Ep.1 - What Makes Us Weird

00:00:00.000 | All right. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the official unofficial Grace Point podcast,

00:00:10.260 | a podcast where we talk about all things Grace Point, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

00:00:13.620 | And yes, we've already changed the podcast name. It's episode two, but it was too specific.

00:00:20.240 | Grace Point Life captures a lot of what I want to say, but not everything.

00:00:22.600 | Basically just shows we have no idea what we're doing. We couldn't even figure out a name,

00:00:26.100 | but I think we're going to stick with this one. We have a very, we got a pretty sweet logo

00:00:30.960 | designed by Richard Donizzi. Shout out to Donizzi. He's the man.

00:00:34.440 | Pulled that out in like a few hours.

00:00:36.240 | Yeah, it was amazing. But yeah, so this is it. This is the name, the official unofficial Grace Point podcast.

00:00:43.060 | And this is, I guess, the first official unofficial episode.

00:00:47.260 | Yeah. And before we jump into the episode, though, we got a few comments, not on YouTube,

00:00:51.860 | just like verbal comments that Isaiah looked a little bit grumpy, a little bit grouchy.

00:00:57.300 | That's just my face. That's just what I look like.

00:01:00.360 | Because he is.

00:01:00.740 | You know, it's his glasses.

00:01:01.680 | And so I wanted to brighten things up a bit. And so I brought a few things that can make Isaiah look a little more cheery.

00:01:09.940 | So, um, I'm not like, no, this is for a purpose, Stephen.

00:01:16.780 | No, I'll wear one too. And you wear that.

00:01:18.380 | You wear that?

00:01:18.760 | Yeah. Okay.

00:01:19.200 | Just, just for, are you serious right now?

00:01:21.040 | Okay. We got to keep it on for at least five seconds.

00:01:24.160 | Well, okay. This is actually kind of relevant to what we're going to be talking about. Um, because the topic for today.

00:01:32.940 | Um, so the topic that we're going to be talking today is, um, what, what, what is it that makes our church weird? Like, why are we a weird church? What are the things that people find weird when they first come? Um, so I mean, I, you know, I was born here. So I don't want to use our Stephen. Like what, what, what is, why are we a weird church?

00:01:43.940 | Like, what, what, what is it that makes our church weird? Like, why are we a weird church? What are the things that people find weird when they first come? Um, so I mean, I, you know, I was born here. So I don't want to use our Stephen. Like what, what, what is, why are we a weird church?

00:01:57.260 | We are a weird church. And there are a lot of things that even just on the surface level, when you come, you're just like, what, you know? And, um, okay, I'm going to do, okay. So let's write it down.

00:02:08.240 | Okay. We'll write it down. Um, you write down yours. I won't look at it. I'll write down mine. Just the top reason why we're a weird church.

00:02:14.400 | The top one thing that really captures it, right? I don't have a pen, but you do yours and then I'll.

00:02:19.100 | Or we'll just say it then. Okay. We'll just say it on the count of three. Okay. Okay. One, two, three.

00:02:24.120 | Jordan Tsai. Oh yeah. Jordan Tsai. That, that would have to be it. Um.

00:02:28.340 | Yeah. If I had to point out one thing, it'd be Jordan Tsai, our good friend.

00:02:31.700 | Yeah. People think he's like a nice, smart Chinese boy, but that boy weird.

00:02:37.000 | No, it's, it's true. So he, he got into every, like, yeah, they think he's smart and nice.

00:02:42.160 | Cause he like got into every single like PhD program for, for bio in the country, like MIT,

00:02:47.560 | Harvard, like all the, it was really surprising. Yeah. I had no idea he was smart until senior year.

00:02:51.800 | Um, actually, but it's all misdirection. He's, he's the reason. He's the reason. Yeah.

00:02:57.920 | Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sorry for that. Jordan. We miss you. Jordan. Sorry. That was just a total inside joke.

00:03:03.300 | We apologize for that, but we're just making sure that you're listening, Jordan.

00:03:05.620 | Cause you better be listening to our audience of two people right now. Yeah. Um, but no.

00:03:10.240 | Okay. So seriously, let's get into this for real. Okay. So we are a weird church. We're just kind of

00:03:14.500 | straight out weird. Um, so, uh, can I get the hat? Yeah. This is a, we're just going to get it all out.

00:03:19.860 | We're calling it the weird hat. We just found this in the joyland room here. Um, and we just put,

00:03:23.320 | we just wrote down some things, um, and we're just going to pull something out of the hat,

00:03:26.960 | talk about it a little bit. Um, so here. Okay.

00:03:31.580 | Number one. Well, number one, let's, let's do this. Oh, okay. Okay. This was mine. I said,

00:03:36.380 | people are too nice. And that's fitting as the first one. He's not grouchy. Yeah. Okay. So,

00:03:43.660 | so I think that is something people experience is a little weird at our church. Like you come in and

00:03:47.600 | like everyone greets you. And not only does everyone greet you, they greet you in like a,

00:03:51.300 | like a high sing song pitch kind of voice. Like, Oh, hi, what's your name? What are you doing here?

