Future of Christian Ed (Part 2) - Rupert A. Hayles, Jr. and Maryann L. Hayles

00:01 - Speaker 1 I really just have come to recognize over many years of whether it's being in ministry or being in corporate America we all are working towards becoming like Jesus. It doesn't make me or you or anyone better. It helps us to live life according to the pattern and the way that God ultimately wanted us to live. 00:24 - Speaker 3 People in your life. You know they should be in your life If people are drawing you either closer to Christ or further from Christ. 00:30 - Speaker 4 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 Brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders. Learn more at faithlyco. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired on the Faithly Stories podcast. 00:58 - Speaker 5 Dr Hales. Mrs Hales, welcome to the Faithly Stories podcast. I'm your host, alicia Lee, and I'm joined by guest host Vandalyn Kennedy. Hello, hello, hello. Well, dr Halesby recently had you on the podcast where we dove deep on your journey, your ministry, how you found yourself in Christian education, leading Roberts Wesleyan University. We talked about Roberts Wesleyan's next chapter and something you said in that conversation really stuck with me. You talked about your better half and you talked about marrying up, and so I just knew we had to do a follow-up conversation with that other half. So thank you for joining us today. Mrs Hales, let's be here, yes. So let me start it off with this question how did you two meet? Let's be here, yes. 01:45 - Speaker 3 So let me start it off with this question how did you two meet? Well, let's hope at the end of this we have the same story. I was at Christ Church. I was at that time experiencing some challenges, and the person I was experiencing a challenge with, the mother of that person, says there's a church opening up in Montclair. Why don't we go there? And I went there. I just go in, come out. Go in, come out. You don't want anybody to know who you are. 02:17 And I saw this young lady across the way and I remember going up to her. It was enough courage, but that didn't work. She ignored me, goodbye. She ignored me for probably about a year or so, but I kept on, you know, pursuing. But something changed. The pastor of the church knew that I had some administrative gift, and so they have annual conference every year and he asked me to head up the conference. And so, as I was heading up the conference, mary Ann at that time was interested in the conference and wanted to be one of the volunteers, and so I thought this was a great opportunity to get close to someone. So I would arrange these meetings, but I had a special chair right here as part of the team, part of the core team, and so after that, we started having more conversation. One thing led to another, and we're here today. 03:24 - Speaker 5 And one thing led to another, and we're here today. What? 03:30 - Speaker 3 was it about Mrs Hales, marianne, at the time that got your attention. The number one thing was her ability to care. I could really see from her that she cared and you know, at that point in time I won't get into detail of this, but something had happened and I remember she came up to me Somehow. She found out about it and I was like, oh my goodness, I heard that this happened. I'm so sorry. I've been trying to call you and it's just like you know she didn't have to do that you know, just getting to know each other, you know. 04:04 But that alone kind of got me like, wow, this person not only smart, intelligent, all that stuff, nyu, all that good stuff, but also a caring woman, not only that, a solid follower of Christ. Like, if you talk to Marianne, not much gets said by Marianne without it not pivoting back to Christ. You might give you. You talk to Marianne, not not much gets said by Marianne without it not pivoting back to Christ, wow. And so I said it's that conversation. I can say this you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm our conversation here, that knowing her and being with her. Someone said this people in your life, you know, know there should be in your life if people are drawing you either closer to Christ or further from Christ. With her, she's drawing me closer to Christ, and so that's kind of the things that go down at the beginning. 05:00 - Speaker 5 That's beautiful now Mrs Hale's journey. That one year period he was pining after you you were ignoring him. Was it intentional or were you focused on other things? 05:13 - Speaker 1 Well unbeknownst to Rupert. Well, first of all, I should say unbeknownst to him. I knew that he was pursuing a degree at the time, were you not, honey? Yes, and I can just like sort of discern that he was very engrossed in this degree. So what I chose to do was I wanted to be, you know, his friend. Well, can I say that I was interested in him as a potential future mate or someone to coordinate? I wasn't thinking about that at the time. What I was looking at is did we have anything in common? I saw him serving and he served and loved the Lord, but I needed to know a little bit more. So I would just randomly ask him questions about where he was in his life journey. Like, there's one thing to your God journey, then there is your God life journey. And I started to notice that he was really very much consumed, if you will, engrossed in this degree. And I just felt, hey, get to know him, help him out. 06:19 And he did go through there was a little bit of a crisis that had arisen. A personal thing had arisen, a personal thing had arisen in his journey. And I remember having fallen asleep this one day and the conference that he alluded to earlier. I wanted to be a part of that conference but I had fallen asleep on my seafoam green couch and I'll never forget it and I was shaken in my sleep like call him, like I had this impression that I needed to speak with him because something happened and he didn't go into all the details. But that's. I reached out to him. I'll go into detail. Okay, sweetheart. 