WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.220
 So where exactly has Ray been these days? That's a great question. I'm glad you asked. Hey, this is

00:00:06.220 --> 00:00:13.600
 Jeff with the Church Digital Podcast. Once again, it's powered by Stadia Church Planting. And I am

00:00:13.600 --> 00:00:20.580
 excited to have this conversation. Ray DeArmas has been a great friend. And if I say over the decades,

00:00:20.580 --> 00:00:26.880
 that is not an overstatement. He's been a phenomenal friend over the years. And I literally

00:00:26.880 --> 00:00:33.560
 cannot imagine life or more specifically, the Church Digital Podcast. I cannot imagine

00:00:33.560 --> 00:00:41.720
 TCDP without Ray DeArmas. And some things have been going on. And rather than even talking about

00:00:41.720 --> 00:00:46.240
 it in this interview, and in hearing what's going on in Ray in his heart, I was like, hey,

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 we got to pause and we got to bring it in here and do a podcast conversation, do an episode

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 centered around this. Ray, if you don't know Ray, if you don't even my story, I was

00:00:56.820 --> 00:01:03.060
 digital pastor at Christ Fellowship Miami for a number of years, a number of different roles

00:01:03.060 --> 00:01:09.980
 covering multiple decades almost through the church. Actually, I was just counting the years

00:01:09.980 --> 00:01:14.820
 in my head and it's been a while, but digital pastor, experience director. And honestly, when

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 I left Christ Fellowship Miami, a church that's dear to my heart, literally was my home church,

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 the church that I accepted Christ, the church that I grew up in. As I walked away from ministry

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 in 2018, seeing where God was leading me in a different road, it hurt, but it was something

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 for me that I was excited to do because I knew that leaders were left behind, were able to

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 run with this. Guys like Ray DeArmas, guys like Garrett Silji, who's actually doing the editing

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 for these podcast episodes that we release out. And so I knew that leaders were going to rise

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 up for the occasion. And so Ray DeArmas has been a campus pastor there for a number of years,

00:01:51.340 --> 00:01:56.740
 digital pastor there for a number of years. And well, you know what, I'm going to let him

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 dig into this and really talk about what's going on.

00:02:00.920 --> 00:02:06.200
 So literally for this conversation, I'm bringing in Ray DeArmas, digital pastor,

00:02:06.460 --> 00:02:11.260
 Christ Fellowship Miami, and myself, Jeff with the Church Digital and director of digital church

00:02:11.260 --> 00:02:16.260
 planning for Stadia Church Planting in a conversation that I'm simply calling,

00:02:16.860 --> 00:02:19.580
 hey, what exactly is going on with Ray DeArmas?

00:02:20.440 --> 00:02:24.420
 Okay, everybody, here you go. What's been going on in your life? What's the story?

00:02:24.920 --> 00:02:30.980
 Yeah, so I recently stepped away from employment at Christ Fellowship Miami. I stepped away from being

00:02:30.980 --> 00:02:38.800
 the digital pastor for good. I don't want to just say for now, you know, for good. But what I did was

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 I actually went back to school to become a physician assistant or what is actually the title of the

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 position is actually being changed recently to physician associate. And so it's a two and a half year

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 program. It's 27 months. And really with the goal of making this like my full time employment for the

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 next some odd years, as God will have me in this position. And so it's a big change. It's a big

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 shift, especially since I've been in part, I've been in part of paid ministry for the better part of

00:03:10.620 --> 00:03:16.540
 maybe like 15 years now, 15 or 16 years, 10 years at Christ Fellowship or 10 or 11 years at Christ

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 Fellowship, and then four years at Miami Baptist Church and then volunteering in between in and out there

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 in different churches in different positions. But yeah, I just recently made a big shift. And so

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 that's what I'm doing.

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 You know, that's you've spent 15 years of your life. By the way, congratulations. You know, I'm sorry.

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 You know, I've loved you in the ministry role. I've loved you in that position.

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 You've been, you know, one of the top digital pastors, and this is not just me talking, but you've been one of

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 the top digital pastors really in the country on how you've been focusing on ministry and doing this.

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 You've got 15 years in ministry career. You've got a

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 MDiv. Like what's your seminary degree from Southern, right?

00:04:00.760 --> 00:04:04.300
 Yeah, it's from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Yeah. Shout out to Russell Moore,

00:04:04.540 --> 00:04:10.660
 one of my fave professors. Guy was just incredible. And so many folks there. Yeah,

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 it was just awesome. But yeah, I mean, so I had a lot vested in this. So it was good.

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 And then like you're shifting, you're actually going back to school to study, to be this physician,

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 associate type of role in two years of your life, right, is now into like studying the medicine

00:04:29.740 --> 00:04:36.340
 behind this and the techniques of it. Like what's the motivation behind some of this shift? Like

00:04:36.340 --> 00:04:42.640
 you've got 15 plus years heading in one direction and it's like it's a pivot. And it's not like it's

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 a casual pivot where, oh, I'm going to go be an accountant and I'll just count beans or something.

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 Like you're having to go back to school to learn how to do this stuff. So like that's not an easy

00:04:54.540 --> 00:05:01.840
 road. What's motivating you to do this? Yeah. So most people don't know who listen to the podcast

00:05:01.840 --> 00:05:09.100
 that we've done for so long would know that my undergrad, I was pre-med and I actually have a

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 bachelor's in science and health sciences. But even then, part of my motivations for going in

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 the ministry was really about helping people. That was kind of the first and foremost thing that I

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 really enjoy doing. And I think that gets me going at the beginning and the end of the day is helping

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 people. And especially in ministry, discipling people and working with people a lot in a one-on-one

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 situation. And even in like a one-to-crowd situation, it's fine too, but really just kind of working with

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 people and helping people has been a prime motivator. And when I got into ministry, that's

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 primarily what I thought was going to be the majority of it. The reality is, is like after 15 years of

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 ministry, I started to notice that things kind of shifted and changed. And that's not just working

00:05:51.880 --> 00:05:56.360
 at Christ Fellowship. That's other churches that I've been part of and I shifted to that it became less

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 about developing and discipling like individuals and more about, and there's nothing wrong with this,

00:06:02.160 --> 00:06:07.020
 equipping people to do, you know, volunteer work and do stuff that's much larger, but it was less of the

00:06:07.020 --> 00:06:11.540
 things that really got me jazzed and motivated. And it was a lot more of that. And so, you know,

00:06:11.580 --> 00:06:15.560
 for some of those reasons for years, this wasn't like an immediate shift. This was something that

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 had been going on for about three or four years of my life, just thinking through and just kind of

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 working with stuff. And it was, it was tough. You know, there'd be times where I would butt heads

00:06:23.680 --> 00:06:28.520
 with leaders or, or go through things, you know, that kind of called me away from some of those

00:06:28.520 --> 00:06:34.540
 things that I enjoy doing. And, and it became more about kind of the big and less about, you know,

00:06:34.660 --> 00:06:40.520
 discipling the small. And that became a point of frustration for me. And so, and, and really I

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 started to question, I started to ask, well, why is this bothering me? What's going on inside? And so

00:06:44.080 --> 00:06:48.680
 just in talking with family and just talking about what my gifting is and what I enjoy doing,

00:06:48.680 --> 00:06:53.440
 my family started to ask, they're like, Hey, so if you kind of know that this is what that is,

00:06:53.700 --> 00:06:59.300
 what, what that, what that career path is, then why don't you make a shift? You know, before you,

00:06:59.360 --> 00:07:03.580
 you pursued, you know, medicine, because you saw this as a possibility, because you saw how you could

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 care for individuals, because you saw how you could do that and why not consider shifting back? And so

00:07:08.140 --> 00:07:13.760
 starting back a couple of years ago, I started to take some prerequisite classes. I started to get

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 reinterested. I started doing some shadowing hours in the ER and I really fell in love with

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 medicine again, and with the ability to make an impact on life. And mind you, even prior to that,

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 I had led medical mission trips where we would go, you know, share the gospel in El Salvador.

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 And I would watch my sister, who's a physician assistant go out and like minister to people.

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 And I would watch some of the other doctors and nurses do it. And I would just think to myself,

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 I would be like, you know, I can tell them about Jesus in this moment. They are showing them

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 Jesus, you know, not just through tangible healing, but really just through providing something to them

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 that they can't get from somebody that is just telling them something. This person is showing

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 them the love of God by imparting this, you know, medical knowledge to them, but also they are sharing

00:08:00.200 --> 00:08:04.840
 the gospel with them in a verbal kind of setting. And I thought, man, I would like to be part of

00:08:04.840 --> 00:08:05.620
 something like that again.

00:08:05.620 --> 00:08:06.080
 Wow.

00:08:06.220 --> 00:08:10.420
 So is that, and you mentioned your sister as part of like being the, one of these medical

00:08:10.420 --> 00:08:16.420
 associates, the physician associates, um, was, was that like the, the drive to get back into the

00:08:16.420 --> 00:08:20.640
 medical field? Like you've got lots of different options. You know, I, I've, I've actually heard

00:08:20.640 --> 00:08:29.260
 several pastors in, in recent areas leaving the pastor full-time staff ministry to head more towards,

00:08:29.260 --> 00:08:35.200
 uh, real estate and have seen several begin. The reason why is because they're seeing it be much

00:08:35.200 --> 00:08:41.380
 more relational and able to connect and meet with people. Why, why medical? Why'd you choose that field?

00:08:41.380 --> 00:08:47.680
 I, you know, I, I love it. Uh, so, you know, uh, I think that's kind of the funny thing about it is

00:08:47.680 --> 00:08:52.840
 that I love, I love medicine, like in that kind of side of it. I enjoy science. I'm a science, you know,

00:08:52.900 --> 00:08:58.560
 geek at the heart of it. But at the same time, uh, one of the things that I really enjoy about it is that

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 it's, it's something I can do from anywhere. Uh, you know, uh, it's something that I can impart to anybody

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 and really kind of make an impact. And so it doesn't matter if it's here in the United States,

00:09:07.280 --> 00:09:12.240
 it doesn't matter if it's on medical missions in another country, it's a way that I can make an impact.

00:09:12.240 --> 00:09:17.400
 And it's a tool that the Lord can leverage, uh, you know, in order to do that. And so that was something

00:09:17.400 --> 00:09:23.520
 that we saw early on. And, you know, I said, man, I'm gifted for this. I can do this. And at the same

00:09:23.520 --> 00:09:28.040
 time, uh, I can have a lot of fun doing it and work with teams. And the other thing is, is, you know,

00:09:28.040 --> 00:09:34.140
 when I shadowed my sister in the ER and this was pre COVID, um, when I shadowed Bridget in the ER,

00:09:34.140 --> 00:09:41.780
 I saw the team come together in a way to help people that I, I really didn't see in a whole lot

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 of other environments, including sadly enough, the local church. Like I saw people come around a plan

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 to help an individual, you know what I'm saying? With placing them at the highest concern,

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 which to me was just something that was so invigorating, you know, that I said, wow,

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 this is something I can get with. This is something I could find purpose in.

00:10:00.080 --> 00:10:03.880
 And at the same time, it's a place where the love of God is needed because especially with

00:10:03.880 --> 00:10:08.840
 medical health professionals and coming out of COVID, it can be a very dark environment. It can

00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:13.840
 be very, very difficult in terms of what they deal with in and out day after day. You know,

00:10:14.100 --> 00:10:18.340
 one of Jeff's favorite shows and one of my favorite shows is the show Scrubs. And if any of you have

00:10:18.340 --> 00:10:24.320
 never seen this show, uh, you need to go on Amazon prime right now. It's free. And Scrubs actually

00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:29.220
 has been awarded by the American medical association. It's like the most accurate medical show. Now,

00:10:29.220 --> 00:10:32.280
 first of all, the show is hilarious. And so you could, you should watch it for the comedy. It's

00:10:32.280 --> 00:10:37.320
 Bill Lawrence at his finest, but the other side of it is just showing the other side of medicine,

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 which is very much the relational side. And for doctors and nurses, it can be very, it can be a

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 very, very difficult thing when you're dealing with life and death on a regular basis. It can be a

00:10:45.100 --> 00:10:50.660
 very hard place, a very emotional rollercoaster kind of a place. And so the light has to shine bright

00:10:50.660 --> 00:10:54.200
 in the darkest places. And one of those places is in the medical field.

00:10:54.680 --> 00:10:57.440
 Wow. There's a lot of depth there. First off, if you're watching on YouTube,

00:10:57.440 --> 00:11:04.540
 here is the JD and Dr. Cox Funko bobblehead pops right here on YouTube, on the video.

