Ep.4 - Things That Have Changed
00:00:00.000 | all right welcome to the unofficial official grace this is the other way around i get it
00:00:12.320 | mixed up every time the official unofficial grace point podcast where we talk about all
00:00:16.440 | things grace point the good the bad and the ugly and today we're gonna be continuing in
00:00:20.340 | our series atypical church and we got we got this is gonna be fun it's gonna be fun episode
00:00:25.980 | it's our first time having guests so we're pretty excited um so i'll intro them a little bit and then
00:00:30.200 | ask them to tell us about themselves a little bit so uh we have with us pastor will and rick from um
00:00:36.320 | pastor will it leads our college ministry in the dmv area and rick leads our college ministry
00:00:40.380 | in the socal area and um we have a lot of history together steven was with rick for like
00:00:46.620 | like your whole life pretty much yeah that's what it feels like you are our class baby yeah yeah i was
00:00:54.540 | okay we were me as they were born the year that rick went to went to college entered college and
00:01:00.220 | pastor will was already in college at that time so if that tells you a little bit about his age uh
00:01:05.500 | pastor will and i we got history too because pastor will led the youth group when i was in it that was
00:01:10.060 | like way back in the day um and i was actually supposed to be in a2f it's a little known thing i
00:01:15.340 | was supposed to be in a2f oh you were remember because you started recruiting me oh yeah from when
00:01:19.340 | i was like a junior in high school and i didn't know what these groups were so i was gonna join
00:01:23.020 | a2f and then choice of a life stuff happened another thing that i still haven't forgiven you
00:01:27.900 | for yeah because then we would have been together that would have been neat yeah because you were on
00:01:30.940 | a2f yeah yeah yeah yeah and then next year kairos and then that's when rick and i oh man and it was
00:01:36.860 | like 12 years 10 10 pretty much you were with like i was with rick like under rick in some
00:01:42.860 | form for like 12 years yeah except for like one semester so i'm gonna ask them to just tell us a
00:01:47.340 | little bit about themselves tell us a little about you guys for um for everyone listening so can you just
00:01:52.300 | start off with um your graduating class and your major and a little bit like a two sentence like
00:01:59.500 | your spiritual background and how you came to because we're a college ministry we do everything
00:02:03.260 | by graduating class yeah that's just how we do it so yeah mandatory questions how about pastor will yeah
00:02:08.460 | yeah sure yeah i'll start off um i graduated college in 1991 and i studied economics and after
00:02:14.060 | that i worked in um the consulting field for about 10 years um married to esther had two kids uh they're
00:02:22.860 | all grown up and so um yeah just really thankful for that my spiritual journey was um i grew up in
00:02:29.740 | a non-christian family but my dad became a christian when i was when i was 12 years old so it became we
00:02:35.980 | became a church going family after that um i accepted christ at my youth group in um with my family
00:02:44.220 | but then i slowly started to fall away because there were a lot of apologetics questions about
00:02:48.540 | science and faith that i just couldn't get answered yeah so i left that thinking okay i'll come back to
00:02:54.860 | religion later uh but for the time being just wanted to pursue just my dreams academic ambitions for
00:03:01.580 | about uh you know for the next 20 30 40 50 years and then when i'm getting ready i'll see god but um when i
00:03:08.780 | got to college i i had everything that i wanted but by the time i was a junior in college i started to
00:03:14.780 | ask those questions again why am i working so hard what's the purpose of life and that's when i met
00:03:19.980 | your dad isaiah and then um asked him a bunch of questions and uh started coming to our church
00:03:25.180 | the rest is history there's a funny story of like when you first came to our church and there's like
00:03:30.140 | people and people knew you yeah yeah so they're surprised this yeah yeah yeah wait wait oh yeah
00:03:34.220 | so i came junior right but i was a frat boy and i had you were a lambda no no i know i was a pineapple
00:03:42.540 | you're a pineapple yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so it's a little different full-on motorcycles well yeah yeah
00:03:49.020 | yeah yeah they're they're different and i have my opinions but you know okay that's for another podcast i
00:03:53.580 | suppose um i i i kind of developed a reputation about myself um in college as a frat boy and when
00:04:00.780 | i stepped foot into our church uh several of the sisters came up to me and said what are you doing
00:04:07.660 | oh my gosh i was like we're not secret friendly at that time we're not friendly to newcomers and then i
00:04:13.500 | just wanted to say um because of god yeah that's a good answer but but but but i knew where they were
00:04:18.940 | coming from and believe me i i totally deserved it okay wow yeah that's a lot of humility i actually
00:04:25.580 | experienced you when you were like just coming back i think we were freshmen and you're like a senior yeah
00:04:30.620 | yeah i didn't i didn't have a very favorable impression just letting you know yeah it was a long time ago
00:04:38.540 | it was a long time ago i want to hear more details about that i don't think we have time but okay so
00:04:44.220 | maybe rick just yeah your graduating class major and kind of your spiritual story yeah so i graduated in
00:04:49.980 | well my class in 94 when i actually graduated is another story but i studied cognitive science and i
00:04:58.140 | worked as a software engineer for 20 years before i went full-time and my spiritual background is i grew up
00:05:05.340 | in hawaii so i didn't go to church um my parents my family we had some run-ins with some christians
00:05:13.180 | so i really had a negative view and i just thought they were all like to be honest idiots okay because
00:05:20.860 | yeah it was bad anyway so i came in not looking for church came to college not looking for church but
00:05:27.020 | then um i from hawaii this pre-internet guys no internet back then and i had to find housing and so
00:05:35.100 | um i arranged for a room a boarding room at a frat and um when my parents went there to move me in they
00:05:42.460 | said oh my gosh this place was so filthy they said you're not gonna live here and so then i had to
00:05:47.820 | scramble long story short um i ended up getting contacted by our church who had a house full of
00:05:57.500 | guys and this is not in the house but uh they one of the guys moved out for you know he had a dorm
00:06:04.540 | contract so then he moved out and so the space opened up for me that is the only reason i'm here
