Rob's Story.

Well, G'day everyone.

Uh, it is a real privilege to come back to the Canterbury Gardens Community Church Podcast.

That is a mouthful.

In 2025, if you have somehow come across this because you're looking for a gardening show or something, really apologize.

That's not what we're about.

But, uh, my name is Shabu.

I have the privilege to serve as one of the pastors at Canterbury Gardens.

A church in the outer east in Melbourne.

Our prayer is to be a church that continues to grow in the truth of who Jesus is and his good news.

And this good news is just not a one time message, but we believe this gospel changes all areas of our lives.

And so part of our time of both sharing our sermon series, last year we were sharing some stories and hearing from people who call Canterbury home.

And today.

Uh, I have the world famous, Oh, gee, sorry, everyone to disappoint you.

Come on, man.

All right.

Let me call it the classic oversell.

I just want to welcome.

Hey, Robbie, how are you?

Oh, very well, mate.

And yourself?

I'm good.

I'm good.

I feel like, I feel like there's, I think, I feel like we could do a show one day.

Uh, show one day, I feel like a vibe is coming where you, okay, let's do it now.

We're here.

Yeah.

We're here.

We're here.

It's happening.

It's happening.

So, um, thank you for having me by the way.

Pleasure.

Pleasure.

It's, I'm real glad that you, thankful that you said that you were willing to do this.

Um, also a big thanks to your wife, Joe, who's looking after the kids.

So you can come out and do this.

Well, I think everyone's gone to sleep.

So that's bored us about 10 minutes.

Okay.

So that's as long as it'll take, won't it?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Totally.

It's up to you really.

Like if you keep going off on tangents, we might see how we go.

I'm up to.

So mate, tell me a little bit about yourself.

Well, I know who you are obviously, but, um, tell us a little bit about who you are, your family, who are you during the week?

Uh, so well, yeah, you've introduced me and my name's Rob.

Uh, I have a lovely, beautiful wife named Joanna and three amazing kids, although sometimes they might not be amazing, but that's any parent will tell you that, that, what age group are they in?

Reminds me.

So, um, eldest daughter's Phoebe, she'll be five in a couple of days, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, and I have Lucy.

Uh, second child and she's going to be four in September later this year.

And Jimmy, he's going to be two next month, next month.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So they're all pretty close together.

And how, how long have you and Joe been married?

Uh, I can't remember the years.

I can give you the, Oh, whoops.

Can I, can I give you the date?

Oh, it was, uh, 2016.

Uh, November.

Should I edit this later?

Was it 19?

No, no, no.

Cause Joel will go, Oh yeah, he can't remember anything.

So yeah, that's fine.

Okay.

Um, yeah, I'm pretty sure it was November 19th.

Okay.

Don't worry.

Okay.

Yeah.

So.

So November 19th at some point you got married.

November 19th.

Yeah.

2016.

There you go.

Cool.

Yeah.

So during the week, uh, we, those who call Canterbury home, we might see you up the front.

Uh.

Uh, smashing a guitar, not literally, but playing, uh, songs to Jesus and yeah, I think if I smashed it, there'd be a bit of a problem, probably, I'd probably be brought in for discipline reactions or something like that.

Um, uh, and then I've seen those cool pedals you have at the front, so you obviously can do music.

Oh, no, no, they, they make it, make me sound like I can do music.

There you go.

That's what it is.

It's all the tricks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There you go.

It's like AI or something.

So tell me about, um, who are you during the week?

Obviously husband, dad.

Yep.

Husband, dad during the week.

Um, I work for an engineering company in Kilsyth and we make bespoke, that's a fancy word for just.

Custom made, not, not for any manufacturer, but we make, uh, gearboxes, manual transmissions strictly for race cars.

Oh, cool.

Yeah.

So does that go up to, was it 12 years or more?

Um, nah, that'd be like a semi trailer or trucks.

They go about that high.

No, we're sorry.

We only go as high as six.

Yeah.

Six years.

I know about this.

No, I'm here to educate you if you want to know, but I'm sure we're not going to use this podcast to do that.

No, we're not going to talk about.

You know, that kind of stuff.

So that's what you do during the week.

So you, do you design them or do you?

Nah, so all the smart, all the smart cats, they do all that.

And I'm just the, uh, I'm just the bolty.

I just bolt them together.

Okay.

What's the coolest car that you feel like you've worked on?

Oh, the coolest car.

I've done some work on a Lamborghini before.

Okay.

I've got to like actually drive a few of them.

That's pretty good.

I've driven heaps of Audis and BMWs, M, M series Beamers and Audi R8s, um, old Corvettes from like the sixties.

I was lucky enough to drive one of them.

I nearly got a chance to drive, um, a Ferrari that was worth like a million dollars, but then they said, Oh, we need someone to drive it onto a truck.

And I thought, nah, I just don't want that on my conscience if something goes wrong.

So I backed out of it.

Um, but yeah, Oh, fun.

Hmm.

That's a cool thing to do.

Uh, obviously you're a little bit into cars is what I know.

Are you a Ford or a Holden man?

Oh, well, I think we, we do, I do come from a Holden family cause my dad, you know, he loved Peter Brock and he bought like the Brock road cars and everything.

And that's sort of where I got my.

