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The NewCity Orlando All of Life Podcast
The All of Life podcast, hosted by Nate Claiborne, provides weekly episodes that help further our mission to call, form, and send disciple-makers. At NewCity, we want to see Orlando flourish by filling it with people who say "Follow me as I follow Jesus in all of life."
The NewCity Orlando All of Life Podcast
A NewCity Story | From Shame to Grace: Joshua Esquivel's Surrender and Belonging
In this deeply personal episode, Pastor Benjamin Kandt sits down with Joshua Esquivel to explore his remarkable journey from legalistic religion and inner turmoil to vibrant faith and intimate communion with Jesus. Joshua shares candidly about growing up in a devout Seventh-day Adventist community, wrestling with shame surrounding his same-sex attraction, and the years of isolation, performance, and self-rejection that followed. He recounts his eventual “coming out,” the pain of family rejection, and the years he spent trying to find identity and peace through secular means, including New Age spirituality and relationships.
Everything began to change when Joshua prayed a half-sincere, half-desperate prayer surrendering his life to God. What followed was an unexpected and supernatural encounter with the grace of Jesus through Scripture, Reformed theology, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He speaks about his conviction of the Bible’s truth, his calling to celibacy, and the surprising joy and belonging he’s found in the body of Christ—particularly through New City. This is a testimony of gospel hope, identity rooted in Jesus, and the kind of transformation that only God can bring.
You can find the resources referenced in this episode here and here.
Hey, new City. This is Benjamin King. I am here with a good friend, joshua Esquivel, who has a remarkable story of the grace of God in working in his life, and I'm eager, excited, anticipatory to be able to have this conversation with you, joshua, and for our listeners to hear the story. So thanks for being here with me, thanks for having me. So you know we've had we were just talking a little bit before we started recording about our timeline of friendship together, but I wouldn't mind. Can you just share a bit of your story, of kind of how you find yourself here today? Now Some of your story of what it looked like for you to come to faith in Christ. What was life like for you before that? What were you seeking? What were you up to? Tell us a little bit about your context.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, I guess, like my story starts in Oregon. I was raised in Southwest Oregon in a devout Seventh-day Adventist home, small town, small rural blue-collar working-class town, and kind of just grew up in a little Seventh-day Adventist bubble. The community had a huge presence and so even the school. They had schools there. So everything I knew was kind of in that world and I kind of remember just having a good child, mostly good childhood, just growing up with my parents and living kind of this visceral lifestyle of just hiking and hanging out with my parents and friends and church stuff.
Speaker 2:So it was a good childhood, I think.
Speaker 1:Hiking is a little different in Oregon than it is in Central Florida. Is that fair? Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:We have Mount Dora. We have Mount Dora, which I was like I actually heard of it, I Googled it and there's no mountain.
Speaker 1:There's not a Dora, which I was like I actually heard of it and Googled it and like there's no mountain.
Speaker 2:It's not a mountain. No, you're like I know mountains, yeah, when people say they hike.
Speaker 1:I'm like where are you?
Speaker 2:Walk. It's walking. Yeah, that's right, but yeah, it's beautiful people. Yeah, oh, they were so excited to meet you and brothers and sisters at New City and it was they were really holding back tears? I think yes.
Speaker 1:I love that opportunity, but yeah.
Speaker 2:so I think, like my, I think my story kind of really takes a turn around puberty time Because, you know, up until then I feel like I would say that my background was very legalistic in a sense, it was very workspace, and we were, we were going to church on the right day which is a big thing for seventh day adventists and eating the diet.
Speaker 2:Well, mostly correctly, we didn't. We were not vegans but, um, you know, and so when the whole issue of sexuality came up, um, I remember the seventh day adventist school system had a video that was kind of a addition to the sex ed portion of the curriculum around sixth grade-ish, somewhere in there, 12 years old, and it was about homosexuality. And you know, about that time I had been, like remember, like in my head, just arguing that I wasn't gay, that I didn't have same-sex attraction, that it was just a phase or if it was just confusion or something. And this video kind of highlighted multiple older people and their experiences in the gay lifestyle and how it was very destructive for them. And these people in the video also said it was a choice, and so this was really like I remember hearing those words and thinking like I didn't choose this.
Speaker 2:And actually that was the first time that I think I felt a sense of shame, intense shame that this is what I'm experiencing. Something is wrong with me. I'm defective, and we hear that growing up in the church, obviously that we were all sinners, but this feels like a special category. You are even more remarkably defective than the average sinner and I kind of went from this existence of just living viscerally to being very introspective, being very in my head, constantly dialoguing with myself about how to hide it. What do I do? Do I? You know, I did try for a long time just to pray it away and ask God to make me normal and even, like it's interesting, like with the whole issue of, you know, the trans issue of today, you know, I look back and even I remember dialoguing with myself what if I was born in the wrong body and I'm like oh my goodness, if that had happened, if I was a child today, this could have been a totally different outcome.
Speaker 2:Just crazy to think. Yeah, so I think that was the first time where I felt my need of Christ, but I didn't feel the presence of Jesus's comfort, love and mercy. I felt condemnation.
