Talk with Toby Ep 3 - Gary Brucker - Building a Meaningful Life

A conversation with business man, Gary Brucker about faith, family, careers, creativity, business, relationships, and what it means to build a life that feels meaningful instead of draining.

We talk about parenting, career changes, burnout, motivation, music, physical activity, and how God can speak through creativity, discipline, movement, and everyday life.

Gary is someone who truly lives life out loud; always chasing growth, purpose, and fulfillment while staying grounded in faith.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, uninspired, or like life has become more about surviving than actually living… this conversation is for you.

🎙️ Talk with Toby — Real Life. Real Faith.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, it's Toby, and I'm really glad you're here. Gary Brooker is a business owner, husband, father, runner, curler, and a man of faith who spent nearly three decades serving in church leadership while navigating the very real pressures of career, family, purpose, and everyday life. He's someone who's always been intentional about the kind of life he wants to build. Not just successful on paper, but meaningful in real life. In this conversation, we talk about balancing your passions with paying the bills, career changes, some pretty dramatic ones, parenting through the tough seasons, and why so many people wake up realizing they've built a life that looks full but doesn't actually feel fulfilling. If you've ever felt like life is busy but not necessarily meaningful, this conversation is for you. All right, Gary, well, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

My pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Sometimes I think when everybody has a podcast, random people might ask you to do this and you'd go, uh not that random, Toby. But we're not. We we go way back. I love talking to people in this community who are successful in life and business and relationships, and they have this ribbon of faith that runs through it all.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

So how did I end up here then?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Because I met you at church.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

But successful in life and business and all this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Gary, you have three beautiful daughters. You have an amazing wife and you have an amazing business. But I want to start at the beginning. So you grew up in southern Alberta, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

I did. I grew up in Medicat, first 19 years of my life was there, and then about eight years in Edmonton, and then 1994 moved to Kelowna, thought we might be here for five years, and we just never left.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

You know what? That was I moved here in '96 and thought I might be here for five years. This is what happens when you come to Kelowna. So what was Gary growing up like? Was your household like a you a church-going household?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

We just had this discussion at My Men's Theology Pub Group last week. We have a little theology pub group that meets once a month, just with guys at the uh we meet at Barnow and we have a beer and talk about faith and life. But uh, we talked about our earliest faith memories. My earliest church memories were really about sitting as a family in church and seeing my grandma and grandpa over there and singing hymns and drawing on the bulletin, even when I didn't know it was going on in those days. And we had a very strong youth program at my church, and so it became about doing life together with a bunch of other like-minded kids, and um, we had a lot of fun in youth group, but it was also where I started asking the bigger questions of life and where uh I said, Yeah, this makes way more sense than not believing. And I was the kid that in my in my age group that would people would have known that I had a faith.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

So you were very open about it. We had talked, I talked a couple of weeks ago with uh Pastor Scott Lanigan, and we were talking about this resurgence right now that's kind of being led by younger people, uh, Jen Alpha, Gen Z, and there seemed to be like a gap. Like when you and I grew up, church was a thing, especially in southern Alberta, I think, too, right? Like it was with your family, it was kind of built a bit around the church and having fellowship in the basement after the service or or whatever it was. So when you say that people knew that you had faith, was it was it hard to say it, or do you were you just non-apologetic about it?

SPEAKER_00 3:36

It's just who I was, it was a part of, and maybe that was part of also my um my bringing with my youth group, like sort of to be ready for to give a a reason for the hope that you have. I just have always been that guy that had hope. I remember writing my test, my faith testimony was actually a a story. And it was called Physical Death, A Door to Eternal Life. So it was for me, there was this at an early age that there's gotta be something more. If this is all there is, like as great as there living in Cologne is pretty awesome, but there's still pain and struggle and strife and and unease and and people have trouble in relationships and and people struggle with their own family members, and the world in which we live is so divisive, maybe more now so than ever, that there's gotta be something more. And so for me, it's been this journey of what's more? What makes the most sense? What what gives me purpose and meaning? What gives me peace? And from a very early age, yes, I mean, I was in university, I did my own wandering, and I checked out other religions. I checked out, I I was open to the fact that maybe it was not just Christianity that what did you look into? So, I mean, I my in my religious studies, I looked at everything. I looked from Hinduism to uh Muslims, I looked, I I I checked it all out to to Scientology, and I came to rest back home with what I grew up with.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

As humans, we're always struggling to have something make sense, and so I I always love it when somebody says it makes sense because there are people who think who say You must not think.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Yeah, you gotta check your brain out.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Yeah, but when you came to Kelowna then, did you come because we met at first Lutheran? Yeah, so I came for a job.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

I mean, I I had um my my first degree was an arts degree with a religious studies major and uh English and political science minor. I thought I was actually heading for law.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

I actually thought I that's what I really headed off to university, and it was in my first three-year degree where I decided I I decided I don't know if I could be especially a litigator or a defense lawyer in the world in which we live. So I just I changed, and I remember a prof actually challenging me, he said, Gary, is it gonna be law or is it gonna be gospel?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Huh?