00:03:56.200 | And like, you know, on one level, it's admirable. It means like everyone's really trying as opposed

00:03:59.980 | to like, I don't want to be welcome. Yeah. You want to be welcoming you and it's nice, right? As

00:04:03.160 | opposed to like a church where they just ignore your existence, I guess. But for me, I'm just,

00:04:06.380 | that's just not me, I guess, even though I grew up here, I just need a people, a couple of people

00:04:10.740 | to just be like, yo, what's up? You know? So I like, I really like it. Like, so we've,

00:04:13.880 | we've been church planning in Philly and one of the Philly locals told us they have a term for this.

00:04:17.620 | Yeah. It's called being too Joe, being too Joe. It's, it's basically acting more familiar with someone

00:04:22.560 | than you actually are. So you're like, Oh, Hey, it's so great to see you. And it's like,

00:04:25.880 | it's the first time I've met you. Yeah. Like being like too much, I guess we would put that.

00:04:29.580 | Yeah. So I, I try to read the person, but honestly, I'm guilty of this. Cause I'm just

00:04:34.300 | like, I'm not, I'm just, I don't do that. You might be guilty of something else.

00:04:37.440 | I'm a jerk to everyone I meet. Yeah. But I'm like, Hey, welcome. Yeah. That's great, man. You know?

00:04:41.500 | And so I actually made a video on this with one of the guys, it was for like a training to just kind

00:04:45.180 | of communicate how weird this can come off and, and, and to try to help us as a church understand.

00:04:51.340 | Are we going to show that? Or link it in the bottom? Yeah, we'll link it. We'll link it.

00:04:55.560 | We won't show on this episode. If you want, if you want to see it, it's linked. It's it caused

00:04:59.680 | people a great deal of self-awareness, which is good because this is something people were not

00:05:04.400 | really laughing when we watched it. Yeah. They were like, Oh shoot. Too identifying. But just so

00:05:08.460 | people know, it's called based on a true story, but I just drew on things that I do. So, you know,

00:05:13.980 | nobody's perfect. Yeah. I didn't think it was that bad personally, but anyway. All right. How

00:05:17.920 | about you do the next one? Okay. Next one. Here we go. Okay. Next one. Okay. Alameda plus minivans.

00:05:24.240 | Alameda plus minivans. Yeah. Well, not that Alameda and minivans in itself is weird, but

00:05:28.360 | yeah. Yeah. This, this one. So this is the idea. It's that it's this statement that we sometimes

00:05:34.020 | hear. It's a statement that I made when I was an undergrad, which is like, I'm not going to live

00:05:37.480 | in Alameda and drive a minivan. You actually said that. And like, I thought that I was like,

00:05:41.720 | I love this church, but I'm never, I'm not going to drive a minivan. Yeah. So, okay.

00:05:44.920 | Even though my first car that I ever drove was a Honda Odyssey, a gold, and I loved it.

00:05:49.140 | So for people who don't know, yeah, a lot of our people do drive minivans and like, at least

00:05:54.560 | for the Berkeley church, I mean, obviously not us, we're in Philadelphia now, but for like

00:05:57.800 | almost our entire church, we live near to each other in the city of Alameda. And that is something

00:06:03.440 | that people find really weird when they first come. And there's just this overall like uniformity

00:06:07.780 | to like, everyone's like, everyone is CS or they end up in CS computer science.

00:06:13.360 | Yeah. So there's a group of people that thought we were like anti-med school. Cause like so many

00:06:16.240 | of us did CS and things like that. Yeah. And then we're anti-humanity social. I did urban

00:06:19.340 | studies. I did philosophy. So, but yeah, like, and then everyone has the same Ikea furniture.

00:06:23.260 | Everyone wears like collegiate gear. Everyone has like couch shirts. Yeah. So like, it's sort

00:06:28.580 | of this, it does come off kind of like everyone here is the same. Yeah. So then people are

00:06:32.340 | like, is there like a uniform or like a dress code, but there isn't, but it is.

00:06:36.340 | It's a membership company when you, it is not, it is not Steven. We're not trying to

00:06:39.940 | spread further misinformation on the website. It's like, it's right there. You can read it.

00:06:43.620 | Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, so I, I do agree. That is something that, that, that find people,

00:06:47.460 | that people find weird. Um, I don't know if we want to get into like why that is necessarily

00:06:51.620 | on this show. I think we'll definitely talk about some of these things in the future.

00:06:54.420 | Like, I don't know, some of the, some of the reasonings behind it, but I think our bigger

00:06:58.020 | goal in this episode is just like kind of get this stuff out there and just like talk about it,

00:07:01.940 | surface it like, Hey, we are aware of this. Cause sometimes it feels like,

00:07:05.860 | I'm like, am I the only one seeing this? And can I, can I talk about one more thing

00:07:08.500 | that was weird about this uniform? Yeah. Go for it.

00:07:10.180 | Um, I don't know, cause you, but it's this whole language, like, like the, the, there was this inside

00:07:16.660 | language that. Yeah. So like when I came as a freshman, people would be like, oh, that's so jacked.

