Announcer: 0:06

Welcome to the Leading Conversations podcast sponsored by the Excel Leadership Network. On each episode, jd Paring will have conversations with church planting pastors and leaders from around the country. You can learn more about how to connect with Excel at the end of this podcast. Let's join JD now and listen in on this leading conversation.

J.D. Pearring: 0:30

Well, welcome to another edition of the Leading Conversations podcast with Accel Leadership Network, and today we are thrilled to have the great, the wonderful Dominique Beaumont from Sacramento area with us. Dominique, thanks so much for being here.

Dominique Beaumonte: 0:45

Thank you for having me.

J.D. Pearring: 0:46

Are you great, Are you wonderful? You're all those things right.

Dominique Beaumonte: 0:50

I am all those things, yes, all those things.

J.D. Pearring: 0:55

And you're getting ready to plant a church here.

Dominique Beaumonte: 0:58

Enthusiastically. Yes, I am very excited about planting a church.

J.D. Pearring: 1:03

Good, well, you have the best voice I've heard.

Dominique Beaumonte: 1:07

I love your voice.

J.D. Pearring: 1:09

You should be the guy leading these podcasts because your voice is so good.

Dominique Beaumonte: 1:14

Well, I'm with the guy leading the podcast, so that's the second best thing, right, so good.

J.D. Pearring: 1:18

Yeah, hey, tell us your story. Tell us, growing up, how you came to Christ and all of that Sure sure.

Dominique Beaumonte: 1:26

Well thanks again for having me on the podcast. I have a very unique story. When people say, how did you find Christ, I normally say, well, he certainly found me, because I was not looking for him, because I didn't know how to, at a very young age. But my mom was a severe schizophrenic and did not have the capacity to raise us and I went from foster home to foster home and when my mom, six years after I was born, decided to continue having children, my two siblings landed in a foster home of a little Pentecostal lady and it was the desire of my mother for us both to, for all three of us to be raised together, and so I joined them, joined them and in the process, first met the church and was very much inspired by its culture, and then met Christ and my calling at a very early age. I think it was just one December 31st.

Dominique Beaumonte: 2:43

They were saying who's bold enough to say something about Jesus? And I'm like me. Who's bold enough to say something about Jesus? And I'm like me, like I was, like you know, like a little eight-year-old boy, like, and so from then on, like I would go and I would sit next to the pastor. For me this guy was bigger than life, because, as a person who did not grow with a father, I had not seen as many positive role models and he was able to pour into my life in such a way. And as I progressed in life and ministry, I started to realize the God in my parenting situation my mother because of her disability I probably should say this too in honor of my maternal grandmother, because they found her. She didn't raise my mother, but they needed a next of kin and they found my grandmother, who was this little redheaded lady who belonged to a Lutheran church in Tacoma, washington, and this Lutheran church had like a black pastor and a white pastor, and so I don't know if this is something they're trying out or what, but it was just so eye-opening to see people fellowshipping together and reading from hymnals, which was a lot different from what would later sort of become my identity as a young Pentecostal. So I feel like God placed me in these incredible environments to experience him in different ways, and really I met God through a very traumatic childhood experience.

Dominique Beaumonte: 4:17

My mother was a prostitute and she would leave for like several days at a time, and I had to learn a lot about life. I had to learn a lot about raising myself. And when she started having children, I had survival. I had to learn how to not only take care of myself but take care of other people, including her. And I needed God and didn't know I needed God and as I matured I realized that it was God that was protecting me and covering me, because when I would talk to other kids who were my peers about you know what it means to cook a dinner for your two-year-old brother, they're like, no, we don't have to do that.

Dominique Beaumonte: 5:12

Yeah, so yeah, and I'm learning as I, you know, as I progress in life, I've most recently found out that my father I did like an Ancestrycom thing to find out who my father was, and I think this is sort of a crowning moment maybe not a crowning moment, but an important moment in my ministry because I always said to myself I have to have been like the descendant of a preacher or something.

