Ep.75: How to Benefit From Engaging the Next Generation

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Episode Transcript:

Mingo Palacios:

Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in to the PD Podcast. You know, from time to time we get the luxury of traveling around the country and actually bringing our podcast to conferences and events that are happening all over the country. This conversation took place at Thrive Conference. It’s an incredible one hosted by Bayside Church. Enjoy the episode.

Mingo Palacios:

Hey everybody. Welcome to the purpose driven podcasts. My name is Mingo here. We are at Thrive Conference. What a pleasure it is to be on deck listening to so many incredible leaders. Today we have the Johnson family on the podcast, which is so great. Both daughters, Ray, we’re both here. All of us here. And the conversation that we wanted to have is how you guys are benefiting from engaging the next generation. This is something that Bayside is experiencing dividends in because you invested early and now as we’re seeing an entirely new segment of leaders, including your family, come to the table. I wanted to give our listeners a little bit of an insight as to what the other side of the coin has been. Now that you took the risk, you gambled and you hit right? Your number came up. So, would you just introduce yourself for our listeners, give them a little bit of context on you because they may not know you. And then tell us what it’s like as you’ve been now pastoring a multigenerational ministry.

Ray Johnston:

Yeah. I’m Ray Johnston and I pastored a church called Bayside. We have a whole bunch of churches up in Northern California. We do Thrive Conferences here and in southern California. And I grew up in an executive jet set, totally pagan Southern California home. Mom and dad were both atheists or agnostics. My dad was a big shot business guy. Guys wanted to run him for governor. He turned them down and they ran Ronald Reagan instead.

Mingo Palacios:

No Way.

Ray Johnston:

My Dad became an alcoholic rageaholic. My mom became an alcoholic, blew the whole family up. So I was raised an atheist. I talked a guy out of becoming a Christian when I was 18, which does not look good on the pastor’s resume.

Mingo Palacios:

Yes.

Ray Johnston:

Ended up meeting Christ a year later. I was a professor, I was traveling, writing and speaking. We had two teenage suicides in this town, copycat right back to back. And somebody came to me and said, “Would you start a church?” And I said, “Only if it’s a church for people that don’t like church.” So when somebody goes, “What do you guys do?” We go, “Pastor a church for people that don’t like church.” And it exploded. We basically say it all the time. We go, “We speak teenager here.”

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah.

Ray Johnston:

And these are my daughter’s ok? As your wife says, “identical twins”, this is-

Christy:

I’m Christy, twin number one.

Leslie:

And I’m Leslie, twin number two.

[crosstalk]

[laughing]

Ray Johnston:

But they’re doing some cool stuff with their life and one of the things I’d say is this: when somebody thinks about like millennials-

Mingo Palacios:

Yes.

Ray Johnston:

The word we use around here all the time is this: called.

Mingo Palacios:

Called.

Ray Johnston:

When people get that they’re called, it changes the way they view themselves. If every church looks at everybody young as like, you’re not just a kid, you’re called.

Mingo Palacios:

Yes.

Ray Johnston:

So, you’re doing two things with your life, Christy.

Christy:

Yeah. So I helped co found an organization when I graduated college called Compassion Causes. We’re an organization that works in Nicaragua. We’re passionate about water, fresh, clean water to people that don’t have it. And we’re passionate about education for kids that also don’t have that. And so we’re launching our first school in February of next year and we’re so excited. It’s right along the beach. So we also like to surf.

Mingo Palacios:

Yes, that’s a perk. I will be joining that.

Christy:

So that is another core part of our organization.

[crosstalk]

[laughing]

Christy:

Yes, come any time.

Ray Johnston:

You’d be fun on a mission trip.

Christy:

Yeah.

Mingo Palacios:

I love that.

Ray Johnston:

And then one of our theories up here is this, whoever wins the kids wins the community.

Mingo Palacios:

That’s great.

Ray Johnston:

And so we do how many? Leslie? Tell them what you do. This is pretty cool.

Mingo Palacios:

Leslie, come to the mic.

