The Uncommon Path
"The Uncommon Path" is a podcast that intimately explores the transformative journeys of individuals, featuring raw and unfiltered testimonies that celebrate the resilience, growth, and shared human experiences, offering listeners a source of inspiration and connection on their own life paths. Join us as we unveil the extraordinary stories that shape who we are.
The Uncommon Path
Chris Pacilio - From Rock Bands to Spiritual Awakening: Embracing Faith, Grace, and the Joys of Family Life
In today's episode, we explore the transformative power of personal testimonies and the journey of faith with Chris Pacilio. Chris shares his candid experiences, from his early encounters with God to the challenges faced in his teenage years, and the profound spiritual awakening at Bethel Church. The discussion emphasizes the significance of identity in Christ and the impact of sharing our stories on others.
• Chris's music background and early life influences
• The impact of his parents' conversion to Christianity
• Struggles with identity and owning faith in teenage years
• Chris's journey through rebellion and awakening
• Significant experiences at Bethel Church and understanding grace
• The importance of testimonies in healing and community
• Encouragement to pray for others and share personal stories
• Finding and embracing identity as children of God
Hey everyone, this is Chris. I'm Ryan From the Uncommon Path podcast. The scripture, Revelation 12 11 says and they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.
Speaker 2:Our hope is that as you listen, you will be encouraged in the Lord. This podcast was created as an avenue to share people's raw and unfiltered journeys with him. We hope this brings breakthrough and intimacy with Jesus through their testimony of what God is doing through their lives In the mountains. Yeah, it's a gorgeous place, didn't?
Speaker 1:they make a song out of albuquerque. That's weird.
Speaker 3:Al yankovic did no I'm thinking albuquerque yeah I'm thinking a serious guy like bill, young or something.
Speaker 1:No, there is. There is a serious one. I know what you're talking about. I don't know who that was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a man from Waco.
Speaker 1:A man from Waco.
Speaker 2:The man from Waco country western song.
Speaker 3:Oh, nice. Okay, it's probably about a cowboy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, yeah, yep.
Speaker 3:That's a Sounds like a cowboy song that's about it.
Speaker 1:Every state has a song.
Speaker 2:Every state has a song.
Speaker 1:Chicago.
Speaker 2:Just like every rabbit trail has a juicy carrot at the end of it, it does. We'll include that in there.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, got to Got to now, so are we rolling?
Speaker 2:we are, we're rolling I'm just trying to see how awkward it could be anything so that it just kind of this will not be on the recording.
Speaker 1:He'll edit it all out and we're gonna keep you on. Don't don't also worry too much about following a thread.
Speaker 3:We'll try to keep you on the thread I told him I might cry, so he's bringing the toilet paper.
Speaker 1:Yeah sorry, we should have better tissues, but it's like you're gonna also want to bring that back in.
Speaker 3:If you go to the bathroom, I was gonna say somebody's gonna be warren's gonna be like out of luck actually there should be more in there.
Speaker 1:We keep this, the house full of boys.
Speaker 3:We keep the toilet paper well supplied, nice chris patchilio, thank you for being on the uncommon path thanks for having me yeah, it's a pleasure to have you believe this is the first podcast I've ever been on wow and it won't be the last I will see.
Speaker 2:Um. Yeah, we want. You know we have roughly about an hour, but we just want to see where your journey with the Lord started, where your path with him um really took root and took shape. Uh, feel free to include any details um miracles, any stories that really shifted your perspective on who God is and was and um um any cool stories. Um, but before we really get started, give us a fact about yourself that not many people know.
Speaker 3:Fact about myself that not many people know. I didn that not many people know.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that question was coming well, while you're thinking about it, I will, for the listener's sake, mention that this is the son of john patchilio. If you've heard that episode, there you go, so we'll get there's a relation more patchilio's coming more only person you will definitely not get is my mom.
Speaker 3:She will not be interested. Well, so I'll just throw a little one out there that at one time I was in a band that opened up for Chris Isaac.
Speaker 1:Wow, you guys are a little young. Do you know Chris Isaac? Do you guys know Chris Isaac? Wicked Game Come on, man Dude. That's such a great song, that was a big song.
Speaker 3:We were pretty excited about that too, but holy cow, that was fun that's awesome yeah, what kind of?
Speaker 3:band, was it? Well, so back in the 90s there was something called alternative rock. What it was the alternative to, I don't know, excuse me and so we were an alternative rock band. We loved u2, rem, radio head when they came out, so it was very jangly, uh, space sounds um bono-ish stuff in there and somehow we had this. The short story is we had this manager who was kind of a high powered gal woman. She was an attorney and she managed European singer and all this stuff and she's kind of got us into this gig. So got to meet the man. He was a little short and, uh, he wore the sparkly outfit and his guitar player was amazing. At the time it was all about guitar for me. So yeah and uh, it was fun. I remember just kind of having a lot of energy, a lot of nervous energy. That was in san diego back when I was rocking out. That's very cool. I was also in a rock band in in high school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, alternative, because I'm you're not that much older than me, I'm 43, okay, so yeah, we were like smashing pumpkins. Ish, I would say very moody. What did you play?
Speaker 3:very sad uh, moody and sad, with a lot of slightly angsty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I played bass guitar cool, yeah, in that band awesome, that was fun, it was a lot of fun. Yousty, yeah, I played bass guitar. Cool yeah, in that band. Awesome, that was fun, it was a lot of fun. You know, that was kind of my my bent in high school. I wasn't like a sports guy or I wasn't like on the honors list, I was the. I was in a a band, not band a band.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm saying yeah, well, yeah, I was a similar story. I wasn't. I wasn't into sports. I was kind of big so they wanted me on football. But when I discovered the guitar I was like no, these precious fingers, you know, I don't want and I just didn't like the idea of like just going helmet to helmet with people.
Speaker 3:I was like that just doesn't sound great. So, yeah, I played. Yeah, but I played in band for years, and in a band just after high school. So so I went to a christian high school in san diego and they had a hair requirement where your hair couldn't touch your collar so about junior year, which I mean every lunchtime, I'm sitting there with my guitar playing the latest cure song or whatever you know cool band was around.
Speaker 3:I mean, the cure is huge One. You might not have heard of his love and rockets. We just love that band. They came out of Bauhaus. Anyway, they'll get me started talking about bands, and so I told my mom for a minimum of two years, mom, when I get out of this school, I'm growing my hair long.
Speaker 3:I think like a couple months before graduation I stopped doing haircuts, so my hair just went straight down like and I have, I have curly hair, I have italian curly hair, and it was just thick, it just got big and I had hair down to my shoulder down beyond my shoulders, and I wish there were pictures along with this podcast, y'all could could laugh at that but I like to show that picture to people because you know, it's interesting how we go through phases in life and sometimes I try to connect with people who are a little young and I'm like, look, I was cool, I was, I was weird, like you, you know.
Speaker 3:Show the pictures of me with my, my guitar, my long hair, trying to change the world you know, yeah, because that's what you two did.
Speaker 1:They changed the world. So I I love it.
Speaker 3:I love the image of a long, like a aspiring to have longer hair, chris patchilio in a christian school cafeteria playing yep the cure yeah, seriously well, you know kind of got interest from the girls, so it was it made sense you know, and there was a girl that I was after and she liked those bands. So you know, that's what we did.