Yeah, education from, was from him getting into it, but yeah, as the year sort of went on, I'll go and like, Oh, I floated between two of them, I don't know, I'm just always happy to see like someone make a really good product or make something that was really cool and I wasn't biased to hold an all forward, I was quite happy to go.

Either which way.

Okay.

Some people are pretty passionate about it.

They get pretty uptight.

Do you drive a Hyundai?

I can't.

Oh, the Kia.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kia.

Not even close.

Korea all the way.

Yeah.

Not even, not even Aussie.

Well, on that note, um, so tell us.

Um, what I'd love to hear, we obviously know a little bit more of your story, but, um, did you grow up in a faith believing family, a Jesus family, like who believed in the gospel and who is God?

Yeah, so my, my background is, um, Jehovah's witness.

So my grandparents, both sides, mum, mum and dad's parents, they come from a Jehovah's witness background.

Um, yeah, so I grew up in that with, um, with mum and dad.

So that's what I was born into.

We were Jehovah's witnesses and did all the things that everyone knows about.

Well, I was just going to ask if, if there was someone who has no idea what, um, Jehovah's witnesses or some people call them JWs, um, what's the key thing or what's the key difference?

I'm sure there's probably lots of things.

Are there things that you could kind of synchronize?

Yeah.

So big thing is, is at Canterbury, we go to church on Sunday, so we go in the morning, um, with the Jehovah's witnesses, it was, you go to the kingdom hall and you, it's not a, I think it was called a service or it was not a meeting.

Meetings is what we call them.

So you would have the meeting, but that was on Sunday, Sunday mornings or Sunday evenings.

Um, you'd also go again on the Tuesday evenings.

I was just reminiscing with my mom about this the other day'cause I was trying to remember some of the stuff that we did.

But yeah, so basically every second day you're doing something there with really with the witnesses.

And then Thursdays is a Bible study.

Okay.

And I'm pretty sure, sorry we couldn't really quite remember, but it was every second Saturday we'd go as everyone knows the ah, the door knocking.

Yeah.

We'd do the door knocking.

We'd do the witnessing.

Yeah.

Probably a bit more of a challenge these days.

So I've had Jehovah's Witnesses come, wonderful people to talk to and talk about the differences of who Jesus is.

So for your own journey, um, was that a bit of a time where you started to wrestle with, obviously growing up with the faith of J dubs and then something changing?

Yeah, it was, it's kind of an interesting thing.

It was as a kid, I was growing up in the Witnesses cause my mum eventually left.

So my mum and dad got divorced when I was about five.

So I've got very little memories of going as a family, but I remember going to the meetings and going witnessing with mum.

That was my biggest thing was, oh, but it was strange because we were like the only family that didn't have a dad.

It was, yeah, it's quite.

So your mum, your mum stayed in JWs?

So mum stayed in the Witnesses.

So yeah.

And then she left.

When I was, I must've been 12 or 13, I think, but up until that point, like, I absolutely hated it.

Really?

Okay.

Why?

Oh, cause you had to sit in a meeting.

Like as a kid, you've got to sit there for two hours and I don't know.

There's lots of kids that are really good.

I was really bad at doing it.

So I got to, I probably have a bit of sympathy for my children because in church, not saying it's bad, but it's difficult.

It's difficult for young kids, especially if you're trying to get them to sit still for that long.

And that's where it's great now with church.

We've got kids programs.

The kids can go off and do that.

They still learn about Jesus.

They're still learning about the gospel, which is good.

But with the witnesses, it was really challenging probably for a lot of parents because they go, Oh, well, our children sit in there for the meeting for two hours.

So they couldn't leave that.

There was no separate program.

There was a, you know, the cry room or whatever they like to call it back then where you could take a screaming baby, but not a screaming, you know, 10 year old.

Okay.

So you didn't enjoy that at all?

No, it was horrible.

My, my, my experience of.

Yeah, like, yeah, my whole experience of that was, I don't like this.

If I had a choice, I would never come here during the week.

I would stay at home, watch TV.

I would do something else.

I'd use my Saturdays.

Yeah.

So it was really hard and it was hard for my mum because looking back, I felt really bad.

I thought.

Here's a parent who's very convicted about, we need to be doing this because this is part of the belief system is no, no.

We have to be going every Sunday.

We have to be going every Tuesday.

We have to go to the Bible studies.

We have to go witnessing.

Yeah.

Oh, mate, don't get me started about the witnessing.

My goodness, as a kid, my incentive was, oh, if we can get to the end of door knocking and witnessing and talk to people, all right, we're going to go for Hungry Jacks.

Right.

That was the big selling point for me on the weekends.

Cause I remember I'd carry on and say to mom, no, I don't want to go looking back.

It's, you know, as a parent, you know, you get a taste of your own medicine.

Cause you go, right, kids, come on.

We got to go to church now.

Oh, but I can't find my shoes.

I can't find my sock.

Come on.

Just, we got to go.

Why do we have to go?

Cause it's important.

Yeah.

Why is it so important?

Why are you yelling at me?

So, but I felt bad for mom.

Cause I remember my, I remember my sister and I probably made it difficult for her because we didn't want to do it.

My sister's a bit more older and mature.

So she was happy.

