Planting a Church in Brooklyn Through Prayer - David Lee

I'm thinking about how do I really cast this vision and paint this picture so that we're not making like poor, missional decisions because we need budget or because we want a certain size church, right? I think we're really trying to keep mission at the forefront. And so a lot of that starts with like we just started doing prayer walks around the neighborhood and inviting church members to come join us. Hi my name is David Lee. I'm a pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church downtown. I've been living in New York City over 19 years currently now planning to plant a church in downtown Brooklyn and this is my Faithly Story. 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 Faithly.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 Faithly Stories podcast. Can you tell me about your faith journey? My faith journey, yeah. I think my faith journey is some what's similar to a lot of immigrants who came to the United States. So I came when I was three years old and my parents had just become Christians like just a year or two before then, which meant you know any immigrant that comes to the United States, the first place you're finding community, whether you're a Christian or not, is the church, right? That's like how you survive in America. So functionally grew up in the church in the immigrant Korean church ever since I was young. And that was really important for my sort of communal and spiritual formation and like cultural identity as well. So you know, I there are like two different streams in my life. One was like the American Dream, which is why my parents came, right? Like get a good education, become really successful, but then the other stream was like, but then you're also going to church. Like every Wednesday night, Friday night, all day Sunday kind of a thing. So that was kind of my the streams of life that I lived in, which is not that unfamiliar to I think a lot of immigrant kids who came to the States. Unlike some kids though, I love church. You know, some kids felt very forced to go to church. For me, I I loved it. I felt like naturally drawn towards spiritual community. I always believed that there was a God. And I for whatever reason, I wanted to help others like draw closer to him as well. So at a young age, I felt like I was a bit of like an evangelist and a polygist sort of for the faith. At the same time though, I was also very motivated to like go to a good school, make a lot of money by my parents abends, you know, and like a house and all of that too. So grew up in the church had sort of a saving faith since I was like fifth grade at like a youth retreat, sort of a typical thing. But I think functionally though, the American dream always kind of won out. So that meant I would always be a church on Sundays, but really was pursuing a life of sort of success and wanting to make my parents proud, you know, et cetera. So ended up going to college in New York City at NYU, studied finance and became an investment banker like I was one track minded to, you know, what's the fastest way that I can make a lot of money, make my parents proud, et cetera. And that was finance. And at the same time, I was very involved in the church going on missions trips, leading Bible studies, et cetera, but it was really, you know, really the worldly dreams sort of won out that that American dream I think was really beautiful to me, more beautiful than anything else. And this kind of coincides with my calling into ministry. But when I was in New York, I discovered Tim Keller, right, surprise, surprise. And Tim was, I think the first person that communicated the gospel that brought these two streams of life together like the spiritual and the material and the kind of painted this holistic picture of the gospel that became like, oh, this is beautiful, you know, oh, I have over desires for success. And that's actually not great, you know, and so he started to really help me to see the Christian life completely differently and Christianity differently too. So even though I was saved and really accepted Jesus, when I was in fifth grade, I kind of had that second adult conversion, that like gospel dropping moment conversion when I was actually, you know, post-college working as investment banker kind of a thing. So super high level, super high level there. But my immigrant community and then Tim Keller really played a huge, huge part in it. Yeah, it's funny because in seminary, I was listening to a sermon by Tullian to Vigin. And he dropped like a bomb about what grace is and compared it to legal doesn't know. I was like, wait, what? Yes, true. And this piece true. And that's when like the gospel became color and like HD to me. And I was like mind blown. And then ever since then the entire context of what good news was was completely different from like a moral center to more of like a child likeness center of like, oh, it's relationship and not just trying to perform. So I can get you. Oh my gosh, 100%. I remember thinking like, why didn't no one ever tell me this before, you know, like one of those kinds of moments? And then you realized, oh, I've, what do you mean? Like, yeah, people are saying it the whole time. But that's when you really realize like, yeah, the Holy Spirit has to do a work in you to like really help you to see renew your heart and mind. Yeah, there was like a really vivid moment in time for me. And it came in like the most unlikely is time because I was like working 90 hours a week. And I thought when I was going to define it, my faith was going to die. Like I was ready to put my faith to the side, you know, but God really had different plans and really met me unexpectedly in like beautiful ways too. So I always kind of say 15, 20 years ago, if you told me to write down how I wanted my life to go for me to be most happy and fulfilled, I would never have written the version of my life that I'm living now, right? Now in ministry, right? But I can't imagine being more fulfilled than I am now like my life is. Yeah, it's been unimaginable how God has really met me and written my story for me. And that's like the best thing ever, you know, so. Yeah, when Jesus talks about the narrow path, it's my understanding is more it's narrow, but it's the long way home. Yeah, because yeah, whatever you're doing, if you're doing in faith, he will link it all together. And even my story of I started with seminary and being a pastor and I thought that was like it, right? And then I got burnt out and then, you know, I got into coding, but now I'm doing this faithfully thing. And like there's always a struggle to I've always wanted to go back. But recently, like I had to fully surrender, but there was always a sense of me like, but I'm kind of miss it. But I had to let that go and say, this is my new path now. And if God redirects me whatever, but yeah, my life did not turn out the way I expected, but just so much better now. Then I could have imagined. Yeah. Yeah. And I love that man. And it kind of, it's like the exhilarating freedom and fear of like totally letting go of your life actually, you know, and sort of saying, I'm not, you know, God, wherever you call, I will go, right? And that's, that's the, that's the story that I always come back to to say, well, God's got me here now, but if he calls me somewhere completely differently to something completely new, will I follow? Like is my life really totally in his hands? If so, he's proven that he knows what he's doing. He's qualified to lead me, right? So will I trust that? So, yeah, man, I like that. I think that's the life of faith. Yeah, it's the only life to live. So what happened in fifth grade? Where you kind of had this revelation. Classic, classic Korean church immigrant youth group retreat, like first