Listening to the Holy Spirit - Seth Bazacas

00:01 - Speaker 1 I would still say, in the midst of all of that, there was this dissatisfaction that would not let me go, and it started to get to the point where it culminated with my wife and I that it centered on the person of the Holy Spirit, that there was more, that there was just too much of a gap between what we were seeing in Scripture, what we had personally experienced in our life, and we'd leveraged everything. At this point. Man, we've done big sacrifice and we've gone for the big thing and it was all good, but if I'm honest, it was all just kind of okay, like, really, is this what it's all about? Is really this worth it all? Is this what we're leveraging our life for? 00:35 Hi, my name is Seth Bazacas. I'm the pastor at Wellspring Church, also the city director for Alpha here in New York. My family has been here for over 15 years. We love the city and we are expected for what the Lord is up to. We don't always get it right by any means, but we're committed to trying to live a life that only makes sense if the Holy Spirit shows up, and so this is my Faithly Story. 01:00 - Speaker 2 Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life. Join us as we delve into their challenges, moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. Learn more at faithlyco. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry. On the Faithly Stories podcast. 01:42 - Speaker 3 Could you tell me how your faith journey started? 01:45 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I can. You know that question is always so loaded with life and journey and the way the ups and downs of life take you. I would say from a very young age I had a sense of the nearness and the presence of the Lord, which was a gift, because my family, my parents, got divorced when I was young. There was a lot of back and forth. I lived in many different states and that came with all the traditional ups and downs of divorced family life. But I can honestly say, as I look back and reflect, that in the midst of those hurts and pains, loneliness was not something I experienced because I felt like the constant through it all was the Lord. That probably culminated aggressively in my teenage years when my father had walked out of my life. 02:37 My grandmother, who was kind of my artistic and personal inspiration, was killed in a car accident. 02:43 My brother, who was really close with me through all the life journey, went away to college and then I was a gymnast at the time and I was training and I broke my back. 02:52 So I literally am in a body, brace in traction, can't move, with incredible amounts of loss, and I would say there was a solidifying thing that the spirit did when I was in that place of brokenness where I really felt like I had a pathway to go in any direction, and I prayed this prayer of like these holes I had just like gaping and hurting in my heart and for God to come fill them. 03:16 To be honest, it was not even that faith filled of a prayer. It was an encouragement from an old house painter who was filling in as a youth pastor. Uh, that encouraged me in a diner to pray that prayer and I remember, uh, praying that, with little faith, but then miraculously, over that next year, seeing the Lord come and meet me in powerful, intangible ways and fill those heart of those holes in my heart as a constant, uh, so that would be like strong, solidifying days. It would then, um, propel me into university and into university and my young adult years, which is a whole other wild journey of what the Lord ultimately did in my life to bring me here. 03:51 - Speaker 3 So you said the painter was a step-in youth director. What's the story behind that? 03:58 - Speaker 1 Yeah, that's amazing and it's still just like one of the primary, most like inspirational things to me. He's a dad. He was a house painter, old blue collar guy. There was a need in the church that I was in at the time for discipling the next generation and he committed. And in the midst of that really broken and hard time for me, I just remember he always take me to a diner. He always brought his Bible, whether he opened it or not, he was so encouraging. He listened to my hurt and pain. We shared a pretty crappy bowl of vanilla ice cream every time and he ministered to me and honestly, it was pivotal. It changed my life. So just the value of the role of speaking into the next generation, of just being a constant friend and being there, has just been burned into my heart. I'm very grateful for that man. 04:42 - Speaker 3 So how do you feel like all these early losses in your life shaped you to who you are now? Yeah, so. 04:50 - Speaker 1 I've put a lot of thought into that and as the Lord continues to evolve, right it is. It is that piece of the, the ability to will one thing, to be satisfied in him alone and to really ultimately to understand him as father, as him as kind of my all-consuming desire and my constant place of need. The only place to be satisfied is what has allowed me kind of on some levels it forced me to find that, but then the grace of the Lord for him to actually come and fill those places and to be that has really allowed him. I really cling to him as father. 05:26 - Speaker 3 Have you ever reconciled or reconnected with your dad? 05:30 - Speaker 1 No, that's actually a huge, huge prayer in my life, a constant intercession, and it's been over 20 years and he still is alive. And you know, that is one of the additional pieces that has deeply formed my faith. I've seen God do some miraculous and amazing things, and yet to also have one of these things that is so core to my heart that I've fasted and contended for more than anything in my life to be the thing that has still yet to be answered in the way that we're longing for has also, just like, made me desperate for the Lord. Anyway, yeah, it's a big part of my prayer, life and heart's desire. So, yeah, didn't expect to talk about that today. 