God as Father - Kristian Hernandez

00:01 - Speaker 1 My body was rejecting an organ for a while, like, no, this can't be true. No, of course you have to perform for it. You have to earn this, don't you? And God just was very patient and gracious and just kept wooing me back through His love. And eventually there was a pivotal turning moment where I could look back and say the gospel began to actually permeate my life and and I began to increasingly see God as as father, not just any kind of father, but a loving, approachable, accessible father. Hi, my name is Christian Hernandez and I am a follower of Jesus husband, father for a Jesus husband, father of four and a pastor in Astoria, queens, as well as I'm the senior director of Catalytic Partnerships at City to City, new York City, lifetime New Yorker. Can't imagine a better city, and this is my Faithly Story. 01:00 - 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. 01:44 - Speaker 3 Could you tell me how your faith journey started? 01:46 - Speaker 1 Well, yeah, that's a tricky thing to answer because I feel like when I think back, I wasn't aware that God was pursuing me for quite some time before I finally came to a place of realizing that Jesus is Lord and professing my faith in him. But I can think back to a significant moment. There was a guy named Alex in my neighborhood. He was known by everybody as ducky and he was a professional skateboarder and at that time that was a big deal in the 80s and early 90s, and he was sponsored by skating companies and at any given moment there'd be just a flock of people around him because he was quite extraordinary. And Ducky comes to faith and he uses his influence and his notoriety and he begins to host Bible studies in his apartment, which really wasn't his apartment, it was his grandmother's house, and so we would just gather there and he would just teach us stories from the Gospels. And I remember when he invited us to profess faith in Jesus, there was a lot of sincerity, a lot of folks. I remember friends of mine. We all prayed, but then there wasn't really much instruction. Afterwards, looking back, I can tell that something definitely took place in my heart, because I was one of the very few that did say yes to them, inviting me to come with them to church on a Sunday, and I was about 12 years old at that time. But again, not much in way of ongoing discipleship and was not given much instruction beyond that. But for some time after I remember I would just get this spur of the moment desire to read my Bible. I had a small little Gideon's Bible and sometimes I'm reading the Bible as a kid. Unfortunately, I started to get high and drink and all sorts of stuff at a very young age, like from the age of 10 to 14. I felt like I lived an adult lifetime and I would just open the Bible and read it, but it wasn't until I was 14. And, unbeknownst to me, the church that I came to. 04:19 Christ came to faith in. They had been fasting and praying for many years that God would reach young people in Sunset Park and they targeted specifically this one block that was very, very drug infested and crime was just insane on this block and there was this one family called the Fred family, robert and Maritza Fred. They came to faith and they have a crazy story of how God reached them and what he's done through their life since. But their next door neighbor was this young man. His name was Peter Carrion and he was the most popular guy in our neighborhood. 04:45 House music was very big at that time and he was an incredible dancer and there was always people just flocking to him begging him to teach them how to dance and he shared a backyard fence with the Fred family and over the summers they would just talk with him. He was interested in DJ music and they would just spark conversation. He comes to faith eventually and he single-handedly led about 30 of my friends to Christ and overnight our church had a youth group and yeah, that's where it all really began, at the age of 14. September 26, 1994 was the day I professed faith in Christ in Peter Caron's basement. He's an 18-year-old kid leading a bunch of 14-year-olds and other ages to Christ and yeah, that's where it all began. 05:41 - Speaker 3 Yeah, when you hear about young people getting into drugs and alcohol, I say that's just growing. Up in the 90s in Queens or in Brooklyn, I had a lot of friends who did that, but I didn't. But it's only because I was afraid of my dad beating the crap out of me. So he instilled a fear of God in me. So was your family going to church? 06:00 - Speaker 1 No, no, they weren't. I grew up in a single parent home. My mom raised my sister and I she's 18 months older than me on her own yeah, kind of crazy circumstances. One of nine siblings came from Puerto Rico to New York City on her own trying to figure out life, and she meets my dad and unfortunately he was married, and so they got into an adulterous affair and my sister's born and caused a huge scandal, and at which my mom said, hey, this was a mistake, but let's, this relationship is over, I'll raise our daughter by myself, I don't need anything from you. 06:43 But my dad wasn't about to hear that. He was quite the broken man. He was into drugs and a big counterfeit money ring that was happening in the seventies that he was involved in. And so, yeah, he said, no, this relationship is over when I say it's over. And so he'd break into her apartment, wait for her at the end of her work shift. And, sure enough, I'm conceived. And he's like, hey, this isn't going to happen. And so he took her to the abortion clinic three times and in between, when he realized she didn't go through with it, he would beat her to try to force a miscarriage. And the third time she went to the abortion clinic. Someone stopped her in the parking lot and said don't abort this child, god has a plan for this child. 