What Evangelism Actually Looks Like (Not What You Think) | Luke, The Yadah Project

What does it look like to be a full-time minister... who works part-time for an airline?

In this episode, Aaron sits down with Luke, founder of the Yadah Project — a ministry built around one-on-one discipleship, a weekly Bible study at Bay Area Community Church, and a house he bought specifically to create space for gatherings, game nights, and worship.

They talk through what it means to let faith shape every part of daily life (not just Sundays), why the "one conversation = conversion" idea of evangelism is a myth, and how third spaces — or the lack of them — shape whether a neighborhood ever gets the chance to encounter the gospel at all.

Topics covered:
 • Choosing bi-vocational ministry over the conventional career path
 • Hearing from God through scripture, fasting, and paying attention
 • What "evangelist" really means (hint: it's not what you think)
 • The Yadah Project: discipleship, Bible study, and house ministry
 • Why third spaces matter for gospel access in a neighborhood
 • The #1 reason unbelievers reject Christianity — and it's not doctrine

If you've ever wondered what faithful, ordinary ministry looks like outside a church staff role, this conversation is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hey everybody, my name is Aaron Rosa. I'm the Holy Shepherd, and today I'm here with a friend of mine, Luke. And Luke, I've known Luke for a long time. It's true. I think I've known you since before I knew what you actually did. Are we still the same church? So that's a connection. Uh and then I started seeing Luke's name out and about as I was doing missions work. It was like everybody's common thread was through Luke. How could you how did you end up in my world? That's a good question. I don't know. I think I know your now wife before I knew you. I just thought of that. I think the war's gift to me is serving and being a part of that. And so I just a very present person in a lot of different ways. And I don't remember what view. This is the story for most people that I know. I don't remember how we officially first met or what was the original connection, but it's probably because you served somewhere, I served somewhere, and we met each other. But I think it also has something to do with the fact that you're the most kinetic person I've ever met. You're all over the place, all over the county, all over the state, all over the country, all over the world. That's funny. Yeah, it's probably true. I mean, because I had work for American Airlines part-time, I have the ability to be anywhere and everywhere. Not all at once, but very quickly. I wish it was all at once. There's so many places I want to be at the same time doing so many different things. But yeah. I mean, I would probably consider myself the energizer bunny. I'm an extreme extrovert, not just an extrovert. So I could be dead tired, walk into a party and be like excited and wide awake. I'll probably be tired again. But yeah. So that brings up a really interesting point, which I don't think most people understand, and this is what I admire about you, is that you have this life that you have intentionally cultivated, at least it seems to me, that you've intentionally cultivated to make this ministry pool that you feel possible. But you're not ordained, you're not in full-time ministry or anything like that. Tell me about that a little bit. I wouldn't necessarily say that I orchestrated it or that I tried to make it out, but it was more of a path that got redirected and it led to it, whatnot. And if I'd been at Southwest, it wouldn't have worked out, but I was so distraught when Southwest then worked out, and the fact that I'm at American now has actually been the greatest blessing for the sake of being able to be free and flexible and to be able to serve and to be a part of ministry now and to just focus my energy on loving on people and investing in people and them on the world around them. Do you consider yourself a full-time missioner? It depends on how you want to label the word missionary, because some people have very grandiose words for it. Or consider yourself in full-time ministry. Yeah, in full-time ministry, yes. Okay. Yeah, I consider with over and now. Yeah, do you also work a job?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yes. So my jobs have like said no to because my priority is ministry in the season of life. So how do you answer a voice of somebody's dad that says, oh, if you don't have a full-time job, a nine to five clocking in the uh an office, you're not you haven't really made it in life, and you're just still acting like a kid. I know I know you, and that is not you. But also you're one who really takes his obligations to himself and to his community and to his family very seriously. Tell me a little about how your philosophy would work when it comes to ministry. Well, my strength finders are discipline, harmony, achiever, responsibility, and I get the idea to get it. No, you get the idea from the first four. There's actually two things. One, so I actually have a master's degree in supply chain management that I got in college. My dad and my grandpa had helped me with that a lot. It was definitely a very strong or a very hard first couple years after college because choosing to go work for an airline as a grun worker did not go well with my dad. Let's just put it that way. Uh, and it took years and years before he saw that I was able to still make a name and make money for myself. I think is really what it was. Me proving myself in the process has been really nice and cool to now have the oh my dad actually sees oh, I I can do something without my degree, or I can become something, not just because of the piece of paper that I got or the way that we're supposed to do things, um, or whatever. If the Lord has given me a door and it works well, or if he's called me to something and I walk into it, it'll all work out and I'm not super stressed about what other people say is the norm or tradition to do. No, I I wanna I wanna like focus on that a little bit because what I heard there was a faith that so permeates the rest of your life that you I mean normal people who most people who don't go to a church don't say, well, if the Lord has opened this door, I'll just walk through it. For most people, faith is something you do on Sundays, or faith is something that they have in the background. It's the thing you turn to when your kid gets cancer or something. But for you, this really seems to kind of drive every decision in your life. Has it always really been that way? I mean, I try to let it do that, and it has not always been that way. I mean, the first big upset was when I lost my job at Southwest. They were like, bye. I was like, what? And they're like, we don't think you're a good fit, which we all knew was a bunch of baloney. So somebody was just out to get me. But I mean, I had a mentor at the time who was like, you should read the book of Job and look at uh so the idea of wrestling with the Lord and seeing his provision through what