Future of Christian Ed (Part 1) - Rupert A. Hayles, Jr.

00:00 - Speaker 1 We're a Christian university, so at the foundation of it is Christ, and so the differentiator that every single student believes yes, they'll be smart, left-brained, they know all that stuff, but the right-brained part of it, the character part of it character part has to do with ethics, has to do with integrity, has to do with those things. That's a differentiator, and in a world like this, these differentiators matter. 00:29 - 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. 01:11 - Speaker 3 Welcome to Faithly Stories podcast. My name is Pastor Adam Durso and I am guest hosting this episode along with the founder of Faithly and CEO, Alicia Lee. So excited to be with all of you, and our guest today is Dr Rupert Hales. 01:27 - Speaker 1 So glad to be here, thank you. 01:29 - Speaker 3 And we're glad you are here. Dr Rupert Hales is the president of Roberts Wesleyan University, but there is a long track story before that. I've known you for over 20 years. You've been a coach of mine, a mentor that has spoken into my life. In many occasions you have coached teams that I've been around. Talk to us a little bit about the journey before Roberts, before some of the other higher education experience that you had, even before going to work at the largest church in New Jersey. 02:01 - Speaker 1 Oh wow, that's a long, long story. 02:04 - Speaker 3 We've got time. I was born in. 02:08 - Speaker 1 Jamaica and I, after 14 years 13 years gave my life to Christ. But on the 14th year came to the US. When I came to the US I was this wonderful high school, trenton Central High School. I spent some time there and graduated. I was a salitarian, second of 602, graduating Okay, applied to various different places, you know, princeton, all these kinds of things but the thing that got me to Seton Hall University was it's a really complicated thing my brother went to Seton Hall, so I just said sure, I'm going to Seton Hall, I don't do these complicated things. 02:42 I spent four years there. While there I focused on accounting and my dad. That's what my mom loved and my dad was computer science and I decided to double major in accounting and information systems. I guess one of those things please your mom and dad. And so I did that. While I was at Seton Hall, I had a love for flying. I just loved that concept and construct. And so in the middle of sophomore year, just before we go to summer and then come back for junior year, we had this crazy idea Myself, my brother and his roommate. We said you know, we have the summer off, why don't we just join the Air Force? 03:29 Didn't tell mother dad. 03:31 - Speaker 3 That kind of crazy idea. Anybody just join the Air Force. That's not like, hey, let's go to Cancun for a week? Nope, nope, we just said let's go join the Air Force, okay. 03:50 - Speaker 1 And we really woke up when we went to boot camp. That'll wake you up. A drill sergeant got into your face and tell you all kinds of things that you never knew about yourself. And so you know, we did time down there at boot camp and went to technical school and all that. I was interested in flying, as I said before, so I did load planning these major aircrafts. I would load out to take care of them and all that stuff. 04:04 I came back and so when you come into the military, you're usually a. If you don't have a college degree, you're an enlisted. In order to become a and fly airplanes, you have to become an officer, which means you have to finish college and you have to either be an ROTC or one of those things. So I came back and joined ROTC. Okay, and this is what my schedule looked like when I was at Seton Hall I'll go to class in the morning, I'll drive two hours to McGuire Air Force Base, I'll take flying lessons. I'll come back in the afternoon, I'll go to class, then I'll add off to NJIT, which is another university where the ROTC was. 04:43 And then I'll come back by eight, nine o'clock at night. 04:45 So it was kind of a typical day that we go through. I got my license in 1985. And, you know, affiliation with the Air Force continued, where I ended up at various different Air Force bases in Texas and California. And then, you know, while in the military, I decided, okay, I was going to come back. And the moment I came back to Prudential, a year later, I was at University of Pennsylvania. Okay, I really wanted to focus on, you know, business school and all this kind of stuff, and so I went to Wharton Business School and I spent two years there. 05:22 When you're at Wharton Business School, they tell you that you're going to be king of the world and that's what you should do. Court justices went there. One of our wonderful depending on who you're talking to Donald J Trump went there. Other members went there, financiers went there. So there's all these kinds of people. So you meet some folks who are dirt poor or just came from Africa with nothing, and then you have people who are going to be billionaires, and so you just meet all these kinds of people. So I was in the mix of that. So when you come out, you just say, okay, I'm going to really go do some significant things. I went back to Prudential, spent some time there doing financial analysis and then technology strategy and all that and did that for some time and I got a little bit tired of that. I really learned a lot about strategy working for the CIO of all of Prudential. 