Speaker 2:So where did your journey start? Did it? Did you grow up in san diego from the beginning, or where?
Speaker 3:no. So our family's from long Island, new York, from the suburbs, and um, one half of my family is the the typical kind of East coast Italian, um, not very Catholic Catholics, you know that just would occasionally show up there when somebody died or got married, that kind of thing. And um, you had my dad on the podcast, but I'll give you the you know the 60 seconds on him. Um, so he and my mom were married in the mid sixties and I was born around 1970. And so first six, seven years of my life that we had a family restaurant business that was owned by my my grandparents essentially, and my grandfather, my dad's dad, worked two full businesses. He had a plumbing business and he had the restaurant and my grandmother worked at the restaurant.
Speaker 3:So you can kind of imagine the stress and pressure. And he died pretty young. He died at actually my age, and so I would say my family was my dad, was kind of acting out in what we Christians call a worldly way, but he was just, you know, pursuing his life. But when you're in the restaurant business you're gone. I mean, sometimes these guys would leave at 10 in the morning and return at 1am and that's not uncommon because they open up for lunch, they work through the afternoon, maybe they do some books, or maybe they come home, maybe they don't, and then they work all the way through dinner and they stay until closing because they have to close the the registers and like when you run a restaurant.
Speaker 3:It is intense. So I remember so. So dad was gone a lot. So then about um, so I was eight years old, my parents actually, uh, accepted the lord, became jesus followers separately within two weeks, and it was I mean, that's a miracle and my dad. The short story is my dad was not real happy in life and he got in contact with an old army buddy whose marriage was going well, his kids were, he was pretty happy and he's like what's going on with you? You?
Speaker 1:know.
Speaker 3:So basically the guy was like you know, let me, I, I I'm into Jesus Like and this is like actually transformed my life. So at about eight years old and it's funny, I'll never forget it, but I remember sitting on my bed and mom and dad came in and explained the old school. You know, here's God and here's us and here's sin in the middle. I mean that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:And and do you want to? Do you want to accept Jesus? I mean, this is the truncated version, but you know, eight years old, you're like, yeah, sure, you know that sounds good, but it really took. I mean, even at that age I had, I had, you know, I God came into my heart and I, I experienced him and I used to make little songs to him and we were saved, so to speak, into a sort of a hippie church. And we were not hippies, my, my parents were not hippies.
Speaker 3:But, um, this church was, you know, meet on Wednesday, meet on Friday, meet on Sunday in somebody's house or in a very small church. It never really grew, and it's not that it's about the numbers, but they were just. It was just a small, almost like a, like a family that had grown out of a church in Eureka, california, of all places, and somehow they had a plant. I don't really know the store backstory, but they had a plant in Long Island, new York, crazy. So, yeah, so we were, we were born again into that church and it was a great family and and they were, they were just, they were really important for our kind of our early days with the Lord, uh, days with the Lord, Um and um.
Speaker 3:So you know, we, we kind of did, did what we did with, with going to church and and, and my, my father, I'm sure he probably said, but he went from being very radically like all about self and self-fulfillment, you just kind of doing what he wanted. And you know, I'm sure he was doing all the typical stuff but um, to being almost like a overnight a radical evangelist to where, uh, family holidays got uncomfortable because dad was gonna let them know about Jesus. It was gonna happen. And I remember many times just kind of shirking away from the dinner table, going, oh here it comes, kind of that kind of of thing.
Speaker 3:So not to bash my dad, I love my my dad's heart is just, he's just really brave, yeah, and I think, uh, he, he looks at, he looks at the lord and he looks at you know what happened in his life and he can't help but really share that with people. And however that's going to happen, it's going to happen. And at one point in time I don't want to jump around the story but so he became a pretty radical believer, radical evangelist, so then you know stepping into.
Speaker 2:So then Real quick with you being that age, believer, radical evangelist, so then you know, stepping into. So then with with real quick, when, with you being that age, could you? Could you remember, like the drastic change that happened in your dad even though you were really young? Or was it just?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, to the point of uh bringing a um a homeless person home for dinner and sitting him down at the table, because this is what Jesus would do, and my mom kind of looking around like I don't know what to do, like and, and this gentleman got to take a shower and I mean I was probably a great experience.
Speaker 2:But as a kid you're a little threatened and as my mom is very, very safety oriented and just kind of you know, so I joked with your dad on the on his episode I was like it's almost like your, your wife didn't get a break, like she experienced your extreme self selfish person and then she just didn't get like a break. She just immediately entered into oh my gosh, I don't know who. This is this extreme jesus living guy.
Speaker 3:You know the the thing in all of that was that such, just so so much good transformation was happening. That it, it, I'm I'm sure it affected my mom, but it was like we, we loved life a lot better after that. Uh, and so, yeah, he just he's, he's just he's a, a forward, bold, um, you know he's going to be radical about about what he's what he's into, and when you have a heart transformation, it's that's. You know, that's how it goes.
Speaker 2:So did did part of you feel kind of afraid, like with how extreme it was, like did part of you feel, let me like, was part of you afraid to like start following jesus or find out who jesus was? With how radical your dad was, starting to live differently?
Speaker 3:was, was I afraid? Um, well, I think, I think what I don't know, I I would say that that my my memories of it are more just kind of being a little like embarrassed and that, and that's just being truthful yeah, it's not like I was go dad, yeah, just you know, run them all down and let's get them all saved.
Speaker 3:I was not that kid, but I was also like 9, 10, 11, 12. I mean, you just don't know who you down and let's get them all saved. I was not that kid, but I was also like 9, 10, 11, 12. I mean, you just don't know who you are and everything's clunky. But, like I say, I had a relationship with the Lord and I would pray and about that time I was discovering more about music and got into high school, about music and got into high school, and so so it it. It became just kind of what we did, but the the interesting thing that happened was, I would say, the. The way I would describe it is that I didn't really own my faith and really like it wasn't completely mine until I got all the way into my 20s. So I walked through my teenage years going, yeah, this is what we do, we go to church, this is our friends and family. They're all from church too Um and um. So when I hit, uh, when I got out of the Christian high school that I think I mentioned earlier, went to community college, and those folks were like, why are you saying no to anything here? Try this, try that, try this, try that. And I didn't know. Like I never lost faith in God.
Speaker 3:I like to call myself the guy who just kind of went through the whole prodigal journey. I like to call myself the guy who just kind of went through the whole prodigal journey but never really lost faith in God. I always knew that God was good and he was evident in my life. So I had an encounter with him. I can't specifically as a kid say, but like I say I was making songs to Jesus. And not because I was like making songs to Jesus and not because my parents, like I was performing for my parents, I would go in my closet with you. Know, I got a little tape recorder for Christmas which was a big, big deal and I could make my own radio shows and you know all that different stuff and recreate Star Wars, or you know, whatever it might be, and so I would.
Speaker 3:I would write songs to Jesus.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wish I had that tape because that would. That would be amazing. Yeah, so I would. I would, I would write, I mean as a little kid writing songs to jesus, so that's like like it was real for me. Um, I just think the way I would explain it is just that I didn't, I didn't own my faith and I don. I don't know that a teenage, as a teenager, that's such a tough time of life, even in a Christian high school. I mean, I went to a Christian high school where, for instance, one of the kids got a Porsche for his 16th birthday.
