Episode 10: Interview with Senior Pastor Ryan Cox

Geoff: Welcome back to That's What They All Say: Conversations Across Generations. Today is a special episode because for the first time ever, we actually have a guest with us. We're in his office here at The Table, a church in Severn. And so we'd like to introduce executive pastor Ryan Cox. Ryan, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit? Yeah, so my name's Ryan. I'm a husband to Katie. I have four children. two of which, Everett and Hayes, are are entering a baseball tournament this weekend. Very excited about that. I'm the pastor of this church called the table, former firefighter, school board member, youth sports coach, all kinds of things. And happy to be here with you guys today. Yeah, well, we're excited to have you here because now we actually have three generations. We've got Gen X, if I if I got this right, millennial. That's right. And Gen Z. So this is truly going to be. conversations across generations. So Ryan, we just thought we'd give you a chance to kind of tell us a little bit about sort of your background, kind of coming up, what you know, what what what did you do before becoming a pastor and and and what led you into being a pastor? Yeah. so I was born and raised in Severn. I tell people it's kind of had like a gravitational pull on my life. I have not been able to escape it. my uncle was the founding pastor of this church. That's my uncle Jack. And my dad actually pastored a church for a little while, about two, two and a half years. so I was born and raised in the faith. never a time in my life when I wasn't actively involved in a local church. I went to Christian private school first through twelfth grade. A lot of people probably don't know this, but this used to be a school. I don't even know if you knew that. It was Severn Covenant Church School. This was my, let me think, fifth grade lunchroom where we're sitting right now. That's crazy. Yep. Yeah. So like me or not, I'm the product of this place in a whole lot of ways. And went here from first through seventh grade. And then I went to a small private school in Glen Burney called Granite Baptist. And and outside of high school, y what I tell people is if I was not saved in the summer of my nineteenth year of life, I know I was saved after that. I I had a friendship with a guy named Chris who had a pretty Pretty identical story to me. Also raised in the faith. But by the time we became friends, he walked away from it. was kind of disillusioned and cynical and frankly, I think bitter because of some hard things that had happened to him. And we would get into pretty deep conversations about faith and hypocrisy and what's true and what's not. And he knew about the faith that I claimed. probably knew more about it than I did, actually. He he was a real sharp intellect, a great debater. And so he knew enough scripture to kind of call me out on the life that I was living. And I remember being on the phone with him one night. 19 years old, sitting on the edge of my twin bed at my dad's house. And he told me, he said, Hey, if God means that much to you, you'll give it up. You know, referring to the life I was living and and the choices I was making. And after that phone call, you know, scripture talks about how Jesus would answer the Pharisees in such a way that they were cut to the quick and they just, you know, they were stopped in their tracks. That was the first time in my life I knew what it was to be to, you know, cut to the quick. And it was just as clear as it had ever been, a fork had been placed in the road. And for the first time in my life, it was either going to be admit that God really doesn't mean that much to me. And it was just kind of something that my parents talked about and my teachers talked about and my friends were interested in. Or for the first time, I was gonna decide that he did. And of course, by by his grace and his sovereignty, that was the moment that it came home and it actually started to change my life. And I remember. Talking to people after that, that nineteenth year of life, that's when I understood, you know, the whole I once was lost, but now I'm found was blind, but now I sit like that's when it was like I would wake up in the morning, you could not keep me out of the Bible. It just it it became alive to me. and that's when, you know, prior to that time in my life, nineteen, I had kind of done like the obligatory one year at Anna Rundle Community College, just because I didn't know what else to do. But when things got settled with God is when I felt like I had real purpose and clarity in my life. And that's when I made the decision I wanted to be a professional firefighter. And so it took me about two and a half years of just applying at different departments and going through hiring cycles before I finally got the call that I've been invited to to join the fire academy, which is a six month training program for the Anoronal County Fire Department. And and after that job, Got out into the field, started to get more involved in this church here as an intern, a worship leader, small group leader, and just gradually more and more felt like God was calling me out of that job and and into this one. Really to my surprise as much as anybody else's. And I've been doing that now for 13 and a half years. very thankful to a God that's had his hand on me