06:12 So, do you have children? I do. I have two boys. Something really sweet and beautiful about that and the restoration of the Lord, cause my brother and I, of course, don't have my dad in our life and I have two boys and he also has two boys and they are the same age. That wasn't planned, so we get to raise those young men together, which is a real gift and a real blessing. There's something really sweet about that. 06:39 - Speaker 3 So how did that shape the way you father now with your kids, with you? 06:44 - Speaker 1 and your dad shape the way you father now with your kids, with you and your dad. You know, Danny, I'm still learning to figure that out. Other than I have a burning desire in my heart for those boys to know that they are loved, to have safe space with me. I contend for them deeply in prayer and intercession and I seek to be a constant and a confidant in their life. So I'm really grateful to have the opportunity to be a dad. 07:11 - Speaker 3 So you're talking about your young adult years and the wildness of that. Could you explain? 07:18 - Speaker 1 Yeah. So I guess the wildness was like it's like I've lived many lives when I tell my testimony, like it's like I've lived many lives when I tell my testimony, when people see, and I even recognize it, even in terms of career and the way the Lord has unfolded that. And so kind of my journey is this unfolding story which you know uniquely bring up. My grandma initiated in the arts the passion for music, for theater, for the power of storytelling, the uniqueness I felt like the Lord giving me that passion, but it evolved in so many different ways. I'd say what happened over the course of like 10, 15 years was a discovery of kind of the broader kingdom call which I'd say for myself and for my wife is a desire to see no line there between secular and sacred. We want to see no division there, that it's all kingdom and we're trying to work Basically. It's like my career journey to the point where I'm pastoring and doing Alpha and we have actually multiple different kind of startups and unique ministries going on right now, from the launching of a coffee shop to an online content thing, to you name it. It's still been the working out of saying like, hey, I want to be postured like Jesus to only do and see what my father's doing and if he's up to something I will be willing to become that or step into that, whatever it takes to see the kingdom come in all these spheres and places. So the first place I worked that out was in the arts. Like I said, the power of storytelling and the arts, a new ministry on some level, was going to be a call. There. I was sold out for the Lord as much as I knew then as a you know, 18 year old boy. So but I'm like I have this passion for the arts. 08:57 So I went, I got an undergrad in Bible but I pursued the arts at a university that kind of had the small conservatory program that accepted like 12 people a year. That's where I met my wife. We pursued theater, we got agents, we did showcases, you know, kind of always with the eyes toward New York, knowing it would be a bit unconventional. And so we came to New York as artists, faith-filled, believing God was going to use that kind of as a guerrilla ministry and also be light in the darkness of power of storytelling, telling redemptive stories. And it was wonderful and terrible all at the same time. It was a great journey my wife and I. The more successful we got, though, for us in this journey she's more, probably more of a pure artist than me, and so she went further and longer. 09:45 But the more successful we got and I got to tour all over the world and do Broadway tours and do different shows and but the there was always like this dissatisfaction. There was, probably will be, a continual theme through my story. It's like there's got to be more than this. You know, I felt like a line item. I set out to do redemptive storytelling and be the light in the darkness and I'm like man, I'm just like a line item for whatever the producer wants me to be. I'm away from my wife all the time. I'm away on the road from I can't be established or rooted in community. My heart was in New York and then I would hit the road. So I just began a season of saying, saying like Lord, I'm open, I know there's more and it feels weird to just uproot my life. There'd always been that thing. Like, do I just uproot and go to seminary or whatever? I'm like no, I have community here, you're moving. So I just like became a sponge is what I can say. Like I'm sitting on an airplane, I'm at a restaurant or a bar. It's like I'm open to any conversation, I'm learning, I'm listening, and that was what I call began the series of long story shorts. 10:50 For me, one, the first thing that came up was ultimately I had an opportunity, for there was this Christian nonprofit that had bought an old theater that kind of got all messed up during Hurricane Sandy and they didn't know what to do with it and I pitched a vision to be. I became the artistic director. I ended up getting this job where we remodeled it as a first run movie, digital movie theater and running secular films, but I'd write Christian reviews for it. We also blew out some of the theaters. We made a live theater and then late night we'd blow that out. We'd give free popcorn away to kids. It We'd give free popcorn away to kids. It was on the boardwalk, it was on a shore town there. We'd bring them in for, like, bringing worship bands. We're doing late night evangelism and then kind of running this movie house and theater. 