Dominique Beaumonte: 5:39

It's just so wild that this would be my life's calling and trajectory, but have no experience with church or clergy or being related to someone. And after I did the ancestrycom test, I learned that my father was the founder of a prominent gang in the Los Angeles area and he met my mother over a weekend and I always would tease people and say like, yeah, my dad's a pastor or whatever, wherever he is. When I came in contact with him, he's deceased, but he had written a book. He's deceased, but he had written a book, and the book that he had written on the cover of this book is him standing with a Bible in his hand and he talks in that book about how God centered his life at a very young age, even though he made some poor choices, and he felt called to ministry. So that sort of pull that I felt throughout my childhood or throughout my life, like that I couldn't always explain, was really the, the, the connectivity and the work that God was doing in the life of my father that I had not known. That's amazing.

Dominique Beaumonte: 7:04

Yeah.

J.D. Pearring: 7:05

Did you read the?

Dominique Beaumonte: 7:05

book. I read the book. I read not known. That's amazing. Yeah, did you read the book? I read the book. I read the book. And this is all like in the last, like you know, 18 months, I think. I found out that he was my father in October of 2024. He died in October of 2023. I bought the book. It took forever for it to come. I read the book on a plane. It's an easy read.

Dominique Beaumonte: 7:29

I read it on a plane, one plane ride to Seattle, and I was just like, oh my God, this is bananas Like in a way. Like explaining it to people, JD, they're like, nah. So I just kind of, when I talk about the cultivation of my and the clarity of my call and my understanding of what God was doing in my life at a very young age, like I was riding on this two hour plane ride, like seeing the unfolding of my life through the words of a father that I never met and I just the only thing, the only conclusion that I could come to is this is a God thing.

J.D. Pearring: 8:18

Yeah, yeah, that's wild. So you had a call to preach at a very young age.

Dominique Beaumonte: 8:30

Yeah, and I did it. It caused a lot of conflict with my adopted parents because they were very much excited about this call. In my life and I was, as I progressed in age, I started struggling with peer pressure and wanting to be like other kids. But I would get picked up, like in the morning, on Sunday mornings, like people would pick me up from my home church and take me to their church to preach and then like, drop me off, Like but you know, that's pretty cool. Like you know, I'm gonna be a child prodigy of somebody but of something. And when I maybe when I got to high school, I was like you know, I'm tired of people calling me preacher boy, I just want to be a regular kid, no-transcript. And I couldn't I don't know, I couldn't explain it.

Dominique Beaumonte: 9:54

Like my adopted mother was, she loved commentaries and like the other kids would be outside playing and I would be reading commentaries at like seven, eight, nine, 10 years old. Like I got a, I got to study, I'd write sermons. I'd go in the bathroom Like there was a little Presbyterian church once we had moved to Portland, Uh, and I'd go in front of that church and I'd sit there for hours like practicing sermons that I wrote Like and I don't even know like this is all before high school Like I'd disappear. Nobody would be looking for me because they knew he's probably over at his church Crazy, he's in his father's house.

J.D. Pearring: 10:33

That's right. That's right. So did you? So did you take some steps to formalize that then, as you were growing up, stepping into ministry? Yeah?

Dominique Beaumonte: 10:43

Yeah, I think that. So I kind of like the whole ministry thing. Like I kind of when I went to high, so my I had a bad relationship with my adopted mother like through high school because I was learning myself and really trying to figure out who I was. And I think for my parents they're like you, we know who you are, you're a preacher and you need to be doing X, y and Z and I was like, nah, I just want to go to a football game. Like I want to be, like I want to go, I want to do things that regular people are doing. And because of that regular like pull and tug that sometimes teenagers have with their parents and tug that sometimes teenagers have with their parents, like I have bought into this idea that what I had become or what I thought I was was purely the result of their parenting and pressure and that I was somebody else. So I really fought that through college. Like I didn't go to church. Through college I just kind of did my own thing. I joined a fraternity, I did all kinds of stuff. I didn't have the young life experience, I wasn't on the campus ministry. I tried to join a church one time in undergrad and it was like terrible. I think after the first week I was like leaving something and I was like no way.

Dominique Beaumonte: 12:05

When I went to Las Vegas for graduate school I decided you know what I've been apart from church for long enough Like I'm not satisfied with the direction of my life. I know who I am in Christ. I continue to wrestle with the ministry thing. I just said I'm going to go through this two years of graduate school in Las Vegas and I'm going to just find a church, because it had been years since I had been a member of a church.

