say this though. Um, as a father, one of the most incredible things to journey through is as as a parent is to see your cares grow in the love and in the knowledge of God. Um, I have to say that my daughter and my son, I mean, they're they're coming alive to the truth of who they are in Jesus in a way that I could not have like even imagined had it not been for the gospel. So, I mean, seeing the kids grow in this thing has been an incredible blessing for me and my wife. So, yeah, it's been good, man. We've been having a great time, and you know.
SPEAKER_00:Isn't that incredible that understanding this truth is kind of the beginning? And I don't know. Do you feel like back back then you had arrived at something? That's how I felt when I learned this. I felt like, oh, I'd arrived at something. And I always say, I realized that I had arrived at the beginning. Uh, you know, at the beginning of spiritual maturity. How did how do you relate to that? Do you resonate with that?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I might I never said I arrived. I wasn't quite as hubris as you, you know.
SPEAKER_00:But I was like, I figured out the gospel, Romans 6, I'm here.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. No, I mean, so many light bulbs went off, and when the light bulb goes off, you actually see the path ahead. You don't you don't see so much of like thing behind you, right? Even though there's a lot that was behind you. But I feel like, yeah, absolutely. You get to a point where you're saying, hey, you start to live life from a position of victory. You start moving from the abundance of the truth of who you are, and you know, your whole life becomes this victory lap of of of joy and peace and surrender and beauty. And it's because of what Jesus has done, you know. I mean, the the realization of what God has accomplished in the person of Jesus Christ is the foundation for life going forward. Um, you know, and to to have that knowledge, actually, to have that paradigm just sort of click in your mind that this is not something that that my performance attains or something that I qualify for based on uh conf conf um conforming to any sort of narrative. The reality is Jesus is is is in me, I am in him, and we move and live and breathe and have our being in him, and the growth just explodes from there. Um, and the joy and the privilege is to walk in this thing.
SPEAKER_00:Man, if someone hasn't heard your first episode, can you just give us like a tiny recap of what the mindset was before this?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think the mindset before this, if we go way back, was that um I needed to relate to God on the basis of my behavior. My right standing with him was based on legal parameters and rule keeping and conforming to an externally imposed set of rules. And that was a thing that got me to where I needed to be, and I needed to use the Holy Spirit's help to get me there. And the paradigm shift came when when you realize that uh Jesus has actually accomplished something and that he has ushered in a new era of humanity, and today we have the privilege of participating in it, you know. Um he has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness, and we've become partakers of the divine nature in Christ. And so that's a gift, you know. The to assume that you need to meet certain conditions or qualify in any way, shape, or form negates it being a gift. And so I think that shift, that mental shift, has allowed me to see Jesus for who he really is and to start dispelling the lies I used to believe about him and the lies I believe about myself.
SPEAKER_00:Man, that's so powerful. What you described at first when you said I related to God in in regards to like my behavior. That's almost definitionally legalism. It's like almost the perfect definition for legalism is uh relating to God based on your own behavior.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As if as if um, I mean, this is gonna sound weird, but I'll just say it and it just came to my mind. Yeah, as if God was that petty. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, right. I mean, uh it's it's like a doctor going in to operate on someone who has stage four lung cancer. Um like, is he going to not do the job because the guy like acted out as he was going under general anesthesia, he started like doing things that was like, oh man, and you started freaking out on the table. Like, no, no, like we're gonna continue with this thing. Um, even though you're you're you're afraid and you're acting out. You you want this thing removed, don't you? And we're gonna we're gonna remove it. So God is sort of like this healer that comes in, and his his concern is not so much the symptoms, his concern is the disease. And he's purged it out of humanity in Christ. You know, he's put that thing to death.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's kind of like how do we relate to our children? Do we relate to our children and that they get to be our children based on their behavior? No, but precisely because they are our children, we discipline them. But we don't discipline them out of like relationship to them. Now, if your kids grow up one day and they want to take their inheritance and they want to go and get their name changed or whatever, um, that would be them leaving. And even still, you would still relate to them like, yeah, he went and he changed his name, but that's still my son, you know. Like, I still want him. Um, but but you being a human, like, God's not better than that. Like, you the way you relate to your kids is not based on their behavior, they're your kids, whether they are behave or not, which is yeah, I think uh we were we were on uh the Sunday morning study with Justin.
SPEAKER_03:He actually said something that really resonated with me, which was uh imagine if you had a child that didn't want to have anything to do with you, and yet he lived out in a far country and he was a really upright citizen in that country, right? He followed all the rules and did did everything correctly. Would you rather have that? Or would you rather have him in a state where there was a lot of room for growth, but yet he's right there with you. He is in right relationship with you. Any father, any parent would say the latter, of course, because in that moment, what are we, what are we what are we saying? The the foundation of everything is relational, right? Righteousness is a relational dynamic. And so our right standing with God, like I said earlier, isn't something that's forensically declared, it's something that's received in relationship to the Father. Um, and so I yeah, man, I think I think it's so beautiful to frame it from a place of sonship, you know, living from sonship is just so much more liberating, so much more just fulfilling as to know that uh you're loved, man.
SPEAKER_00:It's uh it's so beautiful, man. So because this was such a huge paradigm shift for me, and I think it was a huge paradigm shift for you, there's this tendency to be like it's just gonna be all roses and babies after this. It's just gonna be all chocolate, chocolate uh fountains with marshmallows and and pie. And then life starts coming at you. Um I don't know if you ever felt that, man. I thought, like, and I still think everything's good in Jesus Christ, and yet there's some stuff that's not good. Um did you how how did you think about it like as the new paradigm shift? Like you had a new lens to look at life. Um talk to me about that and and subsequently how was life life in after that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, uh man, that's that's that's so good because we don't want to paint a picture where um, you know, because you receive this thing that in this world you're not gonna have trouble. I mean, Jesus promised the exact opposite, um, but he also promised that he will never leave us nor forsake us and he will always be with us. Um putting on the new lens is it's so liberating. I'm probably gonna wear out that word tonight. But because all of a sudden you realize that when you walk by faith, your life is hidden in Christ Jesus, right? Everything that matters is secure in the person of Jesus. And so, I mean, the biggest thing I can just tell you, um, and we've talked about this, the biggest thing that's happened to me and my family is, you know, we lost our home in the in the LA fires back in January of this year. Um, the Eaton fires, you know, I don't live too far away from Eaton Canyon where the fires started. Probably, you know, the way the crow flies, it's just like, I don't know, two or three miles. And so I was at work and I had a patient say, Hey, hey, Doc, um, you are you concerned with those fires coming up this afternoon? I I heard on the news that there's something going on in Eaton Canyon. And he's asking me this because he knows where I live, I know where he lives. And I had no idea that anything was going on. And so I went home and we were just like, Hey, have you did you read the news? Like, yeah, I read a little bit about it, and then the electricity was out. And so I had no contact with anyone because we live kind of in the foothills and uh we didn't have any cell coverage.
SPEAKER_00:This reminds me of COVID. Like when we were hearing about COVID in like late 2019, we're just like, oh, that's like SARS or pig flu, like that's not gonna get to us. Yeah, like is it actually gonna happen? When were you like, oh, this is actually gonna happen, happen?
SPEAKER_03:Like, yeah, I mean that that's that's actually uh a good question because that night we we were just dismissing the whole thing. Um, partly because we had no information coming in or out. Um, once the electricity is out, I have no Wi-Fi. So what that means is we have to rely on Verizons, like one or two bars that are on our cell phones, and then all of a sudden we didn't have any bars. Um, I was able to get a few messages out um because we were supposed to have a meeting online for with some people, and I I got that message out that hey, we don't have any coverage, and then dead silence. So my wife and I were cooking dinner, the kids are playing board games, you know. We made some dessert, we made some mango lassie, we're having a good old time. I'm reading with my kid. It's like eight o'clock at night, and we have no lights. We're gonna we're breaking out the camping lanterns, we're just having a good old time, thinking our thinking ourselves, oh, if if we need to evacuate, we'll we'll know it'll be it'll be grossly obvious if we need to evacuate. Um, and then all of a sudden, I mean, I think this is a miracle. I guess you can call this a miracle. One of the moms in our homeschool group decides to send Tina a text and Tina had one bar in this moment, and she got the text. And the text read, Have you guys evacuated yet? And then before she and and then all of a sudden, no more bars. That's it. And then we're like, Oh, what do you mean? Should we be evacuating? You know, and and so I go outside to check on the neighbors, and I see a few people packing up. I see one guy going door to door saying, Hey, it's time to go. We got a call uh from somebody that it's time to evacuate. And mind you, it's pitch black in our neighborhood. And then as I'm talking to my neighbor across the street, he's packing up, he's getting ready to go. And I say, Okay, I guess I better do the same. I turn around and I look at my house, and then behind my house, there's this orange glow. It looked like the sun was setting behind my house, even though it's supposed to be setting the other way. It was just really scary, big, huge orange glow. And then I said, Oh, okay, it's time to pack up. So we spent the next 30 to 45 minutes.
SPEAKER_00:You guys are such dudes. Like, I was in a tornado like this summer, and me and my brother-in-law Elias and my other brother-in-law, Antonio, we were in this barn, and the the thing was like the tornado is right over you. So what we do were like, well, we ought to go see it. And we walked outside just to be like, where's it at? Like, for some reason, we just we just don't think it's a possibility that it's gonna happen to us. Yeah, and then until we see um, was it super windy? Like everything was like, Oh, it's crazy windy, that's why this like is a perfect.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, the wind was just next level. I mean, you man, like we've had windy days before, and that was a thing, right? I remember going to work even that morning, my truck almost tipped over on the way to work because it was just that windy. And um, I just thought to myself that night as I was looking up, I was looking at the uh the globe behind my house, it's like, okay, yeah, we can evacuate, but it's not that serious, right? We're gonna be okay. We're gonna be okay. So, so we start to pack up, right? We start to load up, and then um as we're doing it, I'm telling the kids, okay, get this, get that, make sure you grab, you know, two or three days worth of clothes. Um Tina and I had this box that was sort of like our memory box. And um, you know, we we we had that actually packed from the last time we had to evacuate, which was in 2020. So for five years, we had this bug out box that we had pre-packed with all of our photo albums, some important documents, all that stuff, right? So we load up.
SPEAKER_00:I don't even know what I would grab, bro. I'd be like grabbing like my Patrick Mahomes photo or something like that. Like, I I don't know. I think of my see, that's a that's a smart move. Because did you think of anything else? Like, was your mind racing, or were you like, no, I'll just grab this and we were all pretty calm.
SPEAKER_03:It wasn't until my 10-year-old, um, he was still nine at the time, but it wasn't until my 10-year-old was like, Dad, I'm scared. And he froze. He was literally frozen. And so I had to walk him, almost carry him to the truck, put him in there, and say, wait, he's right here, you're gonna be fine. And he says, Can we go now? Can we go now? I'm like, No, no, no, no. We still need to pack up. Grace and Caleb got to get their things, mama has to get her stuff, but you can wait in the truck because once you're once we're in, we're gonna go. So we packed up his stuff, and then my other son, my middle child, he had the forethought to pack the family Bible. Let's go. And yeah, I was I was super impressed by that. You know, we were getting ready to leave, and he's like, wait, let's get our Bible. So we have this family Bible that um Tina and I got from from the sweet old lady back when we first got married about 21 years ago. And uh yeah, we kept that Bible ever since. It has all these names written it, our family tree and all that stuff. And Caleb had the the wherewithal to remember to get that thing as we at this point starting to panic because Isaac's freaking out. That made my wife freak out, and then we're starting to feel the anxiety now, and then the neighbors we looked out, they're gone. Like the neighborhood is emptied out. So, at least my street. And so we get in the truck and we start driving, and I'm gonna tell you that wind was howling. We saw some sparks come through, and we're like, whoa, this is different. This is different than before. And then we would get to this clearing as you're going down the hill, and we looked over, and that orange glow had probably increased in size by like 50% or something. Oh no. It got big real fast.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and we drive to my mom's house thinking we're gonna stay there for just Was what I know LA traffic's LA traffic was this next level LA traffic?
SPEAKER_03:No, no, and this was like eight or nine o'clock at night. What was interesting though was how empty the streets were because a lot of people had already evacuated except for dumb bus, right?
