Hey, good afternoon, everyone. We have Jacob Stubbs with us in the studio, and we're excited to give an opportunity, interview him, get to know him, share with you what's going on in the work that he's at. So let's back up. When did you start coming to Breein? Um, when I was born, born 1997, 1997 graduated from our Academy, went to Appalachian, uh, state, state university. Yup. Majored in finance in finance. Okay. Uh, what year did you graduate? Graduated from Berean in 2016 and graduated from app state in 2020 and 2024 years later, married to Katie. When did you marry? Got married in 2019, so we're coming up on six years in August. Six years. That's crazy. Wow. They're like old timers now or something. I am feeling old. You should be feeling old. I coached Jacob when he was on the junior varsity basketball team. Wow. You've been around here for a little while as well. Very good. Um, so we have a finance degree. We are married, got a pet, no pets, no pets. Okay. No children yet. Um, talk to us about, Why are you serving as a missionary now in Boston if you have a finance degree from App State? Yeah. So, I mean, to backtrack, being at Berean, you know, we grew up going to a lot of missions conferences here, the annual ones I would roll around and hearing about different people living in various places, doing work, spreading the gospel in other countries or even in different contexts in the US. So that was always, I think, present. as a thanks to Berean's ministry. But I distinctly remember sitting in those and thinking like, well, that's not for me. That's for someone else. You know, this seems like some big high spiritual calling to place on someone some pie in the sky moment for someone to get sent to some other place. And so for the longest time, I didn't think that that was for me, but also was hearing the necessity for people to share the gospel. And so that was something that I think was ingrained in both me and Katie being at Berean's ministry, hearing about missionaries, hearing about missions, the need for the gospel first and foremost, wherever you are. And a lot of that carried over going to college, you know, going to a secular university, ensuring that we got plugged into a healthy church and made a connection. Tell us about the name of that church. So that is Perkinsville Baptist Church in Boone, North Carolina. You were there for four years? We were there for four years. So we ended up there through Bill Sturm's recommendation and really grateful for that. And so, you know, moving out of the house, being in college, living out your faith, I guess, like on your own. For the first time, Katie and I both were growing a lot in that. So you didn't have to go through that whole, we're going to get drunk and have premarital sex and kind of abandon the Lord for three years of college and then maybe find Jesus again? Not at all. I think we took that as an ample opportunity to grow in our faith. And I'm grateful that we did. Um, Perkinsville was very adamant about pursuing the lost on the college campus. I was right next door to them. They saw it as a great opportunity that, you know, there's people from all over the world coming to a small mountain town. And so why not try to reach them with the gospel and, you know, uh, seeing that we were convicted about sharing in that, in that vision and their ministry. And who's the pastor there? It'd be Seth Norris. Still there. Still there. Yep. Been there about how long? Um, I want to say since, I could be totally wrong on this. I think 2000, I want to say like 2010 or so. Okay. Grew up in the area. Good longevity. And so just seeing people passionate about sharing the gospel in such a small context in North Carolina was super convicting for us. But on top of that, the idea of being in a small college town often means there's a lot of transience. There's not a lot of job opportunities in Boone. And so for the college students that were at Perkinsville, the idea was constantly put in front of us to say, hey, you're going to move somewhere when you graduate is what is likely to happen. Some people might end up staying in Boone, but that's not often the case. And so when you do move, make this consideration to think about the gospel first and foremost, rather than where am I going to get paid the most? Where is the most comfortable for me to live? I'm just going to go back home and live with my parents. What would it look like to first put a gospel focus on? All right. So this is coming kind of from the pulpit and the culture of the church. It is. you're here to serve the Lord and we're trying to get you to have a mindset of something larger than your own kind of dreams, hopes and dreams. Yes, exactly. And part of that vision was there's a few different missions partners that Perkinsville had. And one of them was, Hey, we just made this connection with a guy that's planting a church in Boston. That connection was made before this church was planted. And we took a college ministry trip up to Boston. This was March of 2018. So Katie and I just started dating at the time. Um, if I'm honest, I kind of went just cause it seemed like a cool thing to do. I'd never been to Boston before. It seemed like it was going to be fun. And so, right. And Katie's not half bad to look at. I mean, exactly. So, I mean, I'm spending time with her. Right. Right. I mean, so yeah. So, uh, opportunity to spend more time with her. We had just started dating and a chance to see somewhere I'd never seen before. But that first night we were in Boston, we met this core team that was talking about planting this church and all of them had made some pretty great sacrifices to move to an expensive city, to be far from family, but ultimately felt a, um, a need to be in Boston to share the gospel with a lot of lost people. So hearing them talk about that has sparked a conversation between me and Katie. And luckily we were on the same page in that same page. You said, what word did you just say? You, you, you crossed a line. He doesn't like the word luck or luckily, you know, that colloquialism is not to be uttered. Yes. By the grace of God, we were on the same page. I thought you had some seminary training or something. You can criticize, criticize Southern for it. Southern. Did you just hear it? Like, wow. Wow. I mean, Al Mohler right now, his ears are perking up that you're referring to God's providence. Tomorrow morning on the briefing is why it should never be in the Christian's mouth. All right. So luckily- By God's providence. Okay. Very good. Katie and I were on the same page about thinking through, you know, once we graduate from App State, would we see ourselves moving somewhere other than staying close by in North Carolina, staying by family. And we were on the same page about that. We weren't sure where that was going to lead us. Now, both of you have like these mama bears that want you here, right? Oh, definitely. Yeah. I mean, so this is not like you don't have the normal obstacles of parents and in-laws that also don't want you coming back home. Right. So we have to overcome that. Yes, it is. Yeah. It's a big decision. And one that was gradual, you know, we had several years to think about it and year over year, our college ministry would take a trip up to Boston and got to see a little bit more about what the church was doing. Name of the church? Kings Hill Church. Kings Hill Church. I Google it. Kings Hill Church in Boston. Yes. And Kings Hill is the community it's in, correct? It's in a neighborhood called Mission Hill. Mission Hill. Okay. All right. Yeah. So that's the idea is it's the prayer is that Mission Hill would recognize that it belongs to the King. So it belongs to Christ and to be won over for Christ. So we had several years to see just these first couple of years of the church being planted, seeing what their ministry was doing and along the way, having a lot