06:36 - Speaker 3 So how do you go from I'm going to be king of the world to working in ministry? Dr Hill, it's getting there. It's just about to get there, you see people's definition of king of the world 06:47 - Speaker 1 is different when you're in the kingdom, right, and so you know, I'm going along saying, ok, this is great. You know, going from Prudential to Merck Pharmaceuticals, I went to end up at Cytic Industries, which is a chemical company. I'm doing all these great things. I end up at SciTech Industries, which is a chemical company. I'm doing all these great things. 07:04 And at that time I was having some challenges in my life. Remember, I was a believer for all this time. And you know, all of a sudden I'm having some challenges in my life. And you know, there's one young lady that I know. Her mother says there is this church opening up in Montclair. Okay, why don't you just go there? It's a nice place. You go in, you know God will bless you, and I was. You know, when you're on a long journey with Christ, it's ebb and flow, right. You go up, sometimes, sometimes down, sometimes not so good. At that time I wasn't doing so well. So calling into the church was a wonderful experience for me. 07:43 But when I got there, one of the things I wanted to do was just kind of sneak in and sneak out. I don't want anybody to know me, you don't see me, I'm just in there, I'm just getting my stuff and get out. Well, somebody got wind that I was there and the pastor used to do this wonderful conference every year. And he said you know, I need an administrator, I need somebody to help make this conference. And so I said oh, we have somebody in the church. I don't know how they found out about me. As Rupert hails, he should have some administrative skills, let's get him. And so he asked me Rupert, can you head up this wonderful conference? It turns out that that conference led me to one of the best things ever in my life. Okay, because my wife, marianne Hills, was part of the team on that conference. Okay, she came alongside and I made sure she was just right close to me all the time during those meetings For ministry purposes only, of course. 08:49 - Speaker 2 Let me just let you in on a little secret, Dr Hells. 08:52 - Speaker 3 I don't know if you know this, Alicia, but out of you and Mary Ann, my wife's favorite by far is Mary Ann. 08:57 - Speaker 1 Just watch me do that. Okay, that's fine. I understand that completely and I can understand why. 09:02 - Speaker 3 Well, we both understand the better half we get it. 09:04 - Speaker 1 There's a statement made. It says if you want to hear the voice of the Lord, listen to your wife, there you go, and so sometimes you're just kind of it's worked for me for 25 years Exactly. 09:14 - Speaker 4 I listen to her like crazy that might be the best thing I heard all day. 09:18 - Speaker 3 I'll be mentioning that to my husband. We'll just get him the podcast. 09:23 - Speaker 1 But I was going along and you know, then, after I did the conference, the pastor says Rupert, you know I wouldn't mind if you joined the staff and be my chief operating officer, being number two in the church. And you know, remember, I set the stage already. You know, air Force, military, corporate America, best business school in the world. And somebody's asking me to come lead some church with 500 people. And I'm like, bro, I got places to go, things to do. Man, I, I, no, I can't do this because I'm thinking in myself every single thing I've learned up to there, if I go into church, it's going to be all gone, right, I'll never use it again. The strategy stuff, the financial stuff, all that kind of stuff, never use it again. Well, I was very hesitant, I didn't want to get involved, I wanted to, kind of, you know, stay as far away as possible. And I don't tell people this dream. This is kind of the first time. This dream has probably go crazy, but I had this dream because I was struggling with it. I was very struggling with, you know, did I go into ministry? Did I not go into ministry? And God deals with me in dream and I had this wonderful dream and in this dream I was at the top of a building like this and I'm looking over. And when I looked over, there are people on ladders who were coming up and say, rupert, just let go, see what happens, just let go. And I'm petrified at the top of these buildings. They go down and people come back up and I'm like, no, I'm not doing that. I top of these buildings and go down and people come back out and I'm like, no, I'm not doing that, I'm not letting go of anything. And then, all of a sudden, the dream changed, the scene changed. I'm driving in this wonderful car up a hill and as I'm going up a hill, the hood came up, couldn't see again. So it's one of those things of you know, dream interpretation. You say, okay, you cannot, there's indetermination, you can't determine things. Who came up, can't see? Somebody in the back of the car say hey, we can't see, we can't see. And then the dream ended and I'm just like petrified, like okay, what did that mean? You know? Like okay, indecision, let go. If you're smart enough, you kind of think, okay, I think it probably has to do with the decision you have to make, but I say I'm not doing that. 11:51 Well, I had a wonderful life group leader. I remember her name, julie Humphries. She came over hey, rupert, how you doing Life group leaders? You know, you know small groups and various things. How you doing, rupert? And I said great. She said you know, rupert, you know, I had this dream last night and in this dream I was in the car with you and we were driving up a hill. And as we got up the hill the hood came up and I kept on saying to Rupert, we can't see, rupert, we can't see. Imagine. Now I'm sitting there, I just had a dream last night and this lady's telling me that she was the one in the dream in the back of the car, and so at that time I'm just, if you can imagine, completely white. 