Called to Transform - Ebony Small

00:00 - Speaker 1
First job that I ever truly loved never missed a day of work because I just loved going to work, but there was an emptiness inside of me that you just you can't fill with money and things. I think some people can get by and exist in a place of relationship with God. That might not look like mine, but clearly I was called to something different. So there was this. Here comes, like another Christianese word, like this holy discontent that was happening with inside of me of there is something more, and I need to find out what that is. Hi, my name is Ebony Small. I am the CEO of Transforming Leaders Consulting and also serve on the executive pastoral team at the River Church here in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, and this is my Faithly Story.

00:48 - 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 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.

01:29 - Speaker 3
Could you tell me about how your faith journey started?

01:32 - Speaker 1
Okay, well, my faith journey began at the age of seven years old in New York City, harlem to be exact, at Bethel Gospel Assembly, where my mom had recently given her life to the Lord, and it became the first church experience that I would say I intimately knew, although I had been christened earlier at my grandmother's Baptist church, also in New York City. But my faith journey really began at Bethel. I sang in the choir, got to understand a little bit more about who God was, but certainly did not have an understanding of this God who could be part of my life, and that understanding didn't come until the age of 11. And I was sitting at church one night, one Friday night, at a youth service that actually was attended by more adults than kids, and I was doing what kids do at church. I was talking, with my friends hanging out in the back. But something happened when the invitation to Christ began, and at the time the late Bishop Ezra Nehemiah Williams was giving this altar call for salvation, and I instantly found myself coming to attention. I was aware that I had stopped talking and that I was being forced to listen in to the words that he's speaking, and as I'm thinking about that, it just gives me a reminder of what is happening supernaturally in the spirit as we are giving these invitations, that the spirit of God is literally calling people to attention. And that's what was happening.

03:20
And I understood in that moment that I had to make a decision. I mean, it's just this one thing I could never describe. But I knew I had to make a decision. And then I felt like this presence literally lift me up out the pew and push me into the aisle, like I could feel my feet shuffling. But when I got into the aisle I no longer felt that presence with me and I knew that I had to make a choice of if I was going to walk down to that altar or go back to my seat. And I kind of felt like well, I'm already out here, now I feel like a fool going to sit back down. And I walked down to that altar and I believe it was me and one other person and gave my life to the Lord there. But I would say I still largely didn't understand what salvation meant. I wasn't immediately thrusted into a new believers class for kids, I just was kind of left you're saved. I understood the date.

04:13
March 22nd 1991 was the day I'd given my heart to God, but it wouldn't become a reality of a personal walk with the Lord. That wouldn't become my reality until I was in my early twenties, after I had graduated from college, came back home and was trying to rediscover my life as this adult person, no longer having all the freedoms of college and living on your own back under your parents' roof, working and feeling like you're going through the mechanics of life. I was in a very dysfunctional relationship at that time and I think I was even experiencing some probably mild depression. And one day I went to my Bible, wasn't very acquainted with the scriptures, I just opened it and landed in Matthew. I knew firmly that red letters meant that Jesus was speaking. And that's where we landed and came across verses of scripture which said these people honor me with their lips, but yet their hearts are far from me and they're living their lives based upon rules taught by men.

05:22
And I knew intuitively that I was being described. Those words that I was reading. That was who I was, and only the power of God can make you see yourself in a way that no one else could. And instantly I felt to pray and I remember I was crying but didn't understand why I was crying and I was asking God to please cause my heart to not be far from him, and I was telling him I didn't want my heart to be far from him. And that was really the date that changed my life.

05:54
I think I was 23 at the time and eventually I made it back to church. I'm now going as an adult, on my own, not because my parents were corralling us up to go, but from that point I never looked back. I rededicated my life to God, went to every Bible study class course that I could, and the trajectory of my life changed and I ended up in seminary. I ended up working in the faith-based space and wholly entering into this space of what I would call full-time ministry, outside of the four walls of the church, and have rediscovered who God created me to be and walking in an identity that I never would have known apart from him. So that's a little bit of my journey and my story.

06:44 - Speaker 3
There's just so much to unpack there. One that gap between 11 and 23,. What was going on? How would you describe your Christian life?