07:36 And she wept, got on a plane that day, went to Puerto Rico, gave birth to me six months later and then, shortly after my dad passed away, didn't grow up with him, didn't know him, and so she raised us in Sunset Park, brooklyn, by herself just nominal Catholic kind of family. We would go big holidays and that's about it. And so I was the first of my whole family to come to faith in Christ, and then eventually my sister, my mom, my niece come to faith in Christ, and then eventually my sister, my mom, my niece and other family members over time. And so, yeah, it was quite the radical thing that took place in my life and then, as a result, my family but my mom was also, she was very moral and she had really incredible standards and ethics. 08:23 And that was a saving grace for me, because even though I was doing crazy stuff for a young kid, I knew there was always a line, that I knew that she would always love me, but there was things that she would never be at peace with, she would never just accept, and that kept me out of going really, really too crazy. She also threatened me quite clearly. She said hey, if you ever get arrested, I'm getting arrested too, because I'm going to beat you in the precinct and I'm going to have to pumilate, all for you. And I knew she was telling the truth and so, yeah, but that was essentially my upbringing. 08:56 - Speaker 3 Man, that's such a beautiful story and, yeah, I'm a big believer in tough love, especially with kids, because that's just how I grew up. When did you find out about your dad? 09:04 - Speaker 1 you know, I still have this personality trait I, I persist, and so I just basically, like, nagged the details out of my mom. She knew that she wasn't gonna win that fight and so she, yeah, she, she shared, she gave me the details. And then over time I was able to find out from other family members the same exact details aunts and uncles and cousins and stuff. And so, yeah, I'm trying to remember the exact age, but definitely before the age of 14, where I had come to learn some of those details of my upbringing and just what she had went through. 09:49 It always struck me why she chose to remain as a single parent, because she was attractive and she had a lot going for her. She eventually went back to school, got a college degree, worked in the Board of Ed for many years, even though we grew up on public assistance. When I came to faith, I was able to really encourage my mom like, hey, we don't have to live this way, you're smart, you have agency. And she went and finished her degree and eventually she bought a home in Staten Island. But, yeah, as I nagged her and got all the details, I came to realize, because of some of the trauma of that experience. She just made the choice that she did not want to threaten our safety by bringing someone into our home that wouldn't love us the way she loved us, and so, yeah, that was some of those dynamics there. 10:42 - Speaker 3 Man, it sounds like God was pursuing your whole family and it just happened to be through you. 10:46 - Speaker 1 Absolutely. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. My sister an incredible journey of faith for her to come to a place of faith in Jesus. My niece as well, and my mom. 11:02 I still remember the day that she was very happy over time. At first she was very apprehensive. She thought I might've joined a cult or something. She was scared. She was like what's my son? This is too radical of a change. 11:16 I went from hanging out late at night and doing who knows what to coming home late because I was at an all night prayer meeting and she was like I don't know know what's better or whatever. But then over time, when she realized no, this isn't a fleeting thing, this is, this is his life. He's gonna follow Jesus for the rest of his life, I think something set in and and then she began to explore the faith and asked tons of questions and she was able to see that it was real, as I would bring other folks around my family and she got to see other people that were equally transformed by Jesus. And I'll never forget the Sunday where there was an invitation at our church after the message for people to come and profess faith in Jesus and to repent and turn to him and my mom walks down the aisle really proud woman for her to do this in front of everyone. I was like, oh man, this is real and so, yeah, God's been very, very faithful. 12:16 - Speaker 3 How did learning about your dad influence you in your faith, but also like becoming a man. 12:22 - Speaker 1 And I said, yeah, that's a profound question, because there's probably nothing more core to my faith journey in that it was interesting when I found out the details and then kind of reflected on my experiences, realizing that even before I knew the details of what took place, I had had multiple experiences of where rejection felt so profoundly heavy. Whenever I experienced it. It was like if rejection showed up in somebody else's body as a cold, for me it showed up as the flu, you know, like it was just so heavy, so intense. So when I came to find out the details it was kind of a connective moment and say, man, it probably has something to do with the fact that from the very womb I was being rejected, I wasn't wanted, and so now fast forward