I thought was a loss at the time, and it happens countless times again when you pay attention. Right now, again, I'm also reading through the book of Esther, and Esther doesn't state God's name, doesn't talk about prayer, doesn't talk about worship, but there's so many coins or so many context flows that point to the Lord and him working and setting up the scene and everything. And so the Lord's always working and always doing something and always giving us direction. It's just are we listening? Are we quiet enough to listen and hear it? Are we still enough to listen and hear it? Do we actually eagerly want to know and hear? And if we do, there's so many opportunities in a day to be an evangelist, to share gospel with somebody. Not necessarily Jesus came down the cross evangelist or gospel, but loving on somebody who has had a loss recently, or being the friend that no one else has, or actually listening instead of just how are you doing? Oh great, cool, bye. Yeah, and having a real relationship with people. So it's not something I've always done. I think it's more of realizing I suck. As a person, I need the Lord. What does it look like to do life with the Lord and trying to focus on that and being in a relationship with him? So I'm sitting here, I'm listening to this on my drive to work. I'm jogging in the treadmill or something. And I hear that, you know, like, yes, there's all these opportunities. Do you have the ears to hear or you have the eyes to see? That sounds very ephemeral, right? How does that practically look? Hear from the Lord about this. So it's different for everyone. Uh and the Lord works in all kinds of ways and in different ways for everyone. And some people you'll find interact with the Lord in the same way and have that interaction or that communication. But for me, I've I have to push through something and see the lore's afterwork. In something is normally how it does. But I'm glad you asked that question because right now we're dealing with so I started with young adults, and right now we have a couple young adults in decision making. They're like, Lord, tell me whether I should take this job or that job, which as a side note, I don't think that the Lord necessarily always cares about that. It could be like I'll be but they're like, How do I fear from the Lord? And they're asking people who love the Lord, also their opinions and stuff like that, but they're getting so many pieces of information. I'm like, you're cluttered. Like, you need to go fast and pray and ask the Lord to speak to you because they're always like looking for like the tangible ways to get confirmation or answers. I'm just like weirdly pagan. Yeah, kind of. I mean, we try to spiritualize that it's almost like reading the tea leaves, yeah, that kind of thing. But my biggest thing the one thing I know for sure that won't fail and can't fail is reading scripture. And so I always tell people who are like, Oh, I've asked these people and they said this and they said that, like, what's scripture today? And scripture doesn't exactly tell you how to live everything. Dating doesn't exist in scripture, okay? There is no instructions for dating per se. But scripture still speaks to it and can still speak to how you should handle yourself, what you're looking for, and things like that. So it's I always point people to scripture number one that the Lord speaks through all kinds of things, whether it's nature or I mean you you've told me these words that I can't remember. These are two kinds of revealed lateral to special revelation. There you go, revelation. But for me, I know a lot of it comes from paying attention to what's going on, asking the question of why, and then seeing the outcome on the other side, as well as scripture. Scripture is a big thing for me. I don't normally get to hear an audible voice from the Lord. It's not like something that happens. I mean, I've had this random thought of these three people should be friends. I'm in the ministry of people, and so it's like these three people should be friends, and lo and behold, I mean, two out of the three were meant to be best friends, and it was great, and it was just a really weird but that's happened once and not normally had that happen before. But I also know that in my time in season of ministry, right now, my biggest prayer request is that the Lord would use me to meet people where they're at. And so I'm always like, Lord, help me, get out of the way. And so I sometimes, a lot of times nowadays I also see the Lord work because when I go to pray for people, I could be saying a bunch of things or throwing up with things, and normally when I do, it's usually pretty choppy and fumbly. But I've gone so many times now just praying for somebody and being like, wait, what did I just all say? And just feeling pretty confident that the Lord showed up and took over it. And that's my favorite thing to do because I don't want to be responsible in a way, but also I don't know that I'm always necessarily qualified either. So it's like Lord, come be present and speak to these people. AK me, you, anybody who's in a relationship of war. You mentioned something interesting that I don't think most people would hear. This is something they might you know, we hear from someone who's probably older or an older saint within the church or something. You mentioned a couple spiritual practices. You mentioned prayer, you mentioned reading scripture, that's a big one. But I caught on you talk about fasting. Is that something you do as kind of a a regular practice? And then how does that actually affect your prayer life? So the physical the food fasting that people typically think of when they say that, I have not really done that and I don't ever do it. I actually struggled with the eating disorder for 10 years of my life in college and high school. So I haven't found the sweet spot of fasting from food in that sense and whatnot. But fasting isn't just a food thing. I think the principle that oftentimes in the Old Testament it was food related because that was a need and something that was a regular part of their life. And the idea of fasting is just to create time and space and dependence on the Lord. So it's like, okay, there's a lot of different things in today's day and age and culture that we can fast from to create space and time for us to connect with the Lord, which is ultimately the goal, and dependence on the Lord. So it could be your phone and you're scrolling, or it could be potentially a relationship that you're in that you maybe honestly, I'll just say it probably borderline idolize or idolize, especially if they're not your wife or husband yet. But fasting could be from a lot of different things, and so I often recommend it to people, but the idea of practicing what can I take away from my life for a certain amount of time to focus on the Lord instead. Um the Catholics and their we they give it Lent, yes, and you know that they're 48. But that same idea they're doing it's a similar thing, the idea of saying no to something and yes to God instead. Now can you example of that actually happening