Better Spiritual Conversations - Jennifer Chan

00:00 - Speaker 1 I don't like to use this language, but I've cracked the code on ministry in this particular area of the city. So because of that, because of the challenges and the complexity, there is this desire to collaborate and a desire to serve alongside one another and learn from one another. That I don't take for granted but I realize is a really special thing about ministry in New York, and so I don't know. It's fun for me to get to celebrate. 00:28 - Speaker 2 Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life. Join us as we delve into their challenges, moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithly Stories delve into their challenges, moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. Learn more at faithlyco. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry. On the Faithly Stories Podcast. 01:10 - Speaker 3 Jennifer, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We've met a couple of times. I had a chance to get to know you a little bit, but I've always felt like I was just scratching the surface, and so I'm super excited for the opportunity to just dig in a little bit more. 01:26 - Speaker 1 Thank you so much for having me. 01:28 - Speaker 3 So let me start with this. Your official title at Redeemer City to City is I want to get this right Senior Director of Missional Engagement and Catalytic Training. 01:39 - Speaker 1 It's a mouthful, isn't it? 01:41 - Speaker 3 It's a mouthful, but you know so it's a big role. Obviously. I'd love to just hear a little bit more about it. If you could break it down into like what you do. 01:51 - Speaker 1 Well, part of that work is just leading our training team and helping us stay, you know, as collaborative among ourselves, but also with all the different churches and ministries that we get to serve alongside. 02:07 So I see it as like a coordination role to help us make sure we're all talking to one another and all learning about how to train fruitfully and effectively in all different kinds of contexts. So that's one piece is just getting to like work with the trainers and the facilitators in all different kinds of contexts. So that's one piece is just getting to like work with the trainers and the facilitators, which is a real joy. The other piece is then being out in the field, which is New York city, which is a lot of fun, and this is me in church basements, um, in church sanctuaries, in all kinds of ministry spaces in all five boroughs, getting to work with pastors and leaders, and I like to describe it as equipping churches for better spiritual conversations. So the aspect of missional engagement that I lean into the most is around equipping people to speak good news, live good news, invite people to take a step forward to do this. 03:00 - Speaker 3 That's really cool, and you've lived in different places and you've served in different places, but you've been in New York now for like 15 years, almost 20 years, almost 20 years, wow. So, as you look to equip the Church of New York City and its leaders to have better spiritual conversations, is there anything that is like unique to New York? That like when you were in Asia or you were in Canada, like it wasn't, like that wasn't the challenge for evangelism here, but it is here in New York, oh wow. 03:30 - Speaker 1 Ooh, that is a good question. Let me start by saying marveling at the fact that in New York I'm not the first to say this, I'm, I'm, I'm repeating things that I've heard from older, wiser friends in ministry but in New York there is this desperation that because of how challenging it is, because of how diverse it is, because of how it's like a thousand different villages, so many contexts, so you can't, I don't think you ever feel like you have a handle on I don't like to use this language, but I've cracked the code on ministry in this particular area of the city. So because of that, because of the challenges and the complexity, there is this desire to collaborate and a desire to serve alongside one another and learn from one another. That I don't take for granted but I realize is a really special thing about ministry in New York, and so I don't know. It's fun for me to get to celebrate. Despite all the things, all the headwinds that seem to be prevailing, there's also a desire and a willingness to team up, which is really beautiful. 04:49 - Speaker 3 Before you were at City to City, you were at the Redeemer Churches, and before that you were at UNICEF. What made you move from UNICEF into the ministry world? 05:00 - Speaker 1 I would just say I've always felt called to equip people for mission and so, whether that was equipping people to speak on behalf of the world's children, which is what my work at UNICEF was, or equip people to speak about the role that Jesus plays in their life, the role that faith has in their life, I do see those as a piece, like as part of the same thread, just in different contexts. So it actually felt it didn't feel like a stretch for me to do what I was doing at UNICEF compared to what I'm doing now. So that's a part of it. But I'll say, alicia, like I've always been torn between I went to college I studied biology and political science. 