Intro And Sponsor

Announcer 0:06

Welcome to the Leading Conversations Podcast, sponsored by the Excel Leadership Network. On each episode, JD Pearring 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

San Jose Life After Church Launch

J.D. Pearring 0:30

to another rendition of the Leading Conversations Podcast with Excel Leadership Network. And today we are excited to have with us all the way from San Jose, California, Chris and Suzy Parks with Presence Church. Thank you guys so much for being here.

Chris Parks 0:48

Thanks for having us.

Suzy Parks 0:49

Yeah, thanks for having us all.

J.D. Pearring 0:51

How's life in San Jose these days?

Chris Parks 0:53

Life in San Jose is pretty good. We uh we've had a good run, and uh we're looking forward to sort of uh the summer slowdown, as they say. This will be your first summer as a launched church. Yes, it will. Yeah, we are this time last year we were holding weekly services for our launch team, but they were very informal, very easy, nothing like doing a regular Sunday search.

Suzy Parks 1:24

Yeah, and low attended.

Chris Parks 1:26

Yeah, and they were low low attended. Yeah, hopefully we don't drop that low this summer.

J.D. Pearring 1:31

Well, I would just say don't worry about it and keep all weapons out of the house. That's the first summer as a church. Tell us what's the best thing about San Jose?

Suzy Parks 1:42

Oh man, there's so many. The the the food is amazing.

Chris Parks 1:48

You can get any kind of food here you want.

Suzy Parks 1:50

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Parks 1:50

I mean, you you want Ethiopian food or Vietnamese food, or yeah, I mean, I mean you just name the weird, like not very heard of food, and you can find it here. All right.

Suzy Parks 2:01

He says weird, I say authentic and yummy.

Chris Parks 2:04

Yeah, yeah, authentic and yummy. Of course, I don't eat any of it. I eat like American food, Mexican food, a little bit Italian, yeah.

Suzy Parks 2:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Faith Stories And Meeting At Church

J.D. Pearring 2:16

Well, hey, tell me your story, each of you, how you uh came to Christ, how you came to Jesus.

Chris Parks 2:23

Yeah, I was uh I said yes to Jesus on my 16th birthday. And uh my sister and her husband, when I was a teenager, she's uh uh eight or nine years older than me. So when I was uh a teenager, she was in her mid-20s or so. Uh she had her first child, and they went searching for something more, which led them to uh church here in town, and they invited me to go. Uh let's tell you how old I am. I went to vacation Bible school, it was the first uh real church experience I went to. And yeah, and a few weeks later, uh said yes to Jesus at 16. And um, as I stood up from the altar in that little Baptist church, uh I I just knew that I was supposed to do what that pastor is doing that prayed with me. I wanted to do what that what that guy did.

J.D. Pearring 3:13

Really instantaneous call.

Chris Parks 3:15

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was too new to faith and too young to really conceptualize even what it meant. But yeah, I I looked at that pastor, and back in those days it was like a three-piece suit and penny loafers and perfect hair and all the things, you know. Um, some things never change.

J.D. Pearring 3:31

Some things never change. So we you did you go to vacation Bible school as a 16-year-old? I did, yeah. They had a high school class at vacation.

Chris Parks 3:43

Wow, I don't think I've seen that. Yeah, I I've never I've never seen it since, to be honest.

Suzy Parks 3:50

That's funny.

Chris Parks 3:51

Just for Chris.

unknown 3:53

Yeah.

Chris Parks 3:53

Wow. Thank you, Jesus. He did it just for me. Great. How much is Susie?

Suzy Parks 4:00

Uh me, I was 10 years old, uh, also in a little Baptist church, but uh a couple hours north in Northern California.

J.D. Pearring 4:08

Where where were you? Where were you?

Suzy Parks 4:10

Uh the town is called Maxwell. Not many people know where it is, but uh it's a little tiny town of a thousand people up the Maxwell, California. Yeah, it's um yeah, born in Calusa, raised in Williams, then Maxwell.