00:07:21.620 | And I was like, what? Because Jack means buff. Yeah. Like it means like you're like, you know,

00:07:26.340 | swole or like whatever. Right. So like I, and people, but then the way people were using it was like,

00:07:30.980 | that's so messed up or that guy's like, likes to pull pranks on people and stuff. And I was like,

00:07:34.580 | I don't get that. I actually don't know where that came from. I have no idea. Yeah. Was that a Pastor

00:07:39.300 | Manny thing? I don't know, but I'm, yeah, I'm willing to see it. Probably. So, so yeah. So,

00:07:45.620 | so 90%, like, okay. So, so to be honest, like when I, when I was growing up, I definitely experienced

00:07:51.220 | this. It was actually a lot worse back in the day. And we kind of intentionally tried to steer away

00:07:54.660 | from it. I kind of liked it as a kid. Cause it felt like we were like our weird secret club

00:07:58.340 | or something, but like 90% of that actually came from Pastor Manny. So things like, um, calling each

00:08:02.980 | other by your first and last name or saying devastating or hurting or, oh my, or that's too much.

00:08:08.420 | All of those are like grace point lingos that all came from Pastor Manny. There's a certain like,

00:08:13.540 | I don't know, like virality to him where it just infects you and everybody starts talking like him.

00:08:18.740 | Yeah. Uh, yeah. So, so, I mean, so on one hand, like Christian's speech subculture is like

00:08:24.980 | something that's well known and people make fun of it. So there was that hilarious video, shoot

00:08:28.340 | Christian say. Yeah. Right. And then like my favorite one is Sunday, Sunday cool, like crossed in

00:08:33.140 | translation with Charles cross. Like that one. I love that one. I haven't seen those. That one's,

00:08:36.180 | I showed you that one. That was the one where the guy's like, you know, I was homeschooled,

00:08:39.860 | please help me. Like translates like Christian jargon. Right. Um, so those are like, it's,

00:08:44.580 | so that's the thing that like, it's true. Christians say weird stuff. And then, but then on top of that,

00:08:49.220 | like there is this weird GP. Extra weird GP. Yeah. And I'm guilty of it. Like I say like

00:08:53.940 | Jack and oh my, and stuff like that too much and hurting all of those things. Do you still say hurting?

00:08:57.540 | A little bit. Hurting is my favorite one. Cause there's certain situations in life that you can't

00:09:01.460 | capture with anything other than that word. Like it's just, just the cringe and the pain.

00:09:05.620 | Yeah. You're just hurting. Yeah. Yeah. But we gotta move away from that.

00:09:09.620 | Yeah. We're trying, like, we try to temper that down, but, um, you hang out with us enough

00:09:12.900 | and you'll be saying those things too. So it's just, it's coming for you.

00:09:15.940 | Fair warning. Yeah. All right. Let's go to the next one. Next one here is, um, oh, media stance.

00:09:22.260 | Okay. So this is one I personally experienced for sure. Like no TVs and stuff.

00:09:26.340 | Um, well, okay. No TV is not weird anymore.

00:09:28.580 | Not anymore. It's much, huh?

00:09:30.100 | But back when we were in freshmen, it was, yeah, I walked in my, my leader's living room. I was like,

00:09:33.780 | you don't have a TV in your living room. Right. And at first it was weird. And then it was like,

00:09:38.820 | oh, it's, we're too busy. And we just hang out with each other. And I was like, okay, that's cool.

00:09:41.780 | And like, you know, people would pull out like a projector for a movie, which was fine. But now I

00:09:45.300 | have a TV and people think that's weird. So, but, but that's not, it's not just TV. Right. It's,

00:09:50.260 | it's more than that. Yeah. I mean, this one, I definitely felt growing up because I mean,

00:09:53.780 | obviously I'm the pastor's kid. So I grew up in that household. Um, you know, we had no TV,

00:09:58.740 | no video games. So, you know, people would ask me at school, like, are you guys Amish? And I didn't,

00:10:03.460 | I didn't know what Amish was back then, but I was saying, I don't, I don't think so maybe. Um,

00:10:08.660 | but yeah, so that was one that like I experienced, I understood it on like a theoretical level,

00:10:13.700 | but I definitely hated it. Um, and I do think, uh, I, I don't know, that can be tough to adjust to.

00:10:19.620 | I mean, it was tough for me to adjust to, I like, I was constantly trying to like sneak

00:10:22.980 | computer games and video games behind my parents back and getting in trouble and that sort of thing.

00:10:27.220 | So that was, I mean, I guess every kid does that to some extent, but that was that, that I think

00:10:32.740 | definitely is something that takes some getting adjusted to. Um, I think that's changed also.

00:10:37.060 | I think our stance on media has relaxed over the years, but maybe that's something we'll get into

00:10:42.340 | some more like in the later episode. Yeah. They're probably going to have a whole episode

00:10:44.900 | just like on our media stance, but yeah, that is definitely something.

00:10:48.260 | Okay. Let me get the next one.

