Ep. 2 - CJ: Church Hurt as a Preacher’s Kid

In this episode of Faith Rehab, we sit down with our producer CJ Mateo as he shares his story of growing up as a third-generation pastor’s kid—and how that shaped his view of church, leadership, and faith.

From church planting and busy ministry life to seeing behind the scenes of how church really works, CJ opens up about how the “magic” of church slowly faded and was replaced with frustration, unrealistic expectations, and subtle church hurt. 

But this isn’t just a story about disappointment—it’s about perspective.

If you’ve ever wrestled with church hurt, disappointment, or questions about leadership—this one’s for you.

Faith Rehab is a podcast about church hurt, healing, and rebuilding faith.

We create a safe space for honest conversations about spiritual disappointment, doubt, and the process of finding hope again—without pretending or having all the answers.

Co-hosts: Steve McNitt, Heidi Brandt & CJ Mateo
 Produced by: CJ Mateo

Contact us at Faithrehabpodcast@gmail.com
— we’d love to hear your story.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, thanks for tuning in today. Today you're gonna hear CJ tell a story from the Philippines that got us all grunning.

SPEAKER_04 0:07

And you're gonna listen to us talk about Heidi's rash.

SPEAKER_05 0:12

If you make it all the way to the end, you're gonna hear about a body condom.

SPEAKER_04 0:16

Enjoy.

SPEAKER_05 0:29

Okay, oh, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Hey everybody, welcome back to Faith Rehab. Real talk about church hurt healing and rebuilding faith. And we're creating a safe space for people to talk about their genuine Christian experience and experience some great love and community. We're not going to use names of pastors or churches, but we are going to talk about real stuff inside of all of us. I'm Steve, and I am a former pastor, licensed clinical social worker for about 30 years. I'm a dad of two amazing adopted boys. This year I'm celebrating my 40th year of marriage. Wow. And yeah, I mean, who knew she could have that much patience, really? Amen. All right. Who's next?

SPEAKER_06 1:19

Uh I'm Heidi. I am a former pastor's wife. I have four sons, and professionally I am a public speaker, a consultant, an executive coach, and I have a dog named Chip.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Nice.

unknown 1:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

And where pray tell is that accent from?

SPEAKER_06 1:41

Oh, I'm from uh the Midwest here, just south of Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

Oh, you betcha.

SPEAKER_06 1:45

You betcha.

SPEAKER_04 1:46

Hey, my name is CJ AKA BMI, too high, aka um Pepto Blitzmal, and aka C Papset Hike. Those are all fantasy football names. They're all uh related to my disabilities. Um, I do have uh uh two kids, three kids, three kids, two dogs, and my dogs are named butter and noodle. Chip, butter, and noodle. That sounds like a meal to me. Yeah. What's up with you guys? How are you guys doing?

SPEAKER_06 2:16

Well, I uh I have this rash that it's pretty intense, and it's actually something it's it breeds in tanning beds. So I probably got it when I was younger and used to like go to tanning beds all the time, and it's a fungus that I get on my skin. And so I took my 17-year-old son to the drugstore and I was Googling like what are some remedies for getting rid of this rash, and it's like salsa and blue jock itch spray. Okay, they could be our sponsor. I hope so, and also like jock itch cream, and so we went into the store and I bought those things, and he also at the time was like, Hey, can we get some compound W because I have a wart that I need to get rid of. And so we go up to the counter, and my 17-year-old looks at me and he goes, Man, I sure hope this stuff works. And the older man behind the counter must have thought we were buying all the things for my 17-year-old son because he looked right at him and he goes, Me too, son.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Me too.

SPEAKER_06 3:22

We looked out. I'm like, they he probably thought you were getting all that stuff, like anti-dandrup, anti-jock itch cream. He's like, What? That's what? So, but the rash is cleared up. The Lotrimin spray is a gift from the Lord. Telling you, I'm not itching like I used to. So something's working. Good.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Well, there's an answer to prayer and chemistry, so that's good. Should we pray right now for Heidi's rash?

