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Serving the Senior Pastor - Kevin Bugingo
What if faith could be your guiding light through the darkest of times? Join us on Faithly Stories as we welcome Kevin Bugingo, who shares …
Oct. 28, 2024
Serving the Senior Pastor - Kevin Bugingo
What if faith could be your guiding light through the darkest of times? Join us on Faithly Stories as we welcome Kevin Bugingo, who shares his journey from the chaos of the Rwandan genocide to a life dedicated to ministry. Kevin's story is one of resilience and transformation, highlighting how his childhood experiences amidst violence and his family's escape shaped his profound belief in the power of connection and God's presence.
Kevin's path wasn't always clear, as he initially pursued a successful business career before feeling called to ministry. His initial reluctance and skepticism about religious leaders transformed through his involvement with a parachurch ministry, leading him to realize the incredible impact of uniting diverse Christian communities. Kevin's journey demonstrates how his business acumen became a vital tool in supporting pastors and building healthy congregations, illustrating the unique role of strategy and leadership in faith-based communities.
In this heartfelt episode, we also explore the significance of building genuine relationships within church leadership and the broader faith community. Kevin shares his experiences in stepping into an executive pastor role, the challenges he faced, and the creation of the XP Gathering—a supportive network for church leaders. This episode is a testament to the strength found in faith, love, and unity, and the essential role of connection in growing God's kingdom. Be sure to stay connected with us at Faithly Stories for more inspiring narratives from the front lines of ministry.
(00:01) Surviving Childhood Trauma and Finding Faith
(13:29) Seeking Safety and Finding Connection
(21:06) From Business to Ministry
(34:01) Journey of Faith and Change
(41:51) Building Relationships in Church Leadership
(51:49) Building Faith Community Connections
Chapters
01:00 - Surviving Childhood Trauma and Finding Faith
13:29:00 - Seeking Safety and Finding Connection
21:06:00 - From Business to Ministry
34:01:00 - Journey of Faith and Change
41:51:00 - Building Relationships in Church Leadership
51:49:00 - Building Faith Community Connections
Transcript
00:01 - Speaker 1
So I recall this militia guys coming through pointing guns at my brother, pointing guns at my sister, point blank in me, recognizing that man, like if I remember, at 11 years old just already, thoughts going in my head of man, if anybody touches my, my, any of my siblings, any of my, my family members, like, I'm ready to join the militia group. That's. You know, that's coming to. You know, take over and just kill everyone. You know, like cause I was cause. It was real, that's coming to take over and just kill everyone Because it was real. Hi, my name is Kevin Bugingo. I am married to my beautiful wife, Nikki, 16 years this July. I'm a girl dad and I'm dealing with a high schooler. So having fun with that and I grew up as a missionary kid and man just God led me to loving the church and excited to just be part of what God is doing through the local church. And this is my Faithly Story.
01:18 - 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.
02:00 - Speaker 3
Could you tell me how your faith journey started?
02:02 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so, yeah. So I kind of, I kind of grew up as a missionary kid. My parents are originally from Rwanda and they were coming to the US for studies, so my parents initially came in the late 70s and I was born in 82. And so I always knew God, always was in the church. But honestly, really the times that I really saw and recognized God being real for me was when so my family moved back to Rwanda in 1992.
02:40
And if you know a little bit about the Rwandese story and if you know a little bit about the Rwandese story, 1994 was the big genocide. And man, like, experiencing such hatred, such craziness with people, really made me start asking myself, at 11 years old, you know, how can this happen? How do people switch like this and what is the solution? And man, just seeing God's faithfulness with my family through the turmoil and getting out of that situation safely, I just had to literally just be like man. This God that I worship, you know, on week to week, that my parents talk about, must be real, because there's no way my family could have gotten out of this, you know, alive this way, and a lot of my other extended family as well. So, yeah, so fast forward a little bit.
03:38
So I got baptized at 13 and then fast forward, but my walk 13 till, I would say, 26-ish it was really more of a, I believe, and let me follow these rituals and we follow this process, but more so, I think, when I turned 26, I was an adult, I was married and I had to kind of decide like, okay, I'm going to own this relationship with God and I'm going to walk it through fully. And ever since then, in 2009, when I truly committed my life to Him, it was a game changer and he just started working me and transforming me and all my yeses just brought me to a closer place with him and my faith with him and trusting him greater and taking bigger faith steps and landing me in ministry, which was like the last resort that I ever wanted to get into. Yeah, that's a little bit of my story.
04:46 - Speaker 3
Could you share a little bit about that experience?
04:49 - Speaker 1
One were you born there, so I was actually born in Michigan when my parents were out here for studies, but yeah, so a little bit of the story for me. It was, you know, for me, like I just recall, waking up on a spring break and just hearing these, this news that I guess was devastating was starting to build some tension between the two tribes. The Hutu tribe was the one that was in power at the time and the Tutsi tribe that was kicked out and had been out of the country for about 30 years. You saw them trying to come back and take power and I recall, sometimes, since where we were located was close to Uganda, and sometimes like the threat would get close to where we lived and we would have to, like you know, leave our home and go more in like the city and stay there for a bit so I could see and feel the tension.
06:06
But when that incident happened with the president, it was, it was devastating and you know, I just recall, you know people knocking on my, at my parents' house and mobs of people just looking for you know, are we hiding and are we hiding any Tutsis? And are you Tutsi? And you know, are we hiding any Tutsis, are you Tutsi? And you know guns being pointed at my siblings because they look Tutsi, and we're hiding. At the same time, too, like people are coming to our house. So we were on a campus, on a Christian university campus, and my dad was the vice president of academics, so he was high up there in leadership, and so a lot of people felt like they would be safe at our house and we would, I remember, like hiding, you know, we're hiding people in our ceilings, in our bathrooms, in our, you know, our sheds in the back, and some are hiding in we have like a little farm cornfield, hiding in the cornfields and just like, so there's a place of, like we want to protect. But then also, you know, we're also our lives are in danger. But understanding like man, like we can't allow these people, we can't put these people out in front to just understanding like man, like we can't allow these people, we can't put these people out in front to just be murdered, you know, so it was like it was a crazy traumatic experience, even just recognizing the differences, because so, so a little bit of the culture, a little bit of the history there was back in, I think, the early 1900s.
07:46
The Belgians colonized the country and then, at the time, they started creating these documents and trying to identify people, and so they, somewhat, they started to split up people based off of what they look like, and so that's how they created the Hutus Tutsi tribes. Before we were just one group of people, same language, same culture, all of that. And your culture, or your tribe, was based off of your dad. And so, whatever your dad was, you became, but there was still a lot of inter intermarriage between the tribes. Um, and so you, you looked, everyone kind of looked the same to a certain degree, or they looked one or the other, while at the same time, like you're, it's only based off of what your dad is.
08:40
So so for me, going to that incident when people were barging in and seeing who we, you know, if we're two t's, etc. So for me, going to that incident when people were barging in and seeing who we, if we're Tutsis, et cetera, so for me, I looked Hutu Because my dad is Hutu but he looks Tutsi, because his mom was Tutsi but his dad was Hutu. My mom is Hutu, both parents are Hutu. So my siblings, my older sister, my older brother, they look Tutsi. And so I recall these militia guys coming through, pointing guns at my brother, pointing guns at my sister, point blank, saying that these kids look Tutsi, we're going to take them out and kill them. And I'm like, but they're my siblings, how does it even make any sense? And so there's a confusion there and a big frustration that was being built up in me, recognizing that man. If I remember, at 11 years old just already, thoughts going in my head of man, if anybody touches my, my, any of my siblings, any of my, my family members, like, I'm ready to join the militia group. That's, you know, that's coming to, you know, take over and just kill everyone. You know, like cause I was cause, it was real and it was and and, uh, didn't even understand it, just getting mad and frustrated at what was happening. And so, yeah, I mean, it was like incidences like that that was just so traumatic.