Chris Parks 4:29

If you were to go north from Sacramento to Reading, it's about the midway point. Yeah, all these little towns.

Suzy Parks 4:35

Yeah, so uh yeah, I just knew at 10 years old that I needed Jesus in my life. I grew up in the church with my great-grandmother and my aunts and my mom. Um, but at 10 years old, interestingly enough, um, I knew that I needed Jesus in my life. And I little did I know that I really needed him in my life because at that point it was a turning point for our family. My mom would get divorced again and completely devote her her life to her career. And I would be on my own journey with the Lord from 10 years old on, taking myself to church to VBS, walking to church. And that is really it was a pivotal moment for me to solidify Jesus in my life.

J.D. Pearring 5:28

That's a that's amazing. So, how did you two crazy kids meet?

Chris Parks 5:33

We met at church. So the uh the tradition we grew up in, um every other New Testament church uh is uh every other church is not a New Testament church. So they believe that denomination was the only true church. So what that meant for us in our I was uh 19, the church that I was saved in went through a split that was pretty ugly. And I wanted to go to another church, but because of our of our training, you go to another church in the denomination, which meant I was driving 35 minutes from San Jose to Sunnyvale, and uh Susie essentially growing up in the same tradition.

Suzy Parks 6:16

Well, not really, but mine was just any Baptist church, it didn't matter. Um, but when I graduated high school, I moved in with my aunt, who was in the same tradition that he was in, lived in Millbrae, and we went to the same Sunnyvale church. Um, and that's where we met.

Chris Parks 6:35

Yeah, so I drove a half an hour north, she drove a half an hour south, and that's how we met. Wow, God worked worked it out.

J.D. Pearring 6:44

So he did.

Suzy Parks 6:45

He did crazy kids.

Ministry Journey Before Paid Roles

J.D. Pearring 6:48

So, Chris, you said that when you uh gave your said yes to Jesus, gave your life to him, you just knew you were gonna do that. So, how did all of that come about then stepping into ministry?

Chris Parks 6:59

Yeah, very slowly. Um yeah, it took 27 years before I would actually take my first job in ministry, paid job. Uh, so I I started uh right away at 16. Um, like two weeks later, they asked me to teach a student Bible study. Um, so I was teaching in our youth group almost right away. Two months later, they asked me to teach on a Wednesday night adult service. Uh that didn't it didn't go all that well. Thank God for Deacon Jim. He saved me, which is great. Uh, I didn't have bad theology, but I only had about seven minutes worth of material for a 40-minute Bible study. Uh but uh yeah, so it started fast. Um lots of discipleship. I loved reading the Bible and learning, um, but opportunities were few and far between there uh in that tradition. And so over the years, uh I got some Bible training in and had some conversations with some churches uh that had one sort of unofficially uh offer me a position um when I was, I guess we were yeah, early 30s um when that happened. So it's it just took a long time. So in the meantime, I I worked different jobs. I worked in healthcare for 10 years, uh, you know, other odd jobs along the way. Um, and then I worked in pest control for uh a little over eight years. And um uh then it was after that that that the Lord finally opened a door. So I got I got close a bunch of times along the way, even got close to helping uh or leading a church plant in Bakersfield, and uh still still love those guys in Bakersfield, but really grateful Jesus saved me from Bakersfield. You know what I mean?

J.D. Pearring 8:54

Oh yes, yes. Bakersfield is uh like the closest thing to purgatory in California, anyway.

Suzy Parks 9:01

Yes, yes, yes, indeed.

J.D. Pearring 9:03

Yeah.

Leaving A Denominational Bubble

J.D. Pearring 9:04

So you you talked about being in a denomination where you know it's us four no more, it's our way or the highway. How did you how did you step out of that?