Leslie:

I direct globally, our kids camp called Breakaway and we’ve got about 49 different camps across seven campuses.

Mingo Palacios:

Oh my gosh.

Leslie:

Yeah, we’re about 10,000 kids right now, so it’s pretty exciting. Can be crazy.

Mingo Palacios:

That is overwhelming just to even imagine. And this is just rolled up in your daughter’s efforts, let alone the entirety of a generation sitting inside your church and you talk about the idea of being called. So here’s what I want to know. Did you stand on the platform and say there’s a generation and inside that generation is a vision or did they start trickling towards you? What was the play? Because you’re maximizing it, but I wanted to know how you discovered the passion that was sitting inside. Clearly your daughters, you’re having conversation with them, but as a church at large, I know several pastors are wondering scratching their head, “There’s a generation. I don’t know how to get them involved. I don’t know how to get them engaged.” What’s been your guys’s pathway, if you will, and it’s okay to say we’re figuring it out. I just am curious.

Ray Johnston:

Oh, we’re like a bunch of folks in the back of a pickup truck getting our act together twenty-four seven. Matter of fact, if you can’t see where we are right now, this is the coolest thing I’ve seen. Purpose Driven has a full air stream, which is cool.

Mingo Palacios:

Yes.

Ray Johnston:

The inside is wood. They got an awning outside that everybody’s hanging out at.

Mingo Palacios:

It’s all about hospitality.

Ray Johnston:

It looks like the only thing we’re missing is the beach and this is cool.

[crosstalk]

[laughing]

Ray Johnston:

And what happens is this, I was a senior pastor. I resigned and went back to being a youth pastor. It was a promotion but the second round I went, “I’m not going to entertain kids anymore.” We basically said if you entertain people, you produce spectators.

Mingo Palacios:

There we go.

Ray Johnston:

If you equip people, you produce servants. Everybody’s called, let’s call them out and send them into ministry. So. we just took a thousand, were there a thousand teenagers in Mexicali?

Mingo Palacios:

I saw. I saw those photos. It was unbelievable.

Ray Johnston:

It was crazy ok.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah.

Ray Johnston:

Everybody goes, “Oh, we’re doing this great thing for Mexico.” It may do minimal things for Mexico, but those thousand kids come back going, “Maybe God can use me.”

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah. A possibility is planted is what happens.

Ray Johnston:

Yeah. Yeah. I like pushing people off cliffs.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah, I hear that actually.

Ray Johnston:

Push them into Mexico, push them into wherever, because when they get that they’re called who doesn’t want to be used in a significant way?

Mingo Palacios:

Of course, of course. Well that’s probably the calling card for our generation is to understand that significance is like the most important thing I would. I spent very little time with things I know that are not significant, right? Because I want to have everything I touch be lasting and beyond me and bigger than me.

Ray Johnston:

That’s right.

Mingo Palacios:

And I know I can’t do that alone. And so clearly each of your efforts, I know that you’re not leading that children’s ministry solo. I know you’re not building a school solo. So how did you ladies or amongst your community, when you see a passion that is boiling up in somebody that you’re appear to, when it comes to getting them partnered with the church, what’s a pathway that you give them? How do you say, “Here’s how I can help you get started?” Or “Here’s who you should talk to.” What’s the way that you give somebody permission to go into the church and launch their dream?

Christy:

Hmm. That’s a great question. I feel like with Bayside, the reason that our age and our demographic is so drawn to Bayside is that it’s a level playing field here. I remember when they do kind of group sermon prep and I think at the first couple of meetings it was all the senior pastors and upper level leadership and I remember my dad just being like, “Why are all these old people in here? We got to bring in some young people.” And would invite people who were youth leaders and they weren’t on the top of the “totem pole” or food chain and he wanted people to be of all ages, all demographics and wanted to empower those younger leaders and just by inviting them into the table, into the conversation was huge for Bayside. And I think since then it’s been this young-led mindset that we have at Bayside. That’s honestly really powerful. So I feel like if you give someone a seat at the table and having conversations, they’ll come.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah, I’ve heard it said before that you will always attract what you platform and so most times the senior pastor thinks, “I think I can catch them all.” Right. And there’s probably a season when they were actually doing that, but the more you platform a multigenerational face, multigenerational teams that it will become a natural magnet to who feels welcomed and who feels like that place is their place in your space. Yeah.

