Serving the Senior Pastor - Kevin Bugingo

So I recall this Melissa guys coming through pointing guns at my brother, pointing guns at my sister, pointing blank, saying like these kids look tootsie, we're going to take them out and kill them and I'm like, but they're my siblings, like how's it even make any sense? And so there's a confusion there in the big frustration that was being built up 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 any of my siblings, any of my family members, like I'm ready to join the Melissa group that's you know that's coming to you know take over and just kill everyone you know like because I was because it was real. Hi my name is Kevin Bagingo, I am married, married to my beautiful wife Nikki, 16 years this July, I got I'm a girl dad and I'm dealing with a high schooler so having fun with that and grew up as a missionary kid and then just got to let me to loving the church and excited to just be part of what God is doing through the local church and this is my faithfully 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. Did you tell me how your faith journey started? Yeah, so I kind of grew up in the as a missionary kid my parents are originally from Rwanda and they were coming to the U.S. do 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 the time that I really saw and recognized God being real for me was when so my family moved back to Rwanda in 1992 and if you know a little bit about the Wandae 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 the 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 so I got baptized at 13 and then fast forward but my walk 13 till I would say 26 it was really more of a you know I believe and let me follow these rituals and we follow this process but more so I think when I turn 26 it was an adult I was married and I had to kind of decide like okay I'm gonna own this relationship with God and I'm gonna walk it through fully and ever since then in 20 2009 when I truly committed my life to him it was it was a game changer and and just he just started working me and transforming me and all my yeses just just brought me to a closer place with him and my faith with him and trusting him greater and taking bigger faith steps and and landing me and in the in in ministry which was like the last resort that I get into yeah that's a little bit of my story could you share a little bit about that experience one were you born there so so I was actually born a Michigan when my parents were out here for studies but yeah so the 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 these this news that I guess was devastating in regards to the presidents playing getting shot down and I do recall that you know a few that the years when we moved back there was starting to build some tension between the two tribes the who to tribe was the one that was was in power at the time and the tootsie tribe that was kicked out and what's had been had been out of the country for about 30 years you know you saw them trying to come back and take take power and I recall sometimes since where we were located was close to Uganda and sometimes like the threat would be would get close to where we lived and we would have to like you know leave our home and and go more in like the city and stay there for a bit and so I could see and feel the tension 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 tootsies and are you tootsie and you know guns being pointed out my siblings because they look to see and we're hiding at the same time too like people are coming to our house so we're on a campus on a Christian university campus and my dad was the vice president of academics so so he was 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 back thrones 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 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 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 the Belgians colonized the 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 Hutu's Tutsi tribes before we were just one group of people same language same culture all of that and your in your culture or your your tribe was based off of your your dad and so whatever your dad was you became so but there was still a lot of into into marriage between the tribes and so 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 your it's only based off of what your dad is so so for me going to that incident when people were barging in and seeing who we you know if we're Tutsis etc so for me I looked Hutu 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 so I recall this militia guys coming through pointing guns at my brother pointing guns at my sister point blank saying that these kids look Tutsi we're gonna take them out and kill them and I'm like but they're my siblings like how's 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 like if I remember at eleven years old just already thoughts going in my head of man if anybody touches 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 because I was because it was real and it was and didn't even understand it just getting mad and frustrated at what was happening and and and so so yeah I mean it was like instances like that that was just so traumatic obviously like it was by the grace of God getting getting my family out we were on a campus had a lot of foreigners and so if you watched like Hotel Rwanda you recall like all the foreigners were able to get out of the country through the U.N. so me and my sister were Americans and minors and so they were able to get my family out because of our citizenship with America and leaving with a few foreigners so we left a little bit earlier than then most people did it during that during that time but I do recall man one of the hardest things I do recall we have to do is leave at the time my my I want to say he was five my five-year-old nephew was staying with us for spring break and and I remember we had to leave him because his family was like on an in another city so we left him with a trusted family that's actually related to his family from the 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 on you know safely but trusting that the family was gonna 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 our safety and our parents safety was uncertain to get that was was kind of crazy but yeah that's so crazy like yeah like all the BS that we use to separate people and make them different than us and then use that as a reason to hate it's just yeah so what what was the kind of missionary work your parents are doing so my parents actually my parent my dad has always worked