of people in our lives at Perkinsville, who were praying for us talking through these decisions, what would it look like to move somewhere, somewhere else. And so just had a lot of faithful people around us encouraging us towards pursuing this, whether it's Boston or somewhere else. And, um, Jacob, can I, what did that look like? So did you feel like there were brothers and sisters in Christ that were kind of telling you, Hey, you guys need to consider like going and being missionaries in Boston, or is this you probing a question, you know, about that mission work? because as you're speaking through this, and obviously Pastor Sean and I have had the privilege of knowing you throughout this whole process. But if I'm just getting to know who Jacob Stubbs is and don't get to meet Katie through this podcast, what do those conversations look like that are affirming in your heart that Christ wants you to be serving Him in the Boston community? I mean, as I mentioned, Perkinsville has a great vision for putting forward, reaching the nations, reaching the lost, whether that is in Boone, whether that's in the U.S. or in different countries. And so I think what was helpful there is the default was that was already the assumption is if you are a Christian, you are meant to share the gospel with people. If you're a Christian, you're supposed to live this life for Christ. And so that's just the expectation, first and foremost. And so any conversation in Perkinsville, at Perkinsville, Right. So not kind of like this super Christians, which is this small minority of disciples. And then everyone else is just kind of a spot holder on Sunday morning. Yeah. It's, it's anyone and everyone that, that has faith in Christ. Exactly. So that, that by was the default by far for any of the leadership or any, anyone that was faithfully serving in the church. And so when we did have conversations with people, you know, they, There's a lot of discipling relationships is I guess how I would phrase them at Perkinsville where for me, I had someone who was a few years older than me that was helping run the college ministry and we would get together on a regular basis, read through scripture, talk about life, talk about, you know, temptations to sin and where are we growing. And Katie had that as well with some older women in the church. And a lot of it was in the context of those relationships where, you know, we're talking about, you know, what is, what does our life currently look like? Just living out the callings of a Christian in our day to day life as, as college students, but also part of being a college student is that idea of looking ahead and what are you, what are you planning on doing? Because that's, that's the question that any college student gets asked, like, what are you majoring in? So what are you going to, what are you planning on doing with that? With your finance degree. Exactly. Which for me, I'm not using my finance degree at all. But part of those conversations was in the midst of that also sensing a conviction to consider vocational ministry. And so these conversations were kind of happening hand in hand of possibly moving somewhere where there's just more need of Christian laborers. But then also just considering vocational ministry as a whole. And so I had some opportunities to get a little bit more involved at Perkinsville with that. And as I had those conversations, I was a question I would ask is, you know, should I stick with this finance degree, even if I might may not use it. And the advice that I was given by a lot of wise people around me was, you know, consider the fact you may end up in a place where you would be potentially working by vocationally. Or you might end up especially in a church plant where they're going to need someone to run the finances, and they probably don't already have that is the nature of a lot of plants is they're constantly in need of more people to do more things. So currently right now we have someone else on Kings Hill staff that does run the finances so I'm not doing that. And I'm not currently working by vocationally but if I needed to, I do have that degree. And Katie got an elementary education degree she's working at a school in the city. It's one of the one of the few Christian schools, or I guess one of the few evangelical Christian schools in the city. It's a K to six school. They're very passionate about, you know, actually being an evangelical school. And they let in, you know, any parents that want to put their kids in the school and pay the money to put the kids in the school. They welcome it. And they're just very upfront about the fact that, hey, this is a Christian school. The teachers and the faculty are Christians. They're going to have Bible classes. They're going to have chapel services. Their teachers are going to pray with them. And year over year, it's typically about 50-50, where Katie's classes are, some of them come from Christian backgrounds, and some of them are coming from atheist families, Hindu families, you know, just very different religious backgrounds. but opportunities to openly share about the Bible, about her faith, about the gospel with these, these kids. And so we've both, she's been able to utilize her degree very directly, whereas I'm not utilizing it right now, but I know that it will be a resource at some point and has been in just various different ways. So to piggyback on this thing that you were asking about, Brian, so people in disciple making relationships with you are helping you talk through what does it look like for you and Katie to go to Boston and serve as part of the church planning team. Is that correct? That is correct. All right. So did you also have pushing from the other direction, which is why in the world would you want to go up to that cold, nasty, liberal, expensive city? Did you combat both or did you not encounter anything negative? I mean, I encountered some, some negativity. Um, I mean, as you mentioned, our, our parents, you know, they, they love us very much and, uh, it's, it's hard to see children move far away. And I think that was more of the factor than the negative aspects of living in Austin is the distance. Um, I mean, we'd hear it occasionally. Did you hear anything about, Hey, you're not, you know, we spent all this money for a college degree and you're not even using it. I didn't hear that. Okay, good. Maybe it's cause I haven't had a good scholarship. I'm not sure. Um, but I did not hear that. Okay, good. So what year do you move up to Kings? So we moved up to be a part of Kings Hill in the summer of 2021. So I'd finished my degree in 2020. Katie finished hers in May of 21. And then we moved that July. So you've been up there four years now? Almost four years. Almost four years. Okay. So tell us about this church plant. What's it look like? I'm going to come worship with you guys on Sunday morning. Describe it to me. So we meet in a hotel conference room. Space is really hard to come by in the city. And so that's the nature of a lot of healthy, thriving, faithful churches. They're meeting in places that are not church buildings. So it's schools, hotels, outside if the weather's nice. What's the name of the hotel you guys meet in? So we meet in the Hilton Back Bay Hotel. If you're familiar with the Boston skyline at all, the Prudential Center is the big rectangular tower with the spire on the top. We're right next to the Prudential Center is the Hilton Hotel right there. Nice hotel, right? It is a nice hotel. We're very fortunate to be there. You've been at the same location this whole time. We've been there since August of 21. Prior to that, so Kings Hill being planted in 18, from 18 to 2021, there were nine different moves. So there's a lot of wandering in the wilderness almost for a while as a church plant before we had moved there. Whereas different schools and then schools decided