11:31 And that started to change everything for me. One is because I realized there was kind of this entrepreneurial spirit inside of me and a little bit surprised, to be honest that, just from the pure business side of things, that the theater was more successful than we anticipated. And then stories go right. That board was filled with a bunch of successful and wealthy business folks who said, hey, look, you have some vision and energy, we have real estate and capital, let's keep this thing rolling. And so I opened up a second theater with them. And then they say, what would you do if we went after something called a family entertainment center? And I got to play and vision that out. And then again, long story short, trying to follow the leading here hey, is it maybe faith and art, or is it more of like faith and work and business? And I'm in this group of Christian businessmen and we're going to do like redemptive business Again, something I believe in, you know. Again, this broader kingdom call no, no line between secular and sacred. 12:31 And though this phase not all glory, I honestly I became a workaholic, which is probably my tendency, and I went hard. I opened up seven or eight companies in a couple of years. I was given way too much capital and responsibility for a young age. It was like a guerrilla style MBA and it was hard, you know, and I was burning the candle at both ends and it kind of culminated in this spot for us Kind of a classic moment, I guess, when you think about it. 12:59 The CEO and his wife took my wife and I out on their yacht and we're out on the boat having drinks and he kind of pitches me the big vision and you know setting me up to be, you know, air parent down the road, grow and develop, and you know offer the beach house and the money and all the things that I never would have dreamed of or thought of, especially as a younger kid who initially went into the arts. You know, pursuing passion more than finance was always my mantra and I remember getting in the car after that time out with the boat and the Lord's always been so kind to speak to my wife and I together and he conjured up a memory we had had when we were sophomores in college. We knew the Lord was going to call us into great sacrifice and he brought up that memory and we looked at each other and we both said it's a no, and not that it was wrong by any means. We just knew it wasn't the story the Lord had for us. And he brought up that memory and we just had a sense that there again there is more uh, to be honest, a lot of the faith and business and the overlap there. I was like man, we're just Christians doing business again. You know, like there is more uh, and that was a tough thing and I had signed contracts I had. 14:19 I ended up quitting that job kind of more just out of obedience and anything really disillusioning felt like the Lord was saying now is the time and to like just leverage everything for the church. I remember a very specific moment on the subway. I felt like the power of the Lord came over me and I just began to weep and weep and I just kept saying I got to be part of the healing, I got to be part of the healing and I felt like this was like an acute moment where the Lord was saying and a direct call towards vocational ministry. So I didn't know exactly how that would play out. So I quit the job. I had to give up equity in those companies, but I felt like that was part of what the Lord was asking, part of that sacrifice, and I had started to build my identity and wanting passivity of income. Again, nothing wrong with that, in fact, I champion it if you can make it happen. But for me I had earned that out of striving. And. But for me I had earned that out of striving and I feel like the Lord was calling for a moment for me as a young man to say to go all in in this regard. And so I gave myself to the church. 15:11 At that point I raised support, worked for free, became part of a group of churches called Trinity Grace. I went to seminary and kind of emphasis in church planting and exegeting culture. I'm like I've been opening businesses so I'm like I'll start doing this for the kingdom. I opened up a community development center. Let's be good news to the neighborhood, um, you know. And so opened up a community center. Uh, we intentionally built that, you know, non-religious, so we can engage almost pre-evangelistically as a way to engage the culture, partner with the city, that we can't, as the local church, use it as a bridge to the church. Be good news to the neighborhood, no matter what you believe. And that's when I got introduced to Alpha and just like this burning heart, ok, we can build a bunch of cool things, but are people getting saved? Became an associate pastor within Trinity Grace. 15:57 And this is the last piece of the story, but it's crucial. That brings me up to today. Or really I mean by today, I mean like the last eight years, but this was the impetus of those. I would still say. In the midst of all of that there was this dissatisfaction that would not let me go and it started to get to the point where it culminated, with my wife and I, that it centered on the person of the Holy Spirit, that there was more, that there was just too much of a gap between what we were seeing in scripture, what we had personally experienced in our life, and we'd leveraged everything. At this point, man, we've done big sacrifice and we've gone for the big thing and we'd opened businesses and thought outside the box and we'd opened theaters and we're avant-garde in ministry and we've been the traditional. 