Welcome And Northern Colorado Life

Announcer 0:06

Welcome to the Leading Conversations Podcast, sponsored by the Excel Leadership Network. On each episode, JD Pering 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 the Leading Conversations Podcast with Excel Leadership Network. And today it is our great privilege to have with us the incredible Jeremy Cleveland from Northern Colorado. Thanks for being here.

Jeremy Cleveland 0:48

Yeah, thank you. Pleasure.

J.D. Pearring 0:50

Tell us what city you are currently in in uh in Colorado.

Jeremy Cleveland 0:54

We're in Windsor, Colorado. So just uh just outside of Fort Collins, a little bit to the east. And uh yeah, we planted in Timness, a small city to the east of Fort Collins, but we had to move locations. But yeah, we're kind of in that Fort Collins, northern Colorado area. We call it NOCO. NOCO.

unknown 1:14

Yeah.

Jeremy Cleveland 1:15

You're in NOCO. And that place is growing like crazy. Crazy development, yeah. I mean, uh actually, Windsor, there was a news article recently that said that we are a an underwear desert, that there's nowhere you can go within a practical drive to buy like necessities like underwear. So well, that leads to lots of jokes. Um, I I don't know who's driving to stores to go buy essentials like underwear, you know.

J.D. Pearring 1:48

Like there's a bucky's right there on 525. Can't you get a bucky's underwear?

Jeremy Cleveland 1:54

I'm sure you can, yeah. But I mean, everyone, we're all living on Amazon on Amazon now, anyways.

J.D. Pearring 1:59

So what's the attraction of NoCo?

Jeremy Cleveland 2:04

Yeah, uh, it's beautiful. It's the weather's great. You get all four seasons, uh, beautiful view of the Rocky Mountains. Um, you're you're about an hour away from Denver, so you have all the accommodations of the big city, you know, within a practical driving distance. Uh, we have really great baseball. Uh, it's a joke. Uh decent football, even though I'm a Seahawks fan. And um, yeah, I mean, it's just a gorgeous place to live. Uh, we only get tornado warnings, we don't get hurricanes. Used to live in Houston. We we got hurricanes all the time. It's just a safe place. Actually, Windsor was named, I think, the safest city in the country last year. Uh, so it's just safe, beautiful. Love it. People need Jesus here, though.

J.D. Pearring 2:53

I'll tell you what. The only crime is the uh underwear thieves. That's the only crime.

Jeremy Cleveland 2:59

That's right. People run around with one pair, apparently.

Jeremy’s Faith And His Father’s Turnaround

J.D. Pearring 3:05

Okay, I've got too many jokes in my head that I should not go to. So let's go right to hey, growing up, how how was that? How'd you come to Jesus?

Jeremy Cleveland 3:15

Yeah, yeah. Well, my parents, uh, they led a college ministry for a Baptist church in uh Washington State, Vancouver, Washington. And uh, you know, growing up around the Bible, I remember my dad instilled scripture into my heart from a young age. My earliest memories, I was uh it's probably three years old, and I was begging God to save me. Yeah, we were Baptists. I'm like, I don't want to go to hell. So I was praying constantly that he'd save me. And I've known God all my life, knew all the stories my parents taught me. Um, but my dad was kind of a wolf in sheep's clothing for uh many years. He was a pilot, and so he would uh you know go out on his trips and he would uh fall into all kinds of sin. And uh parents, yeah, parents got divorced when I was seven. And then a year later, a pastor was willing to not just condemn my dad, but to point him to the gospel. Pastor Will Lonis in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. He sat with my dad and he said, Hey, guess what? Jesus still loves you, and the cross is for you. And and you know, God still wants to use you. And so my dad heard the gospel, and I don't know if he was saved before that, but he certainly got saved then. And uh, so he he was still a pilot, but he started a ministry called Setting Captives Free. I think close to a million people have gone through his free courses and he's written books. He just loves Jesus a lot, and he was really kind of the the greatest encourager of my faith growing up, and he's the evidence that the gospel is real in my life because I've seen his his life transformed.

J.D. Pearring 5:10

Amazing, that's incredible, yeah.

Injury And The Call To Ministry

J.D. Pearring 5:13

Yeah, so um, was there uh you know a call to ministry in your life?