time going away for the weekend with the youth group. I was like, I barely made it into the youth group, you know, I think I was going into sixth grade maybe. So, or they let me go early. And it was one of those like, you know, speaker at night. And then you go back to the cabin and people start praying and you start confessing and you start like, and like these guys that I had known my whole life, all of a sudden we're like holding hands and crying and praying together, you know. So there's like a lot of emotionalism there too, but I think I really did feel at that young age like a sense of the conviction of sin. Like I know God exists. I think I think I principally saw him as like God the Father and I knew that I had failed God the Father in lots of ways. And as small as my faith was, I think there was faith in Jesus to cover that. So like Jesus is the way to be in relationship with this God the Father. And so I think I just had enough of that where it really does feel like that's where that is where I say that was the moment that I really became a Christian because I think I did have an inkling understand of grace and it was by faith. But it was principally like a conviction of sin. I think that I felt really for the first time. So like lights are low, music is like playing in A minor keys and you're, you know, you're getting caught up in that. So I was that was definitely my coming to faith kind of story. But it's funny because it works. And I get the whole emotional side of it too because you know I kind of had to do like a whole 360 about like, oh, this is how I grew up. And then and seminars like, oh wait, emotional isn't bad. But like, but actually it's births. Like you said, that like little hint of, huh, I can hold on to this thing even if I don't understand it because it's like internally real. And then I think that's where we're supposed to kind of foster it. I'm still stuck at like, I don't know what is the right way, you know, like if youth groups are valuable because like we had those kind of experiences, but then it also has its own problems of separating from the congregations and parents, you know, taking accountability. So I guess I have a question like, what do you think about that? Like your experience going up in youth group, but now it's like we're detaching generations. Yeah, um, I've thought about this recently because I heard this podcast of these different Korean-American pastors. And they're just sort of dissecting the immigrant church experience a little bit. I think like for Asian-Americans that move to the city and go to a church like Redeemer, right, you kind of say, oh, I'm going to move away from emotionalism and I'm going to go to like intellectualism, right? Like that's like real faith, that's real grounded faith. But I think there was something in the immigrant story where we had no other place than the church to express emotion. So it makes sense that like you turn the lights down and there's some music playing and now there's like this expectation of emotion kind of to be expressed and like taps into this whole other part of you that my parents couldn't really communicate at that level with me, right? So in some ways, I think those youth group experiences in a healthy way reminded me, this is what it means to be human, you know, um, and you know, it's one aspect and it's an important aspect of what it means to be human that I think like we in a lot of church traditions, like we don't want to accept because we're afraid of like the dangers of emotionalism. And yeah, that's true, but you can't swing so far the other way kind of a thing. I think like, as I think about planting a church, right? I think now a lot about, okay, I have this Redeemer DNA that I deeply fully believe in, right? But people misunderstand sort of Redeemer as like this intellectual, professorial thing. I think Tim and Redeemer has always thought about like the full flourishing of a human being like what does it mean to be fully human is like what it means to be in Christ. That's why like your work matters, your relationship matters, you know, all of that stuff. And so I actually think the way to take a step forward as I think about planting a church is how do you help give people a vision of Christianity that shows Christians and the world around us like what it like a beautiful picture of what it means to be fully human? Not the void of emotion, not the void of intellectualism, not the void of, you know, your physical bodies is not just your spirit and your soul, but we're integrated beings. So I'm hoping that my immigrant background and youth group experiences will help inform, you know, more of my pastoral vision and philosophy of ministry kind of moving forward. And I think our world today is much more into that, right? Like 30 years ago, the only apologetic was like, you know, intellectual arguments for God. And now I think just much more of an emotional argument as well, you know, so it's kind of coming, I think it's kind of coming full circle a little bit. No, I see it coming full circle. A lot of the podcast content conversation has been like, oh, there's this like shift in culture and time and generation. I think it's a good thing. I think a lot of people, especially in our generation, are seeing it. But my thought process is always like, okay, how are we either communicating it or translating it to the next generation? Because I don't think as much as I appreciate the previous generation and all that they did and all that they went through, you know, there were a lot of gaps that need to be filled. And so I'm just so curious as to how we are being faithful to what they've done and then build on top of it, but not like in a way where we're dishonoring, but honoring, you know what I mean? I was going to say that makes me think of like two different quotes. One is like CS Lewis, I think talks about like intellectual snobbery, like the next generation always thinks that they're smarter than the one before. And then I think of, there's a missiologist Alan Hirsch, she talks about, how do you best honor your grandfather? It's not by wearing his hat and trying to wear his clothes, but you best honor your grandfather by having babies, like propagating life in DNA, right? That's how you actually honor him. So I think those are kind of loosely related to what you're what you're kind of saying. No, I love that. That's great. You already mentioned that like it was kind of like American dream, but like what were you trying to get out of it besides money? Or maybe it was just money? And then too, when did it start turning into a nightmare? So I get to share my testimony a lot because the hack that I have to sharing the gospel is basically I tell New Yorkers, I'm like, oh, when they ask me, what do I do? I say, oh, well, you know, I used to be in finances in this bank, but now I'm a pastor. And without a without a doubt, everyone asks, well, how did that happen? Right? And everyone assumes that like, oh, you were on the dark side, now you want to come to the light. And I'm always really careful about that because that's not the impression that I want to leave because I genuinely believe like our work matters, right? And there's there's a hugely redemptive aspect of all kinds of work is certainly in finance. And it's important work. And so I kind of try to say, hey, when I had that like gospel conversion as an adult, whether I went into ministry or state and finance, I think my life would have looked drastically different, right? So I don't want to paint this picture of these guys are bad and now I'm on the good guy side. So yeah, that's kind of I think one of the one of the first things that I usually kind of want to lead with about it. But you had another question, I forgot what the. I mean, the reason why I ask and why I put it in