Welcome And Meet Chuck Perez

Announcer 0:06

Welcome to the Leading Conversations Podcast, sponsored by the Excel Leadership Network. On each episode, JD Perring 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 0:29

Welcome to another edition of Leading Conversations with the Excel Leadership Network. Today we are very pleased to have with us the legend himself, Chuck Perez. Chuck, do you go with Chuck? Chucky, what do you prefer?

Chuck Perez 0:46

Uh Chuck, either one is fine. And people in church circles call me Chuck. My dad, I grew up with Chucky, and then I did music for years and it was known as Chucky. So if you call me either one, then I'm not.

J.D. Pearring 0:57

Chucky Chuck.

Chuck Perez 0:59

Okay.

J.D. Pearring 1:00

Right. And you are in East Vale, California.

Chuck Perez 1:04

Yes, sir.

J.D. Pearring 1:04

So is that a new name, East Vale?

Chuck Perez 1:07

Yeah, it used to be uh North Corona. It was next to Norco, which is North Corona. I know it's real creative, huh? Um, and they they create they they gave it a new name and they have their own city council now, and it's been like that for a few years now. And uh what's what what's the best thing about East Vale? I think uh I think community. I think that everybody just everybody's real kind, everybody's it's it's really busy. It's stay pretty new and safe overall. Everybody's just like friendly, and I would say the best thing is diversity. It's it's very diverse. There's like people from all over the world that live here now. So um from every place in Asia, you know, to um it just all over. I mean, just it's diverse. And it's right off the 91 then. It's off the 15.

J.D. Pearring 2:02

The 15 crosses the 91. Yeah. All right. Wonderful.

Faith Beyond Fear

J.D. Pearring 2:08

Well, hey, thanks for being here. Tell us your story, tell us uh how you came to faith in Jesus.

Chuck Perez 2:14

Um grew up in a good old fundamental Baptist church. And so we got saved every week, you know, go to the office. So I tell people I'm like saved 800 times over. Uh so if you haven't gotten saved, I got saved for you. Um, but no, seriously, I would go to the, you know, we hear repent and and Jesus is coming, and which is all true, right? Um, but we'd hear it every Sunday. And so every Sunday I'd go to the front as a little kid, go to the front, go to the front. Didn't know. I just thought I'm scared, right? And you can't be caught here, here, all the no's, all the don'ts. Um, and I remember one day I just walked in and I wrote it in a song too that I did. Um, I walked in the kitchen, asked my mom, what does it mean? I you know, I go up to the front and I always get prayer, and she goes, Oh, so she explained salvation to me. I was five years old. Um, so I said it, she led me to the Lord in the kitchen right there again, but now I had an understanding of it, other than fear, right? And um wasn't until I was 18 that Jesus became real to me. So I understand now what people give their lives to the Lord, the conversion is a process, it's not, it's just a seed almost that's planted. So you give your life to you have this experience, and then you got to grow and understand what that experience is. And um, so anyway, so that's I gave my life I I prayed a sinner's prayer over and over again, but I understood it a little bit in a very um young manner, I was five, but then it became real to me at 18. So I, you know, in that time period, of course, I rebelled, did a bunch of stuff I shouldn't have done. Um but growing up in a religious home helped and hindered at the same time because I did said no, I said why not, you know, and I'd go do and try something. Um so yeah, I mean, yeah, anyway.

First Concerts And A Record Deal

J.D. Pearring 4:14

Wow, and uh you got involved in music, you got involved in music at a young age.

