LifeTalk Podcast
LifeTalk is the official podcast of LifeHouse Church MOT. Our heart for this podcast is to help our church grow and to go deeper here at LifeHouse. We’ll be interviewing staff members & hearing their testimonies. We’ll be discussing various topics such as parenting, marriage, day-to-day functions of the ministry and so much more from a biblical perspective. Our goal is to help equip our church to glorify JESUS in every area of life.
LifeTalk Podcast
Herb Welday IV; Outreach & Missions Director
In this episode, we sit down with Outreach & Missions Director Herb Welday IV to talk through his testimony of Jesus saving him and leading him to come on staff at LifeHouse Church many years later!
New episodes every Monday
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info@lifehousede.com
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Intro music by Joey Blair
well, what's up? Life talk family. Welcome back to the life talk podcast. This is nate coming to you today and I am super excited I have a special guest with us today Jarvis.
Speaker 2:Brennan Jarvis is back. I'm back, I'm back. This would have been a good time to use our little sound thing I know Should have done that. I missed an opportunity.
Speaker 1:I'm too rusty Too rusty Nate's relegated back to the number two chair. No, nate's number one, nate's number one.
Speaker 2:I'm just you know I'm an addition, so it's good to be back, nate. Thanks for holding down. It's great to have you back. Uh, you know, yeah, had just some time away and not as long as I was away from the podcast. I wish everybody probably thinks you were gone. I know, I wasn't I wasn't gone, but um, just yeah different things that way and whatnot.
Speaker 1:Everybody's enjoyed the summer, but we are excited to have Jarvis back.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm glad to be back and I'm back for a good episode. I think you guys will enjoy just what you're about to hear today, and it's specifically our Outreach and Missions Director, herb Welday. How you doing, man.
Speaker 4:I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on the podcast guys. Of course, man Herb Welday IV.
Speaker 2:The fourth. Yeah, iquire, yeah, that might be my future. There you go, cool. Well, today we're just going to talk through just Herb's testimony and just kind of how God has worked, you know, from a young age and just moving into where he's at now, right being at LifeHouse on staff here and so the goal really when we started Life Talk Podcast many years ago was to help LifeHouse know LifeHouse better and so that when the people in our congregation are able to listen to an episode like this and know someone on staff in a deeper way that they might not be able to if you know, they just seen them on a Sunday morning or had a small conversation in the lobby and so, just being the size that we are, we like to kind of just work through, you know, those areas and we've seen benefit from that Just people.
Speaker 2:I mean I didn't know X, y and Z, and so I'm excited for today.
Speaker 4:Herb.
Speaker 2:And so I hope you are as well.
Speaker 4:I am very much excited. My story is a story, right. Everyone has a story.
Speaker 4:And mine's a great one. I think it's a story that is really of grace. That's all. Our testimony is a story of grace that we were dead, but by God. Like we heard yesterday from Pastor Mark, he intervened and that's really. I think if you could summarize my story in one sentence, that would be but God. And, yeah, my parents a little background, so we are newer to Delaware, but it's not foreign to us and my wife's born and raised in Delaware and her family's here and it's felt like a family for me as well, because my dad was in the military for 30 years nearly 30 years, 29 and a half and we traveled all around the world but we were never rooted in one place.
Speaker 4:So there's benefits to that and challenges and everything in between, but it's beautiful to see how God uses things in your life to prepare you for what he has you to do. And, as I even just reflect on this new opportunity and season he's placed us in, to step in missions and outreach is just seeing his hands you know, hear that talk hindsight's 2020 around here. It really is just just seeing him prepare in different seasons, uh, for this season that we're in right now and to step in to serve, so I'm excited about that yeah.
Speaker 2:And so let's just jump in. Tell us your I mean your dad was in the military. Yeah, tell us the earliest thing, like, start from the beginning. You came out the womb. Yeah, start from the beginning, you came out the womb yeah that's a great question.
Speaker 4:So I came out the womb 9-11-1995. So obviously a big day in our nation's history, 9-11-2001. But a few years before I was born in Tampa Bay, florida, sunny Florida. And you think about my earliest memory? Wow, that's a question. Um, I would say probably the earliest memory I can remember is going to elementary school, at tinker elementary school, where the tigers and uh tinker, tigers, yep and I.
Speaker 4:Honestly, 9-11 2001 was a big day for me, not because of all the things that were happening in the country, in our nation looking back, and all of the effects it's had for many years, but because, as a young, five, six-year-old, whatever I was at the time it was a normal day. It was my birthday. We're celebrating, I'm bringing cupcakes to school, and we're on a military Air Force base. So things are a little different than just a public school, yeah, and, but it functions like a public school and, um, and that shifted, like we got sent home early and, uh, I didn't get to give the cupcakes to my class and it was just a down there. I went around the neighborhood and gave the cupcakes out, but that was really the earliest memory I've had, and other than that it kind of gets a little foggy. But so we were in Florida.
