In this episode, Senior Pastor Damein Schitter asks CrossTown founder Eric Stites to take us through his journey from an enlightening internship at Desire Street Ministries in New Orleans to planting roots in Orlando's Paramore community. Eric's experiences are a profound lesson on understanding poverty, race, justice, and God's mission. You can find out more about the work at CrossTown here.
In this episode, Senior Pastor Damein Schitter asks CrossTown founder Eric Stites to take us through his journey from an enlightening internship at Desire Street Ministries in New Orleans to planting roots in Orlando's Paramore community. Eric's experiences are a profound lesson on understanding poverty, race, justice, and God's mission. You can find out more about the work at CrossTown here.
Alright, yesterday, eric, you made an announcement. You talked about the history, a little bit of Crosstown, and you talked a little bit about what's going on in the future. But the purpose of this conversation is to expand that Appreciate that. So let's start at the beginning not of your life maybe, but I'm going to lead that up to you. Tell us a little bit about how you got to Orlando and what brought you here, whatever you think is most relevant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so really a lot of this story starts almost 20 years ago now when I was in college at Florida State, and while I was there I heard about an internship in New Orleans at a ministry called Desire Street Ministries.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Didn't know anything about it, didn't know I mean, truly knew nothing and just thought I think I'm supposed to go do that. That's really kind of the whole thing Drove over there, and the first thing was, hey, the whole point of this is to ruin your life, wow, and sort of like tongue-in-cheek, but that's exactly what it was. So we were in the Desire neighborhood, which was, at that time, one of the worst neighborhoods, honestly, in the whole country, but it was there where I got this, both an immersion into a community like that, where we're just living life there with people there, all of that, and then, coupled with that, though, was this biblical framework? For why is ministry for a community like this so important? Where does this come from? What does the Bible have to say about poverty? What does the Bible have to say about race? What does the Bible have to say about justice? What does God even up to in the world? What's his mission? What does it mean to suffer for the sake of the gospel? Is that something we're avoiding?
Speaker 1:or is that?
Speaker 2:something we actually walk into intentionally.
Speaker 2:So it was through that whole experience where I was like yep, life ruined check done and then left there just sort of saying all right, now, where do you want me to go and do this? I feel called to this sense, and the two big things too were incarnational ministry, so moving into a community, getting close, and then, with the close to that was with this purpose of indigenous leadership and it's the term used, but essentially meaning work yourself out of a job, like when we come into a space like this. A lot of times what ends up happening is it's another form of dependence, where we build this ministry or whatever, but it's all on this person. And so how do we instead empower the community? So those two prongs of a philosophy, a ministry or what I brought with me. So I went back to Florida State, graduated, spent a little bit of time there, but finishing there, did some ministry there but got to a point where I was like I need more training. I'm going to do this for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:And so the decision to go to seminary came out of that. So that's what brought me to Orlando, to RTS, and again thought I'm not going to be in Orlando. I kind of had that feel. But did get married to my wife, kristen, after the first semester of seminary. So we knew each other from Tallahassee but got married here and then at the same time started coming into New City. So at that point New City was like a year old maybe, and so began to hear about, hey, we're trying to do this ministry in this community called Paramore. Of course I didn't know anything about that.
Speaker 1:So I'm not from here.
Speaker 2:But come to find out it's a community like desire, where I was in New Orleans and where I felt like God was calling me too in general in my life. So, graduated from seminary and, long story short, had looked all over the country. We're going to go this place, that place, where is the most desperate need or whatever, and God and his both kindness and humor, I think said it's right here, you don't have to leave. And New City also had a desire to plant churches, and so that was, I say, that was the vehicle we got in to live out this calling of our life to be in a community like Paramore. And so that's how it started was as a church plant. That's the story in.
Speaker 2:You know, to get from that point, which was back in 2015, up to where we are now, you know obviously a much longer story, but long story short. You know we knew where we were going. I would say like what's the? What's the ultimate vision here? And goes back to that indigenous leadership. You know that's like the ultimate goal. How are you getting there? Is like the. You know what you kind of discover each and every day.
Speaker 2:But the most important part for us was we're living here and we're learning and we're getting to know people and making a whole lot of mistakes, right, but that's, that was the way in which we got to the point of what we're doing now. And so at a certain point we felt like you know the church plant itself, like being a church, and again it's kind of more of a narrow definition of church, having a worship service and those types of things. Right, it was like that's. I'm not sure if that's where we need to stay right now, because it felt like we weren't actually serving the community with that.