working in your life? I I love by the way, I love fasting, the food fasting part for me fasting has always been the breakthrough, punching through the all the noise when you just need to catch the bubble again. And I have never failed when I fast. That's something off the top of my head. I do know one other thing next to fasting for me that's a big deal. Is I'm like I'm go go go. And so choosing to slow down and be intentional with changing my motives for something. So going from I'm going up to Boston to help my friend Jody with her pickleball facility and serve and be a hardworking, non-paid person to represent the Lord well and to serve him versus going up there to chill, relax, vacation, because I'll go do serving to me is almost as great as vacationing. I could do both, but I could easily burn out if I'm just literally serving all the time. So choosing to change my focus on something or going on a trip because I go on trips all the time. Usually I travel for the sake of people, but going and choosing to do it for the sake of being with the Lord or just being present instead of being a doing. Instead of being a human doing, being a human being, because that's what we were created to do. So it's like going somewhere and being present and just doing that. And so, in doing that, there's a number of times where I mean I love being in a plane. When I worked at Southwest, I would get on a plane, fight a fart frequently, I'd get back back in the morning to do my quiet time before I went into work. That's super big to must be like my friend played it. It costs me nothing because I've worked for the airline, but being a bear is one of my favorite things, or being in the mountains, choosing to go be somewhere where I can be intentionally present with the Lord is more so how I often end up doing it. I'm not a believer in the Lord because the scriptures are true and the Bible is true 100%. But I'm more of a convinced by seeing the Lord work in my life and other people's lives person, more than this scientifically makes sense, or this logically makes sense, or it logically makes sense to me. I've seen the Lord provide for things that I thought I missed out on and provided more abundantly for it. The ministry that I'm in now, just the things that he's provided for it, the support, the other donations, or help the opportunities that we now have in our ministry to serve at the backyard in Pasadena and stuff like that. Stuff that like went to the expected, and if I hadn't planned it myself, it wouldn't have been as great, or it wouldn't have worked out at all. Do you consider yourself evangelists? Yes. Yes. Why the hesitation? Well, because what anytime people use Bible words, I have to stop and think, okay, what's the definition? Am I actually gonna be on board? I wouldn't even necessarily if I have the choice, I'm not calling myself a Christian. I'm saying I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and I choose to do light with him and follow him. That's what I would ultimately want to do. Obviously, if I'm longer to say than Christian, but same ideas with thief words, missionary, evangelist, pastor. Oh, you said in your own words. I use the evangelist, that's the truncated version. But yeah. I mean, I'm somebody who loves Jesus and is looking to love others for Jesus. Yes, to answer your actual question, I would consider myself an evangelist because I mean God gave your Jesus gave the commission to everybody to go and be disciples from here to the nations. That's an evangelist in a way, because there's different steps in evangelism. It's all about not just sharing what Jesus did on the cross, but sharing his life with others, depending on what stage of life they're in, whether they don't know who Jesus is, and so it's literally the gospel sharing evangelist versus they do know Jesus, maybe not walking with Jesus every day, or are at a different stage in their walk with the Lord where they need direction or whatever, and all of that I would throw under an evangelist. Because for me, evangelists is the sense of I do life with the Lord, the Lord has called me to go and do things. I'm going to share in his kingdom and do the things that he's asked me to do. So I would say I'm an evangelism if you look at it that way. Yeah, I can see how evangelists is shorter. Yeah. I had to take that evangelism class and seminary. And there was a guest speaker that we had on. And he said something really interesting to me. He said, I'm an evangelist. He goes, I love evangelism. I love that. He's like, I'm constantly talking about Jesus. He's like, he built this very successful church off of evangelism. This church is very evangelistic. He goes, I'm an evangelist. He goes, Well, most people think that being an evangelist means that I'm constantly telling people about Jesus. He goes, There are days I wake up and I don't want to talk about Jesus. He goes, There are days when somebody asks a question about the Bible and I'm like, dude, I just want to talk about the game. Because there are some days I don't want to talk to anybody. I just want to sit on the beach and just be a beach foe. He goes, but there's never a minute in my life that I'm not at least somewhere in my mind thinking about lust. Thinking that there are people in this world who don't know Jesus and should know Jesus. Now, whether or not he does anything about that, or whether or not he actually goes out and reaches to them or talks to them or whatever, that sense is in the back of his mind. And I I really like what he specifies there. He's like, Well, makes you an evangelist isn't necessarily that you're always talking about Jesus, or makes you an evangelist is that you're thinking about the lost. And that's what I've heard in everything that you've been saying. So by his definition, and he was a lecturer at some area, I would say that works and selected. Yeah. Well, I would add too that you're on mission for it. It's one thing to think about it, and that's great. But then also to be like, okay, what might the Lord be asking me to do about this? And so that is nothing, or for that day is nothing. But having the thought about those people or whether it's safe people or unsaved people or saved people who maybe just need that next step. Part of my mission is about like, yeah, it's not just for unbelievers, but also for believers, but it's also what's the next step for you, as opposed to just, hey, I made it, I'm good now. That's not what it is. Well, you're safe for something. Yeah, never just safe. Yeah. So speaking of which, tell me a little bit about my register. You've been alluding to it a little bit. But dude, we've known each other for a while. I'm not even really a hundred percent sure everything that you do. Tell me your overarching vision and then how that works out in everyday life. Okay, so it's called the Yada Project. It's the Hebrew word for to know, not just intellectual nod, but personal experience, relational intimacy. And the Hebrew word does extend to sexual intimacy, but that's not the self-party. That's not part of my ministry. It's the idea of a more personal relationship. So the idea of God knows us. We read a scripture to know God, to be in a relationship with God is that same idea. And fun fact, people say yada yada yada all the time, and they also mispronounce the ministry name, which is fine. But it's the same root word that yada yada yada comes from. Because if the idea you know, you already know if I don't say it, so I say yada yada yada. So it's uh yada shirt. Yeah. So it makes sense when people are like, um, that's true. But it's called the Yada Project, Ephesians 2.10, the Hebrews, you know, run the race that's set before you idea. Because a lot of people, especially young adults, stop it, oh I know Jesus, or I gave my life to Jesus in middle school, but their life doesn't necessarily look different, or they're not serving or involved, or they're not taking their next step of faith or crying in their relationship with the Lord. So I'm working with young adults in all different spectrums of things. And what do you classify as young adult? 