Speaker 4:I have an older sister, younger sister, we were all born there and my parents were born and raised in the inner city of Baltimore and they're first-generation Christians. So that's part of my testimony is that they were raised in a Christian home. So they didn't know how to raise their family in a Christian home. So they were figuring that out. They were fumbling through learning how to do that, but they knew getting saved. Later in life, as an adult, they wanted their children to know Jesus and we did that.
Speaker 4:And from my earliest age I remember going to church, going to VBS, going to men's Bible studies with my dad and doing these breakfasts and just being around the church and rubbing shoulders with other Christians and that's all I knew and I'm really grateful for that time where we could experience God's grace and that's the only thing that I really, really knew and and I I'm so thankful, uh, to that. So so florida was probably till I was around like seven or eight, and then we moved to new jersey. New jersey was mcguire air force base and like central new jersey ish I think around trenton a little south um about three years.
Speaker 4:My family was there for four years because my dad did a tour in south korea for a year without us so, um, we were there for four years and that's where I actually professed the lord.
Speaker 4:So, around the age of nine, I I professed faith in the lord and I share that with my parents and I shared that with our pastor, pastor, pastor Kosti at the time Koston, excuse me, and he was just a local chaplain, southern Baptist pastor, actually a graduate from Southern Seminary and we expressed that and, at the same time, the Lord was doing a work in my older sister's heart she was about 11, 12 at the time, not knowing as a nine-year-old what was going on in her heart, and doing that at the same time. And we actually got baptized on the same day, which was a very sweet thing to see, and my Christian claim to fame, if I had one, is that we got baptized by the president, who is now the president of Liberty University. Oh yeah, okay. So Pastor Koston is the, the president of Liberty University. Oh, yeah, okay.
Speaker 4:So Pastor Costin is the head command guy there now I knew that name sounded familiar. I was like that sounds familiar.
Speaker 2:Why don't I know that? Okay, cool.
Speaker 4:That's my little Liberty connection. Okay, sweet, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:So your church experience was typically happening on base.
Speaker 4:It was Yep, that was all I knew. So my parents were very connected to the military life, from everything from the grocery store called the commissary on base to the family life. I mean it was just very centered around being with other families who are doing the same thing as you, and they had a church on every Air Force base, an evangelical church, and that there was pastors from different denominations would lead because they're different chaplains. They would say, hey, I'm a presbyterian chaplain, hey, I'm a baptist past chaplain. And they would function much like a pastor would in a local church and they would go just like every other military person would go from base to base, whether that's overseas on a duty tour or whether that's, uh, inside a base around the united states so do you feel like you, like you said, a lot of your family was doing kind of a life with other people in the military, do you?
Speaker 2:feel like you were able to build, because I know right, obviously, moving from florida to jersey and I'm sure that wasn't the last place you maybe went um do you feel like building community at at a young age? I feel like it's uh pretty integral into our experience of growing and maturing and how do you feel like that life was, you know, being in the military yeah, yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 4:I think it was a challenge. If I could say it in one word um, I felt like my experience in the military as a military kid, military brat, is the term they use. So that's the challenge, because generally speaking, you get two to three years at a base, and so do other families. So if we move, like we did, from Florida to Jersey, well, our new two three years starts June 1. And we'll fast forward for three years and other parents could be finishing that three-year tour, and that was constant.
Speaker 2:So you might make a friend you might make a friend.
Speaker 4:He's gone in six months. You know I might be that new friend that's here for three years and and that was constant. So you, you would meet a ton of people and you would have a lot of friends, but they weren't very deep friends because, just the nature of the coming and going.
Speaker 4:So that was cool to see a lot of different people and see a lot of different places, cultures, things like that from even just different states. We did Jersey, we went to England, lived in England for a little bit and then we lived in Guam, middle of the Pacific Ocean and a tropical island, and then my dad got out in 2012, and that's when we landed in Delaware.
Speaker 2:What was your favorite place? You went Like where you lived.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'd probably say England, Okay, england, probably because I remember it the most Okay and also I really appreciated playing soccer.
Speaker 3:I played soccer growing up and they're big where it started, yeah, so I mean they're all in who's your premier league team yeah
Speaker 4:I'm a spurs guy, so tottenham hot spur there. So a few years ago, a couple of days ago, we we did an ancestor dna test together and we figured out a lot of us were from england. So we we had, based on the test, there were several pockets of where you could potentially be from and we were all trying to get into soccer in a more serious way. So we said, okay, we can't all just pick the same team. Yeah, pick where your family's kind of from, and that I had that northern london vibe. So I had a few choices but I landed with the spurs we got any soccer fans out there exactly football football that's correct yeah no, literally nothing.
