Ep.12 - From Campus to City Church

00:00:00.000 | was the love at first sight no because all i ever saw was a line of pastors and a line of elders

00:00:06.260 | fist fighting each other and the police had to come and break it up and i'm like drinking my

00:00:09.800 | soup and i was like this is the church this summer we decided to shift our sunday service to the

00:00:15.120 | downtown area welcome to the official unofficial acts to network podcast we are launching lifelong

00:00:27.500 | kingdom workers from every college campus my name is stephen my name is isaiah and today we have dp

00:00:32.880 | and kata on our show i'm glad to have you guys thanks for coming on guys um so dp that's not his

00:00:39.000 | real name uh why don't you guys introduce yourselves actually yeah i'm uh dp i actually i'm i'm david

00:00:45.020 | but everyone calls me dp yeah so david park so that's what dp yeah and you guys based in chicago

00:00:50.160 | we're based in chicago i'm katarina no one calls me that either everyone calls me kata

00:00:54.900 | but you don't like kata right that's you know i didn't at the beginning but i was really shy and

00:01:02.280 | one of my peers was like really extroverted so she just introduced me to everyone as kata and then

00:01:07.760 | it's stuck and now i'm fine with it oh you're fine with it now so we actually both have nicknames that

00:01:11.900 | we did not choose our names were given to us wow it's very biblical yeah okay all right why didn't you

00:01:19.120 | like it i'm just because it's not my name kind of oh because um every time someone said hannah or

00:01:26.960 | anna i would turn around and then anytime someone said catalog i would turn around and then recently

00:01:33.500 | catapult okay got it nice all right cool well um we wanted to talk about um a few things um and we

00:01:42.540 | know that this past fall has been pretty some exciting things have been happening in chicago but

00:01:45.840 | before we jump into that let's just get to know you guys a little bit and um actually dp and i were

00:01:51.380 | roommates so i know dp fairly well from that um our relationship was kind of like uh like up like

00:01:59.300 | like russell and mr frederickson a little bit yeah yeah just our entire like peer class our

00:02:04.780 | yeah our friends were like mr frederickson so like i just just to get just so that people can

00:02:10.440 | know what you're like that there was uh our very first night like you know hanging out and then

00:02:17.500 | like we went to you know we're on the bunk we're in the bunk bed yeah we're in the bunk bed and i was

00:02:21.880 | just trying to get to know you trying to be relational asking questions talking but it was mostly me

00:02:25.720 | talking and then i asked like oh man entirely you talking it was entirely you were talking but it was

00:02:30.240 | actually you were yeah and i asked like in the middle of it i was like oh man am i am i talking

00:02:34.780 | too much so i asked you am i talking too much and you said i said uh no as long as you don't expect

00:02:39.840 | me to respond it's okay we got off to a great start it's a great start that's when i that's what i that's

00:02:46.640 | when i thought like oh was it a mistake that i moved into this house with these guys like oh man

00:02:50.400 | yeah yeah we had good times all right um but why don't we just like yeah how did you guys start

00:02:55.280 | coming out to our church how'd you become christian did you become christian at our church or was it

00:02:58.720 | before yeah yeah uh well i yes i grew up going to church um so the way i describe it is like i

00:03:05.160 | i started going to church around like second grade because my parents started going but

00:03:09.940 | because they were not believers yet i grew up in a kind of a non-christian household while

00:03:14.740 | attending church on sunday so i didn't grow up like with a lot of christian values in the home

00:03:19.740 | um but i did get the benefit of like hearing a lot of teaching on sunday so um i made some like you

00:03:24.860 | know significant realizations over the years especially regards to like you know just like

00:03:29.640 | seeing myself as a sinner and things like that but then it wasn't really until i came to our church

00:03:33.400 | in college that like it became real for me i so um i started you know so how i came to our church was

00:03:41.880 | through a family friend actually so i came to our church a couple years older and then um she

00:03:46.680 | invited me to use to welcome night so saw uh came and heard a pastor speak and uh i remember just

00:03:54.300 | hearing him say if you grew up in church and you have questions about the faith it's uh it's really up

00:03:58.940 | to you to get those things answered because there's a lot of answers out there and he named off a couple

00:04:03.320 | authors and so i started reading those authors and that began my journey and it was a few years a few

00:04:08.260 | months after that where i became a christian at the winter retreat yeah so that was freshman year

00:04:13.180 | freshman year yeah so how did you start coming out to church like as a second grader if your parents

00:04:17.460 | didn't go oh they started going to church so like some uh you know the korean immigrant church kind of

00:04:22.320 | network they i think they met some people within a church and then they started going to church as a

00:04:28.120 | result of that my dad had some catholic background they went occasionally i think when he was younger but

00:04:33.420 | they didn't identify as christian at all so um so it was it was really that like immigrant network and

00:04:39.280 | it was i think for them it was like just a way to get to know people and i think years after that they

00:04:44.080 | became christians yeah okay yeah yeah um so i was one of those like kind of de-churched disillusioned

00:04:52.060 | kids that came into college so i went to church pretty much all my life because my mom grew up

00:04:56.940 | um her dad was a pastor in korea so just through that lineage we kind of started going to church when

00:05:02.620 | we got to america and then in high school i think i went through a lot of church splits and um the most

00:05:09.580 | core memory i have of church growing up was me eating like um miyokgook or something in the cafeteria

00:05:16.140 | after sunday school korean soup seaweed soup and i see police coming in and it's a line of pastors and a line of elders

00:05:23.980 | fist fighting each other and the police had to come break it up and i'm like drinking my soup and i was like this is the church

00:05:29.020 | oh so after that i think i just attended church because i was curious about god but i kind of knew

00:05:37.420 | like man this is such a failed institution i don't really know what i'm doing here so my senior year i

00:05:42.700 | had completely left church and i said forget it and i'm not going back everyone's a hypocrite i'm a hypocrite

00:05:48.620 | and then um my sister who's two years older came out to our church as a freshman at berkeley and she