SPEAKER_06 3:48

I have an unspoken request.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

You guys know how to make a uh uh a real impression, you know, and what a shopping list.

SPEAKER_06 3:55

If CJ is BMI too high, I'm just like TMI too high.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Yeah, we heard that from the last episode. So BMI too high and TMI too high. It's it's nice to be with you guys.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Add it up.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Hey, last episode we got to hear from Heidi Joy, and we got to hear all of her story. And if you haven't heard it yet, go listen to it because it's amazing, and you get to hear that fun accent all the way through. And it is fun too high, is what I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_04 4:32

That jokes.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

But tonight we have the privilege of um hearing from my good friend CJ, and to introduce it, I'm gonna tell people how we met. CJ, is that okay? Yes, please.

SPEAKER_06 4:44

Such a good story.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Six years ago in 2020, you know, COVID had hit, everything had shut down. The church uh that I was going to or am going to, CJ was going to, and they were asking people to join small groups, and we're all gonna be Zoom small groups. And so my wife and I we're in our 60s. My next birthday, I'll be six seven. Um, and we're in we signed up to go be a part of this small group, and um I got an email back from CJ, and his wife's name is Samantha. She goes by Sam, and um, I get this email saying, Hey, we should zoom together and just uh get to know you a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 5:28

And can I just say one thing first?

SPEAKER_06 5:31

Yeah, please.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

In when you sign up for our group, it did say married couples age, like the maximum age is 40. I believe we both 40. Okay, go ahead, Steve.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Well, I don't know if it said that, but it did say married couples and uh kids are okay. We have kids, yeah, we're good, and so just picture this. Okay, we're on our couch with our computer, and it's Zoom, and Sam and CJ are on their couch or something, and they've got on Zoom, and they start asking us, you know, questions like, Do you want to be part of the group and tell us about your life?

SPEAKER_06 6:07

Wait, time out. Can I ask you a question? Yeah, CJ, did you know what they looked like? Like when they got on Zoom, were you like, Okay, we're I did not know, I just knew of their age because I think you type you emailed me, hey, we are 60 something.

SPEAKER_04 6:24

I see.

SPEAKER_06 6:24

Okay, all right, sorry, keep going.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

We told them, hey, we're old, but we like young people, and if you want old people in your group, we'll join. And then they then I want you to picture the two most awkward people in the whole world that haven't had a drink of water in about an hour because they just are like, um um uh you know, our group is like younger people, right? Like, yeah, we like young people, you know. Uh some of us have little kids, you know, or like, yeah, Susie's a former uh kindergarten teacher. This is perfect. All the right things um they were so awkward and so gracious, though. I will say that. So gracious and so kind, and they're like, uh, I mean, if you want to be in our group, you can. We might do it at night. I don't know if you guys can stay up.

SPEAKER_04 7:12

I did not say that. You are lying now, sir.

SPEAKER_06 7:16

What was your intention, CJ? I want to hear it.

SPEAKER_04 7:19

So I just felt like we were zooming with a couple that disregarded the the age limit, and so I was like, how do I tell these people that there's an age limit? But when when we talk to them, they are the you know Heidi, they are the coolest. And um, yeah, it's been it's been awesome. I'm glad I'm glad they reached out. That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

It's yeah, it's been a great relationship ever since. We have babysat their kids a few times. We Susie and Sam get together for coffee. CJ and I get together regularly for coffee in the weirdest coffee spots there are. Yeah, and uh it's been great. It was a blessing for us to be a part of that group for sure. Yes. So, CJ, you're on the hot seat tonight. We're gonna talk a little bit about your story. People may not know a lot about you. I'm gonna also introduce you again because people may not know. CJ has been a professional dancer, he has part been uh a part of a dance crew.