06:53 - Speaker 1
I would describe my Christian life as a casual dating relationship with God, an awareness to pray, an awareness to pray before, over your meals, an awareness to pray before you did anything like travel. An awareness that there was a God, but very disconnected, that there was a God of my life, that there was a God who had a plan for me, that there was a God that saved my soul to manifest his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. I just had a very, I would say, casual Christian experience going to church on Easter, doing the religious things, observing the religious holidays and other observances, but I would even qualify it with scripture having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. Going to school did exceptionally well and my academics always went to SUNY Binghamton for undergrad, had engaged in a lot of foreign exchange trip experiences from Russia to Paris and a lot of travels with family and got to see this world outside of my local city context, had a very present reality that the world was mine to grab a hold of and explore, despite any other narrative of race, of gender that might have been attempting to inform my reality. And I excelled in those spaces. And I would say, if you looked at my life. Externally, things seemed very good and like I was on the path towards success.

08:38
When I graduated from college, I worked for Big Brothers, big Sisters of New York City, probably the first job that I ever truly loved never missed a day of work, because I just loved going to work. But there was an emptiness inside of me that you just you can't fill with money and things, and I think some people can get by and exist in a place of relationship with God. That might not look like mine, but clearly I was called to something different. So there was this. Here comes, like another Christianese word, like this holy discontent that was happening with inside of me, of there is something more, and I need to find out what that is. And that more for me was God.

09:25
And so when I say rededicate although, yeah, I had been saved I didn't have a sense of not being saved, but I certainly wasn't dedicated, I definitely wasn't committed to the cause of Christ, I was not committed to the word of God. There was no desire to align my life with God's word. I didn't even know that that was the standard. I didn't know that that was the measuring stick how you live out your life as a believer, and I had to learn all of that, and none of that was taught to me, and so my commitment to Christ became a very intentional one when I understood that there was more to this kingdom than just praying over my food before I ate. So yeah, that would be how to answer that question.

10:12 - Speaker 3
When I take a look at my life, I look back. I'm like why didn't anyone tell me? And then, when I have conversations with people that knew me, it's like we've been telling you for so long. You just weren't paying attention. So I realized sometimes it's like it wasn't getting through to my thick skull and sometimes it was just like not being focused. So for you, during that in-between time, do you feel like maybe if, like, the church was emphasizing it more, you would have gotten it, or you just weren't in the space to receive it?

10:37 - Speaker 1
I wasn't present in the church beyond holidays to be in a place to receive, so there was definitely the absence of that. My environment, my day-to-day environment, wasn't one that said this is the way of the Lord, walkie in it. Here are the commands of God, this is what we do, this is how we live as believers. There wasn't that level of emphasis. Definitely, when I got to college, I did have an awareness that there was a standard. I had a friend and I remember her clearly, one of my sorority sisters actually, and she was a very committed Christian. She was in the gospel choir. She was always engaged in some sort of Bible study that was happening on campus. She talked a lot about God and in her witness I knew that there was more to my experience than what I was experiencing and I could understand that she was living her life to a standard that I wasn't.

11:43
Now I would say that I did feel a level of conviction in the things that she said, not to the point of condemnation, but I felt a level of conviction in that you probably should be doing these things too, you should have a desire for these things too, but it hadn't risen to the level of occasion of. I was to the point where I was willing to do something about it. But there was an awareness that there's a standard here and you're not living up to it. But that was probably the only intentional time that I was in relationship with someone that was a believer in their life. Their witness was something that caused me to feel conviction. Witness was something that caused me to feel conviction. Apart from that, I wasn't in any sort of Bible study on an ongoing basis, so again, I wasn't having that deposit of the word and so I really didn't know. I mean, I think the reality of the scripture is true my people perish for a lack of knowledge. If you don't know, you just don't know to do anything differently.

12:45 - Speaker 3
I'm personally very curious what your time in Binghamton was like, because I went to Binghamton and I went to Binghamton so like for you. What was it like for you being those four years in Binghamton?

12:54 - Speaker 1
Yeah, well, I loved my experience at Binghamton. Um yeah, I met a lot of amazing people. I joined the sorority Delta, sigma, theta while I was there. Many of the people that I met in college are definitely my friends today. I would say that I definitely had an awareness of.