12:36 Just looking at her and didn't say a word. And she said the hood, it fell off and then we came to the top of the hill. Then we came to the top of the hill. We came to the top of the hill, we went to the back of the trunk and there was food in there and we took the food out and there was a church close by and we went into the church and people were there in the church and they said we've been waiting for you and I was like okay. So I went to David Ireland another time and said okay, man, tell me what you want to do, because there's no need for dream interpretation or anything like that. That's pretty crystal clear. 13:11 - Speaker 3 That's pretty crystal clear right there. 13:12 - Speaker 1 So that's kind of how I ended up in ministry. I spent 16 years at Christ Church. My wife and I were there in all kinds of ministry doing things. My beautiful wife Marianne Hills I mentioned her a lot because you know, being in ministry you know well enough if your spouse is right next to you it makes the journey so much, it makes all the difference. And so after that 16 years there I got called. I went off and went to the Life Christian Church with Pastor Terry Smith before I left Christ Church. Remember, I started there when it was 500 members, and I say this not because of me at all, but when we left the membership was 8,800. I think it's up to 10,000. 13:56 - Speaker 3 Yeah, now the largest church, probably in. 13:57 - Speaker 1 Jersey. Yeah, so it keeps on growing Sure. And so, you know, went off to the Life Christian Church, did three years as executive pastor. And then you know there's another story in there that maybe I'm not sure if we'll get to it or not. That was kind of tied to my wife significantly and if you don't mind, I can share that story. I'm a left brain guy. I run through walls, I get things done. You know, I'm like Joe Friday, just the facts, man, just the facts. I don't care about anything called emotions and all that. I don't care less. Well, my beautiful wife is the one that's the right brain. She comes into our room and she loves on everybody. Everything is great For me. I just want to run out of the room and just go sit somewhere. But what happened there before I get to my university or higher ed story is that I was at Christ Church Again, being one guy run through walls Daniel Goldman, who's one of the key founders within emotional intelligence. 15:09 Different kinds of leadership style. My leadership style is what we call a pace setting leader. Pace setting leader is somebody who just runs through walls and get things done. There's command and control leaders that says, okay, be quiet, let's go. There's coaching leader that comes alongside, but I'm a 100% pace setter. I run through walls. There's a danger with pace setting leaders you run through a wall, you get to the top of the hill but there's dead bodies behind you. Yeah, but you might think about it. I'm in a Christian religious space as a pace setting leader, trying to get things done and knowing all the sausages made back there. And so I'm running and I'm doing things and not realizing on the left side, but not really conscious of the right side. 15:52 And so an incident happened with an assistant. She was responsible for something. She didn't get it done and I you know they call it in emotional intelligence, emotional hijacking you ever been in a place where you do something and it's like an out-of-body experience. You come back and say that wasn't me, that couldn't be me, but it was me Because I really kind of yelled at her saying why didn't you get this done? How could this not get done? And I remember at the time David Alderman says you know, when anybody was with Jesus, they never felt less than themselves. Wow. And so you know it requires some soul searching. 16:35 But what really made the soul searching pretty significant was that I got a 360, leadership 360 evaluation done. And so just imagine, remember I told you you know all this background, king of the hill, biggest, you know best things, the sliced bread, all you know. You think, okay, I can do a 360. Let me just tell them who I am. I'm, I'm up here, I'm, I'm great. Well, there's 13 other people that give you input as to who you are your managers, your supervisors, your peers, your direct reports, even your family and friends kind of give input as to who you are. And so when you get this results back, it's an out-of-body experience because you think, man, I'm up here, I am great, I am good. And then you get the results back and it says, no, you're not so good, you have some deficits here, I am good. And then you get the results back. He says, no, you're not so good, boo, you have some deficits here, you know. 17:30 It says Rupert needs to get out of his office and go make friends. Rupert does not connect with people. I know, surely Rupert is running too fast. I need to solve All these things. And some of these statements were like written verbal statements. All these things and some of these statements were like written verbal statement. And if you're not careful. You're trying. You're saying well, this sound like Adam. Adam wrote this. 17:54 - Speaker 3 You're missing the point If you're trying to figure out who wrote it in the 360. 