00:10:49.380 | All right. Oh,

00:10:52.260 | so it says loud moany prayers,

00:10:56.180 | loud moany prayers. Yeah.

00:10:58.500 | Loud moany prayers.

00:10:59.380 | I grew up here my whole life and I still thought it was weird.

00:11:01.940 | Whenever my parents would have prayer meeting in the next room,

00:11:04.340 | Yeah. Yeah. It kind of freaked me out.

00:11:08.740 | Yeah. Yeah. So the, so, um, yeah, like just cause you grew up in it, like you thought it was still

00:11:14.900 | weird. That's even, even growing up and I thought it was weird.

00:11:17.300 | Yeah. So I, I can definitely see how that's weird now. But, um, honestly, when I was a freshman and I

00:11:22.660 | went to like our first prayer meeting and people were like loud moany prayers and praying all together at once,

00:11:28.260 | really loud, really fervent. I was like, I'm right at home. Cause I grew up in a charismatic church.

00:11:32.580 | Yeah. Cause he's a raging charismatic.

00:11:34.260 | I'm not a raging charismatic, but I just, it was like, cause I was actually kind of like at our church.

00:11:39.380 | I was like, not sure. I don't like the style of service. Cause we had like two praise songs.

00:11:42.580 | Everyone was like stiff. I felt self-conscious raising my hands.

00:11:45.700 | Oh yeah.

00:11:46.020 | I was an annoying like freshman at our church who like, okay, not that this freshman was annoying,

00:11:49.060 | but I was an annoying guy who like asked like, how come worship so bad? Like, why does it take a second seat?

00:11:53.780 | It was bad though. Our worship was bad.

00:11:55.780 | And, and you know, I asked that kind of question and like, can we change the prayer meeting music?

00:11:59.060 | Cause I'm sick of like hearing flutes and stuff, whatever. So, um, so I went to the first prayer

00:12:03.380 | meeting. I was like, this is great. They are like this close to speaking in tongues. This is,

00:12:08.820 | I love this. Cause that was what I was used to. I didn't know it was a Korean thing. I think I kind

00:12:13.060 | of knew that that was like, that's actually a Korean, some people joke, that's Korean prayer.

00:12:17.220 | Yeah.

00:12:17.540 | Right. And then like back in the, I don't know, 70, 80s.

00:12:20.020 | We're going to pray like the Koreans.

00:12:21.140 | Yeah. Yeah. And, and it was a little bit frowned upon too. Cause it was seen as like disorderly

00:12:25.140 | by some people. But then like, I liked it cause it was really fervent and, and it made me kind

00:12:29.140 | of feel like, whoa, now just cause I liked it doesn't mean it wasn't weird. Cause it was weird. It's weird.

00:12:35.220 | A lot of people find it weird. Like, like, so I, you know, I was the guy playing guitar,

00:12:39.860 | praying really loud at CEO at the pole, like at my high school, like where, where everyone's pulling

00:12:44.740 | in. No, I liked like two or three other people, but that was like, like definitely the guy who's leading

00:12:47.940 | that. And I just thought like that people must be so inspired when they see me do that because I'm like

00:12:53.300 | living out my faith or like, I'm so passionate.

00:12:56.740 | No, that is inspiring.

00:12:58.020 | Most people think that's weird.

00:13:01.620 | And to my charismatic brothers and sisters, that's weird, man. You know, so that's a little

00:13:07.860 | weird, you know, but you know, it's, it is also that passion is inspirational to some degree.

00:13:12.100 | Now you need to, I say that every church sees a little bit of charismatic in them for sure.

00:13:16.580 | Okay. But that's not what we're here to talk about. We're not supposed to go there. Okay.

00:13:19.220 | So let's move on to the next one. What do we got?

00:13:21.860 | Oh, okay. Yeah. This one, this one's a big one. Gender segregation. Talk about gender segregation,

00:13:28.420 | Steven. I am for gender segregation. I believe in gender segregation. I'm just kidding.

00:13:33.060 | I'm just kidding. That's a lie.

00:13:33.700 | So yeah, this is like the experience when you come to our church and like, let's say you come to the

00:13:40.180 | service and you, you, you suddenly realize it's like Mennonite. It's like all the guys are sitting

00:13:44.340 | in one section and all the girls are sitting in one section and husbands and wives aren't even sitting

00:13:47.940 | next to each other. That's weird. That's really weird. Right. Although there is an article that came

00:13:53.220 | out a couple of years ago about like a woman saying why she doesn't sit next to her husband

00:13:56.180 | during service. I thought it was pretty cool. It was on like, not from our church, not from our

00:13:58.900 | church. No, it's like a mainstream, like, and it was about, what did she say? It was about like,

00:14:02.260 | oh man, I forget right now. So I don't want to make up stuff, but we'll link it in the description,

00:14:05.380 | but it's basically stuff like, um, she wants to, you know, minister to her friends or she wants to be

00:14:09.700 | welcoming to people. Like there's like different considerations she has that I felt were pretty

00:14:12.820 | valid, but it is weird. Yeah. Cause I'm used to like husband and wife sitting together and,

00:14:17.380 | you know, so I came to our church like, whoa. Yeah. Yeah. I don't sit by my wife

00:14:20.340 | cause it would just be too distracting for her during worship. So that's what I do. I don't

00:14:24.340 | know about other people, but anyway, sorry, go on Steven. No, no. So, so, okay. But this is like

00:14:28.580 | deeper than just like gender segregation, right? There's like this whole, like, yeah. I mean, it's,

00:14:35.140 | it comes down to the thing that everyone wants to talk about at a college church, which is dating.

