Overcoming Adultery and Fulfilling God's Calling - Christian Aranza
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: God has instilled various callings within our hearts. He calls us to life, faith, and Himself, as well as to love and to love our neighbors. He sent His only son Jesus to serve as a true example of how to live our lives from a place of love.
[00:00:24] Additionally, God calls us to different states of life where we can best serve Him using the unique gifts and talents that He has blessed us with.
[00:00:36] He has a plan and a purpose for our lives and desires to work with us in partnership. Some individuals recognize the purpose of their lives, which God has called them to.
[00:00:51] However, at times it may not be immediately evident, and certain experiences must be undergone before we're ready to receive here and accept God's calling for us.
[00:01:06] Nevertheless, our callings persist within us, although we may attempt to disregard, disregard, or exchange them. When God has implanted a calling in our hearts, it's ours for eternity.
[00:01:24] On this episode of Relentless Hope, Pastor Christian Aranza delves into honoring the gift of God's calling and the obstacles that may accompany it.
[00:01:35] He shares how as a young boy, he recognized that he was destined to be a man of God who would preach the gospel and change the world, but he was not prepared to embrace this calling immediately. We learn about Pastor Christian's battle to surrender and eventually embrace his calling as well as his moments of doubt.
[00:02:00] We also learn about how after Pastor Christian had an affair, he believed he had lost his calling, but God had other intentions.
[00:02:12] We learn that to be a great leader, we must first comprehend where and what God has called us to lead. As Pastor Christian explains, knowing this creates a passion within us, enabling us to become relentless and resilient in the face of challenges and immense stress.
[00:02:33] We also learn about how Pastor Christian desires to leave behind several legacies. One of them is his dedication to building relationships and never giving up on people. He hopes that his children will remember him as their best friend, always present for them, and serving as their greatest coach and encourager.
[00:02:57] He was a fantastic husband who adored his wife and demonstrated his love for her every day. And lastly, that he was crazy about his kids because he believes that is God's heart, that God is madly in love with all of us, His children.
[00:03:19] Pastor Christian reminds us that God calls us to serve in various ways and in different areas, including our families, our churches, our businesses, and everything in between.
[00:03:31] Every interaction we have with others provides an opportunity for us to honor the gift of God's calling.
[00:03:44] As Christian Aranza went into the Air Force, he found himself making a deal with God.
[00:03:51] Christian Aranza: But he looked at me and he said:
[00:03:52] "Just tell me, son, as long as you haven't been unfaithful to Alex, we can fix this."
[00:03:57] And in that moment, it was like the enemy just spoke to me and said, you see the one thing that you can't fix, you did the one thing that will ruin you, is what you did. And you still can't tell anybody.
[00:04:10] I had no one. As the pastor's son, who was I gonna go to and go, hey, I, I, I had a conversation I shouldn't have had. Um, I just knew as soon as I did that the gig was up, and, um, it, it, the, the, the relationship ended up coming out either, either that night or the next day it came out.
[00:04:28] And all I know is we got in a fight. When it came out, I left. And when I came back, everything in the house was gone. There was a mattress there, and there was, um, her wedding ring there, and there was, there was, um, that was it. And I sat on the bed and, and I had, uh, one of my guns that was with me, and I sat on the bed thinking:
[00:04:57] This is over. You've, you've ruined your life. You've ruined your calling, you've thrown away your anointing, the thing that people told you you were gonna do your whole life, the thing you were made for. You've messed that up even.
[00:05:15] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, we'll hear from Christian Aranza head pastor at Valley Rise Church in Houston, Texas, as he tells us about his early life journey.
[00:05:26] Starting as a young boy getting into trouble and growing into a young man joining the military, he shares with us all the trials that came along his journey to become the pastor of his own church.
[00:05:44] Christian Aranza: My name is Christian Aranza and I am from Lafayette, Louisiana, home of the Raging Cajuns. Lived there the majority of my life growing up, um, and my family, great family background, my father was a pastor. He actually was a pastor, I guess when, when I turned 14. Before that, he was an evangelist and he traveled about 265 days out of the year, almost every year. Was gone a lot.
[00:06:11] Um, I have four brothers and a sister that we adopted, uh, when I was a little older, but four brothers that I grew up with the majority of my life and very close, you know, when your dad's gone all the time and your mom's bearing the, the weight of the majority of the household.
[00:06:26] Um, we were all very close and I'm the second oldest in that bunch, um, five boys wild, you know, a house of boys is always crazy. And so you gotta fight for everything you have, and you gotta eat the food when you can, and it was always a mad house, um, but I was raised loving God.
[00:06:45] I was raised, we went to church. I don't think I ever woke up on a morning when my dad was home that I didn't see my dad, um, walking around the living room, praying on his face, praying. And he would, I have vivid memories until I was too big for him to carry me where I'd come in in the mornings and he'd carry me and walk around with me, man, for probably an hour, just praying over me and praying over me.
[00:07:09] I was born in Lindell, Texas, I guess technically. Um, lived in between Leonard, Raven Hill and Keith Green. Leonard Raven Hill, one of the great revivalists in American Christianity was, was one of my dad's mentors and pastors.
[00:07:21] When I was born, he dedicated me to the Lord, gave me the Bible he preached up for 20 years and told my dad, I know you think it'll be Jacob Jr, who's my dad's namesake, that will carry the mantle, but it's not, it's gonna be Christian.
[00:07:33] I knew that from a, from the time I was young and that wasn't ever, um, something they hid from me. If anything, it was something I fought.
[00:07:39] I think they made it very clear that I was made to preach the gospel, I was gonna change the world, I don't, I don't remember a day going by where my dad didn't look at me and say, you're gonna change the world. You're gonna change the world. God made you for a purpose. God's, you're gonna preach the gospel. You're gonna be a man of God.
[00:07:55] And as awesome as that is, I think it put a weight on me from a young age that, that I didn't know what to do with. I wanted to be normal, but, but I went to school every day with this weight of everyone else's salvation on me, I guess almost.
[00:08:11] Played sports my whole life growing up and really tried to do whatever I could to take away from the, the, the self-imposed pressure, probably, I don't think my parents ever meant to put that pressure on me, maybe the self-imposed pressure of, you're gonna be a preacher, you're gonna be a preacher, you're gonna change the world, you're gonna reach people, and I just wanted to be like everybody else. I just wanted to be a kid. And so played sports, was really good at hockey and ended up traveling around the world and playing hockey.
[00:08:37] And, but I, I never could get away from the, the upbringing I guess that, that I had. My parents were always, my dad when I was 14, started a church. Great church still there to this day. Four campuses, about 9,000 people, awesome church in South Louisiana. And so once the church started to grow, um, people kind of, I became their apparent, Christian's gonna take over, Christian's gonna take over, Christian's gonna take over.
[00:09:03] And I started to kind of resent that.
[00:09:05] Started at a young age, 16, 17, resenting that idea, you know, the, and really embracing the pastor's kid. Pastor's kids are bad pastor's, kids are wild pastor's, kids are, and so started using drugs and partying probably my junior year of high school.
[00:09:19] My junior year of high school, I sat down with my dad, I, I had gotten kicked off the basketball team for, um, my grades failing and really had kind of just given up on, on school, my friendships were suffering, um, had walked away from hockey and, uh, sat down with my dad and just said, listen, I'm miserable. Been partying and using drugs, and I just, you know, I just am miserable.
[00:09:42] I need to, I need to go someplace I could start over where I'm not Jacob Aranza's son, where I'm not the son of the preacher in the town that has this big church and I just wanna be me. And so went to live in Detroit, Michigan with, with the person that I call my uncle who has a church up there and moved into what, at that point was the worst ghetto in America.
[00:10:01] Had the highest crime rate in America.
[00:10:02] Moved there in February, there was already 76 murders in mid-February. It was a Triple X theater they had turned into a church. Across the street was the worldwide peep show. To the left was Larry Flinch, dejavu Strip Club to the right was the Crown Transvestite Prostitute Hotel.
[00:10:18] And when I moved there, they told me, if you buy drugs here, they will kill you. And um, I believed them. I was, I was one of the only, I'm Hispanic, but I was one of the only non-African American people in the city. Um, the city was bankrupt, the schools had no windows cuz of the drive-by shootings that would happen there.
[00:10:35] And, and so it was a, a concrete building. I didn't even go to school there, but I would go to school sometimes with my friends just to see them. And, and it was, I remember coming home and going, there were two, um, they weren't even white, I guess they were, they were non-African American or they were mixed students in the entire school of about maybe, maybe a thousand plus students, 2000 students.
[00:10:57] And so I began to learn a lot about life there. I, I moved back down to the south after my junior year and finished high school. Going into, I guess my, what would've been my freshman year of college, I began to, um, really fight the, the call that got had on me. I'd gone to a couple months of a little master's commission and kind of, you know, okay, maybe I'll jump in and, but every time I get close to jumping into what my call was, I was scared to death and, and so I'd pulled back. I wasn't ready.
[00:11:28] I knew that when I jumped in, It was, it was gonna be a big deal, and I, and I wasn't ready for that.
[00:11:35] So spent another two years really of my life, um, just partying and going crazy and, and indulging in anything I could and was in a, was sitting in a Transformers movie and there was a man wearing an Air Force uniform and doing a job that I thought looked cool and looked over at my friend and said, when we leave here, I'm going, I'm signing up for the military. And he said, now you're crazy. And I said, I'm gonna do it.
[00:11:59] And really what I thought I was doing was getting away from my calling. I thought I'll do something so crazy that, um, I won't have to be a preacher. And so went left the movie theater and went to the recruiter's office walked in and said, I wanna be, I wanna sign up.
[00:12:16] And he said, what do you want to do? I said, whatever will get me a uniform, I wanna sign up.
[00:12:20] I, I ended up as a medic. Did four years as a medic in the Air Force and loved it. Great experience. Awesome. And I had to deal with God, uh, when I went in, I had just started dating my now wife and heard all these horror stories.
[00:12:36] You're gonna go off to war, she's gonna find someone else, and, um, was laying in basic training, it was at the height of the, the, the war Iraq, Afghanistan, uh, 2007. And, um, was, was laying there and. I asked our, our drill instructor that day, does everyone deploy? Are you sure we're gonna deploy with him? He said, everyone will deploy. Every single person will deploy that comes into the military in this time.
[00:13:02] And so laid in bed, put my head under my pillow and I said, God, if you let me not deploy, I'll be a preacher. Not cuz I was scared. I just didn't wanna lose the person that, that I knew I was gonna spend my life with. And, um, so God, if you let me not deploy, I'll be a preacher when I get outta here.
[00:13:18] And so finished my training up and first round of deployments came up and I didn't get picked. And um, second round of deployments came up. The next year I didn't get picked. And now I'm in my fourth year, I'm now married to, to my then girlfriend, and, and we're living up there, and now I want to deploy because I realize, man, you get to make money, and all my friends are going and I wanna have this experience. I've trained now three years to do a job. I want to go over there and do it. I wanna, I wanna support the guys that I love. And, um, I had a last opportunity where I thought it would deploy and, and I got passed over on, I have no clue. I have buddies deployed two and three times.
[00:13:54] It just never, my number never got picked. So when I finished I, I remember vividly my last month in having a conversation with God. And, and at this point I wasn't really sold out yet, even on the concept of being a Christian.
[00:14:08] I loved Jesus, but that was about all that I knew. And I, I didn't think I was gonna be a preacher. I just started serving at a church and kind of attending a church in, in Florida where I was stationed and had a, had a talk with Jesus where I said, um, God, You held up Your end of the deal, um, I'm gonna hold up my end of the deal. I'll, I'll, I'll be a preacher and I'll go back to my home, church, dad's church. I'll go to college and I will, I'll just serve. I'll work my way in.
[00:14:37] And obviously God's plans are always different than our plans. Right about, um, probably the next day I got a call from a man who, who was, who was like a spiritual father to me, and he said, Hey, I'm going to teach as a adjunct professor at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
[00:14:52] And they do these, uh, scholarship competitions. I think you need to come up, if you're interested in going to the ministry, you need to come up and go through the scholarship competition. Just see, just see what you get. Well, the military was gonna pay for my college anyways, so as, kind of as a favor to him, because I trust him and I said, okay, you know, I'll go over there and, and see.
[00:15:10] And so we went through the whole day of scholarship competitions. And I'll tell you, coming off of a military installation and walking onto the campus of Oral Roberts University was a major, major, um, culture shock and finished the day. And we were walking off of there.
[00:15:29] I'll never forget walking down from the, the, the backside of the campus, and me and my wife are walking and she looks at me and she says, well, what do you think? Is this where we're supposed to be? Is this where God has us? And I looked at her and I said, they're gonna have to pay me to come to school here, this place is weird.
[00:15:45] And, um, went back to my life, was finishing my, my last month of out processing out of the military and, and bowling with some friends one night, get a call as I'm at a store down the road picking up socks to go bowling, and the lady says, hey, this is so-and-so from Oral Roberts University, and hey, great, thanks.
[00:16:03] Um, she goes, well, I'm calling to let you know, um, that out of the 3,200 people we picked, I think it was three, three full scholarship recipients. Um, and, and you are one of the whole person scholarship recipients. And, and I said, what do you mean? She said, well, we're gonna pay for all of your school. We're giving you an $80,000 scholarship. All of your school will be taken care of.
[00:16:22] And I literally said, you're telling me y'all are gonna pay me to go to school? And she said, yep. And I got off the phone and just laughed. And I thought, you know, people say you can't make deals with God. That's, that's just kind of how it's worked for me always.
[00:16:36] And so went to Oral Roberts University, loved it. Um, I, I think it's one of the greatest colleges in America. Had a blast there. Was on campus for about a year and a half. Me and my wife got pregnant at that time. Um, my, my pop said, why don't you come back and, and help us do a college ministry? We, we, we need someone to take over the college ministry.
[00:16:57] You can come in and do that. Be here, have your child here. And we were ready to be home. And so we moved back to Lafayette, Louisiana, and I became a college pastor and continued school online, but really threw my heart into being a college pastor.
[00:17:11] Um, I was not your, your typical college pastor probably was not your typical, I, I probably to this day am still not your typical pastor. I fought tooth and nail to be me. I grew up a lot, around a lot of pastors that seemed, um, not really genuine to me or even, even if they were genuine, they just came off as fake or too good, or man, people can't be like that. And I remember telling my wife, I never, I want to, I want people to see me and go, if he can do it, I can do it.
[00:17:38] And so started doing ministry and like all young preachers and, and ministers and if you have a, God gave me a gift to preach and start preaching and being able to travel some and, and got really hooked on, I gotta build this ministry to show that I'm, I, I'm not just here cuz of my dad. That's what I got all the time, you know, oh, you're just gonna take over your dad's church.
[00:18:01] Or people would look at me and it was kind of like this, you're here just cuz of your dad. You know, you're not, you don't really have the qualifications, you're not really the right guy, but you're here cuz of your dad. And I was dead set on proving that wrong. Um, I, I would work endlessly. I would spend time endlessly.
[00:18:18] I would do whatever I had to do to show that I was there because I was qualified, because I was good enough and because I was called. And, um, I, I realized that looking back now, I started working my way up into, into kind of a burnout and just getting into a frenzy. And I was, so, my wife would go, why? Who are you trying to prove wrong?
[00:18:39] And, and I would just say, you know, everyone, I gotta prove everyone wrong. I gotta show them I deserve to be here. And that, that worked really good for about a year and a half until one day I realized that I was, I was way off track. I woke up one morning and found myself in a position where, um, I was, I was a month and a half into a relationship with a woman that was not my wife.
[00:19:04] I, I didn't know how I got there. I didn't know how to get out of there. I remember probably meeting with, with a few people in, in the month leading up to when the affair started and saying, I feel like I'm about to throw it all away. I feel like, you know, what do you do when you feel like you're about to throw it all away?
[00:19:24] And people are just saying, Hey, you know, just pressing to Jesus and, and love Him and you know, you got this, but I had no one I could open up to. I had no one I could sit across the table from and say, I am having conversations with a woman that's not my wife that I should not be having. I am, I'm traveling with a person that's not my wife that I should not be traveling with.
[00:19:46] And before I knew it, it was, it was too late. I'd gotten sucked in. And, uh, you know, I think, I think the enemy is very tricky and he's, he's great at getting us places that before we know it, you blink and you go, how in the world did I get here? And, and it was, it's how it felt that I opened my eyes and I just thought, how did I get here?
[00:20:09] There was no off ramp. Once I stepped on, it was like warp speed to where I am now, and started to get distant and started to question my calling and all of this while I'm preaching and while I'm maintaining what God's doing and while I'm speaking, talking to people and counseling people and, and on the inside I was just falling apart and my wife knew it.
[00:20:34] She knew I was, I was empty on the inside. And I remember her calling my dad over one day and just going like, you know, you gotta come talk to Christian, you gotta talk to Christian. I don't know what's wrong, something's wrong, but I don't know what it is. And sitting down across from my dad on the couch and, and him saying, son, just tell me, tell me, please tell me getting on his knees.
[00:20:54] Please tell me what's going on. Please tell me what's wrong. And knowing that if I said what was really going on, I was throwing away everything. I was throwing away my calling, I was throwing away the anointing. I was throwing away this position that I had worked so hard to show people I was worth having.