To comply and go, okay, but we both were like, Oh, it's hot, stinking hot Queensland sun.

So you grew up in Queensland.

Yeah.

And you have to wear like the shirt and the tie and the pants.

There's no casual, casual shorts.

No casual shorts.

Nah, I look like I come from the beach.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so, I mean, growing up in that, obviously as a single mom, she's trying her best to raise the kids up in the faith for her.

Um, And was that like most kids with any kind of faith background, perhaps it's kind of given to them or shoved down their throat in some sense?

Was there a point where you were like, this is not for me?

Or did you sort of, like, how does it work?

Like, yeah.

It's, well, I got excited because I remember mum, well, she'd, she'd remarried by this stage.

So I have a stepfather and, um, they'd both talked about it and they'd come to the decision.

They said, yeah, we're actually not going to go.

Wow.

Be witnesses anymore.

And I remember we, we got told, my sister and I, and they said, yeah, guys, we're not going to be going to the kingdom hall anymore.

We're not going to be going witnessing.

And I remember feeling guilty.

I thought, Oh no, I've, I've pushed them to the edge.

They don't want to, it's too hard.

I've broken them.

And then I started to feel guilty because you're told no, no, this, this is what makes Jehovah happy.

You need to make Jehovah happy.

You need to go witnessing.

You need to make Jehovah God happy by doing this.

And I thought, if we're not going to do this, isn't it?

As a kid, I felt if we're not going to do this, I'm going to hell.

And then I said, no, I'll be good.

I said, I'll be good.

I'll go.

I won't complain anymore.

I'll just draw in my book.

I won't whinge.

I won't carry on.

I promise.

I'm sorry.

Cause I started to feel convicted about it.

But then as the parents, they said, no, no, it's fine.

It's okay.

We don't have to go.

Then I think it sunk in.

I'm going, oh, you ripper.

Okay.

I don't have to go.

What a weight off the shoulder Yeah.

Okay.

And I was happy.

I was happy then going, oh, we don't have to keep going.

Yeah, you're not gonna get in trouble.

In that sense, no.

But yeah.

But obviously, and now I can watch all the movies that I wasn't allowed to before, which I don.

I think this was a great idea, but I think it was this liberation of, Oh, we don't have to do this anymore.

So if you want to watch that, you can watch that.

And so I'm saying this as a parent now, Oh no, I don't subscribe to that philosophy.

I don't think it's a good idea to let young kids just go for it, just go and, you know, just silly things like, Oh, I was never allowed to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the cartoon.

Um, or He Man for that matter.

Today we couldn't, yeah.

For some context, there was a sermon today at the Canary, which you might hear a little bit later.

But, um, One of those same illustrations are regarding He Man.

So that's what Ruffy's talking about.

No, I got excited when I saw the clip up there.

I'm going, I never got to watch that.

I think every person 40 and probably above.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

They're all, they're all like you.

Our demog, oh I don't know.

You're probably younger than I am.

My demographic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, so, um, that's amazing.

Like your, um, mom and your stepdad decided that would have been a big thing for them.

It was very massive because the ramifications that come with that is.

Um, all my family are all, uh, Jehovah's witnesses, so I, you know, on my dad's side, he has, he's one of seven and they're all married and they all have children.

Okay.

Um, oh actually except for one aunt and aunt, oh sorry, aunt and uncle, they don't have children.

Sorry.

But on, um, mum's side, yeah, there's, she had her brother and, or her two brothers and they have children as well.

So it was very awkward because.

Um, there was the disfellowshipping because it was all mum's disfellowship now because she says she's not going to go, she's broken away now.

So she's no longer allowed to go into the meetings.

But it was a weird thing.

It was okay for Kate and I, as long as we could go with a relative because we weren't baptized.

So it wasn't, it was a, yeah, we hadn't had the, we hadn't been signed up, I suppose is a way of saying it.

So that was the difficult part.

Um, there was other things going on with the family as well.

There's tensions there.

So it's sort of, yeah, it's separated like my sister and I from, from our family.

And we didn't see a lot of them or have much to do with them because then it was all of a sudden that, Oh, well, we're not sure if we should be talking to you or not, and I don't blame them.

Like I, I, and I don't think there was anything, maybe even nothing like that.

No, as you get older, you just realized that, Oh, look, it's, it's people's convictions and whether they.

Chose not to, or didn't think about it.

Yeah.

Like that's fine.

Yeah.

It's the end of the day, God's still good.

He should give us, like, peace.

That's right.

And then also for them, they, they have a belief system that, um, and they're clinging onto that and it's a big thing.

So how old were you when this happened?

Sorry, remind me.

I must've been 12.

I just remember, cause I got so excited.

Cause finally we could buy a Christmas tree.

Oh, okay.

And finally I could have a birthday party.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's just.

But these are the things as a kid, cause you go, well, yeah, cause your witnesses, we didn't believe in birthday parties.

Okay.

Um, we didn't believe in Christmases.

Christmases were all.

Satanic and there was evil things behind that.

And some even debate that there's maybe some, still some stuff behind that.

But anyway, that's completely different.

That's a different, yeah, that's a, yeah, that's another podcast altogether.

But, um, yeah, so I just got excited cause I could tell kids from school.