Speaker 2:But in the process of starting the church, we had met many people and had started an after school program, again through a community leader, which was very important to us, and so we began to see that, ultimately, what we want to do is we want to make disciples first and foremost, obviously, yeah, and in some ways trying to do the church thing in the way that we do it, a lot of times it just was intense. There's a lot that goes into that and it felt like it was pulling us away from this disciple making thing, which is the whole reason we're here. So, yeah, we pulled back on that but then continued to do the after school program and then really continued on and so much life on life ministry that was happening in the community and by pulling away from having a worship service that allowed us to do more of that and allowed us to discover what is God actually calling us to do for the long run.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So to kind of catch us up to present day, present day it was really. You know, I've told the story before, but I met a close friend of mine who became a close friend through the ministry that we were doing. I met him and his name was Antoine and he was someone who truly shared with me what is it like to be a product of this environment. He would use those words right, this is what it's like, and he would tell me things, some things I wish I didn't know, honestly, at this point, but it just it was a I was getting an education on what is this really about. And four years after I met him he was murdered tragically, right. I mean probably 100 feet from where I met him on day one, right, and it was that that was like a watershed moment for us as a ministry to understand, like, what are we actually trying to do here?
Speaker 2:Right, like I had spent so much time with him. Yeah, and there's a part of that I said it yesterday there's a part of that you just watch the environment, eat people up, right, and there's a part of that. It's like discouraging part of that. It's like why am I even here, right? Yeah, like that's kind of how you can take that. But obviously we're also trusting God's sovereignty, we're trusting God's working, and so in that also, it was. It was an experience that was like let's learn, like what God's doing here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's where the idea of a gospel environment honestly like, really took form was through his life the negative things that had happened, but then also seeing, like, if we want to be serious about this, we want to actually make an impact, see transformation, we got to take the reality of this environment very seriously and then have an answer for it. Yeah, and that's what the gospel environment is, a place of saying let's surround the neighbors in this community with all the necessary you know pieces, if you will, of an environment to where it's all you know, the DNA is the gospel through and through, but it kind of takes different forms so that we can come, all those things can come together and we can actually see this. You know, little seed become a little sapling, become an oak of righteousness you know, Isaiah 61, like that's the whole thing.
Speaker 2:And that's where that came from is really through that story, and that's where we're at now.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, there's so many things I love about that, just two things. One I've heard it said that our passions as it relates to the gospel and gospel ministry are a piece of God's heart that he puts in our heart. So, in other words, not all of us can hold all of God's heart. We can't be passionate equally about everything. But it sounds to me like God that happened God did that when you were, when you went to Desire Street that he took a piece of his heart, put it in your heart, and there were two principles that have continued to drive your ministry. And then I'll make two comments of how I've seen that and it's just really doubling down on what you said. And the two philosophical principles were incarnational ministry that you were going to be in and among the people you were ministering to, and for you guys that has taken the shape of living in the neighborhood Right. And then the other thing is indigenous leadership. So you are really going to empower, disciple, equip and then release leaders from this community. What I love about that is that the connection there, I think, is, with the gospel is you believe that you're believing the gospel for these people before they know it, before they can believe it for themselves. There's language we used to use all the time, but you guys move in there and know the power of the gospel through and in relationship and so on. So these two principles have driven at least two what I would say are courageous decisions, but certainly forks in the road, as I have seen them.
Speaker 1:The first one was when you decided to end corporate worship or the church plan, and you made that decision when we were in conversation, based on those two principles. You lived there, you were for the community, so the community was what you're committed to making disciples and the community. And what ended up happening was not that the church wasn't going well, it just depends on how you framed it. In one sense, it was growing, but there were a lot of people from outside the neighborhood who were starting to come, who didn't live in the neighborhood, and it was choking out indigenous leadership which just takes longer to develop, especially in a community that you're serving. And so it was pretty clear to you, quicker than I think most people would have been able to get there, you just said hey, if we don't stop this now, we'll get this train in the wrong. Let me change the metaphor we'll get this rocket off the launch pad in the wrong direction, you can't really course correct. And so I remember you made that decision and it maybe was confusing to some people, but not to you, I mean. You maybe were disappointed in some ways, but it was so clear to you. So you can speak to that in a second if you want.