Jeremy Cleveland 5:22

Yeah, my dad. My dad was always inviting me to go to these you know retreats that he'd be speaking at. And uh, I remember when I was 13, 14, I want to be a pilot, police officer. And he was like, Jeremy, there's nothing uh that's so fulfilling like a life of vocational ministry. I mean, it's just so watching sinners get saved and then just get transformed. There's nothing like it on this planet. And I was like, okay, dad, yeah, but church is boring. I don't want a boring life. I want to make money. I want to do what I want to do, you know? And so um certainly um took me several years. Went to a public university, was going for business. Um, I mean, it took a lot of years. Actually, I was hit by a car when I was 12. I thought I was gonna pass away. Um, I just had tons of leg issues. I had walking issues for 10 years from age 12 to 22. I had a wheelchair, I had crutches. At age 22, I have a cane. I'm walking around. You know, it's hard to flirt, hard to have a job when you're, you know, struggling to get around. And um yeah, I remember I got hired at this. The only place that would hire me was a Christian summer camp. And I said, Hey, I can't do anything, but I know the Bible. And they said, Oh, you can teach the Bible to to, you know, counselors and high school leaders. And so I said, sure. And I probably should not have gotten that job. But it was at that job. I was on this lawn and I was talking with the Lord. I was I was trying my best to hear from him and I was journaling, and I felt him, you know, just kind of put on my heart, you know, would you follow me into a life of ministry? And I remember writing three letters, Y E S. And so it was that lawn at a summer camp where I received the call to vocational ministry and just been running after it since then.

Preparation And Early Pastoral Years

J.D. Pearring 7:24

What uh what did you do to follow follow that up? You're at a Brooklyn University. Where what school were you at?

Jeremy Cleveland 7:33

Uh so I went to Central Washington University uh for just one year. I actually moved to South Africa for six months after that to try to um get my life in order and follow God, and my heart was still not ready. And so uh Africa was was kind of a wild ride and a mess. I lived uh on a game reserve, which is like a zoo without fences. And uh just the furthest point I could get from anything I knew, it was South Africa. And um, yeah, so anyway, was there. Then then I went to the camp. And uh thankfully, this camp uh just outside of Seattle, uh, there was a lot of people that went to Northwest University, which is in Kirkland. It's a Assemblies of God University, and so kind of just went right there, um, went to Northwest, graduated from there with a pastoral ministries degree, and uh and then I got hired at a church in Houston, Texas, where I was a youth and young and old pastor. Shout out City Mark Church. I love that church, and um was there for six years and met my wife there. Okay, so that's where you met Britney in Houston. I rescued her from the heat, the humidity, hurricanes, and the roaches. And then where'd you go? Yeah, we came up here to northern Colorado, Loveland area, and worked at a great church here, Foundations Church, for uh a couple of years and learned a lot. Um, we had an awesome youth ministry called Tribe, and uh hundreds of students met Jesus. It was it was awesome, but we knew God was calling us to plant

Planting Zeal City Through Detours

Jeremy Cleveland 9:16

a church.

J.D. Pearring 9:16

Where did that come from? Where did your church planting bug bite you?

Jeremy Cleveland 9:22

Yeah, we were at a worship night at uh this other church in in the area and massive auditorium. There's just like 20 of us in there, pastors and leaders, and um we were in worship. We weren't talking, Brittany and I uh, you know, during you know, worship, and we were just with the Lord. And we got in the car, we went to drive back uh to our to our church, and we were like, Did you did you sense something? And no one was talking about church planting, but we both received it at that worship service that God would use us to plant a life-giving church. And so we went back and right away we made a seven-year plan of what we thought this was gonna look like, and uh God God quickened that plan into like three and a half or four years. Um, but yeah, it was it was out on worship night.

J.D. Pearring 10:15

Amazing, amazing. So you you went and uh basically it sounds like you planted a church not too far from where you already were.

Jeremy Cleveland 10:27

We did not want to do that. We um we were kind of in this limbo of like we want to plant a church, but the time's not it's not ready yet, and so um we applied to several different churches. Um, we also were going through some uh church planting assessment at the time, and so we ended up moving back to Houston with my in-laws for a time, and then we looked at a map and we said, All right, Lord, where would you have us go? And we ended up moving to Reno, Nevada. I don't know if you know this. We moved to Reno. Reno, we moved to Reno. We did. We saw it was the second least churched city in the country. Because San Fran, which is apparently the most godless, you know, Giants fans, whatever. And uh and 49ers fans, come on, that's all you gotta say. And uh, and so we moved to Reno, and we were like, you know, we know the gospel, and but we don't know anything else. And so we think if we just preach the gospel here, that it's gonna work. And about eight months there, I got a job in sales, which I hated. Um, we had every door of ministry closed. We submitted our articles to the state, took them months and months and months. You can't open a bank account, you can't do nothing quickly in Nevada other than get a divorce or gamble. And so eight months later, Brittany got pregnant and she said, I want to go home. And so we moved back to northern Colorado. But that was home, yeah. Yeah. Um, we just know this is where we want to be. Uh, we just it was too sensitive to to plant too quickly here. Um, and so I called foundations where I was at, and I said, Hey, we believe God's calling us to plant a church. We believe he's calling us back to Colorado. And so I promised them a few things. One, that we would never take anyone from the church. Uh, and two, we would never take a cent from the church. And so, you know, we really just wanted to join them in mission. And so um, yeah, we wanted to be honoring to them. And so we're we're about 30 minutes or so from um their campus. And, you know, there are well over 400,000 people who don't have any connection to Christ whatsoever in our region. And so foundation said, come, come back, you know. So we end up moving back here, and um we had no money. Church planters know what's up, no money, but God makes a way. And my my the way was we asked my mom to move in with us and help. Really? Yeah, yeah. How's that? How's that been? Well, she's not living with us anymore. She got a nice house in Dallas, but uh, yeah, she was with us, she helped a ton, and uh, my wife was working part-time, and I went all in on planting this church, and it took one year from our very first uh event, which was an interest social party, to launching. It was one year exactly. And it's gone pretty well. It's gone really well. Yeah, I uh it is amazing how much God has helped us because if it were up to Jeremy and Britney, I mean this thing would still be, you know, us and our kids and maybe my mom if we were lucky. What's the best thing that's happened?