Cause I'd stopped getting invited to stuff.

Cause they go, Oh, Rob's a witness.

But we've asked him before, but he always says I can't go.

So then you just stop getting asked.

And then all of a sudden you can ask me now, it's fine.

I can come.

Oh, you don't like me anyway.

Oh, I can't come.

I don't know how people could not like you, Rob.

But, um, so, um, and so 12 years old, you're a stepdad and your mum, uh, in some sense probably sounds like almost starting a new life and really kind of seeing what it means to be, not being a witness and yeah, what was that journey for you as you moved towards, uh, teenage and young adulthood?

Yeah.

So it was.

Um, it was when, oh, sorry, cause a lot's happened.

I'm just like, there's a lot of stuff and I don't know how much time we've got.

Why don't you, why don't you focus on what that comes to mind, maybe, um, and what, I guess what you want people to hear in your journey.

So my mum started feeling convicted because she's, well, she said like, I, I stopped believing in the witnesses, Rob, but I never stopped believing in God.

Okay.

She says, no.

It just doesn't, God's character just doesn't make sense how it can just be all about works and there's no real redemption.

There's no, so she was looking into it and she decided, Oh, you know what?

I'm going to go to church.

I'm going to try going to church.

And I thought like, Oh, that's just ridiculous.

We were always told that's, you know, it's, it's false doctrine.

It's false teaching.

It's not right.

It's wrong.

It's wrong.

And even though I didn't, I wasn't a witness or anything by that stage, you know, she'd started going along and I thought, Oh, it's a bit weird.

And then.

Um, my stepdad came on board with a bit later, I think he was a bit reluctant at first, but um, yeah, he started getting in it.

He came along.

My sister was very anti from memory.

She was anti the whole thing and yeah, mum said, Oh, I just come along to some of the young adult services.

Yeah.

She's like, Oh, right.

And, and then she actually started getting into it and she goes, Oh yeah, this, this makes sense.

Like this is.

Yeah.

I can see what's going on here.

And so she started going along to church.

So then there was the black sheep of the family.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was like.

Oh God, we, we just finally got our Sundays, or not finally, sorry.

We had had it for a few years, but you could finally watch Teenage Virgin Ninja Turtles.

You could finally, your sundaes.

I can have your, get your sundaes and, but um, so I didn't want to do it and at the time I, so this is, sorry, painting a bit of context.

No, it's okay.

Gimme a bit big picture.

Yeah.

So I was living with my dad on the Gold Coast.

Okay.

And I, I began to miss living back home with mom.

Okay.

And I wanted to move back home and she said.

And she said, yes, you can, you can, you can move back.

Oh, I would have been 15, 16, I think by this point.

And she said, yep, you can come back, but once a month, I would like you to go along to a youth group event and a church service.

And I thought, I don't know.

Negotiations.

How old are you?

Sorry, remind me.

I would have been 16.

Yeah.

So when I used to go visit her from dad's, she would always be at church and then ask me if I want to go.

I was like, nah, I'll stay home and watch TV.

I'm the kind of guy.

Um, so I knew she wanted me to come even then and I didn't want to, but then she said, well, look, you can move back, but we all go to church together as a family.

I'd like you to come along as well, once a month and just try Rob, just try, just go along to youth, see what it's like.

Just.

Can you do that?

All right.

Okay.

So I moved back home with mum and then I started going along to church and I didn't like, Oh, what did I keep saying?

Like, I'm nothing without God.

I'm, I got really annoyed about it.

I thought, no, they're just, no, I'm a good person.

No, that's.

It's just silly young Rob's just thinking, Oh no, no, they're putting me down.

They're saying I'm, I'm worthless.

And, but it's funny cause you know, 40 year old Rob sitting in front of you goes, yes, Rob is worthless.

He deserves death.

Like, but how good is it?

We have Christ, but yeah, it's funny.

Like that was where it all sort of, I started to have an understanding.

Oh, okay.

Like who is God?

What's his character?

What does he actually expect of me?

And a lot of this stuff I probably didn't even learn till later on, but these were the, this was the foundation of, Oh God, save me.

He's, he got me coming in and I met some really, really good friends that I still have now.

I met them through youth group because I've gone, Oh, wow.

These guys are actually cool.

What I.

You know, I was the joker at school.

Like I did everything cause I couldn't make friends really well, socially awkward.

And the only way you can make, and I'll still carry those silly traits on now.

Like I get nervous.

I make jokes out of things and yeah, but I did that at school and that was my friends.

They go, Oh, cause Rob's going to do something funny.

So we'll keep him around.

But it was nice at youth group because I was like, Oh, great.

I don't have to go jump off the roof of church or anything.

They just, Oh, I did that at school.

I got a job.

Yeah.

That's another podcast.

It was just the teachers just sort of shaking their heads and rolling their eyes most of the time, rather than, Oh, you're expelled.

Anyway.

Um, yeah, so, yeah, so these people at youth group, um, it sounds like you're hearing and seeing.

The difference between, uh, a faith that, that describes really works to be accepted by God.

And then there's this whole thing of perhaps grace and redemption you mentioned.

There was a pastor, I can't remember his name, but he, it was really, really good.

Um, saying that he used to say, he goes, look, if you show people the kingdom.