Chris Parks 9:15

Yeah, in uh roughly 2010, 2012-ish, uh, somewhere in that window, we just really we had we had been frustrated for a long time because it was such a it was a holy huddle uh sort of a situation in in the church that we were in at the time. And uh a lot of people super loved Jesus, uh, but they weren't real passionate about reaching the neighborhood. And we we really tried to change some of that culture, but we were not the pastors, and so we didn't have uh you know enough influence in the church to make that change. And eventually um there came a couple theological problems that I had, and I was preaching occasionally, I was teaching the adult Sunday school, I led worship in that church for 10 years. Like we had deep roots in that church, and there came uh just my own personal Bible study, discovered a place where uh the apostle Paul is taking communion with the church that he likely planted, but was certainly not a member of. And I went to my pastor and I said, Hey, our our church covenant says we can only take communion in the church in which we are a member. But this doesn't seem to be the case here biblically. Uh, and and he said, Yeah, I I agree, that's the way it seems here. But if you teach anything different, I'll remove you from your position. And so his response was not, and he was a good man, he taught me a lot, but in this moment he he had the wrong answer. And it was shortly after that we both sensed the Holy Spirit, uh, long before we really knew what the Holy Spirit was, because that wasn't really a part of our original tradition. But uh the Holy Spirit said to both of us independently, if you stay here, your kids aren't gonna follow me. And when God tells you that if you stay someplace, your kids aren't gonna follow Jesus, you it doesn't matter what he asks you to do next, you just go do it. So that's what we did. We left. How hard was that?

Suzy Parks 11:13

Super hard. My whole family is still in that tradition, and um it it's like a family, even when they're not your family. Um, so I had my family and then also the family as a church. Um, and you know, everyone said the right things and did the right things and we still love each other, but the relationship just they just stopped to coexist, you know, even though they're you know 10 minutes from us or whatever, it just shifted the relationships. And so um that was hard. There was uh grieving, a healing process that we had to go through.

Five Years Of Healing

Suzy Parks 11:54

So when we went searching for another church, we just went to our friend's church to just heal and restore and really sit with Jesus and ask him what does he want from us before like church hopping or anything like that. We didn't we didn't really ever have to do that. We just sat and rested and knew that wasn't our long-term plan, but we just needed a safe place.

Chris Parks 12:20

Yeah, and and it feels like almost overnight, five years disappeared.

Suzy Parks 12:25

Yeah, that was true. We didn't realize we needed five years, yeah.

Chris Parks 12:29

But we took a long time. But it was during that time that your mom passed.

Suzy Parks 12:32

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Parks 12:33

Um so we had some pretty significant life moments during that season. Yeah, and they and they walked with us very faithfully through that, the new church, but even um our old church's uh pastor's wife, she she was over the house multiple times, and so we actually had two two church families essentially caring for us in that season, which was really good. Yeah, um, but but that but that they definitely did uh just distance themselves from us after we do that.

J.D. Pearring 13:04

Yeah, you know, in some of those uh denominational deals, it becomes more of a culture than a church, and it's like you're rejecting your upbringing, you know, like wait, I haven't changed my beliefs on really anything. I mean, just I believe the Bible, but when denominational thinking trumps biblical thinking, that's when it gets me, you know.

Chris Parks 13:28

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And and it and you know, there's uh it's acts, you're the axe guy. Where did Peter and John get called before the council the first time? Four ish, right? And uh, you know, they're like, hey, you need to stop the Jewish leaders, you you need to stop preaching about this guy, Jesus. And their response was uh essentially, are we gonna listen to you or we're gonna listen to God? And that's how I felt in those moments of theological uh, you know, and I can deal with uh the denomination we're in today, I uh I'm not you know I'm iffy on some of the theology, but it's very tertiary theology, it's not that important to to me. So like I can deal with some theology that differs some, um, but when the attitude is you're gonna you're gonna believe everything that we tell you to believe, or we're gonna kick you out. Uh I that I just can't, there's something inside me that that just can't allow that.

J.D. Pearring 14:28

Yeah, when you find the chapter and verse that that says that's okay, let me know. Um that's just weird. Yeah. Uh I I really like first Corinthians 13. I mean love thing, but at the end, now we see dimly. So if you have all the answers, probably something wrong with you. So anyway, you you five years, and then how'd you jump back into ministry then?