Speaker 1:Wow, and in some ways, if I heard you, you know, describing the religious part of your life as fairly legalistic. In other words, there was not this. I am known and loved by the God of the universe and you know, jesus is my savior and friend and Lord and lover, and and the father is, has adopted me as a beloved son and the spirit lives within me. That was not your experience. Your experience was there's some rules you got to follow. There's there's good people and bad people and uh, and and I was in, it sounds like in that moment that sex ed video, you it became, you became acutely aware that you were in the bad people category, very much so, and it wasn't a choice, it was something that you were aware of. That was that was true of you. That in that moment you you realize, wow, like I, like I'm not on the good side of religion right now.
Speaker 1:Yes, which I think is remarkable, and I want to be clear there are people who grew up in the Presbyterian church, who their experience of life with God is actually fundamentally religious and legalistic. And so this isn't a Seventh-day Adventist thing, it's not a Baptist thing, it's not a, you know, episcopalian thing or Anglican or Presbyterian thing, it's like a, it's like a fundamental human thing which is we can relate to God based on performance and you know doing what, enough to accept and receive and deserve God's kindness and um, and then if you become aware of sin in your life, that is, it has an effect on you. So my hunch this is you know, oftentimes what happens is, the effect is is that you go underground with that sin, you go into hiding. Because if I let people know this, there's not, there's not grace, there's not. You know, there's not these things that invite us into the open for freedom and healing and those kinds of things. How did that go for you? What?
Speaker 2:was that like Very much. In that way, I think, as I look back on who I was as a kid back then I can see myself shutting down and being so secretive of my life, so very much, and not even just in sexuality, but it's almost like I didn't want to let anybody too close to me and too close.
Speaker 2:I didn't feel comfortable being vulnerable with people Because inevitably that leads to discussions on more intimate parts of your life. You're dating who are you, who you, who do you like, etc. So I kind of walled myself off, I think, from having any conversations that could be too deep. That would kind of make me vulnerable, I think, in a sense of having to open up about issues like this, wow. And then I think that also simultaneously I mean not knowing what I was doing, I think unconsciously back then I feel I was also starving for that intimacy and wanting that so badly, especially, I think, obviously with males, but not so much even just sexually. But I feel like I was the. I thought of myself as being not the ideal person and wanting the ideal males attention, affection, etc.
Speaker 2:So I was very, I think, susceptible to wanting to be liked, well-liked and wanted and belong to a male community, and that kind of manifested through high school too. I mean, I was so secretive and so I was praying to that God. I mean, by the time high school started I feel like I had kind of resigned myself to. This is not changing. So I need to either come to grips with how I'm going to live, move forward and I think in a way I kind of compartmentalized the God part of my life. Like I would have said.
Speaker 2:I was a Christian, most likely, but I was living very secular, a very secular life. I wasn't going to church anymore, I wasn't hanging out with Christian people. There was maybe a small time I went to church for a while, but it was mostly a social, a social event thing, to belong again to people. So and I do remember like just becoming very, very people pleasing. You know, I really craved affection and attention from people and also validation. So that was a big change. I think that I would think that probably stemmed from that as well.
Speaker 1:Well, I hear kind of the ambivalence right. Well, I hear the kind of the ambivalence right. Like you craved attention, affection, to be known and loved which is maybe my shorthand definition for community is like just those places, those people by whom you're known and loved. You long for that and also were terrified of that Very much. Because if people got close enough to really know you, what then?
Speaker 1:right and so you know, I've never considered it this way, but there would be an agony internally of like the thing I'm most afraid of is the thing I most want.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, very much so, and it's interesting that, like you, I mean when I was preparing for this and thinking just kind of thinking back on my life I was noticing things that I hadn't probably been thought of before. But every relationship that I was developing in those years was geared towards what can I get from that? It wasn't a pure. I love them as a friend. It was. I want status. I wanted to be surrounded by the beautiful popular people, because I felt so defective that it would might be elevate me to.
Speaker 2:You know their level or somewhere approximating closer to that. Um, and yeah, that kind of that persisted into well, into adulthood too, like I. I, by the time, like the college years started, I totally remember just being in this emotional turmoil constantly of of, um, what is my where? Where am I with God? Is there a God? Who is this God? Um, why would he condemn me to living a life either to be miserable on earth, um, or maybe even hell?
Speaker 2:I mean, it was just such a existential crisis in my life that persisted and, um, I definitely compensated with, you know, in my late 20s with drug use and nothing hard but mostly you know, marijuana and experimenting, psychedelics and things and just really just kind of living for hedonistic pleasures.
Speaker 2:I think of anything that could kind of relieve the internal turmoil and the associated problems with that kind of, I think, mental state. I wasn't doing well academically, I wasn't able to concentrate on schoolwork, everything was wrapped around either a guy I liked, where it could have been a straight guy too I spent years with straight men and I wonder about that because I think maybe, maybe internally I'm like I'm getting the emotional needs met and I'm not sitting against God, or my parents wouldn't be upset, and so there was this kind of weird complex mess, I think, of relationships that I hadn't endured or gone through until I came out at 22. I finally had the courage to tell people and all of my friends I mean in Oregon, so progressive and crunchy granola, they all they were all just like, okay, we kind of knew and we kind of don't care.
Speaker 1:We don't really care.
Speaker 2:And even even some Christian, most Christian people I met where it was a non-issue Wow, and it's such a, it's such a ubiquitous thing nowadays and they're just like okay, great, right, we're going to find you a guy now. How did?
Speaker 1:you come to that point, like you used the word courage, or like somehow you came to the point where it was maybe, maybe you wouldn't use this language.