when I come to faith in Christ. Learning to see God as my father was a profound experience, because one, my only frame of reference of a father was one who would reject, one who wouldn't want me believing the gospel, that actually I'm accepted by God through Christ and what he's done, that this is an identity that I received, that I don't have to achieve or perform for. It was like my body was rejecting an organ for a while, like no, this can't be true. No, of course, you have to perform for it. You have to earn this, don't you? And God just was very patient and gracious and just kept wooing me back through his love. And eventually there was a pivotal turning moment where I could look back and say the gospel began to actually permeate my life. Gospel began to actually permeate my life and and I began to increasingly see god as as father, and not just any kind of father, but a loving, approachable, accessible father. Invites me into his arms and isn't like rejecting me when I don't get it right, or isn't loving me based on or as in loving me based on my performance. And so, yeah, it's been a profound experience for me, and then even more intense as we began to have children of our own. My wife and I, we have four kids. Our oldest, alexa, is 15, and Luke, is 12, michael's 9, and Brielle is 4. And Brielle was born with Down syndrome. And so, like the experiences of parenting four different kids, different ages, different stages, but also like for me as someone who, when it comes to being a father, it's a blank canvas I'm drawing from, and so God has been very gracious to meet me in that in my faith journey as well as just in my life as a father. 15:26 How did you meet Ducky? You know he was just in our neighborhood. I was into skateboarding, at least attempting to try to master some of those tricks, and so didn't make it too far, had a few tricks up my sleeve. But if you were skateboarding, if you were a young person that was into skateboarding at that time, you knew him because he was in all the popular magazines for the skateboarding culture at that time. And also just so happened, I lived on 47th and 4th Avenue and he lived on 47th Street, between 3rd and 4th Avenue, and so it was impossible for us not to have met, given the fact that we lived right around the corner from each other. 16:17 - Speaker 3 Yeah, I feel like one downfall of like the technological age is like when I grew up like we didn't have computers, so like we played with our neighborhood kids, right, and like we would play street hockey and whatnot, and then, they'd be like hey, you free, we need an extra. I'm like, all right, so I kind of just followed along just for playing with friends. 16:34 - Speaker 1 Yeah, no, absolutely. Now with our own kids, it's such a weird experience where now legit giving my kids consequences for their actions is. One of the consequences that they don't want to hear me give them is you can't stay in your room and no screens, you have to go outside and it's like you know, it's so different man, so different. 16:58 - Speaker 3 You know, I've never heard of that before, because usually it's like stay in your room, it's like no go outside in nature with nothing. 17:04 - Speaker 1 Not now. It's different now, but when we were kids, the consequence that you didn't want to hear was you had to stay inside, and that was like, oh, life was over. But now it's the opposite. It's like no screens. Go outside, go kick a ball outside, go play go ride a bike. 17:27 - Speaker 3 So it's pretty funny. So how did you go from this 12-year-old that got radically saved by a skateboarder to being a pastor? 17:32 - Speaker 1 Yeah, very early on in my faith journey I didn't have the language to really flesh it out and I certainly didn't know all the details of the journey that I was't have the language to really flesh it out and I certainly didn't know all the details of the journey that I was going to take. But very early on I had this sense that I think I'm supposed to spend my life helping people to follow Jesus, and I didn't know how that was going to be fully expressed for a little bit. And then over time it got clearer Like, hey, I think I'm called to pastor people, I'm called to evangelistic work and share the gospel with people that haven't heard the good news. And so, yeah, before I knew anything about seminary or anything of that nature, just there was this burning passion to share the gospel with anyone that would stop to listen. And so, as a teenager, me and my friends we didn't even check with our pastor. We, during our school breaks, like President's Week and such we would. Just we would be some of those annoying people on New York City subway trains and we would just preach and share the gospel. I think people tolerated us because we were cute teenagers and we were like we'd rather teenagers doing this than some wild stuff on a train. 18:52 But, yeah, there was just a burning passion inside of my heart and so I was just curious, if this is what I'm supposed to do, what, how does, how does one prepare for that? And so, yeah, just it made me really passionate about the scriptures and so, as a teenager, I just consumed the Bible. I just would just consume scripture. I listened to hours and hours and hours of sermons. If I, whatever sermons I can get a hold, I'd listen to hours and hours and hours of sermons. Whatever sermons I can get a hold of, I'd listen to them. And these were during the days of tapes, not CDs. And so, just, my mom was sick of all these tapes that would just stack up. Because, yeah, what I was told is, if you're called to preach, then you need to be a student of the Word, and so memorize Scripture, study Scripture, read commentaries on Scripture, and then, yeah, fast forward. 