17:59 - Speaker 1 It has nothing to do with that. But when you get a results like that back, there's two things you have to do. When you get the results back, you have to say one, is this true? Then the next thing you have to say is what do you do about it? If it's true? So when I got it back, I would say you know, john did this, john wrote this. John doesn't know anything about EI. Adam did this. Adam is from New York. What does New Yorkers know about that? And then I'll just go through every name. But if one person tells you something, you can probably ignore it. Two, you kind of pay some attention. But when three, four, five, six, down to 13. Sure, and then what you do? You go to God and say God, is this really true? Sure, and nine times out of 10, you know what God is going to say. I've been trying to tell you this for a long, long time. Remember I said listen to God, listen to your wife. 18:57 - Speaker 3 She was like answer the prayer praise God. 19:00 - Speaker 1 And so that was the journey there, because now I really got into a situation where I had to dig deep. Some of it was based on trauma, some of it was based on things that I haven't dealt with that led me to that. So I was really smart over here, but emotionally deficient in connecting with people. 19:15 - Speaker 3 And I think, for the audience that you know is on, faithfully, the people that participate in it. These are ministry leaders. So pace setting leaders. We call them lead pastors, senior pastors, right? Sometimes there's a strewn of dead bodies laid out behind them, and it doesn't matter as long as the numbers in front of them are bigger than the numbers behind you, and there's all that. But self-leadership is the most important form of leadership. How do we lead ourselves? 19:42 - Speaker 1 Well, the thing that you know, the folks back at Roberts, wesleyan University hear me talk about is all that. The students even do memes with me on this. Because John 21 is a scripture that means so much to me Because in it was Jesus challenging Peter and he said Peter, do you love me? And Peter said yes, I love you. And he said feed my lamb. And he said Peter, do you love me? And he says yes, jesus. He said take care of my sheep. He said Peter, do you love me? And then Peter I'm paraphrasing Peter got upset. 20:13 Thank God, you know everything. Why are you asking me this question? Right, and he got really upset and God said take sheep into your midst. It's your job to take care of them, it's your job to feed them, it's your job not to hurt them. And so, from my perspective, if God is showing me something where there's a deficiency there, and that deficiency is going to hurt one of his beware you know about the thing around putting a stone around the neck if you hurt one of his beware. You know about the thing around putting a stone around the neck if you hurt one of these. And so it means a lot, especially for me, with the people that I'm serving, that you take care of them. 21:00 But here's the key thing though you might think that what happens to you is about you, but it really has nothing to do with you. It has to do with the people that God is going to send to you, because Christianity is one beggar helping another beggar find food, and so for us it's. You know, I could be sitting there saying you know why did such and such say this? If I didn't listen and if I didn't hear what God had to say and if I didn't engage with that to make sure there was change in my life, I would not be sitting where I am today. 21:35 I would not be able to write a book. I would not be able to say to myself because after I went through all that craziness and I got better here, they did a post eval. So after 18 months they did a post-eval and the post-eval came back. Oh, rupert is more sensitive, Rupert cares more about people On the friend side. Remember it said Rupert didn't know how to make friends. I would get out of my office and just go into people's office and just do this. They're like why are? 22:07 - Speaker 3 you here. I just wanted to make friends. 22:08 - Speaker 1 It was pathetic, but I really, really wanted to learn, because guess what? It's not they that said it, god said it. And so, for me, I really wanted to engage, get better at it. And as I got better at it, a conundrum occurred with me, and the conundrum is this If I was a Christ follower for up to 40 years and I was doing that if you think about Christ followership and you think about believers, there are things, attributes that they should have. 22:37 They call them virtues Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Galatians 5, 22, 23. These are the things that you should have. So when I'm, you know, beating up someone or taking advantage of something, love is a deficit. You're right. And so here's my little struggle, though, because on the emotional intelligence side, you have all these attributes like self-esteem and self-regard and empathy and stress, tolerance and impulse control. When I started to look at the attributes for the spirit and the attributes for EI, I'm saying I got better in EI and that affected for a spirit. I became a better follower, because, at the end, the feedback that came was Rupert was better, and I joke with people. I use this on my bumper sticker it says Rupert is a kinder, softer, gentler person. 23:31 - Speaker 2 Wow, I mean somebody literally wrote that. 23:37 - Speaker 1 Somebody literally wrote that, and so you know your question is well taken, adam. For me it's understanding, not just that you need to do this, because then you know my PhD research or research areas on trying to find out if there's correlation between the fruit of the spirit, attributes, virtue and emotional intelligence. It so happens that if you break up the fruit of the spirit into three parts, there's a relationship with God, relationship with self, relationship with others. A reason for other reasons Love, joy and peace is a relationship with God, relationship with self, relationship with others. Love, joy and peace is relationship with God. And kindness, goodness, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and then goodness, faithfulness and self-control with me. So