Episode 7 - Following God's Plan for Making Disciples and Building His Church with Josh Smith

We sit down with Bay Area native, Josh Smith, and hear his story of how God took a Bay Area kid and turned him into a pastor of a thriving church in the East Bay. God got ahold of his life and heart and gave him a desire to reach the Bay for Christ through the church.

We discuss the theology of making disciples as well as church revitalization. 

Josh Smith is the Pastor of Arroyo Church in Livermore, CA. 

To learn more about this podcast and more that we are doing, you can go to bayareatheology.org. 

This is a podcast of Bayseed Collective. Learn more at bayseed.org. 

This is Theology from the Bay, for the Bay. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You are listening to the Bay Area Theology Podcast. Theology from the Bay for the Bay. This podcast has been brought to you by Bayseed Collective. Learn more about it at Bayseed.org. In this podcast, we host conversations with local ministry and thought leaders on theology, ministry, culture, and life in the Bay Area with Dr. Cameron Schweitzer and Ricky Blaha. Everyone's a theologian.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

That's right. Everyone. Hey guys, welcome back. I'm Cameron Schweitzer, the professor of theology at Gateway Seminary here in the Bay Area with Ricky Blaha behind the camera and the microphone of the Bay Area Theology Podcast, where we are looking to do theology from the Bay for the Bay. And to that end, today we have my friend Josh Schmidt here, the pastor of a Royal Church out in Livermore on Granada Avenue, Granada Boulevard. Right off of Con Cannon Boulevard.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Close to Granada High School, though. So you were in Granada.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

You were close.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

I was close. Well used to be called Granada Baptist Church, the church that used to own the property. Yeah, so you're in the ballpark.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

I've been there a few times. This is a growing, thriving church over in the Tri-Valley area that was once a dying church in the Oakland Hills. And so we've brought my friend here today to talk about the story of Arroyo Church as well as hearing about the theology, because this is the theology podcast, the theology and ministry philosophy that supports a church and its ability to do new things and to have new life. So, Josh, thank you for coming on today, brother.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. I of course I love you. I love all the things that you're doing with the seminary. I know God's using you in incredible ways, bro. Thank you. And uh yeah, when you asked, I was super honored.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

So yeah, you you get to come on and to speak to all of our listener, maybe listeners. We're gonna grow. You'll help us get to a few listeners. Yeah, dude. Is my goal. Um well, I I've enjoyed all of our conversations we've had over the great lunches we've had, the car rides we've had, the places we've been. Uh, so I love your story and what God's done, but our listeners don't. And so that's right. I wanted to bring you on so that you can share the great work that's God that God has done in your life and in the life of a royal church, so that other churches could be encouraged and people could be encouraged. That yes, God is a God who's always doing new things, He's bringing life from death and light from darkness. So, brother, uh to parody Jurassic Park, uh, spare no expense, but spare no time and uh share with us the the the story of what God's done in your life uh to bring you from where you were to where you are now.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah, so I mean, I don't have a crazy, you know, testimony where I was like a drug dealer or drug addict and you know, a pimp on the streets of San Francisco, you know, saved uh later in life. You know, I I grew up in the church and uh, you know, from a young age, just really enjoyed it. I remember being six years old and walking up to my dad as a very vivid memory and saying, Dad, I want to receive Jesus Christ back into my life as my savior. Like I want to be forgiven of my sins. And I remember just kneeling down on my knees in his big walk-in closet and just praying to ask Jesus into my life, you know, as a six-year-old, you know, kid. And then uh, but a part of my journey was, you know, two years after that. My parents got divorced, so you know, that happened at a pretty formative young age and was, you know, a little confusing. But my mom was very faithful and we stayed in the church all those years growing up and went to a a Christian. What church were you going to? Yeah, so I I I uh shout out to uh my old church in Livermore um Cornerstone Fellowship. It's changed a lot since when I was when I was a kid, but um that was the church I I grew up at and uh loved my time there, Pat.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

You could just emphasize though, brother, that I think it's important for us to emphasize here on the Bay Area Theology Podcast is that you are one of the few who is a Bay Area native. Really born born in the Bay Area, has stayed in the Bay Area and is ministering in the Bay Area, so that is unique. So I just want to emphasize that this is a guy from the East Bay, yeah, Livermore, right? I love it here. So what was it like to grow up? I I'm just always curious when I talk to people like yourself who've been here for you know 20, 30, 40 years, like, hey, how have you seen it change? What was it like to grow up? And because you know, Ricky grew up on the East Coast and in the Rust Belt, and I I grew up in Southern California. Of course, yeah, Inland Empire 909. Uh the the hot crowd.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

So God delivered you from this. That's right, right? You were an example of the Lord del his deliverance to the nice place with seasons and green and clean air.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

So, yeah, tell us a bit more about like your upbringing. I I'm just curious of like being a kid who grew up in the East Bay in the church, what was that like? You rushed through that a little bit. I want to know a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I uh again not only grew up in the church, but also a Christian school. And um, so it was like very much within, you know, Christian culture in in the Bay Area. But I would say uh if I fast forward a little bit more into my teenage years, I would say I had a few years in high school where you know I didn't go too crazy, but I was on the football team and was really I was also like a class clown, you know. So I can see that I was too I loved the attention, and uh so you know, but I I had a a period where I I didn't fully walk away from the Lord, but I definitely was not as close to him as I'd been the rest of my life prior to that. And I did have an experience when I was 16 years old where I feel like it was like um when I was in my twenties, I used to think that was the moment I got saved when I was 16. I kind of looked down upon that that uh six-year-old experience. And I I think a part of that was just my confusion of figuring out like my journey and like my story of like when was I actually like truly like a follower of Christ and like when was I actually indwelled with like the Holy Spirit, you know? But looking back on it as like now that I'm in my 30s, like I'm like, no, I actually think I I was a Christian when I was younger.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

I have the exact same uh I mean my my my numbers are different, but I I made a profession when I was four, vividly remember it, grew up in the church. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

And uh my son just turned four. It's like yeah, praying for Malachi this year. Come on, buddy. You're like, son, you need repentance.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

I always had this is this is this is completely off topic, but yeah, I had this uh back in my you know my cave stage of a lot of different theological opinion period. Um, I always I got critical of uh churches that had like Noah and the Ark and all the animals in their nursery. And I was like, that was like one of the biggest acts of judgment of God upon the earth, and we're gonna highlight all these animals.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Everyone's smiling.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

And so yeah, I was like, so I I say what? I used to joke and say, I, you know, um when I when I become a parent, I'm gonna have two bedrooms, one that has uh sounds with all these people screaming and darkness and sounds of water rushing and everything, and then the other one with rainbows and animals and stuff, and then I make my kids sleep in the dark one with all the with all the screaming, and they're like, Why don't well because that's what happens to you know sinners is they die under God's judgment. Sounds good, and then when you get saved, you can move into the other bedroom, you know, and there's like but but I didn't do that. Wrath hangeth over thy head. Oh my god. That's right. But I was gonna say, yeah, I was four years old, made a profession of faith. I feel like uh uh you know, I I I don't remember not wanting to or not wanting anything but to follow God. But then when I was 22, there was just this uh it was a night and day difference for me. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was like uh I think because I'd grown up in the church, I just viewed myself as mostly good, and I think I came to the realization that I was desperately in need of God's mercy. And um, although I feel like it was the grace of God that saved me back in when I was four years old and I was I was confident of that, it wasn't by my works. I feel I don't know that I understood the weight of the salvation that I was I was granted in Christ. So anyway, I had the same sort of thing, and I've questioned that back and forth. You know, was it 22 or was it four? Was it 22 or the Lord knows he knows, he knows.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

I mean, I I do think though that some of us, right? I mean, it seems like people who are very much reformed are like, hey, the kids, and like yeah, I I was just reading this with Malachi the other night, like Jesus says, suffer not the little children to come unto me. It's like, do we take that seriously? We should. Like they they come unto me, yeah, they can receive the kingdom unless you have faith like a little child. And so I just think it's a good reminder to us who do ministry like and you guys out there listening, hey, four or five, six-year-olds, they they can come to Christ. Absolutely. That's right. We just have to figure out ways as ministers to make sure that we're articulating the faith and its important doctrines in a way that a little child can receive it. Not changing the truth, but articulating in a way that's appropriate to a four-year-old mind. Yeah, that's right. And just before we get back to just a means of encouraging you guys, uh, as the former director of enrollment at Gateway Seminary and as the former one of the former enrollment specialists, over eight years of working in the admissions office. I have read thousands of applications for seminary. And at Gateway, I don't know what it is at other seminaries, but when you apply, there are two questions that Yeah, you gotta share your testimony. You have to share your like describe your decision and commitment to come when you came to you know, confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then describe your decision and the kind of things that you think the Lord's leading you to do in ministry. So, like your conversion and call and your call to ministry in a sense you're hearing like, are you a Christian? And are you being called to ministry that the seminary can help you?

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

All that to say, I I want to put it like this is that over the thousands of conversion essays I've read, I have to sell that there are three basic stories. There's your guys' story, there's my wife's story, and there's my story. There are those like myself who at least in the minute, I I found there's we're in the smaller percentage. People who did not grow up going to church and didn't have these experiences you guys are talking about of parents who discipled us and took us to church. And at some point in our teens or our 20s, we have a radical experience. Like we're invited to church, we hear the gospel, and it's like Lydia and Axe. Scales fall from eyes, and we think, oh my gosh, like I need to amazing. Yeah, and it's a radical night-to-day death-to-life conversion. And like I can look for me, it's February 2009 at Harvest Church in Riverside, California, with Steve Wolburn preaching from 1 Corinthians 5. I was gonna say Greg Glory. Not Greg Glory the evangelist, no, the other guy's Steve Wolburn, man, who's who a lot he was their former youth pastor, then he started their Sunday night service, and now he's pastoring Core Church in LA. And Steve Wolburn, if you've ever listened to this, thank you for being faithful to preach the Bible. And myself and many other young men, middle-aged men now, are in ministry because of his work at Harvest. Anyways, so there's people like me, clear day, clear time, clear place, clear message.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

And then there are people like my wife who grew up going to church. She was in a Christian family, has always been involved in the church, has always followed Jesus, and has never known a time where she wasn't, and she never had a period of backsliding. It's just she she just grew more into this awareness of what it means to believe in and to follow Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

It's like a Timothy man. That's that's my so good. That's my prayer for my children.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Yeah. And then the third story, which I have found is perhaps the most common, is your guys' story. It's the at some time in my single-digit childhood years, I confessed Christ as Savior. It was in my parents' house at the church. I maybe even was baptized.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

And then at some time in my teens or my twenties, I had a period of backsliding or prodigal times. And then at some point in my teens or my twenties, I commit myself again, and that's when I was serious, or that's when I became a Christian. So so just know, guys, your story is very common.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Oh, I love it. Well, and I think a lot of people they want to make uh like a big deal about like, well, was it then or was it you know at this time? And I think I always uh whenever somebody is coming to me as a pastor and they're confused and they're asking me for for clarity, I I always like to quote C.S. Lewis to that famous, you know, line where he talks about the train crossing through Europe, and he's like, I don't know like the exact moment we cross the border from this country to that, but I know that like when I got off the train, I'm in that country.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

And so like it's not a matter of like when, but like, are you? Like, are you indwelled by the spirit? Because if you are indwelled by the spirit of God, then you're a child of God.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Yeah, I tell people the reason I know you're alive is not because I've seen your birth certificate, right? It's because you're talking to me and there's there's signs of life that's getting out of you. Yeah, that's so good.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

So you're in your teens now. What was that that season of like prodigal and then you came back? What'd that look like?

