Episode 6: Prayer is a Non Negotiable With Dr. Se J. Won + You Ain't Got This Alone + Learning From Ministry Failure And The Mysterious Missing Bos Rooibos Tea Crime and Review

0:14 All about helping churches, leaders, and pastors find health, encouragement, practical advice, soul care, and resources that work together to build up your local fellowship and the broader kingdom of God. Join hosts Dr. Michael Stewart, Pastor Chris Cole, and Dr. Chase Thompson from California's SBC Great Commission Association as they explore the frontiers of ministry and aim for the goal of making every church flourish. Welcome into another episode of Every Church flourishing. We have a great guest for us today. It is Dr. CJ Wan, who is the Major Domo, the Director of Mission Operations for the Great Commission Association. He's going to talk to us about prayer, abiding, things along those lines.

0:57 It was a deep spiritual conversation. And before we get into talking about him, Chris, let's talk about some prayer resources. Dr. CJ talks about a couple in his interview. Let's you and I talk and preemptively bring up some of our own. What have you got for us? So I think my favorite book on prayer or resource on prayer Over the past few years is a book I was introduced to about six or seven years ago now. And it's a book called A Praying Life by Paul Miller. A Praying Life by Paul Miller. The book's been out for a while. When I got it, you can see at the top, 350,000 copies had been sold.

1:42 Now, if you go to Amazon, the new edition of this, there's over half a million copies of this book sold. So it's certainly been popular. But what I gained and gleaned from this book was not really so much the techniques of prayer, although there's some really good practical tips about building a prayer journal and how to structure an active prayer life, but really the posture and heart of prayer. Paul taught me, not only through this book, but through some conferences I got the privilege of attending with him, to talk to God as a child. And I realized that I had to get past some of my own childhood wounds and the way that I thought parents felt and approached people to understand that God's approaching as a loving father and delights to answer.

2:34 Paul's got some great resources in the book talking about what keeps us from going to God, our cynicism. So he addresses a lot of the underlying unbeliefs that keep us from going to God in an active prayer life. And the idea that we should be experienced expecting God to answer our prayer. So he just blessed and encouraged me, not only with this book, but if you get a chance to attend one of his See Jesus events, Whether it's J Curve, which is another one of his resources, or A Praying Life, I think you'll be much encouraged and strengthened and equipped in prayer. Now, you, Pastor Chase, have a prayer resource that you'd like to share as well.

3:17 Yeah, and if you were watching the video of our conversation, you would notice that for the first 90 seconds that Chris was talking, I was distracted. It's not because I was checking my fantasy football team score or anything like that. I actually was sold pretty early on in your conversation about the Paul Miller book, and I just bought it on Audible. But a book I know that you and I have both read is by Pastor Jim Cimbala of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Church. I hesitated to, I was aware of this book for years, but I hesitated to buy it because the only way I knew the Brooklyn Tabernacle Church early on is that they had some sort of famous choir that did a lot of singing.

3:59 And I don't know. I didn't think that sounded very familiar. Super spiritual or whatever. So I didn't give Pastor Jim Cimbala much attention. But finally, somehow, someway, a few years ago, somebody convinced me to read that book. One of the best books I've ever read on prayer and the way he goes about talking about it. There's so many stories in there that I really like. Show me, you know, you want to get me to value something. show me how important it is. And Jim Cimbala does an exceptional job of showing us how important prayer is in the life of a congregation, how necessary it is.

4:41 We keep talking about John 15, abiding in Christ and how that is the underlying key to every church flourishing. Cimbala's book just does a fantastic job with testimony after testimony, story after story to point God's people to be a people of prayer. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Absolutely. And I would amen everything you just said. And if you're a pastor or a leader in a church that is struggling, you're plateaued, you're declined, you're sort of just running out of hope, that book, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, is a great encouragement towards your situation.

5:23 In fact, the testimony in the book is about how they went from a deeply broken, weak church to a church that is thriving and flourishing largely through the power of prayer and the faithfulness of the people of God to petition their heavenly father. That book, along with the book that CJ mentioned, in the interview, Daniel Henderson's book, Old Paths, New Power. Those will be in our show notes for this episode, and you'll be able to find all of the resources we recommend there. Now, we like to do, in every one of our episodes, a little segment where we're sharing in various soda flavors from around the world.

6:05 We had planned for us to drink together a sparkling rooibos iced tea, strawberry flavor. And that was supposed to be on our schedule for this particular episode. But as it happens here at the GCA offices, apparently somebody else saw the tea in the fridge and decided it looked really good. It has disappeared. So Pastor Chase, I don't have one of these. So we're going to have to rely on your palate alone and exclusively to tell us how many Spurgeons is this tea and what are the nuances of the flavors.

