all right welcome to the unofficial official grace this is the other way around i get it mixed up every time the official unofficial grace point podcast where we talk about all things grace point the good the bad and the ugly and today we're gonna be continuing in our series atypical church and we got we got this is gonna be fun it's gonna be fun episode it's our first time having guests so we're pretty excited um so i'll intro them a little bit and then ask them to tell us about themselves a little bit so uh we have with us pastor will and rick from um pastor will it leads our college ministry in the dmv area and rick leads our college ministry in the socal area and um we have a lot of history together steven was with rick for like like your whole life pretty much yeah that's what it feels like you are our class baby yeah yeah i was okay we were me as they were born the year that rick went to went to college entered college and pastor will was already in college at that time so if that tells you a little bit about his age uh pastor will and i we got history too because pastor will led the youth group when i was in it that was like way back in the day um and i was actually supposed to be in a2f it's a little known thing i was supposed to be in a2f oh you were remember because you started recruiting me oh yeah from when i was like a junior in high school and i didn't know what these groups were so i was gonna join a2f and then choice of a life stuff happened another thing that i still haven't forgiven you for yeah because then we would have been together that would have been neat yeah because you were on a2f yeah yeah yeah yeah and then next year kairos and then that's when rick and i oh man and it was like 12 years 10 10 pretty much you were with like i was with rick like under rick in some form for like 12 years yeah except for like one semester so i'm gonna ask them to just tell us a little bit about themselves tell us a little about you guys for um for everyone listening so can you just start off with um your graduating class and your major and a little bit like a two sentence like your spiritual background and how you came to because we're a college ministry we do everything by graduating class yeah that's just how we do it so yeah mandatory questions how about pastor will yeah yeah sure yeah i'll start off um i graduated college in 1991 and i studied economics and after that i worked in um the consulting field for about 10 years um married to esther had two kids uh they're all grown up and so um yeah just really thankful for that my spiritual journey was um i grew up in a non-christian family but my dad became a christian when i was when i was 12 years old so it became we became a church going family after that um i accepted christ at my youth group in um with my family but then i slowly started to fall away because there were a lot of apologetics questions about science and faith that i just couldn't get answered yeah so i left that thinking okay i'll come back to religion later uh but for the time being just wanted to pursue just my dreams academic ambitions for about uh you know for the next 20 30 40 50 years and then when i'm getting ready i'll see god but um when i got to college i i had everything that i wanted but by the time i was a junior in college i started to ask those questions again why am i working so hard what's the purpose of life and that's when i met your dad isaiah and then um asked him a bunch of questions and uh started coming to our church the rest is history there's a funny story of like when you first came to our church and there's like people and people knew you yeah yeah so they're surprised this yeah yeah yeah wait wait oh yeah so i came junior right but i was a frat boy and i had you were a lambda no no i know i was a pineapple you're a pineapple yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so it's a little different full-on motorcycles well yeah yeah yeah yeah they're they're different and i have my opinions but you know okay that's for another podcast i suppose um i i i kind of developed a reputation about myself um in college as a frat boy and when i stepped foot into our church uh several of the sisters came up to me and said what are you doing oh my gosh i was like we're not secret friendly at that time we're not friendly to newcomers and then i just wanted to say um because of god yeah that's a good answer but but but but i knew where they were coming from and believe me i i totally deserved it okay wow yeah that's a lot of humility i actually experienced you when you were like just coming back i think we were freshmen and you're like a senior yeah yeah i didn't i didn't have a very favorable impression just letting you know yeah it was a long time ago it was a long time ago i want to hear more details about that i don't think we have time but okay so maybe rick just yeah your graduating class major and kind of your spiritual story yeah so i graduated in well my class in 94 when i actually graduated is another story but i studied cognitive science and i worked as a software engineer for 20 years before i went full-time and my spiritual background is i grew up in hawaii so i didn't go to church um my parents my family we had some run-ins with some christians so i really had a negative view and i just thought they were all like to be honest idiots okay because yeah it was bad anyway so i came in not looking for church came to college not looking for church but then um i from hawaii this pre-internet guys no internet back then and i had to find housing and so um i arranged for a room a boarding room at a frat and um when my parents went there to move me in they said oh my gosh this place was so filthy they said you're not gonna live here and so then i had to scramble long story short um i ended up getting contacted by our church who had a house full of guys and this is not in the house but uh they one of the guys moved out for you know he had a dorm contract so then he moved out and so the space opened up for me that is the only reason i'm here who did you know from our church or how