Inspirational Journeys: The Legacy of Faith, Altruism, and Community Impact with Rebecca D'Emic and Al Barth

Witness the transformative power of altruism and faith through the lives of Rebecca D'Emic, Al Barth, and their awe-inspiring journeys with Place of Hope. Rebecca, who began her path to philanthropy deeply moved at a Hope Bash event, takes us behind the scenes of her evolution from attendee to president of the Angel Moms. Her tale is not just one of personal growth, but also of the inspiring example she sets for her children, showcasing that true generosity can shape futures. Al Barth complements this narrative with insights into the trials faced when integrity and service are your guiding principles, especially in times of adversity.

The legacy of a pastor who dedicated his life to church planting and ministry echoes through the ages, shaping not only his daughter but entire communities with his commitment to spreading love and faith. His story is a testament to the indelible impact of a father's guidance, a beacon for those who seek to leave a meaningful mark on the world. From the intimate trials of personal faith to the expansive challenges of establishing urban ministries, we celebrate the qualities essential for leadership in these endeavors—love, honesty, and authenticity. 

We round off with an exploration of how personal faith can be both challenged and fortified by the trials of life. Rebecca shares her candid account of spiritual struggle and revelation, underpinned by the unwavering support of her family. The stories unravel to reveal the profound impact of each individual's ministry, both within their immediate circles and the broader ripple effects in the community, inviting listeners to reflect on their legacy and future aspirations.

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Transcript

Charles Bender: 0:02

Hello and thank you for tuning in to Ambassadors of Hope. I'm your host, Charles Bender. We're so excited that you've tuned in to hear from local South Florida leaders who are making a difference in our community and region through our charity Place of Hope.

Maya Elias: 0:20

Hello, I'm your producer, Maya Elias, and in this episode's conversation on the Ambassadors of Hope podcast by Place of Hope with Rebecca D'Emic and Al Barth, we cover various topics and involvement with Place of Hope the impact of faith on personal life, parenting and setting an example, the father's influence and role, church planting and integrity, faith during challenging times, Al's stories from working with Tim Keller making a difference locally and the exhortation to serve humanity.

Lisa McDulin: 0:57

Please continue listening on for the rest of this week's episode. So good morning, Al and Rebecca. Thank you so much for being with us on our Ambassadors of Hope podcast today. Would love to dive right into some of the questions that we have. And, Rebecca, I'm actually going to start with you, just because I know you better than I know your dad. I know you've been involved with Place of Hope for a few years and I'm wondering if you might just tell our listeners a little bit about your involvement with the organization and share with us how you came to know about us, the work that we do, and how God kind of tapped on your heart to get involved with us.

Rebecca D'Emic: 1:32

All right. Well, my youngest son had started school full time now he was in elementary school and I knew that it was time for me to start serving, whether that was at my church or a nonprofit. And one of my girlfriends, Carly Altier, invited me to the Hope Bash as her guest and my husband and I went and after the kids shared their testimony and heard what Place of Hope was doing, I was crying, you know, just hearing what these kids had been through and their circumstances and what Place of Hope was doing, and I was really surprised. I hadn't heard of it before because I've been in Boca for a long time and I thought, wow, I need to, this is something I need to pursue. So I went out to campus, took a tour, went to a coffee and connection and signed up to be on the next committee for the Angel Mom Brunch. It was the right time in my life where I knew I wanted to get involved. I do run a business and I have three small kids, so I knew I didn't have a ton of time, but I knew that it was important to tell other people about Place of Hope because I was surprised. Here I'm living.

Rebecca D'Emic: 2:29

I feel like I know a lot about what's happening in Boca, but I didn't know about Place of Hope, so that was really what was on my heart from the beginning. So getting on an event committee was like the perfect way to start because I could invite all my friends and start talking about it in the community and through our business, elegant Child, I come in contact with a lot of women from all different circles and groups and it's just an easy, easy way to engage different women, to get involved, and it's been great. I had lunch with you and you were able to sift through my giftings and really help me and encourage me to get involved with what worked with my life, and it was just a natural progression. I was on more committees and started engaging with other women serving on campus where there was opportunity, within my schedule and within my means of what I had to offer. Next thing, you know, a couple of years later, he asked me to help out, being the president of the Angel Moms. So I'm currently doing that.