05:44 I wanted to this sounds so preposterous now but I wanted to just do humanitarian work. I wanted to help make a difference when it came to fighting human trafficking. Those are the things that fired me up. But I was also drawn to mentoring, discipling work and evangelism and missions work as it relates to the church. So I kind of felt pulled between this humanitarian, unicef-y world and then the ministry world. So that's why, if you look at my journey, I'm kind of in and out of church ministry a couple of times, though now it's been about five years at City to City, so I might be here for a little while. 06:22 - Speaker 3 Well, I have to say it doesn't sound preposterous to me at all. I think that in order to be a catalyst for change, you have to be really aspirational and you have to go for the things that sound like it's not even in the realm of possibility. 06:37 And I would also say that, just as an observer, it doesn't feel to me like you've been in or out of anything. You know all of this is kingdom work, all of this is serving the kingdom and you know you were doing it like rolling up your sleeves and like in a nonprofit like UNICEF, and now you're training leaders, which has this multiplying effect. You know, helping and encouraging and equipping people who are God's hands and feet in all of this type of work. So it's beautiful just to observe and to hear you talk about it. 07:13 - Speaker 1 Thanks for reflecting that back, Alicia. That's super encouraging. 07:16 - Speaker 3 So before UNICEF, you were in Asia. What were you doing in Asia? 07:19 - Speaker 1 Yeah, so well. Asia I was deeply impacted by the pardon me Krabana Missions Conferences that InterVarsity hosts every couple of years. Pardon me, and I went twice. I went in 96 and I think it was the year 2000. But at one of those missions conferences I remember it's like midnight, around midnight on New Year's Eve, and they invite folks who feel led by the Spirit to make a commitment to do something missions-wise and I felt that pull. And at Urbana probably it was 96, I had made a commitment. I really felt drawn to sharing the faith and helping people understand the faith in a place like China. I remember growing up reading about just the struggles of the church and of Christians in China and I just felt like it's very simple and naive perhaps, but I was like I cannot believe that people in China cannot worship freely. They just don't enjoy the freedom to know God as I do and I was bothered by that. 08:31 And so that Urbana kind of prompting led to that commitment, which I then followed through. A couple of years later, so right after I graduated from the University of Toronto, my first job was to teach English in Shanghai. So I taught English by day and then led Bible studies by night. 08:50 - Speaker 3 Wow, yes. And how long were you there? For Two years. And when you do ministry today, are there things that you learned from your time in Shanghai that are part of what you do today? I'm just curious if there's impact in today's ministry from that. 09:06 - Speaker 1 That's a great question. I think one of the things that comes to mind is being I'm you know, my family is Chinese, where my parents are from Hong Kong, going to China to live. As somebody who'd essentially had very little like. I'm not fluent in Chinese. I can do the basics of like ordering food and getting to a doctor or something, but so moving from Toronto to a place like Shanghai, it was very challenging. There was a lot of tears, there was a lot of the culture shock was real and so, if any, maybe one of the one of the things that rises to the top when you ask that question of how it affects ministry to this day is being able to depend on a God who has proven himself faithful in the most challenging circumstances of my life. So it was the desperation again that word like when you're there and you're desperately trying to, um, find out who you can trust, find out who your ministry partners are going to be, try to find a way to connect with people who, culturally, are very different from you. Everything seems upside down. You don't feel like yourself, the food is different, cultural mores are different. 10:26 In that environment, where I had a very little sense of like, I know how to navigate this, like I know how to succeed and thrive in this. So, the, the dependence on God, that has never and this is the grace of God um, that has never left me that, that ministry, that dependence like the, the um, moment by moment, dependence on prayer and like rooting myself in scripture to be able to make it through the next hour or the next day. That was, that was it. And, and really depending on prayer because, uh, we were the crew I was with, on the team I went out there with. We were all young, we're all recent graduates, we're all recent graduates, we're all idealistic, we wanted to serve God, we wanted to make disciples, but, you know, we had a lot to learn and so, yeah, that's a part of it. 11:23 - Speaker 3 So I'm really struck by the Urbana Conference being kind of like the spark right that propelled you into your first chapter of ministry. We've done about 50 episodes of the podcast and you're not the first person to say it was the Urbana conference for me. And so I'm just struck by the power of gathering together and of all like sort of being pointed at the Lord together and the opportunities that arise for the Lord to speak really powerfully into people's lives, like in those moments and in those gatherings. So thank you for sharing that. Did you always know or did you dream that New York City would be in your future? 