Speaker 2:It was better out than in, almost like yeah, I think you know, maybe maybe courage wasn't the right word, maybe it was just you can tolerate a certain amount of misery for so long. And then you're just like, okay, what's the alternative? I'm going to tell people and get rejected, or I'm going to live this way, which is not living really at all either. And Facebook was pretty big everywhere, you know.
Speaker 2:I just posted it on Facebook and, you know, my parents, my parents' friends, saw it and they told my parents. And then my parents kind of waited for me one day after I don't know, after work or something, and pulled me aside and they were just shocked, disappointed. I remember my dad, you know, just saying he's just so disappointed in why I would choose to live that way. He's just so disappointed in why I would choose to live that way and that was I remember those words very distinctly because a huge resentment grew in my heart at that time.
Speaker 2:I remember consciously just being so angry and hateful towards them that they would have raised me to hate myself this way.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Because all of my friends' parents were like we love you, no matter what.
Speaker 2:We always cared about you. We have no problem with this. When are we going to find you a guy, et cetera. And so I got this love from my friends' parents and acceptance that my parents didn't give me, and I remember just being so, so angry and in a sense I almost wanted to emotionally hurt them, and the pain that they felt for me distancing myself, I think was very palpable and I almost took pleasure in it. I'm like well, this is your fault. If you hadn't raised me to be a Christian or to have Christian sentiments, my life would have been, would be perfect right now.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And that's you know. It damaged our, our relationship for years. I think the drug use stopped. I eventually kind of I went to counseling and was able to emotionally better myself a bit and go through school, went back to back to school, to college, late. I think I was 25 when I went back to school, 25, 26. Yeah, and so I guess the next part of my faith journey kind of starts around 29, which by that time I was still single. What year would this have been? This would have been, let me think here, probably 2000 and I think 16, 18, 17.
Speaker 2:I was 29 going into the next year and that's about to be 20 or about to be 30. And I remember just being so miserable that I was still single. I'm financially doing well for myself, I'm a college graduate, I'm making good money, I'm living alone. Why am I so miserable? I have friends that love me. I kind of have had a boost of confidence. Up until that point my self-esteem had improved somewhat. But I think I still carried on that schema of like, worthlessness et cetera. But it was. It hadn't been as pronounced, I think, as prior before. And I remember I was crying one day and I'm not a big like, I don't like crying, I don't like doing it in front of people. I'm glad you have tissues right here.
Speaker 2:It might start, but I remember those are always there for what it's worth, but you are welcome to use them at any point as well as me.
Speaker 1:I feel it coming on.
Speaker 2:I remember just feeling so lost in what I thought my life would be at this point. Why am I still single? What is wrong with me that I can't find somebody to love me?
Speaker 1:in a sense.
Speaker 2:And so I remember praying one day while I was really emotional and I prayed to God and I remember saying I don't know what kind of God you are If the Bible I don't believe that the Bible is infallible and inerrant. I didn't use those words, but I did think that they were very subjective and written by men, et cetera. So I prayed and just said Lord, if being gay is wrong, you can have it. And I don't think I actually meant it completely, but I think a think I actually meant it completely, but I think a part of me did it. Obviously I was willing to at least verbalize it and say he can have everything he can, he can reveal himself to me, et cetera. But I didn't. Um, I don't think I truly meant it.
Speaker 1:How did you come to that point, though? Right Cause, cause, up to this point there's there's resentment towards mom and dad for raising me Christian right, yes, yes, there's this kind of distance from God, like I'm in the bad category, you've consigned me to misery on earth and maybe even hell, and then you go somehow, you get to the point where you can say that kind of a prayer to God, and again I hear you saying you didn't really mean it, but to the best of your knowledge, you meant it right, Like in that moment, you really you were trying to be sincere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, I, I, I remember. I remember at that time also that there's also a time where I had I had kind of discovered Brene Brown is a big, a big thing, like I thought she was the biggest thing back then. I read all of her books and I'm like, oh, this is like I'm trying to find, like how I can be happy, and um, and not finding it. I remember being just so frustrated, um, and I had always, as you know, as a teenager, I liked philosophy, I liked, um, apologetics, actually, like I. This is. This is why it's so why the Bible was so frustrating to me was because I really enjoyed apologetics.
Speaker 2:I remember being really into Zacharias and I remember just thinking my values correlate with the Christian worldview and I really felt like the Christian worldview is the only religion that's really compatible with so many of the values that we hold in Western society. And so I just felt like, you know, this God can't be an evil God, it can't be a cruel God, it has to be a loving God. So I kind of, in a sense, I think I got to the point where I'm going to challenge it. I'm like you know, if you love me, if you are a loving God, then have at it. You know, you can have my life.
Speaker 2:And I remember, for some reason the only prayer that came to mind was like, after this experience was just the Lord's Prayer. And so I started doing the Lord's Prayer. I just changed some of the words, like instead of you know, give us this day, I would say night. I would pray it at night before I went to bed. And nothing much else changed. I didn't start reading the Bible, I didn't start listening to sermons, I kind of continued on with this Brene Brown thing, and every time I read a book I usually read the index and kind of pick out some of the authors that are referenced in there and read their books. And so it kind of spiraled into Buddhism, you know, buddhism and new age stuff, and somewhere in that, in either books or podcasts. I remember, like by the time I turned 33, I was getting ready to move here and I had discovered videos on YouTube and podcasts with RC Sproul.