Ray Johnston:

Although you’re absolutely right. Say the platform line again. That’s brilliant.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah. You attract what you platform.

Ray Johnston:

Yup. What’s happening in a lot of churches in America is old guy preaching, young people leading worship and then young people banned from any high level meetings.

Mingo Palacios:

Say that again. Could you say that again because it’s so true?

Ray Johnston:

Old guy preaching, young people leading worship and young people banned from any high level meetings. So what happened here is this, we meandered down that path. And so what happened is-

Mingo Palacios:

Wait, which guy? Which role did you play?

[crosstalk]

[laughing]

Ray Johnston:

Ancient guy preaching, cool people with hair leading worship. And by and large, women are not a part of the thing in way too many circles.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah. Right.

Ray Johnston:

So what happened is this. I looked around and meeting one day and I went, “We’re 10 years old now and for some reason every single person in this high level meeting is over 40. And if any young people come in these high level folks, they shut them up and so they’ll come in but they don’t talk.” So I went, “I’ve got to change this.” So without checking with any of our other leaders, I invented a meeting. I called it The Weekend Meeting and I invited all of our young leaders, about 15 of them and I said, “Hey, I want to meet once a week for an hour right on Wednesday, right after our main staff meeting. And I said, “We’re just going to brainstorm the weekend, what did you like last week?” We all discussed stuff and what happened is this, they started coming up with killer ideas, out of the box stuff. The other thing that happened is this, all the folks that were in every meeting with me that weren’t invited, they just started coming to the meeting. So, our senior leaders started trickling into this meeting because they were going, “Whoa, the train’s leaving the station. We’re not even on it.” But the balance of who talked in the meeting had changed. So they came into a different meeting-

Mingo Palacios:

That’s great.

Ray Johnston:

And it leveled the playing field and it changed everything.

Mingo Palacios:

I love that. So that’s two times I’ve heard the word or the phrase ‘level the playing field’ so it’s got to be a key component in the success or the ongoing generational blend is to figure out how to continue to level the playing field amongst the organization. Now that takes a monster amount of humility from the senior leaders. So how did you release, I feel like every senior leader has a certain amount of blind spots. And so how did you come to the terms where you go, “I’m going to release this?”

Ray Johnston:

Part of it was, and this is embarrassing, we did a massive best Christian workplace survey of our whole thing.

Mingo Palacios:

Worst idea ever, or-

Ray Johnston:

This was back then. It was like giving 144 people a loaded gun and total anonymity.

Mingo Palacios:

[laughing] Just blood everywhere.

Ray Johnston:

And I got blitzed. I mean literally, first time I read this thing I went-

Mingo Palacios:

That must’ve been so hard to hear.

Ray Johnston:

It was insane. I basically went, “I quit. I’m done.” And then I thought, “Wait a second I’m not going to quit. I’m going to fire everybody.”

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah, that’s awesome!

[crosstalk]

[laughing]

Ray Johnston:

And then what happened is my wife, who’s awesome said, “I don’t know, maybe you should, you know, pray about it, read it.” You know, I’m going, “Shut up honey.”

New Speaker:

[laughing]

Ray Johnston:

So what happened is I take the two sharpest people I know away for two days, went down to Newport beach and at the end of it I went, “Oh, I get it.” It was all two words, mission and morale. I had been all mission and hadn’t spent much time thinking about morale, which is probably most mega church leaders.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah, that’s good.

Ray Johnston:

And what happened is so I literally came back, I met with our entire staff. I actually got all choked up in front of them, which is also embarrassing, and I said, “I’m really, really sorry.”

Mingo Palacios:

I love that.

