Intentional Suffering for the Greater Good - John Yoon

00:01 - Speaker 1
I think, like that was one of the biggest revelations I had to as a father is like sometimes you just gotta let your kid go through stuff, and it doesn't mean you're not present and it doesn't mean you're detached or you don't care or you're unaware, but like you're intentionally letting them suffer for the greater good and that's what it looks like a lot of times for us to grow and become healthy and you know, like the gardener will prune us, he will cut stuff off so that we would be more fruitful. Hey, my name is John Yoon. I have been in ministry for close to two decades. I am in the process, however, of planting my very first church, along with my wife, here in the Atlanta Georgia area. We're going to call it Patria House and this is our Faithly Story.

00:48 - Speaker 2
Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life. Join us as we delve into their challenges, moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. Learn more at faithlyco. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry. On the Faithly Stories podcast.

01:29 - Speaker 3
What is Patria House and where did you get that name?

01:33 - Speaker 1
Sure. So Patria House Patria is the Greek word that Paul uses in Ephesians 3 for family of families. And so what we're really going after with our church plant is to restore family in church, right, and I think that over the last couple millennia that the church has really kind of it's easy to look at the church and see it as an organization rather than an organism, and we really want to bring kind of like the life back into what the church looks like. I think I believe that the church is relationship, right. It's individual relationship with Jesus and then it's corporate relationship, or an individual relationship with one another and then corporate relationship together in that identity with Jesus. And so we really want to kind of challenge people's worldview and help them in a sense like rediscover the beauty of church, not from like a baseline of what they know of or what they've heard of, but let's just dig through scripture together, love Jesus the best we can together and see what's born from that. And so we really try to stay away from kind of the church lingo as much as we could, just in terms of label. We're not one of those like oh, the church can't be this and the church can't be that types of people. But we just really wanted to assist people as much as we could in kind of redesigning the way that they react to certain words, and so we purposely left words out like church, like fellowship, and we really wanted to just zero in on what we felt was one of the most basic callings as people of God, which is family.

03:34
And so we're calling it patria, which means family of families, and we're calling our gathering house simply because I think that's where families gather for the most part, and so we want this to be a place where families come together. And you know the vibe I've probably said this numerous times to numerous people but the vibe we're going after is really, you know, like what does Thanksgiving look like for your family? What does Christmas look like for your family? What does Christmas look like for your family? And, granted, not everyone has had families like mine, but my family, we, we get together and we make a regular habit of that. And what that looks like is it's not just random individuals straying into the home, right, it's like families. It's like your uncle's crew and your cousin's crew, and you know, and you get together, and it's not like there's any one person that's left out sitting on their own, and so we really want to focus on this gathering being based on the fact that there are groups of people already gathering, if that makes sense.

04:41
And so, yeah, we're focusing a lot, or trying or planning on focusing a lot, on family groups and what does that look like throughout the week and really encouraging people to meet in family groups. And what we've discovered so far, even as we're planning, is it's healthy to have like a nuclear family model, right, like smaller family groups, and then to encourage extended families to get together and then have our Sundays kind of be the expression of the whole family getting together. And so, like it's cool if you know you meet as a family group throughout the week, but then it'd be great if three or four family groups got together for an activity or you know, to get together to eat or something like that. And so, uh, yeah, we just, we just really want to help people default their view of loving jesus and loving their neighbors into family yeah, it's funny because that's exactly the same framework that's been really tripping into me recently.

05:46 - Speaker 3
That's awesome. Like right now, multiplication is like a tree, right, and then you have a fruit, and then your seed and you plant it, but then all you're doing is reproducing that same tree. But when you look at life, that's not how it multiplies, and so it's like multiplication by division, where you get these cells, but if you get cells that duplicate and it gets overgrown, that's a tumor, right.

06:08
But healthy cells they split, or even like parents that give birth like you can give birth to a child that has parts of your dna, but it's a brand new thing, right and so I see right now as like this industrial complex mind of church planting, where you're just reproducing the same church as the mother church, whereas I feel like, again, this is my perspective Maybe what we're supposed to do is gather a bunch of people and say, ok, what does church look like for you, now that you've experienced church with us, you guys go figure out loving Jesus, trusting Jesus, because your lives are different, your context might be different, and so this shift away from just cloning to like producing a new thing I think it's going to be a new thing in the future.

06:53 - Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. I don't think that the early church had a template to go after. I don't think Paul was going around from region to region planting a church and then giving them like a stack of papers to be like, all right, well, this is what the form ought to look like. I think that's in a sense why he had to write letters to these churches to course correct some things, because it was, in essence, organic. You look at Jesus's letters to the seven churches in Revelation and they all had different settings, they all had different things that Jesus was commending them for and different things that he was kind, of course, correcting along the way.

07:34
And so I really do believe and, yeah, I get the other side of like there's safety in structure right, there's less risk, there's less cuckoo crazies happening. But you know, for myself, I believe like if you, if there's too much structure, you kind of lose the essence of what a family is. My family certainly doesn't look like the family I grew up in or the family that Lydia grew up in. There are elements that we appreciate, that we want to replicate, that we want to build, but at the end of the day, we're learning to be our own family. But that doesn't disconnect us from where we came from, and I think that's what. I think that's what kingdom looks like. You know it's it's learning to form your own thing, um, but then there's there's still honor, there's still uh, like generational connection, right, and it it just ultimately looks like healthy relationship.

08:44 - Speaker 3
Yeah, so I've been reading through like numbers because I realized I need to know like more of the old testament history and it's funny because I've been getting into a rabbit hole of names, just like when you understand like every name in genealogy has a meaning.

08:59
It like helps you understand the character study of the person. I was like, oh, wait, what it, wait, what it matters. And then like, in numbers, they're like numbering the people, but then you have like the Koshites, but it's just because the father was like Kosh and it's like, oh, the people were just named after the father, and so you see, like different tribes right that are like separated but yet together, and I'm like wait, why did we lose this idea of like we have to be homogeneous and sane, rather than we can be very distinct but unified right?