Speaker 1:Which I love. You know, whenever we've talked about this, we've laughed about the jump from bernie brown to rc sproll. It's just like and I love that there's just like. I followed some footnotes and I found rc.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember, I wish, I wish I would have been more like caught like conscious of this and I couldn't go back and trace it back like how did I get to this? But I remember just being like, oh, this is interesting. Like I hadn't heard, I hadn't known really anything about reformed theology. I didn't know anything and I think the first topic was predestination and I'm like, well, this is really crazy, but like it's really interesting. So I kind of I moved here to Florida and I would go on walks every single day and I would just listen to it like hours and hours and hours.
Speaker 1:And those of us who believe in predestination, call that the effectual calling of the Holy Spirit. What was happening in your life right then?
Speaker 2:So, as he went through the you know, the five points of Calvinism, when I'm like this is really like, like it's, it's weirdly applying to my life and I'm seeing it everywhere and I'm like, well, no, like I don't know.
Speaker 1:What does everywhere? And I'm like well, no, like I don't know what does this mean? Irresistible?
Speaker 2:grace? Um, I don't know so. And actually when I moved here, so my plan was to move here for a job, I wanted to work, you know, with neonates exclusively. So I got a job at a NICU here and then I also wanted to find a guy. So my whole plan was to come here, start dating. And I had started dating and nothing was working out and I kind of got into a depression. So I started seeing a counselor and it was actually what is it? Is it Redeemer Counseling that we have here.
Speaker 1:That's something.
Speaker 2:It was Ashley, a counselor from there, so she was helping me work through this issue. I was feeling, for some reason, I'm feeling this conflict of like, is God okay with homosexuality? And I'm like this had been almost a resolved thing, like maybe a kind of a little bit shaky. But I never thought I'd be questioning this again, like, should I be dating? And I chose a Christian counselor for that reason. I wanted a Christian perspective on this.
Speaker 2:But anyways, I started listening to a lot more of RC and then Sinclair Ferguson, and when they got to a special on the inerrancy and fallibility of the Bible, I remember hearing it and it kind of took me back to listening to apologetics earlier in my in my youth and thinking about um, yeah, like I really the Holy Spirit did something in my life, I remember. I remember feeling it because there there wasn't, like some, I didn't, I didn't start researching all of the reasons why, why the Bible is factual, why it's a historical document that can be relied upon. None of that, it was just the Holy Spirit convicted me that I believe that the Bible is real. So amazing, I'm like I can't, I can't. You know, there's a scene in movie Contact. Have you ever heard that movie?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we were just talking about it yesterday.
Speaker 2:Actually, that is one of my favorite movies and there's a line that gets me like tearing, crying. It's at the very end, when she's like because I had an experience and I can't explain it. I have no hard evidence for it, but everything in me says it's true. That's exactly how I felt. Wow, I'm like the Bible is the word of God. It's so amazing.
Speaker 1:Let me you know, permit me to be a nerd for a moment here. The Westminster Confession of Faith says in chapter one on Holy Scripture, part five, it says we may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church to a high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. This is how this happens. It goes through heaviness of the doctrine, efficacy of the doctrine, majesty of the style, all these things, but it ends and it says yet notwithstanding. So, all these things, but it ends and it says yet notwithstanding so, all these things are great, yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts.
Speaker 2:I love that. That's beautiful. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 1:Let the listener understand. That's what you just got done, saying 100%. You said that the full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof came from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the word in your heart. Very much so, and I just love that story. It's so amazing.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's the thing, Like I do believe that there are. There is evidence for christianity, there's evidence for the bible, there's evidence for, obviously, for jesus, etc. But it's almost like what can? What converted me with? Just the holy spirit? With with um. Apart from that, in a sense almost like that, that reinforces my faith but my faith came directly from just the holy Spirit, which I think is remarkable.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh I love that so much. So, even to recap, because your story is so riveting, by the way, and you're an excellent storyteller. I hope so, and I think the combination is because you have a high level of self-awareness, like you knew what you were feeling and thinking and you knew even your motives and thinking and you knew even your motives and you knew, like those kind of things give. Henry Nowen said that that which is most personal is most universal.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so, like I'm hearing your story and you're saying, you know, I, I needed to get something from all of my relationships. I couldn't love people freely because I needed to get something from them. And I'm thinking, man, I totally know that experience when the people I'm ordering my life around me because I need to get something from these relationships, not because I want to give something to these relationships, and and it just there's something so universal about that, even even though you were, you were disclosing something very personal in that.
Speaker 2:I'm so thankful for that.
Speaker 1:And so I love the arc too, of, you know, brene Brown. One of my favorite things about her work is her work on shame and how vulnerability is the antidote to shame, this level of like which is so, in my mind, so congruent with Genesis 3, right, where they feel naked and ashamed and so they cover themselves with fig leaves to hide themselves, so they're no longer vulnerable.
Speaker 1:Right and and then the Lord, in his mercy, comes and draw like where are you? Where are you Adam? Where are you Joshua? Where are you Benjamin? Right, and there's this invitation, this beckoning to come out of hiding and to replace our fig leaves with animal skins that are, you know, require a blood sacrifice, and we'll get there. Place our fig leaves with animal skins that are, you know, require a blood sacrifice, and we'll get there. Right, but but I, I love, I love that, I love that she probably really helped prepare your heart in some real ways to for an antidote for your shame through vulnerability. Yes, and then and then, for that to be this, this invitation into a new practice of praying the Lord's prayer, this invitation into a new practice of praying the Lord's prayer. And here you are a part of a church whose vision statement is to see our father answer the Lord's prayer.