06:54 So that year was basically me just sitting back, waiting to see how things would unfold. Getting to know him in a ministerial setting, but also as a friend, and then interacting with him at the conference was very important for me. To see his integrity I wanted to really see, because I was a lot older at the time too, and I it wasn't about me wanting to date necessarily, you see. You see, alicia, it was more about me wanting to meet someone who I knew could potentially be my mate for life. You see, you see, alicia, it was more about me wanting to meet someone who I knew could potentially be my mate for life. You know, I wasn't really into the quote unquote dating scene, so I waited, I took the back seat and I waited, interacted, got to know him spiritually and through the conference, and then, yeah, so that's how it evolved and how far have you gotten married in the past. 07:46 - Speaker 3 We are going to be celebrating on the 25th. Why would you like that? 07:51 - Speaker 5 is that salsa? Yes, it's a big deal. 07:54 - Speaker 1 Wait a second I think it's, is it 24, 20, 20, 21, 2001, 2025, so it's 24, right, 24 I'm getting ready. 08:03 - Speaker 2 It's okay, you just 24?. 08:04 - Speaker 3 I'm getting ready. 08:05 - Speaker 2 You just told. 08:06 - Speaker 3 Terry, it was 50 years old. 08:08 - Speaker 2 Oh, terry Taper, they're 50 and we're 25. 08:10 - Speaker 3 That's what he said, I don't. We got the math wrong, so we got the math wrong. It seems like I'm jumping ahead because the front of us just said 50 and that of us. 08:22 - Speaker 1 You were aspiring for that century mark I'm going to get into big trouble. 08:27 - Speaker 3 That's the next thing is over with You're not going to get there, but I was 24. Grace, grace, grace, 25 of that. 08:31 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I love that. So, dr Hill, I've heard men of faith say that the two most important decisions are the decision for Christ and then who they marry. And so you said you met this woman who was intelligent, and all of that I want to know from you, mrs Marianne, what's your story? 08:58 - Speaker 1 And who's the person that he met? Yeah, hey, thank you so much, vanslyn and Alicia, for asking me these awesome questions. Yeah, sure, let me elaborate. So, essentially, I grew up in Brooklyn, new York, back in the 60s, and I was raised with my two siblings, my two brothers one younger, one older and we, we were our. Our home was, it was, a wonderful italian home, albeit there was um as we often hear this cliche used in society today, you know prevalence of dysfunctional. 09:38 I was raised in a dysfunctional family. Uh, I'd like to classify and qualify, if you will, this dysfunction without adding the dignity of the individuals in the story of dysfunction, if you will. So one of my parents, one of my primary caregivers, suffered and battled, incredibly, with a really debilitating mental illness and, unfortunately, wherever there's an environment where mental illness and all of that, those spirits, are involved, it's going to have ramifications, it's going to have consequences on family members and, unfortunately, with myself, it had immense consequences, if you will. And one of the things that it was impossible because of my age, when I came to understand, like, little by little, as I progressively began to live in this environment where it was fear-based, everything was fear. So, because mental illness, it restricts, it binds, it represses and it just really like took a hold of me. And as a young child not able to process all of these things because my executive function was there, the way I handled it was through survival and because there was so much trauma involved in it, I at times needed to I found ways to survive in that environment. I was very sheltered. I was essentially not able to go out and play like the normal child. I wasn't. Behaviors which years later I came to understand are more prevalent and very, very, very involved in today's generation. So I had that experience back in the early 70s, if you will, but I'm seeing it now in society and it's very prevalent with mental illness with our youth. 11:43 And so I continued in Catholic school through middle school, went into high school, always maintaining my Catholic origins my Catholic origins is in my Italian-American family and I went to college. I got accepted into NYU. I really loved the village and the environment there and I came to know Jesus Christ at the age of 19 in the box library at NYU and I was on fire for Jesus. I wanted to know who this King of Peace was that was going to give me the peace that I needed, and so I immediately found a church in Staten Island. I was losing, like I said, in Brooklyn at the time went to a church in Staten Island, got involved quickly in a discipleship program because I knew the importance and significance of it, and I was individuating at the time. 12:35 I was finding out two things not only who I was related to, my family of origin and the consequences of the environment, but also I came to understand and know that there was this terminology, that I was a daughter of God and I was created in the image of God and I could have his spirit inhabit my spirit and he was the king of peace and if he calmed the waters and calmed the storm, he could calm the raging waters in my soul. And so shortly thereafter I had the intuition at a very young age that something wasn't right Because, like I alluded to earlier, there was this self-harming behavior that kept repeated itself and repeated itself for over three, even four decades of my life. But it kept me very close to the cross of Jesus Christ because I wanted answers. I want answers and my lifelong journey, my life journey and my God life journey coincided at that point and I began to realize there was more to the picture and that I could be healed and I could individuate and become all that God wanted me to be, while all he had placed inside of me my passions were going to be realized in this life. 13:52 And so, yeah that, and I progressed later on in life. I, you know I went to a