Speaker 1:But that to me I saw those two principles in action there and then with, as you described, the tragic story with Antoine, I mean you two things and from my perspective came together there. One is that you guys clearly were a part of the neighborhood in so far as you could be, but you preached this funeral, so you were there. The whole community's there. They see you grieving, they see that they knew that you were in real relationship with them and they knew him, which, by extension, there's a connection there because of that. So there was a fruit of incarnational ministry even in that tragedy. That's right.
Speaker 1:And then the principle of incarnation and indigenous leadership as it comes together made this what I would think is the second big decision, which was we're going to do this gospel environment thing, and that is much broader and larger and bigger than what we thought we were coming here to do the neighborhood itself is challenging enough, that's right. But to do all of this and so it really was those, as you say it, those two principles that have been driving this the filter, yeah, that's. What do you think about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I totally agree. You know, both those stories obviously have like a much longer version of themselves, right, yeah. But yeah, I mean to the, to the ending of the corporate worship thing. You know, had there were some people who would say to me hey, like the church didn't stop you, just the worship service stopped.
Speaker 2:Right, or something like yeah, yeah and you know, obviously we're not here to articulate what is the church right now. But but in this space, right you go. If we went to another country, you know we might we would actually have a little bit more understanding of that type of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense like, yeah, of course you need to do that first, you know, but here in America it's like the new. The only new thing we tend to do in ministry is let's plant the church. Yeah, and the reality is, especially in a neighborhood like this, there's this like runway. You know, there's a path of like let's build ministry first, let's build, get to know people and all that.
Speaker 1:So well, to that point. What do people in the neighborhood call you? Pastry?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it just dawns on me people call you pastries.
Speaker 1:Still, I've heard them when we've you've taken me on walks or take me different places. People in the neighborhood they see you. They call you pastry. Yeah, that's what. That's what you're called.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. So there's not a, there's not like, oh, you don't have a church thing, so now you're not that right right. That doesn't seem to deter people there, right? So so, yeah, that's true for the, for the church, and yeah, it was a. It's exactly what you said. It was a sad, hard decision. Of course, it's not like you're like, even though it was clear. Yeah, there wasn't this like, oh man, yeah, let's just. Let's just get this over with.
Speaker 2:You know, there's a lot of mourning and grieving in that process, but felt like this is the right thing to do ultimately for the sake of, again, the community, as you said, like that's what we're here for.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, and to to Antoine, and that story. I mean it's to your point, like I consistently meet people that I don't know who they are but they, you know, might have seen, been, might have been at the funeral and experienced. You know, there's actually a man who comes to now, comes to our men's discipleship meeting, who has Basically, in his words, just sort of like been waiting till it was the right time. But he was there, wow, at the funeral, right, and knew at that time like I gotta get with this guy. And it's not about me, it's just, it's more like it's about ministry, yeah, about the fact that, and he has a whole story that's amazing, of how God has worked in his life. That had nothing to do with me, but it's.
Speaker 2:It's this thing where, when, when you have the community and leadership from the community as your kind of goal, it helps you to get out of the way and and then to be able to find and bring people together for that common goal, because that's one of the things that I don't see, you know, happening a lot is, hey, there might be like a number of leaders in the community that I mean I could tell you again a number of stories of people whose spiritual walk, where they've been transformed by Jesus, actually didn't have, like, directly anything to do with us, necessarily.
Speaker 2:But now it's like this, okay, but now what? Like can can this actually have an impact on the community I came from, because most people it's let me get out of here. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, because that pot can't, I must not have anything to do here anymore, right, but for me it's that staying true, to know, like you do actually, and actually your voice is Powerful, right, like your story of transformation. Nobody cares about my story of transformation, to be honest, right, but when someone hears someone who's walked in their shoes, who's done the same things and all that type of stuff, and then hears like, yeah, but God, yeah yeah, story, that moment that's powerful, and so that's one of the things that even you know Antoine's life brought me into contact with people.
Speaker 2:Never, I never should have had a relationship with and literally stills of this day, kind of a meeting new people because of that kind of moment and and now it's, it's still just that like hey, can we all, like it's this takes this time to build this, like can we come together for this common thing which is this community that you might have come from or I didn't come from, but care about? And how can we see the gospel Infiltrate and continue to, you know, transform this place?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. Yeah, that's really good. So give us a snapshot of what you mean by a gospel environment. You did it yesterday and so, even if you just do the same thing again, that's great. Sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, we really are all formed by our environments. I'm a product of my environment. The school I went to. The family I'm from my siblings, my parents. The church I went to the sports. I played.