16:40 I went to seminary and we'd opened a community center seeking justice and renewal and it was all good. 16:46 But if I'm honest, it was all just kind of OK, like really is this what it's all about? 16:51 Is really this worth it all? Is this what we're leveraging our life for? Because it honestly feels like spending on a forest fire and it's just kind of like bringing like a handful of marginally good, nonprofits into the ecosystem. And I remember just it wouldn't let us go. God brought us through a season of just like emptying of ourselves, of deep repentance, of hungering and thirsting. So it really has been our story in that season of blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. I remember we ripped out our TV, we got rid of all content. I mean we didn't look at a piece of media or content or television for over eight months. Rid of all content, I mean we didn't look at a piece of media or content or television for over eight months. I'm just seeking. There has to be more. 17:29 That culminated for us as a time and a trip to london. Um, this was tied in with alpha, where we went to holy trinity, brompton and in the side little gathering filled with a handful of pastors from around the nation. We encountered the filling in the presence of the holy spirit in a way that can radically change our lives. I would say it from that moment on it's like ministry and life went from sepia tone to technicolor and just the revelation that it's like no, everything begins in his presence, everything begins in the place of prayer. 17:59 It's not like we weren't praying before, but it was probably more honestly. Like we're doing the thing and we're praying that God meets us in it and contending for the thing, as opposed to it's like being birthed and initiated in his presence. You know, it's like Lord. What are you doing? Do I really like joining what I see the father doing, only led by the spirit? And then we're interacting with the Lord in real time, like we have this conviction that we never speak about Jesus as if he's not right in the room and what's available in the ministry of the spirit and the power of the spirit, and that there is forgiveness, there is healing emotional and physical available there and it is just evoke the question, not just is the Lord true, but is he real and available now? And that's like blew up everything that. Then everything the Lord began to move really quickly. 18:46 Those were the early days of us ultimately taking a conglomeration of communities, replanting, having the opportunity to lead the church that is now Wellspring. We became that in 2017, kind of like a replant and or plant establishment of this church over the history of Trinity, grace and Skyline and a couple of churches in the neighborhood, and so we've had the joy of leading Wellspring, forline and a couple of churches in the neighborhood, and so we've had the joy of leading Wellspring for the last seven, eight years and always basically feel like we're just hungering after his presence, trying to learn and be in his presence at least just one step ahead, in order to just give it all away back to the people. We want to give away anything that he pours out, seeking after him and, ideally, being in people that are led by his presence. 19:30 - Speaker 3 What was that memory in college that made you realize, okay, don't do the art thing and pivot? 19:38 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it was a night that we'll never forget. I mean, it was simple enough. We were sitting on the couch in the living room, we were praying, we were kind of talking and processing about our future. Right, we're a couple of years into dating. We felt so young but we had a sense we're probably going to marry each other In discerning together. 19:56 And I remember sensing the presence of the Lord there with us. That it was for whatever reason, as much as we knew then it was a holy moment. But part of it there was like a fear of the lord that came on us in that moment and it was a sense of like will will I be your everything? Like the lord is saying that, like, um, and can you put everything on the altar? And there was a sense like there. I felt like there was a clear ask that we both sense, like the lord saying will you put everything on the altar? Will you put everything on the altar? Will you sacrifice everything for the sake of the things I want to call you into? And we had that moment where we basically consecrated ourselves before the Lord, including our relationship, and said we'd be willing if he sent us, Not knowing fully what that meant we kind of then just went on with our lives from that point. But it was a marker in our faith journey and our relationship journey. 20:49 - Speaker 3 I like that word. You said marker. They're like timestamps that God always like. You said like it's later on he'll remind you of like. Oh, that's what that meant Right. So for you, after coming back from London and having this, I guess, reawakening of the spirit, how did things change for your church? How did you guys do things differently and what was different? 21:12 - Speaker 1 Yeah. So to me everything shifted in terms of paradigm and metrics. Everything began in the place of prayer and I went like I ripped it to the studs, basically literally like staff meetings for as long as I can remember. There at that point, which is still a huge part of our culture now, became just like worship and prayer, like for hours. We would get a guitar, anybody would open and sing, we'd pray, we'd ask for the Lord to speak, we'd minister to one another. My elder meetings you know board meetings became places of worship and prayer. 