18-ish. I I mean you get 18 to 35, but for me, it's most age of life. So I lead a small group and I don't kick people out unless they're get to a point where they're awkward or doing something inappropriate. Because otherwise, there's some people who are 37 and single and associate more with the I just finished college stage of life young adults versus married and have kids and are 37 years old. And so I minister to it, it's lower on the higher end side. There's not as many of them, but it still am open, the door is still open for me, investing in them and being a part of them. So the 18 to 35 year old group is if you want to put numbers on it, is the group. The ministry that I have I just focused on like three branches. So the discipleship, just the one-on-one that I do with tongue-adolfs meeting up, talking about like doing like pointing them to Jesus, they don't know Jesus, teaching them and helping them learn to have a relationship with Jesus and stuff like that. The Bible study that I lead on Tuesday nights at Bay Area and then the house ministry. So I bought a house in December for the purpose of the ministry. Um which has been great to just be able to have a space, one to host things and to bring different people together. I'm not focused on just the church that I go to, but all of young adults in the Creator are in the Ronald County area. So I'm again a well-connected person. I know people always for going to the elegant city in Glen Burdy or Casadena and Baltimore and you know on the other side of Baltimore and down in Maplas and stuff. And so my goal is with these helps ministry events is bringing the different young adult groups together, helping them to interact with others. Because even with a single young adult group, there's still people who feel on the outside or feel they're not known or not seen. And I'm like, your person is just one little neighborhood over somewhere else, probably, is trying to bring everybody together with right now. It's mostly game nights, but there should be hopefully a few worship nights. And then I also make the space available for other people to use. Like we've had, I've been away in El Salvador on a missions trip, and people have used the house, played volleyball, and went inside, had sex and everything, and like chilled. Or like we've had a small group at my house when I'm not even there or when the church isn't available, or things like that. So like there's a vision for like the space being used. I didn't buy a house for me, I bought a house for other people. So this is actually interesting. So at the Fed Shepherd, if you don't know this about Luke, he he does his fundraising through the Lid Shepherd, and it's a little bit of a spur on for me because he's very good at it. If not, not as great. Um, but one of the things I do in my ministry at The Fed Shepherd is data-driven evangelistic insights. It's actually funny because I looked up the house that you bought, but I looked up the house that you bought the other day on the Lovid Shepherd. And one of the things that you can find if you have the gospel graph, which is another product that we offer to George Feinders and evangelists, is we can score, we figured out a methodology that can score the relational fabric of a particular neighborhood. So third spaces where everybody has an opportunity to congregate, have those serendipitous conversations, things like that. Not everywhere, especially in this area, has that. Because if you're unfamiliar with Arona County, it's very there's a lot of tributaries coming off the Chesapeake Bay. So there's a lot of bridges, there's a lot of peninsulas, and then of course there's a lot of waterfront property. So not everybody mixes with the waterfront people because the waterfront people want their space. So you have nice neighborhoods, but neighbors are roads that tend to be more relationally fractured. For your particular neighborhood and your area, that you know that your area scores abysmally low in third spaces. The five mile radius around your house is only low in third spaces. Tell us more about third spaces. So a third space is this idea that sociologists have. So you primarily have two spaces that you live in. You either live in your house, which you're not running into other people generally, or at work, which is your second space, where you're generally not running into new people unless you're in some sort of customer service environment, in which case you probably don't want to hang out with those people, anyways. A third space is a place like a library, a Starbucks, a church, park, a place where everybody just equally doesn't belong and does belong. And what that does is it really provides a freeing atmosphere for people to relax, for people to have conversations, to to chat with other people. You're not inviting your work friend generally to hang out at your house. Generally, if you're gonna hang out with him, you'll go to a third space, you'll go to a movie or you'll go hang out with a food court or something. So your particular area, the area around where your ministry is located, is actually very, very low in third spaces. So is Odenton, by the way. I was talking to a pastor at a shout-out to Forehead at Access Church. I was talking to him several months back. I was doing an analysis for him for his church, and he told me something. He said, Aaron, there are no third spaces in Odenton. I was like, get out of here. Maybe there's no third space. He's like, There's no third space. He goes, there's nowhere, he goes, there's no coffee. We were meeting at a coffee shop in Crofton. That's how far we had to go to find a place for us to meet that was near where he was already doing ministry. And then when we built that part of the Hood Shepherd out, it mathematically, yeah, not a whole lot there. So one of the things that I pushed back on him was, well, are you guys prepared for your church to be a third space for the community? And that means not necessarily being at church all the time. Not necessarily meaning that third space is in let's go hang out on worship night. Nobody wants to hang out on a worship night.