SPEAKER_04 8:16

What's the name of the crew? Oh man, the crew's name is Step Boys, it's named after the auto parts store Pet Boys.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Step Boys, okay, and I've seen several of their dances, they are fantastic. Number one, also, they did a big dance routine, and that's how he asked Sam to marry him after a big old dance routine. Fantastic, yeah, um, because it's pretty amazing. And CJ grew up as a pastor's kid. Sometimes people call those PKs. Um, Heidi, I think you shared a little bit about that story. And so today we're gonna talk to CJ and find out what was it like to be a pastor's kid? What was church like for you?

SPEAKER_04 8:58

A little correction though, never been a professional dancer.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

You've never gotten paid. That's not true, because I know you get paid to teach dance too.

SPEAKER_04 9:08

All right, maybe okay, so PK Preacher's kid. Yeah, I grew up my I'm a third generation preacher's kid. My dad is a pastor, his dad's a pastor. Um, my dad immigrated here from uh Philippines and went to Bible college and became a pastor here. Growing up as a pastor's kid, let me just start with this. It wasn't even that it wasn't that bad. And I really enjoyed my time, and I now now I know all the skills and all the things that I learned from it. But growing up as um, my dad was an immigrant pastor, and at that time I don't think there was many getting a full salary for what they do. So my whole life he was always bivocational. He was just like the disciples who had a s a side job and ministry. And my mom was a full-time nurse, so it was um in in that respect, I think it was a little harder because we had two parents that had full-time jobs. Every afternoon we do community events, Bible studies, and on the weekends. He would specialize in planting churches. He was a church planter. And thinking about that now, what's the worst part of a church? I think it's a church planting part. So we would plant these churches, and whether they succeed or not, we'd leave them when they start getting a little bit of success success, right? And so um, it was just a lot of that weekend Bible studies, fundraisers, community events, church planting, and all these other things.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

CJ, how many of those church plants do you remember your family doing?

SPEAKER_04 10:40

I would remember maybe five or six. It's either my dad would start the church or he'd be part of a church plant, like other pastors doing it too.

SPEAKER_06 10:49

Was that hard? Or or was it kind of like, I don't know, there would be something kind of like peace, I'm out, like you're on your own. You get to kind of leave it. Or was it hard because you'd make connections and then have to move on to the next thing?

SPEAKER_04 11:01

I don't remember too many um times where we would leave and it would was it was hard. I just went with the flow. I don't even know what's going on. I think most of the time I'm not in the know how know-how of the business of the ministry. I was just the guy that set up, I was the guy that played drums, I was the guy that played piano and all these other things. And I didn't think much of it. You just it was the only life I knew.

SPEAKER_06 11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:29

When I got older as a teenager, we would go to these big mega church youth conferences, and that was the first time where I was like, wait, these kids look like they're having fun at church, right? And I would be like, Man, I wish my church was like this, or I wish I had a youth group. I've never experienced a youth group growing up. And then at these conferences, they had this PK, like you know those uh breakout groups. Yes, there's a PK breakout group. It's almost like a celebrate recovery for PKs or something like that. And they would tell their stories and stuff like that. And um, I think what what it is is um growing up, always seeing my parents busy all the time and and seeing behind the scenes, it really took the reverence out of church for me. Where like it doesn't seem like it's God's power running this thing. I could see humans running this thing. Class forward coming as an adult, where I um eventually uh I went to a different church as my as my parents, and then I went to a church with my wife, and then I worked at a church. I think I carried that with me, and I I put this lens on to when I see a pastor, I think of them as a regular person.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Express what's the what's the let's camp out on that for a second. Okay. You think of them as a regular person, which probably most pastors would say, Great, I am a regular person, but what's the kind of the good and the bad of that?

SPEAKER_04 13:00

I think I would like disrespect their authority, like I would challenge them all the time, just how I would with my dad. And so I think eventually got to the point where I had leaders and I would be so quick to talk back or so quick to just criticize them. And but at the same time, I would see them as regular people, but I would expect way more from them than a normal person. I expect some spiritual you have all the wisdom, treat me perfectly. And that would really mess up all my expectations.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

You have that for your dad too.