6:46 We're going to have to do all of that. So we're looking forward to hearing your take on the Boss Sparkling Rooibos Ice Tea. Yeah, and look, I'm happy to do that. But this whole incident with the tea going missing raises an even bigger question. Do you think the evangelical church can handle yet another scandal of there being a thief in the Great Commission Association offices who just willy-nilly steals? Sodas like that? Willy nilly steals. Yeah, we searched high and low and we even, in the break, we sent messengers out, electronic messengers out to find out where has the tea gone?

7:36 We know it was here just a few days ago, but it has in fact disappeared. So there's a few possibilities here, but I'm going to be charitable, Pastor Chase, and believe this. that one of my coworkers came along and we didn't get it labeled properly for the podcast. And somebody else looked at that and they said, that looks delicious. And I need some of that sparkling rooibos tea. And I hope it was an encouragement to their day. They might have needed that pick-me-up, right? They might have needed that blessing. So I'm just going to assume that I didn't need the blessing today. They needed that particular blessing.

8:18 And maybe in the future, I'll get to try this if it's good. Now, here's the thing. If it's bad, if it's bad and they took it. It's grace. It's grace. Yeah. Yeah. If somebody had taken the Lester's Fixin Ranch soda. That would have been so good. That would have been grace. If I had been watching you drink that alone, I would have been laughing hysterically because it would have been such a good moment to watch you have to down that as I was not having to down it. So if this is bad, the good news for me is I don't have to try it and I, I'm not responsible for that reality. Right. Yeah.

9:02 Yes, that's right. That's right. All right. Well, let's, should you go for it? Let's go for it. Okay. Let's smell it. Oh, it's got a good, clean, fresh smell, strawberry flavor. It's kind of fruity. It does a little bit. There's a picture if you're watching at home on video. The Boss Sparkling Rooibos Ice Tea. Whoa, that's not exactly what I expected. Let's try another sip. Okay, yeah. So I will tell you, Pastor Chris, at the Thompson household, we keep rooibos tea on hand because I read years ago that rooibos tea, for reasons I've long since forgot, is really good for asthma.

9:46 And sometimes when the kids get sick, we will drink rooibos tea, and it seems to help a little. Not sure if that's the placidabo effect or not, but I think it's a bronchodilator that really works. And so I'm familiar with the taste of rooibus. It's not real tea. It doesn't come from the Camellia Sinensis tree bush. So it's a different kind of thing altogether. But the thing that threw me on my first sip, it's carbonated tea. Which is weird, I guess, but it's not bad. It's not bad. I don't know that grace has protected you from this. I think whoever drank this probably enjoyed it, but also might have thought it was weird. So what does it taste like?

10:30 Well, you can kind of taste that rooibosian red tea, bush tea kind of taste there. That's pretty prominent. And you can definitely taste the carbonation. It's got a good, light mouth feel. This would be a great can to drink if you're watching a baseball game or picnicking or you're out in the sunlight somewhere and you're hot and kind of thirsty. What I would really like more of, though, is I want some more of that that strawberry flavor to punch a little bit harder. It's fruity ish, fruity adjacent, but I really wouldn't mind it being a lot stronger in the strawberry department.

11:15 OK, now that product, Roybus Ice Tea, this this particular one, it comes from South Africa. That's the boss brands. So that's a South African sparkling beverage right there. Yes. And you know what? I'm going to go ahead and give you one out of one on our trivia questions, because most teas come from somewhere in Asia, Japan, China or India. But rooibos comes from one specific mountain in Cedarburg. And the name sounds a little Dutch, but as you have already revealed, the country of origin for rooibos tea is South Africa. And let me hit you.

11:55 I'm sorry you can't experience this. Let me give you the Spurgeons and then I'm going to hit you with a couple of more questions. I'm going to give this three and a half Spurgeons. Very drinkable. Not as delightful as our ginger beer. Maybe a slight bit under our Chupa Chups bubblegum flavor, but very drinkable and probably healthier than either one of those. It's 234 kilojoules. Okay. Now I had to look that up. Okay. I'm glad you did. Cause I don't know. I don't know what kilojoules are. I'm not that sophisticated. It's a thousand joules. How about that? Well, it is right. It's a thousand joules. Now I have a, uh, my oldest daughter is a, is in medical field and she works as a nurse and she's very, very good scientist. She has degrees in chemistry and other things like that.

12:47 So she would know what this is. I had to look it So 234 kilojoules is apparently 55.9 or 56 calories, kilocalories. Yeah, okay. So better than a Coke, better than a Mountain Dew, better than a Chupa Chups, and it's tasty. So I'm going to say three and a half Spurgeons out of five. Three and a half Spurgeons on the rooibos tea. So somebody that needed the pick-me-up and disappeared, how about we use that? They disappeared the rooibos tea from the fridge here at the Great Commission Association offices. That person enjoyed it, is what you're telling you.