did you get in contact well we met someone at the housing office when we were looking for housing and my mom being korean started to talk to anyone who's korean started asking them where do you live where do you how did you get your housing and then so they led us to the church and so we called and that's how yeah it was every moment it was on region yeah yeah i came over we played a lot of card games like as our times oh yeah yeah that kind of stuff wow yeah yeah we had we had a we had like six freshmen and a bunch of seniors oh okay cool okay so the reason we wanted to have you guys on today is because today's theme um of today's episode is uh what's changed about our church um we've been around um not necessarily as grace point but basically our church has been around for about 30 years yeah a little over 30 years now um and so obviously a lot is different um but you know we were only around well i was around since 1990 but i wasn't in college ministry until much later right so we wanted to get your guys perspective and basically what we want historical yeah historical prehistorical perspective so we want to get you what are for you guys what are the top three things that you are glad have changed about our church and could be serious could be just kind of random cosmetic things like whatever you want it to be well i'll start because i came in as a non-christian so first time at church you walk in and uh you know i just want to be inconspicuous just kind of attending whatever next thing you know is like they made all the newcomers stand up oh and start introducing yourself to the rest of the church so i'm glad we don't do that anymore yeah yeah what did they make you do they just say you just have to say your name and no you gotta stand up and then yeah yeah so everybody's seated and then the newcomers all stand up yeah and then one by one you just say like what's your name where what are you studying those typical questions and oh yeah and then they all clap for you i'm like okay thank you yeah it's kind of like let us welcome brother rick but then you weren't even a christian wait there was a no yeah yeah there was a total oh yeah yeah i don't think they sang for me but i i heard that before my time oh that was even before your time yeah that that was before my time no yeah yeah when i came uh first thing was to your dad's bible study okay so i came in and this i mean i mean you were in your mother's womb and then um yeah i came in to say hey you know hey we have a newcomer here his name is william and let's let's welcome him and uniformly they all you're standing yeah yeah i'm standing and on cue i don't know how they started singing this song that is welcome brother will let us and i forgot how it goes but i remember standing there feeling wow this is really awkward i'm a frat guy right i'm coming in and i'm not i'm not used to listening to that kind of music you know other type of music right yeah uh but uh it was weird but um i i came because i was hungry for god's word wow and um i loved hearing your dad you were like push through this yeah so it was well it was worth it it was it was worth it pushing through all of that just to hear the word when did we stop doing that when did we stop doing the song because i i don't remember that yeah yeah i think it must have been before you guys so sometime in between yeah yeah okay three years yeah but even afterwards we were still welcoming people yeah i remember the standing because i remember i brought some friends during high school and then we try to make it a little less awkward by having their friends stand up with them oh yeah yeah yeah i remember but then it was really awkward for the person introducing them too so i had to do that for this guy that i had literally just met like a week before that was that was rough and then i forgot i don't want him i don't want to invite anyone to church again yeah it was very while we're on the topic like anything else around those gatherings and services well yeah because well okay so that's a front end so you when you're a newcomer you come into our church you're getting sung to right and then toward the end of service there was this weird thing in which um uh the pastor would say his closing prayer and then he'd have us all stand and then like on mass like everyone knew what to do they all reached down they started holding each other's hands i'm like whoa this is kind of weird right because um you know you do that and then the guy next to you could have really clammy hands and after you come start coming to our church for a while you know who they are yeah you don't want to sit next to them at the beginning of service knowing what's coming at the end oh man right and what really made it awkward was sometimes you know you know you do that with um with you know with girls too and and i'm like whoa you know um this is kind of weird and like okay i get it but sometimes you know um you know a girl comes by and kind of like her and you didn't mind and you know at the beginning if you sit down and you think strategically you kind of like okay well you know what's coming up yeah yeah that's kind of hard to focus on the message and everything yeah yeah exactly exactly and then that's ideal right yeah hold hands and um yeah and yeah just is that why they stopped them yeah well i don't know when we stopped that either but it's like stuff like that happened because of tradition until someone was bold enough to say hey why are we doing this and then we're all like yeah why are we doing this and then we just stop are the is that a korean thing the holding the hands and is that or yeah i don't know because i went to a korean church in high school and i don't remember doing that okay so i think it was just kind of i didn't do that yeah thank the lord we used to do foot washing too we did yeah yeah i've heard of that i didn't know our church did that yeah yeah it was a tradition every new year's eve you did that yeah it happened like twice like it was like pretty pretty special occasions though yeah and so literally you just yeah so um new year's eve you came and you came with your own bucket so you had to bring you bring your own book yeah yeah b-y-o yeah bring your own b-y-o-b means something different and then um and then you know there would be a message and then it's about you know foot washing yeah john 13.