SPEAKER_00 12:09

You know, it really wasn't anything too crazy other than I just kind of got distracted by with my friends, and like I I never even got into like drugs or alcohol. Like it was a very like tame rebellion against God. That's a good Christian kid rebellion. Yeah, you know, it was just more of like, you know, I'm not reading my Bible as much, maybe I'm cussing.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Yeah, I was gonna say my rebellion, if you want to call it that, was that I became very self-righteous.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Okay, so yeah. Mine was just like I just wanted to be with my friends and have fun and just you know be popular and be well liked and didn't really concern myself with you know Jesus and following him. But I I remember it as clear as day, you know, because I went to a Christian school. They would every year do these spiritual emphasis work. Oh, yeah, scriptural. You know, they'd have chapel every single day. And they brought a guy out uh uh named Donnie, uh Donnie Moore, and he was an evangelist, Pentecostal Assemblies of God. I that was fire. That guy brought the fire, dude. He brought a Elijah. He's actually he since passed away, and he's with the Lord now, but he was like the chaplain for the Oakland Aids for like 20 years. He's like a local Bay Area legend. He was like played quarterback at University of Pacific in um Stockton back when they used to have a football program. But he was just this big six foot four guy. This just and what he they would do is they'd come to these like youth groups and different things, and he would come and evangelize. But before he would evangelize, they would do these like feats of strength where like they would.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

He was like, Yeah, he's tearing the like breaking this amount of bigger. I remember that one in my Christian high school.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

It's like if you don't come to Christ, like you're gonna hear from me, you know. No, but no, but he was like the best storyteller, and just he was so articulate with the gospel. And what he would do too, man, is like he had no notes, you know, and he would he would go up and down the aisles, and you know, he and then he'd like stop and like you'd feel his presence. It's like he's next to you, and you're like, Oh my gosh, he's talking to me.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

You know, you're looking up at this giant man.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

No, but you know, I'll never forget it. He he he was talking about Jacob wrestling with God. And uh I I I it was speaking to me because I was like, Man, I'm wrestling with the Lord. Like I'm I'm running from the Lord, like Jacob was. And uh he gave this illustration of him and his grandkids, and how you know he was teaching his grandkids how to walk and how they'd take a few steps and then they'd fall and he'd pick them back up, and how much he loved his grandkids, and how even when they'd fall, it wouldn't change his love for them, um, and that he'd just want to help them get back up and get get going again. And and you know, he related that to the cross and God's love for us and how we fall short every single day, and we we wander from him, but as a loving father, he runs after his lost children, and that he sent his son to lay down his life for us, and he rose again so that we could be saved, so that we could be freed. And he was like, Man, I had heard the gospel my whole life, but and I believed it, and I think I was a Christian at that time, but it was almost like a whole nother level was opened up to me. It was like a whole nother the like compartment of my heart was opened, and man, I and it was funny because it was like a whole revival thing, you know, because he was Pentecostal, so they did like it was like a three-hour altar call type of thing, man. Oh wow, everyone's coming forward, everyone's coming forward, everyone's emotional. They do an open mic, people start sharing their testimonies, they're crying and like confessing, like I've you know, tried to kill myself, or I'm a drug addict, or I'm you know, drunk. Everyone, and I wouldn't come forward, even though God was speaking to me, I wouldn't come forward because I was like, I know people are coming forward out of emotion, I don't want to do that. Yeah, and so I literally I I I delayed, delayed, delayed, and then finally I just felt the spirit of God tell me, like, you need to come forward and you need to publicly confess. Wow, you're recommitting your life to me. And so I went forward and I ended up getting up on that open mic, and I shared it like my story and my testimony with the whole school. It's like, and this had been going on for four hours now. It was like a revival service. So now parents are coming, classes have been canceled. I get up and I share for maybe five to ten minutes my story, and I start preaching the gospel to people. All right, and I think again, that wasn't I wouldn't say that was the exact moment I was called to ministry, but that was like the seat of it.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Did you have like a children? Because people come up afterwards, people were coming up, Josh.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Well, people were coming up to me afterwards and saying, like, wow, what you said really spoke to me, what you said really touched my heart. And that was kind of the like it wasn't the first time, because actually the first person I led somebody to Christ, I was like six years old on my baseball team. But like that was my first time as like an older person. Like I'm in my teenage years, starting to get towards adulthood, where like I started to realize, like, oh like maybe like it seems like people like to hear what I have to say about Jesus. Like, is there something here? So but I mean basically from that moment on, I just started reading my Bible like a madman. Like I'm reading my Bible for hours a day, every day. I'm how old are you? I'm 16. Okay. So I'm just reading my Bible like crazy. I start, you know, going really deep into my church and then you know, graduate high school. I have no idea what the heck I wanted to do. My mom really wanted me to go to college. I was like, I don't want to go to college. I was a terrible student in high school. I mean, like I almost got kicked out. I had a 1.5 GPA my freshman year. They almost kicked me out. I just ADHD class clown, didn't see the relevance of anything that my teachers were uh um bringing me. But then now I have this newfound faith and passion where I'm sharing my faith with everybody. I'm growing in my faith, and it's like, okay, what are you gonna do? And she's like, well, you need to at least go to Las Pacitas, which is the junior college in Livermore. I call it Lost Potential, but um but um a joke that only a local can make us like it's not Las Bacitas, it's Lost Potential.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

But uh Oh, you're settling here, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

So uh so but I went there for two years, and in my time there, I got really involved at the church I grew up at at the time, being a youth leader, and then I also got involved, one of my uh friends was the youth pastor at another church in Danville that was called East Bay Four Square at the time. Now it's called The Rock. And so I got involved as a youth leader at both churches, and I'm coaching high school football at the Christian college. So I'm like discipling all the guys on the football team. I've I'm leading the small group and uh helping lead a youth group at my home church, and then I'm leading this uh helping lead and I'm getting to preach for the first time at this other youth group in Danville. And these are both charismatic churches? So Cornerstone, they were Calvary Chapel, and then they went non-denam, and then uh yeah, it was Foursquare for the other one.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

And then uh the So you got charismatic roots, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

I do, but then I I went to, as you know, California Baptist University and have a lot of Baptist roots, and then I went to Wheaton College for my MA, which is, you know, they're a little bit of everything, although now they're I would say center left in some ways now. But um But academically rigorous, yeah, yeah, very academically rigorous. They made that very clear to me when they accepted me. They said, Hey, you barely got in. They're like, the only reason you got in is because you had almost straight A's at CBU, but then you had terrible grades in like junior college. Like, so we're barely letting you in because of that. That's and they're like, Are you sure you could handle this? I'm like, I think so, guys. And so thanks for calling me stupid. That was my challenge. Well, then I had to prove it to them, and yeah, that was fun.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

Anyway, so back to where we were in the story. So you're leading all these things, you're what, 19, 20 years old?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

18 years old, getting to preach my first sermons and um getting to do that. And so, you know, it was kind of in the midst though. I gotta ask real quick, Josh. Do you remember what your first sermon was? Of course I do. Do you remember creation on a new journey? If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old is gone, the new. I could tell you my illustrations from the first time. Wow, that's nice.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Do you look back and think, oh no, that's so awkward? Like, that was pretty good. You know what it's it's fine. I preached it again.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

So it definitely like if I preached that in front of my church today, I would say it was a it'd be a stinker, right? It was not good. But at the same time, I would say there are also a lot of seeds there, and there are a lot of principles and truths and even illustrations in it that I still use to this day, still believe to this day. Hardcore, like 100%.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

So you're saying this is gonna be a s it would be a stinker. I'm wondering, are you talking about like homiletically? Or are you talking about like what's the case? Presentation-wise, would your people look at you and say, That's not our pastor? Or would they say, Yeah, he didn't he didn't do great today?

SPEAKER_00 20:18

I would say it just it wasn't as deep. Like I'd say I've just grown a lot deeper, and I've grown So the act of Jesus was maybe a little shallow? Yeah, I'd say it'd be a little shallow, and then I would say, like, you know, as far as like I mean, it was a shorter sermon. Like my sermons now are like 35 to 45 minutes. I was like a I think it was like a 25-minute message.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

And you were like really excited, probably at level 10.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

I had the whole thing memorized. I was like, I prepared, you know, he told me two months. I prepared for two months. I, you know, was trying to read commentaries. I talked to a few of my pastors about it, and I talked to one of our PhD pastors, there's like a professor. I'm like, is this the correct interpretation? I mean, I really went hard. Your first sermon was way better than my first time. But I I mean I remember some of my first like my illustration. So it was a lot of like church kids in my first sermon. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna go really hard at them. So like if anyone is in Christ, you know, they're a new creation, the oldest gone, and the uh new has come. And so I was like, you know, I'm gonna come at them and say, you know, there has been no oldest gone, new has come for you. You guys haven't been made due by Christ. So like I I really went at these kids, you know. And I was like, you know, I really so uh, but I even remember like it's an illustration I still use it to this day. Like I was talking about sin and talking about how, like, you know, it's uh sweet for a few seconds, it's sweet for a season, but it ends in death. And I talked about, you know, Krispy Kreme donuts, man, those things they taste good going down, man. Those glazed hot donuts, there's nothing better. You could eat a whole dozen of them, they just slide down right down your throat. It feels good in the moment, but in the end, what's gonna happen? You're gonna feel sick. Yeah, you're gonna vomit. And that's sin. You know, and so like I there are there were things like that where it's like, man, I would still do that illustration today. But then there's also so much where it's like, man, I would I like I wouldn't even I'd probably just say it better. I'd probably say it more passionately, I'd say it more deeply, I'd say it hopefully more eloquently. I don't know. I've been preaching forever, like since then. It's been 13 years now. So I hope it would be better now. I think it would be a lot better. So yeah, man, it was just in the midst of just, you know, doing ministry for free as just a Christian that I realized a year into it, so halfway through June college, I'm like, man, I want to devote my whole life to this. I want to give my whole life to the gospel and being in ministry. And really, it was right from the beginning, like alongside my calling to be in ministry, was I want to plant a church. I want to lead a church in the Bay Area. There's nowhere else I want to be. Wow. There's nowhere else I'm going to be. That's awesome. Like it was a strong conviction from the Lord. And it's funny because there was, I think, even like foreshadowings of that when I was 16, when I had given my life to Christ, because I have a very vivid rem memory, and this is going to go back to Arroyo Church and uh everything. Um, and us replanting in a movie theater, is I remember being in Dublin, California, in front of a movie theater, Regal Theater, and I'm walking with my around my friends and uh having a conversation with them because they were talking about like global missions. I had a friend that was really passionate about overseas. I'm I remember talking to him, and this was before I knew all the statistics about the Bay Area being the you know least church area in the United States. I remember telling him, I'm like, hey, that's great that you want to go overseas, and I think we need people to do that. But like where we live, there are so many lost people here. They have everything financially, but they're bankrupt spiritually. And I remember I remember telling him that in front of that movie theater. Little did I know, a decade later, we'd be replanting the church at that movie theater. That's incredible, isn't it? In that area.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

How God does things like that, right? You might forget, but God doesn't forget.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

No, he doesn't. He doesn't. So that happened on all 16. Fast forward a few years later, get the call to ministry. And he was like, no, this is where I'm gonna be. And I want to, I mean, unless God speaks to me audibly, I'm gonna give my whole life to the Bay Area because I love it here. But it's not just because I love it here and it's like selfishly, like, oh, this is great weather. I like living here. Like, it's not because I'm not here because it's a nice place to live. Like, I'll go wherever God sends me. I'm here because this is where lost people are. That's great. And so this is what it's all about. And so, yeah, after that, got the call, went to obviously, like I said before, California Baptist University, had a great experience.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

Remind me, you were in the BAT program, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:08

No, I wasn't. And the reason why I wasn't because they said I was gonna have to stay for three and to three and a half years. Because you had your AA already. Because I was transferring from junior college, and I was like, nah, I don't want to do that. Like, I'm a very fast-paced person. So I'm like, well, I can study almost all of the same things. I'm missing out a few things, and I'll be done in two years, and then I can go be in ministry and get my master's later. So I was like, I'm just gonna do that. Now, what was cool was uh uh the the leadership in the school, like Dr. Morgan, who you know, I'm sure. You know, they he let me take a lot of the classes with the bat program, and same with me, which was super cool.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

He was we're in the applied theology sections, even though we're CS Christian studies students.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Yeah, what years were you there? Gosh, yeah. So I graduated in 2012, went to Lost Boat from 2012 to 2014, and then yeah, I so I graduated from CBU in 2016.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Oh, dude, so I just I was there 2010 to 2013, so you're 2014, 2016, 2013. Yeah, yeah. So we literally just missed each other. Ships in the night, man. It's so crazy. All right. I love it. So you're at CBU what let me ask this. Yeah, and this is not relevant to anyone, but maybe us from CBU and SoCal education. What were some of the most formative classes or professors that you remember having? Uh where you look back and think like those those days, those classes, that professor still.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

There were a lot. I would say I already mentioned Dr. Morgan. He allowed me to take the um theology one, theology two with him. And I mean, those just I mean changed my life as far as just understanding who God is and just all of his attributes and his goodness and his greatness and like just everything. It was just such a transformative time. I would also say uh Dr. Cochrane, he let me take part in his preaching class, and that was super formative for me, just to because you know, we got to preach in front of our our uh classmates and he'd give us feedback and I would say like in that class, what was cool is he really spoken to my life and really like was like, Hey, I really think you have a gift here, and like even sent me places to like a to a place to preach, and he like really encouraged me. Like it was really like I had never had somebody like do that for me before with like specifically preaching. So um that was really huge. Uh Dr. Sam Wellbaum actually he had a evangelism class that was super formative for me. And I thought that was a fun class.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

Oh, it was he's so fun. Sam is the modern day GK Chastrotteman, dude.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

He's so fun, so fun, and he just shared great stories. But I mean, he had us read a lot of different books from a lot of different like ways to evangelize. So that was super helpful and practical. It was very practical. So yeah, those are some of my favorite classes. And then while I was at CBU, I got to intern at Saddleback Church, you know, Rick Warren's church and uh Lake Forest. So that was very interesting, you know. I was going to California Baptist University where all my professors are super reformed. And then and then I'm at the founder of like the Seeker Sensitive Movement Church and the Disneyland for Jesus. Yeah, the day yeah. So it was like it was very fun and very interesting. What ministry were you under at Saddleback? Yeah, so I was with the pastor who oversaw all of their 20s and 30s small groups, all of their singles uh small groups, and then um, yeah, so it was it was very, very fun. And we I think he had like at the time 600 small groups under him. And then he like dude, like put me in charge of like a a mid-sized gathering thing of 300 people. And he's like, Yeah, just run for it. You're like with it, you're in charge of it. So we had like four mid-sized gatherings 20s and 30s, 30s and 40s, 50s and uh 60s, and like yeah. So we had like all these different like mid-sized groups, each one had like 50 to 60 people on it, and he just put me in charge of it and I was 19 years old. Wow. I was like, what the heck? Like, this is like this is like 300 people. I'm 19, like what's going on here, right? So, like my time at Saddleback was great from the practical perspective. I learned so much, like just great leadership uh lessons, um, how to do church, kind of at a really high level. Um, and uh it was super formative time. I mean, I learned more in my one year at that church than I probably did at any other time in my life, just in from ministry. I mean, there were so many great leaders there, and just just watching them and see how they did things was really really important.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Were some of those key like principles, ideas, practices that you learned that year that you still take with you today and still implement today?