00:05:54.620 | changed so much um when she came back from a mission trip in cambodia and i was like what is wrong with

00:06:00.060 | you and she said i think i found this very biblical church and i distinctly remember my response was

00:06:06.620 | come on you and i both know those don't exist i'm like what did i know as like a 17 year old but

00:06:11.100 | that was my response and she goes no i know i know you know i understand why you think that but i

00:06:15.820 | really think this church is more biblical than anything i've seen so then i started hoping like that it

00:06:21.180 | was true but then i actually thought like i need to rescue her from these people i don't know what's

00:06:26.300 | going on but she's so different um so when i got into berkeley my internal response was oh good i

00:06:31.660 | can go check out her church because i really really want it to be true so then i was guarded but i came

00:06:37.340 | in as a freshman and then um i was kind of freaked out by all the lights and the fog fog machine at the

00:06:43.260 | welcome night i was like this is too well done like they're a little bit too like excellent i'm not sure

00:06:49.740 | are they biblical like i had no it can't be bivocally and excellent

00:06:54.780 | but then but then i heard pastor i'd preach and that was the first time like the bible actually made

00:07:03.340 | sense to me and i was like oh i just want more of this and then um a lot of people because my sister

00:07:09.100 | and i look so similar everyone came up to me as a freshman they're like you must be lois's sister

00:07:14.300 | we've been praying for you i was so freaked out but then yeah so despite that i actually

00:07:20.380 | stayed and then um i wasn't really looking for friends i was kind of you know uh introverted

00:07:26.220 | anti-social but then i did find a group of friends very quickly at our church um and they're all my

00:07:31.820 | friends today still yeah and then i think at the winter retreat freshman year same yeah same winter

00:07:38.700 | retreat when i understood like i never understood sin and i never understood the gospel before then

00:07:44.460 | it was very clear i've never been a christian i've never made that decision myself and then like two

00:07:50.060 | minutes later i was like wait a second i can make that decision now so it was a very clear decision for

00:07:54.540 | me and um it wasn't that dramatic i just repented of my sins and um confessed and yeah after that like

00:08:01.900 | i think i just had so much freedom because so much of my sin was about deception and then after that

00:08:07.660 | like after everything yeah came out then i was kind of free to like live life for the first time so

00:08:12.700 | yeah i think i actually really became christian in college maybe for the benefit of those who don't

00:08:17.420 | know who are some of your like friends that you guys you guys both class 2011 so maybe just yeah let

00:08:21.980 | them know who some of the people you've ministered to even sure oh yeah like um so point class 2011

00:08:27.820 | so it's like mike park you know sam kim who had just a lot there's a bunch of us yeah oh oh oh shoot

00:08:36.300 | yeah so moving on yeah and then you know like like uh like vincent of who in berkeley like you know we

00:08:49.020 | did undergrad together we're saying major things like that so um but we've ministered to class of

00:08:53.660 | 2015 16 and then 19 in berkeley and that's that's like 19 was the last class we ministered to before

00:09:00.700 | we moved to chicago and it's kind of neat because a bunch of them are in chicago with us now yeah yeah

00:09:05.500 | grand reunion there yeah yeah you want to share some of your friends yes um my original life group in

00:09:12.300 | college was like angel churn jenny park um step play oh now i have to name all of them nancy um and then

00:09:19.340 | yeah later annie and fan and yvonne and everyone yeah and then emily huang who's my peer is in chicago

00:09:27.100 | with me so yeah we've gotten really close just ministering together that's right yeah we had asian

00:09:32.220 | am together you and annie yeah were some of the first upper class when i met in asian which was a terrible

00:09:37.580 | class it was it was we were at a study group we're doing a study group and i saw isaiah as a freshman

00:09:43.580 | like snickering in the corner with the laptop and we're all trying to study for the spinal and he's

00:09:48.220 | like laughing and so we all said i said what are you doing and he turned around you're like reading

00:09:53.180 | calvin and hobson yes this doesn't surprise me yeah i know yeah you know speaking about our

00:10:04.860 | upbringing though we have a lot of like parallel things in our upbringing so like uh we grew up

00:10:09.020 | both in socal you know currently making church that's you know thing but like our parents went

00:10:13.980 | through similar kind of financial struggles at around the same time we actually lived in the same

00:10:17.980 | neighborhood like a couple blocks from each other we didn't know each other in fullerton but you didn't go to

00:10:21.580 | the same high school no but we went to rival high schools i went to she went to sunny hills which

00:10:25.420 | better uh troy's better yeah troy is better call sunny hills scummy hills oh wow i don't know if that's

00:10:32.940 | still the case but um that was the case back then but yeah it doesn't matter we went to the same college

00:10:39.100 | yeah but then you know we we converged in berkeley yeah so it was like you guys were meant for each other

00:10:44.060 | oh yeah like was it love at first sight no because all i saw of him was the back of him because he's the

00:10:59.180 | kind of freshman that came to service and he would leave during the last praise song or right after it

00:11:04.860 | because he was he would come in gym clothes with the backpack and racquetball you know racket in

00:11:10.300 | his in his backpack racquetball racquetball yeah as we're coming out of church you just see him way

00:11:15.420 | over there like walking away i just i just came to church like on time left right away yeah friday bible

00:11:21.340 | study i would just come to the bible study i'd just come late for dinner leave early you know how's that kind

00:11:26.380 | yeah right so how did you guys like actually like when did you see the front of his like his face

00:11:34.300 | just going off your story no no i so i met lois first and then um yeah because because i think it's

00:11:44.140 | because the family friend that brought she was friends with oh yeah so i think i met that class first

00:11:49.180 | actually and then and i met uh and then i met kata and i thought she was lois so i was confused for a

00:11:54.940 | while i didn't realize there were two different people how did how did how did how did you guys

00:12:03.020 | start dating and and all that like oh we're going into that oh okay how do we start dating um i know

00:12:09.260 | you have on your podcast but you know oh you do yeah yeah yeah we have a whole yeah shout out to dpod