Ray Johnston:

And I explained Philippians one, Paul says, “I’m here for your progress and joy.” I was all progress, no joy.

Mingo Palacios:

That’s good.

Ray Johnston:

And so I literally went, “If we have to tear the house down, we will.” But what happened is we reinvented our staff meeting, we invented the way we celebrate things. Our staff meeting, other pastors now come to our staff meeting it’s so much fun. And where before it was a business meeting.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah, that’s good.

Leslie:

Yeah, it’s the best meeting of our week I’m pretty sure.

Ray Johnston:

One of our young worship leaders, Chloe, came up to see me and goes, “I just want to say it’s the best hour of my week.” She goes, “Can I ask you a question?” I said, “Yeah?” She goes, “Some of the old timers, when I tell them that, they go, ‘Yeah, but it wasn’t always like this.’ ” And I go, “They’re exactly right.” And it’s funny though, I don’t think millennials are attracted to anybody that is all mission, no morale. Millennials want to celebrate, they want to do life. Now, they also want mission they want to make a difference. But God had to take me out to the woodshed and I’m convinced if it didn’t happen in me, it would never have happened here.

Mingo Palacios:

I agree with you. It is absolutely true, the speed of the leader equals the speed of the organization. And you can’t have a renewal in the organization without first the renewal in the leader. And Rick talks about that. David, I’m aiming at you. The renewals are such a huge part of how when churches are assessing themselves going, “We’re missing a generation, we’re plateaued, we’re in decline.” Renewal has to start personally, right? You cannot aim the sites at the organization or the staff or the culture or who you don’t have. It has to start with an individual first and it has to be the senior leader.

Ray Johnston:

It’s funny. We’re just getting ready to do a podcast on this. The way I’d put it is this, nothing great ever happens through you until it happens in you. Nothing.

Mingo Palacios:

Yes. Thank you for that.

Ray Johnston:

And so anything I want to have happen in the future, it’s got to happen to me first. So I now wish it weren’t like that because I’d rather not go through that.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah. Well, and I think that that’s the reality of leadership. You can’t avoid the pain in growth, right? That’s a mandatory prerequisite is self awareness. You have to go through those things personally before you can implement them corporately and too many people are trying to dodge that personal effect and just say, “Well, let’s let the church go through it. I’m hoping I’m going to be able to save face.” But you know, self preservation was never a promise inside of leading local leaders or local church. Ray, I will celebrate you in this fact, I’ve heard it over and over and over again inside here, and I’d love to bring this maybe to our last piece of this conversation. Your conference continues to speak this truth: leaders are great when they develop other leaders not more followers. And you guys are doing such a tremendous job at platforming leaders who create leaders, not leaders who have amassed great followers. Amongst you, what would you say to a generation that is always being tempted with the need to grow their following?

Ray Johnston:

First of all, I would say get over it.

Mingo Palacios:

Yes, thank you Ray. Just speak to me every day Ray. Speak to me every day.

Ray Johnston:

By the way, they’re taking a picture of me. Get my good side.

[crosstalk]

[laughing]

Ray Johnston:

I was in front of an audience one time, big associate people and somebody walks up with a camera and I said, “Hey, get my good side.” Some kid yells out, “Turn around.”

Mingo Palacios:

No!

Ray Johnston:

What happened is about probably nine years ago, a couple of our executive pastors then said, “You need to write books. You need to be doing this.” So we went down and saw an agent in Southern California. He said, “I’ve set up an appointment with the agent.” So some of our senior team went down to this agent and the agent said, “You know what, you have a lot to say” etc. etc. But he said, “You need to build your brand, which means you need to get on more radio stations. You need to get Ray Johnston as a brand and brand that and blow it up and then all the rest of the stuff will happen.” And something in me, when I was sitting there, I felt like God was saying, “If that’s your goal, I’m out.”

Mingo Palacios:

You’re saying like, get up and run.

Ray Johnston:

Yeah literally God said, “If that’s your goal, I’m out.” Moses had to develop a willingness to be obscure.

