Faith Breathes in NYC - Adam Durso

00:01 - Speaker 1
This year, in July, will make 28 years for me in ministry. They're serving the Lord, they're raising godly homes, these are people that are pillars in their church, they're deacons, they're elders, they're pastors, they're leading nonprofits, they're leading groups and I think, like you said, you know the numbers are great and I think they do matter because, naturally, things that are alive grow. I think that that's a healthy thing. On the other side, jesus does warn us make sure it's fruit that remains. And you know it can't just be about the crowds, because you can have a lot of people and not make disciples. You can have a lot of people in your building and they're not really being discipled, they're not really being rooted in the word of God and, as a result, you're not going to produce fruit that remains. You're going to wind up producing a crowd.

00:41
My name is Adam Durso and I am a pastor and minister at the Christian Culture Center under the leadership of AR Bernard. I serve on the New York City Clergy Advisory Council here in New York and I've been in full-time ministry for the last 27 years and this is my Faithly Story.

00:55 - 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.

01:37 - Speaker 3
Could you tell me how your faith journey started Sure?

01:42 - Speaker 1
I grew up in a pastor's home. When I was eight years old, my dad left a very lucrative family business to go and start a church under the leadership of the Brooklyn Tabernacle and pastor Jim Cimbala, and I resented him for it. I thought the idea of giving up all this money and access and cars and homes to go serve people in Brooklyn, new York, just did not make any sense to me, and so I worked in the family business, starting at 11 years old. I was determined to do everything I could to get everything my dad forfeited At least that's what I thought and so I got a leadership scholarship to go to a private university in Rhode Island, and when I got there, I did what a lot of kids that grew up in church and had very strict boundaries do they kind of just while out and started to do the things that were completely the antithesis of what I grew up respecting and honoring and knew what was right and wrong. And so, my freshman year in college, I was living a life that was completely ungodly, and so literally every door around me closed. At the end of my freshman year I could not get a job, which was very strange, being that I had worked since I was 11. And I had to call my dad and ask him to pick me up and bring me home. I had no more money and my dad offered to allow me to work in the maintenance department, basically vacuuming and cleaning bathrooms, if I was willing to come home for minimum wage. I did.

03:14
My mom at that point had been praying and fasting for her son. She had been praying and fasting for me for almost 10 months, whether it was one meal a day or several days or a week at a time. She was interceding and believing that God was going to grab a hold of her son's life. And I came home. I was in a prayer meeting that following week. I don't remember what my dad preached that night. I couldn't tell you what the topic of the sermon was.

03:38
I just knew that that night was different. I knew that the living God had made himself alive to me. And so I went home and I asked my mom how come dad didn't give an altar call tonight? And she just looked at me she's about five foot two and she's got like one of those anointed mom fingers and she just said Adam, you don't need an altar call to give your life to Jesus and I went downstairs to the basement where I was staying and when I came up the next day I was a different man. I had two and a half pack a day. Smoking habit was broken. The need to get high and drink and sleep around, those things were snapped in my life and I knew God had made a difference in Adam. That was never going to be the same.

04:19 - Speaker 3
So what was it about ministry that like turned you off and why you got like? It propelled you toward the opposite?

04:27 - Speaker 1
direction. Yeah, I think I've heard this quote before. The same sun that melts ice hardens clay, and I think when you're around the things of God and you don't really reverence them and value them, you run the propensity toward getting used to it and just being common, and God's never to be taken as common. And so, being a pastor's kid who grew up around the presence and things of God, it just became normal and regular and there was nothing about it that was special, until God literally had to break Adam, bring me down to rock bottom, and when I wasn't looking for him, he came looking and searched me out.

05:04 - Speaker 3
Do you feel like if things were a little different in your childhood, that like you wouldn't be so desensitized by all the commonality, or there's just. It's just who you were, yeah.

05:16 - Speaker 1
You know, I don't know. I have seen pastors, kids that have, you know, served the Lord through their adolescence and teenage years and never strayed. My journey was one where I strayed away, but I think the verse that says you know, train up a child in the way they should go, and when they're old they won't depart. In other words, there's somewhat, at some point there's a moment of awakening, you know, like that prodigal son that's in that pig pen, and all of a sudden he starts to remember. In my father's house even the servants eat better than this and I'm a son. And so I think, at 19 years old, the combination of my mom calling upon the Lord and believing God that her son, god, was going to grab a hold of his life. And then that moment where God just awakened something inside of me no man comes to the father, father lest a spiritualism. There was something about that that was awakened in Adam's heart that I have never experienced up to that moment.

06:11 - Speaker 3
So what happened after? Did you go back to school or you kept working?

06:14 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I transferred. I wound up at Baruch College in the city. I knew that the environment that I was living in would have made it really, really, really difficult to serve the Lord if I would have went back up to that private university. And so I'm at Baruch College and I'm working on the maintenance staff and I'm going to school full time. And God gave me a vision of the building filled with young people. Our building sat between 800 and 1,000, 800 legally and the rest breaking all the fire codes and our youth group only had 18 kids in it.

06:44
But this is 1996. And I asked my dad would you allow me to have a youth meeting the day after Thanksgiving, november 1996, and we're going to believe God to fill this building with young people? And that's exactly what happened. There was a line around the block to get in. There was standing room only of junior high school, high school and college age students waiting to get in the building.