00:14:38.820 | Yeah. And this whole stance we have around dating and this whole sort of thing we do about dating.

00:14:43.220 | That's, that's not popular, right? So we don't, you don't talk about that.

00:14:46.180 | Yeah. So maybe we should just explain that a little bit because I don't know, you might not know that,

00:14:49.220 | but, um, we are known as the church that forbids dating. That's not true. We do not forbid dating.

00:14:54.980 | Maybe we did in the past. I don't know. It's just felt as a very strong taboo.

00:14:58.660 | Yeah. Back in like the Birkeland days, maybe, but we, yeah, but I mean, I think.

00:15:01.780 | Undergraduate dating. Yeah. Undergraduates. Yeah. Sorry. I mean,

00:15:04.100 | you gotta get married somehow. So we, we date for sure after you get, you know, you graduate,

00:15:08.100 | but, uh, I think our stance on that is we do discourage undergraduate dating. That is,

00:15:12.420 | that's definitely true about us. We're not going to pretend like that isn't the case.

00:15:15.700 | That's like a whole, that's the whole episode in and of itself. So stay tuned for that. Um,

00:15:20.580 | but yeah, I mean, that's something that we feel like, uh, is, it helps to create a good culture.

00:15:26.820 | Yeah. Yeah. It's a non flirt, you know, non flirtatious, non dramatic atmosphere where

00:15:30.260 | people can like really see God and grow. So I found that actually refreshing coming in.

00:15:33.540 | Yeah. You were one of the weird ones, right? Yeah. That's so again, like for me,

00:15:38.100 | like, well, so, so, so, so like when I found out about the dating stance,

00:15:41.460 | like discouraging and congratulating all that stuff, which is when your freshman year,

00:15:44.020 | my freshman year, yeah, I didn't know about it, but everything in our church, like clicked when I

00:15:47.780 | heard, I was like, Oh, that's why these older senior guys actually have time to like take me out and

00:15:52.900 | stuff and like take care of me. Cause, cause they're not dating, you know? And like, and, and that's

00:15:57.860 | why there's this non flirtatious atmosphere. That's why guys and girls really treat each other respect. Yes,

00:16:02.260 | those interactions did get really awkward at times because like, they didn't know how to guys and

00:16:05.860 | girls don't want to talk to each other, but it's just kind of true of just like that age. Cause you're

00:16:09.460 | just raging hormones and you just, you know, it's like, how do you interact? But anyway, I was,

00:16:13.460 | I had my share of relationships in high school in that drama. And I was like, coming to college,

00:16:17.300 | I was like, I'm not looking for that. I'm done. Like, I just, I just need like a little time to

00:16:21.220 | just like get good with God and, and, you know, like transitions and stuff. So when I heard about

00:16:25.060 | the stance, I was like, glory, hallelujah. This is my church. I love this. Let's go. You know,

00:16:30.660 | and my, and my parents were like, I love that. They were like, this is so awesome.

00:16:34.180 | Yeah. Oh, my mom was like, I love how conservative your church is like on the stating thing,

00:16:38.340 | by the way, do you have a girlfriend? And I was like, God boy, mom, like, that doesn't make sense.

00:16:42.020 | You know, she's my mom. So, but yeah, like, so that it's not popular. It is weird. Yeah. And

00:16:50.420 | even though I, for me, I was like totally like on board with it. Like, yeah, I like people in college

00:16:55.860 | and like, it was hard and it was not easy, you know, but the, the flip side of that is that I really grew

00:17:00.020 | close to same gender. Anyway, we're getting too far into that topic now, but it is weird. Yeah.

00:17:05.780 | And I mean, yeah, even, even aside from talking about the whole dating thing,

00:17:10.340 | I think what is helpful to talk about is sort of like maybe the ripple effects of that,

00:17:13.540 | because I do think people, what a lot of people say, a lot of people's experience of that is,

00:17:17.460 | oh, because we kind of know there's this. We discourage undergraduate dating. There's

00:17:22.580 | drama and then because of the trauma. Yeah. Then people feel a little awkward about it. I feel like,

00:17:26.100 | so then that's something that people cite like, okay, so then, oh, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna be a

00:17:30.420 | good sport about this. Let's say I come in and I'm not gonna date. Sure. I'll play along with this.