Speaker 3:So there was a bunch of wealthy kids there and then there was like people like me who drove like a 77 Monte Carlo, you know, from 25 minutes away. So there's always stuff in high school and I think that, um, it was, it was. So it was hard for me to kind of own my faith.
Speaker 2:This was real quick. This was in San Diego then.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, sorry. So we had moved from, uh, we had moved from New York to San Diego when I was around about 12 years old, okay, gotcha.
Speaker 3:And so the church plant, so to speak, that we were in in Long Island also had some people in San Diego. So we stayed within our same gospel. Outreach was the name of the kind of the movement that had come out of Eureka, and what's funny is that after many, many, many years like 20, 27, 28 years we had wound I wound up living just a few hours from Eureka after starting all the way in New York. You know.
Speaker 1:So we went to Eureka. It was kind of fun to see it so that's cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we moved, moved to san diego. Um, my dad went from all the um, the, the restaurant and all the different things that he was involved in in new york to starting a business over from scratch. It was something that that the other guys in the church did together and um, and starting his own business, and so, um, and then so back to community college.
Speaker 2:You were you had never left your faith, but you were experimenting kind of with whatever who you know, just like every one does.
Speaker 3:I feel like after high school yeah, all the stuff, uh, came my way and I wound up, you know, using drugs and drinking, and it's just unfortunate, because I was attracted to the edgy crowd that you know seemed cool and they were, you know, some of them even went to the Christian high school with me, you know, but they were going through their own stuff and so, yeah, so, getting into community college, it was kind of like. You know, this mindset entered my world of, well, you know, I think it was the guy's name who had just promised keepers or um, there was, there was this movement of sexual purity, uh, to the church, and they do it in stadiums and stuff like that and uh, you know, but but community college was why say no, you know, it's just this.
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean, you guys probably know, but it like you just get into this mentality of like so yeah. So I fell into all this stuff um to the degree where, you know, I found myself hanging out with my friends like dropping LSD. It was like really really stupid stuff, just really dumb.
Speaker 1:Chris, was that like a forbidden fruit type thing, or was it like were you seeking something? Because a lot of people get into that and it's like they're trying to numb some pain, or they're like trying to find something that they hadn't found yet you know it was probably all of the above um I also.
Speaker 3:I mean I fell in love with rock and roll. I'm sure you experienced some of that in high school. When I discovered rock music and I signed up for Rolling Stone magazine, my parents hated it. I brought home CDs.
Speaker 2:They were like what is this?
Speaker 3:They were horrified that I listened to a band called the Cult and I'm telling my mom it's not a cult, it's the cult Trying to explain all this stuff to my parents and they just didn't. They didn't understand and, um, and then, yeah, I would say, father wounds, um, wanting to, to be edgy and and and experience things. And that's why, if you fast forward to when I left San Diego and went to Redding, california, which is way down the line, it was part of wanting more of an experience with the Lord. So, along the way, my parents and I went from this small little church to a vineyard church I would play the bass at the vineyard church and, um, they also got involved in a, in a much more um, I would say it was much more uh, kind of a less organized church. We get together like once a month and then they did a bunch of home uh, home churches and things. So we experienced lots of different areas you know of, of of the faith and um, I think it was. So I I kind of became disillusioned with my place in the church at around 21, 22. And, uh, and just, I was like I just want to play music, I'm going to go, you know, I'm just going to go do that and it kind of broke my mom's heart Cause she wanted me to do college and she hadn't graduated college.
Speaker 3:My dad did graduate college. Um, I would say he used his degree. He would say most of what he learned he didn't, but he's a sharp guy and like he's been, really you know, he's been successful in business. So it's like, you know, he he definitely learned something with his business management degree. You know, um, and yeah, I was like, hey, you know, I have to try this. I was. It was that crossroad that a lot of people, I think a lot of artists and things, come to where it's like I have to try this, otherwise I'm gonna regret not trying it. So I tried it. So I I got in, uh, uh, in with band. I won't I won't go too into the details because it's like there was a lot of nuance to it.
Speaker 3:But I found another guy who was a believer. Uh, he had just come out of jesus people. There was something called jesus people usa. It was like this commune or community or something, and and somehow we were connected through a friend and called him up one day. I'm like, dude, we should get a band, you know that kind of whole thing.
Speaker 3:And so fast forward, a few years after I I tried different bands and things and was just out doing my thing Got in this band and this was, this was like the shot. This felt like we had the best shot. He was a really good singer, really good songwriter. I took his folksy kind of stuff and rocked it out and and we had this whole thing going. But inevitably we started out trying to like, you know, kind of we wouldn't, we wouldn't drink or do anything around rehearsals or gigs when we started and by the time we all got loosey-goosey and everything like by the time we were done it was, it was just a drug alcohol mess, like that's just what it was, you know. And so we kind of know we kind of imploded and everybody went their separate way and that was it. And I was like, okay, well, that was, that was my shot. And I kind of did a couple of bands after that but it was like I don't know that this is going to work out as a career.
Speaker 3:So that was like so here I am like in my mid twenties, you know, and this is like where I'm having this realization of maybe I should get a job, maybe I should do something that's going to make me some money, or at least, while I'm doing this, let me stop delivering pizzas and go get, you know, get a career.
Speaker 3:Um, what's interesting is, during that time, so our church, that I, that that we came into, we, uh, we worked in words of prophecy and I would say we prayed for healing, but I don't know that we really prayed from an authority type of healing to where it's like no, this is what God does, this is what he wants to do, this is what Jesus commanded to do. But it was more of a, you know, god, just help this person, or we, we pray, if it's your will, that they'd be healed, and, uh, and, and none of those, none of those prayers are bad. And and praying for the doctors and all that kind of stuff, um, um, so. So I had experienced prophetic, I had experienced some of that kind of praying for healing and um, um, and just kind of the love of that community. And then we got into Vineyard, which, if you know much about the Vineyard background, they have much more of the healing much more Holy Spirit infusion.
Speaker 3:Did any of you guys ever go to Vineyard?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did for a while in college Went to a Vineyard church and then worked at a Vineyard-owned coffee shop. Believe it or not, the Vineyard church had a coffee shop at NC State not. The vineyard church had a coffee shop at nc state. Oh, called the vineyard cafe and I, I worked at it. Uh, actually, your brother-in-law and my brother-in-law, our shared brother-in-law slash friend daniel, worked there as well, did you?
Speaker 3:guys try to witness to people in the coffee shop.
Speaker 1:No, it was actually kind of not a super evangelistic vibe to that place, yeah, but like Christian bands would come through and play there like sets and they would be a place for like meetings and stuff. And yeah, it was a kind of experimental I think.
Speaker 3:Because I don't think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they wanted to get out into the marketplace, the marketplace, yeah, it was like trying to get out in the marketplace. Yeah, but then the sunday meeting was somewhere else for for most of it.
Speaker 3:But did you follow john wimber teachings and that kind of stuff?
Speaker 1:you know I wasn't in it long enough to really um get too absorbed into it, but I remember, yeah, being very forward with healing. The house church that I kind of came more into after that season. For me took a lot of the teachings on healing from the Vineyard Church and a lot of the worship that came out of Vineyard Church was awesome too, Great worship right. So, yeah, we benefited a lot from that, yeah that part of the body.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so an interesting teaching that that kind of stood out to me from vineyard was from our local pastor.