every step of the way. Well, Ryan, you there's a couple of points I'd just like to kind of Ask a little bit more about. So it kind of seemed like there were a couple of inflection points. Like at 19, you had this great conversation with someone who really challenged you. Then you moved into firefighting and then you moved from there. So some pretty big changes, I think, that so what were things which like you would encourage other people? Like, hey, when you get to a point where you need to make a big decision or life changing decision, how did you do that? Yeah, I can answer that with one word, counsel. That's how I did it. And that's how I do things today. people that know me know I spend a lot of time deliberating on big decisions. And part of that process is inviting other people that are smarter than I am in on that decision. So what that looked like back in the fire department, because I thought I was gonna be a career guy. I mean, my my plan for my life was I was just gonna run out the clock for as long as my body would allow me to as an Andoronal County firefighter. And when I started to feel like God was calling me out of that, It was very first off, just generally horrifying to me, but also surprising because I love I mean, if you had known me in that period of time from, you know, I'm 19, God got a hold of my life, and I just kind of all right, I'm gonna be a firefighter now. If you had talked to me during that two and a half year period, you would have been irritated at how much I talked about the fire service. Like you could not have a conversation with me without me kind of like, you know, evangelizing you with how great that was. So when I started to feel that call. I just wanted to make sure, is this something I ate or is this a legitimate thing that God's doing? And the primary person that was kind of like my my tour guide as I navigated that was named Mark Rossi, who was a mentor and and really like a father figure to me. The way that that scripture talks about, you know, that relationship between Paul and Barnabas, I kind of picture that's kind of how Mark operated in my life. And what he taught me to do, you know, Mark could see things. I was a guy in my early twenties, and Mark could see things, you know, have having been around the block a few more times than than I had been. he just saw things in me that I couldn't see in myself. And he, you know, he loved me enough to point them out to me, even when I didn't w want him to. And and that set me on this kind of like path of it wound it wound up me going to meeting with a professional counselor every week, the summer of 2012. And and kind of just slowing down and deliberately reflecting on the formative years of my life, my childhood home, some early experiences, and how that had affected me. and through that process of of meeting with a counselor weekly in the in the summer of 2012, it brought a level of of healing and with that a level of clarity that allowed me to see with conviction. That God was calling me really to do two to do two things at that time in my life. Leave the fire department in order to pursue local church ministry full time. And then also pursue a young lady named Katie Albrecht, now Cox, who has been my wife for I think this July is gonna be, man, how long have we been married? 13 years now? Best 13 years of my life. Listen to that, Kate. should how exactly other than the counsel of others did you know that God was asking you to step away from this calling of being a firefighter to become a pastor? practice and confirmation. So there's a Greek word that I've heard Paul use before in in Romans. I if I'm not mistaken, I'm no Greek scholar, but I think the word is Doki Mazo. And I remember reading a definition of that one time when I was doing sermon prep. And the word there's a lot of Greek words that have like just such a depth of meaning that it it requires like a paragraph of English to kind of get across what it's saying. And this particular word, it has to do with the fact that you can only really determine a ship's seaworthiness when it's out of the harbor and, you know, out at sea. And and the the word that Paul uses there, it's when he's talking about so that by testing you may know the will of God. that's the word that he uses there. And and what Paul is getting across is this idea that the way that we we go about trying to find God's will for my life is just generally wrong. like people have come into my office last thirteen and a half years as a pastor, like, well, how do I find God's will for my life? Like it's a like an eight ball that you shake and then God gives you an answer, or like I don't know, like you order, you know, something from Amazon and then it shows up at your front door. That's just not how God does things. The the normal way that God reveals calling. is through through getting out of the harbor and into open water and finding out what it is by testing, God has made you for. you think about with Abraham, you know, we're we're we're told in Genesis twelve that God just said, Go, go and I'll show you, go and I'll make you, go and I'll do things through you that'll absolutely blow your mind. You read about Abraham's journey in Hebrews and it adds an interesting detail. It says that Abraham set out not knowing where he was going, which I think is like that's the way of of Jesus. That's how the kingdom