07:05
I shared my testimony. We introduced Christian hip hop at the time and all of a sudden, you know, kids were coming forward and leaving gang colors and knives at an altar call where God just visibly showed up. And that happened again in February. We did another event and then again in May and by that following September, really only serving the Lord for about 15 months. At that point, my dad asked me to become the youth director, and this youth ministry that had these four large events wound up growing from 18 kids to over 800 junior high school and high school students every Friday night within like a three-year span, and God was absolutely moving in Brooklyn, andlyn and queens in a way, uh, that I haven't seen since.

07:48 - Speaker 3
It was a very unique time no, I remember, like the late 90s, early 2000s, like there was like revival meetings for the youth, like all over the place, especially in queens. So for you, what was it about youth that like really drove you, or was it just because there were like people your age that you want to speak to?

08:04 - Speaker 1
I think the proximity and age matters. I think when I talk to younger leaders, I think there is a definite demographic that is in your target audience. That's probably 10 to 15 years up, 10 to 15 years down. So if you're in your 50s you're going to reach a certain demographic, probably more likely. It doesn't mean that a teenager or a 19-year-old is not going to be attracted to your teaching. It just means that it's more likely because they see themselves in you.

08:29
And so being 19 years old and then in my early 20s and just having this massive hunger for God and living this life that was going to be completely abandoned to Jesus, I think that attracted a lot of young people. And so young people at this time are living in a way where they're either fully in the streets. They're either fully in gangs they're either fully, you know, engrossed and attached to the hip hop culture at the time and or they're going to be fully engaged and fully engrossed and 100% living for God. And that was the side I went on and I think that that became attractive to a lot of young people and so, as they were coming in the building, we realized that these young people are coming in not because mom and dad dragged them to church. They're actually the only light in their home or they're bringing mom and dad to church, and so it was a very unique experience having a youth group that's like 70%, you know, not church kids but kids from the street that God radically grabbed a hold of their life. It was crazy. And so there's a line to get into a church on a Friday night which was crazy in and of itself of these junior high school and high school students. And a line is important because the only reason you wait on a line is if there's value at the end of that line, and so that was important.

09:42
The New York Times does a story, and they want to find out what is this line to get into a church on a Friday night, and they interview people at the 83rd and 104 precincts in Brooklyn and Queens and find out that the police are tracking crime rate dropping in direct proportion to the amount of young people that are coming in the building. And then that was it New York Times. Then the Associated Press picked up on it. All of a sudden it was CNN and BET. We had journalists and coverage every Friday night wanting to know what was going on with these young people.

10:14
And then, I think, at the height Vibe magazine, which was the top hip hop magazine at the time 50 cents on the cover, platinum edition, and you've got all this stuff in this magazine. That's certainly contrary to the things we stand for in God, but the backdrop of the table of contents is a youth altar call with kids crying out to God. And then there are six pages right in the middle of this magazine, the only six pages that did not have any advertising, and there are kids, whether it's the line around the block or lifting up their hands and worshiping or doing hip hop on this platform. And it really spoke to what God would do in the midst of a secular society. You know we quote Acts 17, 6,. These who turn the world upside down. It's interesting. That's not some church publication, some Christian radio station talking about the church. That's secular society. Those are people who know nothing about the things of God and they're saying we have to stand back and acknowledge that the living God is so present amongst those people. They're literally turning the world upside down.

11:22 - Speaker 3
So that was almost like 30 years years ago. It's kind of bonkers to think about. You know, what do you? Because, my, I always had this thought of, like, what happened to all those kids, right, my, my peers? Because, like, throughout, like as the 2000s turned, the whole idea of de-churched like came to existence, about, like, people leaving and so, like, in my mind I always wrestle with two questions one, what was that all about? Right, what was the point? And then, two, is it worth it? Because even now I see a lot of people trying to reach gen z and kind of recreate that like what I call the golden years of the church, uh, new york city, uh, with the youth. But like, yeah, like, what do you think about that? Looking back, like it was great at the time, but like, what kind of fruit did it produce now? And is that something you would like advise people to do again or try again?

12:14 - Speaker 1
Yeah. So let me tackle the first one. I can't speak to the general population, but I can say that many of the young people that came out of that youth group are pastoring or they're marketplace leaders or they're leading nonprofits, literally not just all over the city, but when I go to other cities Austin, texas or Boston, mass and I'm there, I'm in North Carolina. Those same young people, those same youth leaders that were with me, like you said, 25 plus years ago this year in July will make 28 years for me in ministry. They're serving the Lord, they're raising godly homes. These are people that are pillars in their church, they're deacons, they're elders, they're pastors, they're leading nonprofits, they're leading groups. And I think, like you said, you know the numbers are great and I think they do matter because, naturally, things that are alive grow. I think that that's a healthy thing. On the other side, jesus does warn us make sure it's fruit that remains and it can't just be about the crowds, because you can have a lot of people and not make disciples. You can have a lot of people in your building and they're not really being discipled, they're not really being rooted in the Word of God and, as a result, you're not gonna produce fruit that remains. You're gonna wind up producing a crowd that is disbanded the minute that pastor has a failure or the minute that they're disappointed in life of some kind.

13:36
Now, I don't think we're supposed to replicate the quote-unquote golden years. I think Billy Graham was famous for saying the methodologies always change and the message never does, or some concept of that. And I think that there are new concepts right now that are waiting to be discovered, waiting to be revealed to reach this generation, the way they're going to understand. You know, mark 4.33 says that Jesus spoke to them as they could understand. Well, here's literally the word embodied. I mean, this is the word in the flesh, the logos wrapped in bodily form. He could blow them away with eschatology and this thing or that thing, and yet he's speaking to a woman at a well about water. He's speaking to farmers about sowing and reaping. He's breaking it down so that the commonality of what they understand, what they know, is something that can be easily grasped and discovered through the word of God.