00:06:09.260 | who did you know from our church or how did you get in contact well we met someone at the housing office
00:06:15.660 | when we were looking for housing and my mom being korean started to talk to anyone who's korean
00:06:20.380 | started asking them where do you live where do you how did you get your housing and then so they
00:06:25.660 | led us to the church and so we called and that's how yeah it was every moment it was on region
00:06:31.820 | yeah yeah i came over we played a lot of card games like as our times oh yeah yeah that kind of stuff
00:06:37.340 | wow yeah yeah we had we had a we had like six freshmen and a bunch of seniors oh okay cool okay so the
00:06:44.940 | reason we wanted to have you guys on today is because today's theme um of today's episode is
00:06:49.820 | uh what's changed about our church um we've been around um not necessarily as grace point but basically
00:06:56.620 | our church has been around for about 30 years yeah a little over 30 years now um and so obviously
00:07:01.500 | a lot is different um but you know we were only around well i was around since 1990 but i wasn't in
00:07:07.180 | college ministry until much later right so we wanted to get your guys perspective and basically what we want
00:07:12.780 | historical yeah historical prehistorical perspective so we want to get you what are for you guys what
00:07:19.980 | are the top three things that you are glad have changed about our church and could be serious could
00:07:28.220 | be just kind of random cosmetic things like whatever you want it to be well i'll start because i came in as
00:07:34.300 | a non-christian so first time at church you walk in and uh you know i just want to be inconspicuous just
00:07:42.860 | kind of attending whatever next thing you know is like they made all the newcomers stand up oh and start
00:07:49.100 | introducing yourself to the rest of the church so i'm glad we don't do that anymore yeah yeah what did they
00:07:56.140 | make you do they just say you just have to say your name and no you gotta stand up and then yeah yeah
00:08:01.100 | so everybody's seated and then the newcomers all stand up yeah and then one by one you just say like
00:08:06.220 | what's your name where what are you studying those typical questions and oh yeah and then they all clap
00:08:12.220 | for you i'm like okay thank you yeah it's kind of like let us welcome brother rick but then you weren't
00:08:17.500 | even a christian wait there was a no yeah yeah there was a total oh yeah yeah i don't think they
00:08:21.900 | sang for me but i i heard that before my time oh that was even before your time yeah that that was
00:08:26.940 | before my time no yeah yeah when i came uh first thing was to your dad's bible study okay so i came in
00:08:32.700 | and this i mean i mean you were in your mother's womb and then um yeah i came in to say hey you know hey
00:08:39.100 | we have a newcomer here his name is william and let's let's welcome him and uniformly they all you're
00:08:44.620 | standing yeah yeah i'm standing and on cue i don't know how they started singing this song
00:08:50.220 | that is welcome brother will let us and i forgot how it goes but i remember standing there feeling
00:08:55.100 | wow this is really awkward i'm a frat guy right i'm coming in and i'm not i'm not used to listening to
00:09:01.900 | that kind of music you know other type of music right yeah uh but uh it was weird but um i i came
00:09:08.380 | because i was hungry for god's word wow and um i loved hearing your dad you were like push through this
00:09:13.740 | yeah so it was well it was worth it it was it was worth it pushing through all of that just to hear
00:09:18.780 | the word when did we stop doing that when did we stop doing the song because i i don't remember that
00:09:23.980 | yeah yeah i think it must have been before you guys so sometime in between yeah yeah okay
00:09:29.180 | three years yeah but even afterwards we were still welcoming people yeah i remember the standing
00:09:35.900 | because i remember i brought some friends during high school and then we try to make it a little less
00:09:40.860 | awkward by having their friends stand up with them oh yeah yeah yeah i remember but then it was really
00:09:45.260 | awkward for the person introducing them too so i had to do that for this guy that i had literally just
00:09:49.100 | met like a week before that was that was rough and then i forgot i don't want him i don't want to invite
00:09:53.980 | anyone to church again yeah it was very while we're on the topic like anything else around those
00:09:59.900 | gatherings and services well yeah because well okay so that's a front end so you when you're a newcomer you
00:10:04.860 | come into our church you're getting sung to right and then toward the end of service there was this
00:10:10.700 | weird thing in which um uh the pastor would say his closing prayer and then he'd have us all stand and
00:10:16.140 | then like on mass like everyone knew what to do they all reached down they started holding each other's
00:10:22.140 | hands i'm like whoa this is kind of weird right because um you know you do that and then the guy next
00:10:28.860 | to you could have really clammy hands and after you come start coming to our church for a while you
00:10:33.900 | know who they are yeah you don't want to sit next to them at the beginning of service knowing what's
00:10:40.300 | coming at the end oh man right and what really made it awkward was sometimes you know you know you do that
00:10:45.340 | with um with you know with girls too and and i'm like whoa you know um this is kind of weird and
00:10:52.060 | like okay i get it but sometimes you know um you know a girl comes by and kind of like her and you
00:10:58.780 | didn't mind and you know at the beginning if you sit down and you think strategically you kind of like
00:11:03.660 | okay well you know what's coming up yeah yeah that's kind of hard to focus on the message and everything
00:11:07.980 | yeah yeah exactly exactly and then that's ideal right yeah hold hands and um yeah and yeah just
00:11:16.380 | is that why they stopped them yeah well i don't know when we stopped that either but it's like stuff
00:11:22.700 | like that happened because of tradition until someone was bold enough to say hey why are we doing this
00:11:30.060 | and then we're all like yeah why are we doing this and then we just stop are the is that a korean thing
00:11:37.100 | the holding the hands and is that or yeah i don't know because i went to a korean church in high
00:11:41.900 | school and i don't remember doing that okay so i think it was just kind of i didn't do that yeah
00:11:46.540 | thank the lord we used to do foot washing too we did yeah yeah i've heard of that i didn't know our
00:11:51.740 | church did that yeah yeah it was a tradition every new year's eve you did that yeah it happened like twice
00:11:57.900 | like it was like pretty pretty special occasions though yeah and so literally you just yeah so um new