Mingo Palacios:

That’s good.

Ray Johnston:

And so what happened is I basically took these guys out to dinner because they were all excited. They’re like, “We’re flying back, but man, this is going to be great.” All this kind of stuff. And I said, “Guys, we’re not doing that.” I said, “We’re not doing any of it.” I said, “Let’s forget the brand stuff.” Let’s just go home and bury ourselves in our ministry and let’s love people, develop people, take care of people. And if anybody hears about us, who cares? And that’s exactly what we did.

Mingo Palacios:

Opposite ends up happening.

Ray Johnston:

Yeah. I don’t know about that.

Mingo Palacios:

Well, I mean you guys are known as a moving ministry. I mean you take a thousand kids across the board in Mexico to impact a community knowing that the payout is going to be that there’s a possibility planted in those kids. That’s a moving ministry. People will write about that. You’re on the podcast because of those actions, not seeking them out, being sought out because of that. Now I’m shifting now to your daughters because you’ve got a following and I know you’re social. I know that you run the social media. That’s a part of the business that’s a part of developing the brand for what it is that you guys are developing. How do you balance the desire or the temptation to want to amass followers versus make leaders?

Christy:

Hmm, that’s great. I would say you just kind of have to be mission first. Kind of what my dad was saying, it’s like if you’re doing something to gain more followers, like that’s not the right mission. That’s not the right motive. You need to be knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing. And I mean, most of the work done behind the scenes is no one’s seeing you, no one’s watching you. No one’s seeing the hard work you’re putting in. No one’s seeing the hours. And that’s got to be what’s fulfilling in your work. Your work has to be fulfilling. It’s not, “Oh, I do this so that x, y, and z will see it.” It’s kind of like we take all these kids to Mexico and we forced them to give up their phones for the week. They’re not allowed to have their phones.

Mingo Palacios:

Great practice.

Christy:

They can’t take pictures. They can’t do anything like that. Or when they go to summer camp, they do the same thing, “Get your phone.”

Ray Johnston:

They collect the phones from every kid.

Christy:

Yes and these kids have the best week and they come back and their highlight is that they didn’t have their phone.

Mingo Palacios:

Wow.

Leslie:

And that’s incredible to me. It’s incredible.

Ray Johnston:

But that wasn’t true on day two.

Christy:

They’re going through withdrawals.

Ray Johnston:

You see kids texting in the air, nothing is in their hands.

[crosstalk]

[laughing]

Mingo Palacios:

By habit. They’re like, “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why my hand is doing this right now. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Leslie:

Yeah, totally.

Christy:

I also think we’re in a generation of, I think because instagram is so huge and you’re following is so huge that people just think like, “Oh well if I want to reach the millennials who are commonly bashed upon as like, oh, they only care about following, they want me to promote myself because then I’m big on instagram and that means a lot to them.” But I also think we’re a generation that spots fake, maybe fake leaders or inauthentic leaders.

Mingo Palacios:

Fraudulent behavior.

Christy:

Yeah and it’s kind of doing the reverse of people going, “Oh, I follow this person on instagram and all they do is talk to their phone.” People just talk on and on about, “You know what? They don’t seem very genuine. They come to my church, but they kind of just sit in the back green room, don’t ever talk to anybody.” So I think what’s happening is a lot of people will go, “Oh, this is what the millennials want.” But I think millennials really do want the people that actually care about them and that are making a difference because that’s what matters.

Mingo Palacios:

Presence is so important.

Ray Johnston:

I’ve got to be on stage at one minute.

[crosstalk]

[laughing]

Ray Johnston:

You know what’s funny though? What I learned early was this, leaders don’t develop leaders. Leaders develop followers. The more effective you lead, the more people follow, which means a lot. I used to think if I just lead strong enough, then other people will go, “Let’s be a leader like Ray.” So I think intentional people development is separate skill from leadership.

Mingo Palacios:

Yes. Here we go. Oh man, this has got to be whole other episode Ray.

