Venture Unfiltered #19: 90's Youth Ministry

Venture. How are we doing today? It's Pastor Tony, so glad to

have you with us. My chair is squeaking. It will not stop squeaking.

So it's I'm not passing gas. It's the chair. Welcome, Hey

u, Pastor Brandon. Good to have you. I'm glad to be here.

I missed you last week. I was in Idaho. I know you

have a special award that you were given. I was given an award.

No one can see it. It's a it's a would you say, a

metal medallion. It is a coin, a coin for planting a church.

I get a coin. So what are your supposed to do with this?

I don't know. It's just like I'm gonna put it above our beds in

our room. It's literally doing what it does. I'm going to Yeah,

so we're starting a church and they gave us a coin for it. Okay,

please get that out of my office. You wish Hey, a couple

things I want to shoot. Number one, thank you so much to everyone

that's been listening and downloading the amount of phone calls, text I've and getting

about it is wild. We just hit twenty seven hundred downloads. I just

did not expect this PB this was this is awesome. We also dropped that

we now want to answer your questions on the air, so you can email

podcast at our venture dot church. We only got one question in and it's

pretty hot and heavy, so maybe we should save it for another week.

Yeah, let's save it. Let's save it for another week. I will

say this that I was with a group of random pastors in South Seattle and

a bunch of them came up to me and said, Hey, I just

listened to your podcast on the Great Resignation. I was like, really,

we didn't think anyone was going to listen to that podcast. Think I didn't

think people listen to this podcast. I guess they do. We have like

three fans, my daughter included. But today's special, we're going to talk

about my favorite era of all time, the era I was born in.

Do you know what yoursborn? I'm gonna predict the way you look. I

don't look nineteen seventy three, nope, nineteen ninety one. Okay, where

were you in nineteen ninety one? I was a toddler running around swallowing rocks.

On that note, Pastor Brandon, do you want to introduce our guests

today and what we're chatting through. So we want to talk about youth ministry

from the nineties. I was a youth pastor in the nineties and you might

not know this statistically, I've shared this at church before, I've used this

on podcasts, but in church attendance in America it hit its all time peak

at our over sixty percent of people had some sort of church affiliation in nineteen

ninety nine, so that was the top. And by the way, ever

since then it has steadily declined, in fact rapidly, a slight upturn in

the last couple of years, but it really culminated with this youth revival that

happened in the nineteen nineties. And I feel completely honored and blessed we have

been a youth pastor during this. But for all my buddies out there that

are listening that were youth pastors in the nineties, you remember what it was

like. I mean, it seemed like everywhere we went there was revival breaking

out. You had huge youth ministries everywhere. Students were getting saved everywhere.

If you had a youth ministry of five hundred students, there was five other

youth ministries in your city that were that large. You fast forward to today,

you can have a church with two three thousand people in it, and

if there's a hundred students in the youth ministry, it's probably the biggest youth

ministry in the entire region. There's just a different day and age back then.

But I have two of my former youth students favorite two of my favorite

former youth students here. Both have very special places in mine and Dy's lives

even to this day. And a lot of it had to do with they

loved my kids. Tony, why did you look at me when you said

that, I don't know who else to look at. Four other people could

look at us, six other people in the room. Uh, we have

Dnay Islander with us. Pass. I am. I am married now I

know I actually I actually married for eleven years. I actually would call you

Denay Islander too, formerly known as day Island, Nay Pass. Denay was

amazing because Denay loved my daughter. I never had to worry about finding a

babysitter for my daughter. She was amazing. And Denay was in our youth

ministry from the time she was twelve m until Diane I left right before your

senior year right until you abandoned me my junior year. Junior year. Okay,

yeah, that we're going to get into that for sure. I had

a feeling that was coming, and we have Leslie looked course. Yes,

your last name was La course it was wow. Isn't that amazing? Cross?

Well, it's I would say, like golf course, but La of

course. I actually it actually had a actually had a song about it,

like do you do you remember, mister Ed? Of course you don't.

You were born in ninety one. It was a horse that talked. It

was a show. Go look it up on YouTube. You don't remember either,

do you do? Because I watched Nick and Night as a child because

I was a church kid. That's right, that's all we were allowed to

watch. We'll get into that also. Anyways, mister Ed, So a

horse is a course of course, of course, and nothing's a horse of

course of course. Anyways, lake course is a course of course of course,

and Leslie lake course of course. Of course. There's a whole song

about it. Brandon, why do I feel like Leslie's about to host this

podcast? I want to record that and have that be my ring whenever Leslie

calls me, well, good for you. That was weird. This is

uh, Leslie La Course also known as Leslie Davis, and half of America

calls me Leslie laamb But that's okay, yes, Leslie. It works with

one of our sponsors, unsellable houses. You were You were in our youth

ministry from the time you're fourteen, right, I actually was fifteen, And

my first day two church was the day Rachel was born. Because I remember

I showed up, Well, we're gonna go, We're gonna go, We're

gonna get into it right here. I showed up Tina Bailey, who is

Tina Hale now Brandon's sister in law, dies brother's wife, current admin,

current personal assistant. Yes, she brought us to church. My sister Lindsay

and I, uh the day that Brandon and I were in the hospital having

Rachel, and they said, oh, our youth pastors aren't here, so

we are there have their daughter tonight. So we're going to do human videos.

So you know, that in itself was kind of interesting, but my

husband was Jesus, so I don't know how to explain that in the human

video. So he wore white T shirts from about ninety eight to two thousand

two. All he wore was a white T shirt in case he needed to

spontaneously play Jesus not kidding one hundred percent, not convenged, this is yes,

thank you, and uh so we watched a human video. I got

saved that night, first time ever accepting Jesus. Uh. And then they

said, let's go to the hospital and see our pastor's baby. So we

all went to the hospital. Time guest at the youth ministry, about thirty

of us. And I walked in there and I remember Die in the bed

holding a baby Brandon there and he looked across the room and he goes,

who are you. Oh hey, I'm Leslie. This is Lindsay. We're

in your youth ministry. Hold on pause. How are you guys not overwhelmed

thirty teenagers or in your room and you just your wife just gave birth.