[00:21:12] And I remember him and you know, I love my dad to death. He's the greatest man on the face of this earth. He did the best that he could in every situation. I never doubt that for a second. But he looked at me and he said, just tell me, son, as long as you haven't been unfaithful to Alex, we can fix this. And in that moment, it was like the enemy just spoke to me and said, you see the one thing that you can't fix, you did the one thing that will ruin you, is what you did. And you still can't tell anybody.
[00:21:41] I had, no one. As the pastor son, who was I gonna go to and go, hey, I, I, I had a conversation I shouldn't have had. Um, I just knew as soon as I did that the gig was up and, um, it it, the, the relationship ended up coming out either, either that night or the next day it came out.
[00:22:00] And all I know is we got in a fight. When it came out, I left. And when I came back, everything in the house was gone. There was a mattress there and there was, um, her wedding ring there. And there was, there was, um, that was it. And I sat on the bed and, and I had, uh, one of my guns that was with me. And I sat on the bed thinking:
[00:22:28] This is over.
[00:22:30] You've, you've ruined your life. You've ruined your calling, you've thrown away your anointing. The thing that people told you you were gonna do your whole life. The thing you were made for. You've messed that up even. And, and there's no way that you can come back from this.
[00:22:45] And, um, I, I, you know, I, when people say I've never contemplated taking my life, I can't say that that's not true.
[00:22:51] In that moment, I contemplated what that would be like. Thank God for my son, um, who at that point was one and, and, and just, maybe he was one. I don't even know if he was one yet. And just knew that I couldn't, I couldn't do that. I had to, I had to fix this thing. Um, I began a six month process of trying to win my wife back of, of not, she didn't talk to me for three months.
[00:23:17] Um, I went to a, a, like a whole health retreat place to help me figure out, I think the, the most frustrating part for me was I didn't know how I had gotten there. I knew what had happened and I knew the decisions I made for it to happen, but I couldn't understand how I got there, how I let myself get to that place.
[00:23:35] And so went and sat down with some amazing people who helped me see how I got to that place and helped me see the gaps that maybe I had missed from childhood on and, um, and why I had this need that I fulfilled in a wrong way. I think it's important to know that in that process, God was never, people asked me, do you feel convicted? Did you feel...
[00:23:55] I didn't ever feel like God was mad at me. I didn't ever feel God was angry with me or frustrated with me or put out with me. It's probably the closest I've ever felt to the love of God my entire life is after everything hit the fan, and, um, I started to work a job a normal job. I honestly thought ministry was over for me.
[00:24:15] I, I knew that kind of, that was my shot and I had blown it, and so I, I started working a normal job and. Sold cars at a guy's car dealership for a couple months and then got a job doing, uh, selling janitorial supplies for a company. Um, and I was miserable on the inside. I, I knew God had given me this gift and this calling, and while I tried to let go of this calling, the calling would not let go of me.
[00:24:40] And I'd lay in bed at night and weep and weep and weep cuz I just wanted the calling to let go of me, and it wouldn't.
[00:24:47] Um, and me and my wife, we're now back together. We're six months into this process. We're back together. Things are going good. Um, I'm working through the process of, of restoring the heart of this woman that I love deeply and, and having conversations and seeing her broken and, and then this process of God, man, and going to a job that I hate during the day, going to a job, just trying to shake the memories of what I had lost and, and how badly I had let my dad down and felt like I was a church down.
[00:25:24] And I'll never forget, I was in the parking lot of my grandmother's furniture store in Lafayette, Louisiana, and I got a call. Um, I was, I was sitting in a PT cruiser that, it was the company car that I worked for.
[00:25:36] I mean, I remember like it was yesterday, and I get a call, I answer the phone and it's Pastor Dino Rizzo, who's, who's like an uncle to me and now a pastor to me, and said, um, how you doing? And, and I just looked around and just thought, really? If you, if he really knew how I was doing, he probably wouldn't even be calling me, if he really knew I was selling janitorial supplies, just trying to, he probably wouldn't want anything to do with me.
[00:26:01] And I said, you know what? We all say, oh, you're doing good, man. You know, just working and loving my wife, thankful my wife is, is with me. And, and I was at that point, I could have never been a ministry again. I was grateful I had my wife, my child, and he said, well, I just got off the phone with Pastor Chris, Chris Hodges, and he wants to know if you want to come up and come on the team at Highlands and I, I will never, I will never be able to duplicate the feelings of that moment.
[00:26:34] I, I will be loyal to Church of the Highlands, pastor Dino and Pastor Chris till the day that I die. And I would give my heart and soul for them because they saved me. They saved my life, they saved my, my calling, they saved my marriage. And the next couple months we moved up to Church of the Highlands and came on the team.
[00:26:54] And no one that I thought I was gonna go there and everyone was gonna know, and no one knew and no one brought it up. And people saw me differently. And I began to walk in this process of restoration and was on staff at Church of Highlands for three years. It's the greatest church in America.
[00:27:11] I will be way over my head. If I can build a church like Church in the Highlands. Um, Pastor Chris is the greatest pastor in America, Pastor Tino, these guys, I owe my life to them. My children owe their lives to them. My my wife owes our marriage to them and begin this process of learning what it looked like to do healthy life and healthy marriage, and not have the weight of being the pastor's son and just being there, being me.
[00:27:37] And they embraced me with such open arms and, and, and I learned how to do life differently. I learned how to overcome something that I never thought I could overcome. And the crazy thing about it is, is that my whole life I thought I was gonna work hard enough to work my way up the ranks, that maybe a church like that would one day call me and go, you are so good that we've gotta have you.
[00:28:01] And it's such the grace of God. Cuz what happened was, it was the exact opposite. I was so bad that God said, now I'm gonna put you in a place that had nothing to do with what you were able to do. Now you'll experience what the grace of God really is because you'll know that it has nothing to do with you. It's all about me.
[00:28:21] And I begin the greatest journey ever. Um, that journey is, is continuing now and is still blows my mind that I, that I am on this journey and that my family's with me and that, um, I, I'm, I'm just blown away and that God lets me do what I get to do. We were there three years and then just planted a church almost a year ago.
[00:28:42] You know, they, I, I, I could, I could talk for 25 minutes about what Highlands means to me, and they were with me through the craziest times of my life, the craziest times of my marriage. Little did I know going up there a year after I was gonna be there, my brother would pass away in a motorcycle accident and for them to walk through that with me, love me, and I get up to speak at the funeral in Louisiana and look out there and, and my best friends in the world from Highlands are sitting out there, they're driven all night to be there. And, and I just broke on 'em and weeping and they just looked at me and they said, yeah, we're doing life together. We're not letting you do this alone. We're not letting you...
[00:29:18] And when I look at people that inspire me and things that inspire me, it's just people that just are, that just go, hey, we're, we're big enough to be small. We're big enough to be here for you. We're big enough to be a part of every story. We're not scared of your dirt. We're not scared of your sin. We're not scared of your stain. We're not scared of your reputation. Let's do life together.
[00:29:38] And I think that's what we've tried to build our church on is let's just do life with people. Let's not worry about their story, what it looks like, how bad it is. Let's just do life with people.
[00:29:49] And that journey led us into planning Valley Rise Church in um, January 28th, 2017.
[00:29:59] I started to realize that it's, it's kind of like being in the weight room. There's this thing with leadership where it's really heavy. And about two months in, I looked at my wife and I said, you know what? I feel like I got this.
[00:30:10] Like, I feel like I was in the weight room and they put a lot of weight on the bar and it fell on my chest. But after lifting it for a little bit, now it's comfortable. And now I can hold it up and it doesn't, it's still there, but it, it's not crushing me.
[00:30:25] And two weeks later, it's like God said, okay, good, then you're ready for me to put another plate on the bar. And it got heavier. And then there was this month, you know, two month period of adjusting. And then I thought, okay, I've got this. And now it's in this even flow where you go, okay, God, when, you know, when I can handle the weight, and you know, when I'm ready to handle more weight.
[00:30:46] And, um, I think all of us as leaders have different characteristics.
[00:30:51] I think my characteristic and, and it comes out a lot in carrying this weight, is I'm just very resilient. I'm incredibly resilient. I could have the worst day everyone could leave me today. I'm gonna wake up in the morning and go, okay, we're gonna figure this out. I don't know how we're gonna figure it out.
[00:31:07] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, we'll hear from Pastor Christian Aranza as he discusses navigating relationships, being a leader through vulnerability and dealing with the unique weight that comes from being a leader.
[00:31:26] Christian Aranza: Life happens fast and it's like you blink and all of a sudden people are calling you a leader, but you really don't feel like a leader. You still feel like you, I think. And so anyone out there who, who maybe feels like you don't feel like a leader, it's okay. None of us do. Um, I feel like me and people just follow me.
[00:31:40] Um, but, before I became a leader, I think it was like I'd look at these leaders and go, gosh, I could be, um, as authoritative as them if I could be as perfect as them. My dad had such a horrible childhood. He grew up in, in the inner city of Houston and multiple divorces and abuses, and his childhood was so bad.
[00:32:02] He never wanted us to see any of that. So he protected us from, from any of his deficiencies or any of, and we didn't see a lot of how hard life was. Dad was just always like the perfect man of God. And so growing up, I think I looked at that and thought, God, if I could just be, if I could be perfect, if I could just never, never get mad and never sin, and when I am, when I tempted to get mad, be patient and go pray, and I mean, just all of the things that, that I saw my father do who's an amazing leader, an amazing dad, and amazing father, I just wanted to be like that.
[00:32:38] And then I'd see people who were anointed and go, gosh, I had that anointing. If I could just walk into a room and, and the presence of God come with me like that. Um, if, if I could just speak and people listened because of who I was, you know, if, if, if they saw this leadership thing that was on me, like I see it on this person or on that person, and I went to a Christian school when I was a kid, and so I always kind of have this funny memory definition of what a leader is.
[00:33:09] When I was a kid, my, uh, principal would tell me all a leader is, is someone who can see further down the road than others. And the longer I live and the older I get, I feel like it's very true that oftentimes a leader is just someone who can see a little further down the road.
[00:33:28] When I look at people who taught me how to lead early, early years, it was my dad. It was, um, my uncle Tim Delina, who, who was the executive pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle for a long time, and then is now down in Louisiana, um, on staff with my father and was a hero in the faith to me. And I looked at guys like Brother Raven Leonard Ravenhill and, and his prayer life, and saw all these people that, that just had this amazing character.
[00:33:55] You know, brother Lynn was a prayer warrior. No one could pray like Brother Ravenhill pray for six, seven hours. And my Uncle Tim, was an amazing preacher. No one could study and preach like him. My dad was this amazing people, person leader. People were just drawn to him. He could walk into a room and captivate people. He always knew what to say. He always had the right wisdom for people.
[00:34:20] And I just started to look at these things and said, God I could be like that. That's what I'd wanna lead like. And then went up to Highlands and got around a whole different style of leadership and was around Pastor Dino, who there is no more relational leader than Dino Rizzo.
[00:34:35] Dino Rizzo is the greatest gift to the body of Christ in the relational capacity that, that, that I know will ever see in my lifetime, and, and I, you know, I'd wager to say ever simply because of the social media and, and the, the connectivity that we have at this point in time. He is, he is a Rolodex of relationships and, and I, I'm, I try and model so much my relationships after what he does that he's just phenomenal.
[00:35:03] He's a wizard with people. And then I looked at Pastor Chris, and Pastor Chris is a very different leader. Chris Hodges is the most, um, intentional leader I've ever been around. He's very disarming. There's nothing about Pastor Chris that when you're with him, do you feel like this, this weight heavy leader.
[00:35:27] He's not, he's not a authoritative leader. He's not a heavy handed leader. He's not a, he's very gentle and, you know, people that aren't around him at times will go, God, he seems like, you know, he seems like he's probably a, a control freak, or he's always got everything in order and. And he probably does have everything in order in his mind, but I'll tell you, being on his team for three years, um, the things that stood out to me the most about him was when he would stand in front of us and weep, he would stand in front of us and just say, if, if the greatest thing I've ever done is assemble, this team, I'm not, I'm not as good as what we're doing.
[00:36:02] We have served a great God and you are the best team in the world. If you weren't, if I didn't like you, if I didn't want to hang out with you every day, you wouldn't be on this team. And we had a very small staff of, you know, for the second largest church in America, I think when I was there, we had 300 people on staff and, and you're talking 16, 17 campuses.
[00:36:18] So that was, that was huge, for us to be that small as a staff, but be running that big of a church. And so everybody knew everybody. And especially me and Pastor Chris, because we're both from Louisiana and him and dad are dear friends and we kind of, me and his sons are very close and I've had a open door into a lot of those guys' lives that I think other people haven't had.
[00:36:40] And so being around Tim for three years, I was blown away, not by his intentionality, although he is not by his brilliance, although he was brilliant. I was blown away by the humility and with which he carried all of it. I was blown away that he could cry in front of us. I was blown away that he could stand up there and go, listen, if you have sin in your life, so do I. And I, I need people to help me with it. Okay? So like we all need, don't feel like if you're struggling with something, you are the only person I'm struggling with things.
[00:37:11] I loved that he would stand up and say, Hey, I, I'm the pastor, but the only thing that that means is that God called me to be a communicator and a leader, and this is the gifting that he gave me.
[00:37:20] I serve on the dream team just like everybody else. This is just the capacity he called me to serve in, and there was this humility that he, that he would cloak everything he carried in that blew my mind that, that I'd always, you think of a leader and a leader is kind of captivating and they're, uh, charismatic and they're friendly and they make the whole room laugh and then do, and yet he, he did all those things by being very subtle and being very humble and being very, um, disarming and the only person I've ever met other that, that was like, that was Mark Rutland.
[00:38:00] Then when I was at Oral Roberts, Dr Rutland is the greatest teacher I've ever been around. And Dr Rutland would walk around before chapel and he'd talk to everyone like he knew you if it was the first time you ever talked to him, or maybe the hundredth time you talked to him, he acted like he knew you.
[00:38:14] Like he was there hanging out with only you. And I think Pastor Chris has one the, the unique ability, um, to be able to do that as well, um, with, with people, especially on his team, to be able to come up and ask questions that are really good and to know that he's caring about you and thinking about you.
[00:38:29] And if you need anything, he's there for you. I love, this is gonna be surprising to people, but I love one of the things he would say to always say, Christian, never forget the little guy.
[00:38:39] And I think people look at me and would say, Christian's, not the little guy. Why does that? I'm, I'm not the, I don't think anyone would categorize me as the little guy.
[00:38:48] I came out of a great family, out of a great church with a great legacy and, and, you know, um, a great name and I'm six foot four. I'm tall. I'm, I think I'm charismatic. And I don't think anyone would look at me and say he's a little man, but I felt like the little man for the majority of my life, I always felt like I was fighting for what God had actually given to me to do.
[00:39:18] I felt like I was battling every other leader and I felt like I had to fight for what was mine. And I always felt like the little guy, no more time, a bit greater than sitting in my car where I thought I'd thrown him in my calling and Pastor Chris called me.
[00:39:32] And so I love the concept of always remembering the little man, because I think inside of all of us, there's a little man that even inside the greatest leaders, there's areas that we're insecure in and that we feel weak in.
[00:39:44] And some people will tell you as a leader, don't let people see that. You know, let 'em see strength. Let 'em see that when it's hard, you know, you trust God and let 'em see. And I think they do need to know that you trust God and know that everything's gonna be okay, and know that you're not gonna collapse for sure.
[00:40:01] But I think there's something beautiful about being able to be vulnerable in front of your congregation, about being able to be vulnerable in front of the people you're leading, being able to cry in front of them, being able to just go, hey, I can't do this without you guys. I, I wouldn't want to, you guys make this thing awesome.
[00:40:19] And so I think where I initially wanted to lead from my strengths and lead from how charismatic I was and lead from how great of a preacher I was, and lead from the relationships that I had and lead from the wisdom that I had learned and lead from all of this plethora of things that I thought leadership was.
[00:40:36] Now, as I, as a pastor of this church, I've realized for me, God's called me, I think oftentimes the lead in my weaknesses and the lead in my vulnerabilities, and to stand up in front of the church and go, hey, I can help you with your marriage because I've thrown my marriage away and I know how to get it back, and I can walk through a death in the family with you because I've buried my 20 year old brother and, and I can walk through, you know, I, I can walk through these issues with you because man, I've messed up.
[00:41:06] I've not figured it out. I've, I've gone astray and I've been lost. But I know that together with Jesus, we can figure it out.
[00:41:16] And I think, um, that does a few things for, as a leader, I think it lets people see that anybody can be a leader. The leadership is nothing more than influence. And that when people see I don't have to be perfect to be a leader, I just have to have influence, then they're able to open up their heart and go, hey, then let me show you my scars and if I can save you a scar or two, that makes me a leader.
[00:41:37] I don't have to be perfect to be a leader. I just have to be willing to share influence. I just have to be willing to give you my life. I just have to be willing to tell you what I did wrong. And I think it starts, it, it allows anyone to feel like they can lead. And I think that that it, um, cloaks that leadership and a humility that is attractive to people that no one is looking at Christian Aranza going, well, he's got it all figured out.
[00:42:03] If anything, people are looking at me going, man, if God can use him, God can use anybody. And maybe I'm wrong, but I, I just like to position myself in that way because if God gets all the credit, then maybe he can use me more than what he would've been able to use me if I was getting any of the credit.