Speaker 3:It wasn't John limber or anything, and he did a long series on grace and he kind of he, he, he dove so deep into grace that you got sick of hearing about it, but you knew that it wasn't what you thought it was before.
Speaker 3:And he would.
Speaker 3:He would talk about not being able to to outrun the grace of God, not being able to find the end of grace of God, god not being able to find the end of grace of God, and he, just he, laid out this, this whole I, this whole concept in theology that we can't, we can't burn it out, there's no end to the gas in the engine for for God's grace, and that the law uh, the law exists to tell us what we've done wrong and grace exists to really just just clear that, clear that out. And you know God isn't looking at G, looking at us through this lens of Jesus, but that we are white, that we are made white, that we are made whole. So that was the beginning of a little bit of a journey towards a change in theology from a sinner saved by grace and kind of just being broken all the time and never feeling. I felt, growing up in the faith, that I never did it right with God, I never did enough with God and obviously, and getting back to your question, this actually answers your question, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Was I trying to make up for something. I kind of was like well, what's the point? I'm never going to be good enough, I'm never going to do it for him, and he's always just kind of waiting there, maybe with a bat or something to like knock me over the head because I didn't get it right, and so what's the point? So when you start to, you know and and I was, I was. I'm an only child, so I didn't have a brother or sister to kind of bounce things off of.
Speaker 2:I didn't have somebody strong, I would say, in the faith that was, that was coming back at me and and kind of iron, sharpening iron, or maybe challenging like hey bro, like what are you doing? You know that kind of thing, and that would have been great. Um, because I I might have avoided some stuff, but, um, I totally resonate with that. That was kind of yeah, my story similarly as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then you know, all the, all the stuff just just kind of worked together like that. So, so, let's see. And then my parents invited me to the vineyard in Anaheim one time, and this was we were talking about this before the podcast, but this was during the Toronto outpouring and people were having unique manifestations and at this point there was a kind of animal noises, which I'm still not sure where that hangs for me. But so I go to the mothership, you know, vineyard, anaheim. I'm thinking what am I doing here? Cause I wasn't really like. I was like I love you, god, but you know, I'm not into your church, kind kind of thing.
Speaker 3:I just left the church for a few years. My mother was like just go. And I'm like why? You know, that was the kind of conversations we would have. So, anyway, they're like we're going to, we're going to see I don't know who we're going to see, I don't even think it was john wimber. But I walk into the room and there's people walking around roaring like lions and kind of kind of doing strange manifestations, and I'm like, oh god, I'm just gonna, I'm here, god, but you know, I don't, don't, really know why.
Speaker 3:I don't really know what I what I got, I'm here, but I don't sign up for the lion roar, yeah and, at the same time, probably having some fear around it, right that like, well, I don't want to do that, I don't want to go back to school or my band or whatever and be roaring like a lion. So they go through the whole thing, they do, uh, the whole service. And there was, let's just say I was. I was kind of uh, uh, tiptoeing around the pool, so to speak, walking around the aisles and things. I kind of wandered a little bit during ministry time. There's lots of people getting prayed for, lots of noise, some dudes, you know, roaring like a lion in the corner and you're making cat noises and whatever.
Speaker 3:there was just a lot going on and I was like, well, you know, whatever, I'll just kind of wander around see what's going on. And I wandered down an aisle and, before I know it, somebody puts a hand on me and I just feel the presence of God come on me like heavy and I'm like, have you felt that before? Yeah, I mean I'd experienced it before. They're just there was another level and and as you can tell, I mean it wasn't necessarily expectation, but I was. I always thought like God can do whatever he wants, like, yeah, this may be weird, but who am I to say it's weird? Look at the stuff that happened in the Bible the donkeys talking and like you know there's weird stuff in the Bible, and so it's like, hey, god can do whatever he wants.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to, you know, judge or whatever. So somebody puts a hand on my back and I decide in that moment I'm going to close my eyes, I don't care who's touching me, I'm just going to receive whatever's going on.
Speaker 3:I just start sobbing and so I'm probably 25 ish, something like that, 25, 26, sobbing and sobbing and that uncontrollable, you know, you just can't stop it and so, and somebody else puts a hand on me and you know, before I know it, there's like two or three people, maybe the cry attracted them, I don't know, but um, and then I, I feel it, I, there's like two or three people, maybe the crying attracted them, I don't know but and then I feel it, I feel it like a roller coaster.
Speaker 3:I feel it hit the bottom of just just emoting to the Lord and just giving, and then I feel it turn into laughter and I'm like I'm laughing and I'm laughing and as uncontrollably as I was crying, I was laughing and laughing and laughing. And it really was such a gift from God to just go. Yeah, I see the sorrow and like, yes, you need to give that to me, but I've got something for you and I think that was so. That's actually 10 years before I went to Reading, but I think it was the beginning of a journey of like I just need, I need more of you, I need to experience your presence, and if I can't do that, I don't want to.
Speaker 3:I don't want to do church, I don't want to warm a pew, I don't want to just kind of show up, and so that was a pretty radical um experience that I wasn't even like prepared for. So in my twenties, in the midst of kind of drugging it up and all kinds of stuff, I was married. That didn't work out. The short story is I was, I was a pothead and and just, I was a functioning somehow. I had an it job and was working this whole thing and still like going home at night, getting high, and so the the marriage just wasn't. It wasn't a good, uh, a good fit. How long were you married? Less than four years, Okay, and um, fit. How long were you married? Less than four years, okay, and um, and, and I and I was one of those people who was like you marry for life, no matter what.
Speaker 3:But I found myself in such, a, such a bad situation and I and I had, I had made a lot of the situation myself, um, um, there were, there were, you know, my wife had some things going on too, so my ex-wife, um, and so after that was over, I was single again and living out completely on my own. I bought a dog cause I thought that would help me find somebody, uh, to date and, um, find somebody to date. And I wound up kind of living this kind of a dual life again and just I was just messing up my life again. And so what was interesting was my friend, who was really the son of my parents' best friend, went to Bethel Church in Reading, went to the school of ministry for I think two years, and he came to visit me and we didn't really hang out that much, I knew who he was and he was like you know, let me come over and visit or whatever. And he came through the door and started talking about his experience. And I was like he came through the door and started talking about his experience and I was like what? Like what happened to you? Because you, you just seem different and it seems like it really had an effect and he's like God's just doing something there. And he was like it's just, you know, it's just there's something happening and it's just kind of a you know, he told me about the school and all this stuff.
Speaker 3:And so I had been uh, divorced not even really that long, maybe a year, year or two and I was like, well, all of a sudden I'm like, should I go up there? It was kind of outside of my box. I I'm not like, uh, I like to know my options and make decisions carefully and that kind of stuff. And then I prayed and I felt the Lord say, come be with me in writing. And I was like, okay, Lord, I said, but I'm not going up there to like get some good schooling and some good theology Like I need to. I'm not doing this. It was kind of like Lord, if I'm really going to come back and I'm really going to like change my life, like I need to encounter you, I have to really have an experience here.