13:30 I hope they did. It's a pleasant red beverage. It's got a good smell to it. It's fresh. I'm happy with it, and I'm happy to drink it for the rest of the show. Let me ask you a couple of questions about rooibos tea. Absolutely. Let's go for it. The word itself is Afrikaans, so Dutch origin. And it can be strange to pronounce, but I think we're doing a pretty good job. It's rooibos, even though it's spelled R-O-O-I-B-O-S. But if you look at the tea itself, what it is is very literal. Based on the color of the drink I told you, what do you think rooibos translates to in English? Translate. Pink.

14:10 Close. Red. Red, red what? Red, red, red butter. Red bush. Bush. Because it comes from a red bush. So that's what rooibos means. And that gets us to our second question. As I said, it's not from the tea plant, Camellia sinensis. It's from a broom-like legume, kind of related to beans and things like that. Because of that, what jittery, anxiety-inducing substance is rooibos naturally completely free of? Caffeine. You got it. Caffeine.

14:50 All right. That gives you a two out of three batting average today. So you are very close to being an expert on rooibos. I'm so close to being an expert. That is really, really good. Well, I hope our brothers and sisters in the churches in South Africa enjoy their rooibos tea and enjoy that sparkling beverage there. So we're always glad that around the world there's brothers and sisters that get to enjoy these beverages. Although I don't think anybody, wherever Lester Stixson's ranch dressing soda comes from, no one's enjoying that. That's not a thing. I think that's not a good experience. But maybe in Jamaica or in the UK, they're enjoying that old Jamaica ginger beer.

15:35 And here we hope our brothers and sisters in Christ are enjoying that rooibos tea. So we should probably segue from this into an interview that we think you'll enjoy as Pastor C.J., Pastor Dr. C.J. Talks to us about prayer, the importance of prayer, and how prayer is key to leading churches into a place of flourishing and communities into gospel transformations. And we have the privilege now of being joined by Dr. Pastor C.J. Wan, who is the Director of Mission Operations for the Great Commission Association of Southern Baptist Churches here in Central California. Dr. C.J., thanks for being with us.

16:17 Good to be here. C.J., a lot of people don't know perhaps these things about you, but you are an expert on so many different kinds of ministry. You've done a wide variety of ministry. You minister around the world, literally. You lead a Bible study devotional for people in Beijing. I did not know this. Yeah, it showed up on my calendar system. That's how I found out about this. But CJ does this on a regular basis. He is a very talented musician. Once again, see, I told you I'm the only person on GCA staff that's not a musician, apparently. I have no talent myself.

16:58 Exactly. But CJ is a very good vocalist, guitarist, many different skills and ministry experiences, and you've done a lot of different roles with GCA over the years. But right now, you lead our mission operations team, helping support our schools, our ministries, and then you also minister to a lot of our Asian American churches, helping connect them into our ministry, and we appreciate all of that. But I think one thing that does stand out in your life is prayer. People that are around you know that you value prayer. Prayer is one of your life messages and one of your life priorities. So maybe the first question to ask you is, how did prayer become an important part of your life and ministry?

17:44 And then maybe a second question that would be related to that is, if you're counseling or encouraging a pastor to prioritize prayer, what would you give them as an encouragement to do that? God has given me different roles throughout, I guess, my ministry careers. And even here at GCA, I've been given different roles, and God was to credit everything that happened here, good and bad and the ugly. And so I don't take any credit for any of those. Nonetheless, I think the prayer is really something I can't say I'm good at or I'm mastered at or anything like that. It's just that I know for a fact that prayer is the fuel that moves anything and everything that we do here. It cannot be without prayer.

18:34 We are pretty good at doing church. We're pretty good at doing ministry. We know how to do that. And there's books and books and podcasts and anything else about that. But really, prayer for me was an area that perhaps I could credit to my grandmother who prayed on a regular basis three, four times a day on the clock across different times and lifting up pastors, missionaries, and everybody else in the family, obviously. But it's really because I have come to realize my limitation on who I am and my reality of what I could do. And I think knowing how powerless and limited I am and the role that he's given me has always been bigger than me.

19:22 I don't know if that's true with you guys, but anything he asked me to do, I'm going, what? You want me to do this? And so it's always come to a wall where I was staring at and sometimes sitting in the parking lot going, Lord, I don't know what this looks like. I have no idea how to push this part forward or I don't even know what I don't even know. And so I think it came down to me just saying, God, I need you to show me the next step. I don't need to see the whole thing, but show me next step. Help me to get to the next thing. And so that's sort of been my practice. Now, there's tons of resources and other things out there that will help pastors and books and other things.