him, you, me. 24:21 The research came back that every single component of EI is 100% correlated with components of fruit of the spirit. What that says is empathy goes up on the EI side, love is going to go up on the fruit of the spirit side. There's impulse control on the fruit of the spirit side. If that gets affected, then what we call self-control. And so there's these correlations. Like wow, these correlations exist. My dissertation chair pushed me a little further. Says correlation is not prediction. Can it predict? And so you run regression and all this stuff. It came out three things predict EI. Three things it turns out to be love, joy and peace. Predict every component of EI. 25:11 - Speaker 3 Wow. 25:12 - Speaker 1 What that is saying is, if you think about it, your relationship with God predicts EI, and we know the research that EI if a strong leader with EI then is a better leader so your relationship with God is going to make you a better leader. He told us this 22,000 years ago. 25:27 - Speaker 2 We're just getting caught up to it now. 25:30 - Speaker 1 But it's stuff like that throughout that journey that led me. Now my wife and I said, hey, we're going to jump into this thing, we're going to. You know, she loves the emotional part of things. She deal with inner healing, she deal with trauma. And here am I on technical right brain side. So us being together, we said we're going to go into the Center for Emotional and Spiritual Development and we're just going to go crazy. 25:54 And then some folks from Pillar College called and they said you know, rupert, you know, I know you want to teach, because I've been teaching at Seton Hall for some time. Why don't you come over here and help us? We need some time. Why don't you come over here and help us? We need some help. And so I said you know, really, my wife and I are going to jump into this center. And they said, well, what we'll do? You can do all the things you want to do, but we also want you here. So it was kind of one of those. But even when they were saying that, I know, they know that once you get into that higher ed, for those who are in higher ed it's an all-consuming thing. 26:34 - Speaker 3 You know, this is the thing that's amazing to me. I'm sitting here with the two of you who both were in finance and then found your way into ministry, ministry and in church, work in faithfully and all that you're doing to navigate this space in Christ Church, the Life, christian Church, pillar College, now president of Roberts Wesleyan. What was the biggest hurdle going from secular finance into the ministry world? And then I want to jump to you and how you're using all of that as you're leading this university effort. 27:07 - Speaker 4 Well, I've just been sitting here taking in your words, taking in your story. It really resonates with me when you talk about wanting to run through walls and setting the pace. I'm like, yep, I know something about that. I used to work on the trading floor at a Wall Street bank and so for me, coming out of that and going into the ministry world, going into the church world, things can't necessarily move at that pace. I had to learn a new pace. I had to learn that in the ministry world things actually move at the pace of relationships, and once I sort of relaxed into that, I think I was able to tap into joy in what I was doing peace, love, all of that. 27:48 But yeah, your story really resonates and for me that was the biggest challenge. 27:51 - Speaker 3 So now you're leading president of Roberts Wesleyan University. Pillar now, Roberts Wesleyan, and you're leading this charge. How are you leading it? Through the lens of self-leadership? How do I lead this university? And then, of course, we'll talk about now why we're sitting here in Manhattan, in New York City, at the hub, right here in the middle of midtown Manhattan. You go into this lane, you're the president of Roberts Wesleyan University, 150 plus year old university in Rochester. How does the lens of self-leadership and all that you're applying help you lead that day-to-day and 1,600-plus students that are part of it. 28:30 - Speaker 1 Well before I came to Roberts, a wonderful person tapped me on the shoulder and said Robert, you think about Rochester and what goes on up there. I don't. I'm sorry. 28:45 - Speaker 3 I feel like once you get outside the five boroughs, I have no idea what's happening. 28:50 - Speaker 1 It was my wife, marianne, who said there's a police up there. And so I said, okay, let's take a look. And she said Robert's Wesleyan started in 1866 by BT and Helen Roberts and the core. They were Methodist church members before they formed the Free Methodist Church and it was founded on a few things. It was founded on freedom Freedom of the individual, so there were abolitionists Freedom to worship and you could worship anywhere, freedom of women in ministry at that time, 1866, and leadership. 29:25 And the last one was freedom from classism meaning you know, in those days, the more money you paid, the closer you got to the front, and so he did not like that. The fact that he didn't like that got him kicked out of the Free Methodist Church and so he decided to find a. He got sent out of the Methodist church and he ended up founding the Free Methodist Church. Part of one of the requirements of being president of Roberts because of Pentecostal to non-denominational to assemblies of God, as Marianne and I looked at some of the requirement, it was that you have to be part of the Free Methodist Church, and so we started looking at Free Methodist Church and so, okay, so what's this all about? And we have freedom of this, freedom of that. I'm like these are scriptural. Yeah, they fit the Bible pretty well. 30:14 - Speaker 3 They resonate with the core values that you might have. 30:16 - Speaker 1 And so that just made it so much easier for me to say, okay, yeah, this looks like a place that we should go to. But one of the things that captured my attention when I was looking at all the requirements and what Roberts was about was this thing called education for character to education in New York. What does that mean? You can come to Roberts and you'll get a degree in nursing, get a degree in biology, you get a degree in accounting. You can go up the street to Rochester Institute of Technology and get the same thing. You can go to the University of Rochester and get the same thing. 