SPEAKER_04 13:39

Yeah. And so while I wasn't on staff, I think I just treated some pastors at my church as if I it was my dad. I put uh way like unreasonable expectations on my leaders at the time.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

That's good insight.

SPEAKER_06 13:54

That's a really, really insightful, like self-aware thing to recognize. Like was there a moment for you or like an age that you remember being, or something that happened where you made that connection?

SPEAKER_04 14:08

Or is because I don't know that I would be aware enough to think about that unless I had I it was very recent for me to understand that. So um, while working in the church, I was so frustrated in the beginning because I know growing up, church is just hard, church is messy, leaders have to make decisions that are not easy. Yeah, and it's run by people, so there's definitely problems in it. But for some reason, you think when you work there, you think we would all just be kumbaya, really good at treating each other well, communicate, communicating at a high level because we love each other. And that's just not the case. And you would I would get frustrated coming from a corporate world saying, How come the corporate world is doing it so much better than the spiritual world or the ministry world? It just doesn't make sense. And so it kind of loses like, is God really in this? Like this whole feeling like it's not what I expected. And I think that's common.

SPEAKER_06 15:07

Yeah, you're actually kind of capturing two things that I think exist for most people a lot, whether they're aware of it. It's you can recognize the messy human side of the church experience, but you're also searching for something sacred and deep and meaningful. Yeah. You know, it's and that's the conflict, isn't it? That a lot of people in the church, I think, experience today is you realize you're part of this broken, messy body of people, and yet you're still longing for something sacred, but we're looking to the people to show us that something sacred instead of locating it in our inside of ourselves, right?

unknown 15:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

CJ, what was it like for your dad, like for you? You know, your dad worked all week long at some job, and I think he was a little bit of an entrepreneur, so he may have had several jobs. Um, but then he would come home, tell you to do your homework, rush teeth, all those things dads do. And then on Sunday, he'd get up and go, let's open our Bibles to Ephesians 4, and he'd start preaching. What was that like?

SPEAKER_04 16:21

I don't think it was till later when I asked. We had some little spurts of like him discipling me, but that happened when I was an adult. As a kid, I feel like maybe he thought, okay, my my spirituality will be born by the messages that I hear from my dad on the pulpit. But I didn't have much of the hand holding, like, um, let's go through Genesis today, son. Yeah, I didn't have any of that.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

I just got the No, I wasn't talking about that at home. I was talking about like if on when he gets up on a Sunday morning at church, he's gonna go through like some Bible studies and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 16:54

And I do remember at at some point he was a superhero for me on the pulpit. And then I think at an another point in my life, maybe when I was older, I just heard his message, but it became even though it was probably great, I think I would dismiss it because I saw the other side of him, which was just a regular guy, nothing bad. Yeah. So like I said, I think just the the magic, the quote unquote magic of it all was kind of um dampened by just seeing all of the operations of everything.

unknown 17:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

And uh sometimes people compare it to like the Wizard of Oz. That once you look behind the curtain, it looks very, very different. Yeah. I wonder if that's what you're describing.

SPEAKER_04 17:41

Yeah. I think it would be. Because I would say if I if this was my testimony about how I saw God, it would happen way after on my own. Not not to say that any of my experiences as a kid didn't relate to my how I got called to, you know, or how I got saved, but yeah, it was just a very um to see all that growing up and then also to see regular kids doing regular things. You just you can't help but be like, how's my grass on this side? How's their grass on that side? And just compare and just know what am I missing out? The the biggest FOMO of my life is being a pastor's kid and not knowing the other side. So um, I would say though, my parents are really chill, like they they let us experience a lot of things. Like I said, I was breakdancing and doing all these things, and but it's it's still the thing where I hear I hear my dad preach on a f on a Sunday and I and then we're forced to go to all these things all throughout the week and the month and the years.