So again, that's part of the way that youth ministry was back then.

That was the nineties boundaries. It was like these students pretty much for the

youth pastors and the youth staff, they lived at our house. They were

at our houses. Our houses were Hey, we got nothing to do on

Friday night, Let's go, you know, violate the boundaries of all the

leaders in the church and just go stay at their house till one in the

morning. Wow. But it wasn't even violate the boundaries. There were no

boundaries. We didn't know that we were crossing the boundaries because there were no

boundaries put in place. The only reason I say boundaries is like, if

you would do that today, oh, people would pull the boundaries talk on

you for the next like ten years. Was part of it was we all

really loved each other and it was fun, and we loved the students,

and the students loved us, and we all kind of became each other's chosen

family, and that was just kind of the way it worked back then.

We also were really weird, so we didn't have any other friends. Once

you became part of the youth ministry, you became a church kid. And

I'm using air quotes. I don't know why, but you became a church

kid or a Jesus freak, and then your only friends were who went to

the church at school, even at school. So I had tons of friends

at school. I was, you know what. My sister and I were

very popular, and the day that we started going to church, it completely

changed. At school you were now a church kid. So once you were

a church kid, then all of your friends at school completely turned on you

because you chose to change everything about your life. Like, no longer would

we partake in things that we would have previously bad and maybe not so bad,

you know, looking back, our expectations on ourselves and each other in

the youth ministry culture back then, Like we held ourselves to maybe a little

bit unrealistic expectations. So some of the things we thought maybe were horribly bad

weren't necessarily, but we held that standard for ourselves, which I always say,

I'm so grateful for because I'm a very extreme person. So I would

either be extreme one way or the other. And I went extreme into God,

and so that was great because if I wasn't, I would have been

extreme the other way. But because we changed all these things in our lives,

you know, the way, including the music we listened to and the

things we wore, we lost a lot of our friends. So all of

our friends were you know, the people we went to church with, so

we were at their homes constantly. Yeah. Part of it too was there

was again youth ministry back then. There were so many things going on you

didn't really have time for extracurricular activities, like you were either heavily involved in

the church or not. So Denay, do you remember when you first started

going to church? You remember when you first started going to the youth ministry.

I was going to say, no, I don't. I was,

I believe, born under a pew perhaps, So I grew up in what

I consider myself a quintessential church kid. Both my grandparents, both my grandpas,

were simply as a God pastors. So my parents actually met because their

parents were pastor friends. So we grew up what used to be Marysville first,

and we literally lived like three houses down from the church, so we

lived at the church, and as a kid, I don't know what was

going on. There was some kind of drum of a number of kind of

prominent families left and went to Bethany Christian Assembly, which is obviously where you

were the youth pastor. And so I went there mid missionets. So only

these some of the God Church kids will know what that means. But I

was an honor star. What does a mission? You know? You know,

it's kind of the Christian equivalency of like Girl Scouts. You get badges

and you because plants back in the nineties. Things in these and nineties you

had to have a Christian alternative for everything that happened in the world. Is

that why they have royal Rangers? Yes? Okay, now, me not

knowing Jesus till I was ninth grade, we never were missionettes, and we

were kind of a little bit of the outcast of the church because we weren't

raised in church. And I was always jealous of those that were missionettes.

I would have even been a royal Ranger. I wasn't being picky, not

have been allowed. I was not being picky. I wanted to be in

one of those groups. I was not all out continue today. So after

I finished Missionettes, I was supposed to go to youth group and I was

absolutely terrified of Brandon. I didn't know him personally. I was only a

kid. I just would see this guy trudging through the dark calls of Bethany

Christian Assembly, so angry, intense look in his face. Can you please

describe what he looked like, because I think that'll help listeners understand the terror.

This is my favorite episode. Solding eyes, pursed, lips like straight

ahead, always like strutting with the most aggressive struts. Okay, where were

you going? He was always on a mission, like, what is happening?

He's going now all the time, He's going nowhere important, Tony.

Just to answer you a question in his uh, I'm gonna say conservatively extra

large, maybe double XL. Tommy he'll figure short a Tommy Hill figure,

always Tommy Hill figure. If it wasn't Tommy Hill figure, it wasn't for

Brandon driving his Miauda. What was you a little convertible car? I must

say, no, no, no, no, no no. You had

a Meauta in there. Definitely, I have ai Emry too mute his microphone.

He had a Miata. Okay, he had a Miata, maybe two

of them. Temmy he'll figure flowing mullet, curly on a mission. Okay,

oversized tennis shoes. Hold on. So that was Brandon. How about

die Well? So as a fifth grader, I had limited You know,

I'm still a kid, so I knew who Brandon was. Growing up in

the church, my only two examples of youth pastors were Benny Perez and Brandon

Bull. So in my mind, all youth pastors are terrifying men with bulging

bulging eyes. I love you, I know, and then you meet Tony.

I mean, so I told Benny Perez a couple of years ago that

I looked like him and he and he looked at me and he walked away.

I think I really Benny Perez more. Would people say, hey,

do you know Tony Matar you look like to a lot he really does.

