The Pastorate’s Lead Pastor FellowshipEmotionally Healthy DiscipleshipHope Church NYCBeautiful, Disappointing, Hopeful by Drew HyunA Grace Disguised by Dr. Jerry SittserWater from a Deep Well by Dr. Jerry SittserThe Pastorate ConferenceThe Pastorate's City MeetupsThe Pastorate Pastors Retreat Episode Notes Today’s episode is part three of our summer series exploring our pastoral formation cohorts here at The Pastorate. This episode features Drew Hyun and Dr. Jerry Sittser, profiling their time spent with last year’s cohort of The Lead Pastor Fellowship. Drew Hyun is the Lead Pastor of Hope Church NYC and Executive Director of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. Drew shares the unpolished version of his own story: growing up a pastor's kid in a Korean immigrant church that split twice before he hit middle school, watching his father go from a harsh, at times violent man at home to a celebrated Christian author and speaker in Korea, and the gap that opened up between his own public ministry persona and a private life marked by hidden addiction and unprocessed rage. He traces how a chance internship exposed him to Pete Scazzero's "iceberg" picture of discipleship, the ten percent above the surface and ninety percent buried beneath it, and how that encounter became the seed of emotionally healthy discipleship in his own life. Drew confesses that it's entirely possible to do ministry for God without God, and that the deepest work of leadership is letting Jesus into the deepest and darkest parts of our hearts. Following Drew, Dr. Jerry Sittser, Professor Emeritus of Theology and Senior Fellow at Whitworth University, teaches on pastoral care through irreversible loss, the kind that permanently changes the landscape of a life. Drawing on his own experience, losing his wife, mother, and daughter in a single car accident, Dr. Sittser rejects the idea of "stages of grief" and other neat recovery paradigms in favor of learning to carry loss for good, being transformed rather than finding resolution. He offers pastors concrete counsel: resist rushing to answers, know which biblical text fits which moment, help people ritualize mourning instead of just enduring it, and help them build a community of people who can shoulder their burdens. In this episode you'll hear: Drew's story of growing up a pastor's kid inside two church splits, including a church fistfight that the LAPD had to break up,An exploration of the phrase: "Jesus may live in your heart, but Grandpa lives in your bones,"Why it's entirely possible to do ministry for God without God, even while seeing real spiritual fruit,Pete Scazzero's iceberg image and how it became the seed of a discipleship model that goes beneath the surface,Dr. Sittser's own story of catastrophic loss, and why he rejects "stages of grief" in favor of integration and transformation,How to discern when to speak and when to sit in silence with someone carrying irreversible loss,Practical postures for walking with people through suffering. Partners We couldn't do the work we do at The Pastorate without your generous support. We invite you to pray, share, and give towards seeding a hope-filled future for the Canadian church.If you are seeking ways to guide your congregation into the next step of their faith journey, we welcome you to explore the Canadian Bible Society’s Ministry Toolkit. The Ministry Toolkit is designed to help your church or ministry deliver online or in-person Bible-based programs for the special audiences you may serve.