SPEAKER_06 18:39

How many siblings do you have?

SPEAKER_04 18:41

I have two. I have an older sister, younger sister.

SPEAKER_06 18:45

Oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_04 18:51

We always laugh. If I see a picture of my sister like at my parents' church doing sound, I just like I just we laugh at each other and it's funny.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

So I I don't know that you said this, but maybe you did and I didn't hear it. But you're you said your dad was a um immigrant pastor. Where did he emigrate from?

SPEAKER_04 19:12

He he came from the Philippines.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

So you're and is your mom Filipino? Yes. Did you were you raised like as more of a Filipino family or more like uh American or Filipino American, or how would you describe that?

SPEAKER_04 19:25

I think as a very uniquely Filipino American situation. We only spoke English, but my parents would speak Tagalog and we'd be around a lot of Filipinos and Filipino communities.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Were they those parents that like spoke Tagalog when they didn't want you to hear what they were saying? Yeah, like and I should learn something like that. But you couldn't understand it.

SPEAKER_04 19:48

I don't speak, and I wish I one year I think it's my new year's resolution to learn so that I could surprise them and I can know if they're talking trash. Yeah, love that never got so it would be beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

So, you know, we we talk about here um church hurt, but we also talk about like what's helped. What's helped you tell us where you feel like you are now and what's what's helped.

SPEAKER_04 20:11

What helped the most is realizing that it's not a church problem, it was a perception problem for me. I think I was perceiving and I was wait.

SPEAKER_06 20:20

I want you to say that again because I think that's really powerful.

SPEAKER_04 20:23

Yeah, I I don't think like the church hurt, the problem came from the church. I don't think the church was a problem. I think it was my perception that was a problem. That and it what it did later, and it really helped me after I left the church um staff wise, employment-wise, is that I had to learn empathy. And I learned that in um and just thinking back, all these things about just seeing my dad as a human, seeing my leaders as as people, and knowing that I treated my leaders as my parents, like the that that un uh unresolved attention that I never talked about.

SPEAKER_06 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:04

Um, because I just know ministry is hard, leadership is heavy, pastors are human, they're not Jesus, they're trying to be, and so am I. So why do I put this unrealistic unrealistic expectation on them? And once I understand that, I think it was easier for me, although it took a while, to come back to the church that I was employed in.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

So this isn't gonna be everybody's story where they're like leave a church and then they go back. But but how what's it like now that you see, you know, the pastors and the staff members that you know maybe should have been better than the corporate world? You know, what's it like to see all those people and interact with them now? Just really pray for them.

SPEAKER_04 21:44

It's a hard job, and I think Steve helped me through this to understand that it is a corporate job and it's a church, so it's really hard to separate the two where you expect um like if if someone is fired from The job you kind of expect them to come back on a Sunday. And it's that's just not how it is in corporate world, and it's very messy. But personally, there was this big cloud of just anger around why how the church treated other staff or me or whatever. You have to have a whole lot of empathy and forgiveness. For that's that's what I experienced. Um, to go back and just make it about having the relationship, like building the relationship again with my church and with with God again.

SPEAKER_06 22:34

I'm really emotional right now and I didn't expect this. I think, you know, last time I talked, CJ, you were like, wow, I need to call my mom and apologize to her. I'm listening to you, and I feel like I need to call my ex-husband and apologize to him because you're using the word empathy. And in the church, we talk a lot about grace and forgiveness, and those are important things. But to really empathize or have empathy for the people in the church, that for me it would be very easy to be disappointed by them or frustrated or feel like, why can't you do this better or differently? And to not extend empathy towards them, including my ex-husband, who it's like, that's what I want, that's what I need. Why am I withholding that from the people that are already in positions that are being criticized and scrutinized and all the rest? So thank you for saying that because it's important.