00:11:04.540 --> 00:11:05.300
 You need a Turk one.

00:11:05.400 --> 00:11:09.700
 Right there. I do need a Turk one. It's, it's on the list, but I kind of collect them in pairs.

00:11:10.060 --> 00:11:15.400
 And Turk was like the odd man out, but coming soon. Uh, it's, it's interesting. Sarah Chalk,

00:11:15.480 --> 00:11:17.260
 what is it? Dr. Reed on the show?

00:11:17.500 --> 00:11:17.900
 Dr. Elliot Reed.

00:11:18.040 --> 00:11:21.540
 Yeah. Like, like they, they don't have one. And so it's like, what, what, why don't you like

00:11:21.540 --> 00:11:23.080
 the ladies? But anyway, sorry.

00:11:23.220 --> 00:11:27.340
 Oh no, they need a Jordan one. They need a Carla one. No, no, no, no, no. We need the,

00:11:27.620 --> 00:11:29.860
 they have a janitor at least, right? Is there a janitor?

00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:31.160
 Oh my gosh.

00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:33.840
 No, there has to be a janitor.

00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:34.580
 Not the janitor.

00:11:34.620 --> 00:11:35.680
 No, that's a rip off.

00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:40.000
 That's the one that you need right there. And we, we can relive scrubs all day long. By the way,

00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:45.600
 I would pause. I don't know if it's Bill Lawrence's, uh, best. You said it was his best work. I don't

00:11:45.600 --> 00:11:45.860
 know.

00:11:46.060 --> 00:11:48.580
 Oh, you're, you're going with Ted Lasso? You're, you're, you're going with Ted?

00:11:48.680 --> 00:11:53.080
 Part of me is kind of feeling it. I'm, I'm, I'm seeing where scrubs really got kind of like

00:11:53.080 --> 00:11:56.700
 network controlled and, and went in some different directions. It kind of went.

00:11:56.700 --> 00:12:00.780
 Oh, season nine is trash. Season nine is trash. You gotta, you gotta abandon season nine,

00:12:00.840 --> 00:12:01.880
 but at one through eight.

00:12:01.880 --> 00:12:06.380
 And that's, that's kind of why I'm liking like this doctor or not Dr. Lasso, but Ted Lasso,

00:12:06.460 --> 00:12:09.940
 because it's really, it's isolated. And I feel like Apple's kind of giving them

00:12:09.940 --> 00:12:14.300
 space. And listen, we can have this conversation all day long. And maybe this is like the post

00:12:14.300 --> 00:12:20.340
 podcast, the after show, uh, that, that we will, we will do once I press stop. That's where we'll

00:12:20.340 --> 00:12:24.820
 really have, uh, you know, that conversation, but really what you're describing.

00:12:24.820 --> 00:12:25.400
 Stay tuned, folks.

00:12:25.400 --> 00:12:31.820
 Definitely. What you're describing here is, is really the, the heart behind engaging with people

00:12:31.820 --> 00:12:39.360
 and, and doing ministry. Like, and it's funny, even in the subsequent conversations that, that I've,

00:12:39.400 --> 00:12:44.040
 that I've had with you over the weeks since this has kind of rolled out and been public,

00:12:44.040 --> 00:12:49.200
 and you've been actively pursuing this in school and things like that. I mean, you, you're saying

00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:53.960
 terms like, yeah, I've got to go be Jesus for this person or, you know, and, and it's been

00:12:53.960 --> 00:13:01.660
 in terms, even in your day to day life of, of ministry, not of school, not of activities,

00:13:01.660 --> 00:13:08.560
 but being the church within the college, within the university, within the classes, within the

00:13:08.560 --> 00:13:12.920
 hallways of what you're doing in this context. And you're studying to actually do the thing that

00:13:12.920 --> 00:13:20.800
 you're doing instead of like actually doing it. Um, is, was that, was that a hard, I'm figuring

00:13:20.800 --> 00:13:26.060
 out how to ask this question delicately. Like, was that a culture shift for you? Was it hard

00:13:26.060 --> 00:13:32.300
 for you to take that mentality? Um, is that something that, that you were doing in a church

00:13:32.300 --> 00:13:37.880
 staff world? Was that lost in the church staff world? I just would love some insight, how you're

00:13:37.880 --> 00:13:46.260
 pivoting and now being much more, um, relational to a person in being that, as opposed to, I mean,

00:13:46.260 --> 00:13:52.340
 let's, let's be fair, larger churches, you're, you're managing systems. You're, you're not to an

00:13:52.340 --> 00:13:58.140
 individual as much as making sure that the overall flow is working effectively. What's that transition

00:13:58.140 --> 00:14:04.120
 been like? So I think you'll appreciate this, Jeff. Um, so, you know, I'll kind of enter into it. I,

00:14:04.120 --> 00:14:10.020
 I wondered and prayed through how I would kind of find my way into a lot of this in terms of mission

00:14:10.020 --> 00:14:15.720
 and how it would work. And sure enough, God does his thing where he opens a door and he's gifted you

00:14:15.720 --> 00:14:23.280
 in ways that you may not understand. Right. So, um, so I walk into class and I'm doing my thing in

00:14:23.280 --> 00:14:27.300
 orientation and trying to feel my way around. And honestly, like I'm a puppy amongst pit bulls. Like

00:14:27.300 --> 00:14:31.440
 they've got people there with a lot more medical experience and a lot of, a lot of background, a lot of

00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:36.920
 things that I've never done. Like this is a privilege and a half for me. I'm one of 50 applicants that got

00:14:36.920 --> 00:14:42.200
 accepted after the thousands of applicants they get every year for this particular program. So that's,

00:14:42.260 --> 00:14:48.940
 that's a blessing in and of itself. But so as I go in, uh, you know, it comes the announcement

00:14:48.940 --> 00:14:52.960
 because there's a lot of good conversation amongst classmates. Like we've got a WhatsApp chat and

00:14:52.960 --> 00:14:57.880
 they're like, Hey, we need a technology officer. So I think to myself, I'm gifted for this. Here's my

00:14:57.880 --> 00:15:03.100
 inroads. Here we go. And they're like, uh, so I just volunteer. I'm like, Hey, I can do this. I can

00:15:03.100 --> 00:15:07.720
 be the guy who is our tech officer. And they're like, okay, Ray volunteered for this. Uh, they give

00:15:07.720 --> 00:15:11.460
 me a little bit of training and it turns out that they already have technology in the classroom that

00:15:11.460 --> 00:15:16.920
 records all of our classes. Well, uh, I want to take it a step further. So I start taking all the

00:15:16.920 --> 00:15:23.120
 recordings and I rip the audio and I put it up on podcast. And so all of our lectures are available

00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:28.180
 on Spotify, Apple podcasts. And I begin submitting that out to my classmates. Well, the next thing,

00:15:28.220 --> 00:15:31.620
 you know, the upperclassmen get word, the people who are a year ahead of us in the program. And

00:15:31.620 --> 00:15:36.980
 they're like, wait a minute, this guy does what? And now they're asking, and now they're being

00:15:36.980 --> 00:15:40.760
 impacted by me. And then the next thing, you know, relationships just start building. And they're

00:15:40.760 --> 00:15:44.480
 like, so what did you do prior to this? And I'm like, well, I was a pastor at a church.

00:15:44.480 --> 00:15:50.100
 They're like, are you serious? And I'm like, yes, I was a digital strategist and an online pastor

00:15:50.100 --> 00:15:54.900
 at Christ Fellowship. And this is our church and this is what we do. And all of a sudden it becomes,

00:15:55.280 --> 00:16:00.720
 oh man, you know, I've been thinking about Jesus and it just creates conversation out of nowhere

00:16:00.720 --> 00:16:05.880
 conversation that I didn't wear Christian, Christian t-shirts to school. Nobody saw any church bumper

00:16:05.880 --> 00:16:12.180
 stick or anything like that on my car. It just creates obvious inroads to conversation. Um,

00:16:12.180 --> 00:16:16.600
 other sides that have kind of come up on stuff. And Jeff, you and I were talking about this earlier,

00:16:17.020 --> 00:16:21.060
 folks will get a good or a bad test grade. And the next thing you know, because these folks are high

00:16:21.060 --> 00:16:27.620
 achievers, I mean, high, high achievers, it gets them knocked down a peg. And so I find myself having

00:16:27.620 --> 00:16:31.740
 to be the Ted Lasso of my classroom, having to like go and like pick them up and say, Hey, we got to be a

00:16:31.740 --> 00:16:36.460
 goldfish, you know, like, look, you're, you were here for a purpose. And, and I really believe that

00:16:36.460 --> 00:16:41.480
 you genuinely have a reason for being here. This isn't just because you're smart, like you're here

00:16:41.480 --> 00:16:46.040
 because they could have chosen anybody else, but there's a reason that you were here. You need to

00:16:46.040 --> 00:16:51.700
 clue into that. You have a purpose and it becomes larger existential conversations where I get to be

00:16:51.700 --> 00:16:55.860
 the encourager, where I get to be the person who gets to be the light to them in that kind of moment,

00:16:55.860 --> 00:17:01.100
 where all of a sudden I'm essentially reciting Bible verses to them, even though I'm not giving

00:17:01.100 --> 00:17:06.440
 them references, helping them understand their calling and helping them understand their purpose

00:17:06.440 --> 00:17:11.000
 in it so that they're not giving up. And mind you, we're only six weeks into this program.

00:17:11.800 --> 00:17:16.380
 And so God, I can already see how God has a purpose in that and how he's using it.

00:17:16.860 --> 00:17:22.320
 And wherever it goes next, I can already see that this was already the right move.

00:17:22.500 --> 00:17:25.620
 So how many F-bombs have you got? You're, you're walking around,

00:17:25.720 --> 00:17:29.460
 you're telling people you're a pastor, you're quoting scripture without quoting scripture.

00:17:30.020 --> 00:17:35.700
 We live in Miami, which is by far like the opposite end of the Bible belt,

00:17:35.740 --> 00:17:38.780
 at least in the general spectrum of call it Western civilization.

00:17:40.320 --> 00:17:45.060
 So in a lot of, you know, Catholicism and things down, down here, down here in Miami with Latin

00:17:45.060 --> 00:17:49.780
 culture. So, I mean, surely somebody has got to be upset, right? How have you kind of handled those,

00:17:49.880 --> 00:17:50.460
 those conversations?

00:17:50.560 --> 00:17:54.860
 You know, I've yet to run into one of those just yet because the program encourages diversity

00:17:55.580 --> 00:17:59.240
 of thought points and viewpoints and that kind of thing across the board.

00:17:59.700 --> 00:18:02.380
 And so that's something that we've all kind of had to learn how to comment and accept.

00:18:02.580 --> 00:18:07.460
 But the one thing that I always make sure and kind of recognize is the person who looks like

00:18:07.460 --> 00:18:12.000
 they'd be furthest from like my standpoint or viewpoint, that's the person that I've chosen

00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:18.520
 to befriend first, you know, just to make sure that people understand and know that I'm not going to

00:18:18.520 --> 00:18:20.460
 push it away against them.

00:18:20.520 --> 00:18:23.480
 In fact, as I was being interviewed for the program, you know, that, that was one of their

00:18:23.480 --> 00:18:25.940
 concerns was, Hey, listen, we've welcomed people of different backgrounds.

00:18:26.140 --> 00:18:30.840
 They were concerned that I would be the person who was most antagonistic towards other viewpoints

00:18:30.840 --> 00:18:31.320
 and thoughts.

00:18:31.320 --> 00:18:32.520
 And, and I reassured them.

00:18:32.540 --> 00:18:38.820
 I said, listen, as a pastor and as a, and as a follower of Jesus, I'm called to love everybody,

00:18:39.220 --> 00:18:44.660
 everybody, meaning the person who is furthest from me on any kind of landscape, that's the

00:18:44.660 --> 00:18:45.760
 person that I'm called to love.

00:18:46.320 --> 00:18:52.460
 And so, and to be, and to make sure and accept them as an individual, not necessarily for

00:18:52.460 --> 00:18:55.780
 what they do, but as an individual that they are accepted with me.

00:18:56.020 --> 00:19:01.060
 And so, you know, I believe, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of my classmates would say that

00:19:01.060 --> 00:19:05.080
 they felt that way around me because I've not shied away from talking to anybody about

00:19:05.080 --> 00:19:05.560
 anything.

00:19:06.020 --> 00:19:07.480
 It doesn't matter if they curse around me.

00:19:07.580 --> 00:19:09.140
 It doesn't matter if they say anything around me.