09:30 - Speaker 1
that's beautiful and that's that's really the essence of patria, right. Like it's the family of families, it's tribe, um, and I love that there there are so many multiple meanings to so patria is actually a spanish word too. Or like there's latin roots to patria as well, which um means homeland, right. So it's like that's where we get the word patriot from, right, but then, but then patria also has, like, the latin root of father, and that's where we get the family of families from, is like, just as the, just as the koshites came from my kosh, right. Like it's in ephesians, chapter 3, paul says that he kneels and he prays to the father by whom every family on earth is named. So what he says is he's praying to the father by whom every patria, every family of families, everything is named after this father, right, who is God, and so like that. That is the essence of what we're going after.

10:37 - Speaker 3
So how do you navigate, bringing different families that come from different traditions and cultures and now basically they're strangers to each other? Yeah, start creating family because, like, naturally, family is like you grow up with people and you don't know any other family because you're born into it. So you kind of just said, okay, I gotta start learning how to operate here. But like, yeah, how do you kind of integrate that?

11:03 - Speaker 1
that's good. I really think it has to do with, like a view of fatherhood. In many ways I see it more like the Italian family, right, like the mob, or like a gang, like people. People are initiated into these families. But it means something to belong, right. It means you're protected. It means that you know, like you share common enemies and common friends, right. It means that if somebody messes with you, they mess with the family, right, and so there is weight to the name. But it also means now you're a representative, or you know, in Christianese, like an ambassador to this family. So now, like you can't just go around doing whatever you want, because now you're tarnishing the name of the good family, you know. And so I think that in many ways that's the essence that we want to capture. Is it's really all about Jesus or it's all about the father, rather, right, like. And it's about our connection to him. And if we understand our connection to him, then there has to be something that shifts between us where we become family, right, like if we were, we have four children of our own, all coming from my wife biologically, but my wife and I both, to be more specific, but if we were to adopt a child, our, our hope would be that that child would not feel any differently loved or like they belong any less, simply because we did not birth them right, and so it really has to do with coming under the covering of our family and becoming a part of that family.

12:58
Now is there a learning process? Absolutely. And again, like you look at the Bible. I think if we go back to the Bible, all the answers are there. Right, Like everyone who is looking at Christian tradition, like I love you guys and that's awesome. But I want to challenge you to go a little further back in history. Right, like, where did Christian tradition even come from? And I think the Bible has those answers for us. Right. Like there's a reason that Paul had to tell people, like Jesus, in the breaking of his body, broke down the wall of hostility and it's because there was still beef and there was still like weird tension between Gentiles and Jews and probably specific subsects of each group. And like Paul had to be like listen, I know there are differences, I know that your upbringing looks different, I know that they eat stuff that you're not used to seeing people eat and they don't do certain things the way that you're used to, but Jesus purchased them and you're one family. Purchase them and you're one family.

14:07
And I think it's really the hard work of like learning to be in a relationship, healthy relationship with each other, not just like dealing with each other or enduring each other, but learning to love one another, learning to champion one another, being like you know what Like if you mess with my adopted brother, you're messing with me.

14:27
Like this is my brother right, and I think that we have to learn how to do that. And I was having a conversation with, like a big brother figure of mine who was just sharing with us about how the kingdom of God is really healthy relationship. Like that's what heaven is At the end of the day. It's like we've run the race, we fought the good fight and now we're in healthy relationship with everyone there, and I think we have to learn to walk in that on this side of eternity. And I think a lot of that just looks like you have to lay down your own preferences. You have to lay down what you're used to or what you want it to look like, and be open to the father dictating what it's going to be.

15:23 - Speaker 3
So that sounds very good and I totally agree with you, but, like, as we all know, the journey getting there, like to the final slide. There's always going to be grumbling and just missing the relationship so like do you have any examples, like in your previous experiences, where, like how did you try to approach teaching people, especially when they're not really receptive in the beginning, and then what do you feel like doesn't work and what do you feel like does work? That's good yeah.

15:51 - Speaker 1
So I personally, my kind of teaching philosophy is I try to stray from telling them, just like, what needs to be done, because I grew up in that culture and it did not change a thing about my life. I don't think there's any power in that, but it's helping people come to a realization. Honestly, at the end of the day, that can be one session, that can be a year, that they're still making it about themselves and that, and when you kind of challenge and encourage them to lay that down and to trust Jesus and his process, it becomes a little easier. But I mean, you know, of course, at the end of the day I think it still requires a repetition. That's how you get good at anything.

16:43
You. You keep repeating it and some people are prodigies and they'll get in the first or second try, and some people need a lot of practice and that's okay. And I think at the end of the day it has to come to having an unoffendable heart, being willing to forgive and, honestly, all of those things it comes down to like has jesus become your lord right? Like, and so again, like, at the risk of oversimplifying things, I think it is extremely simple, like it's about jesus and what he's building, he's the, which means that we lay all of our stuff down and then we trust him, and a lot of times that requires practice and it's hard to give like specific examples because it'll require like specific people.

17:39 - Speaker 3
Could you share something from your life where because a lot of times where we apply a solution is because we experience the goodness absolutely?

17:47 - Speaker 1
yeah, so for your own life. And so I can say that's what marriage is right. Marriage is two very different people learning to mesh their lives. It's literally two becoming one and they're not a perfect fit. And so it really looks like there's this husband Plato, there's this wife Plato and there's a Jesus mold right. And now you're getting both of these Platos through this mold and there are going to be things that need to be shed, there are going to be things that need to be laid down, but it's this conglomeration of the two that becomes christ-like, right and so, man, you know, honest, I've been married to my wife now a little over 12 years and we have been in relationship for 18 years, right and so like our relationship I tell my wife many times this year like our relationship is an adult now, right and and so like, it needs to mature.

18:47
And it wasn't, dude, I'm a pastor. We've been together for 18 years. I don't think I'm like senseless, right. I don't think that I'm unreasonable. I think I love my wife and try to love her well, and I try to honor her, et cetera. But with all of that, man, like it was only very recently that I came to this realization, man, I am not entitled to react to anything Like it's response.