of God works. It's You just put one foot in front of the other. don't get obsessed about certainty. Don't get obsessed about your five, 10 year plan. You just take one more step and I'll I'll reveal things to you as you move along. So, what that looked like for me was I I just served the church and God sometimes would bless things that I did, and sometimes it didn't go so well. but I spoke at a men's retreat in in 2011 for this church And you know, the people that were a part of that retreat, trusted men of God that I looked up to, that I admired, whose opinions carried a lot of weight with me, they came to me and said, Hey, I think you could do this more. And then I taught on a Sunday morning, and same thing. And they said, Hey, I think there might be something to this. And you know, I used to lead worship for this church, I led small groups for this church, I was an intern at this church while I was still a firefighter. And the more that I took steps toward full-time local church ministry, the more I saw fruit there that I that I interpreted as confirmation that God, God could use me in that capacity. But I got to the point ultimately, when it was like that final couple of months where I was thinking, man, am I really going to walk into my lieutenant's office and put in my two weeks and walk away from this thing that I'd worked so hard? You know, this is my dream job. One of the final things I kind of had to get settled in my own life was I was just going to trust the spirit of God. And particularly the elders of this church. I just told myself, All right, if I if I bring this desire to them and they confirm it, I just choose to believe they're not all wrong about this. So if they tell me I'm not getting ready to drive off of a cliff, if they think there's a chance, hey, God is calling me to do this, then I'm just gonna tell my feelings and my fear to take a back seat and I'm gonna take a step of faith. And here we are. Haven't haven't screwed it up yet. Well, you Ryan, you mentioned that you know, mentors and counseling had been really important. So I'm curious to know, have you picked mentors or did they just sort of show up in your life or how has that worked for you? Yeah, that's that's a good question because in in my experience, you know, when you find somebody that operates in your life, that that's something That you discover more than you determine. You know, like I I couldn't just look at somebody and decide, this is a person that I'm gonna give a profound amount of weight and influence in my life. there was a lot of people that I had met with before I, you know, I felt like I really clicked with with Mark. but when I met with him, we would sit down over coffee or we would, get dinner and just, you know, talk about life. it was just clear to me that there was w first and foremost that there was something in him that I really admired and I wanted to emulate and I really respected. And I think that's especially if you're younger and you're looking for somebody that like could really have a formative influence in your life. I mean, first and foremost, you gotta ask yourself, is this person living a life that I would want for myself a couple of years down the road? Is this the type of person that I desire to become like years down the road? And if you can check those boxes, then, there's a good chance that you're looking at somebody that you should look to for some kind of leadership, mentorship sort of thing. Okay. Speaking about pastoring, what about the job is the hardest part that you wish more people knew about? The hardest. Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I could get specific about different things that took the wind out of me, but you don't have time for that list. I would say in general, my experience with with pastoring a church is that it just finds All kinds of creative, unique, and painful ways to bring you to the end of yourself. I I think any and this is probably true of any leadership position, but I think especially when that leadership position has like a a spiritual connotation to it, it just has a way of forcing you to deal with like idols in your life, you know, things that you tend to look to other than God, and exposing weaknesses that then force you to depend on Jesus in ways that maybe you wouldn't have to if you weren't in that particular line of work. And when I you know looking at the stories of scripture, I think the normal way that God works with the men and women that he he works with is similar to that vein. You know, you think about Jacob. You know, before Jacob could really begin to be of use to anybody, he had to go through a a a wrestling match that scripture says wounded him and caused him to walk with a limp for the rest of his life. You look at Paul in the New Testament, who had to live his life as this, you know, kind of this paradox of like maybe the world's most powerful and effective evangelist. And yet there was a thorn in his flesh that kind of kept him weak and kept him dependent and kept him aware of how much he depended on Jesus rather than his own, you know, kind of self-sufficiency. I think pastoring has done that for me over and over again, I can make an idol out of things like. you know, certainty and and the thing is ministry is gonna force you to deal with the absence of that. I mean, like when COVID hit, you know, we went from from running three services to me standing in an empty sanctuary staring at three cameras. And there was a time when I I first off didn't know is the church gonna open back up and secondly, is anybody gonna be here when it does? 