00:19:09.180 --> 00:19:10.160
 It doesn't matter what they do.

00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:14.320
 And it's not, it's not really been a point of contention as of yet, thank God.

00:19:14.500 --> 00:19:19.380
 But even if it was, it would be one of those things where God's called me to be a light here.

00:19:19.380 --> 00:19:21.380
 So my job is not to be right.

00:19:21.820 --> 00:19:23.560
 My job is not to prove a point.

00:19:24.120 --> 00:19:29.420
 My job is to be Jesus to these folks, which means to love my neighbor as myself as best

00:19:29.420 --> 00:19:30.360
 as I can.

00:19:30.820 --> 00:19:36.620
 And loving my neighbor as myself right now means I am the chief encourager in this program

00:19:36.620 --> 00:19:42.480
 that I have to pursue excellence as best as possible because Jesus shines bright when

00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:42.900
 I do.

00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:49.640
 And then at every moment, I need to make sure and just be, I'm supposed to be the thermostat

00:19:49.640 --> 00:19:50.120
 in the room.

00:19:50.380 --> 00:19:53.380
 I'm called to be the guy who lifts everybody up as best as I can.

00:19:53.820 --> 00:19:54.900
 So that's where I'm at.

00:19:55.320 --> 00:19:58.800
 So tell me, you've been doing pre-work for two years.

00:19:58.860 --> 00:19:59.520
 You've been observing.

00:20:00.100 --> 00:20:01.700
 You got two more years to go.

00:20:01.880 --> 00:20:06.520
 So you're going to be doing essentially four years, not solid four years, but four years

00:20:06.520 --> 00:20:08.660
 of prep work getting into this.

00:20:10.440 --> 00:20:12.420
 How did this start?

00:20:12.660 --> 00:20:13.840
 What was the spark?

00:20:14.380 --> 00:20:20.180
 Was it a, you know, and just like, was it a voice of God, like just clear idea?

00:20:20.740 --> 00:20:25.640
 What was it, you know, a conversation with someone else that kind of sparked it?

00:20:25.820 --> 00:20:28.140
 Like, you know, so many people hear it differently.

00:20:28.240 --> 00:20:29.560
 And I'm not mocking this in any way.

00:20:29.620 --> 00:20:36.380
 I'm just curious, like, what was that, that initial process from, okay, I got a solid job

00:20:36.380 --> 00:20:40.700
 here to, well, dang it, I'm going to have to go back to school and start from scratch.

00:20:41.020 --> 00:20:42.960
 So what, what was the catalyst?

00:20:43.260 --> 00:20:43.400
 Yeah.

00:20:43.440 --> 00:20:48.500
 So 2017 was a rough year in many different ways.

00:20:49.360 --> 00:20:52.700
 2017 was Jeff Reed's last year at Christ Fellowship, first of all.

00:20:53.960 --> 00:20:55.300
 Yeah, I know it was rough for me.

00:20:55.540 --> 00:20:59.840
 It was rough for me because one of the reasons why I went to go be digital pastor was to work

00:20:59.840 --> 00:21:00.340
 with Jeff.

00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:02.980
 And so there were a lot of shifts in our organization.

00:21:03.120 --> 00:21:04.180
 There was a lot of tough things.

00:21:04.380 --> 00:21:09.100
 And one of the things that I was wondering was if it was a time, a time of shift for myself.

00:21:09.840 --> 00:21:15.320
 And I'd been praying through and thinking through a lot of different areas and a lot of possibilities.

00:21:15.980 --> 00:21:20.160
 I'd even taken a look outside of our organization, wondering, hey, maybe this is time for me to leave.

00:21:20.260 --> 00:21:22.220
 Maybe it's time for me to make a shift in that kind of light.

00:21:22.780 --> 00:21:28.840
 And I was getting ready to leave on vacation with my family, my parents, my sister, my brother-in-law

00:21:28.840 --> 00:21:31.020
 and my wife and kids.

00:21:31.160 --> 00:21:34.140
 We're all going to Canada and on vacation.

00:21:34.880 --> 00:21:38.540
 And just before we got on the plane, my dad and I, we were having a conversation and he saw

00:21:38.540 --> 00:21:43.560
 that I was kind of fielding emails and different possibilities from different folks for job opportunities.

00:21:44.180 --> 00:21:46.740
 And he looked at me and he was like, great, you know, I'm glad that you have all these

00:21:46.740 --> 00:21:47.720
 opportunities in front of you.

00:21:47.860 --> 00:21:52.540
 But I always wondered what it would be like if you actually pursued medicine like you wanted

00:21:52.540 --> 00:21:55.420
 to before you jumped into ministry, because I actually think you would have been really

00:21:55.420 --> 00:21:55.960
 good at it.

00:21:57.060 --> 00:22:03.040
 And that thought planted a seed in me for the rest of the trip that bothered me.

00:22:03.860 --> 00:22:04.660
 Like no tomorrow.

00:22:04.780 --> 00:22:10.780
 Like that was that minute conversation, five, 10 minutes, whatever it was, planted a seed in

00:22:10.780 --> 00:22:12.220
 me that bothered me the entire trip.

00:22:12.560 --> 00:22:13.480
 I mean, I had a great trip.

00:22:13.480 --> 00:22:17.580
 I had a great vacation, but it bothered me to the point where I started asking my wife

00:22:17.580 --> 00:22:17.960
 about it.

00:22:18.040 --> 00:22:21.520
 Like we're there looking at Niagara Falls and I was like, hey, you know, dad had this

00:22:21.520 --> 00:22:24.200
 conversation with me and it's just lodged in my mind.

00:22:24.360 --> 00:22:25.720
 I can't, I can't let this go.

00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:30.000
 And she was like, and she was like, nah, that's, are you serious?

00:22:30.080 --> 00:22:30.960
 Like, that sounds crazy.

00:22:31.040 --> 00:22:34.160
 Like you're looking at like all these opportunities, like, you know, you're an internet pastor,

00:22:34.300 --> 00:22:36.240
 you enjoy doing that and you're having some fun with that.

00:22:36.380 --> 00:22:39.700
 And what, you know, like, are you sure you really want to take a look at this?

00:22:39.740 --> 00:22:42.300
 And I was like, well, I at least want to pray through it.

00:22:42.360 --> 00:22:44.460
 I at least want to pray through seeing where we go.

00:22:45.560 --> 00:22:47.600
 Prayer led to conversations.

00:22:48.460 --> 00:22:52.760
 Conversations led to me visiting, uh, uh, Lauren and I agreeing that, hey, I need to go visit

00:22:52.760 --> 00:22:53.940
 a school and talk to an advisor.

00:22:54.660 --> 00:22:56.840
 Talking to an advisor led to registering for courses.

00:22:57.100 --> 00:23:02.220
 Registering for courses led to me showing up for class, which led to me to, I hate to say

00:23:02.220 --> 00:23:05.600
 it like this, like the smoking gun of, okay, now I got to start taking exams.

00:23:05.780 --> 00:23:07.280
 Am I actually going to be good at this or not?

00:23:07.700 --> 00:23:09.240
 And then that led to A's.

00:23:09.580 --> 00:23:11.700
 A's led to hardship and studying.

00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:15.040
 And it just kept cascading on and on and on.

00:23:15.460 --> 00:23:18.080
 And the first time that I went to apply, I actually got a no.

00:23:18.500 --> 00:23:18.900
 No kidding.

00:23:19.320 --> 00:23:20.140
 I don't think I knew that.

00:23:20.520 --> 00:23:21.680
 So this is what happened.

00:23:21.760 --> 00:23:26.100
 The first time I went to apply, um, or the first time I went to talk with an advisor,

00:23:26.100 --> 00:23:27.940
 I received the list of classes that I needed to take.

00:23:28.440 --> 00:23:31.540
 When I went to apply, I had all my classes, straight A's and everything like that.

00:23:31.580 --> 00:23:33.300
 And they were like, hey, you're short three classes.

00:23:33.520 --> 00:23:35.380
 And I said, are you serious?

00:23:36.080 --> 00:23:36.860
 And they said, yes.

00:23:37.420 --> 00:23:43.380
 And this was heartbreaking, but it was crushing for us because it had been like a year that

00:23:43.380 --> 00:23:44.980
 we were kind of prepping up to this, you know?

00:23:45.500 --> 00:23:50.660
 And, uh, and so we were at a crossroads and we had to decide where we were really dedicated

00:23:50.660 --> 00:23:55.700
 to this, that we're willing to wait an extra year and to go through the process and go

00:23:55.700 --> 00:23:57.300
 through more classes and this kind of thing.

00:23:57.680 --> 00:23:58.920
 Or was this going to be it?

00:23:58.980 --> 00:24:02.320
 Were we going to give up and then look at anything and everything else?

00:24:02.820 --> 00:24:05.440
 And we prayed through it and we decided, hey, we're going to stick with it.

00:24:06.080 --> 00:24:07.380
 And so sure enough, we did.

00:24:07.940 --> 00:24:12.000
 And then a year and change later, uh, I got accepted to the program.

00:24:12.360 --> 00:24:16.260
 I mean, this was, uh, and mind you, that was hard.

00:24:16.380 --> 00:24:17.880
 Oh my gosh, that was so hard.

00:24:18.020 --> 00:24:19.440
 I was so heartbroken.

00:24:20.100 --> 00:24:21.780
 I remember that week distinctly.

00:24:21.780 --> 00:24:26.160
 It felt like somebody like legit, you know, pulled my, my heart out of my chest and like

00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:27.100
 threw it on the floor.

00:24:27.760 --> 00:24:33.320
 But I knew that if it hurt that bad, that it meant something that much more, that it wasn't

00:24:33.320 --> 00:24:38.240
 just a passing thought, that this wasn't just an alternative plan or a plan B, that this was

00:24:38.240 --> 00:24:41.660
 something so much more, that this was something that I really, really wanted to pursue.

00:24:42.020 --> 00:24:46.540
 And so, and, and I could feel that my, and my, and my wife, Lauren and everybody else.

00:24:46.580 --> 00:24:48.740
 And so we just kept going with it.

00:24:49.160 --> 00:24:54.100
 And mind you, that wasn't an easy thing because I was still pursuing excellence at my job at

00:24:54.100 --> 00:24:54.800
 Christ Fellowship.

00:24:55.380 --> 00:24:59.580
 I was still a hundred percent at Christ Fellowship in terms of doing, you know, church online and

00:24:59.580 --> 00:25:01.720
 doing digital and doing things like the church digital here.

00:25:02.200 --> 00:25:07.140
 Uh, you know, all of that mattered to me in a big way, but I knew that this was the direction

00:25:07.140 --> 00:25:08.280
 that God had to call me in.

00:25:08.620 --> 00:25:11.580
 And I already had great examples in my life.

00:25:11.660 --> 00:25:15.180
 My dad made a shift in career two times during his life.

00:25:15.240 --> 00:25:20.200
 He was, you know, he had an accounting firm, sold that off to go be a CFO and left that

00:25:20.200 --> 00:25:22.040
 again to go be a CFO at another place.

00:25:22.600 --> 00:25:26.300
 And so those were some shifts that I had, I had examples of people doing that in my life,

00:25:26.380 --> 00:25:26.720
 you know?

00:25:27.260 --> 00:25:30.980
 Um, so this was one of those things where I had seen God do this before in the lives of

00:25:30.980 --> 00:25:31.460
 individuals.

00:25:31.840 --> 00:25:32.880
 It was just my turn.

00:25:33.360 --> 00:25:35.440
 And shoot, I got to watch Jeff Reed do it.

00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:39.440
 Jeff Reed left being an online pastor to starting this amazing thing.

00:25:39.520 --> 00:25:40.300
 That's the church digital.

00:25:40.840 --> 00:25:42.480
 And he's soared to the highest of heights.

00:25:42.940 --> 00:25:45.640
 Well, actually he's not at the highest of heights yet because he's going to keep breaking

00:25:45.640 --> 00:25:47.600
 through these molds and keep going up.

00:25:47.680 --> 00:25:48.340
 So it's going to be great.

00:25:48.780 --> 00:25:52.820
 You know, I, I can, and I think I may have said this on the podcast, but I can honestly

00:25:52.820 --> 00:25:54.180
 tell you the biggest fight.

00:25:54.720 --> 00:25:58.800
 My wife and I were coming up actually by the time this place will celebrated our 22nd wedding

00:25:58.800 --> 00:25:59.280
 anniversary.

00:26:00.060 --> 00:26:04.380
 Um, and so excited about that, um, coming up here back very soon.