SPEAKER_00 6:01

I said, Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

So at that point, and I decided I was gonna go into education because you can't be both, you can't be a lawyer, and I'm I'm just gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Yeah, but that that but it was kind of a funny joke, but it really it's a defining moment in my life because I did want to be way more about gospel. I wanted to be more about um love and grace and mercy than I did about uh hard lines of what we believe and what we don't believe. And it's dictated where it was. So I went into I got an education after degree. Uh my goal was to just teach, um, not just teach, but to teach.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

To teach, be a teacher. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

And I substitute taught and Edmonton and then my band at the time got an offer to go on the road for full for two years. But it was a Christian band, and we played a lot of larger youth conferences, and so we went on a two-year journey of just touring.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Amazing. Well, I was gonna talk about your love for music and and that part of your life after, but you brought it up. So let's talk about it now because how important is that creativity uh aspect in someone's life?

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Uh, for for me, it's life-giving. I mean, I um the times when I probably felt most empty is when I've been most removed from the creative side of my life. I mean, even after having worked at uh at that time first Lutheran, now the sanctuary here. Um, I I'd been on staff 18 years at that point. Wow. And my roles had changed a lot. I went back, got my master's in family life, and uh was loving portions of my job, but when you're at a place long enough, there's certain things that get attached, like why am I looking after irrigation in the middle of the night? And why am I trying to fix a dishwasher? And why am I doing things that are life-sucking rather than life-giving? And at that time, the the the church itself, the congregation was going through a financial difficulty, and they were gonna cut some younger people off staff entirely with way more energy than I had, and and and commitment at that point probably right because you were starting to think about other things. I was, and I said, you know what? Move me to part-time, move me to part-time, and I went into see a career counselor and started on a journey that both led me to courage for youth, which I still work for part-time today. I've been teaching this week in the mornings at a school here in town with a group of grade sixes and sevens, just trying to help them be kinder humans and give them some really good.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

This is, I mean, you you have a lot of facets, and I feel like people might know you from a lot of different things. So back to the music quickly. You travel you toured for two years, so you left the job there and went touring.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

So I just that is a leap of that is a leap of I turned down a couple of full-time teaching jobs and a full-time church work job in in Winnipeg to go touring with the band. I'd already actually accepted a position, and then this offer came and I said, I gotta do this.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

That takes some faith.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yeah, especially with it was the the the two years that were probably provided the most growth, but also the most challenges from a financial point of view, because um I mean, you done we're making a lot of money. We were month to month at best at that point, and was also married. So touring full, I'd be gone five weeks at a time.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Yeah. So what did Janet, what did your wife say?

SPEAKER_00 9:22

She was supportive, but she also said, if you're only gonna come home for a day or two, just stay away for the five weeks and don't like because you know you get into flow. I do, I do. You know that life, right? Yeah, yeah. And if you're only gonna pop in for a few hours here or there, don't interrupt my life. So, um, but two years of doing that became quite a challenge. And really believing that was just for a season anyway. We're still together as a band.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

So you still perform.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

We still perform. When I came here, I said to my church family, here's who I am. I'm gonna continue to tour. If that's a problem for you, don't hire me. But they've been very supportive. So almost every year that I was on staff there, they let us go and do our thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Well, and I mean, uh they would understand a God calling. And do you think like God kind of speaks through creative creativity like that?

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Oh, there's no doubt about it. And and I was always a better me when I came home. I was more inspired, I was more it's just like it was almost like a Sabbath trip with my band boys. The creativity part for me also, like I've got all these book chapters and song ideas that are stuffed in books all over. So this fall, and I'll say it out loud one more time, because then maybe it'll happen. Uh, friends on Hornby Island have offered me their uh family home for a few weeks to tie some of this together so I can finally publish a book.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