20:04 I've mentioned in the other podcasts as well. But it's really a ministry that sometimes we don't highlight enough. We talk about it. We preach on it and teach on it, but we don't sometimes actually do it. And so that's still my struggle for myself and my wife. We put it on our calendar every January, February or so, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. We tried all of it. Probably going to stick to 30 days this year of 30-day fast, dinner, just to skip and spend time just praying. Because you'd be surprised how many things come up in your life, in your ministry, your family that just needs prayer.

20:45 But if you just set aside a time, I think that helps you to focus on the stuff that the Spirit would reveal once you give them space. But for us, I just have to create that space intentionally. And first thing I do when I get to the office is that 15 minutes, 20 minutes, just to sit there and say, God, I got stuff and, you know, I need your help here. And so that's really what's been happening. There's many teachings on how I believe God is wanting to bless us, wanting to release his power upon our ministry, our family. But I think he might be waiting for us. That's what my thought was. I think he's waiting for me to cry out to him for it.

21:31 Because James says, do not have because you do not ask. Yeah, and it's not even in your radar. So God is saying, I'm just going to wait until you realize you need this, until you realize that you need my help. And so I think that's the major points that stuck to my mind about prayer. And the other flip side is, again, and as Chris mentioned, my teachings or devotionals I do with Beijing friends, and I've been doing that for 14 years, so it's kind of a long time. And as you do that, and one of the teaching was on prayer, and I told him this, if you are not praying, there's a significant issue, theological issue.

22:11 And that is, you're actually telling God, I don't need you. Yes. In this part, this life, this segment, this thing, whatever it is. And so I certainly don't want God to feel like I'm telling him, God, thank you, but step aside because I got this. And so I think those are main things that prayer and simplest that can be, I have to remind myself, I don't have it solved. I don't have a solve. And so I have to just ask. And giving him space, I think is, Chris, you mentioned, you know, how can we help our pastors? I think that's one thing. I think if pastors could just carve out a space in their time, day, week, month, or whatever. If they could carve out a specific time and space just to be with God, you don't have to have all the prayer things.

23:03 I think that will be a big start that will help them shape their ministry Many things will happen. Supernatural things will happen when you give God space. And the other books I mentioned before, that studying the topics of prayer in the Bible, studying the prayers of saints in the Bible, I think those are great. And then I mentioned Old Path, New Power by Daniel Henderson. I think that's also very significant. It just kind of drives and kind of unearths many things that we might have taken for granted, it, but he just kind of brings it forward. So that's helpful. So yeah, prayer is not because it's big on my life, but it's just that knowing at least the tidbits that I mentioned today, knowing that I feel like, oh, I don't want to be caught not praying, not caught, but I don't want to be a person not praying because there's so much repercussion of what I'm actually doing and saying spiritually and theologically if I'm not praying.

24:06 Yeah. You know, I think there's so much good in what you just shared. I was thinking about John 14, 15, and 16, where in the middle of that, John 15, Jesus says, you know, I'm the vine, you're a branch. If you remain in me, and if I remain in you, then you will bear much fruit. But apart from me, of course, you can do nothing. And then that passage is saturated, John 15, John 14, with these crazy promises that if you ask, I will do these things over and over again. Ask me anything, Jesus says. Greater works, right? You know, one book that I found really encouraging on prayer is A Praying Life by Paul Miller.

24:53 That's a fantastic book to challenge us in a sort of thinking through a personal practice of prayer in a systematic way that genuinely is dependent on the way CJ's talking about it. Pastor Chase, any works or recommendations or resources on prayer that have been beneficial to you? Absolutely. I'll go old school and recommend a book called Reese Howells, Intercessor, and the diaries of George Mueller. George Mueller was a fascinating guy, Bristol. He was German, but he lived in England, started orphanages, never asked for an offering or anything like that. He just prayed.

25:34 And ultimately, he and his wife, in the orphanages he started, took care of like 10,000, 12,000 kids. His diary, his journal, journals all of his prayer requests. And there's thousands in there. It's like four volumes. And he prayed and kept careful track of God's answer. And again and again and again, it's astonishing how much it is. I think we make the mistake of coming to God in the wrong approach. We come to him and ask for him to fix our problems once we messed it all up. Rather than saying, God, this is your problem. We need you to direct and resource this.