00:12:03.340 | year's eve you came and you came with your own bucket so you had to bring you bring your own
00:12:09.020 | book yeah yeah b-y-o yeah bring your own b-y-o-b means something different and then um and then you
00:12:14.140 | know there would be a message and then it's about you know foot washing yeah john 13. yeah in light of
00:12:18.860 | what jesus said right we got to serve and love and everything and um i remember when we did that um
00:12:25.020 | your dad would magically disappear yeah yeah he hates stuff like that yeah he hates stuff like that
00:12:33.340 | so we're all doing it and i'm like wait where's where's ed because i just knew him as ed back then
00:12:38.220 | because he was just a lawyer um but then he would somehow find like some technical issue or some sound
00:12:44.140 | and go to the bathroom or something that was really oh i did i actually did not know we did that kind
00:12:50.620 | of disgusting oh gosh but you don't remember that no and how did they we probably i'm thankful so you
00:12:56.380 | were the cusp of a new generation yeah how can you oh anyways you know okay so so come to think of it um
00:13:05.660 | your dad he went to he went to boston to planet church right right and then when he came back
00:13:12.220 | that's when he took over the college ministry right and i think that's when he started to
00:13:16.860 | change stop a lot of those yeah yeah stop a lot of the things that okay they were kind of nice
00:13:22.380 | back in the day i suppose but then we started to ask where he started to ask hey why are we doing this
00:13:28.300 | let's yeah if there wasn't a good reason that i can praise the lord i'm very thankful i don't think i
00:13:33.100 | would have stayed at our church if we had to it's just one of those things i think yeah yeah
00:13:38.780 | wow just just mentally i can't even imagine how how did they pair you up for the foot washing
00:13:43.260 | um you have a morbid fascination with this whole topic yeah yeah you just go to the person that you
00:13:49.260 | want to yeah and so that makes it worse i think no no yeah it was worse but then here's the thing like
00:13:55.820 | you're thinking okay well i gotta submit to this and i gotta humble myself and i have to love like jesus
00:14:02.540 | yeah love someone like jesus did and for me it was like okay who do i have a tough time loving
00:14:07.420 | it was my my roommate wow and so i'd have to come to him and he come to me there's something powerful
00:14:13.900 | about that there is there is so it's a it's a practical way to love your brother humble yourself
00:14:20.940 | and humble yourself um but then maybe not the most hygienic yeah or newcomer friendly yeah or or newcomer
00:14:31.180 | friendly but um but yeah i i think it was helpful but yeah i think there are other ways to to humble
00:14:37.260 | yourself yeah like saying sorry or exactly other things exactly wow okay okay gosh all right well
00:14:44.780 | thank you for that okay so we have the we have the weird welcoming tradition we got the holding
00:14:49.740 | hands and praying we got the foot washing yeah um were there other things that come to mind what
00:14:54.940 | else yeah well i think for me um i think one thing that's definitely changed is the segregation between the genders
00:15:01.660 | yeah because um when i came like it was like on one side of the church with all the brothers and
00:15:07.820 | on the other side the sisters except when the holding of hands yeah anyways but that's kind of
00:15:13.020 | it's in the aisle yeah but when it came to like fellowship time it's pretty much the guys gathered
00:15:17.660 | and the girls gathered and um i i i spotted that immediately and i knew it was different it wasn't
00:15:24.620 | something that i experienced at my church growing up uh but then i i kind of appreciated that because um
00:15:31.500 | there was a kind of a um a reverence or or or respect uh for the other gender and it gave time for
00:15:40.140 | relationships uh between between peers of same genders to form and me coming from a fraternity
00:15:47.180 | background you know coming in like i i loved it because i could just focus on god right i don't
00:15:53.260 | i don't have to worry about the game the drama the game the potential marketplace type values and stuff
00:15:59.740 | like that uh so i i i definitely appreciated that yeah you know honestly in the back of my mind i'm like
00:16:06.060 | i don't know that's changed i mean it depends on which church well i think during our undergrad days
00:16:13.740 | or maybe a little after there was a shift definitely the um segregated seating not that it was ever like
00:16:18.940 | a rule but that i remember that did happen yeah but there was a conscious effort like we gotta yeah
00:16:22.700 | and then we said okay this is weird guys let's start integrating the seating please and then it would
00:16:27.100 | be like one row of brothers on the sister side yeah yeah and then but over time i think that has that
00:16:32.620 | aspect at least has gotten better but you know coming from a non-christian perspective i had no
00:16:38.620 | preconceived notion of what church was supposed to be like i just thought it's holy it's like this place
00:16:44.780 | where you come to you know meet god or whatever so when i first came surprisingly i didn't have a lot
00:16:51.340 | of besides the cringy holding hands washing feet stuff like um like in terms of like church i just
00:16:57.580 | thought like okay this supposed to be a holy somber kind of place maybe you know you can't you know so
00:17:03.100 | you kind of expected yeah i kind of expected a lot but then you know getting to know a lot of my
00:17:07.340 | friends who grew up in church and went to church i mean i can tell like they had different issues with
00:17:13.580 | like a lot of different things and it was all new to me so i was just like oh what how come they have so
00:17:18.620 | many problems yeah it's become with some notions of what you yeah so for me i mean like segregation
00:17:24.300 | all of that's like oh okay well i guess you know this is supposed to be like this at church you know
00:17:29.100 | you're supposed to focus on god some stuff didn't change yeah no so i mean yeah so i had a lot of
00:17:34.540 | those kind of issues like i'm new to church but then it's the church guys who had a lot of different
00:17:41.260 | things so that is interesting yeah yeah well now now i i think i know why guys still congregate with
00:17:48.300 | guys and girls girls it's because i just like talking to guys we can talk about guy things like
00:17:53.660 | sports or you know marvel or whatever and um and i just girls play sports and yeah yeah yeah
00:17:58.940 | yeah but man it's just like you know getting together with yeah you know so yeah i get that
00:18:05.980 | yeah yeah it it has changed though i think there is more integration i think um uh but yeah it wasn't