30:58 But we have a distinctive, there's a difference. We're a Christian university, so at the foundation of it is Christ, and so the differentiator that every single student will leave yes, they'll be smart left brain, they know all that stuff, but the right brain part of it, the character part of it character part has to do with ethics, has to do with integrity, has to do with those things. That's a differentiator, and in a world like this, these differentiators matter. Now, how are you going to get to ethics, how are you going to get to integrity, how are you going to get to all those things? It's not the left part of the brain, it's the right part of the brain, it's the emotional part, it's the relationship part, it's the getting to understand people. It's the emotional part, it's the relationship part, it's the getting to understand people, it's the getting to know people, it's the getting to understand. 31:47 Okay, when you're going to do this, is it right or is it wrong? Those things kind of resonated with me, and it's not by accident that my research area is in emotional intelligence, because if you're going to train young folks, one of the things if you think about when you were a young child and you got your report card home, you know, adam, what did you get in math? It's probably bad. 32:11 - Speaker 3 Well, Kevin, I didn't want you to answer that question. 32:15 - Speaker 2 That's a better question for you. 32:21 - Speaker 1 What did you get in English? 32:22 - Speaker 3 What did you get in? 32:23 - Speaker 1 science. It was always left side. Never did you come home and they said you know, what did your report card say about? How did you get along with Billy? What did it say? How did you get along with Tiffany? It didn't say anything like that. But as you go along and you become a better leader, it's not about the left side as much as it is the right side. 32:47 - Speaker 3 It's more about the character. Character matters. Yeah, character matters. I mean, the bottom line is, if we look at society today, we see very successful people, billionaires, people that are successful. They can check all the boxes, but there's a dearth, a lack of character. I just got to hear your state of the university address. I got to watch it. You asked all of the faculty, asked all of the students, to be in chapel while you gave this address and you stressed the importance of character. Why chapel matters? And we're in a day and age where, why does the cultivation of their relationship with God, their character being in the presence of God, for a university president that should be worrying about funding and enrollment and expansion and all that, why does that stuff matter? Because I heard a lot. I mean, we'll talk about expansion, we'll talk about New York City, but what I heard was presence of God matters, being at chapel matters, developing godly character matters. Why is that so important? Why is that a passion? 33:51 - Speaker 1 point for you, dr Hales. It's a passion point for me because you know, again, thinking of the left brain, right brain, if you think about left brain, you're thinking you just mentioned, okay, you know, how are we doing financially? How are we doing financially? How are we doing enrollment-wise, how are we doing with the grading, the students and making sure that we have proper measurement? All of those things are technical things and for me that's on the what I call the financial end of things and one of the things. When I went to Robert, I indicated there's a difference between financial and culture. Culture matters and so. But here's the other interesting part Culture impacts your finances. Right, you might think, okay, I'm just going to run away, this matters. So for a student or for who, we are, making sure our identity is clear matters, Because if our identity is not clear, then people are going to be confused as to who we are. If our identity is not clear, then people are going to say, well, let me just go to the University of Rochester, why do I need to come here If they're not clear? Okay, you know, rit offered this in court. Rit offered the same quote. What makes the difference here is that we are making sure that when a student engage with who they are again. Remember, my story was, you know, this thing came up to me and then it's what do you do with it? Hey, god, is this true? God is in the changing business, he's in the transformational business. And so, for us, we want our students, when they leave, to be transformed, because we know that. 35:28 Matthew 28, go into the world and make disciples. How are you going to make disciples? The definition of leadership is influence. You're going to have to influence them. How are you going to influence them? More than likely, you'll get their attention with the left side, but it's your relationship side that's going to get them. How are you going to influence them? More than likely, you'll get their attention with the left side, but it's your relationship side that's going to get them. When you engage with someone, if you're going to bring them to Christ, you do the work, the Holy Spirit does the rest, and so for me, it really matters. The cultural part is a significant, if not more important than the financial part, so, than the financial part. So, when we're training our students, we're saying, okay, yeah, you get your degree. You make sure that you. You know, I said when you go on an airplane, you go to the pilot and you say, okay, the pilot loves everybody, so it doesn't matter whether he can fly the plane. 