'Cause there was so much chaos out in the world. There was so much division, there's so many issues that people were dividing over and It it just brought me to the end of the end of myself in the sense that I just had to trust that, okay, Jesus is gonna have to build his church here because I can't, you know, I never could, but the illusion that I could was taken away. Or even just, you know, fear of man. You know, if you have an idol of approval, if you have an idol of you know, if you're a a people pleaser, which I absolutely can gravitate toward, God will be faithful to put you in situations where you displease people. And they will be faithful to let you know that you have not pleased them. and that the only way to deal with those things is by exposing them. And it's a painful process, it's a long process, but that's that's the normal way that God grows people. So summary statement, I think pastoring will bring you to the end of yourself. over and over and over. I'm not done that process yet. So well, I'm gonna ask you questions a little Out of character for me, because I'm supposed to be Mr. Low Positivity, you asked, what's the hardest thing about being a pastor? what is it about being a pastor that when it happens, that you wake up and you're like, that's why I do this and that's why I'll keep doing it? yeah, that that's that's a much easier question to answer. we could phrase it a number of different ways, but when somebody gets it. When you see somebody get it and you know that for whatever reason, God in his kindness chose to use me as an instrument to help him get it. There's so many stories I could tell you, and I won't use any names, but I remember in particular years ago, preaching out of a Philippians chapter three, where Paul gets into his autobiography and he talks about the man that he used to be and the life that he used to live. And it was all about having this resume and kind of earning this righteousness, but how he learned to repent, not just of his sin. But of the things that he thought made him righteous before he was really changed by Jesus. I remember after that message, speaking with somebody in the congregation who was just completely overcome, tears flowing out of both eyes. They'd been born and raised in in a church environment where the emphasis was placed on what they had to do to earn God's love. And that was the moment that they got it. That was the moment that they understood Jesus has made me enough. And it just, you know, they were wrecked. in the best way possible. it's seeing moments like that that I don't care how hard Monday was, that'll get you through it, you know. and God is is in his kindness, he's allowed our church to see a whole lot of those moments where people are having their lives transformed by Jesus. and on my hardest days, I've reminded myself, I'm gonna miss the heck out of this when God calls me to something else. Talking about people who have grown up in churches where the emphasis is all about like what you do. or if there's believers or people who have grown up in churches where there's a lot of what's kind of called nowadays, like church hurt, where the church has done something that has kind of made that person be like, I don't want to have anything to do with this. What would you say to that person who believes there's a God but is not sure if it's the God of the Judeo Christian Bible, or if it's somebody else, what would you say to that? So if it sounds like there's a couple different questions there. You're you're talking about legalism, you're talking about church hurt and the disillusionment that could come with that. And then you're also talking about maybe like an apologetic defense for the God of the Bible as opposed to these other ones. So is there one you want me to zero in on there? Those are three hot topics. Can you do all three? Yeah. Yeah. with references. With references. Define God and give three examples. so the first one you talked about growing up in a legalistic environment. I personally saw a lot of friends walk away from the faith and not come back because a version of Christianity had been presented to them that was different than the Christianity that actually comes from Christ. And the best evidence or the best advice I would give somebody there is if you've been put off by Christianity, don't assume that that what you think is Christianity is actual Christianity. one guy that comes to our church, again I'll spare the names because I don't want to embarrass anybody, but one guy who's who's come to our church, man I highly respect, time-tested relationship with Jesus. He talks about how his entrance into the faith began with him reading the gospel accounts. And he just asked himself, okay, looking at the person of Jesus, who is Jesus most drawn to? And who does he seem to have the harshest words for? Just asking those two questions was so clarifying to him when he saw Jesus' heart. you know, Jesus said he's he's gentle, he's lowly in heart. You you follow him through the gospel accounts, and he is he's drawn to people that have been wounded, people that have been. kind of like on the other side of self-righteousness