10:14
Obviously it was, by the grace of God, getting my family out. We were on a campus that had a lot of foreigners and so if you watch Hotel Rwwanda, you recall like all the foreigners were able to get out of the country through the un. So me and my sister were americans, uh, and minors, and so they were able to get my family out because of our citizenship uh, with america and leaving with a few foreigners. So we left a little bit earlier than most people did during that time. But I do recall, man, one of the hardest things I do recall we had to do is leave.
10:58
At the time, I wanna say he was five my five-year-old nephew was staying with us for spring break and I remember we had to leave him because his family was like in another city. So we left him with a trusted family that's actually related to his family but a little bit more extended. But I remember having to leave him. We had to leave him and not necessarily knowing if he was going to get to his parents, you know, safely, but trusting that the family was going to take care of him, which they did, and he eventually did connect with his family. But you know in a situation like that that everything was uncertain, even us, like how our safety and our parents safety was uncertain. To get out was was kind of crazy.
11:53 - Speaker 3
But yeah, man, that's so crazy like, yeah, like all the bs that we use to separate people and like make them different than us and then use that as a reason to hate. It's just well, yeah. So what was the kind of missionary work your parents were?
12:15 - Speaker 1
doing so. My parents, my dad, has always worked for the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, so he's always been in higher education, and so the Seventh-day Adventist denomination has a ton of Christian schools all over the world, and so he specifically was working for a university out in Rwanda. So he was always in either a registrar or in a leadership position in universities.
12:46 - Speaker 3
For those for the Aventus school so when you were able to escape um, how did that experience shape you and your understanding of like growing?
12:57 - Speaker 1
in faith, yeah, um. So I think really working and seeing, um, god showing up in the time of the escape was mind blowing. And I think that's when I was, that's when I started to recognize like, yeah, cause it was so many different barriers and obstacles that we had to go through, and it was just like miracle upon miracle, like it wasn't, it wasn't like, oh, it was a formula we did this, do this, do this and then, boom, you're out of there. It was a lot of even just getting out of the country. They had closed the border for any Rwandese at the time to go into Congo, which is, I think, the Republic of Congo right now, which previously was called Zaire. They had closed the border. And so my brother, my older brother, my mom, my dad, had Rwandese passports and so for them to get out, that was a miracle alone how they, they opened the the border for them and I recall us kind of sitting there for a while hours waiting and to a certain degree, they want, you know, I recall they were trying to detain my dad, um, at the time, and and seeing him get out and seeing them release him, then we get, we cross over, and then it's like then even financially. How to you know? You know, we ended up moving.
14:33
My brother was at a boarding school in Kenya and he was on spring break and so he had to go, you know, sending him back to the boarding school in Kenya, stationed in Ivory Coast, which was somewhat like the division or somewhat of a headquarters for the Adventist church in Africa. And I recall even just the process of my dad getting a visa to Ivory Coast. There was a point where they retained him in Kinshasa, zaire, for a moment. They wanted to send him back. And so sitting there and waiting for that to resolve and then finally settling in Ivory Coast and feeling safe and feeling feeling literally like hey, we can, we can breathe a little bit, because before that in rwanda, when all of that happened, I recall we weren't eating, like my mom would like make amazing meals and I remember, like those, the house is smelling amazing, but none of us are eating because it's you're so in it and tense and don't even know what the next knock on the door is going to create.
16:01
At night you're hearing grenades going off, maybe 100 yards away, gunshots going off, all these crazy things that were happening, things that were happening, and so being able to see God's hand of protection showing up in each point of our escape and getting out and keeping our family together was a miracle. And I just knew, like man, this only could be. It has to be this God that I, that I, you know, that I worship, has to be real. And and crazy enough, I guess there's about me, you know, out of the many people in the world because, honestly, you know, I say, I say sometimes, when I share my, my testimony, I honestly knew at a man there was thoughts in my head of if anything happened to my family, like I'm out and killing everybody, like going and grabbing a machete, grabbing a aka and joining the militia and just killing all these kutus who who, um, either killed or hurt my family.
17:18
And it's crazy to think that, with a turn of events that could have happened, the Kevin Bugingo that you're speaking to right now wouldn't be here, probably dead by the age of 13.
17:31 - Speaker 3
Yeah, that's crazy how our lives can look drastically different in one moment. Yeah, so how did that help inform you, as a pastor too?
17:43 - Speaker 1
I think the reality for me was that I started to see broken people Because, I mean, there were so many stories that I heard of Like man, me and you, danny, we're grabbing lunch today, and then tomorrow or next week I'm coming knocking at your door asking you to come out and like killing you. You know what I mean. It's like how crazy is that? How can people switch like that? And I think what made me start to understand, it made me help, it helped me start understanding the impact of sin in our lives, and it really came from a place of. I feel like it comes from a place of, of, of rejection, you know, and lack of lack of love for one another. Um, and so for me it just as I kind of explored that further and um again, I've like at that time I was moving almost every four years At the time if it was either like we're in the US, we're back in Rwanda, we're back in the US, we're back in Rwanda, and then the war happens, and then we move to Albuquerque, and then on top of that, this is early 1994 or mid-1994. Then eventually, at the end of 1994, me and my family moved to South Africa, and so that's another crazy experience because, like apartheid just ended, nelson Mandela's becoming president, I'm experiencing a whole nother culture shock, with white people calling themselves africans, um, and then still seeing, and then so we moved kind of early and so you're seeing a lot of, uh, you're still seeing some signs of apartheid, like where, like, bathroom signs are like white bathroom, black bathroom, white white, um, water fountains, but like, I still saw that and it was weird but they treated me different because I was a foreigner or American, but you could still see the tension between the white and black. And then all of a sudden there's a group of this whole nother group of people called coloreds and I'm like what?
20:14
Like it was so crazy to experience that, but one of the biggest things, especially in South Africa growing up now I'm like a preteen teen learning how to. I was learning how. I was learning a trait in me that I didn't know was going to transform and be somewhat one of my superpowers, which is learning how to connect with anybody. I learned the universal language for people is love. If I can connect with what you're interested in, or if I can make you feel like you're seen, if I can make you feel like you're heard, man, I got, I got your ear, I got your trust, I got your acceptance.
21:04
Um, and and and that and so cause, cause. In Africa, in South Africa, I'm like hanging out with blacks um, learning close up, you know, I'm hanging out with the whites. One of my best friend was no-transcript love, and so that started leaning me towards. Okay, the real solution isn't just loving people in my own capacity, but really loving people through Christ's love capacity and directing them to the perfect love and helping them find the real solution and the real void that we're all seeking to fill.
22:16 - Speaker 3
Thanks for sharing that. That's so amazing. So could you tell me what was your progression like of being called into ministry and your struggle of like, oh, do I really want to do this? Because I think I saw on your LinkedIn you went to business school and so you were in business for 15 years, and so what was that experience like in transitioning into?
22:38 - Speaker 1
a pastor yeah, I I never desired to get into ministry because, again, like, I was always around theologians in in higher education and I just saw them as hypocrites. Man, like a lot of them. It's's like you know they would be preaching or you know, talking the word, all those things. But then I also see you trying to holler at this girl. You know you're meeting up like what odd hours you having those 10 pm Bible studies. I was like you guys, you guys are playing around On top of that.
23:16
You know, growing up as a missionary kid there was like the stigma right Of man, when you serve God, you got to be poor, you know, or you got to like sacrifice, you know so so much for your family and because I would see so many different opportunities my dad could take that would benefit our family financially. And in my head I'll be like why, you know, why are you preferring to? You know, sacrifice, for you know, you know this is my childhood, you know, childhood type mind, that's like that's, that's like thinking man, if you get that job, then you know you can buy me a better car. Or, you know, buy me better presents, you know as a child, or something like that for Christmas. But man, like I think that I started to lean in and look at what the impact was and so, financially for me, I pursued business. I always kind of had an entrepreneur mind, I think I guess I always seen that when I was younger. So I first pursued accounting, my accounting degree, my undergrad in accounting, then an MBA in finance, ran my own consulting company. I was doing great.