All right, so that's the next thing. That is the next thing. Well, I want to pop into what you're doing now because you went from church church life, like 24-7, full on, to opening a craft brewery. Okay, so not that Christians don't love beer. That's fine.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Not my Lutheran tradition, really. That German background allows me. It was a big leap, but it that actually started with that crisis at the church that led me to go to halftime, led me down. I was I was doing some career counseling, and the career counselor at the time said, first of all, with my um gift mix, my strengths in my life and my life goals, she's when we got the results, she was like, Okay, first of all, I'm gonna free you up. You're not gonna have one job for the rest of your life, you're probably gonna have multiple jobs, and that's when you're gonna be living your best life. And we need to move you towards business ownership because business ownership will give you the lifestyle where you can have income, it's less regimented at some point where you can have other people working for you, but your schedule is more flexible. Um, and that's what started me on the journey.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

So would you recommend a career counselor for people who are maybe 100%?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

I do all the time.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

They're not happy where they're at right now.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

I I do all the time. I I recommend like if you're questioning where you are, and if it's life-sucking rather than life-giving, talk to somebody, try to figure it out. Because if work is work every day, that's what I I also think I've watched your career change over time.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

I've I think I'm like the female version of you. We can't do one thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

No, but but also where you where you start to say, okay, if I'm gonna be the best version of me, what's that gonna look like? And keep asking that question. So we were actually in in line for two Tim Hortons franchises. So we had been vetted, we were ready to go, and then TDL Canada got bought out by Burger King, and they didn't really want you to have two stores anymore at 400,000 each. They wanted each store to be 1.4 million, and we were out.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Suddenly, it's too much.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

So we've been waiting for two years at that point, and I was like, okay, now what? And I was still just part-time at the church trying to figure other things out, working for Courage for Youth part-time. At one year, a time I had five jobs, I was bartending, I was just doing it just trying to. We had three young kids trying to try to try to make trying to try to make it work. Neutralon was gonna be our next gig because I'd I'd own my own lawn service in high school and college, and that made sense. We were gonna get the whole franchise from this side of the lake all the way to Salmon Arm. We were in line for it, had already been welcomed. I was in cabal with the company, being welcomed to the company, and a bank deal crashed with three days left to go. So this is interesting because you were almost into so many other things, and then something just I'm so glad on many reasons we didn't, but to start a lawn service or start taking over a 2400 client lawn service in the summer when my my mom got cancer and only had months left to live. I was back in Medicine Hat probably six times that year in the summer, it was not gonna work. And that fall was when one of my dear friends in town said, Let's stop joking about craft beer, come look at this barn. And we walked in on August 22nd of 2018 into that heritage barn and the mission. Our favorite places were always about the experience of the place, not just the beer. Yeah, but about a place that could bring people together like community. And in many ways, I feel I've had way bigger spiritual life faith questions asked to me as a brewery owner than I probably did as the paid church worker.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

And why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Because I think when you're paid, they expect a certain thing. When you're just trying to live your life as somebody that believes in Jesus and it shows, and you have this something different about you, and you're not perfect, you're making your own mistakes, but you love people a different way, you hold yourself differently, you treat your employees differently, you have a hope that's within you. Um I think people notice that and are attracted to that. Um and I'll be the first one to say, like, thank God for grace, because I wouldn't be around. Uh, but don't look to me to be the perfect model of what that's supposed to look like because I'm gonna blow it. I'm I'm not always gonna be, but I'll be the first one to apologize when I do.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Well, and that's that's the journey, right? But let me ask, would you have given the same answers as a paid church worker versus Yeah, I think I would have.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

That's I did. I did. I that's just who I was. Yeah, and you know, part of my role here at First Lutheran as director of family life, I mean, I was involved with the running community, I was still involved with the curling community. I was I was doing all the things the school. Yeah, I was still doing the things I'm doing now. I was just the paid church worker as well. For for the first four years that we owned the brewery, I was still on staff.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Okay, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Okay, so you were doing so I didn't I didn't retire till 29 years at the church job. As we had approached seven years at Barn Owl and three and a half at Milkshed Coffee House. Um, and I told somebody that, like, how are you doing? I I'm I'm beyond what I deserve. I believe that right now it's it it feels great.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

You can see it that you're extremely happy and passionate about what we're doing, and I still get to be who I am. Like there's yeah, and so I'll I was gonna ask you about the like the vibe you want to create there, but I think you've already answered that. So it is a very neighborhood, it's a gathering spot, whether you drink alcohol or not. You've got the coffee shop there as well, and it's always packed.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Somebody told me the other day we didn't even stop in because the patio sunny and patio was packed. Yeah, the inside was empty. You can come. You can come. We'll find space for you. Um, but we've got, you know, Monday night now we have our running community, we have the cyclists that stop in there regularly, we have cribbage players that have their, there's just these little community. We have the mums that drop their kids off at school and come and hang out for coffee. We have the realtors that are up there and designers and computer programmers that use the loft as their space. There's nothing I love more than to walk in and see all those things, or the senior ladies that are out for their morning walk after playing tennis and they come down and hang out together.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Was that the full vision or is it bigger than what you thought?