13:19
I felt like Binghamton was very segregated in terms of. I felt like Binghamton was very segregated in terms of ethnic groups. You could see that pretty much everyone stayed within their own kind, so to speak, and that was a bit foreign for me because my high school experience I was in a very diverse environment and my parents were very intentional to make sure that we went to schools where we were not the majority, because they understood that the world that we lived in was not a majority of just being people of color or African-Americans, and so they wanted us to have that diversity of experience, which really helped us in a lot of ways. But I think my other you know reality was that I mean academically, my first year I struggled. I went from, you know, being this honor roll, you know, honor student, to being on academic probation after my first semester, cause you know, I picked crazy classes, like I was taking a 300 level psych course, cause I had taken some psych classes in high school, at community college. Uh, I was taking a biology class. I mean, I was, I was pre-med at that time and it was crazy and I just I didn't have the work ethic to study that hard. Yeah, I had to make some significant changes and I went from being pre-med to pre-law. So I'm just getting out of here. Just get me, I don't want to be a career college student. Let's look at these classes and figure out what major I can come up with. What can I minor in and how can I be done?

14:57
And I ended up, I think, majoring in Africana studies, minoring in sociology, which was great learnings and studies, not undermining it at all, but it certainly wasn't what I went to school trying to find out. But in terms of just like my understanding of self, I don't feel like I walked away from college with this grandiose understanding of me. I think I had definitely mastered socialization, loved the freedom of living on campus, then to living off campus, but I didn't have much of an real identity. I definitely didn't have a lot of integrity in my character. I could just think about a number of things that I did that just lacked real integrity and damaged relationships, even with some people present day. And so, yeah, just I was there, right, I was there, I graduated, but I can't say that I had this like aha experience of coming into my own in college. That really happened for me a little bit, a little bit beyond that, what's?

16:00 - Speaker 3
the steps for you. How did you progress toward building up your faith and your identity in your life?

16:07 - Speaker 1
It was about a two-year experience of the push and pull of knowing that there's something happening within you but not yet being ready to act upon it. So I lived in the Bronx at the time. I lived in what us New Yorkers know as a two-fair zone For those of you that are not in New York meaning you had to take the bus to the train, which makes your commute an hour and a half two hours, based upon where you live in the outer boroughs one way, and that was a barrier for me from getting to church on Sundays, and so I asked God for a car. I said, god, if you give me a car, I'm going to go to church. Well, I got the car and I found the clubs.

16:49
I continued doing what I had been doing, and now it was just great. I didn't have to get a ride from somebody else and I didn't have to be on the train dressed scantily clad all times of the night, and so I did those things. But there was still this awareness, especially on Sunday mornings. I could feel it. I would always wake up and know you should be in church. You asked for this, and so I had this constant tug and it just was consistently there and I had gotten out of that relationship that I had been in kind of at that mark where I really had that encounter with God, and now I was in a different relationship. And what was so interesting about this and I think very much the cunning ways in which the enemy works is that this gentleman was also saved, right, had a relationship with God, was involved in his church, but definitely had a form of godliness and denied the power of God.

17:49
He at one point tried to convince me that the Bible wasn't a word that I could trust. He would talk about how it's written by men. Right, you don't have to believe all of it. And I didn't know a lot, but I knew enough and thank God, I knew the scripture that all scripture is God breathed. Right, and, yeah, like men may have been a part of writing it, but all scripture is God breathed. And what he said just didn't resonate with me. It just it's.

18:21
I understood that he was feeding me a narrative that could serve our ability to stay in the type of relationship that we were in, but I knew that that couldn't possibly be God, and so when I did finally get to a place where my hurdle to overcome was I wanted to get to church on a Sunday and I went, you know, one Sunday, and um, you know, there again was another kind of altar call. You know experience and you know I responded to it and, um, I remember the prayer that I prayed at that moment and it was God, I have tried life my way, I have, I have done everything my way. And I remember saying to him like your way has got to be better, because if I can't find your way, I know the reality of what's around me, I know the realities of what could happen, I know the realities of the detriments, all the things that can happen in my life if you don't save me from this place. And I remember, as I was praying that prayer, I could feel like something break inside of me and I could hear water. I could literally hear the sound of water gushing within me and I knew that something very supernatural had taken place.

19:42
And there was my ability, from that point, to continue to want to understand these amazing encounters that I was having that no one could take away from me and tell me were not God. That was the hurdle that I was able to overcome, but that was a two year progression. It wasn't like abracadabra, you know, I read those scriptures in Matthew and here I was in church. No, it took about. It was a two year struggle of a push and pull until I finally was able to get into God's house, get into God's word and go from that point.