unknown 24:11

Right?

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Oh, two people want to hang out on worship night. People are super Christians or people who are going through a divorce. There's really no middle ground there. But if you have a big if you if you're in most churches in the United States, I mean like gym or at like school or something, you have a dedicated block of time and get access to it, you can open that up for all kinds of people to show up and you pick up basketball or gang night or something like that, and that provides something that just doesn't exist in that particular neighborhood. That makes sense. I'm in the business of making thirst faces. So how do you do that? Tell me how you do that. Okay. Okay, so first I'll say my third bucket that I'm most excited about, which is actually probably why I call myself more of a shepherd than an evangelist, to kind of choose different titles. Because I would love to be a shepherd to missionaries one day and do my dream job flying around beating up with missionaries and loving on them and supporting them. But my third bucket is retreats. And I need a better overall bucket. But the same idea as when you're in middle school and high school, we do these camps for these kids and retreats for these kids. We don't do that for young adults. They all love to go to an overnight camp. Like, yeah, let's go swimming. So that's what I'm most excited about. That bucket of creating spaces and places. During spaces, other places, either locally or abroad. We just went to Philly for the World Cup finale to go to one of the fan zones just to watch, to just have an excuse to get together, to spend intentional time together, stuck in a car together for two hours, and doing something fun, that kind of thing. Like going to a conference in Buffalo, New York in February, which we'll do and stuff like that. This idea of this retreats and Kups or vacationing together. Because Gumdells already want them travel. Let's make it more purposeful and more intentional and relational than just going and partying somewhere and coming back a week later being like, well, that was finally maybe. So doing something more impactful and more beneficial for their life and their walk with the Lord and the people around them. Okay, but so going back to the question was how do I create third spaces? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, please. I mean the fact that I actually have the space to suggest to meet up for things is the biggest thing. You just have to be able to have a space to invite people. Because for the most part, people will show up. Even when I thought let me get responses to that, I don't know if the people are actually gonna come, they do show up. Again, the other adults are a group of people who there's not much provided for them. So when there is something provided for them, they usually show up. Especially if you have free fare. Yeah, if you're not a few years. What are the elements of like the third space that you're gonna do? Yeah, free food and a friendly face to invite them. Literally, that's it. So I mean you bought a house, dude. You bought a house for this. Not everyone buy the house for this. Correct. Not everybody even has a house for that before you bought the house. It seems in order to have third space, you would have to have a space. What were some of the things that you would do? How how would you satin eat when before you bought a house? The space doesn't have to be yours. So you could have somebody who graciously offers their basement for you to do things at or whatever. I mean, up until in fact that buying the house was literally the Lord told me to buy the house because I can't do what I'm doing right now without having the house. Because I've lived for 30 years with really just eight years, intentionally wanting to oh, people connect and be a part of groups, but not really being able to do anything myself for it, other than invite people to join me at different things, but that is not my other thing, and they wanted no details that I'm like, I don't know. It's just whatever is for me doing what I do right now is literally just because I have the house. Going back a little bit is cool. I went on a trip with a friend to help her with the World Expo in Japan last year in the fall. While I was there, I visited some missionary friends of mine. His wife's a volleyball player in other countries and whatnot, so having dinner with them, and I consider them missionaries because the wife Jia is super intentional with her teammates. She's going to play in foreign countries where Jesus is usually not top of mind or has never been mentioned or whatever. So she's very intentional with sharing about who Jesus is and talking about how Jesus is the reason she's there and stuff like that, and even starting Bible studies. And then her husband, Daniel, who's my former roommate, he runs a personal training business on his own, and he's like, it's mind, body, soul. He's a priest of the iron stuff. Yeah. And so he has in his workouts, he has Bible study and he works with up-and-coming football players or volleyball players and things like that. Football being soccer, not American football. Also going back to the idea of evangelism for missionaries. I consider them missionaries, even though they're not support raising or any of that stuff. They're missionaries. So I went and visited them and I was having dinner with them. And Gio was like, thanks so much for coming and visiting. We didn't realize how much we needed this. And I heard like similar on a theme a couple times that year, just in my visits and my traveling and mission trips and stuff. And I was like, man, why is that? Why is that stuck in my head? And so the whole plane ride mode, going back to this idea of eating a plane, I was like, okay, Lord, what are you trying to tell me? And that's where the idea of okay, the word seen is the word that came to mind. They felt seen having been in foreign countries for the last seven years of life and not really seeing family and not being home for holidays. They felt seen having a meal with somebody that they know, right? So then Lord, okay, see, let's Google the word scene. That's where the word yada came up. And then I was like, okay. So what am I supposed to do with this? Talking about different ministries, different churches, different people, you and dreamstorming, and then this house coming on the market and a friend telling me about it, and it being a really good deal, and getting it without a real estate agent and all these things, all the pieces that came together. This is how I talked about earlier. The Lord spoke to me in the fact of orchestrating all of this and seeing what's happening today. Did I know what it was gonna be back then? Did I know what the plan was? No. In a similar way of did I know what these third spaces are gonna look like? And did I know what I was gonna do