00:12:14.540 | yeah dpod um dating episode um how did we start dating i called her i called her and yeah she said yes

00:12:22.060 | that's how we started dating i didn't say yes you didn't wait okay so first of all it took me a while

00:12:28.300 | to uh yeah i guess muster up the courage to call her i actually this is kind of embarrassing but i i drove

00:12:33.900 | back and forth between hb and oakland yeah yeah yeah and and oakland airport which is like a three minute

00:12:41.180 | drive yeah just back and forth back and forth i'm like like trying to muster up yeah yeah yeah and

00:12:46.220 | then i was like this is lame wait why why did what do you do like did you like it for a long time or

00:12:51.420 | something or like what um i guess i guess it was because we had been good friends in college yeah and

00:12:59.020 | potentially this would make that would make it weird for the rest of my life yeah i think that's what that's

00:13:05.180 | all it was yeah but then um yeah so anyways i just finally said you know what i just needed and so i

00:13:10.060 | called her and i was like oh hi this is this is david i'm like i've never heard you know oh and she said i

00:13:18.700 | i know yeah because you know obviously she has my number yeah we've been friends she's had my

00:13:21.980 | hi david yeah i know i know and then she said she said she said no no no she just needed some time

00:13:33.820 | to think about it oh i see so how long do you make him wait like a week two weeks two weeks yeah two weeks

00:13:41.180 | yeah yeah that's not bad yeah i i i heard that um you gave katta some feedback on your third date

00:13:50.220 | why you gotta bring similar oh you're talking about timeliness there's a lot of stories at our church

00:13:55.580 | that like get like legendary accumulation and we just need to like cut you know we need to get to the

00:13:59.660 | facts yeah it's the facts facts to network the facts are just as bad was it the third date it was the

00:14:06.540 | third date yeah okay he doesn't remember maybe you should just tell it because i don't remember the

00:14:10.700 | um uh well if you know dp he's early to everything and i used to be late to everything not anymore but um

00:14:20.140 | but on our third date i think i was like 10 minutes late and i was just trying to look a little nicer so i

00:14:27.980 | was a little late and then i got to his car and i got in and i was like hi and then he he gripped he

00:14:40.220 | was gripping the steering wheel and staring straight ahead and so i was like oh maybe you didn't hear me

00:14:44.940 | so i was like hi and i was just gripping it and i was like what the heck is happening and then it's

00:14:51.420 | silent and then he goes he said um you know you know if you're on time you're late and in my mind i

00:14:59.900 | said what do you mean because if you're on time that means you're on time but he'd been there like 10

00:15:07.020 | minutes or 15 minutes early because that's just who he is and so i was waiting for like 20 don't

00:15:11.820 | recommend it yeah i've been 20 yeah and you found it in your heart to forgive and be gracious so i didn't

00:15:18.460 | leave the car i stayed and said okay i'm sorry wow and then wow actually yeah because he's like that

00:15:24.940 | i have changed wow all right wow so maybe on the flip side how about tell us uh your favorite date

00:15:30.380 | story yeah unless that was it like our favorite date story he's kind of black out there

00:15:41.900 | i don't know i have a well tell us about i have a proposal yeah yeah yeah okay yeah yeah well you

00:15:47.900 | know the i guess i have a lot of i don't know it's my favorite thing but i have a lot of fond memories

00:15:51.580 | just trying to fit in dates with her uh just in the midst of busy schedule and we would occasionally do

00:15:57.180 | like 7 a.m breakfast yeah because we were serving in different ministry groups in berkeley to different

00:16:02.380 | we were was that when you were in grad school too or no no it was while we were working we're

00:16:05.980 | both working at sf yeah schedules were different things like that so then we would do like sometimes

00:16:09.980 | we would do like six something a.m breakfast and dt and maybe that's how he was so grumpy

00:16:16.220 | yeah but anyways the proposal story is that um so there was this you know you guys have seen that

00:16:35.820 | like 36 questions that lead to love or something like that yeah yeah yeah from stony brook yeah yeah

00:16:41.420 | oh really yeah from stony book originally but it was popularized in the new york times uh like around

00:16:46.860 | 2014 like they have just published an article so i just read that and so i was like oh hey like hey

00:16:51.580 | let's go through these questions like different kinds of questions like we get to know each other so

00:16:55.500 | i just we just did that for several dates so there's a lot of questions right and so then we just did

00:17:00.540 | that over like maybe four or five dates and then um and on the day that i was planning to propose i i planned

00:17:05.900 | it so that like we would finish the questions on the drive to the location and then um and then you

00:17:12.300 | know we finished like oh that was nice activity whatever and then we got to the place and i asked

00:17:16.220 | like you know can i ask one more question and then and then she said no no i'm kidding can you give me two weeks

00:17:26.780 | so one more question and then the funny thing is um and then we're like oh that's nice you know and

00:17:33.500 | then like yeah because it was at the start of the date so then it was nice because we got it over with

00:17:37.820 | kind of like emotional you know like my emotionally like it's like oh you know so we can kind of like

00:17:42.380 | relax for the rest of the day but we were waiting for the breakfast place we were going to we were

00:17:45.580 | like wait listed or whatever so then we were waiting for that that's when it happened and then we got to

00:17:49.580 | the restaurant and 30th later i started crying yeah i don't quite remember but she just my emotions

00:17:55.180 | in the middle of breakfast she's just like i don't know why i'm crying which yeah that is very indicative

00:18:02.460 | of me to know i don't she was happy she was crying from happiness very delayed delayed yeah wow yeah

00:18:09.180 | what are you guys enneagram types we're both intj oh enneagram uh i'm a three we're both intj but

00:18:16.060 | she's one i'm a type one one wing nine i'm a three wing four yeah people think i'm a one yeah i was

00:18:23.580 | confused about that so he's not a one all the ones say i'm not actually i'm not principal yeah yeah

00:18:29.980 | that's if you cheat every game that's like yeah anyway let's not talk about that yeah we'll talk about