Rebecca D'Emic: 3:27

I really feel like I'm where God wants me to be. I do feel like my gifting is engaging other people, other women, getting them involved. I have a loud voice through social media and just through my circle of friends. So I just try to share what Place of Hope is doing because I really believe in what's happening there.

Rebecca D'Emic: 3:48

It's not just a handout, it's a program that the kids get involved with, they move through and we're breaking the cycle of abuse and giving them the tools so that they can change how their future is going to look. And personally, why it has more meaning to me is because I did grow up in a super loving environment with two Christian parents who really provided every single need I had and gave me just a foundation of faith and security and peace and love, and I just can't imagine being where I am today without that support system. And so I look at these kids that don't have parents and sometimes the parents were the abusers themselves and I just it breaks my heart and I think, wow, I need to share from this love and supportive place that I had and do anything I can to help support the mission.

Lisa McDulin: 4:44

That's great and I know that we have appreciated the work that you've done and how you've used your voice, and I think that you know the misconception is with a lot of busy moms that are out there is that they don't have time. Right, I don't have time, I'm too busy, and yet I think this is a great opportunity to really show your children and we're going to tie that in a little bow in a minute but to show your kids you know what's important and let them see you serving and giving, making sacrifices, whether that's your time or your resources. And so you've been a really great example to so many of the other younger moms who are in the community in Boca Raton and the surrounding areas of what that can look like. You know, can you maybe address, you know what your kids have maybe learned as a result of you being a volunteer and being involved in a leadership role within a nonprofit.

Rebecca D'Emic: 5:40

Yeah, well, you know it's been an opportunity where I can let them see how important it is to give out of our abundance. You know, god blesses us with everything we have and it is important for us to be serving in our life wherever we're at. So much joy comes from that, and so Paul and I both serve he served through his work and we go out to campus and we've been there for the ribbon cuttings and the kids have helped before the events paint the feathers for the angel wings and they donate their own clothes and their toys and we talk about it. You know just of the situations these kids come from. We're very transparent with them about how blessed they are and how much these kids are in need. So just, it's a constant conversation that we're having and they know that sometimes mommy has to go to events or do things, but they understand why and another, just going off what you said about a lot of women don't feel like they have the time to be involved.

Rebecca D'Emic: 6:40

One thing that is really cool is I kind of get to do two things at once because a lot of my friends are serving at Place of Hope as well. It's also social. We have fun when we're doing this. It's a lot of times we get to do things together in groups with our kids. Even so, they get to see their friends there and we're all serving together. So it's really nice that we can kind of have an opportunity to combine social and serving. It's a side benefit that's a lot of fun.

Lisa McDulin: 7:06

That's great, and I know that you've shared with me more than one time that this was really something that your mom and dad passed on to you and that you learned from an early age and they set that example for you, and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to have both of you here. I thought that was such a special, unique, you know relationship that you all have. That's worth highlighting and talking about, because you know we are serving so many kids who don't have a father figure or mother figure in their life and if they did, maybe they weren't the best influence, and that's such an important element to all of this, and so we have an opportunity to step into these kids' lives and defend the case of the fatherless. That's part of our mission at Place of Hope. But you know your dad is sitting here and he's starting to fidget because he wants to talk and say something.

Maya Elias: 7:52

What I would love is.

Lisa McDulin: 7:54

Rebecca, I want you to introduce your dad. I want you to tell the audience this is my dad, this is who he is, and then we're going to talk to him for a minute, but I'd love to hear you.

Rebecca D'Emic: 8:06

I don't know if I can do my dad justice, but my dad is an amazing man. He's a pastor and he was a church planner most of my childhood. So we were moving into a new area and he was starting with nothing, building relationships and starting a church. He building relationships and starting a church he was such. A great example of how I look at God is how I see my dad, this beautiful balance of absolute love. But I had a very healthy fear of him.