00:17:34.100 | Yeah. Right. But then how do I interact with girls or if I'm a girl or how do I interact with

00:17:38.740 | guys that I think that does become kind of just that whole sector becomes kind of fraught for

00:17:43.380 | some people. Yeah. It's nerve wracking. Yeah. So I totally feel that I don't know what the solution

00:17:48.900 | that is per se, but it's definitely there kind of hangs over everything. And then the other thing

00:17:53.780 | is like when people do get like, well, this is kind of a little bit additional, but it's the secrecy

00:17:57.700 | of the dating a little bit. Like we kind of keep it under wraps when like postgrads are dating.

00:18:00.980 | That's right. And then like, and then, so, so then you, you know, you come as a freshman and you're

00:18:04.580 | like, you know, you got this guy who's mentoring you. It's great. And then like suddenly one day

00:18:08.100 | out of the blue, he goes, oh, by the way, I'm engaged. And it's like, what? You know, like,

00:18:11.540 | so there's that, that's kind of surprising. And that used to happen, you know, a lot more. I don't know,

00:18:15.780 | has that changed? No, I think that's definitely the case. But you know, I, I try to tell people

00:18:19.620 | personally, what I say is, you know, just tell people you're dating. Like, cause I mean, I mean,

00:18:22.980 | the thing is like, yeah, I think sometimes it can make sense not to tell people right away who it is,

00:18:26.660 | just, you know, cause you don't know if it's going to work out and it's awkward for everyone. If you

00:18:30.180 | have a staff group of 10 people and like two of them were dating and now they broke up and everybody

00:18:34.180 | knows it, right? Awkward. But like, even if you're not going to tell them who, like, just to tell

00:18:39.380 | people like, oh, by the way guys, I'm dating none of your business who at this time, you know, I'll let

00:18:43.780 | you know later. And so then at least people know like, oh, okay, he's not doing something shady.

00:18:47.460 | And then you don't have to like lie and stuff about it.

00:18:50.260 | Yeah. So that makes sense. Like, so I mean, even like keeping the dating under wraps,

00:18:54.340 | like keeping it on the down low, like that makes sense because what people want to understand is

00:18:58.020 | a really, really close community, you know, and then just kind of the, the trauma that that can

00:19:02.180 | kind of stir up and just sort of, if it doesn't work out that how much drama that is and stuff.

00:19:06.100 | So it's, it's kind of a protective thing, but like, that is still weird.

00:19:08.660 | Yeah. It is still weird.

00:19:09.700 | So, so do you tell people, do you tell like people that you're advising in this area,

00:19:13.940 | just don't even tell them that you're dating?

00:19:15.300 | Oh, no, no. It's like, like, yeah, like keeping, yeah, there's a, you know, if we, if you know,

00:19:19.220 | it's working out, like whatever, you're like, you should let people, yeah, I'm dating right now.

00:19:22.100 | And just don't, don't say, you know, I kind of think different people handle this differently.

00:19:25.620 | It's true.

00:19:25.940 | That's my stance on that personally.

00:19:27.460 | Yeah. And even with students, it's like, it's tough.

00:19:29.300 | Yeah. Yeah.

00:19:29.780 | So, all right. Wait, your turn.

00:19:31.780 | Okay. Sure.

00:19:32.660 | I'll go a few more here.

00:19:34.740 | Okay. We talked about this one already.

00:19:38.260 | Weird GP specific lingo.

00:19:39.700 | Oh yeah.

00:19:40.260 | Okay.

00:19:41.140 | No privacy.

00:19:43.060 | No privacy.

00:19:43.780 | Okay.

00:19:44.020 | So this is mine. This is a story about one of the little girls at our church. Her dad leaves

00:19:49.860 | one of the college groups and one of the nights she got fed up because on yet another night,

00:19:54.740 | there were like hundreds of college students over at their home. And she stood up and shouted,

00:19:59.060 | don't these people have their own homes? Like really loudly. And yeah, so it's just reflective of

00:20:06.660 | this reality that like, yeah, we do live very open lives. I mean, I'm like poster child of this,

00:20:11.300 | because I grew up basically at a time when we didn't have like a church building or anything.

00:20:15.300 | So like our home in Alameda was like the church building. So literally every night of the week,

00:20:22.260 | I would say there's at least 20 people over, you know, it's the staff meeting, or it's the college

00:20:26.420 | students over for life group, or the college students over for Bible study, or the college

00:20:30.180 | students are just over just hanging out, eating our food, that kind of thing. Personally, I totally

00:20:35.060 | didn't mind. I thought it was really boring when it was just our family. I think that is a lot of

00:20:38.500 | experience of most of the kids at our church. Actually, they say like, oh, you know, which

00:20:41.620 | auntie or uncle is coming over? I don't know if your son does, my son will be like, is it just

00:20:45.460 | our family tonight? And I'm like, yeah. And he goes, oh, yeah. My son is like, wait, it's just us?

00:20:51.380 | Thanks, I'm your dad. He's like, where are the aunties and the uncles? I'm like, they're in their own

00:20:56.580 | homes. And he's like, oh, kind of has to process that. But yeah, I mean, I think that is kind of a,

00:21:00.580 | I don't know, you can see that as negative or positive. It's definitely different. Right. But I mean, I grew up,

00:21:05.300 | and it was very, it wasn't to the extent that they had our church now, but like, I grew up with

00:21:08.900 | people in my home, like my backyard was my swimming pool was used as a, the jacuzzi was used as the

00:21:13.060 | baptistry for a little bit. That's nice. And like, yeah, the people were over, my parents had all kinds

00:21:17.060 | of like just fellowship groups over and missionaries, pastors staying in our house, all kinds of stuff.