24:43
Two years into it, well, probably around that time, I started to get involved with the parachurch ministry in New England, massachusetts, and it was really launched from a place of really trying to create revival in Boston and Boston's kind of similar to New York very, very somewhat post-Christian and a lot of intellectuals who believe that, hey, we can explain everything and we don't need faith and so and on top of that, I personally think because it's cold in that area, people are cold in general so we were just these young guys who just believed in revival, and so one of my good friends, zenza Motoga, now leads Impact Church in Boston just had this crazy vision and dream of man. What if we unified the body of Christ? I mean John 17, 21, like what if we just believe that if we gather the body of Christ and worship Jesus' name, that we can see Jesus be Lord over the city of Boston. And so we started it. He started it. I joined a few years later and, man, I started to get involved with it and it was so real, so authentic, so just impactful for me.
26:17
I think, 2009, again going back to the day where I really committed my life to Christ, it was through one of those events. It was a big worship. It was a worship night we did at MIT and I went up and I was like, hey, I wanna recommit my life to Christ. And ever since then, you know, I got more involved and I just saw the power of God's local church. When they come together, man, he really, it truly is true when he says it in Psalms 133, man, that he commands a blessing when we're in one accord, and it was. I mean we were mobilizing from Catholic to hyper-Pentecostal I mean black, white, old, young and it just felt like heaven and I was like I want more of this. But I started to recognize that the solution, the real in-depth issues, are really coming from the local church. This is great, serving the, you know, mobilizing and doing a parachurch thing, it's great and it's needed. But there's deeper rooted issues that we can't experience at a parachurch level if the local church isn't healthy, experience at a prayer church level if the local church isn't healthy. And so I started to work, I started to create a. Well, I feel like God started to create a hunger in me to serve the senior pastor. I saw senior pastors were gifted with speaking with. Their theology was solid. Their theology was solid. Even their preaching and just leading vision casting was great. But the execution, the development of people and systems, was a struggle at least that I saw. And so I just felt like man. Maybe I can be part of that solution again with my business background, understanding strategies, and I didn't necessarily understand how much more strategy and leadership I had in me until I just kind of stepped into it so fast forward.
28:31
You know 2013,. I was just praying about it and just seeking God's direction on that. He just spoke to me and just said hey, I want you to again. Mind you, at this point I'm connected to a ton of churches in New England because the movement had grown tremendously across New England. New England states, like different states, were doing their own nights of worships. I was leading a night of worship in Worcester, massachusetts, and so I knew I had a lot of options in the New England area to serve as senior pastor.
29:03
But God calls me and my family to move across country. Basically, it was December 2013. Here's a faith story December 2013, god speaks to me and says I want you to move your family, march of 2014, across country to Riverside, california. Help your brother-in-law who had planted a church out here and learn from him. And I was like what this is like three months from now? You want me to move my family across country. And that's crazy. I'm running my own consulting company. I have.
29:40
Most of my clients are virtual, but I had one major client that I was going to regularly in-house, fast forward much of 2014,. Me and my family are here in California for a two-week vacation and we end up staying. At the time even my wife was hesitant was when I told her in December of 2013,. She was like she was like hell, no, we're not moving across country in three months, like that's crazy. There's so much God is doing here anyways. But I just, you know, I felt compelled to it, but I was like hey, god speaks to both of us, it's not just me and we need to be in one accord. So I left it alone.
30:27
But come to a two-week vacation and, mind you, there was a time where I was going to pack a suit for that trip, just in case I have opportunities to connect with some clients or whatever, and add some new clients. She took that suit out, she was was like we ain't doing, no, we're this a vacation, we're not trying to find no opportunities out in california. And so in the middle of our vacation, my wife comes to me. Uh, we're, we're visiting my cousin in san diego and she's like you know what God, god spoke to me. You know he did. He did say he did tell me that this is the next move. And I was shocked. I was like, wow, man, god, you do like. Okay, so you, I do hear you, you know what I mean.
31:17
And so so that last week of vacation I literally just jumped on Craigslist and just looked for clients, new clients out here. And it's crazy that Monday we're packing up, flying back, getting ready to fly back, I get two calls, two potential clients who wanted to meet with me, and I asked my wife I'm like hey, what do you want to do? Do you want us to fly back and come back after I schedule these meetings or do you want to just stick around another week or two? She's like well, we're flexible, let's stick around another week or two. Literally that Friday I closed both of them and one of them was a really large client. That just made sense. It just made the sense to stay.
32:09
And my wife is a worship leader and has always been in church leadership but is also a social work by profession and so my brother-in-law's church brought her on a stipend-type deal to help lead worship for them and Easter was coming so we had to stick around for Easter and then we eventually went back in mid-May to literally sell everything, get rid of everything and just send some boxes and start all over out here. So that's kind of a little bit of a faith story of how we got involved and again in ministry. Prior to that I was always serving in the local church to a certain degree. I was an elder at a point, leading our youth ministry, but this time I really wanted to just lean in and actually really get to understand the senior pastor's role and what they deal with on a day-to-day basis. How do you really grow a church? What are the dynamics that go through that and managing and growing a church and some of the things that you think through as a senior pastor. So I started off like, literally, we were a mobile church, so set up and tear down Eventually started leading our ushers team Eventually was ordained that year, started leading a youth ministry we had like five kids, grew that to over 100 kids, launched our junior high ministry, our high school ministry, developed a team within a year and a half and passed it on and then transitioned into the executive pastor role and so have been in that space since.
34:01
What convinced her, you know, Holy Spirit, that was, was it like? What was she fighting too? I think I think what could you know what? What convinced her again was like the holy spirit just spoke to her that, hey, I'm calling you and your family to riverside to serve and and learn and grow in ministry. I think what she was fighting, you know. So for me, you know you always talk about how, like God, compliments and brings the right person to you as a husband or a wife. And you know again, my story is, I've learned I was moving almost every four years in my life. So change is easy for me.
34:47
For her, she's originally from Malawi. Her parents came to the US when she was two and moved into this small city, which is crazy enough, the same city or town I should call it that. I was born in Berrien Springs, michigan, and so her family has been in that same town since she's been two. So this is like 1983 or something like that. So all she knows is consistency and rhythm and you know the norm.
35:26
And for me, I'm like I get that change itch every four years, like I got to change something. So for her, you know, when I gave her three months, god's calling us to move, she's like what? No, like we, we gotta process this for a year. So for her, she was like maybe in a year, you know, we could be ready for this move, uh, but three months, that's crazy.
35:52
And and so for me, again, for me, I've, again I've, I've had two incidences in my life where we had to uproot and just move like literally um across, you know, cross nations and so uh. So I'm like I know I can start over with nothing for her and she's like I mean, we got, we got roots. Just it's like if more so, it was because we she was living in michigan when we got married, she moved to massachusetts and so she felt like I'm just now getting roots here in massachusetts and now we gotta uproot and go across country, like that's crazy and so um. So yeah, I think I think for her you know it's it was just the process of seeing how would this come together and her learning how to just trust the word of God and just to trust what the Spirit was speaking to her and know that he's never wrong and always has the best for us. He's never wrong and always has the best for us.
37:02 - Speaker 3
No, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, because for a long time my life was like hers, because I was just in one place, even though I moved around, but it was within the city, right, yeah, and I started moving a lot, and then it taught me like, oh, starting from scratch is not a big deal, it's a little rough in the beginning, but you get used to it.
37:24
So I'm totally with you. I guess she had no idea who she was marrying. She was like I thought I was going to get this consistent guy, we're going to stay in Brooklyn, no, I don't know. So that brings me to my natural.
37:45 - Speaker 1
Usually I end with this how did you meet your wife? Yeah, yeah, um, so me and my wife, uh, knew each other since we were kids, probably six, seven years old. Um, this was the second time me and my family came back to the us. My, my dad, went to michigan state. So, um, michigan state lansing michigan, is about two and a half hours away from Berrien Springs, michigan, where I was born. So there's an Adventist university there called Andrews University and it's kind of like the mecca of Adventism. All theologians typically around the world would go there to get their MDiv and stuff like that. A lot of, like foreigners would go there to go for school education. So one of my uncles was going to school there and was really close to my wife Nikki's family, and so so when we would come, like every other, you know, some weekends would just come out and you know, hang out with them, do church with them, et cetera, and so I remember, you know. So that's kind of like where we met like a long time ago as kids. But you know, when my family moved back to Rwanda this is before Facebook and all these social spaces where you can track people or find people so we just lost contact, didn't even know what she even looked like.