SPEAKER_00:But you were smart. Now you don't have to sit. I bet they were sitting in the traffic for five minutes.
SPEAKER_03:Maybe, maybe. Although I I did I did have neighbors though that thought to wait it out. So they they waited it out and they didn't leave till like 3 a.m. in the morning, and they ended up spending the night in the Rose Bowl parking lot. So that was bad. Yeah, because there were no hotel rooms available, right? By by the time it was 3 a.m. in the morning. So we make it to my parents' house, and I'm like, okay, can we stay here for a couple nights? My mom's like, sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I ended up staying in the room that I So she didn't know you were coming because you didn't have any bars to even get a hold of her.
SPEAKER_03:I texted her as we left. Uh the moment we got bars, I texted them and then and then they were like, Oh yeah, just come on over. And so about a little less than an hour later, we made it there, and that's where we stayed for two nights, thinking that it was just gonna be two nights.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And then the next morning I drive from my parents' house to work, and and that's when um I'm sitting there, like looking at this app on my phone called Watch of Duty. It kind of detects and kind of monitors the fire. Um and I'm just going back and forth, just like super anxious now. I was like, wait a second, this this doesn't feel right. There's something off today. Uh and it was still very windy, and the clouds were just not the clouds, but the smoke was just ominous. I mean, you you couldn't go outside and take a deep breath without feeling like you wanted to cough or gag, right? So um, I'm about to go see this next patient, and I'm about to pull the chart out, and I just check my phone one more time, and then I get a text from Tina, and she's like, I think our house is on fire. We're watching it on the news right now. And I said, Are you sure? She sends me a screenshot of ABC News with a house that's engulfed in flames, and I'm looking closely at this photo. Um, you know, the first stage of uh grief is like denial, right? So I'm like, no, this that's not it. And then and then my son is like, yeah, that's that's our house. And I look closely, yeah, there it is. And so they're watching this thing happen in real time. This must have been.
SPEAKER_00:Was it like like flames on top or just flames like like engulfed? Like it was like Yeah, so the flames, the roof was gone.
SPEAKER_03:And so the roof was gone, and all you saw instead of roof was flames coming out, and the second story windows were just flames just spiraling out of the thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because if we're like if the first stage is denial, the bargaining is probably comes in after that. Like maybe some of our stuff is okay, and then you look like the roof is gone, and you're like, nah, like nothing's okay.
SPEAKER_03:That's exactly what I did actually. I was like, we can spare at least the the that half of the house, right? So, but no. I mean, that thing was gone, and and so I'm watching this thing like burn, and and my wife and and and my kids were at my mom's house watching this thing in real time on TV. And I I didn't know this until after the fact, but my mom, who was standing there watching the news with him, she got so upset.
SPEAKER_05:She's like, Look at those firefighters, they're not they're not working hard enough, they're not calling more trucks to come out to put your house out.
SPEAKER_03:And then she freaks out and she runs upstairs. And when my mom goes upstairs, that's because she needs to either let off some steam and some nice Cambodian cuss words, or she's sobbing, right? Turns out she was sobbing for us, and and she couldn't she couldn't contain it, so she's up there just sobbing.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, I think we like in our community, yeah, texts were flying back and forth, and um we were praying for your your guys, and and then when I think either maybe it was the next day, but I distinctly remember getting the text. I was walking down the stairs, and when I saw what had happened, like my heart just sank, bro. I was like, no. Uh yeah, I think all of us were like your mom up in that bedroom just coming for you guys.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate that. That was that was uh the saddest part, honestly, was Richard, your room. The room that you stayed in. Because I had this plaque over the room. I was like, this was where Richard Young stayed when he dropped the big gospel bomb at Pasadena.
SPEAKER_00:You you didn't have a plaque, that's a no that would have been dumb. No, man, I'll be honest, like that house was super special to me because of you know, I I've stayed there how many nights? Probably like because I came back maybe 14 nights or something like that, or and almost with those nights a total of 300 hours of you and I talking, like 10 nights, 300 hours of us talking. So, like I know it's just uh it's an earthly possession, but those things can mean a little something too, like because of the people, because of the conversation, because of the love, because of the family. And so, yeah, all of that, and so I can't imagine, I guess I can't imagine what you were feeling because I mean, it's your home and like everything.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, and and you know, so I I look at the picture and I realize it's my house. I see that there's virtually no hope of salvaging anything, and then what do I have to do? Well, how to go see this patient? So I walk into the patient, uh into the clinic exam room, and I meet this guy. It's first time he's uh coming to see me, and apparently he had a head injury because some somebody robbed his store and like took a glass champagne bottle and hit him on the back of the head with it, and now he has like this post-concussion syndrome, this stress reaction, he has anxiety and a little bit of PTSD, so you know, we're having to start treatment for all that stuff. But um, you know, we start to talk, and he just brings up just some random stuff as we're getting to know each other, and he's like, Hey, by the way, are the fires affecting you in any way? And I'm like, Yeah, well, about that. So I tell him, you know, actually, my house is actually in flames right now as we speak. And like literally his jaw like dropped. And and I'm just sitting, I'm actually surprising for some reason I was able to maintain a lot of composure because I'm I'm I'm pretty focused on him. I'm I'm here to listen to him and try to help him. But his jaw drops, and his immediate reaction, I'll never forget his first question back to me was what are you still doing here? You know, and and in my mind, I was like, Well, where else would I be? Like, what am I gonna do? Try to go put out the fire, you know? It's like there's no point in that. And so I respond, I was like, I'm here for you. I'm here because you need help, and I'm in a place where I can offer that help. And he's like, Yeah, but how how are you handling? How are you coping with all this? And like, you know, in this moment, in that moment, I don't know what happened exactly, but somehow, I mean, honestly, the spirit, I think, just took over. The spirit took over the conversation, and then stuff started coming out. Um and and it was just it was it was life, it was life-speaking life, you know. And I was telling him, you know, I walk by faith. And when you walk by faith, your life is actually in a different reality. And everything that matters to me, everything that's actually important in my entire life is hidden in Jesus. And that's the safest place to be. And when you have that, and the Lord is your shepherd, you lack nothing. And so the reality is, yes, sir, I did lose my house today, but in actual fact, I lost nothing at all. Because who I am remains intact in the person of Jesus. And I keep going and going, I'm just like pouring life into this guy. By this time, his job was like on the floor. Right? He says, Listen to all this. And he says something to me that that was just kind of I remember this. He says, He says, Doc, the hairs on my arms are like standing up right now. Like he had never heard language like this before. He was just utterly shocked by it, just totally blown away that someone can speak like this. And he he uh he was listening, and then I said something that that actually stuck with him. I told him, you know, part of living by faith is you live the unattached life. You know, there are no attachments to the things here because the true attachment, the most significant attachment you have is with the father. And when you have that attachment and you're safe in him, you live the unattached life everywhere else. And, you know, so we ended the visit, it was good. Um, he walked away, he expressed his condolences, and then about three weeks later he came back and he told me how he couldn't stop thinking about the conversation. He had friends that were asking him, hey man, hook me up with your doctor's number, you know, I need a new primary, whatever the case is, you know. And then he's like, by the way, that one thing you said to me stuck with me, this thing that you said about living by faith and living the unattached life. And I was like, Oh yeah, how so? He says, I had this old storage unit that I've kept for like over 10 years, and I decided after my visit with you to start living the unattached life, and I got rid of it. I sold everything, threw away some stuff, and and just closed it down. And my wife and I, we want to start walking, walking the unattached life. And I'm like, oh man, that's that's awesome. Let's go. So beautiful.
SPEAKER_00:As you're telling me this, you know, you were joking about the stages of grief. So many people stay stuck in that state, those stages of grief because there is not acceptance. And it seems like God gave you kind of radical acceptance of what was going on. Like, my house is burning down, and there's now one thing I can do about it. I can accept it as it is. And like, if this is Paul, right, in in Philippians, where he's in prison and he's like, Yeah, I've learned how to be content. Does he want to be in prison? Nobody he's accepted it and he's accepted that God loves him, he's accepted all these things, and then moving from, yeah, this thing happened and I can't do anything about it. Now I can actually do my best and move forward. And what can I do? Like, most people would go home and just be with their family and just sit on the couch and be like together. But you're like I'm well that might make us feel good. It probably could make us feel bad. Why don't I just serve this person right here? And uh praise God for you uh being able to accept what had happened, but then also moving forward in contentment.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's kind of funny. Yeah, that's that's that's good, man. I mean, I mean, God, God is so when you look at life through this lens, man, when you look at everything through this lens, I mean, God becomes so real to you. I mean, Jesus is the person. He is like, I like to tell people, Jesus is the most significant person in all of reality. And when he becomes so real to you, because you see him as he is, he seen clearly through this lens of gospel and through this lens of love. I mean, you can you can say Jesus is Lord, and you can recogn you can realize that flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. This is only by this power of the spirit. And when Jesus is Lord, that what that means is that as long as he's alive, you are good. He is everything. You know. And the the other thing that you need to write a book, bro.
SPEAKER_00:I'm seriously, you need to write a book. Yeah, you need to have your whole story. You need to write a book. I'm just going to tell you that right now. Keep going.
SPEAKER_03:Oh man. Praise God, brother. But um actually, you know what's so funny? I started a blog. I started a blog. Um and I'm working on all these different posts. But yeah, um, I start we could put it in the show notes later, but people are welcome to go read my blog. I have it on Substack. But it starts, it starts off uh about this whole story, and and then I I say a few other things uh about this. So I'm using I'm using the story of my house burning down, the process of rebuilding it, and doing all this other stuff. I'm using that as a as a vehicle to convey some gospel truth in this in the Substack. So I don't know, might be worth checking out for some people.
SPEAKER_00:That's awesome, man. I'm gonna I'm gonna read it. So anyway, how was uh yeah, yeah. How were the wife and kids when you when after that whole thing were was your peace and your calm able to kind of set the tone for the way the family dealt with it?
SPEAKER_03:Um yeah, I think it wasn't my piece, obviously it was a piece of the spirit, you know, and the real the reality was then like my wife, uh she's she's a rock, bro. I mean, she yeah, we we freak out. I mean, like I I tell people, hey, if if you're going through something, call it out for what it is, but then lean into it and realize, hey, you know, you can call it out, um, but don't let it define you. How you respond to it might shape you, but it does not define you. It might shape the course and the path forward, but this is not who you are, right? And so I've I just praise God that, you know, the Holy Spirit is also in my wife. She was just on it. She knew exactly what to do to get the kids homeschooling back up and running. Um, my kids, you know, they're young. My daughter was six, you know, she's 16 now, and it hit her hard because she had lots of memories of sleepovers and all the good times she had with her friends. So that was hard. And she was saying how she could see in her mind the different rooms, the hallways, and you know, where she did this, where she did that, as she was growing up in the house. So she took it pretty hard. The boys are like, hey, let's go back and see if we could find some relics in the rubble, right? So they were they were just making the making a fun, you know, making a support item.
SPEAKER_00:When you went back, how how long was it until you got to go back?