Speaker 1:Right it's true for all of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's true in our community as well, and I also when we, even when we look at scripture, we see how often Scripture refers to us as trees, plants. Jesus did it right. There's all these metaphors of Growth, and it's typically not fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like this like and we don't like that, but it's typically like, you know, a tree plant, the besides streams of water, like that's how. That's the metaphor of of us, and Psalms and Jesus talking about the same thing. So the environment aspect just felt so natural. Isaiah 61, again, I mentioned already, but oaks of righteousness. There's like this sense of of us being planted places, right, yeah, so now what?
Speaker 2:What we, what we realized, is that we need to create this holistic environment of A place where the gospel is at the center of this thing. It's the thing that's driving the engine, so to speak. But we're creating different avenues and places where the gospel can touch people's lives and and maybe even touch the same person, but in a different part of their life. Right, so we have, as I said, we have this after-school program, because that was the something that was started by the Leader in the community, right, if you had said, hey, what are you gonna do, eric, I probably wouldn't have said I'm gonna go start After-school programs. That's not certainly me, yes, it's just responsive, the community and and. So that's a piece now of this environment, something that's actually happened recently, as people have said. Oh, so, so the school you know, your after-school program just became a school. And no, that's actually not true.
Speaker 2:We still have the after-school program. We just added to that this element of a school, because, again, this reality of an environment you gotta understand, the school where they were going is a piece of their environment. Yeah, and it's not a good one, unfortunately, right? So how can we then create, you know, a better for lack of better word a better source of water? Hmm, the water they were getting over at the school, and the right one. So we might be sunlight with the after-school program, which is great, for only with them for a few hours, and, and this other thing is the same, life we're trying to put in over here is being taken over here.
Speaker 2:Yeah so so, and I'm just crazy enough, let's start a school.
Speaker 2:That should be all the work that that takes. But but now you can see like, literally, we're creating this environment where Matt, we have them from pick them up at 730 in the morning, we leave at 530. I mean, we're there for 10 hours, you know, with with students. So that's two pieces of the environment. We have this men's discipleship group I've mentioned, and so this is a Every Wednesday night. We come together with men from the community, men on staff, and it's a place where we're just talking about what does it mean to be a man, and even specifically from this community, and what does it look like to be a man in the way that God has called us to be right?
Speaker 2:So, again, just another piece of the environment when we're able to bring the gospel there. We're currently, right now, also Working on mental health counseling, so we're trying to figure out what does that look like? Talking to talking to some people specifically about this, but again, we see in our environment trauma, things like this, repeated over and over again, right, never healed. And so if we're gonna respond with the gospel, we need to say, like, how can we create spaces where our community can come to someone who's trained in this, who can, you know, just Get into those like deep pockets of their hearts that just have never been, you know, touched and bring about transformation through the gospel? So, so, that's another piece of the environment. And then, another thing that we have not yet done, although Dabbled into it a little bit, but want to see happen, is what does it look like to create vocational training?
Speaker 2:right on this because again now We've got kids right, a lot of that, and we got Relationships with adults in the community. Mental health counseling is an opportunity to, you know, build bridges there, but at the end of the day, with a lot of adults, like you know, job is like the same as school.
Speaker 1:So just being for kids right.
Speaker 2:It's this thing they go to all day. Yeah and either they have one and it's okay, or they're not making enough, or they don't have one at all. Right, but the the? It's another place for us to say, hey, come, let's, let's invite you in and let's let's see what it is to like Re-reform, a whole new life around this thing that you do all day. Yeah, so that would be another piece. And then you can start to see like, wow, this is like an environment right, Mm-hmm and then you know the sort of crowning achievement of all that would be.
Speaker 2:Could we then, out of that, have church one day? That's truly, you know, coming from the, the, the, the community itself. Yeah, not just a bunch of people from the outside saying, hey, let's do church. Yeah, you know, just showing up. But now you can see it's more organic and bubbling up through hey, like we're coming together and God's doing something our life. Aren't we supposed to do this church?
Speaker 1:thing, you know kind of a, thing, and they're really being the church to each other.
Speaker 2:It's just. Then it would have the expression of a worship service. So that's kind of like the holistic picture. And there may be other things honestly along the way. We don't imagine that we've thought of every part of the environment, but we just know we have to think broader. And something else I want to say about it too is you mentioned those two things that kind of helped shape back when it was we were trying to make the decision to stop church and the gospel environment becoming a thing?