00:18:12.700 | yeah it was really bad back it was bad i agree yeah well rick i mean was there anything that like
00:18:17.900 | you did have issue with like you know it's all new but like you know you're just kind of like yeah i mean
00:18:22.940 | well the first thing that comes to mind uh back when um i was a freshman is okay you know i'm i'm from
00:18:31.500 | hawaii yeah i made that clear uh i'm used to going to the beach and you know like just that kind of stuff
00:18:40.140 | so our church we had our like a rafting trip it was really fun you know it's splashing water and everybody
00:18:45.820 | everybody gets wet there's not no one should be dry after rafting and so we're all wet and then you
00:18:51.340 | know we have a picnic after and with food and so after uh the rafting my shirt everything is wet so
00:18:57.820 | i'm like oh man i gotta take this off so i took it off and i got in line for food because it was normal
00:19:02.220 | for you growing up yeah it's like it's a wet shirt why have your shirt on why why are you wearing a wet
00:19:06.860 | shirt right and then i got a tap on my shoulder saying um can you please put on your shirt i was like
00:19:13.500 | what my shirt's wet and like i know i'm like okay this is weird church yeah so i had to go put on the
00:19:25.900 | wet shirt and it was like you know nasty feeling yeah putting back the wet shirt yeah so and it was a little
00:19:31.820 | embarrassing that's a little because you got called out because i got called out in line i'm like in
00:19:35.740 | line getting food and they're like go put on your shirt i'm like oh what the i'm surprised you came
00:19:40.540 | back yeah yeah so yeah yeah that was that was a little shocking and like oh yeah this church it's a
00:19:49.020 | little uptight yeah they were uptight about the whole skin thing you know that is a weird thing like still to
00:19:56.940 | this day i remember in undergrad i had a friend from another church at berkeley who was like dude i
00:20:02.220 | heard i heard grace pointers aren't allowed to go to the beach i was like uh that's not true but it is
00:20:09.340 | true that when we go to the beach everyone keeps their shirt on so that is yeah that's a little weird
00:20:13.660 | thing about us but you know it's because we are kind of well it's interesting i never encountered that
00:20:19.340 | problem because like when i went to the norcal beaches i was like it's cold you know i love going to
00:20:25.340 | the beach i love doing like you know same thing but in norcal i was like okay hypothermia yeah it's like
00:20:30.060 | 55 years here it came up a little bit you know but but yeah it is yeah i mean you know the issues
00:20:37.420 | whoever called you out was probably one in guard a culture of modesty and and just you know but
00:20:42.780 | it's weird yeah and for the record like put on a wet shirt for the record our church we don't have
00:20:48.460 | an official stance on wearing your shirt at the beach just want to throw that out there i mean my wife's
00:20:53.980 | still a little mad about she's she's kind of she's kind of one of these hyper conservatives i think
00:20:57.980 | but we went to tahoe one time and you know some freshman guys sophomore guys to say can we take our
00:21:03.980 | shirts off i say go for it man and um we still haven't come to an agreement about that one me and my
00:21:09.260 | wife but yeah my point is that it varies leader yeah and it does vary the leader yeah yeah freshmen at
00:21:15.020 | tahoe that reminds me of the there was a time later on so after all of this i'm thinking like everybody
00:21:20.460 | needs to keep the shirt on and we were out there with some freshmen for an outing and your parents
00:21:25.820 | like when you were a staff our staff your parents were there with us and then all the freshman guys
00:21:31.660 | took off the shirt and they're like running around and i was like oh man and the first thing i did was
00:21:38.460 | look at your dad's reaction i was like what is he gonna say and he was totally cool is it on flicker
00:21:44.220 | no but i'm thinking like i had to put my shirt on you know these guys are running around without their
00:21:51.660 | shirt wow wow yeah you know well i'm from so count so i went to the beach um and uh totally used to you
00:21:57.580 | know going to the beach and then you swear bathing suit and everything and um i i remember that that
00:22:03.020 | rafting trip oh you remember yeah yeah well i you know i was on a raft we're a raft full of guys and
00:22:07.980 | it was so hot i just took my shirt off you know what else are you gonna do wait wait you mean the
00:22:11.980 | one where he took his shirt off and he got called out yeah yeah yeah but but then that was at the picnic
00:22:16.860 | where there were other people you know just brothers and sisters just everywhere so you put on a
00:22:20.860 | yeah i i was on a raft full of guys right there weren't any leaders around
00:22:27.420 | i mean of course of course when there's a raft of sisters you know we're just doing this well
00:22:31.260 | i mean even if the sister wanted to call you out they can't because they're on the ground
00:22:35.100 | so um yeah so i i think i think if someone called me out like that i would have been like what's up
00:22:43.740 | because you were still kind of new to our church too yeah yeah i was still kind of new i was a frat guy
00:22:48.460 | just unrefined so it seems like it's like it's not just like it's it wasn't the shirt off it's it's the
00:22:56.140 | uptightness yeah yeah yeah it's the uptightness and like you know what's the that might be the
00:23:00.860 | why what is that well what what's so tight or you know what's the heart everyone does allergic yeah
00:23:07.020 | yeah and so it's it's things like that that um okay well i realized okay our church is like this
00:23:12.780 | but i'm willing to roll with it because i love i love our church in the sense that i love how i can get
00:23:20.060 | god's word everyone's living it out right and there's a sense of holiness and i knew i had to be
00:23:25.980 | there and um stuff like that it was just a small price to play uh play pay okay so i so i rolled
00:23:33.900 | with it but then now like 10 20 years out i can look back at that and see the wisdom behind you know
00:23:40.780 | some of that because you know we don't want to draw attention to ourselves yeah yeah we don't want to
00:23:44.860 | stumble others and all that kind of stuff on on that word stumble i heard a really funny story so stumble
00:23:51.020 | for people who don't know it's like you know tempting people or like you know yeah yeah you
00:23:54.860 | look really attractive whatever right and there's a story of a uh a guy the guy's playing ball and
00:23:59.820 | like everyone's there playing yeah and then um and then uh one of the guys is like wearing a cut off
00:24:03.340 | tee you know just just no sleeves right and just playing and then one of the person can you go talk
00:24:07.260 | to that guy and the guy that i heard the story from he had a quote he went up to go call the guys hey