few different churches at the time. I also got very involved in inner healing and deliverance. I've been in so many different group settings when it comes to healing and deliverance and power of the Holy Spirit, and so Jesus has done an incredible work in my life. In my mind. He's given me a pure understanding, a sheer understanding that the veil has been removed. And you know, yeah. 14:23 - Speaker 3 So in my opinion yeah it's something she kind of gave the context around her growing up and how much glory it meant to her. While she's doing that, one of the things an interesting point was she didn't she didn't call you about it, but she was an accounting major and she spent being coy about it. But she, she, she was an accounting major and she spent time on wall street and did time there. And so when I met her when she was at the church, um, uh, we started to kind of go out. I think I used to drop her at the train station to come back and pick her up. But she called me one day and said you know, the company's moving us to Houston. And I'm like in my head I didn't say it that long, we just started this thing. What do you mean? You're going to Houston? She said, well, you know, we'll pray about it and we'll see how it goes. And then she said I gotta go. They're coming down with the packages, they're coming to your office and going to tell them what's happening. Some people have to be let go. And so by the time I took her off on the train station, she is ready to go to Houston. I said man, god answers prayer pretty quickly. I mean that just stopped you right there. 15:41 And so Marianne was gone. Marianne left for a year. She spent a year in Houston, texas. I would go there one month, she would come here another month. So we did that for a year. And then part of it is I decided, and we decided, we talked about it, we said okay, let's get married. And so I drove to Texas, packed up everything, brought her back Weeks over, I brought her back. I mean that's part of the story. 16:17 - Speaker 1 Thanks, honey. I honestly did not give my career. I can say this. I didn't give my career up for Rupert. 16:24 There was a little bit more to one of the. I mean, it was a significant time for us because we knew that God had put us together and that we were moving towards getting married. But the one thing that most people don't even know is that God gave me a promise, okay, when I was in Texas, and he said you're going to set this department up, but I'm also going to deliver you in such a way that you will know it's me, because one of the pieces of my journey was that I needed to be on a lot of different medications to function. And he said to me I'm going to take you off every single medication and I'm going to do it in seven days. You are going to be off of that. And he did. He did do that. He just told me and I contacted my doctor. 17:20 I insured hey, can I do this? What's the shelf life or the long life or whatever life of the drug? And he just miraculously did it. He took me off of every single drug that I've ever was on, and all the antidepressants and so many different medications, because, you know, psychopharmacology is basically prescribing medication to treat symptoms. But my prayer to the Lord many years ago was can you help me get to the roots of this stuff? And he said I'm going to do it. You're going to need this for a period of time, but it's going to happen. And so that's one piece. One another piece of significant piece of to my story is that I know what it's like to be on many different medications for many years of your life and then, all of a sudden, god doesn't for everyone. It's different. Something really needs to remain. But so that's another piece of the story. 18:10 - Speaker 3 So, yeah, and even, to this day, just getting her to take a Tylenol for a day, oh yeah. And she said I'm done with this. I don't need the flowers, just saying, just saying. 18:23 - Speaker 5 Well, I think it was Pastor McBoran who said that your greatest pain will become your greatest ministry. And just hearing you talk about that, you seem to really bring that to life. 18:34 - Speaker 1 Yes, and I'm very grateful yeah. 18:38 - Speaker 5 Very grateful. Well, so emotional healing and deliverance, that's not just your ministry. 19:04 - Speaker 3 In a lot of ways it's a shared ministry for you. I call him a recovering pace setting. He's a beautiful pace setting leader. The people run through walls, get things done, but they get it done. They get to the top of the mountain and there's dead bodies all around. So here I am, all left, little to the right, and here is this young lady, majority right, definitely left, but more right, so she was just strictly on the emotional realm. She goes into a room and lights up the room. I'm one of those guys. I'm in the room, I'm exhausted, I got to get out of the room. She just loves that. And so here's. 19:37 What's so interesting is that I know for a long period of time that you know didn't really realize that this part needed to be taken care of, and so I don't know if I told the story. Last time I had a 360 done evaluation when I was in a church, and when I got the evaluation back, it said what I was. I wasn't the most loving, caring person. I just wanted to get stuff done for God, but in doing so, a sheep is getting hurt, and so that was a point in time where I got 13 people told me who I was. Some of them include pastors. That made it a little bit harder to take. But then I had a choice One I could say and I'd say she does not know anything about EQI, it's salacious. She does not know anything, she's from Texas or New York. I could come up with all the kind of reasons. But when 13 people tell you something and then you say ultimately, god, is this true? And he said I've been trying to get your attention for so long, and so for that day that was liberation day for Mary Ann, she said the approval was for so long and so that part I worked. I did a lot of work on getting told all the details. We can ask questions about it, but I did a lot of work on that, while at the same time recognizing that where her background was and where she came out of that, the emotional part means something to the human being. 