Latest / Reborn w/ Antonio Boutros / Angry Prayers: Juan Mejias on Faith, Fire & Building Yada Haus | Reborn Podcast EP.04

Transcript

Angry Prayers: Juan Mejias on Faith, Fire & Building Yada Haus | Reborn Podcast EP.04 · Reborn w/ Antonio Boutros

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: I went to the Lord angry, like for three years, just angry conversation after angry conversation.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: And for some reason, I I blame Jesus for this.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh instead of me running to drugs, alcohol, and and all the vices that you can have at your disposal, I ran to God.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: And amen, dude.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Hey! I directly called my mom, my dad, my sister, and I was essentially saying goodbye to them, thinking that I was gonna die.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I believe the Lord's calling me to Indianapolis, and I want you to move in with me.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I've only known this guy for five months.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: He um I just had them spread the word, and I was thinking maybe an hour of worship, 20 people were gonna show up, and 52 people for seven hours of worship were happening at my house.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, welcome back to the Reborn Podcast with Tony Beatros.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh today I have the honor of interviewing a good friend and ministry partner and um beautiful friend named What is your name again?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Juan Mejías.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's it.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: And the beautiful friend.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Juan and I had the opportunity to host a beautiful event on Halloween together last week.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh was awesome when we talk about that a little bit today, as well as just what Juan has going on has going Juan with Yanna House.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Yana House is a awesome uh worship ministry here in Indianapolis.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they worship at different churches and they worship at different events like what we did on Friday.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, with that said, Juan, you've mentioned that you have been in ministry for 15 years.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited to dive deep into your story and how you got into this Juan on Juan conversation.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Or Juanversation.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, dude.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, first, thank you for having me.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this is a really amazing and cool space.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, definitely the Lord's blessed you with uh just amazing people around you, like our awesome boy Quinn also running sound, so blessings to him as well.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: If you guys can't shout out to Quinn.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I actually met Quinn at uh at his church, Antioch.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we met the I believe it was Antioch, yeah.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think by the way, if you guys can't hear Quinn, so he's he thought it was uh one church, but I could have sworn it was um I could have sworn it was Antioch.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, we met at a church and we just like immediately just connected and I love his energy, love his heart, and so the fact that like these two different worlds that like I didn't see a connection with before are not coming together, so sick to me.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's a god thing.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, um so my story um is born and raised a believer with a very prayerful, very spirit-heavy uh Guatemalan mom and a very uh Bible-heavy, very theologically, very logistically like intense Puerto Rican dad.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so grew up with that, um, very blessed with the upbringing that I had, and even my parents' testimony and how they met and how they came together and married.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, such a crazy god thing, but that could be for another day.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I have a sister, she is my best friend, love her to bits and pieces.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, shout out to Ada, Adeladis, you're sick, love you lots.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and yeah, it was just me, my sister, and my folks for most of my life.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, unfortunately, uh, parents uh just due to disagreements, life, um, unforeseen circumstances, situations, uh, they ended up getting uh separated and divorced.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was a bit messy.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I grew up in Chicago, Illinois, um, about an hour from the downtown proper.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: So for those that are from Chicago, I am from Waukekin, alright?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: So don't get mad at me.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Don't don't throw shade at him in the comments or whatever.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: But um, because local I don't know what that means.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so here's the thing about Chicago people, alright?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: If you say you're from Chicago and you're not from the 32 neighborhoods in Chicago, like they will grill you, they'll roast you, they'll like come after you and and your whole like life and everything.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: So you have to, if you're from Chicago, you have to claim which neighborhood you're from.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, like it's a whole mess in a can of worms and all that.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so I'm from Waukegan, alright?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: So don't come at my friend Tony.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's not his fault, alright?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's mine.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think it's your parents.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: No, but um, so went to um it was in Chicago and I was Waukegan, and there was every opportunity to get into all kinds of trouble and mess under the sun.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: And for some reason, I I blame Jesus for this.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, instead of me running to drugs, alcohol, and and all the vices that you can have at your disposal, I ran to God.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: And Amen, dude.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: Hey! Hey, and um, like, but it was it's it was a weird thing for me because I went to the Lord angry, like for three years, just angry conversation after angry conversation.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, oh yeah, God, what about this?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, God, what about that?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just like me trying to debate our Lord and Savior Jesus, me thinking I was a know it all with my pride and whatever.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: And just the Lord just kept meeting me lovingly, but also like really checking me in a lot of those areas.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of having those moments, like in the Bible talks about with Job, where uh I never got any question answered specifically, but it was more like there were open doors, and the Lord, and I knew it was God, just the way circumstances things would open up.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I know this is God.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Either I walk through this and not know what's gonna happen, but believing that God's got some, you know, on the other side for me, or I do my own thing and then I figure it out.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I was smart, I went God's way, you know.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I was, it was year three, I was at a mission strip in Puerto Rico, and this is like I guess what a lot of people will coin their come to Jesus moment, and I was on a mission strip in Puerto Rico, and we were um doing a lot of construction stuff.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: It was for hurricane relief for when Hurricane Idoman and Maria hit the island, and also in Puerto Rican, so that was really cool to be on the island for that.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I got to help with construction, I got to do some evangelism, pass out clothes and food and all the things, and it was our second to last day we were there, and our guide was um was telling us that oh, you know, they cancel the flights, like you guys aren't going back to the states tomorrow, and everyone's freaking out, calling family, and this and that, whatever.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I decided to go sit by myself on a bench.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it was like the sun was coming down, all the beautiful colors like in the sky, the palm trees Puerto Rico, you know.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm sitting there, and it's my first like calm conversation, like not anger, not sadness, not confusion.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: I felt almost like a resolution there.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: Just like that.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sitting there talking to myself, talking with the Lord, and I said, Alright, could I die in Puerto Rico?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I looked around me, and I knew a lot of people died with the hurricanes, so I said, Yeah, I could die.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then the second question I asked myself was, Am I okay with that?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it was as if, and again, going back to the story of Joe, when the Lord was showing like his grandeur and his like different details of different aspects of like life to Joe as he was almost kind of like checking Joe.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: I saw every single one of those moments when those doors were opening, and I saw immediately after what would have happened had I gone my own way.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: The amount of times I would have been dead on the street, the amount of times I would have been on drugs, on alcohol, uh, a father uh with someone I didn't want to be a father with, um dead on an alley, God knows what with God knows who.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: I saw like every single moment, and as soon as like I was having that revelation that the Lord was kind of like putting in front of me, I got on my face.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: I started just like like not screaming, but like wailing, just with my own just grief and like conviction, um, realizing how arrogant and how prideful I was in these three years.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I just I was like, Lord, you you loved me and you saw me, despite my arrogance, despite my pride, despite my stupidity, you cared for me and you saw me.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, if this is what it looks like to serve you, let your will be done.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: If I leave this world serving you, there's no better way for me to go.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I felt almost like this like power surging through my body, of like this confidence.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: And at this point as well, uh my parents were fully divorced.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um my mom wasn't really talking with her too much at this point.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: My dad, him and I had like a weird freight-ish relationship.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: My sister was really like the the mediator between all of us.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: So How old were you?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: This was I was okay.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I was 21 at this point.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: And um I called my I directly called my mom, my dad, my sister, and I was essentially saying goodbye to them, thinking that I was gonna die.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I was I was saying goodbye.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was saying, you know, that whatever happens, know that I'm okay, that I'm with the Lord, and this and that.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: And my sister's crying, I'm trying to make sense of it all.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um my mom I um some of like the mess that kind of happened with uh my parents' divorce had a lot to do with like stuff that she was doing.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um and this was like kind of a the early rumblings as well would become reconciliation between me and my mom.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: And my dad, it was like one of the first genuine moments where I just felt like a physical emotional expression of him like confidently and genuinely saying, I'm proud of you.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: Which he said it before, and my dad was and my dad's a great dad.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it was he was very good at just saying things and to not have that weight to carry with what he was saying at times, um or at times, and also he has ADHD, just like me.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um he would like say stuff and then forget like what he said, and then like it would some it would look like he wasn't completing his promise, but it was just genuinely forgot.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: But um it was one of those things where it was like my dad genuinely said it with so much passion, like he was proud of me, and that was that was intense.