[00:42:22] I was raised to do this thing called church. I was, this is all I've ever known, this is, I was probably knowledge based wise, ready to run a church at 20. I don't know, like I just knew so much and had been around it so long and been around all these great leaders for so long. This is what I was raised to do.
[00:42:41] I was a horse, a race horse that was bred to run and, and so now I have this chance to run and be a leader. And the funny thing, they don't tell you about leadership is that until you are the leader, you don't feel the weight of leadership. And I can't speak for everyone. You know, maybe there's people out there that are youth pastors that feel that weight, but as every senior pastor knows, and every senior pastor that listens to this will be nodding their head, there is a weight to this thing that no one warned me about.
[00:43:15] Jeremy Foster told me a week before we launched, two weeks before we launched, he said, Christian, the day you launch, you're gonna go to sleep that night. And there's gonna be a weight on you that you can't explain, you can't share with anyone. No one will understand it, but you and other people that are in this position, and you'll, it's gonna, it's gonna rock you.
[00:43:36] And I thought, God, I mean, sure. Okay, listen again, I was, I was raised to do this. I was bred to do this. Maybe that's for normal leaders. You know, I was in the military. I've dealt with stress and I've dealt with this is, these were all things that have been built into me. God made me to do this. And the day we launched that church, I went to sleep and it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest.
[00:43:59] I phys, it wasn't an an emotional weight, it was a physical, tangible weight. I didn't know how to deal with it. All I can tell you is that it, it felt like maybe God just put this huge weight to push me to my face so that the only place I would be comfortable was on my face in front of Him. I couldn't handle it.
[00:44:20] I would go to sleep every night thinking I'm gonna have a heart attack. Like, I don't even know. It wasn't stress. It was this, this weight of leadership that I had never realized or understood. And all of a sudden I felt really bad for making judgment calls on my leaders and, and maybe going, why didn't they do this?
[00:44:39] And why didn't they do that? And why didn't they do? But I had never carried that weight. And there's a big difference between making a decision when you're carefree and you don't have the weight and making a decision when you got 500 pounds on you. And, you know, a step to the left could cause me to lose this weight and a step to the right could cause me to lose this weight.
[00:44:58] And I gotta walk carefully because this weight is heavy. I didn't know if I could handle it. I was, I was blown away. The number one question I asked every single leader I talked to for the first two months of planning our church wasn't, Hey, how do I grow my church? Hey, how do I do this? Hey, what do you guys do for communion or dream team or growth?
[00:45:16] It wasn't any of that. It was how do you handle this weight? Where did this thing come from and how do I live with it? And I started to realize that it's, it's kind of like being in the weight room. There's this thing with leadership where it's really heavy. And about two months in, I looked at my wife and I said, you know what?
[00:45:34] I feel like I got this. Like, I feel like I was in the weight room and they put a lot of weight on the bar and it fell on my chest. But after lifting it for a little bit, now it's comfortable. And now I can hold it up. And it done, it's still there, but it, it's not crushing me. And two weeks later, it's like God said, okay, good, then you're ready for me to put another plate on the bar.
[00:45:55] And it got heavier. And then there was this month, you know, two month period of adjusting. And then I thought, okay, I've got this. And now it's in this even flow where you go, okay, God, when you know, when I can handle the weight and you know, when I'm ready to handle more weight. And, um, I think all of us as leaders have different characteristics.
[00:46:17] I think my characteristic and it, and it comes out a lot in carrying this weight is I'm just very resilient. I'm incredibly resilient. I gotta have the worst day Everyone could leave me today, I'm gonna wake up in the morning and go, okay, we're gonna figure this out. I don't know how we're gonna figure it out.
[00:46:31] A couple months into us starting the church, we had four of our key people, you know, the people that I never thought were gonna leave me, the people that were gonna be with me forever. That that left me. And I remember my wife going, what are we gonna do? And laying in bed. Feeling the weight, seeing people leave me that I love and going, you know what, we're gonna wake up in the morning.
[00:46:56] We're gonna trust God, and we're gonna keep building. We're gonna do what he's called us to do. I think, again, everyone's got different qualities. If someone was to say, Hey, what, what do you think it takes to be a leader? I think it's out of all of us. It's just a relentlessness that we won't quit. This resiliency, this relentlessness that.
[00:47:17] Like, listen, knock me down, kill me, crush me, leave me, abandon me. Take all my money. I will not quit. And you look at David and you just go, God, like if anyone wanted to quit, you don't think David ever wanted to quit. David had like to, everyone wants to be David. No one wants to go through what David had to go through.
[00:47:37] I mean, God, this guy had a horrible life. And, um, Moses, I mean anyone that God used greatly. just had this relentlessness, I'm just not gonna quit. I love the story of David when he comes and they've killed all their families and taken everything and the men wanted to kill him. And it says, David encouraged himself in the Lord.
[00:47:55] And I think oftentimes as a leader, it's you and Jesus and it's, it's you going, you know what? I'm gonna encourage myself in the Lord and I don't care what happens. I'm not quitting. I'm not quitting. I am not quitting. Somebody needs me. Somebody needs me to do what God called me to do. I refuse to quit. If I quit.
[00:48:15] They're gonna have to drag me out of here. That's all. I'm gonna die before I quit. They're gonna have to drag me outta here because I think there's a lot of great exit ramps in this thing called leadership. There's a lot of great opportunities as a leader to go, well, okay, obvi, this is, I shouldn't be doing this.
[00:48:32] You know, when we started a church, people thought, you know, they're gonna go back to his dad's church and take over and, and, and when we decided to start a church and come do this, Listen, you don't think I lay in bed at night? I'm three and a half hours from my dad. You don't think I lay in bed at night sometimes going, well, you are an idiot.
[00:48:51] Why didn't you go take over your dad's church? They got 90,000 people, four or five campuses, money in the bank. What are you doing over here? And, and I don't know what to tell you, but when God calls you someplace, he calls you someplace. I love Houston like, like when I fell in love with my wife. I fell in love with Houston like that.
[00:49:11] And I think as a leader, when you fall in love with the calling that God has for you, when you fall in love with what he's anointed you to do, I don't care. I don't care if my wife would've left me for five years. That's who God called me to. I was gonna wait. I was gonna get her back. And I don't know what to tell you, but God called me to Houston and I don't care what happens.
[00:49:30] I don't care if we gotta meet in my house. I don't care if we gotta, I am not leaving this city until God does what he told me he was gonna do. And I think you gotta have that resiliency, you gotta have that, that strength of heart. You gotta be able to get knocked down a thousand times and still go, you know what?
[00:49:46] It doesn't matter. I'm, I'm gonna do it. Even if it doesn't feel good. Even if it doesn't feel like I'm going to do it, because it's what he put inside of me. You know, in the leg, in the, in the, and where we live, the tide period we live in, church planning has become very faddish and everybody wants to plant a church.
[00:50:03] Everybody wants to do the next cool church and there's all these cool names and a lot of people are going, God, why isn't my church working? Or Why isn't this happening? Or Why isn't this happening? And I had a thought today, just, man church planting is not a fad, it's a calling. It is a calling. And if you can't stand getting punched in the mouth repeatedly and still wake up and go, you know what?
[00:50:25] I still want to go out there and run this church. I can get tired in it, but I will never get tired of it. I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna give a hundred percent to this city every single day no matter what happens. And I'm gonna wake up the next morning and do it all over again. And I think if that's not in you, if you're not called and anointed to do that, you will be miserable, church planting it, it, it will be very, very hard for you.
[00:50:50] And leadership will be very, very hard for you. I think the greatest thing you can do as a leader is find out what God called you to lead. Cuz once you know what he called you to lead, you're gonna fall in love with it. You're gonna be committed to it. And then if I can say for me personally, what it is that that drives me, I just refuse to quit.
[00:51:07] I'm not the smartest, I'm not the best, I'm not the brightest. I'm not the most intelligent. But I refused to quit. I just am gonna do what God called me to do and I'm gonna do it with a smile on my face and I'm gonna, there's gonna be days, I'm gonna go to bed crying and I'm gonna wake up tonight for more with a smile on my face.
[00:51:25] Listen, I think pastors, sometimes we can be some of the most depressed people in the world because this thing is so hard. And if you are not resilient, and if you don't wake up every day going, God, it's me and you, we're gonna get this, we're gonna figure it out, you're gonna be miserable. And then as a leader, probably the next best thing I've ever done next to just being so headstrong not to quit is developing a great circle of friends.
[00:51:47] Relationships will save your life. If someone said, what's the number one thing I can do as a leader that's going to improve my longevity, that's gonna grow me as the person that's gonna help whatever I'm leading. I would say get some good friends. I have a group of friends, man. I have some of the best friends in the world that aren't afraid to call me out, that I can sit down now and go, hey, I had a conversation I shouldn't have had. Or I said something I shouldn't have said to my wife, or man, I want to go off and just lose my mind.
[00:52:18] I have people now that I can do that with, that can look at me and go, hey listen, we're gonna figure this out together. Hey, listen, I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna speak life into you when you want to quit. I'm gonna speak hoping to you. When you want to give up, I'm gonna tell you that you're, you're never quitting cuz we doing this together.
[00:52:34] And, and if you don't have those people, God, man, I can't imagine doing it alone. And there's people I call all the time, and there's people that call me all the time.
[00:52:42] I'm in multiple group texts with guys and their whole job is just, yo, let's make sure we finish strong because I don't care what anyone thinks about leaders, none of us do it alone. And if you do it alone, you don't finish strong. There's a reason that David had mighty in that Jesus had disciples that, that God sent Moses with Aaron because this thing called leadership was not meant to be done alone.
[00:53:07] Leadership can be very lonely if you let it be, but I believe that God's heart is that we wouldn't lead lonely. That we would have relationships and we would have friendships and we would have people that can help us through all of the Cuz as a pastor, as a leader, I always tell our congregation, people think because I'm the pastor, I just don't deal with what they deal with.
[00:53:28] And the reality is I deal with it more and then I deal with their problems. So I gotta deal with my own issues. I'm only, I'm only 31 years old, I gotta deal with all of my stuff. God's still growing me and I still have to learn, and God's still working on my heart in areas, and then I've gotta help other people get there.
[00:53:43] And so it's no easier for us as leaders, I think God's just given us a unique ability to see a little further down the road. And, you know, my heart as a leader is to, to lead humbly and just go, Hey, I don't have it all figured out, but I do see where God wants to take us. And, and if I can get us all on the same page, and if I can rally the troops, and if I can share vision and encourage you, and tell you I believe in you and you can do it, and God made you for this, then we can all get there together and it'll be a great journey.
[00:54:14] You know, I, I, I would be, I would be remiss to not mention a lot of guys who helped me as a leader, guys that loved me enough, the first person that ever showed any interest in me when I was, when I was running from God. Um, when I was in the Air Force with a man named Pastor Wayne and Wayne Asprodites he was a pastor to church in Florida that I went to and running from God, running from the call, looked at me in his office and just said, God's got a call in your life.
[00:54:44] He said, when, when, if every one of us bleeds something Christian, if they cut you open, you bleed relationships and you can do this. He was the first person that ever brought me in to speak and, and he would always encourage me and tell me, and, and so I think as leaders, some of the greatest things we can do is find those people, find those people and go, hey, you can do this.
[00:55:05] And little did he know the journey God was gonna have me on. He was speaking life to just a kid, 20 years old that was running from the call of God and had no clue what he was speaking into me or the impact that had on me. So not only as leaders do we gotta be resilient and headstrong and be lead humbly and let people see our vulnerabilities, but man, we gotta speak life into those people under us because while we see ourselves one way, the world sees us as leaders in a very different way.
[00:55:33] You know, Jesus says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And after that, love your neighbors yourself. That's it. I heard it interesting, and this isn't Biblical, so I don't take this as Biblical, but I heard an interesting, um, account one time of a guy that died and came back from, from death, you know, went to heaven and came back and he said, when I stood before Jesus, he asked me something.
[00:55:56] And he said, He just kept asking me the same question. Now again, whether this is Biblical or not, I think it's a great thinking point for all of us. He said, Jesus asked me one question over and over, and the question He asked me is, what did you do for your fellow man? What did you do for your fellow man?
[00:56:15] Oftentimes in ministry we can make it about building buildings and reaching people and how many numbers we had and how many what, you know, how many baptisms and what was the offering and what did we give away and what did, and sometimes I think we need to simplify it and just go, what am I doing for my fellow man?
[00:56:38] Cause I think that's where our legacy really comes from. Not from what we accomplished, but from what did we do for our fellow man.
[00:56:51] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, pastor Christian explores leaving a legacy that exemplifies what we have done for our fellow man and how everything we do determines the shape of that legacy.
[00:57:11] Christian Aranza: My legacy is something I think about a lot. I'm gonna be real vulnerable because I think that other leaders need to hear this. You know, when you mess up, like I messed up. A lot of people don't know about it, but the people that matter do, um, I'm terrified for the day my son finds out. I'm terrified the day that, that my daughters find out.
[00:57:37] You know, I, I think of those things all the time. And so as a leader and as a dad and as a husband and as a pastor, you start kind of trying to go, what does my legacy look like? Cuz now there's this stain on it. And I'll never forget a guy telling me one time after I went through everything.
[00:57:59] He said, Christian, I was, I was friends with a man one time that walked through something like you're walking through and he said, um, he, he messed up big, left his wife. I think he'd run away with his maid or secretary or something. And, um, I said, no way. He said, yeah, man. And it was, it was bad. And he goes, I wonder whatever happened to that guy. And then he mentioned the name of a very, very famous preacher that all of us would know and do know. And I said, what do you mean?
[00:58:29] Yeah, he did that? He said, yeah. I said, I didn't know that. And he said, not many people do. He was young. People forgot about it. And he looked at me and he said, Christian, this does not have to define you. This is not what your legacy's gonna be. And so as a person walking through it and wrestling with mistakes in my past and going, what is my legacy?
[00:58:51] I think oftentimes I take that and I try and turn it and go, my legacy can be that I didn't deserve anything I ever got. It was all about God, that I'm not a great guy. I'm not a great pastor. I'm not a great husband. I'm not a great father. I serve a great God. And because I'm really close to Him, I'm able to, to operate at a great level in a lot of areas of my life.
[00:59:13] And I think really, if I look at my legacy, what do I want people to say about me? I want people to say I was the best friend they ever had. I want people to say Christian was a master of relationships. That guy would not quit on you. That guy was gonna stick with you through thick and thin. That guy wasn't gonna give up on anyone.
[00:59:32] And then I wouldn't give up in general, you know, I just want to, I want people to look at me and go, he's the guy that just won't go away. He just keeps knocking. He just refuses to give up. The enemy can, can knock him down and and try and steal his calling and try and steal his anointing. And the enemy can set him back here and the enemy can do this, but he's just not going to give up.
[00:59:52] And I think when I look at it, I just go, hey, I want my children to be able to look at that. Cuz life's hard, as we all know, as adults, life is really hard. And I want people to be able to look back and go, man, your dad was relentless. Your dad would not quit. Your dad wouldn't quit calling me. Your dad wouldn't quit chasing after me. Your dad wouldn't quit doing whatever he had to do to help me.
[01:00:13] And you know, I think after walking through a couple of the things I've walked through, one with my marriage and two with my brother passing away, I've had the opportunity to walk, I don't know, a dozen couples almost through what me and my wife walked through.
[01:00:30] And, and I look at the, the multiplied impact that my one situation, now that I've got so many people that call me and go, we, my marriage would not be where it is. We would've divorced if it wasn't for y'all walking us through this. We wouldn't have been able to figure it out if it wasn't for you, and you're able to go, my legacy can be the, the biggest mistake I ever made can also be the greatest thing I ever did, and I was reminded of, um, David, David in his greatest sin, you know, his of of being with Bathsheba and killing her husband and walking through in the middle of his greatest sin. It was actually after that, the, the greatest part of his legacy came, which was Solomon.
[01:01:15] And so his legacy didn't come from slaying Goliath. His legacy didn't come from being a king. His legacy didn't come from any of those things. His actual pass down legacy was carried on through and after his sin. And I just think it's amazing how we can look at that and go, God is able to take our greatest mistake and totally flip it upside down.
[01:01:38] And it really is true what the enemy means for harm. God is able to take it and turn it for good. Not only turn it for good, but create a legacy to mock the enemy with it for years to come. And so I think, you know, what is my legacy man? I want, I want my children to say I'm a great husband. I want, I want my, my dad used to always say, I want my children to be able to say, I don't know what God is, but he's gotta be something like my dad.
[01:02:02] And I don't know if my children will be able to say that cuz I'm not that good of a dad as, as he was and the greatest dad in the world. But I do want my children to be able to say, my dad was my best friend. He was always there for me. He was the greatest coach and greatest, greatest encourager and greatest husband.
[01:02:19] I saw him, love my mom, loved my mom fiercely. I saw him kiss my mom every day and slap her on the butt and go, hey, there ain't no woman out there as fine as you and I, I don't ever want my children for one second to doubt that. I go to sleep every night. And I look at my children and I tell 'em the same thing after I pray for 'em. I take, I have three children. I have a son who's, who's, uh, almost six. I have a daughter who's three and uh, another daughter who's four months old. And I take the older one's hands and I look at 'em and I go, after I pray for 'em, I say, listen, I love you. You were awesome. You were strong, you were leaders.