Speaker 2:I'm like the spurs are a basketball team and that's that's common. Yeah, like that's correct. I know literally nothing. I'm like the.
Speaker 4:Spurs are a basketball team, that's common.
Speaker 2:That's all that I know. Great, I love the Spurs. They are.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the funny thing about the Spurs they actually for a long time were founded on Jewish roots, so they could never play on Sunday for the longest time, until recently when they started in the Premier League. And if there's any Spurs fans that know more than me, you probably do so correct me if I'm wrong out there With that military journey.
Speaker 1:how did that intersect with your faith coming to faith, like you say, building community. Your family is looking to really keep you grounded in that faith. But how did that kind of play out through the following years?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a great question. So, as a nine-year-old, can just try to live my faith as I could, and that's loving my family, my sisters, loving my parents, well, being kind to people around me in my schools and community in that way. That's really what it looked like. I can't really remember. I mean I remember thinking about this in preparation, just being newer to the church, and telling people my story. It's almost like it just got a haze, like I get saved. I remember pockets of things, but it's like fast forward to my teen years. Then it's like, okay, my memory just came back. It's like I mean there's a I remember hanging out with buddies outside of school and that's just like it was just doing life as a young kid. It's playing, hanging out, there's not much to remember.
Speaker 2:There's not much to remember. You just kind of talked on.
Speaker 4:Sunday, you know, with Sutton. It's like he's going to the YMCA and he's just playing with people. He doesn't even remember their names. It's like that's kind of what my upbringing was in that time and it was just really going to bible. So I mean I attend this thing. I think it's called royal rangers or something. Um, I'm not handy at all, there's not a bone in my body that can fix something, and uh, it was something like outdoorsy. I'm losing the word when, when the younger kids go out outdoorsy, like a boy scout?
Speaker 4:yes, it's like a boy scout vibe, but with um like a church would host it and it it was called Royal Rangers or something. So I participated in that, okay, and they met like every week and I did that and they were trying to get you to do stuff outside, do a fire, do a tent, and I was just like not interested.
Speaker 4:I was a sports kid and the things outside. Like I never had a pocket knife, like kids loved it and they loved fishing and I was just like this just was just not interesting to me so I'd rather play tag or capture the flag or and I was just kind of like the differences. So I kind of hanged out with hooking up with that crowd and um, and yeah, I just kind of loved them. Well, been a good teammate on t-ball teams and encouraging people that way, and that's kind of like how I learned to read the bible and how does it look like just being good, you know, playing sports and just getting mad when you lose Simple things like that. And just the Lord using the everyday, ordinary things of life. Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know, I think scripture verse in first Corinthians 10 talks about whether you eat or drink, doing all for the glory of God. And that's how, how? How would a nine, 10, 11, 12 yearold do that? Well, he's going to do his schoolwork very good, he's going to honor his parents and, when he's wrong, learning to practice that in the Christian life. My parents were instrumental in doing that in a really deep way through budgeting and being in a military household, your parents get paid every first and 15th of the month and that was like clockwork.
Speaker 2:So my parents helped us try to learn about biblical stewardship through.
Speaker 4:Whatever age you were, that was the amount of allowance you had. So when I was 10, I got 10 bucks on the first day of the month and the 15th of the month and they taught us well, we're going to give you something, and we had to do chores and work for a job and you didn't just get the money, and they wanted us to learn how to steward the amount of money. So they said hey, you're 70% you can live on. You're going to save 10% and you're going to give 10% to the church. And there was something else I'm drawing a blank on. What was the other 10%? They were trying to model for us at a young age what you would do with the money to be a steward of it, and that just ran in a deep way in my life. Just a small, simple thing. I mean, I'm a spender by nature, so I would already spend that $7 like two months in a row.
Speaker 4:You can ask my wife, stephanie about that. I still do that today. We have this mad money in our budget where we can say it's free money, you can spend on whatever you want. You know within reason, and I already have it kind of mapped out how I'm spending my money the next kind of six months, but anyways, yeah.
Speaker 1:Before you get it. Yeah, that's right. I teach that in financial peace. You're the spender yeah.
Speaker 4:So but yeah, that's kind of my young child, child years. And so years so and so let's get into kind of teens.
Speaker 2:Right. Like you're, you remember more of your teenage years. Yes, I do. Um, my teenage years were just dumb, a lot of dumb, and so yeah, so kind of. Yeah, what was yours like?