19:24
It has to be intentional. And and it's like because for a long time I was like you know what this is, who I am and my family just has to learn to deal with it. But that's not true, you know, like as I've mature and as I learned to love my family, like christ loved us, it's actually me laying down who I am and learning to be who they, who they need me to be, and not in like a religious, like pressurized sort of way, but because I love them and because I want to see them thrive, and so like yeah, I have preferences, and sometimes those preferences are not natural or even close to being met by my wife or my children, but I am learning to be less confrontational about it and be more the part of the solution than to demand the solution, if that makes sense. And so I think that's like a great example of what it looks like to enter into covenant relationship with family in Christ. Right, it's like learning to be like okay, you know what, these are my preferences, and it would be amazing if they're doing everything they can to meet my preferences as well.

20:49
Right, but when we both do our best to love one another, like there's no offense in all the like, the missed communication or anything like that, right Like there's just effort to love and effort to forgive, and it takes again like man. We've been together 18 years. It took a lot of repetition to smooth out some of my edges and to sharpen some of hers. You know, and I know it's going to take more. I don't think we'll ever arrive there, you know. But the fun is in the journey anyway and in the discovery process, and so yeah, it's been fun.

21:35 - Speaker 3
Yeah, Fun, but also sucky. I'll give you yeah, hold on.

21:39 - Speaker 1
So I'll give you one more example. I think it just comes to mind even with the church, right. So when I look at the church, right. So when I look at the church, when we look at Christians, I think because I grew up with a higher sense of discipline and kind of just like, suck it up and do it, wait what?

21:57 - Speaker 3
does that mean Higher sense of discipline?

21:59 - Speaker 1
Sense of discipline. It's like the whole suck it up and do it Like there's no such thing as excuses. It's like you know, like, oh, I'm sorry, I was late because there's traffic is not an excuse. It's like, well, you should have predicted there would be traffic and have left 45 minutes sooner Not that I'm never late, I'm late a lot.

22:20
Yeah, but it's the mentality and so, like, when I look at people sometimes and they're like man, I want to be this way, but then they're not, my automatic tendency is to be like they're fake. You know what I'm saying. I'm like you don't really want to be that way. Look at your life and my wife would be like you know, sometimes we just do the things we don't want to do and we don't do the things we want to do. I'm like, yeah, when you're fake, but I'm just like, no, you don't. You know, she's like you're telling me that you don't and I'm like I'm an exception, you know, and that's like, and that's the mentality that so many people have, Right, Like it's so easy to judge other people for what they're struggling with, because it's not something we're struggling with, but then we fail to see that we struggle with other things that they might not necessarily struggle with, and I think that it's learning that value.

23:21
And again, like constantly going back. If you're going to make anything about yourself, make it the fact that you constantly fall short. Right, Like that's the only thing we should ever make about ourselves, is like I'm not ever good enough. That way we can always lean on Christ and and then we become we don't become the unforgiving servant who forgets what they've been forgiven of and holds like a little offense towards someone else, and I think that, again, that's part of the key to trusting relationship. And those are the again, the repetitions we have because we're not going to be perfect in it and then like start again, you know, and I think that the more we do that, the faster we catch ourselves, the quicker we are to repent and the longer and far fewer in between those instances come along. Yeah.

24:13 - Speaker 3
Yeah, so like, even for me, like only this year, it's like 40 years later, after like was it five years of seminary and like 10 years of ministry experience and teaching all this you're just like, oh okay, like I have finally learned what it means to be intentional about killing my ego.

24:31
And it is so hard, and mainly because for me specifically, um, I am adverse to, like physical pain like I hate it like I'm super sensitive, at least physically, and so I, now that I'm living with my mom, she is like an instant trigger for like my anger or not, and god's been like using it to like process it through and to let it go is actually painful. To say, you know what, I'm not gonna blame you, but I can't stop myself from getting angry. So I'm gonna like figure out why, first understand where this is coming from and why such trigger. And even last, again, last night, like I got to the point of like, okay, even if I feel the immense suffering and pain internally.

25:21
Now what I do is I think about the Passion of the Christ movie, about Jesus, and I'm like, oh, this is what Paul meant in sharing in his suffering, because I get to feel a tiny bit of what he went through on the cross. And now I'm like, oh wait, we have this shared experience of suffering and enduring. So it's not just suffering, it's about enduring and saying, lord, this offense has happened to me, but I'm not going to retaliate, I'm going to absorb it and let you handle it. And I am able to now. So that mindset helps me lay down Like again, I grew up in youth group like lay down your rights, lay down surrender, surrender, and you're like okay, whatever.

26:05
But to really do it on an internal heart level is so hard, but when you do it it's more freeing, because I trust god that like he's gonna like reward me for it or make it better right and so a funny thing's happening, like I'm slowly learning how to let my anger just turn into sadness, because at least with sadness like god is with the poor and spirit right, and I'm like okay, this just means you're going to draw closer to me again. It sucks, right, it sounds so good, but like when you go through it it sucks because it literally feels like a part of me is dying.

26:38
But I think that's the point of like. Like you said, in marriage it's about two becoming one and and I always thought like, oh, I'm with Jesus and he's my buddy, buddy. It's like no, we're actually fusing, you know, like in Dragon Ball, the fusion. And I was like oh, this is what it means. It means I need to constantly ask Lord what do you want me to do? Because I want to kill them right now, or I want to punch them in the face.

27:00
But, what should I do? So? Yeah, that's great. So how do you account? Because I agree with you. I think helping people understand what a healthy home right is the solution to all of our problems, because it all starts at home. But then what do you do with like single people or like people who come from broken homes, who feel like they're orphans and whatnot? How do you incorporate them to, like, learn what healthy families are and then become healthy families?

27:30 - Speaker 1
it's good. Um, I think step one is to understand and acknowledge god as the ultimate source, right? So it's not that our fathers on earth should have done it and they should have, because they're called to be the physical manifestation of a representative of the father. But we also have to acknowledge that people fail us and it's hard. But I think we have to encourage them to get past the hurt of it, right? Because I think as human beings we like to suffer, because with suffering there comes, like this tiny lie of entitlement, and so suffering, actually, if we don't suffer well, produces entitlement. And we see it all over the world, we see it in politics, we see it in the people who.

28:34
Do you?

28:34 - Speaker 3
elaborate. What do you mean? How does that work?