or judgmentalism, people that have been dismissed by the powers that be. And and it's it's undeniable that Jesus's harshest words and kind of his like, you know, most heated debates, fights, arguments, conflicts, whatever you want to call them, they were reserved for people who were filled with self-righteousness and in the name of God, did a lot of hurt to a lot of people. So my I mean, My advice to anybody that has kind of been on the other side of legalism is just pay attention to who Jesus is, as defined in the gospel accounts, and you will probably find him a whole lot more compelling than what you thought he was. As far as the the church hurt thing, I mean, I I I I shudder to think how many people over the last thirteen and a half years have have talked to me about that. Even people who have kind of like left their old church and started coming here and really had a lot of healing to do. Because of that, because of of real hurt that they've experienced. First and foremost, I would say like I totally validate that. Like we shouldn't dismiss that. Church hurt's real. and it's a shame given the responsibility that God and his word has placed on believers to represent him well to a world. I think first and foremost, you know, the church needs to own the times that we failed to do that. But to anybody who would say, you know, because I've experienced This hurt by this group of people, I'm gonna walk away from it. I would say, which community of people have you not experienced hurt by? You spend time with any group of people long enough, they're gonna hurt you. so I think the question is not have Christians perfectly lived out their faith? I think that the the question is what is the faith that they failed to live out? are there resources in there that Even have an answer for people who are hurting, even have a coherent definition of what is just, of what is unjust, of how people should be treated and how they should not be treated. And I think you're gonna find resources in Christianity that are very difficult to walk away from. And so walking away, walking away from particularly Christianity as a worldview in the name of things like injustice, in a sense, I think, is ultimately to kind of saw off the limb that you're sitting on. Because it's only in Christianity that we see a God who clearly defines just and unjust behavior. and even, you know, gives us a basis for why people are valuable and have dignity and worth that's inherent to them and should be treated with kindness and respect. I think if you if you walk away from Christianity, there's gonna be something unfinished in you that's not gonna get better because you walk away from it. And then the last thing, for people that are wondering, all right, I hear Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism, Judaism, secularism, Christianity, what's the difference? Really that's the message that I preach every year on Easter Sunday, which happens to be obviously that's one of the big calendar Sundays where I know I'm gonna have a whole lot of people in church that don't normally come to church. And so if you ever find yourself at the table on an Easter Sunday, and you have that question. my sermon is literally engineered to answer that. And my answer is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I would say start with the literal, physical, historical resurrection for Jesus Christ. Investigate the evidence for that. There are so many brilliant minds in all fields of science and mathematics, philosophy, literature that have been ardent, staunch atheists who, set out to disprove Christianity and were so compelled by the evidence that they became Christians. And then went a lot of them went on to produce works that are, you know, apologetic defenses of Christianity, all because they started not with the creation account, not with did Noah really get all of them on the ark, not with how long could Jonah stay in the belly? But they started with the resurrection of Jesus Christ and they go from there. And if you look at Paul and you look at the kind of the way that the first followers of Jesus communicated Christianity in the book of Acts as it was taken off the ground. That's the T that Christianity rested on for all of them. They were willing to say, if we're wrong about this, you can dismiss everything else we say, but figure out if we're wrong about this, because we think we're right, and we think if you investigate, you'll be convinced too. So the resurrection. Speaking about your sermons, how do you personally prepare and formulate a sermon? We'll start with the text. All right. One of the things that I love about how we do things at the table is we don't begin with topics. We begin with scripture. And we have kind of a rhythm for how we approach a calendar year and the beginning months of the year leading up to Easter. We usually walk through a gospel account just focusing on the person of Jesus. After Easter, we we like to do something that's a little more pragmatic and answers the question: what does it mean to follow Jesus? That's what our exile series is about right now. In the fall, we'll do a New Testament letter that's written to a local church like ours and then an Advent series that prepares us for the miracle of the incarnation. so that kind of frames how I approach the year preaching wise. But when I'm moving through those passages