19:47 When I got clarity on, like, oh, I think this is what I'm supposed to do, I had the sad realization of the cost of seminary when I looked it up. And then, also at that time, in New York there was some fledgling schools. But in essence, if you wanted to go to a more reputable school, it meant you were going to have to move out of New York and also you're going to have to pay a lot of money. And so that was a discouraging moment where I was like I don't want to leave New York, I feel called to be here and also I don't want to get into that kind of debt. You know, especially for a profession that doesn't pay a whole lot and also a profession that has been riddled with financial scandals. It's like this doesn't make sense. Let's saddle the leaders of churches with insurmountable debt. And so, you know, being from the hood, you learn how to survive and hack. 20:46 And so I got friends to send me their syllabus from seminary and so I would get the books and read them but not pay the tuition. And so that was kind of my journey toward preparing for a future in ministry. And then God just opened, just kept opening opportunities and to share the gospel in various settings, whether it was churches, youth groups, and that just kept building over time. And, thankfully, my pastor, who's really mentored me, and just a spiritual father to me, bishop Joseph Matera. He took me under his wing, I lived with him and his family for my formative years during college and it was in that kind of intense discipleship context that, yeah, just more and more clarity around my sense of calling and also outlets and experiences that were afforded to me to be able to learn and grow, and over time this clarity of a sense of calling really burned deeper in my heart. 21:55 - Speaker 3 That's funny, because I always tell people don't go to seminary. I have a 100K piece of paper that says I went somewhere because that's all we did or that's all I did. I just read the books and syllabus. I never went to class, I was just a really bad student, but I just had this knack to just consume lectures in 2.5 feet, and so during finals I would just cram and get by. 22:20 - Speaker 1 But yeah, like that's a superpower Wow. 22:23 - Speaker 3 My friends or my peers called me deformed and not reformed. Whoa, it's a joke. It's all good. So you're progressive, so that's interesting. So you never went to like seminary officially, right. 22:38 - Speaker 1 Well, you know, fast forward. Now I've actually enrolled in seminary, which has been really fun in that I'm just going for the joy of studying Scripture. It's an interesting experience being in a room with other students who, for them, they're hopefully preparing for one day being a pastor of a church, and me being in the room and that question's answered for me. Um, but I'm just there just to study scripture and to be able to get the benefit of learning from biblical scholars, and so, yeah, I'm in seminary now, but when I get get the degree whatever, I'm just there to just enrich my own soul, and so, yeah, it's kind of full circle experience. 23:27 - Speaker 3 So, since you have both experiences, so anybody who's like a young and up and coming and they feel like called to the pastorate, like what would you like advise them? Because something I'm always thinking about is like these guys like graduate, undergrad, have no life experience and then they go right in and then they get trained but it's more informational and everything, and so when they get into that pastoral context they don't have like the soft skills and all the other intangibles that they kind of flounder and they think like, oh no, I just need to transfer this information and it's this like conflict between theory and practice. So for you like looking back, like you know what are like the tradeoffs. 24:07 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I think one thing that has become clear as I'm now in seminary, but also as I've talked with people over the years who have gone that route and are living out exactly what you described, is that seminary won't help you grow a walk with God if you don't have one going into it, and so there's nothing that can replace deep, hidden intimacy with Jesus that you have developed over years. 24:37 Seminary will help you be a better thinker and will give you tools and resources toward that end, but it's no replacement for you just actually walking with Jesus, knowing Jesus, yeah. 24:53 The other thing I would say too is that, to your point, so many folks end up in pastoral ministry without any sense of business acumen and no real experience on how to lead an organization or lead teams or manage a budget, hire people, fire people, cast vision and execute just basic things and stuff. 