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I go back to our camp and I go back to our people, and I'm like, I got this boldness on me, and I'm like, Alright, let's go, let's like whatever happens, like we got this, and blah blah blah.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then our guy comes back to us and he's like, Oh yeah, I was joking.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: You were joking?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're on that camera.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: You were joking?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm saying I'm looking at both cameras.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: No, um, so it was that was like both funny, confusing, angry, but it was I I think the again, the Lord, I do Romans 820 into anything, right?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: All things work for those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I take that situation and I'm like, God did some wild stuff with that.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like, start a really healthy um conversation with my dad, start reconciliation with my mom.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: My sister and I got closer than ever.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I got emboldened with my faith because of that, um, and just had a different like heart posture when it came to just looking at worship, looking at a relationship with the Lord, looking at life with Jesus.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm a big next steps person.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we can have that early, like, okay, you accepted Jesus, do all that.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: My passion is like, okay, what happens after that?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: What do your routines look like?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: What church you go into?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Who you rolling with?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what does your prayer life look like?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what are steps that we're taking right now, baby steps, to get you from A to Z.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Now we're not we're not worried about B, all right?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um we're working through the entire alphabet.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: We're going A, B, C, all the way to Z.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: And the numbers and the weird signs that in math that they talk about and all that.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: So from there, uh, I just I started working, uh, I started volunteering at my church uh in Chicago at the time.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Shout out Vertical Encounter Church.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: They actually just had their 10-year anniversary.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: That was really cool.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I started working there for a little bit.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: I was helping my pastor a lot with a lot of things, learned a lot behind the scenes uh in ministry, and I'm very thankful and blessed that he gave me that access to see the church world through that lens, uh, as well as gave me the blessing and permission to go play with other churches.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that was kind of like my start of becoming what a lot of people will coin, I guess, like being a professional musician.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: So when you started getting paid and going to other churches and getting connected with other fellowships and collectives, um, things like that.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: I got to travel a lot because of that.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: It was super dope and super amazing that I had that access.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and with all of that, you know, it I thought that was where my life was heading towards and doing a lot of missions work.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: I had conversations to um potentially move to California and do stuff with um maybe heard them circuit riders.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna they kind of do stuff similar to MBL, so they're kind of MBL adjacent.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: So youth with a mission or YWAM, um, they're like the big mothership, like when it comes to evangelism and discipleship and all that to like share the gospel with that college student specifically.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: But MBL is more geared and tailored, like their home base is Grand Rapids.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Circuit Riders is more music focused, and their curriculum and their sending out space is Huntington Beach, California.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: So they all basically kind of do the same thing.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I was gonna move better weather.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they do have better weather, yes, much, much better weather.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Ah gosh, that would have been so much fun.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: But God bless circuit riders are super dope, and I'm still friends with a lot of the leadership there, so they're amazing.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I was gonna do that, the Lord closed that door um to start a conversation with me about maybe moving to Spain, and while things were leading towards that, and I was gonna uh teach English over there.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was gonna do full-time um TEFL certificate and like teaching English as a second language, uh, and I was gonna work at a church through the Assemblies of God out in Barcelona, and that was gonna be like my my full-time missions thing.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, COVID hits, so all that gets tossed by the wind.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: I started posting more content online with drumming and music and all this stuff, and it lended itself to get a lot of attention from a lot of other musicians at a lot of other churches out of state.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I started traveling more during COVID than before COVID, which is wild.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, one of them being to a women's conference at a Spanish church here in Indianapolis, Indiana, in October 2020.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I got connected with a lot of amazing um people that are well known in like the Spanish Christian scene that I didn't think I would ever like talk to or or have connections with, uh, especially um where I started coming from.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: A small town, small, I'm short, I'm a small kid, um small town space like that, to now you know, being contracting, doing all these things, and it was um just so crazy to see how the Lord just start just was opening all these doors, right?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um get connected with that.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: The guy that was leading the charge of it all his name was Abner Imeli.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: Shout out to you, Abner, love you lots.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he asked if I wanted to go on tour with him to play drums for him across the country, and I said, sure.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: And 2021, I started drumming with him for a little bit.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we played a couple different states, one of them being Texas, and we were in Texas, and uh I drove to Texas with a friend, and the Lord spoke to Abner that it was time it was a confirmation that he needed to move from New York, which is where he was living at the time, to Indianapolis, where I guess he was raised.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know too much about him at the time, um, to a pastor's dad's church, the one where that women's conference was at.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh my gosh, it's crazy, I'm out the job, but it's fine, I'm going to Spain anyways, whatever.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and my friend who connected me with these people got offered the role of being a music director at this church, which is a new thing for them.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like Spanish churches, it they're they're starting to now get into the ballpark of like what American churches have, resources and positions and otherwise.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: So having an MD was like a new thing uh for this church.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: So they're working through that, what that looks like.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm talking with Abner in this kitchen that they uh in this house that they let us stay after a week while we were out there, and I don't know, he just looks at me funny, and he just said it with so much conviction.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, I believe the Lord's calling you to Indianapolis, and I want you to move in with me.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I've only known this guy for five months.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't like consider him as a friend at the time.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, now I do, but he was more like a boss to me.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: But I was he said it with so much conviction.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, okay, well, let me pray and fast about it.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I prayed and I fasted.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, long story short, God made it aggressively clear that I needed to cancel my plans to Spain and move to Indiana.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I called my mom, my dad, my pastor, my grandma.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, hey, instead of this year and a half long plan that we've been doing to Spain, in eight weeks I'm moving to Indianapolis, Indiana.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, oh, what are you gonna do out there?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: What church are you going to?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe this one?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh what job you have?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: Where are you staying?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I was just fully phased, just like stuff my twin bed in my 2003 Acura RSX, seats folded down, as much clothes that I can fit in the trunk, and just drive four hours and like see what the Lord does.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I get here after uh a month of being also I went, I got about uh to the Dominican Republic with Abner for a month.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: We were out there and got to talk to him there.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: There were a lot of um future plans and expectations that were put um that I was kind of kind of writing on when he was talking when his dad was calling me on the phone and talking to me about this.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: Only for when I get here.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um I had to sleep in a living room with my friend, and we were paying rent for that living room.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I thought it was gonna be covered, but it's it's fine.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and me and my friend were also like creating curriculum for a worship school that they were where we were planning and talking about, like trying to establish that that had to get scrapped because there wasn't space and there wasn't money at the time.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so there was just a lot of these promises that were spoken, never written on paper, that were being canceled on me and my friend.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we were both upset about it.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um my friend took it a little bit more um not healthy than what I think evil was even justified for.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: Started acting very unchrist-like very quickly.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I feel confident saying this because we've even talked about this now, and we've and uh ultimately the Lord started um the process of him like leaving the state for a little while and um working through some stuff, and there was a lot of back and forth between this church and him regards to like stuff that I um that I unfortunately got like in the middle of, and homeboy started burning a lot of bridges with me included and saying a lot of stuff that he didn't need to say, and resulted in our friendship no longer being a friendship.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it wasn't until like a couple months ago we reconciled, but we weren't speaking for three years, this friend and I.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: So the only friendship and connection that I had in Indiana was gone now, and now I am in a land with a bunch of strangers at a church I didn't want to be in, in a space I didn't want to be in, in a living situation that I didn't want to be in, and this is now September 21st, 2021.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um this is by the way, all this happened in the span of three months of me moving here.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: So from June to September, this is all happening, right?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: So now I'm September 21st.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sitting in Monument Circle here in downtown, and I'm people watching, and I'm looking all around me, just like, God, why'd you bring me to Indiana?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: I could have been in Spain right now, but I'm in Spain without the S.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in pain right now, God.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm so I'm looking at all that, right?