39:15
Fast forward, both our senior years in college, we randomly meet at a wedding knowledge, we randomly meet at a wedding. And so I remember she was, you know, me and my cousins walk in. She was managing the guest book and, hey, she was looking good. This is I always tell the story like this because this was right before or right after Wedding Crasher came out. And so again, like, this is, I'm single, my cousins are single and we're like, hey, we're about to get the most numbers at this wedding ever and let's see who gets the most numbers. And I remember, boom, first person we saw, and we're all like, okay, let's see who gets this number first. All like, okay, let's see who gets his number first. And um, so so we get into the ceremony.
40:10
The ceremony wraps up and we walk. I walk out and she's talking to my older brother. I see her talking to her and I was like, oh, perfect, like, because my older brother he's already like engaged in some. Like he was in the, in the, um, he was in the, the groom's party, and so, um, so I'm like, easy, he was in the groom's party and so I'm like, easy, he's going to do a quick introduction. Boom, I get the number On to the next.
40:32
As I get into the conversation I find out it's Nikki from way back, and so that's when it was like okay, I can't, she can't be one of those numbers I'm trying to find, and so fast forward. We end up exchanging contacts. She ends up never calling me for a whole year. We eventually reconnect when I came actually to do my MBA at that school Andrews, that amateur school and we reconnected because she had just finished her undergrad and moved back home and we reconnected, started dating, ended up doing two and a half years long distance because I couldn't afford that school, couldn't find a job. So I moved back to Massachusetts and we did two and a half years long distance. Because I couldn't afford that school, couldn't find a job. So I moved back to massachusetts and we did two and a half years long distance and got married in 2008 damn.
41:28 - Speaker 3
You have such a wild life. There's so many things like go just right for you. Oh so I have a question what is XP Gathering?
41:47 - Speaker 1
Yeah. So XP Gathering is a network for executive pastors. So again, like I stepped into executive pastor role, like I literally created the job for me. When I was at my brother's church my brother-in-law's church, it's called Relevant Church I just saw a leadership gap and felt like there was a need for an executive director. Because in my head I knew in corporate you had like a CEO COO and I was like we need a COO for where we're at. We were growing so fast. We need a COO for where we're at, we were growing so fast and we needed somebody to manage our operations, like the whole system and process of what we do. And I didn't know what role. So I started researching and I found this like, oh, there's an executive pastor thing, role that exists in churches. So I literally created it for myself, for the need of where we were at and stepped into it.
42:45
Never went to Bible college, never went to seminary any of that. All the theology and teachings that I was built I just built it through just me learning, reading books, being coached a little bit by my senior pastor, my brother-in-law and some other people. I did a school of ministry that we were running at the church for the summer. So it gave me a foundation. But in regards to my imposter syndrome, creeping in because it's like man, I don't know what I'm doing For the most part, I don't think I do. Creeping in because it's like man, I don't know what I'm doing for the most part, I don't think I do. It got me into a place of feeling lonely, feeling misunderstood, feeling unsupported.
43:31
And so, fast forward 2019, I'm part of this panel at CBU, cal Baptist University here in Riverside, and it was a panel. The business department was trying to engage business majors to think about a track into executive pastor role, and so I'm on the panel. The business director goes to our church, right, so our church maybe at the time is running about 600-ish or so. But I mean, I'm on the panel with three of our largest churches in in Riverside. One of them is like Greg Laurie's church I don't know if you know Greg Laurie harvest running at their peak to 20,000. Uh, another one is sandals church running like at the time, maybe 5,000, and another one's the grove running about five.
44:18
And so I feel like a little bit intimidated. You know, I'm like you know these guys who've been in this roles for years, and but you know. You know I step in boldly, knowing what God has called me to, but still I come to find out after the fact. None of them have ever connected with each other, but I knew there's our senior pastors have. Like, I know my brother-in-law was meeting with some of those senior pastors and he knew them directly and had contact, and I was shocked that the three largest churches in Riverside are not connecting specifically as executive pastors, who I know are the ones who literally know every detail resource need that the church has, and they're not connecting. I was shocked and so I just asked them. I was like, hey, do you guys? Are you guys open to just connecting and just seeing where it goes? Let's just see where it goes, and so we connect. Dan Zimbardi of Sandals hosts us end of December of 2019.
45:19
And we came out of that meeting asking ourselves what would we like from this? And the main thing was we're not necessarily seeking coaching we all have our preferred coaching and consultants that we work with but we were really seeking peer relationships. We just needed people who are in our space, who are dealing with similar things that we're dealing with, that we can just connect with and feel like, hey, I'm not alone, feeling the tension between, sometimes, the XP and the senior pastor, the tension between, you know, drilling down the vision of the senior pastor down to the staff and not you know, but still the staff feeling loved by the senior pastor, like being that bridge between them. You know, constantly, you know having to wear multiple hats because you know a position is dropped or somebody quits and you just got to step in or make sure that place, that role and responsibility, is filled. So XP Gathering really started from a place of helping those in the second chair build relationships that are resourceful for each other and creating a space for replenishment.
46:40
Because the reality is a lot of these stats out there, barna, all those are sharing stats about senior pastors wanting to quit.
46:48
But if you really, I think, if you really looked at a stats of, like, those in the second chair and I'm talking about I'm not just talking about executive pastors, I'm talking all the way down to, like, the youth pastor, to, you know, to the admin, those who quit, that retention of those groups of people, man, I think it's so much higher because it's like, because they just feel like, hey, I don't need to make an announcement that I'm feeling like I want to quit like because nobody.
47:17
They feel like nobody cares. But XP Gathering, we've created a space. Like man, we do care because we do believe that you are called too, just the same way as a senior pastor has been called, and you have a purpose to advance this vision at this church, or let me say specifically, in God's church. You have been called to take on this responsibility to grow the kingdom of God, and so don't quit and go back into the marketplace. Let's help you find a safe place where you can be replenished, you can be resourced, you can be in relationship that supports you and encourages you and builds you up to find, to stay in your calling. So, yeah, it's a little bit what we do. Yeah, that's exactly to stay in your calling.
48:02 - Speaker 3
So, yeah, it's a little bit what we do. Yeah, that's why, that's exactly why we create faithly, just because, like when I was, a pastor. I did like children's ministry and youth ministry, and like I had to do it all by myself, I'm like someone else probably made this mistake. Who can?
48:14 - Speaker 2
I learn from yeah.
48:17 - Speaker 3
And it's so crazy that, like, like we're trying to reach, like, there's like five churches in the same area but they don't talk to each other and we're reaching the same people and it's like why can't we? Just share resources, so it was just mind boggling. Yeah, what are you hoping for at Faithly?
48:33 - Speaker 1
Yeah, what am I hoping for at Faithly?
48:35
For me, at Faithly, I'm believing for the community of God, the kingdom of God, to come and win a court.
48:44
I see so much potential in it in regards to even with the main core of our vision. The underlining goal of our vision with XP Gathering is, like man, if we can bring more ministry leaders, pastors together and build trusted relationships. My belief is that now we can start opening up and having conversations in regards to what my resources are and what my needs are, and I believe man, if we can be in a community that's safe, we can start solving problems from a place of the church serving each other Now God's church serving each other, so that no local church has any lack Living out to where there's no lack in the local church because we're being able to resource all of our needs. So then we can actually go out into the community in one accord and actually have true impact and not mini kingdom impacts. We can have true kingdom impact, and so that's kind of my belief and I'm excited about what Faith Leaves is putting together, because you're bringing the local church together and creating a safe community there.
50:04 - Speaker 3
So yeah, and how can we be praying for you and your family?
50:09 - Speaker 1
Man, that's a good question. So there's, you know, we recently this year, we've had a few family losses, that integral family losses, my, my wife's side, and it's kind of revealed. She's had to work through, uh, you know some hard we've had to work through some hard, um, just just uh, trauma, childhood trauma, stuff, and even you know that that just not only it, initially it feels like it's ah, it's painful. But, man, what it does create is more intimacy. What it does create is more character. What it does also create is more understanding of self, and so that's exciting.