Chuck Perez 4:22

Yeah, 18, what one of the first things I did is I I promoted a concert. I wanted to see people saved, and I've never done anything of the sort. And I promoted this concert, and uh people came out, and um In fact, one of them I I look back, I you might even know him, but he was in a band called Upstairs, and he was a bass player, and he now he planted um years later, he's he's a pretty good church planner. Um he planted Chris Sorensen, and he probably doesn't remember me, but I booked him and uh he planted uh South Hills Church out here and does a big thing. But um anyway, but I was I was recalling because his his name came up recently, and so I promoted this concert. I wanted to tell everybody about this newfound faith, this excitement about Jesus. I did this concert, booked these bands, people came to know the Lord, and when I when one time I went to wait, I'm just giving you the background, I got a music industry. I went to um my sister, I didn't know anything about Christian music, so I just booked these bands not knowing who they were. My sister was a big Christian music fan, and she went and she was like uh totally into like uh John Gibson. I don't know if you heard of John. John's from the Bay Area, and he was like blue-eyed soul, sang with Stevie Wonder, and he was a Christian. He had these hits on radio, Christian radio, which I didn't really listen to at the time. Um, but I was still excited about my faith. I meet him at a bookstore signing, he's signing autographs. I'm with my best friend. We're just hanging out that we drove my sister there so she could get her his autograph, you know, on her cassette or CD at the time. I forgot where it was. And I get in the conversation, talk to his managers there, and he says, Man, could you book John? And I'm like, I'm I'm 18, you know, I'm never just done one concert just because I did one. So I was like, yeah, okay. I booked his concert, nobody showed up. 40 people in this 3,000-seat auditorium show up, but they liked that. I guess they liked me. And so he said, Man, I want you, I want you to travel with us and so on. So I started traveling at 18 with him and getting looking at you know Christian music and kind of getting familiar with all these artists that probably if I named them, you'd know some of them. And in doing so, um, coming from a musical background, my parents were in a gospel quartet. So I was always grew up in music, and um, they they traveled a lot of these small churches, they did like 200 dates a year. Um, in doing so, I and following this guy and touring with him and just kind of road managing at 18 years old. I did a demo because I liked it so much, I thought, man, I saw what to do and what not to do on the road. So I did a demo. My dad's pastoring at the time now, and I did a demo, and I just wanted to go play some of these Christian clubs that I met through him, right? All of a sudden, my demo ends up in the hands, trying to get a gig in Arizona, and this guy calls me up and says, I got your demo. You ever thought of getting a record deal? I wrote three songs, mind you a love song and two dance tracks. Um, and one of them had this attitude of, Do you have a problem with that? about staying, abstaining from you know sexual immorality and stuff. So I wrote this song, Do You Have a Problem With That? And that became um my album, my first album. I got signed to Marinatha Music. I don't know if you've heard of Marinath. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh Tommy Coombs from Love Song signed me. I went to dinner and he says, You want to be on the label? And it was a guy named Roby Duke who called me and said, You want to be on her? You want to record a record? A little southern accent. And he was blue-eyed soul too. He's already with the Lord, and so I didn't know any of these people, but apparently my sister knew all of them, right? And so I would tell her, and she was like, Tommy go, Oh my gosh, Roby Duke, and she was going on, and who's like, I don't know who these people they want to do a record. So I did a record on this new youth label. Um, later the Katinas came and they they were on the label as well, group called the Katinas Samoan Brothers. So that opened the door into the whole Christian music scene, and I started touring right away. My first date was in New York, and I'd never done anything, never done a full concert. I'm on a plane, I'm headed to New York, and I see my face on the cover of the LA Times. And it was me and George Bush Sr., I guess you could say, President Bush. And what it was is I didn't know they'd come and somebody came in to interview me, took a picture of me out here in San Bernardino at some studio. And they wrote, I well, I was totally oblivious to the industry. So that's kind of been my the thing of my life, just oblivious. I just let God just take like the song says take the wheel. I was oblivious to what was going on. And I look up and I'm going, what the heck? I'm on top, I'm on the cover of the LA Times. I kept that. We have those. Uh my dad, you know, parents do, but um, and I was like, wow, I kind of realized, oh wow, this is real. And I'm flying to New York to do a concert for the first time, and I was 20. After that, the rest of his history, I signed two more record deals. I've released a bunch of albums. Um, that's how the music thing happened.

Just Say Yes To Opportunities

J.D. Pearring 9:34

Wow. So was there like any call to ministry, or was it just, hey, let's just do this music thing? It was to be honest with you.