00:26:04.820 --> 00:26:10.600
 Now, but I can honestly tell you the biggest fight that we've had in 22 years was the day,

00:26:10.600 --> 00:26:17.080
 uh, that I officially announced that I was leaving Christ fellowship, uh, like with, with the staff,

00:26:17.120 --> 00:26:18.240
 with the leadership there.

00:26:18.680 --> 00:26:21.500
 And, and my wife had already known, like we already talked about it.

00:26:21.540 --> 00:26:22.560
 We had prayed about it.

00:26:22.620 --> 00:26:30.220
 We had, we had a piece about it, but it was, it was this, this just brash reality of, okay,

00:26:30.220 --> 00:26:31.100
 it's really happening.

00:26:31.260 --> 00:26:33.840
 And, and it's like, where, where's the paycheck?

00:26:34.100 --> 00:26:35.660
 Where's the, how, how are we doing this?

00:26:35.740 --> 00:26:36.420
 What's the plan?

00:26:36.780 --> 00:26:38.000
 I don't know what the plan is.

00:26:38.060 --> 00:26:39.540
 God didn't tell me where I'm supposed to go.

00:26:39.580 --> 00:26:41.200
 He just told me where I'm not supposed to be.

00:26:41.940 --> 00:26:45.620
 And, uh, and, and so, and it's hard, like we were at peace at it.

00:26:45.620 --> 00:26:51.580
 And, and fortunately, you know, once that slap hits and not physically slap, I'm not abusive

00:26:51.580 --> 00:26:52.020
 to my wife.

00:26:52.100 --> 00:26:52.700
 Come on people.

00:26:52.880 --> 00:26:58.400
 But just the, the reality of it, um, I mean, things, things got back, but it was, it was

00:26:58.400 --> 00:27:05.240
 hard for us for, for a minute because it's like, okay, do we, I mean, I just, uh, a biblical

00:27:05.240 --> 00:27:05.740
 parallel.

00:27:06.240 --> 00:27:06.680
 Yeah.

00:27:06.740 --> 00:27:10.820
 Peter made that first step on the water and then he saw the wave.

00:27:11.080 --> 00:27:13.620
 Then he saw the wave coming and, and he doubted.

00:27:13.620 --> 00:27:16.320
 And for us that, that was it.

00:27:16.500 --> 00:27:17.800
 It was okay.

00:27:17.800 --> 00:27:19.220
 We're going to make it on the water.

00:27:19.320 --> 00:27:20.520
 God's calling us out there.

00:27:20.900 --> 00:27:21.780
 Holy cow.

00:27:21.820 --> 00:27:23.020
 Would you look at the size of that?

00:27:23.020 --> 00:27:24.280
 And, and we're, we're sinking.

00:27:25.080 --> 00:27:28.380
 Um, have you guys, and, and I'm going to ask a little bit.

00:27:28.400 --> 00:27:31.840
 A little personal question here, but have, have you experienced that yet?

00:27:31.920 --> 00:27:34.360
 You and the family in this, what, what does that look like?

00:27:34.440 --> 00:27:34.800
 Oh yeah.

00:27:34.920 --> 00:27:35.100
 Yeah.

00:27:35.100 --> 00:27:37.220
 We had, we had a moment like that a couple of weeks ago.

00:27:37.420 --> 00:27:42.140
 Um, basically like we had saved, you know, for years as far as like what some of the financial

00:27:42.140 --> 00:27:42.980
 hardships were going to be.

00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:46.900
 And we found out recently a couple of weeks ago that one of our bills, uh, was about to

00:27:46.900 --> 00:27:47.160
 double.

00:27:47.480 --> 00:27:52.980
 And so that led to a lot of tension, um, in our relationship, you know, uh, in terms of,

00:27:53.500 --> 00:27:56.220
 well, wow, we knew that this was going to be hard, but we didn't know it was going

00:27:56.220 --> 00:27:56.820
 to be this hard.

00:27:57.220 --> 00:28:01.600
 Um, and so that led to, you know, some tension that was there and we had to walk it through

00:28:01.600 --> 00:28:05.920
 and we had to talk it out and, and eventually it got resolved and, you know, it makes us

00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:12.720
 dig in a little bit more, but that's just a minute example of a financial hardship that

00:28:12.720 --> 00:28:13.280
 just came along.

00:28:13.280 --> 00:28:17.000
 It kind of knocked this around and it's easy to say that you're trusting God, but it's

00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:20.100
 another thing that like you're saying, Jeff, when all of a sudden, when the rubber meets

00:28:20.100 --> 00:28:24.700
 the road and when you're in the midst of it and, and all of a sudden now you're walking

00:28:24.700 --> 00:28:27.840
 on the tight rope without a net, essentially, you know?

00:28:28.400 --> 00:28:32.280
 And yes, we can tell people that God's got them, but it's not until you're in the thick

00:28:32.280 --> 00:28:33.600
 of it that you really start to feel it.

00:28:33.980 --> 00:28:37.720
 It's funny because a lot of folks will allude that to just church planning as if like, oh,

00:28:37.740 --> 00:28:41.080
 that's like the only time that you can feel like you're really trusting in God.

00:28:41.660 --> 00:28:45.280
 But the reality is, is for some of us that are pursuing different areas of ministry, there's

00:28:45.280 --> 00:28:50.060
 a lot of different times that we got to trust God that are hard for everybody who's ever

00:28:50.060 --> 00:28:52.960
 started a business, for everybody who's ever done that.

00:28:53.040 --> 00:28:58.520
 You know that there's that moment of fear where you make that initial jump, where you don't

00:28:58.520 --> 00:29:02.120
 have, like what Jeff's saying, where you don't have that secure paycheck behind you.

00:29:02.260 --> 00:29:04.100
 And that is a frightening, frightening way.

00:29:04.400 --> 00:29:07.520
 For those of us that you're like me, you're going back to school, you're making a severe

00:29:07.520 --> 00:29:08.260
 shift in career.

00:29:08.380 --> 00:29:13.400
 And listen, a lot of my classmates, they're, they're wives or husbands with kids, you know?

00:29:13.400 --> 00:29:17.340
 So this, and they don't have, we don't have time for a nine to five.

00:29:17.480 --> 00:29:22.800
 So that means that we're relying on our spouse and whatever savings we got to make due for

00:29:22.800 --> 00:29:24.000
 these next two and a half years.

00:29:24.120 --> 00:29:24.660
 Yeah, sure.

00:29:24.780 --> 00:29:26.680
 Is, is there finance on the other side of this?

00:29:26.840 --> 00:29:27.240
 Absolutely.

00:29:27.460 --> 00:29:27.980
 That's fine.

00:29:28.340 --> 00:29:30.780
 But in this time, that's hard.

00:29:30.780 --> 00:29:35.280
 And that, and having, and wrestling with that kind of tension, that can be very, very difficult.

00:29:35.700 --> 00:29:37.840
 Uh, it has been difficult.

00:29:37.840 --> 00:29:43.180
 And it, and mind you, I would be naive to think that that kind of conversation is not

00:29:43.180 --> 00:29:44.560
 going to come up again.

00:29:45.060 --> 00:29:50.180
 You know, you, you talk about how doubting, uh, happens a lot with, with planners by the,

00:29:50.180 --> 00:29:54.180
 by the way, like if you're, uh, people who are running their own business entrepreneurial,

00:29:54.180 --> 00:29:57.800
 uh, I mean, we're famous for, we're the greatest thing ever.

00:29:57.800 --> 00:29:59.380
 We are the worst thing ever.

00:29:59.900 --> 00:30:01.700
 Um, you know, we can do anything.

00:30:01.860 --> 00:30:03.280
 I can't do anything right.

00:30:03.320 --> 00:30:09.360
 Like the, the, the sign wave pattern that, that becomes the emotional ride and coming

00:30:09.360 --> 00:30:14.400
 from a guy that started for business, maybe a fifth, like it's, it's crazy.

00:30:14.680 --> 00:30:19.860
 The, the emotional wave, almost the spiritual wave, especially if you're walking with God

00:30:19.860 --> 00:30:20.960
 in, in that season.

00:30:21.560 --> 00:30:23.120
 Um, but it, and it's interesting.

00:30:23.120 --> 00:30:25.580
 It brings up a question specifically for you.

00:30:25.580 --> 00:30:28.600
 So, so you're out of a church staffing realm.

00:30:29.200 --> 00:30:31.460
 Do you consider yourself right now out of ministry?

00:30:31.840 --> 00:30:35.720
 Like you as a person, what, what do you consider what you're doing now?

00:30:35.800 --> 00:30:39.960
 I, you know, it's funny, Eric Geiger had a quote about this, uh, years ago and one of

00:30:39.960 --> 00:30:43.560
 his messages, and I remember him saying this, and I think it's hit me more in recent times.

00:30:43.560 --> 00:30:48.920
 He said that when he went to go work for a church, he left the ministry, that the people

00:30:48.920 --> 00:30:53.620
 who are working a secular nine to five, that they're the ones who are actually in ministry.

00:30:53.620 --> 00:30:59.100
 That is the job of the pastors to equip people to do the work of the ministry.

00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:07.640
 So I actually feel like I'm more in ministry now than I was when I worked for a church.

00:31:07.640 --> 00:31:10.900
 Now, I know some of you are thinking, well, you know, Ray, you're talking about, you know,

00:31:10.940 --> 00:31:13.920
 schematics and you're really playing around with words and some of this stuff.

00:31:14.040 --> 00:31:19.380
 But the reality of it is, is that I've got more impact here with non-believers than the

00:31:19.380 --> 00:31:24.520
 guy standing on the stage, speaking to a thousand folks on a Sunday, just being realistic.

00:31:24.700 --> 00:31:29.260
 I mean, you can sit here and you can tell me that, but majority of those folks think that

00:31:29.260 --> 00:31:29.840
 they know Jesus.

00:31:29.980 --> 00:31:31.700
 These people do not, and they know it.

00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:36.100
 So I'm, who's having more impact?

00:31:36.180 --> 00:31:37.460
 And that's, this isn't a competition.

00:31:37.580 --> 00:31:41.180
 It's just the reality of, hey, I've got to go be the light to these people.

00:31:41.320 --> 00:31:43.180
 That is where God has called me to be.

00:31:43.660 --> 00:31:45.360
 I am on the mission field.

00:31:45.420 --> 00:31:49.780
 And mind you, the workplace is the modern day mission field here in the United States.

00:31:49.780 --> 00:31:54.440
 Like if you're looking for it, it's a nine to five out there working with folks who don't

00:31:54.440 --> 00:31:59.800
 know Jesus or who consider themselves culturally Christian, but they haven't been discipled by

00:31:59.800 --> 00:32:00.220
 anybody.

00:32:00.440 --> 00:32:04.040
 They're not actively in a faith relationship with Christ where they're growing.

00:32:04.540 --> 00:32:05.560
 None of that's happening.

00:32:05.720 --> 00:32:10.640
 And so mind you, I consider myself to be more in ministry today than I was a few months ago

00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:15.100
 when I was working for a church, not to bash what anybody who works for a church does.

00:32:15.440 --> 00:32:19.160
 It's just, your job is to equip people to do the work of the ministry.

00:32:19.720 --> 00:32:24.740
 I put that aside to step into the ministry, which is something very, very different.

00:32:25.320 --> 00:32:29.180
 And, you know, for better or worse, like this isn't something where we take a break and

00:32:29.180 --> 00:32:30.600
 we pray for each other in the middle of class.

00:32:30.660 --> 00:32:32.020
 Like this isn't that kind of school.

00:32:32.180 --> 00:32:33.200
 This isn't seminary.

00:32:33.420 --> 00:32:34.480
 This isn't that.

00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:38.200
 This is working with folks from all walks of life, from all sorts of backgrounds, from

00:32:38.200 --> 00:32:42.980
 all sorts of religions, creeds, countries, whatever, sexual orientations, you know, influence,

00:32:43.240 --> 00:32:48.620
 all that stuff, just to get a chance to be the light of Christ to them.

00:32:49.020 --> 00:32:53.840
 That's an opportunity that I think I have now that I didn't have when I was working for

00:32:53.840 --> 00:32:54.140
 a church.

00:32:54.480 --> 00:32:57.920
 And I said the same thing when I worked at the Apple store while I was at seminary.

00:32:58.100 --> 00:33:02.760
 And I was actually very grateful for that job because that kept me conscious of the fact

00:33:02.760 --> 00:33:04.880
 that the rest of my life was in a Christian bubble.