Rebecca D'Emic: 8:43

He was strict, for sure, but in such a loving way, and there was definitely expectations in our household and discipline, but it was never out of anger. It was always a controlled, loving environment and I got to watch both my parents be in ministry since I was a little girl and I went early on Sunday mornings and set up the chairs in the school gym where we were setting up church that week and we were opening our home on Thanksgiving to people that didn't have anywhere to go and we were doing vacation Bible schools in our backyard and it was just all about building the church and they always included us in that, us in that. And so my father, al Barth, is a great man and has really walked the walk and lived out what it means to be a Christian in a just. I don't know how anybody does it better. I mean, he wasn't perfect. Oh, come on.

Lisa McDulin: 9:43

Oh, my goodness, grab the tissues. So, al sorry, we didn't mean to make you teary-eyed today, but I know you must be really proud of your daughter oh yeah.

Lisa McDulin: 9:54

The work that she does in the community and the fact that she's taking that legacy and she's passing it on to that next generation. And it's so great that you and your wife are here and you're local and you get to be a part of their lives. You're so invested in your grandkids' lives and I see you at the events too. I've seen all of you at either the brunch or the bash or the pickleball tournament saying the prayer, so I know the role that you play. And her life has been tremendous. She's told me about this and that was, like I said, one of the reasons I wanted to have you guys both on here. But, gosh, maybe you can now tell us a little bit more about kind of your background and where you got that from, because I'm sure that this came from somewhere yeah, sure, the um.

Al Barth: 10:43

so I was actually born and raised in Minneapolis, minnesota. A family moves to South Florida, to Naples, in the late 60s, really to get away from the cold. I came over to Boca to go to Florida Atlantic. My folks ended up moving back to Minnesota for a couple of years so I was very alone and alone in a number of ways. I was extremely young Back then. Fau didn't have freshmen and sophomores.

Amy Kazma: 11:09

Oh, wow.

Al Barth: 11:09

So I was 17 years old and I entered as a junior, which was weird. So everyone around me was much older, much more mature, and I felt very isolated. And, to make a long story short, I came to kind of an existential crisis and ended up giving my heart to Christ. So that's when I became a believer. After my wife and I married and we were in business for a couple of years, I ended up feeling called to ministry. So I would do my education in a number of different places and then would end up, as Rebecca was just saying, I planted four churches one in Tennessee, two on the west coast of Florida and one up in New York. That led me to. You know, the last 23 years or so I've been involved with helping to plant or helping guys create urban center church plants in the major cities of North America, europe, middle East and Africa, middle East and Africa.

Al Barth: 12:01

But what led to all this to get back to your question was I felt when I came to Christ that the Father really loved me unconditionally, sorry. So that experience of unconditional love from a father and my father was was my earthly father was a little severe. It was germanic father. That was very demanding and I didn't feel all that much affection. I'm sure he loved me, but, but he didn't feel that. But when I came to christ, I began to experience this love of a father that was unreserved, so that what that did is it created within me a response of both gratitude and love, you know.

Al Barth: 12:50

So that's, that's what has driven my life of faith. You know my life as a father. You know that sort of thing, um, and there was a good, solid, you know, kind of, uh, disciplinary environment. You know, within my home, uh and I think I carried that through, you know. So we would have expectations of the kids. We would expect them to be quiet, be respectful, be loving. You know these kinds of things. And so when they were selfish or self-centered or whatever, we would discourage that and encourage them to to give it others. So that's been the driving force of my life.

Lisa McDulin: 13:23

That's great.

Charles Bender: 13:24

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Lisa McDulin: 13:56

Now, Rebecca, you have shared with me that your personal journey has taken you sort of through lots of different phases of your faith and I know that your dad and your mom played a role in your journey and your faith journey and I'm wondering if you can share a specific memory or an experience that stands out, you know, where your faith in God played a significant role in guiding your path, especially during very challenging times and kind of how your dad walked alongside of that with you.