Chuck Perez 9:42

Um, I think growing up, knowing about salvation, just excited about my salvation, there wasn't really, I don't remember like I feel a call to make records of music. I just did. I I I told I'm I'm working on a book right now called Just Say Yes, because sometimes we're waiting for this enormous call, the room, you know, somebody, the the smoke to come into your room and you to hear a word from God and a dream or a vision. And sometimes you just do. Somebody says, Do you do this? Yes. Um, at a very young age, my first manager told me, I said, she says, Do you play any instruments? I said, I play a little bass guitar. And she says, No, you play bass guitar. You just say yes. If somebody I said, Okay. So ever since then, same thing with the TV show. When the TV show came around, it came out of left field from TBN. Uh the lady there at TVN said, So do you have a TV show? And I I was there to I thought I was there to do an interview, and I did some little promo thing for them. Years I'm skipping years here, but I went, and I said, uh, Jeshu says, Do you have a TV show? I said, Yes, I can get it to you in two weeks. I didn't know what in the world I was thinking. And my wife says, Do you have a TV show? I said, I do now. So I went and and went and created a TV of what was via talk show. I thought, what's missing? You know, a talk show is a funny, laughing type thing, comedy, what I love though to see. And so we did that and we sent it to her, and then the main guy at TBN at that time said, We want it. And then they took it and the rest is history. But all I said was, yes. So I think for me, uh the call for pastoring was different. To me, there's gotta be a call, it's not just I wanna do it. With music, I I always sang it. I grew it's in my DNA. To me, music is a gift. Ministry is my call. I use music as a as as a as a tool, as a bait to draw people in. And I love to worship the Lord. So I I mean it's like it's just your relationship with Jesus reveals your call. And I would tell anybody this as you get closer to Jesus, he'll show you your call, he'll reveal your gifts, and then you find out I have these gifts to support that call. So I didn't necessarily when we started the church, my wife and I, I was I was helping my dad at my dad's church. Um, I in and out. I tour, come back, tour, come back, and I knew that I'd learn all these worship songs out there. Everybody else was singing, and we were so far behind in my dad's church at the time, dated. And I said, I want to teach this new song. So at some point I started singing it from the front. Everybody knew I was a singer, and they're like, Why is he singing it? Well, when I'd come in, I'd sing, and then it turned into like leading worship because I was, as I grew spiritually, I was ending up leading other people into worship and got to know the power of that. So I'm leading worship now at the church, at my dad's church, and then I'd go and go back out after hearing him preach. I'd go back out and do concerts. And I'm I'm skipping a lot, but I'm giving you kind of the whole process for me. Was I said, Mom, you want to go with me? So I flew her with me, my mom, to Florida. And I hadn't, she hadn't seen any of my concerts because I was all out of state until this one. And I did a concert, and then she pulled me over and she says, Um, until I said, What do you think, mom? Well, you did the altar call, it was great. The kids came up and said, Yeah, you talk too much. And I said, What? You talk too much, they're paying you to sing. I said, Thanks, Mom. You know, like but that's when I started to know I started sharing and preaching and teaching Jesus more than I was singing. And I started to like be drawn that way into into um mainly sharing the word. And and and it would it went beyond testifying. It was like I'd bring out three or four scriptures and stuff, and I was like, You're preaching up there. And the kid they responded, but still she says, remember they're paying you to sing. So I started to know that there was like a nudge on my heart to kind of, you know, to bring the word more. Uh, you know, if I'm gonna be doing this, I gotta know what I'm talking about, other than just by experience. And um, at when my wife and I were married, we're at my dad's

Worship Leading Becomes Ministry Calling

Chuck Perez 14:17

church. I'm now um still singing, going out there, but now I'm now a worship leader. I'm uh I've I've trained all the ushers, I'm I'm assistant pastor now, and um I just started feeling this this nudge to do church differently. And this is in the very beginning um when Hillsong started getting really big, you know, uh over here in the States. And I said, I like that. I know Hillsong has its own, you know, stories and their own set of set of issues, yes. Yeah, issues, which everybody does, right? But I said, I like I said, I like that. I like this, you know. I said, that's how I I appeal. I wear t-shirt, jeans, and just share the word, and not so much on you know, and back then it wasn't purposely. I said, that's me. I like to do that. I like to just and so I said, let's do something different.