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Um, it was the vision, but this is it's I think we didn't really know how much the community wanted or needed it and how they've embraced it. It it really feels like we're at a spot right now where people long for relationships, they long for a place that they feel comfortable enough to have serious discussions or just to have fun together.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

So when you talk ministry then, and we always say, like, you know, the mother who's teaching her child to pray or whatever, I mean, ministry isn't just being in ministry. So what would you say, like how much how much of God is in this? And and is it ever a challenge, business and faith?

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Oh, I think it's always a challenge, just like faith in real life in anywhere it is to do. I mean, there's let's be honest. I mean, we're facing the public every day. There are certain when I find people well, I better not find them because I'm I'm human, but those little zinc pads that people put as nicotine patches and spit them on my patio. If I ever catch somebody, I'll the grace filled the Gary might have a little trouble coming out. I do not enjoy picking up other people's spit up. Yes, yes. But yeah, so but we've been very intentional. Thankfully, my main business partner there, Tim, and I, we have the same vision for how we want to treat staff, how we want to do business right, how we want to do the correct things, how we we're gonna mess up, but we want to apologize when we do and try to get things right.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Every place has a feeling to me, and I you can feel that number one, you love what you do, you've got family. How many of your daughters work with you? Is it just uh right now?

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Just I mean, mainly one. Natalie, our our middle daughter, manages both. She's the GM at the coffee house and the brewery, and that's been a joy. And she's got the whole gift set that I do not do not have. So that's the nice thing. So she she's the detail to my vision. She's the she's the check the boxes to my craziness, she's the the even keel amidst turmoil that my I go up and down. So yeah, it's been a really great thing. And both of all three of them have worked there, but one's now teaching in the public system, and one is a physiotherapist, all living their lives.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

So, how old are your girls?

SPEAKER_00 19:10

So coming up 29, 27, and 25.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

And so, how does faith fit in their lives?

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Like, uh are they still all on a journey themselves, too. Um, you know, we're we just had this discussion recently. We're trying to give them enough go figure this out. Because we were given that same thing. Right. You know, you want to be encouraging, you want to ask them questions, but you also they're at places they all have significant others in their life which came from very different backgrounds. So trying to leave the door open to have open discussion without smothering. Um, as I was reminded, invitation rather than expectation is it's a hard thing. It's a hard thing, and you never, as I've tried to say to all of them, like I'm never going to not be your dad. And until you're in that position where you care about someone, you've never invested more in something than your own kids.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

And you want the best for them, how do you do that in a way that allows them to be on their own journey without imposing yours on them, but also caring enough about them to say, have you thought about this? Have you considered this? Um, what might this look like?

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yeah, well, because I imagine because they were raised in faith, obviously. And so, I mean, like some of us, we we well, I didn't step away. I just wasn't, I would say, actively practicing. It just it just kind of got away, or I went in the way of like kind of self-help, yeah, until you realize there's no there's no self-help. There's there's one help. And so this is what I say to my daughters now, and they are a little closed off. They'll come to church, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

But if you talk too much about it, they I wonder, I was gonna ask you like how how the people in your life totally like your closest family and friends that maybe didn't see this side being as powerful for you, and now stepping out to do this podcast and being, you know, you're you're you're a you're a force in the community to see someone that has a very public-facing persona also take this on. Does that come with some challenges for you?

SPEAKER_01 21:14

It sure does because I, you know, I do a lot of different things. So, first of all, I was getting questioned, like, well, how long, how long is this gonna be? But I can't even put it into words. It was an experience in Africa and Morocco when I saw another faith and the commitment that faith had to their faith. And then it just it was it was like a it almost makes me cry because it was almost like a a weight on my heart that well, where did I why did I walk away from what I believe? And so it when I came back, it was it was full on for me. So I get that some people need to dip their toe in the water, but for me, it's just been full on. And then when you get a calling to do something, because I don't think Christians talk about Their faith enough. Other people live their faith. Christians tend to because even people told me, don't do a pocket. You don't want to base your podcast on that. And I was like, well, there's nothing else I really want to talk about. Because we all talk about the basic stuff. I but I love talking about business and and people's lives. But I am so interested in how faith plays a role because we live in a world that, well, let's just say you can you can be criticized for that, or I guess labeled as something. Whereas I've just never experienced anything more beautiful. And I remember it. It just takes me back all those songs from childhood and days in Sunday school. And I've never been happier. I can say that with a daily, constant almost conversation with people.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