Rebecca D'Emic: 14:22

There's been lots of different tragic moments where my faith has grown deeper. I definitely accepted Christ early on and was involved in the church my whole childhood until we moved to New York for my dad's church plant in the middle of high school and that was a really challenging time for me where I had a hard time making friends. It was a very wealthy community and we were not, and I ended up just making friends with whoever would be my friend and it ended up being a bad, a bad group of kids and I started to stray. And that continued into my college years until I had, you know, just woke up one morning after doing drugs and partying and still thinking I'm a Christian and living my life for God. But I have this total other life that has kind of taken form and just got to the end of myself and was disgusted with where I was and was kind of shocked at how did I get to this point in my life. But because of the foundation that my parents laid, I always read my Bible and I always went to church, even in the midst of all the partying. I was just really leading these two lives side by side, still considered myself a Christian completely but was not living my life dependent upon Christ, and opened up my Bible to Ephesians 5 and read the passage of living as a child of a light versus the child of the darkness, and here I thought I was living as a child of the light but everything that I read as a child of the darkness was describing my life currently. So that was humbling and turning point and a deepening in my faith where God really exposed my sin and drew me back to him. And that was from the foundation that my parents laid. You know, our whole childhood doing family devotions, reading the Bible together, praying together as a family, going to church, no matter what, and then recommitted my life to God, ended up meeting a man who was not a Christian and I thought I would reform him and get him to know the Lord and we ended up getting married quickly and I think he ended up professing he made a commitment to the Lord, but I don't think it really happened in his life. Don't think it really happened in his life. I think it was just kind of so we could get married and two years later he ended up having an affair and asked for a divorce. And that was another time in my life where I just was at the end. It was just my whole life as I knew it was over. You know, here I was going to be a divorced woman. No man would ever want me.

Rebecca D'Emic: 17:19

My dad drives down through the night, rescues me from Auburn University, where we were living at the time, and was just by my side and just reminded me of how loved I was and that this isn't the end and that there is hope. And he was my rock and a physical presence there to just help me get my focus back on. What is this life about? Bringing worth and value to my life that wasn't based on my circumstances. And shortly after that, he brought me on a trip to Europe with him for two weeks and I was a mess. I mean, I was just nonstop crying, every day, all day.

Rebecca D'Emic: 18:02

What's going to happen with my life now? I really didn't know what was going to happen and we were meeting in city after city with these godly men, these pastors all over Europe, and just being by him and having conversations with him about forgiveness and how I'm going to have to forgive my ex-husband, how I'm going to have to forgive the woman he had an affair with, you know, and just practically having this godly man, my father, with me to show me God's love through that time I'm just so thankful for because that time was so life-changing, you know just another deeper level of my relationship with God and that he is my true husband and he is. He is my lover and he is my identity, and that's what I'm going to move forward in.

Lisa McDulin: 18:52

Is it amazing to listen to her just share that part of her testimony and the impression that you made not only the Lord made on her, but that you did. And that's hard as a parent when you see your kids going one direction and you know that's not maybe what you taught them to do and then you know it's almost like the prodigal son, you know where. You just welcome them back with open arms and you love them unconditionally anyway. What kind of goes through your mind as you hear her recount some of this?

Al Barth: 19:23

Well, I mean just on the you know, straightforward level.

Al Barth: 19:26

You know, I just think we need to be there for our kids, you need to be with them.

Al Barth: 19:31

You know, even in the Bible, you know, as Job goes through incredible suffering, you know there are friends that come and just sit with him in the ashes, and that's oftentimes what we need to do is just be there in those dark moments. And, sure, each of our children had moments at which, maybe more than a moment, but a period of time, where they were rebelling against maybe all that they hadn't learned and thought and that kind of thing, and you just have to stay with them and hope and pray that they'll return to the things that you've taught them and that sort of thing. And what was really interesting for us, I think, was that pretty much after college or maybe even during, you know, late university, with a number of them, our kids became our best friends, which was just a great relationship. When you're no longer under the authority of your parents, you can make decisions that you want to make. That's when you kind of see the proof of whether or not they're on the right path.