Speaker 2:Another thing that was really a big piece of my story is that I really didn't know myself either. And you actually are. A huge reason as to why I began to understand this about myself was when we did leadership DNA and I learned that I was a what's it called an initiator. I think this was my thing and it like made so much sense and I had a ton of shame about the fact that I think that it's bad that I start something and I'm not the best at maintaining it.
Speaker 2:And then that whole thing was like that's who you are, but that's good right, but you just can't do it alone. And so even the idea of like, creating a team of like, hey, you do this well, but if you're by yourself, you are going to sink the ship, quite honestly. But then you can also see now like, oh, a gospel environment. That makes sense for Eric too, specifically as a leader, because it's a collection of things and holding that together, helping get those things started.
Speaker 2:That's literally like who I am, how God made me. But it wasn't until coming back into kind of the New City fold for that season and you doing that, it was like, oh man, light bulbs were going off all over the place and I was able to understand like, oh wow, like this is part of who I am.
Speaker 1:So now it makes sense more and more. Well, it's fascinating. What I think is so interesting to me, how all those pieces come together, is that it makes perfect sense that you need to plant a gospel environment where it is just like the incarnation, just like the gospel. It's not removing people from their environment, but rather it's infusing that environment with that which is good. And, just like you said, we know you belong here, your God has you here, but let's infuse it with healthier soil, healthier water, healthier sunlight, and so that's a very vivid picture. And what I like about that, when you overlay the two philosophical principles of incarnational ministry and indigenous leadership, is you have open eyes and ears to what's the right thing next, and then, rather than trying to make a wave, you ride it. So someone comes to you and says, hey, they have energy for this thing. You're like, well, yeah, that's definitely got to be on the list, let's do it. And then you initiate your gifts to get that off the ground, and now you have a team that is running it and optimizing it, and so on. Then it was the school and the men's Bible study, and there are a number of things, but in all of these cases you're able to look through the filter and say, yep, that's needed, just like sunlight's needed or water's needed or whatever. But you're sort of tucking in behind both the Holy Spirit and watching as he's bringing these indigenous leaders up. Now that's easy to understand in one sense, but the reality is that let's say we have 10 leaders, let's say that four of them or three of them are initiators or whatever.
Speaker 1:But the thing is, is that, because of that first commitment that you really believe in, you're the only leader, probably in the city, who can do what you're doing, because you live there, they know you, you've invested and, insofar as you can be, you're one of them, or at least you're known. Like you said, you know people that you have no business knowing because of the way God orchestrated relationships in the neighborhood, so that knowing yourself. When the penny dropped and the Holy Spirit showed that to you and sort of removed that shame from you, it was almost like the image that comes to my mind is because you were committed to those two principles. It was almost like you're like a scooter, a motor, a scooter or a motorcycle, with your rev in the engine and the back wheels going and but it's like it's being held up, that's on the kickstand, and then the tire hit the ground and he sort of took off. So, as you were saying it, that was what all sort of came together, and I wanted to speak to that so that people understand that incarnational ministry in general is challenging.
Speaker 1:In particular, it's nearly impossible, especially in a neighborhood like you live in. It never, it's not like you did that thing and now you're just sort of coasting in that thing, but rather it's an ongoing decision. It's a cross that you are carrying because Jesus has asked you guys to carry this cross, and there's fruit coming from it, but nevertheless it costs, and so I would say that, to generalize it from the particular anyone who's listening to this, we can learn from you. We can learn from that. What are the things in our lives that God sort of interrupted or ruined our lives, so to speak? But it requires surrendering to both our story and who we are and being committed to the cross that the Lord's given us, and in this case, for you, it's incarnational ministry and indigenous leadership.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. I think I have a mentor in this whole thing and he would say I've mentioned this before, but he would always say listen, eric, god brought you to this neighborhood not so that you could do a whole bunch of amazing things for him, but ultimately so that he could be with you. And I think that's, at the end of the day, I know that is the sure thing in this whole thing, but there's nowhere better to be right.
Speaker 2:And then to be with God in these places, and I say that obviously it's easy to say that right now while we're talking here, but ultimately it's like what you just said. There's this. What I feel like God's journey with me personally has been over the past 10 years is like are you gonna be a leader that's actually following me, or not and that takes neighborhoods like Crosstown, take whatever good idea you thought you had, and it just kind of laughs in your face.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. But then you have to decide what are you gonna do with that Like, am I gonna just keep pressing on because I think it's a really good idea, or am I going to like stop for a moment and kind of listen and learn? And so that humility has been like almost not a choice. It's almost been sort of like here you go.