28:39 - Speaker 1
Yeah, sure, if I had a difficult childhood, then I think the natural tendency of like human nature is to be like you need to be more gentle with me, because I have suffered in the past, like we become entitled to a certain way that we have to be engaged right, like if we're the disenfranchised, then we're like you have to be kind to me because no one else was and and there's this like almost like in even even when we suffer on our own right, like when when I feel like my wife hasn't paid good attention to me or something like that, right, and I'm sad, then I like to sit in my sadness because I'm like I deserved to be treated better than the way you treated me today. Right, and I think that it's hard to catch it at times, especially when we're stuck in it. But the reason we like to stay in suffering is entitlement, because we feel like we deserve something when we're there. But if we look at the reality of like actually, jesus died and he rose again, again so that I can overcome any of the things that have held me down in the past and now I am new, then like everyone's on an even playing field and I think we have to get to that place of like. You know what? I never had a perfect picture of a father. In fact, my father was a piece of trash, right. Like he abused me and he left our family and whatever. Like he started another family somewhere else and whatnot. But like, okay, but can you forgive him because, because jesus can, right, actually jesus died so that you can forgive him right, and jesus rose again so that you can live in newness. Like you don't have to live like someone whose father abused them anymore. Like there's new life available for you. Like the blind man that was healed no longer needs to carry around a sight stick Right. Like the woman that was bleeding for 12 years no longer needs to carry around everything that was necessary probably for her to carry around because she was constantly bleeding. Like we have to when Jesus, when we're touched by the Lord. Like we're new and we have to learn to live in that new.

31:20
But a lot of times the entitlement of like the old self keeps us wanting to be stuck there and I think in many ways it's like it's repentance, you know, and of course there's empathy and sympathy and compassion and all that. We have to love them well where they are so that they can encounter the love of Christ. But if they encounter the love of Christ and then they don't change, that's then I think there needs to be a conversation. Right, it's like that's not who you are anymore and now we have a responsibility even to be different. And so when you look at people who haven't experienced healthy relationship, it's like you're right, you are at a slight disadvantage because no one has modeled it for you are at a slight disadvantage because no one has modeled it for you, but the good news is that God modeled it perfectly in scripture. And if we would just read scripture and be like God, then I think we would learn to have healthy relationship.

32:31
And yeah, so at the end of the day, it's not like anything was taken away from us because it wasn't modeled, but like even the responsibility to model had come from a source that you're able to tap into directly. And so that's kind of it's like sure, the pitcher of water is dirty, but you have the source to the fountain. So now that you know where the fountain is, that pitcher is no longer an excuse. Yeah, and obviously that wouldn't be like the first thing I say to them. Right, this is like I want to get them to the point of encounter. But then, at the point of encounter like this is where our lives have to change of encounter like this is this is where our lives have to change.

33:16
The the woman at the. Well, you know, she had to overcome the shame and and go into the village and preach the good news right like we. We just have. We cannot do things the way we were used to doing them before the encounter. Yeah. So yeah, if they're struggling with it, I think the first thing I would probably have a discussion with is, like, have you really had an encounter? And if not, that's okay. I would rather you be aware that you haven't had it than you think you had it because you had some counterfeit version of it and it hasn't made you new. Like, if you've really had it, then like you're, you're stuck in a lie and you need to be free so that you can be new because you're new, yeah yeah, something I'm learning recently, this past week, is like I think we have the wrong idea of what suffering is and because it feels bad or it feels terrible that we automatically think it's negative.

34:10 - Speaker 3
But the most like amazing people and the strongest people and the most humble people, they went through great suffering. That suffering produces all the stuff that the Bible says. I'm not going to quote it now. And it's funny because the irony of not repenting is you're actually just compounding your trauma, because you can't let it go, and letting go is just freedom.

34:35
This is also why I'm realizing more and more why it's so important to stay in one place for a really long time, because, you're right, it takes a lot of repetitions. Yeah, some people like me will take 40 years, or some people will take a week. And imagine if I just kept hopping from church to church every year just because I was uncomfortable, I would never get past that one year mark of, like you know, growing and like being sanctified but, like if you're being sanctified by the same people and you see the consistency of their love.

35:07
Yeah, there's something about unconditional love that makes you feel really secure, you know.

35:13 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I remember in like I took a psychology course in community college, because all pastors went to community college first. Amen, and this is like human psychology course. And I remember in this course like we learned something that has stuck with me for the rest of my life. And they talked about pseudo communities and they talk about how, like when, when people first come together, everyone's nice, right, and everyone's getting along and we think that that's community. But that's actually pseudo community it's.

35:49
It's a false representation of community because you're only nice to people because they haven't offended you yet, but like the storming is required, right, like the conflict is required, um, well, not just. And I think a lot, a lot, a lot of christians have not experienced true community, because whenever there's conflict they just move on to the next pseudo community because they think that's what it is. They think lack of conflict means that it's good and I'm sure man, like the disciples, must have had so much conflict not too much of it is written in scripture, right, but, man, you look at the kinds of people they were and then, like you know their, their guesstimated age, right, they're younger than they're not like a group of 40 year olds with full-grown beards, like walking around, like we've seen in a lot of the older shows, right, like, yeah, they probably had beards because they're cool, but you know, like they were young, they were teenagers, they were like young 20s I mean jesus was 30, right, and he's calling his disciples and so, like man, what was that? It's like he had youth group, dude, and he had youth group of all different backgrounds. That's an interesting thing and it was like it was too like he must have been so patient, he must have taught so much and like. It's just.

37:43
It's interesting to me that you know like and I tell people this all the time I tell them like a lot of times people want to move on from you, are you feel doesn't have anything to offer you, or have you asked yourself whether you had something to offer this community and you feel like God is calling you elsewhere? Right, because I'll always tell people I would. I have never and I will never recommend people to leave a place unless God is sending them somewhere. Like, don't leave something. Like, go towards something always, but at the end of the day, like, what are, what are most of the reasons people leave? They're like, oh, there aren't enough people, my age, right, or like there aren't enough people I can relate to, or, oh, we're just in different phases of life, or what socioeconomic class? Like all of those reasons, it's still like there aren't enough people like me is like what a lot of the cry is, and so my question to them is like okay, so what is enough, like you, for you to stay? Because is loving Jesus like you enough?