Lisa McDulin: 20:32

And what an awesome opportunity that you had to take her along with you over to Europe, as she said. So you were church planting at the time.

Al Barth: 20:41

What I would do is I would help national guys plant churches in their cities. One of the funny things about that trip was I knew Becca was not in a good place and it would be good for us to be together, and ironically I ended up finding an unbelievably cheap fare. So we flew nonstop to Europe round trip for $179 a piece.

Al Barth: 21:05

It was crazy and then we did the whole Eurail things. We were on trains together from this place, that place and you would just have time to really talk and, you know, experience something different and be out of out of pocket and I I think that was restorative. She was also reading a book by Rick Rick Warren, purpose Driven Life, which I think really helped her sort through you know a lot, a lot of things. So it's a good book. Yeah, it's a great book.

Amy Kazma: 21:31

Yeah, I'm Amy Kazma and I have been involved with Place of Hope since 2018. Well, I have to say my philanthropic career, or volunteer career, really started, I guess, in college, when I was in a sorority. I always volunteered when I was in college for different organizations and programs. I would have to say the biggest influence is probably my mom. She always would volunteer at church and, of course, with my sisters and I, various activities. After our father passed away of a heart attack, she got involved with the American Heart Association, so I always watched her volunteer as I grew up in various stages of our life.

Amy Kazma: 22:08

Place of Hope was brought to my attention through a mutual friend who contacted me to see if I was interested in doing a sponsorship for their Angel Moms Brunch. I read the information, shared it with my husband and we both agreed that it was something that we wanted to support. So my first exposure to Place of Hope was to an Angel Moms Brunch and I've been involved since then and I think the organization really resonates with me because, based on most of the volunteerism and philanthropy that we do is with children and education. I think about my own children and you know, when they turned 18 and they were in no way prepared to reach out and be in the world on their own, and it's amazing that Place of Hope does all these wraparound services for these children who have aged out of foster care and at 18 really aren't prepared to live on their own.

Amy Kazma: 23:01

I think what Place of Hope does is so inspiring, not only on the Boca campus but throughout the other campuses in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast. They offer something that no other organization that I have been affiliated with does, something that no other organization that I have been affiliated with does. You know, I hope that the children here learn that no obstacle can be overcome. I have to say most of my dearest and closest friends I have met through volunteerism. It has brought me so much self-esteem to help people. It enriches my life to know that I can maybe do something small to change somebody else's life. I feel sometimes that I get so much more out of volunteering and bring so much more to my life than what maybe I'm putting out there.

Lisa McDulin: 23:49

So let's talk about the church planning piece okay, because I know that's what you love doing and that you're traveling all over. You've been a catalyst for church planting across many regions, as you just shared with us. Can you recall a particular moment or a story where the importance of integrity was a defining factor in the success of a church planting endeavor, or in your work with Redeemer City?

Al Barth: 24:48

endeavor, or in your work with Redeemer City. For the last 23 years or so, I've been officially employed as a catalyst, coming alongside young leaders and helping them do what I would describe as even though we say church planting, that doesn't mean a lot for a lot of people, but I would be helping them form communities of people that would love each other and try to figure out what does it mean to really follow Christ and then also how to demonstrate God's love to the community around it. So that's, that's the nature of it, character qualities. You know the the the primary thing that good leaders of churches need to do is they.

Al Barth: 25:27

They need to one love people and really care about people they need to be honest, you know, they need to be authentic in relation to uh, none of us are perfect, you know. So we have flaws and that kind of thing. So you don't hide from people. So even even like with the kids, we never made them kind of conform to an image. If you will be quiet, be perfectly dressed, all that kind of thing. Just that's not who we are as people. So I think they had the freedom to kind of form. But out of all the churches that were planted in Europe I think there was a couple hundred that were planted we probably only had three or four failures, uh. Thankfully, only one of them was moral, uh, and then several of the other ones were merely because the situation wasn't right. You know, the guy wasn't in the right place or he wasn't the right leader, the not the right gift mix, that kind of thing but, those internal qualities were just incredibly important.