[01:02:54] You were beautiful. You were handsome. You are going to change the, and they say world. And then I look at him, I go, listen, I'm a fan of you. And my son always goes, what do you mean dad? And I go, I'm a fan of you. I'm your biggest fan. I want your autograph. You are famous to me. And he goes, dad, stop. What does that mean? And I go, I'm just a fan. I'm crazy about you.
[01:03:18] And man, I want my kids to grow up knowing I'm crazy about them. Cuz I think, honestly, that's God's heart. I think if we could really see God's heart for us, it would be him going, if you only knew how crazy I was about you, if you only knew that I'm a fan of you, that I'm Christian's biggest cheerleader, that in spite of the game looking like it could have been over, it was only the first quarter.
[01:03:45] And that we can look at our children in those same ways that that in the process of growing up, messing up and going through all of life, that they will go through that I can look at them and just go, hey, I'm a fan. This is the first quarter. I'm a fan. We're gonna win this game. I want my wife to say I was a great husband.
[01:04:04] You know, at the end of the day, building a great church is awesome. I've always told my dad this. My dad is a very busy man, and, and, and we have shared, he would tell you, he's sacrificed a lot of our family to build the church that he's built. And, and he was a very busy man. And there were times that I would look at him and I would say, I hate Pastor Jacob, but I love my dad.
[01:04:25] All these people you're going to meet with all these stuff you're running to the dinners, you're missing the, the games you're missing, the things you're going to dad. Are those people gonna be there when you're on your deathbed? Are those people gonna be there when, when you are dying and we're holding your hand?
[01:04:40] And, and the truth is they won't, but we will. And so I want to invest in the people that are gonna be around my bed when I die. I want my wife when I die to go, God, you couldn't have given me a better man on this planet. The ride that we're on is amazing, and, and you know, I, I encourage people, this is a, a brief tip on marriage cuz marriage is hard and maybe you're going through something in your marriage or maybe you're walking through a season that seems dead or seems dry and maybe you just go, God, man, I don't, I don't know if we're gonna make it.
[01:05:14] And I want to encourage you think about the long game that the long game is in, in, in 50 years you're sitting on the back porch of your camp watching your great-grandchildren or your grandchildren play in the yard and fish and, and you're sitting there and your, your wife's in the rocking chair next to you and neither of you can really do much anymore, but you rock and drink sweet tea and hopefully hunt and, um, and, and you look at each other and you just go, hey, we made it.
[01:05:44] And what is our legacy? It's, it's, it's that kid over there, that two year old kid fishing and it's that, that 20 year old over there in college. And, and it's the, it's the four grandchildren we have, and it's the, the one of us that's a doctor, and it's the, the preacher that is preaching outta your old Bibles.
[01:06:01] And what is our legacy? I, I don't know what a great church is awesome, but a great church will go away. I'm reminded of the verse where God says, what does he desire from us? Godly offspring, godly offspring. And, and I think if I can do that, if I can provide godly offspring, if I can love my wife passionately, then people will say great things about me as a leader.
[01:06:32] My church will think about me great as a leader, I used to think, man, I gotta do something awesome for people to remember me. I gotta preach like Billy Graham. I gotta build a church like life church. I gotta, I gotta do something amazing to be remembered. And what I really realized is I don't have to do anything amazing.
[01:06:51] I've gotta be an amazing husband and an amazing father.
[01:06:54] And if I can do those things amazing, I will multiply my legacy far more than I could have ever done with anything else. I think the older you get, the more that you realize I, it's not about what I've built, it's not about what I've accomplished, or I love Billy Graham, they asked him at the end of his life, if you could have done something different, what would you have done? And, and, and there may be those of you listen, that you go, well, I mean, I wanna build something great. You know? That's how, listen, that's great. I'm just telling you, I don't know if somebody that did something greater than Billy Graham in our, in our lifespan, okay, or, or in the last a hundred years, and Billy Graham himself goes, listen, if I could have changed one thing, I would've spent more time with my family. I just thought, how profound, man, that he's accomplished everything as a pastor or as a preacher you could ever want to accomplish. And at the end of all of it, he goes, I wish I would've spent more time hanging out with my kids.
[01:07:53] I wish I would've played baseball in the backyard with my son more. I wish I'd have gone on more dates with my wife. Wish I would've taken my daughter to the movies more. I wish I would've laid on the trampoline in the back while the kids jumped on me. Because at the end of the day, that's what matters.
[01:08:11] That's what matters. You know, I look at all the legacies around me. There's a lot of, lot of great guys that I have the privilege of being around and the privilege of seeing. And my hero's always been my dad since I was a kid. In his victories and in his failures, he's always been my hero. If I could have my son sitting here in 23 years, like I am talking about me, the way my dad, uh, the way I talk about my dad, that'd be a win for me.
[01:08:40] If my son could think about me the way I think about my dad, that would be a win for me. That would be a legacy that would, that would bring me joy. I think the struggles with building a great legacy though, is there's this constant tension, man. This constant tension between, I know I gotta spend time with my children, but I also gotta build something to take care of my children.
[01:09:02] I've also gotta do something that, that, that shows them how to build this thing called ministry and, and I've gotta help the world that God called me to help and it can't be all family and it can't be all work. And it's this constant tension. You gotta balance between, okay, how much do I build and how much do I spend with my family?
[01:09:26] And you know, I think it's scary sometimes when you do think of David. At David building everything David built that he wasn't able to build the one thing he wanted to build. The one thing that David wanted to build was the temple. And it's the one thing that God said, hey, no, you're not gonna be the one that builds that.
[01:09:44] It's gonna be your son. And I give a lot of thought to that. Cause I wanna build a great church. I wanna build the greatest church in the world hoping I die, people go, nobody built a church like Christian Aranza, that guy built the greatest church there ever was. Not at the expense of losing my children, though, I'll say that.
[01:10:01] But I do think, God, what if you just called me to be a great dad and you called my son to build the greatest church the world has ever seen. And I think you gotta wrestle with what God's called you to do. And it's a tight rope. You walk, it's a tight rope you walk constantly of am I building my legacy?
[01:10:20] You know, it's kind of like, it's kind of like when, like the, the whole yolk concept with oxen. Okay, if, if one gets too far off, then the other one starts to suffer. I gotta make sure that they're even, and, and sometimes one's a little in front of the other and you gotta pull it back, and the other ti, and, and it's a constant balancing act of going, okay, one, I never want my children to forget they're my priority. My wife's my priority. My marriage is my priority, because I will tell you this, if all you take away from it is this, if she gets off the ride, the ride stops. If she gets off the ride, the ride stops. And um, I wanna raise children that love me, that grow up and wanna be a part of the church and don't resent the church like I did. But that wanna be a part of the church. That their joy is to show up and serve.
[01:11:08] What, what would be a great legacy for me is, is if in 10 years I walk up and my son's just serving on Sunday, going and I'm going, what are you doing? Opening doors? And he goes, this is my Sunday to serve. I'm just serving on the dream team.
[01:11:19] That would be a huge win for me cuz that means I would've built church, right? And he would've loved church and I would've built a church that he enjoyed and wanted to be a part of and was proud of me for building, and you know, I think if, if I could do that, If my daughter one day was, I don't need 'em on stage, some people will go, you know, I want my children to preach. I want, I want 'em to do whatever God wants 'em to do.
[01:11:41] It would be huge for me though, if they were serving on Sundays, it would be huge for me if my daughter was, was just working the coffee cart and, hey, what are you doing? Just serving on the dream team. That would be massive. That would probably be a bigger win for me than if they were preaching because it means that they loved the church so much. They loved the house of God so much that they just wanted to serve like everyone else that we gave our lives to serve.
[01:12:04] The whole reason I came to Houston, my dad, when I was a little kid because he came outta Houston and had such a bad experience here and hated it, and he would always tell me, I'm never going back to Houston.
[01:12:16] But he had this saying that, that, that their, their church lived by, and he even lived by before the church, were reaching people, building lives, reaching people, building lives. And he would talk about how we're building families and how we're reaching people and robbing hell and populating in heaven. And, but he would always talk about how bad he hated Houston.
[01:12:36] And I remember thinking as a young kid, if you hate Houston that much though, who's gonna go and help the people in Houston who's gonna go and help the people in Houston? And so accidentally, the legacy he left in me was the people in Houston really need Jesus. And so I came over here to try and help the 6 million plus people in Houston that really need Jesus.
[01:13:03] And I've given my legacy in my life, first to my wife, second to my children, and third to the city of Houston. I love this city. After God, my wife and my children. I want to die serving this city. I want to give everything I have left over after I've given to my family, to this city.
[01:13:24] I believe it's a unique city. I believe it's an awesome city. And so for me, a big win would be if I died in the city of Houston, said he served us well.
[01:13:32] Not only did he serve his family well, not only did he serve his generation well, not only did he serve his country well, but he served this city that God called him to really, really well.
[01:13:44] I think if I could do that, God man, that would be a win. You know, when Billy Graham died, the world grieved. I don't know if you've ever thought about that, but the world, the entire world grieved when Billy Graham died and I made a comment to my, my two of my dear friends, Bubba Massey, um, and Caleb Tree outta church on Highlands, and said, yo, can you imagine living a legacy where the whole world grieves when you die?
[01:14:13] Like think of that. That would be amazing if I could impact the world in such a way that just this kid from south Louisiana, this Cajun that when I died, that the world said, God, man, we lost a good one. He made this place a better place. That would be the highlight, that would be the winning reel.
[01:14:38] If my children loved me, if they served in the church, if my wife spoke well of me, and if when I died, the world was able to go, hey, this guy served us really, really well. I don't know if you can ask for a better legacy than that. I don't need buildings named after me. I don't need my face on billboards I don't need, I just want people to go, he served us well. He gave everything he had. He preached his heart out.
[01:15:05] Maybe one thing he said changed my parents' life and now I'm a product of that. Or maybe, you know, he did this and it affected my grandchildren and if I could just do that, if I could take all the leadership qualities and traits of the people I love, the people that are spoken into me and created me, who I am, my dad and Tim Delina and Chris Hodges and Dino Rizzo and all of the guys that have poured into me and the names are countless.
[01:15:36] If I could l take all those traits and be the husbands that they are, the fathers that they are, and then serve the world the way they serve the world, then I would feel comfortable leaving this earth and going, you know what? I gave every single thing I could to this world. And at the end of it, I know that if I can do that, then I'm gonna be pleasing to God as well.
[01:16:01] Cause that's really what he called us to do. I think when you look at God's priorities and go, God, what is what makes a great legacy? You know, Jesus says, love the Lord, you, God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And after that, love your neighbors yourself. That's it. I heard it interesting, and this isn't Biblical, so don't take this as Biblical, but I heard an interesting, um, account one time of a guy that died and came back from, from death, you know, went to heaven and came back and he said, when I stood before Jesus, he asked me something and he said, he just kept asking me the same question.
[01:16:33] Now again, whether this is Biblical or not, I think it's a great thinking point for all of us. He said, Jesus asked me one question over and over, and the question he asked me is, what did you do for your fellow men? What did you do for your fellow men? Oftentimes in ministry we can make it about building buildings and reaching people and how many numbers we had and how many what, you know, how many baptisms and what was the offering and what did we give away and what did.
[01:17:06] And sometimes I think we need to simplify it and just go, what am I doing for my fellow men? Because I think that's where our legacy really comes from. Not from what we accomplished, but from what did we do for our fellow man? There's a girl in our church, it's the highlight story for me of this whole church planting journey thus far.
[01:17:28] And she shows up at an interest meeting we have and she comes to 21 days of prayer every day. And then she's serving on the dream team. And I just assumed she heard about us from another church and came cuz she saw we were at a highlands and I don't know, just heard about it and showed up. And Easter Sunday, she goes, I'm walking in to preach and she's holding the door open, greeting people and she pulls me aside and she goes, pastor Christian, pastor Christian, listen to me.
[01:17:55] I need you to preach the best message you've ever preached. And I said, okay, why? She goes, well, my family's coming and they've never been to a church like this before. I thought, I said, well, what do you mean where'd they go to church? She goes, well, we've been Catholic my whole life and we've never been to a church like this.
[01:18:12] And all of a sudden I realized I'd never asked our story. I just assumed I was so confused. I said, what? Where did are, did you grow up in a Catholic church? And just said, yeah, so well how, how did you find out about us? And she says, I was sitting in a coffee shop and I was studying for a test and I had to use the bathroom, and I looked over and there was a girl wearing a valley Rise church shirt.
[01:18:35] And I said, that girl's wearing a church shirt, she looks like someone I can trust. And so I asked her, will you watch my stuff while I run to the bathroom? And she said, yes. And she said, I came back and she invited me to your interest meeting.
[01:18:47] And I came and I'd never been to anything like this. And, and you said, come to 21 days of prayer. So I just came to 21 days of prayer and I'd never been to anything like that. And all of a sudden I'm about to preach Easter and I'm going, oh my gosh, what in the world? And her whole family comes in and sits in the back and Easter service goes great.
[01:19:07] And I give the altar call and the majority of her family raises their hand. And I remember standing up there thinking, what a legacy. What a legacy. This one when, when they trace back the lineage of heaven. And you look at the girl who invited her from the coffee shop and this little girl who had ever known anything but the Catholic church shows up at our church, invites her family, her whole family gets saved.
[01:19:39] Her legacy will look incredibly different. I'm soon to marry her and her and, and her almost fiance. And, and I look at it and I just go, what is, what a legacy. You guys are living the greatest legacy ever because a decision you made changed your whole family. I pray that one day someone tells the story from another perspective and they talk about me leaving an amazing place like Highlands that I should never have even thought about leaving and come into a city that God just gave me supernatural love for and trying our best to do church the best we can.
[01:20:15] And meeting a girl who got saved and invited her family, they got saved and it's gonna get married in our church and their children will grow up differently because of Valley Rise Church. And I look at it and I just go, what are you doing for your fellow men? If we could just do that. If it could just be an invite, if it could just be one person, if it could just be one family, if it, you never know the impact you're making.
[01:20:40] Some of us, our greatest legacy will, will ever leave will happen just by us serving our fellow man. I want to leave you as that close up with wise words from the greatest leader I know Christmas one year I unwrapped this gift and opened it up and it was a Bible. Thanks Dad and I opened the cover and this is what he wrote in it.
[01:21:05] Christian, my son. This book has never failed me in 54 years. Its words have kept me in my darkest moments. Its promises are being fulfilled in your life. As you read this, read it daily, obey it quickly. Follow it completely as you do this consistently. One day they will call you a man of God. Thank you for being a man of God.
[01:21:30] Nothing could please me more. I love you, daddy. Press on my son. The world is waiting for you. Hey, I just want to tell you as you're listening to this, all of us have a legacy to leave, but the greatest legacy you will ever leave may be written on the inside of a Bible to the son that you raise.
[01:21:57] Steve Gatena: As Christians, we're familiar with the term calling. Some callings are universal, such as being called to our salvation through God. Being called to follow Jesus and being called to assist in His efforts to redeem and create the world He envisions. However, how God calls us to accomplish this work and where he calls us to serve is unique to each of us.
[01:22:26] Developing and deepening our relationship with Jesus and God can not only help us recognize the calling that God has placed inside of us, but also give us the strength, courage, and conviction to see it through. Sometimes we may doubt our calling and it may even frighten us. We may worry that we are unworthy and undeserving of our calling, or we may have other notions about what we wanted our calling to actually be.
[01:22:55] Nevertheless, rest assured that God knows all about it and we can hide nothing from Him. Our feelings, thoughts, fears, they don't matter. Nor does it matter if we say no to our calling, God waits patiently until we're ready to accept it. Our calling is ours and we cannot change it. We cannot trade it. We cannot lose it.
[01:23:21] Even when we make mistakes and fall short, God still entrusts us with His calling for us. On this episode of Relentless Hope, pastor Christian Aranza taught us this week that even when we want to let go of our calling, it will never let go of us.
[01:23:43] We learned how Pastor Christian knew from a young age that God had placed in his heart the calling to preach the gospel and become a man of God.
[01:23:53] We also learned how much Pastor Christian struggled to accept this calling and how afraid it made him feel. Pastor Christian also taught us that even when we make grave mistakes, God still loves us. He supports us, and He uses our experience to further His calling for an even greater good. As leaders, pastor Christian encouraged us to lead through our vulnerabilities and our mistakes, letting our people know that when we are not perfect and when we have faced many of the same challenges that they do that it's okay.
[01:24:31] He shared with us how he has struggled, messed up, gone astray, and been lost, including having an affair that almost ruined his marriage and burying his 20 year old brother after a motorcycle accident. Furthermore, pastor Christian, he wants us to know that his legacy is to be a master of relationships, never giving up on people and never quitting.
[01:24:58] He talked about the kind of legacy he wants to leave for his kids, for his wife, and for the city of Houston. He encouraged us to make leaving our legacies straightforward.
[01:25:10] What are we doing for our fellow man?
[01:25:15] Ultimately, God's calling for each of us is about how we can help usher in His vision for this world and assist Jesus in His mission of redemption.
[01:25:26] Fortunately, we don't have to answer these questions alone. God showed us, tells us, and places in our hearts how we can best serve Him and follow Jesus. All we have to do is open our hearts, be present, listen, and let God guide our hands.
[01:25:48] If today's podcast resonated with you, I want you to take a moment and share it with someone you love.
[01:25:56] You never know how one inspirational podcast can change someone's life. My name's Steve Gatena. I'm the host of Pray.com's Relentless Hope podcast, and I want you to remember to give hope a voice.