SPEAKER_03:Um see house burned down on a Wednesday. We went back and saw it the following week. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, there's so many miracle stories of how things transpired so that you know we were able to find a rental home. We were able to get another car because my wife lost her car on the fire. We left it there in the garage, not thinking the house is gonna burn. Um, and then we also uh had a friend, a friend, who drove. I don't know what was what possessed him, but he was able somehow that day as it was burning, he drove to the house as the firefighters had just put out the fire, and he was able to take some pictures of the house for me. And that was the first picture that I had sent out to people I got from him. That wasn't from my camera, that was from him. And you could see some flames, um some residual flames. And actually, that was a miracle because I was able to use that those all his photos to file the insurance claim right away, like that night, and that just kind of sped things up super fast for us, so we were kind of ahead of the game there. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think Tina, the way the k she and the kids handled it, it was awesome. It was, I saw the spirit at work in their lives. Um, but you know, it it wasn't like I didn't have other lessons to learn. I, you know, I mean, we we we talk about I talk about living this unattached life, but um, you know, we can always learn a little bit more about humility, you know what I'm saying? So I just want to share a little bit about kind of how uh how the aftermath of this whole thing is continuing to shape me, right? Um so we had a lot of we had this huge outpouring of love and support, bro. And I'll I'll say this right now, man. Like I cannot be the same after this. And it wasn't because I lost my house, it's because God loves me. I can't be the same after this. Because people showed up in ways and from places that I never thought that would ever happen. So we had a friend that lives up in Washington. She heard about it. This is an older friend. We went to church uh together way back in the day. We raised our kids together when they were really young, and she's like, I'm so sorry. Matthew and Tina, can we do something for you? Can you please let us start a GoFundMe page? And I'm like, right away, Tina's asked me, hey, you know, she wants to start a GoFundMe page for us. I'm like, no, I'm nobody's charity case. You know, I don't need a GoFundMe page, right? Who needs don't start a GoFundMe? Like, I we got insurance, we're good. I would feel terrible if you know people went online and said, Oh, Matthew and Tina Chan are starting a GoFundMe page. Yeah, they just lost their house. And and, you know, I just didn't want that. I, you know, like we're not super private people, but when it comes to stuff like this, I just don't like to broadcast it that much, like in terms of like, oh, I need your help, et cetera, et cetera. I'll just, you know, thank you for the love and support. Thank you for all the text messages and and the well-wishes. I'll take that. I didn't want to go funny, page. So we told this person, thanks, but no thanks. So I don't know how much longer or how much time passed, but a few days later, probably, I get another text message from an old friend of mine from Loma Lena, a surgeon. This this guy went to medical school with his sister, and you know, he's done some other stuff with me here and there. But anyway, he texted me. He's like, he's like, hey, so sorry about what happened. We're praying for you. Please let us know if I could do anything for you. And then I'm like, Yeah, man, thanks so much. And then he goes, By the way, we donated to the GoFundMe page. You're like, what? I was livid, bro. I was like, what? So right away my mind's like, I thought we told Linda, no GoFundMe page. What is she thinking? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then so I'm like, okay, let me just calm down, figure this out. And uh, and so I asked him, I was like, hey, um, what GoFundMe page is this? You know, he's like, oh, the one that Byron Rivera set up for you.
SPEAKER_00:You can't get mad at Byron, you can get mad at Linda.
SPEAKER_03:But I did anyway. I was about to text him a piece of my mind. I was like, no. How dare you love me? I know, right? So I'm just I'm beside myself at this point. I was like, man, what is he thinking? Like, he didn't ask me. We didn't have this conversation, right? So I was about to text him. I was about to just like, I wasn't like mad like I was gonna like cuss him out or anything. I was just like, I was just gonna say, like, really, bro, like, come on, really? And all of a sudden, as I'm holding my phone, Tina's like, I'm like, what? This is how they want to love you. Let them love you. Just let them love on you. And I'm like, man, she's right. She's right. You know, some of the hard, like, we when things are going well, it's easy for us to love on God. But I think before that, before we do any of that, we simply have to be loved and let God love on us. You know, and so I texted Brian, I was like, hey, in a much better tone. I forgot exactly what I say, but I was like, hey man, did you start a GoFundMe page for me? And he's like, My brother, I'm so sorry if I overstepped. But people came to me and they just wanted to pour love into you. And I was like, Let's just do this GoFundMe thing. I'm like, okay, well, thank you, man. I'm blessed. I feel the love and support. And he said something he's like, um, he said, what did he say? He said, hey, he said, um, no matter all the love and support you feel right now, God loves you immeasurably more. Right. So that I thought that was beautiful. And so, I mean, when I when I got that, and Tina's like, just let them love on you. And she said something really cool too. She said, This is their way of being human. This is their way of being human. This is loving on you. This is how we share, this is how we pour into each other. This is life, right? This is how we do life together. And then I just realized something. I was like, you know, the legitimacy, the legitimacy of any gift is not based upon whether or not you need anything.
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_03:I mean, one could argue one way or the other whether I actually needed this GoFundMe page, you know. Um, but the legitimacy of the gift is not established in whether or not I needed it. The legitimacy of the gift was established in the love of the giver. Hmm and the posture and the heart of the person doing the giving. And I had to come to realize that, and that's how it is with us and God, right? I mean, like the the question doesn't come to mind whether or not I deserve it or whether or not I need it, even though you can probably answer those questions. But those questions don't come to mind when you actually see the heart of the father and the abundance of love that he has, it's not about whether or not I need it or deserve it, it's about whether or not he's good enough to give it. And the answer is yes, he is.
SPEAKER_02:Amen.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So I mean, that was like a piece of humble pie. I had to eat, you know. I had to just understand that this is about good for you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I hope you had it all emote, man. Like, we need that.
SPEAKER_03:For real. But it doesn't end there. I mean, like, it was a humbling experience. You know, I it reminds me though, of um uh was I think it's Isaiah 46 where it says that we were created for his glory. You know, and then his glory is his love, really. It's his character, it's his love. So God didn't create us in order for us to be like some sort of uh ego booster for him, right? He wasn't some sort of narcissistic tyrant that needed little minions to boost his ego. That he, you know, we were created for his glory. I think what that text is trying to say is that we were created for his glory in the sense that we were created to receive his love. So one of the primary purposes of being human is just to be loved.
SPEAKER_00:Let's go.
SPEAKER_03:You know what I mean? And and I, you know, I'm pretty hard-headed sometimes. So God's gonna like, okay, I'm gonna teach you another lesson. So I thought I got this humility thing down, so but he decides to teach me a whole nother lesson, right? And um, one day we were at church and uh we were with the Pathfinders, you know. I'm I'm still in charge of the Pathfinders for now, and uh we were doing this thing where we're preparing for our Bible bowl experience. I think your kids did that too, the Pathfinder Bible experience.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's a cool thing. So we're practicing, we're going through the verses and stuff, and then one of the parents or one of the other Pathfinder leaders, he gets up in front of the room and he like interrupts the whole thing. And he's like, Hey, uh, excuse me, can I get everyone's attention? And I look behind me, and there's like all the parents in the room, and he's up there talking, and he starts tearing up and choking up as he's talking. He's like, Hey, Matthew and Tina, you guys have been the blessing and inspiration to us. Everything you've done for this club ministry, everything you've done for this group, you know, all the families here. Um, and I'm like, no, don't even start it. We don't need this right now. Like, I already got the GoFundMe page. Y'all don't need to do anything else, right? And he's up there, he's waxing eloquent about all this stuff, and and then all of a sudden, they're like, hey, we want to, we want to honor you and bless you, and we want to give this to you. And they bring out this brand new, super expensive guitar.
SPEAKER_00:Right?
SPEAKER_03:I mean, this amazing guitar, uh, this Martin and Company guitar. Martin and Company.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's that's a nice, that's a nice guitar.
SPEAKER_03:That's a really nice guitar. And you know, if you know something about our family, we love music, we love guitars. Um, Tina had a guitar that she bought when she was in high school that we still use, and that's that's our old family guitar, but I've never had a guitar of my own. And so they knew that.
SPEAKER_00:That guitar was burned up, it was hanging right next to the piano, right?
SPEAKER_03:No, no, no. We we grabbed it.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, you grabbed the guitar, okay.
SPEAKER_03:We grabbed the guitar, yeah, yeah. So um, so we grabbed that guitar, and and they knew that I kind of always wanted my own. And because that one was Tina's, right? That's the one that she played when she was serenading me when I was in high school, way back in the day. But yeah, so so they bring out this guitar, and and I'm like, oh, you guys, this is too much. I'm feeling embarrassed. So I started playing this thing in front of everybody, and bro, I broke down, like the tears were just coming. And I never cry in front of people like this, you know, and for the first time since my house burned down, I actually shed a tear. And I'm I'm just losing it in front of people. I can't even talk, I can't even sing. I'm trying to sing some Phil Wickham, right? And and I'm just losing it in front of all the kids, all the parents. And and then my son was like, Papa, you didn't cry when you lost something. You cried when you receive something. And I'm like, man, that was super dope. And so the Lord was just teaching me again, it's like, hey, you know, what does Phil Wilcombe say? This is our God, this is who he is, he loves us. No matter how blessed you may feel, no matter how overflowing your cup actually is, God comes in and he keeps pouring into you, man. He doesn't stop. Like you think you got it all figured out. You think, oh, the moment you come into gospel freedom, you've arrived. No, you get to go forward, you get to receive more of this stuff. You think you're full, you think you you're you're complete and whole. Yes, you are in Christ Jesus, but you grow even in that fullness, in that completeness. He keeps pouring into you. And so that was a lesson I had to learn was just to receive. Because usually I'm on the other side of this thing, right? I'm on the other side, and this doesn't happen. And and learning to just say thank you, I think that's the most humble thing to do versus saying, nah, I got it.
SPEAKER_00:What what a what a lesson. Um typically, when people learn that lesson, if they're you know, you're a leader in your community, um, you're a professional, you're successful. Sometimes people learn that when they get sick, because then you know your leadership and your professionalism, sometimes it doesn't come into when you're sick, you're sick, you know, and and and you need people. And um, yeah, getting that um being able to receive from from God and receive from your from your church family is a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_03:It really is, you know, and I was so blessed. Um, I felt embarrassed at the same time, you know, but I think pride resists grace.
SPEAKER_00:I I someone I was this was a couple years ago, uh a friend of mine like did kind of the same thing. He's like, I just want to honor you, Richard. We just want to pray for you and your family. And I felt so uncomfortable. And I I I I think I told him not to. And then later Natalie was like, What's wrong with you, bro? Like, these people just wanted to love on you. Yeah, and I regret it. And I actually ended up calling that guy back, and I was like, Man, I messed up, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I should have just just let you bless me like that. And that guy was super gracious, yeah. Um, but yeah, it's hard sometimes, bro. It is for us to receive that.
SPEAKER_03:It really is because I think, like I was saying, you know, humility, I'm sorry, pride resists grace. Humility admits that you actually need it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know? Um and as as I'm learning more about this thing, man, like you think, you know, going back to this journey that we're on as we're walking our freedom, man, like as you walk in righteousness, you know, as someone who has crossed over from death to life, right? As someone who's no longer a slave to sin, but now you're a slave to righteousness. You serve a new master, right? You actually never stop growing. And I think the Holy Spirit, He brings stuff to your life, He brings stuff to light that shows you that there are inner precincts of your being that still need some grace, that still need some of that truth to be confessed in these areas of your life.
SPEAKER_00:All right, don't fast forward, taking a break. Don't fast forward, help us keep moving this gospel forward uh through the podcast, through internet church. Um, that is how uh we get to do this thing by uh people like you. Um supporting and coming along for the journey. Support us at www.lovereality.org slash give. All right, let's get back into this episode. All right, bro. We're we we're back again. Uh talk to me, man. What talk to me about what led to all of this and what your mindset has been uh about wanting to get more of the story out here?
SPEAKER_03:No, I appreciate it. But going back to the introduction um of this podcast, he mentioned that this is like the number three or the third moment or third time that we've had to do this. Does that mean I get to be in some sort of Death Life Hall of Fame?