Speaker 2:Like you either choose to be humble or just kind of choose to be humiliated right. Or both maybe at times, but it's just like. This is how this works. But the part of that is true and I think it's applicable to all of us is like it's this slowing down long enough to listen. Like God, what are you doing right now in my life? You know what I mean. Incarnation is something that can be done anywhere in that sense right.
Speaker 2:It's just like am I gonna fully be wherever I am? But that takes a serious like I gotta slow down right my agenda of life, so it doesn't. You could be in Winter Park and truly incarnate or truly not, and same with my neighborhood. I could be there but not really be there.
Speaker 2:And trust me, we've been both at times, but it's that it slows you down and brings us to this place of. Am I gonna trust God right now? What's right in front of me? That's the biggest lesson. Well, I don't. Honestly, I feel like God has shown me over the past 10 years.
Speaker 1:That's good. That's good. Well, I think that people certainly know the history a little better than they did, and you a little bit better than they would have. Tell us briefly what is the school doing and what's the setup there, and then the after school program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the school is very non-traditional. We start with that, right. But I think it's, but it's also very much us. So that's what I would say there. So the school, we started it with kids that we already knew. So a lot of times, you know, you start a school, it's like, all right, you come up with this great plan, we're gonna go find 15 or 20 kindergartners, start there and grow with them for the next, you know, 12 years or whatever. For us it was culture-eat strategy for breakfast, right. So we've got a pretty strong culture. The best thing would be to take kids that already know that culture and put them into this school. So that's what we did. That was our most important thing, not like a strategy of starting with a certain grade. So our grades actually span first through seventh, which is a little. It's not. It sounds random. It's only random to us because of the fact that it's kids that we already know.
Speaker 2:It just happened to be in those grades. We have two different classes. There's a primary class which is first through fourth grade and then there's an intermediate class, we call it, which is fifth through seventh, so it's mixed grades. The reality is our head of school, mia Grant she said from her experience at ACE, which is where she came from, which is the school in the neighborhood, she already knew all of our kids from that experience. But she said in my classroom there I'm already having to do mixed grade levels because of where they're all at anyway.
Speaker 2:In a lot of ways we just are embracing that reality and saying, instead of being Charlie Brown's teacher in front of the class, just going through the motions and going through the curriculum whether the kid gets it or not doesn't matter we're saying no, let's respond to the individual places of where our kids are. So let's be small enough to where we can do that, yeah, and let's make sure we know where every kid is and then begin to trace their progress. And you know, bottom line, like the fruit, from even just an academic standpoint, already has just been. You know, it's amazing.
Speaker 2:I know it's easy for me to say again, but things like kids who would come and A not even know how to read, or because they don't know how hate the idea of reading, come in two months to the point of not being able to put a book down. Yeah, wow, and it's just because of part of it is the environment, but then it's also because they're not just being looked at as one of 25 kids and this is totally missing me and instead like, hey, let's find out exactly where you are, let's find a book that you can read where you're at, and something that you enjoy, and not just a worksheet or whatever.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean? Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:So stuff like that, just that fruit of the excitement of learning right, has been incredible over the past a little bit, and then then being able to that gospel environment is a part of this school as well. So each morning our kids, the first thing we do is Ron teaches them from whatever our theme is, which right now is called the New Thing, come from Isaiah 43, because it's all a new to us.
Speaker 2:And so the kids are getting to embrace, like what is this whole new thing of being in a new school? And it's a school where we get to talk about God and about who I am and all this and so, and so it's there where they're being just fed spiritually of you know again just who they are, and then talking about what is this environment that you're in? Right, how do we make this what it should be? How do we and we talk about the issues right there and that you know, in that room with all of them there, how do we make this a safer place? How do we make this a place where you don't feel like you have to defend yourself, all those things that where they're coming from again, the environment where they came from was not true and we're trying to say how do we make that true over here? So that's what the school looks like.