Speaker 3:Otherwise, I had experienced enough of just kind of doing church and most of that was on me. I mean, the church was like we had some great churches but I wasn't bringing my whole self, and so that was when it but it seems like maybe you knew you needed to have like another, like a deeper encounter with the lord or something, because you'd had one right you had one at the vineyard church and then got married, got some through some of that stuff and just but what drew you to Bethel other than because um?
Speaker 3:excuse me, um, let's see so kind of to put the sandwich together for you. My I used to have um sermons on cd and on the little case it would say you can duplicate this like up to eight times or something. And my dad would put it in the CD burner and burn eight copies of every sermon and give them out to everybody. So he was giving me these Bill Johnson sermons and I would just kind of stick them in my car. I just didn't care. And one day I started popping them in. I started listening to him and Chris Vallotton and a couple of teachers, but in particular his teachings were like they were really deep and the revelation was deep and whatever he was talking about, with healing and experiencing God and the presence of the Lord, I was like, wow, that all just resonated with me and I think I needed to get out of my element. I needed to get out of San Diego. I needed to get out of. I was, uh, involved in another relationship that was not healthy or not good for me and, um, I was just doing stuff that wasn't wasn't working and so I was like, lord, if we're going to do this, like you know, upend my whole life and move. You know, like I say, I just wasn't really like me. I'd probably would have stayed in San Diego all my life. You know, um, I felt the Lord kind of call. I was like, okay, let's do this. I thought, oh, maybe a year, maybe two. I stayed there like 12 years, so moved.
Speaker 3:When I was I think I was 37 when I moved up there, something like that Wow, and To go to the School of Supernatural Ministry. Yeah, you know, at the time time the phone interview was like, why do you want to come here? I want more of god sounds good. You know, things get kind of kind of wacky up here. We, you know, holy spirit moves and sometimes people act like they're drunk.
Speaker 3:Are you okay with that? I'm like, yeah, sure, that sounds great. You know, like that was it. And uh, so I left. I had a corporate job in like an it IT place that I'd been for like seven years and packed up the dog and moved on up there and really I didn't realize how much kind of just religious stuff I had on me. I would I like to say the first three months just September, october, november, whatever of the school year, was really the Lord just washing all that stuff off of me and just getting out of a mindset of of achieving with the lord and striving and trying and I had a good day with the lord, or I didn't share enough.
Speaker 3:I didn't, I didn't share the lord with enough people this week, or all the guilt, all the stuff, and so it was. It was an over and over. I mean, I felt like I was going through the wash every week and worship time was the best because, excuse me, the students would would basically have like four or five worship sessions a week and I'd just be like, ah, just like pour it on me was having. I was starting to have like visions and and and dreams, and I was. I was writing down every prophetic word that came my way and recording them on my phone and and just I was just like immersed and I think. And so I think what Bethel has from my take is a guy like Bill Johnson, who spent 30 years in his prayer closet and prayed, you know, by himself in, you know, in all these churches, who just made the soil Like he made an incredible environment and an incredible culture. And imagine going to school every day with 200 students, or 500 students the first year, and every day you get a positive prophetic word.
Speaker 2:Love that.
Speaker 3:It starts to transform you and you start to not only think differently about yourself, but think differently about how you're going to give a prophetic word to somebody differently about yourself, but think differently about how you're going to give a prophetic word to somebody.
Speaker 3:So in the two years I was in ministry school, I prayed for, I would say, 50 times as many people as I had for the past 20 years of being a Christian, because I was too afraid and I was. It was there's just so much going on in me that I was like, well I'm, you know, I had kind of given up on trying to make it with the Lord. So when you have an and obviously it was paired together with with identity, because the whole first year of ministry school is primarily about getting your identity straight with the Lord and what does that really mean? And hearing sermons about how Paul wrote, I believe, in Romans it's over 40 times. He says you're dead, you died, you're dead and your life is hidden with Christ. You died and you were co-resurrected with Christ, and all of this stuff that your man has already died and was dumped, and so I was trying to do, you know, like before, that I was in my own weird way.
Speaker 3:I just was trying to do like a self-propelled Christianity, and so of course it was frustrating and of course it was like what's the point, you know, just toss it to the wind.
Speaker 2:Wow, well, so what, what, what do you think was the biggest takeaway for you after the first year?
Speaker 3:um, yeah, it was really that identity thing it was. It was really, um, knowing that that there wasn't a scorecard with the Lord and there wasn't Jesus wasn't like holding him back, wasn't holding the father back from punishing me, you know. And then, just week after week of being people speaking positive, positive, life-giving prophecy, and words.
Speaker 3:And not all of them were accurate. But when you, when you maintain a culture of the prophetic and going out and doing, um, we did what was called treasure hunt. So we would sit there with our little team and we write down you know person with a red shirt, nikes, whatever it was and we'd go find that person, give them a word, and they'd be like, oh gosh, that totally resonates with me. And you're like, well, that's cool, it must be. The Lord was like fun Ministry wasn't like all right, today I'm going to go talk to somebody about Jesus.
Speaker 1:Cause that's, that's heavy man, you know.
Speaker 3:So the school is three years right so you can do as much or as little as you want. Um, the, the first year, school of ministry is, is what most people do and a lot of, I would say, more than half leave after that, or maybe three quarters, and and, and it is very much based on that, that self-identity, that that uh identity piece for our, our faith. The second year is, um, it's kind of more of a leadership kind of building, or at least this is what it was. I mean, it's been a while. And then the third year is internship, where you can work under one of the pastors, and there's a lot of pastors.
Speaker 1:Did you?
Speaker 3:go the full, the full three years, no. So I ended up, I did two years and then, instead of doing like an official internship, I started working under a couple people who worked for the media division of the church. So this is where my kind of my, the musical of the church, so this is where my, my kind of my, the the musical background came back. And when you, when you're in, when you're in Reading, the job prospects aren't fantastic. Nowadays everybody works remote.
Speaker 3:But but back, then not everybody worked remote, so you, so I was scraping for jobs and that kind of thing. Um, I worked some really hard jobs there. And then, um then my buddy who worked for Bethel, you wanted to do anything for Bethel if you were a student. You're like, I will clean the toilets at Bethel if I could just have a job and be, here all the time because you just wanted to be there all the time.
Speaker 3:And so my buddy who worked in the media department called me up. He's like, hey, I'm doing the podcasts and I'm doing the CDs for the, the sermons and the conferences they do a lot of conferences. He's like I'm going to move to another position. I think you'd be good at this. I was like heck, yeah, Like I'll do anything. Wow, and that was like beginning of basically working for the media group for seven years.
Speaker 2:Stuff for them and where, when, in during this time, where did you find jordan, your wife?
Speaker 3:so I had been in reading from trying to do the math, I I had been there for a while and, uh, it's interesting, jordan and I had like seen each other and kind of identified each other, but hadn't really ever just had a chance to talk or whatever. And then we were connected on um, e-harmony of all things does that even exist?
Speaker 3:still, I don't know that's hilarious, and so she was like I think I think I've seen this guy around and she looked through my pictures and there was the, the prayer chapel that they have, and she's like I think that's the bethel prayer chapel and I was like I know this lady. Where do I know her from? And I always tell this story and she gets embarrassed, but she did it.