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: And people watching, as one with ADHD does, and I'm looking around, and out of nowhere, and for those that maybe prophetic giftings and all that is new territory for you.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's also kind of new territory for me.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up with it thanks to my mom and my Pentecostal you know, background upbringing, but I'm just now like theologically working through like what this all looks like and and things like that.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out Pastor Adam, Victory Tabernacle.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah, he's a he is a good dude.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love Pastor Adam, he's dope.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I know that signs and dreams and visions is not my prophetic gifting per se, but uh I believe the Lord allowed me to have a vision of what Indiana has, potential wise.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um the sky again, this is the take this as you will for those that are watching and viewing.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um the sky went from clear as day, like bright daylight, it's noon, right?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: To black instantly.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: And the lights, you know, all throughout the night.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: It looked like nighttime.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Physically or mystically?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: I like I see this, right?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: I I believe it's happening in the spirit, right?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: But it's daytime, like we're like it's day right now, it's daytime, and then I see the sky go dark.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: See the lights coming on, and I see starting from the steps of Monument Circle, these cracks forming all across the ground, all around Indianapolis, and I see these cracks opening up and these flickering lights that are happening all around the city, all around the state.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm looking at this confused because I don't know what's happening.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I can't make sense of this, but I just look to the heavens and I say, Lord, I don't know what this is, but if this is you, I want to be a part of this.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um cut to a year later.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the Lord has worked in my heart in some crazy ways at this church.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very grateful for all the lessons that I've learned at this church.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, grateful for the people and the friendships and the hard conversations and even like the stuff that I didn't agree with and the things that humbled me, I'm very thankful for that.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: But after that year, the Lord made it just as clear that my time at the church was coming to an end.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um and they blessed my exit, they blessed my transition.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: But because I was so busy doing other things at this church, and there wasn't really a space and a time for me to go visit other churches, I didn't go to another church.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I this was now my visiting stage.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I was nomadic, I was just I door-dash full time, so I'm door-dashing just like delivering people's food and listening to worship music and podcasts and and sermons while I'm Googling churches online, just like trying to go visit and put my name out there and say, Hey, like if you guys need a drummer, like hit me up.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: And that got my foot in the door with a lot of places.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, to um big churches, small churches all across, they just were just so gracious and so kind to open their doors to me and let me in their worlds, uh, barely knowing me, but um loving on me so well, um, and also like it became a job for me.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm able to pay my bills thanks to a lot of these communities.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: So very thankful for that.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but as I started playing at these different churches, big and small, I I'm a fly on the wall.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm just observing, right?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm no one that has any say, any authority of speaking on anything at these churches.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: But as I'm walking, as I'm on a drum kit and I'm looking around, um, I see like in the congregations and even on the worship team, like people that have this just like like this spark and this fire uh and this desire to see God move in a more profound way through worship in a corporate space that just wasn't being fostered in the context that they had, whether it be a Sunday morning service or a Thursday night gathering or a Wednesday service or a Tuesday, like any day of the week.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's just wasn't there wasn't given much space to like create a space where there was a balance between spirit and truth and really just diving into having those intense moments of just uh open heart surgery through worship, you know, with the Lord.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: And as I would talk with um worship leaders in state uh about this, a lot of them um would say, like, you know, that's not that's not the season where we're at right now, or well, we're moving in that direction, but we're just not quite there yet.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of things that on paper, understandable, make sense, you know, and every every uh culture, every space um has to operate differently based off of different uh circumstances, uh leadership, culture, things like that.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: But for me, I was just like, that's that's not that's not enough.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I began grieving and praying for a state I didn't even want to be in.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm now like in my living room at three in the morning.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: By the way, I moved out of that space where I was at the living room.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: I now live at this point now.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm living in a new house with some amazing roommates at the time.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, with a bedroom, four walls and a door, praise God.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I was just praying in this living room at 2, 3 in the morning for all these churches and all these people and for God to do something.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: And as I kept wrestling with these thoughts and with what I see the Lord doing, um, these ideas and blueprints on what this context could look like started kind of like veering into my mind and all these brainstorming, and I would talk with worship leaders in-state, out of state, out of country about these ideas, and a lot of them would just affirm it, start to expand on it, and then a couple of them were like, Juan, this sounds sounds like a ministry.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it sounds like something you should do.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, okay, but like someone else can like can do this because I'm a drummer, I don't know what the heck I'm doing, you know.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, never led worship before, never sang in front of people before, never ran like anything behind the scenes when it came to churches at the time.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: I just hit things with sticks and I do it well.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: I do that very well, nothing else.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: So um I just began just praying and asking the Lord, okay, like God, bring someone.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: And no one was showing up.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, do you want me to do this?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: So um I kept wrestling with it about the Lord, just not feeling qualified for a multitude of reasons.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but ultimately it just felt like such like a desire and such like a heartache for me to like put this like in like birth it to give it life that I'm like, okay, even if I'm not the right guy, like maybe the right guy will come along the way.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: But like someone's gotta make this happen.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: And if it's gotta be me, so be it.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's gonna suck, but it's it'll be me.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I just I began praying for the name, I began praying for people, I began praying for um when and where we were gonna do it, and it was at um it was at 420 ministries, shout out 420 ministries, back when before they were at Pastor Adam's church, before they were at Victoria Alliance, they were at another church on the west side.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: And Matt General, for those that are from the old guard, uh will know that name, he was giving a sermon on the seven words of praise and worship in Hebrew.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: You had Todah, Shabbak, Tehila, uh Zamar, um Todah, Barak, and Yada.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and Yada really stood out to me.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know what it meant at the time.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: And when I Googled it, uh Y-A-D-A-H, it was great shout, lifted hands, loud, aggressive worship.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, that's sick.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh I was talking with Liz McClintock, um, also shout out to Liz.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she's super great, and I love her so much.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: She was, she a few weeks later was talking to me about uh another phrasing of the word yada, which is coming from the book of Genesis, Y-A-D-A, which is um the way that the descriptor of how Adam knew God, like through his own encounter, his own experience.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: And that was just like what confirmed it to me.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, okay, we gotta use this for something.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I looked at Yada Praise, Yada Collective, Yada M S C, all of them were taken.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, man, we can't use it.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: But a friend of mine from Germany is like, have you tried house but in German?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: I see a lot of Americans use that.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Oh, how do you smell that?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: He was like, H-A-U-S.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I put the two together and I was like, Oh, that's fire, and it wasn't taken, so I was like, all right, cool.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: And um then my then roommate uh Isaac, who was going to um a church, shout out to Vineyard and Greenwood at the time.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: They were doing uh worship gatherings at different houses every month, and they couldn't find a house to do anything in uh April of 2023.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: And we just decided to offer up our house, you know, for the night.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: So we had a place, we had a date, we had a name, and I was like, all right, God, just to make it hard on you, I'm gonna ask these seven specific people who are always busy all the time.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if these seven say yes, then I'll do it.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then all seven said yes.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: And well, what?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: So we had it, and it was word of mouth because I was off social media at this point.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I just had them spread the word, and I was thinking maybe an hour of worship, 20 people were gonna show up, and 52 people for seven hours of worship were happening at my house.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: Nine o'clock at night till four in the morning.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: We were going after it.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's crazy, and the Lord was edified and it was dope and it was amazing.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that that was the birth of Yada House, and since then uh we have a music studio now.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we're working on songwriting.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we've played with I think like eight different churches, uh, three college campuses.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: We've gone out of state twice with plans of going more out of state uh this upcoming year.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and we're also, if you guys uh have nothing going on in 2026, uh at the last Friday every month, uh we're gonna be doing gatherings at the house.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um we're just gonna be doing it like house church style, just like like all the instruments, but like fit them into my living room and just worship Jesus from seven to whenever.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that's kind of um that's uh that's spark notes of my testimony and Yada House and all that and how I got to Indiana.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: You wanna put the info on here?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: The address?