Life, they're gonna wanna know the king.

Mm.

And I think, well, no, sorry, I don't think, I believe it was, I was starting to see, um, through our little church of Benley, Benley Baptist.

Okay.

Back in Queensland.

Saw, shout out.

Are they still there?

Oh, sorry.

Is the church still there?

Yeah, they're still there.

Shout out to Benley Baptist.

Yeah, shout out Benley Baptist.

Go check it out.

Okay, I will if I can get back there.

But um, yeah, like.

my friends there would say, Oh, do you want to come have lunch around my place?

And I'd get to go to lunch and sit down with the families there and see how they do life together as a family, pray.

And you know, one of the dads, he'd have his little booklet of our daily bread and he'd read from it and ask questions.

And, and it's interesting because like my, my father, he's, yeah, he doesn't believe in God and.

Once he got out of the witnesses, then he was like, Oh, good.

And finally I'm, I'm done with it.

Um, and my stepdad came into, and he was learning as he went along as well.

Like he was learning how to be a Christian man.

And so we're all learning, but we're all getting the, um, seeing, yeah, seeing the kingdom through people in our church and seeing how they love each other and.

Um, seeing even like when things go wrong with people and even how, how that's handled.

Cause there was people there that we thought were really good Christians, but then they ended up doing things where you go, Oh dear.

And families fall apart from that.

But seeing a church, how they handle it by saying, look, we don't approve of how things have gone down with some people, but God is still good throughout all this.

And he still loves them.

And he's always willing to forgive and that's what we should all be willing to do for each other as well is forgive.

So that was the foundation of like learning or getting to understand like what the, you know, who God is.

Why did he send Jesus?

Okay.

And when, and when, when that for you, was there a moment that you're like, okay, there's a distinct difference from what I was brought up with to what I'm seeing now and experiencing as well through people.

Yeah.

Was there a moment where you're like, right.

Or was it like a bit of a journey and you, you don't know when, like, what was it for you?

There's always been moments, but I think going back to when I was 16, when I decided, Oh no, I'm, I'm going to come to church every week.

was, um, we had a Bible study for the youth on, and they asked, uh, one of the leaders there.

He said, Oh, Rob, what, what do you want to pray for this week?

You don't have to, if you don't want to, cause they were sensitive about it, knowing that, Oh, his mum's made him come along.

But they said, Oh, you know, if, if you want to pray about something and yeah, I just said, Oh yeah, let's pray for some stuff.

And then I remember praying and I just started crying and I thought, Oh, wow, this is probably the first time I've actually properly prayed to God.

And, um, yeah, the, the leader, um, his name was Josh.

Yeah.

Josh sat down and he ran through the gospel.

He says, well, as Christians, this is what we believe.

We believe that we're born with sin.

And the only way to make us right with God is to believe in Jesus and believe that God sent him to pay that price to make it right.

So we believe in him and we're made right with God.

And then there's no more condemnation.

There's no more rejection.

We're now complete again.

Like the battle's been won.

And I didn't listen to the second part of what he said, which was, it's not going to, it's going to be hard.

You know, you will have times where there will be storms.

You won't be the best, you won't be able to love God.

And, but I thought, no, I feel great.

I'm, you know, I'm, I'm born again, brother.

Like I'm ready, but yeah, but then it was interesting following that going, Oh yeah.

Wow.

It's yeah, there are storms in life when things go up and things go down and.

Wow.

That's exciting to hear that.

And so with that, um, Jenny, so did you sort of decide at some point just to come to Melbourne cause you love the weather?

Like what?

How did you know?

How did you know?

My goodness.

Well, someone did warn me before I came here.

They were like, Oh, you're not going to like winter.

And I think I arrived here in February and thought, Oh, did you?

It's not that bad.

I don't know what you guys are complaining about.

Um, yeah, this just feels like Queensland.

No, no.

Wait till winter.

Cause did you, um, go through a mechanic apprenticeship or something in Queensland?

So in Queensland.

Yeah.

And then you moved down for work or like, I'm trying to picture the, Oh, that's why I'm just saying like, I don't know how much time you got.

There's maybe a snippet is obviously it sounds like God's, um, the grace of God in the gospel is being revealed to you.

You're growing in it.

Uh, ups and downs, um, various things going on in your own immediate family and other things.

But what makes a man all of a sudden move towards Victoria?

So, Oh, well, um, You can, you can put it in as much as you want to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm just trying to think.

Um, well the, the key, there was probably, there was probably two key things was I wasn't in a good spot.

With myself in Queensland.

'cause this is roughly 2010, 2011, I can't remember.

Mm-hmm Maybe I was 25 or something at the time.

But I struggled with seeing all my friends sort of grow up.

Okay.

Like they, they grew up, they all found wives.

Yep.

They got married, they had children.

Yep.

And I was just still like Rob.

living from day to day, just not really sure what he's doing.

And, and it was difficult cause, um, at the time, like at the time I was in a relationship with a girl and I made all the biggest mistakes.

So that's why it fell apart.

Um, and that was probably the hardest because.

It was the hardest thing, but I think, I believe like that was such a crucial thing for a person who's not very good at learning, which is me, has to learn things the hard way, but I think God's really good and gracious because he goes, I'll allow it to happen because you're a foolish, you're my foolish son, but I'll get you, I'll get you out.