Al Barth: 26:25

You know, living the Christian life is not necessarily easy. All kinds of challenges.

Al Barth: 26:29

And as a leader you know you can. You can idolize and this may sound weird outside of church circles, but many times leaders gauge who they are by how many people are coming, which is the wrong criteria. And so keeping them from that and actually trying to help them figure out how do I really live out that, the fact that God loves me and that God offers his love to everyone in the world, and demonstrate that. But I don't know if that really goes quite to the integrity piece. But there have been a together of people and the kind of helping people get started.

Lisa McDulin: 27:20

I can see the influence that you've had over your daughter in what she does and her gifts and her skills that she's been using at Place of Hope I mean Rebecca, that's what you do.

Rebecca D'Emic: 27:32

Totally, I'm his mini-me. You really are.

Lisa McDulin: 27:35

Like you really are, like that's your natural gifting is connecting and bringing people together and building, and that's what you've been doing, and she had to learn that from you, and I think it comes from a real love for people.

Rebecca D'Emic: 27:53

You know, really loving people is what makes that happen, and I'm thankful that. I was made like that and got to see an example.

Al Barth: 28:02

It has been interesting that both my wife, rebecca's mom and all three of the kids seem to be just incredibly entrepreneurial. They tend to be risk takers. They start new things, they enter into situations with confidence and then they put all the pieces together and then they work their tails off, you know, or to to see it be done. That's great. I'm incredibly proud of becca and all the things she's doing. So she's uh, I think she's very much personality wise. She is that connector. She puts people together, helps them figure out, you know how they can serve Christ or serve an organization like Place of Hope and really make a difference in people's lives.

Lisa McDulin: 28:43

Yeah. So now we're past all of those things that happened a long time ago in her life and you're you're here today. What do you, what do you think are some of the ways that you are impressing upon her now, at this stage in her life? I mean, I know that wasn't one of the questions we were going to ask, but I'm just curious how do you support her in what she's doing at this point in her life?

Rebecca D'Emic: 29:13

as a dad.

Al Barth: 29:14

Yeah, I don't know how much it's support or whatever you know.

Rebecca D'Emic: 29:18

Well, I could say one thing go ahead some of it is uh the financial support of uh both, that's true my father and my mother uh sponsoring events at place of hope um on my behalf, so I can invite potential donors, potential people that want to be more involved with Place of Hope. So that's one practical way immediately, I could think of.

Al Barth: 29:38

You know several other things that may not go quite to that, but you know so. The church that I'm connected with now, spanish River Church, and you know I've only been on staff for not even quite two years, but they have a whole track record of folks in that church that are engaged with not only place of hope but other charitable organizations. You know kind of in this area and, and you know so, one of the things that we want to do as a church literally is promote people. Don't just give money to the church, although the church needs support in order to do this ministry. You guys need to be involved in all these different places. So seeing Rebecca, or you know people like Kelly Fleming or others engage, give, you know, care about, you know that kind of thing is good, no-transcript, all led by native leaders and that hopefully will bring about changes, because the very things that they that well, that many of the people that you work with, they experience unbelievable trauma in the home unbelievable deprivation.

Al Barth: 31:17

So something's got to make a difference, and so I suppose that that's parallel to what Becca's trying to hear locally is help engage with really good organizations that are making a difference yeah, that's great that that display integrity.

Rebecca D'Emic: 31:31

you know that's one of the things that attracted me so much to place of hope was everything I've been a part of with Place of Hope is done with transparency, with integrity. They use their resources to the best potential they possibly can and it's an organization I'm really proud to be associated with because of what they're doing, with what they've been given, to really change lives.

Lisa McDulin: 31:55

We strive to. You know, and I'm thinking as I'm sitting here, listening to you talk to and and knowing the impact you've made on your kids' lives, your grandparent, your grandkids' lives, it'd be great to have you come and speak to our kids sometime. At Place of Hope, we do leadership and career days. I mean one of the things that's part of our program at Villages of Hope, which is the post-18, we're dealing with kids who have aged out of the foster care system, who otherwise might be homeless, single moms and, like some of the people that you just mentioned, I mean they've had unimaginable trauma happen in their lives and so some of the very basic, fundamental things that we take for granted, that we got from our parents, these, these kids don't. They've never experienced that, and so when we do these leadership and career days, it's an opportunity for people like yourself. So I'm going to call you feel.