00:33:05.760 --> 00:33:09.700
 Outside of that bubble, when I was going to seminary, when I was living on campus, outside

00:33:09.700 --> 00:33:14.820
 of that bubble, what I had at the Apple store, interacting with regular people who don't believe in

00:33:14.820 --> 00:33:19.100
 Jesus, who have, and the only understanding that they're getting of Christians is what

00:33:19.100 --> 00:33:22.220
 they're seeing on the news or what they're seeing on television or what they're hearing

00:33:22.220 --> 00:33:24.440
 Christians don't want them to do.

00:33:24.880 --> 00:33:27.080
 This was prior to gay marriage being legalized.

00:33:27.180 --> 00:33:30.800
 And all they heard was a lot of, we don't want you to be able to do this.

00:33:30.860 --> 00:33:31.920
 We don't want you to be able to do that.

00:33:31.940 --> 00:33:34.440
 Or we don't like you at all is kind of how it was interpreted.

00:33:34.620 --> 00:33:40.500
 So to have a Christian around them who they knew cared about them, who they knew loved them,

00:33:41.260 --> 00:33:46.540
 who didn't compromise, didn't compromise his stance or his thought, his thought process

00:33:46.540 --> 00:33:51.120
 on things, but really showed to them that, Hey, we can think two different things, but

00:33:51.120 --> 00:33:52.280
 I can still love you.

00:33:53.780 --> 00:33:54.880
 That was the big win.

00:33:55.380 --> 00:33:59.080
 And there's a part, there's a big part of that, Jeff, that I really missed because when

00:33:59.080 --> 00:34:01.460
 I went back to go work for a church, guess what?

00:34:01.540 --> 00:34:05.580
 A lot of that went away and I was surrounded by church folks every day.

00:34:05.780 --> 00:34:08.320
 And the reality is, is that's not reality.

00:34:08.480 --> 00:34:10.480
 That's not, that's not life.

00:34:11.040 --> 00:34:14.920
 And so, you know, many times when we begin wondering, well, how is our church impacting

00:34:14.920 --> 00:34:15.520
 the community?

00:34:15.940 --> 00:34:20.880
 You'd be surprised how much Christianese or how much of our own cultural stuff that we

00:34:20.880 --> 00:34:25.140
 kind of just dig into that we forget how to talk to people who don't know Jesus.

00:34:26.240 --> 00:34:27.940
 And I had to break free of that again.

00:34:28.380 --> 00:34:33.480
 You know, so much of social media right now is filled with echo chamber and you surround

00:34:33.480 --> 00:34:39.200
 yourself with people who think like you, who are like you, and you just start to continue

00:34:39.200 --> 00:34:41.620
 to surround yourself and exclude yourself from it.

00:34:41.660 --> 00:34:46.520
 I've even had a pastor in my life tell me, speaking of the church, we are to be an island

00:34:46.520 --> 00:34:49.140
 isolated and separated from.

00:34:49.420 --> 00:34:50.820
 And it's 2021.

00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:53.880
 I don't, I don't, I don't think we can do that.

00:34:53.940 --> 00:34:55.680
 I don't think God calls us to that.

00:34:55.760 --> 00:35:01.540
 I think culturally, if we want to impact people today, it's not to be an island and it's not

00:35:01.540 --> 00:35:02.540
 exclusionary.

00:35:02.600 --> 00:35:09.320
 It's inclusion in doing what you're doing right now about being involved and being relationally

00:35:09.320 --> 00:35:09.860
 connecting.

00:35:10.320 --> 00:35:10.440
 Yeah.

00:35:10.520 --> 00:35:17.180
 Theology may drive us to a place of a different viewpoint, but there's still ways for us to

00:35:17.180 --> 00:35:22.640
 love on people and relationally connect to people, even if we have a different viewpoint.

00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:28.280
 And on that, you know, because we use words in churches and things like this, like intentional.

00:35:29.140 --> 00:35:32.140
 It's got to go beyond just handing an invite to an individual.

00:35:33.320 --> 00:35:40.160
 Like you have to know and understand somebody's motivations and what drives them and what they,

00:35:40.240 --> 00:35:41.400
 what they care about.

00:35:42.060 --> 00:35:43.740
 And they've got to know what you care about.

00:35:43.860 --> 00:35:46.580
 And then you got to have a genuine sense of relationship.

00:35:46.580 --> 00:35:50.980
 Like it can't just be a one-sided relationship of, Hey, I want you to come check out my thing

00:35:50.980 --> 00:35:51.980
 or I want you to come to my church.

00:35:52.120 --> 00:35:54.200
 It's no, I care about you.

00:35:54.540 --> 00:35:58.360
 Like if you weren't here, I would be different.

00:35:59.140 --> 00:36:01.140
 But because you're here, I am who I am.

00:36:01.540 --> 00:36:03.420
 Like there has to be an impact there.

00:36:03.960 --> 00:36:08.660
 And, and that to me has really been something that I enjoy having back.

00:36:09.200 --> 00:36:10.620
 Let me ask this here at Ed Stadia.

00:36:10.620 --> 00:36:13.400
 Like we work with all different types of churches.

00:36:13.400 --> 00:36:18.860
 There, there's more structured, there, there's more organic, you know, Ray, we've had conversations

00:36:18.860 --> 00:36:24.700
 with, uh, with giga churches, with multi-site churches, uh, with church planters, just starting

00:36:24.700 --> 00:36:30.660
 out, micro church, house church, micro location, watch party.

00:36:30.920 --> 00:36:36.860
 Uh, you know, in, in recently I've, I've started pulling the thread of Bivo Covo, helping people

00:36:36.860 --> 00:36:41.060
 get on personal mission, uh, you know, pastors who are working.

00:36:42.020 --> 00:36:44.160
 Do you consider yourself a church?

00:36:44.560 --> 00:36:47.080
 Is, is the goal to produce a church service?

00:36:47.080 --> 00:36:50.620
 Is the goal to relationally connect organically?

00:36:50.620 --> 00:36:52.940
 Like what, what does this look like for you?

00:36:53.020 --> 00:36:53.620
 What are you thinking?

00:36:54.020 --> 00:36:58.600
 No, no, really what I, what I kind of see myself as right now and, you know, forgive me if I

00:36:58.600 --> 00:37:01.560
 misuse in the term, but I kind of see myself as a missionary to these folks.

00:37:01.980 --> 00:37:07.780
 Um, that's, that's kind of how I see myself, um, you know, that God placed me in a mission

00:37:07.780 --> 00:37:14.380
 field here and my job's not to start a church, but my job's to be the church here as much

00:37:14.380 --> 00:37:19.660
 as I can, you know, and, and that's kind of what I see myself as, um, you know, within

00:37:19.660 --> 00:37:23.860
 that, you know, is there a possibility like down the road in terms of.

00:37:24.020 --> 00:37:25.040
 Making more impact.

00:37:25.420 --> 00:37:25.780
 Absolutely.

00:37:26.440 --> 00:37:30.580
 Uh, prior to this, when I was going, uh, when I was doing refreshing some of my courses,

00:37:30.580 --> 00:37:32.500
 you know, to make myself available to apply.

00:37:32.500 --> 00:37:35.420
 One of the things I did while I was at Christ Fellowship is I started a group for medical

00:37:35.420 --> 00:37:36.320
 healthcare professionals.

00:37:37.060 --> 00:37:41.640
 I started a small group and I could see on the other side of this about like pretty much

00:37:41.640 --> 00:37:44.820
 how I'm going to have to like do some of that again, because I'm going to tell you

00:37:44.820 --> 00:37:49.280
 folks, like just full discretion, like talking to medical healthcare professionals coming

00:37:49.280 --> 00:37:52.000
 out of COVID, especially so many of them are discouraged.

00:37:52.140 --> 00:37:53.680
 Like there's a lot of PTSD there.

00:37:53.800 --> 00:37:57.520
 There's a lot of discouragement, uh, just because of what they had to face, the lack

00:37:57.520 --> 00:38:00.820
 of support that they got, people thinking that this was a hoax or that it wasn't real.

00:38:00.820 --> 00:38:04.020
 And then, you know, that kind of thing, like that, that's heavy discouragement.

00:38:04.020 --> 00:38:09.320
 Imagine fighting a war and nobody believes that your war is real or not nobody, but a lot

00:38:09.320 --> 00:38:12.580
 of people are sitting there telling you like, oh, we don't believe that this is real and

00:38:12.580 --> 00:38:15.280
 you're trying to help them and you're trying to defend them.

00:38:15.420 --> 00:38:19.400
 And so that's kind of what the medical healthcare community dealt with over the last, you know,

00:38:19.400 --> 00:38:20.960
 a year and change and that's rough.

00:38:20.960 --> 00:38:25.580
 And so really by the time I graduate, I'm going to have to help shepherd a lot of those

00:38:25.580 --> 00:38:25.940
 folks.

00:38:27.420 --> 00:38:28.420
 They're going to need a pastor.

00:38:29.120 --> 00:38:32.860
 And so whether it's not going to be official church, there is going to be a lot of discipleship

00:38:32.860 --> 00:38:33.460
 going on there.

00:38:34.120 --> 00:38:40.520
 It's interesting separating, separating the pastor from the, the idea of, and you use

00:38:40.520 --> 00:38:44.600
 the term missionary and there, I mean, there, there's probably some, some, some truth to

00:38:44.600 --> 00:38:45.040
 that.

00:38:45.540 --> 00:38:51.140
 Uh, and then you're funneling it back, connecting into a, to a church for, for discipleship or

00:38:51.140 --> 00:38:54.680
 for, for relationship, or even just building that out on yourself.

00:38:54.680 --> 00:38:55.900
 It's an interesting strategy.

00:38:56.080 --> 00:38:57.020
 Well, this is the thing.

00:38:57.140 --> 00:38:58.080
 Shepherding is a gift.

00:38:58.400 --> 00:38:59.700
 It's not, it's not just a position.

00:38:59.700 --> 00:39:00.520
 It's a gift, right?

00:39:00.540 --> 00:39:02.520
 And I actually think that I have a shepherding gifting.

00:39:03.060 --> 00:39:08.920
 And so, you know, you can, you know, call that whatever it is, but that doesn't necessarily

00:39:08.920 --> 00:39:13.140
 mean that I have to speak on a stage in order to shepherd people.

00:39:14.100 --> 00:39:18.080
 So the way that I, the way that I could best do that and the way that I, that I saw the

00:39:18.080 --> 00:39:21.200
 master do it in the gospels is in the one-on-one.

00:39:22.460 --> 00:39:24.880
 Jesus' best shepherding work happens with his disciples.

00:39:25.060 --> 00:39:26.560
 It doesn't happen in front of the crowds.

00:39:29.180 --> 00:39:33.040
 When he takes Peter aside, when he takes James aside, when he does those things with them,

00:39:33.040 --> 00:39:35.520
 those are the moments that we tend to lean in the most.

00:39:36.740 --> 00:39:44.180
 And so in the same way, I honestly can see myself trying to be the best version of me

00:39:44.180 --> 00:39:48.440
 following Jesus in that world, not by getting up on the stage and talking.

00:39:48.840 --> 00:39:49.500
 I've done that.

00:39:49.580 --> 00:39:50.520
 Jeff, you saw me do that.

00:39:50.580 --> 00:39:51.160
 That was fine.

00:39:51.380 --> 00:39:51.480
 Yeah.

00:39:51.840 --> 00:39:55.080
 By the way, Ray preaching is really excited, Ray.

00:39:55.220 --> 00:39:58.400
 Ray is very calm when he's on the podcast.

00:39:59.400 --> 00:40:07.680
 Ray preaching on a pulpit is super excited, like drank way too many energy drinks, bouncing

00:40:07.680 --> 00:40:08.600
 off the walls, Ray.

00:40:08.960 --> 00:40:10.960
 And he's, he's right.

00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:12.820
 He's much better on the one-on-one.

00:40:12.880 --> 00:40:17.540
 If I can find the link to you preaching, Ray, somewhere in the interwebs, I may include it.

00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:19.620
 I don't even think I could probably find it online.

00:40:19.820 --> 00:40:20.740
 I've hidden them all.

00:40:21.040 --> 00:40:21.840
 I hit them all.

00:40:21.840 --> 00:40:23.300
 I hit them all when I was digital pastor.

00:40:24.260 --> 00:40:26.480
 But it's not energy drinks.

00:40:26.600 --> 00:40:29.380
 It's Cuban coffee for those of you who aren't schooled in Miami lingo.

00:40:30.060 --> 00:40:34.380
 But yeah, the big thing though is, is, is always going to be impact.

00:40:35.340 --> 00:40:35.660
 Messages.

00:40:36.960 --> 00:40:39.240
 And mind you, this is coming from church online.