00:24:10.860 | man can you like change your shirt i was like why and he goes oh because you know it's kind of like
00:24:15.260 | stumbling you know the guy goes people are stumbled by this like yeah never mind you're good
00:24:24.700 | i won't cut off t play basketball i never got called i don't know why i just know some of the
00:24:29.260 | people so i remember when i was a youth pastor yeah i took a bunch of high school high high school guys
00:24:35.740 | to zion right which included isaiah's brother noah yeah that's hey let's take our shirts off because
00:24:40.860 | it was hot yeah so we took it off and we took like these pictures i didn't make it a flicker i mean
00:24:46.220 | yeah it's not it's on my hard drive so yeah to this day yeah yeah to this day yeah i have it and
00:24:52.700 | you know john vang's there we all know john oh yeah and then he's like yeah and i can see yeah it could
00:24:57.740 | he's done depends on who yeah it depends it varies from person to person you i mean he's you can wear a
00:25:04.540 | shirt you yeah yeah no i got you but i do feel like yeah i i do feel like for sure we we've improved
00:25:14.700 | on this as a church maybe some work to do still but like i do feel like back in the day
00:25:18.140 | we kind of expected like non-christians to act like christians a little bit there was a little
00:25:23.020 | bit of that going on and uh kind of just not overzealous yeah yeah so then now we're like okay
00:25:29.260 | and maybe like it was also you know you're trying to build a culture too because you're a little more
00:25:33.020 | hyper vigilant as well so yeah it's like actors too but yeah yeah okay do you guys have any more for
00:25:39.260 | us we want to move on to one more topic before we end the show here today okay so we wanted to
00:25:44.540 | talk about now some like more recent stuff so that's like that's kind of ancient history for
00:25:48.060 | most of our listeners they were not around maybe not even born
00:25:50.860 | describing now that i think about it um so we want to talk a little bit about some of the more like
00:25:56.780 | recent changes like and i'm talking within like the past five ten years um so um what are maybe if
00:26:02.700 | we just i think just throw these out here as a group um we don't really have a system for this but
00:26:07.180 | like what are some of like the significant changes that we've made recently and maybe just your thoughts on that
00:26:12.700 | um you kind of your reaction and kind of if you thought that was a good or a bad thing and and
00:26:17.500 | that so so like i think one thing that stood out to me and this is pretty recent um so i can start us
00:26:23.820 | off is the whole sabbath week phenomenon and i think that started like a two years ago year ago
00:26:29.500 | year ago i think about a year it started when you guys went out to philly is that was that the first time
00:26:34.140 | we yeah yeah yeah so um i mean i think that's like a big thing that i don't know how that even would
00:26:41.020 | have come across to your generation when you were our age that might have been like i don't know but
00:26:46.780 | it would have kind of been unheard of but basically now once a week as a church we try to build a week
00:26:52.460 | where we don't really do like the regular rhythms of ministries so we basically say nothing that requires
00:26:57.980 | a meeting or like a planning doc you know um we like spend a night for soul care spend a night just
00:27:03.500 | building relationships and hanging out with people spend a night just hanging out with your fellowship
00:27:07.820 | in like an unstructured way um and personally i think it's been really good for us it kind of forces
00:27:14.460 | us to slow down gives us a breather uh kind of helps our staff to just sort of come back again to
00:27:20.300 | like why am i doing this and and connect to jesus again good reset point yeah um so i think that is
00:27:26.860 | to me one of the biggest changes that we've made in a very recent one but i think it's helped to kind
00:27:31.820 | of offset a lot of um i think just some of the difficulty of doing ministry um where it can feel
00:27:37.820 | relentless and it can feel at times like um yeah like we don't make times to just connect you know we
00:27:44.060 | don't make times to just like grow in our relationships because we're just doing doing doing so
00:27:48.300 | to me that would be one of my top ones what do you guys how do you guys feel about like like what do
00:27:51.980 | you guys think about that change about that i think it's really good because back in the day
00:27:55.660 | oh man i think well i i can't speak for other people but this is my sentiment that other people
00:28:01.900 | thought this way like for me i prided myself on doing a lot of work like i was a business guy i wanted
00:28:07.740 | to go to wall street you know they work like crazy are you a type three pastor yeah no actually i'm a type
00:28:12.300 | seven yeah yeah so i'm not i'm just kind of confused enneagramically yeah but anyways um like
00:28:21.900 | when i heard okay michael milken right he's a wall street guy you guys don't know he worked like 80 to
00:28:26.780 | 100 hours left four hours and i thought man if he's gonna do that for money i gotta do that for the lord
00:28:31.900 | yeah and so i'm i'm gonna be like okay well let's work let's do this um no one forced me to but that
00:28:37.420 | was kind of like my work ethic and that's a sense that i got from the oldies back then but looking back
00:28:43.900 | now that i'm older yeah i could i'd be like oh yeah i think that was a little too unhealthy
00:28:48.220 | i mean no one was forcing us to do all of that but then that was kind of the culture so i'm really
00:28:53.740 | glad to see that things have changed that we're taking this monthly sabbath and i praise god for that
00:28:58.620 | yeah and i'm thankful just because like with a lot of church planting and stuff like that like just
00:29:02.860 | a lot of the relationships have gone disrupted we feel thinner yeah we feel a little thinner because
00:29:06.620 | we've just been i mean you plant a shirt like you send people out to plant church it disrupts a lot
00:29:10.940 | relationally i think maybe part of the reason why we were able to run so hard before was like
00:29:14.300 | everyone was together and that there's a lot of relationship right and our church because of church
00:29:18.540 | planting which is praise god for um there is that cost of relationships thinning right and so like
00:29:23.820 | trying to build in um at times so yeah i'm trying not to laugh because i as soon as i said we feel
00:29:30.300 | thinner i knew that some people are gonna make comments about that so i already know i'm like
00:29:36.140 | why are you smiling okay can i can i get one yeah yeah yeah um i think one of the things that i felt