Males McPherson told him that, oh, Benny Perez absolutely absolutely scared me for

the first couple of years that I was in the church. So that was

my so coming out of being in missionettes, I was supposed to be going

to youth group. I told my parents that I was too scared to go

to youth group. So I think word got to Brandon and I that I

that myself and my other missionettes on our star that we were not going to

move into youth ministry. And I don't remember if it was you or Die,

but one of you guys approached us and said, we're starting this thing

called Youth Counsel. So they're taking two kids from every every grade to represent

and you know, we would meet on site. So that was how you

guys got us to come into youth group, which then started my career as

a representative for Youth Counsel, which we basically just sat in your guys's office

during Wow Sunday School, which I believe was just your way of accumulating all

your favorite people in a room making fun of all of us for an hour.

So that the complicated part for me was again and I've shared the story

one hundred times. So I started working at this church, and I'd been

saved for about three years by the time I'm there, and I start working

at a staunch, traditional Assembly of God church that had just come out of

a phase probably in the eighties when it was highly legalistic, and I was

very rough around the edges, was constantly getting in trouble with the adults in

the church for things that I would say and things that I would do.

And Die and I naturally connected with all of the students that were like us,

that had no church experience. So by the time Dnay starts coming,

the Youth ministry's probably four hundred people, primarily a bunch of former pagan kids

like Die and I were. And when we had all of these honor stars

and Royal Rangers graduating that we're coming into the Youth minute basically we finally started

having church kids. There was a little bit of a unique blending of these

two worlds. So let me ask her a quick because I know there's a

lot we want to unpack. So that was Brandon in the nineties, Pastor

Brandon. What was Pastor Die like? I can only imagine just a jealous

She looks exactly the same, exactly the same, same hair, same everything's

oversized T shirts. Yes, just she would wear Brandon's T shirts. Was

she same mannerisms, same everything everything. I think she says the same quotes

would you guys? And I was just as scared of her back then too.

Okay, I am now, so let's let's okay, that's good.

I want to talk about that true podcast once. Once you started spending time

with me, you realized how not scary I was. Well something, let's

be honest, who are you more afraid of me? Or Die? Oh?

Die Die. I had a very very personal relationship with Die. I

spent so much time with her because I watched your child literally every day.

So like my relations and ship with Die, I think it's probably different than

most youth kids. I mean we literally spent every like Sunday. You know

after church, I thought you were one of their children. For a while,

I actually thought Danny was yours. I think my parents had to tell

me that I was not one of their children. Yeah. So one of

the things that was hard about leading a youth ministry in the nineties was again

it was I would say, the shadow of legalism within the church. And

you know, like venture today or churches today don't sweat the small stuff anymore,

but back then, they sweat everything. And I remember every Sunday,

like we got to the point where we started getting hundreds of teenagers to come

to church on Sundays, like whenever we had guest speakers. Basically a third

of the church was teenagers. And the number one issue that I always had

with the adults in the church was you guys wearing. Did you guys know

that you would get in trouble for that? Oh, yes, I don't.

I don't remember that, But I remember it being us taking over that

entire side of the church. The if you're looking at the at the stage,

we were on the left side there and we kind of took over that

whole section and it's kind of being an issue like that. We kept spreading

out and we were noisy and would go to the front, and then Michael

would try to like make the music a little more hip for us, and

yeah, yeah, it was a challenge. I gotta remind me to come

back to that later on. Do you remember, Wait, can we go

back to the legalistic thing? Okay? I was going to ask you something

on that. Oh does it have to do with tattoos. Yes, so

I'll let you. Okay, I'm gonna Leslie to share. No, no,

no, it's not my version, it's the accurate version. So I

was sixteen when I decided to get a tattoo in Florida with my sister and

my father. It was rebellious. I did it because my mother told me

not to. And so when my sister and I were in Florida, my

dad took us to get a tattoo whatever, I made it Jesus like.

So I got a cross on my back. Okay, so I was doing

it for Jesus. We could say it's a cross. We'll go with that.

I went home and I thought, oh, I should probably confess to

my pastor that I got a tattoo. So Lindsay and I went and we

sat down and we said, hey, Brandon, we want to let you

know, while we were in Florida, we got tattoos. He leans back

in his chair, crosses his arm and looks at us while slowly shaking his

head, and says, how will you be all things to all men if

you have a cross tattooed on you? You said that? Oh, Verbatim

look at his arms, Verbatim, look at his calves, and he says,

that's why you shouldn't do those things to your body. Is your body

not a temple for God? And we probably got a fifteen minute I mean

letture on how this will be the biggest regret of our life and fast forward

regret it? Oh? Absolutely not. And here we are thirty years later,

and I think maybe well now twenty six hundred people will know because of

the you know, Booming podcast, But I think very few people know that

we have this tattoo. I have this tattoo and you're covered in them.

Are we allowed to use the phrase tramp stamp? Oh canceled, Judah,

there's a button? Yeah, I'm sorry? What was my finger that?

Then? Thank you, Juda. No, we do not say tramp stamp

bals okay, well whatever, I got a tattoo in probably not the most

glorious location. But I did not get a tattoo of my old youth group

logo on my leg. I wouldn't regret that. Yeah, I would never

do that. Here's a little bit of backstory with that that A lot of

the things that I was required to require of you guys were mandated from my

boss, like preaching against dating. I was required too, because I didn't

really care if you guys dated. It didn't bother me at all. But

I cared when I would get yelled at by my boss because the teenagers were

dating. The tattoos. Going to movie theaters, yeah, we were allowed

to go to movie theaters. To this day, I don't know why going

to movie theaters was wrong. Back then, well, I remember being told

the reason we couldn't was because if somebody saw you going into the movie theater,

what if they got the perception that you were going to a movie that

was rated are which could have like, you know, lustful things in it.

And now they're wondering if you're you know, in gritty is what you're

saying it is this the height of purity culture. It was the height of

purity culture. And yes, Uh, we did not wear uh tank tops

that were, you know, thinner than to be one inch yeah, thick.

It was the arbitrary measurement. We did not wear it because Tony.