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, sorry.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Or I can put it in notes.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so uh the address for my house for the gatherings that are be gonna be happening.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have to go with paparazzi now.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh lord.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not that cool, guys.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: I promise.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um one you're so cool.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: You're so cool, dude.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: Goodness gracious.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh 1579 Demory Road, Greenwood, Indiana.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh 46 Juan 43.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: And um also for parking, uh, I also have a barn next door.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: I I wanted because I rent there, my landlord, he's amazing.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: Shout out to Brent.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I wanted to do it like in this barn that was next door, but it has so much equipment of his that if we start worshiping and praising stuff, things are gonna start falling off the wall.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna get so many hospital bills if we do it in that barn.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, we're doing it in my living room.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, tons of parking.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: Show up, pull up.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: I want to fill up my room uh with my living room with as many people for Jesus.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go crazy for the gospel and for the Lord and for all the things.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: Questions, comments, concerns.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: As a ministry.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: I when when this was birthed, number one, Yada House is now my idea.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: This wasn't something that was in my bingo card, you know, in 2023 that I thought uh was ever gonna happen.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I still, you know, when we do our gatherings and and you saw like what we had, you know, at our at the gathering uh that you did on the 31st, um, and it was beautiful and it was amazing.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: The Lord did it.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: Even in spaces like that, I thought we that was like us like in our prime.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like that was like as like ready as we can be as a ministry.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: Even in moments like that, I feel at times I'm not worthy or qualified, you know, for this.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: Cause it's such like the amount of stuff and the amount of resources and blessings that we as a ministry have gotten normally takes churches and ministries years to cultivate and develop.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: And for us, just being like two and a half years in ministry, and for us to to have the the success and the love and the support that we have, I I don't feel worthy of it.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't feel it's earned, but neither's our salvation, you know.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I when it comes to a direction or a plan, I'm just going off of whatever the Lord puts on my heart, and I talk with it with my leadership team to say, like, hey, this is on my heart.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: What do you guys think?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I have I have a leadership team, so a plan director, content director, um, music coordinator, um, and um I'm trying to get like more people, like a plan um prayer and outreach director and a proper sound engineer.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so just trying to cultivate a team where we can cover all these facets to create a healthy uh worship environment whenever we have any of our gatherings.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I've I asked them for any wisdom, any support, any ideas.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: And if they agree with it, then we go for it.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: If not, we nuke it.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and and so it's more about like wherever God wants to take us, we'll go.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um as of right now, it's looking like these monthly gatherings, it's looking like songwriting, and it's looking like church invites.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: And where that goes after that, that's all on God.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just I'm just happy and content with where we're at.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds like a lot of great stuff to come.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Songwriting.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: I hope it's I mean, shoot, I hope it's good.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, it'll be weird in these songwriting sessions, be like, yo, dude, that song sucks.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Just release it anyway.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: MBO.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think all their songs are like just spontaneous.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just their worship nights.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the thing is like MBO, and I know Brennan and I know like all the the back line people.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, shout out to Trent and all the homies.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they're they're MBO.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're all amazing humans, and I love them all the bits and pieces.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: They're all crazy talented.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like, on top of like they love the Lord, like to the point that they fully commit to that as a job in ministry and just live out of support um independently from like a big organization.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's that takes like a special kind of human man.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I have nothing but absolute love, respect.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: I take off my hat to them because they're they're just beautiful and crazy creatures of humans, just on the Jesus side of things.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: And the music side, they are like some of the most talented musicians for sure in the Midwest.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'd be bold enough to say in the country, like those guys, so anything that they just come up with off the cuff is a combination of them with their crazy intense obedience and faith to the Lord and their talent.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: So whatever they whatever they you know come up with is gonna be super dope and amazing, regardless of if it sucks or not.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh as for me, I'm a drummer, man.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what I'm doing out of the time.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh man, but yeah, we'll we'll see.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see what the Lord does, man.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just I'm just taking it one day at a time.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: Heck yeah, dude.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: The biggest thing that stuck out to me is your faith is incredible.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, bro.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I it reminded me of the verse um we our our hearts make our plans, but the Lord orders our steps, and how you were like, boom, I'm gonna go to Spain, and then he's like, uh no, actually, you're gonna go to Indianapolis.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: And but like just like how you just could say yes, you just pack up your car with a twin bed, you said nothing else, no place to go, no church to go, nothing, no job.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Just like Indianapolis.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, looking back, my so my what also was kind of like surprising of that, of that whole conversation early, early on before I moved, was my dad uh was surprisingly supportive.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um prior to me moving here, I was offered an opportunity to move to a ministry house where it was a beautiful spot, close to everyone, um still at my same church, doing everything the same way, just living on my own, you know, with rent and with just biblically sound guys.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: My dad, and the really cool thing about my dad is because he looks at everything with a very critical lens, and I wouldn't say skeptic, but it'd be skeptical adjacent.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the way he reads the Bible and the way the Lord's just gifted him with understanding that and is and combining that with looking at things in a constantly wise and discerning way.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he looked at that situation and he was like, I don't think that's from the Lord, I don't think you should do that.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: And that's like 10 minutes from where I was living.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: Versus when I said when I was talking about Indiana, he was like, you know what?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it's from the Lord.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, What?
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, alright, clearly, like he's seeing someone that I'm not seeing, so praise God for that.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: But then my mom, I remember um, so me and my sister, we were living, uh, we had our rooms next to each other, the walls were thin, and my mom was having a conversation with my sister, and I could like hear them talking on the phone.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: My sister had it on speaker.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: She was like, in Spanish, she was like, I don't quite understand this like whole thing with like why I'm moving to Indiana, like it seems crazy, it seems wild.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Thanks, mom, appreciate that.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for your love and support.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: But but on the outside looking in, it was crazy.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I just gave up like a secure job, like of being an English teacher on the other side of the world in a beautiful city with a job lined up, with I was looking at apartments, like everything like that, to no idea what the heck I was doing in the middle of nowhere in the country.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, I get it, but again, the Lord's just in such a wild way.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's something unique happening here in Indiana, I think there's something unique amongst the local church as well as the Capital C church.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I look a lot to um characters in the Bible, and um I use language um when it when I'm comparing and contrasting things biblically.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: There's descriptive and prescriptive.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so descriptive, you look at events, circumstances, people, context, whether old and new testament, you look at that, and you see what had happened, you look at the context of what happened surrounding that, and then you now try to apply the lessons learned from there under a now new modern context as a way of reflection, honoring still what the Lord is teaching us through the Bible.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then it's prescriptive, like these are like commandments, like these are the rules, the no-nonsense, the non-negotiables that the Bible tells us as believers, as Gentiles, okay, this is what we're doing, and these are the the practices of a Christian.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I was looking at a lot of descriptive just language regarding characters in the Bible, and I'm looking at Indiana, and it was giving me a lot of similar imagery to um the story of Moses and the Israelites in the desert and David, and I'll say why.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: David, he was the rudder of his litter, you know, he was the forgotten son, but when King Saul, when the presence of God had left King Saul because of his pride and his uh war-mongering, just heart posture, the prophet Samuel was now being tasked by the Lord to look for the next king and told him to go to the house of Jesse.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: So he goes to the house of Jesse, and you know, Jesse's showing his seven other sons.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Oh, look at these, man, look at how great they are.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then Samuel's just discerned from the Lord.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have anyone else?