Planting With No Plan

Chuck Perez 15:07

So my wife and I, we planted for the first time we planted, didn't even know the name planting, to be honest with you. Never heard of planting. We just said, let's start a church. And so we do what we knew how to do a service because I learned from my parents and being in church and doing music and uh incorporated worship. And we said, let's do I said, I like the name West Coast community. You know, I've always liked these kind of trendy names. I said, West Coast community sounds pretty good. So I said, let's do it. And of course, my wife, she's so wonderful, she just follows some stuff that I do sometimes, and now she's like, now she's on to me. But back then she was like, All right, we didn't know what we'd gotten into. And we did a mail out. I said, let's do a mail out, let people know. And so the first time we did it, about 30 people showed up. It was just my wife and I and our five-year-old son. And I thought, oh my gosh, and all strange. I remember going outside to school. I even went to rent to school. I had all this zeal, right? And I remember walking out and saying, Lord, let me not be put to shame. You know, I said, Lord, don't let me be put to shame. I don't want to be embarrassed and no one shows up. We did this thing, and we're, you know, or there's just three people and us, and I was like, so we basically just parachuted. We just went out there, no plan, no leadership, no, just went out there and God blessed it. And people came, we had issues because we didn't have leadership in place. So we had issues right off the bat, you know. But it was great memories. We had people get saved, we had baptism, it was just awesome. Um, so this time around, that was we've done since then, we've done two others. But this time around, we're we've taken one time was we took a church from like seven people to about a hundred, and we're quickly within a year, and I'll say we, but we took over this ministry that was dying, they had a building. And that I would tell anybody, be careful with those, because those seven people, man, that that's their that building's their lifeline. I mean, that's their whole, you know. Uh you change it. I remember one lady walked in and she says, Where's the mural? Because we took the mural, we modernized, we put TV screens up and stuff with the songs. She got so upset. She only visited there like once a year, but she knew when we came in there was changing the mural was gone on the wall. It looked like a cemetery, like a what do you call it, a funeral home mural, some steps going into heaven? And I just said, That's scary. So we removed it, painted, and all that. Well, I would tell anybody today, uh, be be careful with that one. You know, when there's seven people holding on to a building. Watch out for the mural lady. Yeah.

J.D. Pearring 17:48

So anyway, so that's in a nutshell. That was well, that's that's what has caused you to want to plant again. What do you I used to say if you do it twice, you're brain dead, and we did three, and now we're helping others. So I know what's what's up?

Chuck Perez 18:03

You know, I'm I'm probably brain dead. No, um, you know, we just I just thought, okay, we did it this way.

Burnout And Church Politics

Chuck Perez 18:13

We saw God do really cool things. I went to go work after I got burnt out because that happens when you're when you don't have everything in a place you get burnt out. So I got burnt out. I went to go work for another ministry for five years, grace, right? Five years. I'm there. And I really think God placed me there because um when I was there, I got to meet a lot of people behind the scenes. This particular church that was well established, um I saw stuff that I had a hard time with, I didn't agree with. There wasn't a lot of ministry going on. There was a lot of political um and I was on staff mining. I'm getting paid. And I sit there and I would I would have issues, I'd get convicted being in the circle of people that were just talking about politics and raising money and not, you know, all it was it wasn't it wasn't ministry to me. I came at a time in 2020 when when I I started there 2018. 2020 we had COVID and I was at this particular church employed, and I I told the pastor there, I said, you need cameras before COVID came. Before it hit, I said, I think you need cameras. They were trying their best to do cameras, and I said, You need LED, and I I basically pushed the whole thing through. All of a sudden, COVID hits, but the cameras and and LED arrived a couple days later. And so they were set up for all the churches closing down, they were set up to uh to still do service. So I literally did with my TV background and music background, I produced their service. I said, This is when you walk up, this is when you walk in, the praise team's gonna come here, they're gonna walk off here because no one was in there. So I literally go and now and tell the pastor's wife, now. So I was over here directing this thing. And from an artistic standpoint, it was cool. It felt good. I was like, cool, that's it's a great show. From a spiritual standpoint, and and what convicted me was there was no word coming out of the man's mouth. There was no hope, there was no healing, there was no Jesus. It was just like it was bizarre. I can't even get in detail uh how empty it felt. The church building was empty and the sermon was empty. And I got convicted, I'm up in the thing. Now they reopened. About two years later, they completely reopened. People came in, came back, not as many. And I saw different, I started seeing funeral after funeral, I started seeing people sick and coming up, and and I saw firsthand a man fall down the stairs