We did not wear makeup until Priscilla, Priscilla Boor told me if the fence

needs painting painted, Leslie, you probably need makeup. Okay, I don't

remember there being anything about makeup, so that one is on you. That

was the first time Priscilla Boor. I love I she's she's a great person

now. But my first visit to Modesto, I met her and we're talking

about the makeup conversation Amy Owens Amy Rinta, is you know, standing on

a soapbox about why we don't wear makeup, We don't wear shorts, we

don't have these tank tops. And I'm kind of just listening, and Priscilla

says, well, hey, look if the faint, if the fence needs

painting painted, Leslie, I think you could use some makeup. And we

were sitting on a bus and I was like, I'm loving this place.

This is awesome. Okay, we will talk about the transition to a desk

in a second. To nay, do you remember the rule whenever we would

take students to the beach, whenever we would go to wild waves or anything.

Yes, so you had to be fully covered. I mean you had

to wear at least a one piece, but I think sometimes I don't think

it was required to wear a shirt over. But you could not wear a

two piece as a girl. Was the word bikini like the b word of

your youth ministry? Yeah? So I actually when I got to be I

wouldn't have been sixteen because when I was sixteen I definitely got a bikini,

but it must have been fourteen or fifteen. I really wanted a two piece.

My mom said no. So this is the thing is that everything that

was enforced here my family was enforcing. So it wasn't like a huge shock

to me because they were completely aligned. But I wanted a two piece.

And because I spent so much time at Babel's house, I knew all of

their pictures and there was a picture from their honeymoon of Die in a bikini,

which she only wore on her honeymoon. But I used that and so

I told my mom, well, Die wears bikinis, which resulted, Unfortunately,

I feel terrible about this now as an adult but my mom calling die

and having a long conversation with her, which I also listened to on the

other line without them knowing to hear what they were saying. So one of

mine sorry for that. Oh here this because again remember we were not raised

in church. I got saved at a crazy charismatic church where I mean I

went to the first concert I ever went to was with my youth pastor to

the Judas Priest concert. Right, So that's what I thought church when I

worked at this very conservative Holiness movement church, and so I'm just thinking,

this is what I have to do. So one of the things that happened

when students would come to the house is when I turned twenty one, I

wasn't allowed to drink because I was an AG minister, but I bought a

corona because I turned twenty one. It was my twenty first birthday and I

wanted and I never drank it, but I kept it on a shelf,

and eventually so many parents from BCA kept calling and complaining that there was a

corona at Brandon's house that I had to throw it away. I actually regret

it to this day. I think parents commended Aerial for drinking wine. All

right, I have a question for you guys. Since we're kind of hitting

on all that stuff, let's talk about Obviously you had mentioned revival and like

youth ministry is blowing up. What were maybe like highlight one thing that happened

to you personally or something you saw. I was like deeply spiritual, Holy

Spirit led that you were like, this happened in our youth ministry. And

I would say, in spite of those types of challenge, Jess, the

Holy Spirit really moved. God started moving in Really. I think the one

thing that we would all agree is regardless of all that stuff, it was

super fun because of everything that God was doing. I would absolutely agree with

that. I'll also I'll go back to Denay saying everything that was at home

was being supported. I was in the completely opposite, you know position.

My family thought I was part of a cult. Like they couldn't figure it

out because we didn't have this charismatic foundation or a super involved family in church.

So when I would bring my family to church, or my father the

first time he ever experienced you know, our you know, walk with Jesus

because he was raised Catholic and would go on Christmas or Easter was at a

youth ministry trip we took down to the East Coast. So it was like

we were super you know, spirit feel filled and really like in an evangelistic

type you know, movement and whatnot. And so it was very difficult for

my family to kind of understand that you had these teenagers, these two teenage

girls, you know, giving up all of their relationships and their sports and

all these things for you know, Jesus or four you know, a church.

But I think Brandon absolutely hit on it the way that we all were

just so united, and it was what are you know, we had hobbies

there, we had friendships there, we had relationships there, and God moved

and we saw that, you know, in our families. I mean,

my father passed away at nineteen and we when when we were nineteen years old,

and we were able to lead him to God before he passed away.

I one hundred percent contribute that to the foundation that we were laying and that

he was experiencing for the couple years leading up to, you know, that

moment. Otherwise, you know, I don't know that that would have ever

happened. So it was pretty crazy the way that everything kind of orchestrated.

But now having kids that are youth ministry age, not having that nineties experience,

it's hard to walk through it now because I want that for my kids,

but understanding that's not the culture we live in. It's like it's like

a battle it is. It's really weird. There. There was like a

total dichotomy back in the eighties and nineties and probably before it really transitioned in

two thousand from I would call it the church subculture to everywhere else. And

probably the biggest challenge that we always had is we had these students that we're

getting radically saved, and they were just going all in and it was totally

different than what was happening at home. And I had constant meetings with the

parents as a youth pastor that I don't have vulterior motives, We're not weird.

This is like your kids aren't being forced to do these things, they're

not being coerced these things, and that I would say those were normal,

and it was because the black and white dichotomy was so extreme. It's so

wild to me how teenagers when they get saved, they just when they become

radical for Jesus, they lead family members to Christ. They literally grow the

church. They bring people here. It's example of faith to everyone in the

church, especially those who maybe like their faith is kind of you know,

a little tired, weary. Let's talk. I want to transition real quick

to modesto. Hold on, hold on, hold on. We didn't get

it even answer your question. Yeah, we got to do the spiritual things.

Give me some of your favorite spiritual Yeah. So I mean the tours.

I think the fire Star tours are in my mind the most vivid memory.