Overcoming Adultery and Fulfilling God's Calling - Christian Aranza
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: God has instilled various callings within our hearts. He calls us to life, faith, and Himself, as well as to love and to love our neighbors. He sent His only son Jesus to serve as a true example of how to live our lives from a place of love.
[00:00:24] Additionally, God calls us to different states of life where we can best serve Him using the unique gifts and talents that He has blessed us with.
[00:00:36] He has a plan and a purpose for our lives and desires to work with us in partnership. Some individuals recognize the purpose of their lives, which God has called them to.
[00:00:51] However, at times it may not be immediately evident, and certain experiences must be undergone before we're ready to receive here and accept God's calling for us.
[00:01:06] Nevertheless, our callings persist within us, although we may attempt to disregard, disregard, or exchange them. When God has implanted a calling in our hearts, it's ours for eternity.
[00:01:24] On this episode of Relentless Hope, Pastor Christian Aranza delves into honoring the gift of God's calling and the obstacles that may accompany it.
[00:01:35] He shares how as a young boy, he recognized that he was destined to be a man of God who would preach the gospel and change the world, but he was not prepared to embrace this calling immediately. We learn about Pastor Christian's battle to surrender and eventually embrace his calling as well as his moments of doubt.
[00:02:00] We also learn about how after Pastor Christian had an affair, he believed he had lost his calling, but God had other intentions.
[00:02:12] We learn that to be a great leader, we must first comprehend where and what God has called us to lead. As Pastor Christian explains, knowing this creates a passion within us, enabling us to become relentless and resilient in the face of challenges and immense stress.
[00:02:33] We also learn about how Pastor Christian desires to leave behind several legacies. One of them is his dedication to building relationships and never giving up on people. He hopes that his children will remember him as their best friend, always present for them, and serving as their greatest coach and encourager.
[00:02:57] He was a fantastic husband who adored his wife and demonstrated his love for her every day. And lastly, that he was crazy about his kids because he believes that is God's heart, that God is madly in love with all of us, His children.
[00:03:19] Pastor Christian reminds us that God calls us to serve in various ways and in different areas, including our families, our churches, our businesses, and everything in between.
[00:03:31] Every interaction we have with others provides an opportunity for us to honor the gift of God's calling.
[00:03:44] As Christian Aranza went into the Air Force, he found himself making a deal with God.
[00:03:51] Christian Aranza: But he looked at me and he said:
[00:03:52] "Just tell me, son, as long as you haven't been unfaithful to Alex, we can fix this."
[00:03:57] And in that moment, it was like the enemy just spoke to me and said, you see the one thing that you can't fix, you did the one thing that will ruin you, is what you did. And you still can't tell anybody.
[00:04:10] I had no one. As the pastor's son, who was I gonna go to and go, hey, I, I, I had a conversation I shouldn't have had. Um, I just knew as soon as I did that the gig was up, and, um, it, it, the, the, the relationship ended up coming out either, either that night or the next day it came out.
[00:04:28] And all I know is we got in a fight. When it came out, I left. And when I came back, everything in the house was gone. There was a mattress there, and there was, um, her wedding ring there, and there was, there was, um, that was it. And I sat on the bed and, and I had, uh, one of my guns that was with me, and I sat on the bed thinking:
[00:04:57] This is over. You've, you've ruined your life. You've ruined your calling, you've thrown away your anointing, the thing that people told you you were gonna do your whole life, the thing you were made for. You've messed that up even.
[00:05:15] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, we'll hear from Christian Aranza head pastor at Valley Rise Church in Houston, Texas, as he tells us about his early life journey.
[00:05:26] Starting as a young boy getting into trouble and growing into a young man joining the military, he shares with us all the trials that came along his journey to become the pastor of his own church.
[00:05:44] Christian Aranza: My name is Christian Aranza and I am from Lafayette, Louisiana, home of the Raging Cajuns. Lived there the majority of my life growing up, um, and my family, great family background, my father was a pastor. He actually was a pastor, I guess when, when I turned 14. Before that, he was an evangelist and he traveled about 265 days out of the year, almost every year. Was gone a lot.
[00:06:11] Um, I have four brothers and a sister that we adopted, uh, when I was a little older, but four brothers that I grew up with the majority of my life and very close, you know, when your dad's gone all the time and your mom's bearing the, the weight of the majority of the household.
[00:06:26] Um, we were all very close and I'm the second oldest in that bunch, um, five boys wild, you know, a house of boys is always crazy. And so you gotta fight for everything you have, and you gotta eat the food when you can, and it was always a mad house, um, but I was raised loving God.
[00:06:45] I was raised, we went to church. I don't think I ever woke up on a morning when my dad was home that I didn't see my dad, um, walking around the living room, praying on his face, praying. And he would, I have vivid memories until I was too big for him to carry me where I'd come in in the mornings and he'd carry me and walk around with me, man, for probably an hour, just praying over me and praying over me.
[00:07:09] I was born in Lindell, Texas, I guess technically. Um, lived in between Leonard, Raven Hill and Keith Green. Leonard Raven Hill, one of the great revivalists in American Christianity was, was one of my dad's mentors and pastors.
[00:07:21] When I was born, he dedicated me to the Lord, gave me the Bible he preached up for 20 years and told my dad, I know you think it'll be Jacob Jr, who's my dad's namesake, that will carry the mantle, but it's not, it's gonna be Christian.
[00:07:33] I knew that from a, from the time I was young and that wasn't ever, um, something they hid from me. If anything, it was something I fought.
[00:07:39] I think they made it very clear that I was made to preach the gospel, I was gonna change the world, I don't, I don't remember a day going by where my dad didn't look at me and say, you're gonna change the world. You're gonna change the world. God made you for a purpose. God's, you're gonna preach the gospel. You're gonna be a man of God.
[00:07:55] And as awesome as that is, I think it put a weight on me from a young age that, that I didn't know what to do with. I wanted to be normal, but, but I went to school every day with this weight of everyone else's salvation on me, I guess almost.
[00:08:11] Played sports my whole life growing up and really tried to do whatever I could to take away from the, the, the self-imposed pressure, probably, I don't think my parents ever meant to put that pressure on me, maybe the self-imposed pressure of, you're gonna be a preacher, you're gonna be a preacher, you're gonna change the world, you're gonna reach people, and I just wanted to be like everybody else. I just wanted to be a kid. And so played sports, was really good at hockey and ended up traveling around the world and playing hockey.
[00:08:37] And, but I, I never could get away from the, the upbringing I guess that, that I had. My parents were always, my dad when I was 14, started a church. Great church still there to this day. Four campuses, about 9,000 people, awesome church in South Louisiana. And so once the church started to grow, um, people kind of, I became their apparent, Christian's gonna take over, Christian's gonna take over, Christian's gonna take over.
[00:09:03] And I started to kind of resent that.
[00:09:05] Started at a young age, 16, 17, resenting that idea, you know, the, and really embracing the pastor's kid. Pastor's kids are bad pastor's, kids are wild pastor's, kids are, and so started using drugs and partying probably my junior year of high school.
[00:09:19] My junior year of high school, I sat down with my dad, I, I had gotten kicked off the basketball team for, um, my grades failing and really had kind of just given up on, on school, my friendships were suffering, um, had walked away from hockey and, uh, sat down with my dad and just said, listen, I'm miserable. Been partying and using drugs, and I just, you know, I just am miserable.
[00:09:42] I need to, I need to go someplace I could start over where I'm not Jacob Aranza's son, where I'm not the son of the preacher in the town that has this big church and I just wanna be me. And so went to live in Detroit, Michigan with, with the person that I call my uncle who has a church up there and moved into what, at that point was the worst ghetto in America.
[00:10:01] Had the highest crime rate in America.
[00:10:02] Moved there in February, there was already 76 murders in mid-February. It was a Triple X theater they had turned into a church. Across the street was the worldwide peep show. To the left was Larry Flinch, dejavu Strip Club to the right was the Crown Transvestite Prostitute Hotel.
[00:10:18] And when I moved there, they told me, if you buy drugs here, they will kill you. And um, I believed them. I was, I was one of the only, I'm Hispanic, but I was one of the only non-African American people in the city. Um, the city was bankrupt, the schools had no windows cuz of the drive-by shootings that would happen there.
[00:10:35] And, and so it was a, a concrete building. I didn't even go to school there, but I would go to school sometimes with my friends just to see them. And, and it was, I remember coming home and going, there were two, um, they weren't even white, I guess they were, they were non-African American or they were mixed students in the entire school of about maybe, maybe a thousand plus students, 2000 students.
[00:10:57] And so I began to learn a lot about life there. I, I moved back down to the south after my junior year and finished high school. Going into, I guess my, what would've been my freshman year of college, I began to, um, really fight the, the call that got had on me. I'd gone to a couple months of a little master's commission and kind of, you know, okay, maybe I'll jump in and, but every time I get close to jumping into what my call was, I was scared to death and, and so I'd pulled back. I wasn't ready.
[00:11:28] I knew that when I jumped in, It was, it was gonna be a big deal, and I, and I wasn't ready for that.
[00:11:35] So spent another two years really of my life, um, just partying and going crazy and, and indulging in anything I could and was in a, was sitting in a Transformers movie and there was a man wearing an Air Force uniform and doing a job that I thought looked cool and looked over at my friend and said, when we leave here, I'm going, I'm signing up for the military. And he said, now you're crazy. And I said, I'm gonna do it.
[00:11:59] And really what I thought I was doing was getting away from my calling. I thought I'll do something so crazy that, um, I won't have to be a preacher. And so went left the movie theater and went to the recruiter's office walked in and said, I wanna be, I wanna sign up.
[00:12:16] And he said, what do you want to do? I said, whatever will get me a uniform, I wanna sign up.
[00:12:20] I, I ended up as a medic. Did four years as a medic in the Air Force and loved it. Great experience. Awesome. And I had to deal with God, uh, when I went in, I had just started dating my now wife and heard all these horror stories.
[00:12:36] You're gonna go off to war, she's gonna find someone else, and, um, was laying in basic training, it was at the height of the, the, the war Iraq, Afghanistan, uh, 2007. And, um, was, was laying there and. I asked our, our drill instructor that day, does everyone deploy? Are you sure we're gonna deploy with him? He said, everyone will deploy. Every single person will deploy that comes into the military in this time.
[00:13:02] And so laid in bed, put my head under my pillow and I said, God, if you let me not deploy, I'll be a preacher. Not cuz I was scared. I just didn't wanna lose the person that, that I knew I was gonna spend my life with. And, um, so God, if you let me not deploy, I'll be a preacher when I get outta here.
[00:13:18] And so finished my training up and first round of deployments came up and I didn't get picked. And um, second round of deployments came up. The next year I didn't get picked. And now I'm in my fourth year, I'm now married to, to my then girlfriend, and, and we're living up there, and now I want to deploy because I realize, man, you get to make money, and all my friends are going and I wanna have this experience. I've trained now three years to do a job. I want to go over there and do it. I wanna, I wanna support the guys that I love. And, um, I had a last opportunity where I thought it would deploy and, and I got passed over on, I have no clue. I have buddies deployed two and three times.
[00:13:54] It just never, my number never got picked. So when I finished I, I remember vividly my last month in having a conversation with God. And, and at this point I wasn't really sold out yet, even on the concept of being a Christian.
[00:14:08] I loved Jesus, but that was about all that I knew. And I, I didn't think I was gonna be a preacher. I just started serving at a church and kind of attending a church in, in Florida where I was stationed and had a, had a talk with Jesus where I said, um, God, You held up Your end of the deal, um, I'm gonna hold up my end of the deal. I'll, I'll, I'll be a preacher and I'll go back to my home, church, dad's church. I'll go to college and I will, I'll just serve. I'll work my way in.
[00:14:37] And obviously God's plans are always different than our plans. Right about, um, probably the next day I got a call from a man who, who was, who was like a spiritual father to me, and he said, Hey, I'm going to teach as a adjunct professor at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
[00:14:52] And they do these, uh, scholarship competitions. I think you need to come up, if you're interested in going to the ministry, you need to come up and go through the scholarship competition. Just see, just see what you get. Well, the military was gonna pay for my college anyways, so as, kind of as a favor to him, because I trust him and I said, okay, you know, I'll go over there and, and see.
[00:15:10] And so we went through the whole day of scholarship competitions. And I'll tell you, coming off of a military installation and walking onto the campus of Oral Roberts University was a major, major, um, culture shock and finished the day. And we were walking off of there.
[00:15:29] I'll never forget walking down from the, the, the backside of the campus, and me and my wife are walking and she looks at me and she says, well, what do you think? Is this where we're supposed to be? Is this where God has us? And I looked at her and I said, they're gonna have to pay me to come to school here, this place is weird.
[00:15:45] And, um, went back to my life, was finishing my, my last month of out processing out of the military and, and bowling with some friends one night, get a call as I'm at a store down the road picking up socks to go bowling, and the lady says, hey, this is so-and-so from Oral Roberts University, and hey, great, thanks.
[00:16:03] Um, she goes, well, I'm calling to let you know, um, that out of the 3,200 people we picked, I think it was three, three full scholarship recipients. Um, and, and you are one of the whole person scholarship recipients. And, and I said, what do you mean? She said, well, we're gonna pay for all of your school. We're giving you an $80,000 scholarship. All of your school will be taken care of.
[00:16:22] And I literally said, you're telling me y'all are gonna pay me to go to school? And she said, yep. And I got off the phone and just laughed. And I thought, you know, people say you can't make deals with God. That's, that's just kind of how it's worked for me always.
[00:16:36] And so went to Oral Roberts University, loved it. Um, I, I think it's one of the greatest colleges in America. Had a blast there. Was on campus for about a year and a half. Me and my wife got pregnant at that time. Um, my, my pop said, why don't you come back and, and help us do a college ministry? We, we, we need someone to take over the college ministry.
[00:16:57] You can come in and do that. Be here, have your child here. And we were ready to be home. And so we moved back to Lafayette, Louisiana, and I became a college pastor and continued school online, but really threw my heart into being a college pastor.
[00:17:11] Um, I was not your, your typical college pastor probably was not your typical, I, I probably to this day am still not your typical pastor. I fought tooth and nail to be me. I grew up a lot, around a lot of pastors that seemed, um, not really genuine to me or even, even if they were genuine, they just came off as fake or too good, or man, people can't be like that. And I remember telling my wife, I never, I want to, I want people to see me and go, if he can do it, I can do it.
[00:17:38] And so started doing ministry and like all young preachers and, and ministers and if you have a, God gave me a gift to preach and start preaching and being able to travel some and, and got really hooked on, I gotta build this ministry to show that I'm, I, I'm not just here cuz of my dad. That's what I got all the time, you know, oh, you're just gonna take over your dad's church.
[00:18:01] Or people would look at me and it was kind of like this, you're here just cuz of your dad. You know, you're not, you don't really have the qualifications, you're not really the right guy, but you're here cuz of your dad. And I was dead set on proving that wrong. Um, I, I would work endlessly. I would spend time endlessly.
[00:18:18] I would do whatever I had to do to show that I was there because I was qualified, because I was good enough and because I was called. And, um, I, I realized that looking back now, I started working my way up into, into kind of a burnout and just getting into a frenzy. And I was, so, my wife would go, why? Who are you trying to prove wrong?
[00:18:39] And, and I would just say, you know, everyone, I gotta prove everyone wrong. I gotta show them I deserve to be here. And that, that worked really good for about a year and a half until one day I realized that I was, I was way off track. I woke up one morning and found myself in a position where, um, I was, I was a month and a half into a relationship with a woman that was not my wife.
[00:19:04] I, I didn't know how I got there. I didn't know how to get out of there. I remember probably meeting with, with a few people in, in the month leading up to when the affair started and saying, I feel like I'm about to throw it all away. I feel like, you know, what do you do when you feel like you're about to throw it all away?
[00:19:24] And people are just saying, Hey, you know, just pressing to Jesus and, and love Him and you know, you got this, but I had no one I could open up to. I had no one I could sit across the table from and say, I am having conversations with a woman that's not my wife that I should not be having. I am, I'm traveling with a person that's not my wife that I should not be traveling with.
[00:19:46] And before I knew it, it was, it was too late. I'd gotten sucked in. And, uh, you know, I think, I think the enemy is very tricky and he's, he's great at getting us places that before we know it, you blink and you go, how in the world did I get here? And, and it was, it's how it felt that I opened my eyes and I just thought, how did I get here?
[00:20:09] There was no off ramp. Once I stepped on, it was like warp speed to where I am now, and started to get distant and started to question my calling and all of this while I'm preaching and while I'm maintaining what God's doing and while I'm speaking, talking to people and counseling people and, and on the inside I was just falling apart and my wife knew it.
[00:20:34] She knew I was, I was empty on the inside. And I remember her calling my dad over one day and just going like, you know, you gotta come talk to Christian, you gotta talk to Christian. I don't know what's wrong, something's wrong, but I don't know what it is. And sitting down across from my dad on the couch and, and him saying, son, just tell me, tell me, please tell me getting on his knees.
[00:20:54] Please tell me what's going on. Please tell me what's wrong. And knowing that if I said what was really going on, I was throwing away everything. I was throwing away my calling, I was throwing away the anointing. I was throwing away this position that I had worked so hard to show people I was worth having.