for the center of the Adventist denomination so he's always been in higher education and so the center of the Adventist denomination has a ton of like Christian schools all over the world and so he specifically was working for a university out in in Irwanda as so he was always in like either a registrar in like a leadership position in universities for those for the Adventist school so when you were able to escape how did that experience shape you and your understanding of like yeah yeah yeah so I think really working and seeing God showing up in the time of the escape was my blowing and I think that's when I was that's when I started to recognize like yeah because there's 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 was a lot of like even just getting out of the country they had closed the they had closed the the border for any randees at the time to to like go into Congo which is I think get co is a the Republic of Congo right now which previously was called the year they had closed the border and so my brother my older brother my my mom like my dad had randees passports and so for them to get out was 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 won't you know I recall they were trying to detain my dad 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 he even financially how to you know we you know we ended up moving out my my brother was was out of 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 and me and my family trying to they were trying to get us either back to the U.S. or state station that in Ivory Coast which was in like the somewhat like the division or the head somewhat of the headquarters for the Adventist Church in Africa and recall like even just hit the the process of my dad getting a visa to Ivory Coast they there was a point where they retained him in that in Cancassas a year for a moment they wanted to send him back and you know and so sitting there and waiting for that to resolve and then finally getting in and settling in Ivory Coast and filling safe and you know it's you get filling filling literally like hey we can we can breathe a little bit because before that and you're wanting when all of that happened I recall we were eating like my mom would like make amazing meals and I remember like the house is smelling amazing but none of us are eating because it's you're so in it intense and don't even know what what the next knock on the door is gonna is gonna create at night you're hearing grenades going off like maybe hundred yards away you know gunshots going off you know all these crazy things that were happening and so being able to like see God's you know hand of protection showing up in each point of of of our escape and getting out and keeping our families together our family together was was a miracle and and I just knew like man this only could be there has to be this God 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 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 kutsu's who who either killed or hurt my family and it's crazy to think that that like with a turn of events that could have happened you know the Kevin Bungingo that you're speaking to right now wouldn't be here probably dead by you know by the age of 13 yeah that's crazy how like our lives can look drastically different in one moment yeah so how did that like help inform you as a pastor too I think the the reality for me was that I started to see broken people because I mean there was so many stories that I heard of like men like me and you Danny we're we're grabbing we're grabbing a lunch today and then tomorrow or next week I'm coming knocking at your door asking you to come out and like like killing you you know I mean it's like crazy is that how can people switch like that and I think the what made me start to understand it made me help it helped me start understanding the impact of sin in our lives and and and it really came from a place of of like I feel like it comes from a place of of rejection you know and lack of lack of love for one another and so for me it just as I kind of explored that further and again I've like at that time I was moving almost every four years if at the time if it was either like we're in the U.S. we're back in Newwanda we got to the U.S. back in Newwanda and then the war hoppids and then we moved to Alrikos and then on top of that this is this is early 1994 more 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 part a just ended Nelson Madela's becoming president I'm experiencing a whole nother culture shock with white people calling themselves Africans and then still seeing and then so we moved kind of early and so you're seeing a lot of you're still seeing some signs of apartheid but where like bathroom signs are like white background back background white white water fountain but like I still saw that and it was weird but they treated me different because I was you know a foreigner or American but you could still see the tension between the white and black and and then all of a sudden there's a group of this whole another group of people called colors and I'm like what like that that is 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 pre-teen teen learning I was learning how I was learning it a trait in me that I didn't know was gonna transform and be somewhat one of my superpowers which is learning how to connect with anybody just learned how to learn I learned the universal language for for people is love like if I can if I can connect with what you're interested in or if I can make you feel like you're seeing 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 and and that and so because because in South Africa I'm like hanging out with blacks learning also you know I'm hanging out with the whites one of my best friend was was Afrikaans you know I'm hanging out with the colors you know I had all range of best friends and it just expanded my level of understanding of how to connect with people but even more so how to love people what are people really desiring and so so going to answering your question I started to recognize the solution to all of these all of our pains all of our rejections is really love and as I explored it more and I started to understand God God is the true love the perfect love and so that started leaning me towards okay the real solution isn't just loving people in in my own my own capacity but really loving people through Christ love capacity and in directing them to the to the perfect love and helping them find the real solution and the real void that we're all seeking to fill thanks for sharing that that's so amazing