Intentional Suffering for the Greater Good - John Yoon

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 gonna call it Patria House and this is our faithfully story. Welcome to Faithfully 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 Faithfully Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithfully an online community committed to empowering church leaders pastors staff and volunteers learn more at Faithfully.co Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry on the Faithfully Stories podcast. What is Patria House and where did you get that name? 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 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 and so we're calling it patria which means family of families and 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 you know the 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 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 straining into the home right it's like families it's like your uncles crew and your cousins 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 and so yeah we're focusing a lot we're trying we're planning on focusing a lot on family groups and what does that look like throughout the week and and really encouraging people to meet in family groups and what we've discovered so far even as we're planning is it's 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 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 driven to me recently let's ask like right now multiplication is like a tree right and then you have a fruit and you seed and you plant it but then you're all you're doing is reproducing the 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 what healthy cells the 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 so I see right now as like this industrial complex mind of church planting where you just reproducing the same church as the mother church whereas I feel like again this is my like perspective maybe what we're supposed to do is gather a bunch of people and say okay what does church look like for you right now that you've experienced church with us you guys go figure out loving Jesus trusting Jesus because your lives are different your contacts might be different and so this shift away from just cloning to like producing a new thing I think it's gonna be a new thing in the future 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 giving them like a stack of papers to feel 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 in revelation and you know 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 and so I really I really do believe and yeah I get the other side of like their 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 of what a family support my family certainly doesn't look like the family I grew up in or the family that Lydia grew up in their 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 you know 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 but then there's there's still honor there's still like generational connection right and it just ultimately looks like healthy relationship yeah so I've been reading through like numbers because I realized I need to know like more of the Old Testament mystery and it's funny because I've been getting into a rebel load of names just like when you understand like every name and theology has a meaning it like helps you understand the character study of the person I was like oh wait what it matters and then like the numbers they're like numbering the people but then you have like the coaxites but it's just because the father was like coach and it's like oh the people were just named after the father right 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 homogenous and same rather than we can be very distinct but unified right that's beautiful and that's that's really the essence of patria right like it's the family of families it's tribe and I love that there there's so many multiple meanings to so patria is actually a Spanish word to or like there's Latin roots to patria as well which 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 it's like just as the just as the coaxites came from my coach right like it's in Ephesians chapter three 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's god and so like that that is the essence of what we're going after yeah 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 families like you grow up with people and you don't know any of the family could you born into it so you kind of just say okay I got to start learning how to operate here but like yeah how do you kind of integrate that it'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 yeah people people 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 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 a 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 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 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 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 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 sub-sex of each group and I 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 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 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 is 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 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 so that sounds very good and I totally agree with you but like as we all know the journey getting there like to the fun with slide there's always going to be grumbling and just missing that 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 too like it's good yeah so I personally my kind of teaching philosophy is I don't 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 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 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 unaffendable 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 master 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 could you share something from your life where because a lot of times when we apply a solution it's because we experience the goodness absolutely yeah so for your own life and so I can say that's what marriage is marriage is two very different people learning to mesh their lives it's literally two becoming one and they're not a perfect fit right and so it really looks like there's this there's this husband plato there's this wife plato and there's a Jesus mold right now you're getting both these platoes through this mold and they're going to be things that need to be shed they're going to be things that need to be eight now but like but it's this conglomeration of the two that becomes Christ's 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 so like it needs to mature and it wasn't it dude I'm talking 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 I try to love her well and I try to honor her etc 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 it has to be intentional 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 mature and as I learn 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 like 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 all right it's like learning to be like okay know that these are my preferences and it would be amazing if if they're doing everything they can to meet my preferences as well right but 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 there's just effort to love and effort to forgive and 