yeah in light of what jesus said right we got to serve and love and everything and um i remember when we did that um your dad would magically disappear yeah yeah he hates stuff like that yeah he hates stuff like that so we're all doing it and i'm like wait where's where's ed because i just knew him as ed back then because he was just a lawyer um but then he would somehow find like some technical issue or some sound and go to the bathroom or something that was really oh i did i actually did not know we did that kind of disgusting oh gosh but you don't remember that no and how did they we probably i'm thankful so you were the cusp of a new generation yeah how can you oh anyways you know okay so so come to think of it um your dad he went to he went to boston to planet church right right and then when he came back that's when he took over the college ministry right and i think that's when he started to change stop a lot of those yeah yeah stop a lot of the things that okay they were kind of nice back in the day i suppose but then we started to ask where he started to ask hey why are we doing this let's yeah if there wasn't a good reason that i can praise the lord i'm very thankful i don't think i would have stayed at our church if we had to it's just one of those things i think yeah yeah wow just just mentally i can't even imagine how how did they pair you up for the foot washing um you have a morbid fascination with this whole topic yeah yeah you just go to the person that you want to yeah and so that makes it worse i think no no yeah it was worse but then here's the thing like you're thinking okay well i gotta submit to this and i gotta humble myself and i have to love like jesus yeah love someone like jesus did and for me it was like okay who do i have a tough time loving it was my my roommate wow and so i'd have to come to him and he come to me there's something powerful about that there is there is so it's a it's a practical way to love your brother humble yourself and humble yourself um but then maybe not the most hygienic yeah or newcomer friendly yeah or or newcomer friendly but um but yeah i i think it was helpful but yeah i think there are other ways to to humble yourself yeah like saying sorry or exactly other things exactly wow okay okay gosh all right well thank you for that okay so we have the we have the weird welcoming tradition we got the holding hands and praying we got the foot washing yeah um were there other things that come to mind what else yeah well i think for me um i think one thing that's definitely changed is the segregation between the genders yeah because um when i came like it was like on one side of the church with all the brothers and on the other side the sisters except when the holding of hands yeah anyways but that's kind of it's in the aisle yeah but when it came to like fellowship time it's pretty much the guys gathered and the girls gathered and um i i i spotted that immediately and i knew it was different it wasn't something that i experienced at my church growing up uh but then i i kind of appreciated that because um there was a kind of a um a reverence or or or respect uh for the other gender and it gave time for relationships uh between between peers of same genders to form and me coming from a fraternity background you know coming in like i i loved it because i could just focus on god right i don't i don't have to worry about the game the drama the game the potential marketplace type values and stuff like that uh so i i i definitely appreciated that yeah you know honestly in the back of my mind i'm like i don't know that's changed i mean it depends on which church well i think during our undergrad days or maybe a little after there was a shift definitely the um segregated seating not that it was ever like a rule but that i remember that did happen yeah but there was a conscious effort like we gotta yeah and then we said okay this is weird guys let's start integrating the seating please and then it would be like one row of brothers on the sister side yeah yeah and then but over time i think that has that aspect at least has gotten better but you know coming from a non-christian perspective i had no preconceived notion of what church was supposed to be like i just thought it's holy it's like this place where you come to you know meet god or whatever so when i first came surprisingly i didn't have a lot of besides the cringy holding hands washing feet stuff like um like in terms of like church i just thought like okay this supposed to be a holy somber kind of place maybe you know you can't you know so you kind of expected yeah i kind of expected a lot but then you know getting to know a lot of my friends who grew up in church and went to church i mean i can tell like they had different issues with like a lot of different things and it was all new to me so i was just like oh what how come they have so many problems yeah it's become with some notions of what you yeah so for me i mean like segregation all of that's like oh okay well i guess you know this is supposed to be like this at church you know you're supposed to focus on god some stuff didn't change yeah no so i mean yeah so i had a lot of those kind of issues like i'm new to church but then it's the church guys who had a lot of different things so that is interesting yeah yeah well now now i i think i know why guys still congregate with guys and girls girls it's because i just like talking to guys we can talk about guy things like sports or you know marvel or whatever and um and i just girls play sports and yeah yeah yeah yeah but man it's just like you know getting together with yeah you know so yeah i get that yeah yeah it it has changed though i think there is more integration i think um uh but yeah it wasn't yeah it was really bad back it was bad i agree yeah well