Dominique Beaumonte: 12:32

The first Sunday that I had gone to church in grad school in Las Vegas, which is referred to as Sin City, I had a supernatural experience there and it was like my whole life. God showed me my whole life in front of me and reminded me that I was called to greater and that even being in grad school and some of the decisions that I had made were out of flesh and not in line with who God intended for me to be. So I just gave my life back to God. I mean, he always was with me, but I decided that I wanted to be in relationship with him in a different way and that two years really opened my heart to the culture and the denominational aspect. I had another one of those lulls when I moved to Sacramento after two years in grad school where I was like I'm just going to come to Sacramento, I'm going to work at Davis, I'm not going to go to anybody's church. I think I ended up like joining a church in Davis just for because it was around the corner from my house.

Dominique Beaumonte: 13:38

But I had really given up on the structured religion because I just felt like it was just for the birds and I met an older gentleman who would later become my pastor and mentor, because I started visiting a church in South Sacramento and he was preaching at like a Baptist church or something and he said, hey, do you want to come to this Baptist church with us? So I came and afterwards he said I want to. I want you to be my armor bearer, kind of just hang out with me, drive me places or whatever. And I'm like cool, like I'd love to hang out with old guys, I'd love to do that, and that birthed a beautiful relationship.

Dominique Beaumonte: 14:21

And there was a time in so maybe in about 2016,. I was very nervous. I was driving him to Fresno and I said I have a confession to make and then I'm thinking that I'm like illuminating something about myself that he didn't know. I said, pastor, you know I felt a call to preach when I was seven or eight years old. You know I'm telling him all this stuff and he's just, like you thought that I didn't know that, like you thought that I was somehow confused about that, and so I just um, maybe in the and so in 2017, um, the Lord reminded me of that experience that I had when I was in grad school in Las Vegas. He showed me my life and the Lord told me that I would experience the most beautiful life as a result of my obedience to him. All I had to do was say yes, and I was.

Dominique Beaumonte: 15:18

You know, as somebody in my late 30s, I was sort of like looking at my life like this cannot be, like I can't. Just, I know I wasn't just called to just be a worker in human resources at a university. I know this can't be what God intended for my life. And so I said yes to him and really relinquished control over my own, you know, ability and all the other things that I had done to. You know, really think about ministry.

Dominique Beaumonte: 15:50

It was, I mean, I had books of sermons I had, I had mentorship, I had like the secret group of preachers that I would connect with, like, and I just realized that God, along the path, was preparing me. And so I said to myself, as much as I love my pastor, I want to really be in community where I can sharpen the tools that God has given me. And I decided to go to seminary and nobody was like go to this seminary. I just really sought God about what to do, and I think that that really was sort of the framework for my formation, going to seminary, learning to understand God outside of the context of my denomination and really realizing that God, every step in my life was ordained by him.

J.D. Pearring: 16:44

What seminary did you go to? I went to Fuller. Okay, my daughter went there, yeah, so where did the church planting bug come from?

Dominique Beaumonte: 16:55

So maybe, like in 2020, I, you know, I never knew so when I was little I would I thought I would refer to myself as a bishop. I organized a church. My first church I organized when I was about eight or nine. It was named after my grandmother's insurance company called Family Foundation, and I would line up all of my cousins and all of these like stuffed animals and we would have church and I'd organize things Like I'd have have like a dinner after church. Everybody had to give a quarter and then we'd have like after I preach, I'd like cut up a maple bar in like five pieces and like share it with, like all the kids in the community. And so I tease that I attended my first church at around 10 because none of my cousins like ever wanted to play with me. They're like, oh, he just wants to play church like he's ever interested in.

Dominique Beaumonte: 17:54

So maybe in 2020 I started to, you know, realize that those were not just independent interactions, that that was god's work, especially for somebody that had no background before moving in with this little Pentecostal lady that God really wanted me to pass and I didn't see the path. I mentioned it to my mentor and he gave me a very um, the answer that he gave me. I was not I was not pleased with, but because I was so indoctrinated in our denomination, I was like, yeah, I guess that's you know. He said, you know, I don't, I don't. He said something about like tearing up the church and taking all the members or something like really tugging at me. And so what I did was I believed that God wasn't putting this on my heart for no reason.