12:03 - Speaker 1 Oh, my goodness, never, ever. I did not think that New York was never on my radar. I thought international being overseas in some capacity definitely was. But here's the thing when I, uh I got married to an American guy and he trained um for his uh, trained in medicine here in New York and it's because he matched here for residency that we came to New York. But when I first, when we first drove into the city and I saw you know, he was like pointing out the Roosevelt Island tram, the landmarks in Long Island city and Queens and just the bridges and everything I felt I did feel this is a little cheesy. I did feel a sense of like this is the home I've been looking for all my life. Wow, yeah, I felt that the moment I hit the street and so after 20 years here, I imagine this is firmly home, firmly home, yeah, you'll have to drag my dick body out of this place. 12:58 I said that in COVID, when I did like in COVID, when so many people felt the need to move away, uh, it just never. I was like where else would I go? Why would? I leave now um and I I felt more committed to New York than ever. Yeah. 13:12 - Speaker 3 Yeah. 13:13 - Speaker 1 So it is my way home. 13:14 - Speaker 3 I have to admit. So I'm 20 years in New York as well and I have to admit I was one of those people during COVID who would like flick through pictures of real estate and other places because, wow, wide open spaces and you don't have to worry about some of the things you have to worry about in an urban setting. But for me, like I arrived where you arrived, I just I had to look at the pictures to get there. But I saw these like different towns and different cities and I just never felt permission from the Lord to be in those places. I didn't at all feel released from like what is my mission field? What is your mission field? And so I don't know. I had to do some browsing. I totally get the people who you know looked elsewhere. But, yeah, we stayed and I really couldn't envision us anywhere else yes, or 100 that way. 14:03 Yes, so you've got two girls. I do. You have twins? Yeah, I can't imagine I have three kids, but I don't have two kids the same exact age. 14:19 - Speaker 1 Twins were a challenge. They kicked my butt. They still kick my butt. But from the years of zero to six I just felt this black hole of. I just can't believe we made it out. I have vast pockets of memory loss because of how hard it was. 14:27 - Speaker 3 You have to, you have to blacksmith it out. What's interesting is, as a mom of a seven, five and two-year-old, when you've got like the little little ones, like your babies are like one or one and a half, people will tell you, just wait, when they're three it gets better. But when they're, they like kind of like encourage you along the way. But then once the kids get older, like your girls are 10 years old, that's right and the real truth comes out. It takes like a good six years to sort of reclaim, I think, like more fully, like your dreams and you know your life. Um, at least I'm finding that and it's not a bad thing Like for me, like I've learned and I'm learning so much. Just you know, um raising them and going through all these stages. But I'm curious, as someone who is now leading leaders, you know training pastors and other leaders is there anything you've learned as a mother that has influenced how you lead others. 15:26 - Speaker 1 Wow Listen, we could sit and talk about this for a while. I'd love to hear how you would answer it too. Again, the theme, my theme word, seems to be desperation. Having twins was so challenging for me. There was anything I could manage to do apart from just keeping them alive. It felt like such a gift from God. So, again, this dependence on God for everything, uh, the, the, the, um, absolute inadequacy. Me and my husband felt, uh, those zero to six years, and even now it's still challenging, but it's gotten better. Uh, but in terms of ministry. But in terms of ministry, having twins was so demanding for me and my husband. 16:15 I felt the need to be like I would just make sure, when they were down for a nap, that precious, whatever it might be At one point it might have been an hour and then it shrunk, but sometimes it would be a little bit more I'd be like okay, I got to make sure all the tissue boxes are stocked up. I got it Like everything, get everything ready, because when they're up again, I will have no capacity to like, do anything but survive. And so there, in a way, that kind of like what do we, what's it going to take to like get through keeping them alive and like keeping our household going. Um, that preparedness. So I think that that carried over, especially in the early years, to into the workplace of like, okay, I got to met. Like, whatever time I have, I got to, for good or ill. Like I got to optimize and maximize so that I'm ready, um, when I have the energy, because my energy is now so limited, I got to make sure that when, when that window is there, I can really take advantage of it. So that was one thing, but I there's so many things about parenting. 