14:36
And so I think that there's a language for Gen Z. I think there's a language for this alpha generation that's coming up. I think there's a language for my kids. My oldest is 21. And then I've got a 19, 18 year old. They're all in college. I think there's a language for them that's not the language of 19. I was wearing really baggy pants that were, like, you know, three times my size, and big jerseys, and you know Biggie Smalls and Tupac were at the top of the charts at the time. That's not going to be the same language as today and it's going to take on a different approach and it's going to be a different language, but it's going to be something that their ears are going to pick up on. It's going to be the dialect and the language that they understand, because God always speaks to a generation in the language in which you can understand.

15:21 - Speaker 3
It's funny because like there's memes of people quoting scripture, but in like Gen Z language it's like bruh, that was written. I totally agree with you.

15:31 - Speaker 1
And it's weird because I think there's a way to do it anywhere. It's like, you know, because some of it can feel really watered down and almost like it. It's still the word of God, right, like. So there's still this part of it that's holy and doesn't need to be made to feel like, well, jesus is just your big brother. He's not. He's the son of the living God. Let's be very clear about that. He's the first and the last, the alpha, the omega, so we don't have to downplay him and make him feel like, well, he's just a little bit better. You know, got to produce scriptures that have got Jesus saying yo, yo, yo, whatever it is in the text.

16:11
I think some of that's gone a little bit too far. I think there's both the ability to understand and reverence simultaneously, and whenever we choose between the two and we choose one over the other, we actually create a false choice. There know, there's these people that are creating like a reverence, religiosity that's really rooted like in self-righteousness and that's unhealthy. And then there's this other side. That's like we really kind of downplay who God really is. And he's God all by himself. Beside him, there's no other. And that other side of it, all by himself. Beside him there's no other. And that other side of it. That's not healthy either, because familiarity breeds contempt.

16:52
Somewhere in the middle, somewhere in the mix of reverence and relatable, is God. You know what I'm saying? Like he's still God, and yet he so desired relationship with us. He sent his one and only son to die so that we would have direct relationship with God. Somewhere in there is the right secret sauce, and I'm not exactly sure what it is us. He sent his one and only son to die so that we would have direct relationship with god. Somewhere in there is is the right secret sauce. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it's in there no, I totally agree.

17:09 - Speaker 3
I always say, like, our purpose, like our job, is to make the message clear. Yeah, not palatable, right? Because depending on where you are, like if you were pre-christ, it's like, oh, this sucks. And after crisis, like, oh, it's so good it, this sucks. And after Christ, it's like, oh, it's so good, it's the same message, right? Like you said, it hardens the clay or melts the ice.

17:27 - Speaker 1
You know, I think you know one of the things. My personal ministry is called Faith Breathes, and it's the idea that what if God put understanding him and purpose as simple as breathing right, breathing right Like? We breathe in, we inhale the word and presence of God and we exhale good works that glorify the Father in heaven. And so what if it's as simple as that? What if it's God? I want to breathe in your presence. I want a relationship with you, I want to know your word, I want to have all of that, because that's what fuels me. And on the other side of it, when I exhale, when I take what you put inside of me and not preach something that hasn't really been applied to me first, I tell young preachers all the time we should always be the first at our own altar call. It should always convict us first. And so what if the other side of that is just simply breathing out. Love your neighbor as yourself, simply breathing out. Let's look after the poor and the widow. These are things that are part of God's word and they were written 2,000 years ago, and this isn't some new social justice experiment. These are things that were. You know God was talking about. These were things that were concerns for the early church in the book of Acts. And if we simply just apply that and say, hey, it's really this simple and, like you said, this is not trying to make it palatable, it's trying to make it clear we're just trying to, like, say, hey, this is the city set on a hill. It's clear, you can see it, even in the Old Testament.

18:53
You know, they had to build these cities of refuge. Where they had to place these cities? So that the person who was guilty not the perfect person, not the person that honored God, the person guilty could run to and see clearly this place where they could get safety and refuge. Matter of fact, they had to be clear signs. I think, as disciples, as people, we should be the signage letting people know hey, there's the city of refuge, follow me to the place where you can get grace and mercy, there's the city of refuge, follow me to the place where you can get grace and mercy. They had to make sure the roads were swept clear so that nobody would trip on their way to the city of refuge and somehow fall under. You know somebody chasing them. And so I think, as we just make that really, really, really clear that you know, god still has a city of refuge for people today. I think that that's very attractive and it's interesting.

19:46
A lot of what we're seeing in America. They're seeing some amazing things in other parts of the world in Asia, in Africa, where God is moving amongst young people in a tremendous way and sometimes our blessings become our worst enemy. The people of God always learn more in their times of crisis than they did in their times of blessing. During their times of blessing, they forgot God. When their times of trial and tribulation came or an army came out against them, it made them and caused them to run to God over the Middle East, all over Africa, all over Asia, south America, where it's clear that young people are looking to God in a very unique way, and I hope it doesn't take it or require America to have to go through that level of trial and tribulation for us to awaken again and have our hearts burning for the Lord the way it should be.

20:41 - Speaker 3
It's funny that you mentioned that, because I think we're on track and I think, like as a nation, we have a choice to either humble ourselves and pray or, like this weekend, there's a movie called Civil War coming out and I think it's just classic that God would use our own media to like send warning signals.