rick i mean was there anything that like you did have issue with like you know it's all new but like you know you're just kind of like yeah i mean well the first thing that comes to mind uh back when um i was a freshman is okay you know i'm i'm from hawaii yeah i made that clear uh i'm used to going to the beach and you know like just that kind of stuff so our church we had our like a rafting trip it was really fun you know it's splashing water and everybody everybody gets wet there's not no one should be dry after rafting and so we're all wet and then you know we have a picnic after and with food and so after uh the rafting my shirt everything is wet so i'm like oh man i gotta take this off so i took it off and i got in line for food because it was normal for you growing up yeah it's like it's a wet shirt why have your shirt on why why are you wearing a wet shirt right and then i got a tap on my shoulder saying um can you please put on your shirt i was like what my shirt's wet and like i know i'm like okay this is weird church yeah so i had to go put on the wet shirt and it was like you know nasty feeling yeah putting back the wet shirt yeah so and it was a little embarrassing that's a little because you got called out because i got called out in line i'm like in line getting food and they're like go put on your shirt i'm like oh what the i'm surprised you came back yeah yeah so yeah yeah that was that was a little shocking and like oh yeah this church it's a little uptight yeah they were uptight about the whole skin thing you know that is a weird thing like still to this day i remember in undergrad i had a friend from another church at berkeley who was like dude i heard i heard grace pointers aren't allowed to go to the beach i was like uh that's not true but it is true that when we go to the beach everyone keeps their shirt on so that is yeah that's a little weird thing about us but you know it's because we are kind of well it's interesting i never encountered that problem because like when i went to the norcal beaches i was like it's cold you know i love going to the beach i love doing like you know same thing but in norcal i was like okay hypothermia yeah it's like 55 years here it came up a little bit you know but but yeah it is yeah i mean you know the issues whoever called you out was probably one in guard a culture of modesty and and just you know but it's weird yeah and for the record like put on a wet shirt for the record our church we don't have an official stance on wearing your shirt at the beach just want to throw that out there i mean my wife's still a little mad about she's she's kind of she's kind of one of these hyper conservatives i think but we went to tahoe one time and you know some freshman guys sophomore guys to say can we take our shirts off i say go for it man and um we still haven't come to an agreement about that one me and my wife but yeah my point is that it varies leader yeah and it does vary the leader yeah yeah freshmen at tahoe that reminds me of the there was a time later on so after all of this i'm thinking like everybody needs to keep the shirt on and we were out there with some freshmen for an outing and your parents like when you were a staff our staff your parents were there with us and then all the freshman guys took off the shirt and they're like running around and i was like oh man and the first thing i did was look at your dad's reaction i was like what is he gonna say and he was totally cool is it on flicker no but i'm thinking like i had to put my shirt on you know these guys are running around without their shirt wow wow yeah you know well i'm from so count so i went to the beach um and uh totally used to you know going to the beach and then you swear bathing suit and everything and um i i remember that that rafting trip oh you remember yeah yeah well i you know i was on a raft we're a raft full of guys and it was so hot i just took my shirt off you know what else are you gonna do wait wait you mean the one where he took his shirt off and he got called out yeah yeah yeah but but then that was at the picnic where there were other people you know just brothers and sisters just everywhere so you put on a yeah i i was on a raft full of guys right there weren't any leaders around i mean of course of course when there's a raft of sisters you know we're just doing this well i mean even if the sister wanted to call you out they can't because they're on the ground so um yeah so i i think i think if someone called me out like that i would have been like what's up because you were still kind of new to our church too yeah yeah i was still kind of new i was a frat guy just unrefined so it seems like it's like it's not just like it's it wasn't the shirt off it's it's the uptightness yeah yeah yeah it's the uptightness and like you know what's the that might be the why what is that well what what's so tight or you know what's the heart everyone does allergic yeah yeah and so it's it's things like that that um okay well i realized okay our church is like this but i'm willing to roll with it because i love i love our church in the sense that i love how i can get god's word everyone's living it out right and there's a sense of holiness and i knew i had to be there and um stuff like that it was just a small price to play uh play pay okay so i so i rolled with it but then now like 10 20 years out i can look back at that and see the wisdom behind you know some of that because you know we don't want to draw attention to ourselves yeah yeah we don't want to stumble others and all that kind of stuff on on that word stumble i heard a really funny story so stumble for people who don't know it's like you know tempting people or like you know yeah yeah you look really attractive whatever right and there's a story of a uh a guy the guy's playing ball and like everyone's there playing yeah and then um and then uh one of the guys is like wearing a cut off tee you know just just no sleeves right and just playing and then one of the person can you go talk to that guy and the guy that i heard the story from he had