50:58
It's an exciting season to be in. We are raising a high schooler in California, while still helping her develop her own mind and her own understanding of who God is, still also trying to navigate the parenting side of it. You know, trying to navigate the parenting side of it, and you know how do you parent well and be a good steward of that, while still releasing and trusting God in her personal walk. But yeah, I think you know the managing. I would say managing our emotional growth at the same time, uh, managing our parenting, our parenting, uh, high schooler.
51:47 - Speaker 3
All right, that was great. Thanks for coming on, kevin.
51:49 - Speaker 1
Yeah, man, thank you, danny, for this. I love, love, what you're doing and excited about again faithfully, and uh the work you guys are doing there and uh needed, it's needed and and even more so I say, right now we're living in an age where uh information is out there and man but but connection isn't, and so uh keep doing this. It's needed, especially for our faith community thank you okay that's it for the podcast.
52:19 - Speaker 2
Bye guys, all right, cool 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.
So I recall this militia guys coming through pointing guns at my brother, pointing guns at my sister, point blank in me, recognizing that man, like if I remember, at 11 years old just already, thoughts going in my head of man, if anybody touches my, my, any of my siblings, any of my, my family members, like, I'm ready to join the militia group. That's. You know, that's coming to. You know, take over and just kill everyone. You know, like cause I was cause. It was real, that's coming to take over and just kill everyone Because it was real. Hi, my name is Kevin Bugingo. I am married to my beautiful wife, Nikki, 16 years this July. I'm a girl dad and I'm dealing with a high schooler. So having fun with that and I grew up as a missionary kid and man just God led me to loving the church and excited to just be part of what God is doing through the local church. And this is my Faithly Story.
01:18 - 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.
02:00 - Speaker 3
Could you tell me how your faith journey started?
02:02 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so, yeah. So I kind of, I kind of grew up as a missionary kid. My parents are originally from Rwanda and they were coming to the US for studies, so my parents initially came in the late 70s and I was born in 82. And so I always knew God, always was in the church. But honestly, really the times that I really saw and recognized God being real for me was when so my family moved back to Rwanda in 1992.
02:40
And if you know a little bit about the Rwandese story and if you know a little bit about the Rwandese story, 1994 was the big genocide. And man, like, experiencing such hatred, such craziness with people, really made me start asking myself, at 11 years old, you know, how can this happen? How do people switch like this and what is the solution? And man, just seeing God's faithfulness with my family through the turmoil and getting out of that situation safely, I just had to literally just be like man. This God that I worship, you know, on week to week, that my parents talk about, must be real, because there's no way my family could have gotten out of this, you know, alive this way, and a lot of my other extended family as well. So, yeah, so fast forward a little bit.
03:38
So I got baptized at 13 and then fast forward, but my walk 13 till, I would say, 26-ish it was really more of a, I believe, and let me follow these rituals and we follow this process, but more so, I think, when I turned 26, I was an adult, I was married and I had to kind of decide like, okay, I'm going to own this relationship with God and I'm going to walk it through fully. And ever since then, in 2009, when I truly committed my life to Him, it was a game changer and he just started working me and transforming me and all my yeses just brought me to a closer place with him and my faith with him and trusting him greater and taking bigger faith steps and landing me in ministry, which was like the last resort that I ever wanted to get into. Yeah, that's a little bit of my story.
04:46 - Speaker 3
Could you share a little bit about that experience?
04:49 - Speaker 1
One were you born there, so I was actually born in Michigan when my parents were out here for studies, but yeah, so a little bit of the story for me. It was, you know, for me, like I just recall, waking up on a spring break and just hearing these, this news that I guess was devastating was starting to build some tension between the two tribes. The Hutu tribe was the one that was in power at the time and the Tutsi tribe that was kicked out and had been out of the country for about 30 years. You saw them trying to come back and take power and I recall, sometimes, since where we were located was close to Uganda, and sometimes like the threat would get close to where we lived and we would have to, like you know, leave our home and go more in like the city and stay there for a bit so I could see and feel the tension.
06:06
But when that incident happened with the president, it was, it was devastating and you know, I just recall, you know people knocking on my, at my parents' house and mobs of people just looking for you know, are we hiding and are we hiding any Tutsis? And are you Tutsi? And you know, are we hiding any Tutsis, are you Tutsi? And you know guns being pointed at my siblings because they look Tutsi, and we're hiding. At the same time, too, like people are coming to our house. So we were on a campus, on a Christian university campus, and my dad was the vice president of academics, so he was high up there in leadership, and so a lot of people felt like they would be safe at our house and we would, I remember, like hiding, you know, we're hiding people in our ceilings, in our bathrooms, in our, you know, our sheds in the back, and some are hiding in we have like a little farm cornfield, hiding in the cornfields and just like, so there's a place of, like we want to protect. But then also, you know, we're also our lives are in danger. But understanding like man, like we can't allow these people, we can't put these people out in front to just understanding like man, like we can't allow these people, we can't put these people out in front to just be murdered, you know, so it was like it was a crazy traumatic experience, even just recognizing the differences, because so, so a little bit of the culture, a little bit of the history there was back in, I think, the early 1900s.
07:46
The Belgians colonized the country and then, at the time, they started creating these documents and trying to identify people, and so they, somewhat, they started to split up people based off of what they look like, and so that's how they created the Hutus Tutsi tribes. Before we were just one group of people, same language, same culture, all of that. And your culture, or your tribe, was based off of your dad. And so, whatever your dad was, you became, but there was still a lot of inter intermarriage between the tribes. Um, and so you, you looked, everyone kind of looked the same to a certain degree, or they looked one or the other, while at the same time, like you're, it's only based off of what your dad is.
08:40
So so for me, going to that incident when people were barging in and seeing who we, you know, if we're two t's, etc. So for me, going to that incident when people were barging in and seeing who we, if we're Tutsis, et cetera, so for me, I looked Hutu Because my dad is Hutu but he looks Tutsi, because his mom was Tutsi but his dad was Hutu. My mom is Hutu, both parents are Hutu. So my siblings, my older sister, my older brother, they look Tutsi. And so I recall these militia guys coming through, pointing guns at my brother, pointing guns at my sister, point blank, saying that these kids look Tutsi, we're going to take them out and kill them. And I'm like, but they're my siblings, how does it even make any sense? And so there's a confusion there and a big frustration that was being built up in me, recognizing that man. If I remember, at 11 years old just already, thoughts going in my head of man, if anybody touches my, my, any of my siblings, any of my, my family members, like, I'm ready to join the militia group. That's, you know, that's coming to, you know, take over and just kill everyone. You know, like cause I was cause, it was real and it was and and, uh, didn't even understand it, just getting mad and frustrated at what was happening. And so, yeah, I mean, it was like incidences like that that was just so traumatic.
10:14
Obviously it was, by the grace of God, getting my family out. We were on a campus that had a lot of foreigners and so if you watch Hotel Rwwanda, you recall like all the foreigners were able to get out of the country through the un. So me and my sister were americans, uh, and minors, and so they were able to get my family out because of our citizenship uh, with america and leaving with a few foreigners. So we left a little bit earlier than most people did during that time. But I do recall, man, one of the hardest things I do recall we had to do is leave.
10:58
At the time, I wanna say he was five my five-year-old nephew was staying with us for spring break and I remember we had to leave him because his family was like in another city. So we left him with a trusted family that's actually related to his family but a little bit more extended. But I remember having to leave him. We had to leave him and not necessarily knowing if he was going to get to his parents, you know, safely, but trusting that the family was going to take care of him, which they did, and he eventually did connect with his family. But you know in a situation like that that everything was uncertain, even us, like how our safety and our parents safety was uncertain. To get out was was kind of crazy.
11:53 - Speaker 3
But yeah, man, that's so crazy like, yeah, like all the bs that we use to separate people and like make them different than us and then use that as a reason to hate. It's just well, yeah. So what was the kind of missionary work your parents were?