20:59 - Speaker 1
How many times does a movie come out and then you like see it in reality and you're thinking, man, how did they know? But I'll tell you. I think that you know there's a. There's a move in the foster care crisis right now. That's happening amongst churches Care Portal shout out to them. Possum Trot. That's being released July 5th in theaters nationwide. That talks about a church in Texas that started preventing kids from going into the foster care crisis and adopting kids out of the foster care crisis. The foster care system is the front door to incarceration, to sex trafficking, to the homeless crisis in our country.

21:35
I think there are awakenings in pockets like that that we're going to see revival come out of in a way that is incredibly unique. And so, although we are hearing the stats that are saying young people and de-churched and leaving church and stuff, I think there are also, simultaneously, pockets that are saying, hey, we want a real experience with God. My mom used to always tell me, Danny, we don't want just another meeting, we want a meeting with the living God, and I think that that has always stuck with me, because it's like I don't want to just punch a clock on Sunday morning. I want an experience with Elohim. I want an experience with the omnipotent, almighty God who still wants to do the miraculous in our day. How'd you hear about?

22:15 - Speaker 3
the foster care stuff.

22:18 - Speaker 1
Yeah. So we started a project back in 20s called the 10 zip codes Project and we looked at how could we measure the impact of the church and I mean church at large, every denomination and including both Protestant and Catholic in the 10 poorest zip codes in New York City. What we recognized was when we were telling our story before that, events like Movement Day that I was leading in New York and Lead NYC that I had founded in New York we were telling our story in testimony form, right. So we're like, yeah, you know, look at Adam, now he's no longer that and God's grabbed the whole. But government doesn't speak that language, you know. Again, going back to language, right, that matters, business leaders don't speak that language. They speak in terms of roi, return on investment. What is the return on investment? So we actually brought in a company and we began to look at, uh, the return on investment of the church's impact in the 10, uh, most impoverished, most fragile zip codes across new york city. We paid a company to survey the area. We went door to door. Many of the software churches we were trying to get uh information on didn't have a receptionist, didn't have full-time staff. So we were literally going door to door to find out. Then we started to release the data in 2018. We released it again in 2020.

23:36
We wanted to see the trajectory and the impact of the church in New York City and the 10 most fragile zip codes, and part of that became the awakening of what was happening in the foster care crisis through groups like, say, families Care Portal. These are groups who were saying, hey, average kid doesn't wind up in the foster care system because of abuse. They're normally going in by far because of poverty-driven neglect. Grandma's raising them and there's not enough money for the rent this month, so they throw them in a group home. There's no money for an extra every kid to have a bed. They're sharing a bed or they're coming to school and they're not bathed properly because mom's working two jobs and just trying to keep a roof over their heads, and so they take these kids out of those homes. Well, what if a church could be notified and be let? Hey, we've got a family in your neighborhood and they need groceries this week and we can ping you on an app. And so Care Portal created this platform and all of a sudden, we got behind it and said, hey, this is incredible, this is a real, tangible way to measure how we could impact young people from going into the foster care system. Again, you're talking nearly 50% of every homeless person If we could somehow cut off the front door from them going into the system.

25:10
Not only is there a tremendous impact on the kid graduating on time, becoming successful, breaking generational curses that are on their life, there's an impact to the taxpayer, there's an impact to the government, and so, because I was on Mayor de Blasio's Clergy Advisory Council and then Mayor Adams, we were able to get access to ACS adult child services in a way that was somewhat unique. And then what we realized when we got on the inside, danny, was that not only are the kids need to be rescued, we've got burnt out workers in the government space that are trying to deal with 8,000 plus kids in the foster care system. Just in New York City, just in the five boroughs 8,000 kids. And so we started to care for the ACS workers.

25:54
Mark Atkinson, who leads the charge in New York, used to work with me and and and or for me at Lead NYC. Now he's leading the whole thing on his own in New York, I mean, and they're creating a model that is being replicated in cities all over the country and it is incredible. Last year they almost impacted 10% of the entire foster care system almost 800 kids in the span of one year. That's progress. That's the church in action, that's saying hey, we can measure that, there's ROI around, that, there's long-term sustainable transformation to a community like that and the church is stepping up in ways that we've seen all over New York that are really, really, really tangible and put the incarnational gospel on display.

26:40 - Speaker 3
How did you get connected with the city? Because I think that's a really good idea of like churches working with local government to do what you're kind of like with the foster kids. Like how did you get connected with the city?

26:52 - Speaker 1
So almost 10 years ago now, we had a officer in our church who was shot and killed in his police car, along with his partner, and we were going to hold the funeral at our church, and on the evening where we just had the church internal kind of funeral and the choir singing and it was more about the church that night Mayor de Blasio called ahead and said hey, I'm coming after the service, I just want to be with the family for a few minutes, if that's okay, and would you come out and walk me inside? And so I went outside to greet him and when I walked him into the sanctuary, he just stopped me in the middle aisle and said I feel something different in this place. I couldn't describe it, couldn't put language, but, as we know, it was the tangible presence of Almighty God. We walked down to the front, he greeted the family, asked me to pray with them, which I did, and then the next day we would have 25,000 officers outside, we would have the vice president at the time, who was vice president Biden, we would have our governor was there and Mayor de Blasio, and at the end of the funeral he simply asked. One of the people that was working with him, asked him for a pen and put his cell phone number on the back of a business card. And you know, I think at the time there were a lot of things that I certainly didn't agree as a policy decision, but I just chose that I was going to encourage him from time to time with either a verse or just let him know I was praying for him, and so periodically.