21:43 Our initial leadership meetings were all about being in prayer and worship at the center. It's like we needed a front load, just saying like no, this, the headship of the church has to be Jesus. We have to fix our eyes upon him. You know, seek him first, and all these things will be added to us. And then we also had to like contend and ask and like learn and discern. What does it mean to function on a prophetic edge and hear and understand the voice of the Lord? How do we do that appropriately? What are the guardrails that we need as we're starting to see the Holy Spirit move and supernatural ministry come up? Because that's one of the most powerful and beautiful things. It's also one of the ways the church has been derailed so much over the ages. So that was a huge piece of that. It was. I would say it was probably teaching into a more true, healthy, trinitarian view of the, the lord, father, son and holy spirit, not father, son and holy bible, um, and making sure that the, the gateway to to that, is the scriptures. Right, it is the very scriptures that tells us about the spirit, uh, but truth unlocks um, the spirit and greater faith, uh, teaching into that, the framing of our ministries and our models around the place of prayer and presence. 22:48 And then the biggest shift, I would say, because a lot of it's cultural right. So we built a lot of our culture, of our church really basically became around alpha, which was radically ordinary hospitality, opening the doors to everybody, the love of the neighbor, but through the posture of listening. So it was a lot less of us. How do we listen, well, how do we ask good questions? How do we be a safe and welcoming place but with a high level of faith and prayer and expectancy that as we come around the table together or as we come into the church together, you will meet god right, just like it says, um, like in the place, when they were prophesying. 23:20 What is the sign of people when the prophetic gift is activated in a church? Uh, people will come in, they'll be cut, cut to the heart and they'll say God is really among them. And so there's this heightened expectancy in faith, in the way we interceded and prayed, that people will meet God. But then the pressure was fully off of us. It's like our focus is on hospitality, listening, welcome, and then prayer, expectancy, worship and high faith, with the expectancy that people will come and meet God, but not necessarily through us. They will meet God for themselves. So how do we create environments and spaces? How do we become the kind of people that facilitate places and relationships where people can explore and meet God for themselves? So that was a huge cultural shift piece for us as well. 23:59 - Speaker 3 So how did you get started? I mean connected with Alpha. 24:03 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it was just like a series of random events, of introductions, and there was a season in those early days that was just basically there was a huge church planting boom in New York City and a lot of money was infused and a lot of cool churches popped up doing a lot of cool things. But, to be honest, there was like a lot of like. These were a lot of the cool churches that your pastor in the Midwest told you to go to when you moved to New York, and so there was church growth happening, but there was not a lot of salvation. There weren't a lot of prodigals returning, there was not a lot of death to life. So people were being discipled in the way of Jesus in New York City, which is wonderful, but were they finding Jesus? And that began to break the hearts of a ton of leaders around that time. That's where Alpha stepped in and just said we'd like to infuse. We think this might be. It's working in London, could this have a greater surge in New York? And I got that opportunity to step into that story and help start Alpha's in a number of churches Just recently. A couple of years ago is when I stepped in as a city director for Alpha in New York, kind of based off this heart and vision of sensing, like even more on this back end of COVID, some things that the Lord is doing around unity, around hospitality, again, research of expectancy. 25:11 I think spiritual hunger is at an all-time high that I've seen. You know there's plenty of stories of the damage and the hurt and the decline of the church. But, bottom line, when you talk to the typical everyday New Yorker, they're open to spirituality. They may not, it may not, have the specificity of Christ. They're open to spirituality. They may not, it may not have the specificity of Christ, but they're open to spirituality. They probably pray. They're certainly open to energy and power. They've probably experienced evil, if not other forms of power, in their lives, and so there's a potency to alpha. 25:41 And then this desire for like unity. It seemed like any prayer gathering we were in, anything we're doing, where there was different churches, different denominations, different races. The spirit was showing up in greater power, which the Lord always tends to do to bless unity. And so a big part of stepping in as a city director we were champions of it at Wellspring to see Alpha expand into spaces for the local church to be empowered to reach those outside the church, to reach those outside the church, but also a vision for unity where, like the citywide Alpha vision that we carry got birthed, where we, as many churches that want to, in particular times and seasons throughout the year, we pray together, we train for Alpha together. 