Lisa McDulin: 32:48

Feel free to do so, come in and and just speak some life into them and and to you know, share their life experiences, and in some cases I mean that that can involve, I mean you know, some area of business or expertise that you have that you know just might plant the seed in them to have an interest in taking a look at doing something different. Because I think too, I mean a lot of these kids lack direction. They don't really know what they want to do. They haven't grown up in a home where they saw a mom or a dad basically set a good example. And I mean Rebecca watched you do what you did for such a long time, and she may not be planting churches, but she's planting good seeds in her community and she's making an impact on other people around her, not only just for the kids at Place of Hope, but in the lives of these other women, I mean, and I've seen how you've done that too, and that's really remarkable. I think it's been a great way.

Lisa McDulin: 33:52

One of my goals has always been to try to give women basically a platform and a place where they can come and they can use their God-given gifts and their abilities. That I think so oftentimes as moms we put them up on a shelf. We forget about them because we're so busy with our lives and our kids and our husbands and other priorities that we forget. You know to use them, so I just went like all around, You're the gift finder.

Lisa McDulin: 34:22

Well try to be. Try to be Okay. So I know that you worked with Tim Keller and I know he recently passed away and Rebecca sends me podcasts and different sermons to listen to that she thinks that I would enjoy. But tell me what that was like working with him.

Al Barth: 34:43

I first met Tim when he was quite young and nobody knew who he was. I suppose he was probably 30s, but there were a group of us kind of young Turks, so to speak. You know, we were going to set out to change the world. We were all late 20s, early 30s or something like that, and one of my buddies had heard Tim give a presentation on mercy ministry. This was long before he goes to New York and he comes out away from this and he said you know, this guy is really interesting. He's got a really interesting perspective on things. We need to start following him. So Tim ends up becoming a friend of a number of us and then he would go to New York in 1989, he and Kathy Honestly most of us who were his friends thought he will fail. You know, new York is a place that breaks ministers in half. So we'd already tried to plant a church at one point of the nomination and it failed utterly. So Tim's going to walk into Manhattan, one of the most dense, powerful, arrogant places in the world. And how in the world do you start a church in the middle of a place like that? So, even though we loved him and we thought he was really smart. That kind of thing with the thought was man better you than me? I can't imagine, you know. So let's watch. And then what was crazy was the result of both his primary work he and Kathy really trying to figure out how to contextualize ministry for the particular Manhattan situation and I think there was a special outpouring of the Spirit in the first three years. They saw about a thousand people come to Christ very, very quickly, you know, people that were coming from really non-Christian backgrounds. So then, a few years later, tim asked me if I would come up and plant a daughter church of that church, and this is 1995. And so that's the one Becca was referring to.

Al Barth: 36:42

When we moved to New York we began meeting together with three guys that were starting the first three churches. We would meet with either Tim or one of the other pastors on staff there just trying to figure out how to do work in the city and what took place, because even at that time Tim really didn't know how to plant a church in a city. So even though he was six years into it, it had been just this incredible ride and they're trying different things and you know. So that actually gave him the opportunity to begin to think through and articulate well, what had they done that had really worked? We're sharing them together. So I'm just, I think, I guess two years younger than Tim, something like that. It was a group of us that were talking together. So it became a friendship that was very fruitful in a lot of ways.

Al Barth: 37:29

And then when we created what was called the Church Planting Center in 2000, I left the church that I planted and came on board with that, and so we had a very, we had a very close relationship, not necessarily intimate, you know, tim, tim. Tim was more intimate in his preaching than actually in relationships. You know, he's actually very introverted. So it it, it was. It was great, you know, having this, this good relationship, good working relationship. It was always profitable, you know, I think, and it worked, uh, worked, worked both ways. But, uh, it was incredible privilege to actually take what he had been learning in New York and to be able to help others across the world grab ahold of those principles and then literally affect the world for Christ.