28:23
That funeral was in December Up until June, about six months later, I'm just texting him every couple of weeks. Mary de Blasio, I had this verse on my heart and literally, danny, I can't tell you the number of times. Within three minutes I got a text back from him. Thank you so much, pastor Adam, for praying for me. Thank you so much for giving me that verse. I needed that this morning and especially at times when things seemed the most dire, the times when things seemed like they were in crisis. And so that June they had made an announcement that they were going to release the names of the Clergy Advisory Council, 24 names that were going to come out in all the newspapers on the next day and I was selected.

29:04
I was both the youngest member of the Clergy Advisory Council at the time in my mid-30s I was the only non-senior pastor, non-senior rabbi, non-senior imam that was part of the group and he really welcomed me in to be able to share my thoughts. He really welcomed me in to be able to share my thoughts, even though most times probably didn't align themselves with the policy directions he was going in. But I'll say this you know, as Christians, oftentimes we complain about the system and we complain about poor policy or we complain about certain things that seem against the grain of the word of God and its foundations or Judeo-Christian ethics. And the truth of the matter is, if we're going to complain in it but not be involved in it, then what are we really doing? Just cursing the darkness? And so I felt like if God was going to give me an open door, I needed to be on the inside.

29:59
And actually that summer and this is really where I got very close to Pastor AR Bernard I had been best friends with Pastor Jamal Bernard, who's his era parent, and we're still best friends to this day. I'm hoping to get him on the podcast with you, danny, great guy. He's now the new lead pastor at the Christian Culture Center 42,000 members and we were at Madison Square Garden, chris Tomlin is doing this big worship night in America. I was asked to do the opening invocation and then Pastor Bernard was going to do another segment of exhortation and prayer, and so I did my opening invocation.

30:35
Madison Square Garden is packed, it's crazy. He gets up there, he gives this word of greeting and word of exhortation and praise and as we're coming up the back of the platform, um, he knew that I was appointed to this clergy advisory council and he just looked at me and he said you know, there's an old proverb that says, uh, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And he began to mention me 10 years ago and, um, a little bit over 10 years ago now. And that was a result of that interaction and being involved with Mayor de Blasio and now Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul, and the other opportunities to be involved, to see policy decisions or at least speak truth to power in a way that says, hey, I'm going to make sure that the voice of the prophet is in the room. How important was that in scripture, where the voice of the prophet to the king was in the room, and we need to recognize that that's still important today.

31:32 - Speaker 3
Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think as Christians, as most cultural Christians, we get confused. Our job is just to speak right. Only God's word will come back, will not come back void, but my word will come back void all the time. So I can't convince people and I just got to be honest and I love that you're just being a light in a room where they need a different perspective and sometimes it'll work, sometimes it won't, but God will deal with that, right.

31:54 - Speaker 1
Yeah, and I think you know somebody once said that you know your sermon preaches for about an hour on Sunday, but your life preaches all week long. So as long as there's not this dichotomy between what you're saying out of your mouth and what you're living, which I think too oftentimes we're seeing nowadays where there's this just really broad chasm between a life of character that really is the substantiation of what's coming out of our mouth and what we're saying, I think the world is looking for that. I think they're looking for authenticity, I think they're looking for something that doesn't feel disjointed but there's real cohesion between what I'm saying out of my mouth and how I'm living it.

32:33 - Speaker 3
That's why there's like well me being older now looking back why I would advise young people don't be so sure that what you know is right and wrong, because you need to live it out. Right, because if your words are true and that's the standard and you yourself don't meet it now you become a hypocrite. Right Rather than hey, this is what I think is right, but I struggle with it too. So it's okay if you struggle with it and it's just honesty, and I think I appreciate Gen Z for that. They are thirsting and dying and desperate for authenticity and I think that's the language that we need to use.

33:05 - Speaker 1
Absolutely, a hundred percent agreement. And you know, oftentimes in life we over appreciate the destination and under appreciate the journey. You know it's about the journey, it's about this, you know life of living for God and getting to know him, and not some perfection. Yeah, we get the perfection of the righteousness of Christ applied to know him, and not some perfection. Yeah, we get the perfection of the righteousness of Christ applied to us the minute we put our faith in Christ. But the working of that, you know, salvation, the working of that, sanctification, that's a process. And you know, when David says, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear, no, you don't know God like that unless you've been in the valley. You don't know God like that on the mountaintop. You don't know God like that just from getting a raise and just getting a bigger house and getting this or that.

33:52
It's really in the seasons of disappointment and difficulty and having to press in and press through times of hardship that you really come to know the God who's close to the brokenhearted. And I think that part of what this world wants to hear and see and know is can you resonate with my pain? I think the universal language is not necessarily truth. It's pain, because in this life you'll have trouble. Everybody can relate on some level to a place of pain in their life.

34:27
I've got a really good friend of mine who's a hedge fund trader and he said to me one time he said, adam, money can buy you a really nice bed, but it cannot buy you sleep. At the end of the day, there are people who, even seemingly from the outside, are my God, they've got everything working for them, they've got all this money, or they've got all this, or they got all of that. You know, how could they possibly, you know, be struggling, or how could it be difficult for them? No, no, no, they're going through what they're going through and somebody else is going through what they're going through. And at the end of the day, when you come to understand that God is the God that meets you in your pain, in your difficulty, there's a real authenticity about that.

35:06 - Speaker 3
So how did you get connected with Aaron Bernard and the work that you do now?

35:10 - Speaker 1
Yeah. So when you know again, pastor Jamal and I were best friends. We were both youth pastors at the same time, we had really made a commitment not to be colleagues but to be friends, and there's a big difference. You know, we have got a real confusion in the body of Christ where ministers think, well, I preach for him and he preaches for me, or you know that that's friendship. That's not friendship, no, no. There are people in your life that's friendship. That's not friendship, no, no. There are people in your life.