26:18 Then everybody does Alpha in their own context because the gospel will always move along relational lines. Right, we're not trying to create some big, giant brand or cohesion, it's like no, we want the local church to be the darling, really to thrive, for those relationships to thrive. But there are certain things that we can do that are better together. So then we come together and there's a retreat weekend or a day. That is part of the Alpha experience that we help host is Alpha USA, and so we have all these churches that come together, some big, some small. 26:44 We had the last one. We did had three different languages, represented over 12 different denominations, and it's this wonderful experience that each individual church couldn't necessarily pull off on their own and certainly not with that kind of diversity and potency. We were able to rent out a whole camp and retreat center and do it together and we've really seen the Lord breathe on that. We've seen many, many more churches jump in and be willing to try Alpha because of pathways like that. 27:08 And so that was kind of the heart for us saying, in the midst of like our church growing and kind of dabbling with some of these other things, just we're so grateful for what Alpha has been to us. They were like, yeah, we'll step forward in this kind of Alpha role for the city because I just feel like God's hand is on it right, it's not rocket science, it's a meal. It's I call it slow, drip apologetics through relationship, you know, over dinner. But just time and timing in, you know it softens hearts and people encounter the Lord, and so I'm grateful to be an advocate for it and just help anybody grow in that. 27:44 - Speaker 3 So a lot of churches do Alpha, but I've gotten different flavors of it. Like you said, people do differently but for you at wellspring, it seems like it's part of your ethos, um and um, even going to that event where you're explaining alpha, could you kind of just share with the audience, like what are some patterns of bad alpha and maybe, oh, we should like reassess this and then move toward like a better pattern of how to incorporate alpha and the purpose of alpha. 28:10 - Speaker 1 That's so good. So alpha is definitely not a silver bullet. I tell people it's not a program, it really isn't. It's best when it is a culture, like you said, an ethos in your church, which is hospitality, expectancy and prayer, reliance on the Lord Again. So that's the piece where the alpha can go wrong. We rely on selves. We're just so conditioned to have all the right answers to want to correct, to want to guide and really ultimately because this is under the rubric of evangelism the end goal is that we have like an objective right. 28:41 The problem is, when you have an objective which is not a bad thing fully is you mistakenly sometimes can objectify people right and so you're trying to force a conclusion at the end, and especially in this cultural moment, that's kind of the kiss of death. You know, time again you see Jesus asking way more questions. He's the one person in all of history that actually has all the answers, could do the mic drop on everything, and yet he chooses usually to follow up a question with another question. He lets people come in a little closer to explore, to follow him. He doesn't seem too urgent to force a conclusion, nor does he chase them down when they're not. It doesn't mean it doesn't grieve him, it doesn't mean he doesn't weep or contend in prayer, but he allows them. He wants to foster the seeking, because when you seek you will find Um, and so that's where saying an alpha will go. Well, when you foster an environment that is safe, that is nonjudgmental, where people truly can seek, they can get partway there. And part of the seeking is you have to allow people to get off track, uh, to get get it wrong, and not interfere in that journey, but hold space and hold genuine relationship as you continue to contend in prayer and be a genuine friend. 29:51 So my hope too is a successful off in a church is regardless where somebody goes, because anyone's always moving on a trajectory of faith right, if you're familiar with the Engels scale or anything like that, you know regardless is hopefully a genuine friendship does occur. Hopefully you really get to know somebody and their story and find genuine affection and love toward them, and then really where they go in the progression of their salvation journey isn't fully up to you. It doesn't mean you don't put it out there on some level, but that is not on you, it's the Lord that saves. It is there, yes, and so are we fostering those kinds of places where people can meet the Lord, where they see the Lord at work in us, where the gospel is put out there. 30:32 But I think more and more people are looking for examples more than they're looking for answers, and so can we literally embody that, not only personally but in the environments and the spaces that we hold. That's effective, I think, in Alpha, when your church carries that culture, when your people carry that culture where there's an expectancy there, and then when it's covered in prayer. I mean the story I tell with every Alpha, the story I preach constantly. One of my personal heroes is just DL Moody, who had 100 names in his pocket that he prayed for, for their salvation and his funeral. You know 96 or 97 of those names have come to faith in his lifetime. I think the power of prayer is a battle going on for the hearts and souls of people and we need to contend in prayer for those. The real battle is in the trenches of prayer. And then you know alpha, just a space we get to love people and introduce them to Jesus. 