But I think, you know, when you're living in your purpose, when you're when you're moving with meaning in your life, that's what everybody wants.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

It's, you know, when you're rudderless or when it I think also when you're when you're younger sometimes and you maybe haven't experienced some things in life, when you can float in the wind a little bit more and your sails are up, and but what you're expected to be on a journey and exp and experiment. But until some of the serious things in life, Hannah, when challenges in relationship are really tough. I was just having a discussion about somebody that I had, you know, done their wedding ceremony seven years ago, and I remember, I remember the words I was sending them there, the what I've spoken to them that day, where I was like, the love of today someday might not be enough when the bigger challenges come. Like what you're feeling today, and the you know, how enamored you are with each other today. There will come a time in all of our relationships, married or not, that will be challenged by something. And even in our faith journeys where you start to ask the bigger questions of life, whether you got a health challenge, whether your finances have failed, whether you're struggling with the friend relationship, with where there's you need something outside of yourself where you start to say, Okay, maybe there's something more here. A story I love to tell from the brewery, but it was I think we've been only open a couple of years, and there was a uh a guy that I'd only met there, and he was watching the Super Bowl, and his team was losing. And I'm just sitting up there having a beer watching people watch a Super Bowl, and he said, Uh you you have a faith, right? Like out of nowhere. Out of nowhere, yeah. He said, But but you actually believe. I said, Yeah. He said, I have not been in a church for over a decade. He said, But I'm at a place now, I have a young daughter, and my wife and I just believe we need something more. He said, Would you be open to a coffee or a beer? Just about that discussion. I said, sure. He now plays guitar at my church, he's on his own faith journey back, he's um, you know, still trying to figure it out. We're all trying to figure it out. But to tie that into our kids is the the one solace I have is that God loves our kids more than we do. God wants to give them the same opportunity that he gave us to figure things out and not steer the ship too much. And in his time and in his way, I trust that they will land where he would want them to land. It's painful in the meantime when you watch people, but that's for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

But then I think back, my parents gave me the leeway to figure things out.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

They probably had moments where they felt exactly the same.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

I'm kind of worried about them right now. So to allow ourselves that grace for our kids as well, and and to trust that there's a bigger picture going on that I don't need to control.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

I think that's the message, right? Because bad things happen.

unknown 25:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

But we don't know the big picture. So if you can trust and maintain that faith through it all, there's something to that too that is so comforting.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Well, it's freeing. It's freeing. Yeah. Because I can't, as we know, like just list the last five years in our world. How many things are just filed under we can't control that? It's just out of our control. I think we think we can control more than we can, but we can't.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

There's a beautiful piece in letting that go. Yeah. And even right down to, you know, whether your husband rinses out the sink in the morning. Like, you know what? I've realized he he's not gonna do that. So you know what? If I don't like it, I'll just do it. You know, just little things like that. I think it makes you nicer.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Well, and you know, it it you know, don't sweat the small stuff, but at the end of the day, a lot of the stuff that we sweat is small stuff, and when you get onto the bigger questions of life, that's you know, even within the church or faith communities, I think sometimes we get so hung up on the differences that we have with denominations, the the differences we have on things that ultimately end a day are not gonna matter. No, you know, whether and you can pick the whatever hot topic of the issue of the day. I you know, Erwin McManus, I don't know if you know Irwin. Erwin, he's the lead pastor of Mosaic Church in LA, which for decades has had multiple uh I think that something like 56 different ethnic groups worshiping. And he, you know, they worshiped it was it was a joke for a while, find us, like because they would worship in a theater and they were worship in a school and then they were because it would just be nomadic. It was just very nomadic.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

But he said, like, if if you're gonna be a church that's about the grace of Jesus, it's gonna be messy. If you try to define what you had need to be when you come here, you're gonna cut people off from the very lifeline that could change their life for eternity. It's one of the the things that most pains me about um Christian nationalism and right-wing Christianity right now. I think it's the absolute worst advertisement for Christianity that the world could have, because that's not what Jesus was.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

No, if he was here right now, I read something, he would be downtown with the people that need him the most, with the one. You know, he wouldn't be sitting here with us or on a stadium stage. No, he would be down there. And I just I just want to mention because I've had a few episodes out now, and there are those people, and bless you for watching, but that want to correct that like you shouldn't say it's just about being nice. You shouldn't tell people this verse without saying that verse. And I think for a lot of people, I don't think God and the angels are, you know, if you're stumbling towards Jesus and falling down and getting back up, they're not saying, hey, loser, get up. There's they're cheering. And do you have everything right?