And he didn't because yeah, that relationship fell apart with a girl.

Um, so a lot of it was my own, my own fault and yeah, it was just very low at that point.

Cause I'm thinking, well, my identity is I go to church and how I felt and probably other people would testify this to you, like I, my identity was, yeah, I'm Rob, I have fun all the time.

I'm always happy.

I'm never, I'm never sad.

Um, I'm everyone's friend.

I play music at church.

I'm.

I'm this cool youth leader.

And when all that was taken away, I was left with going, Oh, well, who am I?

Good question.

Yep.

So.

I have some really good friends still, or, or they used, they used to work for an organization called Youth Dimension here in Victoria, and a huge, huge part of my relationship or growth as a Christian, I attribute to Youth Dimension and the staff that are there.

I just look at that as an, it was such a great experience.

So what happened was I was at the point of going, well, I've got nothing going on for me here in Queensland.

And there was issues going on with my family that I didn't want to get involved with.

And I was, felt like I was in the middle of.

And a really good friend of mine who worked for Youth Dimension said, Hey, you should just come and do the internship here at Youth Dimension.

I said, mate.

I'm not even going to church at the moment.

Like I'm not in a good spot.

I can't find a pastor to sign my form to allow me to go there, which is part of the deal about doing it.

And he was really good.

Oh, so he and another, um, lady that was there on staff and, and they said, Oh, look, just, you don't even have to do the internship.

Just come live here in Melbourne with us and just see how we do.

See how we do life here.

And they said, really?

And they said, really?

What do you got to lose?

If you don't like it, you can just go home.

So I then thought, you know what?

Yeah, I think I'll just go and by the grace of God, it was really good.

Cause Rob Coyle, he was running, shout out to Rob.

Yeah, shout out to Rob, Rob Coyle.

And for those of you who may not know, if you can look up any kind of history to do with, um, organizations, one of the organizations that have pretty significant impact, uh, with gospel ministry here in Victorian Australia, probably as well.

Uh, was started by Rob Coyle and Youth Dimension.

They're still around.

They are still, yeah, they are still around.

I don't know a hundred percent about the programs that they run, but the internship that I went to go do was, yeah, it was really good.

Sorry.

So back with Rob Coyle.

Thank you very much, Rob Coyle.

Um, I didn't have anyone sign my form, but he interviewed me and he said.

Yeah, sure.

No worries.

You can, yeah, you should just come do the course because there's a lot of people here who know you.

And I don't know if I should, I don't know if that was like special dispensation or something that I got.

I'm sure there's probably a few changes there, but anyway, keep going.

So sorry.

Yeah.

It, um, and I would, that's probably the second biggest, like there's key moments in my, my walk with God and I go like, and I really need to.

Um, and then, and again, it's really important to just ponder on it more and think about it.

Cause it was such a real significant time of going there, doing a course where you've got, um, staff there that we're going through the Bible three days out of the week.

So three days out of the week we, we were there doing the course, diving into different parts of the Bible, talking about theology.

But then the great part is, is let's go put it into practice now.

And we would go and run schools programs, which is what I really loved doing back in the day.

Cause I really liked being a youth leader.

And, um, we'd just go and do schools programs with kids in all these schools and would give talks about the gospel and tell them who Jesus was.

And I think, wow, like so many, and it's, it was scary too, cause at that time there was the shift coming of.

getting rid of, um, religious education inside of schools.

And that breaks my heart because I think that was such an incredible ministry.

But now.

Like I said, youth dimensions changed.

I dunno.

I know that they still run a lot of their summer missions and, and things that they do through that.

But yeah, that was the sad part about not having schools programs.

But that was probably a year where I really learned more about God and understanding more about his character.

I knew what he did for me, but I understand what does God actually want when people say, oh, I just want to figure out what God's plan for me is.

Mm-hmm And I realize it's like, well, God's plan for all of us is just to worship him.

Just to worship him, know that you need him, know that you need to live by his word.

You need to carry out what he's asked you to do.

Then you're doing it.

Like that's, that's the plan.

That's the plan for everyone.

It's, and that's what I love talking with people who say like, Oh, they're Christian, people that are Christians, but they say, Oh, I don't know what God's plan is for me.

And I'd say, worship God.

That's God's like, that doesn't change for anyone.

You'll, you'll feel, you'll feel you want to do certain things, aspects, you, you might want to do mission.

Yeah.

Commit that to God.

Go do that with God.

If you want to, that's great.

God will bless you, but he'll also bless you if you want to start a family and you want to make disciples, more disciples for him, new beauty.

It's fine.

Just worship God and everything else will make sense.

What to do from there.

Don't think, Oh God, I'm pretty sure he wants me to be a school chaplain, but it's not working out.

God just wants you to worship him.

That's his plan for you.

Do that first and everything else will flow.

What you do for work, who you fall in love with, who you choose to marry, where you, um, yeah, how you live your life.

Yeah.

How you live your life.

And that's, that's, I mean, the way even now as you're sharing, I can see your passion.

Uh, Oh yeah.

Cause I'm, look, I'm sorry, everyone.

I'm not guilty.