Explain what fire starters and it's it's a little bit demonstrate. I will

not demonstrate. I am not easily embarrassed, just as a person. And

so this is hard for me because I tend to be kind of mortified when

I think about our human video. Sorry, that is my experience. But

we would take it's dancing to music, I don't know how, like dramatic,

not even dancing, just moving matic movements, dramatic Christian music. So

we would take those, take those on the road and do tours in various

areas. We I went on a handful I don't remember at this point how

many, but the most impactful was that East Coast one. I feel like

I can remember almost every single stop where other ones it's all kind of a

blur, But that was the one where we just everywhere that we went was

just an insane movement of God. Crazy things were happening, whether it was

too at the church or in to us, it was kind of the insane

mixture of that. I can remember that sad church that we went to,

remember when they tried to like cancel us and we were like, no,

just let us come, and then we had a pie, like a pie

bake off after or something. Yeah, that one was well, that was

particular funny to me because that's the one that you insisted that I share my

testimony at. So that was one of the rules of fire Starters was that

you had to at least one time share your testimony. And as the token

church kid, I'm like, I have no testimony. Like we have these

people that are like I got saved from drugs and my parents abandoned me,

and I'm like my life is perfect, like God is great. Like it's

just not very impactful when you have your following people that have all these dramatic

things. So Brandon had insisted that this was the night I had to do

it. Well, we get there. This church is just the saddest place

of all. We didn't know why they didn't want us to come in.

We insisted we come anyways, and from the time that we got there,

I just couldn't stop crying, like I just and there was a probably Diana,

because I think Diana, I just cried through that whole entire tour and

I just couldn't stop when I just kept crying, kept crying. And then

it got to the point where Brandon called me up. Brandon's preaching too.

I mean, you can tell your side of this. It felt like it

was just a dead wasn't it Just like dead, Like nobody was responding.

You're like preaching your guts out nothings that we've done all of our human videos.

Everyone's just sitting there staring at us. And then I got up and

all I could conjure up because I was sobbing so hard was Jesus scars.

And that was my testimony. But then from there we ended up having I

don't know, you tell you're kind of what you would describe the so on

this particular, like what the students would do is they would come in and

they would do with these human videos, and I would preach, we'd do

some dramas, and then basically we called ourselves a prayer team, like we

just wanted an opportunity to pray. And if you think about it, in

that five to eight years you were in the youth ministry, it was normal

for us to see people healed like we saw it all the time. It

was normal for to see like legitimate prophetic words that have come to pass,

you know, true things that happened. We saw frequently demons cast out of

people, like all of the things that you read about or you hear about

that actually TV loves to make fun of. We saw like the real,

genuine side. But what was always amazing, especially at this particular church,

because we showed up there and they had just had a death from one of

their key members and they didn't want us there. And they literally, we

I'm arriving. We're from California, or we're from Washington wherever. And we

show up and they're in the East Coast and they don't want us there.

And I begged them to let us do the service, and they sat there

with their arms folded the whole time. Dnay comes up and does her crying

he cares about you thing, and then the spirit just broke and then it

turned into a massive revival. I mean remember the little old ladies. It

was like they were stuck in their seats and they hadn't moved in years,

and they like peeled their arm out of their seat and stood up and they're

dancing around. And then the little old man gets up with his rocker or

his little you know, walker, and starts dancing around. And I remember

the pastor, like I can vividly see him. He was like this chubby

man in his suit and he sat there the whole time and then he stood

up and he was like jumping up and down up front. Dawn. You

got him to do a cartwheel. Memory of that is this guy who was

so just like, yeah, nothing in the place. By the end of

it, he was I don't know, he seemed older. I was youngest.

Maybe he wasn't that old, but I think he was in our head.

Yeah, I can honestly say that at the peak of that our youth

ministry, when we would do those tours, the Holy Spirit used you guys

to bring revival everywhere we went. Because it wasn't just like, oh it

happened once, it happened every place we went. And then that trip,

which to this day it's the most mark king spiritual moment in my entire life.

We went to the Brownsville Revival, which at this point is that its

peak. Ten thousand people are going to this every single night. It's been

going on for three straight years. And the Brownsville Revival had never allowed anyone

other than the three main speakers to ever minister there. So we show up.

We'd tried to be able to get permission ahead of time to perform a

human video there. They wouldn't let us, but we thought I at least

wanted you guys to experience it. So we showed up at the Brownsville Revival,

and then in the middle of it, the speaker, Steve Hill,

pauses. He notices all these teenagers because he guys were all wearing your fire

started gear, and he says, where are you guys from, calls us

up on the platform, prays for us all, and then he says,

We've never done this before in the history of the Brownsville Revival. I'm going

to have them minister to all of you, and then for the next three

hours like we are going around as revivalists angle over everybody that right there is

to this moment is the highlight of my entire spiritual journey. Yeah. I

think we could do an entire podcast on the things that we saw God do,

the places we went, I mean, the situations we were in that

were probably so incredibly unsafe. As a mother, I look at and I

think, oh, I would never let my kid there. I would never

send my kid to New York with one hundred and twenty people and a bunch

of you know kid, you know, adults and we're in Harlem, or

we're in you know, wherever, these little churches in the middle of nowhere,

and you know, God just protected us and he put his his shield

around us and we were able to yeah, I'm minister to people and be

used and also like experience God ourselves, and it was it's it's pretty incredible

to look back and see that we were in the middle of God's movement,

and I think at times we didn't even realize it. I think we can

transition to Modesto in just a second, and they can talk about what it

was like to have their youth past or resign. I think I think Nay

hit on that perfect. I think one of like the key moments for the

youth ministry was the Bible camp that I was directing that A bunch of churches

were around in the area were a part of that. Benny Perez spoke at

you because remember that camp. So that camp at the time, and I

don't know if it is still to this day, but was the largest week

of summer camp in the history of our network. All these churches came.