SPEAKER_00 28:23

I mean, the number one thing is uh don't be your own leadership lid by trying to do everything yourself. Really just empowering people and empowering people and equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. And I I think that really is the biggest difference between churches that grow past that probably hundred barrier to getting past two hundred and five hundred and thousands and so on, is it's really how much are you willing to trust other people and empower other people and train other people to do the ministry, right? Because I mean, if we really do believe in the priesthood of all believers, and if we really do believe that we are the body of Christ and we all do have our own gifts and that each gift matters and each gift is important, then we need to be equipping the saints, right, for the work of the ministry, right? Ephesians 4. So Saddleback was just so good. I mean, there's so much I could learn, uh, say share about what I learned there. But I would say that's the number one thing is they just constantly were equipping people for ministry um and and and equipping people to lead small groups. I mean, a lot of people, you know, they they don't understand that saddleback, although they have over, you know, and it might be a little bit different now, but at the time when I was there, I think they had like I think 26,000 on average in weekly attendance, but then they had 30,000 people in small groups. So a lot of people they were like, oh, they're just wide and they're not deep. It's like, well, does your church have more people in small groups than on Sunday attendance? It's like that's kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_03 29:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

So um, so there was a lot that I I learned there.

SPEAKER_02 29:49

And um what was I'm just curious before we move back into your story, what was Saddleback small group philosophy and the way that how how then did it actually flesh itself out in a home or in a in a classroom or coffee shop?

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Well, it evolved over the years before I got it was one way and it evolved to a certain way. So when you got there, I was there, and then since I've left, it's I I'm I'm sure it's evolved. What I would say is the way that they did it when I was there, there were definitely some great positives, and there were also, I would say, some negatives. And I and I'm not alone in that. There were even people on staff that were like, yeah, this maybe isn't the best. Because what they were doing by the time I got there is they were really heavy on like campaigns, and so they'd be like, Hey, we're gonna do a big sermon campaign, or like Rick's gonna do a 40 days of purpose or a 40 days of love or a 40 days in the word, and we're gonna do a study on that. We're gonna do make a bunch of small group videos and curriculum on it, and anybody can start a group. That was the part where it got that. So it was great. The whole campaign thing was great to like, hey, let's do this whole like campaign where the whole church is studying one thing and we're gonna write all this curriculum and all this video stuff, and we're gonna, you know, give all the the the the the and they shifted from calling them leaders to hosts. So they kind of lowered the bar. Where now, if you want to start a group, you don't have to be a leader, you're just uh I need to be a host. You need to be able to put the DVD. It was DVDs of still thing at that time, right? You put the DVD in, watch it together, and then go through some of these questions, right? So it was like a thing where, like, you know, they'd start these campaigns and like there'd be like, hey, like 800 people came forward to start a group, right? And it was like amazing because like these people actually started groups, and like we're inviting their friends and their families and neighbors and people in the church were wanting to join groups, and we'd plug them into these groups and stuff, and so it was like this explosion of new groups. The issue was is how healthy were those groups and how long did they last, right? So that was that was kind of the underbelly of that. And I know that they knew that and they were working on that and they were changing that, and there were conversations around that. But I mean, the cool thing that I brought from that though was like they were willing to at least like try to get new people to start groups, and and there was fruit of it from it. And although some of them were unhealthy and a lot of them, you know, ended after the campaign finished, or some of them never even really got off the ground, there were also a lot that did stick, you know, and changed people's lives and brought people into community. And so, you know, I think you kind of have to be careful as a leader and as a as a shepherd. It's like you can not equip people quickly enough, you know, and just do everything yourself. Uh, but then also you can do it too quickly, and uh then that's unhealthy too. So they're both ways of I think doing ministry in an unhealthy way. And I think, you know, um we gotta create a plan and systems and you know, pipelines to be able to get people uh from point A to point Z, right? To maturity and to get people into leading. And you know, churches, you know, they can have conversations and even disagree with one another as far as criteria for like when somebody's ready to lead a group or not. You know, some churches are like, you know, they need to be a teacher and they need to, you know, this. I I personally am not that way. Uh, but I'm also not gonna lower the bar to like, hey, if you had a pulse and you say you're a Christian, you can lead a group. You know, it's like there needs to be some level of spiritual and emotional intelligence. That's great.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

So, like in a group, then where every week, like other than one of these campaigns, was it always like a Rick Warren DVD, or was it like they had other pastors on the DVDs and whatever. But like if you're in someone's home for a weekly home group, it's like they play a DVD, there's questions, and then what? Like people drink, they eat, what like what goes? So it's just that was it. Yeah. So the instruction is from a DVD thing, usually.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Exactly. So they you know, and so that and that's why they because at a time they didn't call them hosts, they called them like small group leaders, they had different language, so but then they kind of lowered the bar and called them hosts. I don't know if they still they might have changed. I mean, there's a new pastor there now and stuff. Um, who's who was here for a while, Andy. He's a good he's a good guy, but uh yeah, so I mean they really kind of lowered the bar, and again, they did that intentionally. You know, they knew that there were maybe some consequences of that, but then they were like, well, but look at how many groups we started, right? Look how much and that was kind of like I remember one of the pastors that was like one of the main pastors that was over all the groups, and all the pastors over groups is you know he says growth is really determined by like you know, control. How much are you willing to let go of control? Because the more control you relinquish, the more things can grow. Now, my backside of that is cancer also grows really fast too. So just because something's growing fast doesn't mean it's healthy. But also at the same end, if something isn't growing, then can you say it's healthy?

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Yeah, I was gonna say my immediate response to that would be I think I think it's fascinating to see uh into the back end of uh of ministries that are obviously doing something, you know, like whether it's cancerous or whether it's whether it's growth, it's if something's happening, that's that's uh that's good. But um, I think the other part of it too is I think trying to figure out what that looks like, what you know, what part of uh cultivating you know, leaders are cultivating you know, people to step up and and and assume a particular role. Because I would look at that and I would say, um, I think whatever profile they have in mind for their uh for the people who are leading those groups, yeah. Uh it seems to me that um it what what they're not allowing them to do, which which again, if it's their goal and their aim, then it might be the right thing to do, but they're not teaching that that's what they're relying on the video for. So in some sense, there's a there's a measure of control because we're not gonna let you teach, we're gonna actually have a video in which so there is still a level of control that is over them. So it's off hands, but again, if you're wanting to cultivate a people who are hospitable, a people who learn how to respond and to be able to lead in those discussions in response to it, then that's great. That would be a great way of doing that. But then you would have to recognize the fact that you're not really training teachers because all the teaching is being done through the videos. So is so I guess it just depends on what you're doing. Well, it's all about what are you wanting to do, what's your goal?

SPEAKER_00 35:49

What's your end goal for groups? Is it for people to be taught, or is it more for like fellowship and like discipleship, right? Is it outreach too? Yeah, is it out like and there are a lot of different churches that you know they do groups different ways, and that's totally cool. That's totally, I think there's space for different groups.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Yeah, I'm gonna say because what we do here is we have we basically have uh adopted kind of like this three-legged stool sort of thing where it's like you we've got Sunday morning uh corporate worship is one one part of disciple making, um, our Bible study where we specifically focus on studying the Bible together. It's not a community group, it's not a small group, it's a it's a Bible study where we're studying the Bible together. So that's the second leg. And then the third leg is fellowship, and that is where we meet in small groups. We don't do teaching in the home, we don't do Bible studies, we don't intend to. We we do sometimes have like conversations centered around the sermon, the preaching and stuff if we wanted to kind of like cultivate some healthy discussion. But the idea is if we can do fellowship, Bible study, and corporate worship, those three things, if we can commit to those three things, then those are that's a framework in which we can help develop disciples. Yeah. But like in that framework, then you've got you're kind of mixing the fellowship and the in the study together in and so on. So I think it and if that works, and fantastic. Great.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

There are a lot of different ways to do it. I mean, you know, there that's why uh I feel like we never find in the New Testament like, hey, this is specifically how you do every single little aspect, because it's really about the mission, and there's a lot of different methods to accomplish the same mission mission, and it really does depend, I think, on context and you know where you feel like God's leading you as a church and all those things. Although there are some better methods than others, so yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Yeah, I I think it's really important to recognize what we're talking about, right? That there is a challenge between doing too much and going too fast versus not doing anything or not going fast enough. Yeah, because you know, I'm a part of a theological tradition where it's like we really like want to protect. That's right. You know, we got to make sure everything's doctrinally human, yeah. People are like qualified to the nth degree. And then even though we might not think we're doing it, like to what extent though, are we like that the man in the parable where we just put the talent in the ground? That's right. And like we may not intend to be doing that, but we might just be putting the talent in the ground and thinking, oh, well, you know, because small is healthy. Like, we're so, but the problem is is like big doesn't mean healthy, and small doesn't mean health.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

No, no, healthy means healthy. Healthy is healthy.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Yeah, right. And so I remember my Dr. Mooney used to say, you know, you can be big and fat, or you can be big and strong, or you can be lean and mean.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

That's really good.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

So it's just an importance of recognition, like, okay, what what's our goal? What like how what's enough training? And it's like the old book, uh well it's old now, but trellis and the vine. Like we have to make sure that like we're not all focused on the trellis, and it's not just well, you don't need a trellis, like that's the reforms how like oh as long as we're preaching the word, and like it's we're good. Like we don't we don't need structures, that's man. Yeah, like then you have like the the the you know the the smooth sailing, big, you know, growing church, and it's like all trellis. Yeah, right. Like, where is the vine? It's like we have to make sure we're doing both, and that's that's right. The challenge, right? Is people who have strong theological convictions like, well, we we have to make sure that those convictions matter because they shape the way we do ministry.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Well, I always like to say, and you guys have probably heard this before so many times, but but we have uh at least one listener listening to us now, so they have they may not have heard it before.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

There we go, there we go.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

Yeah, we got like four or five hundred people on the short vision, right? I love it. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

But you know, it's like faithfulness leads to fruitfulness. That's right. And uh the problem is kind of like what you were just saying, when you pursue the fruit and forsake the faithfulness, well, then that's when the problem comes into play, because then now you're all you become just purely pragmatic, and just what can I do to get what I want? And that's unhealthy, and that has caused a lot of problems in the church. But there's also another kind of cancer in the church where it's like, well, I don't need to care about fruitfulness at all, and fruitfulness has no indication of my faithfulness, and it's like, whoa, wait a second. Yeah, if you are truly faithful and you are seeing little to no fruit, then maybe you're not being as faithful as you think you are. Maybe there are some aspects to ministry that you're actually not being faithful in, and you need to check your heart.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

So I do think that there is a um a part of what we are called to do. Like I'm I'm growing, I I I I made like a uh um a raised bed garden uh behind my house this this year, and I'm trying to plant these uh You're a better man than me, man.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