21:07 Yes, we might focus strictly on the intellectual side, and when you were growing up and you come home with your report card, no one ever said how did you get along with Billy today? I didn't want to change it. I was like what did you get in chemistry? What are you getting at? And so now for us. We realize it's not just about the left side of the brain, it's the right side. When I was going through this process of trying to understand why I did what I did we live out of our trauma and I realized that I had stuff in my past that even today, even at that time, I was not dealing with Pair myself, with a young lady. 21:46 Now, with all that history, and we come together and it's like whoa, look here you talked about somebody always says whatever you go through, it's not for you, it's for somebody who God's going to send to you. And so me going through this stuff, understanding, learning about this part of her, her going through a birth stuff, learning that and then we see people God send people our way that have these challenges and issues and we can see them from a mile away and from an inner healing perspective. She gets into the deep stuff, into the what happened to you when you were three? How did you process that? What did you do with it? Why is it that you're three now and you're 55 and you're behaving with some behaviors? If you're three and help people, try to understand that On my end it's more on the emotional side of things and how it relates to leading people and making people better. So for both of us coming together it just kind of made sense that God would lead us this way. I'm going to mention one thing that we're working on. 22:51 Oh yes, to tell you how crazy it is, we're driving along on a road and it's me I was driving some. Marion was here, steven is in the back, savannah isn't back left and we hit. I hit something yes and the car just started going crazy. And it don't. So I said everybody, everything is okay. She said oh my goodness, what is okay. She said oh my goodness, what is happening? Is there something that we? Savannah started to cry. Stephen, what was Stephen doing? Stephen had another reaction. 23:35 - Speaker 1 He was attempting to calm Savannah. 23:37 - Speaker 3 He was trying to calm Savannah. 23:38 - Speaker 1 So the dynamics. 23:39 - Speaker 3 It dawned on me and us, like we are operating out of what happened at Startly and you know, we created this thing called a podcast. Five Traumatized, and you're reacting out of the event based on what happened, the triggers, see, and it has some triggers, and so for us it's like, okay, every person we see, we always are trying to figure out, not figure out. 24:10 - Speaker 4 But what's happening Assess. 24:13 - Speaker 3 When she talks to people and she's coaching people, it's always okay tell me what's going on, but then what's happening around there? Because nine times out of 10, it always comes back to that. And here's the critical part. If you don't address that, you will never get to where you need to. I mean, but God is always kind of pointing to you and it's sometimes it's up to us to kind of listen to it, and she has just been phenomenal. 24:46 - Speaker 1 So I think thank you, honey. Well said, I think that at the end of the day, it's none of our places to ever judge. It's our place to reach out with courage and compassion and in trying to understand. Because, you know, today we see so many, even, let's say, leaders falling from grace. And my thing is does anyone take the time to assess where have they been, what has happened in their journey? And it's not my place, it's not our place to judge. It's our place to understand and assess so that we can see the grace of God and the compassion of Jesus be made manifest in that particular day. And it's beautiful. 25:31 Nowadays I work with people and this is what I'm teaching, I'm facilitating. I should say I'm teaching myself. I'm facilitating for myself as well, Because it's always it starts with us. First is so many people are struggling because they're stuck. They don't know how to move out of that place of being stuck. The fact of the matter is, the Lord has shown me really clearly in my own journey have compassion on you first. Jesus said he looked out and he saw. And he said he looked out and he was moved with compassion because he saw them go. The sheep were, all you know astray, and the same thing with us. Help me, Lord, and help others to help facilitate a sense of compassion towards yourself, that compassion. It's much easier to do the assessment on oneself, to see how the factors all play a part in the product, how we see ourselves functioning today, and then grace can be poured out and redemption and restoration and all forms of reconciliation. 26:41 - Speaker 5 That's really powerful, it's really hard. 26:45 - Speaker 2 It's hard for him. This is interesting. You have a definition of a true power couple. We think of that sometimes in other ways, but the way that you come together to answer the need in the world. So how has it been the journey of you have your own life, your own education. So does Dr Ruth. It been the journey of you have your own life, your own education. So does dr ruth. And how has it been? Walking alongside and journeying? 27:13 - Speaker 3 together. Just one question. Um, I would, I would say I'll start now and go backwards, I would say being first lady at Roberts, wesleyan University, to see Marianne engage with the students, see her having a location where she can just go and just be herself and be in an environment where one of the number one things now for young people is mental health issues, and so it's almost like she's in the jungle. Ah, she's in heaven, cause she's just, you know, with all these people that she's like, oh, my goodness, god is sending them my way. Now, going back to from from the start, when I was at the church, I was a chief operating officer at the church and she was, uh, in New York, um, uh, uh, doing, uh, uh, wall street and accounting and all that kind of stuff. And then I got called into ministry. 