a quote he went up to go call the guys hey man can you like change your shirt i was like why and he goes oh because you know it's kind of like stumbling you know the guy goes people are stumbled by this like yeah never mind you're good i won't cut off t play basketball i never got called i don't know why i just know some of the people so i remember when i was a youth pastor yeah i took a bunch of high school high high school guys to zion right which included isaiah's brother noah yeah that's hey let's take our shirts off because it was hot yeah so we took it off and we took like these pictures i didn't make it a flicker i mean yeah it's not it's on my hard drive so yeah to this day yeah yeah to this day yeah i have it and you know john vang's there we all know john oh yeah and then he's like yeah and i can see yeah it could he's done depends on who yeah it depends it varies from person to person you i mean he's you can wear a shirt you yeah yeah no i got you but i do feel like yeah i i do feel like for sure we we've improved on this as a church maybe some work to do still but like i do feel like back in the day we kind of expected like non-christians to act like christians a little bit there was a little bit of that going on and uh kind of just not overzealous yeah yeah so then now we're like okay and maybe like it was also you know you're trying to build a culture too because you're a little more hyper vigilant as well so yeah it's like actors too but yeah yeah okay do you guys have any more for us we want to move on to one more topic before we end the show here today okay so we wanted to talk about now some like more recent stuff so that's like that's kind of ancient history for most of our listeners they were not around maybe not even born describing now that i think about it um so we want to talk a little bit about some of the more like recent changes like and i'm talking within like the past five ten years um so um what are maybe if we just i think just throw these out here as a group um we don't really have a system for this but like what are some of like the significant changes that we've made recently and maybe just your thoughts on that um you kind of your reaction and kind of if you thought that was a good or a bad thing and and that so so like i think one thing that stood out to me and this is pretty recent um so i can start us off is the whole sabbath week phenomenon and i think that started like a two years ago year ago year ago i think about a year it started when you guys went out to philly is that was that the first time we yeah yeah yeah so um i mean i think that's like a big thing that i don't know how that even would have come across to your generation when you were our age that might have been like i don't know but it would have kind of been unheard of but basically now once a week as a church we try to build a week where we don't really do like the regular rhythms of ministries so we basically say nothing that requires a meeting or like a planning doc you know um we like spend a night for soul care spend a night just building relationships and hanging out with people spend a night just hanging out with your fellowship in like an unstructured way um and personally i think it's been really good for us it kind of forces us to slow down gives us a breather uh kind of helps our staff to just sort of come back again to like why am i doing this and and connect to jesus again good reset point yeah um so i think that is to me one of the biggest changes that we've made in a very recent one but i think it's helped to kind of offset a lot of um i think just some of the difficulty of doing ministry um where it can feel relentless and it can feel at times like um yeah like we don't make times to just connect you know we don't make times to just like grow in our relationships because we're just doing doing doing so to me that would be one of my top ones what do you guys how do you guys feel about like like what do you guys think about that change about that i think it's really good because back in the day oh man i think well i i can't speak for other people but this is my sentiment that other people thought this way like for me i prided myself on doing a lot of work like i was a business guy i wanted to go to wall street you know they work like crazy are you a type three pastor yeah no actually i'm a type seven yeah yeah so i'm not i'm just kind of confused enneagramically yeah but anyways um like when i heard okay michael milken right he's a wall street guy you guys don't know he worked like 80 to 100 hours left four hours and i thought man if he's gonna do that for money i gotta do that for the lord yeah and so i'm i'm gonna be like okay well let's work let's do this um no one forced me to but that was kind of like my work ethic and that's a sense that i got from the oldies back then but looking back now that i'm older yeah i could i'd be like oh yeah i think that was a little too unhealthy i mean no one was forcing us to do all of that but then that was kind of the culture so i'm really glad to see that things have changed that we're taking this monthly sabbath and i praise god for that yeah and i'm thankful just because like with a lot of church planting and stuff like that like just a lot of the relationships have gone disrupted we feel thinner yeah we feel a little thinner because we've just been i mean you plant a shirt like you send people out to plant church it disrupts a lot relationally i think maybe part of the reason why we were able to run so hard before was like everyone was together and that there's a lot of relationship right and our church because of church planting which is praise god for um there is that cost of relationships thinning right and so like trying to build in um at times so yeah i'm trying not to laugh because i as soon as i said we feel thinner i knew that some people are gonna make comments about that so i already know i'm like why are you smiling okay can i can i get one yeah yeah yeah um i think one of the things that i felt like changed the most since i was a freshman is sort of how open