00:29:43.100 | like changed the most since i was a freshman is sort of how open we are to other churches yeah and like
00:29:50.220 | for me that's the biggest one actually really because because i like we were always connected
00:29:54.700 | so one of the reasons why i stayed at our church and i was really interested because i remember meeting
00:29:57.980 | you and you're telling me how pastor is like really good friends with jp moreland yeah and jp moreland
00:30:02.140 | is one of my heroes in high school oh yeah yeah he's being your vineyard vineyard he was vineyard and then
00:30:06.300 | like my my mentor was getting me into apologetics and then i was like this church is apologetics and
00:30:10.540 | so i was like blown away so like i was blown away by how many people were connected to whether it was like yeah um
00:30:15.580 | jp moreland josh mcdowell sean mcdowell like william mccraig some of these guys so we've always been
00:30:20.780 | connected but we've always been under the radar because we don't want to attract attention to
00:30:24.540 | ourselves we just want to like be faithful right but now it's like i mean set network college
00:30:28.860 | collaborate like just i can name so many things where i'm really open and so i just want to get your
00:30:33.180 | guys's thoughts on on that like i mean have some thoughts but my thoughts on that yeah just like do you
00:30:38.780 | see that as as a change that's happened and yeah yeah i think so i think we're very i mean i think
00:30:44.700 | we thought of ourselves as like very small you know and um we're just kind of doing our own thing yeah
00:30:51.820 | and it was just when we first started it was just berkeley right so it's like we never thought of
00:30:57.020 | ourselves as anything more than that and then um never thought about like this becoming a net like a
00:31:01.500 | nation yeah no and then i think for me it was i mean like getting guest speakers and things like that
00:31:06.540 | it was always cool because like you know you could name drop people or something like oh so and so was
00:31:11.820 | at our church but um still i i think the thing that really got my eyes open a little bit was collaborative
00:31:19.900 | and it was these other people who kind of visited our church other college ministries yeah they're
00:31:28.220 | looking at college ministries and they saw something and they wanted to sort of make a big deal out of it
00:31:33.900 | by having a conference and like having us share our story and how we're doing things and um and honestly
00:31:43.020 | like i said this is the theme i i was in church so this is the only church that i've known yeah right
00:31:48.620 | and so kind of seeing other churches and hearing from them and kind of their challenges and what they're
00:31:55.260 | going through and then their willingness or wanting to learn like what how we do things and what what
00:32:02.460 | we're doing i was just like wow that was that was kind of eye-opening for me yeah it's like oh it's not
00:32:08.620 | like this everywhere else you know it's there's it's very different and we have something that maybe they're
00:32:16.140 | interested in yeah yeah yeah so for those of you don't know college collaborative um it's a conference
00:32:21.980 | of collegiate church planting churches and we gathered so yeah share knowledge yeah and it's
00:32:27.980 | getting inspired by each other commission board yeah and there was a guy there who was like really trying
00:32:31.660 | to get a lot of these college missions together to share knowledge and just like you know build a
00:32:35.820 | movement basically of like collegiate focused church planting was really cool um eventually it just kind
00:32:40.380 | of stopped it coven and stuff yeah coven and things like that and just um um no one to like really
00:32:44.620 | organize that but um but we're still connected to those churches i think we've learned a lot super from
00:32:48.380 | them and as much as they've learned from us too and some of those guys they still text here and there
00:32:52.300 | oh yeah what's going on yeah i mean we we still keep in touch with all of them steal their ideas oh yeah
00:32:57.260 | they have a lot of good things that we're trying to incorporate yeah yeah you know and and vice versa i
00:33:02.700 | guess and so it's been good in that way yeah and so to that end like i think like once we
00:33:07.740 | appreciated what we had i mean i came in because you know from other children wow this is amazing
00:33:11.980 | right but just being able to see now us kind of opening and and seeing like wow god's given
00:33:16.540 | something really special precious and we want to bless other people with it and i mean for me like
00:33:21.980 | even just like doing inner high which is where we go out to other you know ethnic under-resourced churches
00:33:26.220 | and do like youth service for them because all these youth don't have their own service their own
00:33:28.860 | language like i came from a church like that and so like when we started that passover when you started
00:33:32.780 | like and i was part of that niche you know like in 2010 2009 and um that was just like i was so
00:33:39.580 | thankful for that and and it's my favorite ministry yeah yeah it's my favorite ministry and i just just
00:33:45.020 | because that's where i grew up and and i know how hard it was and i think that's also showed people
00:33:50.460 | like it's not it's really not about us yeah it's it's just we want to see the kingdom of god expand right
00:33:55.500 | and i think it's blessed a lot of people yeah and so that's what i mean even now like your dad you
00:34:00.380 | know we got in touch with him and he's connecting us in socal yeah yeah with like all of these other
00:34:05.500 | churches i did youth retreats for his home church and stuff so yeah so i mean it's been a blessing for
00:34:10.380 | us because like we get to go out there and like you know for some people who it just reignites their
00:34:16.620 | heart for yeah youth ministry this is tough for them yeah like they're like doing it on their own
00:34:20.940 | it's not like us yeah and they're so appreciative of like even anything that we do for them so yeah
00:34:26.620 | and i think uh just the the whole aspect of like partnering with kind of other campus ministries too
00:34:32.780 | i think we were i kind of think this was a weakness of ours back in the day where we kind of not that
00:34:37.900 | we weren't open to that but we didn't prioritize that yeah kind of just did our own thing um for whatever
00:34:43.500 | reasons and i think that's the way we've grown too just like being more open to that more friendly
00:34:47.820 | honestly like hey we're here let's meet let's talk so i think for us uh year one church plan is doing
00:34:52.620 | that in philly like meeting the local nam and send guys has been a huge blessing shout out to you know
00:34:57.820 | like stan williams and kyle kanti and these guys yeah brian messer and then just like the other christian