00:18:38.700 | that another cool well um that that's a lot about just i feel like we've got to know you guys pretty

00:18:43.420 | well a lot of fun stories i've never heard a lot yeah that was good that was good so um so we can

00:18:49.020 | like fast forward um you guys served there at berkeley church college ministry can we talk about that a

00:18:53.180 | little bit like maybe just like a little bit like ministry resume like where have you served and how

00:18:57.820 | did you up to the point where you're at now at chicago's yeah so i wasn't just a 12 for a long time

00:19:03.740 | yes it's from graduating yeah berkeley a2f from 2011 to 2016. so that was a 20 class 2015 for two years

00:19:12.300 | and then a class 2016 for three years um and then in the senior year of uh class 2016 that's when we

00:19:20.460 | got married so i finished that off the so she was in coin and i was in a2f so we were actually even after

00:19:24.860 | we got married we were in separate ministry groups so that's not that's not that common

00:19:28.300 | yeah for a form but it's just because you know like we i had seniors at the time just finishing

00:19:32.780 | off the last few months so um so anyways after that we went to coin and then we ministered to the home

00:19:37.980 | group of 2019 so yeah here's i was in i served in a2f for a little bit and then um when 2017 the great

00:19:46.140 | scattering that that happened uh when we planted in the east coast i i kind of backfilled for a lot of

00:19:51.420 | coin people that left and then um so i moved to coin i was staffed there and then yeah i was ministering to

00:19:57.900 | yeah yeah and so i was ministering to class of 2019 when they were like freshmen and sophomores

00:20:10.620 | and then he joined yeah oh you were with them all four years yeah and then um when the greats gathering

00:20:17.100 | happened that's when she went full-time for church yeah and then and then i joined oh i did yeah yeah she

00:20:24.140 | went full-time first actually yeah and then when did you guys move to chicago you guys are chicago now

00:20:28.780 | when you 2019 summer of 2019 basically after we graduated off class 19. and what was the impetus behind

00:20:33.980 | you guys moving there like um well so so chicago's interesting right because um it was planted by

00:20:41.580 | like eight eight bros you know uh class 2015 bros they just went out there as single guys and it's

00:20:47.020 | awesome like i love that part of the chicago history um wanting to do something for jesus and

00:20:51.340 | and then you know like things were actually happening and you know and i guess from their

00:20:55.500 | perspective they're like okay we need a we need a leader uh so could you send someone and at the

00:21:00.620 | time a bunch of us like including you know you guys we were all in um full-time leads in training

00:21:05.740 | uh that year we were supposed to be a train for a year but i remember uh that summer when we were

00:21:10.540 | doing vision 2019 we we got called into a meeting and um it was during this it was during the middle of

00:21:17.980 | vision yeah yeah like hey can we have a can we have a meeting you know and um so i remember yes

00:21:24.540 | then i remember yeah we went in and so then they kind of told us about some of the latest thoughts

00:21:28.620 | about our training program like all of you guys you guys are going to do this and then um and then

00:21:33.500 | they said oh except deep in kata um would you guys be open to going to chicago to leave the church

00:21:38.940 | and we're like what what i thought we had six months left yeah yeah yeah can you guys go uh next month

00:21:49.420 | but yeah i mean yeah so we said yes to that and then that's how we ended up in chicago so mature and

00:21:56.060 | advanced they're like yeah you just just just go yeah yeah apparently what happened is that um i don't

00:22:02.780 | know if it's true but this is what they told me ben lue advocated for me so because he was he was

00:22:06.300 | uh he was with our staff in berkeley yeah yeah yeah and i'm sure um no and it said no to ize

00:22:13.820 | so my brother was on that team along with wait was anna already there yeah yeah she was she was

00:22:23.340 | with evanston oh part of ray ray okay yeah yeah so how was it going in there and um yeah going into

00:22:29.260 | that scene and leading those guys how was that um i i think i have a very um like modified memory

00:22:38.060 | now of that time because i remember with a lot of fondness yeah but um apparently according to kata

00:22:45.740 | and other people who observed me during that time i was really stressed yeah which makes sense

00:22:53.180 | yeah yeah yeah i think that first year was basically just getting to know them and trying

00:23:01.020 | to adjust to what it means to be a leader of a church and to lead these guys and also you know

00:23:07.900 | they had a year of experience on me right like on in terms of the campus and what they knew so i'm

00:23:12.380 | trying not to like change too much of what they're doing whilst trying to bring in my own thoughts and

00:23:17.980 | so that all took a while i feel like i feel like it took me a couple of years to just even feel

00:23:22.460 | comfortable with that role so yeah i don't know it was hard for you too yeah my experience of it was

00:23:29.020 | that i cried a lot and i laughed a lot yeah i laughed a lot and um it was the first time where it was

00:23:38.460 | such a cozy team there were like 10 of us at some point just the the mentors and we all fit in our small

00:23:44.140 | like two-bedroom apartment and we did staff life together cooked together and ate together all the time

00:23:49.980 | they watched emma who was one year old she was like 13 months old when we landed and um it was

00:23:55.820 | the first time you know we like left california to go somewhere else so even getting used to the winter

00:24:02.140 | with an infant that was new um but after that first winter it was like oh okay now i think i can tackle

00:24:08.140 | anything you know but the experience of it was um us needing to make a lot of decisions to lead a local

00:24:15.420 | church that we've never had to face before so then even after we had our first kid we really didn't

00:24:21.100 | fight we didn't argue about much um but then when we got to chicago we realized oh so much

00:24:27.740 | like we got so much help when we were staff in berkeley because so much got you know subsumed under the

00:24:34.140 | bigger infrastructure of the schedule like a lot of it's decided for us yeah and so we really just kind of

00:24:38.620 | focused on like people right in front of us but in chicago we had to make decisions about everything

00:24:43.580 | and that was a real like steep step to yeah big learning curve yeah yeah but i i really uh i still

00:24:52.300 | do think like i really enjoyed that first year especially and um there was i think i prayed more