we don't want a church meeting here right now. And so they would move to a different school or they would move outside temporarily. And then part of that was dealing with the COVID restrictions in the city and meeting online for a little bit, meeting outside for a little bit. So the first few years of Kings Hill's history was a lot of moving. And then we've been blessed to be at the Hilton hotel now for, um, close to four years. Now, Jacob, is this, is this a contractual agreement? Is this a gentleman's agreement? Like, are you guys, you've got documentation that until 2030, they will allow you to stay given price, you know, adjustments, or is this like a week by week? You don't know whether or not the manager or owner or whatever, someone's going to get ticked off and be like, I want them out. So we do have a contract with them. And so I'm not sure what date the contract ends right now. It's typically about a year or a little, a little bit over a little bit under anytime we sign it to have that room on Sunday mornings. And so contractually we have it on Sundays, 6am to 2pm. Eight hours. I mean, we utilize that time. I get there at 6am every Sunday, because we have to set up. You do what? I get to the Hilton, I get to the church at 6 a.m. every single Sunday. And I mean, that's the nature of being a church plan is setting up and tearing down every week. Did you adapt? maybe the ministry before you or with you, have you guys had to adapt on like, these are the things that are essential for worship. These things are not essential, so we're going to let them go. It's definitely flowed over time, depending on the space that we've been able to meet at. With us being a little bit more secure in the Hilton, we've gotten to have a more normalized setup, you know, particular sound things that we always have up, particular instruments. Do you have a closet you get to store stuff in? We do have a closet. And we're one of the few that has that for the other churches that had to set up and tear down on a rented space. Most of them are hauling some sort of trailer up every week and getting things off of the trailer to set up for church every Sunday. Well, that'd be miserable, Jacob, because in Boston, you got lots of rainy, cold, miserable, snowy, wet days. Yeah. So it's, a huge provision to have that closet there. It's not common for these rented spaces. So we pay a lot of money every week to be in that hotel. So we rent out that one big conference room for Sunday gatherings. We have a nine o'clock service and an 11 o'clock service. And during the nine o'clock service, we do have childcare and like a kid's space provided. And so we rent out an additional room for that. And that's also part of the contract. It ebbs and flows over time, depending on the season. And if the hotel is looking to have more conferences and people come in, they'll up the price a little bit. On average, we're paying, I want to say it's over $2,500 a week to meet there. So I mean, it's not just the space limitation of being in the city, it's the cost limitation is very high. And by some metrics, you're talking to that's like a good deal for our location in the space that we get. So if you're, if you're having worship every week, that's $130,000 that Kings Hill church has spent in a year just to have a place to meet. Yes. Together. Yep. Do you guys run all, do you take like a Sunday off at Christmas or anything like that? Or is it pretty much. Um, I think we did a couple of years ago, we had one Sunday where we didn't meet in the Hilton, but we still met. Um, a couple of years ago, we were able to purchase a small piece of property, um, in Boston where that's mostly just housing. And so we house, uh, mission teams and interns there. Um, but we do have a small kind of multipurpose space attached to that building. And so we've been able to run some smaller services. We do have a lot of college students at our church. And so the, holidays, like around Christmas, around Thanksgiving, and even the summer attendance dips a little bit. But over the past couple years, we've grown in terms of our diversity and age groups. It's not a wide range. We used to be majority college students. At this point, we still have a large college presence. We have some grad students and then some people that I guess would fall into the young professional category where you're talking later twenties, early thirties, but they're, they're more of the upper edge of our, of our age range with some, there's a few exceptions. We have a couple couples that I would say are older, you know, in their sixties. I mean, college students don't give, do they? Not, not, not, not a lot. No, I mean, they're not known for having money to give away. Exactly. So, I mean, part of that, you know, you're asking about walking on a Sunday morning, you're going to see a lot of people that are college age or just fresh out of college. But a wide range in terms of ethnic diversity, which is, which is really neat to see, because I think it's representative of the area of the city that we're in. But yeah, so they don't, they don't give a lot. And part of that is just year over year being faithful to the ministry that God has called us to. And we have a lot of the people that are in this young professional category in our church, they were college students. That's why they were in Boston in the first place. And if you asked a lot of them, whenever they first got to Boston, it's like, Hey, I'm going to be here for my undergrad degree. And then I'm going to leave, uh, or I'm going to be here for my undergrad degree and maybe work a couple of years and utilize that to get out of here. And so I don't have to live in a very expensive city. Um, And God has been very kind to us. And as we as we talk to people about the needs of Kingsville Church and the fact that we need people to faithfully give, we need people to faithfully stay in the city and not just be here for a couple of years, but be here for the long haul. God has brought a lot of people to the city, whether it's externally or through these college students deciding to stay. And we've had a lot of that, which is a huge encouragement. So that's kind of interesting because he's at a ministry in college that's saying, you're not going to be staying here. You're going to be going somewhere else. Think about where you need to go to minister to the gospel and where you go. And now you're at a ministry where you're saying, Hey, we really need you to stay and help build this church. So it's not this transient community of college students. So it's a flip almost. It is a flip. I mean, we talk, we of course talk to our college students as well about Boston's not the only place that needs gospel laborers. Um, one of the, the fortunate things about being in a city that has so many nationalities represented and being right next to Northeastern University, which is second in the nation for the number of international students that they have. though we see those as opportunities also to send people out to places that are hard to reach for the gospel. So we've had some people that have come to Boston for an undergrad degree and then, um, either because of work visa complications or other reasons, they've moved back to their home countries and they're, they're sometimes going to places where, you know, you can't walk into these countries as some white guy from America and saying, I'm here to spread the gospel. Right. But if you're already from there and you have citizenship there, and we've had this person at Kings Hill for a couple of years and, um, walked with them and, hey, how do I read the Bible? What does this look like to make disciples? How do I share the gospel with someone? And we're equipping them with that knowledge, and then getting to send them out to different places. But of course, there still is that need in Boston as well. I mean, we're