00:40:39.900 --> 00:40:42.020
 Messages have their place and they have their impact.

00:40:42.520 --> 00:40:48.120
 The larger impact, whenever you talk to individuals, doesn't simply just come from a message.

00:40:48.680 --> 00:40:53.280
 God sends somebody in their path to guide them along the way spiritually.

00:40:53.800 --> 00:40:56.320
 Like, yes, the preacher has an impact.

00:40:56.400 --> 00:40:58.100
 I'm not taking anything away from that.

00:40:58.740 --> 00:41:02.420
 But when you talk to a lot of folks, the bigger impact has been on the individuals in

00:41:02.420 --> 00:41:05.040
 their life that God puts along the way.

00:41:05.740 --> 00:41:12.260
 There's always been somebody there to encourage them, to pray for them, to talk to them, to

00:41:12.260 --> 00:41:13.500
 be, to just be an ear.

00:41:14.360 --> 00:41:17.260
 Those are the, those are the things that we just can't forget.

00:41:17.540 --> 00:41:22.060
 And especially for those of us who are in paid ministry, listen, you need to understand the

00:41:22.060 --> 00:41:24.960
 impact that you have in terms of the one-on-one with individuals.

00:41:25.360 --> 00:41:30.240
 And then you also need to take a step out of your front door, go across the street to your

00:41:30.240 --> 00:41:34.700
 literal neighbor, not just the love your neighbor thing, like your literal neighbor, and just

00:41:34.700 --> 00:41:39.720
 talk to them and get some perspective about their life and find out what's different.

00:41:39.720 --> 00:41:44.240
 You know, we hear all the time about how America is becoming de-churched and unchurched and all

00:41:44.240 --> 00:41:44.640
 these things.

00:41:44.740 --> 00:41:49.460
 And that's because we worry about getting these people into buildings as opposed to just going

00:41:49.460 --> 00:41:50.360
 to where they're at.

00:41:50.800 --> 00:41:53.000
 For me, God's called me back into the workplaces.

00:41:53.220 --> 00:41:55.020
 You know where people spend two-thirds of their life?

00:41:55.100 --> 00:41:56.240
 Two-thirds of their life, man.

00:41:56.260 --> 00:41:56.860
 It's insane.

00:41:57.420 --> 00:41:58.680
 They're spending a minute at work.

00:42:00.480 --> 00:42:01.400
 It's ridiculous.

00:42:02.020 --> 00:42:03.640
 You know, like we spend so much time there.

00:42:03.700 --> 00:42:06.760
 We spend more time at work with some of our coworkers than we do with most of our family.

00:42:08.140 --> 00:42:10.160
 And so why not be the light there?

00:42:10.700 --> 00:42:15.180
 Do you remember the, this may be going back a couple of decades, but there was a movement

00:42:15.180 --> 00:42:19.120
 to be third place, like first place is home, second place is work.

00:42:19.500 --> 00:42:22.520
 And the church was like, Hey, we want to be third place.

00:42:22.800 --> 00:42:24.760
 We want our buildings, our property.

00:42:25.080 --> 00:42:26.800
 We want people hanging out with us.

00:42:26.800 --> 00:42:29.500
 And that was like the open to the Christian bookstores.

00:42:29.580 --> 00:42:30.600
 And I used to own a Christian bookstore.

00:42:30.600 --> 00:42:31.920
 So I can take that shot.

00:42:32.260 --> 00:42:36.740
 Or it was, you know, open up the coffee house and, and let's try to get people on our property

00:42:36.740 --> 00:42:40.120
 as much as possible so they can see Jesus in us.

00:42:40.900 --> 00:42:47.660
 In 2022 or 2021, at least, if you want people to see Jesus, um, go, go to where they are

00:42:47.660 --> 00:42:50.720
 in the workplace and, and, you know, what, what Ray's doing.

00:42:50.780 --> 00:42:55.840
 And so much of recently, I just, I feel myself being burdened by this idea of personal mission

00:42:55.840 --> 00:43:00.280
 rather than, and I've said it here on the podcast, rather than one man exuding his spiritual

00:43:00.280 --> 00:43:01.760
 gift in front of thousands.

00:43:02.240 --> 00:43:08.460
 Let's get thousands of people to exude their spiritual gifts in front of 10 people, 20 people,

00:43:08.580 --> 00:43:14.180
 50 people, a hundred people in front of their circle of influence in front of the people that

00:43:14.180 --> 00:43:15.720
 God's already got in their lives.

00:43:15.720 --> 00:43:20.320
 Not, not an invest and invite to get them to the place to come listen to a 40 minute sermon

00:43:20.320 --> 00:43:26.920
 from some stranger they don't know, but literally be the gospel, share the gospel, share with

00:43:26.920 --> 00:43:31.460
 people who know you, uh, and, and would be interested in that.

00:43:31.460 --> 00:43:38.400
 And so Ray's approach here of, of building the relationship, sacrificing, going back to school

00:43:38.400 --> 00:43:44.920
 to learn this job, to do this thing that doesn't, so that he can meet people who don't know Jesus

00:43:44.920 --> 00:43:47.420
 for the purpose of sharing with Christ.

00:43:47.420 --> 00:43:49.080
 This is, this is beautiful.

00:43:49.280 --> 00:43:50.160
 This is hard.

00:43:50.260 --> 00:43:55.460
 This is sacrificial, uh, but this is rewarding, um, at the kingdom level.

00:43:55.460 --> 00:43:57.620
 So man, I, I'm, I'm proud of you.

00:43:57.680 --> 00:44:00.040
 I'm, I'm excited for, for what, for what you're doing.

00:44:00.040 --> 00:44:05.780
 And this is going to be, uh, I'm, I'm excited to see what, what God does in and through this.

00:44:05.980 --> 00:44:07.140
 I mean, I'll be honest with you.

00:44:07.200 --> 00:44:12.220
 Like it was, um, and it's still like, uh, so once again, kind of going back to like God's

00:44:12.220 --> 00:44:18.600
 call and all this stuff, it's, uh, to be, to be, you know, fully honest, it's still scary.

00:44:18.600 --> 00:44:21.240
 Like on a regular basis, you know, like this program is difficult.

00:44:21.460 --> 00:44:22.100
 It's not easy.

00:44:22.380 --> 00:44:25.380
 Uh, um, it requires a lot of sacrifice.

00:44:25.380 --> 00:44:26.620
 It requires a lot of hours.

00:44:27.220 --> 00:44:30.840
 Um, you know, the sacrifices that my entire family had to make for the shift, you know,

00:44:30.920 --> 00:44:35.660
 I'm, I'm at home less, uh, you know, and we haven't even started like the harder, the

00:44:35.660 --> 00:44:36.340
 hardest parts of it.

00:44:36.380 --> 00:44:38.700
 The hardest parts are to come in the fall and the spring.

00:44:39.260 --> 00:44:42.820
 Um, and you know, some of you would know, and actually shout out to Justin Nava.

00:44:42.900 --> 00:44:47.040
 He was actually a great resource for this because his wife went through this program over there

00:44:47.040 --> 00:44:47.500
 in Texas.

00:44:48.260 --> 00:44:50.900
 Um, that first year is what we call didactic year.

00:44:51.080 --> 00:44:56.680
 And so it's all just intense, almost like medical school, like crammed down to two and a half

00:44:56.680 --> 00:44:58.280
 to two years, you know?

00:44:58.320 --> 00:44:59.660
 And so like, that's like the first portion.

00:44:59.660 --> 00:45:02.600
 So there's a lot of stressful stuff that we're going through on this side.

00:45:02.660 --> 00:45:05.660
 So I don't want to make it seem like it's all sunshine and roses on this plate.

00:45:05.840 --> 00:45:08.880
 Just like for pastors who have stepped into real estate, listen, they got to study to get

00:45:08.880 --> 00:45:09.240
 licensed.

00:45:09.420 --> 00:45:12.900
 And then they've got to go through the fun of starting a business and going out there on

00:45:12.900 --> 00:45:17.520
 their own and, and, and go through the hardship of finding clients and selling.

00:45:17.600 --> 00:45:19.380
 Like that's, none of that is easy.

00:45:19.460 --> 00:45:21.700
 So for those of you who think, oh man, this is cloud nine.

00:45:21.760 --> 00:45:22.660
 This is the easy stuff.

00:45:22.840 --> 00:45:24.520
 No, many of us are choosing the hard.

00:45:25.200 --> 00:45:26.180
 This is difficult.

00:45:26.420 --> 00:45:27.420
 I want to make that very clear.

00:45:28.040 --> 00:45:28.960
 This is difficult.

00:45:29.240 --> 00:45:32.580
 We just believe that the reward is greater on the other side, both spiritually and other

00:45:32.580 --> 00:45:32.900
 wise.

00:45:33.960 --> 00:45:38.120
 We see the potential for something much bigger in terms of making kingdom impact.

00:45:38.940 --> 00:45:42.300
 So that's, and this is just what my personal calling was.

00:45:42.520 --> 00:45:46.420
 Whatever your personal calling may be, embrace the difficulty of that.

00:45:47.000 --> 00:45:47.920
 Any, any regrets?

00:45:48.380 --> 00:45:52.960
 What are you missing at this point from maybe like your church staff role?

00:45:53.220 --> 00:45:56.720
 Is, is there any, any, any regrets, any negatives you've, you've experienced?

00:45:56.860 --> 00:45:59.660
 I'm sure there are, but what, what, what are you comfortable sharing?

00:45:59.840 --> 00:46:02.500
 And the biggest thing is that I miss the camaraderie of like the people that

00:46:02.500 --> 00:46:07.500
 I worked with, you know, I have great camaraderie over here at the school, but you

00:46:07.500 --> 00:46:11.080
 know, the relationships that, that I built there over time were great.

00:46:11.160 --> 00:46:14.240
 And I became a pastor to many of them, you know, while I was there behind the

00:46:14.240 --> 00:46:14.520
 scenes.

00:46:14.660 --> 00:46:20.140
 I think one of the biggest, darkest secrets behind church doors is how

00:46:20.140 --> 00:46:22.140
 under ministered many of the church staff feel.

00:46:23.740 --> 00:46:25.540
 And that's in multiple churches.

00:46:26.140 --> 00:46:29.900
 And so, you know, for, for many, I was able to kind of fill in that void for them.

00:46:30.660 --> 00:46:32.660
 And so, you know, I genuinely miss some of them.

00:46:32.740 --> 00:46:34.840
 We text, we phone call, but of course it's not the same.

00:46:34.900 --> 00:46:37.820
 You don't kind of talk in the same kind of way when you see each other in the

00:46:37.820 --> 00:46:38.260
 hallways.

00:46:38.260 --> 00:46:41.380
 And when you have those kinds of relationships on a regular basis on the other

00:46:41.380 --> 00:46:43.980
 side, I mean, I actually wish I would have started this sooner.

00:46:44.940 --> 00:46:47.080
 And I think that's even more of a confirmation of it.

00:46:47.260 --> 00:46:51.900
 You know, I think one day, and don't hold me to this, but one day I may write a

00:46:51.900 --> 00:46:55.620
 book called Misdiagnosed, both a play on like the medical side and a play on the

00:46:55.620 --> 00:46:58.740
 ministry side, because I actually think that this could have been my calling all

00:46:58.740 --> 00:47:01.680
 along, but, but I actually had somebody in my life tell me that, no, no, no.

00:47:01.700 --> 00:47:05.400
 If you're called to ministry, like you go to seminary, you become a pastor.

00:47:05.500 --> 00:47:06.420
 That's the thing that you do.

00:47:07.160 --> 00:47:10.900
 And that's not the case for so many folks.

00:47:10.900 --> 00:47:14.040
 Like I said, that's to equip people to go into the ministry.

00:47:14.500 --> 00:47:17.440
 For many of us, our calling is something different.

00:47:17.620 --> 00:47:21.380
 Many of you, if you're a pastor, some of you may even be feeling that tension right

00:47:21.380 --> 00:47:21.620
 now.

00:47:21.680 --> 00:47:23.800
 It's not that you're, it's not that you're in sin.

00:47:23.940 --> 00:47:28.960
 It's that you know that this isn't the thing that you want to make an impact with.

00:47:29.300 --> 00:47:30.040
 That's all it is.

00:47:30.400 --> 00:47:32.000
 You want to make an impact in a different way.

00:47:32.760 --> 00:47:34.060
 Could be like me through medicine.

00:47:34.280 --> 00:47:35.220
 It could be through business.

00:47:35.340 --> 00:47:36.200
 It could be through real estate.

00:47:36.280 --> 00:47:37.700
 It could be through so many different ways.