12:15 - Speaker 1
doing so. My parents, my dad, has always worked for the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, so he's always been in higher education, and so the Seventh-day Adventist denomination has a ton of Christian schools all over the world, and so he specifically was working for a university out in Rwanda. So he was always in either a registrar or in a leadership position in universities.
12:46 - Speaker 3
For those for the Aventus school so when you were able to escape um, how did that experience shape you and your understanding of like growing?
12:57 - Speaker 1
in faith, yeah, um. So I think really working and seeing, um, god showing up in the time of the escape was mind blowing. And I think that's when I was, that's when I started to recognize like, yeah, cause it was so many different barriers and obstacles that we had to go through, and it was just like miracle upon miracle, like it wasn't, it wasn't like, oh, it was a formula we did this, do this, do this and then, boom, you're out of there. It was a lot of even just getting out of the country. They had closed the border for any Rwandese at the time to go into Congo, which is, I think, the Republic of Congo right now, which previously was called Zaire. They had closed the border. And so my brother, my older brother, my mom, my dad, had Rwandese passports and so for them to get out, that was a miracle alone how they, they opened the the border for them and I recall us kind of sitting there for a while hours waiting and to a certain degree, they want, you know, I recall they were trying to detain my dad, um, at the time, and and seeing him get out and seeing them release him, then we get, we cross over, and then it's like then even financially. How to you know? You know, we ended up moving.
14:33
My brother was at a boarding school in Kenya and he was on spring break and so he had to go, you know, sending him back to the boarding school in Kenya, stationed in Ivory Coast, which was somewhat like the division or somewhat of a headquarters for the Adventist church in Africa. And I recall even just the process of my dad getting a visa to Ivory Coast. There was a point where they retained him in Kinshasa, zaire, for a moment. They wanted to send him back. And so sitting there and waiting for that to resolve and then finally settling in Ivory Coast and feeling safe and feeling feeling literally like hey, we can, we can breathe a little bit, because before that in rwanda, when all of that happened, I recall we weren't eating, like my mom would like make amazing meals and I remember, like those, the house is smelling amazing, but none of us are eating because it's you're so in it and tense and don't even know what the next knock on the door is going to create.
16:01
At night you're hearing grenades going off, maybe 100 yards away, gunshots going off, all these crazy things that were happening, things that were happening, and so being able to see God's hand of protection showing up in each point of our escape and getting out and keeping our family together was a miracle. And I just knew, like man, this only could be. It has to be this God that I, that I, you know, that I worship, has to be real. And and crazy enough, I guess there's about me, you know, out of the many people in the world because, honestly, you know, I say, I say sometimes, when I share my, my testimony, I honestly knew at a man there was thoughts in my head of if anything happened to my family, like I'm out and killing everybody, like going and grabbing a machete, grabbing a aka and joining the militia and just killing all these kutus who who, um, either killed or hurt my family.
17:18
And it's crazy to think that, with a turn of events that could have happened, the Kevin Bugingo that you're speaking to right now wouldn't be here, probably dead by the age of 13.
17:31 - Speaker 3
Yeah, that's crazy how our lives can look drastically different in one moment. Yeah, so how did that help inform you, as a pastor too?
17:43 - Speaker 1
I think the reality for me was that I started to see broken people Because, I mean, there were so many stories that I heard of Like man, me and you, danny, we're grabbing lunch today, and then tomorrow or next week I'm coming knocking at your door asking you to come out and like killing you. You know what I mean. It's like how crazy is that? How can people switch like that? And I think what made me start to understand, it made me help, it helped me start understanding the impact of sin in our lives, and it really came from a place of. I feel like it comes from a place of, of, of rejection, you know, and lack of lack of love for one another. Um, and so for me it just as I kind of explored that further and um again, I've like at that time I was moving almost every four years At the time if it was either like we're in the US, we're back in Rwanda, we're back in the US, we're back in Rwanda, and then the war happens, and then we move to Albuquerque, and then on top of that, this is early 1994 or mid-1994. Then eventually, at the end of 1994, me and my family moved to South Africa, and so that's another crazy experience because, like apartheid just ended, nelson Mandela's becoming president, I'm experiencing a whole nother culture shock, with white people calling themselves africans, um, and then still seeing, and then so we moved kind of early and so you're seeing a lot of, uh, you're still seeing some signs of apartheid, like where, like, bathroom signs are like white bathroom, black bathroom, white white, um, water fountains, but like, I still saw that and it was weird but they treated me different because I was a foreigner or American, but you could still see the tension between the white and black. And then all of a sudden there's a group of this whole nother group of people called coloreds and I'm like what?
20:14
Like it was so crazy to experience that, but one of the biggest things, especially in South Africa growing up now I'm like a preteen teen learning how to. I was learning how. I was learning a trait in me that I didn't know was going to transform and be somewhat one of my superpowers, which is learning how to connect with anybody. I learned the universal language for people is love. If I can connect with what you're interested in, or if I can make you feel like you're seen, if I can make you feel like you're heard, man, I got, I got your ear, I got your trust, I got your acceptance.
21:04
Um, and and and that and so cause, cause. In Africa, in South Africa, I'm like hanging out with blacks um, learning close up, you know, I'm hanging out with the whites. One of my best friend was no-transcript love, and so that started leaning me towards. Okay, the real solution isn't just loving people in my own capacity, but really loving people through Christ's love capacity and directing them to the perfect love and helping them find the real solution and the real void that we're all seeking to fill.
22:16 - Speaker 3
Thanks for sharing that. That's so amazing. So could you tell me what was your progression like of being called into ministry and your struggle of like, oh, do I really want to do this? Because I think I saw on your LinkedIn you went to business school and so you were in business for 15 years, and so what was that experience like in transitioning into?
22:38 - Speaker 1
a pastor yeah, I I never desired to get into ministry because, again, like, I was always around theologians in in higher education and I just saw them as hypocrites. Man, like a lot of them. It's's like you know they would be preaching or you know, talking the word, all those things. But then I also see you trying to holler at this girl. You know you're meeting up like what odd hours you having those 10 pm Bible studies. I was like you guys, you guys are playing around On top of that.
23:16
You know, growing up as a missionary kid there was like the stigma right Of man, when you serve God, you got to be poor, you know, or you got to like sacrifice, you know so so much for your family and because I would see so many different opportunities my dad could take that would benefit our family financially. And in my head I'll be like why, you know, why are you preferring to? You know, sacrifice, for you know, you know this is my childhood, you know, childhood type mind, that's like that's, that's like thinking man, if you get that job, then you know you can buy me a better car. Or, you know, buy me better presents, you know as a child, or something like that for Christmas. But man, like I think that I started to lean in and look at what the impact was and so, financially for me, I pursued business. I always kind of had an entrepreneur mind, I think I guess I always seen that when I was younger. So I first pursued accounting, my accounting degree, my undergrad in accounting, then an MBA in finance, ran my own consulting company. I was doing great.
24:43
Two years into it, well, probably around that time, I started to get involved with the parachurch ministry in New England, massachusetts, and it was really launched from a place of really trying to create revival in Boston and Boston's kind of similar to New York very, very somewhat post-Christian and a lot of intellectuals who believe that, hey, we can explain everything and we don't need faith and so and on top of that, I personally think because it's cold in that area, people are cold in general so we were just these young guys who just believed in revival, and so one of my good friends, zenza Motoga, now leads Impact Church in Boston just had this crazy vision and dream of man. What if we unified the body of Christ? I mean John 17, 21, like what if we just believe that if we gather the body of Christ and worship Jesus' name, that we can see Jesus be Lord over the city of Boston. And so we started it. He started it. I joined a few years later and, man, I started to get involved with it and it was so real, so authentic, so just impactful for me.