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 and I know it's going to take more I don't think we'll ever arrive there you know but but the fun is in the journey anyway and in the discovery process and so yeah it's been fun yeah fun but also sucky yeah hold on 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 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 what does that mean I heard sense of discipline sense of discipline it's like the whole suck it up and do it like there there's no such thing as excuses yeah yeah 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 right not that I'm never late I'm late a lot of these days right what's the mentality yeah but it's the mentality and 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 tendencies to be like they're fake you know what I'm saying 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 you know I'm just 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 necessarily struggle with and I think that it's learning that value 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 and 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 but we have to learn to catch ourselves repent 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 yeah so like even for me like only this year it's like 40 years later after like was it five years of seminary like 10 years of ministry experience teaching about this you're just like wait oh okay like I have finally learned what it means to be intentional about killing my ego yeah it's 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 going to blame you but I can't stop myself I'm getting angry so I'm gonna like figure out why first understand where this is coming from and why such a trigger and not even last again last night like I got to the point of like okay even if I feel the immense suffering and pain internally 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 heath went through on the cross yeah 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 gonna retaliate I'm gonna 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 girl like lead on your rights lead that surrender surrender and you're like okay whatever but to really do it on an internal heart level it's 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 harder 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 gonna draw closer to me again it sucks right it sounds so good but like when you go through it sucks because it literally feels like a part of me is dying but I think that's the point of like like I said in marriage it's about two becoming one and I always thought like oh I'm with Jesus and he's my buddy buddy it's like no we're actually fusing like you know like in Dragon Ball though yeah 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 but yeah what should I do so yeah that's great so how do 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 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 we I think we have to encourage them to get past the hurt of it right because I think as as human beings we like 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 you know and we see it all over the world we see it in politics we see it in the people who what do you mean like how does that work yeah sure if I had a difficult childhood right 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 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 you have to be kind to me because no one else was and and there's this like almost like 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 deserve 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 if we look at the reality of like actually Jesus died and he rose 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 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 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 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 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 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 you are at a slight disadvantage because no one has modeled it for you but but the good news is that God modeled it perfectly in scripture and if we would just read scripture and and be like God then I think we would learn to have healthy relationship 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 picture of water is dirty but you have the source to the fountain so now that you know where the fountain is that picture 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 this is where our lives have to change 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 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 then you think you had it because you had some counterfeit version of it and it hasn't made you new but 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 last 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 automatic I think it's negative yes but the most like amazing people and the strongest people and the most humble people they went through great suffering right that suffering produces all the stuff the Bible says I'm not going to quote it now yeah but and it's funny because if the irony of like not repenting is like you're actually just compounding your trauma because you can't let it go right and letting go is just freedom 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 we'll take 40 years or some people take a week and imagine if I just kept hopping from church to church 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 the love yeah there's something about unconditional love that makes you feel really secure you know 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 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 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 well not just the conflict but like breaking through the conflict is required to create true community 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 now Bob 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 they're they're 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 they probably had beards because they're cool but you know like they were young they're 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 it's an interesting thing and it was like it was dude like he must have been so patient he must have taught so much and like it's just 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 a church whether that's my own church or like other people coming to me for advice because they're unhappy at their church like I I the very first question I ask every single one of them is like genuinely is this coming from a place of you're looking for something and where 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 we're just 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 is loving Jesus like you enough 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 gonna 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 elaborate for our conservative brothers and sisters and what encountering means because that's a very like charismatic word sure and it has like a lot of negative connotations in sure 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 right and I think what encounter looks like is it's as simply put as possible is you have an experience with Jesus that changes the essence of who you are so that you're different now and I think like I think that's all it 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 the parents who lost their daughter and Jesus resurrects the daughter I don't think they were the same