talking, depending on what stat you look at, if you're optimistic, Boston might be closer to six to 7% Christian. In reality, I would say it's probably closer to two to 3% Christian. So there's a great need for Christians. Is it predominantly Roman Catholic? Not predominantly anymore. There still is a pretty decent Catholic presence culturally. You're definitely going to run into a lot more Catholics in Boston than you would here in North Carolina. Catholicism has definitely taken a, um, as I would say, a backseat to the religious, um, preferences. Yeah. So you have a lot of people who just don't, um, align themselves with any religious background, any spiritual background. You still have a decent amount of people that would self report as Catholic, but that's going to vary pretty in a pretty broad range of run into a lot of very devout, very faithful Catholics. And I've run into some that call themselves Catholic, but then within the same conversation, they'll say, I don't know if God exists. And so it's a big range in terms of the kind of Catholic atheists. So we're on to that, but also run into devout Catholics. So that presence is there, just not maybe nearly as much as the the, the Boston culture would, would say maybe in like the eighties, the seventies. All right. So I walk in the service and I got all these people milling around, I guess, pre-service stuff. Musicians are up front and everything. Large rectangle room. Is that pretty much what we're in? A hundred people. So we've been averaging. We've grown a lot over the past couple years, which we're very grateful for. Whenever Katie and I first started going there in 2021, we're meeting outside and I think averaging somewhere around 40 to 50 people on a Sunday. And if we were to look at the average over the past couple months, we're probably averaging around 160 Is that, did the two services come about because of, Hey, these are college students that are, you know, they need a different time slot or is it we've grown to capacity, comfortable capacity for our room. We need to add a second. It was definitely capacity. We were hitting that, that capacity where, um, you know, you're, you're running out of space pretty quickly and the room feels pretty packed. And so we, we moved to two services a couple of years ago because of that growth. I mean, it was a hard decision to make for the members who had been very used to coming together in one service. And that is a great thing to know that everybody's under the same roof, worshiping at the same time. And so it was a tough decision, but a missional decision to make to switch to two services. And we've seen God move through that and just bring more people. There, there have been some Sundays, I mean, especially Easter. I mean, that's a, it's more of a, an outlier, but Easter we had over 200 people and we're feeling the pressure on both of those services where there's a lot of people. So 200 people is probably about the max for your current meeting space with two services. Probably about there. going to sing some songs. What are we doing? What's it look like? Yeah. So most Sundays, what are you doing at this time? So I'm, I am leading, uh, the musical portions of worship and some of the other liturgical elements, um, on most Sundays, what that'll look like is a call to worship is read often by me, um, usually from a Psalm. we'll start with two songs, and then we'll have what we generally refer to as a congregational prayer. And so that's often me pulling from, we've pulled a lot from the Psalms where I'll read a portion of a Psalm, and we'll have a call and response prayer. So I'll lead that call and response prayer with the congregation. Sometimes it's pulling from other resources like the Valley of Vision, or somewhere else in scripture, some other other resources. And so we'll have that time of prayer, have one more song, then have a sermon. And then post sermon, it's one or two more songs. You have to do the we do the typical like we have announcements somewhere in there. And so someone will come up and give here's a couple things coming up. And every service we end by singing the doxology. So praise God from whom all blessings flow. So we sing the doxology, there's a benediction that's often given by me, and the service ends. That's carbon copy for both services. Is it hour, hour and a half in length? Probably an hour 20 is probably about our average. It flows, you know, plus or minus, depending on what's going on. Once a month, we're doing communion as well. And so then that changes the service flow a little bit in the length. everyone gets out and we clear the room out for the new crowd. We have we have a decent amount of time in between. So you're talking the nine o'clock service ends, you know, 1020 or so, and then you have the 11 o'clock service. And so that's been the opportunity, especially for the members that were feeling the the, the loss of having one service where that's the time where, Hey, everybody's kind of going to be here in this in between time, um, definitely have a culture of people wanting to stay around and talk. And so, uh, in between those two services, you still have a lot of people, either they're hanging around after the nine o'clock service, or they're getting there early for the 11 o'clock to catch up, talk with people. And that's the same thing after the 11 o'clock is people are hanging around for a while afterwards. And. that they're the ones that get roped into helping carry everything back to the closet. So. Pastor Sean, you know what happens if you have an 11 o'clock service and it's an hour and 20 minutes? You're late for lunch. You're late for lunch. You are absolutely- You're later for lunch when you're packing everything up and then not walking out of the Hilton until- No, you're just early for dinner. Yeah, you're early for dinner. Are you guys a Baptist church? We are. Yeah. What's the name of your pastor? Jonathan Mosley. All right. Do you have elders yet? We have. So, I mean, including him, there are two currently. So it'd be him and then got him Kevin Henderson. Have you ordained any deacons or do you have a deacon ministry? Not yet. Not yet. Okay. Is it on the radar? It is on the radar. Okay. So, no sunny school, obviously, because you don't have space. So how do you, how do you fill that gap? So, one of the things that we do is midweek, we have, I mean, generally small groups, we refer to them as life groups. And so those happen Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we have a lot of different leaders that lead and open up their home. Some of them are couples. So Katie and I run a couples group. And so we have a lot of young married couples in ours. There's another couples group that looks pretty similar to ours that meets in a different home. Some of them are men's groups, some of them are women's groups and a college group as well. And so throughout the year, those are meeting on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Are you managing that? I am not. I was at one point, but that is on someone else's plate currently. And so what that usually looks like is spending a little bit more time in the texts that we were in for the sermon, discussing that, digging a little bit deeper into that. The leaders are prepared to field some more questions that people might have about the sermon. So spending some time in discussion around that, spending time in prayer, And, you know, just generally fellowship. And so that's that's happening throughout most of the year. During the summer, we're about to start this back up. Those groups take a pause. And we do something called Summer in the Psalms, where we have different guys that we're training to preach. And that's including myself, where they're giving a sermon on a psalm. So we just started this last year, where we're spending some time in a psalm, someone preaches from that psalm text, and