Chris Parks 14:53

Yeah, so we um uh so we took that five, most of that five years was off toward the end of that five years at our friends' church. Susie started serving in some different ways, and I got involved in the band a little bit, and then I spoke a couple times there. Um, but that was a a church plant that was not doing very well. Um and so they they were really in decline when we got there. And and when the end came, uh they switched to sort of a house church model, and so we were really honest with our friends and and just said, hey, what that's not really the the type of church that we would prefer to attend. No no issues with house churches, it's just not for us.

Suzy Parks 15:32

Well, we were also looking for something when God told us to move. Um we wanted to make sure our kids had what they needed, and for us, that was a driving force. We wanted a bigger church that had a a student program for middle school, high school for our kids to be really discipled. And um that wasn't gonna happen in this because oftentimes the older kids would help with the younger kids, and you know, it's a more of a babysitting as opposed to actually learning what God's word says.

Chris Parks 16:12

So yeah. So we we had actually uh gone through the process of becoming staff missionaries with family life, which is a ministry of crew, and uh so we were we worked for a while to try to raise uh support, financial support to go on staff and move to Arkansas and talk about commitment to Jesus. We were gonna go to Arkansas for Jesus, and uh uh in the end, that didn't work out. We weren't able to raise enough funds to make that become a reality.

Finding Echo And Serving All-In

Chris Parks 16:42

However, during that process, we had gotten introduced to Echo Church in uh San Jose. And so as sort of concurrently, as the church plant we were at was shifting models, uh, and we were not able to raise enough support, knowing that we were staying here in the bay, we decided to make Echo Church our home because we had made some connections there, attended a few times an evening service, and we're just really impacted by the culture of the church, the way they did ministry, the uh the success they were having at reaching and discipling people for Jesus was really significant. Like nothing we'd ever seen. We we grew up in churches of you know 30 to 50. The church that I was saved in was probably 200 on a Sunday, and that's an absolute mega church in that tradition. But Echo was, I mean, at the one at the the broadcast campus was 17, 1800 people on a Sunday. And so it was church at a scale we'd never seen before. And uh we found um we found there an opportunity for us to serve in a church that's that's primary mission is reaching people with the gospel, which is the the place that we were trying to get the church we grew up in to move to. So it was like intoxicating us. We we jumped in and we started leading groups, and then we started leading serving teams and volunteering, and we became like the mega volunteers. Uh at the time, Echo had five services on a Sunday, and we just loved being there so much. We would we would attend one and serve four. I mean, it was uh looking back on it, it was probably pretty unhealthy, but we were just it was like a happy place for us, and we both had jobs that we didn't love, and so so being there on Sunday um was almost magical to us, you know, it was so filling to our souls, yeah.

Suzy Parks 18:42

But it's our personality when we're all in on something, we're all in. So with the kids in baseball, we did the same thing, um there's seasons, but yeah, it we're just all in people.

J.D. Pearring 18:56

Well, where did the church planting bug come from?

Chris Parks 19:00

Yeah, I processing through it. I um so the the Lord really spoke in uh like spring of 2024 on this part of our journey. And as I pressed through, because people asked me that question, I realized all the way back as early as like 2006, I had the idea of starting a church in San Jose. And we were in the old tradition, and I didn't have church planting language um for it, but I was on the phone with our pastor at the time, and and I said, you know, it's it's really sad to me. There used to be three churches in our denomination in San Jose, and now there's none. They've they've all gone away. I mean, what what do you think about the idea of Susie and I starting something down here? And true to the tradition, he said, uh, yeah, I'm all for it, but you can't have any money and you're not taking any people. And that was sort of the end of that conversation right away.

Suzy Parks 19:59

That's a nice starter.

Chris Parks 20:00

Uh I can still remember actually where I was driving on the freeway as I talked to him on my brand new cell phone that yeah, hadn't been in existence for very long. Anyway, so it could be a good one.

J.D. Pearring 20:10

If you can find the chapter and verse in the Bible where that's okay, just please let me know.