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Because I guarantee that nobody on this side of eternity has everything right. We don't have it all figured out. Yeah. And that's why I I think if you're if the heart of the matter really is, is Jesus the way, the truth, and the life? Is he offer something that nothing else offers? Does he offer a peace and a covering that I can't earn on my own, gain on my own, figure out on my own, then that's the heart of the matter. And so I think there's a a lot of peripheral things that I'm not saying overlook sin, I'm not saying, but I'm saying if nobody has a chance to meet that Jesus that is at his heart about unconditional love and forgiveness, that I mean that's what changes lives. I mean, one of my other favorite verses is are you not aware that it's God's kindness that leads people to repentance? It isn't standing there telling someone that they're wrong or that they don't have it figured out, or they're not a ten out of ten Christian.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

So if you're not that, you're not a Christian.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Exactly. And so if if if we don't have a chance to introduce people to this gracious God that covers so much that we could not even figure out, that's what's going to change people's hearts. That's what's going to change people's lives. That's the hope that we have. It's not that we get it all figured out. It's not.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

People can get there. Yeah not get having it all figured out, but having, you know, where like the Bible commands this, the Bible doesn't suggest this. But that is a very daunting thing for somebody who doesn't believe they deserve forgiveness today.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Correct. And most of us in our heart of hearts ultimately know what's right and what's wrong. We're already feeling enough guilt about things that we know deep down, if we're honest with ourselves, that we've blown.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Whether it's what we've said, what we've done, what we haven't done. So we don't need one more person to beat us up with that. What we need is to know that there is a there is something that covers that, that gives us a fresh start every single day. In my life that I have now, the one thing I love about not having to be in the office at you know, seven or eight every morning is to take that time to walk in my neighborhood with my dog and to listen to some focusing podcast or some music that centers me on real truth rather than on what the world is throwing at me.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

Now, you share all of this with youth, and youth mentorship has been a part of your life. You touched on this, but just tell us about that aspect of Gary.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

So, well, working with courage for youth right now, it's I mean, we rarely work with a faith-based school, so um it's really about giving kids tools for navigating a pretty complex world. And the biggest challenge we've had as an organization is asking this question. We ask it every time can you dislike someone or something and still be kind? Because we live in a world where the adults are having trouble with that.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Where it's so quickly. Yeah. I mean, we used to, in our generation growing up, you could disagree with someone, still go have a coffee or beer with them. But we've we've taken on a lot of our neighbors to the south very offense.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

You take offense and you're done.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

And I'm done. I'm just not gonna even have that. There, whether you're in my family or not, I'm not not doing that. I I can't have that differing view and still have you as a friend. Um, I think that's it's also between parents and kids sometimes. It's we live in this generation where uh it's almost revisionist. Well, then was I ever really a good friend, or was I really in a relationship with you that was meaningful? We gotta be able to figure that out together. And you should be able to have difficult discussions or agree not to talk about something, but still love the person. So that's one of the that's one of the main reasons I keep doing what we're doing in the schools is is to try to help kids both navigate their online presence, which is difficult, um, but to give them some basic relationship skills so that you know, even if they don't like somebody, they can still be kind. Because you're gonna work with people for the rest of your life that aren't your best friends. And you got to figure that out. There's less and less money in public education to do what we're supposed to be doing, to giving social emotional skills to kids. So I look over after trying to get funding in place and then mentoring other facilitators, and occasionally I'll do the school, which keeps me grounded with kids. Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Uh, but you said it's not so it because it's public school, it's it's not faith-based. But but I feel like somebody like you, uh you faith just comes in by your nature.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

So I've had I've had numerous even students at grade six and grade seven levels say after class, hey Mr. B, that's what they call me. Mr. B, are you are you a believer? Are you a Christian? I said, Yeah, how'd you know? Well, just the way you talked about forgiveness, just the way you talked about kindness, just the way you talked, whatever. I'm I'm glad that models come out. Um, and then when we work in faith based based schools, which we do occasionally, then you're able to take that to the real heart of who I am. Um, so respectful of the environment which we're working. But whether kids are believers or not, they still need to know. First of all, we try to remind kids every day that they're they're capable and they're beautiful and they're loved right where they are. They're on a journey, they're growing to. Because if they're they're told by the world they're not enough right now, they're told that they need to look a certain way, act a certain way, be a certain way. The images that we're hit with in our media and social media are destroying a whole generation, or even for adults.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

That's what we say.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Yeah. So you usually ask kids, what what makes someone attractive?

SPEAKER_01 33:49

What do they say?