00:24:58.620 | fervently than i have like like ever in my life and just because just feeling even though so much of

00:25:05.180 | like our ministry philosophy and things like that in our network is given to us and like there's a lot

00:25:09.580 | of training i've received there's there's this sense of like wow like i think god is trying to do

00:25:15.740 | something here and i i want i don't want to like get in the way of that and and i know that like i'm not

00:25:21.420 | this experienced person who knows like all this stuff and so like how do i balance you know just the

00:25:28.380 | needs and things of the staff in front of me and and the ministry and and then you know i've never

00:25:33.740 | private campus ministry is hard i mean that's a whole nother topic and just and there yeah so i

00:25:38.300 | just remember those prayer like prayer meetings we would have at cox lounge on the chicago campus just

00:25:42.140 | um sometimes we joked about after work because she would leave the prayer meetings but i was like totally

00:25:47.180 | not responding to her because i was just i was just praying about like all the burdens that i have

00:25:51.740 | like just in the corner by myself yeah i'm just having my own prayer meeting you know like yeah so um

00:25:57.340 | but it was just experientially it was um experientially i i it was a really sweet time i think of connecting

00:26:03.660 | with god so yeah that's good that's good wow so like you said um you uh private school so u chicago

00:26:11.100 | ministry on the chicago campus and so now it's been it's two five years since right but and uh

00:26:16.620 | this past fall there's a big change yeah right um so um yeah maybe tell us a little bit like just a

00:26:21.980 | short like what the change was and kind of maybe the larger context of chicago u chicago and and all that

00:26:27.500 | yeah like the evolution of chicago church yeah okay well maybe i can just start and then just fill in

00:26:32.700 | um so the big change was that um we shifted our focus kind of in our primary campus had always been

00:26:39.500 | the university of chicago which is in hyde park um we re this summer we decided to shift our sunday

00:26:45.820 | service to the downtown area because that's only about a 15 minute drive north um so it seems close

00:26:51.980 | on a map um but the reason we decided to do that is because hyde park we realized is a is a bubble

00:26:57.980 | like it's hard to get in and out unless you have a car um so you you look at like go on google maps

00:27:03.660 | and you look at the transit public transit system and you'll see nothing passes through the park

00:27:07.900 | right so then you have to like yeah it's a little out of the way so then so then um because in the

00:27:12.780 | back of our mind we wanted to um reach more students we realized recently that in the chicagoland metropolitan

00:27:19.180 | area there's like half a million college students wow so then um but you know we're like just working

00:27:24.780 | with like seven thousand seven thousand undergrads undergrads at u chicago so then uh we just felt like

00:27:29.180 | something needs to change um so that was a drastic we realized that we need a more drastic shift and

00:27:35.100 | we can't if we're trying to reach many campuses we can't like give them all rides or like where

00:27:39.740 | are we gonna like they need to be able to find us so then we wanted to go where it's most central so

00:27:44.540 | we actually have a venue like right on michigan avenue it's like on what's usually called the front

00:27:50.060 | yard of chicago and like overseas lake michigan buckingham fountain like um so we're right there

00:27:56.300 | yeah so right there it's right yeah so all the public transit leads to there so what is it congress

00:28:02.220 | possible it's like an old hotel um but yeah location's really great yeah yeah so you're you're moving from

00:28:08.460 | like a um like very campus based like we're just gonna focus and love this campus which is great yeah but

00:28:14.540 | you're recognizing there's all this other need there's all these other college students like how do we reach

00:28:18.140 | them too yeah and i imagine that that mean that's a good thing but there's some tough that must have

00:28:23.180 | been tough making that shift what what were some challenges that yeah to making that shift yeah i

00:28:27.580 | mean we really had to pay some costs in order to make this shift and of course the the biggest worry

00:28:33.740 | is um what about our u chicago students are they going to feel like abandoned in some way and um you

00:28:40.700 | know in in some ways there has been a lot of drop off um some for it's just practically harder

00:28:46.060 | yeah practically harder and um i've had some conversations with some of the students that

00:28:50.540 | say this is not the direction like i want to go in but you know kudos to you guys so i've been very

00:28:54.700 | thankful for those conversations um yeah so that was a cost we had to pay but also i've seen some of our

00:29:01.340 | u chicago and illinois tech students that we already had before this shift like i i feel like they've just

00:29:06.620 | really come alive and they're kind of the the older brothers and sisters that they didn't know they could be

00:29:12.060 | in some ways because there are some underclassmen and just new people coming out from the loop which

00:29:17.180 | is downtown chicago these schools that are coming and um just the sense of ownership i see them kind

00:29:22.940 | of taking over our you know our church service and student group like it's been pretty amazing seeing

00:29:29.340 | them put into practice in some ways some of the things that they learned like in concept with us as we

00:29:33.900 | kind of disciple them so what is it about the shift to the loop that has like enabled that like is more

00:29:40.460 | students coming out is it like yeah what's what's sort of what are some of the changes that have

00:29:44.060 | happened with this shift well it's it's definitely more students coming out i mean we our average

00:29:48.380 | attendance went from like uh maybe like 30s low 30s to um to like almost 80 now in the space of like a

00:29:57.420 | year in the space of like a month oh wow right because like i mean because we right because we just started

00:30:04.380 | immediately and you know like yeah so our first welcome night where u chicago students weren't even

00:30:09.180 | there or we did a welcome sunday like on sunday we did the korean barbecue we flyer for that

00:30:15.500 | that's even before u chicago started i think we had something like 130 students who came to that

00:30:19.500 | so that's complete without that they're all colleges in the loop yeah we're reaching maybe like seven or

00:30:26.060 | eight there's there's probably more there's more than that but we have about yeah so they're coming

00:30:31.100 | from seven or eight different colleges yeah primarily though from like three colleges okay yeah so it's uh

00:30:36.220 | so illinois tech got a huge boost so illinois tech i mean we had students coming from that but then now

00:30:41.660 | they're uh they're out there a 10 minute public transit right away so then they can just come