28:08 We decided then, right, that you would, you know, you'd be at home and I would be working. But from a ministry perspective, we always felt I'm going to speak for myself, you can speak as well. We always felt that God had a bigger purpose for our life. We couldn't, couldn't figure it out. So when the pastor at that time asked me to come join the church from an administrative, executive pastor kind of role. We took it and Mary Ann was right next to me, um, for 16 years when I was at Christ Church. At that same time I was at Christ Church when I got that revelation about who I was. 28:52 We decided to start this nonprofit called the Center for Emotional and Spiritual Development because we really believe in the emotional side of things. If I might just do a rapid trailer, we understand the brain well, that the cortex is on top, that just deal with facts. There's this thing called the amygdala that stores all the emotions from the moment you were born, and then there is the prefrontal area. You take your facts, it comes down here, you take the emotion and that's where decisions are made. We really believe that. But what really key is in this part, every single emotion should be instilled. So when you see somebody that looks like an uncle that hurts you, you're reacting to that person just like if it's an uncle. 29:40 And so we were just learning these things as we're going along. We got into the deliverance part of things and understood that as well. And so as we're journeying, I'm journeying through churches, from Christ Church to Life Christian Church, and Marianne is really engaging into this world that she has created based on her own experience, you know, from childhood to now, and so she has a keen way of, when people come into our midst, to be able to see what's behind what's in front of her, because because of her experience she can just say, ok, yeah, this is what's going on. That's a good thing, and for discernment it is. Ability to discern is pretty high, and so the progress has been that and she's on her own, taking on some things that she said okay, god has called me to do this while we're still along together. 30:36 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and thank you, rupert, for that is the discernment I believe is given by God to not be judgmental, Because the fact of the matter is, if it wasn't for the mercy of God, where would we all be? So, grace says, I will show you. Whether it's to pray and to see, or to come alongside and to bring about awareness, it's never to judge and to pull people away from Jesus. It's to push them towards the image of God. How Rupert expounded on that, if I may also add, is that you know, alicia and Vanlin and Rupert, even ministry involves brokenness. I say that to say that you know, coming alongside my husband in the years that he was in ministry, while I was on my journey of healing, I would say he was on his journey of healing and together we were on our journey of healing. And then the fact is, is the common denominator is brokenness. We all have a form of brokenness, whether you're raised in a home with mental illness, you're raised in a home where there's divorce, or you're raised in a home where there's any form of brokenness. Whether you're raised in a home with mental illness, you're raised in a home where there's divorce, or you're raised in a home where there's any form of orientation, whatever may be the case, perfectionism, performance orientation, whatever may be the case, but the thing is that Jesus comes to meet us in our brokenness and King David, blow it, anyone can blow it, anyone can blow it, and at the end of the day we still carry the image of God. And so what can we do to push even ministerial environments towards an understanding that help people, encourage people, develop compassion, to push them spiritually, form them? Which I'm going back from my master's beginning in September at my teenage of no, I'm not going to say anything. 32:53 Continuation at Regent University I started my degree a long, long back and I'm starting to great Regent University. I started my degree a long, long back and I'm starting to graduate Regent University and I'm continuing it Because, in spiritual formation, because I want to become, it's my heart to see people truly formed spiritually, because that discipleship is such an important piece and it incorporates the whole being the spirit, the soul. You know the spirit, the soul and the body. The spirit, the soul. You know the spirit, the soul and the body. So I say that all to say. 33:30 And in regards to how do I function, van Bland alongside my husband, I really just have come to recognize, over many years of whether it's being in ministry or being in Corp of America, that, like I said earlier, we all are working towards becoming like Jesus. If we're in the sanctification process, which we all should be right as Christians, if we profess to be Christ followers, we should be moving in that direction. It doesn't make me or you or anyone better. It helps us to live life according to the pattern and the way that God ultimately wanted us to live. So, however, what environment? Whether he's at the university, whether he's been at the church, in the church setting, whether he's been in corporate America, I've always taken this view three pillars look at everything in life through the eyes and ears of redemption, restoration and reconciliation, because at some point in any of those arenas, you're going to have to face those three components. 34:26 - Speaker 5 That's so good. I love good alliteration, redemption, restoration and reconciliation. That's right. The three pillars you mentioned, savannah and Stephen those are your teenage children. 