The Moment That Changed Everything

Chuck Perez 21:07

all the way. This is what did it for me. Fell down the stairs and broke his neck in the in the staff meeting. Uh the staff, uh, he was up there meeting with the pastor. I walk out, the entire pastoral staff is there, and they're just staring at him. And someone says, Call, call an ambulance, call 911, and the pastors leaned over, and the man's talking a little bit, he's trying to, he's bleeding, there's blood there. This is in the church uh foyer area. 80-year-old man, and I walked up and I just started laying hands on him, praying for him. Just praying for him. And it wasn't so I was so, oh, I'm so spiritual. No, I just knew Jesus. And I was like so shocked, not one pastor on that staff, including the senior pastor, prayed for him. All they did was say, Are you all right? You okay? Okay, we're getting ambulance. Okay. We're getting ambulance. And I thought, oh my gosh, what have I become? I'm here, a part of this ministry or organization. And it was story after story. That was one. There was another one where we did an outreach, and I my band came in, we ministered, and 30 plus people gave their lives to the Lord. Visitors for the first time gave their lives to the Lord at Christmas time. While the pastor was senior pastor was upstairs, he never came down to see it. And they did no follow-up on him. They let all of them go. And I thought, this isn't a church. And the Holy Spirit really convicted me. And God told me one time while I was upstairs in the director's room, I had built all this stuff out, all the gear, everything, and I'd stepped away from teaching a word, pastoring, planting, anything. He said, You have a word in your mouth. I've given you a word in your mouth and you're not using it. And I man, hit me. Hit me hard. I said, Man, we gotta do something. Because I grew up, I I I've I'm around even these last, you know, people put together churches like they're cookie cutters, you know. They put and when you and I we talked about this, there's like a system, and there's a you know, you do this for you, build your leadership team, engage a community, blah blah blah blah. And they do all this stuff and it's cookie cutter and all, but are we pre are we really uh touching people? Are we really is when you go to that church? Is is is Jesus there? Is uh not just a saving Jesus, but is there a healing Jesus in the house? And I said, that's what I want to do. I want to be a part, I don't care about, oh, how many, what how are the numbers? What's in I want to know that the ministry is having an impact in people's lives individually. And so I said, if we can do that, I'll go with your system of you know putting a leadership team together the best I can, but I'm not gonna somebody told me, don't call it a service yet, because there's a whole thing. If you do that, yeah, I'm like, I don't call it people do when they show up to the house here, they come on their on their lunch break and they say, I had to get here for church service. I never once mentioned service, right? They are so they see it that way, and it's a reminder to me, this is what it is to them, this is what we're doing. So when we've had right now, so you're saying what what did it was conviction, convicted, conviction to just say, What are you doing? I was over here assisting an organization that was under the uh uh facade of calling themselves a ministry. And I'd been there and I was trying to make an impact. I Lord knows, I was trying to counsel and talk with that pastor and have man, we had some great conversations, but I finally knew he was not gonna bend. It was kind of like a David and Saul thing. I was sitting there going, I'm gonna speak. I wanted the Lord use me to minister because this guy could, he's a very good communicator, awesome organizational guy. He knew how to bring in money and so on, but no word, no anointing in his mouth, no anointing on him. And I'm like, God, you know, and he says, God told him, You've got it, you go do. So um so my wife and I said, I think it's time. I don't know what God's telling us, but I think he's telling us it's time. Just do, just say yes again, do it. So we went through, I met some people, and I think I told you I met some of the um and they're great organization. Keep them nameless now, but they're great. And I'm some of the some other people said, Hey, we believe in you, and I got my license back for another organization. I think it's great. They they're very supportive, and I'm probably like you, you know, you mentioned last time where we spoke privately, I'm probably a little bit out of the box for them, a little outside their comfort zone, but they haven't stopped me. Um, I'm not one, I'm not hanging from chandeliers, but that, but if Jesus the Holy Spirit had me jump on a chandelier and hang, I'd hang. Okay. So, but I'm not uh I'm saying is we believe in the healing of Jesus. We lay hands on the sick. We had people instantly healed in our home, right on the spot. Scared the heck out of the mom, one of them. They looked at us and said, their daughter was healed like that. Just pray, not no power, I didn't freak it. Just believe, you know, uh believe the acts. We believe the apostles' teaching or the apostles' doctrine. I've heard forever, I've heard this thing about sound doctrine. I know all the scriptures that talk about sound doctrine, but I think man, okay, and religion has uh interpret that interpreted that uh phrase or that name to mean what they want it to mean, sound doctrine. Meaning, sound doctrine is this to them, whatever I'm comfortable with according to what the Bible says in my liking is sound doctrine.