36:13 - Speaker 3 No, you have to fly the plane first. 36:18 - Speaker 1 So the technical part matters, right, but what's going to make it that you can get along together and work together and understand the difference between right and wrong and understand how you? That's the other side. 36:32 - Speaker 3 And so that really resonates with both. If you're going to go into all the world, then what better place to go into all the world than the melting pot of the world, of the world, new York City? I mean we are sitting here. Some call Times Square literally the epicenter of the City. I mean we are sitting here. Some call Times Square literally the epicenter of the globe. I mean we are here. What happens in New York is a megaphone to the rest of the world. And we've got a lack of Christian higher education. We have a lack of character, biblical character higher education here in New York City. We're the largest public school system in our country, 1.2 million students. We've got universities that have closed down here in the city. There's a lack of it. And I have been saying for the last several months Dr Rupert Hales is championing Christian higher education here in New York City and you want to plant a flag for Roberts Wesleyan University. Why are you passionate about that, dr? 37:26 - Speaker 1 Hills. I'm passionate because for many years, as you know, adam, you and I were in New York City and I did leadership development in New York City. We trained pastors in New York City. And you just said well, whatever happens in New York goes to the rest of the world, absolutely so it's the most influential city in the world. 37:46 Yes, the next thing I have to ask myself the question is and there was a study done, a current study a long, long time ago, 2006, where they talk about the five stubborn facts in New York. One of those stubborn facts has to do with understanding and Christianity within the city, and it was low and so, just think about it, two of the most important higher ed institutions or Christian institutions, is gone. In my mind, there's a void, and there's a void in New York City, the most important city in the world, where, if you do stuff here, it's going to change the world. And we're up in Rochester, new York, so we're saying God is saying to us okay, I need you and I need a presence, my presence down here, and all we want to do is be vessels of what Christ wants, which is to come to New York City. As you say, plant a flag, but more, plant a flag is the ability to influence the next generation of people, because there are young people here, probably, or looking for okay, how do I get training? How do I understand more about Christianity? What does that mean? The young people are in dire need of that, and so for me it's just like okay, guys, god is calling us down there to make sure that we can share what he has given us up there, down here. And again, I want to make sure I'm clear on this it's not that we're the only one that can do this. We have to be clear about that because we have this thing called intellectual and spiritual humility, where, you know, we can't assume that we're better than everybody. 39:13 But one thing if God calls you to do something, I highly suggest to our audience if he calls you to do something, do it, because it's not going to be about you, it's going to be about the people that he's going to be sending. Because one thing I really realize and know about God's kingdom is that his kingdom grows. Anything God gives you should grow. If we think about the parable of the talent, you know gave one, five, gave one, one. Gave one, ten went away. 39:46 I'm shortening the story here. Came back ten. Okay, I gave you. You now go take care of ten cities. Came back five. You did great. Go take care of five cities, came back one. Yeah, I know you're a hard man, I buried it and what he says you should have taken that one and put it in the bank. That was 2,000 years ago. They were talking about a bank and interest. That's a whole other ballgame, but what the story was saying was God expected to grow and so his kingdom is expected to grow. We are Christ followers. We want God's kingdom to grow. Whatever way we can do, however, we can do, this is just one of the instrument ways for us to come into New York City so that we can assist in helping to make sure that this thing can. 40:30 - Speaker 3 So September, yes, our plan, your plan, robert's Wesleyan plan, is to have online hybrid and cohort classes. Begin and have students right here in the five boroughs of New York City as soon as the fall of 2025. 40:55 - Speaker 1 That's the goal. That's the goal, that's the intent, and I think, with folks like that, you have been very helpful in helping us connect with people in the city. I think we just I kind of look at it and you know you'll love this, because I'm thinking more from the financial side. You have a product and that product needs to get out the door and that product needs to get in people's hands, and New York is a distribution channel, so we're getting our product into other people's hands and the way we're going to do it is make sure that the product or the service or whatever is in good shape. Again, accreditation, making sure that middle states and all these kinds of things you're doing all the things right. Then you bring that product, give it to the folks and hopefully we're meeting their needs. 