the turn between dream and nightmare is not because, I don't think environment is create nightmares. I think it's our expectation and like our dissatisfaction, right? And those are mostly internal things. And so what I'm trying to root out is like, what was the mindset and hard going in and you were dissatisfied and you weren't getting what you wanted and you got the realization, okay, this isn't for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah, I think I was really motivated by the American dream, right? Which basically has a promise, right? It says, hey, if you work hard, you can make a lot of money and then you can have all these things and then you will be happy, right? You'll have a four person household, you know, two kids, a dog and white picket fence, you know, if you just come and work really hard, like that's sort of the American dream that was sold, especially to the immigrants. And so like growing up really as a poor immigrant in like the inner city, I really did think, well, if we, if I just make enough money, like all of our family's problems will be solved, right? Like we will finally be happy. Like we won't struggle. We'll be out the hood, you know? So like I remember while I was in college in New York, like I paid for, I paid for my own college. I paid for all my bills and so I was like 14 years old kind of a thing. And I remember having like 75 cents in my bank account, living in New York City. So I couldn't even get a metro card and like I was way uptown. I had no idea how to get back downtown and this sweet lady like gave me a free swipe and I felt like she saved my life, you know? I went from that to a couple of short years later, paying off all my student loans, never really having to check my bank account, eating wherever I wanted, buying whatever I wanted, really having a lot of financial freedom, all of a sudden. And at first it was like, this is awesome, this is great, you know? And then very quickly, I think my mind and my heart kind of went to like, wait, this is it. It's just like 50 more years of this, just like more stuff and more status. And so there was I think like an emptiness that I think I pretty quickly got to. Like David Brooks, the New York Times writer, he's got this great book called The Second Mountain, right? And he talks about like, you know, you climb this first mountain of achievement and then a lot of people kind of come back down because they realize like that's not that fulfilling. So then they climb this second mountain where it's about like relationships, commitments and lots of other kinds of things. And he says some people actually achieve that first mountain and then they come down themselves. A lot of other people don't even get to go up that first mountain and they have to start to find their way toward the second mountain. I think I kind of had that first mountain top experience where it was like, wait, this can't be all that life is about, you know, there's got to be more than this. And I think faith has always been an important aspect of my life. And so I think I kind of knew where to look when I had a lot of unfulfilled sort of experiences. I think I was also someone I'm like my dad where I lived off of vision and purpose and meaning. Not everybody is like driven by that, but I think I was always driven by that. And so I think pretty quickly I realized like I gotta be doing something else. Like I don't think this is what God has ultimately called me to. And people had always sort of mentioned ministry to me. And that was always something I felt called to ever since I was younger. I just like ran like hell from it, right? Because I didn't want that to be true. But that that call always kind of stayed with me. And God really kind of came rushing back in during that kind of, you know, that crisis moment to bring ministry right back into the fold for me. So for you, were there any skill sets you learned in investment banking that transferred over to like being a pastor or an outage funding? Oh, 100%. I think number one, I was like a New Yorker. I was like a working professional New Yorker. And that's what I'm ministering to, right? So you just understand kind of like what people's experience is, you know exactly what that's like. You know why people are busy or why they feel pressure or what work feels like. So that's been hugely helpful for me, practically helpful as I pastor. And then also I think if I was at a small local congregation that'd be one thing, but I ended up at Redeemer, right, which is a large church where we have to think a lot about communication and strategy and, you know, sort of even corporate board talk for session meetings and things like that, where it just I have friends and pastors who really struggle in that kind of an environment in the sort of a professional environment because they're just not used to it. They have no experience in it, but I think I'm maybe a little too comfortable in that environment. And so I actually, the thing that excites me about church planting is I need to go out into the world. Living much more at the street level. And so that's the thing that for me kind of requires a lot more faith. But yeah, lots of transferable skills and mentally, you know, perspectives and yeah, it's I think it's only helped ministry hasn't really hindered it. So I have a spicy question for you. Okay, because one thing I see and it's such a luxury, a lot of, you know, seminary guys, they've never had a regular job. They go to undergrad, seminary and they're on this pastoral tracks and like it really is hard to understand like a lay person's life. So sometimes like they can put on realistic expectations and whatnot. So what are your thoughts on that? Do you think it should be a requirement, you know, for seminarians to like get a regular job to understand what the working culture is like? Yeah, when I when I talk to people who are thinking about seminary or ministry, this sounds bad. But I always say like don't go, don't go yet. I say don't go yet. Because if if you're called and when you're called, trust me, the Lord's going to call you, you know, you're not going to be able to run from it. Like even for me, I was two years into banking and that's kind of like when you start thinking about, okay, do I move to some other job in finance? And you know, there's this opening and that's when kind of ministry kind of came back into my life. And I was like ready to go. I was ready to change my life right then and there. And the pastor, my pastor at the time really counseled me to stay for two more years in a big reason because I had a lot of like student debt left and he was like, bro, pay that off first. So I knew I was going to go into ministry, but I stayed in finance for two additional years. And those final two years were the most formative years of my of my faith life. Because all of a sudden, like I'm thinking about why does my work matter to God? You know, when I show up, like what kind of witness am I leaving? Like why am I why am I showing up? You know, how do I want to interact with my co-workers? And so it just and I had more faith conversations with co-workers in those two years and ever. I actually brought one of my one of my bosses to faith during that time. Yeah. And then this past summer, I preached at his church that he's attending, which has been awesome, awesome, full circle moment. But I say that because God can do such a good deep work in and through you, like you don't have to be in sort of in vocational ministry. In fact, like that's not the message you want to be telling people, right? Like you want to tell your church members, all of us are called, right? We are all like ministers of the gospel. We're all profit priests and kings. And if the church pastor believes, well, I'm the only one doing church work and that's only