The Rusty George Podcast

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Rusty George
Today's episode is brought to you by Belay Solutions. What if you could get 15 hours of your week back? BELAY Creative Solutions can provide just that. Check them out. belaysolutuons.com.

00;00;22;16 - 00;00;32;20
Intro/Outro
Welcome to Leading Simple with Rusty George. Our goal is to make following.Jesus and leading others a bit more simple. Here's your host, Rusty George.

00;00;33;07 - 00;00;55;08
Rusty George
Hey, welcome to Leading Simple. My name is Rusty George, and a thank you for joining us today. We get to have a conversation with a guy that grew up Mormon, became a Christian, renounced his family's faith and religion, and then decided to plant a church in Salt Lake City. I mean, what do you do when you counter the direction of your family?

00;00;55;09 - 00;01;18;23
Rusty George
What do you do when you are convicted about faith and your belief in Jesus? That differs from the way that you were raised. Boy, Kyle is going to give us so much information today. Kyle Costello is our guest today and he is right now preparing to plant another church in Ojai, California. And so many people are helping them get Kyle and his church launched.

00;01;19;14 - 00;01;37;11
Rusty George
Coming up in later this year. And I want to encourage you to be a part of that as well to find out more about how you can help plant more churches and start churches here in California. You can go to the Real Life Church website and you can look for real hope, which is our initiative to launch 30 churches in California by the year 2030.

00;01;37;22 - 00;02;07;19
Rusty George
Today and this month we are sponsored by Belay Solutions. They provide virtual assistance. They provide social media help. They provide back office help, accounting, all kinds of services for your company. Check out Belay Solutions dot com. Well, I love this kid, Kyle Costello. I say kid, he's probably only a few years younger than me, but he is doing incredible stuff and he is a great, great resource of understanding Mormonism, what it is and how we can best serve and help our Mormon friends.

00;02;07;19 - 00;02;27;07
Rusty George
So here we go. My conversation with Kyle Costello. Kyle Costello, thank you so much for joining the podcast. Man, this has been a long time coming. You and I met many years ago and I was fascinated by your story. And I'm not going to I'm not going to tell it for you. I'll definitely wait to hear from you.

00;02;27;07 - 00;02;39;11
Rusty George
But the nutshell is you grew up Mormon and then planted a Christian church in Salt Lake City. Wow. That is quite a story. So tell us about yourself and tell us about that.

00;02;39;19 - 00;03;01;04
Kyle Costello
Yeah, well, a lot of years happened in that quick little soundbite there. But I was born in Utah. I was sixth generation Mormon, So my family came over to the United States and around the in the early 1850s, and they had been converted on Mormon mission trips. The Mormon faith was super young in those days, like only about 25 years old.

00;03;01;13 - 00;03;14;09
Kyle Costello
But they sent missionaries to Europe and my family members were converted. They took a boat from Europe to New Orleans and then pushed handcarts from New Orleans to Utah.

00;03;14;12 - 00;03;15;04
Rusty George
Wow.

00;03;15;04 - 00;03;37;22
Kyle Costello
So if you don't know what that is, it's like pushing a wheelbarrow from New Orleans. And if you're terrible at geography, the Rocky Mountains are in there. So, yeah. So I grew up in Utah. That's the life that I knew. It's hard. One of the hardest things for me to sometimes try to communicate is when you grow up in Utah, it's all you know.

00;03;37;22 - 00;04;00;18
Kyle Costello
It's like your world. Especially then. I mean, you know, we didn't have Instagram and TikTok and Facebook. We just knew what was in front of us. And so it's like, yea, you know, it's like going to Dodger Stadium and that's the only stadium you ever go to. And you just think everybody's a Dodger fan. And, and so I just thought my whole life, like everybody was Mormon, This is the way things worked.

00;04;01;17 - 00;04;24;26
Kyle Costello
I didn't know much about Christianity at all except really at the foundation of Mormonism is this idea that the Christian church was lacking. And so Joseph Smith went and asked God, Hey, what's the true church? God said, None, not none of these are the true church. I'm going to restore the true church through you. And and so that's what I knew about Christians.

00;04;24;26 - 00;04;44;01
Kyle Costello
And in a way, as I grew up and asked questions, I didn't really find, I didn't ever hear anything that was compelling or interesting. And I just knew Mormonism. And so that's what I did. The only Christians I would say this that I ever heard of were Billy Graham and then Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. And that'll tell you how old I am.

00;04;44;01 - 00;05;06;00
Kyle Costello
And when I grew up, because they were on the cover of every tabloid and all that kind of good stuff. And that's all I knew about Christianity until I went to college at UNLV in Las Vegas. I was young when I went to college 17, so I couldn't go on a mormon mission. Most boys, they graduate. They go on a mormon mission.

00;05;06;00 - 00;05;22;11
Kyle Costello
I was young when I got out of high school. I had to do a year in college, and so I spent the year, they call it, preparing. And so I wanted to be the best missionary that I could be. So what I started doing was I told my roommate about it and he didn't know much about Mormonism at all.

00;05;22;12 - 00;05;41;23
Kyle Costello
Nothing. But he was a theater major and he was like, Hey, here's what we'll do. Like, let's role play. Like I can work on my bits. Like I'll be like the East Coast liberal, I'll be the Southern evangelical and you can try to convert me. And so we started to do this and in the dorm and he was also he's a smart dude.