I'm not patient enough to do that.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Yeah, if it's non-succulent, it's dying. There you go. Well, I think I think and I actually think that's the point. I think the thing is is that like going back to like what does it mean to like pastor your people or to lead in the church, and I think in some sense it's like we want to wait until we have just the you know, we have to wait until we have the the the this big bushy tomato plant that's like you know, blooming before we can say, okay, now now we're gonna do something. I think that would and maybe the analogy is breaking down a little bit, but I do also think there's people that are just like, I'm doing all of this, why is it not happening? Okay, I give up and just let just let it go. It's like, no, there, you know, God's the one who gives the increase. God's the one who's actually whatever he does and whatever he causes to grow is actually what matters. And there's kind of like this relationship that he has between the gardener and the garden. You know, the guard we have to be faithful to it, but we're not responsible for the growth. Like we're responsible for protecting it, for nurturing it, for you know, giving all of those things. We're we that's where we are called to that. But God's the one that's going to give the increase. And so there is a sense in which it's like we can sit here and say we need to make sure we are meticulous in every part of the garden and we need to turn out exactly the way we want it to turn out. And it's like, no, no, no, no. God might surprise you and cause something to grow faster than you expect. And you need to be ready to be able to respond, even though that wasn't part of your plan. On the flip side, you can't just be like, well, God is in charge of it, so I'm just gonna sit back and let the let the garden do its thing. And it's like, no, no, no, we've been given responsibility as well in in in that growth and in that multiplication to make sure that it's it's receiving what it needs to have.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Oh, absolutely. And if you, you know, you sow sparingly, you're gonna reap sparingly. Yes, right. And that that I think the the sowing of the seed in in some sense and a lot of ways is like, as you guys know, like it's the evangelism, and the watering is more of the you know, discipleship. And it's like, okay, well, are you really being faithful if you're only sowing one seed like every few months? Is that faithful? You know, if you're only watering, you know, that's good once every few weeks. Is that really faithfulness? Faithfulness is like, let me evangelize consistently, let me disciple consistently. And I think a lot of people they mistake faithfulness for just only discipleship.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

Or yeah, it's right, especially in the reform camp of like very much text-driven preaching, exegetical preaching. People tend to one of those tasks, the watering or the scattering. Yeah, we gotta do both. And it's hard, right? Like, and that's why I think it's important to have multiple elders and people and multiple strengths, and you can't let, you know, well, that's not my strength. No, that you're still called as a minister to, you know, do the work of an evangelist. You're called to preach the word in season and out of season. It's just so easy for us to fall into, especially on the uh in the camp that I'm a part of. Like, well, I'm I'm just preaching the Bible. I'm called to preach the word, and I'm gonna spend 25 or 30 hours a week preparing my sermon. That's right. I'm like, that's crazy. Yeah. I mean, no wonder your your church isn't growing. Like, you have to do the work of an evangelist.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Yeah, you're stuck in your study like all the time. That's right. And then you be with the people.

SPEAKER_02 43:17

Yeah, but then like I I I then can think of some evangelist folks I've known who like they they have like the same one or two sermons they kind of do, and they're they're text light, and it's kind of isogenical, and it's GKB's say the right doctrine from the wrong text, and it's like so lots of scattering, yeah, but like there's a little bit of water. And so that this is where we've seen, I've seen like what you could call bigger churches, mega churches that the as I heard one pastor on the staff of a very well known megachurch in Southern California, he said, Our problem is that we have thousands of baby Christians, and how do we take that these churches that have grown because they're good at evangelism and communication, and how do we then take it from that to the field full of little flowers, like let's build the oak trees now? And so it's almost impossible that

SPEAKER_00 44:00

To thread that needs to be like once you get to take a church in the thousands with thousands of baby Christians, it's almost impossible to fix that. Because now you're dealing with like not just like, oh hey, we're a few years in. It's like, no, you're like a decade or so into this and you got thousands of people. Like that's gonna take a that that's not a small ship that can turn quickly. Now you're you're turning the Titanic. So that's gonna take a lot of time and it's gonna be really hard to do. So that's why it is important, I think, for us to come in, like if we're coming into a ministry, to really try to come in as best as we're never gonna be perfect. Life isn't perfect, ministry is messy, we're always gonna fall short. But like if we can come into a ministry with a more balanced approach, where uh you know we're not forsaking one for the other, then I think you know we can see that long term.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Well, and I think also being agile, um, being willing to adjust when things when you start recognizing something's not quite right or I'm missing something here, and being willing to say we need to make an adjustment, even if it's even if it's temporary, you know, we need to make like I have uh my tomato plant, sorry, I have a tomato plant and and you love that little guy, I guess. And I'm realizing that like I got I put one cage on one of my tomato plants and one cage on the other tomato plant. One is growing out and bushy and the other one's growing tall. Well, I put the taller cage on the bushy one and I put the wrong cage. And so now I'm trellis. I'm like, I think I need to like change the cages on them, you know. So there's like an adjustment that I need to make in order, like as I as I as I anticipate where this one is gonna go and the other one's going. It's like I need to adjust the cages so that they actually are supportive for what they're doing. But it's like I sit back sometimes, they're like, no, I'm gonna leave it for a little bit longer. I'm gonna leave it for a little bit longer. Before I know it, and the bushes are all grown out, I'm not gonna be able to do it. And it's like I for I miss my window to change, uh, make an adequate change. So I do think that that's the other part of it too, is I think we can have the end goal in mind, and this is exactly what we want. And we anticipate, like, we are like, this is exactly how I expect it to go, and it doesn't go that way because God decides to do something different, and then we're like, we're like locked into our own ideas. I can really that's a hard lesson to learn.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Oh, it is a hard lesson to learn, but it's a needed one. So that's good. Yeah, I feel like in my own journey, like thinking, okay, you know, what does God want me to do? What do I want to do? Yeah, there's like God's plans, and there's yours, your plans, and those don't always match up. Sometimes God's gotta change our plans so that you can get in alignment with his plan, and you know, kind of with my story, that's kind of how it all worked out. Yeah, so back so back to that you got to CBU finished C B. Well, because I had that plan of you know, planning a church in the Bay Area. So I finished up CBU. I moved back to the Bay because there was a church that wanted to hire me in Venetias, their youth pastor. So I was there for like almost five years, is an incredible experience. Loved that church, learned so much there. The pastor was a great mentor to me there. But then, you know, their plan was to send us out. So during my time at that church, I got my masters and Wheaton. Did you go to Wheaton and do it? So the way it uh it worked is I went there for the summer and like did intensive like like training and teaching, but then like and it was only for like a few weeks at a time. But I would do that and they'd have you read all your like, you know, whatever it was, 40 books before, and then they'd have you write all your big papers after. So like I was only in school for like like five months out of the year while I was a youth pastor. So it was a great program for me while being in like full-time ministry. So what it was an MA if I remember? Yeah, MA, and uh really went deep into like evangelism and leadership and theology. And it was great. And Ed Stetcher was the director of the program at the time. So that was that was really class with Stetzer? Yeah, I did. What was class like with him? I'll tell you what. Uh one of the I took a leadership class with him, and that was probably one of the most that was the most formative class I've ever taken in my life. Wow. My church leadership. Because he ended up teaching exactly on what I was eventually going to do a few years later. So I was the whole class was about leadership change. It was titled organizational um change and and leader leadership change. So I was going in to that program. Like we had church planting classes and theology classes and evangelism classes and different things like that, church models classes, and uh, but I went in, you know, thinking I was gonna plant a church. And uh at the time, my wife and I, we had gone through the North American Mission Board and been approved and were ready to get sent out to plant a church in San Francisco. So we had uh made plans for that, we were excited about it, and our goal was to plant the church in the fall of 2020, right? So uh, so early 2020, like in January, our church announced hey, we're gonna send Josh and Jamie out, they're gonna plant a church in San Francisco. We're so excited for that.

SPEAKER_02 48:39

Like San Francisco proper.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, we wanted to do You're going the heart of the beast, right? Oh, yeah, dude. I was like, let's go. And so I know everybody's gone there and died, but we're gonna go for it, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:50

So and uh devil's in there, you shall not pass. Yeah, right, dude.

SPEAKER_00 48:55

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

Early 2020. Early 2020 here. Like there's this flu thing in China, yeah. We're fine, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Yeah, that's no big deal, it's not gonna do anything, the whole world's not gonna shut down for you. I remember that, right? So remember that I do a little while ago.

SPEAKER_02 49:09

Big bear fall night, uh, December 2019, starting to see the news of like the weird stuff happened in China. Yeah, no idea. Yeah, so anyways, so go that's what that's what you're thinking.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

So then, you know, that all got kind of got blown up by COVID because it was like, okay, probably not a good time to move to San Francisco when literally everything is shut down. So then it was kind of like I was at a place where I'm like, Lord, what are you doing? Like, do you just want me to wait? Or is this like a is this uh just a pause button and I just need to stay faithful as a youth pastor until ready to plan a church. So you're on staff as a youth pastor. He said, well, he wanted me to be his successor, kinda. So he'd say, Hey, stay as long as you want, you know. So uh so but uh I I really felt from God though that he he was moving us to something else. But I was just like, is it just wait till San Francisco? And I literally, it was funny. After the church had announced that we were gonna plan a church in San Francisco, a church had reached out to me and said, Would you be interested in being our lead pastor? And I was very skeptical, but I went out for one meeting and I was like, Yeah, thanks, but no thanks. We're gonna plan a church in San Francisco. And I even got the transitional pastor to start being one of our givers for the uh church plant. So he started giving towards that. That's awesome. But, anyways, COVID happened, the whole plan of going to San Francisco got blown up, and I really felt like it was I can't explain it any other way than the spirit of God putting it on my heart to go back to that and talk to that church that I had said no to. And I really felt the spirit impress on my heart, Josh, you couldn't see what I wanted because you could only see what you wanted. And I realized that my my church planning dream in San Francisco was really an idol for me, and it was really me and my unhealthy savior complex of let me not just be in the hardest area, let me go to the hardest city in the hardest area and let me save San Francisco. And that was really it was an idol for me. And so, you know, God COVID wasn't about me, but God certainly used COVID to kind of destroy that idol for me. And so I ended up going to this church called East Hills Community Church and um yeah, in the Oakland Hills, and you know, it was founded in 1906. It was this very historic church that had been at thousands of people at one point in the 60s and had founded Bible study fellowship and done a lot of incredible things, but I got there and it had had a very tumultuous 15 years prior to me being there. They had had a pastor that committed adultery and got fired. They had had um a church split prior to COVID where they were a dying church and wanted to merge with another church, but then the merger fell apart and led to a church split. And so then I come in in the middle of COVID as this 26-year-old kid that's never been a lead pastor before.

SPEAKER_02 51:42

I said just like Christmas, this is like the same cover, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 51:45

Uh, you know, it's like, dude, there's like 30 or so people, and there are a church that sits how many? Yeah, a church that sits a few hundred, and it's you know, up on this 14-acre property in the Oakland Hills that oversees all of San Francisco and the Bay is beautiful property.

SPEAKER_02 51:59

And it had other things, right? Like it did. I remember you telling me it had other facilities on site that were.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

It had like, you know, it had a single family house on it, it had a mansion, like a great Gatsby mansion with like like 15 bedrooms, three stories, like it originally was in uh owned by the richest person in Oakland, and it was their like estate, and they donated it to the church in the 80s. So the church was originally in downtown Oakland, and then when um the community started to change and white flights started to rise as the white flight and they went up to the hills, and that's actually when the church started to die, it was in the 80s when they did that. So, but I get there in COVID, there's 30 people left all over the age for the most part of 60. The youngest guy there was in his mid-30s, and it was just one dude. And so I came in as this young guy of like, all right, Lord, like let's go. I'm gonna revitalize this church in this city. This is what I'm called to. Did they let me ask, did they know that they were dead? No, they thought, like many churches, mostly dead, to quote the princess. Yeah, exactly. Right, he's not dead, he's mostly dead, right? So uh they they didn't know it. They just thought, hey, we got we've had a hard, you know, go at it. We just need the right pastor, the right programs. Now I came in, I was pretty ignorant, and I, you know, I I came in with just a lot of passion, you know, and just like we're gonna reach people for the gospel, and you know, we're gonna just see change here so quick.

SPEAKER_02 53:22

And you got your theology degree, you got your evangelism and leadership degree, you're ready.

SPEAKER_00 53:26

Little did I know. I was stepping into a church where they really what they were looking for. Uh, and this isn't to speak ill with anybody. I love the people that were there, and but they were really looking for a young pastor that could be a good preacher for them, but no, they weren't looking for a leader. They were looking for a preacher to to feed them the word the way they liked it, but they didn't want a leader to get them to where they really needed to go. And I wasn't there they were comfortable. I wasn't there to be just a preacher.

SPEAKER_01 53:52

I think I hear what you're saying, but did they have a desire to transform or change into something different? They said they did.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

But it was But what they say in the interview process is different when you know it's one thing to say, oh, you know, I uh I I want change, and then it's another thing to go through the the birth pains of change. The change, yeah. So and and uh, you know, going back to that class I took with Ed Stetzer, you know, one of the great things that he taught is you know, you can only grow so much as your your your pain threshold is, right? Because growth requires change and change requires um pain. You know, and so you your your level of growth is only gonna meet your level of threshold for pain. And really, if I had to define my first two years there in one word, it would be pain. Well, I love ministry and I love sharing the gospel of people, discipling people, but that was the first time ever in my ministry where I was like, this is this sucks.