We had students sleeping on the floor of the auditorium. That was where we

took that huge twelve seventeen thousand dollars. Remember how large it was, offering

for speed the light. But what is your guys' memory? Do you were

you either? I don't know. I went to summer camp for so many

years they all kind of blend together. But I'm wondering that when we that

when we marched around the for Jericho, we marched around Yeah, I think

you were there. We marched around the the the whatever, the whole chapel

seven times. Yeah, it sounds like everyone at the everybody we marched around

it seven times, the entire camp. Benny sent us out to march around

it seven times before we went in for our service that night. It was

and I remember it vividly. It's the year that Jeremy had a group and

he was or Doyle Rules. Yeah, were you there for that year?

Yeah, it was that year. I don't know, I have all that,

like all the fun things, and yeah, that was an impactful year.

Well, that was the year that God started moving so much and all

the services that they canceled everything else. Yep, yep, we had no

we didn't do we didn't do other events. We just did people nothing.

We would stay in chapel from morning, praying all day until night. But

he's like, oh, you can stay and pray, but like literally hundreds

of kids would stay in there, junior hires, junior hires, high schoolers.

Yeah. And it's also that's the same time that I can't was it

it wasn't Benny Press. Who was it that came up? Was it Steve

Hill? No, that did the revival in the tent right in Marysville.

It was that year, remember, Yes, who was that that we all

went to And it was like four days straight, do you remember, well,

I mean it was it was Mary's. Well, first, I don't

know who it was allowed to go there? No, I think it was.

It was an evangelist that I will know. I don't remember. I

do remember the meetings. Yeah, it was like a huge, huge So

you then you get your dream job for Glombertowe and Modesto. Yeah, how

did you decide? You guys? You guys moved with them. No,

I'd like to stay on record. Well, I did get course course for

like three months, which still remains the three worst months of my life that

I was down there, but I did not Okay, so I want to

stay on record. I did not move down there often until about a year

and a half later, so I was not part of the original. I

stayed here and I were like the last we were like the last two.

We were like, we're going to keep this youth ministry going, We're going

to start our own human video team, which which we did. We did,

and I have no memories, so story with that. So it's about

a year after the Brownsville summer. I've shared the story million times, so

I bore the church with it. But I was going through a transition.

Felt like something was coming for you guys. What you might not know is

you know, at this point, the youth ministry at BCA is about five

hundred. It's a third of the church. It's way out of balance.

We have this revival youth ministry in this kind of conservative ag church, and

the amount of conflict that I was having in challenges because the youth ministry was

so much larger than it should be for the size of the church. It

just reached this point where something had to give, and my boss wanted me

to be the senior associate. He thought that was the way to do it.

And I didn't feel done in youth ministry. So I end up leaving

and going to Modesto readers. Okay, so you guys are Mondesto. Jacob

had already moved down too, didn't he Yes, he was part of the

original. We know he was not part of the originals, so uh,

Jacob me denay. There was a group of us that stayed back at in

Washington. I think you guys maybe had fifteen with you the originally maybe twenty.

I feel like it was like a hundred it was, it was.

I think it's probably a dozen or so. It was a good year.

After they left, and then Jacob went down to do the internship there,

and then he came up to Brandon and Jacob came up in September for Lindsay

and Justin's wedding, and Jacob proposed to me the day after their wedding,

So then I went down I knew it was going to happen, and then

that's when I went down there. I worked at the church for about two

years. I worked at at Berto's church, and then we came back up

here. But from the day that I got down there, Jacob and I

were at oh Jacob and I were at the Beel's house every single day,

like six days, seven days a week, and every day we were like,

when are we going to plant a church in Washington? And Brandon was

always trying to plant a church in California on the water, and he was

like, yeah, but what about the Bay area? What about in me?

Jacob and I were like, Nope, Washington, Nope, Washington.

And so I remember like so many conversations in their living room of Okay,

this is you know, you love the youth ministry. The youth ministry is

huge, it's going well, Jake's doing internship. He then you know,

does junior high pastoring down there? Blah blah blah. But like it was

like we knew before we even knew that we were going to be back here

doing a church that must have been so wild. You guys have all this

youth ministry experience as teenagers, right Pastor Brandon die, and then you guys

go to Modesto as young adults, and now you see it again, but

now you're leading it rather than I mean, you were already leading as a

kid, but now as a young adult. So the cool thing about the

Modesto experience was everything that we saw at the youth ministry in BCA, we

took that and it happened times ten in Modesto. And it happened like there

had been a prophetic word that was spoke over me before I left that said

what took you years will take you months. What took you months will take

you days. And it's literally what happened. It was overnight. The youth

ministry there jumps into revival, same spirit, but at a whole other level

at a church that had a similar spirit. So Modesto I would say,

like, I think we were all there for you guys were with us for

three years. Yeah, I think almost three. It was literally other than

we missed some of our family and friends from Seattle. It was just fun

the entire time. It was crazy fun, even though the city is sorry

for from Medesto awful, awful. There was nothing to do, not a

drop of water. Why we're always together and we were always doing things together

because there was nothing else to do. Even when they even when the Beal's

family had kids, you guys were all there hanging out. Oh yeah,

she's right, let's see, we were at their house. I would have

a very single day, I would. It was. It was actually pretty

pretty simple what I did, Tony. I would wake up, I would

go to work. Okay, I lived in a six hundred square foot apartment,

so I would say at least twice a week, I would take a

pregnancy test because I was so scared that I was going to have a baby.