SPEAKER_00 33:50

So the younger we ask this question, the more it is about when they're funny or when they're when they're kind. And the older we get into the schools, whether you ask a grade 11, it's almost always physical qualities. It's because we live in a society that's pushing outward looks. We live in a society, we live in a neighborhood that is botoxed up.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

That you know, it's about I get look at I have movement again. I'm like fully movable, malleable.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

And I get it because there's a pressure to look a certain way. I mean, I tell the kids all the time, this one's had a full head of hair. It doesn't always stay. My attractive qualities, I don't believe, are based on my outward appearance. It's how hopefully I love people, how I try to create an environment at work where my staff want to be there. Uh, there's no greater compliment than to hear your staff say, I love coming to work here. That's how our customers treat them. That's how they treat each other.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

That's how it should be. Religion, people ruin it for other people. It's the people who ruin it. It's not God who ruins anything.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Well, and people say, Oh, you're religious. No, I'm religious about brushing my teeth, flossing my teeth. I do that. I I have a faith relationship, but I don't I don't consider myself religious at all. Do I go to church? Yeah, but that's part of my faith relationship. Yeah, that leads into it. It's one part of it. You gotta live it. And it's how I get equipped to live in a way that reminds me who I am.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

I've always known you as a runner as well. So the physical aspect there. Uh you still are you still you do your running group? I do run with them.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

I do. I run with them every Monday. Oh, yeah, Monday night. My husband, because you went by our house. You run by your house almost every Monday night. I'm not an evening runner. I'd rather run in the morning, but this group has become something I like. 96 runners last Monday. But again, this neat for people desire to be in relationship and to do physical activity. There's something very cathartic about we know what happens in the body when you get those endorphins going and and and to be able to meet afterwards and whether you have a kombucha or whether you have a beer or beer, whatever you're having, to be able to sit in there and not be judged and just have a conversation with somebody's really really meaningful. But for me, yes, movement has been very important to my mental, physical well-being. Plus, I own a coffee house and a brewery. I'd be 350 pounds, Toby, if I did not burn some. Oh, yeah, yeah. If I was not burning calories, it would be not pretty. I think part of our calling is to to be not just in a church, to be doing life with people in a way that they see something different. Yeah. And they ask for the reason for the hope that's within us, and we're able to say, I'll tell you the reason I have hope at all. I have hope because I believe there's something far beyond here. And yeah, if I live to be 80, that's still a drop in the bucket compared to what eternity is gonna look like.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

And so we get caught up, we get caught up in this little tiny segment of life on earth. Right. And really, really, really.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

But that's also been mentored to to me in situations here. I remember being on staff, I'd only been on staff maybe I'm gonna say six years, and one of our congregational members lost a 16-year-old daughter to uh to pneumonia of the weirdest thing. That um and he was a prominent businessman in the community, and actually it was uh the old youth director at Trinity that came to our church family right away and said, You're not gonna be able to handle this funeral. I said it's gonna be too big. Got a 16-year-old with all our classmates. I said, How about we host it at Trinity? You guys, you host the service, but we'll look after the meal, we'll look after the parking, we'll have we will look after all the logistics, and you just be your church family to this family. Um, and then to watch the the dad and the mom and the brother and the aunts and uncles stand in the front row of what would be the most turmoilish, heartbreaking death of a teenager. Um and to have them sing songs of faith. And I I cannot tell you the number of people that had a faith journey change of experience because of that funeral. We have people that are part of our church family today because of that, that because of that funeral where they said I had there were I had a couple in my office two days after that that said, Whatever they have, that's what we want. How can they stand there with any hope at all? Having just like, yeah, they're sad and they're grieving, but how can they go on? How can they sing a song? How can they and that's what I think that's uh what we all definitely want is a sense of peace amidst the turmoil that says if if bad things are gonna happen and they are, how's there hope in this? How's there something beyond?

SPEAKER_01 38:42

If somebody's watching right now and they're just dipping, dipping in, what do you think is one step they could do towards that?