SPEAKER_02 54:46

Pick a story or two, just so people get a sense of like, because if there's any young guys listening to this, I think this is part of the problem of like when you're 20-something or you're a teen, like, I'm gonna you know, do this, I'm gonna save the world, I'm gonna preach these sermons, and like you have this idealized version, an idolized version of what ministry looks like, but this is what ministry really looks like. So share a story or two, yeah. Because I'm riveted, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

Right. It's like, wait, you didn't come in and then got to a thousand in uh two weeks. Wow, I'm so shocked. I know, right? Gosh, the conference speaker, it seems like that happened to him. By the way, with those conference speakers, they always fail to note that they uh their church plant started from a 10,000-person church and they started another church across town. So, real churches, unless you're doing Pentecost, don't go to a thousand in a few weeks. But that's a side note. So uh yeah, or they're not in the San Francisco Bay Area. Yeah, exactly. You're in the south, you're in the stealing, you're sheep shuffling from Monpa's church down the road. That's right. So uh different culture, different uh things going on over there.

SPEAKER_02 55:41

So what what was there? I'm just curious, Brian. There was a lot, yeah. Was what was the the uh to pick a story like where you went home to your wife and said this sucks. No, yeah, like this this is tough. What was that day?

SPEAKER_00 55:52

It was very like old school in like structure, and again, now we're gonna get into like church polity. Yeah, of course we'll do it how do weology pocket how do we make decisions, right? So they were very like the church voted on everything, and then um committees? I don't there were well, they weren't big enough to have committees, so it's just like uh there was one committee, it was the elder board. Okay, they're all brothers in Christ, and I I love those guys. Um but what I will say is that what can happen in some churches is when there's only three people um in leadership for decades. That can be a really good thing because consistency um with healthy leaders is great. Consistency with good leaders and the right leaders can be great, but consistency with maybe people that aren't bad people, but maybe they're not the right fit and the right gifts for being an elder or being a leader in a church, that can be extremely problematic. And you know, the church had kind of ran through a lot of different pastors, and so I came in and they're like, hey, we got this young 26-year-old guy, he's the youngest pastor we've ever had, he's just gonna preach for us and not lead. I came in and I'm like, no, we're changing like everything, like we're blowing this thing up because my thing was, you know, in there What were they doing? There are a lot of different ways, there are a lot of different ways to approach replanting and revitalization, right? There are some guys that I know that come into churches and it's like you can slowly change things, and that's the right approach for that situation because of where the church is at. I came into a situation where like if we did not make drastic changes soon, the church was going to die in very shortly. So, like, there are some guys that's like, okay, you come in and like you got a stage three cancer patient, they're not gonna die tomorrow, but they do need treatment right away, and you need to do some things. I like I would put it this way, I came into a church where like, okay, you are flatlined on the table, you need like you need the defibulators, you need immediate emergency help, or you're gonna die. Like the church was in debt over a hundred thousand dollars. There was other people on staff that they were paying way too much money, and then they were paying me, and the church was gonna go in the red and have no money. I mean, and then so there was a lot of financial issues. The the way that the worship service was done was just very out of touch with just culture in the Bay Area. I mean, they were stuck in like the 80s and with music and just I mean, there was just if I could tell name an area of the church that could be wrong, and it was pretty much wrong. So, I mean, the way pretty much it was it was really rough.

SPEAKER_02 58:30

It was like most uh to be fair, yeah. I I in my role, I've gone to more churches than I can count. I have preached in all these kinds of churches all over the place, and it's like the as we're describing with Chris Cole in the last uh conversation we had, that these churches are stuck in an era of the past, and that's the glory days, and they've idolized those glory days and have forgotten the sins of those days or the struggles of those days, and whether it was the 70s, the 80s, or the 90s, or the aughts, like there was a time when that's when things were humming. And that's what we can get into a time machine and go back to that, you guys are gonna be relevant again. And so so that's so that's where they're stuck. The the worship is stuck there, the ministry is stuck there, the people are stuck there. And that's what you're describing. And for that church, maybe it was in the 80s.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

Yep, yeah. And so, again, to be fair, like this is just a common thing that happens, very common. And and with that being said, like I don't want to be too overly negative, in the midst of that, there were still some really incredibly godly people, loving people that were still super sweet to me. But then also not to water it down too much, I had some pretty uh significant conflict with just the leadership at the time. And mind you, this is somebody that like I never had had that before. Like, I'd only really been a part of healthy churches, you know, and also I'd never been a part of like major leadership conflicts where it's like, wow, like I came in here and like you wanted me to be the pastor, but now that I'm actually wanting to lead us to this new direction, you're like not wanting me to do that. Like, whoa, like basically, like like either you're gonna have to leave or I'm gonna have to leave because we're not wanting to go in the same direction and we're not in agreement. And uh, like you know, we could have these conversations and try to get on the same page, but it's kind of clear that you're not wanting to. So, like, what's it gonna give? Right, and so that's why I said pain is um you know, how do you lead a group of leaders and how do you lead a group of church uh church to a place that they don't want to go? You know, that's that's difficult. And so there's you know, the there's the incremental way, which I think is great in certain situations. I wasn't in a situation where I could do that. So I had to make some pretty drastic changes. Or some of those decisions and churches. I mean, I had to fire somebody within my first month. Really? Yeah, and he was out that day you went home like this sucked, this was bad. Oh, yeah. I mean, that and that's just one. I could tell you ten things. But I mean, I had to fire a guy, and he'd been on staff for eight years. Mind you, this is a church where they had gone through all these pastors. So this is the one guy on staff that had been faithful to them. The church loved this guy. And by the way, great guy, nice, godly guy. But we were paying him and his spouse so much, and then they were paying me so much that if we were all stayed on staff, the church wouldn't have any money. It literally just didn't make sense. So, you know, in addition to just stylistically, it wasn't necessarily the best fit either for where we were wanting to go to you'd spend all the time that you would try to trying to figure out the situation negotiating with somebody who doesn't necessarily agree with you philosophically. Yeah, so it was one of those situations where, like, I mean, that's just that happened right away. And that was uh that was like a major change I had to make within, yeah. It wasn't the first month, it was like I think the third month, something like that. And how the church responded out? I mean, there were definitely people that left over it. I had to and I had conversations with people, and it was it was difficult, man. But it was like one of those things where it's like, guys, like we have we have to do this, or else like you're not gonna like the end result. Um, so I mean, we went through everything, man. We ended up changing all of our bylaws, you know. We brought on a whole new leadership team. I mean, we changed the music style, we changed everything. I mean, everything, and and it got to the point though, honestly. So we had uh we were about two years into that, and that was like me trying to revitalize that church, right? Like we went from East Hills Community Church to East Hills Church, right? We uh, you know, tried to sp you know fix the property up a little bit. We tried to do leadership development, we really tried to reach the area and evangelize and disciple, and but we never really saw any uh movement. I mean, after my two years there, man, we went from like 35 people to like 40 people. And now half of those 40 people were new. Yeah, because everyone else had left. Yeah, so half the church that was there when I got there had left at that point. So we got 40 people from 35 people, but like half of the church is new. And then at that time, half the church is driving from the Tri-Valley, which is where I'm from, because they were just coming because they liked me and knew they knew you. They were like, Oh, it's a 25-minute drive. But like, we'll we'll go to be a part of East Else Church. So basically, we were at this place after two years where like all the major things had changed, like leadership had changed, like our bylaws had changed, like the culture of our church had changed. And we were kind of at this place, we're like, okay, like Lord, what do you what do you want us to do? Like, you know, and uh my again initial heart was to be like, all right, we're revitalizing in the Oakland Hills, like it's East Hills Church, like that's what we want to be faithful to. Um, but long story short, and I can't explain it any other way than God supernaturally guiding us, I had eight different people over the course of one month individually come up to me, and these are for the most part people that don't know each other. Come up to me and say, I feel like God's telling me to tell you that you guys need to replant the church and rename the church, sell the property and start over again. And I was like, What? Like, I don't want to do that. Like, I'm literally only 28 years old. There's this massive 14-acre property worth millions of dollars. Like, this looks like I don't like the way that this looks. Yeah, it's bad. You know, it's like I don't like and then like moving it like somewhere, and but it was like eight different people all didn't know each other. I'm like, like, how could I like say that this isn't something? So I started to pray about it, started to talk to my friends, elders about it, and we all became convinced, like, okay, this is what God wants us to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:21

And so So before you go on, I want to ask you that's that that's great because uh I'm having a lot of flashbacks as well, but um um but uh I want to go back. Would you what would you say would be like one major mistake or one major regret that you have that you made during that during that period? Like as you think back and you and you're like, man, I I would go back and change this, or I would go back and do this differently if I could. Um it doesn't mean that God didn't use it for good to produce something good out of it, but what what what is something um that you would say uh I learned a big lesson from this, and if I had to go back, I would do it differently.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:58

You know, honestly, I'm uh I'm gonna go more at the soul personal level. Yeah. Uh, because there aren't there isn't a lot that I would have done differently as far as like what I was aiming towards and the goal I was uh trying seeking to accomplish, and uh but it would have been the way in which I did what I did. I wish I did it less angry. I wish I did it less with an anxious heart. I was really, I think at the time, overwhelmed and worried and wanted things to do well and wanted people to think that I was a great pastor and was frustrated with people that weren't willing to go along, and I I got angry and I I I uh I I didn't always um handle things in the most Christ like way. And I think that was one of the greatest lessons that the Lord taught me in that time is to learn to not take everything so personally and to really just love people well, even when they're being super difficult, and to really like lead with the shepherd's heart and That doesn't mean you're weak. You're still strong. Yeah. Um, but I I have a tendency to to kind of turn up and get a little passionate, especially when I feel like people are like I'm like, guys, there are dying people. People are dying and going to hell and we're arguing with one another about stupid stuff. Like, can you just like can you like this is me where I'm repenting of, can you just shut up and get in line so we could accomplish the mission? Yeah. Like that's where that's where I was at, right? So like learning to like not just have truth, but grace, grace and truth, and really being patient with people and loving people well, and like being their pastor and not just like, hey, like you need to get in line or get out. Like, you know, so that was honestly the Lord taught me a lot through that, and like to not hold bitterness against people when you feel like they're stifling in your leadership and to really like forgive and but then also have wisdom and like okay, I can forgive you, but that doesn't mean I need to trust you. Like doesn't mean you need to still be in leadership. That doesn't mean that you need to be driving what what is happening here, right? And so it really is that I think and isn't it? I I don't know, true, and I think all of our journeys, like we're really what God is working on more than anything is us and like our relationship with Him and who we are internally, and so Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:10

I love that. I think that's the same thing. I mean, when I moved here uh in 2014 and we started our church, and I it's not this not about my story or you know, whatever. The first nine months were the worst nine months of my marriage. Um, it was awful, and a lot of it just had to do with the change and everything that was that was happening, the going from Baltimore, Maryland to the San Francisco culture area. We had no friends, we had no family, we had nobody. Like we came out here following a call that we felt God was uh, you know, that that I believe I believe that God gave us, but it but we went through a very, very difficult, challenging time in our marriage. And I became somebody who I never knew I was, you know. I became I've always been I feel like I've always been very patient, very long-suffering, very cool and collected. And I became very angry and very short-fused and just like just didn't know why to deal with things. And um, my wife went through her own struggles of things that she um, you know, that she didn't know she was either, you know. And um, so it was, it was, it was an awful, it was an awful time. And I do think, do I look back and say, what, you know, what would I change? I don't know. I don't I don't know. I think I think God used it to expose things that needed to be exposed. I think God used it and he put us in a place that had a lot of grace around us to where we were not like like we made uh one too many mistakes, or we made a big enough mistake to where we were you know done and our our whole life had to be like re you know restoried, re put somewhere else. He put us in a place where we can make some big mistakes and still be fine with where we were, you know, and to grow in our marriage, growing our calling and stuff. So I get that. Um and I I'm curious. Uh I know you said you wouldn't change anything, and I I kind of have that feeling when I look back at some of my story, I'm like, I don't think I changed anything. I think everything kind of actually went the way that it probably should have gone. I'm just curious if you've if if one of maybe the regrets or one of the thoughts that you had would be that maybe you went too quickly on some things, or do you feel like that even the pace was pretty good?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:09