I'm guilty of not doing that myself.

I need to remind myself and yeah, like even.

I'm passionate about it, but I still forget about it because I know that's part of our sinful nature, unfortunately.

And you know, but how good is it that we still have forgiveness and yeah, that's, you can see God's grace in your life all throughout these different seasons.

Um, and obviously.

And that moment of, you know, experiencing both loving God and, you know, we've talked about this when we did Ten Commandments, loving others because of the gospel in your own life.

Um, do you now look back and as you reflect on some of these moments, um, still being a disciple of Jesus as a dad, as a husband, as a mechanic, making gear sticks.

Is that how you say it?

Actually I do.

Yeah.

That's part of it.

Yeah.

How's that shaping?

Do you feel like, is that shaped the way that you see things?

Absolutely.

Like particularly with being a parent.

I'll go far out.

What an incredible way to experience what it's like being God.

You know, you, you create a human with another person and you create a human and you see them from when they're born and when they first opened their eyes and they start making their first noises and you love them so much and they love you, but you love them so much.

But then like, sorry, Jimmy, he'll forgive me in years to come, but he'll hit his mom.

He'll hit me.

He'll hit his sisters and.

And I just keep saying, no, don't hurt people.

Can't you see, but isn't that amazing that you see we're born, everyone's born with it.

The, the, no, you kind of, you don't have to teach a kid not to do the wrong thing.

It just, they, we default to it.

And it's amazing because I go, Oh, wow.

That's really what it is like with God and us.

Like he probably, or even me, I just think about me, Oh, well, I've told you so many times.

Um, and you still keep doing the same thing, but I still love you.

And that's what it's like, even as a parent, you go, Oh, I've told you so many times not to do this, you've gone against what I've asked you to do, but I still love you, still love you.

And you, you feel what God feels there, but yeah, it's beautiful, mate.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Um, with, with, um, those who might be, yeah, I guess, I don't know.

Is there anything else that you want to add to what you've just.

I think I feel very passionately about, and look, I say this because I, I do, I, I asked for forgiveness from God because I am, I'm a sinner.

I still do make a lot of mistakes.

I make mistakes with my wife, my children, my workmates.

There's things I really do need to repent about and I do repent about them.

And sometimes I don't, I'm sorry for that.

The hard thing is, is I think just because I've gotten older now, I've seen friends who I knew when I was in my teens.

That are no longer following God and just not even a, Oh yeah, maybe I'll come back to church.

It's just no, they're done.

And heaps of kids that I remember trying to mentor and help and seeing them not want anything to do with God.

And the sad part is, is I know more people that have gone away from, from Christ rather than have pushed through and gone, you know what it was hard.

Yes.

And even myself, there's times where I go.

I don't feel like going to church today.

I don't feel like sitting through a sermon.

I don't feel.

So, like going to a Bible study, I don't want to talk to this person about God.

You have to keep trying and asking God for strength to do that.

As long as you're trying, I believe that's again, like that's God's, God's plan for you is, His plan is you keep trying.

Because.

Yes, it is hard.

And we live in a culture where it does, it gets very, very hard to be a Christian.

And I do, you probably worry about your children.

I worry about my children and the culture that they're growing up in.

It gets hard.

And yes, there's times I do give up.

I need to remind myself of what God's done for me and even Shabu, like you think about what he's done for you, what we, we need to think, remember, what's our journey with God?

Why do we believe in God?

And do we, yeah, do we worship him?

Do we, cause yeah, it's hard, but how good is it though, that we're, we're forgiven?

How good is it that we have a kingdom to look forward to?

We have excitement about life after death.

There's no, oh, What's going to happen to me now we have that security.

That's probably the big thing.

And that, yeah, for me, that's been a learning thing of going, look, it's not a perfect, it's not a perfect life.

It's hard because everyone's come from different walks.

So you're not going to be as talented or as gifted in one area as another person is, but it just, you've got to keep.

Submitting.

Where that comes to mind is perseverance.

And I think the thing that I often find, Christian Walker, in my own life still, is that we forget about that.

Um, and I think what you just said just before was perfect in that when our hearts are captured by not as much what we're doing for God, but that what God has done in Christ to us, that we're forgiven, we're his children, loved, and that continues to grow in our hearts.

There is the do aspect.

Um, yeah, I don't feel like I'm going to chat today with the kids for a week, but it might be the best thing for me to do, um, or whatever it might be for.

Or you're just knowing too, like you go, nah, my children are seeing that, oh, dad and mum are doing this.

Yes.

And sometimes they might not want to be happy, but you know, but we're trying to show our children, we go, look.

We do this because we love God.

It's not, you're not going to feel something every single time.

That's just, I'm sorry, I might offend people, but that's just rubbish.

You're not going to feel something every time.

And, and that's fine.

But you can still go to church and you can still have a good time of, um, fellowship with everyone.

And you can still sing songs and worship and praise him and yeah.

But there's been some amazing sermons here at Canterbury by the way.

I'll give you the money later, mate.

I'll send you the dang details.

uh, as you can tell, it's always fun to chat to Rob, uh, and have a bit of a laugh.

But one of the things I've always appreciated about you mate, is your love for the Lord and particularly your love for your family that's growing.

And I love your honesty and rawness as well.