Speaker 4:yeah, some of it was pretty dumb, to be honest. So, uh, I I had uh a lot of kids around me that love sports and we would do crazy things just playing basketball right after school or playing football, the real football, from the English term soccer for us in America.
Speaker 4:I would come home. We'd to live like Jesus one way. But this is kind of what the crowd is living and I would just learn to hide myself well. Hide myself well and honestly with some of those temptations and challenges as a young teenager, when you're starting to feel attracted to girls or you're starting to feel different things, your body's changing and all of these different things and it's like what does that actually?
Speaker 4:mean and look like as a young Christian. So middle school years and then going into high school, which is where we made the transition from England to Guam. So my early high school years is now in Guam, my freshman and sophomore year, and that just carried over. I was playing basketball in middle school and football and then you're in an environment where it's almost just and it's almost celebrated to just live like the world.
Speaker 4:If you could just summarize that in a few sentences, it's you want to hang out and do things and influenced by the world, and that's what I got caught up into doing and I would almost play the part.
Speaker 4:I would learn to be a good friend and there was boundaries, like I just think back, there's moments and times where I I would know in my heart because of my upbringing and being taught the word there was always a line in which I didn't cross that I knew was there and I would. But I would flirt with the line as close as I could go and I'd always be a good friend, but I would always be knowing that he would be the good friend. That wouldn't do that thing. You know what I'm saying, whether it was drugs or whether it was simple alcohol or whatever like, but I would be around it but never do it. You see what I'm saying. So there was always that line young adulting as a teenager, going in towards young adult in those in those years, from football to basketball and and just really being just a middle-class teenager, I wasn't a popular guy. I wasn't like a you know person who would be considered from a world league standpoint a, a loner or whatever you know person from from a high school.
Speaker 4:You know those categories. People put me put in. But I was just like the average joe type of guy yeah people knew herb went to church but I wasn't super vocal about it but I didn't hide it. It was like just kind of like very in between even keel type of of of faith so you're going to a public school at that point, like in england, england. So that's the, that's the dynamic. It's like public but private at the same time, because it's on a military air force base.
Speaker 4:So it's still on the base it's still on the base, and same thing with the high school. When I went to guam it was on a base, so, um, so I was in middle school for seventh and eighth grade excuse me, sixth and seventh grade in england. Then we made the transition from England to Guam eighth grade and then I was eighth grade, ninth grade and tenth grade in Guam, and then that's when my family, in the summer of tenth grade to junior year in 2012, came to Delaware.
Speaker 2:Okay, and then where'd you graduate? From Delaware.
Speaker 4:Cesar Rodney Riders. Yep Go, riders Go, still faithful, still good. 2014 class 2014 class. Class of 2014 represent that. That's cool.
Speaker 2:And so what was that transition like for you? Like I'm assuming that can be hard to almost. Yeah, for the first 16 years ish of your life, yeah, moving every three years different, not just different states, but different countries, different continents. And then you land in Delaware from Guam guam. You were living in guam, a tropical island yeah, you're living in delaware exactly what was that like? It may be transition of living, but also just of life and with christ and all the areas absolutely.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean the transition of living is is that exactly just that? The tropical island to delaware, I think we get all four seasons here yeah but you don't get a ton of snow. It doesn't get super cold, but it gets cold. I mean, guam is is exactly what it is 75, 85 all year round, whether that's january 1 to december 31st. And um, sounds like some people love it. I mean, I loved it, but also you kind of miss wearing a sweater. You know, it's you know it's like things like that.
Speaker 4:It's you miss the time of the, the leaves turning and things like that. Um, so that was more like the, the geography and the culture, but it was a really new thing because we've we've only moved. That's all we knew. Yeah, and that was the. The biggest change was what does it actually mean to be in community with people like? That was a challenge. And it was a challenge because when we came back, uh, my parents, like I said, was born and raised in Baltimore, maryland area, so our family stayed in that area a little bit in Pennsylvania now, but we Delaware was a good spot because that was the first base my parents ever got to in the military and, uh, it was close enough to family, but they could also use the benefits of the military Air Force Base in Dover. So that's why we landed in Delaware.
Speaker 4:And that was some of the challenges I shared were still the same challenges in my middle school years. Just carried into the high school space, went to Suze Rodney. I mean at the time it was like over 2 000 kids at that time. I, you know, I've only experienced hundreds of kids like max, like my high school in guam was like 350 kids for the entire high school. So going into a school like susan rodney, your classes that my classes were huge.