Dominique Beaumonte: 18:51

So the next semester at Fuller, I enrolled in like every church planning class that I could, because I'm going to learn how to like neighborhood map, I'm going to learn how, like nobody's going to tell me and if this is not God's will, then I just will never use any of this information. I'll just, it'll just be something that I can tell somebody else. And so I took the classes and I was just really convinced and in prayer God began to show me just different things. Like in that season of my life God had given me the name of the church, like he would even show me communities. I would go to South Natomas and I would be at they built a Dutch Bros there and I would just sit there and I would just be. I mean, I used to do this when I was little too, where I would like make churches out of like any room I'd be reorganizing like classrooms in my head, like this is going to be, this is the church, this is the like youth center.

Dominique Beaumonte: 19:51

So I think that once God like really confirmed that in my heart, like I could no longer see like my ministry and even the world from the context of like denomination or even that my mentor at the time and God started to send me, you know, other people who would pour into my life. So I think that that was sort of the beginning and God had to remind me even in that process that you had never been someone who somebody has given anything to you. You have had to work for everything that. You have never been someone who somebody has given anything to you. You have had to work for everything that you have. And this work of ministry and evangelism and really stepping into communities to share the love of Jesus Christ, it's just like that. It's not going to be where somebody gives you something and you'll have to trust me enough to see what I'm doing and really go ahead and heart first. So that's the journey that I've been on.

J.D. Pearring: 20:58

That's amazing. That's incredible. Hey, would you in your new church? Are you going to have stuffed animals there? Yes, that'll get the attendance numbers up step.

Dominique Beaumonte: 21:09

Animals are very important and my little I feel bad for my young siblings because they I made them have aliases, I made them give me offerings like I, just I just luckily like they, uh, no crisis and turn them off from church, but like yes, like yes. That is definitely something that will be prevalent.

J.D. Pearring: 21:31

Who's your target? Who are you trying to reach with this church plan?

Dominique Beaumonte: 21:35

I really want to meet.

Dominique Beaumonte: 21:38

I believe that God, one of the demographics that God has called me to, are people who are like me, like their introduction to Jesus wasn't because of their parents or because of their community or because of who they knew, but their introduction to Jesus was because people who loved him, outreached to them, found them, picked them up in church vans, were willing to make sacrifices in their life to raise other people's children.

Dominique Beaumonte: 22:12

I believe that God has called me to young adults. I believe that there are foster youth who are disconnected from family structures, that, because of that disconnect, don't know Jesus, just like I would have never come into contact with Jesus had I not been in a system and God allowed me to you know, experience him through them. So I think that the the I'm not thinking about, and I know that critical to any institution are people who have the ability to do church and understand the infrastructure and rent a similar and all that kind of stuff. But the people that I feel drawn to are the people who need Jesus and need to experience the power of transformation in their life at whatever stage that they're at. I know that's broad, because that might be everybody.

J.D. Pearring: 23:10

Yeah, but you have a unique opportunity there to reach people that a lot of churches would just not even see.

Dominique Beaumonte: 23:15

Yeah, and I was one of those people right Like I was fortunate right and there's a. In the early stages of church planning, people would connect me with pastors who started churches in the area and one of the persons that I met actually closed their church to start a ministry to outreach, to foster youth, so youth that had been emancipated or in prison previously, youth that had been emancipated or in prison previously, and that was really inspiring for me to know that that demographic is seen by someone who loves God.

Dominique Beaumonte: 24:03

Yeah, what's been surprising as you've launched on this journey? No-transcript. And if, when people are planning a church, they don't? I don't want to tie up your words, but if people are planning a church and they don't emphasize evangelism before they plan, then it won't be critical after they plan. You don't remember saying that, do you? Yeah, something like that.

J.D. Pearring: 24:29

I don't know. Something like that Sounds really good, it sounds brilliant to me.

Dominique Beaumonte: 24:34

But I think that what I realize in this stage and phase of life is that my favorite scripture is naturally that God, evangelism and the work of really discipling people. And so what has been very eye-opening to me is that if not central to your work is evangelism, then it is almost like you probably shouldn't pray to church, and particularly in my context, where I have denominational support but I'm not sent by one particular church. So who God sends and who I am bold enough to tell about Jesus, that is the foundation of the church that I'm putting. So I think that that's one thing. I think the second thing is how much money it costs. It's like, you know, I guess I thought, yeah, you just, you know people want to go to church and then they just give and then you just kind of start a church and so I've gotten to— you can do it that way, but you'll probably be poor, probably be poor. And I said to myself, like you know, part of this I have—even though God is blessed in the fundraising area I haven't spent any of the money that I fundraise because I committed the first year. I'm just going to use my own money.