then we're spending some time in prayer following that. And so, we'll do that for a couple months in the summer to give those groups and those leaders a break. On top of that, we run something called discipleship cohorts. These happen throughout the year, but we put a big focus on people signing up and getting involved in them in the spring. And so, our pastor Jonathan, along with Kevin and some other people at the church, and this content has evolved a little bit over the years. But it's basically a course, like a Christian course, because we're running into a lot of people in Boston that are new in their faith or they don't know the Bible very well or aren't even Christians, but they're exploring Christianity. And the focus is definitely for Christians for these groups. But the course is, what is it 16 weeks long, there's some online content they go through where they're doing some some readings, listening to different sermons. And so they're taking in that content during the week responding to some questions online, and then getting together with a small group. sometime during that week to then discuss that content and dig in a little bit further. And so you're talking just defining the gospel is something that we find very important to do because we're talking a lot of people coming from different backgrounds. So defining the gospel, how to share the gospel, recognizing when the gospel is twisted. And then, you know, digging into things like, how do I read the Bible? What is, why, why is the table of contents laid out like this in the Bible? You know, what, what different genres of scripture you're expecting, walking them through that timeline, you know, understanding the arc of scripture with like, creation, fall, redemption, restoration. So very basic Christian concepts that most of the people that walk into the doors of Kings Hill, a lot of them would not know if someone didn't teach them. And that evolves, it goes into a little bit more of the practical day-to-day of what does it look like to pray? What does it look like to routinely read my Bible? Other spiritual disciplines, including things like how do I make more lifelong decisions about being a Christian? How do I leverage my career for the sake of the gospel? Those types of things. We've seen a lot of a lot of growth through that. And that's where a lot of those conversations are happening, where we're saying, hey, consider staying in Boston because we need we need Christians in the city. And a lot of them are happening in the context of these discipleship cohorts that we're running year over year. Yeah. And those are all, those meet in homes as well, or that's like a, Hey, let's meet at the coffee shop. Let's, let's go, you know, sit down at lunch this weekend. You know, when we get a break from work, when are those happening? It varies depending on the group. And so whenever those start up, that's just a conversation with, Hey, this leader has been assigned with these three guys. And so they'll, they'll get together and decide, Hey, you know, Saturday evening is when it works best for me. And so some of them are hosting them in homes. Some of them are going to coffee shops or other spaces for it. Okay. So with your gospel focus of reaching the Boston area, aside from your Sunday morning worship and discipling those who do come into your ministry, how does Kings Hill Church minister to its local community? What are some of the things that you guys are doing? So when we're talking about the neighborhood of Mission Hill, which is where we heavily invest a lot of our outreach, and, you know, of course, we want to see the entire city reached. But, you know, we focus on the neighborhood of Mission Hill. And when I say neighborhood, depending on where you live, I mean, we say neighborhood in Fayetteville, and you're picturing a subdivision with a bunch of houses in it. We say neighborhood in Boston, we're talking a bunch of apartment complexes, a bunch of triplexes, grocery stores, coffee shops, businesses, schools. And so the neighborhood of Mission Hill itself is one of the smallest in the city, but also one of the most diverse and one of the most commuted through. And we often use this metric, talking about Mission Hill, where we say 5, 5, 10. So within Mission Hill, you're talking five hospitals, one of them being Boston Children's, which is famous for its cancer research and really unique, interesting specialized surgeries, but also infamous for their beliefs on how they address gender with children. And so like that's one of the five hospitals in our neighborhood. So the 5510s, you have the five hospitals, you have five low income housing developments, so section eight poverty housing, and those are scattered throughout the city and we have five of them in our neighborhood. And then we say 10, I think it's technically 12, at this point, colleges and universities within our neighborhood. And so when we think about reaching our neighborhood, we're thinking in those metrics, we're aware of the fact that there are a lot of healthcare professionals, there are a lot of broken families in these low income housing developments. And there's a lot of college students, the college students have been the easiest to reach by far, they're the most often they're out and about, they're looking to engage with conversations. And so for them, what we do is we we got on college campuses, we do the same. It's a survey that's somebody else put together, I think, at a church in Georgia, called the Great Exchange. And it's a spiritual survey. We stand around and we just wait for people to pass us on campus and say, hey, do you have a few minutes to take a quick spiritual survey? And so we're asking them questions about their religious background, what they believe. One of my favorite questions on there is, what do you believe mankind's greatest problem is and what is the solution to it? So it sparks a lot of good, healthy conversations. But, you know, we're also asking them, what do you think about Jesus? And so open the doors for a lot of gospel sharing opportunities with that. You'd be surprised at how many people are telling you, I've never thought about any of this, where I'm not, they're not thinking about the afterlife at all. They're not thinking about what they believe. They're just trying to get through their day. And so we have a lot of opportunities to stop people and say like, Hey, you should think about this. I mean, we've I've even encountered some people that are international students who when I asked them, you know, what do they think about Jesus? The only thing that they can say is they vaguely understand that, you know, Christianity is an American thing, but they could not tell you anything about who Jesus is. And so that's one of the biggest things we do in terms of reaching our areas, those those surveys. We've had a pretty decent relationship with one of those five low-income housing developments over the years. And so doing things like free soccer camps, free basketball camps, just showing up on these basketball courts that are in those neighborhoods and getting to know the kids that are there. I mean, a lot of them, you're talking a lot of fatherlessness in these communities. I mean, since 2018, over those years of us spending time with this one particular low-income housing development, I think we've seen maybe two dads show up to something. It's always moms. And that's because the dad is just not around. And so a lot of reaching them is just spending time with them, getting to know them. providing opportunities to connect and then opening the doors to invite them to church, share the gospel with them, talk about the Bible with them. And the hope is there. They're experiencing a lot of familial brokenness and getting to walk them through what does this church family look like? And why is this different? And why is this something