Speaker 4:You know the, the ton of people. It was just overwhelming and um, but you just kind of got by. And how I got by was sports. I would meet friends through that way, which is where I met probably my best friend, chase there, and Chase is a great brother in the Lord and the Lord really helped us be in this group. That was involved in sports, he did lacrosse and some other things, but we created a friend group that was good in sports, he did lacrosse and some other things, but we, we created a friend group that was good but not great. And then the really the lord set us apart. Almost like the day we graduated from this friend group, like I remember almost vividly. It was like june of 7th of 2014. It was like the next week. It was like all communication just like stopped, and part of that is you grow growing away from people going to college, different things but um, and chase and I stayed here.
Speaker 4:I went to deltech, chased at deltech and these different things, um, but the, the lord separated us because, fast forward, 10 years later, we're both in ministry now and that was a trajectory that was doing to bring us actually back. We got connected to an LYA-type group called Refuge at a Baptist church in Cornerstone. That really helped us see okay, you're an adult, you can't take your parents' faith. You know you can't take your parents' faith. It's growing into that and really that being confronted with it's not this pretend thing, it's not one foot in the pool and one foot in the world, but it's both feet in the world of Jesus and he wants to transform your world through that and that young adult. Weekly Tuesday night, you know, 7 to 9.30, where we was hearing the word preached, we were in small groups who were in community.
Speaker 4:That was a fresh experience that I never get got to have because I was constantly moving yeah and they would constantly be in and out and that's just like the tension of, of the military life so yeah, yeah, I mean it is.
Speaker 2:I mean that's one of the goals with OIA right, is I mean you mentioned, is, yeah, that the goals with OIA right? I mean you mentioned that same thought and so, man, what a cool kind of segue right into then almost life deeper with Christ. This is where you get to take, not just not that it was your parents' faith where you professed faith but, kind of taking it seriously. Yeah, and what was? How did change like in maybe daily life?
Speaker 4:all of those areas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great trajectory of work and obviously you said you're in ministry now, like that's kind of the yeah.
Speaker 4:So going back to that budgeting thing, real quick, I I never had to. I didn't get a job during high school, you know, my parents parents were, uh, middle class and whatever they they provided for us and my parents were like, hey, you don't have to work, we want you to focus on being a student. So I never got to work. Being in guam, I didn't even get a license till I was 18, almost like. It was just like a lot of weird. I didn't get a cell phone really till later, like all of these things. I felt like I was behind the times when, when I came back over from the states because it was three years in england, three years in guam, and then it was like welcome to yeah yeah, and a lot of things have happened from six years and then, and and that includes a lot of technology advances that includes like having smartphones were really big and everybody had a smartphone.
Speaker 4:They were starting to have that and I was. I developed a habit of I was kind of like too cool for things and in graduating out of high school I was continually invited from this church like three or four times, to their youth group and I said I was basically like I'm too cool for the youth group, was basically the story there, too cool for the youth group was basically the story there. And that was the same group that said, hey, you should come to our tuesday night group called refuge and uh, that is where the lord helped us have a biblical worldview. We're going on a series they were doing a series called transformed I think it was what it was called. It was literally going through topics of having a what a biblical worldview is, from sex and marriage and singleness to just reading your Bible. Like it was just going through topics every Tuesday night and it would just take one and just help us apply and learn and understand.
Speaker 4:What does, what does God's word say about X? And how can we then use these different means from work. You mentioned work to school. You know that's a very transitional phase of life where we're trying to figure out, lord, what is your will for us, where are we going? And the simple things of prayer, community, of things reading your Bible, actually doing and I'm using that word intentionally actually doing the stuff Jesus calls us to do when he says come and follow me. And that helped me have a heart that was inflamed for him to share the gospel with people around me, to work differently, use my work as a catalyst to talk to people about Jesus. And it was just, you know, okay, I always gave, because that's how I was taught to give. But the why behind what I was doing and a lot of those dots were starting to be connected, even though it was a lot of those things I was always doing it was like the whys behind them were finally aligning and I think the Lord helped me see of those things I was always doing.
Speaker 4:It was like the whys behind them were finally aligning and I think the Lord helped me see that those things were being done, but they were finally being done in an act of apostrophe. Worship and that season helped me through simple things of just opening up my Bible and reading through it and chewing on it and memorizing it and praying and learning how to pray and how to seek the Lord and to seek the Lord when things happen like suffering and pain. What does that mean for my life and what does that not mean and how is God using those things? And just doing that in a group of people that I didn't have because of all. The transition was very difficult and the beautiful thing was that that is a really a gift of God's church is that we're part of a body and I think that was really central for me understanding how to live the Christian life, the one another's, so I think that was a good thing.
Speaker 1:I heard at you know something I was reading recently. Like you said, you have to take your you know you have your faith, but a lot of it's what you've been taught through your parents, and so you have to not deconstructionist in the way of walking away from the faith, but you have to make it your faith. You have to bring god's word, you have to bring the community.