20:20 - Speaker 3
Man, you have such a beautiful redemption story. And go from that point man, you have such a beautiful redemption story I feel the oozing of God's patience and like wooing you at the right time and the right place and that's the tug. I feel like. It's like, you know, like the guy that's annoying and you hate, but there's something about him and then you end up marrying him.

20:39 - Speaker 1
Like the one that, no matter what happens, you're back there, he's back there. You both are like what are we doing?

20:45 - Speaker 3
Were there anyone helping you throughout this journey, or were you like figuring this on your own?

20:50 - Speaker 1
No, I definitely had a number of people I think too many to name that at various points in my journey. God would use them to encourage me. I remember there was a one leader at my church at the time who gave me the book Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. I read that that experience of purpose driven life and working through the I think the workbook at the time was really what helped me to make a decision to go into seminary. I had a very supportive pastor in Bishop Carlton Brown who was very affirming of emerging leaders, very affirming of women in ministry, and allowed me to be a part of our ministers in training program. After I had been encouraged by that same leader who had given me purpose driven life, he encouraged me to look into this MIT program.

21:40
At that point I just was doing what people told me to do because I didn't have an inclination for ministry. I didn't understand ministry, I didn't even know what ministry was. I just knew that I was trying to get closer to God. And he said here see about this. And I remember applying for that program and I remember one of the elders at the church at the time basically was discouraging me and just was like what have you done? You haven't been here long enough to be a part of such a program and thank God I didn't let words like that discourage me or personality types like that discourage me from going after anything. So I took those words but I really did have an understanding of if I'm supposed to be in this program. I'm going to be in it and my pastor graciously allowed me to be in that program and I was at MIT for seven years and during that time I graduated from seminary, had gotten engaged in women's ministry, had started actively leading women's empowerment group, really started to see spiritual gifts that I had, started to understand what the anointing is and to see areas of the anointing operating within my life and came into this place of understanding that, yes, I was called into a place of ministry and into a place of leadership and my pastor was very much the come for so much of that to happen.

23:05
And there were others along the way that again encouraged me, mentored me, those that might've become at various seasons of my life, like a spiritual mom, a spiritual dad. And it was uncharted territory for me as well, because I didn't have anyone in my family that was a minister. Me as well, because I didn't have anyone in my family that was a minister. I didn't have anyone in my family that was actively pursuing relationship with God in the ways that I was experiencing. So a lot of it was new and a lot of it was trying to figure it out on my own, but certainly I was never alone in it because I had an awareness of prayer and prayer was my anchor and I very much became an intercessor in that time because I had to pray for friends, because I was losing connection with my friendship group, because we just had different desires at that point and I was very lonely and I remember asking God to send me some friends that were going in the direction that I could be going.

24:07
And I think I also didn't do a good job of explaining to my then friends what was happening in my life and I didn't have the capacity to explain.

24:16
I just I felt like I was desperately. You know, my life was going in an unhealthy way and I had to find my lifeline and I didn't have the time to, I think, explain it to other people or reassure them that I'm not going to change or I'm not going to this or not going to be that and, quite frankly, they didn't reach out to me to say, hey, what's going on? We haven't seen you in a while, you haven't hung out, like no one reached out to me and I think it was a feeling of indictment that I had withdrawn, but no one knew that I was in a fight for my life and I don't even know if anybody really cared that I was in a fight for my life. There was so much that I learned to experience by faith, with God alone, and then, strategically, various people were like did you try this, did you think of that? And yeah, it was a combination of those realities that led me along a lot of different paths.

25:14 - Speaker 3
It's crazy how God uses all the tragic moments of my life to bring something good out of it.

25:21 - Speaker 1
Absolutely. Yeah, that is the blessing of it all that there is not one ounce of pain season of your life that might have felt unsuccessful, that has no purpose. Everything has its usefulness and, yeah, I can absolutely comfort people with the same comfort that I received from God, and I have a complete understanding of a lot of things. And even this awareness that all things work together for our good is such an anchor for me in times of difficulty because we continue to have them right. They look different, I think they cost a lot more the deeper you are in your faith journey, but it's never void of reward and never void of the opportunity to be able to share with someone else. Hey, this is where I was and this is how I got through it, by faith in God. That's been the gift of it all, because if that pain didn't have any purpose, man, I think I would have a tremendous amount of regret. And I do have regret about some things, about things I wish I had done differently, areas of regret of even not having a more intimate relationship with God.