26:15 And so we got it off. We got it in the wrong order. And so most of our prayers that I've done many, many years is, God, please help fix this. Get me through this problem that I made. I caused this trouble, but help me to overcome this issue. Well, as you mentioned, Chris, if we are remaining in Christ and He is in us, then none of those things really should be our focus of prayer. Yes. He should already know that. He wants to provide all the nutrients and everything we need. Everything will be given to me. But I sort of take the other approach and say, God, I will do my thing. And if I get this wrong, if something goes south on me, please help.

26:57 Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, if we are to experience a, again, just my mind wonders, If our churches and pastors and others could get tapped into this power that is overflowing, and God wants to, and He has all the capacity to. It's not a strain. It's not a strain. He could do this on a wimp. He could just do it. He doesn't need any of our help to do it. Yes. It's just that we seem to be the one getting in the way. I seem to be the one getting in the way of what God wants to do in me and through me and through our churches. And so if our churches and pastors starts calling out on him and tap into this source of power, all of us will get goosebumps of many, many answered prayers or even prayers that we didn't even ask. And God decided, hey.

27:50 You are faithful with few. I'm going to bless you with more. And as Paul says, more than we could ask or imagine. I was raised by a father who's still alive and very self-sufficient, very successful, a lawyer, very much pull yourself up by your bootstraps, make it happen, that sort of thing. And so that's very wired deep into me. And early on in ministry, God sent me a partner named Sam, who his life message is from John 15, abide. And apart from Jesus, you can do nothing. And he's the one that introduced me to Reese Howells and maybe George Mueller as well. And in my early days of ministry, I read a lot of Leonard Ravenhill and people like that who were just really strong.

28:33 Prayer, prayer, prayer, revival, that sort of thing. So that's in my early ministry DNA. But in my earliest DNA, it's this Protestant work ethic. I got to make it happen. I got to work hard. So probably a lot of people are listening to this right now, deacons, Sunday school leaders, moms and dads, and pastors in particular, who are self-starters, who are motivated people. It's almost like they have the mentality, I'm not going to bother God with this, I'm going to make it happen myself. What kind of counsel, Pastor CJ, would you give to people like that who, in their flesh, it's difficult for them to have that impulse of prayer?

29:16 I think it's not so much that they don't want to see God or that they're anti-God in praying. I don't think it's any of those. If they are, they're in trouble already. They're in the wrong place. Yeah, that's a separate podcast. But if they are just coming to the realization that This is a spiritual thing that we do. It has powers beyond and implications beyond what any of us can do. We are his servants, his vessels. But at best, God could choose to use us or not use us. And he could still accomplish his will, with or without us.

29:57 But if we lean into him and say, God, here I am. Use me. I want to be used for your glory today. I think there is a simple as that, just laying it before God, your calendar. If people have a hard time figuring out how to do that, well, stare at your calendar one by one. Just say, God, be with me in this meeting. Be with me in that email. Be with me as I prepare. I mean, there's easy things that'll saturate, I think, your focus on God. And that's really what it means. If you're praying, you are wanting God to intervene and interject in any way he wants. But you got to give him that room.

30:40 You got to acknowledge that, God, I got four meetings today. I need you to be in each of these meetings and have your way in each of these meetings. Well, that's a different setup. Rather than going into the meeting, blowing it all up and say, God, please help this elder. You messed it up. Yeah. So I think those are going to be some practical things. But I think prayer itself helps align us to God's will. When you're in prayer, you're able to align, not because of how wise you are, but by the work of the Spirit. Spirit intercedes on our behalf about things we don't even know and fathom. But you give them space and time, I think God will be able to direct your mind, your thoughts, order things, and align them.

31:23 And I think this is a big thing. If pastors are not praying I would say They're not in the wrong direction But they just have a misalignment Totally And when you're in misalignment It'll wobble It'll go to the wrong direction Wrong path And other things will break But I think When you're praying I think it aligns you With the will of God And we are prone to wander, brothers And we want to do our will Not that we overtly say We want to create our kingdom But we certainly want to do our own things Peace. But I think when you give space and time for prayer, he interjects and he aligns us with his will. Yeah. You said one thing early in your answer that I think is very profound for pastors in particular, but every other church leader. Much of what we have to do is spiritual.

32:13 Much of what people complain to us about, the squeaky wheels essentially, is not spiritual. And so a pastor might have a tendency to do those things so that everything's running smoothly and they neglect, you know, it's the meme, the expression, you had one job. We have one job. It's a spiritual job. And apart from Jesus, that one job, we can get everything else done. We can even grow a big church. But apart from Jesus, that one job, that one focus, that one thing is not going to be done. You know, I just thought of something when you said that, Pastor Jase. I was thinking, I've been in ministry, this is my 34th year in ministry. I've never had a church member come and complain to me and say, you did not spend enough time in your private prayer closet, Pastor.