New Speaker:

[crosstalk]

Mingo Palacios:

Love you Ray. I’ll close you down with your daughters. Thank you for being here ladies, for the remainder of this conversation. Now that Ray bolts back to the stage. Ray, we love you. Yeah so the real conversation starts, right?

[crosstalk]

[laughing]

Mingo Palacios:

I would love it to know for people who are family in ministry, this is a challenge or unique one. And your dad would probably say a million great things for kids whose parents are leading, like astronauts taking this place into other galaxies. There’s time commitment issues, and there’s attention issues and there’s growing up in a spotlight opportunity, there are several of our listeners that have that same footprint and they’re in that same zone. What advice would you give them as we close this conversation down that would help them see maybe let’s say they’re in their early twenties or maybe they’re in their late teens and they’re listening to this. What’s some advice you can give them as they watched their family get even deeper amassed in the ministry mix in that rhythm? Any advice for that segment?

Leslie:

Well, I think first for the leaders, maybe the parents, I think something that my dad had talked about a couple of weeks ago when he was speaking at a leader’s event and he was like, “You can think that your ministry and what you’re doing, it’s like that’s very attractive to be drawn to that all the time and to make that first” But he said, “You know what? Your church, someone new will come up and they’ll forget about you. This new event you’re doing, they’ll forget about you, but your family will always be there for you and your family is the one that you should be investing in and they should be first.” And that’s something I feel like we really felt growing up. I think a lot of times people think like, “Oh, you can’t do anything great because you have to put your family first and you can’t do anything else except for that. But I watched as my dad really led super strongly, but also we always knew we were fIrst. My dad will never not pick up our phone call. He’ll be in a meeting with a ton of people and we’ll call him and I’ll be like, “Hey, I’m in a meeting can I call you back?” I don’t think he’s ever missed one of our calls. And that was huge for us. As he said, “I’m always available to you no matter what, you’re first.” So I think for parents that knowing that we were first above all these other things was huge.

Mingo Palacios:

That’s great. The confidence of understanding that still have priority inside of your dad’s world is massive. I think of senior pastors that are listening to this who will do a huge heart check based on that or there’ll be encouraged knowing that.

Leslie:

Ministry should be family. Ministry is family oriented. It’s not a, “Oh you have a celebrity pastor” and then the family just kind of drives them to and from church. We’ve been in meetings since we were so young. We like when my dad would come home, he would ask us like, “Hey, would you look over our sermon? Let’s talk about this. What do you guys think about this?” Asking intentional questions involving us in this place and whether our ideas were just so off base or not, he always valued our opinion. And I think that really is a theme through Bayside is just valuing everyone’s opinion and everyone having a seat at the table and I feel like growing up we just were so involved. We were invited to almost everything. We were drugged to Mexico when we’re like four years old on the missions trip.

Christy:

No, we were dragged not drugged.

[crosstalk]

[laughing]

Leslie:

Sorry. Dragged.

Leslie:

But I mean we always say like the whole, I hate saying that word pk. I mean, first of all, I think it’s lame to say that, but second of all to us it has this negative connotation, but growing up we always say, “Oh, pk doesn’t mean pastor’s kid. Pk means perks. We got to go to Kenya when we were like 12 years old on a missions trip. He basically took us out of school to go to Thrive. We ditched school for a whole month, went on this giant missions trip, so we got to see the world and there were so many benefits that I think people go into ministry should be excited for their kids and not, “Oh no, they’re goIng to be that pastor’s kid.”

Mingo Palacios:

Trailing them along. That is pastor dad goals for sure. Totally thinking about that, I’ve got a six year old and I have a little adopted one year old and even those small moments where we get to bring him in the family along are like some of my greatest joys.

Leslie:

Totally.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah, because I want them to experience the great rhythms of ministry. Not just like, “Oh, dad’s going to be gone for the next three days.” When I can show him what’s on the other side of that, when it works with the school schedule and with travel opportunities and blah, blah, blah. It demystifies the fear of the pk posture.