Speaker 2:This is mind blowing. How I found you city. So this is just like oh, this is crazy, so okay. So, basically, like at this point, I'm like all right, the Bible is true. I I'm already convicted as to what it says about homosexuality, so I think the Lord is calling me to celibacy and singleness.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is amazing though, because some people might think the Bible's true but then argue as to whether or not it really says that about homosexuality, celibacy, those kinds of things. That was just a foregone conclusion to you. It was like once I accepted the scriptures to be the word of God infallible, authoritative, it was obvious to you, it was self-evident to you that that meant I cannot live in homosexual practice anymore, to use Paul's language.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I think maybe growing up so in Tia de Venice it was was I mean when I would read, I would read the passages in scripture that referenced a little bit of homosexuality.
Speaker 2:But regardless of that, it's very clear what the confines of appropriate sexual behavior are in general, and that's man, woman and marriage. So it was really. I never questioned what the Bible said per se on it. It was kind of do I believe that the Bible is true on this, and so I was always kind of justifying my behavior in a sense by saying well, one, I don't believe necessarily that God is the God of the Bible, let alone that this is inerrant and infallible. Wow, so once I accepted that that was the Bible, the Bible is infallible and inerrant then I think I it was so quick and easy for me to accept that this is what God's calling me to either this or he's going to sanctify me and and and correct my sexual sin and, you know, make me heterosexual, which I didn't really. I mean I, I I'm not saying it's impossible. I mean I hear people say that, that, that this is a reality in their lives and that he's done it, but I just I don't see it for me necessarily, but you know it's in his hands.
Speaker 1:But you know, I love the. There's such a humility and a childlike simplicity about that right that there's just this sense of like. Hey, I'm sure that's other people's stories. It might be mine, I don't think it's going to be mine, but I trust my father. It's in his hands. I trust him to take care of me in this Yep that's exactly it.
Speaker 2:That's exactly how I felt, especially so. Sinclair had a sermon on what God thinks about us and how he views us and in that sermon I remember just listening to it and feeling like everything I have been craving for with males in general, but really with any relationship, whether it was work, whether it was just friends and status, et cetera everything is found in Jesus. Wow, and status et cetera everything is found in Jesus.
Speaker 2:Wow, and when I felt that, I just remember feeling like, okay, I can endure this, I can endure this. I'm going to be miserable for the rest of my life and I'm going to be single, but you know what I'll get to be with Jesus in the end, so I can do this. And I felt that was it. Story closed, go on with life. But I started getting this nagging feeling, this nagging thought in my head of like maybe you should go to church. And I remember arguing with it. I mean, I am not going to church, that's the last thing I want to do, especially living in like well, people tell me that Florida, like central Florida, is not the bible belt. Yeah, I, I always attributed this whole area, along with the south, as being the bible compared to portland, compared to we probably are compared to western, the west coast, um.
Speaker 2:So I was like, no, I'm gonna get rejected. I'm going to be like why is this person here? Like I am not, I'm not doing it. Wow, I don't remember how long I argued with God about it, but at one point, um, I was just like, fine, I'll do it. And I knew there was a Seventh Adventist church across the street. I live like right across the street from the whole life church, so from where we gather for worship.
Speaker 2:And so I was like, okay, I'll start going there. And the people were wonderful, everyone was friendly and loving. But I felt pretty convicted, with my now-reformed convictions, that I was like I just don't, I'm not getting what I think I need from these sermons. So I'm like, well then, I don't know, I don't know what to do. So I remember, like Wikipedia, doing a Wikipedia search on like what denomination was RC in? And RC, you know, I'm I'm like reading their biographies and reading on on wikipedia and I'm like, oh, my goodness, they're big in central florida. And I was like what?
Speaker 2:I'm like this is crazy, like this has to be a god thing, this is so I remember being flabbergasted about the like god led me to the area where these people, who are so pivotal in my conversion story, preached and worked.
Speaker 1:Sinclair Ferguson's preached at New City, I think two or three times. I hope he comes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll see if we can make it happen just for you. Honestly, it would be worth it.
Speaker 2:The waterworks show will be on and I'll be like thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:And RC, of course, started a church here in Central Florida that is still here. And yeah, there's just something so remarkable about that. And if you'll send me the Sinclair Ferguson sermon. I will put it in the show notes for this podcast so that people can listen to it, because I would love for us to be able to hear that.
Speaker 1:So you're finding out that you may actually be not only getting tricked into becoming Christian by the Holy Spirit, but becoming a Presbyterian by the Holy Spirit. Yes, very much. Tell us more about that. That's been my own experience too. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:I got on board with so many of the five points of Calvinism, but the predestination one at that point was still shaky, like I did believe. I mean, it made so much sense to me, like in my heart I felt like it was true, but I'm like, ah, but I just can't reconcile how God can choose some and not others. Anyway, so that was, that was the kind of the one that took a couple of years, I think now to accept. But yeah, so I I was like, well, well, what's the closest pca church? So I googled, like what's it? And it was the same building on sundays. So I'm like all right, well, and actually my counselor, I had stopped going, I had stopped going to counseling. But my counselor told me at one point she was like there's a church in town. Um ben kant is a pastor. He's also a counselor, if you ever want to talk to him. I'm like all right, whatever.