Speaker 3:She did a safety video because she has a background in disaster relief and so if for our missions teams, every student goes out on missions every year and and just gets to go out and whether it's domestic or international, they go on a mission trip. She made a safety video with a security guy who worked there and and she was in the safety video and she's interviewing this guy and every response he was she would say so what? What should we do if you know if we're feel like we're in danger? And he would say blah, blah, blah was. She would say so what? What should we do if you know if we're feel like we're in danger? And he would say blah, blah, blah and she would go that's very interesting. So what should we do if this happens? And you would say blah, blah, blah and she'd go that's very interesting.
Speaker 1:And we were kind of like, almost like we should make a drinking game out of this.
Speaker 3:But we didn't, we didn't, but I just I just remember her from the video and so we were connected and and and, honestly, it wasn't like sparks should say the same thing, but sparks didn't fly when we first met. But we, we went out and and I felt the lord telling me is like you, you need to go out a few times, like you know, and and get to know her. And it took a little while just to kind of get to know her humor and stuff like that and. And then I met her family and I was like these people are ridiculously amazing. And so it became. It was what I, what I like to call the slow burn to where we were like we really wanted to to be together and and and just fell in love with her and, um, got to know her humor and and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:So did the Lord speak pretty clearly that y'all would be married kind of early on, or was it just, like you said, a slow burn the entire time?
Speaker 3:you just knew I wanted you to get to know her more so so I had been through, uh, I had been through a another journey of sexual purity with, uh, pornography and and all that stuff and it come out of that and I was kind of mentoring some other guys and I was like you shouldn't date a girl for more than three months because you're leading her on if it goes more than that. So I had these milestones in my in my mind that I had taught other people and I'm like, well, I kind of have to follow that.
Speaker 3:So I was like, lord, after three months, like I have to cut, this should be going in one direction or the other, and it was. And so, after three months, like I have to cut, this should be going in one direction or the other, and it was. And so after three months, like she met my family and went to san diego and um, because my parents were still there, and then we did a. Um, we did a. It was a pre-married class, but it was. It was, it was marketed as a relationship class and uh, by danny silk and um, and I said, lord, if we get through this thing, like we definitely should get married because danny silk had the first video.
Speaker 3:He comes on, he goes. My job is to break you up like you're not meant to be together. You shouldn't be together. So let me, let me challenge your relationship and put pressure on it so that, if it's going to break up, you break up now, and that's actually wisdom.
Speaker 2:I think that is. I've never heard that.
Speaker 3:I think that's fantastic yeah, and I had been through enough with um, my previous relationships and things, and and it had been years of of searching for a wife that, like I didn't want to mess it up, and so I was very, very careful with my, my purity, you know, or whatever and uh, um and honoring and respecting her. And then when we finally got engaged, it was a seven week engagement, like we got married two months later like we're we're ready to get this going.
Speaker 2:We don't even want to wait seven weeks seven weeks.
Speaker 1:Seven weeks, okay, wow.
Speaker 3:I was engaged for 10 months, which now I tell people don't ever do that that's so stupid I mean people are like well, in two years when he graduates college, I'm like dude are you gonna do for two? Years other than mess up and have to repent that always annoyed me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that always annoys me mine was four months. Yeah, about four months four months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, engage me a couple months is good so yeah, I mean the older you are, the shorter. That probably makes sense. I was. I was young, andrea was 18 when we got engaged, so I didn't helpful to wait for her 19th birthday, at least I guess.
Speaker 3:But yeah, once you know, you know, you know yeah, and and we, like you, say we're a little older, so it wasn't no time to waste. Um, but yeah, and everybody was in support. It wasn't like whoa, whoa, you're moving too fast, like no, we had been dating for basically a year and um scott and becky were her parents, were sweet as pie when I called them up they're like we trust our daughter to make good decisions I was like, okay, let's go that's so sweet because she's what 30 something by that point.
Speaker 1:That's so sweet Because she's what 30 something by that point 20.
Speaker 3:Am I supposed to say how old she was?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Well, you don't know how long we've been married.
Speaker 3:She was in her 30s. I was in my 40s when we got married. There you go, and so there wasn't any time to, we didn't need to wait. So but yeah, and she's radical for the Lord. So, but yeah, and she was, she was, she's radical for the Lord. So like there was. I knew I knew a couple of things about Jordan. I knew that she was always going to be like loyal and true and and like just true blue, like I, I. I knew I could trust her to the ends of the earth. I would. I would never have to doubt just who she was and what she was about and and um, and I enjoyed being with her. She's just the best friend. So it's like I enjoy just being. Would I get time? It's like, well, why wouldn't I want to be?
Speaker 1:with her, and that's kind of how.
Speaker 3:I think it should be with a wife, or a husband. If it's the other way around, it's like that's the person you most enjoy spending time, because you're gonna spend most of your time with them and then I knew that that's good, I, I wanted kids all my life and so I'm obviously uh, you know, that started a little later, but I was like I want my kids to be like her, like it's cool like if they grow up and they have her, her quality and her depth, and just like, yeah, yeah, okay, the game over, like it was easy for me to say, like she'd be a great mom, and, uh, that does enter your mind when you're getting married in your 40s, you know it's like okay well
Speaker 2:you know so what was so when, when you guys got married? How long, how long have y'all been married? Almost 10 years okay gotcha and did you guys immediately start doing ministry together, or was that kind of?
Speaker 3:so we, we come from very different backgrounds. My wife was in disaster relief, worked for samaritan's Purse for a long time, created a disaster relief department at the Bethel Church, and that's her journey. You guys can can get her to tell her story. But and my, my background was I I never really did anything disaster relief. The first time I went on an ash out or went to help somebody was through her and through through the church.
Speaker 3:Um, what was your question? Oh, did we do ministry? Right, right, yeah, and and yeah, I mean I would say we, we, we were in the flow together and obviously part of that is being part of that, that church and that movement. But if you're there, um, there's, there's, there's just a, there's a certain I don't want to say you can't say it's all the time, but you don't, you don't go to a church like that, you don't travel to a church like that unless you're by.
Speaker 3:You're like, yeah, like the Lord can do amazing things. Yes, the Lord can heal cancer. Yes, I believe that I'm, I'm, I'm a child, I'm a saint, I'm like I'm a saint, you like I'm a saint, you know, and there's a journey for all of that. But but so, so there was. I kind of knew where kind of where she was coming from. But the fact that she had spent most of her life like helping people and traveling to like earthquake zones and haiti, and like she lived in in in el salvador, ecuador, and she did school in England, I'm like you've been everywhere. I mean one of our dates. I was like so are you planning on doing a lot of traveling?
Speaker 3:because, I don't really like to go anywhere.
Speaker 1:I like to go to Italy like I want to go eat some pizza and have some wine. I like California, I like California. I like Italy, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to like to expound on that question. It seems like y'all's place of ministry is like very different, and so, like was that difficult meshing those two? Like gifts as you guys became one, like gifts as you guys became one. Like was it hard you giving space for her to do what she was called to, and like hard for her to give you space?
Speaker 3:or was it an easy transition? It was, it was pretty easy that's yeah it wasn't difficult for me, um, and I think you know because so it's kind of a side subject but when you go through a lot of healing as a man and you start to get healed sexually and you start to get healed with your identity with Christ, it's easier to empower your wife and encourage your wife and push her up to the front. And when we got married I said I'm going to be your biggest cheerleader, whatever you choose to do, I am going to cheer you on and support you.