25:19 And so, yeah, they'll graduate and know how to interpret the Bible and apply it and preach it, but there's so much more that is necessary for us to be able to lead healthy, you know, gospel-centered churches, and so, yeah, I would say, the more you can front, load that stuff in your soul strong walk with God, robust life experience, marketplace skills, and then if you could add seminary training to that, I think that really rounds you off in a great way. And so that's what I would definitely recommend for folks to pay attention to all of that and realize that when you're missing some of those, when you have some of those gaps, it doesn't go away, it shows up, you know, and so you're either going to figure that stuff out before, early on in the journey, or you're going to figure it out in the middle of it or toward the tail end. None of us are really getting away with. 26:24 - Speaker 3 None of us are getting, so to speak. Yeah, one thing I wish I did more in seminary is like read the Bible, just read the Bible. You know what? Like get through it, just chug along, because I think it would have helped me understand all of these theological points points back to what scripture says and I know in seminary class that's what they try to do, but it's more focused on like these philosophical ideas more than anything, and I think that made me more like get into debates about differences and whatnot, rather than like, oh, let's just read what it says and then you tell me what you think you know. And I've like never read the Bible more now at 40 than in my entire life and I'm like wait, I should have just done this. I feel like you've gone through the right track of like you're just consuming Bible, understanding what the pastors are saying, and then you got this type. I'm like, oh, then let me fill in these gaps of seminary. 27:12 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm grateful that that was my journey. I mean, there's gaps and brokenness in my journey as well. It's not like it isn't without its its flaws for sure. But I the other thing I would say is like I've always found it somewhat like weird and like kind of confounding that folks can go through seminary and not have much preaching experience and then, just because they get the degree then now they're flung into a pastoral role and, man, there's something about preaching upwards of 40 times a year, like and not having the legs under you. 27:58 It can be really challenging. 28:02 And not having the legs under you it can be really challenging. 28:04 But not just repetition and opportunities to prepare to be able to have that fortitude to preach that many weeks, week in and week out, but also just to be able to develop a process of preaching that doesn't divorce your own transformation from the work of preaching, because it's very easy to become performative. 28:26 It's very easy to learn some mechanics, but to also learn mechanics while sacrificing the mystery of it all and what it could look like to preach from a place of profound encounter with God yourself. And so I would encourage anyone that is really feeling called to pastoral ministry to a life of preaching the gospel is to get as much preaching experience as possible, whether that's teaching Sunday school class to kids and learning how to explain the gospel to young minds, youth and young adult, ministry, teaching the gospel, preaching the scriptures to seniors. Say yes to as many opportunities as come your way so that you have that experience. But you have that experience not just for the sake of reps, but you gain a depth in your soul so that when the time does come, you're not just doing that from scratch at that moment. 29:34 - Speaker 3 Yeah, all those reps for me anyway helped me find my voice. There is a preaching voice, because you're not just speaking of what you're thinking, you're trying to align your words with his words. And, yes, you know, a funny idea that's popping to my head is like I feel like we need more street preachers, like teenage street preachers, or even in san marino, like one of the homework is like preaching the street. 29:55 - Speaker 1 See what happens yeah, no, it no 100%. I think anything that will humble, something that will humble any kind of growing aspiring preacher is especially as you're learning these heady concepts is go teach a Sunday school class of elementary kids and see what it's like to try to keep their attention and teach them. Or go speak to a youth group and, man, that'll humble you very, very fast. And so, yeah, those kinds of repetitions would be really, really transformative. 30:32 - Speaker 3 So who are some people that influenced your voice in preaching? 30:35 - Speaker 1 Well, I mean my pastor growing up, his love for scripture, his love for just learning. He's a voracious reader and I grew up in a charismatic Pentecostal church, but it wasn't a typical charismatic Pentecostal church in that we weren't anti-intellectual. My pastor has multiple advanced degrees. 31:08 - Speaker 3 And is this at Resurrection? 31:11 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, the church I grew up in Resurrection Church and so he, so he modeled just a real love for the scriptures and also just like a learned, learned man. And so that's still with me to this day, just a thirst for learning, but also just primarily, a real fire and hunger for the word of God. And then, yeah, as I got older and got exposed to more preachers and thinkers, I would say probably Dr Tim Keller is probably one of the more significant influences on my heart and my thinking. And yeah, I just think there's certain sermons that he's preached that I feel like no one else should preach that text. You know, just like leave it alone. It's been done, and I know he would. He would have disagreed with that, but yeah, just, I still can like quote some of his sermons almost verbatim. I'm just so, so masterful. Yeah, those would be probably two of my biggest influences, I would say. 32:17 - Speaker 3 A very humbling moment in seminary for me was my hermeneutics professor was talking about Tim Keller and how bad he was in the beginning, to make us remind us we're all bad. You know, it's like our golf game, like we start off the same and like, yeah, like he got like prominent in his later years and like it gives people hope of like, hey, you just got to put in the reps and God will be faithful. 