35:37
I say all the time everybody should have a Paul, a Timothy and a Barnabas. You need people in your life who are going to stretch you. Those are the Pauls in your life. You need people that you're pouring into. Those are the Timothys in your life, and you need a Barnabas. Those are my brothers, those are the people that can see me for all my warts and all my imperfections and still encourage me and love me, and that's the kind of relationship I have with Pastor Jamal Bernard, and so we're best friends. We probably were more apt to be seen together at a steakhouse than we were at a church meeting, and so we're making this commitment to journey together.

36:08
I get on the clergy advisory council, pastor AR agrees to mentor me, and then, after pastoring with my dad for 20 years and going through a failed succession plan which I know a lot of ministers and pastors are dealing with, especially across America, but it really is something that's plaguing the body of Christ and really just needing a place to land a place of covering, pastor Bernard agreed to be that covering in my life, and so the last eight years I've served under his leadership, and he said something to me eight years ago. He said, adam, I'm going to show you the difference between a covering and a lid. A covering is somebody that has spiritual authority, but they want to see every one of your gifts, talents and abilities rise to the top. A lid is somebody that wants to hold you down and hold you back, and so every single time that I've reflected on Pastor Bernard's role in my life, he's so much more than just a pastor. He is a mentor, but he's been somebody that has modeled for me the complete security to be who he is and not allow any of what I'm doing or the successes that I had or the things that God has allowed me to do, in any way be something that he's limited.

37:26
If anything, he's wanted to stoke that fire. If anything, he wanted to make sure I excelled in those moments. If we both showed up at an event for the mayor, it wasn't like I was riding his coattails, I was sitting there at the table. From the opportunities I was given, it wasn't a limiting thing for him, it really was a proud papa moment like that, you know, for me, and so he has always wanted to see me excel, and so serving at the Christian Culture Center has just become a byproduct of that.

37:56
I represent the Christian Culture Center in a number of different facets preaching 35 weekends a year in different churches around the globe, serving the New School of Biblical Theology in its leadership forum capacity, helping pastors that are on the brink of burnout not burnout but be encouraged in a community setting, which is part of what I'm really hoping Faithly becomes. I mean, I'm hoping it becomes the place where we take the event. Beyond the experience, beyond the event. There's a way where the lead up to it, the post event part of it, keeps people connected beyond just the time of the event or leadership conference or retreat, and so I'm super excited about where we're heading with this project. Yeah.

38:42 - Speaker 3
Let's talk a little about the 30 for 30 that you do. Can you explain a little bit more about that?

38:47 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so it started eight years ago. The idea was taking 30 passes away for 30 hours. We've never quite gotten down to 30. Our lowest attendance was 41. And at its peak it was 78. I think we've landed on the 45 to 50 mark being the right number for chemistry, for the right opportunity for people to meet each other. And the idea is there are no green rooms. The speakers are in the room, all the sessions are around a meal, and so we have found that this has become incredibly life-changing to so many pastors.

39:23
As a matter of fact, danny, the truth of the matter is, man, we fill up without even going public within 48 hours of me texting the guys and being like, hey, who's coming? It's legitimately that fast because these guys don't have another opportunity. You can go to a leadership conference and sit down and listen, and that's great, but the truth of the matter is, most of those speakers, I could turn on YouTube right now and listen to any one of their talks by myself behind a laptop. This gives you the opportunity to connect with guys you know lose your title and your business card at the door. It's just a bunch of guys being able to be vulnerable with each other, share with each other, sharpen each other, and sometimes the best session isn't a session A Bishop Dale Bronner or a Bishop Claude Alexander or a Pastor AR Bernard or Dr Henry Cloud at breakfast or, you know, at the fire pit, after dinner and dessert, you know, late on that first night and just hanging out and talking to guys. And so that camaraderie that's been developed. We did our first one this fall, this past fall, outside of New York. So we've done it now for seven years in New York. This will be our eighth year coming up in June, but we've done the first one outside of New York. We did it in Atlanta and, danny, 48 hours later it was packed and it was just guys who had heard about it, alumni who said, hey, I'll fly in for that. I want to be at that, I want to make sure that I'm around other guys who want to be healthy, who want to be doing this in relationship.

40:54
I have said repeatedly I grew up hearing from leaders leadership is lonely and what I'm saying is I think leadership is only lonely if you choose it to be. If you choose to be lonely, it will be lonely. If you choose to do leadership in community, there's an opportunity to do it in community. Whether it's Pastor Jamal Bernard in my life, pastor Matt Thompson, pastor Regan these are guys in my life. They're not just colleagues, they're brothers to me.

41:23
I tell them all the time if you read about a scandal about Adam Dressel, I'm blaming you because you should have seen it in my life and called it out on me. You know to me privately, before anybody else ever found out about something, and so I think when you have people in your life that can hold you accountable and ask you about your marriage and ask you about you know how your kid's doing and how you're doing as a dad and how you're doing, you know. When you have those people in your life, man, it's a game changer. It's unlike anything I saw the previous generation doing. I saw a bunch of guys who did ministry through the lens of just being colleagues and and showing up and pulpit swapping to now really legitimately having friends.