Chris Parks 20:18

Yeah, I haven't yet. I've read the whole thing and I haven't found it a few times. Um so uh then in 2013 was the Bakersfield or 2012 was the Bakersfield thing, where uh they actually there was a group down there that actually approached our church and said, Hey, we'd like to do this. No one else will be our sending church. Will you do it? And our pastor agreed. Uh, and then Susie and I started driving down there with our kids like three out of four weekends in the month, fell in love with the people, uh, so much so that we could deal with the heat, and then had a handshake agreement with them to become their planting pastor. Uh, and then five months of basically silence go by, and I finally called the man that was leading down there, and I said, right now, yes or no. And he said, No, we're gonna go another direction. And uh, so then we we sort of moved on, and it was after that that we left that tradition. Uh, it was uh shortly after that. So there's actually been a couple of times in in our journey that that we've considered church planting, and so in 2024, let me just stop here for a second.

J.D. Pearring 21:28

So God saved you from Arkansas and He saved you from Bakersfield, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Parks 21:34

Yeah, God is good, God is good, he's good, and uh yeah, so in 2022, and just by the way, if you're listening to this from Arkansas or from Bakersfield, we just feel terrible for you.

J.D. Pearring 21:48

We'll be praying for you. Um good, good for good for you.

Chris Parks 21:53

So, anyway, yeah, back to 2024. It's real. So uh in February 22, I joined. Joined staff at Echo. And my job changed a bunch of times because of some of the leadership changes that happened there. And so we, you know, all of a sudden found ourselves working in ministry, and it was awesome. Um and over time, uh, I served as a interim campus pastor for them, in addition to a central role that I carried. Uh and uh when I handed off to the long-term campus pastor, I was sort of processing what's the next phase of ministry.

Suzy Parks 22:41

And really before that, though, you thought about church planting when Libby passed.

Chris Parks 22:50

Uh yes, that's that is true. Yeah. So we rewind a a year.

Discerning A Call To Plant

Chris Parks 22:55

Father's Day of 2023. Um, Suzy's so on Father's Day the year before that we got called this the plant, um Suzy's niece, three years old, drowned in a swimming pool on Father's Day. And uh they were able to lifelite her to um UC Davis, and they had her on life support, but you know, they they went through a week with uh you know no-brain activity and and all the things. So what can we do to try to bring her back and all that? So the family camped out. Uh they still had some COVID regulations in place at the time, and so they they only allowed a certain number of people in the in the even in the hospital, the lobby, let alone the the room. So we all sat out on the front uh sidewalk, essentially, and just sort of held vigil there. Um in the end, uh she didn't make it, and it was uh it was tragic. But along the way, mom and dad both said yes to Jesus, and so did a few other family members, extended family members. And it's like the first question I have for him when I get to heaven is you know, how did you do that? How did you take two parents who just had this tragic loss? Um, the thing that no parent should ever experience. And and yet somehow you, you know, you were able to work that for their good and you know, and and bring them into your family. So uh I started looking around. Now they they live up a little bit farther north of where Susie grew up, still a small town, and I started searching for a church that I could recommend them to go to. Neither of them had any sort of faith background or church experience of any kind. And in their town, everything that I could find online felt like 1950s, uh sort of you know, old school kind of church. And I my heart was broken. Um, that that verse in Matthew where Jesus looks at the crowd and has compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Uh, I that verse kept resonating in my mind, and I felt like God might be calling us to plant a church up there, something that would be relevant uh, you know, to to younger generations. And in the end, uh God released me from that. Um, it was not not exactly what he wanted, but I think it was a gift from God that was uh sort of a uh a seed planted toward church planting. And it would be a year later that he would he would speak to us about planting here in San Jose. And and um it was really a process of a lot of prayer and discernment, um, you know, words spoken over us in prayer meetings by people that had no idea what we were thinking about. Um, we had uh a very good friend of mine, he actually took over the the campus after we left. He became the campus pastor, and uh he he prayed over us. The three of us were praying together at an echo church staff meeting, and he prayed uh church planting over us, God send these two out to plant a church. And uh I we had a meeting later that afternoon, and I was like, Hey, you trying to get rid of me? And he goes, No, man, you guys need to go plant a church. And uh he's he's not someone that you would say is like a big prophetic voice, you know what I mean?