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, you are in the Hall of Fame now. Uh it's you, Tyler, Morgan, and Arnold. Arnold's been on here a lot. So yeah, we he's always on the on the like uh guest like pick a verse episode because he's always hanging out. But now you're in there.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's you. Thanks, Richard. I I feel so special. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00:No, man. Tell me uh, I mean, I I know the background. Tell the listener what has like what happened and why we're at where we're at.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so um as as we recorded the first half of this podcast, that was, I believe, like sometime early September, late August. Um, and uh as uh as as life happens, you know, things happen. So one day uh uh in particular on a Sunday morning, actually I know the exact date, it was September 14th. It was because uh it was a day that we were packing up and getting ready to go camping at the beach with our homeschool group. I got a phone call. Um an interesting phone call. It was from church leadership, and the call basically was asking me to resign from my leadership position as Pathfinder Director uh at our church. And there were three reasons cited for uh this request for my resignation. The first of which was theological concerns, and then there was parental feedback, and the third thing was this blackboard incident um that we'll probably get into later as as we continue the conversation. But yeah, so that was a phone call. I got the call, um, and uh it kind of just went from there. And and mind you, I had been Pathfinder Director at our church for almost three years. I started at the beginning of 2023. Here we are at the end of 2025, and I'm getting asked to resign for these three reasons. So so we can begin with kind of like the background for the theological concerns to kind of build from there. Um, if that's okay, Richard.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, man. You know, as time has gone by, and we don't normally talk about this. I guess maybe we we've talked about the fallout. Uh Jonathan was just on another podcast this week and he posted something on the Facebook group. Um what it seems like is that the gospel that we preach it bumps up against your traditional form of Adventism. Uh because it seems yeah, it just like we've seen it over and over and over again. And at first we thought, oh, this is we're not being clear enough, or we're, you know, we need to say it a little bit differently, or and we we try to use the exact words from scripture, like being like free from sin is for one who has died, has been set free from sin. Like we we really try to use the words that are from scripture, but it seems like um the traditional Adventist mindset has a problem with it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you know, and I think I think that may very well be. I've thought a lot about that throughout this ordeal, and I've tried to for sort of piece my mind like how does this actually happen? And and I try to put myself in other people's shoes, and and and and how and I try to ask myself, how am I being perceived? What are the words I'm using? Could I massage my language a little bit better? So I do ask myself those questions. Um, and I think at the end of the day, um, is this a matter of like personalities clashing? Is this a matter of me not being cleared? Is this a matter of misunderstanding? Or is it fundamentally at the root, is this just pure and simple resistance to the gospel? You know, so so those are questions that I've asked.
SPEAKER_00:You you could change your language, uh, but then you might be going along to get along. Uh you might be sugarcoating it or dumbing it down so to not bring out division. And there are some things that we do, like we use discernment, like there's issues that Paul brings up, and he's like, hey, when it comes to to diets and dates, meaning like what you eat and like holy days, like don't get into beefs about this stuff. Like, like you know the truth, but there's some immature people that don't, so like take it easy on them. Like, let's not cause disagreement about this. And so we use that discernment. We're not we're not literally trying to split hairs on all this stuff, but there's some stuff that we're just like, no, we're like we cannot like we're like this would violate our conscience to go against this.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. No, that that's that's a very interesting point that you bring up. And um, I think in many ways it plays right into this very story because that's the question, right? Um I think I think that's something that someone brought up that hey Matthew, you cannot violate your conscience. And I think to the point that this person made and the point that you're making right now, that there's an element whereby, yeah, I I I speak from the place that my heart has been transformed. And that's the reality of it all, right? Two and a half years ago, this guy comes to my church and my life gets transformed. Um, but the message, as you know, and as been stated by others on this podcast from my local community, that this message was not received by everyone. But there were some who did receive, and I was one of those, my family and and a few others. Um and they've told their stories on this podcast. And my story is not too different from theirs, but it is in a way, because um I feel like I feel like I might be the last guy out at this point, the last guy who's on his way out. Um so so the question is this, right? So I was I was asked to resign. So then I started asking myself this question well, what did I do wrong, right? And was I given an opportunity to actually address it, you know? Um, and when it came to my beliefs and my theology, uh I would say there was very minimal conversation to truly unpack like what it is that I believe and truly unpack my story and what I believe about the gospel. There was very minimal conversation um across the time span of two and a half years since this whole thing went down. Um but what did happen, based on things that I heard and and stuff, was that there was a lot of false assumptions and I would say misunderstandings about what I believe, and these things were being propagated throughout the church. And from what I could tell, my reading of it all was that these assumptions were based on a perception of a ministry known as love reality. Ever heard of it, Richard?
SPEAKER_00:I've heard some some some stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And their concerns about this particular ministry or their perception of it, I mean, it revolved around the similar, I mean, the same old basic questions surrounding one saved, always saved, repentance, confession, and forgiveness, etc. So I was implicated in believing in one saved, always saved. That confession and repentance are not part of the um salvational experience. And that all these things that you know they were resulting in a freely offered forgiveness that was seen more of as a liability than anything else. Um and I guess you know, for the record, I I actually don't believe in one save, always save. I do value deeply repentance confession. I think those things are deeply integral to the Christian experience.
SPEAKER_00:In the sense that like the Christian, like being under grace doesn't is not a bus pass to go on and keep on sinning. That's what you mean by not believing in one saved.
SPEAKER_03:And I don't see grace as a liability, I see it as liberation.
SPEAKER_00:Right, right, right, right.
SPEAKER_03:Grace has power to overcome.
SPEAKER_00:But if you mean like Jesus saved you once and you're expecting that to last, that's that's not when when someone says once saved, always saved, there the the mindset is you could do anything and get away with it. And man, even these questions, man, like these doctrines, there's so much to them, they're so deep, there's so much. And like even like once saved, always saved, there's a lot in there that we don't even think about. Um, but I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, and I I've stopped trying to explain it, Richard, to be honest with you, because I think I think in my efforts to try and explain it and to certain people, um, all they hear is, no, you believe in once they've always saved, the traditional way that we understand it, and to try to unpack it further and to kind of peel back the layers of that onion, I found myself doing it was a futile attempt to try to articulate and communicate what it is that I actually believe and all the nuance thereof. So I kind of just say, well, I don't believe in once they've always saved, because that's the that's the prevalent definition of it right now. The prevailing thought behind it is that, hey, um, that once save always save is bad because what you're trying to tell people is that salvation is not something that actually frees you from sin. It's something that allows you to continue in sin, which is, you know, it comes from a place of misunderstanding altogether, you know, right off the jump.
SPEAKER_00:But was this one of the theological issues that they believe you believe in once saved, always save, even though you say I don't believe in that?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. In essence, yes. That was one of the things. So I was implicated in believing all these things. Um and and when I say that there was minimal conversation surrounding what I believe, that doesn't mean that no conversation happened, right? So there were at least two meetings that occurred um, I think during the year 2024. Um, a couple of leaders had requested these meetings, and so I invited them over to my house. We had dinner one time. And to their credit, they actually sat down and listened to my story, and they listened to my take on the gospel uh insofar as the questions that they raised in those conversations. And there was, you know, general agreement. It was cordial, it was nice. Um, we shared testimony. Um, I invited more questions, and I and the questions came and I answered them in those conversations, and I thought that they were answered to their satisfaction, and there was no pushback. There was no pushback whatsoever in these meetings. Um, and so I felt like, okay, they just wanted to know. Fair enough. I I let them know. Um but beyond those two encounters, there was real no, there was really no substantive discussion about my positions on you know some of the theological elements that were under question. Uh, maybe a few hallway debates here and there. Um, and most of these took place, mind you, two and a half years ago in the immediate aftermath of that infamous week of prayer uh of which you were a part. Um so despite these two meetings that I had that were formal sit-downs with leadership, uh, it seemed that there was a continued or there continued to be a um a certain perception about me among the leadership, right? Um and for lack of a better word, I'll just say that I felt like I felt like I had a target on my back, especially given how others were exited from their leadership roles before me. So so in a nutshell, I I would say some of the theological concerns revolved around some of these basic questions that, you know, no matter how hard I tried to resolve them with certain folk, it just came around and and and this was how I was labeled, and these things continued to be propagated among the congregation. So that was the first thing. Theological concerns. Second thing was this blackboard incident that that I think kind of ties into the to the story at this point. Um here we are, I think this is August. Yeah, this is like the last Friday night in August. Something happened. So we have a youth vespers. I'm not in charge of this vespers, but I was supporting it, and all the Pathfinders and a lot of the youth who were there. And after the Vespers were just hanging out, the kids were goofing off as they usually do. Um, these are teenagers, like like the oldest is a junior in high school, and it goes all the way down to like 11, 10 years old. Okay, so this is a wide range of kids and a lot of junior high kids, and they're just hanging out, having a good time. One of the kids decides to um write all these self-deprecating remarks about themselves on the blackboard in the classroom. And uh they start to draw all these negative caricatures of themselves and saying that they were fat, they were ugly, they were trash, etc.
SPEAKER_01:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_03:So some of the other kids, my own included, decided that they weren't gonna have any of this. They weren't gonna let their fellow Pathfinder um feel like they were a worthless piece of trash. So they told this person to stop writing this stuff, and they erased all their all those things from the board, and they decided to write words of life instead on the board.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_03:And they started writing things like, You are not trash. You are a child of God, you are forgiven, you are accepted. And then it kept going and going, and and then it blossomed into this huge mural that included things like free. From sin. Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship. God will always consider you his child, right? All these beautiful words of life, right? And so I'm cleaning up the room, about ready to go home, and I see what the kids are doing. I check it out. I see what's on the board. And I was rather impressed. I was like, wow, hey, proud of you guys for writing all that. That's beautiful. I didn't, and granted, I at this point I didn't know the whole backstory of what they were doing. I just thought they were goofing off. I didn't know that there was a kid that was that they were trying to speak life to. Um and so I saw all that, and then the problem is what are words of life to me are actually inflammatory to others. Right. And to add fuel to that flame, um, one of the kids, admittedly, my son, he decides to write the words love reality on the bottom right corner of the blackboard.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:It's a bad word in some parts of the country.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Certainly in my neck of the woods. Yeah, sure. And so he writes the words love reality. And my son, what is he? He's 14, and he's a goofball. He's kind of edgy, right? He likes to stir the pot. And he knows the current atmosphere. And he's a kid. He's he's a guy. And he's goofing off. And he's like, hey, all these words are so beautiful, but why don't we just add a little extra bravado to this whole message and write the words love reality? So I'm cleaning up and I see that, and I see, I look down in the bottom right corner, and I'm like, I'm like, bro, nah, just just erase it, okay? You can leave everything else, but just erase that because you and I know better, right? And he does, but he leaves two letters up, L and R. Oh no. So he leaves L and R, and I didn't really see it as I'm I was walking out. I just saw him erasing it, so I didn't I didn't see it until later. But anyway, that was Friday night. So the next morning, Sabbath morning, church gets opened up, and one of the church leaders walks into the youth room and sees this mural uh on the blackboard, and this person just basically I don't want to use well, it's just like this person freaks out, right? And basically takes it up the chain all the way up to the top, and everything just erupts from there, and this ignites a series of events that that led to some other stuff. But I wasn't initially implicated in this.
SPEAKER_00:Help me understand. It was the fact that there are like words of life on there that the guy didn't agree with, or was it that the the letter L and R were there? What was the main beef?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so I was eventually approached about this. Um, but even before I was approached about this, uh someone else was implicated, and you know, we don't have to get into that, but I I knew that it was it would eventually get to me. So I preempted that. I wrote a letter of apology to the entire church leadership on behalf of my kids. And I had my kids write an apology as well.
SPEAKER_00:Were they apologizing for?
SPEAKER_03:Not for what they wrote, but for not having the the what's the word I'm looking for, the wherewithal or the insight at the moment to not intentionally stir the pot. Because that's exactly what they were doing. It started out as them speaking life to a kid, but then it exploded into this mural, and then to add a little extra punch to it, he wrote LR at the bottom, he left it there. And he knew what he was doing, and I knew he knew what he was doing. And so anyway, we apologized for that. Um and it was received, it was accepted. But that doesn't mean that they weren't gonna approach me about it. So they eventually approached me about it. Um about a week and a half later, I think it was, yeah, about a week and a half later or so, um, another meeting was called to open quote, discuss the ministry that I oversee, namely the Pathfinder Ministry. So this was on a Wednesday night. Actually, I remember this because this was the day that Charlie Kirk was assassinated. It was September 10, it was a Wednesday. Yeah, right before. We're about to go into this meeting, and my kids, my youngest, who who was aware of the news at the time, was asking the question kind of half-jokingly, hey papa, are you gonna go to church and are they gonna assassinate you like Charlie Kirk?
SPEAKER_00:Mercy.
SPEAKER_03:I'm like, no, come on, they're not gonna do that. So I go into this meeting, um, and this time there are four others in attendance, and these guys represent the scene, let's just say that they represent the senior level segment of our church leadership.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Um, so the meeting begins, and I think one of the first questions that was asked was interestingly enough, it was about the Pathfinder Pledge and Law. Um and so if you're familiar with the Pathfinder Ministry, do your honest part.
SPEAKER_00:Care for your body, keep a level eye.
SPEAKER_03:You got it, man.