Speaker 1:But I, I got your number, I think from her, but I'd never used it um I don't remember I don't actually and I were friends from seminary, which is just so amazing, amazing she's an amazing woman, she is.
Speaker 2:But, um, I think I reached out to amy through the church website first, amy wilson, and she connected me with you and we met and I remember just thinking I'm like, all right, well, the moment he like if I ever feel any sense of judgment or anything, I'm just going to abandon this. And I never got that. We met for lunch. I never got an ounce of judgment or condemnation, it's just like just love and acceptance and I'm like all right, I'll give it a try. I'll give it a try and I'm a back. I'm not an extrovert. People think I'm very extroverted because I've learned how to make myself be extroverted.
Speaker 1:Because you're kind and sociable and friendly, but it's maybe not energizing.
Speaker 2:No, I'm a back row person by nature. I want to get in, listen to the sermon and bounce, and so I think I did that, for maybe the first sermon I went to and I loved it, or the first service I went to was amazing, and then I think it was the second or third. I tried leaving right away.
Speaker 2:and this guy JJ I forget his last name because he left for Thailand or something not too long after, but he ran me down. He's like, hey, I saw that you come in and you try and leave right away. I'm like I used to be that guy. Do you want to come to our community group? At some point and I was like I love it, no, no, I don't. But I'm like, okay, I'll go. So I said yes, but I fully intended not to go and I still went and I got to meet the Hamples and the Mosses and Sarah from the church and everyone was so kind and loving and gracious and I'm like all right, I guess I can start going and before you know it, I'm a member of the church and on a podcast with me and you know I've got to say this.
Speaker 2:So, before I forget, I wanted to include this in this podcast. 'm like don't if you forget anything, don't forget this story, but I remember like I was um city life is not my thing. I, I really was missing oregon, and so at the two-year mark of being here, which was january of 2024- or three, four, one of those I don't remember.
Speaker 2:But, um, I was thinking maybe I might move back home. Um, but I love, I loved new city so much and we had um seek night here at the church offices on on new year's eve and um kelly haddock was singing with her little ukulele yep, and this is so funny too, because I so my mom has always been a big Christian music singer or listener and she loves Christian music. And in my teens and in my 20s and in my rebellious years, I was like, oh, this music is so terrible, like how can anyone like this stuff? It's so corny.
Speaker 1:And all the.
Speaker 2:Christians with their hands in the air. I'm like this is ridiculous. But she was. But now I love it. I now I'm just like, oh my god, I listen to like worship music all the time. Um, but kelly was singing that song, gratitude from I think brandon lake is the guy's name and, um, she had asked everybody to kind of reflect on your year, um, and so I was just thinking about what the lord has done in my life and I remember like, just like I hate crying and I just like I hate crying and I was like breaking down and crying and I was sitting next to Sarah from church and I'm like I'm not even sad, like I am, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for what the Lord has done in my life, like I did not realize how much I needed community and how much.
Speaker 2:I needed brothers and sisters in the faith and I was so resigned to a life of being maybe lonely and thinking of being okay with it being. This is what God wants. You know. I will be rewarded in heaven.
Speaker 1:You know whatever.
Speaker 2:And then just reflecting on what he had done, leading me to New City this is a practice that Brene Brown actually recommends is like people, the people who feel most satisfied in life she was, she had said previously are people who practice gratitude, and this is something that every single day, every single day I I can have. I moved over almost to tears, if not actual tears, by what God has done in my life and it's just, it was a transformative emotion. Gratitude it's all you can offer is just gratitude back to the Lord. Wow, amazing. So thank you, ben, and New City because the Lord works through people.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think he worked through your church to lead me to a life that I never would have guessed prior to moving here. This would be me in 2025.
Speaker 1:My goodness, oh, my goodness, it's crazy. Well, yeah, thank you, lord Jesus. We honor you for the fact that you are so gracious towards us and I'm so thankful for Joshua and this testimony of your grace and that we can laugh and cry and rejoice all of those things. We thank you, lord, amen. Um man, yeah, I, there's. That's just a moment right there of like there's a doxology, I think, of both of our hearts towards the Lord for his kindness Very much and for our friendship, like I just, I love you so much.
Speaker 1:You're my brother and my friend and I said before we started recording, like I am so encouraged by you, like your life your witness to the beauty of Jesus, to the worthiness of Jesus. It is so necessary for me, me like I need it. And you know, if I back up a little bit in the story from from my perspective, I was sharing this before we started recording and I realized I'd never shared this before with you.