33:00 But I know that is a truth that has happened at various seasons in my ministry. And yet I've never had a complaint about that. Not once. No one's ever said, you're not praying enough. And yet, I think that's a big miss, right? That we're not prioritizing that in that way. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Same here, 30 plus years of experience in ministry. I guess we're old. Yes. Nobody's ever said, hey, you're not praying enough. But I'm not, and I'm not just being humble. I mean, that is, you know, I have a tendency to not pray enough, and that's one of the greatest dangers of ministry. I don't know if we could ever pray enough. Sure, sure. But going back to your comment that when we deal with logistics and, you know, issues and broken pipes or, you know, whatever other things that tangible problems that come our way, none of those are, I would say, we could excuse all of that and say those are not spiritual.

33:55 But if we're doing the ministry here on earth, everything we touch has a spiritual element to it. We have to make sure that the faucet is working. We have to do all the other work, but we need to bathe them in prayer. The whole operation has to be made in prayer. It's not, well, we got this, God, and you just blessed the Sunday worship at 9 to 10. That's not how it works. The whole mission, whole ministry, everything we do at GCA, everything is of Him and for Him. So we have to do everything with spiritual work. Tone to say, this is spiritual work that we're doing, although sometimes it feels like it's not. And it's such a key element to see every church flourish.

34:35 We've been talking about leaders and pastors in particular and their personal prayer lives, but we haven't even touched on this. We probably won't in this podcast, but we need to probably do a whole future episode or two or three talking about what does it mean when we invite the congregation into an active kind of prayer life together and create those communities and cultures of prayer to facilitate that reality, right? Yeah, we're called to produce fruit that remains. And there will not be any churches flourishing apart from abiding in Jesus and apart from prayer. Well, Pastor CJ, our church loves you. You were the interim pastor there for six months. That's been eight years ago.

35:19 They love you. You've had a lot of successes in ministry, but I think most of us, many of us at least, we learn more from our failures and our horror stories than we learn from our successes. So can you share with us one significant failure or horror story you have in ministry and what you learned from it? I had a hard time choosing because there's many. I have a list as well. And some are right for this podcast, some are not. Okay. But I will... Talk about two things. One is a personal thing and the other is a professional thing. Personal thing is financial issues. And this is probably known to anyone or maybe not known to anyone. So here it is. Before I got to GCA, about 15 years ago, I was in a, I had to resort to a debt consolidation, debt settlement program.

36:08 Had to get a credit lawyers and others to help me fix and get over this issue. I was young. I was not making enough, but cost, credit cards and other things started compounding. Couldn't pay everything on time. And I think this is not a one-off story, but I was there. And it was painful and it was regulated. It had to get done. And so That started probably prior to I got to GCA, but it served me and God by His grace. I got it all done, but by His grace, He taught me many things. The painful lesson about resource, and we cannot not do without resources here on earth.

36:54 I've did some talks and other things about how we need more margin to do more mission. Well, that's true all across. If you're family, your personal credit line, or if you're in financial shamble, it's difficult for you to do great work. And I think what I learned is I got to, first of all, learn to be content with what God has given me and to know that I have limits. And, you know, being 30 some year old, whatever, it's hard for you to know what your limit is. You think your next job or next thing will solve this problem and you do what you can. But the painful reality of managing and learning to be good steward of what God gives you is a lesson I learned.

37:36 Right now, it's kind of ironic that I'm in the role of operations helping with GCA over all this thing because I think that was a painful lesson God taught me. You cannot do life or ministry here on earth without resources. But you have to make sure you're a good steward of it. If you're not, you can't do more. And I think the scripture really teaches us that. If you're not faithful or good with few, he will not trust you with more. And I've taken that to heart that the lesson is, yeah, you know, as an individual, as a father, as a husband and pastors and leaders who's listening, if we don't have that area managed and stewarded, I think we are in for a painful learning lesson because that is a big part of mission that we need to do and must do.

38:24 And I really believe if we are faithful with the few, God will entrust us with more. And that will be the proof. Is God trusting us with more or not? If he starts taking more stuff away from us, we know that we're on the wrong side of the equation. So that's one of more of a personal, you could edit and cut that out as much as you want. But on a professional level, I think the lesson I learned about is leadership issues. And it's really title and position. And I think I struggle with it even now. And many of us across, when you're in different churches and ministries, you're given a position and a title, and you somehow believe you are fit for it.

39:08 But I've already told you, that's not how I felt. I feel like I've learned that's not who I am. But when you're given a title as a pastor or a church planter, you do what you can. But I think it's really a test from God to say, can you grow into that role or the title? The mistake I made is really swinging the title or position, thinking that I am. And I've learned early on from my English ministry position to church planning position, as well as a director for education foundation across different overseas mission work. What I've learned is... I need help. I don't have this.