26:38
Younger. I know a lot of younger couples who are married, got married in their twenties, and here I was in my twenties trying to recover from relationships of my teens and very much feeling like I don't want a relationship right now. I just want to know me and you know, after like 10, 15 years later kind of feeling open to the concept of relationship. But I feel like you know, if I had been walking with God, you know, at a younger age, maybe I could have started a family soon, I could have been married. So I'm like you just kind of go through all these varying narratives but I just thank God for the sobering clarity that he brings of like you are where you're supposed to be, scars and all. You know timing and all. And it was still all part of his plan.

27:22 - Speaker 3
So what led you to the book the Leader in you?

27:25 - Speaker 1
So, for those that believe in prophecy and that that is still a reality of the Christian experience today, they could resonate with this. I had received a prophetic word that I would write a book, something that I held very closely to my heart, as I do with all prophetic words that have truly been confirmed by God and are given by true prophets or prophetic vessels, and I one day was sent an email from the editor at InterVarsity Press and it was an email thread that she had sent to the then president of the ministry that I worked at, inquiring about me and asking if I'd have any interest in writing a book, and passed her along to me. And when I got her email, I was just like one, how do you even know who I am? This is actually Cindy Bunch from IVP. And I was like, how do you even know me? This is actually Cindy Bunch from IVP. And I was like how do you even know me? And yes, you know I would be interested. And the only way that I was able to emphatically say yes is because I knew that it had been spoken that that would be what I'd done, and you would think that I would have like jumped on the opportunity and like, immediately got to the writing process, but I think it was about a year of of my being very, um, I think, lackadaisical with the opportunity and not really taking advantage of it, and I finally, um, had this um reality of you need to make the most of this opportunity, like you don't know what's going to happen, you don't know if Cindy is going to still be at IVP, if they're still going to be interested in you, and you better do this now.

29:09
And so we began the process of me submitting a proposal. Had never done any of that before. They actually had some people come alongside me. They got me a writing coach because I hadn't written at that level before, and it's amazing, even as I say that I remember I worked for a nonprofit many years prior to that and I remember a boss telling me how I couldn't write and how I wrote in simple English. She said and then here I was many years later writing a book, and I really thank IVP and the team there for believing in me and for setting me up for success in order to be able to write something that could be an offering to others. It was the IVP team that came up with the title, so credits and kudos to them on that.

29:58
But I wanted to communicate my story not from the sense of just an autobiographical my story not from the sense of just an autobiographical, but what I have learned about life and what I have learned about faith and about God through my life experiences and helping people younger, older individuals to see that everything within our lives truly can be used for God's revelation of who we are to the world, but certainly of God's revelation to us, of who he is to us. And I just was able to document that in those writings from childhood experiences, even my coming into a space of leadership and even my coming into serving in the parachurch space and all of the many individuals that were very influential in that part of my journey. So I felt like that book in a lot of ways was a sharing of who I am but also an opportunity to give respect to those who invested in me and I still a young lady at church this past Sunday literally had my book in her bag and asked me to sign it for her. And it still blows me away that people find value in just like my little old life, even just my experiences. I mean literally having traveled I've been to all five continents, you know, got two more to go and I still, in a lot of ways, feel like this this little girl from Harlem like you know how? How did I get to be in these places and get the opportunity to invest in so many lives? So it's, it was a tremendous experience. I will never do it again the way that I did.

31:46
I understand why people take. I don't understand. I think I was looking at a post from an author on Facebook and he was commenting how he's churned out like three books in like I don't know how many years. I'm. Like how on God's green earth did you do that? Because I would literally write chapters at a time and would chain myself to my laptop and it would take me 12 hours just to write one chapter. So it took. It took a long time, but it was a great experience.

32:12 - Speaker 3
You said you have a consulting company. Right now I do.

32:16 - Speaker 1
What is?

32:16 - Speaker 3
that about.

32:18 - Speaker 1
So it's. It's called Transforming Leaders Consulting. Right now our focus is offering coaching as well as professional development support to small businesses, small and mid-sized companies, and that is inclusive of fractional services. And for those that are not familiar with the fractional space, you can hire a C-suite leader on a contract basis for a fraction of time and have them kind of step into some roles at your company either chief human resources officer, coo roles and get to infuse some executive level experience into your business without having the financial burden of a full-time C-suite professional. So I have a team that we offer these services to small and mid-sized companies and I get to coach a lot of tremendous people.