we are to other churches yeah and like for me that's the biggest one actually really because because i like we were always connected so one of the reasons why i stayed at our church and i was really interested because i remember meeting you and you're telling me how pastor is like really good friends with jp moreland yeah and jp moreland is one of my heroes in high school oh yeah yeah he's being your vineyard vineyard he was vineyard and then like my my mentor was getting me into apologetics and then i was like this church is apologetics and so i was like blown away so like i was blown away by how many people were connected to whether it was like yeah um jp moreland josh mcdowell sean mcdowell like william mccraig some of these guys so we've always been connected but we've always been under the radar because we don't want to attract attention to ourselves we just want to like be faithful right but now it's like i mean set network college collaborate like just i can name so many things where i'm really open and so i just want to get your guys's thoughts on on that like i mean have some thoughts but my thoughts on that yeah just like do you see that as as a change that's happened and yeah yeah i think so i think we're very i mean i think we thought of ourselves as like very small you know and um we're just kind of doing our own thing yeah and it was just when we first started it was just berkeley right so it's like we never thought of ourselves as anything more than that and then um never thought about like this becoming a net like a nation yeah no and then i think for me it was i mean like getting guest speakers and things like that it was always cool because like you know you could name drop people or something like oh so and so was at our church but um still i i think the thing that really got my eyes open a little bit was collaborative and it was these other people who kind of visited our church other college ministries yeah they're looking at college ministries and they saw something and they wanted to sort of make a big deal out of it by having a conference and like having us share our story and how we're doing things and um and honestly like i said this is the theme i i was in church so this is the only church that i've known yeah right and so kind of seeing other churches and hearing from them and kind of their challenges and what they're going through and then their willingness or wanting to learn like what how we do things and what what we're doing i was just like wow that was that was kind of eye-opening for me yeah it's like oh it's not like this everywhere else you know it's there's it's very different and we have something that maybe they're interested in yeah yeah yeah so for those of you don't know college collaborative um it's a conference of collegiate church planting churches and we gathered so yeah share knowledge yeah and it's getting inspired by each other commission board yeah and there was a guy there who was like really trying to get a lot of these college missions together to share knowledge and just like you know build a movement basically of like collegiate focused church planting was really cool um eventually it just kind of stopped it coven and stuff yeah coven and things like that and just um um no one to like really organize that but um but we're still connected to those churches i think we've learned a lot super from them and as much as they've learned from us too and some of those guys they still text here and there oh yeah what's going on yeah i mean we we still keep in touch with all of them steal their ideas oh yeah they have a lot of good things that we're trying to incorporate yeah yeah you know and and vice versa i guess and so it's been good in that way yeah and so to that end like i think like once we appreciated what we had i mean i came in because you know from other children wow this is amazing right but just being able to see now us kind of opening and and seeing like wow god's given something really special precious and we want to bless other people with it and i mean for me like even just like doing inner high which is where we go out to other you know ethnic under-resourced churches and do like youth service for them because all these youth don't have their own service their own language like i came from a church like that and so like when we started that passover when you started like and i was part of that niche you know like in 2010 2009 and um that was just like i was so thankful for that and and it's my favorite ministry yeah yeah it's my favorite ministry and i just just because that's where i grew up and and i know how hard it was and i think that's also showed people like it's not it's really not about us yeah it's it's just we want to see the kingdom of god expand right and i think it's blessed a lot of people yeah and so that's what i mean even now like your dad you know we got in touch with him and he's connecting us in socal yeah yeah with like all of these other churches i did youth retreats for his home church and stuff so yeah so i mean it's been a blessing for us because like we get to go out there and like you know for some people who it just reignites their heart for yeah youth ministry this is tough for them yeah like they're like doing it on their own it's not like us yeah and they're so appreciative of like even anything that we do for them so yeah and i think uh just the the whole aspect of like partnering with kind of other campus ministries too i think we were i kind of think this was a weakness of ours back in the day where we kind of not that we weren't open to that but we didn't prioritize that yeah kind of just did our own thing um for whatever reasons and i think that's the way we've grown too just like being more open to that more friendly honestly like hey we're here let's meet let's talk so i think for us uh year one church plan is doing that in philly like meeting the local nam and send guys has been a huge blessing shout out to you know like stan williams and kyle kanti and these guys yeah brian messer and then just like the other christian groups