through vocational ministry, well then, you know, that's going to come out in your pastoring too. So I tell guys, like, don't like stay, stay longer, keep working, you know, and the Lord is going to call you, like that pole is going to be there. And if you never go, it's like, all right, probably better that you didn't go into ministry because it's hard, you know, it really has to be a short calling. So I think I say that because I'm trying to get people away from like making this decision off of just a spiritual high kind of a thing and trusting that God will and can do a bunch of work in you and through you to either prepare you to be a better minister, right? Or help you to minister in the here and now versus like, you know, later on through the institutional church only. So that's usually my advice. I say tongue in cheek, but that's usually my kind of advice to guys. No, thank you, because I've been saying that for years. And when you're the only one that says something like that and no one believes it, they think you're crazy. You need other people who have life experience, because here's the thing, it's not essential, right? To work before being a pastor. But there are so much more benefits besides the experience. It's just you're just also older. Do you know what I mean? And the image I keep getting is like literally being a pastor is like the NFL, but we treat it like it's a college game. And it's like, bro, like you it's a college game when you're not the senior pastor, right? And you're just running a department and you kind of do whatever you want because no one pays attention. But like, yeah, if you're in like the top leadership stuff, there's like so many things that happen just because people complain and people are wrong and people fight. And yeah, so I love the fact that you give that wisdom because yeah, it's just so necessary just to understand there needs to be character development before, you know, you do anything. Yeah, anyone who is like super confident and can't wait to be like a leader, they've clearly never led and been a lead pastor before. Like clearly, you know, I've talked to like so many church planters where they come out and they start leading and then they start having all of these feelings of affection toward their previous senior pastor that they used to look at and say, man, I can do a better job than you or like, man, why did you make those decisions? Like, you're a whack. And then they start leading and they're like, I'm so sorry I ever thought that about you, you know, so countless church planters and shared that with me too. So, where did you go to seminary? What's a Westminster in Philadelphia? Yeah, you're good to graduate. 2018, 2018. So you're far out. I was 2013. Okay. What was your experience at Westminster like? I'm super curious. So first of all, I met my wife at Westminster. So that was great, fantastic. And now she's a corporate lawyer. So we kind of like switched paths a little bit. I was like, home girl, I'm going into ministry already. So if you want to be a lawyer, I'm cool with that. Yeah, you know, I started working at Redeemer after my first year of seminary. So three out of four years, I was basically going back to New York like every week. Yeah, me too. And I remember, and I remember someone said to me, like, your church, your church should shape you more than your seminary. And that was really, that was really important for me and really helpful for me. So I would say Redeemer and Keller and the pastors here shaped my seminary experience more so than just Westminster. So all that to say, I think I received a lot of great things from it and I can see it in a positive light. But it's also because I wasn't seeking everything from it. Like I was getting tons of pastoral experience and pastoral theology and sort of a groundedness and a rootedness at Redeemer right through the leadership here. And so I look at it fondly. I have like some of my closest friends and seminary roommates are from Westminster. And it was kind of a little bit like college 2.0, you know, you're playing basketball and you're, you know, you're studying late and you're eating bad food at night and you know, things like that too. So yeah, I appreciated it. But I also wasn't like in the inner circle groups of, you know, Westminster types. Meaning that for you. Yeah. No, I hung out with just my roommates. I wasn't studious. I was like, I can't do the classroom thing. So what I did was I literally just asked for the lecture recordings, right? And I took the syllabus and all the notes. And during finals week for like a week straight, I would just listen to everything in 2.0 speed and then consume the content. And so I would be knowing as the guy that shows up the first week for the syllabus and then midterm and then the final and then wow. I got my roommates and I got by so I think it gave me a good foundation. And it kind of gave you names to reference so that now in pastoral ministry, I'd be like, oh, I want to read Sinclair Ferguson on the Holy Spirit again, you know, or whatever it is. And that that's been helpful too. Yeah, seminary really shaped my mind, especially with my roommates, challenging me because I used to see a lot of stuff because I grew up charismatic. So like, I never was caught how to think systematically and in logical arguments. And so like, I remember like the first class I had was apologetics with all of it, right? And he's saying all these words and I'm like, googling what the heck is these allergies? I have no idea. Let's go. My first seminary class, you're like googling like every other word, right? But usually Google is like, did you mean eschatology like this? But there are times where I'm like, I don't even know what letters to start to type for Google to help me, you know? And then what's funny about seminary, especially at Westminster, is you go from that and then like nine months later you act like you know everything, you know what I mean? Like, come on. It doesn't, it doesn't create the most humble, humble folks. So again, that's why I think your church should shape you more than your seminary, because seminary is designed for something else in a lot of ways, I think. But yeah, my mentor, he said, Westman is four years to graduate, 10 years to get out. You mean those extra years after like, oh, this isn't everything. This isn't the absolute truth of God's words. It's just an understanding, okay. You know, so I'm doing my doctorate of ministry now at Fuller, right? Oh wow. Yes, I'm doing my demon now and Fuller is just a very different school than Westminster. And it's wonderful to kind of know what you believe and then go and interact with lots of different folks with different backgrounds like that. That enhances your learning and your humility and your listening like so much. I actually think that's been, that's a move in this sort of newer generation, it's a newer generational move, I think too. In general, like people are much more willing to speak across tribes than ever. And all that to say, I would, because I went to Westminster for my MDiv, I would, I was definitely not considering it for like any further degrees, because you're just going to get more of the same, right, versus kind of getting a diversity of views, which I think is really, really helpful, you know, the older that you get to. Yeah, I love that you said that. I really think it's not a matter of should I go or not to this school and that school, it's if I go to this school, then can I supplement it with a broader perspective on other things. But I do love Westminster for their like blackened whiteness for what they believe because it gave me at least a structure to test everything. And at the end of the day, I love the core idea of like grace, you know, faith alone, the solace, right? Like that's like my