so could you tell me what was your progression like of you know 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 like yeah what was that experience like in transitioning into a password yeah I'd never desired to get into ministry because again like I was always around theologians in higher education and I just saw them as hypocrites man like a lot of them it's like you know they would be preaching you know talking the word all those things but then I also see you trying to holler at this girl you you know you you know you you're you're you're you're meaning up like odd hours you having those 10 p.m Bible studies yeah I was like you guys you guys are playing around on top of that you know growing up as a missionary kid it 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 uh and because I 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 bit of car or you know buy me a better presence at you know as a child there's something like that for Christmas but but man like I think that I started to I started to to to to green in and and and look at what the impact was and so so like financially for me you know I pursued business I always kind of had a entrepreneur mind I always I think I guess I always seen that when I was younger um and so I was I first pursued accounting degree my accounting degree my undergrad in accounting then uh and then being finance ran my own consulting company I was doing great two years into it um I stuck well probably around that time I started to get involved with the paraturge ministry in New England uh 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 uh somewhat post Christian and uh a lot of intellectuals who believe that hey we can explain uh everything and we don't need faith and um so and and on top of that I personally think because it's cold in that area people are cold in general you know oh so uh so we just we were just these young guys who just believed in revival and so one of my good friends Zenzel Motoga uh now leads impact church in Boston uh just had this crazy vision and dream of man what if we unified the body of Christ I mean John 1721 like what if we just believe that if we gathered the body of Christ under Jesus and worship Jesus name then we can see Jesus um Jesus being Lord over the city of Boston and so we started it he started it I joined really a few years later and man I started to get involved in it and it was so real so authentic so um just impactful for me I think 2009 again going back to my uh the day where I really committed my life to Christ uh you know it was through one of those events uh it was a big worship it was a worship night we did at MIT and uh I went I went up and I was like hey I want to recommit my life to Christ and uh and ever since then you know I got more involved and I just saw the power of God's local church um when they come together man he really it truly is true when he says in his Psalms 133 man that he commands a blessing when we're in one accord um and and it was I mean we were mobilizing from Catholic to hyperpennicost I mean black, white, old, young and and he just felt like heaven and I was like I want more of this uh but I started to recognize that the solution the real in depth issues are really coming from the local church uh this is great serving the the parent you know mobilizing and doing a parent church thing um it's great and it's needed uh but the there's there's deeper rooted issues that we can't experience at a per church level if the local church is healthy and and so I started to work I started to create a little I feel like God started to create a hunger in me to serve the senior pastor um I saw senior pastors were gifted with was speaking with um the theology was solid uh they're they're um even their they're uh preaching and and just leading vision casting was great but but the execution uh the development of people and systems was was a struggle I at least that that I saw and and so I just felt like man maybe I can be part of that solution again with my business background understanding strategies and and uh I didn't necessarily understand how much more strategy and leadership I had in me until I just kind of stepped into it uh so fast forward you know 2013 I was just praying about it and just seeking God's direction on that uh he just spoke to me and just said hey I want you again mind you at this point I'm connected to a ton of churches in New England because our the movement had grown and uh tremendously across the 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 a senior pastor but God caused me and my family to move across country uh like basically it was like it was December 2013 here here's a faith story December 2013 God speaks to me and it says I want you to move your family March of 2014 the cross country to Riverside, California help your brother-in-law who had planted a church out here and learned from him and I was like what this is like three months from now you want me to move like family cross country uh and that's crazy I'm running my own consulting company I have most most of my clients are virtual but I had one major client that that I was going to regularly in in house fast forward march of 2014 me and my family are here in California for a two-week vacation and the ends of becoming a we end up staying at the time even my wife was hesitant was uh when I told her in December of 2013 she was like she was like hell no like this 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 I felt you know I felt compelled to it but I I was like hey God speaks to both of us it's not just me and we're we need to be in one of courts I left it alone but come to a two-week vacation you know um and mind you like there was a time where I was going to pack a suit for that trip just in case like I have opportunities to connect with some clients or whatever new and add some new clients she took best it out she was like we ain't done no we're this a vacation we're not trying to find no opportunities out in California in the middle of our vacation my wife comes to me uh we're we're visiting my cousin is San Diego and she's like you know what God got 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 and God you do just like okay so you I do hear you you know and so um so that last week of vacation I literally just jumped on you know Craigslist and just like looked for clients new clients out here and um and and it's crazy like that Monday we're packing up heading back flying back getting getting ready to fly back I get two calls to potential clients wanted to meet with me um and as I was my wife I'm like