33:12
I have also a private coaching practice and so I love to invest in entrepreneurs. I find myself, if you would say what is my niche? Definitely in the coaching space. It's going to be with emerging leaders. It's going to be with small business owners. It's going to be with those in the entrepreneurial space and really just kind of helping to be a part of mining and unpacking some of that treasure that's within them and being a springboard to the next steps within their journey. But I have been operating full-time in this space for the last two years and I firmly think it's where I'm going to stay. I had flirted with the idea of maybe going back into the parachurch space but I firmly feel like stewarding my company is and building up the resources of that business and the business model is really where God wants me for now. So I love what I'm doing and I love the variety of it and getting to work with a lot of different people and it's been great.

34:24 - Speaker 3
What has been some of the challenges of being like a business owner.

34:27 - Speaker 1
Well, this is my second business. My first I had a wedding planning company Longevity Wedding Consultants had that for about 10 years when I was in New York. That business was birthed out of a passion and I absolutely loved wedding planning. But my life became, I think, too demanding to spend all of my weekends planning weddings and then have very full responsibilities in a ministry context and then go to work on Monday morning. So it just became non-conducive for me. But this second business initially it just emerged from my having wrote the Leader in you and knowing that that would allow me a lot of opportunities to to share some of the insights and learnings from that book with with various, various different platforms, and I wanted to be set up to do that. And so I I established a business solely for that purpose, cause I had a full-time role at that time. You know wasn't looking to build up my business.

35:26
But within the last two years and really more so the last year, I think more specifically I've definitely felt a shift in understanding that, hey, this could be my life's work right here, and that has been very difficult, especially when it's my primary source of income. And that has been very difficult, especially when it's my primary source of income. So now you have to be in a space of hustling and I'm very introverted. So the idea of going after contacts and sharing what I'm doing and pitching to them is not an area of comfort for me, but it's something that comes with the territory of being a business owner. If you don't work, you're not going to eat, and so that that's. That's been burdensome in a lot of ways, and you definitely um, when you have the external eyes looking in, people always want to encourage you to go to what's safe, and what feels safe to most people is having being employed somewhere with benefits, retirement packages and, thank God, what I've learned very early on in my walk with God, being a radical believer for Christ there is no safety in that. You have to operate in the place of faith and trust, and so my conviction is clearly that I have sought the Lord in this, that he's with me in this and that he will prosper it. But it's been really hard and I think, especially this year, I have felt like the brunt of the buck stopping with me in a way that I had not really felt before. But honestly, it's amazing when you can see God's provision, the contracts that come just at the right time, the coaching clients that you get to contract with just at the right time, and you can see the evidences of God is with me in this, even when it requires a level of faith that maybe I didn't once need to have for this particular area.

37:33
I love the flexibility. I understood from the nonprofits that I work with that. I love the entrepreneurial, startup-esque environment and I love the fast-paced reality of that. But I love the diversity of taking on new missions, new projects within year after year and not being stagnant, and my business allows me to do that, and I'm also in a space in my life now where I want to offer what I have to others.

38:03
I think I've largely spent my professional career building up other people's visions, building their brands and their platforms, helping them solidify their life's legacy, and through this business, this is my time to make my mark upon the world and not just champion other people's causes, but champion the things that God has invested within me and still is investing, and my business allows me to do that, and so I would say it's so. It's all of that. There's the joys and the pains of it, but it is hard work and I certainly say it's not for the faint of heart and if you're not willing're not willing to, you know, kind of bear some things and maybe suffer a little bit. I don't know that this entrepreneurial life is for you, but you know, certainly I wouldn't have it in any other way and it's been very rewarding.

38:59 - Speaker 3
Man, you have such a wild faith. I feel like that should be the title of your next book Cause.

39:03 - Speaker 1
I think so. Even my move to North Carolina is just like insane. You know, I I felt God leading me to move and I heard God asking me would I be willing to do it? And I put it on the back burner so it's like okay. I was like, yes, lord. I learned to immediately say yes whenever God asked me, but I didn't pray about it, didn't think about it, and then, literally six months later, I was telling everybody in my world that I was moving to North Carolina.