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Oh, but I have another kid, but you don't want him.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like, he's he's he's on, he's a shepherd boy, and he's like, No, no, no, bring him to me.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: We're not gonna sit down and eat until you bring him to me.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: So calls David, David comes in, battered, bruised, and beautiful because he finds lions, tires, and bears.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: And the Lord tells Samuel, that's the one anoints him in front of his family, the ones that overlooked him and rejected him and do all this, right?
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then before I get into what I'm saying with that, I want to now go jump to the story of Moses with the Israelites.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: All right, they left Egypt, they're in the desert, they made a 40 day trip turning to 40 years.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: And the reasoning, according to the Bible, why that happened is that the ones that left Egypt, because they knew the life that they had in Egypt, because of them constantly complaining and And not really being grateful or having that heart posture of dependency on God for the mana that would fall and for the cloud that covered them and for the fire that covered them at night and for the protection within those 40 years, God said, okay, these will not inherit the promised land.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: But it's their children that will inherit the promised land.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because that old guard is used to what they know and what they understand.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: But the ones that were born in the desert, all they know is the promised land.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: All they know is the manna that fell from heaven.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: All they know is the cloud that covered them at night and the fire that covered them during the day.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: The crazy events and circumstances where the Lord would consume uh entire sections of their people.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: So those people, because all they knew was the Lord and depending on him, they were the ones that inherited the promised land.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, not even Moses, because of at the very end, because of his because of his uh anger and because of him not following the the will of the Lord wasn't able to enter into the promised land.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: It had to be um oh my gosh, why am I blanking on uh I think it was Joshua?
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, um so the moral of these two stories is you have an unlikely person, you have an unlikely individual that no one would think or bad an eye to becoming the very person that would change the trajectory of an entire civilization, of an entire kingdom.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: And you have a group of people that because they're so dependent and they're so on fire for the will of the Lord, and that's all they know, and that's all they can understand and comprehend, they're the ones that will inherit the next decision, the next uh blessing, and things like that.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: So now let's put that in a modern context.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: Let's look at Indiana, okay.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: Before me moving here, it no one I never thought of Indiana.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it was a flyby state.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: It was in Indianapolis, the nickname for it is Knapp Town.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: Am I right?
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so like people would look at Indiana and be like, oh, like nothing's nothing's gonna happen, or people things, dreams die in Indiana, Indianapolis, or whatever.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but as I've lived here and as I've seen what the Lord is doing behind the scenes in the Capitol C church, and now looking at it through the local church lens, there's just a different thing that's going on here in Indiana, man.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's a there's a unique tension that's happening between what has always been and what the Lord wants to do.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: There's just just like, oh, we want to see God move, but within our understanding, within our bounds, within what we understand as church to always be.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then you have what I think the Bible, I think the Bible coins this, the remnant, that says, hey, like, we want to follow the will of God, no matter what it looks like, if it means we have to shake up everything we understand and know about church, about doctrine, about people, as long as it's biblically sound and God ordained and uh emboldened by the Holy Spirit, we want to pursue that.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: And my tension is that I love the local church and I love the Lord.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: Both have to coexist, meaning that one of these has to change.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_02: That ain't changing.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: This has to change.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: I believe that there's gonna be a shaking.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I I you know, I think Coba was a perfect example of the Lord like shaking up his body and his bride and seeing like who's there for the right reasons and who there's who's who's there just to hang.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because people that were persistently like going online, going to all these events, doing all this, were the ones that were keeping doors open at churches, were the ones that were keeping ministries alive and existing.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and there were other ones that as soon as doors started opening up, they're like, Oh, I'm not going to church anymore.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, cool.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think what's happening in the local church is a very similar thing in a spiritual sense, that there's a shaking up, that there's something that that's affecting um what we understand and know to be fellowship, gathering, church, um, understanding of God's character and the movement of the Holy Spirit within us.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, how do we react to that?
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_02: How do we respond to that?
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: What is the biblical response to those things?
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think it's really messing with a lot of routines and curriculum within the local church.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and either they go with the flow or they don't, and they're left behind.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna get off my soapbox now.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna put you back on your soapbox.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, jeez.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: In your eyes, what do you feel like the local church should look like?
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: The gatherings of worship.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: Especially, I'm curious about mega churches where it's like we have worship from this exact second to this exact second, then the message is this exact length, and then we always finish at 1015.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like always, it's not 1014, it's not 1016, it's always 1015, week after week after week.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I actually had a very similar discussion with this on our podcast, Riata House, with uh with my content director, who who and I, who she and I are we're born and raised Pentecostals.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like Sundays for us were a five-hour Super Bowl event.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like worship, just worship, was an hour to an hour and a half.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: The sermon was maybe minimum 45 minutes to an hour.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then you would have prayer, which would turn into worship, which would turn into the toll church going crazy, people doing laps, speaking in tongues, and doing the nine yards.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that's what I grew up in.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: That was that was, and also on top of that, I grew up Latinos.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: So like Latinos throw down like crazy.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: Puerto Ricans, we throw down like crazy.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: Guatemalans, we throw down like crazy.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: So um as I've gotten older though, and as I've gotten to explore different denominations, I'm not even gonna mega churches yet, just different denominations, different walks of life.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen the Lord work and operate in these different contexts in such a unique and beautiful way that it's challenged my own understanding of church.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's why uh with Yada House, I've had uh a discussion with my team about like, although we're called Yada House, our focus is to make sure that all facets of worship, all seven styles are being represented.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, particularly the one that has challenged me the most is Barak, which is almost the opposite of Yada, which is to be reverential, still, to postrate yourself, to get low for the Lord.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that is a big challenge for me because I'm used to like hands up, screaming, jumping, yelling, like you saw me off ride.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm I'm moving and grooving, bro.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: But also, I am very quickly when I get a sense that we're starting to get into like more emotional territory where we're just feeding off of like what everyone else is doing and not what we're doing.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: I shut it down.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, all right, bring it low.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: Just the voice, or like doing something to like get us back, to like circle us back.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: With mega churches, um, I uh I always look at it from a balanced perspective.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that way like my opinions are never really my opinions, it's just it's here on paper.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: The big church exists, I believe, because the pastor was being moved by the presence of God in a way that spoke to enough people that they started talking to their neighbors and their friends and their moms and their dads, say, hey, look at this pastor, look at what God's doing through this pastor, look at what God's doing through this church.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_02: And that creates healthy growth.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: What then starts to shift and happen, I believe, is that once you get into like the hundreds to even thousands territory, you it's no longer my friend and my neighbor, it's the person that's from the other side of town that I've never met or seen before that I'm sitting next to, which means you don't know your neighbor.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know the people that you're sitting next to, you don't know the people that you're gathering and worshiping with.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the original intention of the church is the gathering of the saints, particularly, you know, in the book of Acts during the birth of the church.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um church, as we understand it, back when Christians were called believers of the way, was just people sitting down in a dinner table and talking about what God was doing lately in their life.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if there was a need in the community, they chip in all together and they do that.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_02: That that was the church.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's the body of Christ.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and people were so emboldened and so convicted and challenged by that, that began to spread this understanding of life and Jesus all across the world.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_02: You have people going to Africa, you have people going to China, you have people going to Europe.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_02: Throughout all of that, if you also history tends to repeat itself, so you also tend to notice that the African church, the European church, the the churches in Asia don't all look the same because they began to feed off of, as they started growing, feed into what was happening at the time in their culture.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_02: With Europe, because uh Emperor Constantine uh became a Christian and started blessing um the Christians, getting them out of prisons, and then having them be more involved in government, it created one of the many great schisms between believers in Christ.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: So schism means separation of denomination of churches.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: And uh you had those that established the Roman Catholic Church, those that had the power in Rome and all that, and then the Eastern Orthodox Church.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_02: You had those that had traditions that dated all the way back, you know, early biblical times, mixed in with certain other practices and things that although aren't tangentially connected to the gospel and to the Bible, um, you could you could find ways on how it's connected to the Bible.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then with the uh African churches, you had blendings of biblically sound doctrine, uh blends a little bit of European stuff, and then blends from like indigenous cultures.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: So some churches over there, they're either like super duper, like crazy legalistic.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: This is how church is done, or excuse me, or they get into weird, veering territory where they're praying for weird stuff every service, and there's like viral videos online of like churches in Africa that are doing some wild stuff.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then the ones that are actually doing it the healthiest are the underground churches in China, the ones that like they're still technically, technically being persecuted right now.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of these churches, they're having services in caves, in basements, people underground that like if they express this publicly, they're gonna get a lot of trouble.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like Hong Kong is different than than the rest of China, of China proper.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: Hong Kong is a very democratic, very, very America adjacent when it comes to the culture.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_02: So Hong Kong, if you look at churches in Hong Kong, they they look like American churches.