exactly? I know I love board games and I love bringing people together, so we could do that, but figuring out how to orient the house and put things together, and it's all piece by piece, step by step. And it's more of God opening doors to do it. So whether you have a house or not, or you have a dedicated space or not, the question is what opportunities are right in front of you. There's this thing called Plury Nights that happens at the Mac now. It used to happen at Cozy Bean Cafe in Crofton, and it was just a group of young adults that were really big into missions. One of their siblings was a missionary or still is a missionary in Nepal, and they were like, let's do worship mites and raise money for missions. And so they met at Cozy Bean for a long time doing that, and then somebody came to it and was like, This is awesome. They were outgrowing the space at Cozy Bean. He was highly influential at the Mac and was just like the Mac is a church in our area, but he goes to the Mac and was like, You guys can use our space. And so now this thing happens once a month on Tuesdays at the Mac in this big outdoor tent that they have, and again, they don't own that space, it's not their space, but there's an opportunity provided because they're faithfully doing what they think they should be doing. And so, I mean, and now these generals from all over that come to that. It's a really great third space in if we in this situation tent. And so it ends up being a great time. People come out, and again, people from all over different churches come. So you don't have to own a space or be up homeowner to be able to create third spaces, it's being intentional. I mean, for me, it just comes down to being passionate about something that the Lord is giving you and going all in, and then the Lord will open up doors, and it's just waiting to see. I mean, I wanted to put a volleyball court in my house because a lot of young adults like volleyball courts, but my yard isn't really flat for it. And somebody was like, Oh, I'll come flatten it for you. They have a construction company, shout out to Brad, and he was like, I'll come and do it for you. So he came out and just flattened my yard for me. It is the greatest. And then somebody offered me volleyball poles and a net. I didn't go looking for it, it just happened to show up. The Lord provides when you're going out and doing what the Lord asks you to do, he provides. If creating third spaces is your thing, but you don't own one, the Lord will provide for it. Whether it's you guys are doing something at a board game store that you could rent rooms and do that, or it's you own a place, or it's you're going to a church and the church hosts it, or a family in your church has graciously offered their space because that's happened plenty of times at the Bay Area for the different young and all groups that it existed. So you don't have to own something to make third spaces possible. And then there's also I don't know if there's like a real word, but there's some mini third spaces, which is the idea of like I think you suggested this that like Jorge, go to this coffee shop every Tuesday and spend all morning there with one other person and get to know people and interact with me while and you're a regular. Yeah, become a regular. That's creating a third space, just on a much smaller scale, and it's very a little bit different, but like the same idea of being present and available and interacting with the world around us, and that's what makes evangelism evangelists. Okay, so you create these third spaces. You you seem very passionate about meeting people where they are. You know, one thing that I've found with because I I teach evangelism and I'm this is my world, right? When I talk to people about this, when I tell them a story of a person's life change or a person who comes to Christ, right? It is very often the first time they've never heard a story like that. It's almost like we have this category within the church where it's uh oh yeah, that we know people come to faith. But yeah, I don't know. It's kind of like we have this category in life for gasoline, and somewhere we know that somebody there was an oil rig in the middle of the ocean or right, and we watched the show Land Mare or something like that, and maybe we get a taste of it. But for the most part, most people don't really think where that comes from. Tell me about what does this mean when it gets down to the brass tacks with somebody who really is hurting? What does that community you're trying to build look like? What does that passion that you have for the Lord come out as? And what that responds, and how does how does God actually show up in those particular moments? Because by the way, stories like this are meant to be retold in churches. There are entire traditions of churches that have the testimony is part of their order of worship, or they have someone stand up and say, Hey, this happened to me, or I saw this happen and the Lord is great. It's the number one thing in the Old Testament that the Israelites are reprimanded for and they they forgot. They forgot the mighty things that the Lord did. So and like a lot of like, can you remember? Yeah. Okay, so I have a really fun story. So this is probably the most impactful experience that I've seen because of creating their spaces or creating spaces for people to gather. This is before I started ministry, but these are some of the things that helped me realize this is what I'm supposed to be doing. But so we go on a snowboarding trip every year, and it changes where we go. But we went to Tahoe two years ago, I think, or something. And so I invited a bunch of people, our group came. This guy and his girlfriend at the time, she's not much of a snowboarder or whatever, we just wanted to come along just to meet people. Well, I was like, we can figure something out, but they should also have a unique thing to her schedule and I was like, I normally don't make any exceptions because then everybody wants to make an exception and blah blah blah. Either way, we figured it out, made it all work, and so we all go on this trip. We go to Lake Tahoe, we have a great time, it's fun. And that was like in March or something, and like May, June, June, maybe, or July. This one lady comes up to me, she's like, Thanks so much for making that trip work for me. And I was like, Oh, I'm glad to hear that. I'm like, anything more telling me more kind of that told me, so they started telling me the story. And so one, they're not much of a traveler, going with different people that they normally know is more uncomfortable. And traveling in general is maybe uncomfortable. But and I might be getting some of the details wrong here. But the idea is they're not super comfortable traveling, they ended up having a great time traveling. They also met somebody and became friends with someone else's wife who they clicked and became pretty good friends. And