SPEAKER_04 23:35

Yeah. And and I would say pastors that do they make wrong decisions, like maybe an obvious sin or something scandalous or whatever. But I think for me it was like, who am I to figure that out? Like, who am I to put that much pressure on me or like God will deal with it however he wants to deal with it? And if something is so messy in a church and you expect people to fix it, how small of a God do you think he is? You know what I mean? Like there is church drama, and sometimes it looks like I don't know how we're gonna get out of this. But if we do, that has to be God. And for for many years I thought I couldn't see the God power in all the ministry because I you see so much behind the scenes. But if a church is messy and it keeps going, that is God.

SPEAKER_06 24:27

That's really beautiful, that's really great. And we want to take the credit, like in our flesh and in our human side, it's like we want credit when the things go right, and it's like we're missing the whole point, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Yeah. Well, what's funny is especially in churches, we think, oh, if the pastor leaves, then that will change everything. No, the pastor left and everything else stayed the same, you know, that that doesn't necessarily change. What changes is when we all decide we're gonna need change and do things differently. Yeah. CJ, um, boy, I really appreciate your story. And and I'm just sitting here going, listen to Faith Rehab. You'll need to call someone later and apologize, but thanks for tuning in.

SPEAKER_06 25:14

You're the therapist, we'll put your number at the end.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

I want you to tell uh Heidi, I don't know how much she knows, but our listeners definitely a little bit about your recent trip. I mean, I I've known CJ really well for a couple of years, and he's talked a little bit about his dad here, but his love for his dad and his family are just really to the core at the molecular level. He has such a love for his dad, his family. He knows they're like all of us that are grown-ups, we know our parents are imperfect, but that love just really shines through. But um recently took a pic uh picture, he took probably took a picture, um, took a trip with his family, and I wonder if you would talk about what that was like a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 26:02

So, to preface this, my dad has um kidney failure, he's on dialysis, and we were fortunate enough to be able to take my whole family, me and my sisters and our families, um, to the Philippines, they gifted it to us. Um, and we were just like, yes, because knowing uh, and my dad says this all the time, he's at the sunset of his life. And so knowing that we came into this Philippines trip as like this could be the last time we come here as a family. And I've we've only done this together 30 years prior, like on the day, 30 years. Wow. Uh, one thing that we did when we got there, we went to his church, um, the church that his dad built in um in Metro Manila, and he showed us right next to the church, literally, like the living room windows go into the church. That's where he lived. His little parsonage parsonage. Yeah, right next to the church. Wow. It's a little house. And then he took us there and we're all listening. And he said, You know, uh, we were very poor. And during typhoon season, he's pointing down in the little basement. Do you see that little platform? This concrete platform, it's about like maybe four by four. All eight of them or seven of them would stay there during typhoon season because that's the only place where it wouldn't flood and you could stay away from the rain. Wow. And so that's just one example of like, okay, I'm trying to picture my PK experience and his PK experience drastically different, right? Fast forward to now. We went there because they built a house, uh, it's called Kamaya Coast, which is like a beach area near the Bataan Peninsula, and they finished the house there and we wanted to go see it. So they also did a house blessing. And for me, the whole time I was like, why aren't we doing this house blessing? This is just a show boat. We're just showing a house, right? But what it what it was is that um they did they wanted to bless the house, and my dad was in tears by the end, and he was saying, Um, dang uh he has a big family and they never had vacation. And you could only imagine um an immigrant pastor's salary here is low. Imagine a Philippine pastor there is real low. Many of them cannot have a vacation ever. So the purpose of this house in Kamaya was to have it as an Airbnb to fund it so that they could gift it to pastors so they could get some rest. And I'm crying because my dad was crying, and you know when your dad cries, you gotta cry too. So he was telling the crowd this, and I didn't know the purpose of the church. I didn't even know that. I didn't know the purpose of this house, I just thought it was the vacation house. And so, yeah, he just uh him and my mom wanted to just gift that to Philippine pastors and their families to just get away from services, from praying, from hospital visitations, just just family. And it it hit me because I realized even though we were struggling and they were both working and they were doing ministry, they always took us out on vacation. And um super thankful for that. I don't know how they did it because I could barely do it to my family, but when we got married, he said, make sure you go on vacation, even though you can't afford it. I was like, Okay. So it was just more of that empathy for my dad. And I had all these things, and we could talk about this in another another podcast, or um, but I I dealt with recovery things, and a big part of that was my dad, and I had all this anger. But if you just like look at a pastor as a human and just know that they're going through a lot of stuff, I think it would help with your church hurt or or whatever, whatever it is, even if they did some heinous thing, you know, they're still human, God loves them, you should love them too, and just try to find your way to forgive.