00:47:38.340 --> 00:47:39.560
 Could be through the creative arts.

00:47:40.440 --> 00:47:44.220
 I'm not sure, but you know that God has gifted you to make an impact in many

00:47:44.220 --> 00:47:48.560
 different ways and to reach out to non-believers within this specific field.

00:47:49.640 --> 00:47:50.460
 Go to it.

00:47:50.460 --> 00:47:53.620
 I actually talked to a pastor, and this is funny.

00:47:53.720 --> 00:47:54.940
 This makes me feel old all the time.

00:47:55.200 --> 00:47:56.860
 He was actually a student in my youth ministry.

00:47:58.440 --> 00:48:00.720
 And then God called him into ministry.

00:48:01.680 --> 00:48:04.740
 And while he was serving in ministry, he felt the same kind of nudge.

00:48:04.900 --> 00:48:05.680
 He went back to school.

00:48:06.380 --> 00:48:08.420
 And now he's planted a church here in Miami.

00:48:08.420 --> 00:48:13.540
 And at the same time, he is a professor at a secular college here in the city.

00:48:13.940 --> 00:48:14.840
 And he's doing both.

00:48:15.500 --> 00:48:16.980
 And he will always want to do both.

00:48:17.040 --> 00:48:19.520
 He doesn't want to take a full-time salary from his church, even though it's growing.

00:48:20.220 --> 00:48:25.800
 He wants to continue to do both because he sees the impact that he is having at the school.

00:48:26.880 --> 00:48:27.620
 That's amazing.

00:48:27.940 --> 00:48:30.620
 Now, that's not everybody's calling, but that is his.

00:48:30.820 --> 00:48:31.660
 And he followed the thread.

00:48:32.120 --> 00:48:33.820
 I don't mind him following that thread.

00:48:34.140 --> 00:48:36.400
 There's an increasing number of people.

00:48:36.560 --> 00:48:40.160
 What's interesting is, and I would call it a trend at this point.

00:48:40.220 --> 00:48:55.700
 I think there's a trend of people that are walking away from full-time staff ministry with a passion and a desire to relationally connect with people in the business world, in the secular world, in the world outside of the four walls of the church.

00:48:55.860 --> 00:49:00.860
 And how best to do that is reaching people in the second place in the business.

00:49:01.820 --> 00:49:07.460
 I'm thinking Austin Abney, who's with LifePoint up in the Carolinas.

00:49:07.900 --> 00:49:14.500
 And he's a microchurch pastor through the church.

00:49:14.600 --> 00:49:18.840
 And he's now working towards real estate and doing that.

00:49:19.520 --> 00:49:22.960
 Stephen Smith, another guy down at First Baptist Houston, was director of campuses.

00:49:23.600 --> 00:49:28.200
 And now he is doing the same thing with the real estate.

00:49:28.200 --> 00:49:43.560
 Jared Hughes, one of the largest, a digital pastor, one of the largest digital-only churches in America, Hope City Church, has talked very vocally about having multiple jobs, even on a podcast with us, talking about how he and his wife have multiple jobs.

00:49:44.020 --> 00:49:55.760
 Not, say, to take pressure off the church to fund them, but, B, to give them relational equity with people for the purpose of building relationships pointing to Christ.

00:49:55.900 --> 00:49:59.920
 And so, it's very much a different perspective.

00:50:00.420 --> 00:50:19.900
 Even in context, Stephen Pike, Dave Ferguson, we seem to be having a lot of these conversations lately about how maybe what a pastor is, is maybe evolving a little bit different from the guy that's not managing an experience or managing a process.

00:50:19.900 --> 00:50:26.840
 Through this COVID season, maybe there's a little more awareness to, hey, there needs to be relationships in there.

00:50:27.380 --> 00:50:29.420
 And it's not just inclusionary.

00:50:29.600 --> 00:50:31.800
 It's not just reaching the 99.

00:50:32.360 --> 00:50:36.240
 It's building relationships with people who are far from Christ.

00:50:36.320 --> 00:50:42.600
 Reaching out and helping find individual ones to go along with the organizational ones.

00:50:42.740 --> 00:50:45.800
 So, Ray, you're doing a great job setting an example here.

00:50:45.920 --> 00:50:46.400
 I don't know yet.

00:50:46.500 --> 00:50:47.500
 I think I'm just trying.

00:50:47.820 --> 00:51:00.300
 But I do hope that more pastors, more church leaders, rather than asking your high-level volunteers to leave their secular roles to come join your staff,

00:51:00.840 --> 00:51:04.540
 why not empower them more to do more where they're at?

00:51:05.100 --> 00:51:06.920
 That's what I'm hoping for the future.

00:51:07.040 --> 00:51:10.920
 Because I remember on staff, we would have these high-level, these brilliant people.

00:51:11.120 --> 00:51:13.340
 We'd be like, oh, man, would you please come join us on staff?

00:51:13.480 --> 00:51:18.020
 But that's kind of the opposite of what we really want to do if we really want to reach the city.

00:51:19.180 --> 00:51:21.320
 If we want to make an impact, no, stay where you're at.

00:51:22.320 --> 00:51:25.840
 You can't make as much of an impact coming to work within the four walls of the church.

00:51:25.900 --> 00:51:26.680
 You just can't.

00:51:27.200 --> 00:51:28.100
 It's not the same.

00:51:29.060 --> 00:51:31.480
 And so, I'm hoping we empower them more to do that.

00:51:31.980 --> 00:51:41.640
 And that's really the challenge because the church has to let go of their brand, their vision, what they're trying to produce.

00:51:41.940 --> 00:51:45.720
 If they're going to be effective on equipping people on personal mission.

00:51:45.720 --> 00:51:50.640
 Ray, you made a great campus pastor, physical campus pastor.

00:51:51.100 --> 00:51:54.920
 If you ask me honestly, I think you made a better digital pastor than a campus pastor.

00:51:55.260 --> 00:51:56.120
 I may be biased.

00:51:56.580 --> 00:51:57.280
 Yeah, you're welcome.

00:51:57.640 --> 00:51:59.640
 But at the end of that, hey, you know what?

00:51:59.820 --> 00:52:06.160
 I've got to let go of you because your personal mission, where you feel God leading you, is in a different area.

00:52:06.540 --> 00:52:08.800
 And that's not a negative.

00:52:09.260 --> 00:52:11.080
 That's not like, well, crap, I lost Ray.

00:52:11.160 --> 00:52:14.200
 Let's cross him off and maybe we'll hear from him again.

00:52:14.200 --> 00:52:16.980
 But he's on his own because he's not within the church.

00:52:16.980 --> 00:52:25.980
 Really, I think it's the church's job to empower their people on personal mission to get out and do these things.

00:52:26.120 --> 00:52:31.020
 The real question, I think, for the church is, how do we encourage Ray?

00:52:31.100 --> 00:52:32.620
 How do we equip Ray?

00:52:32.980 --> 00:52:34.540
 How do we hold Ray accountable?

00:52:35.040 --> 00:52:40.580
 How can we help him on his journey instead of ignoring him at this point?

00:52:40.900 --> 00:52:46.940
 Because, oh, it's outside of what is normally established as the four walls of what our church is.

00:52:47.380 --> 00:52:50.620
 If we keep inclusionary, and this is not digital physical here.

00:52:50.740 --> 00:52:58.580
 If we keep inclusionary towards what happens in our building and ignore what's happening outside, we will continue to lose effectiveness.

00:52:58.680 --> 00:53:17.880
 And it's people like Ray at this point, men and women that are being brave, walking away, not because they're annoyed with church and they're disillusioned and they're frustrated with ministry, but they feel that ministry is dragging them, that ministry is taking them, that ministry is allowing them to reach people outside of the walls.

00:53:18.300 --> 00:53:20.420
 That's the goal of where we need to be.

00:53:20.720 --> 00:53:22.380
 Yeah, and I want to be very clear about that.

00:53:23.380 --> 00:53:27.220
 I've never been happier or more excited about the mission of the local church.

00:53:28.880 --> 00:53:29.920
 That's kind of the other thing.

00:53:30.120 --> 00:53:33.460
 This isn't somebody leaving because they're disillusioned with church.

00:53:33.640 --> 00:53:34.000
 No, no, no.

00:53:34.160 --> 00:53:35.680
 This is because I love Jesus.

00:53:35.940 --> 00:53:37.140
 I'm going out there.

00:53:37.860 --> 00:53:39.180
 That's honest to God the truth.

00:53:39.840 --> 00:53:43.140
 The other thing is, Jeff, because I want to see that happen more often than not.

00:53:43.320 --> 00:53:46.620
 And I'm hoping that this eventually takes a spin on student ministry.

00:53:46.880 --> 00:54:03.460
 I hope that eventually we start talking to our students on, hey, listen, before you go off to college, why don't you start thinking about, because you're going to start making decisions for the rest of your life, how you're going to use your career, your said career path to impact people for the mission of Christ.

00:54:03.820 --> 00:54:06.400
 That it starts that early on, that we start integrating it.

00:54:06.400 --> 00:54:14.300
 Like, yes, you could be called to be a nurse, a lawyer, you know, a business person, a whatever, you know, a coder.

00:54:15.800 --> 00:54:18.220
 And leverage that for the sake of the gospel.

00:54:19.300 --> 00:54:20.080
 Leverage that.

00:54:20.580 --> 00:54:22.100
 Ah, but, you know, I'm not called to be a pastor.

00:54:22.960 --> 00:54:23.320
 Exactly.

00:54:24.280 --> 00:54:25.260
 That's my point.

00:54:25.500 --> 00:54:26.620
 You're not called to be a pastor.

00:54:26.700 --> 00:54:27.240
 That's fine.

00:54:27.600 --> 00:54:30.740
 You're called to be whatever it is that you're called to be, but that's still your holy calling.

00:54:30.860 --> 00:54:31.660
 God has gifted you.

00:54:31.760 --> 00:54:33.800
 He's given you an affinity for it.

00:54:33.860 --> 00:54:34.840
 You're excited about it.

00:54:34.900 --> 00:54:36.260
 It's something that gets you up in the morning.

00:54:36.360 --> 00:54:38.320
 It's something that you deal with all the time.

00:54:38.600 --> 00:54:40.740
 How are you going to leverage that for the sake of the gospel?

00:54:41.260 --> 00:54:43.280
 I had a pastor.

00:54:43.460 --> 00:54:47.340
 I'm not able to tell you his name because he asked me not to disclose it publicly.

00:54:47.920 --> 00:54:52.400
 He is a lead pastor of a church in Iran.

00:54:53.400 --> 00:54:55.520
 And this pastor told me,

00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:00.920
 Hey, Jeff, you know what the biggest problem with Christians in Iran is?

00:55:01.960 --> 00:55:05.240
 And because I'm forever a student, I just asked him,

00:55:05.580 --> 00:55:09.560
 Yeah, I would love to know what's the biggest problem with Christians in Iran.

00:55:09.820 --> 00:55:12.380
 And his answer was, they all want to be Levi.

00:55:13.200 --> 00:55:14.460
 They all want to be priests.

00:55:14.960 --> 00:55:16.120
 They all want to be pastors.

00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:22.520
 Christians in Iran don't understand yet what it is to be a Christian in the workplace.

00:55:22.680 --> 00:55:24.560
 For many reasons, by the way,

00:55:24.620 --> 00:55:28.900
 because Christians in the workplace tend to get you killed when you're in Iran.

00:55:28.900 --> 00:55:31.560
 And so they haven't figured out the formula yet,

00:55:31.580 --> 00:55:33.160
 because if you're baptized,

00:55:33.620 --> 00:55:36.660
 like they have authority in the Iranian government to kill you.

00:55:36.740 --> 00:55:37.800
 That's kind of a thing.

00:55:38.160 --> 00:55:40.420
 But they don't, they don't know how this,

00:55:40.540 --> 00:55:44.760
 and it's amazing how I'll maybe argue some of that's relative,

00:55:44.760 --> 00:55:47.140
 where, where we try to drive people.

00:55:47.320 --> 00:55:48.120
 Thank you, Eric Geiger.

00:55:48.240 --> 00:55:50.760
 We try to drive people to the point of,

00:55:50.900 --> 00:55:54.420
 Hey, the ultimate Christian is the one who's on church staff.

00:55:55.000 --> 00:55:58.880
 And, and honestly, and coming from a guy with 15 years church staff experience,

00:55:59.640 --> 00:56:03.420
 I don't, I don't, it's not ministry.

00:56:03.600 --> 00:56:05.920
 Like the opportunities to do ministry,

00:56:06.020 --> 00:56:11.360
 the opportunities to impact people are not the ones who are paid Christians.