39:01
You know, like the early church did not have church shopping. It wasn't like, oh man, like this worship's not really it. Like I think I'm going to go here because there's more people here, there's more merchants over there. I think you know I'll fit in better with that circle. No, like it was just like you found a community that loved Jesus and you stuck with it and there's actually so much value to like continuing to show up, even when it doesn't have much to offer you in the flesh, because I think that's where the Lord will do most of the work that that he's trying to do, you know. Yeah, could you?

39:44 - Speaker 3
elaborate for our conservative brothers and sisters on what encountering means Cause. That's a very charismatic word, sure, and it has a lot of negative connotations, sure.

39:58 - Speaker 1
The simplest way I would put it. I think the most agreeable way is you have some sort of experience with Jesus. It doesn't have to be rolling around on the floor and laughing or speaking in tongues, it doesn't have to be any of those things it could be. I mean, my very first encounter with the Lord was sitting in the back of a dark room looking at the cross and seeing not seeing visually, just like being able to imagine Jesus hanging there for me and I lost it. And I think what encounter looks like is as simply put as possible. You have an experience with Jesus that changes the essence of who you are, so that you're different now and I think that's all, because if you've met Jesus but you're not different, I don't think you've really met Jesus. You know, yeah, and again we look through Scripture, right Like you look at the parents who lost their daughter and Jesus resurrects the daughter. I don't think they were the same again. The bleeding woman was not the same again. The man lowered by his four friends was not the same again. The lame man by the pool was not the same again. The leper was not the same again. These people change.

41:25
I don't know what people think about the Chosen TV series. But one of my favorite lines is in the first couple episodes, and it's Mary. They're like what favorite lines is in like the first couple episodes? And it's Mary, right, and they're like like what do you see in him? Or they ask her something and then she says like I was one way and now I'm another, and he's he's the only thing that happened in between. I think that's encounter, right, like we, we meet Jesus and then we're different. That's it. It doesn't have to be loud and it doesn't have to be loud and it doesn't have to be quiet and it doesn't have to look the same for every person either, right, but the only constant is that we're different.

41:59 - Speaker 3
Now, yeah, I'm glad you brought up the chosen, because I intentionally didn't watch it, because I heard a lot of like feedback, because I always do research before I get into anything. And you know like it's usually again on the conservative side. They're trying to be stay conservative, and so I understand where they're coming from. Because, like, growing up, I think something that was like a mixed bag was like watching cartoons about the bible, because I thought that was like the bible.

42:25
and then when I read, like the flood, I was like there's only three chapters. Yeah, wait what? It's so much shorter? It's not like the TV. So it made me realize, oh okay, I can't trust all the media illustration portrayals, but then when I started watching the Chosen, because I'm so visual, it gave me a better understanding of, like you said, oh, the disciples were so different.

42:48 - Speaker 2
It didn't register to me so different.

42:49 - Speaker 3
It didn't like register to me, and so I find it like really helpful, you know, as just kind of like a visual representation of someone's imagination of what it would be like, and not to say it's real, but it's like, oh, it can fit into a box that I can understand and it's helpful to me, yeah.

43:09 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, I understand as well all those things, but I think for me it's short. It's dangerous. If that's your only source, right, but it's got to be a supplement, right. If you're never eating any meals and just taking vitamins, I don't think you'd have a very healthy life, right, those are just vitamins, those are just supplements for, like, for our time with Jesus, for our time reading scripture. I think it enhances our ability to imagine, but it should never replace what we read, right? But I understand why people think it's dangerous, because these days, everyone's so biblically illiterate, right, and so like, yeah, don't let it be your only source, but don't don't do nothing either.

44:03
You know, and and I for me, I know people who were curious enough to read the Bible after watching shows like that, right, oh, wow. Does that mean like, oh, yeah, you should watch the Chosen because it'll lead to salvation? No, absolutely not. I think it's just a great supplement to our faith and it makes it fun and exciting. For me, it reminds me that Jesus was human. He got tired.

44:32
For me, it reminds me that Jesus was human, like he got tired, you know, and I love one of my favorite things about the chosen, two of my favorite things about the chosen is one it really helps me to imagine like a non-sterile Jesus right, like a non-whitewashed, religious blonde hair carrying a lamb through the river. Jesus right, like, like a human, like he was fully man while he was fully god, uh. And then I just love the dynamics of the disciples because it's it's something that's so often overlooked, you know, but like jesus had his work cut out for him both ways and I think he did it so well and so yeah it's wild to think the guys who started angel studios are more yeah, but I know.

45:22 - Speaker 3
Creator of the chosen, he's not a Mormon. He's like a Christian. He's not. He's a Christian, yeah but Jesus is Catholic and the higher, like non Christians on, like the production team too, and it's like this whole. And it's just funny. I like when I see the history of like the old Testament in Israel, right, and like when the church started, like we think, oh, we're different now you know we're going to be better or like we're going to like be about relationships and love, but I see us doing the same thing yes it's like we started off with an ideal but we fracture and god's like, all right, I'm just gonna reach all these non-christians and like yes bring.

45:59
And it's funny that the chosen is taboo, yet the themes in like uh, uh, what was it? Infinity war, right, where like like iron man gives up his life. It's just the christ theme and it's like so beautiful and we're like wait, why is that? Okay for marvel, but nothing for the chosen, where it's like specifically about jesus. So it's like wild it's true, I I don't understand it, but so now I'm in a place where, if they're preaching christ, let, let them. Let them kind of work it out you know yeah.

46:34 - Speaker 1
No, and that's what Paul says. Yeah, he's like, hey, let people do their thing. I don't if they're talking crap about me but people come to know Jesus from it. Like who cares, I'm down. Like if they're preaching the gospel to spite me but people are getting saved, great, yeah, Right, if they're starting a church across the street to steal people from my church, but then people are genuinely getting saved, then great.

46:58
You know, honestly, like I don't know what it's going to be like for them when they meet Jesus face to face. But the fruit of whatever they started, like there's still real fruit for the kingdom and that's how god will operate anyway, right, he's gonna use all things for his good and for his glory. So like, yeah, man, I don't know, I mean like you're not out there making movies and tv shows for for jesus and for the kingdom, and like fundraising to do these projects, like it's's just just let them be. Like just you focus on you, focus on your assignment and like let people be, it's okay, maybe your assignment is to complain, maybe they gotta use it against them Like terrible.