Dominique Beaumonte: 26:21

But one of the members of my team was like you know that's probably going to. You're going to get to the point where that's not a good idea. Why do they have a homeless pastor, like if that's your thing? So I think the evangelism piece, the work that it takes to disciple and not so much for myself because I understand evangelism and I like really love discipling people I realized very early on is that I was sort of a man on the island and I looked across my team and I'm like you guys don't know how to talk to other people about Jesus. You know how to do church stuff, you know how to run auxiliaries, you know how to plan events, like you are very eager to sing but you're not like when it's like yeah let's walk the neighborhood and it's like so what exactly will we be saying to people?

Dominique Beaumonte: 27:14

What do you mean? What do you mean? Always know that and they don't know the power of their own testimony, and often they need that reminder that their testimony is what draws people, yeah, the personal story, the whole discipleship versus evangelism tension.

J.D. Pearring: 27:52

About 10 years ago my daughter, who was a missionary in China at the time, said you know, some people really like discipleship, some people really like evangelism. Which do you go on? And she said if you look at Jesus, his discipleship was taking his disciples and teaching them evangelism.

J.D. Pearring: 28:11

That was the discipleship process was let's go to the highways and byways, let's go, and as people come along. So that that was just really go to the highways and byways, let's go, and as people come along. Uh, so that that was just really helpful to me. Oh, that, you know they go together. You can't. If you're just about discipleship and learning, you're probably only. The best you can get is 50 percent of your spiritual growth and with evangelism. But if you're just out there and you just drop people after they make a commitment, you know you're only 50% of the way there too. So, hey, give us a leadership tip or two. You've been, you've been leading since you were seven. Everywhere you go, they say, hey, you're in charge.

J.D. Pearring: 28:51

So give us a leadership tip Dominic.

Dominique Beaumonte: 28:54

In this season of my life, dominic, in this season of my life. I preached the other week about Jesus sharing the same parable twice about the lost sheep. The first time he shares it is just with his disciples, and the second time that he shares it it is in response to his critics. And one of the things that I think is important for people in general anyone those who are in leadership is to have clarity about your mission, your vision and where your heart is for ministry, and to unapologetically be able to share that with not just your friends but your foes, and to communicate that with so much clarity that even your enemy knows what to target. And I just that's the thing that is resting with me. And then I think, maybe part two of that, because you mentioned Jesus' work with his disciples.

Dominique Beaumonte: 30:01

There was a time that the disciples I think the scripture, I think it's in Luke, where it says that the disciples were so blinded by the deterioration of their body that they could not even understand the miracle of the loaves and fishes, and so Jesus excuses them to rest. And I think that you, as a leader, you are only as good as your commitment to care for yourself as you care for others. And if Jesus encourages his tired and overworked and overwhelmed disciples to take a break right not to quit, but to take a break so that they can see the beauty of what he is and was doing in the earth, that's a good message, a good example for all of us. So rest and then get back to work.

J.D. Pearring: 31:09

Oh, that's wonderful, that's great. Well, dom, hey, I really appreciate you. It's not Dom, it's Dominique. You don't like to be called Dom or Dome, right, dom?

Dominique Beaumonte: 31:20

You know what it's funny, JD? Yeah, we'll talk about that. At this point in life, it's like whatever you call me.

J.D. Pearring: 31:30

I'll call you doctor. Hey, thanks so much. I appreciate you. I appreciate what you're doing. I'm really looking forward to God continue to work and thank you for going to a place where, in the end, a place where the typical church, the typical leader is not going to go. So, thanks so much, thank you.

Announcer: 31:51

Thanks for joining the Leading Conversations podcast. We hope that you found it both helpful and encouraging. At Accel Leadership Network, our focus is on the church planter rather than the church. If you'd like to find out more about us, visit our webpage at excelnetwork. org. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any future episodes. See you next time with another leading conversation.