00:30:45.580 | themselves that makes a huge difference so i i really believe in like if you're trying to do city

00:30:50.140 | church or like try using kind of an attractional model then you have to be in a location that people

00:30:54.780 | can find you yeah and you can't rely on rides yeah because there's just something burdensome about

00:30:59.020 | that you know like oh you have to like get into someone's car and they're like coming to pick you up

00:31:03.820 | and you feel bad about yeah yeah so it's a little complicated yeah so i knew it's just the the lot

00:31:08.620 | of people i think having new people then the um our existing students have a chance to kind of show

00:31:16.140 | them the ropes you know sort of yeah yeah but also another shift was that we combined our college and

00:31:21.340 | international groups together oh yeah that's true and became a true city church and the impetus for that

00:31:27.100 | was because we sent out so many people from chicago for foreign missions and so in hyde park at least we

00:31:32.540 | we went from like 12 13 international stuff to like four yeah so it was a pretty drastic shift

00:31:38.140 | so they couldn't maintain momentum on their own so then we just enveloped them into our team and since

00:31:43.420 | they've so then everyone's been pretty much doing double dual kind of double duty yeah and it's been

00:31:47.420 | pretty awesome yeah and then we we did like explicit training on like you know hey how do you

00:31:51.740 | like so how do you talk to international students what are things to watch out for you know what are their

00:31:55.980 | needs um we found that like our our staff were like kind of intimidated by international students

00:32:02.220 | or like they just didn't know like you just don't know how to yeah yeah but it turns out they're

00:32:05.420 | mostly just shy and so then it's not that they're standoffish they're just shy and they actually

00:32:09.260 | really want to connect with you when that mentality shift happens suddenly they were like a lot more

00:32:13.740 | warm yeah and and so then i think our service is really interesting because i i see a lot of that

00:32:18.780 | like you know the mixing between what used to be complete separate domains so they're just more

00:32:24.300 | people for our students to talk with and kind of they they know a lot of our values and culture and they're kind of like

00:32:31.900 | yeah embodying that together which is pretty cool yeah can we talk shop a little bit so like what are

00:32:37.980 | what are some of the things you did to make this happen how did you get the word out like yeah what

00:32:42.140 | yeah what was the strategy yeah yeah so well well first of all we have to get buy-in from like internal

00:32:47.740 | buy-in right so i mean we had been so we had been talking about this idea for a while uh like two years

00:32:55.180 | ago when we started two years ago yeah like every like you know the every campus thing i was that about two years ago yeah so

00:33:00.540 | you know we that's when we started doing prayer walks and we started becoming aware well there's

00:33:04.140 | a vandercook school of music who knew there's like 100 students there like and we we would go and pray

00:33:09.500 | and we're like yeah we should pray for this camp never imagining that we would actually reach anyone

00:33:14.060 | from that campus you know like great faith we had right so um let's just pray yeah we just pray but

00:33:19.740 | we're not gonna actually do anything so then um so so that started and then increasingly we felt like

00:33:25.820 | um university of chicago like we we gave four good years to that campus we i think we figured out a

00:33:33.020 | strategy to try to reach people there but it was really slow private uh school ministry slow very

00:33:38.460 | busy yeah busy um uh you know very intellectual um so which are all good things but then slow so then

00:33:45.340 | but then we had all these staff so we're like okay well we need to increase the pie like we need to

00:33:50.300 | increase the amount of ministry that is available for our staff so that that's the that was the impetus

00:33:54.860 | for it so then we we had like a meeting back in february of this past year uh where we we presented a

00:34:01.900 | kind of um is it a post parade like experience like hey we we are a sunday service with a hundred

00:34:09.260 | students from five different campuses you know from these and then we just listed random campuses and

00:34:14.060 | and they're all worshiping together it's january 2025 yeah yeah and this is a scenario like how did this

00:34:20.620 | happen so then and a lot of the staff's reaction to that was like ha what are you talking about

00:34:26.700 | okay okay like i'll i'll i'll fill this out i mean let me do yeah so then um so but then but then when we

00:34:36.860 | talked about it people started getting excited okay like we should try it this is this is worthy of trying

00:34:41.020 | and then we we then in our following month we had a discipleship retreat to talk to our upperclassmen

00:34:45.260 | about it um and so then in that initial brainstorm they were like they were getting excited too and

00:34:49.740 | having them think about the implications of all this yeah and so then right the month after that in

00:34:54.700 | april we did a pilot uh so we realized because you know when we start in august we're not gonna have

00:34:59.500 | any students like because you chicago students are not here so we need to like get some reps in before

00:35:04.380 | we actually start so then we did two pilot services in downtown and during those weeks we just tried

00:35:09.660 | different outreach tactics um being out in the city uh we did uh walking prayer walks so people

00:35:15.580 | know where all the buildings are um but basically we realized we realized it's really really hard

00:35:21.100 | like because there's just so much going on in downtown so then that's when the the shark suits uh

00:35:25.740 | happened so we have these inflatable blue like baby shark looking shark suits um like giant like seven

00:35:31.740 | feet ones and then um robin for whatever had two of them she had one because of her roommate back in berkeley

00:35:41.260 | during covid was doing a different kind of ministry like kids ministry and they just happened to have

00:35:45.580 | this costume and robin said okay i'll get one with you um to help you know and then so we brought one to chicago when

00:35:53.660 | she moved and we had used it in chicago for uh our kids birthdays that's that's that's when we had used

00:35:59.180 | them last but then basically we we were like oh we just need to do something more visible so we started

00:36:03.740 | using that too but also our church name is voyage yes okay so it kind of works like oh there's that

00:36:09.580 | naval yeah okay okay yeah so yeah so we just tried a bunch of stuff so people are walking in downtown chicago

00:36:17.500 | they see someone in an inflatable blue shark costume voyage church and they see like 10 of us

00:36:22.460 | out there on a street corner not like two but like 10 and we're just hanging out we're giving flyers