00:35:03.100 | groups on campus so like you know we we do a lot with like fca at the penn campus and i think i don't
00:35:08.140 | know i just think that didn't occur to us before but super thankful just that we're kind of doing more
00:35:12.860 | of that and getting involved in that way so yeah yeah um yeah any others any others you guys want
00:35:17.340 | to throw out there like kind of changes that we made in the reason yeah i think um one thing that
00:35:20.860 | i've seen change a lot is just the amount of uh input that um that we're getting and asking for uh because
00:35:28.380 | back in the day and maybe this is because i was very low on the totem pole not high up but it always seems
00:35:35.660 | that the the the that the leadership like they went up to a mountain right and then god spoke to them
00:35:41.900 | yeah and then they came down and like thus saith the lord this is what we're going to do at a church and
00:35:47.340 | then we're like okay let's roll yeah and then there wasn't any input or any opportunity or as much to give
00:35:55.020 | feedback or to like um ask questions about about okay you know can we get more clarification but now
00:36:01.820 | things are like so different um and because i know it's a reflection of like your dad and your mom
00:36:07.740 | i say that because they're they're hungry for data right i mean data is really important they need
00:36:12.780 | more information and it's important that uh we especially you know when when the overseers make
00:36:18.780 | decisions about our church uh that we get input from everyone not just amongst ourselves but from
00:36:24.300 | uh the leads the full-time leads the uh the campus leads even from staff and students even yeah and
00:36:31.100 | we're we're regularly polling you know through like google forms hey what do you think about this can
00:36:35.980 | we get your feedback on this i've seen um you know there's there's that anonymous email channel that
00:36:42.140 | that that that that pastor red put up and um anyone can could could write into that um as well as that vine or
00:36:49.500 | combo that we have as well yeah just kind of internal yeah and i've seen and i've seen like pastor and
00:36:54.060 | kelly they're they're regularly talking to people outside of our church to get uh some input or some
00:36:59.660 | feedback about us about you know uh what decisions or directions that we need to go and so that has
00:37:05.340 | definitely changed a lot yeah i mean dramatically i mean to add to that is the q a times that we have with
00:37:11.180 | them too i mean they have so many almost after for for a season last semester i remember even with the
00:37:17.740 | college students right i mean we would have a q a times and they'd ask every yeah we did q a at philly
00:37:22.940 | too yeah from from from the actual message to just about our church and everything so i think yeah that
00:37:28.940 | that's been a really positive change i feel like i had a related one um just kind of getting like people
00:37:33.740 | involved younger um so like getting our students involved in more things getting them to help like plan
00:37:38.860 | things yeah because we used to be a little shaolin temple yeah i appreciated that shaolin temple but
00:37:43.100 | then i think if i if i wasn't burnt out coming as a freshman i'd be like this just don't let me do
00:37:46.460 | anything like that's why i thought you were going to leave i was like i just need to do nothing yeah
00:37:52.380 | i remember that yeah we're lucky but yeah no because i think back in the day it was sort of like you have
00:37:56.780 | to like you don't have to quite be jesus but you have to kind of be like almost apostle paul if you're
00:38:01.260 | going to serve in any capacity in our church that was sort of our mentality um so we've chilled out on that a
00:38:06.780 | little bit uh so i'm thankful for that because i think i think we benefited from that and people
00:38:10.540 | grow faster as a result yeah yeah i just want to say like as a maybe it's wrapped that one up it's
00:38:16.620 | that's a challenge for like every organization to to get that kind of what is happening on the ground
00:38:20.540 | that kind of and feedback can do that well and um we we have our challenges and things like that
00:38:25.420 | but i do think it's something we continue to grow and just creating that space for that to happen
00:38:29.340 | in a really constructive way so i'm thankful for that too yeah yeah well i think we are almost out
00:38:34.780 | of time here so i'm going to just rattle off a couple other things that i think are important that
00:38:39.340 | they've changed and then feel free to throw some out more but uh i think it's significant that we don't
00:38:43.420 | turn in wrs anymore that's something we just need reflections weekly reflections we don't we still do
00:38:48.220 | them but we don't turn them in and that was just it was just one of those things that a lot of
00:38:52.140 | people just felt weird about and i think just given sort of some cultural shifts that we were
00:38:57.900 | maybe a little slow to recognize we figured okay it's best to not do that anymore well i mean a certain
00:39:02.700 | level of leadership we still do just because like among that that's right it's like yeah you know
00:39:05.980 | that's that is part of our full-time it's just needed yeah and to be honest i hate sitting down to
00:39:11.180 | write it i hate it it's the pastor of our church everybody pastor of our church overseer every week i'm like
00:39:17.820 | why okay so but then i just obey yeah and then at the end of an hour and a half two hours i'm feeling
00:39:24.700 | like oh man i'm really glad i did yeah yeah i'm so glad i did that so there's something really about
00:39:29.100 | yeah yeah yeah i mean exactly so there's so much that happens you know and i think for me like just
00:39:35.340 | sitting down makes you kind of think like okay my memory is going so i have to kind of sit down
00:39:41.020 | and and kind of go okay what happened last week yeah yeah we live like a month and a week yeah yeah
00:39:47.020 | because if i don't do that then i'm just back in the saddle i'm going you know 60 70 80 miles per
00:39:52.540 | hour and it's another week of just going strong yeah without getting that oh man i'm really thankful
00:39:58.540 | how god worked in my life kind of moment i mean i think that would be dangerous i'm really thankful
00:40:02.860 | for wr although i still hate it i'm gonna hate it wait what day is it today i don't know it's a
00:40:07.900 | thursday thursday yeah i'm gonna hate it monday i'll be thankful monday after yeah yeah but i do think
00:40:13.260 | some of the changes have made like you know that structure is good but then also now okay i don't
00:40:17.820 | have that structure so how do i continue to keep up with like and keep in and stay in touch with the
00:40:22.380 | people and get connected what's going on their life for me it's made me try like recognizing the weakness