guiding principle for any theological thought. But yeah, I definitely, definitely had to shed a lot of the arrogance that comes when you feel like I'm writing it wrong. And that's a problem in like, you know, in the kinds of like pastoral character formation to like it's tough because you're trying to get young guys to really balance out like conviction of truth and not letting truth go with like this humility, you know, this desire to learn and to grow, you know, versus like I've got it all understood in this tightly packaged, you know, presentation. There's this really fascinating concept called DDOs, like deliberately developmental organizations. So it's like written by some sociologists called like in every one culture. And it basically talks about like the pathways of adult development, right? And so people used to think that your development in your brain starts as a child. And then as an adult, there's no real development. But people have studied this now over like 50 years. And it's like it's shown, no, adults can develop. But it takes like a lot of work and like different things that have to happen versus for kids. If you just give them food, shelter, safety, they'll just naturally develop, right? But for adults, it takes a lot more. Yeah. So these like sociologists are trying to think about like what helps adult development. And they kind of outlined three like phases of adult development. And the first is like the what's it called? It's the socialized mind where you're just finding belonging. So like the first place you start is like, who's my tribe? Like how do I know I'm good? You know, who's like me? Who are my people? And the analogy there is like I just want to be in the car, right? Like I don't care where we're going. I just want to be in the car. And then from there, you have to go toward the self-authoring mind. I think that's what it's called. And that's kind of like, well, regardless of what other people think, I have a stronger moral like a moral compass like a yes or no. I'm not just going to do it because everybody else is doing it, right? So it's sort of a debt. Oh, I think it's the self-differentiated mind. Right? So there's a lot more self-differentiation. And then the final one I think is the self-authoring mind. And that's what you kind of become a citizen of the universe. And you can deal with contradictions way better. You're more empathetic to others who have different points of use. So like I think that's super fascinating because like at the bottom is like tribalism and like, you know, it's all about just belonging. Are you in or you're out and then at the way over here? I think it's like, you know, it's like more like Jesus, you know, people who he's like eating with tax collectors and sinners and not afraid to quote unquote get dirty with other people, you know? And so part of it is like coming back to Westminster, there's a lot of like phase one, you know, like do you belong or you in our clan? And I think hopefully pastors and others who get trained there can grow to become more and more tolerant, accepting, connecting with others who are not totally like you, not being a jerk, you know, like in your character. So sorry, that's a bit of a tangent. But that I think that's a thought that's just been ruminating my head for a little while. So no, that's fabulous. I'm definitely keeping that in. That's such a good way to see what happens. Like you learned something new, you think that's the absolute truth, and then you got into worlds like, oh, wait, actually, you know, right? Something you want. And then you get to, oh, actually, as long as I believe in what I believe, nothing can scare me. Why am I so angry at other people? That's the evolution I went through. Right, right. And then at that final phase, you're actually much more like for the sake of others, you know, like how do you become for how do you love your enemy? How do you like lay down your life for the sake of others? How do you love across difference? All of these things that come from the Christian faith, if you are only in this like tribal kind of you versus me, are you in or you're out? Like there's no way that kind of mentality or heart or spirit is ever going to cross lots of dividing lines in order to like say, hey, I'm going to love on you. I'm going to serve you. I'm going to seek your good over mine. So yeah, I think a lot about that because I'm again planting a church. It's like, how do you bake that into the culture of your church? Like how do you help adults and Christians move through that kind of a phasing in discipleship as well? So that like the church and the community really feels like like good news to our neighbors who are like loving other people versus just taking care of ourselves and our tribe. So that's a perfect question to ask you. How are you trying to do that with your church plan? By thinking about it like this, I'm like, oh, that's a good idea. How about let's start with one, where is the location? Why you pick it and your heart for this church plan? Yeah, so my wife and I are planting a church in downtown Brooklyn. So that's sort of South Brooklyn kind of across the Brooklyn Bridge, you know, across the Manhattan Bridge kind of that area, which is the fastest growing neighborhood in all of New York City, the fastest changing neighborhood in all of New York City, the fastest growth of millennials actually, which I thought was fascinating and interestingly, the fastest growing Asian population moving into a new neighborhood. Yeah, part of that is because like the zoning laws in downtown Brooklyn changed like five or six years ago and since then all these high rises are being built, all these new luxury apartment buildings. So downtown Brooklyn has kind of turned into much more of an extension of Manhattan. So you'll find a lot of people who are working in Manhattan, but now are choosing to live in downtown Brooklyn. And that makes it tricky because Brooklyn's history is like generations of different folks, you know, like the wealthiest black people like a hundred years ago all lived in downtown Brooklyn, you know, and now it's getting pushed out, it's getting gentrified like crazy. So so that's the area that my wife and I are planning to plant at that's where we live currently too. We moved there about a year and a half ago after I've lived in Manhattan for 17 years and then moved to downtown Brooklyn a year and a half ago. Not because of this church plant, but we got called in for the affordable housing lottery, which is fantastic and and we had a lot of our existing church members at redeemer downtown who lived in downtown Brooklyn. So it was like a missional movie, it was a communal move for us and then lots of different things sort of happened at our at our church at redeemer downtown where it just made a lot of sense for us to plant a church there. There's a lot of um, missional energy already from members of our church who are living there. They've been asking about a church in downtown Brooklyn for for many years now. And yeah, it feels like the the burrow and that neighborhood is changing so much and just feels like a new church community that's helping to be for the good of Brooklyn could really I think be good for the neighborhood and be a part of a conversation that's rapidly changing. So yeah, that's sort of the the background of why and where a little bit. So how do you go about thinking about a strategy to be like a blessing on the neighborhood? Because a lot of churches, you know, yeah, they have these campuses and whatnot and I think they start off trying to target the neighborhood, but a lot of times they're just commuters, you know, so they never reach their neighborhood and my whole thing is like the reason why I'm such an avid believer in the local churches because I think everyone should be