Yeah, I I feel like the pace was okay. It was just more of how I spoke to people and how I dealt with it personally. Like just I was an anxious wreck. I mean, I lost at one point, I got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, lost over 30 pounds, got really sick, and uh it was it was a tough time for me. I was very anxious because I was wanting to drive the change, and it was never fast enough for me, it was never good enough for me, and I always wanted it to be better, I always wanted the growth to happen faster, and so I was very discontent. And so I think what the Lord was teaching me is that I'm enough. Yeah. Right? And like, you know, uh before you like seed the fruit, I want you to know that like I'm enough. And because those first few years, you know, we were talking earlier about sowing the seed and you know, watering, but when you're revitalizing and or replanting, you know, a church, before you can sow the seed, you gotta pull out the weeds. Yeah, and as a person that has a calling and like a passion for evangelism, I hate that. I hate that. I'm like, dude, this is like a waste of my time. Like I don't want to like be pulling weeds. Like, can we just sow seeds? Like, can we just focus on reaching lost people? You know, but if you're going to revitalize a church and replant a church, you have to pull out some weeds. Sure. You you gotta you gotta do that. And uh, you know, by the grace of God, we are seeing fruit now and we are seeing the harvest now, but you do have to get through the pain of pruning. And nobody likes the pain of pruning, it does not feel good, and so yeah, I wouldn't change the pace, but I would just change the way that like I did it. Yeah, I'd be kinder, I'd be more patient, I'd trust God more and not be as anxious. Like, if I could like time travel to myself at that time and say, like, hey Josh, like God has a plan. Like, you just need to be faithful, like you don't need to be so angry at them, you don't need to be so bitter. Yeah, like just trust the Lord, don't lean on your own understanding, and like he'll make your past. That's great. You know, so I just wish that I enjoyed it more, even though it was a hard season. I wish I just trusted God more and like let like him carry the weight and let me just like let things be light. Because it's like on him. If you're doing his work, it's on him.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:25

What's crazy to me though, bro, is you hear this, and I know Ricky's story too, is yours is like two, three years ago. Yeah, his is like a decade ago. Yeah. That's what's wild to me is like all the stuff that you're talking about, going from the the East Hills of Oakland to now you're a Royal Church on Concannon Boulevard in Granada Baptist, like that's three years ago. Yeah, like that's a very quick church story change. So then you have these eight people who are all telling you the same thing, different parts of your life, aren't we talking to each other? That's usually a pretty good sign God's trying to tell you something. So then what was for you that sort of aha moment of, yep, God, this is what you want us to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:57

Well, this okay, now this is really crazy. Okay. Well, we're here for crazy. Now we're getting now we're getting into some of the, you know, maybe some of the cessationists that might be listening might get a little uncomfortable here. Um, no, but uh, you know, so we had all these people talking to me and sharing the same thing. And then so then when we we plan, okay, we're gonna announce this to the church in a month, right? It's good new church name, Arroyo Church. Yeah, we're gonna meet in Dublin in the movie theater, and here's our plan. We're gonna, you know, have these four preview services and then we're gonna launch in the fall, and blah, blah, blah, blah. A month out from that announcement, one of the guys in our church, who was the we're not uh necessarily a Pentecostal church, although I am a continuist.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:38

I believe that I I didn't ask what this church that you got to in Oakland Hills, what was it denominationally affiliated?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:43

They were part of they were one of the founding churches in what was called the Conservative Baptist Association. Okay. Obviously, that is like a cuss word in the Bay Area. So they changed their name, and they're right to this day, they're adventure uh church network. Reventure church, okay. Yeah, so that's and we're still affiliated with them, and they're a lot of good people over there. So we're like, okay, we're gonna announce this to the church in a month.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:04

But and you know, is this a part of like you're gonna sell the property too?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:06

Yeah, sell the property. Okay, all of that. So it was a very big announcement. It's a lot, it's a lot. So this guy comes up to me who's super prayerful. He was leading a prayer group for our church at the time, and uh he goes up to my mom, who's a member of our church, super involved, and she goes, Hey, I didn't want to tell Josh this. But a month ago I had a dream that we were selling the property and moving the church. And I hear this, and I literally fall to the ground. I'm like because I haven't told him anything, and he doesn't know any of the people that are gonna be. And this is before the meeting? This is before the meeting. He comes up and he tells me that. I start crying, dude. Well, and he told he told your mom, and then he came and told you. No, my mom told me. He didn't even tell me directly. We talked about it over lunch later. So my mom tells me this, and I'm just like, I'm stunned. I'd never I I've had God speak to me supernaturally through dreams and different things all throughout my life in a few different ways. But this was like this is definitely one of the bigger ones where I was just like, I was just stunned. I'm like, oh my gosh, God, like you're so faithful. Like, this is incredible. So that just gave me such a renewed.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:05

And it's something too, right? Like to all those cessationists, and I'm a cautious continuist, by the way. Paramedic with a seatbelt. Yeah, right. And that seat belt's the word of God. Like to me, it's it says something when like you describe that story, or I think of a situation or two in my life when a holy, prayerful saint says something like that versus like the crazy young guy who might be schizophrenic. Yeah, you're like very different of it's like a midlife that you know they're holy, they love Jesus, prayerful. Like, yeah, that's the sort of stuff that stops you.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:37

And there's no reason for him to lie to me about it. Exactly. And he didn't know what was going on. He had no idea. He was shocked when I told him that we were about to do the house. He had no idea, and so uh, yeah, that's what God did. So that gave me confidence where we were just like, all right, let's just charge the hill, let's just announce it, let's just go for this, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:54

Like, let's just go. How is it received?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:57

So, you know what? Actually, at that point in time, the church culture had shifted to where we only had maybe a handful of people that voiced some concerns, and even those people were like, hey, like we're not gonna be able to come with you guys because you guys are moving from here to there, but like we support you, we love you. So like there was no division at all in the church at that point. That's great. The whole culture had changed at that point where we were everybody was just on the same page and we were rolling and were there even people from the original church that were in that meeting and were okay? Yeah, there were still over there's around like maybe 20 people left, and even to this day. So we you know, we ended up planting or replanting the church in the movie theater in Dublin. We were there for only about a year and a half until the property that we're at now was gifted to us. That's a whole nother story. That's a God story. That's awesome. But uh, you know, so but it was just it was a it was a total God moment experience, and we were just ready to go for it because of all those confirmations from him.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:51

And how was it when you were in the movie theater? What was that like? Because now you're kind of this new church in a movie theater. Is that the big regal right there by six feet? Yeah, it's right off the freeway. Okay, I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:01

Yeah. And the this maybe wasn't the most prudent thing, but we prayed about it and talked to people about it. We hadn't even sold the property yet before we went and planted, replanted the church in the movie theater. So we're replanting this new church in the movie theater. While that we're like, we it we really just felt like from God, we're like, you know what? Like, if we have to wait for the money from this church to go do what we know he wants us all to do, then like what do are we really trusting him? Like, so we're just gonna go and do what he's telling us to do, and that property will just sell when it's gonna sell.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:31

Now that ended up taking a lot longer than we thought. I remember that story, right? There was challenge of like zoning or who gosh, all so clean.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:38

Yeah, but you know, it it took basically two years to sell that property, almost, yeah, basically two years. And so the whole time we were at the movie theater, that property hadn't even sold yet. And so we're like this new church, and then I'm still like on the side managing this 14-acre property with five tenants on it, which was an absolute nightmare. This is 2023, around around there? Yeah, this is about 2023, yeah. So then so we're there for about a year and a half, and we're kind of at the place now where we're getting closer to selling that older property, and we've seen a little bit of growth. We're up to maybe like a church, we went from like a church of 40 to Lake 60, and uh, we're in this new area, and you know, some people are coming to Christ, a few people, and but nothing crazy. And then one of our mission partners, a ministry called 360 Serve, which by the way, if you're in the Bay Area and you don't know about 360 Serve, you need to partner with them, they're amazing. They partner you uh with indigenous church planners in unreached persecuted areas, and you can fully support them so they're no longer bivocational in ministry. Oh, that's cool. That is really incredible ministry. It's out of Three Crosses Church. He was a pastor there for a long time and he's still involved there, but now he's gone on and started this own separate ministry. Is he still in the Bay Area? Is he running from the Bay Area? We need to have him on the podcast. We do. You need to hook us up. Oh, yeah. Mark Marcus. Okay, we'll make ministry. What is it? Uh 360 serves. So yeah, you definitely need him on the podcast. So the idea is like he's been doing ministry in the bay for over 40 years. That's okay, we're gonna have that going on.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:59

So the idea is it's sort of like those signs I see sometimes where it's like a sister city. It's like, as I just drove in Santa Cruz, like Santa Cruz has a sister city in South America. So the idea is like as a church, you have a sister church, but it's in a UUPG. Right. That's awesome. All right, we're gonna we've got to have that going. All right, so how's this playing a part of this?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:15

So then now we're like a year and a half in and we're like, okay, we're kind of done with this whole setup and teardown thing in the movie theater. Um, this is like burning people out. This is crazy. And uh, so I just started like turning over every stone. I'm like calling every single office building or resident or uh commercial building that's for lease. Literally, not nobody wants us. Yeah, because we're a church, nobody wanted like everybody was saying no.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:39

Everybody, we had the exact same thing at one point, and I was calling so many different places and like buildings that I know had been empty for years. Right, it's like you don't want our money, like yeah, like we have the money, we will pay you, and then they're just like, No, we're not interested in that business, and they're just like what are you interested in?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:58

It was very frustrating for us because we were looking to just find something, even if it wasn't to buy, like just a place that we could rent and not have to set up in Terredale every week, right? But then my friend Mark from 360 Serve calls me one day and he's one of the most prayerful guys you'll ever meet. And he's like, Hey, you know, I was fasting and praying today, and the Lord really put you on my heart. And you know, I know this pastor over in Livermore, and you know, he's looking to retire and get donate his property to another church. He's been talking to several churches, but it's just he hasn't felt peace about any of them. I think you would be the perfect fit for him. I've known David for years. I said, give me his number right now. So, anyways, I mean uh Pastor David, we started a relationship, and I basically talked to him um and like in-person meetings twice a week, a few hours each, like every week for three months, and they just gave the property to us. And what's crazy is they gave us the property, and the moment that that closed, the sale of the other property closed. So then we had this thing where like we got all these amazing resources from the old property and then got this new property for free, and then we relaunched the church in 2025, and then since then God's just done amazing things. That's cool. We've seen a ton of people come to Christ and been doing baptisms, and yeah, I mean, it's it's been super interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:19

And speaking, I'll say this guy so to all those who are listening. I mean, speaking as someone who's preached at his church, his church has a lot of what all is like the uh the golden ticket, so to speak, that every church planner or pastor wants young families. Yeah, and your church has a lot of I would say as the majority of the people there that Sunday I preached were young families who were eager to receive the word. Yeah, yeah. In the middle of a community on a major street, lots of property, lots of building. Like it's you're in a prime spot, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:49

It's exciting. So but it's only gone. Like I literally can't take credit for any of it. It's just he's guided and directed us, and I just feel like I'm just kind of catching a wave. You know, it's like, you know, and I think that's when I've gotten most frustrated in ministry. It's me waving my arm around like a dummy in the ocean trying to create a wave so I could ride it. When it's like uh I'm stealing this from Rick Warren, by the way, but it's like just let God send the wave, wait for it to come, and then you ride it, you know, and so that's what I feel like's happening right now, and um just super grateful. That's awesome. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:22

I I I I think too, man, I think one of the things that people don't realize often, and I would just say this to anybody who might be listening who's not in ministry, who or or not necessarily in paid ministry, but just part of a church or whatever. Um I think that one of the challenges of being in ministry in the Bay Area is that there is a lot of risk. Um, and that there is uh when and and and oftentimes when God when God blesses, when he when he sends the wave, yeah, right, like there is great reward. Like there is there is like there are benefits. Like I look back and I say, man, I felt the risk all the time just surrounding me. Like if this doesn't follow through, if this thing doesn't happen, if this doesn't happen, or if this conflict doesn't resolve in this way, or if this ends up going this way, or whatever, and you just and you're feeling it as you're as someone who's minister, you're feeling the tension of that risk. And you're just like, man, we are trusting that God, that this is God's plan. If it's not God's plan, if this thing comes crashing down, it like we're it's it's gonna be devastating. Right, right. And then and then just to be able to look back like you are right now and saying, that wasn't me, that wasn't us. Like, sure, we moved to Dublin in the movie theater before the property was sold. We did this, we did that. Instead of burying our talent, we went ahead and tried to invest it in until what we were completely spent, and and God allowed there to be some sort of um you know fruit that came from from that. I can look back so many different things and just be like, we put ourselves, we stretched, we were stretched thin, things were not like there was no guarantee of what was happening. But then when you look back, like God did this, God did this, God did this, God did this, and it's a great blessing. But man, the tension, the anxiety, the stress that you feel in the middle of the of that risk, it's awful. It is awful.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:16

It is, and it's like to what I was saying earlier, it's like okay, yeah, what I mean, maybe would there be some things I changed in the past? Sure, I'm sure I could think of things, but like what I would change the most is just how I dealt with what happened, right? And just like, man, I could have enjoyed that more. Like I could have been at more peace if I had just trusted him. And um, it's so simple, but it's not true.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:36