Um, in a minute I'm gonna ask you to pray, uh, if that's okay, unless you have anything else that you wanna download before we.

Um, anyone at Canterbury, if I look like I'm crumpy or if I'm angry, you'd probably listen to this podcast.

It's hard because you probably listen to this podcast going, listen to this cat.

I see him on Sunday.

He looks, he looks like he's frowning most of the time and here he's saying, Oh, I was this great youth leader and I was everyone's friend.

It's like, yeah, you can talk up your own story, but we weren't, we weren't there.

We don't know.

Do you know what?

Yeah.

No, you go, you go first.

Oh, so yeah.

So look, anyone at Canterbury.

Uh, yeah, there's times where I just go, Oh, I feel like I've got the weight of the world on my shoulders about things.

That's just, that's just me.

I'm not angry at anyone.

It's just the fact.

It's okay.

You should see when I'm preaching.

I don't even know why I brought that up, but yeah.

You should see me when I look at Rob when I'm preaching, I'm not sure if he's angry or not, but that's, that's okay.

Yeah.

I notice you don't look at me anymore.

So I just glare harder, hoping that you'll, you know, you might.

Um, but I think one of the reasons why we're doing this as well as getting stories from people who call Canterbury home is for that very reason that for some of us, you know, we might have roles up the front and doing things, but some of us might not even know each other's story.

And so if you call Canterbury home, uh, It's a good thing for us as a church family to get into the habit of just asking, Hey, what's your story?

How'd you come to know Jesus?

A simple line like that.

You never know what you'll hear, but it'll be giving you an opportunity to hear each other's story.

And this is just one way we want to do that.

Um, um, yeah, I do have a question for you, which I didn't, it was in my notes, but I forgot to ask.

Oh, bonus question.

Here's the bonus question.

So once in a while, uh, not rumor, I've seen you do it.

You, uh, also do.

You're a wedding singer.

Is that right?

Oh, X.

X wedding singer.

You put the tools down with that regard.

Yeah, no, not enough time.

You've got the family now.

There's just, and I stress out about it and I put too much time into preparing and all that time just goes into the family now.

So I had to.

So I did have one question though, cause I was, I wondered this, is there a song that you cannot stand getting requested at a wedding that you don't like playing, but you do, because you know, well, we don't, well, sorry, we, we didn't, we, we didn't.

usually take requests because we, Oh, we played so much.

Like, I think everyone was just tired and they wouldn't bother coming up and asking.

So they're probably like, Oh, hurry up and just finish.

But I do have, I dunno.

I dunno if it's interesting or not.

Sorry.

I don't know if it's related to the podcast, but I just find the funniest thing.

Like when.

When we did our gigs, you would, yeah, people would come up and say like, Oh, can you do ACDC or, and we never did any AC, I think we tried it once and it didn't work, but anyway, um, the funniest thing was at a wedding where the, the couple actually said, by all, like, cannot do the Nutbush.

Oh, so.

Google that folks, or if anyone doesn't know, Google Tina, Tina Turner, Nutbush and Google the dance, because there's a dance that goes along with it.

Goes down very well because it's, everyone used to be able to know how to do it.

It's like line dancing.

And I remember the bride and groom were like, no, no, you cannot do that.

We don't want that at our wedding.

I said, yeah, actually, no worries.

Yeah, we did actually.

Well, sorry.

We, we did, we did do it like not, sorry.

We, we learned how to do it and we had done it before, but because they said, no, we don't want you to do it.

Okay.

We won't do it.

But then they disappeared.

We had no idea where they were and we had eight people coming up saying, can you do the nutbush?

And I looked at the boys and I smiled and I said, Give the people what they want.

That's how you did it.

And we did it and it went off.

It was probably the biggest hit of the night.

And the funniest thing was, is we went to go apologize to the bride later on.

We found her and said, Oh, sorry.

I know you said not to do it.

She goes, Oh, what was that?

I said, no, you said nut bush.

Oh, or did you do it?

So they disappeared.

We don't even know what they weren't even enjoying what they paid for.

Anyway, silly, silly little story.

Is a highlight.

Um, well on that note, uh, uh, Robbie, uh, I'd love for you to pray for us as we close up, if that's all right with you, if you mind just, yeah, leading us in prayer.

Dear Lord and Heavenly Father, thank you so much again for this time that, um, Shabu and I can, uh, have time, uh, with sharing my story and just chatting and chatting about you.

And Lord, I apologize.

There's probably many times where I don't acknowledge just how important you are or make you number one in my life.

And thank you even for this time of, um, fellowship with Shabu, just reminds me how good you are and how great you are and how forgiving you are.

And, Yeah, I just pray for all of us that are following after you, me as well, just make us more like you and everything that we do in every way, help us to love and be forgiving and have patience and have kindness.

Thank you so much again for this time, Lord.

You're so good.

It's been nice reminiscing all the times that you've been with me in my life and still yet to come.

So I thank you so much again for this time.

You're good.

You're great.

You will always be great.

Thank you for all the blessings that you give us in your wonderful name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, friends, thanks for joining us today and, uh, please do feel free to share this podcast with those who you feel will be encouraged.

Um, and yeah, thanks for joining us.

Chat to you soon.