SPEAKER_00:Keep a song in your heart, walk softly in the sanctuary.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, man, you better go in God's errand or health, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:So by the grace of God, I will be pure and kind and true. I will keep the Pathfinder law, I will be a servant of God and a friend to men, right? So that's the Pathfinder Pledge, and the law has those elements that you kind of just decide right there.
SPEAKER_00:It's kind of whack when you think about it. Yeah, so that's as I think about the Pathfinder Pledge, I will keep the Pathfinder Law. Man.
SPEAKER_03:Everything that the Lord says, we will do, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's kind of like when you take a class in college, like the classes in college make the thing that you're studying like way, way worse. Like a Civil War class, you're excited, and then you take the class and it like you were excited about the Civil War, and then that class ruined it for you because like you got a bad grade or something. That feels like that.
SPEAKER_03:It kind of does, right? And I and the reason why this was brought up was because months before I had another conversation um surrounding the baptism of my kids and baptismal vows, and you know, we don't have to get into that at that moment for now. But in that moment, um, I had sort of mentioned the Pathfinder Pledge and Law, sort of like as a throwaway comment. I said, hey, hmm, the Pathfinder Pledge and Law kind of sounds a little transactional. Maybe we can reconsider that as well. Anyway, it was a throwaway comment. And it was brought up in this in this context, I think, because they wanted to see where I stood in terms of my alignment with Adventism, in particular the way Pathfinders are run.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:And I I felt kind of weird about it. It's like, why are you bringing this up now? This is kind of weird. But I answered the question. I said, Yeah, I mean, you remember, uh, I made this comment way back when, um, as we were discussing the baptismal vows that we do at church, and I just said it as a throwaway. It's like, hey, the Pathfinder Pledge and Law seems kind of transactional. I'm not a big fan of lists, but we do the Pathfinder Pledge and Law every single time we meet. I have the kids stand up, raise the right hand, we recite it all, and we do it. I'm I, you know, I have my own internal thoughts about it, but when it comes to leading the Pathfinders, my wife and I, we actually do it by the book. You know, we got the uniforms, we got the honors, the classes, we do it, we report to the conference, we maintain attendance, all that stuff. We do it all by the book.
SPEAKER_02:Let's go.
SPEAKER_03:And so, yeah, so I was able to answer that question, you know. So that was the first thing. Um, and then I think let's see what happened after that. Oh, and then and then they asked me directly about the the blackboard incident, right? Um, and about love reality. So I apologize again about the blackboard incident, and and then and then they asked directly about love reality, and I said, Yeah, you know, I'm I'm very open about the fact that I was blessed by love reality. What's the big deal? You know, you've said to me a few other times that it's it's my business, you know, what ministry that I receive blessings from and so forth. Um and I mentioned to them that you know I maintain friendship with some guy named Richard Young who's just so happens to be part of that ministry.
SPEAKER_02:Messed up.
SPEAKER_03:So maybe I shouldn't have said that. I don't know. So they seem to respect that. No real pushback. And when it came to the Pathfinder thing, they actually even affirmed my leadership and said that the kids are growing, the club is thriving, that everything's going well. So they they affirmed my performance in terms of my Pathfinder leadership.
SPEAKER_00:Perfect. Roll credits. Thanks for coming on, Matthew. Just kidding.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you're welcome. Um, and then we get into a bunch of theological topics.
SPEAKER_00:It's not over.
SPEAKER_03:No, not over yet, right? So we get into a bunch of theological topics, right? And to summarize, I basically explained what I've been reading and learning as of late, and I offered some insight into certain beliefs, etc. Um, we actually talked about the Sabbath, we talked about the spirit of prophecy on the white, we talked about the atonement, we talked about grace and law and a few other topics, you know. So we we kind of went through a chapter and verse, you know. Um, but then one moment stood out in particular to me. Um, and this was interesting because I started I started to explain my current understanding of the atonement, right? So I was I was actually asked point blank, so how does it work? What did Jesus' death actually do to save us? And I cited 2 Corinthians 5.21 and Romans 8.3, and I basically said, you know, I believe that according to the Bible, it says that Jesus became sin, um, who knew no sin, right? He became sin. Uh he condemned sin in the flesh, as it says in Romans 8, and he rose with this indestructible life that it says in 1 Corinthians 15. And it is this life that we participate in by faith through grace, right? And um I flat out told him I am moving away from a penal substitutionary atonement model, and I'm moving towards a relational and healing paradigm when it comes to the atonement. And then one of the leaders right away, he said this. That's it, Matthew. That's biblical. Matthew, I agree with everything you've been saying.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I don't think Adventism has like this crazy big stance that they're for penal substitutionary atonement.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. No, I mean, if anything, they're more like a Christus Victor sort of paradigm, right? And I was like, okay, cool. Yeah, so great, you agree. And then and then actually, even in another moment, maybe even before this moment, there was another comment that says, Hey, Matthew, seems like we're on the same page in general, right? Like you may come at it from this angle, and I come at it from this angle, but we're in the same general ballpark, we're in the same neighborhood. I'm like cool, okay. So I actually walked away from this meeting, feeling a little bit better than how I felt when I entered into it. Um, like, number one, my my leadership was affirmed. Like, they had no problems with my performance um when it came to the club. I mean, the club was growing. We started out with three kids. Now we had 16 kids, right? We're doing all these activities. Uh it seemed like my apology was received and accepted. Um, and I committed to being much more circumspect going forward, right? And theologically, based on this meeting, I didn't feel like they had expressed any major concerns during this meeting. In fact, I was affirmed. They said that they agree with me. So before we adjourned, I actually asked the question, okay, well, thanks for inviting me. Do you have any specific directives that I need to receive? Any specific instruction that you want me to receive? And they're like, Nope. We'll let you know if something comes up. Okay, great. Thanks. That was Wednesday night, September 10th, 2025. However, unbeknownst to me, another meeting was held the following day, specifically to address my leadership role. Excuse me.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, you're good.
SPEAKER_03:And I learned after the fact, later on, I came to learn that there was some intentionality behind who was invited to this meeting and who was not. And I think that's all I can say without speculating or running the risk of them puning their motives. I'll just go as far as say that there was some intentionality behind who was invited and who was not. And so they had this meeting, and it was Thursday night, the day after the meeting with me. I was not there. And this was among leadership, among the senior level leadership at our church. And this is when they unanimously voted for my resignation. And this was Thursday. And I went to church that Saturday not knowing anything that had just transpired, and actually feeling kind of like, okay, I can put this behind me, and I guess we can move on. And I interact with some of the folks that were that I came to find out that were in that meeting, and they were just completely normal with me. And uh, we were having just a normal day at church. And then Sunday morning, after you know, that Sabbath, I get the phone call and I was asked to resign. And there it was.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So And the reason was still the reason was because you hadn't satisfied your answers, didn't satisfy them.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So about that, about the specific reason. Um when I got the call, the the reasons that were cited were, again, theological concerns, the blackboard incident, and parental feedback, right? And so the day that they asked me to resign was interesting, right? Um when it came to the parental concerns, this is very interesting. This was brought up to me during that Wednesday night meeting. And I actually asked, okay, who were the parents uh and and what were their specific concerns? I don't remember exactly how that question was answered. Um and it seemed like the parents or maybe the leaders wanted to keep the parents anonymous. And their specific theological concerns were not mentioned to me. And I basically said, Well, that's not helpful. We're shooting in the dark. If I don't know who they are and what their specific concerns are, then how am I supposed to be given an opportunity to respond and maybe clarify? So, long story short, that question wasn't answered. And if any parent had a concern with my teaching or my leadership, it was never brought to my attention by the parent or by leadership. And so I don't know the reasons when when it says, when they say parental concerns, I'm not really sure specifically what that means. Although I heard some other stuff after the fact that wasn't that was more general and vague. I specific concerns were never brought up to my attention. And when it came to the theological concerns, although I had d thought that maybe I asked answered the question sufficiently, either they didn't believe me or there was just something else going on. And I I think they're, you know, I think there's something else going on. Basically, it's not so much what I believe, it's just basically there's a ministry out there that they perceive me to be affiliated with.
SPEAKER_00:Stuff happened. And I think one of the important things of being a Christian is it's you're not just you don't represent yourself, you're representing God. And you see how the world does things, and the world has to be crystal clear about things. Like you can't just like you go to a town hall meeting, like people can't hide stuff away. Everybody has the chance to have a voice, people get to be heard, like the judicial system, it's supposed to work, the justice is blind, you're supposed to present evidence. Now, as the people of God, we we have to do it at a at a bar that's higher than the world. Yeah, like because we're representing something outside of ourselves. But I have seen over and over again fear coming in to rule the day, and when fear comes in to rule the day, you cannot be clear. You cannot be clear. You have to give it's kind of the old it's not you, it's me. I've seen the old it's not you, it's me thing with people losing their jobs way more than I wish I could say. Like because like people lost their jobs and everybody knew why, but you couldn't be honest with that person because you were you're trying to be nice or you were afraid. And in trying to be nice and moving from fear, you actually hurt that person, they don't know why. Yeah, like and it's it's terrible. Yeah, and that's the fear of man that keeps us from being able to be clear and forthright with why we're moving the way we are moving, and I mean that's what I'm just seeing here is fear.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you're not the first person who said that, and I certainly perceive that as well. Um, and you could feel it, it was palpable in the room. Um I I I think that I probably would have much rather heard these words. Matthew, we really don't like love reality. You know, it seems like you do, and we just don't want you to be in leadership. We don't want anyone in leadership to to be someone who likes love reality. Maybe that would have been more honest, right?
SPEAKER_00:Well, that is the reason.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and I don't want to like fully project onto them like that. May very well be. I'll just say that. That may very well be, and I don't know if I can because that was never fully articulated to me. But maybe actually as as we get into the story, I'll I'll say a few other things. But yes, to your point, yes. I think that would have been much better to a much better pill, easier pill to swallow than to have the long drawn-out process and to appear like there's due process when there really isn't.
SPEAKER_00:And I think I've just you know, doing this podcast and interviewing people, you know, years or a year or so after something has happened. It's it's crazy that this happens over and over again from my story, from Harold's story. Um, you weren't fired. Well, I guess in a sense you were, but like you weren't getting paid, you were volunteering to do this thing. Um, but there there isn't transparency, and um, that's hurtful.
SPEAKER_03:It is very hurtful. And and I wasn't the only one who was hurt, you know, and the parents were were deeply frustrated by this because they were not consulted at all. And in fact, the day that I got the phone call to step down, I sent a message to all the parents and I let them know that I was asked to resign. And the words were effective immediately, and that all future Pathfinder events were to be canceled, effective immediately. So, so right away, um, the parents flooded the thread with you know messages of concern, of, of disbelief, frustration, there there was anger. And I got a bunch of private messages and a bunch of phone calls from all these parents who were just in utter shock. And and there was one phone call in particular from a parent that that really, really just kind of impacted me. This person was in tears and was sobbing throughout the conversation, expressing confusion and and and a lack of understanding. This was like totally a shock to this parent. And I come to find out, as as we were having this conversation, the parent mentioned to me that two or three weeks prior, they were approached by someone in leadership in the potluck line. And this leader was approaching the parent and telling the parent, Hey, do you feel comfortable having your child and Pathfinders with Matthew and Tina Chan in leadership? And the parent was kind of like, Yeah, why would we ever have a problem with the Chans? And and the leader went on to say, Well, I don't let my kids participate in Pathfinders because they're leading the kids astray. They believe in this strange doctrine and they are leading kids astray, and you need to be careful. And this parent was in utter shock about this conversation. They they were just, what? They were in disbelief because they never for a minute ever felt that I was leading anyone astray. They actually were in the vast majority of our meetings, they they attended all of our functions, and and and as this person was, as the parent was communicating to me, said, I've never felt, Matthew, that you were leading anyone astray. Where was this leader coming from approaching me and saying this to me? And and so that that was really revealing because this is just one account, and I and we can only guess how many other accounts there could be of leadership going behind the scenes and trying to undermine this ministry. So that was number one, hurtful, number two, very shocking, and it kind of gave me a sense as to the type of spirit that we were dealing with here, right? And I think fear is probably the most accurate word that we can we can use to describe it, you know. And and when it comes to leading kids astray, I mean, in my opinion, my humble, totally unbiased opinion, I don't think I was leading the kids astray, right? Like I said earlier, we started out with three kids. Two of them were my own. And before I stepped down, we had 16 kids that were actively attending. We had we were very successful in the Pathfinder Bible experience. We went to the finals two years in a row. Um we traveled to multiple states across the country. We had camping trips, the kids were bonding, they were having a good time, there was enthusiasm, there was parental involvement, um, family.