week to week, I I'm hopefully I've mapped out ahead of time. Definitely I've mapped I'm high deliberative. I don't do anything by accident. So so definitely ahead of time, I know which passages I'm gonna be preaching on. And then I kind of the way that I that I you know, earlier talked about how I approach major decisions, just bring in a lot of outside counsel. That's how I approach passages of scripture. I try to expose myself to as much content as I can, as early as I can on the week, and then I let it simmer. And then in the process of that, I'm making notes, I'm writing down things in an open word document. And my goal is by no people think I'm nuts for this, but by no later than Thursday, I I want to have a four-page, 3,000-word manuscript type and and print it out. 3,000 words because the average human communicator speaks at a rate of about a hundred words a minute. 3,000 words is going to give you about a 30-minute manuscript. And that forces me to be concise and say only what, you know, I think needs to be said. And I pull from a lot of, you know, quotes from whatever book I'm reading. I'm in Hemingway right now, The Old Man in the Sea, or whatever books I've had on my shelf, or Tim Keller This, or you know, if you've been around Lord of the Rings, Narnia, C. S. whatever it is. I I got like, you know, my guys that I go to. And then After that manuscript is printed out, I want to preach through that start to finish out loud no less than five times before anybody hears it on Sunday. So if I can preach through it once out loud, start to finish Thursday, kind of let it rest on Friday, twice on Saturday, then I'm up at five Sunday morning, twice before I go into the 9 a.m. service. That's generally how I try to do things. So, Ryan, you've mentioned a couple of times things about local. Local ministry, you was what you were drawn to. You talked about Paul's letters to local ministries. So I'm just wondering if, you know, what is it about the locality here that really draws you to it? And just as Paul eventually moved on to more missionary work as he traveled, is there anything That you could envision that would cause you or make you want to start moving or move in a something outside of local ministry? Yeah. I'll I'll start with that last question. Is there something that would made make me want to move out of local church ministry? I thought I was going to be a firefighter for my entire life. so all I've all I've come to expect about God is that He'll do something that I don't expect. I don't at this point in my life, I don't have any plan for when I'm gonna leave local church ministry, but but I'm open to it. what I am certain of, whatever that looks like, is that I have to do something involving people. I mean, it's not really just my opinion. I think I can back that up biblically and spiritually. We are we're created. One of the first things that scripture tells us about ourselves is that we're made in the image of a God who is himself a relational God. We have the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We have a tri-une, a tri-personal God, eternally existing, you know, loving and serving and giving glory to other members and existing in perfect unity and harmony, and in perfect relationship with himself. And then Genesis tells us. That we're made in that God's image, which which means if nothing else, if we understand nothing else about ourselves, it's that we're made for relationship. And what I've found through through all my careers, I'm I was a obviously a firefighter. I'm now in local church ministry. It's certainly not a career, but I'm a youth baseball coach. and I'm and I'm back in school pursuing a master's in clinical mental health counseling with an aim to be a licensed clinical professional counselor. What all of those vocations have in common. is they put me in front of people and they give me an opportunity to to to work meaningfully in their lives. Whatever I do beyond local church ministry, I know it's gonna have to be with people. I would just wither without it. and what that looks like, I'm kinda on the edge of my seat. I I know that the way that God's worked historically is he's gonna give me a sense that I can't ignore. And I already know what I'll do with that. You know I'll talk to you as one of my elders and the rest of those guys and ask you if you think I'm crazy and assuming you don't, then we'll give it a shot and we'll we'll pull an Abraham and we'll start walking and see what God does. Yeah. I mean, I I would say that, you know, so often it seems like people just sort of settle I've heard it said before, and I don't know who said it. They said, you know, what we're always doing is we're preparing to stay, but we're tell we tell God we're willing to go. And he he was telling me should be the opposite. You should be preparing to go, but willing to stay if that's where you're calling. It sounds like I mean, sounds like You're certainly open to things as they come your way or or what whether they do or not, but willing to kind of stay where you're at and just serve as you've been called. So Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned you're getting your masters in mental health. Yeah. Clinical mental health counseling is the program. what made you decide you wanted to go back to school to get that? so primarily it it was always sort of in the back of my