00:21:21.140 | And it was just sort of like, God blessed us with a pretty big house. And my parents were like,

00:21:24.500 | we just want to open it for people. So yeah, this one kind of weird, a little bit, I think maybe more

00:21:28.660 | weird today, because people go over to those homes anymore. But like, it's just precedent.

00:21:32.420 | How did you like that growing up? Did you enjoy that?

00:21:35.300 | It was all right. Yeah, it was cool. Yeah.

00:21:36.740 | You didn't ask, do these people have their own homes or anything?

00:21:38.740 | What I was upset about was like, I had to do a lot of babysitting. And then after that,

00:21:43.380 | when parents left, they didn't tell their kids to clean up the toys. So I got really bitter.

00:21:46.980 | Like, why don't they clean up after themselves? And I had to do the cleaning up. So please,

00:21:53.300 | if you're hanging out someone else's house, clean up your stuff. Help clean up. All right. Okay.

00:21:57.300 | All right. I think we're almost done here. Is the last one? Oh, it's the last one. Okay. Last one.

00:22:00.900 | Last one is, oh, okay. This one's interesting. People ask me, where were you? So I don't know if

00:22:06.980 | this still happens, but this definitely happened back in my days. So this probably still happens.

00:22:10.500 | But just like, you know, you're at Bible study one week, you're not there the next week. And then the

00:22:14.340 | following week, someone, some well-intentioned older person be like, oh, hey, where were you last week?

00:22:18.740 | Okay. Yeah. I'm guilty of that. Yeah, for sure. And then I think a lot of people feel like,

00:22:23.700 | whoa, am I not allowed to have not been here, you know? And it feels like pressure. It feels like,

00:22:27.780 | why are you prying into my business? And so I don't know. I feel like that kind of falls under this

00:22:31.940 | larger umbrella of just like pressure because I think our church is very high commitments.

00:22:37.300 | We have a just high rate of people who show up to a lot of stuff. Right. So like, you know,

00:22:42.180 | at least when I was in college, you know, if you were one of like our regulars, that meant you were at

00:22:46.580 | every Bible study, every prayer meeting, every Sunday service. And if you missed it, it would be like,

00:22:51.620 | it would be kind of like, oh, where were you? Like, because we were so used to seeing each

00:22:54.260 | other all the time. People would show up even if they were like horribly sick.

00:22:56.660 | And we'd be like, you've got to just rest. Yeah. We'd have to tell people like, go home.

00:23:00.580 | But that's kind of how committed people were. Yeah. Don't get me sick. So that was kind

00:23:03.780 | of the culture. But if you were new and you were coming into that and you're not like, oh,

00:23:07.540 | this is not yet my group, or I don't consider myself like regular at this group yet, to experience

00:23:12.580 | that could feel like, whoa, these people are a little too intense, a little too fast.

00:23:16.580 | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or you experienced like someone's like, their facial expression kind of

00:23:20.660 | changes and it's like, yeah, where were you? Oh, you didn't show up or, you know, and it's like,

00:23:25.940 | you can read that. So for me, so for me, I experienced this my freshman year. Like,

00:23:29.380 | so I, I remember telling my mentor, like, who's like the nicest guy, but I was telling him like,

00:23:34.820 | hey, I, I really want to get plugged in here. I, I burnt, I came in kind of burnt out from church a

00:23:39.540 | little bit, but I was, I just want to get plugged in. I want to get fed, mentored. It was the first time I had like,

00:23:43.860 | lead, like really, you know, dedicated, like spiritual leaders mentoring me. And it was like

00:23:48.500 | a really good conversation we had. And it was like, wow, that's great. Yeah. I really hope you get

00:23:51.860 | plugged in and stuff. And then I missed like the next three Sunday services, because I overslept.

00:23:56.820 | I was, I tried out for like a theater troupe. So I had to like go and like, for the trial,

00:24:00.900 | it was the same time service. I was like, awesome, you know? So, and then I, I remember the third one,

00:24:03.780 | but I missed like three in a row and I didn't think it was a big deal. I was like, personally,

00:24:08.020 | I was still thinking I'm committed to this church. And then I got an email from him and was like,

00:24:11.380 | Hey man, we had this good conversation. And I just think if you really like fed,

00:24:15.300 | you should come to church. You should actually make a non-negotiable. And I was sitting in my dorm

00:24:18.980 | room with two other like non-Christian friends. And I was so mad. So you don't know, non-negotiable,

00:24:26.420 | legalistic. Oh, and I was like raging for 20 minutes. And I showed my roommates, look at this,

00:24:30.820 | this guy doesn't even know me. Like who, at about 20 minutes of like, just raging on that email,

00:24:35.700 | like sat there and I was like, Oh man, he really loves me. He really cares about me.