to strive for and to be loved by where you may not be experiencing this within your own home? And so just showing up to things there at the Low Income Housing Development is one of those things that we do. And then another thing that we're, I guess, known for around the city is, as we have different mission teams from various partner churches showing up to help out with outreach is, it sounds crazy, but we hand out thousands of granola bars around the city. And so we're placing orders at Costco where they literally show up on pallets. We get pallets worth of granola bars and print out a ton of church the, to the house that you guys have kind of turned into like a church office, multi-purpose. Exactly. Yeah. So we're getting pallets of granola bars shipped and we, we get people to go out to train stops, have all these granola bars, but with them is church invitation cards. So as people are getting on and off the train to go about their day, they're getting handed a granola bar and they're getting handed a church invitation card. Some people throw them on the ground immediately. Some people throw them away. But a lot of people take it and look at it. They look at our website. We get several people showing up to church because of it. Some of them are just interested. And I've never been to a church before. And you guys seem nice because you're handing me free food. So I'll I guess I'll show up. We've had some families join the church because they moved to the area and they're considering finding a church. And somebody happened to hand them a granola bar a couple of times. And so It's, it's in some ways a weird thing to do, but it's been pretty effective. And I think we estimated since Kings Hill has started and handed out, I think close to a quarter of a million of them. So you're talking a lot of them, which is, it's just crazy to think about. And so those are the things that we're doing throughout the year, those spiritual surveys, trying to connect with that low-income housing development. and handing out granola bars. But then every year on September 1st, over 70% of all rental leases in Boston turn over. I don't know whose idea that was. It's a terrible idea. There's U-Hauls everywhere. Streets are blocked off. It's absolutely chaos because everybody's trying to move. You're trying to get out of your rental lease to try to find cheaper rent because everybody's paying thousands of dollars in rent to live anywhere in the city. And so it really is chaos, but it's an opportunity for us to show up and have some presence in our city. And so because if you were to go by the Hilton Back Bay Hotel, unless you're passing by there on a Sunday morning, there's no signs that say, hey, a church meets here. Kings Hill Church is a thing that exists in the city. You're not going to see that unless you get handed a granola bar by us. you happen to go by the Hilton on a Sunday morning, or you see us walking around on September 1st. And so what we do is we get as many people possible from partner churches and within our own church. We all wear the same bright blue shirt that has a big Kings Hill logo on the back. And literally all day long, you're talking eight to probably 7pm. We're just going up to people and saying like, Hey, it looks like you're moving into this apartment. Do you mind if we help you move? So it's a lot of carrying boxes, carrying furniture. Do you ever get people saying no? Oh, all the time. No, don't help us. People will say no. Is that because they're afraid you'll hurt their stuff because they don't want a church helping them? I think most of the time it's just, they don't want to be bothered. That's a, it's a bit of a New Englander thing to just kind of stay in your lane and not want to talk to people. But the, it's a little amusing to watch because you will have some people that say, no, we'll just move right next door to the next apartment. They see how fast things are getting moved in by that person. And so like, Hey, if you guys want to come back over here and help. then they take it. And some people say no and they handle their own stuff and that's fine. But every year we're moving in thousands of people or helping people move out just because it's all happening on that one day. And we get a lot of presence in the city for it. Tanner Iskra, J.D.: : What are those exchanges kind of look like? Now, obviously like you guys, we know you guys aren't doing like a, Hey, now that we're done moving the couch, can we have five minutes to share with you how you can know you're going to heaven when you die? So what is the, the church representation conversation look like as you're kind of pitching the, Hey, can we help you move? Most of the time, people ask why, you know, it's, why are you doing this? Like part of it, I think is they're expecting to say, Oh, we're hoping you give us some money to help you, you know, but why are you doing this? And that's, that's a really easy answer to say, you know, We believe that as Christians, we're supposed to love our neighbors and that's what we're here doing. So, you know, as you're carrying boxes with someone, the guy's on the other end of the couch and your hand in one end, the conversation's happening there. And so it's happening throughout the duration of moving this person in. And then we will tell people that are, you know, helping us out on that day to say, whenever you get that person's stuff moved in, just say, Hey, can I pray for you? Like we're Christians. you know, can we pray for you? And it's very rare for someone to say no. And so even if, you know, somebody doesn't somehow naturally get to the gospel within that conversation while you're carrying boxes, it's a matter of sharing the gospel while you pray with that person. Um, on top of that, that following week, we'll have a lot of events running. Cause it's like, Hey, we know a lot of people are new to the city show up to the saying, we're going to have free food or show up this we're doing free music, or here's a free game night to show up to. And so there's also some, some pretty easy invitations where it's, Hey, we would love to see you at church, but not everybody's going to take that invitation. It's a little more likely that some random college student or some random person that just moved in is going to show up because you're handing out free ice cream one night though. Um, and so giving them a lot of small invitational things to, to go to, but, you know, also finding ways to share the gospel in the conversation or pray with them and share the gospel there. So this past year we had the most number of volunteers that we've had running this event. It was two 70. So we're hoping to have over 300 this year. And the reality is we could have hundreds of more and there'd still be more work to be done. Um, and so, always looking for more people to help out with that. It's a great ministry opportunity, great gospel sharing opportunity just to tangibly show people that there's Christians in the city and they love you. And here's why. You don't give them a granola bar then? Surprisingly, no. But if they're walking around the city at any point during that week, they probably will end up getting one. What's been a challenge? What's been a struggle? It's not all been peaches. It is not. The the biggest challenge by far being in Boston is the cost. I mean, you're talking it's it's an expensive city to live in, often competing with, you know, the highest cost of living in the US, some of the highest rental rates in the US. Just to give an example, I believe the last time I checked, I think the one bedroom median rates in Boston, I think are about 28 2900. for a one-bedroom apartment. And you're not talking a big, nice one-bedroom apartment most of the time. It's fairly small. The laundry's in the basement. There's no AC. And so the cost of living is high. If you have one of the big, nice