on campus so like you know we we do a lot with like fca at the penn campus and i think i don't know i just think that didn't occur to us before but super thankful just that we're kind of doing more of that and getting involved in that way so yeah yeah um yeah any others any others you guys want to throw out there like kind of changes that we made in the reason yeah i think um one thing that i've seen change a lot is just the amount of uh input that um that we're getting and asking for uh because back in the day and maybe this is because i was very low on the totem pole not high up but it always seems that the the the that the leadership like they went up to a mountain right and then god spoke to them yeah and then they came down and like thus saith the lord this is what we're going to do at a church and then we're like okay let's roll yeah and then there wasn't any input or any opportunity or as much to give feedback or to like um ask questions about about okay you know can we get more clarification but now things are like so different um and because i know it's a reflection of like your dad and your mom i say that because they're they're hungry for data right i mean data is really important they need more information and it's important that uh we especially you know when when the overseers make decisions about our church uh that we get input from everyone not just amongst ourselves but from uh the leads the full-time leads the uh the campus leads even from staff and students even yeah and we're we're regularly polling you know through like google forms hey what do you think about this can we get your feedback on this i've seen um you know there's there's that anonymous email channel that that that that that pastor red put up and um anyone can could could write into that um as well as that vine or combo that we have as well yeah just kind of internal yeah and i've seen and i've seen like pastor and kelly they're they're regularly talking to people outside of our church to get uh some input or some feedback about us about you know uh what decisions or directions that we need to go and so that has definitely changed a lot yeah i mean dramatically i mean to add to that is the q a times that we have with them too i mean they have so many almost after for for a season last semester i remember even with the college students right i mean we would have a q a times and they'd ask every yeah we did q a at philly too yeah from from from the actual message to just about our church and everything so i think yeah that that's been a really positive change i feel like i had a related one um just kind of getting like people involved younger um so like getting our students involved in more things getting them to help like plan things yeah because we used to be a little shaolin temple yeah i appreciated that shaolin temple but then i think if i if i wasn't burnt out coming as a freshman i'd be like this just don't let me do anything like that's why i thought you were going to leave i was like i just need to do nothing yeah i remember that yeah we're lucky but yeah no because i think back in the day it was sort of like you have to like you don't have to quite be jesus but you have to kind of be like almost apostle paul if you're going to serve in any capacity in our church that was sort of our mentality um so we've chilled out on that a little bit uh so i'm thankful for that because i think i think we benefited from that and people grow faster as a result yeah yeah i just want to say like as a maybe it's wrapped that one up it's that's a challenge for like every organization to to get that kind of what is happening on the ground that kind of and feedback can do that well and um we we have our challenges and things like that but i do think it's something we continue to grow and just creating that space for that to happen in a really constructive way so i'm thankful for that too yeah yeah well i think we are almost out of time here so i'm going to just rattle off a couple other things that i think are important that they've changed and then feel free to throw some out more but uh i think it's significant that we don't turn in wrs anymore that's something we just need reflections weekly reflections we don't we still do them but we don't turn them in and that was just it was just one of those things that a lot of people just felt weird about and i think just given sort of some cultural shifts that we were maybe a little slow to recognize we figured okay it's best to not do that anymore well i mean a certain level of leadership we still do just because like among that that's right it's like yeah you know that's that is part of our full-time it's just needed yeah and to be honest i hate sitting down to write it i hate it it's the pastor of our church everybody pastor of our church overseer every week i'm like why okay so but then i just obey yeah and then at the end of an hour and a half two hours i'm feeling like oh man i'm really glad i did yeah yeah i'm so glad i did that so there's something really about yeah yeah yeah i mean exactly so there's so much that happens you know and i think for me like just sitting down makes you kind of think like okay my memory is going so i have to kind of sit down and and kind of go okay what happened last week yeah yeah we live like a month and a week yeah yeah because if i don't do that then i'm just back in the saddle i'm going you know 60 70 80 miles per hour and it's another week of just going strong yeah without getting that oh man i'm really thankful how god worked in my life kind of moment i mean i think that would be dangerous i'm really thankful for wr although i still hate it i'm gonna hate it wait what day is it today i don't know it's a thursday thursday yeah i'm gonna hate it monday i'll be thankful monday after yeah yeah but i do think some of the changes have made like you know that structure is good but then also now okay i don't have that structure so how do i continue to keep up with like and keep in and stay in touch with the people and get connected what's going on their life for me it's made me