00:36:27.260 | we're giving out donuts where they take a survey yeah yeah yeah yeah that is pretty eye-catching

00:36:33.020 | but it was we didn't get that much traction though so uh so originally our faith goal had been like

00:36:39.100 | oh let's get like 20 students to come to our pilot service and then we lowered it to five

00:36:44.300 | oh my gosh this is really hard but then actually eight people came yeah eight people came so then

00:36:49.020 | it was like not as much as we initially thought but hey okay there's something there but i think a

00:36:52.780 | lot of us still were like i'm not sure about this because it was really hard like it's way different

00:36:56.940 | from being on a college campus so and you can't tell who's a college student walking near yeah yeah

00:37:01.820 | in downtown yeah and then we knew that we had to be there to drive it you know because like so 22

00:37:06.620 | coordinating 22 23 staff like making this happen so because actually we were supposed to go to slt

00:37:11.900 | but then we had to ask to not go to that so that we could drive this new strategy um because it was

00:37:16.940 | right at the same time so anyways in august we we just we just bet big on it we set dates for a bunch

00:37:23.580 | of welcome events oh i forgot actually the thing that actually encouraged us in that month not the

00:37:28.700 | sunday service was a boba social we had and that boba social had like 80 people show up yeah so yeah and

00:37:37.340 | so then that was like yeah we advertised it as a we're not really stranger social event with free

00:37:43.660 | boba okay there's the card card card game but we sort of yeah we we got that idea from one of the other

00:37:49.180 | churches yeah and so we just decided to run that and um and man just kind of like hey come boba meet

00:37:56.220 | people yeah yeah and we realized boba cells at least in downtown people will come so then we were like

00:38:03.820 | whoa so people are and what we heard from them is oh yeah no one's doing this kind of stuff like no

00:38:10.220 | one's gathering college students and these students that i talked to at the social they were like i'm

00:38:13.820 | really shy but and but i don't know how to make friends and there's no campus for them it's a building

00:38:20.940 | one building that they're all in and like you know some pseudo dorms so then they were like i was so

00:38:26.300 | shy and i was really scared but then i'm so glad you guys did this because i haven't talked to anyone in

00:38:30.460 | like three months oh my god you guys are meeting a real felt need yeah right and they wouldn't leave

00:38:35.820 | we had to kick them out we said we have to have like there was a line out the door with people that

00:38:40.700 | said like i want to come to this and so we shut the door and said you need to wait a little bit yeah we

00:38:45.820 | changed it on the fly like it was going to be like an hour social but we changed it to two 30 minute

00:38:49.580 | socials and we had to cycle people out and cycle people out yeah and we bought like more boba than

00:38:53.820 | we had originally at the time we just did the the closer method where we just stood at the door every

00:38:59.580 | person who leaves got a that was in august yeah so so when yeah so when fall started we basically

00:39:06.540 | like kind of reconvened all those ideas and um our strategy was essentially to just bring people to

00:39:13.260 | sunday service get people to sunday service and and so it was firing tabling that leads to a easier

00:39:19.980 | event to sell like a boba social right and at the boba social hopefully they have a good time and they

00:39:24.380 | have a good experience and then we would uh using the closer method we've you know we're calling it the

00:39:29.580 | closure method nowadays but you know every person who comes as they leave they're going to get a flyer

00:39:33.820 | yeah like hey like and that thing for us was uh sunday service yeah sunday service this sunday

00:39:39.740 | service hey we're doing korean barbecue right and so that that's what it was and so that's how we got

00:39:43.980 | the 130 people to come did you did you give some sort of spiritual talk at the social or was it just

00:39:47.740 | purely no no purely social but we made it very clear we said it multiple times that we're a church yeah

00:39:52.540 | we're a christian group and some of the questions were about god at the end yeah there was one question

00:39:56.700 | at the end usually about you could ask god anything what would it be yeah yeah so then they kind of get a

00:40:01.260 | little bit of taste of that so um so and then we just ran that strategy like in the loop we ran that

00:40:06.940 | strategy at iit we ran that strategy so we just kept running the same strategy over and over again

00:40:11.340 | at u chicago yeah yeah so since then how have your um how's your team like how's it affected your team

00:40:17.900 | what are the shifts and how do they feel about it now because they were a little skeptical in the

00:40:21.260 | beginning right now everyone's like oh i can't believe we haven't done this like why didn't we do

00:40:26.780 | this earlier this makes so much sense this makes so much sense yeah i mean yeah because people actually

00:40:34.540 | have like more people that they're having a chance to share the gospel with mentor um and just it's so

00:40:41.580 | and for me the diversity of the people in the group um not just ethnic diversity but um kind of

00:40:49.180 | socioeconomic diversity you know because u chicago tends to attract students from all over the nation

00:40:54.620 | a certain kind of background right and then we get like students from chicago who are more local

00:41:00.060 | students who are choosing to go to that school because financial reasons right so the gamut it runs

00:41:06.220 | the gamut so um i just i love that picture of all these people getting to know each other and

00:41:11.820 | worshiping together yeah something about that that's been really invigorating so um yeah i really

00:41:17.180 | appreciate that and then i feel like the students are um because there's more of them maybe but um

00:41:23.660 | they're quickly getting very excited and getting plugged in so a couple of them are actually coming

00:41:29.100 | to actually when a conference you know and even though they're like so new um they've they've been

00:41:33.980 | to multiple service projects with us already like that we've done so has it been mostly like christians

00:41:38.220 | that you're drawing um we're still mostly church yeah but church non-christians like people who are

00:41:46.060 | church and they know they're not christian yeah so we're getting a lot more of those and we've had

00:41:50.540 | yeah like several salvations yeah i think we've had a couple 13 salvations this past wow that's amazing

00:41:58.380 | yeah and i think half of over half of them are from the new campus wow yeah yeah and so any advice for

00:42:04.540 | someone thinking of starting up like the city church model i mean it doesn't work everywhere like we don't