34:38 - Speaker 2 Yes. 34:39 - Speaker 5 Tell us a little bit more about that. 34:40 - Speaker 3 Okay, well, they're 14 going on. Yes, they are wonderful twins. Stephen is the most caring and official that there was. He has a soft heart for people, but he's also extremely outgoing. Savannah is the more serious one and would come into a room and just sit back and check out everybody to try to foresee what's going on. She and Marianne are like this from a discernment perspective because they're always checking things out. Stephen, yeah, so outgoing, we sometimes call him the mayor. 35:22 - Speaker 2 If you go anywhere. 35:25 - Speaker 3 You think we're at Newark Airport in a zoo, when is Stephen and we look over there. He's having an intense conversation with a passenger that we've never met before. What could he be talking about? 35:37 - Speaker 2 Yes, yes, what could? 35:38 - Speaker 3 he possibly be talking about. Yes, yes, Very interesting and I'm like what could he possibly be talking about? But is that outgoing? They're based on soccer. Mightn't go up to the travel scene. It's just like these new stuff. 35:50 - Speaker 1 Yeah, sure. So they're very, very precious and Vandal. And Alicia Rupert. This is fascinating to me because even in their journeys you know, savannah has been going to a Christian schoolemptive reconciliatory and restorative components in our hearts. This way of thinking and discerning is that, even though Savannah has been at a Christian school, and she's been so Bible-like, they memorize scripture Every week. They're memorizing, they get tested on the memorization. She'll quote you a scripture. She'll quote us a scripture. Steven doesn't. Isn't fond, very fond, even though we have a little bible studies at home at times, and all that he moves away from the bible he was, so we're always trying to input that dimension. 36:56 I will say that they each carry their own need for understanding and embracing the fact that they've been created in the image of God, and I see it even in their I call them shenanigans at 14. It's shenanigans, it's just shenanigans. Like, why are you talking like that? Like we're all, we're humans, we're in the flesh, but we all need Jesus and so, as it relates to them, we love them deeply. They got two new guinea pigs in the past few weeks. They're taking care of these guinea pigs like you would never believe, especially Stephen, but we're working on their things too. We're having fun. We're having fun, we're disciplining, but we're also really aware, in line with five traumatized people in a car, that we all are working on our brokenness. 37:46 - Speaker 3 So you didn't talk about the phone. 37:48 - Speaker 2 Yes. 37:50 - Speaker 3 So we held out. You said no phone. Yeah, in this modern 2025, no phone. Yeah, 2023, no phone. 2024, no phone. Yeah, 2023, no phone. 2024, no phone. 38:03 Wow, we were the worst parent ever in the history of humankind. Everyone else has it, everybody has it. Why can't we have it? And we decided, yes, it was a year and a half. We said, okay, we're going to get you a phone, but there's limited hours, you can't just be on it all the time. And they got the phone. 38:27 And the things that we see on TV and hear on TV about phones and teenagers we literally are seeing it in front of us when I tell my daughter to put the phone down and she has, does not have the ability to get off Instagram. Yeah, it's just like it's just hooked. And so we we had to, we had to create, we had to sign on to some programs Custodia Make a plug for Custodia. It goes on. Custodia, you can monitor everything there. And one of the beautiful thing that Custodia, it has the ability to just press the one button and it shuts off the internet for them. So when they're doing stuff and I said, okay, go do this, ah, boom, there you go. I mean, for a mess of godsend to have that capability, especially for teenagers or something, and they just want to do it, and that's what I'm saying. At this age you know, miriam mentioned it they're individuating, meaning they're being their own self, and at that time it's usually where the rough things start happening. 39:29 - Speaker 1 Yes, the rough things, rough patches. 39:30 - Speaker 3 We're going through it. Now we're in the midst of it, but we're having fun, because the good thing is someone used this term what man has done, men will do, Meaning what somebody has gone through, you can go through too, and so tons of people have gone through this tumultuous, tumultuous, very smooth forecast Year olds about 15. Yeah, so we're looking forward to 16. I know those are coming, but we're in. 39:57 - Speaker 2 It's intense, very good, it's intense. Well, you speak of them with such joy and with smiles. The phone certainly is a challenge, yes, but what has been your greatest challenge? Raising them, and what is your greatest wish for them, as in class? 40:16 - Speaker 1 Sure, sure, so Think about that, this class, sure, sure. So the greatest, the greatest wish for them. So, if I may because I drive Savannah to school in the morning, if I'll use this as an example, as how I could, you know, qualify one of the greatest wishes I have for, let's say, savannah, because I'm with her a lot in this vehicle and we have these intense conversations is asking God what our gifts are and then praying into that with. I always really talk about it Rupa just referenced it earlier that there's this cohesion there's with and I I've I recognize in the lord, really it's, it's manifesting that she's very prophetic and has very strong discernment. So my greatest and our greatest I would say you can speak for yourself after but is to see her become all that god has for her, and and so, um, I'm already taking the cues from the Holy Spirit, so I'm training her. So she'll tell me an incident in school and I'll say okay, sabana let's pause. 41:27 - Speaker 2 Let's pause a second. 