Speaker 4:You have to not do these things, because that's what I'm taught, but you truly have that, developing the relationship, building that faith on the foundation of christ yeah, cultivation of the faith was instrumental to understanding James talks about like authentic faith. That's where I felt and understood what faith actually was. It was being practiced. You know, it wasn't just being taught in word, but it was actually being practiced in deed and truth and it was just seeing that combination was really refreshing and helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good. And so thinking about, right, obviously, the cultivating of relationships and now really moving from this faith of not just your parents but kind of your parents, and you're kind of growing and you're learning and you're kind of working through a lot of the biblical worldview framework, how does that push you into your later young adult years, right? Your, your college, ending of college years and you have a wife, right?
Speaker 4:So meeting your wife, kind of talk through that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's great, Great question. So went on a mission trip with this young adult group. We went to the Dominican Republic and that was part of my journey of walking with Jesus is learning that God's heart for people isn't just the United States of America but it's for the nations. And we did that by going on a young adult led mission trip to one of our mission partners in the Dominican Republic. I did that in like the fall of 2016. I'm just finishing Dell Tech and I don't really know what's next and I'm just trying to discern.
Speaker 4:I come back from that mission trip and the Lord really helped me learn a lot of things about him on that trip and understanding who he was and how just simple life can be with the food and clothing and the lack of what the need was there Just really appreciated just the things that can happen to you on a mission trip to stir your heart for the Lord and for other people. And that is when I started to get introduced to Stephanie. Someone invited her a friend, to the church, the youth group she was finishing out, she was at Lake Forest and at the time I was just a student leader helping out in the student ministry and that's how I got to know Stephanie. She was graduating out and then I was inviting her to the young adult ministry because she was her kind of next step, you know, graduating out of that and she started coming there.
Speaker 4:And then in the in-between time I was trying to discern okay, if you're going to pursue a relationship with her, it would be wise for you to step down as a leader or you need to stop pursuing the relationship. But it came to a head like okay, you got to choose one or the other. So I got good counsel from the youth pastor saying I think you want to pursue this relationship so you should step down.
Speaker 4:And everybody knew in the group and it wasn't like she was, uh, graduating out, so it's her kind of last. How they did it was when you graduated may, june, whatever it was you can stay in the student ministry or go into the young adult for that summer, like it's kind of like your choice to do but, in the fall.
Speaker 4:Then you had to kind of go to the, to the next group. So that's where we met. We met at the church Cornerstone Church was the name of the church at the time right in the downtown of Dover. And then the following year, a year after Stephanie's whole family went on that mission trip, we went to the same trip as a family which is now my family double the people went it wasn't just the young adults before and it was just encouraging this mission partner and helping them and loving on them. We built a well and helped them with their ministry to further the gospel and bring fresh water to these villages and it's a really, really sweet story there.
Speaker 4:But Stephanie and I met at the church and her family. It's kind of similar story. She was younger. You can hear her story but it's similar to mine, where younger actually got baptized the same day as her dad. So it was just a really cool story. And her younger sister, I believe in California and just seeing how God set them apart was very sweet and instrumental and the Lord brought us together. I had to court Stephanie. I had to do 25 house visits. I'm not exaggerating. This is the real thing.
Speaker 4:For parents who are listening and thinking about ideas with dating and things. So I had to visit their house and get to know them and show my worth honestly for lack of better words and win their trust, before we could even date. And at the time I'm a young adult, I have a full-time job and I'm finishing school and it's like I have to come to this family's house to do that and looking bad, it was good and um, we broke up once and I ended up having to reset the visits.
Speaker 3:I ended up doing like 37 total and then I'm not exaggerating maybe a little bit, but like like a log definitely kept a log.