SPEAKER_00:You were you were saying the pledge and the law.
SPEAKER_03:Amen, right? We were we were just doing it all. We were like walking lock step with uh with the Pathfinder Pledge and Law and the spirit of Pathfinder and everything. So I would hope and pray that by God's grace, I'm showing the kids the heart of their father, man, and how he is for them and never against them. That was always my goal. But unfortunately, others had a different opinion of my leadership. And and this is despite the fact that the vast majority of the leadership, they were never present for any of our functions, right? And what was visible about the club was actually grossly received as positive. So the accusation that I'm leading kids astray, I felt was just grossly inaccurate and just totally coming from a place of no understanding and just false assumptions. And but this is what was being propagated among the congregation.
SPEAKER_00:Like apparently you tell me there's another meeting, right, where all the parents are there and it doesn't go well and it's and it's upsetting.
SPEAKER_03:We're about to get there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like how were you able to go through this and like were you tempted to feel sorry for yourself? Were you tempted to to you know play it's me versus them kind of thing? Like, how did you handle this spiritually?
SPEAKER_03:I I don't think I felt sorry myself. Excuse me. I don't think I felt sorry for myself. Um I did feel tempted to play me against them, yeah. And that's something that I actively and intentionally tried my hardest to resist. And I felt like I was successful in that effort because I try my best to communicate to leadership, let me help you communicate to the parents. This is a train wreck. If it hasn't already happened, this is a train wreck right now, or it's about to be a train wreck. And let's present a united front for the parents so that we we can preserve this ministry and that the club can go on in my absence. So I I made efforts to sort of have that united front, and it was not received. Uh that that that request was not granted. Instead, it instead um it it basically the the the us versus them posturing was perpetuated, but not at least on my end or from me. So that day they asked me to resign, it was rough, right? It was it was a pretty pretty rough day. My my youngest, who's 10 years old, he's about to join the club. That morning, you know, we're packing up, getting ready to go camping at the beach with our homeschool group. And uh and my youngest, he's 10. I mean, he's he hears the news that his dad is not going to be the director of the club, but he wants to join in a few months. And and he starts losing it, and he starts crying, and I couldn't get him to stop crying for like two hours. You know, and he was just feeling the pain of not being part of this club uh under my directorship. He really wanted it, it really meant a lot to him. Um but things calmed down that morning, and and God is good, man. Like I I knew I God knew, God knew that this was gonna happen, and he gave me the opportunity to not have to go to work on Monday and Tuesday. Instead, he he said, Hey, I'm gonna let this happen in a time where you're gonna be out in nature, you're gonna be camping with uh with your homeschool group. And these are you know, this is a non-Avent. I can't believe we even have that phrase, non-Avenist. But anyway, this is this is a homeschool group comprised of uh multiple other denominations. Um and so we we go out there and we we start, you know we pitch our tents, we we settle in for the night, and um, you know, we're trying to gather ourselves and gather our thoughts uh to sort of formulate uh a resignation letter. So the next day, Monday, I'm writing my resignation letter, and um Tina texts me to say, hey, stop doing what you're doing, coming out to the beach and come check it out of here, it's really beautiful. So I walk out to the beach and I see my wife off in the distance on the shore. She's got her headset on, and she's like dancing and just going crazy on the beach. And apparently she was like getting her groove on, listening to Forrest Frank out on the beach, looking out into the ocean, which was pretty dope. But anyway, I walk out to her and she's like, How are you? I was like, Well, I'm doing okay. I just finished the resignation letter, and um, you know, it's it's what it is. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is. And so she takes her headphones and she puts it on my ear, on my ears, and she puts on this meditation video on YouTube, this Christian meditation with like really beautiful soft music. And she says, Take off your sandals, get in the water, get your feet wet, look out into the water, and listen to this meditation. And mind you, I'm emotionally very fragile at this moment, like both of us are, but we're just trying our best to get through this day, trying to try our best to keep the kids happy and keep them having fun on this campaign. And so I take this moment to do what she says. I'm listening to this meditation, looking out to the horizon, and I just lose it, man. I start to start to cry, and I'm bawling, and I'm looking out to the water. And and the reason I'm crying is because all the memories of the past three years of interacting with these kids just these memories come flooding into my mind. And I see their faces, and I'm thinking about all that we've accomplished together as a club ministry, as a community of families coming together to speak life into these kids, you know, and and it was beautiful. I was so grateful for that, you know. Um, and it wasn't just a ministry, like we did life together, right? I mean, one of the kids said, you know, after our house burned down, one of the kids actually said that that was their spiritual home and they felt safe there, right? And that same Pathfinder was baptized earlier this year, and during their baptism, they publicly announced in front of the whole church that Matthew and Tina Chan had a profound impact on them spiritually, and that's why they decided to get baptized. I was super grateful for that, right? Wow. So the parents and the families, you know, we we we formed a small community together, and it was so beautiful. And I'm sitting there, standing there, looking out to the ocean, listening to this meditation, the soft music, and the scripture being being recited in the background. And and I and as I stopped for a moment, you know, my face full of tears, I'm trying to hide a boy from the kids, I'm just looking out to the horizon. And I hear this voice, I hear this voice in my head, and and and this voice just simply says, You're welcome. You're welcome. I think at that moment, God was just basically telling me, Hey, um, you're good. And I was telling him, Thank you. I was just so grateful in that moment that I had this opportunity to be a part of this ministry. And so we finished the camping trip, you know, it was great, we had a good time, got home, and then um, and then came the board meeting, um, which was the first of two meetings that involved this whole debacle um that involved uh a wider audience. So the church board meeting had to occur in order to accept my resignation. That was on Monday night, September 22. It was rough. Um, probably the most intense two hours of my life. Um, they gave me an opportunity to speak. Um, I tried to give my testimony, but interestingly enough, I was accused of being doe-eyed and that my transformation wasn't really legit, and that this was some sort of placebo effect. Okay. Um and then I tried my best to, you know, during the meeting, I tried my best to kind of address this one question, and that was this. I was like, hey, what was it? What did I teach, or what did I do with the Pathfinders that warranted my resignation? What was it that I taught or or led out in that was so egregiously unbiblical or so wrong that it warranted my resignation? And each time I tried to get back to that question and have an answer, the answer was always something along the lines of, well, love reality says this or love reality says that. I'm like, okay, okay, that's fine. Thank you for sharing with me what you think love reality says, but what about me? What do you think I say? What have I said? I've always taught openly with the kids. I've you guys have always been invited to the events. Like, what was it that I did or said that was so wrong that warranted my resignation? So no specific answer to that question was given, right? And I was just further warned about the dangers of love reality, and I was actually implored to abandon these dangerous teachings, right? I was told you need to disavow these doctrines, and then we might reconsider reinstating you, or something to that effect. Um, and there were some names that were mentioned, right? Richard Young was brought up during this meeting. Yeah. So apparently there were conversations with Richard Young that exposed. False teaching, and and and and this is why we're having to have this conversation with you, Matthew. It's like, okay, cool, interesting. And someone else was brought up to someone by the name of Jonathan Coo. Jonathan Coo.
SPEAKER_00:Jonathan Coo? They called him Jonathan Coo. They didn't get his name right.
SPEAKER_03:They call him Jonathan Coo. I don't know who that is, but I there's a but I do know a Justin Leonardo. I mean, there's someone.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it might be him.
SPEAKER_03:Anyway, so so it was just more of the same stuff, which was hey, love reality teaches this, teaches that. But the question of what was it that I did, what did Matthew Chan do, or what does Matthew Chan believe? I don't think I got an answer to that. And then and the board sort of like some, I think, based on subsequent conversations, some started to see what was going on. And even during their board meeting, there was a moment where things kind of shifted because someone had made a comment about, hey, um, I think we're getting blinded by the fact that we're getting blinded by this, by this uh disdain for love reality. Why don't we address the question, which is what did Matthew do? And so the room kind of shifted a little bit. Um, and and and then at one point it got to a point where the leader's like, no, no, no, guys, just trust your leaders.
SPEAKER_00:Trust your leaders. That's I feel like there's literature about that. Like uh dystopian novels written on that kind of language.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. You know, I think when when someone has to pull that card, then you know that there's something else going on.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But anyway, um, that's what was stated. They voted, and my resignation was official. But before the meeting adjourned, I made it a point to tell them, hey guys, I love you all, no hard feelings. Thank you for the opportunity to serve. And that was that. That was a Monday night meeting with the board, and my resignation was official after that. Um that night, yeah, after two hours of of that intense meeting, um, I really could not sleep. I mean, it was probably one of the most emotionally distressing moments of my life. And I remember waking up in the middle of that night, um, or not even waking up, just being in the mid being up in the middle of the night, and I woke up Tina. I was like, I just needed some someone to just to talk to, right? So I wake her up, I nudge her, and she's barely sleeping herself. Um she's trying to console me the best she can, and and and but my heart was so heavy. I mean, I kept replaying the conversation over and over in my mind, and I felt literally that my chest was about to explode. Um somehow I made it through the night, and then I had to go to work the next day. But on the way to work, I actually did this. I actually made it a point to call the leaders over the phone and speak to each one who was vocal during the meeting the night before, just to clear the air. I wanted to let them know that, hey, I want to affirm our friendship, um, no hard feelings, I love you as a brother, etc. And I think that was mostly well received. You know, I told them I don't want to, that I do not hold any ill will against them or anyone else. So that was that. Um went to work, kind of hard to concentrate, but God was good because my schedule was light and I was done with patients by mid-morning, I would say, and and I was having a real hard day, so I knew that I just I I didn't want to finish the rest of the day, so I let my PA take care of the rest of the patients. So in those moments, who do you call, Richard, when you need someone to pray to and talk to? Well, who do you call? So you call except for John La Longgi, right?
SPEAKER_00:That's the one.
SPEAKER_03:That's the one.
SPEAKER_00:Get him on the speed dial.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so I I call him up and um, you know, I hit him up and I said, Hey man, I'm having a really hard day. And he's like, Well, what do you need me to do? I was like, I just need someone to pray with. Do you mind coming down and just hanging out with me in my office for a little bit? Bro, this guy is got the biggest heart in the world. He drops everything that he's doing. He's got work, he's a busy guy, he's a vice president of this big mortgage company, you know. So he drops everything he does, he's doing in that moment, drives over almost an hour from where he's at down to my office, and the moment he walks in, he gives me the biggest hug, and I close the door in my office, and I just lose it. I start crying in his arms. And let me tell you, have you ever cried in the arms of John Along?
SPEAKER_00:I want to. I'm like, I'm I'm I gotta fly out to to do this. I feel like I want to.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, he's a big six-foot-tall Samoan guy. I'm sure there's plenty of room for me and you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, next time.
SPEAKER_03:For sure. But it was a unique experience, and it was so cleansing, it was so healing. And this brother comes in and he just pours life into me for an hour and a half. We talk, we pray, and it was the beginning of my healing, man. Like, like the night before, I felt like I had fallen into this abyss from which there was no escape. And so I got a glimmer of hope just as God showed up in in our friendship, you know, me and John, and we're just hanging out and we're just talking, and it was great. It was beautiful, man. So I was able to finish the day at work after that. I'm driving home and I get to have another phone conversation with somebody named Richard that day. It was a Tuesday. Um, and do you remember what you said to me? I don't know if you remember what you said to me in that conversation.
SPEAKER_00:What did I say?
SPEAKER_03:I was contemplating what to do because up until this point, I had intended to basically stay at Pasadena. I didn't have any intentions or plans to leave that church. I thought that we would just stay there, be pew warmers, you know, go to South School, maybe raise a few points here and there, right? Um, and then we basically prayed and said, Hey, you know, we're gonna stay at this church until God tells us otherwise. And Tina and I kind of committed to that. And our kids, you know, they liked it there, so we figured, okay, it'd be good. So I'm having this conversation with you, Richard, uh, as I'm driving home after I spent the morning with John. I'm starting to heal, and and I don't I forget whether you called or whether I called you, but you know, it was a good conversation. And you said something to me that really impacted me. You said, um, what do you say?