41:28 - Speaker 1 Do you hear anything? She says what do you mean? I say, well, first of all, you know the Bible, you know it talks about gossip, right, you heard that? And then she'll say, yeah, mommy, it is gossip. And then I'll say, okay, let's just pause another few minutes. So I'm facilitating an environment for her where she can hear God for herself, and I'm doing it intentionally, it's my way, because I have that quality time in the car with her to foster that. So the answer is we want to see them. If she's going to be a soccer player, that's fantastic. If Steven's going to be a tradesman, he's a STEM boy. We want to see that, because that's who, god's STEM boy, right he's a STEM boy. 42:16 It's like that is where you know the joy of their existence will come, because not everyone is cut out to be going to an Ivy League school or a charter school or a Christian school. It is what God, his identity for that. So that is, would you yeah? 42:34 - Speaker 3 I mean I and what's the greatest you want, sometimes as parents, you want your kid to be like you and sometimes you see things different and as parents, we have to accept that. The first thing, you know, I might go here and did all these things, but maybe Steven is not counted for that. Steven, um, if you meet Steven, as I told him, he's a mayor and all that things, but maybe Stephen is not careful there. 43:03 Stephen, if you meet Stephen, as I told him he's a mayor and all that stuff. But Stephen will mark you anything, no matter what it is. You say the sun is shining and he says well, it might be shining, but if you look this way it's not shining. You're like so, stephen, it's still shining, it's still even at that. And so every single thing, each house, we're convinced, I'm convinced, that he'll be a attorney or something. Every single thing is a discussion and I want to know. And so, just seeing that and realizing that God is speaking, something we might just say, oh, you're going to say, oh, he just likes to debate things all the time, but his gift might be in that debate. You just got to foster that God. You give us this gift. Let's just see what you want to do with it and not impose on ourselves. 43:59 - Speaker 1 It's not easy. 43:59 - Speaker 3 And it's not easy, trust me. It's not easy Because sometimes you just don't know what God is doing. But he's doing something. You've got to be. Okay, God. I'm not going to tell you what you're doing, but, okay, let me just trust that you're doing that, because we know you're going to do it right, but at the same time, we just want to control it. That's really hard. 44:18 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like I can't help it. It's very comical, you know, especially when we lived in New Jersey, savannah would go to a store. Okay, she'd be shopping with Dad and she would come home and I'd find flowers on the kitchen island and she comes into the room and she would outright blatantly say Bobby, I told Daddy to get you those socks. 44:46 - Speaker 2 I got out. 44:47 - Speaker 1 No smiles. And she has an ability at a very young age. She cares very, very deeply. There's many stories behind her life story, but suffice to say this is not the forum for you, but I will say that is a depiction of a level of, I would even say, discernment. She has an ability to see mommy needs. That she has that ability already at a very young age, of empathy she doesn't, but then she's very challenging. So, honey, vandalin asks what about the most challenging thing? You said, vandalin, most challenging. 45:25 - Speaker 3 Yeah, Is to not and I said it before, can I elaborate a little bit more Not impose on them what it is you want them to do or to be. That's been challenging, because you know you want. Somebody said that fear is lack of control, and we're always trying to control things. And then, if we can't control it, we get fearful because we just don't know what the outcome is going to be. And so, for us, as parents, we want to control exactly what they're going to be and what they're going to do. But at the same time as you're trying to control it let's put it this way there's another dimension where they're individuating and they're becoming their own person, and yet, at the same time, you want to do this and yet at the same time, you're thinking about their future. But every parent wanted this for their future. 46:24 - Speaker 1 So the challenging part is trying to understand all of what's happening at the same time from a Christ-like perspective, Like I just don't understand what you're doing, Lord, but I got to trust that you're doing it right and the thing is with Rupert and I, one of the challenging things and I think it's important in this space to be able to say this is sort of like a holy space to me in saying this, because I think all of us parents experience it at some point in time is the parenting styles and the friction of one child gravitating to one parent and knowing that at this you know these manipulative zones and deception too, because you know, remember, they're all broken, we're all broken, looking for the redemption and the restoration, the reconciliation. 47:18 But fact of the matter is we now talk about it and that's beautiful, that's that's overcoming the challenge, because they know how to push and pull when it works for them and for us it's the, it's getting to the nitty gritty of saying we need to both be in a line, like he and I grew we in a line because they'll read it so quickly and they will come and yeah, so that's what we can do and they see an opening, they're going to run right through us. 47:47 - Speaker 3 That's correct. 47:49 - Speaker 5 And if not a little little little, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it I understand. Yes, this has been such a fascinating conversation through marriage, through ministry in marriage, parenthood, maybe we could wrap it up with a couple of questions Before we started recording, vandalyn and I were talking about singles in the church. As a couple about to celebrate your silver anniversary, do you think it's harder to meet people in the church now than it was for you 25 years ago? 48:24 - Speaker 3 Let me introduce to you the only lady you ever saw our call leader of the single. That's true. That's true. You forgot about that, did you? 48:37 - Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah, that's true. 48:41 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and so obviously you did say what is it easier if you don't mind, do you think? 