Speaker 3:And I think the men that don't do that are dealing with their own identity issues and I think there there's there's just some stuff inside that that they're having a hard time with to be able to to support their wife. And then you know, we, we got married and she got up every morning and did devotional time, read the Bible and pray, and I was like I need to step up my game here.
Speaker 1:I mean no joke, I was like what am I doing Like? I went to the ministry school at Bethel, like I should be like praying four hours a day.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. And so she actually spurred me on, and I was like yeah, so. So now it's a it's it's a it's a foregone conclusion.
Speaker 3:And then I went to visit the family and I don't if you, you've experienced this I know her family pretty well yeah yeah so you get up in the morning, there's a large part of pot of coffee and everybody's in their own room with the bible and praying and reading everybody in the family and so it's like, okay, you know, this is, this is the culture that that she comes from.
Speaker 3:So it's a it's a deep place with the Lord you know, just recently she's been like I'm just hungry for more and I'm like that's awesome, you know awesome, you know it's. It's good to be with a woman who just just wants, wants to see god move you know.
Speaker 1:So that's a good segue to what does what? What is more, what does that look like? What is the next season? Of marriage and you got two little cool little boys now and like what does ministry look like? What does life look like moving forward?
Speaker 3:Well, so a couple, a couple of things. For me, one thing is that we I've seen, so I've had a lot of friends that have two income households, a lot of daycare, you know, babysitting and watching the kid not babysitting but just like daycare for the, their little ones, their toddlers. And we, we definitely want to be like, really involved during these first few years. And so so I'm, I'm purposeful with my time with the kids and I really do believe that, minister, that family is the first ministry. Um, so when we moved, we so, to finish our journey, we moved from california to to uh, where do we live now? Raleigh, north carolina raleigh North.
Speaker 3:Carolina, uh, in 2024, 2023, the very, very end of 2020. And um, and that was that was for family, that was for um, family first, um, our church, uh, so, so Antioch here, antioch Raleigh is one of the well getting into worship isn't hard for me to volunteer for the worship band, but I've felt the Lord move me into volunteering more and serving more and getting an attitude of serving and really I've probably learned that a lot from my in-laws, from Scott and Becky, but just being willing to serve. So we do adopt a block, we do worship team kids care, that kind of stuff kind of come to a conclusion as a family, but I feel like we're probably going to head towards helping out some churches and we don't know what that looks like. So cool, but on the daily right now, to be, to be real vulnerable I'm, I'm being challenged right now by the Lord to get out of my head, get out of my own needs, to start to, to, to speak more words to people, to pray for more healing, to to give prophetic words to people and spread the love.
Speaker 3:And and it's amazing how I don't know if everybody else does this, but I get this thing in my head where it's like I have to do. I have to do that thing and I'm going to be purposeful about praying for more people, whatever it is. But every time I do it, I'm rewarded far more than I expected to be, and I'm blessed by the Lord in my heart, far more than maybe even the person that I'm praying for. I don't know, I can't, there's no way to quantify that. But so the last time I prayed for somebody, I just felt the Lord just speaking to me and I was like, oh God, this is amazing.
Speaker 3:Like can I go off in a room right now, cause I just want to keep listening to you, you know. So I think the Lord is always challenging us to to take the first step, just like Peter on the water. Um, take the first step. Just like peter on the water, um, take that first step, open your mouth and start to be. I'm in fact, you know, ryan, I'm just going to give you one word to say. You know, you're like oh no, it's just one word. It seems so silly, you know, but I can't tell you how many times. So I did this challenge for myself, uh, where, every time I went to trader joe's, I gave a word to the cashier.
Speaker 2:That's awesome Sometimes.
Speaker 3:I'd walk into Trader Joe's and he'd be like, remember, you know, and I wouldn't say anything, radical happened. Nobody, nobody fell on their knees, you know, crying. But every time there was there was a deposit made for the Lord, for his love, and it was, and it was fun and there was a little bit of a challenge to it. It's like, okay, well, this guy's gonna get me checked out as quick as possible. I better get this word and and get it out.
Speaker 3:And it's just exercising those muscles of and that's that's part of what that incubation at bethel really brought out and and and cultivated was like. This is normal christianity that we pray for the sick and they get healed. We give a prophetic word and it changes a life. We talk about love, we talk about Jesus and people respond, and so it's like that, I think, is for me personally, is the ministry challenge right now, and like I say, as soon as I do it, do it. There's this like I get an encounter with the lord, so it's like, oh, you want to hear him more, you want to experience him more. Okay, well, open your mouth and go pray for that person. That's all you have to do. Yeah, that's it. Or at least encourage them. You know so I, you know I've I've backed off a little bit from that and now I'm kind of leaning back into it and it's it's fun, it's cool.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of something your dad said, cause he was really inspiring to me when he was a guest on the podcast and he's like oh, I love going to Walmart. Remember this, ryan. He's like I see people in those carts and he's like well, I know they need prayer yeah, and so so he's like and then it and he made it so simple like anybody could could do this.
Speaker 1:He's just like hey, I, I is. What's what's going on? I like to pray for people and, you know, sometimes they get healed. It's like oh man, I could say that. It's like that's so natural, you, it's like oh man, I could say that it's like that's so natural, it's like even right in the leading line, it's just like. You know, sometimes it works. Not claiming to be perfect, I'm not like the Messiah, but I'd love to pray for you. Maybe it'll make a difference. Like that was so disarming I thought.
Speaker 2:Go away and do it was so disarming, I thought completely disarming anyways, yeah.
Speaker 3:So kind of getting back to to the identity thing, I really actually believe that most people don't do it because of the identity thing, because of of who they. They think somehow they have to drum something up or say the perfect word or be the perfect person or whatever for something to happen. And the Lord's like. I just want you to do, I just want you to take action and I will, I will come, I will, I will fill it, I will minister to that person and as much as I would like to, to, to bring a person to Jesus, every day I might be part of the farming harvest event that's happening in their life, and if I'm sowing the seed or I'm bringing the plow, you know bill used to teach us that that the farmers would put the seed out and the plow would come through and plow the seed into the ground and that the seed actually attracts the plow. And so when we're making a deposit in somebody, that's attracting the Lord to them, not that he's not, but it's attracting Holy Spirit to minister to them, and so it starts to change your thinking and it really, for me, being saturated in that for a while was what I needed to do to have my experience with Jesus change and have more encounters and experience him more.
Speaker 3:Paul says I didn't come to you with eloquent words, but with the power of the Spirit. And he was a pretty eloquent guy, I mean, he wrote most of the New Testament and it's like. Well, paul says that like then there needs to be some power and somebody else, I don't know who, said you know, a man with an experience will always trump a man with you know. Just kind of good, good education or good learning Not that there's anything wrong with education. Yeah, I do think when we have those experiences, like I did, that young experience at Vineyard and growing up in our church those were things that I always went back to In my darkest days, when I was doing the dumbest stuff. I still would sit there and go oh God and I would talk to the Lord Because it was it was real.
Speaker 1:It didn't feel real for me, so, oh, that's. I mean you asked us before the recording started, like the inspiration of the podcast, and it's become a lot about like the testimony, the value of people's testimonies.