J.D. Pearring 27:11

You know, that does make sense. Sound doctrine sounds like uh uh let's make sure God doesn't get in inside of it, you know.

Acts 2 Teaching And Healing Prayer

Chuck Perez 27:20

You know, I I just for me, this the the easiest thing I was we were teaching this the other day is Acts 2, 42. They devoted themselves to the apostles' doctrine, teaching. It's just to fellowship, to breaking of bread, and to prayer. Okay, so people right away say breaking of bread, they just ate together. They ate together. What it really meant if you look in the in the in the they took communion together, sure ate together. I get it. So what we did is we kind of just Americanized it, generic it, and said, Hey guys, have pizza. Let's call that a gathering, you know, just have pizza together and home to home. And what we end up with is a bunch of flakes, flaky people who don't understand communion, come into union with Jesus and what he did and what he that's what they did. They took communion together, and then it says, we hear the word sound doctrine. Well, the apostles' doctrine, what was the apostles' teaching or doctrine? 43 says, everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. So the thing is, if you want to know what sound doctrine is, or the apostles, that's the apostles' doctrine. If you want to learn what the apostles' doctrine is, it was there's signs and wonders happening. It goes back to Mark 16, 15, you shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. You know, if you pick up any so if you drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt you. You know, it'll speak in new tongues. That's the doctrine. What we've done is we've said, uh no, not that one. This is what we believe. And we call it denominations, and we started doing what we think. So I'm a I'm uh I'm a wild one, man.

A Home Church Reaching Outsiders

J.D. Pearring 28:57

So you're a wild one, you're doing the church, it's meeting in your home right now in your first year. Sundays?

Chuck Perez 29:05

Sundays. Uh somebody told me, don't meet on Sundays, meet a Friday night. And I'm like, okay, because they they want you to meet a Friday night or Thursday night so you can get people from other churches. We weren't sent out with a group. I'll just tell you right now, I have an issue when someone says, hey, we had 200 our first Sunday. Well, yeah, you're gonna have 200 if 75 were sent with you. You should have, you should have more than that, right? And I I'm not knocking, I'm just saying, don't compare. We're we're we're started with zilch. It's it's it's literally four or seven of us that started. My wife, myself, our son, daughter, father, son, and holy spirit. Oh, that's great. And then people can, and so we just said, Lord, we just want to obey you. Do it. So we we say the doors open at 11 on Sunday. You can walk right through. And at first they started knocking. Now they just walk in. They know 11 a.m., that door's open. They just walk in, sit down, take a seat, uh, you know, sofa, couch, or wherever, and in the front room, we have piano, really cool piano. Um, we have my son plays on a keyboard, so he plays some worship. Um, it's really back, just praising. We don't do the whole thing of coffee and donuts and all that with us. Just come in, you know, and they come in for teaching, period. And they come in. We've had uh baptisms already. We had baptisms on Easter, baptized a Catholic, former Catholic who gave his life to the Lord. We have uh I think I'd share we had Muslims give their lives to Jesus, um, two of them already. Uh uh atheists, we've had uh uh Jehovah's Witness on Easter Sunday show up and give her life to the Lord. So it's like that sounds great.