00:56:11.800 --> 00:56:13.440
 It's not the professional Christians.

00:56:13.440 --> 00:56:15.260
 It's the people who are out there.

00:56:15.600 --> 00:56:19.140
 And so if you're in, and I would love to even just wrap on this,

00:56:19.140 --> 00:56:21.960
 but if you're thinking about this,

00:56:22.620 --> 00:56:25.160
 let's keep that dialogue going.

00:56:25.260 --> 00:56:30.820
 You're going to hear a lot more on this from the church digital podcast and some others coming.

00:56:31.020 --> 00:56:34.280
 But Ray, let me ask this as, as we're, you know, landing the plane here,

00:56:34.280 --> 00:56:37.900
 what somebody's thinking about this.

00:56:37.980 --> 00:56:40.000
 Somebody's listening to this podcast and,

00:56:40.060 --> 00:56:41.180
 and it's eating away at them.

00:56:41.180 --> 00:56:46.740
 Like your dad's conversation over at the Niagara Falls kind of ate away at you for a while.

00:56:47.940 --> 00:56:49.360
 What advice would you give them?

00:56:49.400 --> 00:56:50.480
 What's, what's the next step?

00:56:50.980 --> 00:56:52.260
 Coach them through a little bit here.

00:56:52.620 --> 00:56:54.140
 First thing I would do for sure.

00:56:54.140 --> 00:56:58.260
 And, and for many of you in ministry kind of know kind of the path that I'm going to take you down.

00:56:58.360 --> 00:57:00.520
 So first thing you would do, you should do is you should pray about it.

00:57:01.060 --> 00:57:02.320
 You need to pray about it.

00:57:02.720 --> 00:57:04.180
 It's a very spiritual conversation.

00:57:04.300 --> 00:57:05.060
 It's got to start there.

00:57:06.180 --> 00:57:08.300
 It's, it's something that has to start with the Lord.

00:57:08.580 --> 00:57:11.000
 You feel like God's calling you out before you make a shift like that,

00:57:11.060 --> 00:57:13.260
 especially for those of you who are leading families.

00:57:13.340 --> 00:57:15.800
 Like this isn't like an overnight kind of a shift.

00:57:15.920 --> 00:57:18.820
 This is something that's going to cost everybody something.

00:57:19.280 --> 00:57:22.540
 And nobody's guaranteed that this is going to work out.

00:57:22.540 --> 00:57:23.880
 I want to be very clear about that.

00:57:23.960 --> 00:57:25.580
 That's the part of following Jesus, right?

00:57:26.100 --> 00:57:28.020
 So Jeff alluded to Peter walking on water.

00:57:28.600 --> 00:57:32.040
 He didn't know this was going to work out and neither do you.

00:57:32.480 --> 00:57:33.540
 So you got to start there.

00:57:34.680 --> 00:57:38.380
 Next thing you want to do is you want to start talking to people in your life that you trust.

00:57:38.840 --> 00:57:43.640
 And depending on how you go about this, I wouldn't talk to anybody on staff.

00:57:43.720 --> 00:57:47.800
 I would actually talk to people outside that you trust, whether it's a pastor outside of your church staff,

00:57:47.860 --> 00:57:49.440
 because you're not trying to set off any red flags.

00:57:49.820 --> 00:57:51.040
 You're praying through something.

00:57:51.700 --> 00:57:52.900
 You are praying through something.

00:57:53.320 --> 00:57:56.980
 You're not trying to let anybody know that you made a decision that you're leaving or anything like this.

00:57:57.140 --> 00:57:58.780
 You are praying through something.

00:57:58.780 --> 00:58:02.240
 You are considering something that God is calling you to do.

00:58:03.020 --> 00:58:08.320
 And so I would definitely, you know, talk to people in your life that can make an impact in that way.

00:58:08.420 --> 00:58:10.840
 You know, Jeff, for me, was one of those people along the way.

00:58:11.340 --> 00:58:32.940
 I had other people in my life like David Lopez, Pastor Bill Baggett, David Uribe, other people, you know, that God had surrounded me with that I could have conversations with, you know, and kind of, you know, share some of my thoughts, my fears, you know, the things that I enjoy, the things that I don't enjoy about what I was doing in ministry, the kind of impact that I wanted to make.

00:58:32.940 --> 00:58:49.600
 And asking the hard questions, like whether or not it was realistic, or whether this was just kind of a passing phase, you know, or this is some kind of midlife crisis kind of a thing or something else, you know, but you need somebody to challenge you and to ask you the hard questions along the way, just because you want to make sure that it's genuine.

00:58:50.160 --> 00:58:52.140
 And the next thing is, is your spouse has to be on board.

00:58:53.320 --> 00:58:56.540
 Like, you can't just go making this decision without the family being on board.

00:58:56.680 --> 00:58:58.820
 Like, this is a choice that all of you have to own.

00:58:59.340 --> 00:59:00.640
 And Lauren owns this decision.

00:59:00.860 --> 00:59:03.040
 And Lauren is my chief encourager.

00:59:03.320 --> 00:59:06.220
 Let me tell you, my wife is my chief encourager throughout this entire process.

00:59:06.340 --> 00:59:08.340
 And that's not just me blowing smoke.

00:59:09.040 --> 00:59:13.520
 She has been the one to tell me, hey, like, do you feel like you need to go back and study?

00:59:13.620 --> 00:59:14.620
 Then get back in there and study.

00:59:14.820 --> 00:59:17.500
 You know, she's been the person to help keep me accountable for some of that stuff.

00:59:18.580 --> 00:59:20.240
 And did hardship still come?

00:59:21.380 --> 00:59:25.080
 Rewind a couple of minutes ago in the podcast when I just told you about how one of our bills doubled.

00:59:25.980 --> 00:59:28.680
 And, you know, we had to fight through that.

00:59:28.860 --> 00:59:30.380
 And at the same time, we had to apologize.

00:59:30.580 --> 00:59:32.400
 We had to come back to each other and say, okay, what's the mission?

00:59:32.500 --> 00:59:33.040
 What are we doing?

00:59:33.300 --> 00:59:33.920
 Where are we going?

00:59:34.160 --> 00:59:35.240
 Are we both on board with this?

00:59:35.340 --> 00:59:36.800
 Are we both going to own this decision?

00:59:36.960 --> 00:59:39.620
 Then yes, we are both owning this decision.

00:59:39.800 --> 00:59:41.000
 This is not just a Ray thing.

00:59:41.080 --> 00:59:42.240
 This is not just a Lauren thing.

00:59:42.600 --> 00:59:43.780
 This is an us thing.

00:59:44.040 --> 00:59:46.180
 And we are together with this as a team.

00:59:46.740 --> 00:59:49.480
 And so for sure, talk to God, talk to others,

00:59:49.680 --> 00:59:54.420
 talk to your spouse if you're married and make sure that there's ownership along the way.

00:59:54.920 --> 00:59:57.560
 And then, you know, kind of following up with Frozen 2,

00:59:57.900 --> 01:00:01.480
 the best advice I can do is do the next right thing.

01:00:02.240 --> 01:00:03.300
 Take the next step.

01:00:03.420 --> 01:00:04.040
 Well played.

01:00:04.200 --> 01:00:05.860
 I'm like singing Let It Go in my head.

01:00:05.940 --> 01:00:06.360
 I'm like, what?

01:00:06.660 --> 01:00:07.360
 Frozen 2?

01:00:07.460 --> 01:00:08.940
 What are the songs in Frozen 2?

01:00:09.140 --> 01:00:09.780
 Okay, well done.

01:00:09.820 --> 01:00:10.560
 Yes, Frozen 2.

01:00:10.640 --> 01:00:11.800
 Do the next right thing.

01:00:12.620 --> 01:00:13.640
 You know, take the next step.

01:00:13.720 --> 01:00:15.020
 Maybe it's registering for a course.

01:00:15.120 --> 01:00:18.560
 Maybe it's, you know, going to a seminar, you know, within the kind of thing.

01:00:18.920 --> 01:00:20.920
 And see if the thread keeps pulling.

01:00:21.060 --> 01:00:24.260
 See if it's something that keeps on encouraging you and luring you in.

01:00:24.680 --> 01:00:27.340
 But don't ignore the curiosity completely.

01:00:27.760 --> 01:00:31.960
 After you've done the other things, don't go explore the curiosity before you talk to your spouse.

01:00:32.140 --> 01:00:32.840
 No, no, no, no, no.

01:00:32.900 --> 01:00:34.260
 That's a dangerous thing to do.

01:00:34.780 --> 01:00:42.140
 You want to have full, clear conversations along the way because there needs to be transparency because with transparency comes trust.

01:00:42.320 --> 01:00:45.900
 And there's a lot of trust that's needed to shift your family in such a large way.

01:00:46.380 --> 01:00:51.320
 So my advice, have the trust first and then go and start to tug on the curiosity.

01:00:52.240 --> 01:00:55.180
 And, you know, one of my favorite quotes from Disney, I'm going to botch this.

01:00:55.340 --> 01:01:00.760
 One of my favorite quotes from Walt Disney is that, you know, we're going to keep being curious.

01:01:00.760 --> 01:01:05.780
 We're going to keep moving down new pathways and we're going to find out where that curiosity takes us.

01:01:06.180 --> 01:01:07.400
 And we're going to keep moving forward.

01:01:08.160 --> 01:01:19.700
 And you'd be surprised where you can end up if you would just continue to follow that curiosity and find out, like, how much God can take you down a path where you're used in ways that you never really thought possible.

01:01:19.800 --> 01:01:23.460
 And it's not talking on stage in front of a conference in front of thousands of people.

01:01:23.820 --> 01:01:29.120
 It's talking in a boardroom with five or six people or talking with one person who doesn't know Jesus.

01:01:30.140 --> 01:01:30.960
 That's what it's about.

01:01:31.620 --> 01:01:31.860
 Awesome.

01:01:32.080 --> 01:01:33.540
 So, hey, we're going to wrap here.

01:01:33.620 --> 01:01:35.580
 We're not ending the conversation, though.

01:01:36.260 --> 01:01:47.700
 Coming up in the next podcast, we're going to bring in Brandon Arndt, who is actually the digital pastor that Ray's been mentoring and growing, who's like brand new at the job.

01:01:47.700 --> 01:02:02.700
 Two months in literally drinking from the fire hydrant in the middle of being a physical church, going back to the physical building, feeling the tension of physical digital while figuring out all the new stuff in a very high pressure environment.

01:02:03.180 --> 01:02:10.500
 So why not bring him into a podcast with him and let him bear his deepest, darkest secrets and crucial sins and things?

01:02:10.600 --> 01:02:10.960
 No, I'm kidding.

01:02:11.080 --> 01:02:11.740
 Well, maybe.

01:02:11.840 --> 01:02:12.420
 We'll see how it goes.

01:02:12.640 --> 01:02:13.780
 He's going to be better than I was.

01:02:13.860 --> 01:02:14.840
 He's going to be much better.

01:02:14.960 --> 01:02:15.940
 He is going to be awesome.

01:02:16.140 --> 01:02:21.460
 I can't wait for Brandon to join us on the podcast and really for you guys to get to know him.

01:02:21.940 --> 01:02:24.180
 But really, he's going to take CF to a lot of great places.

01:02:24.360 --> 01:02:26.020
 And so I'm really happy for what he's going to do.

01:02:26.080 --> 01:02:29.480
 So looking forward to that conversation coming up in the next podcast.

01:02:29.660 --> 01:02:33.060
 But for now, we're going to land a plan and call it done for Ray.

01:02:33.440 --> 01:02:36.020
 By the way, let's say it, Ray's not going anywhere.

01:02:36.120 --> 01:02:38.380
 He's going to be involved in the Church Digital as much as possible.

01:02:39.060 --> 01:02:40.640
 Let's just say I wasn't paying him anyway.

01:02:40.800 --> 01:02:42.080
 And so, hey, he's doing something else.

01:02:42.120 --> 01:02:42.900
 Well, I'm still not paying him.

01:02:43.340 --> 01:02:44.260
 We're just having fun.

01:02:44.400 --> 01:02:44.680
 $3.95.

01:02:45.040 --> 01:02:46.920
 Yeah, we're just doing it while we're doing it.

01:02:47.040 --> 01:02:51.180
 But for Ray, this is Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning.

01:02:51.340 --> 01:02:53.140
 Thanks for jumping on the podcast here.

01:02:53.160 --> 01:02:54.140
 And we'll see you next time at the show.

01:02:54.140 --> 01:02:54.880
 Y'all have a good day.