48:50 - Speaker 5 it's harder these days Because, as Vanilla and I were chatting before the show, you know she has some ideas about how to address this. She thinks technology can be part of it. I'm just curious for your perspective do you think it's harder now than it? 49:06 - Speaker 1 used to be to meet someone to get married. Wow, that's such a profound and there's so many different dynamics that I can go from, but suffice to say I think the one that I would like to just expound on is I do believe, with all of the different distractions and you know, social media being a very huge distraction to the way the brain is even functioning there, there, there, and then communication, because now the, the, the thoughts are coming through in smaller phrases and the connections and the eye activity, the eye gate is not being used, I believe, as God would want it to be used. So I'm talking to you and I'm choosing to look at you in the eye, but if I know and my conditioning is my phone's right in my pocket, okay, look real quickly and look down. Or you go into a store and unfortunately, you see this all the time. They're in the aisle with the applesauce and they're looking at their phone and the boss is probably down three aisles later. 50:10 But hey, I can do this, and so are they as attentive to the customer and the consumer. Let's use that as an example. So it's a distraction and if I may also add to that, what we see in man man River is that the distraction is more paramount and it is more it speaks to disintegration and disconnection which, when it's obviously compounded with emotional dysregulation, we have a greater disparity. And hence, in answer to your question, I do think it's more difficult today because the connection and the substance upon which healthy relationships are built are not even given a chance. If I could equate it to what's going on in many different ministerial settings, is formation is not, is is so significant, but discipleship is significant, but but there's so many distractions. 51:08 - Speaker 3 So so, yes, I mean no, I think it's, and my addition to that it is absolutely yes, um, narian, just kind of tied the bullet to it that the world closer. But by connecting the world closer, it created so many distractions in the connection that it creates disintegration, where people just they're just all over the place, there's no centering. Christ is the center of everything and so, you know, somebody can meet somebody, they can jump on whatever app and they need somebody. But that's just the beginning. You have to get to know them, get to understand them. Is this person? You know? What was this person's history? How's their background? Do they seem like they're here? Are they here with me but not here? I mean all those things because I think the difficulty is there's a lot more distraction, and I think what helps the process is, one, knowing what distractions are, but two, be able to discern that they're a distraction. And I think that's where some of the difficulty lies, especially for people nowadays. Oh, you know my daughter on Instagram who clicked. I got a secret who likes who likes? 52:37 - Speaker 2 I got 46 likes. 52:39 - Speaker 3 Big picture of things. Yes, I just said who cares, who likes, but sometimes people use that as the measure for it and you might not really care about it I'm not going to care about it. Then we have to get together and then this becomes a distraction from me getting to understanding them, right? 52:57 - Speaker 5 Yeah, makes sense. Okay, last question, and I think this will bring us full circle to the conversation that we had with you, dr Hales. Mrs Hales, you are from Brooklyn. You came to faith at NYU, no less right. What is your heart and vision for New York City? And, as you look into this next chapter for Roberts, like, what do you see? Like, what do you want for New York and for Christian education? 53:24 - Speaker 1 Oh, thank you for asking that, alicia. 53:29 It's a loaded packed question, but I'm going to just try my best. 53:34 So what I would desire is to see, because ultimately, at the end of the day, I do believe the answer to everything is anyone and every young man, young woman of any age adults too right is coming to know Jesus Christ. 54:00 But even another step further is truly coming into the knowledge and the experience, the authentic experience of knowing you've been created in the image of the creator of the universe and there is nothing that can change that fact, but just a growing experience, a God-like journey that progressively moves young people, moves people of any age closer and closer to that understanding. And it takes here it is, it takes intentional slowing down to move forward with a healthy, because we want to see people become glory carriers, meaning they're carrying a dimension of the heart of God that can bring about transformation, just because he is embedded in that space, in that person's life. And they carry that. They are carriers, they are ministers. You don't have to be using Scripture all the time. They can be walking in the power of the Holy Spirit and changing lives and changing environments and changing institutions and organizations, you know, and not having to be on their phones all the time for stimulation, but they can be stimulated inwardly by that intimacy with God. 55:31 - Speaker 5 Yes, that's beautiful. Well, thank you to my guest host, vandalyn. It was great to have you here with me today and thank you both. You're both glory carriers and it's just such a pleasure to be with you in the same space, this conversation with you, and I'm looking forward to our next conversation. 55:47 - Speaker 3 It's our pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you Appreciate it, and my wonderful wife. Thank you, you too. 55:53 - Speaker 4 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 frontlines of ministry on the Faithly Podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful and never underestimate the power of your own story.