SPEAKER_00:I said, I now remember you I said, Matthew, you don't need to prove that you're a good dude. You're you're a good dude.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you said loving.
SPEAKER_00:I said a loving dude, okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you said you don't need to prove that you're a loving guy. You are a loving guy. That's what you said. And and so it made me realize that that maybe part of the reason why I wanted to stay was to prove a point.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe.
SPEAKER_03:And so I think I think the Lord was kind of opening certain things in my heart to to humble me, to you know, inviting me to do some introspection to think about okay, what are the reasons behind these decisions? Um anyway, I get in the house, um, having dinner with the kids, hanging out, and then out of nowhere, I get a phone call. So this is the third conversation I had for this day, the day after the board meeting. A phone call from a local pastor from at a different church. And he had heard about what had happened, and he called just to offer encouragement, to offer hope, and to lend a listening ear. And I was in shock because I was like, I didn't ask for this. This guy doesn't know me from Adam, and he heard about it because you know, things within the Pathfinder Director community stuff gets around, I guess. And I guess his Pathfinder Director had mentioned something to him, and he felt compelled to reach out. And so he reached out and we had a great conversation. We spoke for over an hour about the gospel, and Tina's listening in on speakerphone, she's like raising her hands in praise because like the stuff that he was saying was just like so life-giving. It was like healing to our souls, right? And at the end of the conversation, he basically said, Hey, if you guys need a place to heal, if you need a space to feel safe and and and secure, my church is wide open. So he clearly he probably was doing a little bit of sheep stealing there, but no sheep stealing there. It was over.
SPEAKER_01:It was over.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, man. So I think after that conversation, I felt completely free to make the decision to basically say, okay, I think my time is up here. Um God used me to the degree that I was able to be used here at Pastadina. It's time to move on. And so we made up our minds that night, kind of 95%-ish, that we were just gonna be done with Pasadena and eventually go to actually his church, uh, to be honest with you. So that was Tuesday night. Tuesday night, and I felt this weight just come off my shoulders, right? Between John's hugs, your your insight, and this pastor's phone call, it just started to invigorate this life within me that that was there all along, but just need a little bit of help to kind of come out. And and that actually prepared me for the the next meeting, which was um on Wednesday. I I just had this piece about it because I knew that I didn't have to stay. I mean, literally, that's that's why I had this piece about it. And this meeting was probably the more consequential one because this is where kind of everything just got brought out, and the parents were able to see firsthand um kind of the dynamic that the leadership had within themselves, among themselves, and between me and them. So this was Wednesday night, right? This was like seven o'clock at night, we start the meeting, and I walk in, and the first thing I noticed right away was that there was already an antagonistic layout in terms of the seating, right? So the parents and myself and all the families and parents' families, we were seated in the pews in the sanctuary. And then there was this row of chairs in the front, just below the podium. And on this, on those chairs were seated all the leaders that were, you know, basically responsible for asking me to resign. And and right away, it's like, wait, why can't we just I'm asking the question, even my wife asked the question, why can't we sit around in a circle like a family and hash this thing out? Why does it have to be this way, like this panel, and then us, right? There's already there's this antagonistic dynamic being set up in terms of the seating. Um so anyway, that was a seating arrangement. And then they basically had me get up in front of a mic in front of them, and I started to get grilled, and it was it was brutal.
SPEAKER_00:It was brutal. There's so many meetings, man. Like enough of the meetings.
SPEAKER_03:Sick of meetings, bro.
SPEAKER_04:I don't want any more.
SPEAKER_03:But check this out. So they they and thankfully this is the last meeting, right? So um they start to grill me, and I I don't remember all the questions, but I remember one of the a few of them. So um I think the first thing that they wanted to ask about was what is your involvement with love reality? Okay, then they started asking stuff like, are the sermons here legalistic? Are we preaching righteousness by works? Okay. And then another question was, is this a legalistic church? Do you think that this is a legalistic church? And then another question was like, uh, do you have the true gospel and we have the false gospel? It's like, okay. And then they had me repeat again the whole Blackboard incident, they kind of like give another account of that, okay? So which I did. And then they started asking stuff like, okay, do you affirm the 28 fundamentals of the SDA church? And this last question kind of got us, or maybe not so much me, but some of the parents, a lot of the parents. It got them riled up, right? This last question was was kind of interesting. Matthew, why don't you stand up for the appeals at the end of the sermons anymore?
SPEAKER_00:This is weird, man. Yeah. That's like a that's like that's over the line. Like that they get that's getting personal and yeah, man.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, I I again like these, I'm just I'm just giving an account of what I heard that night. The questions. I'm not gonna try to, you know, assume that I knew the the motive or the spirit behind each of these questions, but this is what was asked. Some of the questions I just actually most of them I just did not answer. I did I I felt like I didn't, I I didn't want to answer them. I felt like my conscience was being probed. Um, you know, and this last question about me not standing up for the appeals, that I actually had no answer for that. I just was silent. But right away, one of the parents stood up and very, very vehemently, and and and and he was very animated, basically said, and almost almost yelling, you can't ask that question. You're not the one who gets Matthew to stand up for an appeal. That's the Holy Spirit's job. Right? And and you know, he was really animated. We had to get him to calm down, sit down, right? And and and the leaders are like, let Matthew answer the question. He's a grown man, he can answer the question. So anyway, the meeting goes on, and later I find out that when that question was asked, some parents came to me after the fact and said that whatever respect they had for the leadership of that moment just completely eroded after that. Because it was just it was just kind of like uh like why would you ask something like that, right? So, anyway, after they grilled me, um, they gave the parents an opportunity to speak and they each took a turn. It was a long, drawn-out meeting, and to their credit, they wanted to give everybody an opportunity to speak. And the meeting lasted a total of four and a half hours, right?
SPEAKER_01:Four and a half hours.
SPEAKER_03:It was crazy. It was wild, man. So Tina goes first. Like she insisted on going first right after me, which which I thought was appropriate. I mean, she was the one that was seen firsthand what I was going through. And she had prepared this four-page letter. She wrote a four-page letter, and she and I knew she had written this letter, and I asked, could I read it first? And she would not let me read this letter. Wow. You know, and she's like, No, I'm not letting you read that. I was like, why not? Because you're gonna make me change it. I'm like, no, I won't. Like, why don't you let she wanted to be free to speak her mind, I guess. So so she reads this letter to all the leaders, and she calls people out by name, and she's just handing it to them, chapter and verse, about how there was no due process. Matthew 18 was not followed. You do not consult the parents. This is a total train wreck. And she went down the line person by person, and it was it was intense. And um, you know, you you know Tina. I mean, she's that's just not her. Like she's just really sweet and humble and kind, you know. And here she is like, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, you know. Yeah, it was pretty interesting to see. Um, and so every parent had an opportunity to express their concerns, and you know, they they spoke their minds, and a few highlights kind of popped out at me. Um one parent asked the question that I asked her in the board meeting, which was, what did Matthew teach that was so wrong? And what did you do about it? And what is the path forward for this club? And every single time that question was asked during this meeting, it went back to the same answer. Love reality teaches this. Richard Young says this, Jonathan Leonardo says this. Okay, but what about Matthew? What did he say or do? It just went back to this love reality thing. And in fact, one of the leaders had written a 66-page document about love reality. And um, it was offered to the parents for their uh perusal as part of this deliberation, I suppose. Um and I don't know, I I didn't I didn't get a copy of it, I don't know exactly what's written in it, but I I can't imagine that it was in any way in favor of love reality as a ministry.
SPEAKER_00:Probably not.
SPEAKER_03:Probably not. And and then one of the last comments that was made was hey, you parents, how would you feel or would you be pushing back this hard if God was here saying these things? Because here's the truth. We've been praying about this. We as a leaders of the church, we have been praying about this, and we have been led to this decision. This is God's will.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Matthew hasn't been praying about it, Tina hasn't been praying about it, the Pathfinders haven't been praying about it. Yeah, that's that's manipulation, bro.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so that was what was stated, and the parents did not like that. Um, but for me, after all was said and done, you know, uh the meeting adjourned, I had a sense of peace about it. No shame. I didn't feel any shame this moment. I had hope, actually. All the kids were in God's hands, right? And so right as the meeting adjourned, I I uh got up out of my seat right away and I went to every single one of the leaders seated on those chairs, and I gave them a handshake and a hug. And I just wanted to affirm our relationship and maintain that relationship and that friendship and make sure that the air was clear between us. And and I think that was that was cool, I think, because they received it. Um and uh a lot of parents came up to me after the fact and said that, hey man, how could you do that? Like, how could you do how were you able to do that? And say, well, you know, like there's just no shame, there's just no fear. It's just it's all love, and you know, I can't hold anything against anybody. And that's and that's just the truth. When you walk in gospel freedom, you regard no one in the flesh, and God is good.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah. Do I uh can I can I minister to you here for a second?
SPEAKER_03:Umly if it's good.
SPEAKER_00:So coming from somebody who's had a similar experience, and I'm sure the people that are listening, like these kind of things happen all of the time in life. Maybe it's not your job, maybe it's not your church, maybe it's a relationship. But things fall apart and things don't always go the way we want, even though we have the best intentions and we're aiming to love God. And they fall apart. The problem is that we don't actually accept that they that they happened, we don't actually accept it and it gets stuck and it gets to be this thing that like if the name of one of the elders ever gets brought up in your mind, you feel something, you feel it. Ooh. If the name of that church gets brought up, ooh, like if you're not careful, and I'm saying this because this has been my experience, like you can walk around with a wound, an open wound, and you don't want anybody to touch that wound because and you also don't want it to be healed because you don't want to forget because you're still upset. And it's never worth it to not accept it. It's never worth it to not let go of it. Once we accept this thing, forgiveness is about release. We release it, we release it all. And if you're at a new new church and and someone says, Hey, where'd you go to church? and you have that feeling come in, release it. And you might have to release it over and over and over again, but you don't want this thing to be a thing that just like hits your heart and sticks there so that you always have this ill will or this feeling. There's certainly pain because there was so much love for this church and for this community. And I'm not saying don't feel pain, but we can feel pain without it leading to our suffering, and our suffering is where we hold on to bitterness, we hold on to resentment, we don't release it. And so like I know people that like Church Hurt has been eating their lunch for years, or people that like a divorce has been eating their lunch for years. And in many ways, they're not even divorced, like they're divorced by the law, but that person, that spouse is still living in their head rent-free, and every time that comes up, it's pain and suffering. And what I would say with whoever's listening to this, you know, we we we we tell the story because you know it means something, but also God is good, God wants you to not live with that even though it happened. Life is going to life, and we release people, we release things, and I had to do it over and over again. If it comes up and I feel it, I do it again. And it's never worth closing up and not letting that thing just okay, like it happened, and God bless those people. We release I release it. I'm not gonna let it take my lunch. Does that does that make sense? I'm just saying it because it was my experience, and some of the stuff I didn't let go, and I had to continue to let go and continue to let go.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah, no, I really appreciate that, man. Um, yes, I need to let go and I need to acknowledge what happened. I do need to acknowledge the hurt, and I have in many different ways, and I continue to explore healing and receive healing from from actually some very unlikely sources and some from very well-known sources, you know. And and you know, we know this, and you know, this is something that Byron always says, you know, we experience our emotions on our bodies, you know. Yeah, it helps have a clinical psychologist on uh as a friend, right? The body keeps the score, right? It does, and actually keeps score on a molecular and cellular level. I mean, trauma is is absorbed by the body and it's it's stored on a cellular level, you know, as as as we uh are understanding from research. And this trauma needs to be released through many different ways, right? Uh first and foremost, confessing it. We believe in confessing the truth, confessing the truth of who you are, confessing the truth of who God is, and confessing the bitterness and the anxiety and the hurt and the frustration. You gotta get it out. Verbalizing it and articulating is very healing.