Lisa McDulin: 38:12

Amazing. And you said that, that that that was a difficult market to to break into what?

Maya Elias: 38:17

but.

Lisa McDulin: 38:17

I would imagine that some of the cities that you might have gone to in europe might have been even more spiritually deprived oh, yes, very definitely.

Al Barth: 38:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah it's. You know it's a weird dynamic and I don't know how much you want to hear about this kind of thing, but one of the things that we discovered I suspect is the way to put it is people living in these large cities globalized cities are actually more like each other than they are like people in the countryside. So if you take somebody from Manhattan and somebody from Hong Kong, they're going to have all kinds of commonalities. But if you take somebody from 100 miles west of New York, in Pennsylvania, and, and somebody that's a hundred miles inland from Hong Kong, there's almost no shared, you know similarities.

Al Barth: 39:02

But Hong Kong, paris, london, singapore, all these different places, they all speak the same language. They're all financial centers you know all those kinds of things and and for the most part, they've been the most resistant places to the gospel. And, of course, they're wildly, you know multi-ethnic, all kinds of cultures, you know they're coming together. So it was interesting having that opportunity. I think it was a moment in time where the whole world was becoming globalized and so the kinds of things that we were learning actually would work in other places.

Lisa McDulin: 39:37

It's really fascinating how it's.

Lisa McDulin: 39:40

You know, literally you can watch the things that the Bible said would happen coming to life and you know the whole world kind of just being exposed to all of this and you can see it now because of all of the technology and everything that's in front of us, which is pretty incredible. But I think we have an opportunity in our own backyard to make a difference. Yes, we need to go into all the earth, but I think for those of us who can't do that, we can make a difference right where we live and we work and we play and we raise our families, and I think that your family has certainly demonstrated that in Booker Tone in South Florida. You've been just instrumental in creating such incredible awareness in your church family, in the community, in the work you've done for Place of Hope, and we appreciate the impact that you've made on Rebecca's life, because she's making a difference in the lives of so many other women and families that are around us and, in turn, because of the work that she does and the impact that you've made on her as a father, that's making a difference for the kids that are living in a place of hope, and I just, I really just wanted you all to know that Thank you Good, absolutely, absolutely. So I just, I really just wanted you all to know that Thank you Good, it's a privilege Absolutely.

Al Barth: 40:58

So I just turned 70.

Lisa McDulin: 41:01

Happy birthday Late happy birthday. It was a month ago, Okay. Well, that's still.

Al Barth: 41:06

But you know, so in my mind and this may be a weird, weird way to think but I think I've got 12 or 15 years left to actually do a number of things. And so, even with this Native American thing that I'm working on, you know, this is all fun, but there is tremendous potential in these communities of people that are 60, 62, 65, 68. Of people that are 60, 62, 65, 68, and to use a lot of the wisdom and the knowledge and the experience and their power both financial as well as in terms of learning that kind of thing to impact people's lives. And even though I like to play golf I really don't play much golf anymore, but I love to play golf I really don't play much golf anymore, but I love to play golf I can't imagine playing golf three times a week and then sitting around and reading novels and just what. No?

Al Barth: 42:05

So the very thing that Becca was talking about as people get involved, making a difference in other people's lives, what they do is they form really good friendships with other people, which are life-giving, and you make a difference. So I would want to challenge people to say, hey, listen, if you're going to retire early, or even if you're retiring late, you know. Think about using the years you have to to serve humanity. It's actually much more life-giving than just kind of taking a vacation to this place or that place. Nothing wrong with those things, you know, we have the, we have the right to do those things. But we ought to be trying to figure out how, how can we fulfill God's ultimate purpose for us, no matter what faith you're, you're, you're coming from?

Lisa McDulin: 42:48

Yeah, no, I would agree with that. That's a great, that's a great note to end on. Thank you for that. Appreciate it. Thank you both. Thanks for having us Absolutely. We appreciate all your wisdom.

Charles Bender: 43:01

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