Wins And Hard Lessons Leading Yourself

Jeremy Cleveland 14:03

253 first-time decisions to follow Jesus Christ in less than two years.

J.D. Pearring 14:10

Wow, that is incredible. So there's an openness to the gospel there.

Jeremy Cleveland 14:15

There is. I mean, there are um, you know, there's different uh churches for different types of people. We're the type of church uh I just want to fill heaven. I want people to know Jesus, and I believe he's the best counselor. Um, I believe when we make that that bridge, that introduction, um, God can do incredible things in their life. And um, and so absolutely we want to preach the full gospel and we want people to fill notebooks and journals full of great notes, and but man, we want to make a difference. And the greatest difference you can make is with the soul. And so the gospel is our best message, it is the main thing, and um, you know, we're asking questions of how do we help these 253 people, you know, make that next step. So we have a first steps class, we have a next steps class. Uh we've had 51 baptisms um since since launch, less than two years. And so we're really happy with that. But we won't we want to bridge that gap from 253 and 51.

J.D. Pearring 15:18

You're an evangelist, right? Is that your primary gift?

Jeremy Cleveland 15:24

Uh yeah. I mean, I I guess I fit the description. Yeah. I I I think that sometimes evangelists get bad raps because it's like, here's Jesus, and you know, good luck, see you later. You know, um, I I want to be a builder of people, you know, I want to care for the whole person.

J.D. Pearring 15:46

Evangelists who plant churches, I mean, you're yeah, that's the opposite of see you later, you know. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh well, well, that is one what has been the most difficult thing. Oh man.

Jeremy Cleveland 16:05

Uh leading myself. Yeah, I uh when I was born, I I somehow became a very sensitive individual. I mean, just emotional. Somebody put it this way, you know, we let our emotions drive the car of our life. And then there are other people who course correct and they stuff their emotions in the trunk, and that's not healthy either. What we need to do with our emotions is strap them into the car seat in the back, where they can still talk to us, inform us, but we we are leading the you know our lives. We're we're driving the car. And so I've really been working on that since we launched, and even before then, is I've got to get my emotions in line. Um, I need to be guided by truth, not by just feeling all the time. And um, there's been a lot of pain. You know, this church planting and ministry. There's pain just in general, whether you're working at Walmart, you know, but as a as a church leader and as a pastor, you don't have the freedom to respond the way your flesh demands. And so learning to crucify that aspect of me has been very challenging. And so I'll say right now, I think we've grown. Phase one is just kind of like lashing out, you know, and like just, oh yeah, you think this about me? Well, here's about you, you know. And I think we're in kind of a phase two now, which is like we absorb the blow and it really hurts. And my wife and I, you know, we'll we'll be just talking amongst ourselves about the pain. And I think the next phase that we need to grow into is immediate reaction of man, God bless you, and I want to pray for you, and I love you, and and that's a journey that's probably gonna take the rest of our lives.

J.D. Pearring 18:05

Well, on those things, uh when I was a young church planter, the pain really affected me for a long time, and then it got less and less. Then it wasn't like weeks, it was like okay, a week, and then it was like a few days, and uh now I just drive a two-seater car, so the the emotions I'd leave them somewhere else, I think. I don't want them, but yeah, that's a that is um that's a tough.

Vision Baptisms And Letting God Defend You

J.D. Pearring 18:39

What's next for Zeal City Church? What's your what's the next thing on your your docket the next step?