31:23 - Speaker 3 Could you share that story about the cat that was so good about the cat being God. 31:28 - Speaker 1 My friend, john, originally told me this story at this Alpha years and years ago. He actually has become to lead Alpha in such a beautiful way now himself really embodies this so well. But there's a woman that came to Alpha who, um, uh, one of the stories that you're everyone's getting to share openly and articulated God as a cat, and so typical evangelical tendency right would be to want to correct that theology. I mean that theology, as far as bad theology goes, is pretty cringy. You know that the Lord is a cat, and so a very normal response would have been to be like oh no, this is actually who the Lord is, or this is how scripture says typical Bible study language or these things like that. But in the alpha space and at this alpha they really honored the model. Oh, that's interesting. Tell me more. 32:13 Why do you think that allowed her not to be shut down and kind of lived with this kind of weird deviation in the conversation of this woman's image of feline God? I guess that progressed out through the weeks and that kept coming up. Ultimately they got over halfway through the Alpha course and it came up that this woman is alone, she lives alone, she has no family, she's deeply lonely, and the only good thing in her life is her cat. And so what the host came to realize is she was imbuing actually a really beautiful image of what the Lord could be and who Jesus could be in her life with her cat, the one good thing that represented, the one who allowed her not to be lonely. They ultimately then were able to use that for her to come to faith in Jesus and understand who Jesus really is, and you know what we believe in alpha right like you never get to the week five moment of her making that connection about the identity of christ and where that existentially hits a very real thing in her heart, for her to ultimately have eyes to see and open her heart to the lord if week one you shut her down in her bad theology. 33:18 You know one thing nikki gumbel says um, who's the founder of the alpha course? Uh, would just be like um, win the person, not the argument, you know. And so you could win the argument pretty easily in a setting like that. You could have won the argument that god is not a cat, but then you may never see the person again. Uh, you may not create the space in the environment for them to explore, to go on that journey. 33:39 Um and so, pretty amazing story. And there's the encouragement to ask questions, to be a good listener and to allow people to go on the journey to experience the Lord for themselves. Because there we always say to you, like you're never going to logic somebody into the kingdom, you know it has to. I think Tim Keller said that, which is interesting because he's like the best litigator and most logical speaker I've ever seen in my life, but like even a great Tim Keller monologue isn't going to logic you into the kingdom. Even Tim would say, yeah, the gospel, like the good news of Jesus, has to hit an existential place for you for it to become good news for you. So that's kind of that model. 34:16 - Speaker 3 So what are some new habits and patterns you've developed to not be that workaholic? Because you know, once a workaholic, always a workaholic. So like what are some of the things you do to kind of like prevent yourself from getting there? 34:30 - Speaker 1 Yeah. So you know, as a pastor, even I, it's a couple of different things. So I have a we're. We have membership in our church. Like I believe, I know myself enough to know that the way of Jesus is the good and right way and I also know myself enough to know that, uh, I can't get live that way on my own. Uh, so shared accountability is huge for me within our staff team, within fellow pastors that I create like core groups that ask hard questions, you know. 35:00 So, even in my best intentions, I would still say my tendency would be to want to cheat on the Sabbath of anything right. So we're really trying to create an intentional rhythm of taking a Sabbath and resting in that way and taking breaks and, um, you know, I try to pray, pray the hours, but basically like praying morning, mid day and evening, Like, am I, am I building my metric or my clock, my life, around rhythms and times where I'm never that far away from the presence of the Lord, where I'm never checking back in and being in that place. Um, so I build that for myself. But again, like I'm saying, I'm just owning that it's not just self-discipline. Like I invite people to speak into me and say, hey, man, are you resting? You know I have accountability members that will say, hey, how is your Sabbath going? So I set those rhythms, but I also share those rhythms with others and that's been a huge thing for me. 35:51 So I think I would have the best intentions in the earlier days too, and I set them, but I didn't share them with others. And so that's where I do think more and more. One thing we created with rhythms and you know, as an advocate of building out like a rhythm of life for yourself or a rule of life, if you might be familiar with that but I think ultimately, all of our rules of life need to be shared and lived out communally. Rules of life need to be shared and lived out communally and that's made the difference for me is to share my weaknesses and share my intentions and desires. I think it's John Mark Comer that said our deepest desires are not always our strongest desires or vice versa. Right, Our strongest desires are not always our deepest desires, and I deeply resonate with that, because I deeply desire to be at one with Jesus, to be a man of rest, to be a non-anxious presence, to be attuned to the voice of the Father. 