professional jobs that some people come to Boston for, that's fairly adjusted for. But when you're working for a church plant and you're married to a teacher, that's not the... I don't know. It's maybe not the best financial move to make. Yeah, the cost is definitely a challenge. And we've seen God provide in a lot of different ways. I mean, one of the biggest is Katie and I live in, in what is considered like a low income subsidized apartment by the city. A lot of people don't see favorable outcomes with this program that's run by the government. But we went through the arduous, you know, I think it was a 10 month process when it was all said and done to put in an insane amount of applications and do a lot of follow ups and get rejected multiple times and just stay on top of it, communicating with these people that have been hired by the government to run this program. And God blessed us with an apartment where we live in a two bed apartment. in the Fenway area of the city. And we're hoping that that's something that we can grow into. Because before we got that apartment, we're hitting a point where our rent was going to get raised to $3,000 a month for one bed. And it just wasn't feasible for us to stay there. And so it was a matter of where are we going to go? What are we going to do? We probably can't make that work. And so it's either living further outside the city away from the people that God has called us to or figuring something out. It was a It was a bit of a tumultuous time, but God bless us with that apartment he provided for us in that way, and has made it feasible for us to be there a little bit longer, and we'll just keep on going from there. Are you in a contract? So it's year over year, basically, but it's as long as we don't suddenly become rich is sort of the agreement there. So there's an income window for staying in an apartment, and so we re-verify our income every year, prove that we're not rich people, and we get to resign. So as long as we don't suddenly double our income somehow, Open an offshore account, things like that. Yeah, sure. Yeah, so the cost has definitely been a challenge. I mean, of course, being being far away from family is another challenge. And, you know, just as different things happen here back in Fayetteville with with grandparents or other things, watching that from afar can be difficult. you know, going about our days, it's maybe not something that's always on the forefront of our minds, but there's those realizations of hearing about surgeries or different things or people not feeling well. And, um, you're like, Oh, well, if we were there, we would, we would be there. You know, we'd, we'd show up for these things and we just can't. Um, and so, so that, that is a difficulty for sure. And especially as we, um, are planning to hopefully start a family by the grace of God soon. Um, I know that'll be another difficult part. Um, you know, Katie is an, is an only child. And so in terms of grandchildren, there's an expectation. So that's, there's, that's been part of the conversation. Fortunately, your brother is also married, so. He is. We'll see what happens. He can shoulder the burden. So, being far away from family. Tanner Iskra, Jr.: : That doesn't help on the Katie side. No, it doesn't. No, it does not. So, I mean, just a lot of those bigger life changes are difficult being far away from the rest of the family. Those are definitely two of the biggest burdens. I mean, and being in a transient area on its own can be difficult. I think God blessed us with putting us in a military town to grow up in and then end up in a college town that's also transient. And so, you know, we have a lot of brothers and sisters in Boston that feel that transience, I think a lot more than we do on a direct basis where it's, Hey, you, you get really involved with this church and you're going to form some really deep relationships with these people. And then they're going to leave. They're going to leave. Yeah. And so like, I know y'all know how that works. And unlike the army town that we live in, they're not coming back to do another four year degree at that school. Probably not. We may, it's not uncommon for us to see another family in six years, nine years, whatever the case may be. And so that's not something you'd see as people coming back to Boston. I don't want to say that it never happens, but the transients can be difficult when you're talking about saying goodbye to friends and close relationships. And that turnover happens pretty frequently. I mean, you're talking 25% of the church is just due every single year. We have 25% leave and then another 25% or maybe a little bit more hopefully joins. And so the relational building can be tough at times. Speaking of relational building, how do you and Katie navigate friendships within the ministry? So obviously as kind of church planting team, you're going to have your coworkers, but then as you're probably growing more and more aware every day, you're not a college kid anymore. So how do you and Katie navigate personal friendships in that kind of community? It's taken a lot of opening up our home. And we're fortunate to be around other people who do the same thing and model that well. I mean, currently, as we speak, there is someone staying in our guest room in our apartment. I'm not there. And so And that's something that we do on a regular basis. If someone needs somewhere to stay, we have that guest room. But on a more practical level, it's just letting people know that are in the church, if you ever want to come by for dinner, if you want to drop by. And there are plenty of people that we're close to that will even sometimes come by unannounced. And that's something that it's, it's a different pace of life to get used to, um, where you might go home and expect a little bit more privacy and just think like, I know for sure what to expect for the rest of this day, but to have people that are close to us that know that they can drop by if they need something and we can drop by, um, where they are. And so it's just, uh, constantly inviting people over. Um, Whether that's dinner, it's coffee, it's inviting them into the group that we lead on a weekly basis. And finding ways for that to happen as well, not just meals. Katie cuts my hair, but she also cuts, it's probably north of 30 people in the church's hair. And that's just an opportunity, one, for us to bless other people that are also making financial sacrifices to be in Boston. But that also means, Hey, we open up our home and it's just a way to connect with someone. And so on a pretty regular basis, there's someone dropping by for dinner and a haircut. Or I like making coffee for people. That does not happen at my house. Lauren cut anybody's hair? No, I actually, I cut hair in our house. I cut the boys hair. Yeah. I'll go to the barber if we need to, if we're going to take pictures or something like that. And the boys need to have good haircuts. I'm getting pretty good. Yeah. I've saved a lot of money. Saved a lot of money. Yeah. I haven't paid for a haircut since hopefully the, hopefully dinner and the haircuts aren't happening consecutively, you know, like, no, there's no hair in the food. Okay. No. But it is finding, it's finding small ways like that to bring people into the home. And so like I, I enjoy making coffee. It's a hobby. And so inviting people in on that as well. Um, And it's like, Hey, I have good coffee here. Don't go over there and pay a bunch of money for it when you can just come here and I'll give you a cup of coffee for free. So utilizing the home, especially considering throughout the week, we don't have, you know, just some random space to drop into. We do have that building, but it's, it's out of the way. It's often being used for other ministry reasons. And so just for someone to be able to connect, it's, Hey, we live within walking distance, which