That first year that I was married, we would eat out of the

food bank at the church because Jacob and I made church money. Okay,

so we would go to the food bank. Judah, do you remember the

food bank? You were too young. Judah ate out of the food bank

too. His wife or his Judah's mom, Die would shop at the food

bank too. I don't think you went because you had too much pride to

go to the food bank, but he was pacing the water, he was

pacing the halls in angry face. We would shop out of the food bank

because we had no money. Then I would go home. I would unload

my groceries that I got that was just pasta and you know, red sauce,

and I would go over to the Beeal's house eat whatever food they had,

play with Judah and Elijah, and about nine o'clock at night I would

convince Jake on our way home to get me yo yogurt. It was a

drive through yogurt place that was frozen yogurt that you could drive through. And

it was like the greatest invention ever in my world because you could get like

tcby yogurt, but it was drive through and we get that on our way

home. Do the same thing the next day. Yeah, we pretty I

never moved to Modesto. There was so little to do in Modesto that if

we did anything at the church, it wasn't like would people show up,

It would be thousands of people showed up for anything that happened at the church.

And then when we didn't have something at the church, we all just

hung out together and we all pretty much just became each other's family and each

other's best friends. We did Thanksgiving together, holidays together. It was we

were always all together. Well, I would say side go ahead, would

be somebody who did not follow down. I mean, to be fair,

I was a junior. I was going to be a junior in high school.

So they told me the summer. I'll never forget when they sat me

down and told me Brandon, I had been beefing for a while. We

hadn't talked in a few so you couldn't have a boyfriend or something. No,

I don't know. We were fighting about something, so it would have

been a few months since we talked. So that broke the ice and they

broke the news that they were abandoning me. But it was devastating as a

kid who couldn't pick up and move because I was only sixteen, And I

mean, the pastoral decision was to bring somebody in who was the polar opposite,

which I can understand the logic of it, of trying to make the

right decision. It did not go over well for people who had been in

that ministry. So much like now as an adult and I'm in business,

I see this where a new leader comes in and it's like a whole fresh

regime. Like I get that as a kid. It was. It was

devastating, so it was really hard to Leslie and I stayed for the whole

For the that next year, we were still involved, but it was very

different, tough. Yeah, and then there was a lot of people that

didn't, you know, that went their own way. They didn't go to

Medesto and didn't stick around because it was such a big shift in it almost

felt like a church split. I think maybe it was like unintentionally like a

church split when you guys left, because everything was so based around you guys

and the leaders. You guys had such a core youth leadership group, like

you guys had what thirty forty youth leaders that were just as invested as you

and were so good with their youth students, Like I was close to you

guys, but I was so close to my youth leaders, like they did

a good job at what they were supposed to do. That when you guys

left, most of them left because they were being led by who they wanted

to be led by. That when the new youth pastor came in, he

brought in his own youth leaders and Dnay's right, it was polar opposite that

it almost felt like it was a church split, like we started from ground

zero. I think our youth ministry went from like five hundred to maybe three

hundreds, So not horrible, but I mean music was different, preaching was

different, staff was different, leadership was different. It was completely different.

Well, and it didn't have the charismatic yeah like Ben that we had.

And to your point, Brandon, we were coming out of Brownsville, this

whole thing, so it was just this like ramping up, ramping up,

and then it was just like bam, and you guys took that and carried

it over somewhere else and you built this infrastructure and then took the infrastructure with

you. But for the people that were left behind, it was sort of

like, now where do we do well? I talked to the pastor of

the church because he's one of my closest friends to this day, about that

moment, and he said, I mean, there's all kinds of koda what

a shita is that you look back in your life, and one of his

big koda what a shitas is? He said, I did not appreciate how

much that youth ministry was leading our church, and he said, and we

never provided you and Die the resources that you needed to continue to stay.

So when I left, remember it was they didn't just hire one person.

They hired three people. So do you know how insulting it was for me

that I had been trying to get help forever and he hired three full time

people to replace me. I don't remember that. Oh I remember me?

Who? I can only remember the one They hired somebody to run the internship.

They hired him and an assistant, and then they hired him and I

had no one. And from the beginning they paid him more money than they

paid technically. You did have Die who sat in your closet in your office.

Do you remember that it was a former shower No, I remember,

yeah, shower that they remodeled into a closet. Yeah, then became Die's

office. So, I mean, Baggar's can't be choosers, Brandon, you

did get Die seven dollars an hour. I know, it was great.

That's great. Hey, this has been a lot of fun. We have

a lot I mean, we could go on for hours, but we got

we really got to wrap up. How about we under this I'll end with

a little random side thing because he listens to this podcast. Do you guys

know Tim Cravens? Yes, do you know Tim Cravens. I talked on

the phone like three times a week. Did you know Jacob lived with Tim

Cravens. He tells me that all the time. You know, I could

tell you all about Tim Cravens and his original start into the Gulf, practicing

in his room with this putting. Oh yeah, Tim, Now I want

to hear all about when Tim and Lindsay started dating. Why don't Okay,

let's talk about that one off fair? Him and I talk all the time.

Okay, why don't we Why don't you guys each end? Well,

maybe we'll start to nay of all the years, all the fun favorite or

just something spiritual moment whatever. I mean, I kind of you know,

I told the one story that one is up there. I mean, just

that whole tour. There's just so many individuals. Actually, well there's yeah,

there's another. Her name was Dolly, and it was just I don't

know what it was. We just cried through the whole night. The joke

with Die and I was we would have our T shirts and we would pull

our t shirt up over our nose and just like sob and snot. So

afterwards our whole inside of our shirt was just covered and snot. And we

never got to wash our shirt because we were on tour, so they were

super gross. But this one night, we just cried. I was crying

and crying, crying, and finally Die came up and it's like, I

think that you're interceding on behalf of this gal Dolly, and I'm like,

oh, I don't know whatever. So she brought me over and this girl

kind of the same thing, just totally hard. I mean, just stood

there like somebody had drug her there and obviously don't remember what was said,

and I probably wasn't saying much. I was just slobbering and sobbing, And

over time she just physically I saw her like just softening to the point like

like her shoulders would start to sink, her face started, you know,

just this like physical transformation. And by the end of it, I think

we're literally like laying on each other crying. But it was just this very

cool as a sixteen year old or fifteen year old to just sort of feel

the heart of God for somebody and just I didn't know her, didn't know

where story was, I didn't know why, but I just felt her pain.