able to walk to church. Like that's my hope and dream that if you can walk to church, that means you're in walking distance of like your community. So yeah, how do you go about thinking about that? Yeah, yeah, great question. Obviously, something I've been I am currently thinking about a lot and it's still a work in progress, right? But I really go back to the founding DNA of Redeemer. I think about when Tim and Kathy Keller planted Redeemer in Manhattan in 1989, like what were the animating principles back then? And they were always trying to plant a church to actually reach those who are living here, right? Like a lot of the the quote unquote the special sauce or the DNA of Redeemer was Tim and Kathy's commitment to really understand the folks that were living here and understanding their their spiritual hearts, their desires, their joys, their pains and then really trying to apply the gospel to that, like asking that question afresh and trusting that the Bible has like wisdom and good news for those very questions. So everything that Redeemer did from the beginning was trying to answer that question and that's at the heart of our DNA. Now what happened over the past several decades was Redeemer got so big and Tim got so big that inevitably every institution it becomes an institution, right? And there becomes structures and you kind of move away from that mission. There's like a lot of mission creep that inevitably happens. But I fundamentally believe the core of who we are we've always been animated by that. And so in downtown Brooklyn I'm excited to kind of take that fame seed and plant it in downtown Brooklyn and to do that thing again, right? Ask those questions, do what Redeemer's always done and seeking to be a church not for ourselves but for the good of New York City of the people around us. Like Tim would tell all these stories about he would have countless conversations with people you know secular atheist New Yorkers working professionals who would never step foot in a church right and just spent a lot of time listening right understanding learning. Now Tim and Cathy had no thought or desire to make this into a huge mega church but God did that right but that was never their intention. And so I think I think about that a lot because I think if my if our secret intention is to have a big church then I think we will always make poor missional decisions right and we will get away from asking those key questions and seeking to really fill those needs that God is revealing to us of like how we can participate with him for redemption and renewal in downtown like if we are motivated by like many church planters are motivated by butts and seats and hitting budget numbers to get sustainability if that's our true goal well then I can talk all of this missional rhetoric right but at the end of the day it will only be about how do I get more people to come regardless of where they're coming from right. So I think about that a lot as we begin and even in like my fundraising model I'm thinking about how do I really cast this vision and paint this picture so that we're not we're not making like poor missional decisions because we need budget or because we want a certain sized church right I think we're really trying to keep mission at the forefront and so a lot of that starts with like we've just started doing prayer walks around the neighborhood and inviting church members to come join us and like when we announce the church plant like hundreds of people are so excited but then when we invite them to come and pray it's like four people show up right. True believers. Well and it's kind of like I think we we as leaders want to model this is the most important thing that we could be doing right now we want to just partner with God and just pray we want to have we want to pray for people we want to pray and walk around and ask God to give us eyes to see like God where are you already at work like what what's the hurt where where are people mourning where's the hope that we could bring how do we listen just become a humble conversation partner versus like redeemer coming down and dropping a big satellite campus here and then taking over you know so I think like we are trying to live that out personally and hoping that that kind of catches fire with people and we'll just kind of build it from there you know so unlike some other church plant models where it's like we're going to send out hundreds of people and you're going to have this fully big service I think we're really trying to kind of grow in a slower kind of a way in order to maintain and prioritize that missional core and that vision and not get all the tracks from that because otherwise I think we're just kicking the can down the road you know like I've I've sort of said that coming full circle back to the immigrant church I've I've told people that I think redeemer is like the Korean immigrant church in that way like 30 years ago the Korean immigrant church was growing like crazy all over the United States because it was based on immigration patterns right so again you're an immigrant that moves to the states the first thing you're looking for is a church community right and they're these little enclaves of like immigrant communities centered around the church but now if you look at first generation Asian immigrant churches they're all dying off and they're all like grandma's and grandpa's why well because their model was predicated off of immigration patterns right and immigration patterns are virtually zero coming from from the from Korea so similarly redeemer right now we have tons of new people coming every year but when you really talk to them and you ask like oh how did you find us it's always oh well we know Tim Keller which means any new Christian that moves into the city we are like one of two or three churches that they're going to check out right which means like we just have this continued tailwind of like existing Christian immigration now five 10 15 years from now like with those immigration patterns still be the case I don't think so and so one of the big mission reasons of why we're wanting to plant this church is because we want to help the church at large like reach again unchurched and deturched people instead of just fighting for existing Christians who are coming into the mix and into the fold I'm not saying that's a bad thing right like Christians need a place to be discipled to grow to grow into a missional sort of disciple but I think we're just kicking the can down the road if we just create churches for Christians right and I think church plants are like missional be it like innovative missional vehicles like you can try a bunch of new things you can experiment you can have very different factors and constituents and stakeholders who won't be like so upset if you are doing like changing music or children's ministry or outreach programs so I'm really looking forward to being able to add to that conversation to help all of the churches in the Redeemer network and hopefully other churches to like reach New Yorkers again you know not just Christians who are moving to New York yeah I love that I think something that's been changing my mind about church planting is even the word planting because the model I see is more like a birth of like yeah you can have similar DNA but you should actually be a brand new thing right because like I see a lot of churches kind of just cloning themselves rather than saying oh hey these are the core values but in your context in your neighborhood and your people it's going to be different so like go do different things and be a different church and that's just what I hear you're saying and I love the fact that you're doing that yeah it must be different right again going back to that Alan Hirsch quote like how do you best honor