J.D. Pearring 30:56

You've been uh you've been doing this. Um I I just want to say I'm grateful that you're back in the saddle and doing it again. Um you've been around the block. Yeah, Chuck.

Leadership Advice And Final Thoughts

J.D. Pearring 31:09

Uh give us a leadership tip. Um leadership network, give us a tip on leadership tip on leadership.

Chuck Perez 31:20

Um don't be afraid to fail. What you what you interpret as failure for someone else is just you trying. And so and and the other thing is other people don't know you're failing. You know you're failing, you might feel like you're failing, other people don't see it. Uh, I was I I I don't want to be so rigid that you have this recipe that if it doesn't work according to the recipe that you have for what you were told, this is how you do church and this is the way it's gonna, you know, process. And you be open that it might not work. That may not be God's plan for your life, but that doesn't mean He's not called you. It just means that that plan that might work for 70 other church plants or starts, but that might not be yours. And I'm I'm so open. I try, I said I humbled myself, went through the process to do everything that they wanted me to do, that they said this would work, and I pulled out certain things that work with me. I like one thing. The first time we planted, one organization said, you know, go go launch it, go let people know, find the church, launch it, and start meeting. It's like, and that's what we did. Worked a little bit. Another one says, get your leadership team together, work on that for a year. We did that. Well, no one told me that the leaders would be all brand new believers. Never don't even know that they're still looking for the butt through the Bible, and I have to show them my wife has to lean over and say, Okay, um, yeah, John's over here, you know, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, there, and then you go over here to Genesis. That's the first book, and you no one told us that. That those that's who we have. But I think about Jesus, that's what he had. Yep. He had 12 business guys, tax collector, toll collector, fisherman, and hot-headed, cursing there, but they follow Jesus. So, my thing, my my little two cents leadership thing is you need to be who you are and don't be afraid to fail. You're gonna fail. Everybody's gonna fail. Sometimes it's not gonna look right, but not everybody sees it. You you you're making too big of a deal to me. I made such a big deal about what was not happening, and people didn't even see it. People that came, they just wanted Jesus. They just, if they're in your circle, they just want Jesus, they just want the Bible. They're not looking for the next uh, you know, uh support group or uh or or event. You know, if you got people just coming for events, you got the wrong people because that's gonna bite you in the butt later. It will. It will bite you in the butt because you'll be competing with other people that have better events, better building, bigger support group, you know, better logos, better. You have to just give people Jesus. And what you Jesus saves, Jesus heals, Jesus is coming back again, Jesus.

J.D. Pearring 34:22

Well, that's that's a good word. I you know, when you talk about uh them being new believers and you talk about the apostles' teaching, part of the teaching there is leadership development. That's that's what the book of Acts is. It starts with just a few, and they're constantly developing new leaders, even when Paul and Barnabas break up. Paul to, you know, Barnabas took John Mark and Paul took Silas. It's like who's Silas? Silas is uh is one of the leaders, so leadership development. So well, hey, I appreciate your time. Thank you for for doing this. It's been great to get to know you. What's your uh what's your number one hit song that you did?

Chuck Perez 35:06

I did uh the title one, do you have a problem with that, went number one. It's called Do You Have a Problem with That? And it was that went by Chucky P. That one went number one in Christian music years ago, way back. And then I did one called I Love Your Ways or Your Slash Your Ways that that was in a Disney movie. So if you go online, you can look up your ways, Chucky Perez, C-H-U-C-K-I-E. And it was in Disney movie. Um, and that one was a big blessing.

J.D. Pearring 35:35

That helps paid some bills. Well, we will check we'll check those out. But hey, thanks so much for being on. Thanks for your time. Thanks, brother. Appreciate it.

Announcer 35:45

Thanks for joining the Leading Conversations Podcast. We hope that you found it both helpful and encouraging. At Excel 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.