mind, because of how much I've personally benefited from professional counseling. I I mentioned earlier in this interview. It was in the summer of 2012, which wound up being my last summer in the fire department. that's when I spent really every week of that summer in the office of a a professional counselor who who had a private practice in Annapolis. just kind of slowing down, paying attention, going back, reflecting, examining myself, talking about things like projection and transference and experiencing a lot of, you know, what what therapists would call catharsis. I just know. How much of an impact that had on my life. And then I wouldn't be who I am. I wouldn't have the life that I have apart from that experience. and so that was enough for me to say, like, hey, I think I want to do that at some point in my life. and I would even say, we have a a good amount of of mental health professionals at our church. You know, I think that they would probably confirm that a lot of the way that that I even approach, you know, preaching is almost like it's just a group therapy session. That's kind of like my, you know, different. Pastors with different gifts, personalities, temperaments, they, you they approach pulpit different ways. That's, you know, I want to help you better understand yourself, your God, you know, your calling, your world through the lens of God's word that's kind of like a therapeutic way to approach it. And that's just kind of how God has has hardwired me. But I love sitting with people one on one. I love helping them kind of like serving as a tour tour guide to maybe explore unfinished business in their life. to self-examine with the hope of healing and processing and letting go of things so they're no longer steering the ship. Because that's what somebody with a couple of letters after his name once helped me do. so that's why I want to do it. why I decided to go back now, I mean, that came from a conversation that Katie and I had, 'cause we're both in school. that came from a conversation that we had early in the year twenty twenty five. And You know, we kind of just got to the point where we realized we had some goals and pursuing, you know, continuing education would would maybe set us up in a position to achieve those goals. And we realized, yeah, we're busy, but we're not gonna get less busy anytime soon. So let's hop in and see what happens. And the wheels have not fallen off yet. Looking back over your life, where have you seen God really change your character the most? what has initiated that change? And what would you say to somebody who seems to be going through a similar season? how would you encourage them? great question. the first part of that was I'll paraphrase. what have been like the times, the experiences, the instruments in my life that have really produced change in me? Yeah. pain. The only thing that I've I've talked about this in messages before, the only thing that has produced, I really believe this. I think the only thing that has produced anything of value in me has been some form of hardship. And I see that in we talked about, you know, Jacob and his wrestling match, Paul and his thorn in his side, you know, Esther and the fear that walking before the king elicited, Ruth and her decision to walk away from Moab into the unknown. you just look again and again and again in scripture. Peter being brought, you know, to a painful realization of his own failure and hypocrisy before he could be of any use in the early church. The normal way that God works with people is I think God's formula is a lot of time and a lot of pain. That's how he makes you into a person who can begin to be of use to the people around you. Probably the most famous example of that in scripture is Joseph. You know, he's he's betrayed by people that he trusted. He's thrown into pit after pit. He feels forgotten and abandoned. And I'm sure. You know, we read about Joseph's life. What's it take you? 15 minutes to read those chapters? That probably constituted decades where he was absolutely convinced that this was meaningless, that that his life had been stolen from him, that he was this kind of fractured, useless, just like damaged beyond repair, individual. And then at the end of it, he saw, wait a minute, everything that was meant for evil, God meant for good. All of it was useful. And make not just making him who he was, but putting him in a position where he could actually love and serve and make a meaningful difference in in the the lives of the people around him. And I think in in in my own life, everything that's produced something valuable has in some way been been difficult in my personal life, here at the church, in my childhood. I can't think of a single exception to that rule. So if I was talking to somebody, and I do frequently, you know, me meet with people most weeks that are going through something. because we're living in that messy middle where Jesus has started his work, but we're waiting for him to clean it up. So we we all have we all have messes that we wish were a little bit cleaner. the only thing that I would offer to somebody that's in the middle of that right now is that what you're going through is not weird. it's it's it's the normal path that God has walked people down. to make them the the type of people that not just he wants us to be but ultimately that we want to be. that's what I