Speaker 1:In in in May of 2023, we started a prayer meeting on a weekday prayer meeting on Wednesdays, and it's, you know, it's a Seek Orlando prayer meeting, seeing everyone enjoy the King we pray with for and as the Church of Orlando. You know, for the city of Orlando, and to be in Orlando to bear witness to Jesus in Orlando means an integral what Leslie Newbigin would call a missionary encounter with the LGBTQ plus community. It's just core to what it means to live in Orlando and, um, and so one of the reasons why Amy connected you with me is because, uh, it's in my private practice and my counseling practice. I work with men trying to reconcile their sexuality and their spirituality. That's, that's a core uh population that I work with and it's something dear to my own heart. And, and so that was why she was like, oh, you should meet with Ben. That's my, I think that's my hunch, right, and so, cause you were pretty honest in your email to her, yeah, I was very open.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is a characteristic of yours that I so admire, your, your, your openness and and willingness, and it's even interesting to hear that, in light of the fact that there was a time when you were very closed off.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah very much, very, very much. So in May we start this prayer meeting and I, around that time, I watched that movie, jesus Revolution, which was about the Jesus people and which was maybe one of the last really evident outpourings of the Holy Spirit in American history in 1960s. And it happened among the people you'd least expect, which was the hippie movement, who were the counterculture movement, everything that, the establishment which was Christian and all these things in America. It was just against all those things, and God, in his divine comedy, decided to pour out his Holy Spirit on that group of people and create this radical conversion revival among the hippie movement on the West Coast.
Speaker 1:And so I watched that movie and afterwards I asked the Lord, I was just kind of contemplating, like what would this look like today? And it was so obvious to me it would be the LGBTQ plus community, like if God wanted to get glory for his name, it would be to make the gospel good news in that community. And so it became actually one of our prayer aims in our Wednesday prayer gathering for Seek Orlando, which was we need to pray for the gay community in Orlando. Why would we not, you know? And and so we started praying in May of 2023 and you and I met in August of 2023. And so you know, william Temple said when I pray, coincidences happen, when I don't, they don't.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so that might be a coincidence, it might be answered prayer, it might be, but regardless, both of us can testify that this was God. This was God at work in his infinite mercy towards you, towards me, towards.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's just like so remarkable, it's just absolutely remarkable what he can do to the most unlikely of people. Yes, who you know, and it's always the people who feel like they need Christ the most. I feel like that he moves in them and has that space to work in their lives and I felt that I needed Jesus so badly and I hope I really pray for the gay community that people can experience what it feels like to have a taste of Jesus. Um, because there is nothing more satisfying in this life than than to be loved by him. Wow, yes, Nothing.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it. I love that so much.
Speaker 1:Ah, don't cry, Well, I can remember sitting down with you for coffee I don't know when, a year ago or something like that and this marked me Like I haven't forgotten this. I don't want to forget this because it was so meaningful. I was checking in on you, right? There is a costliness to your obedience that somebody like myself who's married with kids I don't experience that same level of costliness. Now I have my own ways in which following Christ is to deny myself, take up my cross and follow him. Of course, but there's a difference in that way in particular, and I asked you basically just was checking in like how are you doing? You know, and and? And you said something to the effect of you know, I am at my apartment by myself all day and I, I just talk to Jesus and I pray and I sing to him and I read scripture. And you were, and you said and I just have so much joy.
Speaker 1:And it was like that is so amazing yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there are moments when I feel sorry for myself, or I do have moments of sadness. I hate February. Oh my goodness. I've always been single for Valentine's Day and that whole month. I just get so much nausea just looking around. And I feel so mean I feel so mean. I'm so judgy. I'm like, oh, here we go.
Speaker 1:Get over yourself.
Speaker 2:But you know, one of the gifts I think of being single is that I have so much more time to spend with the Lord in conversational prayer, and even at work I find myself in between patients, just talking to the Lord and either praying a quick prayer for a baby or for the parents or for you know just the Lord is becoming Jesus, is almost like a tangible person in a sense that I can communicate with, and that relationship is so profoundly real that that loneliness really so often is not there. It's just that you're just feeling the overwhelming sense of joy that you can talk to the Lord. And even in those times when I'm sad and feeling sorry for myself or having a depressed week or something, even in that I want to talk to him about it, which is amazing.
Speaker 2:Another song that brings me to tears always is that goodness of God. And just looking back on my life, I know that there's a lot of suffering because as I'm talking about it it comes up a bit, but I can see him with me through that all the time.
Speaker 1:Wow, it's just beautiful. Yeah Well, you just used the word I was going to use in my question, which is, and you're describing it now what has been unexpectedly beautiful in belonging to Jesus and what has been, maybe, unexpectedly difficult at times.
Speaker 2:I think the unexpected beauty is how much I care about our community. You know the church, the universal church, but also specifically New City as well. I feel a sense of not just belonging but of responsibility. I want to participate, I want to help the body of the church and and um take up responsibility for the for, for the service, as a sense of gratitude for what the lord has done in my life and and there is a sense also of like um.
Speaker 2:One of the most beautiful things I think the lord has done in my life has been giving me a meaning that surpasses even my, my job, I mean. I mean, I'm I'm a respiratory therapist, so I work only with babies, um, in a newborn ICU, and I've always had this sense of my job matters. I, I take care of the sickest of the sick, babies, and we're helping them grow and develop and hopefully become, you know, thriving, thriving children, um. But there is nothing more important and more valuable and more meaningful than to share my story and pray that someone will come to Jesus for it. Wow, that. That is the, the. What gives me the most meaning in my life is talking to people and sharing with what what he has done in my life.
Speaker 2:You're doing it now which is such a gift to me.
Speaker 1:I'm receiving it right now as such a it's meaningful to me. How would you describe what's been unexpectedly difficult?