36:51 - Speaker 3 But, man, I have some strong desires to like get after's this thing about like confession and voluntary like submission to others. So like, yeah, because it's so, it's so easy to hide, even when you feel like, oh, it's not a big deal, but like, yes, I can't be the judge of that for myself. You know, I need this is why I have this accountability of like I don't think this is a big deal, but what do you think you know? And so it's hard because, like you said, when you're like in a go, go, go, it's like I get the idea and I run with it and you never ask anyone else. 37:22 But now it's like every step I got to ask everybody and it's. It's such a weird, different, yet like better way of operating. 37:32 - Speaker 1 So yeah, I hear you. Quick, quick confession. It's something our team is just centering on the most, like most of our staff time yesterday was around prayer and we were talking mainly about confession. It was like are we fostering confession and appropriate enough way within our church community Cause right Confession we ultimately like. Accountable to the Lord but, like James says, we confess one to another for healing. And accountable to the Lord but, like James says, we confess one to another for healing. And I feel like the more we can live our lives where we are quick to confess, it creates so much freedom and so much healing. We don't have it all figured out, but that's really something we're really circling around right now as a community as a whole, around the value of shared confession in that way. 38:12 - Speaker 3 Yes, and on top of that, I think too often Christians think confessing is when I get caught. I need to confess but it's more like very different. Yeah, it's like no, these are the things going on inside of me that you can't see, but I feel, and the thoughts, and so I want to like share those things. How did you meet your wife? 38:31 - Speaker 1 Oh man, it's. I love the story. I understand it's a bit hallmarky, but it is my story. So we're both undergrad at college and there's Christian University and so there's an opening like candlelight devotional is what they call it. It's like a big worship night with candles out in the amphitheater at the university. And there was, we were worshiping there, I remember, and I remember standing worshiping, my eyes were closed and at some point I opened my eyes in worship and I realized, apparently at some point, all the amphitheater, everyone had sat down. Like I didn't get the memo, the people weren't standing, they'd all all sat. And I looked over and in the entire amphitheater of thousands there was one woman who was still standing and singing and belting her face off. 39:25 Uh, and it was my wife and I. I pointed to her and I said I'm gonna marry that woman. Um, I went home. I journaled about it that night. Actually, I called my brother on the. I said this is crazy. And then that journal entry from that night is actually what I used five years later to propose to her. 39:40 - Speaker 3 What was it about her that like caught your eye or caught your attention? 39:44 - Speaker 1 Unadulterated zeal for the Lord, kind of unbridled passion. She was singing for one person and that just like pierced my heart. 39:53 - Speaker 3 You need to go back to the arts and create like a movie or a script. Final two questions what are you hoping for at Faithly, oh man? 40:03 - Speaker 1 So tools are so important. I think it'd be such a great ministry tool. We need effective, smart, useful ministry tools. I'm grateful for Faithfully willing to pioneer, to create connectivity. Uh, we know unity is hugely on the heart of the lord. It can bring unity we're stronger and better together can bring greater connectivity. That's shared resourcing, but even just shared access, like there's so many times um, I can't tell you, probably how many pastors and ministries and initiatives feel like the best kept secret. Um, there's an awareness issue, there's a communication breakdown, there's just less knowledge of what's out there because you're so with right in front of you. So I hope that faith can help solve some of that. Be a voice of connectivity and then continue to build out strategic tools that allow people to spend more time on ministry and less time on logistics. 40:58 - Speaker 3 And how can we be praying for you and your family? Oh, thank you. 41:01 - Speaker 1 We are. So I guess it's twofold. So it is. It sounds lofty, right, but there's such a boldness, so we have kind of this mantra of audacious faith, such a boldness. So we have kind of this mantra of audacious faith and to say we want to live a life that doesn't make sense outside of the move of the Holy Spirit. It's a wonderful thing to say something that burns on our hearts, but when you really then start to live that way, there's an incredible amount of dependence and incredible amount of discomfort at times of yielding and waiting. 41:34 And so I think we're learning that balance as a family. What does it mean to like put yourself out there, to yield, to wait, to fully embody this posture that we want to move as we see the Lord moving, and so I think we need to learn patience, because our initiating drive is to drive, to go. We do feel a strong sense of urgency to build for the kingdom, but we want it to be initiated by the spirit, and so the primary voice over my heart and our family right is if it's birthed in the flesh, it has to be sustained by the flesh. If it's birthed in the spirit, it'll be sustained by the spirit, and we deeply want to live a life that's sustained by the Spirit. We've lived many years being sustained by the flesh, and we don't want that for us or for our kids. 42:21 - Speaker 3 That's really good. Thanks for sharing. Well, that's it for the podcast. Awesome. Bye guys, I'm going to stop this. 42:31 - 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.