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: But if you go to anywhere like in villages and things where there's a little bit more um culturally oriented towards uh traditional China, um it's Buddhist, it's um it's uh certain practices of Hinduism, uh, even certain practices of Islam are practiced in China.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_02: And these spaces, if you go over there and just publicly profess Jesus as Lord and Savior and have no nonsense about it, you can get in a lot of trouble.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can get arrested, you could get kicked out of a town, you could get killed potentially even.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: So the churches that are doing stuff over there, man, they're following only what the Bible says.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, in a way that like they put their life, blood, sweat, and tears into it, and it is intense, great, beautiful, intense.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've had friends that have done missions work in China, and they've seen the pretty stuff, they've seen the ugly stuff, and it's beautiful over there.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_02: But back to what I was saying with mega churches, uh, because you asked about mega churches.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um the American church in general um has done a really great job in creating a curriculum music and um spaces that could be uh accessible and uh digestible to all people.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna leave that there for a second.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_02: Some people need to be shaken up, some people need to be challenged, some people need to be met where they're at.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_02: This can't always cover that.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_02: Those conversations require, and this is where also these other spaces that they create within the bigger churches, like small groups, Bible studies, like these big initiatives where they follow like a program where they have specific questions that target specific conversations, difficult conversations, which um if that works, praise God.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_02: If it doesn't work, we need to figure something out.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: I personal, personal opinion, I'm not always a fan of mega churches.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm someone that likes to personally know my pastor.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_02: I like to uh know my neighbor, I like to know the people around me.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_02: On the flip side, some of my closest friends here in Indiana work and operate at mega churches, and these are people that I know without a shadow of a doubt, they love the Lord.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_02: They are buck wild crazy for Jesus.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_02: They will throw themselves up a brick wall for Jesus.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like these are people that gun-ho for God.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um they operate within systems that don't always give them the context and the space to go deeper.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: Hence why Yada House is that space for them as well as a new believer.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's it's meant to meet people where they're at and not keep them there.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm I am not afraid to have tough conversation with people.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a no-nonsense guy.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_02: I've told you about this where I'm like, if I don't like something, I'm gonna let you know.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: If I like something, I'm gonna let you know.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_02: I don't leave anything up for interpretation.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's that's on the Bible.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: So with bigger churches, because they want to gear their curriculum and their systems and their routines to target as many people as possible and to get as many people in the door and as many people to get baptized, and as many people to sing the songs, and as many people uh to tell their friends to come.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it doesn't always lend itself to be accessible for those difficult conversations.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it doesn't always lend itself um to really target people.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now, there's some pastors that are really are amazing communicators that know how to give the word of God in a way that is accessible, that is tangible, and that can ruffle some feathers.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some people may hear some of those sermons say it's not enough.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: Some people may say that they're doing too much, you know, you're never gonna please anybody.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's within the 15 years of me doing ministry that I've learned that that you're not gonna be everyone's friend, you're not gonna please everybody, and you have to be either okay with that and move on, or you change a lot of yourself in the process, and that could be a good or bad thing.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe that could be the Lord starting to shift things, it could be you trying to please a lot of people that you don't need to please.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_02: I I have no say or place in that.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just grateful that I get to even know about these things and to have those conversations with people and have the access that I do.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_02: There are some churches that um that I've had the privilege and the honor to be in proximity with that to most they they don't.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the fact that like I can sit down and have these people as friends, as allies, as people that I can go to for advice and mentorship and communicate like deep thoughts, and they give me deep answers to those.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_02: I am forever and eternally grateful.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I will always go up the bat for any one of them, big or small church.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, these are people that I will take a bullet for, you know.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_02: So um the big any church in general, big or small, um, there's always gonna be issues, there's always gonna be stuff that we need to work through.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, just the bigger churches, they have the bigger spotlight, so it's easier to see the areas, but everyone's got something you need to work on.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_02: No church is perfect.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_02: The only church that is perfect is the one that we're gonna have when we're in heaven.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: So big churches, small churches.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: What came to mind?
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_01: Home church.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: My home church?
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: What are your no, what are thoughts on home church being like like at somebody's house?
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like you were saying, back to the basics where it's like people pitch in, they're like a true family, everyone knows one another, probably on a pretty deep level.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: What are your thoughts on that?
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_02: There I believe there's a time and a place for everything.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the Bible says there's a time to rejoice, there's a time to grieve, there's a time to um to celebrate, there's a time to be angry.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's a time and a place, I think, for the small gatherings.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um I pray that Yada House is one of them.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um when it comes to house churches, I believe that those are spaces that truly show like the authentic hard posture of what a healthy gathering looks like.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, I I think if you now here's the thing though about with a whole house church requires a pastor.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and I when I say like we're a house church adjacent, I'm not a pastor.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I know that that is not my spiritual title.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a worship leader, you know.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: I I lead people to worship, but I don't believe that my gifting is to put up a sermon uh that will challenge people, that will go back to the Bible.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: Now you could do Bible studies uh do all that stuff.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_02: I believe that um the ministry of pastor.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: Lord's cooking.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_00: Lord's cooking.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_02: The the role of a pastor is a is one that is constantly desired from on paper.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_02: Practically, it's a scary thing, and it's one that you should enter into with reverence and with trembling.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because the Bible says if you want to be a pastor, you're not only responsible for your salvation in your walk with Christ, you're responsible for the for the understanding and the knowledge uh and the relationships of all the people that you shepherd now.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_02: So if you want to call yourself a pastor and you don't have that understanding of what that role entails, respectfully, I don't want to be I don't want to be in your congregation because I want to know that my pastor takes his role that seriously.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like you are my shepherd, I am your flock, I'm your sheep.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're guiding me.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like the Lord's guiding me, but you're also guiding me like through your interpretation, your perspective, your principle.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're a home church, I still think the role of a pastor should be one that you've had training, you've had experience, uh, you have mentorship, you've had discipleship uh from reputable um people that can vouch for you, that can that you're accountable to as well.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: Because accountability is super important.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like I have like uh three accountability partners, I have like five mentors, uh, all of them have access to everything that's on this phone and everything in my life.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_02: So um, yeah, I mean, big church, small church.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um now when you get to now a four walls and a temple and you have services on a Sunday and you have a lot of people like coming and listening to what the Lord has deposited on your heart, um the expectation now there is the same, but now more practical.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, which that could be uh that could be opinionated, that could be like you know, a hard conversation to have.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh some people might say like, oh, you have to go to Bible school, you know, you have to get these four years and get a degree and this and that, and which I'm also a proponent of that.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like go to school, get your practical understanding of theology, like get understand like what you're trying to teach, like have the necessary tools and resources to know to be able to do that week to week.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some people might say, like, hey, if that's your gifting, if that's your calling, like, and you know how to do it well, and you've communicated that and you have healthy community around you, you don't need that.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know where I land on that yet.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, some people they call me a pastor, and I still kind of like shake at that a little bit because although I appreciate it, again, I know what that title means.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if that title is something that I should have.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um because I don't have the I don't have the the the schooling, I don't have the training, you know.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_02: I I've only been Been given, you know, the experience around me by people in a very niche field, which is worship.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I've I've been good friends with many pastors in my life.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen how they operate, I see how they function, um, and I've lived according to that.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't see myself as a pastor, you know, despite what many people might try to say, um, and if that and if the Lord starts um you know shifting my heart to that, and I've I've gotten comfortable with that, with that title.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh worship pastor.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I wouldn't call myself a pastor pastor, like sermon and all that, like I'll I'll say worship pastor.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like if if we wanna if we want to like really push that narrative, I'll say worship pastor.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_02: But um the role of like a shepherd, someone that is like creating that that space uh for people to learn the word of God.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, it's if you're doing house church, it's it's something that uh you have to be very careful with, you know, very particular with.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's it, that's the thing for me.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like home church, gotta have a pasture and gotta have a healthy pasture.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_02: Healthy community, healthy pasture.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_02: Regardless if it's a house church, a small church, a big church, a mega church, a campus of a church, like healthy pasture, healthy community.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_02: If that comes out like really weird in the clip, I'm so sorry.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um being a pastor, you shouldn't say, Oh, I want to be a pastor.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_01: It should be other people telling you you want to be a pastor.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_01: Or that you should be a pastor.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like it should be other people prophying prof prophesying that over you.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and uh, I've had a lot of people um profiling.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_02: Huh?