17:18 I remember I heard this um teacher of the word. She spoke about how God was um bringing the Israelites into this, the promised land, the land of milk and honey, and that they would be richly, like, greatly blessed in this land. But what this teacher revealed and helped me understand was that the blessing is you will need to depend on the Lord, even as the land itself is a great gift. But in order to cultivate that land, to live sustainably off that land, to get along with one another in that land, that land, to get along with one another in that land, the blessing is dependence on the Lord. And I have thought a lot about that, about children being a blessing, right From the scripture itself, from mothers and fathers in the faith, mentors in the faith. How much children are a blessing. And for me that blessing is how much I need the Lord, how much he helps, and so that is easily transferable to any aspect of ministry, which is this ministry is a blessing and I desperately need the Lord at all hours and all moments of it. 18:22 But one more thing is just the as I think about. You know, part of my work is equipping people in evangelism and making disciples, and as I try to disciple my own daughters, what it has helped to bring to life is just the holistic, the best of it being. How holistic it is. It's not just me reading words on a page to them, it's not just me. Stories are incredible. Stories are a beautiful way to. It's not just me. Stories are incredible. Stories are a beautiful way to help our children learn about God. But it's also like serving together. It's also helping somebody who's struggling up the stairs at the subway together. That is part of the disciple deepening process, and so that seeing what helps my kids respond to the things of God certainly informs and, I hope enriches the way I talk about how we as leaders in the church can disciple people who want to follow Jesus so that like full body, like all of life, aspect of discipleship, I think has been one of the gifts of parenting. 19:30 - Speaker 3 Yeah, absolutely. A lot of gifts, a lot of challenges. I had the opportunity to interview Drew Hyung, a pastor in New York City who just published a book, and the book is called Beauty, disappointment and Hope and it's a picture of the Christian life, but it's also a picture of these things in our lives. Everything is beautiful and disappointing and there's hope, whether it's the church, marriage, our lives, our children. I love what you said about how you're discipling them and I'm certain it's carrying into how you're training others to make disciples, because it's one ministry, right Like your life and everything the Lord has called you to. It's all your ministry. 20:21 I think for me, where my kids are in age, discipling them hasn't been a challenge because they kind of, at the ages my kids are at, they just sort of believe whatever you tell them at face value. So we haven't had like, they haven't asked me questions that are tough to answer yet, but I know that's coming For me. So far, like in my journey as a mother, I feel like it's given me a better sense of the father's heart. I've grown closer to the Father's heart because I can see, I think, how he sees us sometimes when I see my children. Oh, that's so true, you know, like they're whining and they're crying and they're being insolent and demanding and so unreasonable sometimes, and I love them and I have compassion for them, but, like man, how much patience and grace the Lord has versus me, it just it's been really eyeopening and, and, yeah, just that like dependence on God because we can't, can't do it on our own, yeah, yeah. 21:22 - Speaker 2 Yeah, yes. 21:25 - Speaker 3 So you work with all these pastors and these leaders of the church and you've been doing it a long time in New York city. What do you think the Lord is doing in the church of New York City now and what do you think he wants to do? 21:40 - Speaker 1 Given what New York went through pandemic-wise and what, and you know, in some ways we are still recovering from and we'll be recovering from the impact of the pandemic for a long time. I just think of kids, education as one, and the way we still, you know, for some of us, showing up to church once a month seems like a lot because we just got used to zooming into church, right and so. But all that preamble to say how, um, god works profoundly through the trials and hardships that come New York's way. And fresh on my heart and on my team's heart right now are all the executive orders and all the new, ever-changing, it seems, policies around immigrants, asylum seekers and all of that, and just the way churches are responding to the possibility that ICE may come to a worship service and how they can best love their neighbors and serve the city in this climate. So it seems to be there's just a fresh kind of challenge coming the church's way right now. It's upon us already and so, just like pandemic, was this fresh challenge current. This immigration policy stuff is another fresh challenge, just the incredible opportunity. I don't want to sugarcoat it, it is not easy, but the opportunity it is for the love of Christ to shine through us. So we're sensing that now, which is there's fear, there's anxiety, there's anger, there's great frustration at what's going on. And yet I'm surrounded by a team that's praying for ourselves, our own hearts and for the hearts of pastors and leaders in the city to not respond with hate, to, not to actually wash the feet of those we might consider enemies, or at least those who think and act very differently than ourselves. And so, gosh, how godlike is that right? It's just reflecting on the Sermon on the Mount If someone strikes your cheek, right cheek, give them the left as well, because striking them