SPEAKER_00 38:51

I always today. I always tell people just be open, ask questions. Yeah, find find a local congregation or someone that's tied into a local congregation that ask the question, why do you have hope? Why do you have something different in your life? What what brings meaning and purpose to you? What gives you peace amidst storms? Because almost every believer I know that is really connected to Jesus, it's not that their life is perfect, their marriage isn't perfect, their relationship with their kids isn't perfect.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

And I mean, it's kind of designed that way, right? You ask for patience. God's not just giving you patience, God's giving you people who demand your patience.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

Life is messy, and so how do we manage amidst the messy? How do we how do we go through life still having hope and having purpose amidst the unknown, amidst uh grieving, amidst facing health challenges, uh business failure, whatever that is, what does that look like? And so I'd I just say be curious. Be curious enough to ask the question, maybe there's something more than this. Um, and then connect yourself in a way to hear truly what Jesus says. He he does say, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy burden, and I'm gonna give you rest. And he does. He's gonna he's gonna say, if you believe, there's a peace that passes all human understanding, that no world thing, no money's gonna give you, no, no self-help books gonna give you, no, I can just get over this addiction's gonna give you. There's gonna be a peace that really does surpass all human understanding. It's hard to explain. But being open to the fact that that's even a possibility is step one, to being curious enough to say maybe it deserves a checkout.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Maybe go to the bookstore and open a Bible.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Because there's story after story after story of exactly what we're talking about, different time, obviously. But the stories are the messages, the lessons, it's repetitive. It's the same. There's grace, then there's a fall from grace, then there's a redemption in most cases.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

Yeah. I would suggest anybody that's open to reading something, start with a Max Lakato book. What I love about Max's writing is he, and that's one of the reasons I want to go away and write, because I think I see similar connections so often in life. So many of the things I jot down in my phone or my notebook are about just real life situations where it's like, oh, there's a spiritual connection here that is that might connect with somebody, whether that's something you run into or a street sign you see, or a song lyric you hear that isn't even a Christian song, but all of a sudden makes you think differently. You're traveling and you look out the window. I remember the first time I did that when I really was passionate about there's something more. I'm looking at every one of those people at night, when you look down at every household, they all have their lives. There's all something going on for those people, and God loves every single one of them so uniquely. And there was this eye-opening of, oh yeah, this isn't just about me. And now all of a sudden, now I'm open to the discussion to the person beside me on the plane because maybe that's the conversation. Yes, maybe I'm there for a reason. I don't believe in really accidental. I don't believe that what 20 some years ago we ended up with the same school community, uh, just for nothing. I mean, we have this relationship that's been ongoing in many different ways that has supported other organizations in the community that's allowed us to talk about everything from beer to whatever. And um, like that wasn't accidental. And I appreciate the fact that we have been able to swerve in and out of each other and that over so many years now.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Gosh, it's been almost 20. Yeah, yeah. Right? It was 25. Yeah. So okay. I have a segment called The Living Word. Okay. So it's uh a Bible verse that resonates with you and that you would share. There's a Bible there if you need it. If you don't, you don't, but it just it might just meet someone today where they're at.

unknown 42:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

For by grace you've been saved through faith. It's not of yourselves, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which he prepared in advance for us to do. I often in my upbringing it was of the grace part, but there's a there's another part of that that once that grace takes hold of your life, your life is bigger. There's something, there's works that he's prepared. So it kind of I love the image of waking up in the morning and say, What do you got for me today, God? Like what I have no idea what relationship you're gonna, what person you're gonna put in my life. But so Ephesians 2, 8 to 10 would be that life verse. And then the one I already mentioned about um from 1 Peter, first Peter chapter 3, where 315, where he says, um, he said, Be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have. When you've been so convinced that there's something more, when there's a God that loves you, that he's made it possible for you to be with him forever, when there's a covering for every mistake you've ever made, then be prepared with gentleness to give a reason for the response. Because I do believe that there will be times in your life where people say, Well, why why can you believe that? Why do you have hope? Why can you sit here in a time where you should be overwhelmed with grief? Or worry and still function, where you get to say there's only one reason, and that's because I got a God who loves me and a savior that has redeemed me and a life that has purpose.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

And a Holy Spirit upon me. Thank you, Gary. Thank you for coming today, and thank you for sharing that. And that's that's what you're doing, right? We're spreading the good word, the good news.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

Trying to trying to live life with purpose. And thanks for doing this and inviting me. I feel honored.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Tell people where they can find you if they don't know.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

Barnell Brewing Milkshed Coffee House. Uh, if you're looking for us to come to uh work at your school, it's courageforyout.com. And uh you can also come to the run club, never miss a Monday. You could be at November Project downtown on Wednesday mornings or our other run club.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Um basically you have to be under a rock to not run into Gary in this town.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

No, I some people would rather be under a rock than run into Gary.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

No, but you are you are an inspiration, and so you were right at the very top of the list. Thank you. To be on here with me. So thank you for doing this, and thank you for supporting me. I appreciate it. Love it. And thank you for joining us today on Talk with Toby Real Life Real Faith. Until next time, keep walking in faith, keep trusting God in the everyday, and may his peace meet you right where you're at.