47:47 - Speaker 3
I'm kidding, I might edit this out.

47:50 - Speaker 1
But I guess I can't, I can't tell you what your assignment is, but you know, I know that's not my assignment. What is like?

48:00 - Speaker 3
the things you've been learning as a father, Like what did you think fatherhood was before you became a father and now you're a father of four. How has that changed?

48:10 - Speaker 1
That's good, I think before I was a father, I thought fatherhood was like being a good manager kind of I like keep your people alive, keep your people safe, that's the job of a father and in some ways it is right. But I think fatherhood, like after having become a father, and I think that god, being the best father, knew I needed daughters first because I probably would have abused the crap out of my son no, maybe not physically, but like just even emotionally um but, like daughters, are fragile they're so gentle, and they will let you know when, when what you're doing is not okay.

49:03
You know, and um, yeah, and, and being a father is so much more than just providing the physical needs, right, like there's so much depth to a person from the moment that they're children, like little children, and they catch it, man. They catch when you're not really in it. You know, and I think fatherhood really taught me to be more than it taught me, number one, to desire to be a more genuine person overall. Right, because I can. I can fake it at church, I can fake it everywhere, but there there's going to come a time where I run out, right, I run out of the stamina of faking and, and usually that's going to happen in the home, and I think having seen the effects of that on my children makes me desire to be a more well-rounded, genuine lover of Jesus. More than anything else, I think it has helped me appreciate so much more the Father's ability to fill every single one of our needs physically, emotionally, spiritually. Fill every single one of our needs physically, emotionally, spiritually, like the desire not just to protect but to nurture, because so again like to clarify, I think before I became a father it was like like the father provides and the mother nurtures, know, and it's just clean cut. But it's so, not true. There's like there's a nurturing that only fathers can do and I think it took me a long time to learn that right.

51:04
But yeah, I think the greatest revelation ever that I've had as a father is like one of my favorite favorite times with my kids. That's not exactly accurate, like some of the times that I love my children the most, or I adore my children the most, is when they're sleeping Right Like I'm looking at them sleeping and I'm like gosh, they're so cute, you know, like Zion could have wreaked havoc the entire day, like burned down half the house. But when he's sleeping kids an angel Right and I'm like man, I love this kid so much when I see him sleeping and I'm like dang, I think the Heavenly Father loves us the most when we're sleeping.

51:57 - Speaker 3
That's good.

51:59 - Speaker 1
I always joke with people. They're like you think we're going to sleep in heaven. I was like, absolutely, God needs a break from us every day for the rest of eternity.

52:08 - Speaker 3
I would disagree.

52:10 - Speaker 1
I'm just kidding Guys, I'm just kidding, I know, guys, I'm just kidding, okay, all those people out there hunting for heresy guys, I'm just kidding, jeez. But seriously, like the fact that they don't have to perform for my love was, as a performer, a huge revelation. And then I just had a conversation with my friend yesterday who has one child and I'm trying very hard to convince them to have another one and and he's like man, I don't know if I could handle it, etc. And that's all after talking about like, how much revelation he was having with you know his child. But I told him when I had my first kid I had so much revelation of how much the father loved me. But it wasn't until I had my second child that I had revelation of how the father loves across the board and how much joy it brings the father loves across the board and like how much joy it brings the father when his children love each other. And I think, like the fullness of the revelation of love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself, I don't think came until my second child, like, can you have that revelation without children? Absolutely, but like for me, being such an experiential person, I think like it wasn't that I was looking for it, but it just found it. I just found me right, and like it hit me one day and I was like dang, and I was never one who, like, really tried my best to love other people, right, it was just like, if you like me, you like me, if you don't, you don't. And that's cool, that's how I've been my whole life. But like, yeah, there was I couldn't a renewed desire in me to not even renewed as I could new desire in me to love people well. It was like a new desire in me to love people Well, because I knew it brought the father joy, right, yeah, and so those were probably like the biggest revelations for me. And then probably the last one in terms of like because I know a lot of people wrestle with this is that as a good father, you don't do everything for your children and you let them go through stuff sometimes because they need to, right, I was just telling someone else recently one of the most traumatizing and educational moments as a father for me was when my first daughter had like some sort of oral surgery, was when my first daughter had like some sort of oral surgery and they literally strapped her in a straight jacket on a table and they gave her like they gave her laughing gas and other set, other um, what's it called like painkillers, but they didn't put her to sleep right.

55:08
So she's awake and she doesn't feel any pain. I know she doesn't, I've asked her. She didn't feel any pain, but she hears the drill, she hears the stuff and she's like, she's like screaming for her life, bro. She's like daddy, save me, daddy, save me, help me. And I'm sitting there like five feet away, like could I have knocked the dentist out? Probably he was pretty skinny dude, right.

55:32
I genuinely think I could have knocked every single person in that room out and carried my daughter home, but like that would not have fixed her teeth, that would not have resolved her her health issue at that time, and like I had to let them do that to her for that to no longer be an issue.

55:53
And I think, like a lot of times we think that God doesn't hear us or that he doesn't want to help. But man, like he knows best, and like I was suffering as she, was suffering as she was. I'm not an emotional person, but I have not felt so helpless and sad like that in a very long time. And to think that God would allow himself to feel that way because he knows the result is worth, it is like mind blowing. To me, and I think like that was one of the biggest revelations I had to as a father, is like sometimes you just got to let your kid go through stuff. And it doesn't mean you're not present, and it doesn't mean you're detached or you don't care or you're unaware, but like you're intentionally letting them suffer for the greater good. Um, and that's what it looks like a lot of times for us to grow and become healthy and you know like the gardener will prune us, he will cut stuff off so that we would be more fruitful.

57:06 - Speaker 3
Uh, so yeah, so good, good, that's cool. That's definitely coming in the front as a teaser. So what was your relationship to your father like?