again right the bleeding woman was not the same again the man lowered by his four friends was not the same again the layman by the pool was not the same again the leper was not the same again like these people change yeah I don't know what people think about the chosen tv series but like one of my favorite lines isn't like the first couple episodes and it's married right and they're like like what do you see in him or they ask for 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 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 quiet and it doesn't have to look the same for every person either right but the only constant is that we're different now now 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 searched 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 and then when I read like the flood I was like there's only three chapters yeah wait what's so much shorter it's not like the tv so it made me realize oh okay I can't trust all the 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 like you said oh the disciples were so different 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 you like and I'd 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 yeah yeah and I understand as well all those things but I think for me it's sure it's it's dangerous if that's your only source right but it's gotta be a supplement right like if you're never eating any meals and just taking vitamins I don't think you'd have a very healthy life right like 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 you know and and I and 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 it shows because it'll lead to salvation no absolutely not I think it's just a great like supplement to our faith and it makes it fun and exciting it's it's 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 white washed 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 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 start the angel studios are more yeah I know for either of the chosen he's not a more he's like a question he's not he's a question yeah but then Jesus is Catholic and the higher like non Christians on like the production 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 gonna be better or like we're gonna like be about religious and love but I see us doing the same thing yes this 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 and it's funny the chosen is taboo yet the themes in like 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 the chosen where it's like specifically about Jesus so it's like wild it's true yeah I don't understand it but so now I'm in a place where if they're preaching Christ let them let them come work it out you know yeah 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 yeah 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 and great you know honestly like I don't I don't know what it's gonna be like for them when they meet Jesus face to face but the fruit of whatever they started it like they're 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 just just let them be like just you focus on you focus on your assignment and like let people be it's okay maybe you're signing as to complain but I guess I can't I can't tell you what your assignment is but you know that I know that's not my assignment yeah yeah what is like the things you've been learning as a father like what would you what did you think fatherhood when before you became a father and now your father for how has that changed that's good I think before I was a father I thought fatherhood was like being a good manager kind of 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 abuse the crap out of my son no maybe not physically but like just even emotionally but like daughters are fragile they're so gentle and they will let you know when when what you're doing is not okay you know and 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 from the moment that their 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 any it taught me number one to desire to be a more genuine person overall right because I can I can fake it a 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 like the desire not just to protect but to nurture because that so again like to clarify I think before I became a father it was like like the father provides and the mother nurtures you know and it's just clean cut but it's it's so not true there's like there's a nurturing that only fathers can do um and and I think it took me a long time to learn that right but yeah I think the greatest revelation ever that I've had as a father is I 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 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 I always joke with people they're like you think we're gonna sleep in heaven I was like absolutely God needs a break from us every day for the rest of eternity you know I would disagree and I'm just 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 geez but um but seriously like um the fact that they don't have to perform for my love was as a performer a huge revelation um 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 um I told him like you know when I had my first kid uh I had so much revelation of how much the father loved me um but it wasn't until I had my second child that I had revelation of how 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 um like can you have that revelation without children absolutely but like for me being such an experiential person I think like it's 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 like me if you don't you don't and that's cool that's how I've been my whole life um but like yeah there was I could a renewed desire in me to not even renewed it was I could new desire in me to love people well um because I knew it brought the father joy right um yeah and so those were probably like the biggest revelations for me um and then probably the 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 um 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 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 all right 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 oh 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 like I that genuinely think I could have knocked every single person 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 and I think like a lot of times we think that God doesn't hear us or that he doesn't want to help um but man like he knows best and there and like I was suffering as she was right like I was I'm not an emotional person but I like I have not felt so helpless and sad like that in a very long time and to think like that God would allow himself to feel that way because he knows the result is worth it it's 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 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 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 so yeah okay that's that's cool that's definitely coming in the front as a teaser so what was your relationship to your father like um 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 I was I was the public beta but um 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 you know 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 a laboring away to provide for me um and I understand all that now but as a young kid um 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 um I was angry that um 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 did I regret that so much to this day but like I literally created distance from my family intentionally um because I wanted I'm 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 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 man I learned P.I. 