Jeremy Cleveland 18:47

Wow. Well, when we visited with you in California and Pastor Mark uh uh Kenton B. Shore, you know, was just filling us up, a room full of pastors, Britt and I, we had so much vision coming out of that place, and vision that we haven't even really um clarified yet. But there's there's I know God is doing a lot with us, He's clarifying vision. Um, I need to bring some more clarity to our church, um, just even around our vision. Um, but I I think God has really positioned us to be a next steps church. And so I think this fall we're gonna see a lot of people getting baptized. Uh, you know, what Oceans Church is doing in California, and they've really started to replicate in different states and different countries of baptize the world, baptize America, baptize California. Uh, nobody's doing that here in Colorado, especially in northern Colorado. And so I really believe that we're gonna be um, I guess maybe a driving force in the region for baptisms and people publicly declaring. Uh, because I think there's a lot of, you know, anonymous Christians out there that won't speak up, a lot of politicians that will kind of direct the flow of conversation of northern Colorado. And I think Christians will become much more public and much more vocal about their faith. And I think we're I think God's gonna use us to do that. That's uh that is amazing. Is there any water up there? No, we're in a drought. It's actually raining today, which is ironic. It it's we get fires uh, you know, in the in the Rockies, so we get tons of smoke, and I know you you get that in California too. Um we have a horse trough and it's nice.

J.D. Pearring 20:43

Okay, so that's how you do it. You you you you know, I I faucet water, yep. When we planted in Colorado, I was just amazed there was like no water here. Uh there's a little teeny lake, but um, anyway, there's running water, so there's rain. There's rainwater. So, well, that's a great, great vision. Hey, Jeremy, give us uh a leadership tip. You've been around this since you were three. What's your leadership tip?

Jeremy Cleveland 21:09

Yeah, well, my overseer just was trying his best to teach this to me. Uh, and um, he said, Man, pastors, we develop a lust for vindication. Uh I have to be uh right and I have to teach people how their theology is wrong, you know, and I have to defend. I don't know, nobody's ever said anything about you or your churches in a public setting or on Facebook or in a group, you know. But you know, just just a couple weeks ago, it's every time we go on vacation, we're at universal. That morning, there's a post about our church anonymously in front of a hundred thousand people on a Facebook group. And it's like we we want to set the record straight because you know that's not how things. Are and um I've just discovered I have this great desire in me to defend myself, and I think some of the best Christian leaders that I look up to are people who have firmly let God be their defender, and really just to be silent or even to give a blessing back to those who want to anonymously curse us.

J.D. Pearring 22:27

Well, that's a that's a really helpful um tip. I remember uh Larry Osborne said uh don't engage, that's what the enemy wants, you know. Um and the news cycle is so so rapid people forget, but once you start engaging and and that need to defend yourself, oh uh man, we all we all have that, and then you know it's interesting, and I don't know if you've had this happen, but um 10, 12, 8, 15, 20 years, somebody will come back and say, you know, I was wrong about what I did. And um it's like I I just want to say that's just too little, too late. That just means I forgave you a long time ago, and I probably don't remember what it was, but that's not enough. I want the yeah, he was I want the headline. Jeremy was right all along, but uh that's it that that's from God gets to do that.

Jeremy Cleveland 23:34

So good and you know, you think about David and Shimey, right? Uh with Shime, who's this guy, you know, hurling insults across the river, and the the commanders and you know, David's guys are like, You want us to go shut him up? And you know, David is like, well, maybe there's there's some truth in this that I need to hear. And um, of course, my my gut reaction is I don't need it. Yeah. But uh, yeah.

Healing Story And Final Encouragement

J.D. Pearring 24:03

Well, hey, one last how's your how is your health? You talked about having this car accident and not being able to walk and then moving to a wheelchair crunches, can't how how are you doing now?

Jeremy Cleveland 24:15

Yeah, uh, well, you know, we have this uh basement gym and we work out every day, my wife and I, and I have a four-year-old son, and he sees I put on my left shoe, under my left shoe, there's like a little lift because my legs are different lengths now. And uh now he knows that you know I sit by a car and everything, and so he likes to tell everybody now well, my dad was hit by a car just randomly out of the blue. Um, because people wouldn't notice really uh if he didn't say it. So I I'm you know hurts a little bit to tie my shoes, but other than that, there's not not much pain. And so we we live a pretty active lifestyle and you know, pushing strollers around. So yeah, God really healed me and uh he used that accident. I was so glad God showed me purpose for that seemingly purposeless accident just 10 years after it happened when I was forced to slow my life down, to be on this lawn working at a summer camp, couldn't do anything else but read the word, be with God, and minister to students. And so it took the accident to get me there. So it's really that car is why I'm in ministry, I think.

J.D. Pearring 25:29

Amazing. Well, hey, um, thank you for what you're doing. Um, we're so um encouraged to see how God's moving in NOCO and Zeal City. I I love your big vision. Um, and I mean God's gonna use that. Uh 253 people coming to Christ is fantastic. 51 baptisms. Um, and just the plan to say, okay, what do we do um with the the 200 that haven't quite gone public yet? So wonderful stuff. So thanks for everything you're doing. Keep it up. Thank you, brother. Appreciate you.

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Announcer 26:09

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.