26:17
I think, 2009, again going back to the day where I really committed my life to Christ, it was through one of those events. It was a big worship. It was a worship night we did at MIT and I went up and I was like, hey, I wanna recommit my life to Christ. And ever since then, you know, I got more involved and I just saw the power of God's local church. When they come together, man, he really, it truly is true when he says it in Psalms 133, man, that he commands a blessing when we're in one accord, and it was. I mean we were mobilizing from Catholic to hyper-Pentecostal I mean black, white, old, young and it just felt like heaven and I was like I want more of this. But I started to recognize that the solution, the real in-depth issues, are really coming from the local church. This is great, serving the, you know, mobilizing and doing a parachurch thing, it's great and it's needed. But there's deeper rooted issues that we can't experience at a parachurch level if the local church isn't healthy, experience at a prayer church level if the local church isn't healthy. And so I started to work, I started to create a. Well, I feel like God started to create a hunger in me to serve the senior pastor. I saw senior pastors were gifted with speaking with. Their theology was solid. Their theology was solid. Even their preaching and just leading vision casting was great. But the execution, the development of people and systems, was a struggle at least that I saw. And so I just felt like man. Maybe I can be part of that solution again with my business background, understanding strategies, and I didn't necessarily understand how much more strategy and leadership I had in me until I just kind of stepped into it so fast forward.
28:31
You know 2013,. I was just praying about it and just seeking God's direction on that. He just spoke to me and just said hey, I want you to again. Mind you, at this point I'm connected to a ton of churches in New England because the movement had grown tremendously across New England. New England states, like different states, were doing their own nights of worships. I was leading a night of worship in Worcester, massachusetts, and so I knew I had a lot of options in the New England area to serve as senior pastor.
29:03
But God calls me and my family to move across country. Basically, it was December 2013. Here's a faith story December 2013, god speaks to me and says I want you to move your family, march of 2014, across country to Riverside, california. Help your brother-in-law who had planted a church out here and learn from him. And I was like what this is like three months from now? You want me to move my family across country. And that's crazy. I'm running my own consulting company. I have.
29:40
Most of my clients are virtual, but I had one major client that I was going to regularly in-house, fast forward much of 2014,. Me and my family are here in California for a two-week vacation and we end up staying. At the time even my wife was hesitant was when I told her in December of 2013,. She was like she was like hell, no, we're not moving across country in three months, like that's crazy. There's so much God is doing here anyways. But I just, you know, I felt compelled to it, but I was like hey, god speaks to both of us, it's not just me and we need to be in one accord. So I left it alone.
30:27
But come to a two-week vacation and, mind you, there was a time where I was going to pack a suit for that trip, just in case I have opportunities to connect with some clients or whatever, and add some new clients. She took that suit out, she was was like we ain't doing, no, we're this a vacation, we're not trying to find no opportunities out in california. And so in the middle of our vacation, my wife comes to me. Uh, we're, we're visiting my cousin in san diego and she's like you know what God, god spoke to me. You know he did. He did say he did tell me that this is the next move. And I was shocked. I was like, wow, man, god, you do like. Okay, so you, I do hear you, you know what I mean.
31:17
And so so that last week of vacation I literally just jumped on Craigslist and just looked for clients, new clients out here. And it's crazy that Monday we're packing up, flying back, getting ready to fly back, I get two calls, two potential clients who wanted to meet with me, and I asked my wife I'm like hey, what do you want to do? Do you want us to fly back and come back after I schedule these meetings or do you want to just stick around another week or two? She's like well, we're flexible, let's stick around another week or two. Literally that Friday I closed both of them and one of them was a really large client. That just made sense. It just made the sense to stay.
32:09
And my wife is a worship leader and has always been in church leadership but is also a social work by profession and so my brother-in-law's church brought her on a stipend-type deal to help lead worship for them and Easter was coming so we had to stick around for Easter and then we eventually went back in mid-May to literally sell everything, get rid of everything and just send some boxes and start all over out here. So that's kind of a little bit of a faith story of how we got involved and again in ministry. Prior to that I was always serving in the local church to a certain degree. I was an elder at a point, leading our youth ministry, but this time I really wanted to just lean in and actually really get to understand the senior pastor's role and what they deal with on a day-to-day basis. How do you really grow a church? What are the dynamics that go through that and managing and growing a church and some of the things that you think through as a senior pastor. So I started off like, literally, we were a mobile church, so set up and tear down Eventually started leading our ushers team Eventually was ordained that year, started leading a youth ministry we had like five kids, grew that to over 100 kids, launched our junior high ministry, our high school ministry, developed a team within a year and a half and passed it on and then transitioned into the executive pastor role and so have been in that space since.
34:01
What convinced her, you know, Holy Spirit, that was, was it like? What was she fighting too? I think I think what could you know what? What convinced her again was like the holy spirit just spoke to her that, hey, I'm calling you and your family to riverside to serve and and learn and grow in ministry. I think what she was fighting, you know. So for me, you know you always talk about how, like God, compliments and brings the right person to you as a husband or a wife. And you know again, my story is, I've learned I was moving almost every four years in my life. So change is easy for me.
34:47
For her, she's originally from Malawi. Her parents came to the US when she was two and moved into this small city, which is crazy enough, the same city or town I should call it that. I was born in Berrien Springs, michigan, and so her family has been in that same town since she's been two. So this is like 1983 or something like that. So all she knows is consistency and rhythm and you know the norm.
35:26
And for me, I'm like I get that change itch every four years, like I got to change something. So for her, you know, when I gave her three months, god's calling us to move, she's like what? No, like we, we gotta process this for a year. So for her, she was like maybe in a year, you know, we could be ready for this move, uh, but three months, that's crazy.
35:52
And and so for me, again, for me, I've, again I've, I've had two incidences in my life where we had to uproot and just move like literally um across, you know, cross nations and so uh. So I'm like I know I can start over with nothing for her and she's like I mean, we got, we got roots. Just it's like if more so, it was because we she was living in michigan when we got married, she moved to massachusetts and so she felt like I'm just now getting roots here in massachusetts and now we gotta uproot and go across country, like that's crazy and so um. So yeah, I think I think for her you know it's it was just the process of seeing how would this come together and her learning how to just trust the word of God and just to trust what the Spirit was speaking to her and know that he's never wrong and always has the best for us. He's never wrong and always has the best for us.
37:02 - Speaker 3
No, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, because for a long time my life was like hers, because I was just in one place, even though I moved around, but it was within the city, right, yeah, and I started moving a lot, and then it taught me like, oh, starting from scratch is not a big deal, it's a little rough in the beginning, but you get used to it.
37:24
So I'm totally with you. I guess she had no idea who she was marrying. She was like I thought I was going to get this consistent guy, we're going to stay in Brooklyn, no, I don't know. So that brings me to my natural.
37:45 - Speaker 1
Usually I end with this how did you meet your wife? Yeah, yeah, um, so me and my wife, uh, knew each other since we were kids, probably six, seven years old. Um, this was the second time me and my family came back to the us. My, my dad, went to michigan state. So, um, michigan state lansing michigan, is about two and a half hours away from Berrien Springs, michigan, where I was born. So there's an Adventist university there called Andrews University and it's kind of like the mecca of Adventism. All theologians typically around the world would go there to get their MDiv and stuff like that. A lot of, like foreigners would go there to go for school education. So one of my uncles was going to school there and was really close to my wife Nikki's family, and so so when we would come, like every other, you know, some weekends would just come out and you know, hang out with them, do church with them, et cetera, and so I remember, you know. So that's kind of like where we met like a long time ago as kids. But you know, when my family moved back to Rwanda this is before Facebook and all these social spaces where you can track people or find people so we just lost contact, didn't even know what she even looked like.
39:15
Fast forward, both our senior years in college, we randomly meet at a wedding knowledge, we randomly meet at a wedding. And so I remember she was, you know, me and my cousins walk in. She was managing the guest book and, hey, she was looking good. This is I always tell the story like this because this was right before or right after Wedding Crasher came out. And so again, like, this is, I'm single, my cousins are single and we're like, hey, we're about to get the most numbers at this wedding ever and let's see who gets the most numbers. And I remember, boom, first person we saw, and we're all like, okay, let's see who gets this number first. All like, okay, let's see who gets his number first. And um, so so we get into the ceremony.
40:10
The ceremony wraps up and we walk. I walk out and she's talking to my older brother. I see her talking to her and I was like, oh, perfect, like, because my older brother he's already like engaged in some. Like he was in the, in the, um, he was in the, the groom's party, and so, um, so I'm like, easy, he was in the groom's party and so I'm like, easy, he's going to do a quick introduction. Boom, I get the number On to the next.