Suzy Parks 26:19

So to hear it from him was uh pretty significant, and uh but we had a lot of support from Pastor Felipe each time you felt that call, you went directly to him and he's like, Bro, I think you're being called to church plant, and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And so I think um that was significant part of the journey because um it doesn't always go that way when you tell someone you you know, we had personal experience with it not going that way years ago. And so um to have that level of support and like, hey, let's discern together, let's pray together, and then let's help send you out uh is pretty significant.

Chris Parks 27:06

Yeah, yeah. So they echo and Pastor Flibe, Manny, they lived out the the kingdom values that they said they had, which is to believe in church planting, to send people, to send money, to give resources, coaching, encouraging people, uh people. And yeah, so they were super generous behind us all the way and have been a great support uh throughout the process for us.

J.D. Pearring 27:33

Yeah. Cool story. Uh God saved you from a lot of uh undesirable places to live. Um in San Jose.

Launching Presence And Writing The Book

J.D. Pearring 27:44

So you you launched in the fall and uh you just wrote a book about it.

Chris Parks 27:51

I sure did, yeah. Um yeah, so we we launched September 7th, and uh by by all accounts it's gone as well as it could go. Uh all the all the great people we've talked to have been very encouraging and um and given us good perspective along the way. And in December of last year, so the just a few months after we launched, um I laid down in bed one night to go to sleep. Uh we pray at night before we go to sleep together. We so we had done sort of all of our nightly routine and and uh turned out the lights, and my head hit the pillow and my mind was flooded with um just ideas and thoughts and words and stories and all these things. And I literally said, uh, Jesus, this all sounds pretty cool. I'm gonna write it down first thing in the morning. And he said, No, you're gonna write it down right now. And so I got up uh and uh walked the five steps over to the desk we're sitting at now and started, just started writing what was in my head. Um and at 3 a.m., uh I felt like I got it all out and I had uh two and a half chapters of the book basically written. And uh then I had another night a few days later, I sat down at eight o'clock uh to just jot down a few ideas, and the next thing I knew it was 4 a.m. And uh the book was basically done. So it took about 10 days to write. It was um just a hundred percent a download kind of experience, and uh and it was awesome. I I felt like God told me I would write a book a few years ago, and uh never never I I have a bunch of book ideas written down somewhere, but never really felt compelled to do it uh at any one time until December of last year. And uh it was a great experience. I have uh actually have two other books I'm writing right now, and I'm not having the same experience. These two are they're a lot of work. Uh so when is uh when's the launch date? Uh June 15th, you can get it on Amazon. Okay, and what is it called? The unseen work, what God does in the church planter before the plant.

J.D. Pearring 30:18

Okay, the unseen work on Amazon. That's like two weeks from now. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty quick. Interesting. Cool,

Teachable Leadership And Final Takeaways

J.D. Pearring 30:28

cool. What's the so what's the big lesson that you've learned this last uh season of planting, Susie?

Suzy Parks 30:36

I think the biggest lesson I would say is listen to people that have done it before, be teachable. Um we still don't know what we're doing. And um just the wisdom from other people and going, oh, I didn't think of it that way or whatever. I mean, we we have so many incredible mentors, you know, not just with you, JD and and Excel, but just so many that have gone before us. And that has been the biggest um blessing to us is to actually listen and then implement what they're saying. And we've had to revamp a whole entire plan in a day because ours was crap, and we were like we were like, okay, well, that's not really the best way to do that. So cool. And we literally turned around an event that we were planning that just was very poorly um planned, but we thought it was great, but it just wasn't. And so we just listened to those that had gone before, changed it, and it was an amazing um turnaround and an event. So that would be my biggest piece of advice, I think.