39:53 You ain't got this. I don't have this. I need other people in my life who's going to speak into me. Otherwise, it'll be me trying to fit into a title or position that I have real little knowledge of how to make this work. And sometimes we try to get it done by just sheer effort. And this is when you start realizing that your body is not going to take it. You're going to be stressed and emotionally shot, and you're going to be snappy at everybody around you. Why? Because you're trying to fit a role or a title that, well, you have to grow into it. But growing into it requires, again, prayer. But the other part is you need people.

40:34 God has placed wonderful people around all of us, but we have to be humble enough to ask. And so for me, before I started my church planning, I sort of realized I don't know what that looks like. So I've asked Pastor Kim, I'm just gonna remain in my Pastor Kim. There's probably 400 Pastor Kims that might be listening. But he's a dear mentor of mine. And I told him, I need two things from you. I need one is this has to be an autonomous church. And second, and I need you to be my mentor. I need you to give me free access to you whenever I have questions or concerns. Because I have many. And so he provided that for me. And so that was extremely helpful.

41:14 Two other people, Dr. Stewart, as I was coming into GCA, I sort of saw that as him being my mentor. And he has for 14 years now, has taught me directly, indirectly, sometimes painfully, many things. I think a leader has to learn and to grow into the role that God assigns you. And so that was, he was a huge part in my life. And Dr. Jeff Orge, former president for Gateway, now the SPC president, but he's also been my mentor. He may know this, I may have said it to him, but how he thinks and how he leads in certain things, at least when I was doing the doctor program with him, he was instrumental in shaping and kind of putting guardrails and other things in front of me to say, hey, these are the things you got to play with.

42:05 And this is how you got to see things. And so those people, those men have been champions. And there's many dead people that I read that help, but these are the ones I think that are still alive. I think there's a lot of pastors out there just because of the nature of the position. And obviously a lot of Christians and deacons and church leaders as well. But a lot of pastors who Are lone rangers. There's been this teaching in the body of Christ for quite some time that pastors can't really be friends with people in their church, which I find really ridiculous. Mystique of pastors, right? Yeah, yeah. And so there's that. And then if you're in a place like California, you might not have a lot of pastor friends that live in your neighborhood.

42:51 I just happen to move in right next door to a pastor, which has been fantastic for my family and kids. And shout out to Jason. Love the guy. But it's not like there's a ton of us around. And you're absolutely right that this togetherness and unity and having other people in your life will keep us from so many of these horror stories that you're talking about. I would encourage anybody listening to really seek help and find people that you could trust and learn from because others have done this role. Others have done this mission work before us. And they may be dead, so you could read some of them. But there may be people who are alive who would love to spend time with you if you're saying, hey, let me buy you coffee.

43:33 And this is how most pastors, well-seasoned leaders are already shaped. And so I think we need to tap into that generation or that pool of people to speak into our lives. It's okay, and it's sometimes necessary to try to find them. Exactly like you said, an offer to buy them coffee. Sometimes we wait. I prayed for years for a mentor, and finally, me and a group of guys, we just went out and found some. And basically, like, hey, you're going to mentor us. And they did, and they did a great job. But sometimes you've got to take a few steps and strike out a couple of times. Otherwise, you really will be a Lone Ranger, and that's just so dangerous in ministry. It is.

44:14 Well, this is a great conversation that we've been having, and we have got to do this again, do this some more with CJ. We will be definitely bringing you back to talk about prayer, financial management within organizations. We've got to do some episodes about that, because you are absolutely correct that for churches to flourish, there has to be the management of the resources and the margin that we need to have for mission. We certainly know that within GCA, because we need partners to help us carry out our mission. We are not able to do this on our own, and we have many wonderful partners, churches across the United States that are helping us replant churches and plant churches, and we are so grateful for them.

44:57 Well, Pastor CJ, we want to sort of wrap up this piece of our conversation by doing something we haven't yet done on this podcast, and that is we're going to give away a cruise. We're giving away cruise. Thank you. A hypothetical cruise, right? But we're giving it away. It's free. It's free. So no lack of margin or ministry resources were spared for this mythological cruise that we're going to give you. Okay, so we're giving you this mythological cruise, and you get to go on this cruise. Now, the cruise line gives you a choice. You can choose on this cruise to go with just prominent pastors, famous pastors, which by the way, Pastor Chase, this would never be my choice to go on a cruise with a group of prominent pastors.