SPEAKER_00:And so God You know that people that talk to themselves are less likely to get sick because they hear it coming out of they like your ears hear what your mouth is saying, and so if you're holding on and resisting your body, like if you realize that you're getting tight in thinking about it, that's the moment you got to release it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like if you're feeling any tension about it, like I audibly say, I'm letting it go. Sometimes I'm by myself in my car, and my mind tells me something, and I'm like, nope, letting it go. Like I did that today in the car. I actually I moved my hand like this. I didn't do it for on purpose, I was just like, nope, because a thought came into my mind that I didn't want to consider, and I was like, nope, letting it go.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, man. No, that's that's so true, man. I'm I'm reminded of what it says in Psalm 32, man. If you don't mind, I'm just gonna read real quick because I actually held on, I held on to this verse um because I had to remind myself that holding on to it and allowing that toxicity to fester inside of you is so self-destructive, destructive. And it says this it says, um, for when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. This is Psalms 32, 3. Right? So if we keep silent about the hurt, if we keep silent about the frustration, the Bible actually says what we already know to be, what we know now through science is that our bones will waste away. We will experience adverse and deleterious health outcomes because of unconfessed psychological harm.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Right. So I 100% resonate with what you're saying. And and God knew that I needed this healing. And I said this to so many people, I felt like I lost myself in this moment. I lost not just a part of myself, I lost myself. I felt like I was in an abyss, like I said earlier, and I couldn't get out. And it wasn't until the Lord started to speak life into me. And then as I received that and as I opened up more and as I confessed more of the truth, that he was able to begin a work of healing in my heart. And check this out, man, on our last Sabbath at that church, we had committed to going to one more Sabbath, which is the 27th of September. That was the Sabbath after that Wednesday night meeting with all the parents. I took when Tina told everybody in her four-page letter that she was, we were gonna go to that one last Sabbath and say goodbyes. And we don't want people to think that we were leaving in a huff and a puff, which is why she she made it a point to kind of tell the story of the phone call and all that stuff and what led up to that. And so, so it got so good, man. On that last Sabbath, like God knew that we needed some encouragement. We needed some healing. And and wouldn't you know it? It was like kids' Sabbath, youth sabbath. And the Pathfinders were involved, they were in charge of conducting the service. Um, and one of the Pathfinders was scheduled to preach that day. And it was so beautiful because this Pathfinder gave their testimony about how they were baptized. This is a this is a different Pathfinder than the one I was talking about earlier when she was baptized. She said that, hey, Matthew and Tina was her spiritual mentor. This is a different Pathfinder preaching and telling her testimony about how she was baptized at Summer Camp this past summer. And she credited all these different things, including the Pathfinder Bible experience, Pathfinder leadership. And then she also referred to the whole summer camp experience from the year before. Mind you, the Pathfinder Club was the one that sponsored each of our Pathfinders to go to summer camp over at Pine Springs Ranch every year for the past two, three years. And so this ministry was a source of spiritual life for these kids. And just this past year, we had two baptisms. And so as she was preaching and she was testifying to the goodness of God, the whole congregation got to hear how the Pathfinder ministry impacted her. And there she was, a testament to the power of this club ministry.
SPEAKER_02:Amen.
SPEAKER_03:And yet they just asked their director to resign. And the club now, I mean, as I know, there's non-existent. We have 16 kids. I think there's only going to be three kids in that church left. So many families have decided to go their own way. And I don't know where everyone's going to land. But a lot of parents have expressed to me that they are decided to leave the church, leave that church and attend elsewhere. So it was it was a good Sabbath in the sense that I was able to receive that message from this Pathfinder who preached and affirmed and gave us encouragement. It was also good for us to say goodbye to people. There were lots of tears, but lots of hope, lots of encouragement too. It was beautiful. So it was it was a blessing to be in church on that final Sabbath and say our goodbyes. And and that made me realize how important church is to my family. You know, we make a big investment every week. We get the kids ready, get them dressed, feed them breakfast. Every Sabbath morning we get there. And it still is a very big part of our lives. I want my kids to be engaged in community and to have a place where they can thrive spiritually. And so God knows that. God knew that about us. And so He wanted to make sure that we landed in a place that was good and safe and that was life-giving. And here we are, you know, where we've been attending this church, and it's been amazing. Like now my kids are getting involved. My son is gonna be playing lead guitar, and the praise band is coming Sabbath, and so it's it's been beautiful.
SPEAKER_00:Or we can realize that all these things are are making us and not breaking us, and we're growing. And yeah, you could look at us, oh man, this thing happened, but then look at where you're at now. And look at how beautiful that is.
SPEAKER_03:It is, man. And I think I think a good way to kind of wrap up the story is to kind of the same way I know Byron just shared his podcast. Um, you know, he talked about the trip to Malibu. So I remember as as this whole thing was going down, like we were on this text thread with with the Riveras, you know, Byron and Brunel and Arnold and Sharon and John. And we're like, hey, we got to get together. So I suggested this place um, you know, in Malibu, uh this restaurant called Paradise Cove. And and so, you know, two and a half years after entering into gospel freedom, right? God has continued to show me how deep this thing really goes. And, you know, we're preparing to go to this lunch, and and I'm reflecting, I'm reflecting on the past two and a half years, and I've learned a lot, you know, and and really is this, right? It's in these moments that the gospel has its best opportunity to come alive. We have the privilege of practicing righteousness in the crucible. And I've learned that religious trauma is a real thing. You know, I actually went out and sought some professional help with a local pastor here, and they were very clear at calling out this situation as spiritual abuse. And in fact, they offered to stand with me if I wanted to uh to go to the conference about it, which which I have no intention of doing, nor did I ever plan on doing that. Um, but like what you're saying earlier, man, like I want to offer hope to people who have gone through or are going through similar situations. If you similar, if you if you suffered in a similar fashion, there is hope.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Right? And I'm reminded that people, church, religion, institutions, they will let you down. But God will never let you down.
SPEAKER_01:No.
SPEAKER_03:And I've also learned that relationships matter most. And I strive very hard to do everything that I can to maintain the best relational dynamic possible between me and and those around me, right? I mean, we we we know this from scripture that love does no harm to a neighbor. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love never fails, right? And so speaking of relationships, right? God, you know, he shows up in in a lot of different ways. And and in this situation, he showed up through the people that I had in my life, right? The Rivera's, man, they they shout out to Byron and Burnell, man. They they really supported me and Tina through this. And I know they had their story. Um, Byron shared it. I felt like his story was sort of like this this long-term, two and a half year um experience of being subjected to what I was subjected to in like a short amount of time, but very intense. Um and then Arnold and Sheridan, they were there, they they listened. I called Arnold a bunch of times just to kind of vent. And then obviously John. And then there's this guy named Richard. Right? No, but seriously, though, I want to thank you, man.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, look.
SPEAKER_03:I do want to thank you. Like you expressed a sincere desire for my emotional and spiritual well-being. So I I really appreciate that. You called me and you spoke life to me when my house burned down. And you showed up for me when I went through this whole you know recent dark chapter. So I say this, man, Richard, you're a pretty swell guy. I don't care what they say about you.
SPEAKER_00:Praise the Lord, man. No, we love you guys. And no, yeah, I I think I tell people to count the cost. And most of the time people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then stuff happens. And you know, the body of Christ, we bear each other's burdens because uh, you know, God loves us so much.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. And you you called me one day, like perfect timing. You called me on the way to Malibu. Um, I was driving, and you reached out just to check in. I was like, hey man, I'm about to go meet up with the with the homies over in Malibu, and we're gonna we're gonna have lunch, and we're gonna just we're gonna commemorate this this milestone in our gospel journey. Um and uh, you know, we were planning this thing, and it happened on October 12th, which is exactly four weeks after I received the phone call to uh to get to ask to be resigned, to ask to resign. And then and that day I ended up at the beach camping with the homeschool group, and so it's fitting that this part of the story ends at the beach as well. And so here we are having lunch at the beach, and it was a beautiful day. I mean, the weather could not have been more perfect, you know. And we're at Malibu having uh beach, literally in the sand. This restaurant is super dope. Like you you get served in the sand. Uh, you're sitting at this table, and it was so healing to have fellowship. We're laughing together, we're praying together. Um, and so you know, Byron came up with this great idea of us going down to the sand and confessing and writing down all the things that we want to give to God, right? So I wrote down things like bitterness, resentment, anger, fear, frustration, cynicism. Um, I was tempted to write the word hate, but I don't know if I really had that in me, but maybe, maybe not. I don't know. So I just wrote down a bunch of other stuff. And as as I'm writing this stuff down, as others are writing this stuff down, the waves come and they're washing it all away.
SPEAKER_00:Let's go.
SPEAKER_03:They're washing it all away. And it was, it was so healing just to not just confess it verbally, but to write it down in view of this entire beach. Like there's other people there, they're like looking at these crazy people. What are you guys doing in the sand, right? Just writing all this stuff. And so here we are, you know, a bunch of grown adults writing down these things in the sand. Waves are washing it away. It's a beautiful day, and the moment everything's washed away, we do the countdown, one, two, three, and we run into the water. And mind you, Southern California beaches are cold. It's cold, it's cold, yeah. And especially in the fall. So we get in there, but man, it was the warmest water I'd ever felt.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_03:Like just to be there with with with these people who've journeyed with me, people that love me, people that I love. And as the as the waves were just washing over us, I mean it was beautiful. And then I heard that same voice I heard four weeks prior. It just basically said, You're welcome. And here's the thing that I'm most grateful for. And and this is something that's super powerful. And see, Byron ended his story at the beach. I'm gonna take it next level and I'm gonna put this little piece in here because God is still working. There's a family that just joined our Pathfinder Club maybe January this year, and they're on the parent text thread. And when this whole thing was going down, one of the parents who who wasn't too keen on love reality mentions love reality in this thread. And the vast majority of parents have no idea what love reality is, including this family in particular. And so the parents get this message from one of the other parents who's trying to condemn this ministry and saying that it's bad. This is why Matthew actually probably does need to resign, etc., etc. Um, and so these parents who are new to our club, it piques their interest, and then they go to you know lovereality.org and they watch this six-minute video of Jonathan Leonardo breaking down the gospel in six minutes. I think it's the introduction video on the website.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And that was all they saw of Love Reality, and after that, they you know closed the laptop and went to their Bibles and started reading Romans chapter six.
SPEAKER_00:Let's go.
SPEAKER_03:And I kid you not, man, like this is what I'm hearing from them now. Matthew, we're reading the Bible through a brand new lens now.
SPEAKER_04:Matthew, man, like where has God been? Where has this God been my whole life? Oh wow. I've been an Adventist for 15 years. I've never seen it this way before. When the Bible says that we are free, we are free indeed.
SPEAKER_03:And so, out of all this, there's at least one family, and I can count maybe two or three others. They are starting to walk in freedom, my brother.
SPEAKER_00:God be praised, man.
SPEAKER_03:And it's all because of the grace of God. And I'll say this: if it means that a young person's life is changed, if it means that a seed is planted that God will water, if it means that a family can walk into gospel freedom and enjoy the fruits of their identity in Jesus Christ, if it means that I will gladly do this a whole another, maybe three, four times max.
SPEAKER_00:That's it. 100%, bro.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, bro.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know what, Matthew. God is going to keep growing us. We're gonna like. If we keep, you know, what does he say in Colossians 121-22? We just keep this faith, we can't let the cares of this world, and that's happened already, bro. I mean, I don't know what the devil's gotta do. He burned your house down, like all this stuff, like you're you're a monster now. For for the gospel, you're a fisher of men, and it's it's beautiful, and uh your life is a testimony of God's goodness, man. So we're gonna keep releasing all of this stuff. We're gonna walk with our chest out, and we're gonna tell people how much God loves us and how much he loves them, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, man, big facts. I love it. You know, God is so good. Um who would have thought that things would end up this way? But I'd say this um all things work together for good. Yeah, and you know, may God be praised. And I believe that there is no way you nor I or anyone else can ever stop the gospel from being advanced because it has been prophesied. This gospel will be preached unto all the world as a witness. That has been prophesied, and it is written.
SPEAKER_00:Do you beat people need to get down or lay down? Because it's right, it's coming. Thank you so much, man.