40:32
As I get into the conversation I find out it's Nikki from way back, and so that's when it was like okay, I can't, she can't be one of those numbers I'm trying to find, and so fast forward. We end up exchanging contacts. She ends up never calling me for a whole year. We eventually reconnect when I came actually to do my MBA at that school Andrews, that amateur school and we reconnected because she had just finished her undergrad and moved back home and we reconnected, started dating, ended up doing two and a half years long distance because I couldn't afford that school, couldn't find a job. So I moved back to Massachusetts and we did two and a half years long distance. Because I couldn't afford that school, couldn't find a job. So I moved back to massachusetts and we did two and a half years long distance and got married in 2008 damn.
41:28 - Speaker 3
You have such a wild life. There's so many things like go just right for you. Oh so I have a question what is XP Gathering?
41:47 - Speaker 1
Yeah. So XP Gathering is a network for executive pastors. So again, like I stepped into executive pastor role, like I literally created the job for me. When I was at my brother's church my brother-in-law's church, it's called Relevant Church I just saw a leadership gap and felt like there was a need for an executive director. Because in my head I knew in corporate you had like a CEO COO and I was like we need a COO for where we're at. We were growing so fast. We need a COO for where we're at, we were growing so fast and we needed somebody to manage our operations, like the whole system and process of what we do. And I didn't know what role. So I started researching and I found this like, oh, there's an executive pastor thing, role that exists in churches. So I literally created it for myself, for the need of where we were at and stepped into it.
42:45
Never went to Bible college, never went to seminary any of that. All the theology and teachings that I was built I just built it through just me learning, reading books, being coached a little bit by my senior pastor, my brother-in-law and some other people. I did a school of ministry that we were running at the church for the summer. So it gave me a foundation. But in regards to my imposter syndrome, creeping in because it's like man, I don't know what I'm doing For the most part, I don't think I do. Creeping in because it's like man, I don't know what I'm doing for the most part, I don't think I do. It got me into a place of feeling lonely, feeling misunderstood, feeling unsupported.
43:31
And so, fast forward 2019, I'm part of this panel at CBU, cal Baptist University here in Riverside, and it was a panel. The business department was trying to engage business majors to think about a track into executive pastor role, and so I'm on the panel. The business director goes to our church, right, so our church maybe at the time is running about 600-ish or so. But I mean, I'm on the panel with three of our largest churches in in Riverside. One of them is like Greg Laurie's church I don't know if you know Greg Laurie harvest running at their peak to 20,000. Uh, another one is sandals church running like at the time, maybe 5,000, and another one's the grove running about five.
44:18
And so I feel like a little bit intimidated. You know, I'm like you know these guys who've been in this roles for years, and but you know. You know I step in boldly, knowing what God has called me to, but still I come to find out after the fact. None of them have ever connected with each other, but I knew there's our senior pastors have. Like, I know my brother-in-law was meeting with some of those senior pastors and he knew them directly and had contact, and I was shocked that the three largest churches in Riverside are not connecting specifically as executive pastors, who I know are the ones who literally know every detail resource need that the church has, and they're not connecting. I was shocked and so I just asked them. I was like, hey, do you guys? Are you guys open to just connecting and just seeing where it goes? Let's just see where it goes, and so we connect. Dan Zimbardi of Sandals hosts us end of December of 2019.
45:19
And we came out of that meeting asking ourselves what would we like from this? And the main thing was we're not necessarily seeking coaching we all have our preferred coaching and consultants that we work with but we were really seeking peer relationships. We just needed people who are in our space, who are dealing with similar things that we're dealing with, that we can just connect with and feel like, hey, I'm not alone, feeling the tension between, sometimes, the XP and the senior pastor, the tension between, you know, drilling down the vision of the senior pastor down to the staff and not you know, but still the staff feeling loved by the senior pastor, like being that bridge between them. You know, constantly, you know having to wear multiple hats because you know a position is dropped or somebody quits and you just got to step in or make sure that place, that role and responsibility, is filled. So XP Gathering really started from a place of helping those in the second chair build relationships that are resourceful for each other and creating a space for replenishment.
46:40
Because the reality is a lot of these stats out there, barna, all those are sharing stats about senior pastors wanting to quit.
46:48
But if you really, I think, if you really looked at a stats of, like, those in the second chair and I'm talking about I'm not just talking about executive pastors, I'm talking all the way down to, like, the youth pastor, to, you know, to the admin, those who quit, that retention of those groups of people, man, I think it's so much higher because it's like, because they just feel like, hey, I don't need to make an announcement that I'm feeling like I want to quit like because nobody.
47:17
They feel like nobody cares. But XP Gathering, we've created a space. Like man, we do care because we do believe that you are called too, just the same way as a senior pastor has been called, and you have a purpose to advance this vision at this church, or let me say specifically, in God's church. You have been called to take on this responsibility to grow the kingdom of God, and so don't quit and go back into the marketplace. Let's help you find a safe place where you can be replenished, you can be resourced, you can be in relationship that supports you and encourages you and builds you up to find, to stay in your calling. So, yeah, it's a little bit what we do. Yeah, that's exactly to stay in your calling.
48:02 - Speaker 3
So, yeah, it's a little bit what we do. Yeah, that's why, that's exactly why we create faithly, just because, like when I was, a pastor. I did like children's ministry and youth ministry, and like I had to do it all by myself, I'm like someone else probably made this mistake. Who can?
48:14 - Speaker 2
I learn from yeah.
48:17 - Speaker 3
And it's so crazy that, like, like we're trying to reach, like, there's like five churches in the same area but they don't talk to each other and we're reaching the same people and it's like why can't we? Just share resources, so it was just mind boggling. Yeah, what are you hoping for at Faithly?
48:33 - Speaker 1
Yeah, what am I hoping for at Faithly?
48:35
For me, at Faithly, I'm believing for the community of God, the kingdom of God, to come and win a court.
48:44
I see so much potential in it in regards to even with the main core of our vision. The underlining goal of our vision with XP Gathering is, like man, if we can bring more ministry leaders, pastors together and build trusted relationships. My belief is that now we can start opening up and having conversations in regards to what my resources are and what my needs are, and I believe man, if we can be in a community that's safe, we can start solving problems from a place of the church serving each other Now God's church serving each other, so that no local church has any lack Living out to where there's no lack in the local church because we're being able to resource all of our needs. So then we can actually go out into the community in one accord and actually have true impact and not mini kingdom impacts. We can have true kingdom impact, and so that's kind of my belief and I'm excited about what Faith Leaves is putting together, because you're bringing the local church together and creating a safe community there.
50:04 - Speaker 3
So yeah, and how can we be praying for you and your family?
50:09 - Speaker 1
Man, that's a good question. So there's, you know, we recently this year, we've had a few family losses, that integral family losses, my, my wife's side, and it's kind of revealed. She's had to work through, uh, you know some hard we've had to work through some hard, um, just just uh, trauma, childhood trauma, stuff, and even you know that that just not only it, initially it feels like it's ah, it's painful. But, man, what it does create is more intimacy. What it does create is more character. What it does also create is more understanding of self, and so that's exciting.
50:58
It's an exciting season to be in. We are raising a high schooler in California, while still helping her develop her own mind and her own understanding of who God is, still also trying to navigate the parenting side of it. You know, trying to navigate the parenting side of it, and you know how do you parent well and be a good steward of that, while still releasing and trusting God in her personal walk. But yeah, I think you know the managing. I would say managing our emotional growth at the same time, uh, managing our parenting, our parenting, uh, high schooler.
51:47 - Speaker 3
All right, that was great. Thanks for coming on, kevin.
51:49 - Speaker 1
Yeah, man, thank you, danny, for this. I love, love, what you're doing and excited about again faithfully, and uh the work you guys are doing there and uh needed, it's needed and and even more so I say, right now we're living in an age where uh information is out there and man but but connection isn't, and so uh keep doing this. It's needed, especially for our faith community thank you okay that's it for the podcast.
52:19 - Speaker 2
Bye guys, all right, cool 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.
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