00:24:39.620 | Cause like, if I, cause I was really active in church. And if I had that kind of conversation

00:24:45.140 | with someone, like when I was in high school and I was like, he was like, wanted to come out,

00:24:48.180 | didn't show for three weeks. I just be like, Oh, okay, whatever. You know? And I realized, wow,

00:24:51.380 | that's not something that people, a lot of people, a lot of churches do where they're like, Hey,

00:24:55.540 | you know, I think you should. So then I was like, okay, he loves me. And I emailed back. I'm like,

00:24:59.540 | I think you're right. You know, I'll be there, you know? And then in my heart, I was like,

00:25:05.060 | and I'm going to show you how spiritual I really am. I'm coming to everything.

00:25:10.020 | Oh my gosh. And you did, you did.

00:25:12.180 | I actually didn't. I get most things. I get most things. I told him that story years later,

00:25:18.420 | and we both laughed about it. No, I heard, I heard on the other end of it,

00:25:20.980 | when he was composing that email, he was like sweating. He was terrified. Yeah. Cause he's so nice.

00:25:24.580 | He's like, he wasn't used to calling people out and they were like praying about it and stuff.

00:25:27.140 | Yeah. He's one of the nicest human beings in the world.

00:25:29.700 | In the history of humanity. Yeah. Yeah. He's like praying.

00:25:33.940 | And so, so yeah, that, that pressure is weird. That's not, that's abnormal,

00:25:39.540 | but I understand what he was saying now in the heart behind it. Now I really,

00:25:42.740 | actually really appreciate it, which I remember done. Right. But I'm realizing

00:25:47.460 | most of these things that we saw are weird. Like I was okay with.

00:25:51.620 | Yeah. You were very unusual in that regard. Yeah. I think you might've been more okay with some

00:25:56.420 | of the weirdest stuff than I was. I think so. I think you're more self-conscious about it.

00:26:00.020 | Yeah. I was like embarrassed about a lot of things. Maybe the reason why we're weird

00:26:03.140 | is not because of Jordan. It's because of me.

00:26:06.180 | Yeah. You get the weird hat. I'm sorry, Jordan.

00:26:08.980 | You wear the weird hat. Okay. Sorry.

00:26:09.940 | That's the weird hat. So Jordan's for you.

00:26:11.380 | Whoever is weirder has to wear that hat. Yeah.

00:26:13.380 | Yeah. Okay. So anyway, we're going to wrap up this episode cause it's going a little long,

00:26:16.340 | but there are tons of other stuff that we could talk about. There's like a whole category of

00:26:20.980 | like really old, weird stuff that we don't do anymore. And I think we're going to have,

00:26:24.900 | Yeah. If we still do those things, I wouldn't have stayed there.

00:26:26.820 | No. Yeah. I would not have stayed at a church, dude. What the heck, dude? Like we used to like

00:26:29.940 | hold hands. And anyway, we're going to get into that in the future episode called like,

00:26:33.220 | I don't know, things we're not going to do. We don't do it no more.

00:26:35.780 | Yeah. But yeah. And then just some stuff like, you know, it's being like Asian church and that kind

00:26:43.940 | of thing. Yeah. Being particularly Asian, not knowing that we're really Asian.

00:26:46.340 | Yeah. And not realizing how different that was culturally for some people.

00:26:50.500 | But yeah, we're going to, we're going to be talking about a lot more of these issues.

00:26:54.660 | We want to get some like other people's, like, what was your experience when you first came to

00:26:57.860 | church? Maybe do some interviews. Yeah. Interviews as well as I think doing a deeper dive into some

00:27:02.260 | of these things. So let's talk about the dating thing. Yeah. Cause we don't want to do like

00:27:04.660 | some of the more serious stuff too. So let's talk about the pressure thing and like how that plays

00:27:08.100 | out. And I think that's a big source of people's beef with our church because people do that in a

00:27:13.380 | bad way or it's not received well or just whatever. And so we're going to definitely get into that more

00:27:18.820 | in the future weeks. Before we end, I just wanted to say like, yeah, there's weird stuff, you know?

00:27:22.980 | And, and my, my encouragement to people is just like, just talk about it. Ask, ask the right people

00:27:28.260 | about it. You know, like when you hear the weird stuff and, and, and there's all these little weird

00:27:31.860 | things that happen, sometimes you kind of get paranoid and then like, yeah. And then it's like,

00:27:35.780 | okay, what do you do? You Google it. Cause that's what everyone does. Right. And that's, that's fine.

00:27:38.900 | But, um, talk about it. You know, we know what's weird, you know, and it's hard to change culture when

00:27:45.780 | it's said. Right. Um, but we try and, and there's things we're learning too and, and, and things we have

00:27:50.420 | changed. So, yeah. All right. So, so hit like subscribe. We got to say that every time. Yeah.

00:27:56.660 | Hit the bell notification. Yeah. And, uh, see you next time.

00:28:00.580 | Yeah. Appreciate you guys joining us on the official unofficial Grace Point podcast.

Ep.1 - What Makes Us Weird

Chapters