J.D. Pearring 31:54

Wow. Well, you know, you guys are amazing on that. That you you are very teachable, coachable. Um you could do this on your own, but you'd probably be living in Bakersfield now. So it's really uh and and planting in the Bay Area is like uh, you know, sometimes you probably wish you were in Arkansas. Um, yeah. Uh so is that your leadership tip then? Is that your I I asked you what you learned, but how about a leadership tip from each of you? Go ahead, go first, Chris, and then we'll come back to Susie. And she gets she gets the advice one and another one.

Chris Parks 32:33

Mine sounds overly spiritual, um, but I'm gonna talk for a little bit and maybe it'll sound less spiritual and more practical. When God calls you to do something, he provides what you need to do it. This is a principle that Family Life uh attempted to teach me in the process of becoming a staff missionary with them. They and they said that um, you know, we believe God's calling you here, but the final proof that he is is that he'll provide the money for you guys, the support you need on a monthly basis to actually move here and begin doing ministry. And I thought, well, that's just dumb. You should just pay us a salary. And I I still feel a little bit of that uh with that regard in that regard. But what I will say is that when God called us to plant, I thought gathering people would be much easier than it's been, and I thought fundraising would be much harder than it's been. And God has been so generous to us financially, and he's been generous to us with people. In particular, he's brought us an incredible group of volunteer leaders that we have in our church, um, and he's been generous with people as well. But like you said, planting in the Bay Area is is challenging because it's it's so post-Christian here that we're we're basically pre-Christian, and so we're we're talking to people that have no idea about Jesus or why people would go to church, no concept of it at all. And um what we've what we found is is I've just experienced a real grace in in fundraising, and I've I've never felt that before. I'm not I know a guy who uh we were talking recently, and he's like, I feel like I could probably go out and raise two million bucks on my own, but I don't want to do it that way. I want I want it to be the Jesus way, and I was like, You you could probably raise five million bucks on our on your own because he's this that kind of like it attractive personalities, you know, such a fun guy. Um, I'm not that guy. I I don't think I could raise five bucks on my own, but Jesus has given me uh a real grace, he's provided everything we've needed along the way, and so what whatever you might be facing today, whether it's uh you know discerning a call to church plant, but fear over some aspect of it, or maybe it's something else that Jesus is calling you to do, just know that if he's calling you to do it, he's gonna provide what you need.

J.D. Pearring 35:01

Great, great. Last word, Susie.

Suzy Parks 35:06

Uh for me, um just as leaders, you can't take people where you haven't gone. And so it's really hard to listen to church planters that are telling you how to plant a church that have never planted a church, you know. Um so you have to you have to actually do the steps and you have to lead in that way. And for us, leading with prayer is our primary um, our intimacy with Jesus, if it's not there, we can't take other people there. And that is vital to who we are as followers and who we are as a church. We want to be step in step with the Holy Spirit and um lead with prayer.

J.D. Pearring 35:55

Great, great, great. Yes, yeah. Uh after we planned our first church, I was assigned a coach, a church planning coach for our second one, and he'd never and he would come close to planning a church. It was just like, what is this? Um that's the denominational way. So yeah. Uh remind me one more time the name of the book.

Chris Parks 36:19

The unseen work. If you just plug my name into Amazon, it's the only thing attached to my name on Amazon. So it'll uh Chris Park's The Unseen Work.

J.D. Pearring 36:30

And the the cover is blank because it's unseen, isn't that correct? That's right. But it's holographic, so if you twist it, just okay, and that's a nice tree. Hey, thanks for what you're doing. Thanks for tackling the Bay Area. Thanks for your heart for planting and for San Jose, and uh for your leadership in truth planting already. Appreciate you guys.

Chris Parks 36:54

Yeah, thank you, JD, for for taking a chance on us and walking with us. And we've had many conversations with you that have helped us along the way and and helped to frame thinking in a healthier way for us. So thank you for your contribution to not just our church, but yeah, to the two of us.

Announcer 37:14

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.