[00:21:12] And I remember him and you know, I love my dad to death. He's the greatest man on the face of this earth. He did the best that he could in every situation. I never doubt that for a second. But he looked at me and he said, just tell me, son, as long as you haven't been unfaithful to Alex, we can fix this. And in that moment, it was like the enemy just spoke to me and said, you see the one thing that you can't fix, you did the one thing that will ruin you, is what you did. And you still can't tell anybody.
[00:21:41] I had, no one. As the pastor son, who was I gonna go to and go, hey, I, I, I had a conversation I shouldn't have had. Um, I just knew as soon as I did that the gig was up and, um, it it, the, the relationship ended up coming out either, either that night or the next day it came out.
[00:22:00] And all I know is we got in a fight. When it came out, I left. And when I came back, everything in the house was gone. There was a mattress there and there was, um, her wedding ring there. And there was, there was, um, that was it. And I sat on the bed and, and I had, uh, one of my guns that was with me. And I sat on the bed thinking:
[00:22:28] This is over.
[00:22:30] You've, you've ruined your life. You've ruined your calling, you've thrown away your anointing. The thing that people told you you were gonna do your whole life. The thing you were made for. You've messed that up even. And, and there's no way that you can come back from this.
[00:22:45] And, um, I, I, you know, I, when people say I've never contemplated taking my life, I can't say that that's not true.
[00:22:51] In that moment, I contemplated what that would be like. Thank God for my son, um, who at that point was one and, and, and just, maybe he was one. I don't even know if he was one yet. And just knew that I couldn't, I couldn't do that. I had to, I had to fix this thing. Um, I began a six month process of trying to win my wife back of, of not, she didn't talk to me for three months.
[00:23:17] Um, I went to a, a, like a whole health retreat place to help me figure out, I think the, the most frustrating part for me was I didn't know how I had gotten there. I knew what had happened and I knew the decisions I made for it to happen, but I couldn't understand how I got there, how I let myself get to that place.
[00:23:35] And so went and sat down with some amazing people who helped me see how I got to that place and helped me see the gaps that maybe I had missed from childhood on and, um, and why I had this need that I fulfilled in a wrong way. I think it's important to know that in that process, God was never, people asked me, do you feel convicted? Did you feel...
[00:23:55] I didn't ever feel like God was mad at me. I didn't ever feel God was angry with me or frustrated with me or put out with me. It's probably the closest I've ever felt to the love of God my entire life is after everything hit the fan, and, um, I started to work a job a normal job. I honestly thought ministry was over for me.
[00:24:15] I, I knew that kind of, that was my shot and I had blown it, and so I, I started working a normal job and. Sold cars at a guy's car dealership for a couple months and then got a job doing, uh, selling janitorial supplies for a company. Um, and I was miserable on the inside. I, I knew God had given me this gift and this calling, and while I tried to let go of this calling, the calling would not let go of me.
[00:24:40] And I'd lay in bed at night and weep and weep and weep cuz I just wanted the calling to let go of me, and it wouldn't.
[00:24:47] Um, and me and my wife, we're now back together. We're six months into this process. We're back together. Things are going good. Um, I'm working through the process of, of restoring the heart of this woman that I love deeply and, and having conversations and seeing her broken and, and then this process of God, man, and going to a job that I hate during the day, going to a job, just trying to shake the memories of what I had lost and, and how badly I had let my dad down and felt like I was a church down.
[00:25:24] And I'll never forget, I was in the parking lot of my grandmother's furniture store in Lafayette, Louisiana, and I got a call. Um, I was, I was sitting in a PT cruiser that, it was the company car that I worked for.
[00:25:36] I mean, I remember like it was yesterday, and I get a call, I answer the phone and it's Pastor Dino Rizzo, who's, who's like an uncle to me and now a pastor to me, and said, um, how you doing? And, and I just looked around and just thought, really? If you, if he really knew how I was doing, he probably wouldn't even be calling me, if he really knew I was selling janitorial supplies, just trying to, he probably wouldn't want anything to do with me.
[00:26:01] And I said, you know what? We all say, oh, you're doing good, man. You know, just working and loving my wife, thankful my wife is, is with me. And, and I was at that point, I could have never been a ministry again. I was grateful I had my wife, my child, and he said, well, I just got off the phone with Pastor Chris, Chris Hodges, and he wants to know if you want to come up and come on the team at Highlands and I, I will never, I will never be able to duplicate the feelings of that moment.
[00:26:34] I, I will be loyal to Church of the Highlands, pastor Dino and Pastor Chris till the day that I die. And I would give my heart and soul for them because they saved me. They saved my life, they saved my, my calling, they saved my marriage. And the next couple months we moved up to Church of the Highlands and came on the team.
[00:26:54] And no one that I thought I was gonna go there and everyone was gonna know, and no one knew and no one brought it up. And people saw me differently. And I began to walk in this process of restoration and was on staff at Church of Highlands for three years. It's the greatest church in America.
[00:27:11] I will be way over my head. If I can build a church like Church in the Highlands. Um, Pastor Chris is the greatest pastor in America, Pastor Tino, these guys, I owe my life to them. My children owe their lives to them. My my wife owes our marriage to them and begin this process of learning what it looked like to do healthy life and healthy marriage, and not have the weight of being the pastor's son and just being there, being me.
[00:27:37] And they embraced me with such open arms and, and, and I learned how to do life differently. I learned how to overcome something that I never thought I could overcome. And the crazy thing about it is, is that my whole life I thought I was gonna work hard enough to work my way up the ranks, that maybe a church like that would one day call me and go, you are so good that we've gotta have you.
[00:28:01] And it's such the grace of God. Cuz what happened was, it was the exact opposite. I was so bad that God said, now I'm gonna put you in a place that had nothing to do with what you were able to do. Now you'll experience what the grace of God really is because you'll know that it has nothing to do with you. It's all about me.
[00:28:21] And I begin the greatest journey ever. Um, that journey is, is continuing now and is still blows my mind that I, that I am on this journey and that my family's with me and that, um, I, I'm, I'm just blown away and that God lets me do what I get to do. We were there three years and then just planted a church almost a year ago.
[00:28:42] You know, they, I, I, I could, I could talk for 25 minutes about what Highlands means to me, and they were with me through the craziest times of my life, the craziest times of my marriage. Little did I know going up there a year after I was gonna be there, my brother would pass away in a motorcycle accident and for them to walk through that with me, love me, and I get up to speak at the funeral in Louisiana and look out there and, and my best friends in the world from Highlands are sitting out there, they're driven all night to be there. And, and I just broke on 'em and weeping and they just looked at me and they said, yeah, we're doing life together. We're not letting you do this alone. We're not letting you...
[00:29:18] And when I look at people that inspire me and things that inspire me, it's just people that just are, that just go, hey, we're, we're big enough to be small. We're big enough to be here for you. We're big enough to be a part of every story. We're not scared of your dirt. We're not scared of your sin. We're not scared of your stain. We're not scared of your reputation. Let's do life together.
[00:29:38] And I think that's what we've tried to build our church on is let's just do life with people. Let's not worry about their story, what it looks like, how bad it is. Let's just do life with people.
[00:29:49] And that journey led us into planning Valley Rise Church in um, January 28th, 2017.
[00:29:59] I started to realize that it's, it's kind of like being in the weight room. There's this thing with leadership where it's really heavy. And about two months in, I looked at my wife and I said, you know what? I feel like I got this.
[00:30:10] Like, I feel like I was in the weight room and they put a lot of weight on the bar and it fell on my chest. But after lifting it for a little bit, now it's comfortable. And now I can hold it up and it doesn't, it's still there, but it, it's not crushing me.
[00:30:25] And two weeks later, it's like God said, okay, good, then you're ready for me to put another plate on the bar. And it got heavier. And then there was this month, you know, two month period of adjusting. And then I thought, okay, I've got this. And now it's in this even flow where you go, okay, God, when, you know, when I can handle the weight, and you know, when I'm ready to handle more weight.
[00:30:46] And, um, I think all of us as leaders have different characteristics.
[00:30:51] I think my characteristic and, and it comes out a lot in carrying this weight, is I'm just very resilient. I'm incredibly resilient. I could have the worst day everyone could leave me today. I'm gonna wake up in the morning and go, okay, we're gonna figure this out. I don't know how we're gonna figure it out.
[00:31:07] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, we'll hear from Pastor Christian Aranza as he discusses navigating relationships, being a leader through vulnerability and dealing with the unique weight that comes from being a leader.
[00:31:26] Christian Aranza: Life happens fast and it's like you blink and all of a sudden people are calling you a leader, but you really don't feel like a leader. You still feel like you, I think. And so anyone out there who, who maybe feels like you don't feel like a leader, it's okay. None of us do. Um, I feel like me and people just follow me.
[00:31:40] Um, but, before I became a leader, I think it was like I'd look at these leaders and go, gosh, I could be, um, as authoritative as them if I could be as perfect as them. My dad had such a horrible childhood. He grew up in, in the inner city of Houston and multiple divorces and abuses, and his childhood was so bad.
[00:32:02] He never wanted us to see any of that. So he protected us from, from any of his deficiencies or any of, and we didn't see a lot of how hard life was. Dad was just always like the perfect man of God. And so growing up, I think I looked at that and thought, God, if I could just be, if I could be perfect, if I could just never, never get mad and never sin, and when I am, when I tempted to get mad, be patient and go pray, and I mean, just all of the things that, that I saw my father do who's an amazing leader, an amazing dad, and amazing father, I just wanted to be like that.
[00:32:38] And then I'd see people who were anointed and go, gosh, I had that anointing. If I could just walk into a room and, and the presence of God come with me like that. Um, if, if I could just speak and people listened because of who I was, you know, if, if, if they saw this leadership thing that was on me, like I see it on this person or on that person, and I went to a Christian school when I was a kid, and so I always kind of have this funny memory definition of what a leader is.
[00:33:09] When I was a kid, my, uh, principal would tell me all a leader is, is someone who can see further down the road than others. And the longer I live and the older I get, I feel like it's very true that oftentimes a leader is just someone who can see a little further down the road.
[00:33:28] When I look at people who taught me how to lead early, early years, it was my dad. It was, um, my uncle Tim Delina, who, who was the executive pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle for a long time, and then is now down in Louisiana, um, on staff with my father and was a hero in the faith to me. And I looked at guys like Brother Raven Leonard Ravenhill and, and his prayer life, and saw all these people that, that just had this amazing character.
[00:33:55] You know, brother Lynn was a prayer warrior. No one could pray like Brother Ravenhill pray for six, seven hours. And my Uncle Tim, was an amazing preacher. No one could study and preach like him. My dad was this amazing people, person leader. People were just drawn to him. He could walk into a room and captivate people. He always knew what to say. He always had the right wisdom for people.
[00:34:20] And I just started to look at these things and said, God I could be like that. That's what I'd wanna lead like. And then went up to Highlands and got around a whole different style of leadership and was around Pastor Dino, who there is no more relational leader than Dino Rizzo.
[00:34:35] Dino Rizzo is the greatest gift to the body of Christ in the relational capacity that, that, that I know will ever see in my lifetime, and, and I, you know, I'd wager to say ever simply because of the social media and, and the, the connectivity that we have at this point in time. He is, he is a Rolodex of relationships and, and I, I'm, I try and model so much my relationships after what he does that he's just phenomenal.
[00:35:03] He's a wizard with people. And then I looked at Pastor Chris, and Pastor Chris is a very different leader. Chris Hodges is the most, um, intentional leader I've ever been around. He's very disarming. There's nothing about Pastor Chris that when you're with him, do you feel like this, this weight heavy leader.
[00:35:27] He's not, he's not a authoritative leader. He's not a heavy handed leader. He's not a, he's very gentle and, you know, people that aren't around him at times will go, God, he seems like, you know, he seems like he's probably a, a control freak, or he's always got everything in order and. And he probably does have everything in order in his mind, but I'll tell you, being on his team for three years, um, the things that stood out to me the most about him was when he would stand in front of us and weep, he would stand in front of us and just say, if, if the greatest thing I've ever done is assemble, this team, I'm not, I'm not as good as what we're doing.
[00:36:02] We have served a great God and you are the best team in the world. If you weren't, if I didn't like you, if I didn't want to hang out with you every day, you wouldn't be on this team. And we had a very small staff of, you know, for the second largest church in America, I think when I was there, we had 300 people on staff and, and you're talking 16, 17 campuses.
[00:36:18] So that was, that was huge, for us to be that small as a staff, but be running that big of a church. And so everybody knew everybody. And especially me and Pastor Chris, because we're both from Louisiana and him and dad are dear friends and we kind of, me and his sons are very close and I've had a open door into a lot of those guys' lives that I think other people haven't had.
[00:36:40] And so being around Tim for three years, I was blown away, not by his intentionality, although he is not by his brilliance, although he was brilliant. I was blown away by the humility and with which he carried all of it. I was blown away that he could cry in front of us. I was blown away that he could stand up there and go, listen, if you have sin in your life, so do I. And I, I need people to help me with it. Okay? So like we all need, don't feel like if you're struggling with something, you are the only person I'm struggling with things.
[00:37:11] I loved that he would stand up and say, Hey, I, I'm the pastor, but the only thing that that means is that God called me to be a communicator and a leader, and this is the gifting that he gave me.
[00:37:20] I serve on the dream team just like everybody else. This is just the capacity he called me to serve in, and there was this humility that he, that he would cloak everything he carried in that blew my mind that, that I'd always, you think of a leader and a leader is kind of captivating and they're, uh, charismatic and they're friendly and they make the whole room laugh and then do, and yet he, he did all those things by being very subtle and being very humble and being very, um, disarming and the only person I've ever met other that, that was like, that was Mark Rutland.
[00:38:00] Then when I was at Oral Roberts, Dr Rutland is the greatest teacher I've ever been around. And Dr Rutland would walk around before chapel and he'd talk to everyone like he knew you if it was the first time you ever talked to him, or maybe the hundredth time you talked to him, he acted like he knew you.
[00:38:14] Like he was there hanging out with only you. And I think Pastor Chris has one the, the unique ability, um, to be able to do that as well, um, with, with people, especially on his team, to be able to come up and ask questions that are really good and to know that he's caring about you and thinking about you.
[00:38:29] And if you need anything, he's there for you. I love, this is gonna be surprising to people, but I love one of the things he would say to always say, Christian, never forget the little guy.
[00:38:39] And I think people look at me and would say, Christian's, not the little guy. Why does that? I'm, I'm not the, I don't think anyone would categorize me as the little guy.
[00:38:48] I came out of a great family, out of a great church with a great legacy and, and, you know, um, a great name and I'm six foot four. I'm tall. I'm, I think I'm charismatic. And I don't think anyone would look at me and say he's a little man, but I felt like the little man for the majority of my life, I always felt like I was fighting for what God had actually given to me to do.
[00:39:18] I felt like I was battling every other leader and I felt like I had to fight for what was mine. And I always felt like the little guy, no more time, a bit greater than sitting in my car where I thought I'd thrown him in my calling and Pastor Chris called me.
[00:39:32] And so I love the concept of always remembering the little man, because I think inside of all of us, there's a little man that even inside the greatest leaders, there's areas that we're insecure in and that we feel weak in.
[00:39:44] And some people will tell you as a leader, don't let people see that. You know, let 'em see strength. Let 'em see that when it's hard, you know, you trust God and let 'em see. And I think they do need to know that you trust God and know that everything's gonna be okay, and know that you're not gonna collapse for sure.
[00:40:01] But I think there's something beautiful about being able to be vulnerable in front of your congregation, about being able to be vulnerable in front of the people you're leading, being able to cry in front of them, being able to just go, hey, I can't do this without you guys. I, I wouldn't want to, you guys make this thing awesome.
[00:40:19] And so I think where I initially wanted to lead from my strengths and lead from how charismatic I was and lead from how great of a preacher I was, and lead from the relationships that I had and lead from the wisdom that I had learned and lead from all of this plethora of things that I thought leadership was.
[00:40:36] Now, as I, as a pastor of this church, I've realized for me, God's called me, I think oftentimes the lead in my weaknesses and the lead in my vulnerabilities, and to stand up in front of the church and go, hey, I can help you with your marriage because I've thrown my marriage away and I know how to get it back, and I can walk through a death in the family with you because I've buried my 20 year old brother and, and I can walk through, you know, I, I can walk through these issues with you because man, I've messed up.
[00:41:06] I've not figured it out. I've, I've gone astray and I've been lost. But I know that together with Jesus, we can figure it out.
[00:41:16] And I think, um, that does a few things for, as a leader, I think it lets people see that anybody can be a leader. The leadership is nothing more than influence. And that when people see I don't have to be perfect to be a leader, I just have to have influence, then they're able to open up their heart and go, hey, then let me show you my scars and if I can save you a scar or two, that makes me a leader.
[00:41:37] I don't have to be perfect to be a leader. I just have to be willing to share influence. I just have to be willing to give you my life. I just have to be willing to tell you what I did wrong. And I think it starts, it, it allows anyone to feel like they can lead. And I think that that it, um, cloaks that leadership and a humility that is attractive to people that no one is looking at Christian Aranza going, well, he's got it all figured out.
[00:42:03] If anything, people are looking at me going, man, if God can use him, God can use anybody. And maybe I'm wrong, but I, I just like to position myself in that way because if God gets all the credit, then maybe he can use me more than what he would've been able to use me if I was getting any of the credit.