57:19 - Speaker 1
Growing up. It was pretty unhealthy. I always tease my brother, Josh we're nine years apart so I tell him, like, you're welcome, I was the beta test and they worked out all the bugs. You know I was the public beta. But and now, in hindsight, as a 37-year-old father myself, I look back and I'm like, wow, so many of those times I held a fence toward my dad, he was younger than I am today. You know, and and and, like man, I can't even put myself in his shoes, even to this day of like, what did it look like to immigrate and to like, give up your dreams? I knew what his dream. We got to share. You know our dreams and I know he gave up his dreams to take a labor job. Right, sometimes I used to tease him like that you could have waited like five, six more years and actually become an engineer and then come and we would have been better off here. No, but, but he did it, you know, and, and he gave everything up and he lived day in and day out the same mundane job like laboring away to provide for me.

58:36
And I understand all that now, but as a young kid I was very angry. I was angry that I couldn't have everything that I wanted to have that you know my friends could have. I was angry that he wasn't always around but that every time he was he would like complain about me, right, or like that I would never measure up, I would never be good enough. And so by the time I was in middle school, I was intentionally mediocre, just to spite him. Like, like, how much anger can a child have to like intentionally not be good at things, just to piss his dad off right. And then, like when I became older, like in high school, um, I stopped going on our family trips, you know, and I stopped doing. And I, I dude, I regret that so much to this day. But like I literally created distance from my family intentionally because I wanted. I still am a spiteful person outside of Jesus and I have to repent of that like every other hour. But like I'm the type of guy I just hold grudges. But like I'm the type of guy I just hold grudges and if you hurt or screw me over, like I am gonna hold that long enough for you to forget. And then like, screw you over 10 times harder so that you would regret that moment that you probably forgot about 30 minutes after it happened. But I was that guy and so I wanted to show my dad like this is what you get for doing this or treating me this way.

01:00:25
Man, I learned piano. I took piano lessons for 11 years. I know nothing. I know nothing, and it's because I intentionally did not practice. I asked my mom, like I don't want to do piano lessons anymore. They're like, just do it.

01:00:38
I was like, all right, and so, intentionally, like I would piss my teachers, I would see, I would try to see how many piano teachers I can make quit in a month. Right, like I would like drop my wrist. That's like every piano teacher that hears this podcast. They're gonna be triggered. I'll drop my wrist intentionally and she'll like try to slap my wrist up so that I hold it up. And I would hold it down so hard that even when she slaps me like my arms wouldn't move and I would look at her, be like, why are you touching me right now? You know, and I'll be so angry and bitter at the teachers. That's who I was and so, like, my relationship with my dad was the same Everything I, every decision he made that I disagreed with, I, I did everything in my power to try to make him regret it.

01:01:24
And then and then I matured Right, and then a lot of it was like getting married, becoming a dad myself, and like our relationship completely changed and we became like best friends. And so up until my late teens we were like enemies. Enemies Like when I tried to enlist in the Navy when I was 17 because I have a late birthday and I needed my dad to sign my enlistment form because I'm 17. And my dad was, like, I'm not signing this, I'm not letting you go. And I told him if you don't sign this today, I'm just going to wait six months until I'm 18. And then I'm going to go and you're never going to see me again. And so, like he, like begrudgingly signed it. But like when I think about that, bro, like I wish I had a time machine so I can just go back and, like friggin, just knock myself out half of my life because of the way I treated my dad and my mom. But but like we became best friends in my early 20s.

01:02:37
I got married pretty early, so we became best friends in my early 20s. And you know, by that time he was a little older too. He's a little more level headed and cool and calm as well. But like we yeah, we were really. He saw, I saw a lot of him in myself. He saw the same and so, like, we related very well to each other and he became like my confidant. He became, uh, the person I went to for advice. He was, he was like the guy. He taught me everything I know in terms of, like, handiwork and all of that stuff as well, and my love to build things and my love to fix things and figure out how it works. It all comes from him and he knows that we've always credited to him, um, and so, like the our relationship was he he's now no longer with us, but until the day he passed, we were very, very close. Like we, um, and my brother as well, like the three of us were very similar and so we got along really well yeah how did you even reconnect?

01:03:44 - Speaker 3
because the reason why I ask is because one of the convicting thing me back in New York is I felt this like, yeah, conviction that god is forcing me. Because it's also been a prayer about reconciling my family and like my dad.

01:04:02
I like I haven't seen him in like five years and I only call him on his birthday. But like yeah, I just got this like sinking, feeling like okay, I should visit him, just see how it's doing and just establish. But the thing that's like like a stumbling block internally is like I've never had like an honest conversation with him in my life, and so to wrap my head around like like what are we gonna talk? What are we gonna talk about the weather? Like how are you doing? Like like how did you, yeah, reconnect after that separation?

01:04:34 - Speaker 1
yeah, I so I mean, I don't know anything about your dad, but for me, because we both love and follow jesus, it wasn't very difficult, right, like repentance was easy and forgiveness was easy, like there was no having to talk about everything.

01:04:54
That happened. Like as soon as I kind of grew up, when I matured, like I think, he just recognized it immediately and our dynamics changed. So the way we talk to each other, the way we were related to each other, it was just much different. And then, because we both had the common ground of serving the church my dad, he wasn't a pastor but he gave his life for the church and I think that's another reason why my standards are so high for people because I've seen him do it. I've seen him do the early morning prayer and the 12 hours of work every day, actually six days a week, and then like, give his entire life to the church still and serve the church harder and better than anyone I've seen, including the pastoral staff, right, and so like it was very easy to reconnect through Jesus, you know, and jesus and the church being the common ground was very easy.

01:05:58
um, but I I would say if I was giving you know, you advice, I'd be like I know you and I know you love jesus, and so I think, like you have no excuse not to initiate it, that's's what I said first, yeah, I know, and you know, what's really crazy is I'm hearing so many stories in the past few months of people in our generation who know and love the Lord, reverse parenting their parents, and not from a place of pride or like you messed up or you owe me, but not from a place of pride, or like you messed up or you owe me, but like from a place of love and patience, and I think that's what really opens them up. They're like something's different about you. You don't talk to me the way you used to or whatnot, um, but I think my, my kind of uh, what's advice to you? Would be just reach out to him, be like, hey, can we grab a meal and make that meal about him. Just like, hey, dad, as I've been getting older, I've really been thinking about you a lot and I've been thinking, and you know, like if your dad is Korean, he's probably screwed up a ton in the past, right, but like literally covering those things, yeah, and beginning to mention the good things that you've.