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 like just do it and 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 I'm gonna be figured 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 did everything in my power to try to make him regret it and then um 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 uh and we became my best friends and so um up until my late teens we were like enemies enemies like uh when I tried to enlist in the navy when I was 17 because I'm 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 gonna wait six months until I'm 18 and then I'm gonna go and you're never gonna see me again and so like he like begrudgingly signed it but like when I think about all that's bro like I wish I had a time machine so I can just go back and like frigging just knock myself out half of my life because of the way I treated my dad and my mom um but but like we became best friends in my early 20s I got married pretty early um 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 and 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 that all comes from him and he knows that we've always credited to him and so like our relationship was 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 um and so we got along really well yeah how did you even reconnect because the reason why I asked is because one of the convicting thing me in my tenure 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 I like I haven't seen him in like five years maybe I only call him on this birthday but like yeah I just got this like sinking feeling like okay should visit him to see how he's doing it just establish the thing that's like like a stumbling block internally is like I've never had like an honest conversation 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 yeah 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 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 and so the way we talked to each other the way we were we 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 right and I think that's another reason why my standards are so high for people because like I've seen him do it right I've seen him do the early morning prayer and the 12 hours of work every day um 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 past oral staff right and so like it was very easy to reconnect through Jesus you know and like Jesus and the church being the common ground was very easy but 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 yeah yeah I know and you know what's really crazy is I'm hearing so many stories in the past few months of like people in our generation who know and love the Lord reverse parenting their parents you know and 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 what's advice to you would just reach out to him be like hey can we grab a meal and make that meal about him just I hate that 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 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's something that the Lord is commanding 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 what were some of the hard things growing up you know or like what were some of the challenges and I think like just even being able to have that kind of doesn't have to be emotional conversation it's it's literally just acknowledging and commending right then 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're gonna stand before kings and if you don't know what to say the Holy Spirit will give you words but like I believe the same for 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 yeah yeah one of the biggest things in my life was me being able to forgive my dad this happened like when I was like 20 because I realized like oh he's a sinner like me but I know all my sins he got forgave me how could I hope anything gets so right but it took another 20 years for me to really get to a place of being grateful like you said I'm like yeah even though it was not great like he's still somehow stayed and stuck through all the BS and yeah and again to clarify like 90% he caused the BS but still yeah but like I realize it's not 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 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 you know have to go through all the things he did so but that still doesn't change there's this stay inside of me and I know it's with me I'm being a baby yeah no I should all right I'm gonna ask you three questions to end the podcast when was the last time you changed your mind on something very recent yeah the again this is the whole we talked about it early 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 ones my genuine self but they deserve better than my genuine self they deserve my Christ like self right and so I changed my mind on that like a week ago I said strong on that man for like 12 years but we all see all bend in me yeah but it was there a specific moment or like a new information that made you realize like okay I need to lay this down no I think it is just it is the work of the Holy Spirit honestly like she said it and like oh I knew it was right and I had nothing to say did you just say she said it yeah Lydia Lydia said it oh I thought you met Holy Spirit oh no no no no no nice dig into that hi this is not the shock okay my wife said it and then the Holy Spirit convicted me yeah you were so lucky to prop in a Holy Family and Mary oh yeah you know I really credit marrying a holy wife to being in a Holy Family honestly is my parents prayers man because I didn't deserve it even like me being saved like definitely prayers of a mother you know because yeah yeah what is your hope for faithfully oh 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 that's one of the biggest ones like even in Georgia I meet with pastors one on one and have conversations with them and a lot of the common theme is like loneliness like they feel 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 and it'll encourage other pioneers out there to do the same and then going even deeper just being a connector I want it to be a place where like ministry partnerships form of course but like friendships and like 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 faithfully would be a platform where those can be encouraged informed yes and how can we be praying for you hmm right now I think just covering like the Lord's protection um and guidance we feel like ever since we've like 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 hmm we've just been feeling a lot of the arrows of the enemy not not just like accusation but like um just like physical illness not just in our family but just in the community around us um 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 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 were God reminded us that we're still in the midst of warfare and we weren't resting well in terms of like as soldiers um 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 who drink um very intentionally right not lapping it up like a dog um I think like we want to be alert as we rest yeah I'm so covering protection intentionality yeah nice thanks for coming on the podcast for sure my pleasure that's if I'm podcasting 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