lo and behold, sadly, after coming back from that trip, I think they had to have a knee surgery, their dog died, and something else terrible happened. And I'm like, all these things happened, and she was like, I would not have been able to make it through those things if I had not met Leslie and become friends with Leslie on that trip. And I was like, Dang, okay, God, that's crazy. I didn't take any credit for that myself, but it's I'm that's like that's cool that these people became friends and had that experience. I've seen at West the King Nights that I do of people meet people from other churches that they wouldn't normally meet, and churches we click eat, yeah. And I had somebody from Axis Church and somebody from Bay Area who met a group, and then they went out for coffee, and both of them, independently of each other, both came to me and was like, Oh my gosh, Ryan's so great. We had the three-hour long conversation, it was amazing. And then Ben saying to you that same thing about Ryan. It was just like this cool I've seen it happen a couple times now, and I said earlier there was like that download these three people should be friends. The two of them really did become friends and have been really friends and really care for each other and love on each other. And so I don't remember what your original question was, but what I have showed up in your ministry. Okay, so practically the Lord's just connecting people. God is a relational God, that's the number one thing that we forget, and that's why reading your Bible is not just to reach Bible to follow instructions, or praying is not just praying to follow instructions, it's because our God is a relational God. That's the reason we even have Jesus who came to die for us, because he wants our relationship with us. And so it's when we're in relationship with the Lord, the Lord opens up things for us and shows things to us in the same way that when we meet people and we're intentional about it or we're open, even even if the people are not your thing, you don't know how to make friends with people, you don't know how to talk to people. If you're open to the idea of Lord, if there's something in your life that you need right now, in this sense, like there's you need a friend, you need somebody to do part of life with to either just do fun things with or somebody to sneak into your life. If you're open to it, you may obviously go put yourself in some places, oh, create those spaces, but put yourself out there. If you're open to it, the Lord will answer you. The Lord's not a silent God who wants to make you suffer first before He gives you something. He wants to give us good gifts, he wants to provide for us, he wants us to be in community. So if we're intentionally seeking that and open to it and walking into spaces, go do it. Whether it's making new friends with somebody or going and having a great experience. Like on Friday, we went tubing because somebody from Bay Area was like, hey, you guys want to like go on a boat sometimes? I was like, I'm sure we could do that. And then somebody brought a tube and we all went tubing, and it ended being like so much fun. And for one person, it had been an extremely hard week. I can't overstate that enough. And the fact that he came out to it, had a great time, was tubing, it was an adrenaline rush for him, which is something he needed. It was awesome to just see the Lord meet that need in that situation and with it. We over spiritualized the Lord showing up and working and doing things, but literally that is the Lord showing up in the ministry. So just seeing people connect with each other or having great experiences or doing something outside their comfort zone and being more comfortable with something or getting excited about something enough to invite other people, that's the Lord working, in my opinion. I think the ability a year and a half year or two of you I got like really serious about like uh about where am I not being intentional in the sense of like I have lots of people and I'm friends with a lot of people, and people who are not believers, I'm like, I know they're not believers, and I'm just gonna be friends with them and do fun stuff with them, but I'm not really gonna share the gospel with them. And my friend Jody came to mind and I was like, oh, this person I've been friends with for like eight years. Like ten years, I've been friends with this person. I know that they don't really believe in Jesus, they're a super spiritual person, but I'm like, if I really love this person and cared about them, I wouldn't shared the gospel, and I don't really feel like I have. And I know that like just straight up saying the gospel isn't necessarily the right thing in this side, but like when we went to Japan, and I was okay, let's infuse prayer into this because we five standard boxes, so it's we never know what claim we're gonna get on. So let's pray about everything and thank the Lord for everything and become this thing where prayer became a sought-after thing in the friendship now. But it was even when they left Japan, they were like, Can you pray for me? I was like, Yeah, of course. And then now going to visit them and spend time with them, and then so let's pray. And having that a part of our life, and now we're in group text with somebody else too, and we're talking about like who is God and what does he have for us? Like just to see the progression of it again. The Lord shows up when we're intentional, right? And so it's what's the it can be tiny, little tiny thing. What's the next little thing that you can do to be intentional? Whether the Lord has told you it or not, what can you do to be intentional to build a relationship? And then if you're in a relationship with the Lord, it's gonna overflow, and you're gonna either be convicted to do something or say something, or the Lord's gonna create an opportunity if you're already there. And I want to see this question. How many times have you gone intentionally to talk to someone about Jesus, right? And they were like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. Praise God, let's help get baptized right now. Like, now maybe like maybe not. Maybe it's a stressing thing. Yeah. Nothing recently had that. I mean, we went with Barry, we went to Virginia Beach and part of campus beach evangelism and neighborhood evangelism, and like four people gave their life to Christ. I don't know what how many times they heard the gospel before or whatever, but that was very intentional seeking to do that. But it's not a typical thing that you just go show the gospel of somebody and they come to know their Jesus. And for some reason, I maybe it was Billy Graham, maybe because he was random, but for some reason there became this b-side that everybody thinks that as soon as you draw the little chasm and the cross and the person's come to faith, and it's that's how it works. And when they tried it one, two, three, four, eight times, and it didn't work, they were like, Oh, this is much crap. And what I love about your story, and I've just I mean, I can't tell you, there are people who I've seen come to faith after 10 years of me being a friend to them, and it's not because come to me like, oh my gosh, this person said this sernet said something crazy to me at all. I was like, dude, I've been telling you that for nine years.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