back, as NT Wright puts it, just keeps the evil in circulation. And so the church has an opportunity to like bust the circulation of evil by the way it responds right now. And so that's something that's again just on our minds and hearts right now. 24:30 I will add what I have had the privilege and joy of being a part of is, as churches reconnect to reconnect to what it means to be the sent people of God, as they reconnect to the man, this like incredible, mind-blowing reality that, through Jesus, god the Father looks on us with favor and delight and with pride. Already, out of that kind of I like to talk about it as a re-Jesus-ing of our hearts and re-Jesus-ing of our communities of faith. Out of that re-Jesus-ing and kind of a re-tapping into what it means to be sent, how transformative, how renewing, refreshing. How transformative, how renewing, refreshing, galvanizing it is for communities, whether they're baby six-month-old church plants or historic churches that have been around for 100 years. That re-energizing that happens when you wrestle again with what it means to be the sent church of God, the sent people of God, how that looks like in the way you love and engage your neighbors and your colleagues. 25:44 And so I'm always going to want to geek out on as people take seriously Matthew 28, as they take seriously the call to be salt and light man, like the joy, the energy, the refreshment they experience, the renewal they get to be a part of the really cool things that they get to take part in because of that. And so very long-winded answer, alicia, to your question of what am I seeing God doing? As people we connect to the mission of God and kind of discern what their role is in that. Just the joy, the energy, the vibrancy that comes from that and the goodness and the grace that spills out as people lean into mission. I could geek out on that all day. 26:29 - Speaker 3 I love that. Thank you for sharing that. It's so beautiful and I love that you said re-Jesus-ing. I think we all need a little re-Jesus-ing every day when we wake up. I love that, thank you. 26:41 - Speaker 1 I got to shout out Alan Hirsch for that. I stole that from him. 26:44 - Speaker 3 Thank you, alan Hirsch. Yes, all right. So last question for you, jen. You were a guest preacher at Reunion Church in Union Square, new York City, this past summer and you opened up the message by asking the congregation how do you think you get stronger spiritually? And there were some really great answers, right, I think people shouted out prayer, people shouted out community and you said for you it's remembering and living. Can you talk a little bit more about that? And I have a follow-up question to that, which I'll just add in, which is this question of getting stronger spiritually. Do you answer it differently if it's for a congregation versus for one of the leaders that you're trying to get? 27:33 - Speaker 1 We Jesus, so that the remembering is maybe part of the remembering is the re-Jesus-ing of our heart, the warming up of our hearts at the fire of God's love, as Richard Loveless put it. So we don't go trying to steal love from other sources. Like you know, sources that just aren't, are always going to fail us. But so the remembering is key, the re-Jesus is key. And then I would say it's always. It's always take a baby step of faith. Watch what God does in and through you. It's always take a baby step of faith. Watch what god does in and through you. Um, whether it's for an individual leader, uh, who, who takes that step of faith and then experiences the grace and nearness to the father in a fresh way, um, and that might become infectious to more of the people around them, to a whole congregation, it would still be. Warm up your hearts at the fire of Jesus. Remember to tap back into that first love. 28:24 Sometimes a question I ask is as I am with a group of leaders, it might be what's the first story of Jesus that really moved your heart? And as people turn to one another and talk about Jesus eating his disciples with breakfast on the beach, forgiving Peter after Peter had denied him three times. Or for me, it's Jesus stopping to heal the woman with the issue of blood, on his way to bring Jairus' daughter back to life, like those that the stories of the gospels that first moved our hearts about Jesus. There's something about tapping back into that that man strengthens. Our faith, helps us, I think. Unhide the light in us, revives our ability to be salt in the community. So I'm sticking to my guns. It's still remembering and I'm taking small steps of faith. 29:24 - Speaker 3 I love that. Thank you for sharing it and thank you, Jen, for everything you're doing to serve the city of New York. I'm a part of the church of the city of New York and I'm so blessed by it and we're so blessed by it. 29:37 - Speaker 2 So thank you. Thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast. We pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. The Faithly digital platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection, foster collaboration and promote growth within the church and ministry space. Remember to subscribe, rate and review our podcast to help reach more listeners like you. Stay tuned for more uplifting tales from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly Podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful and never underestimate the power of your own story.