I I think it's important, like you were saying earlier, and we forget this as ministers, is that we're confused with what God's goal is in us or through us. That's right. That we're always so concerned with what God's gonna do through us that we forget that it's more that what he wants to do in us. That's right. That's right. You know, we have to remember what it says in that famous parable of, you know, well done, my good and faithful servant. It doesn't say fruitful, and it doesn't just say faithful, it says good. And this is why in my ministry I emphasize holiness because I think there's been an a lack of emphasis, if no no emphasis at all, on the importance of holiness. And as ministers, we have to remember that God is just as concerned, if not more concerned, of what he's doing in our hearts versus in the hearts of others through us. That's right. He wants us to be good, good in terms of holiness and obedience to commands. And it's good and faithful, not fruitful. So you're you're called to be holy and you're called to do what God has called you to do and leave the results to him. That's right. And I fear that too often ministers forget the good holy part. That's right. And that is so critical. And that's why I'm glad to hear that as you reflect on things like, hey, I I I, you know, shot my shot, and I look back and think, you know what? I'm not concerned about the shot I did or didn't take. I'm concerned about my heart. Yeah. Because that's what matters the most, is God is after our hearts. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:53

Yeah, and I think he'll he'll put us through those trials, right? Because the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And so it's like, you know, you're complaining about the storm, and but what God wants us to do is not ask, you know, why is this storm here? But Lord, what are you teaching me through this? Right, and how are you shaping me and molding my character so that I become more like Christ? And so, you know, you begin to uh to look back at those and be like, you know what? I'm actually glad that I went through that because there are parts of who I am today that is better because I went through those those storms.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:25

So let me ask about your experiential theology then. Yeah. What is it that you believe more firmly about God now? What is it that God has shown to you about Himself in all of this and everything that you've experienced that you hold more tightly to, or that you believe more deeply, or that you set your feet on as a foundation as you continue to minister where you are now? That's a really good question.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:52

I love that. I'm gonna just go for the most important. I there's a lot of ways I could answer that, but I think the most important part is I I always go back to uh the commissioning of Isaiah, and you know, here I am, Lord send me. You know, he goes from seeing the holiness of the Lord, and you know, woe is me. You know, I'm a wretched man of unclean lips, surrounded by people with unclean lips. And he goes from woe to go. And how does he go from woe to go? Because he had been purified. Oh, that's good. Right? It was the gospel of God. Uh Jesus hadn't yet died and resurrected yet, but it's this the gospel's right there. Right? He he had been cleansed, he had been purified, he had been forgiven, he had been loved, he had been accepted by God. And I think, you know, when you're young and you're in ministry, you get excited and you're like, Lord, here I am, send me because I'm great and I'm ready to change the world. And you get beaten down a little bit in life, and you realize that you're really pretty sinful and that you don't deserve to be sent, you're sinful. It's like, why would God ever send a sinful man like me? I I'm such a broken person. I have so many faults and and failures, and there's even things now that I are not not great in my life, and I need to repent of, and and it needs to change. But even like now, like uh right after the day where I sinned on a Saturday and I gotta get up to the pulpit and preach on Sunday, I can say boldly, I don't need to tuck my tail between my legs, I can say boldly, here I am, Lord, send me. Send me not because of who I am, but because of who you are and what you've done and because your love for me. So I would say, like I believe that then, but I believe it so much more now. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:31

You know, I didn't I didn't uh put it together. Like you were saying this, and I'm realizing that I've heard the that passage used and even song sung about here I am, send me. And it's all it I feel like it's always been couched in like pressure, fear, guilt, like God's calling you, he's gonna use you. You need to go, you need to do it, you know. And it but it it's never couched in I say never. I don't remember being it being couched in repentance or in confession or uh in a sense of like awe at his uh supreme holiness. And yet I do think that the the the only acceptable response to recognizing God in all of his glory and recognizing us in the moment when we have been atoned for or cleansed is to say, here I am. Yeah. Send me.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:18

And I think that's beautiful. That's where the confidence comes from, right? So it's like I feel like when I'm up on a Sunday morning, I have no reason to not be completely confident. And it's not because of who I am and my sermon prep and because I'm an eloquent speaker. It's like I'm a child of God and He's called me to do this. This is what I'm supposed to do. I don't have a reason to be like filled with guilt or filled with shame or like second guess why I'm here or what I'm doing. Like this is what he's called me to do and I'm not here because of myself. So I got nothing to lose. Let's just go for it. And so I just think it's like having that gospel confidence of just like no it's not about me. So I'm free. I just get to go for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:03

So what is the truth about God that you take to your people in right now? Like what are the things that you as a pastor call to them to shepherd them, shepherd their hearts, their faith what is it that you want to call them to believe about God that may be either difficult to believe or they're just you know this is the only thing that's going to carry you forward in what God has called you to do.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:29

Well I feel like I got to just go to the heart of it. I mean the mission of Arroyo church is knowing and showing the love of Jesus in the Bay Area and beyond. And so for me I always break down that kind of word by word. You know I always start with like the love of Jesus like what is the love of Christ? Like what is the gospel, right? And I always say, you know, you go to Google and you type in what is love is going to tell you love is a feeling it's in a strong affection right and love isn't a feeling love can cause feelings but love itself is not a feeling what is love right and my life verse is first John chapter four verse 10 where it says this is love not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent his son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. So what is love? It's a sacrificial action done for the benefit of another and that love is seen most powerfully and most clearly in the cross of Christ where he sacrificed himself for us so that we could be saved. So that's love. But what do we do with that love? Well I want us as a church to know it and I want us to show it. How do we know it? Well I always go straight to Matthew 7 to like kind of define what does it really mean to truly know? Right? It's that stark warning passage, right, where Jesus talks about all these spiritual leaders that prophesied and did all these incredible things but then he says right depart from me I never knew you so what does no mean? It doesn't mean you've done things for God because those people did stuff for God. No means that you have a personal real relationship with him. And so what I want for my people more than anything else is I want them to genuinely personally experientially have an encounter with the risen Lord and his love for them so that it radically changes their life to the point where they don't they're not forced to but they naturally show his love because you don't show his love because you have to you show his love because your heart's been so filled up that it just overflows right when you abide in him you bear much fruit. And so I just I mean every sermon every group everything we do it's about like first and foremost knowing the gospel knowing Jesus knowing his love and then you know getting people to a place of you know training them and and um discipling them to the point where they know what it means to show that love. And I always say the best way to show the love is in it's in word and and it's indeed right it's in word and works it's not either or like get to get uh the the one uh quote that people always always bring up that drives me nuts especially people from like the millennial generation the St. Francis's preach the gospel and when necessary use words uh no the gospel right it's it's a message and it requires words yeah the word became flesh and dwelt among us right right so uh you know now now that to be said you gotta have both though right and I think that's where you know guys that are like us that really want to prioritize the word we can neck neglect some of the works right and we forget that yeah Jesus preached but he also healed people I mean he basically had a hospital ministry on the side of his preaching ministry and so we gotta do things to actually show people that we care about them. And so because if we only preach it but we don't live it then our our living is in invalidating what we're preaching. But then if we're just living it and not preaching it well they're gonna think you're good but they're not gonna know God is good. So like that's kind of what I love that to boil it down that's what we're all about. That's great. So as you think about replanting as you have arroyo in this new place what's your you know philosophy or strategy for growth for moving forward from what was to what lies ahead yeah that's what's your strategy yeah I think where we're at right now is an exciting time because we're at a place now where I'm having to really I feel like personally grow in kind of what we were talking about earlier with releasing things um out of your hand into others' people's hands um so that the ministry could grow. So you know we're at a place where we've we've like hired a few staff members but then also like we're wanting to raise up more people within the church that you know you're not paid to be a leader but you're a leader you're serving. So I feel like we're at a place right now where I'm like just empowering other people or empowering other people because um we I think did in the last year kind of reach a lid of growth where like man we keep hitting 300 on certain like big Sundays but then we go back to being around a little under 200 and I'm like wait I think it's because I'm trying to do too much. And now like we've reached the size where like this is how far I could take the church if I'm doing all these things. And like if we're gonna continue to grow and continue to reach more people I need to actually stop doing some things so that I could focus on the most important things. And also so I could have other people do those things better than I can do them. Because if I'm doing like 12 different things oh there's no way I can do those 12 things really well. You know so I can only take it so far and so that's really kind of been the name of the game I think for me in the last like six months it's just been like empowering other people but it's not just empowering any person. Like it's finding the right person, the right leaders and so really I've been focused I think on just team like building the right team and finding the right people and also training people. You know it's it's leadership uh identification okay um and then leadership development and training. So that's really been what I've been most focused on I think in the last six months because I think that's what's most needed for us our church to get to where we need to go. And I think when it comes to leadership development, you know, we tend to want to have like leaders like come on our doorstep like fully formed and like wrapped in a bow and ready and like that's great if you can find somebody like that. That's awesome. I mean bring it on like that's easy. But I really think like what's most important is like you know finding the person with like what you were saying earlier Cameron like the holiness they have the right heart they have the integrity and they have the gifts they may not have the experience they may not have the training but you can give that because here's the thing like you can teach somebody skills but you can't make somebody like be passionate about like Jesus like I can't do that. Like that's between them and the Lord. So I just want to get really good at like finding people that have the right character that have the right heart they're ready for leadership. Because I'll take somebody over that over somebody you know that has the gifts but maybe not the right heart right because those people can actually like they can do a lot but in the end they're gonna be damaging. So you know we want to put character first and then you know the competency you know can come after that.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:59

What do you think about the way that people interact with the uh rest of the team or with you as as a leader because I do think in some sense you might somebody that has a passion for you know doing ministry for God um they may not even be gifted but they might be gifted and then but there's just something where there just seems like it just I just something off and it just like there's just not like a lot of chemistry with the with the team and stuff like how have you had to deal with that or kind of absolutely I have and uh to me I put chemistry almost on the same level as character because uh like for me this is and this is just my style of leadership like I want to do life with you like I want to yeah you know I want us to get along I want us to and it doesn't mean that I have to have the same level of chemistry with everybody because you know you're gonna get more you get along with certain people more naturally based off their personality or whatever or their background.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:54

But like we need to be able to have chemistry and that's I think not valued enough in in some ways you know it's like okay well can you do the job? Great you're hired or great just get in there and do it. And uh you got to be able to work well together. Otherwise you're just gonna be like disagreeing and fighting with one another all the time and that's really not a great way to to work as a team. So I mean what I love about our current team now and like if we like brought in like you know I'd say like seven of like our highest like level leaders within the church right now like they would all tell you that they all love one another and genuinely enjoy being around with one another and like we like to joke with one another. We like to have fun with one another like these are people that like I would go out to dinner with by choice right and like hang out with. So like that's I think super important. And again I think you get to a certain point in growth where the team becomes so big you can't be relational with everybody and now you have layers of leadership right where um you can't touch everything. We're not quite at that level yet with like our key leaders I'm still pretty hands on with all of our key leaders over ministries and things but there yeah comes a certain point where as the like maybe the the most senior leader or whatever you want to call it you don't get that with everybody and I hope that we get to that point one day but uh yeah for now sometimes those things just come with time.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:16

Exactly yeah I I feel like uh Bob the guy that I planted uh Redeemer with he he said that he was in a panel discussion one time and they were like what is one of the key things that you need uh in order to be able to have a team that works together and he's like and he was just like you gotta love them. I mean not love them he's like you gotta like them like you gotta you gotta like everybody he's like all these other people are giving all these philosophical and theological answers biblical gritty man and he's just like you got to like them he goes I'm not gonna I'm not gonna devote my life and time to working with someone I don't like work I don't like along with you know yeah I think that the like fleshing that out a little bit more than just saying oh I like this person but actually I found that when when you are around people who are your cheerleader and you're their cheerleader um I think it goes a huge a long way like when you're just like dude I love watching you do that and I think it helps when people are just like cheering each other on when they're looking at each other's gifts and say man I'm so glad it's you you know yeah and you got one another's back you know that's the most important part because ministry is tough.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:17

It is and so you need to be able to actually like one another and be able to work things through with one another and be honest with one another and I I mean that's the biggest thing I think is honesty is being able to like I always talk about grace and truth grace and truth like hey we want to speak the truth and love to one another and so like we want to be ruthlessly honest about what we need to be better at as a team what we need to be better at as a church what you need to be better in what I need to be better in but we ought to be so like loving and kind with one another and patient with one another and you know so yeah that's that's really key for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:51

So I want to talk to you about your your training a bit in our last section because you know you're an evangelist you got training at one of the most prestigious Christian universities you studied in one of the most prolific well known Christian writers and Ed Stetzer, the new dean at Talbot Seminary. So talk to us a bit here in the last part about like your your evangelistic philosophy theology and like just practical ways like as we close out in the last 10 minutes like hey talk to us about your theology or philosophy of evangelism and then ways that you are evangelizing personally and then Arroyo church is doing that.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:23