01:07:29
You're beginning to appreciate about even the past, right, and just being like man sorry, I was so difficult to raise, but like I'm seeing more and more like how faithful you were like at, at just bringing bringing home the bacon, or like being around, you know, or um, like help, like I, I realized I felt stable because of you, whether I wanted to admit it or not, right, or whatever it is like there there's, there's something that I believe that the lord is commending them for in their lives. Like god is so good, you could be a terrible person and there is something that the lord is commending you for in your life, right, and so I would. I would find that and just begin the conversation around that and then allow that to like open up time for you to begin to ask him intentional questions Like what, what, what were some of the hard things growing up, you know? Or like what were some of the hard things growing up, you know? Or like what were some of the challenges.

01:08:39
And I think, like just even being able to have that kind of it doesn't have to be emotional conversation. It's literally just acknowledging and commending right them for what they've done. I think that's something that the Lord would do anyway and we get to be a mouthpiece for that, and I think if you did that well, there's no way he wouldn't want to have a meal with you again, you know, and then I believe that the Lord will put the right words in your mouth. Right, I mean, like Jesus says you. Jesus says you're going to stand before kings and if you don't know what to say, the Holy Spirit will give you words. But I believe the same for fathers and for other people that we are stepping out in faith and reaching out to and reconnecting with, like the Lord will give us words.

01:09:35 - Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, one of the biggest things in my life was me being able to forgive my dad this happened when. I was like 20. Because I realized like oh, he's a sinner like me, but I know all my sins. God forgave me. How could I hold anything against him, right? But it took another 20 years for me to really get to a place of being grateful, like you said. But like yeah, even though it was not great, like he still somehow stayed and stuck through all the.

01:10:07 - Speaker 2
BS.

01:10:09 - Speaker 3
And again to clarify like 90% he caused the BS, but still. But like I realize it's not just just him, it's also how he grew up, right. So when and I think that's the whole generational, like quote-unquote curse of like you are growing up in an environment that's dysfunctional, you're I, you're gonna be dysfunctional, right, and like I had to like tell myself, okay, like he actually did a lot more understanding where he came from and how he went through things, because for me, I didn't have to go through all the things he did, but that still doesn't change. There's this thing inside of me and I know it's just me I'm being a baby.

01:10:53
You know I should. All right, I'm going to ask you three questions to end the podcast. When was the last time you changed your mind on something?

01:11:04 - Speaker 1
Very recent. Yeah, Again, this is the whole. We talked about it earlier in the podcast, but I thought reacting to things was okay because that was my genuine self. I was showing people my family, my most beloved. That was my genuine self. I was showing people my family, my most beloved ones, my genuine self. But they deserve better than my genuine self. They deserve my Christlike self Right, and so I changed my mind on that, like a week ago. Yeah, I sit strong on that like a week ago, nice.

01:11:38
Yeah, I stood strong on that man for like 12 years, but we all bend the knee.

01:11:47 - Speaker 3
But was there a specific moment or like a new information that made you realize like, okay, I need to lay this down.

01:11:53 - Speaker 1
No, I think it is just is the work of the Holy Spirit. I need to lay this down. No, I think it is just the work of the Holy Spirit. Honestly, like she said it and like I knew it was right and I had nothing to say.

01:12:05 - Speaker 3
Did you just say, she said it.

01:12:07 - Speaker 1
Yeah, lydia, lydia said it.

01:12:09 - Speaker 3
Oh, I thought you meant Holy Spirit, I was like wait.

01:12:11 - Speaker 1
No, no, no, no, okay, nice you can dig into that dig? Into that I?

01:12:17 - Speaker 3
this is not the shack um my wife said it and then the holy spirit convicted me you're so lucky to grow up in a holy family and marry a holy you know I really credit marrying a holy family and marry a holy family.

01:12:36 - Speaker 1
You know I really credit marrying a holy wife to being in a holy family. Honestly, it's my parents' prayers, man, because I didn't deserve it Even like me being saved, like definitely prayers of a mother.

01:12:56 - Speaker 3
You know, because yeah, what is your hope for Faithly?

01:13:06 - Speaker 1
That's a good question. I think I just want people one. I want people who feel like they're alone to not feel like they're alone. I think that's one of the biggest ones. Even in Georgia, I meet with pastors one-on-one and have conversations with them and a lot of the common theme is loneliness. They feel lonely, especially EM pastors, because there's like who are you co-laboring with? I felt that way deeply for many years, even though I'm technically co-laboring with my wife. It just doesn't feel the same as when you have like comrades right. But I hope it to be a place where, like, pioneers can pioneer and um, and it'll encourage other pioneers out there to do the same Um and then going even deeper, just being a connector, um I. I want it to be a place where, like ministry, partnerships form, of course, but like friendships and like, um, yeah, just family, all right. At the end of the day it's again. It's like healthy connections, healthy relationships. I think is necessary um, yeah, and so I'm hoping that Faithly would be a platform where those can be encouraged and formed.

01:14:41 - Speaker 3
Nice, and how can we be praying for you?

01:14:47 - Speaker 1
Right now, I think, just covering the Lord's protection and guidance, we feel like ever since we've determined, determined to plant um, actually, it wasn't just since we've determined to plant, it was like after this sunday, this past sunday, which was my last sunday with my previous ministry, I think like we've just been feeling a lot of the arrows of the enemy, not not just like accusation, but like just like physical illness, not just in our family but just in the community around us, and just like feeling this urgency and a sense that, like man, we need we need to be prayed up, like we need to be intentional, like this is not just like man we need we need to be prayed up, like we need to be intentional.

01:15:39
Like this is not just like time to chill, right, um, so like just a lot of intentionality, even as we rest, um. Historically, seasons of rest for us, um were seasons where God reminded us that we're still in the midst of warfare and we weren't resting well in terms of like as soldiers, and so like we want to be able to rest well, but we want to be resting intentionally right, kind of like, you know, gideon's soldiers who drink very intentionally right, not lapping it up like a dog, I think like we want to be alert as we rest, so covering protection intentionality.

01:16:32 - Speaker 3
Nice, thanks for coming on the podcast.

01:16:35 - Speaker 1
For sure, my pleasure.

01:16:37 - Speaker 3
That's it for the podcast guys.

01:16:39 - 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.