32:40 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean. He famously said you should expect your first couple hundred sermons to not be great and I was like really Dang, that's discouraging. But sober and true. It takes time to develop your voice. 32:56 - Speaker 3 So how did you get involved with City to City? 32:58 - Speaker 1 Yeah, wow, that began for me where you know our church, hope Astoria, was part of the Hope family of churches, hope Church NYC. Hope Church NYC has taken a few different iterations and so at this point, hope Church NYC is. It consists of Hope Midtown, hope East Village and Hope Upper West Side, but at a certain point it was a total of nine churches, and Hope Astoria was the first of all of these Hope churches that were being planted from September 2012, right around the pandemic, and so all of these churches were being planted out of Hope Astoria and it was a wild experience in that it really felt like we were building the plane as we were flying it, because, if you've ever been around Drew Heon, he is one of the most dynamic leaders you'll ever meet, and God was using him to just apostolically, go and have the faith to go, pioneer these works and to establish new churches and to find leaders that can go and have the faith to go, pioneer these works and to establish new churches and to find leaders that can go and plant these churches, but fast forward, as all these churches were being planted out of Hope Astoria. Drew had approached me about praying, about leading Hope Astoria, because he was feeling led to go plant Hope Midtown. And upon me leading Hope Astoria, it became evident very quickly that I was going to have to replant this church. 34:28 In particular, the first year of me leading the church, two churches were queued up to be planted out of our church and we weren't a large church by any means. And so the first year of me being a lead pastor, I'm seeing 60 of our most committed people, our leaders, go out the door to go plant two churches. And it was a really strange moment for me. I was just like how come nobody told me what it feels like to be in the sending church seat and it's almost like, you know, the mother is on the birthing table and everybody's happy that children are being born. But there was a real moment was like is the mom going to survive, you know, like the birthing of these children? Is the sending church going to survive, the birthing of these churches? And so I knew I had to get tools on how to replant this church so that I could faithfully lead it from my gifts and who I was. And right around that time City to City had kind of created space for pastors to go through their training to replant churches. At that point they were just really offering training to plant new churches. But they had come up with a cohort and I was part of that cohort, one of the first ones, and it was through that experience that I really just fell in love with City to City and that training was really seminal for me in that, especially when it came to their modules on preaching. 36:00 I've always had a passion for on preaching. I've always had a passion for preaching and I've always had a passion to help train preachers, especially given my experience where it's like why do we keep putting training of preachers at the top shelf and now you have to reach for it? And if you can't reach for it, too bad, it's like why can't we take it from the top shelf and make it accessible, especially for people from circumstances like mine? And so by that point I had read just about every book on preaching I can get my hands on and had come up with my own kind of content to train preachers. But now I'm being immersed in Tim Keller's writings and so essentially I felt like this leading to kind of translate some of the stuff that he had written for people just like me that needed it kind of translated in a way that could be accessible and so it led me to write a book called Beholding and Proclaiming and it's kind of a pre-seminary primer to help churches train preachers in-house. 37:06 And that was as a result of my time in City to City and then fast forward. They really loved the book and they felt that it was useful for church planters, especially for New York City context. It was taking kind of the DNA of City to City and gospel centrality and translating in a way that was super accessible and so they've made it a core part of the curriculum for church planters that go through the training program and so just kept doing work with city to city over the years and then eventually I was hired on to take on this role of catalytic partnerships um around 2021 and it's been just beautiful um to be on the team and to see what god's doing throughout the city that's awesome with the book. 37:57 - Speaker 3 I have a couple of more questions on internally, because a lot of people, even when you're going through stuff of like, like in the church, of like replanting or planting people see the outside but they don't really understand the internal turmoil and struggle and like you know. So what were you feeling like and how were you dealing with that? 38:18 - Speaker 1 I'll tell you the first year of me being lead pastor, I probably text my pastor I mean it had to be 30, 60 times and the texts were some form of like hey, I love you, thank you. But underneath that, what I wasn't writing was I judged you so bad. When I was in