I think the encouragement that I want to give anyone who's listening, and something that you and I know very well, is that's a false standard. It's like people watch, I don't know, people on TV shows for movies having sex, and they're like, oh, it's supposed to be like that all the time. And like, no, dude, I've been married for many years. It ain't like that. And I'm not just throwing mine out there. There's other people out there too. Yeah, right? It doesn't work that way. That's just what you see in the movies. I think for some reason, people think that this one-off evangelistic conversation is the norm because they quote unquote see it in the movies at church. That's that's the story they hear. And the real encouragement that I would give to people is not, it's the little steps. It's picking the book bottle when you don't want to. It's listening to someone and when they're angry, it's crying with someone, it's showing up with a pizza, it's that kind of thing. And so I I want the people who hear this to understand that when your pastor is saying from like there's a lot of stuff your pastor can't say from the pulpit. He just doesn't have the time. You've got a 20-minute attention span that's been completely shot by your phone in the past. Today, they get mad if you go over 20 minutes. It'd take me 20 minutes to get revved up on a story. There's a lot of stuff your pastor cannot tell you. And if what you're taking away from his condensation of that message is I need to be evangelistic and tell people about Jesus, and you think about the movies, then you're gonna be disappointed every single time. What he wants to tell you is just be a friend of someone. I spent a lot of time you spent a lot of time talking to people who don't believe in Jesus. I I do too. What's the number one thing that people have against Christianity? Is it something theological? No. Oh, what the how people acted or behaved towards then. That's because they were a jerk. Yeah. Don't get me wrong. Jesus says, Blessed is the one who doesn't take offense to me. Okay, there is an offense to the gospel. It's offensive enough. You do not need to add to it. Jesus promises he will piss off that other person in just the right way. That's part of the that's part of the gospel. Right. You don't need to add to that. In fact, I thought through 1 Peter last year, and there's this whole section where he's like, okay, look, you're gonna suffer. But it's not just enough to suffer if you do something wrong, because whatever, you should suffer if you do something wrong. Yeah, and then it's not enough that you suffer for doing something right, you have to suffer well for doing right. And what I'm trying to get at is 90% of what unbelievers see that is unattractive about Christianity is not the doctrine, it's not the doctrine of election, it's not the cross, it's not any of that. It's that they showed up to church one day or they got vulnerable when everybody else was sharing a testimony. Everybody was like, oh no, you know, I grew up in a in a Christian household. And then the other person's like, oh, you know, I had an argument with my wife, and you know, I met Jesus or whatever, and someone's like, oh yeah, and they raise their hands, they're like, Yeah, I met a prostitute and hooked up with her the night before, and the next morning I could have finally policed the go to the bathroom, so I stumbled into a church and some pastor talks, and everybody's looking like, like, you're heated. Yeah. Like, what do you expect? But just expecting just the sanctification before justification. So, anyways, that's a long and very dramatic way of saying if you're feeling that you need to be more evangelistic, or you're feeling the Lord wants you to be on mission, whatever that means in your particular church context, I can tell you that it doesn't mean going into a public housing neighborhood and preaching the gospel. Yeah, that's true. That that's my that's my area, right? It doesn't mean buying a house and having a bunch of kids over to your house. That's that's that's your area, right? That doesn't even mean flying to different countries to meet with missionaries. All it means is not being a jerk to someone. Because I can't think of a single place where Jesus was a jerk to a person. One person, one one time actually, where the Cyber Phoenician woman comes up to him and asks about the demon and her child, he's uh but he's doing it to draw her into the conversation. Yeah, and it worked out right for her. So that's my encouragement for people listening here. Is this really isn't hard stuff, guys? Yeah, all you got is not be 90% of the people in this world who are broken by this world and frustrated and have no hope, and they take that out. You know, agree with that. I love this. If you're listening to this, figure out where your spiritual gifts are. There's tests all over. It's like you'll you'll take the Buzzy test that tells you like which guilt marker are you like. Just take a spiritual needs test again. You do it for Jesus. Um ask someone at your church what do you think you're called to? What are you good at? Where do you see Jesus shining through to me? But remember, you can get caught, we all get caught up in this trap sometimes of wanting to learn more and more and more and more about ourselves. You gotta remember that it's all for a purpose and that purpose is for going out and doing it. So it's good to learn that stuff. Yeah, learn it well, and then go out and actually do something about it. And don't box yourself in with them either. That's what I think. It's just telling you what your tendencies are and what you're thinking you can do something. You can't do something outside of it. But yeah, 100%. Go learn about yourself and figure out what it looks like to be more of me or more of yourself for Golf Kingdom. That was great, having you, man. This has been a thug conversation, it's always a blast. Yeah, we look forward to hearing more from you, more of these stories move you on again another time. Sounds good. In the meantime, thanks for listening. And remember, you're listening to these things, you're learning these things, you're you're growing in your quiet time and all that, and it's for our purpose, and that purpose is to go out. It's not a big thing to do, just like Luke said, it's those little things, it's the little steps to what's that next thing I have to do for the kingdom. So go out and do that this week, and I'll see you next time.