39:34
And you know people think all the things, they think you're moving for love, they think you know you're moving for money. And you know it's crazy, even the believers, right, that's the first thing everyone said do you have a boyfriend? Like are you getting married? And I'm like, no, it's actually Jesus. Like could it be? Like God has required this of me.

39:55
And so my whole move here was a faith journey and I literally got the confirmation from God and within three months, during the, like I say, tail end of the pandemic, you know, I was here in North Carolina with I had some extended family here, but not immediate family, and feeling very much on my own in a new city. I had only been to one church only, had been a member of one church my entire life Bethel. Like I said earlier, from the time I was seven and here I was feeling like a nomad and having to find a new church. But I didn't have to find anything like God just put stuff in front of me and led me. And then I ended up in a ministry and very quickly, you know, got really connected with my pastor and he really felt like he heard from God concerning me and said listen, I'm going to bring you alongside. I'm going to bring you alongside quick and he did mean quick and I've been able to do incredible things as part of that ministry and getting to serve on the executive pastoral team, getting to serve on the executive team, getting to support my pastor, and launching a ministerial development program that he's been so gracious to empower me to lead.

41:19
And I'm doing all these things and, like Danny, honestly, there's so many times when a leader will come to me and tell me how much I've impacted them that I stop and think to myself and say, but what if I didn't come? What if I didn't move? What if I was too afraid? What if I was too afraid of what people would think and what people would say. And what people did say. What if I didn't obey God?

41:43
I would have missed all of this. I would have missed this season to lean into my business. I would have missed these tremendous opportunities to invest in raising up leaders, all of it. I would have missed to just have a level of comfort and safety in my own life. So, yes, I live a life by faith and truly walk with God in a radical place of like. Okay, god, what are we doing now? But that comes at a huge sacrifice. It comes at tremendous cost.

42:19
I have felt incredibly lonely.

42:22
There has been times where I have definitely navigated some depression, have been largely disconnected from my support system, can only connect with them via phone, but I firmly know I'm here on assignment and I remember this past Thanksgiving flying back home here to North Carolina from New York.

42:45
I remember, as the plane was descending into RDU, I could feel like this weight come upon me and not in a burdensome way, but I knew it was a weight of responsibility that I was entering back into and that's the present mindset that I have that I am here because I have been sent by God to be here and I can't allow my emotions, to have me so distracted that I completely miss the fullness of why I'm here. So thank God for friends who are accountability partners. Thank God for prayer partners. Thank God for people that I can sob on the phone with and to when I don't understand things. Thank God for a pastor who affirms me and believes in me. Thank God for people who don't let me quit and remind me. You heard from God, I've seen it, I've been bore witness to it. Keep going when I do want to throw in the towels towel, because certainly I don't stand in this place on my own, but it definitely comes with a great sacrifice to walk this way. That's why many people simply don't.

43:56 - Speaker 3
Yeah, Thanks for being so real, like you're amazing. Thank you, I appreciate that I'm going to ask you the last two questions. What are you hoping for at Faithly?

44:05 - Speaker 1
I am hoping for just the opportunity to connect with leaders that I have not had the opportunity to have as part of my world and me be a part of theirs. I definitely want to certainly see how transforming leaders can serve small to mid-sized businesses, serve ministries, and I would love the opportunity to be doing that. But I just want to say that I'm here, I think, largely for having such a disconnect from so much of my world in New York City and that faith community there. A lot of people just don't know where I am and what I'm doing and so a part of being part of Faithfully is like I'm still here, I'm still in the faith, I haven't walked away from God, I'm just operating in the kingdom in a different way. So I want to continue to be able to share that story and see how I might be able to serve leaders or businesses or ministries.

45:09 - Speaker 3
And how can we be praying for you?

45:10 - Speaker 1
Wow. Pray that I would remain faithful, pray that I would remain faithful, pray that I would not faint in well-doing and certainly in serving God, and pray that I obtain the promise of why God has me in this very much. Even three years later, I could say, feels still very much like a new place in a lot of ways, and I want to attain it all. I don't want to leave any stone unturned and overturned, rather, and I just want to pursue God in those ways.

45:51 - Speaker 3
Thank you, this was great.

45:53 - Speaker 1
Thank you, dani, appreciate it.

46:10 - Speaker 2
That's it for the podcast. Bye. 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.