[00:42:22] I was raised to do this thing called church. I was, this is all I've ever known, this is, I was probably knowledge based wise, ready to run a church at 20. I don't know, like I just knew so much and had been around it so long and been around all these great leaders for so long. This is what I was raised to do.
[00:42:41] I was a horse, a race horse that was bred to run and, and so now I have this chance to run and be a leader. And the funny thing, they don't tell you about leadership is that until you are the leader, you don't feel the weight of leadership. And I can't speak for everyone. You know, maybe there's people out there that are youth pastors that feel that weight, but as every senior pastor knows, and every senior pastor that listens to this will be nodding their head, there is a weight to this thing that no one warned me about.
[00:43:15] Jeremy Foster told me a week before we launched, two weeks before we launched, he said, Christian, the day you launch, you're gonna go to sleep that night. And there's gonna be a weight on you that you can't explain, you can't share with anyone. No one will understand it, but you and other people that are in this position, and you'll, it's gonna, it's gonna rock you.
[00:43:36] And I thought, God, I mean, sure. Okay, listen again, I was, I was raised to do this. I was bred to do this. Maybe that's for normal leaders. You know, I was in the military. I've dealt with stress and I've dealt with this is, these were all things that have been built into me. God made me to do this. And the day we launched that church, I went to sleep and it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest.
[00:43:59] I phys, it wasn't an an emotional weight, it was a physical, tangible weight. I didn't know how to deal with it. All I can tell you is that it, it felt like maybe God just put this huge weight to push me to my face so that the only place I would be comfortable was on my face in front of Him. I couldn't handle it.
[00:44:20] I would go to sleep every night thinking I'm gonna have a heart attack. Like, I don't even know. It wasn't stress. It was this, this weight of leadership that I had never realized or understood. And all of a sudden I felt really bad for making judgment calls on my leaders and, and maybe going, why didn't they do this?
[00:44:39] And why didn't they do that? And why didn't they do? But I had never carried that weight. And there's a big difference between making a decision when you're carefree and you don't have the weight and making a decision when you got 500 pounds on you. And, you know, a step to the left could cause me to lose this weight and a step to the right could cause me to lose this weight.
[00:44:58] And I gotta walk carefully because this weight is heavy. I didn't know if I could handle it. I was, I was blown away. The number one question I asked every single leader I talked to for the first two months of planning our church wasn't, Hey, how do I grow my church? Hey, how do I do this? Hey, what do you guys do for communion or dream team or growth?
[00:45:16] It wasn't any of that. It was how do you handle this weight? Where did this thing come from and how do I live with it? And I started to realize that it's, it's kind of like being in the weight room. There's this thing with leadership where it's really heavy. And about two months in, I looked at my wife and I said, you know what?
[00:45:34] I feel like I got this. Like, I feel like I was in the weight room and they put a lot of weight on the bar and it fell on my chest. But after lifting it for a little bit, now it's comfortable. And now I can hold it up. And it done, it's still there, but it, it's not crushing me. And two weeks later, it's like God said, okay, good, then you're ready for me to put another plate on the bar.
[00:45:55] And it got heavier. And then there was this month, you know, two month period of adjusting. And then I thought, okay, I've got this. And now it's in this even flow where you go, okay, God, when you know, when I can handle the weight and you know, when I'm ready to handle more weight. And, um, I think all of us as leaders have different characteristics.
[00:46:17] I think my characteristic and it, and it comes out a lot in carrying this weight is I'm just very resilient. I'm incredibly resilient. I gotta have the worst day Everyone could leave me today, I'm gonna wake up in the morning and go, okay, we're gonna figure this out. I don't know how we're gonna figure it out.
[00:46:31] A couple months into us starting the church, we had four of our key people, you know, the people that I never thought were gonna leave me, the people that were gonna be with me forever. That that left me. And I remember my wife going, what are we gonna do? And laying in bed. Feeling the weight, seeing people leave me that I love and going, you know what, we're gonna wake up in the morning.
[00:46:56] We're gonna trust God, and we're gonna keep building. We're gonna do what he's called us to do. I think, again, everyone's got different qualities. If someone was to say, Hey, what, what do you think it takes to be a leader? I think it's out of all of us. It's just a relentlessness that we won't quit. This resiliency, this relentlessness that.
[00:47:17] Like, listen, knock me down, kill me, crush me, leave me, abandon me. Take all my money. I will not quit. And you look at David and you just go, God, like if anyone wanted to quit, you don't think David ever wanted to quit. David had like to, everyone wants to be David. No one wants to go through what David had to go through.
[00:47:37] I mean, God, this guy had a horrible life. And, um, Moses, I mean anyone that God used greatly. just had this relentlessness, I'm just not gonna quit. I love the story of David when he comes and they've killed all their families and taken everything and the men wanted to kill him. And it says, David encouraged himself in the Lord.
[00:47:55] And I think oftentimes as a leader, it's you and Jesus and it's, it's you going, you know what? I'm gonna encourage myself in the Lord and I don't care what happens. I'm not quitting. I'm not quitting. I am not quitting. Somebody needs me. Somebody needs me to do what God called me to do. I refuse to quit. If I quit.
[00:48:15] They're gonna have to drag me out of here. That's all. I'm gonna die before I quit. They're gonna have to drag me outta here because I think there's a lot of great exit ramps in this thing called leadership. There's a lot of great opportunities as a leader to go, well, okay, obvi, this is, I shouldn't be doing this.
[00:48:32] You know, when we started a church, people thought, you know, they're gonna go back to his dad's church and take over and, and, and when we decided to start a church and come do this, Listen, you don't think I lay in bed at night? I'm three and a half hours from my dad. You don't think I lay in bed at night sometimes going, well, you are an idiot.
[00:48:51] Why didn't you go take over your dad's church? They got 90,000 people, four or five campuses, money in the bank. What are you doing over here? And, and I don't know what to tell you, but when God calls you someplace, he calls you someplace. I love Houston like, like when I fell in love with my wife. I fell in love with Houston like that.
[00:49:11] And I think as a leader, when you fall in love with the calling that God has for you, when you fall in love with what he's anointed you to do, I don't care. I don't care if my wife would've left me for five years. That's who God called me to. I was gonna wait. I was gonna get her back. And I don't know what to tell you, but God called me to Houston and I don't care what happens.
[00:49:30] I don't care if we gotta meet in my house. I don't care if we gotta, I am not leaving this city until God does what he told me he was gonna do. And I think you gotta have that resiliency, you gotta have that, that strength of heart. You gotta be able to get knocked down a thousand times and still go, you know what?
[00:49:46] It doesn't matter. I'm, I'm gonna do it. Even if it doesn't feel good. Even if it doesn't feel like I'm going to do it, because it's what he put inside of me. You know, in the leg, in the, in the, and where we live, the tide period we live in, church planning has become very faddish and everybody wants to plant a church.
[00:50:03] Everybody wants to do the next cool church and there's all these cool names and a lot of people are going, God, why isn't my church working? Or Why isn't this happening? Or Why isn't this happening? And I had a thought today, just, man church planting is not a fad, it's a calling. It is a calling. And if you can't stand getting punched in the mouth repeatedly and still wake up and go, you know what?
[00:50:25] I still want to go out there and run this church. I can get tired in it, but I will never get tired of it. I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna give a hundred percent to this city every single day no matter what happens. And I'm gonna wake up the next morning and do it all over again. And I think if that's not in you, if you're not called and anointed to do that, you will be miserable, church planting it, it, it will be very, very hard for you.
[00:50:50] And leadership will be very, very hard for you. I think the greatest thing you can do as a leader is find out what God called you to lead. Cuz once you know what he called you to lead, you're gonna fall in love with it. You're gonna be committed to it. And then if I can say for me personally, what it is that that drives me, I just refuse to quit.
[00:51:07] I'm not the smartest, I'm not the best, I'm not the brightest. I'm not the most intelligent. But I refused to quit. I just am gonna do what God called me to do and I'm gonna do it with a smile on my face and I'm gonna, there's gonna be days, I'm gonna go to bed crying and I'm gonna wake up tonight for more with a smile on my face.
[00:51:25] Listen, I think pastors, sometimes we can be some of the most depressed people in the world because this thing is so hard. And if you are not resilient, and if you don't wake up every day going, God, it's me and you, we're gonna get this, we're gonna figure it out, you're gonna be miserable. And then as a leader, probably the next best thing I've ever done next to just being so headstrong not to quit is developing a great circle of friends.
[00:51:47] Relationships will save your life. If someone said, what's the number one thing I can do as a leader that's going to improve my longevity, that's gonna grow me as the person that's gonna help whatever I'm leading. I would say get some good friends. I have a group of friends, man. I have some of the best friends in the world that aren't afraid to call me out, that I can sit down now and go, hey, I had a conversation I shouldn't have had. Or I said something I shouldn't have said to my wife, or man, I want to go off and just lose my mind.
[00:52:18] I have people now that I can do that with, that can look at me and go, hey listen, we're gonna figure this out together. Hey, listen, I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna speak life into you when you want to quit. I'm gonna speak hoping to you. When you want to give up, I'm gonna tell you that you're, you're never quitting cuz we doing this together.
[00:52:34] And, and if you don't have those people, God, man, I can't imagine doing it alone. And there's people I call all the time, and there's people that call me all the time.
[00:52:42] I'm in multiple group texts with guys and their whole job is just, yo, let's make sure we finish strong because I don't care what anyone thinks about leaders, none of us do it alone. And if you do it alone, you don't finish strong. There's a reason that David had mighty in that Jesus had disciples that, that God sent Moses with Aaron because this thing called leadership was not meant to be done alone.
[00:53:07] Leadership can be very lonely if you let it be, but I believe that God's heart is that we wouldn't lead lonely. That we would have relationships and we would have friendships and we would have people that can help us through all of the Cuz as a pastor, as a leader, I always tell our congregation, people think because I'm the pastor, I just don't deal with what they deal with.
[00:53:28] And the reality is I deal with it more and then I deal with their problems. So I gotta deal with my own issues. I'm only, I'm only 31 years old, I gotta deal with all of my stuff. God's still growing me and I still have to learn, and God's still working on my heart in areas, and then I've gotta help other people get there.
[00:53:43] And so it's no easier for us as leaders, I think God's just given us a unique ability to see a little further down the road. And, you know, my heart as a leader is to, to lead humbly and just go, Hey, I don't have it all figured out, but I do see where God wants to take us. And, and if I can get us all on the same page, and if I can rally the troops, and if I can share vision and encourage you, and tell you I believe in you and you can do it, and God made you for this, then we can all get there together and it'll be a great journey.
[00:54:14] You know, I, I, I would be, I would be remiss to not mention a lot of guys who helped me as a leader, guys that loved me enough, the first person that ever showed any interest in me when I was, when I was running from God. Um, when I was in the Air Force with a man named Pastor Wayne and Wayne Asprodites he was a pastor to church in Florida that I went to and running from God, running from the call, looked at me in his office and just said, God's got a call in your life.
[00:54:44] He said, when, when, if every one of us bleeds something Christian, if they cut you open, you bleed relationships and you can do this. He was the first person that ever brought me in to speak and, and he would always encourage me and tell me, and, and so I think as leaders, some of the greatest things we can do is find those people, find those people and go, hey, you can do this.
[00:55:05] And little did he know the journey God was gonna have me on. He was speaking life to just a kid, 20 years old that was running from the call of God and had no clue what he was speaking into me or the impact that had on me. So not only as leaders do we gotta be resilient and headstrong and be lead humbly and let people see our vulnerabilities, but man, we gotta speak life into those people under us because while we see ourselves one way, the world sees us as leaders in a very different way.
[00:55:33] You know, Jesus says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And after that, love your neighbors yourself. That's it. I heard it interesting, and this isn't Biblical, so I don't take this as Biblical, but I heard an interesting, um, account one time of a guy that died and came back from, from death, you know, went to heaven and came back and he said, when I stood before Jesus, he asked me something.
[00:55:56] And he said, He just kept asking me the same question. Now again, whether this is Biblical or not, I think it's a great thinking point for all of us. He said, Jesus asked me one question over and over, and the question He asked me is, what did you do for your fellow man? What did you do for your fellow man?
[00:56:15] Oftentimes in ministry we can make it about building buildings and reaching people and how many numbers we had and how many what, you know, how many baptisms and what was the offering and what did we give away and what did, and sometimes I think we need to simplify it and just go, what am I doing for my fellow man?
[00:56:38] Cause I think that's where our legacy really comes from. Not from what we accomplished, but from what did we do for our fellow man.
[00:56:51] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, pastor Christian explores leaving a legacy that exemplifies what we have done for our fellow man and how everything we do determines the shape of that legacy.
[00:57:11] Christian Aranza: My legacy is something I think about a lot. I'm gonna be real vulnerable because I think that other leaders need to hear this. You know, when you mess up, like I messed up. A lot of people don't know about it, but the people that matter do, um, I'm terrified for the day my son finds out. I'm terrified the day that, that my daughters find out.
[00:57:37] You know, I, I think of those things all the time. And so as a leader and as a dad and as a husband and as a pastor, you start kind of trying to go, what does my legacy look like? Cuz now there's this stain on it. And I'll never forget a guy telling me one time after I went through everything.
[00:57:59] He said, Christian, I was, I was friends with a man one time that walked through something like you're walking through and he said, um, he, he messed up big, left his wife. I think he'd run away with his maid or secretary or something. And, um, I said, no way. He said, yeah, man. And it was, it was bad. And he goes, I wonder whatever happened to that guy. And then he mentioned the name of a very, very famous preacher that all of us would know and do know. And I said, what do you mean?
[00:58:29] Yeah, he did that? He said, yeah. I said, I didn't know that. And he said, not many people do. He was young. People forgot about it. And he looked at me and he said, Christian, this does not have to define you. This is not what your legacy's gonna be. And so as a person walking through it and wrestling with mistakes in my past and going, what is my legacy?
[00:58:51] I think oftentimes I take that and I try and turn it and go, my legacy can be that I didn't deserve anything I ever got. It was all about God, that I'm not a great guy. I'm not a great pastor. I'm not a great husband. I'm not a great father. I serve a great God. And because I'm really close to Him, I'm able to, to operate at a great level in a lot of areas of my life.
[00:59:13] And I think really, if I look at my legacy, what do I want people to say about me? I want people to say I was the best friend they ever had. I want people to say Christian was a master of relationships. That guy would not quit on you. That guy was gonna stick with you through thick and thin. That guy wasn't gonna give up on anyone.
[00:59:32] And then I wouldn't give up in general, you know, I just want to, I want people to look at me and go, he's the guy that just won't go away. He just keeps knocking. He just refuses to give up. The enemy can, can knock him down and and try and steal his calling and try and steal his anointing. And the enemy can set him back here and the enemy can do this, but he's just not going to give up.
[00:59:52] And I think when I look at it, I just go, hey, I want my children to be able to look at that. Cuz life's hard, as we all know, as adults, life is really hard. And I want people to be able to look back and go, man, your dad was relentless. Your dad would not quit. Your dad wouldn't quit calling me. Your dad wouldn't quit chasing after me. Your dad wouldn't quit doing whatever he had to do to help me.
[01:00:13] And you know, I think after walking through a couple of the things I've walked through, one with my marriage and two with my brother passing away, I've had the opportunity to walk, I don't know, a dozen couples almost through what me and my wife walked through.
[01:00:30] And, and I look at the, the multiplied impact that my one situation, now that I've got so many people that call me and go, we, my marriage would not be where it is. We would've divorced if it wasn't for y'all walking us through this. We wouldn't have been able to figure it out if it wasn't for you, and you're able to go, my legacy can be the, the biggest mistake I ever made can also be the greatest thing I ever did, and I was reminded of, um, David, David in his greatest sin, you know, his of of being with Bathsheba and killing her husband and walking through in the middle of his greatest sin. It was actually after that, the, the greatest part of his legacy came, which was Solomon.
[01:01:15] And so his legacy didn't come from slaying Goliath. His legacy didn't come from being a king. His legacy didn't come from any of those things. His actual pass down legacy was carried on through and after his sin. And I just think it's amazing how we can look at that and go, God is able to take our greatest mistake and totally flip it upside down.
[01:01:38] And it really is true what the enemy means for harm. God is able to take it and turn it for good. Not only turn it for good, but create a legacy to mock the enemy with it for years to come. And so I think, you know, what is my legacy man? I want, I want my children to say I'm a great husband. I want, I want my, my dad used to always say, I want my children to be able to say, I don't know what God is, but he's gotta be something like my dad.
[01:02:02] And I don't know if my children will be able to say that cuz I'm not that good of a dad as, as he was and the greatest dad in the world. But I do want my children to be able to say, my dad was my best friend. He was always there for me. He was the greatest coach and greatest, greatest encourager and greatest husband.
[01:02:19] I saw him, love my mom, loved my mom fiercely. I saw him kiss my mom every day and slap her on the butt and go, hey, there ain't no woman out there as fine as you and I, I don't ever want my children for one second to doubt that. I go to sleep every night. And I look at my children and I tell 'em the same thing after I pray for 'em. I take, I have three children. I have a son who's, who's, uh, almost six. I have a daughter who's three and uh, another daughter who's four months old. And I take the older one's hands and I look at 'em and I go, after I pray for 'em, I say, listen, I love you. You were awesome. You were strong, you were leaders.