Leslie:

Totally. And by all means, we were not the perfect family. I just remember-

Christy:

There’s four of us kids. They had four under four years old.

Leslie:

Totally. And like we’d be at church and one of us or break our arm or like we’d be running around screaming. We were not the perfect traditional family, but I think we just put relationship first and that’s what matters.

Mingo Palacios:

I love it. So that’s a perfect word for the parents in ministry. What would you say to your peers who are the children or the sons and daughters of pastors in ministry?

Leslie:

Totally. I think a lot of pastors kids feel the pressure to be perfect because they’re under a microscope and I’d say that is a very real temptation to take that on and I would just say that’s not what we’re called to. We’re not called to be perfect. We’re called to love Jesus and to be loved by him first, and so I would say perfection is not what we’re trying to reach. Maybe that is what we put on ourselves, but that’s not actually what other people are wanting from us. I don’t know anyone in our church that has told me you need to be perfect because you’re a pastor’s kid.

Mingo Palacios:

I think that’s a great lie we buy.

Leslie:

It is and I think that’s a pressure that a lot of people feel when they’re in ministry and they have parents in ministry and I would just say be real, be yourself. Don’t feel that pressure because honestly, that’s not what the Lord puts on you. It’s all about grace.

Christy:

And to not be afraid to jump into ministry either even at your church. I think a lot of people are like, “Oh, that’s my dad’s thing. Or that’s my mom’s thing. It would just be classic if I just followed in their footsteps.” But I think finding your gifts and your passions in ministry like at your home church I think has been huge and I think a lot of people shy away because they think, “Oh, I only got this job because of my dad or my mom. And I think like if you find your giftings and your passions in that church, God will totally use that. And people will honestly love you for you and not who your family is. That’s what I’ve found.

Mingo Palacios:

That’s really good. I think about the fact that the model that you guys put forward about a family fully invested in ministry, there are some pastors whose families are absent and you have no idea who their wife is. You have no idea who their kids are. It models that which I think every pastor desires, which is a fully engaged family, right? That the family grows stronger and healthier together when they’re serving together, but for whatever reason, when a pastor’s family is absent from that, it’s like, man, we’re missing a model that’s very necessary. Right? So you guys do something very encouraging by being all hand stacked in a ministry together and like you said, the reality, be real. Don’t stress under being perfect And don’t be afraid to move in and take a seat where you feel lIke God has gifted you. I just appreciate all that wisdom that’s so necessary for us. Thanks for joining us on the podcast. I will say this or I’ll ask you guys this. If people want to follow you, find you in each of your respective efforts, how would they do that?

Christy:

Um, like social?

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah a hundred percent. Or your home address or phone number? Whatever.

Christy:

Yeah, I’m just Christy L. Johnston. So c h r i s t y l j o h n s t o n on instagram. You’ll see a bunch of photos of other people on there.

Leslie:

She’s a photographer.

Christy:

Wedding photographer.

Leslie:

She’s pretty amazing.

Christy:

None of those are me but that’s all right.

Leslie:

If you want to follow a less cool, less aesthetically pleasing instagram, you can follow me. It’s Leslie Johnston. L e s l i e j o h n s t o n.

Mingo Palacios:

Awesome. Thank you so much. Ladies. I’m assuming that Bayside would just have its own social stuff, but does your dad have any handles?

Leslie:

He is.

Christy:

No, he’s off the grid with instagram.

Leslie:

I think he’s on facebook.

Christy:

But he is not on instagram.

Leslie:

He might be on facebook, but you know-

Christy:

He wore New Balance before it was cool to re-wear New Balance. So, he’s not joining instagram anytime soon.

Mingo Palacios:

Ladies, thank you so much for repping the family. Closing it down. I appreciate your candidness. I honestly think that we need more of it amongst our generation. That’s what this podcast is all about. So if you’re listening and you’re encouraged, please share and we will talk to you guys soon.

Mingo Palacios:

We hope today’s insights left you feeling inspired and propelled towards your greatest potential. Thanks again for joining us for another episode of the PD Podcast. Until next time.

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