Well the first thing I would say is there's not a one size fits all. And I think that's probably the biggest problem with maybe how some people have done evangelism is the past is like here's a model here's the way to package it and just give it this way to each person every single time. Four spiritual laws the three and again I have nothing wrong with that. I mean I love crew those are great frameworks. I mean I've made our my own version of that that we train our church with and show share with our church. But um so it's it's it's helpful to have those kind of molds and models to kind of try on and learn and grow. But the way I I like to say it is every single person has their own story. Every single person is on their own journey. So I'm talking about personal evangelism right now not preaching evangelism. It's a little different. When I'm having a conversation with somebody that's not a Christian and I'm sitting down with them and having coffee I first want to listen to them. Right? I want to hear you know what's your story what's your journey what's your background what are your beliefs um because then I'm gonna know where to meet them right I love that Paul said you know I become all things to all people so that I might win some for Christ. So how how how do you do that? Well well first you got to learn who they are because you don't know who to become and how to approach them unless you know who they are. So I think like the best people at evangelism are the best listeners and they're best at discerning and they're not awkward and weird about it either. Because you know you can be like well tell me this what do you believe about Jesus Christ and what do you believe and it's like what bro are you interrogating me like what is going on is like here this is the bottom of the in and out cop I'm gonna talk to you about John 316. All right it's like I think you're asking me questions because you don't care about me but you're just wanting to like hear what I think so that you can rebut me. That's right. That's not loving, that's not godly it's like a genuine like love and curiosity for like hey I really want to know like who you are and where you've come from and what you believe. And then once you've understood where they are okay like this is a nominal Catholic or you know this is somebody that's an atheist or agnostic or a Hindu or whatever, right? Learn where they are and then meet them where they are and uh so I I I I I'll share the gospel differently with all sorts of different types of people. That doesn't the gospel doesn't change the core message right if you're going to 1 Corinthians chapter 15 if somebody's like hey how do you like define the gospel in a nutshell go to 1 Corinthians 15 right all right Christ died for our sins according to the scripture right he rose from the dead right he did that so and then I'll go to Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, right? And you say by grace through faith right and that's our response right but so that's like simple that's the simple gospel but there are a lot of different ways like the the simple gospel will never change but the way that you kind of can package it and the way that you can present it can change based off of the person. So the way I present the gospel to somebody that maybe just got divorced uh might be different from somebody that is a Muslim right the the same simple gospel is the same but the way I'm presenting it to them will will be different. And so I think we need to get to know people well and then present the gospel to them in a way that they understand and in a way that is most relatable um to them. So that would be my first thing on personal evangelism. I would say like when I'm preaching what one of the things that's helpful for me in evangelism um is I like to like think of a specific person. Like that's kind of like and the way I look at it is like the number one person that like I'm trying to re I I want to reach everybody. Like the number one most common person I think in like the Bay Area and just through America as a whole is a religious nun, right? Which is like the fastest growing you know segment in America right now. It's just people that like they believe in like maybe there's a God but they're not really sure who he is and they don't really like they're not going to church but they're open to spiritual things but like maybe they're hanging out with and like reading their signs and crystals and whatever but like they're so I like to talk to that person because to me that's kind of my target audience. So I like to kind of think about like what are their what are their questions? You know what are what what are what are their biggest roadblocks to believing in Christ and then I want to speak directly to that um and I want to give the solutions to that. And so uh when it comes to like apologetics and answering the big questions I feel like a lot of those questions have actually changed recently you know it used to be you know how do I know the Bible's reliable? It used to be like you know prove to me why science and you know faith you know can coexist and why they don't you know all that type of stuff and I think our generation isn't really I mean they are asking those questions still but those aren't necessarily the most important questions.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:05

No they're not the same questions that the quote unquote uh horsemen of the apocalypse used to say Dawkins, Hitchens like you know those very antagonistic atheistic I that's not the case anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:17

No, no and so I just I don't know for me I have a picture in my head of the average person that's not a Christian and I try to think through what are their objections to the faith you know what are the big questions that they're asking and then how can I like think of those and then answer them as I'm speaking so that what I'm saying is connecting direct I'm connecting the gospel directly to their felt need, directly to what their questions are. Right. And so like I mean an example of that would be I mean the number one felt need in the generation today is anxiety and depression. I mean people are just killing themselves at levels that we've never seen before taking pills at levels we've never seen before harming themselves in ways we've never seen before I mean just it's it's absolutely insane. And uh so speaking into that like how does God give me peace? Well you can't have the peace of God till you have peace with God. And by the way by the way the way you have peace with God is through faith in Jesus Christ. And the reason why you need peace with God is because you're a sinner that you've actually rebelled against God and you're at war with God and you need to be forgiven by God and you're forgiven through what he's done for you. And when you do that you're at peace with him and when you're at peace with him you could have peace from him this peace that passes all understanding. It's like that's just like one example right but it's just like hitting those felt needs that people are dealing with um I mean even like with relationship issues right how do I evangelize I mean I'm thinking of people within our church that literally have come to Christ and like they have relationship issues with like the person they're married to is like this guy that's not a Christian but he's married to somebody that is and like how can I speak into that person's life and show Christ to them and how the the word of God is relevant to their situation and then bring that back to the gospel. So just finding ways to do that I think is is uh super important and key. I don't know do you have any follow-up questions or thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 1:47:06

No that's really good. I I would just say then like lastly what are some things that as a royal church so you're doing uh I get that you're evangelizing personally you're training your people to do personal evangelism but like how do you as a church corporately yeah re try to reach out to the community in which you find yourselves yeah I think so there's a few things I mean we really want to equip people for personal evangelism and there are a lot of different there's like levels of evangelism is like the way I like to talk about it with our church.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:34

Like level one would be just telling people you're a Christian. Like there are so many people that don't even like tell their coworkers like that they go to church. And by the way it's really easy to do that. Like you just in conversation naturally be like oh yeah you know I'm this weekend I'm and I'm going to church and whatever and like just say nonchalantly like that's like just come out of the closet as a Christian. Some of you you need to trapped in the closet and just get out. Like that would be level one is just like letting people know that you're an actual follower of Christ. But then level two I would say would be like inviting them to church. Like anybody could do that. Like so very easy to do. I tend to really push our church to do that on big Sundays where people are more likely to come whether it's like Easter or Christmas or if we're like doing a big fun community event like the thing that you were talking about earlier. Meg inviting the pumpkin we did uh you know a a free pumpkin patch for a community where I people could just come and get a free pumpkin was that well attended oh yeah that was awesome yeah and we it was a huge evangelistic thing I think we saw like 20 people respond to the gospel that Sunday and it was super fun. So like stuff like that where it's like that's just low-hanging fruit like invite your friend and just say hey there's food trucks there's ice cream there's a free pumpkin patch just come hang out you know it's a community event you know and then they come and they hear the gospel so like that's low-hanging fruit like okay tell them you're a Christian invite them to church but then there's the third level which is now you're not just inviting them to church you're inviting them to Christ and you're actually having that conversation with them. That's where I want everybody to get at right and you know a lot of churches they just stop at the inviting people to church spra which again there's nothing wrong with that. I don't want to like like it's great. I want our people to invite people to church but like more than that I want you to invite them to Christ. And I want you to share the gospel and so I always go to the woman at the well with John 4 to really just like demystify the whole idea of sharing the gospel and evangelism because a lot of people they get hung up and they're like well I can't do it. I don't know enough. I can't answer all the questions you know you know what if they make fun of me that's really the biggest thing by the way is fear of man. It's fear of man and you got to just get over yourself. I'm sorry. If you're not wanting to share the gospel because you're scared it's just like listen like who are you litting for the approval of God or the approval of man? So and and like there's nothing that they could do that can take away your salvation. I mean and by the way you if you're listening and you're in America the worst thing they could do is unfollow you on social media. Oh my gosh or make fun of you or maybe fire you from your job. Okay well there are other people in other parts of the world where they're Getting killed. So I think if if they can do that, you can lose a job, you can have an awkward conversation, you could lose a few followers on social media. So uh, but I I love to go to John 4 because the woman at the well is such a great, I think, picture of evangelism. Because what happens, right? She's this woman living like this completely debaucherous lifestyle of going from man to man, outcast of society, she meets Jesus, this living water, he completely radically transforms her life, and she goes directly to the village. And what is she what's her sermon? Does she have like a big sermon? No, she's just sharing her testimony with people. She's not like this evangelist or pastor or anything like that. All she's doing is she's saying, Come see a man that told me everything I ever done. That's it. That's all she said. All she said was essentially this is who I was. You guys know who I was. You knew I was messed up. And I met Jesus and he's changed everything. And so I always like to go with like the before and the after picture of just like you see the guy on this side and you see him on the other side. And it's like, that's all you need to do to share the gospel as a Christian. Like, like do should you grow and be able to learn to how to answer those big questions and all those things? That's wonderful. But I want you to know that the moment you've become a Christian, you have now been commissioned to do the work of evangelism, and you are now a fisher of men. That's good. And just go and share your story. I mean, that's how the I think early church exploded in growth. Is uh Michael Green has this famous statement where he says, you know, they were gossiping the gospel. They people just couldn't shut up about it. They were just sharing their testimonies, and there was nothing that could shut them up. And so I just I want get I and really I I what I tell people is is share with your circle. You know, you don't got to go overseas to share the gospel, although that'd be great if you did, but you can just go across the street. And so who are the people in your circle? Like they're there for a reason. Yeah. Right? Your family, your friends, your acquaintances, your co-workers. Those are pe those people are there for a reason. So share the gospel with them, share your testimony with them, invite them to church, pray for them. Um, that that's really huge. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:10

I was teaching an evangelism class at our church here a couple months or about a month a month or two ago, and one of the framework uh passages I used was from uh, and I know a lot of people kind of go to this, but I don't know that I've ever heard anybody talk about explicitly the way that I I presented it, but it was uh Mars Hill Acts 17. And and Paul says, Paul says, from one person came all people that make up all the nations of the world, and God determined their allotted times and the places and the boundaries in which they would live, so that they would seek after God, and in seeking for him or grasping for him, they might find him because he's not far off from any of us. And uh the the whole the whole idea being that God has pre-rigged our the time that we live, everyone, everyone lives, and the place that everyone lives, so that they might seek after him, and in grasping for what they are seeking for, they find him because he's not far off from anyone at all. And I just think that that's I think that's it. We've got to like help people step into the story of their we have to step into the story of their lives so that they can see themselves in the story of the light of the gospel, which is great.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:24

Yeah, that's awesome. I love it, and uh I and uh maybe I'll end here because I know we've been talking a lot, but uh the la last two verses I would share is like Romans 1:16, right? For I am unashamed of the gospel. So you don't need to be ashamed. Why? Because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. The gospel is powerful, it's not about you. Just share the message, and the message itself has the power to soften hard hearts. It makes me think of that miracle with Jesus and the disciples, and they're fishing all night and they've caught nothing. And then, you know, Jesus is like, hey, put it on the other side, and he's like, dude, I've been I'm the fisherman, you're the carpenter. Like, you don't know what you're talking about. But okay, Lord, because it's you, right? I'll put it on the other side. And what happens, right? It's more fish than they could even count, it's more than they could even hold. The nets are bursting at the seams. And see, that's uh, I think in a lot of ways, an illustration for when you try to do it on your own power and strength, and when you see the power of the gospel show up in people's lives. And so it's just it's not about you. And so you don't need to come in and be like, oh, I don't know what to like if I it's gonna work or like how they're gonna your job isn't them accepting Christ, your job is sowing the seed, right? And so, like, it's the it's the parable of the sower, just throw it out there. There was four different types, only one of them really got root and bore fruit. So if you're one for four, that's great. You're right in line with what Jesus said. And in fact, what he's saying is is most people are probably gonna say no. But if you throw out a lot of seed, you're gonna see a lot of fruit. And so just be unashamed, go for it, and uh God's power can make it happen.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:57

Thank you, brother. Well, I hope you all have been encouraged here listening to this episode of the Bay A Theology Podcast. And our good friend Josh in a Royal Church is a living example of the faithfulness of God to save his sheep that are not of this fold through the faithful, clear proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:15

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:15

Be not ashamed, and remember, as they were saying here at the end, that God is the one who has sovereignly, not accidentally, appointed your times, your living spaces and places, the friends that you have, the places that you work, the places you frequent, so that you might testify to them that Christ is the Lord, the Lord of their life, and there to give them living water and daily bread. So praise God that you have been faithful about this work as a Bay Area native until God says otherwise, until He takes you home. Love it. Well, thank you guys for listening to this episode of the Bay Area Theology Podcast. Until next time, may you continue to consume theology from the Bay for the Bay. Thank you, brother. Amen. Talks again.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:54

Bye. Amen. Thanks for listening to the Bay Area Theology Podcast. If this conversation encouraged you, be sure to subscribe, follow, leave a review, and share this episode with someone else who would benefit from it. You can find more episodes, resources, and information at BayareaTheology.org. That's Bayarea Theology.org. If you are interested in learning more about the Bayseed Collective or helping support the work that we are doing, go to Bayseed.org. That's B-A-Y-S-E-E-D.org. At Bay Area Theology, we believe that healthy ministry begins with healthy theology. Our hope is to cultivate thoughtful conversations that strengthen the church here in the Bay Area and beyond. This has been Bay Area Theology, Theology from the Bay for the Bay.