Speaker 1:Like you can't nothing and nobody can take away your testimony, yeah right like there there are brilliant people, um, that can out apologetics me, they can out atheist me, you know, science me, whatever. But nobody can take away my personal experience with the Lord. Mmm, they just can't right and that. And we quoted the beginning of the pod, but it's like, you know, the blood of the Lamb we overcome the evil one, but the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, yeah.
Speaker 3:So there's like there's what Jesus did and then the ours, testimony of what he did and they're powerful yeah, uh, my mother-in-law just shared a, a testimony tool that I'd never heard before and it was just basically going like hey, you know, I had this thing happen to me once in life and you tell your story and and then then you know like I encountered god and god. Then you know like I encountered God and God. You know I had this experience with Jesus. You know, has that ever happened to you? Or?
Speaker 2:have you ever had an?
Speaker 3:experience like that, I was like that's a brilliant way to like just lay out your testimony and go like this is this is the evidence of kind of just what's happened in my life. You know what I mean. I'm sure I have the wording wrong, but you get the idea of just kind of like yeah, I had a hard time and the Lord delivered me out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is something really powerful about you. Just can't argue against that. I think it was Bill Johnson or Chris Vallotton on a sermon that they said. Johnson or chris valentine one on a sermon that they said if you can argue your way into believing god is good. You can always argue your way out of it. Yeah, and I was like that's freaking good.
Speaker 2:And that's true when and I'm not saying some guys are wired to really love theology and get a lot of revelation out of theology and, yeah, there's power in that, there's power in sound theology, but there's power in saying god changed my life and, regardless of what I see, I know he changed it and regardless of what you think or believe, I know you change it.
Speaker 1:And that testimony is like a weapon that we can use too. I think a lot of times my own mindset I'll just be vulnerable here is I constantly think about the defensive aspect of warfare, like, oh, my testimony, nobody can take this away from me, like I'll never you. But that's not like necessarily like an offensive thing. That's like that's a defense against something coming at me or an argument coming at me or unbelief coming at me. But it's also super powerful, as we've seen in this podcast, like people will share their testimony, other people will listen and they'll say, oh, that sets me free.
Speaker 1:Because, I dealt with that. I see how God dealt with you dealing with that, and now it brings freedom into their life. And something I've been I can't get out of my head is this verse that I've probably misunderstood for most of my walk with the Lord, but it's Matthew 16, 18. And we all know it. It's like, and I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. And I'm like I've never really fully understood that, but like, what are gates?
Speaker 1:gates keep stuff out. Limit get gates, keep stuff out. So if it's the gates of hell in that picture that Jesus is telling Peter, what is the church doing. If the gates of hell don't prevail against the church, what is the church doing? It's kicking down the gates. It's on offense right, yeah. I don't know that to me was like when that clicked. I was like oh my goodness, my goodness, yeah, that's wild. I'm not just supposed to like figure out how to avoid attacks of the enemy right my whole life right.
Speaker 1:Well, how do I dodge that arrow from the enemy? How do I? How do I parry that blow from that sword that the enemy. Yeah, it's like no, the church is supposed to just go against the gates of hell yeah and kick those gates down like we're on the offensive.
Speaker 3:The mandate was to raise the dead dude to heal the sick and to cast out demons. And when you see people do it, you're like, wow, that's radical. No, that's what jesus said, dude. That's what he said. Going back to my point, though, I do believe so for a long time. I listened to that. It's a Jonathan Helzer track where. Graham Cook prophesies you guys, must have heard this.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I must have listened to that, I can't imagine how many hundreds of times it's going to make me cry. But he says in it there's nothing you can do to make him love you more. There's nothing you can do to make him love you more, there's nothing you can do to make him love you less. And you have to repeat that over and over and over. Because if your identity isn't solid in who he says you are and who he's made you to be, and that you died and you were buried and you were resurrected, chris Valton likes to say it's not even your nature to sin anymore. Chris Vallotton likes to say it's not even your nature to sin anymore. But if you don't have that, then, like I say, it'll be the old Chris to where I was just always just trying and striving and trying to make it happen.
Speaker 1:And feeling like I was doing something.
Speaker 3:Instead you're like wait a minute, I'm filled with the Holy Spirit. I'm a child of God. He paid the ultimate price for me and there's nothing I can do to change how he feels. So today doesn't have a scorecard.
Speaker 3:You know all it is is really more of like am I listening to him? Am I kind of moving the way he wants me to move? Hey, I just had a thought. Is that the Holy Spirit? Okay, if it's like, hey, you should help that person, you should buy that dude a burger or you should pray for that person, yeah, it's probably the Lord.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. Like those thoughts are not. They're not random, and so what we find is when we start to step into those, out of that identity as a child of the king, as someone who's just been like and when you're dead, who cares? You know?
Speaker 3:what I mean Like no, I mean, you know it's, it's kind of a silly metaphor, but there's nothing. There's nothing the enemy has on me, and that's the fun part about going through through the healing process and and going through the and being transparent with, hopefully, you know, men to men and women to women, you know, know, relating and and and and being who you are is like oh, that's the, you know there's, there's no secret, little hidden things that the, that the enemy is going to try and get me. So now I'm, I'm, I'm going out there to, to spread something so like, after my experience at Bethel, I, I, I wished that that every Christian could kind of just go through at least a little bit of this, this incubation of now you're, you're, you're totally the identity saved, healed, delivered.
Speaker 3:Like the lord's done the work. There's nothing you can do to change it. You are a child of god. Um, your, your words are, are life-giving and like you know, just the training of like you know, like you said, like, yeah, not everybody gets healed, but what if they did? You know.
Speaker 3:And when you pray for a few people and they do get healed, you're like it can happen, and so then it's like it just changes things. So it took a long podcast to get all the way to where we're talking about now, but I think it. I think it really is a. It's something that that every Christian is called to, and and and Jesus didn't say it would be easy. You know, he said hard stuff's going to happen, but that's part of becoming a disciple, and and and following the Lord lord. You know, and I think it's a, it's a duality too, but you got me rambling.
Speaker 1:Now I'm just like I want to go pray for somebody, if you're, if you're if you're rambling, it's usually because you're passionate about something, so that's, that's a good thing yeah, rambling's allowed right, right rambling's allowed.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it takes you down a little trail, but yeah, my grandfather always said the best rabbit trail leads to the juiciest carrot.
Speaker 3:So I'm a firm believer in that statement that my grandfather said yeah I think the carrot is you know, if you're a christian out there and you don't think you're good enough or you're, you know you're just whatever. You've been beat up, like you said, you're, you're a Christian out there and you don't think you're good enough or you're, you know you're just whatever. You've been beat up, like you said, you're on the defense with the enemy, like dive deep into his presence.
Speaker 3:Like sit with the Lord quietly, shut off your phone, like get quiet to where you can start to just hear that voice speaking to you, and then ask him Father, what do you, what do you say about me, what do you think about me, what are your thoughts when I come to your mind?
Speaker 3:write that stuff down and read that every day to yourself for forever for 30 days and see if it doesn't start to change your, your, your attitude, your mindset and like the stuff that weighs heavy on you starts to just not matter. And then kind of, the next step is I want to, I want other people to experience this, you know. So, like I said, you know, going through through what I did, I mean I, I pray for so many more people because I wasn't encumbered anymore and that's kind of the thing that I wish for people.
Speaker 2:So, chris Pachilio, this has been a rich for us.
Speaker 3:Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you Bye. Thank you.