Speaker 4:She did because she was like hey, see this guy's really I I am doing this like, just so you know, mom and dad, like this is yours for real.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so did that. Got married, um, and been married for seven and a half years, just trying to learn now as a family unit to follow jesus. And what does that look like and how do we? You know, we got married. She was 20, I was 23, 22 and a half, something like that, and so young, family and starting and just walking through life as a young adult, still plugged into that young adult group, still learning, and there were several friends who got married in that same kind of time frame as well.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and so you've been married. There's some, you know, four or five, six, seven years right in between those areas. What was life like then? Uh, I know you felt called into ministry at some point. Kind of talk about that how you felt called into ministry and maybe kind of just fast forward us to getting to here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, so quick, quick there there's that mission trip. Actually I felt the lord's serving me. I thought maybe I was going to be a missionary, just walking through my church with that, expressing that to the leadership, and they're helping me like understand that. And I didn't. One of the values what stephanie and I said when we were getting married was we didn't want to go into debt for school so and I was just unsure there wasn't clarity on what the next step was, so I stopped going to school. I only did two years at Del Tech and then I expressed to my church and they were just walking alongside me with the elder team and just loving on me and just finding opportunities to serve. I served in ushers and different things that just allowed me to just continue to work out and pray over what that looked like. Continue to work out and pray over what that looked like. And at the time I told Stephanie like I might be a missionary one day and she was good with that and but we were just opening them Like it's not really clear doors opening, so we're not really sure what that means, what that looks like. And then everyone had a thought of any type of pastoral ministry on my desire or radar, and the Lord clarified that over time that that's really what that calling was, through the help of others in the church and through prayer and type of preparation. And I actually sat on that for like six months our first six months of our marriage I was like I think the Lord actually might be calling me into pastoral ministry, but I'm not sure. And before I even shared that with Stephanie because I didn't know, long story short, her, her mom always thought, for for whatever reason, uh, that she was always her daughter would always marry a pastor and and for whatever reason, that was what she thought and her never mentioned anything about ever being a pastor. She's like, well, she's wrong, don't have to worry about that, you know, with all the different nuances that come as like a pastor's wife and different things like that. So then I just continue to express that to the church. And then I got involved with the young adult ministry. I started to become a leader, a group leader, and and end up helping lead that group, uh, with with chase actually, and the lord called him into ministry. And then we're getting formal education, doing that online through boys college College Bulldogs go Bulldogs, I will tap them for some dead. And then we did that for four years till 2020.
Speaker 4:And then COVID happened. At this time, I'm full-time at the church. I started part-time just helping out doing some simple things, from cleaning toilets, changing trash cans to helping be over the usher team. It's just an assistant, kind of like a catch-22, small church just doing some different things, administrative and stuff and helping shadow the pastor just learning more. What does ministry in the church look like? And then they had a need, as the church was growing, to make it full-time. So I was really his direct assistant and working alongside him, and then it was just always being open-handed like what do the next steps look like? So side him. And then it was just always being open-handed Like what do the next steps look like? So at the time during COVID, we had a church plant who got kicked out of church in Smyrna and they were using our building at the time, and then the churches ultimately merged together and created a new church at that same location and the Lord just helped me again for another season of a year and a half to be under this bigger church. The church was growing and to walk along what. What did the next steps look like.
Speaker 4:And then an opportunity came for for us to go to a church in Syracuse. So we went there for a year and then went to seminary in Louisville. So now we're at 2023 ish, I think and we're in Louisville and we're just being open-handed. Our family's in Delaware we know that summer is going to be like two or three years and we're just going to be all in, do that, open-handed. The Lord provided a cool job for me to work at a Christian publishing house and just seeing those different trajectories, I was traveling all over the country going to different churches and helping them set up pop-up bookstores at 10 of those and I was rubbing shoulders and we're just like Lord, you want us to be a missionary? Do you want us to go back to Delaware? Do you want us to go to wherever you want us? We're just being open-handed and praying through that. We just knew we were going to be uh, we for two and a half, three years.
Speaker 4:And then, january of this year, I get a call from Pastor Mark and he calls me while I'm at Disney at one of these not for vacation, for one of these events and he just has hey, we have this opportunity for the Outreach Missions Director and would love for you and Stephanie to prayerfully consider doing that.
Speaker 4:And um, we didn't try to go back to Delaware. We said the only caveat since all of the travel and we're focusing on preparing was that that would be the only reason we would leave Louisville was if we went back to Delaware. Family here know, the area felt like we could be rooted and grounded, cause that's what we longed to do, was to be rooted in one place and fast forward to today. That's what happened. We walked that process for several months with the elders and the team here and God made it abundantly clear, through prayer and seeking him, that this was the right decision and seeking him that this was the right decision and we're super thankful to serve the Lord together with you two and the team here, to see what God will continue to do through LifeHouse and the rest of the churches that we partner with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, what a blessing, I mean, for us. I know I feel like I can speak for Nate and really, just like all the staff, I mean we've really enjoyed having you and just it's been a blessing to. You know, just watch how God has in the two months or so that you've been here which is crazy, feels like longer really but in the two months, just God, you know, using you already. And so I'm excited to see what God will do and, knowing his faithfulness and what he's already done, in you.
Speaker 2:And just seeing what he'll do and the rest, amen. What life will look like in five, 10 years?
Speaker 1:Definitely appreciate you sharing your story, maybe as we're rounding out the month of August with this episode, and so it's been all about we go. Obviously, your role is missions and outreach, but you're not doing it all yourself, right?
Speaker 4:No.
Speaker 1:I think we hire him. You know, like you just do all our outreach.