your grandfather it's not by wearing his hat and trying on his clothes and trying to look like him it's like have babies your DNA is like going to come out or his DNA is going to come out in a new living being thing for a different time in place right so now like I'm fully on board with this stuff and then like when I get to the nitty gritty I find myself even like kind of getting like forgetting that right so it's like a constant reminder for my wife and I to really keep that at the forefront and it's kind of going back to this idea of like God's in control I'm just like holding my hands wide open like he can do with it whatever he wants and not to have a lot of preconceived notions of what that has to look right so that's like the exhilarating nature of planting a church it's like scary in a lot of ways but also really exciting if we do it that way and hold to that kind of a mission and a vision but that's why your core team is so vital that it's not just a bunch of yes people or just like fresh out of school like oh I don't know anything I'm gonna do whatever you say it like you want pushback you want challenges you want people with different experiences because like I'm on this kick about like I really think God wants consensus and anything we can't like agree on would she just table it because the one thing we can always agree on is crisis learning king right and if you can't agree on that then I don't know how I could call your brother or sister but like there's just so many things yeah and even you know running this startup like there's actually like many different ways to get to the same goal and once you realize that then you don't really get caught up in the nitty-gritty because the question always comes back to what was the goal was it accomplished yeah right yeah then you no longer have ego it's because it's all about the mission yeah dude I've been I've been reading and listening to a lot of things on startups right which faithfully obviously is because to me like a church plant is a startup like that's the thinking that you have to have and I think it's so I think there's so many great parallels I think it's super fascinating and yeah like at the end of the day like the mission trumps right and if it's truly a startup then you're gonna try a whole bunch of different things to accomplish that mission so I love the parallels to church planting in a in startups man if you have good book recommendations send them send them my way I stop reading all my content is on YouTube I say I am a student for YouTube University do you know why combinator why combinator no no you should YouTube them follow their channel and just consume everything they say but change money and profits to like faith and then in that context it makes a total sense because in the in the in the business world like the capital is like your lifeblood right you have the capital you're gonna die so that's kind of like trying to stay alive and they call it default alive or dead and to some degree like your organization functionally yeah you need capital right but yeah yeah the church part is hard because now you're also dealing with people but those same principles apply when you understand okay we're not trying to get their money but we're trying to get their trust right or maybe that's a better way to say it like yeah trust and that's another kick that like the Lord's really helping me hone in on is like it's a trust game and in a crowd in a church or any you know self-contained population it's an economy of just trust right so like how are you earning it yeah so I've had like spiritual directors I've had coaches and counselors and man how much insecurity or shame and guilt kind of impacts you as a leader and then like you think you've really been dealing with it and you're like oh I see myself and I'm okay I'm gonna react differently and then six months later something else happens and then you find yourself reacting the same way and I remember my coach was like you know that's expected because as you grow your life is only getting more and more complex and so you've worked it out when you were here but you have to continue to work this like this is going to be with you for a lifetime right your your insecurities about this or your shame or your guilt or your traumas and your woundedness from this you're just gonna have to continue to work at it right it's not like you just get over it one day and it never comes back you have to continue to work at it because life is gonna get complex and it might you know show you a different side of you again you know so which is kind of disheartening because you're like no just give me the pill to eat and just to be better you know so I have a couple more questions so COVID really like ship things up for the church world right and I think it proved that a lot of churches were not ready right is that in the back of your mind of like how can I build a resilient culture of discipleship so that if the next pandemic comes people won't be just wasting away at home and they'll know what to do or like do you have a strategy for what that happens yeah um again the the doctor of ministry that I'm doing is literally it's on leading change and it's kind of trying to address the crisis of discipleship and how basically church leaders are not equipped for the task that is at hand right in a rapidly changing world in in a grey zone in a world of like crisis after crisis that is bound to kind of come based on you know what our world network looks like now yeah COVID is certainly I think exposed the fact that we were not as discipled as we all thought we were just because we were attending church or we were in a community group or we're a professing Christian right like our character showed right what we really trust in showed um how the kinds of lives we were living really I think kind of showed so I think about that um COVID as a revealer I think like okay how do we equip people for the next crisis and the crisis after that right whatever might really shake the foundations of our world um whatever might come down the pike and I think yeah I think a lot of church leaders are rethinking and retooling like just an hour and 15 minutes Sunday worship is not enough to disciple our people right to have like the character and spiritual formation that we need for this life if we're gonna live a faithful life like it's just not enough so yeah I think about that a lot but I also think about it in the way uh of it being an adaptive challenge right so I know that there's not gonna be some technical solution like better preaching or you know whatever that's gonna fix it and so part of it is signing up for the journey to continue to walk with your people to be like a learner myself and to constantly be looking at my own formation and you know what's going on in me um and then sort of sharing that journey with with a congregation and seeking and seeking the same thing together right um I think the old model church is like I am the specialist uh that knows more than you the guru that can teach you so just follow me and I think moving forward it's like who who was the covid pandemic guru you know who is gonna be the George Floyd racial reconciliation guru like none of us right crisis another crisis is gonna come and so we just need to um inhabit it together and learn together and you know seek Jesus in it so super vague basically saying I don't know like I don't know the answer can I say what does that look like or maybe for you personally what did you learn that you thought is working and then you realized it wasn't working and so you had to change your mind about it so um during the pandemic like literally like March and April I think it was April of 2020 our senior pastor stepped down or he took a leave of absence right so we're like one month into the