Speaker 2:The morning time is spent in core classes math, reading, those types of things and the afternoon is exciting because we actually get to do social studies, science. In the school where they came from they don't even touch that anymore because they're just trying to teach for the test or whatever. So our kids are getting to do STEM stuff. They're learning different countries right now, as we're taking a country each month and they're learning about that. And then all along that, they're getting the. We're walking through the Bible as well and talking about this real place of where starting in Genesis, of where were these people right, where did this actually happen? And getting us to walk through that. So getting all those things and then the afterschool program is now because we have our own school is simply a place for the kids to actually for them to get into a deeper relationship with our staff.
Speaker 2:Do discipleship where we're not now we're not having to worry about the academic side which is what the afterschool was before more right Now we just get to focus on them getting to enjoy staff relationships and build that and build on the discipleship that we started in the school, but get to have more focused time on that. So, quite honestly, it's just more fun, you know because we don't have to deal with all those other things so and it's just kind of one big family atmosphere throughout the whole day. I love that.
Speaker 1:Well, jason and I visited at the very end of the day a few weeks ago, and so I only just got a snapshot, but what I would say is I had been a couple of times to the afterschool program, and this was my first time at the school, and what I would say is that it did even to me just a snapshot that I got.
Speaker 1:It felt like the same culture in a positive way. I would say that what's the amazing thing is that the kids and from my experience they seemed so peaceful, they seemed they were super respectful, even just in like the little bit of interaction as they were walking out of the classroom. And then the other thing, though, is like it was obvious they felt loved and they were having fun. Like even as they were walking by, they're kind of joking with you, but like they didn't know us really. So they said hello to us, they were very respectful, and then, on a dime, they're like clearly there was joking with you, but again it was like totally I keep using the word respectful, but it just felt like a family. And so that was my just brief experience, and I went home and told Leo and I basically told the same thing I said it was awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you nailed it when you said there's an experience of being loved right and that's why we say we're cultivating a gospel environment where loved people love people. So it's our language for discipleship, but it's until you know you're loved right, loved and some. You know it's God's love ultimately, but he takes human beings as that means sometimes for us to be able to internalize that love, and that's what we're doing. So you're experiencing them being loved and then they're loving you right, which is ultimately again the fruit multiplies.
Speaker 2:That's our language for that. But that's it, man, and it sounds. In this day and age it can be kind of like corny, it's like, oh, just loving people, right, but love is gospel, love is like a. It's a fierce love.
Speaker 2:It's a love with teeth in it. You know what I mean. It's truth and grace, and both are going on. You know, and that's what you're experiencing. It's them experiencing that. You know, like we talk about all the time. It's a place where our kids are safe to make mistakes. They're going to know they made a mistake, so that's the truth element. But there's this grace of like, but here let's do this again.
Speaker 1:Let's learn from this, Like that's what the gospel is right.
Speaker 2:And that's what they experience. So, yeah, so that's what you. It's cool to hear you say that and, honestly, consistently, to hear that from other people, because that's the, that's the realness of what we want to you know offer and I think when people come, they're just experiencing that kind of oh, like this is. This is just a real sense of what it is to be loved. There's no like hey, say the right thing. There's people over there because they came here today.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, that's what happened with Cole Anthony.
Speaker 2:When he came, you know the magic player who had sponsored lunch we just literally said, hey guys, just share with full. I mean it was totally spur of the moment, had no plan, we didn't even really we told him, we told the kids that he was coming that morning, you know, just so they would know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But they're just sharing and he gets a sense of that realness, you know so we strive for that, you know, no matter what. Yeah, because that's, that's what they'll take with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think that's the way that CSI experienced it, and so it doesn't surprise me that other people said the same thing. Yeah Well, I think it's a great place to end. I think that this has been really helpful. We wanted to get people in the arc of the history. If they didn't know a little bit of what's happening now, and I suppose at the end we could just say if they are listening to this and they want to know what a next step would be, what would that be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the simplest thing is is to reach out to me. You know. So my email, my phone number is on our website and so go to the website, crosstownlife, you can. You know we've updated that very recently to really more reflect who we are, okay, and so it's a pretty accurate portrayal right now. But, yeah, all of my information is on there. And you know there's there's multiple next steps there's, but I think the most important thing is just I said it yesterday is just building relationship. You know, come out, see what's going on. I love, just, you know, driving people through the neighborhood even just to kind of get that experience through my eyes.
Speaker 2:So that's always the next step. We have ways you can. You know, come and read with a student, or you know, go to the after school program. Those are all real things that you know you can. You can do that. The first thing is like let's just get a conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's talk, so reach out to me, that's great.
Speaker 1:That's great, all right, well, thank you, eric, it's good to be with you.