Speaker 2:Unexpectedly difficult. I feel like, in a sense, you know my life before coming to faith, I think, was very secular. I had all my friends were secular and now, coming to Florida, all of my friendships, all of my relationships are faith-based. They're all friends of fellow believers and I do feel like there is almost like this distance between my secular life now and my and my Christian life. That, um, I feel sometimes like I'm worried that I'm losing the friends that I had um in my secular life because either because they, um, we don't have, we don't share that, that lifestyle of living for Christ.
Speaker 2:So I think that there is work for me to learn how to reconcile those relationships and maintain them, because I do think it's important to maintain contact, obviously, with the secular world I mean, we live in it and the challenges of sharing my story and not offending people, of sharing my story and not offending people. You know, I live in a world where the LGBTQ presence is everywhere, at work, in every community function, and when I share my story I pray that people won't hear it, as I'm now righteous and they need to convert and give their lives up. I want them to just feel like the love that the father has for them, yeah, so I feel like that's that's a challenge as well, too. How do I share my story and not create enmity, I think, with with people who don't share that?
Speaker 1:that worldview. Yeah, wow, there's something. So I mean the story of the relationship between the gay community and the church is that it's God versus the gays right, or God hates the gays, or not.
Speaker 1:The church's witness has not been.
Speaker 1:God loves the gay community and loves the gay community so much that he's calling her to and a faith in Jesus, because there's so much more on offer and and so, um, I'm, I'm, really I'm so glad this has not been your experience at New City.
Speaker 1:But some people that are, uh, that follow Jesus and obedience with their sexuality, like you do, often feel like they're in a, like a, a, an in-between space where they don't quite fit into the church, because the church is usually structured for heterosexual married couples with their families and their children and whatnot, and they don't fit into the gay community that they've now left, because the structure there is built around expressing your sexuality in the ways that are prohibited for followers of Jesus, right. And so there's this like where do I belong? And I hear you saying the church has not that's not been your experience at New City, it's not been your experience with the church but that there would be a potential ostracization or rejection in the gay community if you were to be more forthright about your story. And how do I do that without alienating or coming across as holier-than-thou type thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I mean it's important to share what God has done in my life with people. But, you know, I've actually come across this at work, where I know somebody who is openly gay and married to someone, and I wonder, oh, I hope that when I share what God is doing in my life and where he's led me, that they don't feel like I am condemning them. I don't want them to feel like I'm judging them. Yet at the same time, I want them to know that there's a life that's fully amazing in Christ, that he can satisfy that desire that we all have for belonging and meaning and, um, he can be everything for you, um, yeah that's um, wow, and coming from your lips has more credibility than mine, to be honest.
Speaker 1:um, in that community in particular, there's uh, even Even to me, I hear you describe it and I think you're living proof of that. You're proof of concept, right.
Speaker 2:I wish somebody had told me. There was a time I remember, when I was 19 or 20, maybe even 20, I had kind of flunked out of college. I went to a seventh-day Adventist college for a year and I didn't do well, I did very poorly academically and I was smoking pot all the time. And I remember just being so miserable and I had tried to go to school at a different university in Oregon and I kind of had like an emotional breakdown of just feeling the conflict, the conflict of of being in the closet still at that time as well, but also just like feeling like something is wrong in my life. And I remember driving to a Seventh-day Adventist church, a random church in a town that I wasn't from and just wanted to talk to a pastor, and I just felt so lost and the church was closed, nobody was there and you know it was a fleeting moment. I went back home and calmed down and haven't thought about that again for almost like over 10 years now. But I, as I were talking now, I'm just thinking I wish that somebody had been there.
Speaker 2:Or you know that I met a PCA pastor somewhere and someone would have told me what it's like to be in love with Jesus, because I think that's something that I never understood. You hear that we love Jesus, we love Jesus, but it never clicked to me. What does it mean to be in love with Jesus, to have him be the first thought in your head when you wake up, almost like you're in a relationship with somebody, like a loving relationship, a spouse. He is everything to you and I'm like if people knew that side of Christianity, that Jesus wants to be your everything and he can satisfy you in a way that you will never meet with any other person, I think that would be life-changing. People would just be floored, especially, you know, the gay community, I think too. I think if they, if they could only know how satisfying a relationship with Jesus can be, be life-changing.
Speaker 1:That's such a good word. I could talk to you for another hour, but I want to end there. And and the reason why is because there was a, there was a call in that, Uh, and I don't is because there was a, there was a call in that, Uh, and I don't know that you meant it that way, but that's the way I received it, which is just like few of us recognize that. How how many people that probably are like you were in that moment.
Speaker 1:Just like if, if, somebody would have just told me you know, if anybody would have just what we, you know, if anybody would have just what we, you know what the Bible calls, just bear witness to the fact that Jesus is worth it, that he's worth it, he's. You know, jesus is over everything, he's my Lord, he's my lover, he's superior, supreme, all those things. And that our listeners, you know, many of whom will be New City congregants, are around those people today.
Speaker 1:I almost guarantee that, uh, that there's somebody that they'll interact with today that if, if, if we would bear witness to the goodness of Jesus, they would be, they would be like oh, there actually is hope, there actually is something on offer. Well, thank you, thank you for your friendship, thank you for this conversation, thank you for your, your life in Christ. Your life in Christ and the ways in which you are. You are evidence of the grace of God, and I know that you can't take credit for that, but I can, but I can say thank you for receiving and responding to the work of God in your life in the ways that you have, because it's, it's such an encouragement to me. Praise God. Praise God, you too. You, it's gone. It's gone, you too.