42:10
And I'll tell you this too don't wait for the crisis to choose your friends, because the urgency of the crisis will cause you to trust people you should not have trusted. You need to develop those relationships in advance. You need to develop those relationships in seasons where you're spending time you're seeing that they're trustworthy, so that when you come to them in the season of crisis, when you come to them out of the crucible of crisis, you can be able to share with them openly and plainly and know, hey, this is not going to wind up on some social media. There's not going to be some veiled reference to my situation in their sermon on Sunday or their leadership talk at the next conference. This is going to go to them. They're going to protect it, they're going to keep it. They're going to bring it to the throne of God and pray for me. They're going to counsel me with good godly wisdom.

42:56
They're not just going to console me and pet my flesh and tell me it's okay. They're going to actually say, hey, look, let's talk about what we need to do to make this right, adam, or deal with this in your marriage, or handle this with your kids. And those guys in my life that is a unique thing to have. And those guys in my life, that is a unique thing to have. And so 30 for 30 in a lot of ways is really just a broader experience of what I have in a microcosm with, like, my five closest brothers and they're all at 30 for 30. Like me and Pastor Jamal, we co-host it they're all at 30 for 30, because really the example for this broader group of 45 to 50 guys is the relationship between myself and Jamal, or myself and Matt, or myself and Regan. That's really the relationships.

43:41 - Speaker 3
How would you advise young people, like in their you know, mid to early twenties, that aren't pastors, that need friends, right Like, where do they go to find friends? Cause most people I know they have terrible friends.

43:54 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I think you know you're right. I definitely see the hurdles that my own kids are going through because of how present social media is. You know, danny, I mean, if I didn't get invited to a party or an event or some outing, I found out about it maybe in school on Monday. Or some outing, I found out about it maybe in school on Monday. These kids are now finding out in real time as they're posting and who everybody else was invited, you know. And so there's this just kind of like battle constantly with young people and then dealing with the insecurity and fear of missing out and that loss.

44:33
That is a reality in this social media-driven day and age. It's a part of it. On the other side, I think the principle of being friendly allows for friendships to be developed, finding commonality around your interests. I think it's more likely that when you've got like in my case, I've got two kids at Penn State there's some commonality around Penn State and the camaraderie that's developed there and the experience that they're all having together at the same time in their journey. That does provide opportunity for friendships to be developed. But I wouldn't disagree with you, danny.

45:14 - Speaker 3
It's more difficult right now than probably ever before yeah, um, it's funny because, like a lot of that also, I feel like the city of new york had changed, because I remember like even being in kindergarten and like I went to like school in elmhurst right, and I was with my grandmother but like I would like hang out like because they were. They were like apartment buildings and when you come out in this like the sidewalk, like kids are there playing until it gets really dark and so like you never see that now it's just like whoa, what is this kid doing? She's five years old. So like part of that is I feel like technology has disconnected us from having these human interactions and like when you're viewing someone else's life in the screen, you don't know how to deal with that, because you want to be there but you're not there. So my last question to you, as a native New Yorker by the way.

46:01 - Speaker 1
It's so crazy, Danny, because in some ways, we're the most connected.

46:06
This is the most connected generation ever to have lived, because they're connected constantly on text and TikTok and Snapchat and every other you know, x and Instagram and the whole deal, right, the whole gamut and yet they're probably the most disconnected, like, from genuine experience and genuine connection to each other because of the screen and because of, like, that barrier. Man, that is really a crazy thought, man. I mean, just because you know you're, you know you're, you're on or seeing them on snap with us doesn't necessarily mean you're making genuine connections with people, and it is uh, it is. It is really something that I think is going to become a hurdle as generations continue to develop. How do we make sure they're building healthy relationships that are genuine and authentic and not just built on an online platform where most people are giving you their highlight reel and not really their everyday? They're posting about the stuff that's just, oh, this is all great and you're comparing your average to their highlights, and so I think it's going to be a very interesting thing to develop over the next generations.

47:17 - Speaker 3
I think a lot of that has to do with we don't understand what connection is. We think connection is just me, like having this experience in my head, but that's just voyeurism. Do you know what I mean? And in some ways voyeurism is a little creepy because you're just like living vicariously through other people's life. And another thing is like, at least with video of like a webcam, like you can talk to the other person. So when you see something you'll get something back.

47:46
So it's this ping pong effect where you are creating a relationship, right, because there's this common understanding, but nowadays it's just we post and people are engaging with content, right, not the person. And so you think you're having this relationship with these people, but it's all in your head. So in some sense we've created the matrix in our mind of who we think are likable or that we agree with, but in reality we've never had a conversation with them. And that's another thing about human dynamics. I don't think people understand People change constantly, like if you see babies, their growth, and so like you're like getting older, I'm getting, and hopefully we're getting wiser and better, but some people don't. They get worse. So you have to constantly interact with this change and that's just human interaction.

48:37 - Speaker 1
And you know, to that point, danny, I mean I married 24 years to one woman but I've been in multiple marriages. I mean because I've changed. She's changed, the seasons of our life changed right. So we had like a two, three year period where we didn't have kids. Then we had three under three. Then our kids were all of a sudden preteens and teenagers. Then our kids are now, you know, one at Binghamton and two at Penn State. You know they're at college. Right In this process my wife lost her mom.

49:08
We found out my oldest son was on the autistic spectrum. All these things, you know, they're part of the journey and so, yeah, there have actually been multiple marriages in the same 24 year span that I've been married to one woman. And, like you said, it's about the journey and it's developing and, yeah, it's about getting better. But it's not like just up and to the right, it's really like more like this and it's kind of like there's some ups and there's some downs and there's like learning to love each other. Through all of that. That is real, genuine connection, man, you're a hundred percent right on that?