00:40:27.420 | and me being like relational that way and so it's forced me to grow in that way too so it's you emphasize
00:40:32.300 | different things in different seasons right yeah sure so yeah yeah yeah all right i think that's all i had
00:40:37.740 | actually yeah do you have any last ones to add um any ones to throw out i do have one last one
00:40:42.460 | it might be a little bit long a little bit this one is just one that i feel but like um
00:40:46.220 | i feel like it's important to bring up though because i do think like how we approach um family
00:40:51.420 | like like parents you know okay because you know in college that time where you're becoming more
00:40:56.300 | independent you're gonna become an adult and so there's that natural separation from parents and
00:41:00.460 | stuff like that and like i remember in undergrad hearing a lot of testimonies about people like
00:41:04.620 | going like wow like i need to stay to grow spiritually right and if i go back home where
00:41:10.460 | there's no church there's no like community whatever like that'll be like spiritually really
00:41:13.980 | difficult and so a lot of testimonies i heard were like that which is sort of like man even though it
00:41:18.060 | really disappointed my parents like i wanted to stay you know and and um i i had it easy out because
00:41:22.780 | my parents kicked me out of the house they're like go leave so castle when they asked me i want to come
00:41:27.260 | back i was like no you kicked me out you know it was still hard though for them but like
00:41:32.060 | now a lot of the testaments i hear is like he's good with his parents by the way yeah they come
00:41:37.340 | over all the time so thankful for them yeah but um but just like yeah like now it's a lot of like how
00:41:42.780 | do we love our parents together i think part of that has to do with our church's aging right and so
00:41:47.260 | like yeah even just a couple weeks ago i told my mom like she was over helping me watch my kid and
00:41:51.500 | i was like mom you know i get sick and old you're gonna stay with me you know and she was it doesn't
00:41:56.780 | matter how busy i am like you can stay with me right and that i feel like that's a shift is that right
00:42:01.260 | would you guys agree and or is that kind of what what your parents just that the the kind of testimonies
00:42:07.020 | or just that i mean i know your mom my mom yeah that's true with me since yeah since 2000 that's true
00:42:13.260 | so um yeah that's yeah but i think as as we get older yeah right i think we realize um i mean for
00:42:21.340 | my family i mean they're not christian but then because of my commitments they sort of you know
00:42:26.700 | moved out of hawaii came here my mom moved in with me and then um from there she started coming out to
00:42:34.460 | our church the korean department and then um she became a christian through that so so there was
00:42:40.220 | that blessing and then you know what else is she gonna do with her life so she spent a lot of time
00:42:45.100 | babysitting you know raising she she watched our yeah yeah i mean she has like a long list of all the
00:42:52.140 | kids some of them are in college now but you know that that she's watched and so she got really
00:42:57.180 | connected and i i imagine like if it wasn't for that i think she would have been um pretty lonely
00:43:04.300 | and isolated because like growing up we didn't have like a lot of friends outside of our immediate
00:43:09.100 | family yeah because we're so busy so yeah so i feel like i'm hearing more and more stories like
00:43:13.180 | that and maybe it's just age where it's like becoming a blessing to our family yeah right yeah i think
00:43:17.500 | what we got better at or more aware of is that oh you know we really need to disciple people in
00:43:21.980 | this area i think before we would kind of assume that people were taking care of people knew how
00:43:25.580 | to like children like birthdays yeah as leadership we realize oh people are not doing that and they're
00:43:31.180 | not good at that a lot of times and so i was i was terrible yeah it's like we need to push people to
00:43:35.260 | actually love their families and i don't know i think maybe some of us thought that was sort of a
00:43:39.020 | given but realizing oh so bad yeah we gotta help people do that yeah yeah i think um i think definitely
00:43:45.980 | there has been an increase in uh in gaining wisdom right about how to love your parents because boy you
00:43:53.980 | know i i know that um i've said stuff like hey you gotta call your parents more hey why don't you go
00:43:59.580 | spend time with your parents because of you know for various reasons and depending upon the person yeah
00:44:05.420 | you have to spend more time or pay more attention to your parents but then there might be another person
00:44:11.500 | who might be a little bit too attached to their parents maybe emotionally and even financially but
00:44:17.100 | then the grown adults and maybe for the sake of like that person's marriage you know just you know
00:44:23.260 | just a little bit more independence you know healthier independence is better and so you could speak into
00:44:28.940 | that a little bit but then so i i'd like to say just wisdom with regard to parents how to best i like
00:44:34.620 | love your parents because it might be pulling back it might be moving toward yeah yeah it's it's really
00:44:41.020 | difficult yeah it's really difficult yeah it's hard to navigate yeah yeah yeah yeah wow okay i think
00:44:47.580 | we got to wrap up but i want to thank you guys so much for joining us today our first guests yeah our
00:44:52.460 | podcast all right she does more often this is great yeah we should then we have to talk less but i i think
00:44:58.460 | just to kind of wrap up final final thought here i i do think like the point of today is not to be like
00:45:04.060 | oh pat ourselves on the back look we figured it all out like i think totally as a church we're still
00:45:08.780 | figuring things out you know there's still room to grow but like we're not the same people that we were
00:45:13.500 | 10 years ago we're not the same church we were 10 years ago and i think it's appropriate to to take
00:45:17.660 | note of that and to and and to have that help us like think through like yeah how can we continue to
00:45:23.100 | change and grow and just be the best church we can be you know and that's our goal so um yeah i just wanted to end
00:45:27.820 | with that note in case it came off that way i guess for our listeners so yeah yeah yeah so if
00:45:33.820 | anything we said today helped other churches out there or yeah even just like yeah with even within
00:45:38.860 | our church you know grow and stuff and thankful for it so yeah so um like and subscribe i gotta say
00:45:45.820 | that every week and we will see you guys next time yeah let's do this again maybe at the beach
00:45:55.820 | you know