the second seat I looked at what you were doing and I thought why isn't he doing it this way? And it could be done so much better. And if I could do it and that was me like for sure, having those thoughts and those sentiments while being like his number one supporter thoughts and those sentiments while being like his number one supporter Like I would have journeyed with them for the rest of my life if God didn't push me out and lead us. I never wanted to be in the first seat, but it felt like God called us into that. But, yeah, that first year was very humbling, realizing like man it's so easy to judge. At the end of the day, most people are just trying their very best. And yeah, it was also like such a disorienting experience, like realizing that everything felt different being in the first seat, like there was very little things that I had not done before in ministry, that now I was doing them, but I was doing them as a lead pastor, and it felt very different. And, for sure, the thing that I had never done before in the second seat was I had never felt the pressure of having to believe God to provide for our church financially and steward those resources, and that other people's salaries would depend on that. And the pressure of that and the experience of that was completely new and it really humbled me to appreciate that. So that was a lot of the internal dynamics. 40:22 And then I would say, like, right around the time where I became lead pastor is when I really began to lean into like spiritual disciplines that were not really part of my upbringing, in particular practicing Sabbath, because like that that wasn't part of our language, that wasn't part of our practice, like we essentially work seven days a week because it was for the Lord, you know and and so now being in the lead pastor role and around that time, just really trying to lean into that, it was both like a detoxing moment where it was hard, where it was very difficult to not just revert back into overworking and over trying to over perform, and so there was this detoxing but also like this slow brewing of joy and and rest, knowing that this is God's church, these are his people. And if, if he worked six days and then rested, who am I to think that it should be different for me? And so just learning to really trust God with his church and with His people, all of that was really profound, to undergo that and grow in that. 41:46 - Speaker 3 Last two questions what are you hoping for at Faithly? 41:48 - Speaker 1 You know Faithly, from what I know about it at the moment it seems like there's more I would like to learn about. Faithly, I'll say way, but what I, what I think faithly could bring to the christian community, is a space for connection, a space for resourcing so that we can do more together, go farther together, a space where the the normal barriers that can kind of keep us distant, whether it's just simply busyness, but that there's this space that exists, that you can drop in when you're able to, and when you drop in there's these connections that you can make in a community there that wants to resource you and welcomes you to resource them. And so I'm hoping that Faithly continues to grow. I'm grateful that New York is benefiting from it. 42:49 - Speaker 3 I hope you share a lot of content because I feel like you're such a valuable resource for young pastors. You have an amazing life story and experience and I feel like your life track toward being a pastor should be the track for everybody. 43:03 - Speaker 1 It's humbling to hear. Yeah, I really do hope that Faithly just becomes a stronger presence in New York, because I do think pastors, both young and old, would benefit from just more connection and greater community, because it's as you you know, pastoral ministry can be very lonely, it can be very isolating. Anything that can foster community in this way I say let's go for it, let's get behind it. 43:33 - Speaker 3 And how can we be praying for you and your family? 43:35 - Speaker 1 Yeah, you know, as is the experience of many pastors in New York. You know I'm bivocational, and if you count other things I do, you might argue I'm quad vocational, and so that's a challenge to make sure that I remain rooted in Jesus, present for my family, resting, not overperforming and overworking, but then also just helping my church and City to City navigate all the things that are before us From the church standpoint as well as from City to City. We're yearning to see the gospel renew New York City, and so prayers to do all of these things faithfully would be much, much appreciated. 44:22 - Speaker 3 Thanks, this was an amazing conversation. I appreciate it. 44:26 - Speaker 1 Oh, you're welcome and thank you. You really have a gift to interview sincerely. I've done podcast interviews and I don't take it for granted when someone does it well, because I know it's not easy to do it well, and so thank you. 44:42 - Speaker 3 You're making me blush, thanks, All right, bye, guys. 44:45 - 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. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. The Faithly digital platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection, foster collaboration and promote growth within the church and ministry space. Remember to subscribe, rate and review our podcast to help reach more listeners like you. Stay tuned for more uplifting tales from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly Podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful and never underestimate the power of your own story.