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_01: I said profying.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_01: Profying that over you.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_02: Profying.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_01: Prophesying.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_02: Profying.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've had a lot of people praying and prophesying over me that I would lead people, um, that I would um that I would worship and lead from the front.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I also believe in in that disposition that like if you have the gifting and the calling of being a pastor, it should be external.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_02: That invitation, it should never be like you saying, Oh, I want to be a pastor.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I think even those that like our pastors, they also are like, it's kind of it's kind of crazy what I'm doing.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, my my um my pastor from from back at home in Waukegan, um, he he started off um doing house church.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it wasn't something that he saw himself doing, it was more like a Bible study with friends.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_02: He was just doing a Bible study.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and um then it turned into like from 10 people to 30 people and 30 to 50 people, and then they moved from his living room to his basement.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_02: And what really sealed the deal for them that made me realize, oh, like this is something I should probably pursue, is um it was getting so many people in his basement.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think it was like 80 people in his basement, like there on a Tuesday night.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, you know what?
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_02: I need to knock down the wall of my studio so I can fit all these people.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Oh, I'm prioritizing this over my music.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_02: I should probably pursue this.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that started the conversation of him starting um his church, which went through many different evolutions.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_02: But what I love most about him is that he still, despite like the growth that was happening, still went back to school and got, I think it's his master's right now, um, in biblical studies.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_02: Because he's like, I want to make sure that like what I am preaching and what I'm teaching is sound doctrine, it is um proper understanding and interpretation of the scriptures.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_02: So again, it goes back to healthy pastor, healthy community.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_02: If it's growing at a healthy rate, that's good.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_02: If the pastor is someone that has the backing, has the support from other um like people in that field, and uh he's teaching from a space that is doctrinally sound, that is biblically sound, that is inspired from the Holy Spirit, then you have a healthy pastor, you have a healthy community, you have a healthy church.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_02: If it's a house church, if it's a big church, if it's a small church, you know.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_01: How big is that church now?
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Now so I think when they did their 10-year anniversary, they had to do it um at this really big theater um in Wauking.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's called the Genesee Theater, and the first floor, which was full when I saw pictures, I think can hold up to like six, seven hundred people.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's big.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's a lot of people, 700.
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the main campus, right now it's the only campus, uh, but they used to have two campuses, one in North Chicago, one in Waukegan.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_02: But when I say campus, they were independent churches that had their own pastors teaching and giving the word.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but they were under the same banner and they were under the guidance and mentorship of my of Pastor Alex, Alex Soler.
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but the main campus, um, because North Chicago no longer exists, they're just in a season of hiatus right now.
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, Joaquegan, the Joaquegan campus, uh, I think can hold up to two to three hundred people, and they have like two services, uh, in English, one in Spanish, and then they now recently started in Indian service.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that's been really exciting because there's a really growing population of people from the Middle East in Joaquin, and they want to make a healthy space for them to worship and to learn about Jesus.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's really cool.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_01: So this place went from uh Bible study of five to hosting a 10-year gathering with six, seven hundred people.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think that I mean, to me that sounds healthy.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know about you, but that that sounds like healthy growth.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I will I will vouch for Pastor Alex day in and day out.
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I was even having a conversation with uh a family member of mine, uh, and they were like, oh, I don't like Pastor Alex.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, why don't you like him?
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what's what's up with you and Alex?
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, oh, I just I feel like you know, he's this and that.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, well, let me tell you something.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_02: And this is like to a family member of mine, dog.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm I am I'm someone that like I am aggressively loyal, like to my people.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if you do right by me and you do right by the Lord, like you got me for life.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's very like you have to royally screw up in order for me to disfellow shit from you.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like that friend of mine that we didn't talk for three years, but the Lord just with that, that was really cool how that happened.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um after three years, and I would just try to reach out every now and then he wouldn't answer.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_02: I prayed to God about it and I was like, alright, God, I'm gonna give him one more shot.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna text him this one time, and if he doesn't answer after this, I'm never reaching out again.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_02: And the one time, the last time that I did, that's when he reached out.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_02: We grabbed breakfast and I gave him my two cents on like how everything went down between him and I, and he gave me his two cents, and we found there was a lot of correlation, we found there was a lot of miscommunication, we found there's a lot of misunderstanding, and we reconciled and we became friends again.
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_02: But even then, I was like, I don't know where he's at, blah blah blah, whatever.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_02: So cut to I was having this camp in Wisconsin.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_02: This is one of the two occasions we've gone out of state, and I was trying to build the worship team for that.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_02: No one was answering my emails, my phone calls, my texts, and he came to mind again.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, no, God, like, I don't know where he's at with his relationship.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't know if he's like healthy and his walk and this and that and whatever, but he just kept growing in my heart, and I'm just like, uh, alright, reach out.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, hey man, like, I got this thing coming up in Wisconsin.
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_02: You can say no if you want, um, but I'm inviting you to see if you want to pull up.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, I'd be honored to.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, okay.
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_02: One hour later, the rest of the worships team started piling up and started accepting all my invites.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, oh, okay, gotz, you're waiting for me to obey.
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Got it, cool.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it was the most fun I had at that camp.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was the exact right amount of people, Carmelo, that's his name, Carmelo, being one of them.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, it was so cool.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like one of my close friends now, again.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I love him the bits and pieces.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_02: We're constantly sending each other reels now, all kinds of nonsense.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_02: And he whenever he can, he tries to come down to Indiana and we hang out and we and we just do it, we do life together.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_02: He actually helped out at a gathering um at Indianapolis Baptist Temple, if anyone was there for that.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_02: It was in collaboration with a Christian clothing company called Increase Jesus.
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he played for that, and it was so cool to kind of full circle moment of him being back in Indiana and playing with us, and it's super cool.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_02: I love him a lot.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_02: And he's gonna be playing for this gathering we're having December 31st.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_02: If anyone's not doing anything, New Year's Eve.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, Yada House is doing stuff uh at my home church, Grace House, in Greenwood.
• 1:15:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's called Marinath Night.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, from 9:30 till midnight, we're gonna be ending the year and beginning the year worshiping and praising the Lord.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's gonna be a lot of fun.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_01: You have neighbors.
• 1:15:45
  SPEAKER_02: Do I have neighbors?