SPEAKER_06 30:05

Well, geez, thanks for leaving us in puddles, CJ. I didn't know either. I blame Steve. Oh my gosh, that was so beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Yeah, he said he didn't want to talk. You can blame me, but that is such a great story. And CJ, thank you for sharing your story and your heart, and also what a legacy your parents are leaving to just building a house so that Philippine pastors can go and get away and get a respite. And um, and I know that that he will be proud and is proud of you and the ministry that you do, and even allowing an old guy into your small group. I mean, that's grace right there, buddy.

SPEAKER_04 30:43

I still didn't say thank you to my mom or my dad, but thank you. Thank you for all you do.

SPEAKER_06 30:48

Yeah, that was fabulous. That really, I mean, I've got some phone calls to make after that one.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

CJ, I um thank you. I know we've talked a lot this week, and I think you probably have no idea how powerful that is. Because we all think our story is normal, right? It's the other people that can relate.

SPEAKER_04 31:08

I hope so too. Because it's not always like the huge crazy story of church hurt. I think some people it is that subtle thing that happens through your life that you just have this little bias against church, and maybe it's something to kind of like hit directly and just kind of like face it.

SPEAKER_06 31:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:26

Thanks for listening, guys.

SPEAKER_06 31:27

Thanks for sharing. That was beautiful.

unknown 31:33

Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_06 31:34

Uh, I think it's only fair that we end in an irreverent way because after all that crying, I think it's like a good story. Please, you know, I travel a lot for my job, and sometimes I stay in hotels that are so gross, I feel like I need a condom for my entire body to go to sleep. I uh Steve, I heard you've got a good hotel story. I thought maybe you could share it with us.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Yeah, my in-laws lived in San Diego, and one time they were having a family event, like on a Saturday. So her brother and his wife or family went down on Friday night, stayed Friday night in a hotel, and then then left Saturday. They gave us the key. We stayed Saturday, we were gonna leave Sunday. Same hotel room. And so it's like a big family party or birthday party, who knows what it was. But it was a big, big event. And you know, we were young and didn't have kids, so we stayed out late. And then we went to the hotel with our key. We put it in the door, it wouldn't open. Okay, we put it in again, jiggled the handle, it wouldn't open. And I'm like ticked, like, what is wrong? I I checked, double checked the text of where my brother had stayed. It was room 325. I tried it again, called my brother-in-law. Where was it? 325, tried it again, tried it again, tried it again. All of a sudden, the door opens. There's a guy just as bold as anything, wearing nothing but a sheet. And he goes, What do you want? I go, This is our room. He goes, No, this is our room. Oh no, I go, No, this is my room. Look here, 325, this is my room. No, it's not. So he's like the middle of the night, completely buck naked, except for a sheet. And so we go down to the the you know, the front desk. We go, somebody's in our room. Oh, it looked like you had moved out, so we gave that room to somebody else. Oh, so my brother-in-law moved all his stuff out, and they gave the room to somebody else. So I had the key, but of course it didn't work, and they gave us another room. And um, you know, first thing I did was bolt the door. Like, I don't want anybody coming back to this. Wow. So that's a bizarre story, hotel story. And I know people have other bizarre stories, but CJ, CJ's got a good one.