49:43 - Speaker 3
Yeah, and I kind of see it as like God is trying to make us the same person, no matter how many things change and the dynamics of relationships change. And so, like you said, I think it's both the journey and the destination, because, at the end of the day, the journey is what gets you to the destination, right, and if we are all being conformed to be more like Christ and we're all going to be like Christ in heaven, then it's this testing and refining of, okay, your life is chaos, but can you still love and have peace, or your life is great, can you be generous? So we are being refined to be the same person, no matter how crazy the world gets, because I realized that's the most ingenious thing God does is because then you don't care really what happens, right, because it won't affect you in the way like it'll change you or you'll like react, but you'll be like, oh, okay, this is just a new situation, a new environment, but I'm going to keep doing the same thing, which is love people, care for people and help people have faith in Christ. I agree, ben. So, yeah, my last question is I'm at this point in my life, after 40 years, like I have this love hate relationship with New York city.

50:51
Like I keep telling people I hate living in New York because it's expensive. Relationship with New York City. Like I keep telling people I hate living in New York because it's expensive, it's dirty and all this stuff is happening. But then, like when I wake up in the morning and I walk through the street and there's no one there, but like the garbage truck is going and people open, I'm like, oh, like it's so nostalgia. Or like when there's like events happening and like things are happening in New York and it's popping off, I'm like, oh, that's the city I love. What about you? Like, what are your feelings of New York?

51:24 - Speaker 1
A hundred percent. I mean on one side he's definitely somewhere during the winter. I start thinking to myself like it's cold, like why am I here? My offices are down by wall street, like so I mean you got the wind whipping off the water, you know by the Statue of Liberty down there and it's like it's just it's cold and we used to say brick back in the day. It was just like I mean just really cold.

51:42
And then on the other side there's this dichotomy that exists that there's like very few cities in the world that are even close to the kind of energy that is inspired by New York. I mean, I guess two of my other favorite cities would be Dubai and Tokyo. I've been there extensively in both cities and I'll say this man, I mean even then I don't know that they inspire the same level of energy of New York. I mean New York just, it just has something, and when you get into especially Manhattan, or you get into like parts of Brooklyn or Queens, and just the ethnic makeup, the cultures, places that have been around, like my favorite steakhouse in New York has been around since the 1800s, right, so there are cities that haven't even been around since the and there's a steakhouse that's been around since the 1800s, and so I think there's part of that that just you can't replicate that energy. And so as much as I want of that, that, just you can't replicate that energy. And so as much as I want to say, yeah, I don't know if I like the cold, or maybe I need a place during the winter to work virtually out of, or something like that. Maybe that'll happen. There is nothing like the energy of New York City.

52:50
And both of us come from Queens. So we know, you know Queens has definitely got. You know it's one of those boroughs that's got great food, great energy. You know there's so many memories. And then they've got, of course, the sports teams, and you've got Broadway in Manhattan, and you've got all the different parts of Manhattan, because people think of Manhattan as just one thing and it's like no, no, no, you've got Harlem and you got uptown and you got downtown and you got. You got midtown, you got Broadway, you got all these different facets of New York and all these different cultures. It's inspiring. I'm living, I've been living here my whole life, born and raised. I'm 47 years old and I think every time I'm in the city I feel inspired. I feel like the, the smells, the cultures, the ethnicities, all the melting pot that is New York. I'm inspired by all of it, man. So I don't think there's any any substitute. But you're right, there's definitely a love hate relationship on it. All right.

53:45 - Speaker 3
You sold me. That's just getting my juices going. I'm like yes.

54:00 - Speaker 1
Yes. Final two questions what are you hoping for at Faithly? Oh man, I'm super excited about the opportunity to connect people that wouldn't ordinarily be connected. Um, new York is a very densely populated, busy place, but can feel very alone all at the same time, which is kind of unique, because you wouldn't think that right, you'd think, like New York, lots of people no, no, no, Lots of, especially in the ministry community, especially in the church community, church leadership, nonprofit space.

54:19
A lot of guys are disconnected from other guys that one would just get along great. I mean, there are guys in my life that if we weren't doing anything missionally, we'd still hang out, I'd still go to a ball game with them, I'd still go out for dinner with them, just because they're great people. And then two, there are people that are going to be connected here, that are going to exponentially help you to be more effective and impactful on what you're doing. The Bible says one puts a thousand to flight, two, ten thousand. I think if the right people start connecting unfaithfully, I think they're going to start to realize that the same energy that I was outputting to do one plus one all of a sudden is going to go exponentially up because now it's two doing it and our combined resources, our combined talents, our combined relationships, I think is just going to help everybody be able to go further and make a greater impact for the kingdom on the earth.

55:16 - Speaker 3
How can we be praying for you and your family?

55:18 - Speaker 1
Thank you, man. I mean, I've got three kids in college praying. There are so many opportunities right now, but I've also learned that opportunity can be the enemy of vision and direction, and so what it starts to do is it pulls you in a million different directions and I'm just like, okay, god, what is it that you want me to lean into and leave my mark on in serving this generation and serving both my peers younger leaders, older leaders in New York City, but also around the country, in places where I've been ministering a lot like Dubai, and in Ghana and Africa and other parts of the world. And so, as those opportunities continue to surface, it's just Lord, give me wisdom, give me direction, speak so that I'm clearly following you. All right, thanks, man. This was fun.

56:10 - Speaker 3
I had a great time, danny Two Queens boys. Yeah, we can talk about the Mets and how they suck right now. It's okay, all right. That's it for the time, danny Two Queens boys. Yeah, we can talk about the Mets and how they suck right now. It's okay, all right. That's it for the podcast guys.

56:19 - Speaker 2
Bye. 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.