00:42:08.780 | ruckers we don't we don't have a city he runs like philly i know they've been kind of flirting with the

00:42:13.420 | ideas so i don't know what are some tips you'd give for people thinking about this yeah maybe speak into like that

00:42:17.660 | sentiment of like why didn't you do this yeah you know it seems so obvious now but what would you say

00:42:23.500 | i think i think a big mentality shift has been just the need to i i think traditionally in in ministry we

00:42:32.220 | feel like we're doing a successful ministry if we're meeting with a certain group of people a certain

00:42:36.940 | group of students do very regularly um you see them every week maybe even multiple times a week and you

00:42:43.340 | feel like you're you're like pouring into those people and influencing them yeah so it's essentially like you have

00:42:49.180 | your small group that you're ministering to um i feel like we've had to really get rid of that one one

00:42:53.900 | completely arbitrary false limitation that we put on our staff for all planning was you are not

00:42:59.820 | allowed to do any weekly events nothing is allowed to be weekly unless it's explicitly time bound

00:43:07.740 | oh even dt i said it can't be every week yeah don't get it a little scandalous time bound meaning like

00:43:14.140 | this is only going to go for three weeks you say like this is only happening for yeah four weeks

00:43:19.260 | whatever like you decide that ahead of time and you have to end it right so so why that why like

00:43:25.180 | explain a little bit more about that limitation related to what we feel like it's yeah i think it's

00:43:30.060 | because that's i i felt like that was the only way we could get us to not keep investing into u chicago

00:43:35.660 | because university chicago obviously like we've invested so much into we love the campus we love

00:43:39.980 | our students there and we will there's a there's a part of us that like you know what even if it's not

00:43:45.180 | fruitful we will just give our lives to try to reach this campus someone needs to do it and we're willing

00:43:50.140 | to do that and so which is a very admirable sentiment but then someone maybe needs to go well maybe you

00:43:55.740 | should maybe that's an over investment because there's all these other yeah right exactly and so

00:43:59.820 | as we saw like all the other students that put that actually when you look at it there nobody's

00:44:06.300 | reaching there's very few churches or even parachurch organizations that are reaching like the downtown

00:44:11.980 | area whereas i would say university chicago is like really well served really well served there's

00:44:17.500 | like four solid evangelical churches in the area uh and like three or four parachurch kind of groups on

00:44:25.020 | campus so they're like really well served so um it just made sense that we should maybe divert our

00:44:31.980 | resources a little bit yeah and the only way for us to emotionally get out of our need to go back to

00:44:38.140 | u chicago was to put these like really false good like practical things sometimes you need that limitation

00:44:44.620 | yeah to make the shift that you know you need so we're gonna lift that limitation like in 2025 yeah

00:44:49.260 | because it was just temporary it's not like yeah it's not some like principled thing but it was just the way to

00:44:54.460 | force us to think differently yeah also i think what was key was um kind of being strategic about

00:45:00.540 | our staff hr because we did have a group dedicated to still ministering to u chicago and iit students

00:45:07.100 | that were already existing and i think if we didn't do that then we couldn't have really had the bandwidth

00:45:12.940 | to think about oh yeah so we worked in pods this year yeah yeah and so we have the loop pod pods are just smaller

00:45:19.660 | groupings of staff about like four to six but like with the voyage thing like pods of whales

00:45:24.460 | was that thinking there no well we didn't think about that that's clever yes sharks don't travel in

00:45:29.900 | pods oh yeah they're loners yeah um i forgot what i was gonna say that we had pods that we had some

00:45:36.460 | um yeah for you chicago that enabled you to kind of break your bandwidth i think it was key that we um

00:45:42.220 | because before we had tried to do some loop outreach but it was always like younger stuff kind of being

00:45:46.460 | sent out but i realized that whatever the harder thing to do is like we have we have to do it like the new

00:45:51.020 | thing is we have to be there so that was also a big shift so then we pulled our we pulled ourselves

00:45:55.100 | completely out of u chicago ministry but then we still saw them because actually our entire team we

00:45:59.980 | just even though we were in pods we did everything like we we said okay loop is doing an event

00:46:06.300 | everybody come and help international at u chicago's doing an event everybody come help and it was

00:46:11.660 | the we're better together thing really was necessary to kind of launch city so essentially our schedule

00:46:17.420 | was like each week had a focus and actually all of the staff would do that so like this week was u chicago

00:46:23.660 | college this week is u chicago international this week is iit international college this week is loop so

00:46:29.340 | those were essentially the four and then we just repeat that and then just do a different set of events

00:46:33.660 | at those same four campuses and everyone will come to that the staff and the u chicago pod are like

00:46:38.620 | letting the u chicago students know hey you guys come and do this with us yeah yeah yeah and then you know like

00:46:44.780 | and then child care and things like that get worked up by you know if you're not the main pod for that

00:46:50.380 | area then you know it's your turn to do child care yeah got it got it how big is your staff team now 22

00:46:55.500 | team yeah how many pods like three three three yeah it's very easy very easy yeah so basically just like

00:47:03.900 | one couple can sit out you know yeah and we're fine wow well that's really exciting to hear and i think

00:47:10.300 | that that gives um like a whole network um a lot to think about um in terms of yeah like this how do you

00:47:16.460 | shift from like a campus specific ministry to like a city what are the things you need to do to make it

00:47:20.460 | work um why would you even make that step in the first place because campus is like such an amazing

00:47:24.540 | place to do ministry but why would you even make that shift in the first place and i think we're just

00:47:28.220 | really like 13 salvations that's amazing praise the lord so really happy to hear about that and um

00:47:34.300 | yeah that's wild any last things or yeah no thank you guys for for another podcast and yeah i think it's

00:47:40.860 | gonna bless a lot of people so thank you we have like a outro tagline oh yeah um thanks like and

00:47:47.340 | subscribe i guess i have to say that we're really bad at this um yeah like and subscribe and uh tune in

00:47:53.020 | in for the next episode all right see you guys next time

Ep.12 - From Campus to City Church

Chapters