SPEAKER_04 33:55

I do. A couple of years ago, I was coming from a wedding in Vegas, and that was during the time where there was like the atmospheric river storms in California. And that's the first time I heard about atmospheric rivers or whatever, but it was raining bad, and so there was a lot of closures in California. So instead of going through LA to go home to Northern California, we went up Nevada. And I don't know if you ever have a chance to, but don't. Because they at like 100 miles at a time, there's no services, no gas stations, no nothing. So, and then there's all these ghost towns from old silver mine uh towns that are just ghosts, they're they're all abandoned. So, halfway up Nevada, about four hours in, I'm like, Sam, it's getting dark. Find us a hotel somewhere, please. So she goes on. Um, my wife's name is Sam, she goes on hotel.com. The first thing she finds is this nice Victorian church, uh church, nice Victorian uh hotel called MISPA Hotel in the town called Tonapa, which is also like a ghost town. So Sam's checking in. I'm holding kids and looking at this bookshelf next to the counter where they check in. And as she's checking in, they're laughing for some reason. The the people checking her in are laughing. I'm reading whatever is on this, like this display, and it says MISPA Hotel, the most haunted hotel in America. No, not kidding. And so I didn't want to freak out the kids. Uh, you know, they're not gonna read anything if I don't tell them to, so I nudged my I nudged my wife and look at this. And she just looked at it and kind of dismissed me. I was like, okay, and so they go up to the room, and this this hotel was so it looked like it was decorated to be a haunted house.

SPEAKER_06 35:40

Were you scared?

SPEAKER_04 35:42

Yes, I was scared, yes, and then so of course, me, the dad, I have to take seven trips to the car to unpack, right? So they go on the third floor, and while the people are saying, Hey, the hotel is on the third floor, they giggle. I'm like, what's happening? So we go up, we don't say anything, the kids go in the room. I text my buddies, hey, if I'm not if you don't hear from me next week, I'm at this haunted hotel in Miss Botana Tanapa, you know, Google me or something, right? And then as they Google it, as I'm going in the elevator, they text me, hey, can you hear voices in the elevator? Hey, do you see the red lady? Hey, all these things that they're Googling, right? And I'm going up and down, up and down. Anyways, we we survive. It is scary, but we survive. When we're going home, that's when we started Googling everything. And it apparently a lot of ghost hunters go there. There's like a lady that killed herself on the fifth floor. But the story is on the third floor that two kids got murdered there. And if you listen carefully, you could hear them bouncing the ball up and down the hall. So they were laughing at us because we had kids and we were going on the third floor.

SPEAKER_06 36:55

Oh my gosh. Did you just like pray over the I would be like Colin Hunted Jesus? I would have not slept while I could not sleep.

SPEAKER_04 37:04

And then around one o'clock, the power turned off, and my wife was like, Don't say it, CJ, don't say it. It turned out she was scared too. She just wanted to she just wanted to be strong for the kids, which I should have done that. I didn't see that coming.

SPEAKER_06 37:16

But oh my gosh, heck no. I'd be sleeping in the car on the secondary fear right now.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

Like, I don't I'm not in a haunted house, but I don't even want to go to bed tonight.

SPEAKER_06 37:27

I know seriously. I I started the whole thing with wearing a condom and then with ghost stories. Took a dark turn.

SPEAKER_04 37:35

It's like a ghost story podcast now.

SPEAKER_06 37:37

Seriously.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

I think the moral of the story is if you're out in the Midwest at a hotel and you see a lady with a full body condom on Heidi. And you should be good. Heidi.

SPEAKER_06 37:47

I think I could sell them. Maybe they'll be our sponsor. What the heck? Well, thanks for listening to our podcast. And CJ, we were really so honored to hear your story and thank you for sharing it. And uh be sure to listen next time. We're gonna be talking to Steve about his church hurt and what helped him through it and where he's headed.

SPEAKER_05 38:13

Oh, and and don't forget to be blessed.