try like recognizing the weakness and me being like relational that way and so it's forced me to grow in that way too so it's you emphasize different things in different seasons right yeah sure so yeah yeah yeah all right i think that's all i had actually yeah do you have any last ones to add um any ones to throw out i do have one last one it might be a little bit long a little bit this one is just one that i feel but like um i feel like it's important to bring up though because i do think like how we approach um family like like parents you know okay because you know in college that time where you're becoming more independent you're gonna become an adult and so there's that natural separation from parents and stuff like that and like i remember in undergrad hearing a lot of testimonies about people like going like wow like i need to stay to grow spiritually right and if i go back home where there's no church there's no like community whatever like that'll be like spiritually really difficult and so a lot of testimonies i heard were like that which is sort of like man even though it really disappointed my parents like i wanted to stay you know and and um i i had it easy out because my parents kicked me out of the house they're like go leave so castle when they asked me i want to come back i was like no you kicked me out you know it was still hard though for them but like now a lot of the testaments i hear is like he's good with his parents by the way yeah they come over all the time so thankful for them yeah but um but just like yeah like now it's a lot of like how do we love our parents together i think part of that has to do with our church's aging right and so like yeah even just a couple weeks ago i told my mom like she was over helping me watch my kid and i was like mom you know i get sick and old you're gonna stay with me you know and she was it doesn't matter how busy i am like you can stay with me right and that i feel like that's a shift is that right would you guys agree and or is that kind of what what your parents just that the the kind of testimonies or just that i mean i know your mom my mom yeah that's true with me since yeah since 2000 that's true so um yeah that's yeah but i think as as we get older yeah right i think we realize um i mean for my family i mean they're not christian but then because of my commitments they sort of you know moved out of hawaii came here my mom moved in with me and then um from there she started coming out to our church the korean department and then um she became a christian through that so so there was that blessing and then you know what else is she gonna do with her life so she spent a lot of time babysitting you know raising she she watched our yeah yeah i mean she has like a long list of all the kids some of them are in college now but you know that that she's watched and so she got really connected and i i imagine like if it wasn't for that i think she would have been um pretty lonely and isolated because like growing up we didn't have like a lot of friends outside of our immediate family yeah because we're so busy so yeah so i feel like i'm hearing more and more stories like that and maybe it's just age where it's like becoming a blessing to our family yeah right yeah i think what we got better at or more aware of is that oh you know we really need to disciple people in this area i think before we would kind of assume that people were taking care of people knew how to like children like birthdays yeah as leadership we realize oh people are not doing that and they're not good at that a lot of times and so i was i was terrible yeah it's like we need to push people to actually love their families and i don't know i think maybe some of us thought that was sort of a given but realizing oh so bad yeah we gotta help people do that yeah yeah i think um i think definitely there has been an increase in uh in gaining wisdom right about how to love your parents because boy you know i i know that um i've said stuff like hey you gotta call your parents more hey why don't you go spend time with your parents because of you know for various reasons and depending upon the person yeah you have to spend more time or pay more attention to your parents but then there might be another person who might be a little bit too attached to their parents maybe emotionally and even financially but then the grown adults and maybe for the sake of like that person's marriage you know just you know just a little bit more independence you know healthier independence is better and so you could speak into that a little bit but then so i i'd like to say just wisdom with regard to parents how to best i like love your parents because it might be pulling back it might be moving toward yeah yeah it's it's really difficult yeah it's really difficult yeah it's hard to navigate yeah yeah yeah yeah wow okay i think we got to wrap up but i want to thank you guys so much for joining us today our first guests yeah our podcast all right she does more often this is great yeah we should then we have to talk less but i i think just to kind of wrap up final final thought here i i do think like the point of today is not to be like oh pat ourselves on the back look we figured it all out like i think totally as a church we're still figuring things out you know there's still room to grow but like we're not the same people that we were 10 years ago we're not the same church we were 10 years ago and i think it's appropriate to to take note of that and to and and to have that help us like think through like yeah how can we continue to change and grow and just be the best church we can be you know and that's our goal so um yeah i just wanted to end with that note in case it came off that way i guess for our listeners so yeah yeah yeah so if anything we said today helped other churches out there or yeah even just like yeah with even within our church you know grow and stuff and thankful for it so yeah so um like and subscribe i gotta say that every week and we will see you guys next time yeah let's do this again maybe at the beach you know