I guess so what I would explain and then get to meet her and

pray for her and then seek you know, God really moved through that situation.

So that's always That's always been something that I've held onto. It's just

a really cool moment. Yeah yeah, Lesley Lam, Yeah that's me.

You know, it's hard to like pick one moment, but I mean we

talked about it. Brownsville is always going to be something that is so like

it's just it's embedded in my memory being on the stage looking out and seeing

the way that people were seeking God and then hearing Steve say okay, you're

released, go pray for people, and being able to just truly like pray

over individuals with no like time limit or agenda or any sermon leading up to

it, just like God being present in that place. It was just it

was such a powerful moment, and we were there for a long time,

but it felt like just a second in you know, in time it was

it was it was just a I don't know how to explain. It was

almost like a out of body experience. Like how incredible it was to be

used, but also walk away like so full from that experience. And I

honestly, Leslie and I know people you can you can close us out.

Do you want to close us out? Today? I want to say one

more thing? Sure? Can I say? Now? Sure? Yeah?

Now? And this is not coursed, but but you know, growing up

in that era, and even though we look back and we see a lot

of things that probably feel problematic now or things that just we roll aize at,

I mean, Brandon and I are the most other than my parents,

impactful people in my life. I mean, to this day, there's still

even times I've come and gone from coming to their church, They've still always

been a part of my life. Die is somebody who I speak to you

all the time, and just that what they did and investing in our lives

at that core time, I mean, completely molded who I was as a

person, even growing up in that environment. There's so much of it has

to do with how much time and love and investment that they gave us.

So even all the funny things that we laugh about or the embarrassing things like

to me, it's I'm so glad that I came up in that because it's

mostly just incredible memories with really fun people and amazing leaders that really gave more

time than they probably should have. Going back to me, we are who

we are. We are absolutely who we are because of Brandon and I the

leaders and the fact that we were in that environment. And I mean,

that's that's who we are as people in the core is because of the way

that they have poured into us. Absolutely. I think what's really cool is

like you guys all had this experience right and like your faith was formed,

and Leslie you had mentioned like you want that for your kids and your kids

we're in our youth innistry, and I want to just go on the record

and say, like most people don't know this, and like Leslie, you

would never to your horn about this. You guys and Lindsay were the biggest

givers ever to the youth ministry, above and beyond what you were already giving

and what you sewed into the youth ministry. Like we saw revivals here,

we put on the biggest youth conference ever here and kids getting radically saved,

and I think it was really beautiful because you see that generational it's coming back

like what you guys saw like you guys sewed into it. And now I'm

praying for Johnny and Brandon and now our current youth team that they would see

similar things and even better. Even more so, I want to thank you

because you helped us out more than you know you did. Yeah, I

would sum it up by saying, I think the word that Dnay used was

best, and I actually forget what word it was. But there were many

things, you know, I look back at and I shake my head and

I'm a little bit embarrassed about, especially picking on the girls about their tattoo.

When are you guys going to finally forgive me of that one? Is

what I'm wondering. Never, never I've I get that story gets brought up.

Basically everybody that they introduced me to she tells that story too. This

is Brandon, He's a hypocrite about tattoosh. He's my pastor. What I

really love the most is we saw a genuine move of God in Everett.

We were young. I always remind everybody that I was your youth pastor.

I started when I was twenty two. I left Bethany when I was twenty

eight. So think of what we don't let a twenty two to a twenty

eight year old do and I was leading this massive thing, made lots of

mistakes, you know, and then what God did there he did in Modesto

on steroids, and so a lot of the mistakes that we made in Everett

we knew not to make in Modesto. And then we kind of carried that

over to Venture and we started a church back in this area. And I

would say Venture right now is full of students that are now adults, with

students who got saved or their life changed in one of those moments in the

past. And now it's turned into one of the largest churches in the state

and we all get to be a part of it with maturity. Now.

Yeah, if you think about it as a twelve year old coming into the

youth group, I had been saved longer than you. Yes, it's very

true. I guarantee you knew the Bible better than me. Oh yeah,

I was a mission. Yes, I was jealous. I enjoyed this.

This is fun. We have many more stories. If you have, you

will likely do a part too it. Some we should I think we should

bring in Can we phone in Tim for one of these episodes? Sure?

Sure? Yeah, Tim would love that. Well, thank you guys for

being here. Pastor Brandon, thanks for all you do. Pastor die,

thanks for never changing. I predicted, I told Die, I go,

here's what's gonna happen. You are going to end up being the hero of

this story, and I'm going to be nothing more than the court jester.

Hey, if you don't admit that you drove a Miata Miata Miata Yeah,

yeah, in the late nineties, then we're done. Like owner collection too,

so I don't Maybe you block that out and out of embarrassment. I

even remember where you parked it on the side parking where the Pastor's parked where

the vans are now at BCA, and you'd walked it up. It wasn't

a Miata. It was a Mazda r X seven. Okay, well it's

a dude, it's small, small, little tiny years it's a small,

little tiny car. That's a It's not a Mustang. Bro. You were

Tommy, He'll figure mollet Miata driving youth, Pastor, he was Vanilla Ice.

On that note, thank you so much everyone for listening, Thank you

for sharing the podcast. We love you guys. Next week, Pastor Brandon,

I are going to talk about our top annoyances as communicators, things that

distract us when we're speaking, mainly Pastor Brandon. All right, see you

guys later. Have a good week.