is the case for most of the people in our church, just walk over and drop by. How far are you from the church, the hotel? So I walk there on Sunday mornings. It's like a 15 minute walk. Okay. So probably about a mile then. Maybe a little bit less. Yeah. Somewhere around there. Yeah. No car, right? No car. I still have no car. We don't have a car. So it's, I mean, Boston is, is a very walkable city. So we're often walking places. I bike a lot of places or taking public transportation. And that's, that's the case for a lot of people in our churches. They don't have cars and it's, that's just, it's a different way of living for sure. It takes a little bit to get used to, but we enjoy it. So, as far as we talked about you and Katie in relationship, what about the church on the whole? Are there other Bible-believing evangelical churches that you guys could associate with, or is it pretty much like there's Kings Hill Church and that's it on this end of the city? I mean, in our area, in terms of like reaching Mission Hill, we're the only ones. In the city, we're not. And God has done a lot of great things, I would say probably over the past 15 years or so with raising up very faithful Bible-believing churches in the city. And so we were planted out of a church called Renewal Church. Renewal Church was planted out of a church called City on a Hill. City on a Hill was planted by a church called Hope Fellowship. And so- And those are all in Boston? These are all in Boston. Okay. And so for the faithful, Bible believing churches in Boston, there's an awareness that there needs to be more of them. And then when you it's hard to estimate the specific number, but there's probably one church for, I would say probably about every 30,000 people in Boston, if you're talking like Bible believing, gospel preaching churches. And so there's just a need for more churches and the faithful churches in the city are aware of that. And it's just part of the DNA is we are going to, once we, if we can grow enough to send people out, we're going to send people out to plant another church. And so I don't, I don't know what the specific number is, but, um, And I would say a good handful of the places around the city, you could probably point someone and say like, Hey, here's a church that you should go to. That wasn't the case 15 years ago, though. And so there's a lot of young churches. And for us to be, let's see, we're coming up on seven years of the church, we're one of the more established ones in comparison to some of the other churches. And, you know, as we grow and as we're starting to push the limitations of our space, we're, we're looking at planting within a couple of years in the neighborhood of South Boston. And that's just, it's part of doing ministry in Boston is there's, there's more need for gospel laborers and God is going to grow the church. And as he does, that means sending more people out to reach other areas of the city that are unreached. If we're in Roxbury, if we're in Roslindale, is there a Bible church there? There's, there's one close to Roslindale. We're pretty close to Roxbury. And so we have, we have some people that live in Roxbury that come to our church since Mission Hill is so small. It's actually tucked in between a few other bigger neighborhoods. So it's Roxbury. Back Bay and like Fenway and Jamaica Plain, we're all kind of like surrounded by that. And so those neighborhoods are a little bit more reached than some of the others in the city at this point, because we are there. And then there's a couple of other churches that are in nearby. West Roxbury? Yes. There, there is one, there's a church called Charles River Church that's been there for a little bit. Brighton? Yes. So I mentioned City on a Hill. I have a few different plants and one of them is in Brighton. Very good. Very good. Can you think of anything else that we should be, how can we pray for you? What are the specific ways that members of Berean can pray for Jacob and Katie? I mean, some of the big struggles that I mentioned we face just in terms of finances and being far from family, just generally praying for God's provision in those ways is huge. You know, I said that we're trying to start a family and that takes, of course, the Lord first and foremost, but that also takes financial provision. If we have a kid, that means Katie's taking a step back from work. And so that requires- You can't afford that, right? We cannot. And to be completely candid, I need money. to do what we're continuing to do and to live where we really believe that God has placed us. And so, um, I'm, I'm a support raised, uh, person in terms of our, our church staff. And that's the case for our entire church staff as they, we all rely on external support. Um, and so that, that comes by the way of individuals that comes by the way of churches. And so just needing more people to fill those gaps. Um, And in a phenomenal rate, because it's not, if you were church planning in Fayetteville, you would be loaded with what you currently bring in and support, but you're not. I don't know about loaded, but I mean, definitely. Just the fact of rent for what you said, the home that you live in, the apartment, it's three times the price of what it would be here. And for at three times the price, you could have a nice apartment here. And the apartment you wanted. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you could, I mean, the price you pay for rent, I mean, and I know, you know, where, where my house is. I mean, that's more than that's twice of what houses in my neighborhood are renting for. And that those are three and four bedroom homes. So it's just the, the, the, the struggle, Jacob, I completely, you know, can understand where you and Katie are. How do you fulfill the great commission and the creation mandate within your own family unit and still, actually be able to put food on the table. And how do you minister? Because obviously Katie has a great gospel witness within the student body that she ministers to. So that is a huge decision, way, way bigger than if you were here in Fayetteville or surrounding area, or even, you know, Does your pastor have children? He does. He has, he has four girls. Um, the other, the other pastor there has, has three children as well. And they're one of the few families in our church for a while. They're the only God has brought a couple other families with children to our church. But the reality is most people, when they have kids in Boston, that means they're moving out of the city. It's too expensive. There's not a lot of space. It's just more difficult. They want to move closer to family, which are all, you know, on a service level, very reasonable things to do, but we need more people in the city. And so Katie and I are committed to staying there. And so, I mean, the, the prayer there is for God to financially provide, but also spiritually provide for us to be ready for it. Um, we know he will, it's just a matter of, of how and when. Sounds very challenging. Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing your heart with us and Kings Hill Church. Yep. And Boston Mass. Google it. Facebook it. I started following several months back. I was like, I don't know why I'm not following Jacob's church on Facebook. Okay. So I'll get to go on and watch Jacob and Katie lead and worship and see what their ministry is like. And, you know, be a fly on the wall and a church plant that we're partnered with. Very cool. Very cool. How do you do that myself then? All right, great. Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy this podcast and you will take the time to pray. You're coming to church tonight? I am. Okay, so very good. So those that come on Wednesday night will connect and then we hope a bunch of you will listen to this and share it with your friend. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.