41:49 Okay, I want nursing, I want biology, I want chemistry, I want you know accounting. We want to make sure all these things people have the ability to do that and you made something so important, made an important point, Adam. Prior to COVID, I remember sitting in a board meeting at a previous institution and I remember when a board member said we'll never go online. We're in person all the time. And then this thing happened in March 2020, COVID. 42:17 - Speaker 3 And then everybody was online, right. 42:20 - Speaker 1 But coming out of COVID, one of the things we realized is there are people who wanted to come back in person, but then there are people who didn't want to come back in person, but here's another. There are people who wanted to come back part of the time, but wanted to be online part of the time, and it's hybrid. So what I realized is that we have to give people the ability for all three. It's not one anymore where everything is in person. It's not one where everything is online. Those capabilities and the technologies are there for us to do that, but we want to make sure in New York City, we can be here, but at the same time, we have online. Our seminary is fully online and then we can also bring some of our professors down here to make sure that we can do hybrid back and forth. It's all. 43:01 - Speaker 3 I am so excited again. 43:03 - Speaker 4 Well, I was just going to say, Dr Hales, I think that will resonate with ministry leaders and church leaders who came to that same conclusion about their churches and the need to offer multiple options to bring people into the church. 43:18 So you're bringing Roberts into New York City and it's going to be a distribution for you for product For the church leaders and ministry leaders and we have so many of them in New York who are tuned into our podcast. They're going to love your vision. How can they help? What do you need people to bring to the table? 43:41 - Speaker 1 What I need people to bring to the table is one an interest in not just higher ed, an interest in making sure that God's kingdom can grow. That's the primary. I need you to do that because what Roberts is doing is creating a facilitation for God's kingdom to grow. So if you're interested in that fantastic Remember I said before everything in Christ grow. So you as an individual, whether you are a church pastor, whether you're a church leader, whether you're head of the youth ministry, whether you're you know it could be somebody who you know does housekeeping you should be in the need to want to grow and what we're doing is providing an avenue for people to grow. I might be interested in. You know I want to go to seminary. We have seminary available. I might be interested. You know, at some point in time I want to get out there and be a medical doctor. We have the ability to do that. I might become a nurse. Again, it's not about just the courses. You're in an environment where Christ is a center and if you're in an environment where Christ is a center, you can go out there. 44:49 If you think about it as a community of learners who believe in historic Christianity, roberts Wesleyan seek thoughtful, spiritually mature, service-oriented people who are going to change society. That's our mission. Thoughtful, spiritually mature, service-oriented people who are going to change society. That's our mission. Thoughtful, spiritually mature, service-oriented. But very first part is toward Christianity. So Christianity is at the foundation. So what I want is for people who are interested in growing, people are interested in learning, people are interested in Christ's master plan about okay, things are going to grow, because we just don't fight a physical battle. We fight a spiritual one, sure, and so we want to make sure that happens. So if I could get folks who are interested in that. 45:32 But on a personal level, I want to be a better leader. I want to make sure I can take care of Christ's followers or people who are going to come into my midst. I want to make sure that I can grow and learn a little bit more and develop myself a little bit more. My story, as we were talking about it, is one about how did I grow? I grew because God put something in front of me and I'm sure, for every single person who might be listening to this podcast, they're saying hey, what do I need to grow in? What has God been kind of pointing and tapping at me saying you need to take this up again. And I say this a third time. It's not about you, it's about how God wants to use you to affect another person. If I can get somebody to, I get chills. 46:19 - Speaker 3 If I can get somebody to be interested, Dr Rupert Hills, thank you so much for sharing your story, being so vulnerable, sharing your journey all these years and what God is doing in and through this new vision of Roberts Wesleyan University coming to New York City. Alicia, thank you so much for this platform and for Faithly and what you're doing, and if you want to find out more information or stay locked into this journey and what God is doing through Roberts Wesleyan, you're going to want to make sure that you find your way onto Faithly, onto our platform, and engage there as we keep you updated on all that God is doing in the city and around the area through Roberts Wesleyan University. God bless you. 47:00 - Speaker 2 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. 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