hey what do you want to do do you want us to fly back and I come back after I scheduled these meetings or do you want to just stick around another week or two she's like well reflexible you know 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 made it just made the sense to stay and my wife is a worship leader and has always been in uh church leadership but is also a social work by profession and um so my brother's church my brother lost church like brought her on stipend type bill to help lead worship for them and uh Easter was coming as so we had to stick around for you and then we eventually went back and made midnight to like literally sell everything um get rid of everything and start and just send send some boxes and start all over out here so that's kind of a little bit of a face story of how we got involved and and again in ministry uh prior to that I was always like serving in the local church to a certain degree like I was I was I was an elder at a point leading our youth ministry but but this time I really wanted to just lean in and actually really get to understand the senior pastors role and and and um what they deal with on a day-to-day basis how do you really grow church and uh what are the dynamics that you that go through that and and and uh you know managing and 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 we were a mobile church so set up and tear down eventually start leading our ushers team uh eventually uh you know was ordained that year started leading a youth ministry we had like five kids grew that to over a hundred kids um launched our junior high ministry or you know 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 what a convinced her you know holy spirit how's it like what was you fighting too I think I think what could you know what what come what convinced again was like the holy spirit to spoke to her that hey I'm calling you and your family to Riverside to serve and and learn and grow um in ministry I think what she was fighting you know so for me and so that you know you always talk about how like God God compliments and brings the right person to you know to you as a husband or wife and I'm you know again my story is I'm I've learned I was moving almost every four years in my life um so change is easy for me for her she she's originally from Malawi her parents came to the US when she was two um and to move into the small city which is crazy enough the same city or town I should call it that I was born in Barion Springs Michigan and so um she's her family has been in that same town since she's she's been two you know so this is like 1983 or something like that so all she knows is consistency and rhythm and you know the norm and for me I'm like I get that change it's every four years like I got to change something so for her you know when when I gave her three months God's calling us to move she's like what's now like we got a process for a year so for her she was like maybe in the year you know we can be ready for this move uh but three months it's crazy and and so for me again for me I have again I've I've had two incidences in my life where we had to uproot and just move like literally uh cross you know cross nations and so uh so I'm like I know I could start over with nothing or where for her she's like I mean we got we got roots just it's like if more so it was because 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 got a uproot and go across country like that's crazy and so um see I think I think for her you know it's it was just the process of seeing how would how would this come together and her learning how to just trust the the word of God and and just to you know trust what the spirit was speaking to her and know that he's he's never wrong and always has the best for us now that makes a lot of sense um yeah like because for a long time my life was like hers because I was just like in one place even though I moved around but it was within the city right yeah and like I started moving a lot and then it taught me like oh starting from scratch is not a big deal like a little rough in the beginning but like you get used to it so I'm totally with you I guess you have no idea who she was marrying so she's like I thought I was gonna get this consistent guy he's not you know we're gonna stay in Brooklyn so that brings me to my natural usually I end up with this um how did you meet your wife yeah yeah um so me and my wife knew each other since we were kids probably six seven years old this is the second time me and my family came back to the US my my dad went to Michigan State so Michigan State Lansing Michigan is about two and a half hours away from Barion Springs Michigan where I was born so there's an Adventist University there called Andrews University and it's kind of like the the mecca of set of capitalism but like all all theologians typically around the world would go there to get their MDiv and stuff like that a lot of uh a lot of like foreigners would go there to um to go for school education so so my one of my uncles was going to school there and it 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 etc 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 they didn't even know you know you know what she even looked like fast forward are both like senior years in college who randomly meet and I'm wedding and so I remember she was uh you know me and my cousin's walking um she was managing the guest book and hey she was looking good this is I always I always tell the story like this because this was right before uh or right after wedding crash her uh 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 not this wedding ever and let's see who gets the most numbers and I remember her boom first person we saw and we're all like okay let's see who gets number first so so we get into the ceremony 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 some like easy he's gonna do a quick introduction boom I get the number onto the next um as I get in to the conversation I find out it's Nikki from way back and and so that's when it was like okay I get I can't I can't you should can't be one so can't be one of those numbers and so fast forward we end up exchanging contacts uh she you know she ends up never calling me for a whole year we eventually reconnect when I came actually to do my my MBA at that school Andrew's at amateur school um and and uh we reconnected she had just finished her she had just finished her undergrad and moved back home and we reconnect 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 and got married in 2008 and you have such a wild