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, kinda like the way, and for anyone that shows up to the gathering starting in January, uh, you'll see it.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like, my neighbors are really far away from me.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I do have neighbors, like technically.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_01: See if we get a bit of the land.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I do.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm very blessed with the amount of space that I have uh in terms of land.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the closest neighbor, he lives literally across from me, and I have a brick house, so like no sound really leaves the house.
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's when we start doing like outdoor gatherings.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think the second time we did a gathering uh in my backyard, 200 people showed up to my backyard, and it was like really cool.
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_02: We rented a bunch of like equipment, which now we have all of our own equipment.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you saw the equipment, and um it was like 9:30 at night, and we were still going.
• 1:16:33
  SPEAKER_02: And the cops got called, you know, to tell us to shut it down because we were being loud.
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think the threshold uh to start noise complaints was like nine o'clock, and we were getting to 10 and we were still going like loud.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_02: I had an acoustic set, two guitarists, like the whole nine yards.
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_02: So that was that was fun.
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, if we go, if we do anything outdoors, we're gonna start probably at like six or something, and then go until nine, so I don't get the cops called on me again.
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know your neighbors?
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, they're they're dope.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I know, like I said, the one across from me I know really well.
• 1:17:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the other two live so far from me.
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_02: One of them, they have like this chicken farm.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_02: And like the kids that play out there with the chicken farm and they have like this pool and stuff.
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_02: I know them really well.
• 1:17:20
  SPEAKER_02: They're really dope.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and there's a chicken, there's one chicken, a rooster, that always leaves the hen.
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I always have to like run after the rooster and like drop it all into the kids and be like, hey, I think the rooster got out again.
• 1:17:34
  SPEAKER_02: Let me get you some.
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_02: So and then um there's this um, there's this uh, I think they're uh a Vietnamese family that lives so so far during the summer, they're always having huge family gatherings where it's like 50 to 80 people like at this house.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_02: So because you see all these kids like walking up and down the road from that house.
• 1:17:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so I don't know them super duper well, but they always drive past my house.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, you know, I wave and say, hey, you know, what's up?
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I should probably reach out to them and say what's up to them.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_02: They seem really cool.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then my technically neighbors is there's an apartment complex that lives like far from my house, far-ish, but I always see people from the apartments because there's like a trail like by my house that they walk dogs and they walk like their kids and stuff.
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm always like waving to all the tenants from that huge apartment complex, you know, right across from me.
• 1:18:24
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, and also behind my house, thanks to that apartment complex, there's like a pond, there's a dog park, there's like a little kids park with like swings and and slides and all that.
• 1:18:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, whenever it gets warm, I you know, and I have friends that have dogs who are like, oh, let's go to the dog park.
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go watch ducks fight at the pond.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go watch um the swing, you know, let's go on the swings or whatever, you know, at night and stuff like that.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_01: You just gotta get all your neighbors out there so that you don't get the cops called on you.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it it wasn't my neighbors that called the cops, it was the apartment complex.
• 1:18:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was someone from the apartments.
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_02: How am I gonna know all 200 of those tenants?
• 1:18:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna I'm just gonna go door to door.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Door to door.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you think so?
• 1:19:02
  SPEAKER_02: You should do that?
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, I'll I'll see.
• 1:19:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'll see if I can if if that's allowed, because it'd be kind of weird if like a stranger's like walking in.
• 1:19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know Jesus?
• 1:19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh, yeah.
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_02: That'd be that that you should do that.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_02: I should do that.
• 1:19:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man.
• 1:19:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is prophecy.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Here you go.
• 1:19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_01: What time are we at?
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh hour 18 minutes.
• 1:19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow, dude.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have a call in like four minutes.
• 1:19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, snap, okay.
• 1:19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean I can always push it back if I need to, but um any other questions you got from your boss?
• 1:19:43
  SPEAKER_01: I have questions for you personally off camera.
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, tight.
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I have questions now.
• 1:19:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna take this call and you have time, right?
• 1:19:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you can if you want to, yeah.
• 1:19:53
  SPEAKER_01: This call should take less than I'm like saying on us on camera.
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know where we get it out, but yeah, Quinn's got it.
• 1:20:02
  SPEAKER_01: We have so Quinn does uh shots and then Ava.
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out Ava.
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_01: She's watching this.
• 1:20:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Ava, you can keep us in here.
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out Ava.
• 1:20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out Ava, shout out Ava Hansen.
• 1:20:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's Ava Hansen?
• 1:20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know Ava?
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I know Ava, yeah.
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_02: She's awesome.
• 1:20:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, she's great.
• 1:20:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um Ava.
• 1:20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so she's our editor.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_01: She does, she's awesome.
• 1:20:23
  SPEAKER_01: She does all of our content.
• 1:20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um I actually usually have Instagram deleted and all social media deleted.
• 1:20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um just because I'd rather get in the word, maybe.
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, this has been the Reborn Podcast, man.
• 1:20:39
  SPEAKER_01: This has been amazing.
• 1:20:40
  SPEAKER_01: I actually probably do have more to talk about on camera, so maybe a part two coming soon.
• 1:20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Let me know.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Question marks?
• 1:20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Question mark.
• 1:20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Get in the comments.
• 1:20:49
  SPEAKER_02: Ask for part two if you want me around.
• 1:20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Or if you don't want me to talk anymore, tell them tell them to shut it down.
• 1:20:54
  SPEAKER_02: Whenever you want.
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_01: In one word, what uh who is Jesus to you?
• 1:21:05
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh.
• 1:21:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, just one word?
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_02: My Lord.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Lord.
• 1:21:20
  SPEAKER_02: Lord.
• 1:21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Lord Leloid?
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's a reference from Ninjago.
• 1:21:26
  SPEAKER_01: The movie.
• 1:21:26
  SPEAKER_02: Ninjago the movie.
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Leloyd.
• 1:21:29
  SPEAKER_02: My name's Lloyd, Dad.
• 1:21:30
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
• 1:21:31
  SPEAKER_02: I named you.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's Leloyd.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_03: You ruined my life.
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't even in your life.
• 1:21:38
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't even in your life.
• 1:21:39
  SPEAKER_02: You ruined my life.
• 1:21:40
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't even in your life.
• 1:21:42
  SPEAKER_02: How could I ruin it?
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh great movie.
• 1:21:46
  SPEAKER_02: Any Lego movie is great.
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_02: You can keep this in if you want, Ava.
• 1:21:49
  SPEAKER_02: Or put it in the in the outtakes.
• 1:21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, Ava, keep us in there.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_02: This is great, dude.
• 1:21:55
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me.
• 1:21:56
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like Ava's in the room with us.
• 1:21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Ava, you're in the room.
• 1:21:59
  SPEAKER_01: She's in the room in spirit.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're here in the spirit, Ava.
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Quinn is actually here physically.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_02: We love you, Quinn.
• 1:22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Love you, Quinn.
• 1:22:04
  SPEAKER_02: I love you, Quinn.
• 1:22:05
  SPEAKER_02: You're so great.
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_02: You're so handsome, too.
• 1:22:07
  SPEAKER_02: Goodness gracious.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_02: I I've had a glow-up.
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you I love like the little if you guys can't see this, but like he's got like these cool locks on him right now going on.
• 1:22:15
  SPEAKER_02: God bless him, dude.
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_02: You're so handsome, dude.
• 1:22:17
  SPEAKER_02: Look at you.
• 1:22:18
  SPEAKER_02: Look at you, man.
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_02: Goodness gracious.
• 1:22:23
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 1:22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, man.
• 1:22:27
  SPEAKER_02: But dude, this is great.
• 1:22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:22:29
  SPEAKER_02: This is great.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for coming.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man.
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_02: Love you, bro.
• 1:22:32
  SPEAKER_02: Love you too, man.
• 1:22:32
  SPEAKER_02: Next time.
• 1:22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Next time.