45:43 Some of my best friends are pastors, but some of the most annoying people I know are also pastors. I'm totally with you. Or you can have prominent worship leaders, like the best of the best, like they can all be there. You've got Casting Crowns and Chris Tomlin and City of Light, and they're all on... And your favorite, whoever your favorites are. Yeah, and whoever your favorites are. The Gettys are there. Yeah, everybody's there, right? Or you can go on a cruise with just denominational leaders. Actually, I was wrong. I think that one would rank lower than the pastor one for me, just for me. Or prominent Christian authors or prominent Christian entertainers.

46:23 Okay, so you get to pick, but you have to pick a theme group to go on the cruise with. You can be there for the whole cruise. All the expenses are paid because we here at Every Church Flourishing have now given you this cruise opportunity. So, which cruise are you choosing, and what are some of the names that you would like to be on that cruise? My choice would be with worship, worship leaders. And why is that? Why would you choose the worship? Well, there's several, I think, reasons for me. One is worship, I think, is the missing element in many of our churches, and my life too. I have a hard time worshiping in spirit and in truth. and so if we don't And prioritize worship, which I believe is a precursor to prayer.

47:12 If we don't do that part well, we're all dry. We're going to, you know, from shopping at Costco, we're entering into the presence of God. We're going, I still have a shopping list in my head. Something's off and you're not connecting at the right frequency. I think worship is that for me and singing and playing the guitar and worshiping. So I think worship is crucial for me because that's how I connect with God. It's a way for me to just, without hindrance, just with guitar or with voice, with band or whatever, we're able to just acknowledge God and focus on Him. And again, prayer often becomes my issues. But when we sing and worship like that, it becomes a center focus is Him.

47:58 And I think He needs that, not need, wrong word. I think He deserves that more. Deserves, great word. Observes that center stage from all of us and me, our pastors, GCA, everyone, more than what it is now. And so if we could get the rock bands and people that love worship in the same room and spend hours and hours and hours and hours just worshiping, well, that alone, I think, will be a revival. That alone will set our, you know, aim right Because I think we will be entering into presence The throne room of God When we worship Him And, you know, Jesus taught us to pray that way Hallowed be your name was the first thing But we usually start with I need you God With other things And so I think worship is probably my pick And just to be there I'm not sure if I want to be in a In a cruise, locked up in a boat with pastors or denominational leaders or any.

48:59 I tend to agree with that. Yeah. I think, yeah, that would be me. So you're driving home and you want to pop in some worship music or, you know, you want to facilitate a small Greek Bible study with some worship music. Who do you listen to? Currently, I'm listening to Charity. Charity Gale, I think. So she's the one that sang, Jesus, thank you for the blood. And I Speak Jesus is another song like that. That had come recently to my attention. I'm listening to that. Many classics too. Radman, Chris Tomlin and many others. City of Light, I think. They have done many that we sing here at the office.

49:40 And so there's a good collection that I listen to. Same songs, but different date and different time with different issues. And so it delivers a different kind of depth in worship. When I sing it again tomorrow, it will be different because I'm different. It's a different day, different time, different problem. Worship, I think, is key. Yeah. Amen. Well, this has been a fantastic conversation. It only went 17 minutes and 28 seconds longer than it was scheduled. So thank you, Pastor CJ, for your time because we kept you here. We kept peppering you with questions because, quite frankly, we liked your answers. So this was good. But this was deep, and I hope everybody out there listening has been edified by it. Chris, you got any parting shots?

50:23 No, I just love what CJ had to share. John Piper in Let the Nations Be Glad famously opens with the idea that missions is temporal because someday the work of missions, evangelism, as great as it is, will be done because... Worship is the actual aim of missions. The grand picture at the end of Scripture is Revelation 5-9, Revelation 7-9. Every tribe, every tongue, every people gathered around the throne room of God. And I think that fits together with our vision for every church flourishing, every community transformed by the good news of Jesus Christ, that we might see everybody joining in that great heavenly worship. And so I just love that idea. I'm grateful for CJ being here.

51:06 By the way, for those of you that haven't had a chance to meet our amazing Director of Mission Operations, I can just tell you he's a great friend and a wonderful man of God. Amen to that. Yes. Thank you, Dr. CJ. Okay, that was a deep interview, and it really challenged me. In fact, I took some of what Dr. CJ said in that interview, which we did this past Monday, and used it for our Wednesday night church prayer meeting, copying some of what Pastor CJ said word for word. Of course, I gave him credit, but that was good. That exhorted me to lead our church in a greater direction of abiding in prayer. And I hope it did for you as well.

51:47 Check out our website, which is everychurchflourishing.com. And as always, stay tuned for us next week when episode number seven drops, which will feature an interview with Miss Lynette Lozano, the school superintendent with the Great Commission Association. And Pastor Christopher Cole himself. See you next time.