life there's so many things like go just right for you so I have a question what is um XP gathering 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 when um when I was at my brother's church my brother-in-law's church it's called relevant church we just I just saw a leadership gap and um felt like there was a need for an executive director because in my head I knew incorporate you had like a CEO CEO um all you know and I was like there needs a and we need a COO for where we're at we were growing so fast um and we needed uh somebody to manage our operations like the whole system and process of our of what we do and I didn't know what role this I saw researching and I found this like oh there's an executive pastor role that existed church church is this I literally created it for myself for the need of where we were at and stepped into it never went to Bible college never went to you know uh seminary any of that I was I all that all the all the theology and and and and and teachings that I was built that I was just built I just built it through just me learning reading books um being coached a little bit by my senior pastor my brother-in-law and some other people like I did like a school of ministry that we were running at the church for like the summer so gave me a foundation but in regards to like my impassive syndrome creeping in because it's like man I don't know what I'm doing uh for the most I don't think I do um it got me into a place of feeling lonely feeling misunderstood feeling unsupported um and so fast forward 2019 I'm I'm part of this panel at CBU Cal Baptist University here in Riverside and and it was a panel the business department was trying to engage um was trying to engage business majors to think about a track into executive pastor role and so I'm I'm on the panel the the business director goes to our church right so our church right maybe at the time is running about 600ish or so um 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 another one is Sandals Church running like at the time maybe 5,000 and another one's the grow of running about five 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 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 connected specifically as executive pastors who are 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 I guess open to just connecting and just seeing where it goes let's just see where it goes and so we connect um Dan Zimbardi of Sandals host us end of December of 2019 and 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 a preferred coaching and you know 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 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 where multiple has because you know a position is dropped or somebody quits and you just got a step in or make sure that plays that that role in responsibility skills so so xp gathering really started from a place of helping those in the second chair build relationship that are resourceful for each other and creating a space for replenishment because the reality is a lot of these stats out there barna all those are sharing stats about senior pastors wanting to quit 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 passes I'm talking all the way down to like the youth pastor to you know to look to the admin those who quit that 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 I'm feeling like I want to quit like because nobody 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 to just the same way as a senior pastor has been called and you have 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 and to 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 to find to stay in your calling yeah so 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 I learn from yeah 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 for people and yeah why can't we just share resources and so it was just my modeling yeah what are you hoping for I faithfully yeah one of my hoping for I faithfully for me I faithfully I'm believe in for the community of God the kingdom of God to come in one accord I see so much potential in it in regards to even with the main core of our vision the the underlining goal of our vision with XP gathering is is like man like if we can bring more ministry leaders pastors together and build trusted relationships my belief is 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 if we can be in a community that's safe we can start having we can start solving problems from the 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 you know where there's like no lack in the local church because we're serving we're we're being able to resource our all of our needs so then then we can actually go out into the community in one accord and actually have true impact and not many kingdom impacts right we can have true kingdom impact and so that's kind of my belief and I'm excited about you know what faithfully is putting together because you're bringing the the local church together and creating a safe community there so yeah and how can we be praying for you and your family um yeah 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 specifically on my my wife's side and it's kind of revealed she's had to work through 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 uh it's painful but man it what it does create is more intimacy what it does create is more um character what it does also create is more um understanding of self and so that's exciting it's an exciting season to be in we are raising a high school and and in California and um while still helping her uh develop her own mind and her own understanding of who God is uh still also you know navigating trying to navigate the parenting side of it and you know how do you how do you parent how do you parent well and be a good steward of that while still releasing and trusting God and in there in her personal walk but see I think you know the managing I would say managing our our our our our emotional growth at the same time uh managing our parenting our parenting uh high schooler all right that was great thanks for coming on Kevin 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 it's needed it's needed and even more so I say right now we're living an age where um information is out there and man but but connection isn't and so keep doing this it's needed especially for our faith community thank you okay this is from the podcast like I I cool thank you for tuning in to the faithfully stories podcast we pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to 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