pandemic and I was kind of like you know the young the young buck hot shot kind of like be like oh we should do this we should try this like come on let's you know let's do these things and when he stepped down it was kind of like all right David like what do you want to do like let's go and um it was like Mike Tyson saying you know everyone's got a plan until you get punched in the face like that's that's really what it felt like because nothing you did no bright idea was ever gonna work it was really gonna work you know and then George Floyd happened and I felt like super ill-equipped to like even speak into you know those kinds of things and so now I'm like oh I'm not I'm not the leader meant to lead you know I don't know how to lead during this kind of thing and the more pastors that you talk to in the world that was like the same experience that everybody kind of had you know um so yeah I've had I've had lots of moments throughout the past couple of years like realizing okay again you haven't really led until you felt that fire and felt like that criticism or people yelling at you or being upset with you and um so yeah that was certainly I think that was my early introduction into it and so I think as I think about leaving a church plant I think you know I'm not gonna have some magic bullet that's also just gonna work you know I think it's just like I think if anything I've learned this feedback loop and this cycle has to just continue to go like I have to keep listening to myself to other people I need to keep listening to God you know and like I don't know where this journey is gonna take us I don't know what it's exactly gonna look like I don't know necessarily what our church community if it's healthy and flourishing what that's really gonna look like you know but I think I know the things that are unchanging you know we're gonna be a community that's that's got to love one another really well that's got to bring good news hope and flourishing that's like tie to God's word and his truth seeking his grace like those things are unchanging right but it's like how do you live into those things where it's like I'm seeing myself bare fruit personally and then therefore leading in a way that helps others to do that right so I don't know man you know there's like I feel more convicted than ever about some things and then less convicted than ever about other things you know and hopefully those things mix in a way that God is leading us in it births something healthy and beautiful yeah as I get older I just feel like God is refining me in a way where my understanding is a lot simpler than trying to construct a full proof plan that is like future proof but really like yeah no there's just too many who are very old and you know one of the joys of the Christian life and you know I forget this often but like a verse that's like drilled into my mind is if my people will humble themselves and turn their wicked ways and pray I'll heal their land and I feel like that's something we need to get back to you so even like you doing prayer walks I think that's an amazing thing because our first response as Christian should always be to pray first right yeah because it's not our response that's important it's God how do you want me to respond to this and yeah we've grown up with too many methods and formulas and techniques rather than like no at every moment of my life like I can't be too short this is what God wants especially for the complex stuff I think you bring up a good point and I think that's inherent in how we're starting like again it's not like the big the big mothership dropping down with this like strategy and here's the franchise model of like here's the menu and here's what are you gonna do and it's just yeah I think that's where it's like starting much more from a humble or root and starting with prayer and saying God we don't know what this community ultimately needs to look like apart from what you are leading us to right the kinds of leaders you want us to be the kind of heart that we want you to give to us for your people here and so that that's kind of where it's like we as a leader I have to I have to resist the temptation to have all the answers I have to resist the temptation to say here's the strategy that's gonna work that's gonna keep you safe my friend you know like only thing I can do is like invite you into this time to pray with us and like walk with us you know and for some people that resonates for others it doesn't others are like what's your children's ministry strategy what's your what's your preaching calendar gonna be and I'm like hey great questions you know I don't know and I'm okay saying that and you know that that kind of again is like are we staying on mission for what the Lord wants to do it and through us so how can people be following you and your journey supporting you on faithfully yeah so through your help started a faithfully group which is also new to me I think it's in beta testing it's new I think to all of us and I think I'm still trying to figure out how to do it but the the thing that I think really encouraged me to start it is I want to be able to look back as well to see oh what was God doing in and through this right through its humble beginnings um what was what was I praying for like how did we see God answer prayers right and so in some ways it kind of feels like a a cool way sort of a public diary of kind of how God is is leading what are the things that I'm maybe trying or hoping for and then just inviting others to share in that journey whether they're kind of just learning alongside us praying for us or with us or like they're a part of the church plant and they're going with us and they're adding their own bits of the story to it too so very much like this church plant the group I don't know what it's going to look like I don't have like a nine month strategy of like what we're going to be posting but I think I just want to be I want to be tracking with with what what and where God is leading us and I want to just be able to share that with the faithfully community um and if that can spark like different prayers for other church planters or conversations right like oh we're planting a church like we've done this have you thought about this like I think that would be great too but um I think we're just open to sharing our our story with others and inviting others to come along with us yeah it's great um how can we be praying for you your wife in the church plant yeah um I think principally for spiritual protection like that's just really been kind of on our heart um people have sort of said like you're you're going to be tested you and your wife you'll be tested like nothing before um and so it's not really like the strategy stuff or the planning stuff or the people stuff that we're that worried about I think it's not letting the enemy get a foothold especially in our marriage um making margin for one another and we're we're taking a deliberately slow ramp to launch this we're still probably about like 12 to 18 months out from a public worship service and so it feels manageable now but I think with every week that goes by it's getting more and more and more complex and I just want to really guard our marriage um because I I view her as like a primary partner in this in a co-planter and so that's kind of been what we've been asking folks to to pray for at least for now all right well this was great nice talking to a piece of your brother yeah thanks man you're you're like you're like the Joe Rogan of the of the PCA now you know uh I'm like good to be like it's like an association because I'm not officially PCA but yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's funny that's funny well that's it for the podcast guys right 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