[01:02:54] You were beautiful. You were handsome. You are going to change the, and they say world. And then I look at him, I go, listen, I'm a fan of you. And my son always goes, what do you mean dad? And I go, I'm a fan of you. I'm your biggest fan. I want your autograph. You are famous to me. And he goes, dad, stop. What does that mean? And I go, I'm just a fan. I'm crazy about you.
[01:03:18] And man, I want my kids to grow up knowing I'm crazy about them. Cuz I think, honestly, that's God's heart. I think if we could really see God's heart for us, it would be him going, if you only knew how crazy I was about you, if you only knew that I'm a fan of you, that I'm Christian's biggest cheerleader, that in spite of the game looking like it could have been over, it was only the first quarter.
[01:03:45] And that we can look at our children in those same ways that that in the process of growing up, messing up and going through all of life, that they will go through that I can look at them and just go, hey, I'm a fan. This is the first quarter. I'm a fan. We're gonna win this game. I want my wife to say I was a great husband.
[01:04:04] You know, at the end of the day, building a great church is awesome. I've always told my dad this. My dad is a very busy man, and, and, and we have shared, he would tell you, he's sacrificed a lot of our family to build the church that he's built. And, and he was a very busy man. And there were times that I would look at him and I would say, I hate Pastor Jacob, but I love my dad.
[01:04:25] All these people you're going to meet with all these stuff you're running to the dinners, you're missing the, the games you're missing, the things you're going to dad. Are those people gonna be there when you're on your deathbed? Are those people gonna be there when, when you are dying and we're holding your hand?
[01:04:40] And, and the truth is they won't, but we will. And so I want to invest in the people that are gonna be around my bed when I die. I want my wife when I die to go, God, you couldn't have given me a better man on this planet. The ride that we're on is amazing, and, and you know, I, I encourage people, this is a, a brief tip on marriage cuz marriage is hard and maybe you're going through something in your marriage or maybe you're walking through a season that seems dead or seems dry and maybe you just go, God, man, I don't, I don't know if we're gonna make it.
[01:05:14] And I want to encourage you think about the long game that the long game is in, in, in 50 years you're sitting on the back porch of your camp watching your great-grandchildren or your grandchildren play in the yard and fish and, and you're sitting there and your, your wife's in the rocking chair next to you and neither of you can really do much anymore, but you rock and drink sweet tea and hopefully hunt and, um, and, and you look at each other and you just go, hey, we made it.
[01:05:44] And what is our legacy? It's, it's, it's that kid over there, that two year old kid fishing and it's that, that 20 year old over there in college. And, and it's the, it's the four grandchildren we have, and it's the, the one of us that's a doctor, and it's the, the preacher that is preaching outta your old Bibles.
[01:06:01] And what is our legacy? I, I don't know what a great church is awesome, but a great church will go away. I'm reminded of the verse where God says, what does he desire from us? Godly offspring, godly offspring. And, and I think if I can do that, if I can provide godly offspring, if I can love my wife passionately, then people will say great things about me as a leader.
[01:06:32] My church will think about me great as a leader, I used to think, man, I gotta do something awesome for people to remember me. I gotta preach like Billy Graham. I gotta build a church like life church. I gotta, I gotta do something amazing to be remembered. And what I really realized is I don't have to do anything amazing.
[01:06:51] I've gotta be an amazing husband and an amazing father.
[01:06:54] And if I can do those things amazing, I will multiply my legacy far more than I could have ever done with anything else. I think the older you get, the more that you realize I, it's not about what I've built, it's not about what I've accomplished, or I love Billy Graham, they asked him at the end of his life, if you could have done something different, what would you have done? And, and, and there may be those of you listen, that you go, well, I mean, I wanna build something great. You know? That's how, listen, that's great. I'm just telling you, I don't know if somebody that did something greater than Billy Graham in our, in our lifespan, okay, or, or in the last a hundred years, and Billy Graham himself goes, listen, if I could have changed one thing, I would've spent more time with my family. I just thought, how profound, man, that he's accomplished everything as a pastor or as a preacher you could ever want to accomplish. And at the end of all of it, he goes, I wish I would've spent more time hanging out with my kids.
[01:07:53] I wish I would've played baseball in the backyard with my son more. I wish I'd have gone on more dates with my wife. Wish I would've taken my daughter to the movies more. I wish I would've laid on the trampoline in the back while the kids jumped on me. Because at the end of the day, that's what matters.
[01:08:11] That's what matters. You know, I look at all the legacies around me. There's a lot of, lot of great guys that I have the privilege of being around and the privilege of seeing. And my hero's always been my dad since I was a kid. In his victories and in his failures, he's always been my hero. If I could have my son sitting here in 23 years, like I am talking about me, the way my dad, uh, the way I talk about my dad, that'd be a win for me.
[01:08:40] If my son could think about me the way I think about my dad, that would be a win for me. That would be a legacy that would, that would bring me joy. I think the struggles with building a great legacy though, is there's this constant tension, man. This constant tension between, I know I gotta spend time with my children, but I also gotta build something to take care of my children.
[01:09:02] I've also gotta do something that, that, that shows them how to build this thing called ministry and, and I've gotta help the world that God called me to help and it can't be all family and it can't be all work. And it's this constant tension. You gotta balance between, okay, how much do I build and how much do I spend with my family?
[01:09:26] And you know, I think it's scary sometimes when you do think of David. At David building everything David built that he wasn't able to build the one thing he wanted to build. The one thing that David wanted to build was the temple. And it's the one thing that God said, hey, no, you're not gonna be the one that builds that.
[01:09:44] It's gonna be your son. And I give a lot of thought to that. Cause I wanna build a great church. I wanna build the greatest church in the world hoping I die, people go, nobody built a church like Christian Aranza, that guy built the greatest church there ever was. Not at the expense of losing my children, though, I'll say that.
[01:10:01] But I do think, God, what if you just called me to be a great dad and you called my son to build the greatest church the world has ever seen. And I think you gotta wrestle with what God's called you to do. And it's a tight rope. You walk, it's a tight rope you walk constantly of am I building my legacy?
[01:10:20] You know, it's kind of like, it's kind of like when, like the, the whole yolk concept with oxen. Okay, if, if one gets too far off, then the other one starts to suffer. I gotta make sure that they're even, and, and sometimes one's a little in front of the other and you gotta pull it back, and the other ti, and, and it's a constant balancing act of going, okay, one, I never want my children to forget they're my priority. My wife's my priority. My marriage is my priority, because I will tell you this, if all you take away from it is this, if she gets off the ride, the ride stops. If she gets off the ride, the ride stops. And um, I wanna raise children that love me, that grow up and wanna be a part of the church and don't resent the church like I did. But that wanna be a part of the church. That their joy is to show up and serve.
[01:11:08] What, what would be a great legacy for me is, is if in 10 years I walk up and my son's just serving on Sunday, going and I'm going, what are you doing? Opening doors? And he goes, this is my Sunday to serve. I'm just serving on the dream team.
[01:11:19] That would be a huge win for me cuz that means I would've built church, right? And he would've loved church and I would've built a church that he enjoyed and wanted to be a part of and was proud of me for building, and you know, I think if, if I could do that, If my daughter one day was, I don't need 'em on stage, some people will go, you know, I want my children to preach. I want, I want 'em to do whatever God wants 'em to do.
[01:11:41] It would be huge for me though, if they were serving on Sundays, it would be huge for me if my daughter was, was just working the coffee cart and, hey, what are you doing? Just serving on the dream team. That would be massive. That would probably be a bigger win for me than if they were preaching because it means that they loved the church so much. They loved the house of God so much that they just wanted to serve like everyone else that we gave our lives to serve.
[01:12:04] The whole reason I came to Houston, my dad, when I was a little kid because he came outta Houston and had such a bad experience here and hated it, and he would always tell me, I'm never going back to Houston.
[01:12:16] But he had this saying that, that, that their, their church lived by, and he even lived by before the church, were reaching people, building lives, reaching people, building lives. And he would talk about how we're building families and how we're reaching people and robbing hell and populating in heaven. And, but he would always talk about how bad he hated Houston.
[01:12:36] And I remember thinking as a young kid, if you hate Houston that much though, who's gonna go and help the people in Houston who's gonna go and help the people in Houston? And so accidentally, the legacy he left in me was the people in Houston really need Jesus. And so I came over here to try and help the 6 million plus people in Houston that really need Jesus.
[01:13:03] And I've given my legacy in my life, first to my wife, second to my children, and third to the city of Houston. I love this city. After God, my wife and my children. I want to die serving this city. I want to give everything I have left over after I've given to my family, to this city.
[01:13:24] I believe it's a unique city. I believe it's an awesome city. And so for me, a big win would be if I died in the city of Houston, said he served us well.
[01:13:32] Not only did he serve his family well, not only did he serve his generation well, not only did he serve his country well, but he served this city that God called him to really, really well.
[01:13:44] I think if I could do that, God man, that would be a win. You know, when Billy Graham died, the world grieved. I don't know if you've ever thought about that, but the world, the entire world grieved when Billy Graham died and I made a comment to my, my two of my dear friends, Bubba Massey, um, and Caleb Tree outta church on Highlands, and said, yo, can you imagine living a legacy where the whole world grieves when you die?
[01:14:13] Like think of that. That would be amazing if I could impact the world in such a way that just this kid from south Louisiana, this Cajun that when I died, that the world said, God, man, we lost a good one. He made this place a better place. That would be the highlight, that would be the winning reel.
[01:14:38] If my children loved me, if they served in the church, if my wife spoke well of me, and if when I died, the world was able to go, hey, this guy served us really, really well. I don't know if you can ask for a better legacy than that. I don't need buildings named after me. I don't need my face on billboards I don't need, I just want people to go, he served us well. He gave everything he had. He preached his heart out.
[01:15:05] Maybe one thing he said changed my parents' life and now I'm a product of that. Or maybe, you know, he did this and it affected my grandchildren and if I could just do that, if I could take all the leadership qualities and traits of the people I love, the people that are spoken into me and created me, who I am, my dad and Tim Delina and Chris Hodges and Dino Rizzo and all of the guys that have poured into me and the names are countless.
[01:15:36] If I could l take all those traits and be the husbands that they are, the fathers that they are, and then serve the world the way they serve the world, then I would feel comfortable leaving this earth and going, you know what? I gave every single thing I could to this world. And at the end of it, I know that if I can do that, then I'm gonna be pleasing to God as well.
[01:16:01] Cause that's really what he called us to do. I think when you look at God's priorities and go, God, what is what makes a great legacy? You know, Jesus says, love the Lord, you, God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And after that, love your neighbors yourself. That's it. I heard it interesting, and this isn't Biblical, so don't take this as Biblical, but I heard an interesting, um, account one time of a guy that died and came back from, from death, you know, went to heaven and came back and he said, when I stood before Jesus, he asked me something and he said, he just kept asking me the same question.
[01:16:33] Now again, whether this is Biblical or not, I think it's a great thinking point for all of us. He said, Jesus asked me one question over and over, and the question he asked me is, what did you do for your fellow men? What did you do for your fellow men? Oftentimes in ministry we can make it about building buildings and reaching people and how many numbers we had and how many what, you know, how many baptisms and what was the offering and what did we give away and what did.
[01:17:06] And sometimes I think we need to simplify it and just go, what am I doing for my fellow men? Because I think that's where our legacy really comes from. Not from what we accomplished, but from what did we do for our fellow man? There's a girl in our church, it's the highlight story for me of this whole church planting journey thus far.
[01:17:28] And she shows up at an interest meeting we have and she comes to 21 days of prayer every day. And then she's serving on the dream team. And I just assumed she heard about us from another church and came cuz she saw we were at a highlands and I don't know, just heard about it and showed up. And Easter Sunday, she goes, I'm walking in to preach and she's holding the door open, greeting people and she pulls me aside and she goes, pastor Christian, pastor Christian, listen to me.
[01:17:55] I need you to preach the best message you've ever preached. And I said, okay, why? She goes, well, my family's coming and they've never been to a church like this before. I thought, I said, well, what do you mean where'd they go to church? She goes, well, we've been Catholic my whole life and we've never been to a church like this.
[01:18:12] And all of a sudden I realized I'd never asked our story. I just assumed I was so confused. I said, what? Where did are, did you grow up in a Catholic church? And just said, yeah, so well how, how did you find out about us? And she says, I was sitting in a coffee shop and I was studying for a test and I had to use the bathroom, and I looked over and there was a girl wearing a valley Rise church shirt.
[01:18:35] And I said, that girl's wearing a church shirt, she looks like someone I can trust. And so I asked her, will you watch my stuff while I run to the bathroom? And she said, yes. And she said, I came back and she invited me to your interest meeting.
[01:18:47] And I came and I'd never been to anything like this. And, and you said, come to 21 days of prayer. So I just came to 21 days of prayer and I'd never been to anything like that. And all of a sudden I'm about to preach Easter and I'm going, oh my gosh, what in the world? And her whole family comes in and sits in the back and Easter service goes great.
[01:19:07] And I give the altar call and the majority of her family raises their hand. And I remember standing up there thinking, what a legacy. What a legacy. This one when, when they trace back the lineage of heaven. And you look at the girl who invited her from the coffee shop and this little girl who had ever known anything but the Catholic church shows up at our church, invites her family, her whole family gets saved.
[01:19:39] Her legacy will look incredibly different. I'm soon to marry her and her and, and her almost fiance. And, and I look at it and I just go, what is, what a legacy. You guys are living the greatest legacy ever because a decision you made changed your whole family. I pray that one day someone tells the story from another perspective and they talk about me leaving an amazing place like Highlands that I should never have even thought about leaving and come into a city that God just gave me supernatural love for and trying our best to do church the best we can.
[01:20:15] And meeting a girl who got saved and invited her family, they got saved and it's gonna get married in our church and their children will grow up differently because of Valley Rise Church. And I look at it and I just go, what are you doing for your fellow men? If we could just do that. If it could just be an invite, if it could just be one person, if it could just be one family, if it, you never know the impact you're making.
[01:20:40] Some of us, our greatest legacy will, will ever leave will happen just by us serving our fellow man. I want to leave you as that close up with wise words from the greatest leader I know Christmas one year I unwrapped this gift and opened it up and it was a Bible. Thanks Dad and I opened the cover and this is what he wrote in it.
[01:21:05] Christian, my son. This book has never failed me in 54 years. Its words have kept me in my darkest moments. Its promises are being fulfilled in your life. As you read this, read it daily, obey it quickly. Follow it completely as you do this consistently. One day they will call you a man of God. Thank you for being a man of God.
[01:21:30] Nothing could please me more. I love you, daddy. Press on my son. The world is waiting for you. Hey, I just want to tell you as you're listening to this, all of us have a legacy to leave, but the greatest legacy you will ever leave may be written on the inside of a Bible to the son that you raise.
[01:21:57] Steve Gatena: As Christians, we're familiar with the term calling. Some callings are universal, such as being called to our salvation through God. Being called to follow Jesus and being called to assist in His efforts to redeem and create the world He envisions. However, how God calls us to accomplish this work and where he calls us to serve is unique to each of us.
[01:22:26] Developing and deepening our relationship with Jesus and God can not only help us recognize the calling that God has placed inside of us, but also give us the strength, courage, and conviction to see it through. Sometimes we may doubt our calling and it may even frighten us. We may worry that we are unworthy and undeserving of our calling, or we may have other notions about what we wanted our calling to actually be.
[01:22:55] Nevertheless, rest assured that God knows all about it and we can hide nothing from Him. Our feelings, thoughts, fears, they don't matter. Nor does it matter if we say no to our calling, God waits patiently until we're ready to accept it. Our calling is ours and we cannot change it. We cannot trade it. We cannot lose it.
[01:23:21] Even when we make mistakes and fall short, God still entrusts us with His calling for us. On this episode of Relentless Hope, pastor Christian Aranza taught us this week that even when we want to let go of our calling, it will never let go of us.
[01:23:43] We learned how Pastor Christian knew from a young age that God had placed in his heart the calling to preach the gospel and become a man of God.
[01:23:53] We also learned how much Pastor Christian struggled to accept this calling and how afraid it made him feel. Pastor Christian also taught us that even when we make grave mistakes, God still loves us. He supports us, and He uses our experience to further His calling for an even greater good. As leaders, pastor Christian encouraged us to lead through our vulnerabilities and our mistakes, letting our people know that when we are not perfect and when we have faced many of the same challenges that they do that it's okay.
[01:24:31] He shared with us how he has struggled, messed up, gone astray, and been lost, including having an affair that almost ruined his marriage and burying his 20 year old brother after a motorcycle accident. Furthermore, pastor Christian, he wants us to know that his legacy is to be a master of relationships, never giving up on people and never quitting.
[01:24:58] He talked about the kind of legacy he wants to leave for his kids, for his wife, and for the city of Houston. He encouraged us to make leaving our legacies straightforward.
[01:25:10] What are we doing for our fellow man?
[01:25:15] Ultimately, God's calling for each of us is about how we can help usher in His vision for this world and assist Jesus in His mission of redemption.
[01:25:26] Fortunately, we don't have to answer these questions alone. God showed us, tells us, and places in our hearts how we can best serve Him and follow Jesus. All we have to do is open our hearts, be present, listen, and let God guide our hands.
[01:25:48] If today's podcast resonated with you, I want you to take a moment and share it with someone you love.
[01:25:56] You never know how one inspirational podcast can change someone's life. My name's Steve Gatena. I'm the host of Pray.com's Relentless Hope podcast, and I want you to remember to give hope a voice.
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