would say. Just hang on. Just hang on. So like kind of like the painful season is the good season, even though it doesn't feel like it. Absolutely. Yep. Okay. Well Ryan, being that this is conversations across generations, any final Like words of advice or wisdom that you would give maybe to a younger generation that's coming up. And also to someone who's 19 years old, who's kind of in that situation where you are at, where like you have to decide where you want to go. what advice? I would say, this is gonna probably sound funny and then I'll I'll explain it. I would say find somebody that is willing to hurl curses at you and listen to them. what I mean by that, because that certainly bears some explanation. At at this point in my life, I think it's it's it just as a side note, it's interesting to ask people who are in different, you know, place ages, stages of life, what their favorite scene in the life of David in the old testament is. because as you asked me that as a kid, I think pretty much every kid's gonna say David and Goliath, because I wanna kill the giant and I wanna be the hero and all that kind stuff. At this point in my life, I think the the scene from David's life that most just moves me is right when because of his failures as a father, he has lost the kingdom. So he's he's he's in a place where he's basically reaping everything that he's sown in his sin with Bathsheba. There's dysfunction in his family. He has not been the father, the leader, the the follower of Jesus. that he's he's been called to be, and his life and his kingdom is falling apart because of it. And his son Absalom, right out from underneath him, has stolen the hearts of of his own people. And so he's forced to leave Jerusalem with shame, with disgrace. He's kind of, you know, he's he's running with his tail between his legs. And scripture says that while he was out on the road, this character named Shimei started hurling curses at him. And among other things, he was he was basically saying to David, hey, you're getting what came to you because of the way that you treated King Saul, because Shemiah is actually a descendant of Saul. And he's saying, you killed King Saul, and this is God's way of getting you back, which is absolutely a lie. David did not lift his hand against King Saul. and one of David's kind of like chief advisors, his right-hand man, his Luca Brazi, you know, whatever analogy you like. his name's Abishai, and he says, paraphrasing, he says, Hey David, let me cut this guy's head off for you. He doesn't get to talk to you like that. And David, this to me is what greatness looks like. This is why I think despite all of his failures, David is still held in such high regard in scripture and is is is called a man after God's own heart. Because David's answer to Abishai is hey, God may have put those curses in Shimei's mouth. so I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna listen. And I'm gonna see if there's anything that I can learn from it. It reminds me of something that Tim Keller said towards the end of his life, where he said, even if you have somebody that is criticizing you with ill motives, even if they are rude, even if they are unkind, find the five percent of what they're saying that you can learn from and choose to learn from it. That's what I see in David. That takes a profound amount of humility, a profound amount of of frankly, courage, but that's what produces rough fruit in somebody's life. The willingness to bear up under, you know, criticism, under curses. And just determine I'm not going run away from this. I'm going to see what God would show me through this. And I talked about him earlier in this interview, but he's going to smile if he hears me say this. No one in my life has hurled more curses at me than Mark Rossi. And he's never cursed at me. But my point is, he's told me a lot of things about me that I didn't want to hear and I wanted to run away from, but I at least a part of me quietly sensed was true. And he loved me enough to point those things out in me. Without his presence in my life, I'm just not who I am. And I don't have the life that I have. I don't know where I'd be. I just I I know I wouldn't be here. And so the the the greatest piece of advice that I could give, find somebody that will speak into your life and tell you things you don't want to hear and just sit still and listen. When and not if they make you mad. I'm confident that'll turn you into a type of person that you could not otherwise become. Wow. Great advice and go even goes back to picking a great mentor, right? Someone who is willing to say the hard things to you that you don't want to hear, that are probably gonna make you mad, but they're willing to to put you through it to kinda help you get better on the other side. So that's it. Awesome. Well Ryan, I wanna thank you for for taking the time Again, this is our a special episode 'cause it's the first time we've ever had a guest on. And so we we both I think thought immediately who would we want to have on as the first guest and and you were the first one that came to mind. And so I really appreciate you doing it. I want to shout out to my son who's behind the camera. You can't see him, but he's our technical lead on this one because this did require a little bit more prep than we normally do. And so hope you guys enjoyed this and we'll see you next time.