Speaker 4:I don't think that's how the church works, right.
Speaker 1:But maybe you can just kind of share, you know with kind of your position and how we should view that as a church, maybe just kind of cap off our episode here with kind of this role, how God called you to it and how we as Christians, you know, especially here at Lifehouse Church, can really live that out, as we're having heard several episodes, you know, from missionaries, church planners, just people who do short-term, long-term missions, local, maybe kind of bring that, you know, to a real capstone for us.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a great question and thought I think we shouldn't overthink it. I think Pastor Mark has been saying a couple things the past few weeks really strongly in some of his sermons, talking about just the simplicity of going and what that means of making disciples where God has placed you, and understanding that might be for some who are listening, simply making disciples with your children in your home. It might be meaning you are going across the room five feet to the cubicle next to you or the hospital bed, wherever God has placed you. That is where he's seeking for you to make disciples. And for some of us that means we might go to the missionary field, like Eric and Lena or some others who the Lord may be stirring in our midst to rise up and go. But going is twofold it's actually physically going out, but it's also sending people out and sustaining that.
Speaker 4:There's that two lanes, so to speak, of missions and outreach, and I think those are two things that we get to do together as a church, both here in Townsend, middletown, odessa area, where we're trying to be faithful in this community, and then partnering, seeing how God is working through raising up some of these church plants and partnering them, both here and domestically in the States, but also seeing how God is working in different opportunities all around the world.
Speaker 4:We have several mission partners that we get to partner with and trips we get to go on and just to cultivate that desire that we see in Christians to make the gospel known, both in the proclamation of God's word, in words that we use, but also in the way we practice our Christianity. So proclaim, if I would say two words proclaim and practice, or declare and demonstrate. It's the word and the actions. It's not either or it's both. And and I just want to encourage our church to view missions and outreach that way and that everybody's on the team, it's not just a select few. So, seeing where God is moving already in front of you, and catch that wave of renewal that we get to participate in, to see him move in far ways than we can ever ask, think or imagine.
Speaker 1:I think from your testimony as well, that happens a lot in community, your testimony talking about how it was difficult when you didn't have the community and how transformative it is.
Speaker 4:And so where we go.
Speaker 1:That practice you mentioned is bringing people into the community of the Lord not just some club, but true faith community. Yeah, that is where we fill up to pour out yes, as a community encouraging one another amen and I would just encourage to coming off of that.
Speaker 4:we we bring people in the church but, uh, christianity is not not not necessarily a come and see religion. It's a go and tell and I would just encourage people it might be uncomfortable but I would challenge our people who are listening to even open your home to those. Talk about going across the cubicle or across the five feet across the workplace line, but there are so many people right across the street that God has placed us in in our developments, in our rural areas, wherever God's placed you to be an invitation of grace and I would just encourage us to see where God has placed us and be faithful with that, to reimagine our neighborhoods and see how God will use the gospel to make all things new.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good. We haven't done this in a while, but I'm thinking through. We used to do rapid fire questions oh, I love it. So we're going to spit off a couple. It's been a long time since we've done them, so I might not get them right. Okay. But I think it's a fun way for people to know you right, yeah. First things.
Speaker 4:So let's start your favorite food, Favorite food chicken and rice any kind, any kind, any kind. I like it Chinese style, I like it teriyaki grilled. I'm a chicken rice broccoli kind of guy and yeah.
Speaker 2:There you go. All right Chicken and rice. What's your favorite hobby?
Speaker 4:Hobby yes, it's a great question. I would say playing, sports Playing sports. Love sports. Great question. I would say playing sports, playing sports love sports, watching them, playing them, seeing other people play them, whether it's going to t-ball, game sports, I'm a sports guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right your favorite book book other than the bible?
Speaker 4:other than the bible? Okay, um, that's a question. I'm also a reader. Uh, I'm gonna say don't waste your life. By john piper okay, all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good one. Now we'll go.
Speaker 4:Favorite book of the bible and not the whole thing yeah um, I would say the book of james, okay yeah, that's good and, last but not least, favorite pastor dead or alive dead or alive, or preacher, pastor preacher yep, I'm gonna go with my man, jp john piper there you go.
Speaker 2:I mean, don't wish your life, john sorry I doubled down on jp right there, hyper disciples uh, totally fine, welcome. Thanks, man. It's been a blessing to have you on and, um, yeah, just look forward to seeing what god uses you here at LifeHouse, but then even beyond, however many years that is so appreciate you guys.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me, of course, man thanks for tuning in to the Life Talk podcast. If this episode encouraged you, please be sure to like, comment, subscribe and leave a review so others can find this content as well, and we'll look forward to seeing you next Monday for another great episode.