00;05;42;03 - 00;06;03;27
Kyle Costello
And so as we started to work into some of the more complex areas of trying to explain Mormonism, and he would ask questions that my mind had never asked before. And so I'd go home and I would want to process those and I would process them with my dad. And my dad off the bat was, I think, a little leery as we as I would push.

00;06;03;27 - 00;06;18;15
Kyle Costello
I think he thought I was being antagonistic. And at first that was not in my heart at all. I was not trying to leave the Mormon faith. I was just trying to get I was the firstborn son. I wanted to be a great missionary, so I wanted to answer these questions. So I went out there. I could convert anyone.

00;06;20;00 - 00;06;42;29
Kyle Costello
As I continued to ask questions, my dad said, Hey, it's time to talk to the bishop. And the bishop was my grandpa. So then I had to meet with my grandpa and and go through those questions as well. Now, one of the things that's a bit telling, it'll come up later in the conversation when I went to my grandfather and my dad is my grandpa can come off bad in the story.

00;06;42;29 - 00;07;02;01
Kyle Costello
They're both great dudes, but they're we just believe different things. When I sat with my grandpa, he said, Hey, your dad's told me about the questions you're asking and I just want to know, as an 18 year old, I just turned 18. He goes, What gives you the right to ask those questions? Like when you question them, you're questioning your dad.

00;07;02;01 - 00;07;22;24
Kyle Costello
Me, your great grandfather, your great great grandfather, and the generations before you. And it was in that moment that I was like, Oh, I don't think they really want to have the heart of this conversation, the heart of this debate. That was at least what popped into my mind. We ended up being in his office that night for about 3 hours.

00;07;22;24 - 00;07;45;27
Kyle Costello
It was it was intense. And when I left and I walked across the parking lot of the church to go to my car for the first time, it popped into my mind that just maybe this maybe this this faith wasn't true, which for a mormon is a really, really big deal. Like you don't ever go there. You go to a lot of places, but you don't go there.

00;07;46;16 - 00;08;04;10
Kyle Costello
It was Thanksgiving break in my freshman year and I went back to college and I took the Book of Mormon and the doctrine and Covenants. Those are two books that Mormons think are scripture. And I just started to dig into those books. I didn't go get a book from a Christian bookstore that would like I was kind of inoculated against anything like that.

00;08;05;25 - 00;08;28;01
Kyle Costello
But what I started to see were all these contradictions. Even these these two books were contradicting each other's rather significantly to the point that when I went back for Christmas break, I met with my dad again and told him that I wanted to leave the faith. And so that was a I was huge, huge deal. That was quite the Christmas break.

00;08;28;01 - 00;08;28;18
Kyle Costello
And I'll tell you.

00;08;29;20 - 00;08;38;05
Rusty George
How much did you just sweat over that? Was that sleepless nights or was that kind of, I'm going in guns blazing? How did you feel about that?

00;08;38;13 - 00;09;00;17
Kyle Costello
Yeah, it wasn't a guns blazing kind of thing. I mean, yeah, I've been I was my dad's boy, like I was a daddy's boy all the time growing up like he was use my hero. He's who I wanted to be. Like, I took no pleasure ever in disappointing him. And so I remember I remember where we were sitting when we had the conversation session.

00;09;00;18 - 00;09;15;07
Kyle Costello
And I remember seeing his face and it was it is a tension because for me, I knew I couldn't, like, live a lie and I couldn't pretend. But I also hated breaking his heart. So it was it was tough.

00;09;15;11 - 00;09;32;02
Rusty George
So for, you know, you've alluded to this, but from what I understand, I mean, so much of Mormonism is family oriented because it's the belief that you're going to all be together for eternity. Does this mean that in his mind, you're not going to be with them for eternity now?

00;09;32;05 - 00;09;40;17
Kyle Costello
Yeah, absolutely. Yep. He sees that long game and he's going, oh, my goodness. Like, you know, my boy's not going to be with us.

00;09;41;11 - 00;10;01;01
Rusty George
So, I mean, that's a huge step to make. And for for those that don't quite and I think that's most of us, we don't quite understand Mormonism. You know, we don't we don't recognize what a big deal this was. So to get to that boy, you really had to come to some conclusions that made so much sense to you that it was.

00;10;01;08 - 00;10;13;00
Rusty George
Yeah, I mean, you had to do that. So what were the glaring, you know, obstacles or I should say, obstacles? What were the glaring missteps in Mormonism that made you think, I don't know if I can go with this?

00;10;13;00 - 00;10;33;04
Kyle Costello
Yeah. So number one was, who is God like? And like the nature and character of God. And if you read the Book of Mormon and look, I don't believe the Book of Mormon to be one one ounce of truth, but if you read the Book of Mormon, what you see in it is that Joseph Smith, when he wrote it, he wrote it before he had any followers.

00;10;33;12 - 00;10;58;24
Kyle Costello
He plagiarized the Bible like crazy. And so what you get in that in that book is you get a God who sounds a lot like the God of the Bible. I'm not saying again there's any truth in it, but I'm saying you get this almost Trinitarian eternal God, the alpha, the Omega, the God you read about in John one, which Jesus, like in the beginning was the word, and where it was with God, the word was God.

00;10;58;24 - 00;11;31;22
Kyle Costello
Like this idea that God was be for all. And He is everything. Now, I told you, I took the Book of Mormon and I compared it with what they call the Doctrine and Covenants. The Doctrine and Covenants is a book that's mostly written by Joseph Smith. Some of it's written by later prophets, but mostly by Joseph Smith. And it's after he gets followers, it's after he's kind of gaining influence and they're moving from area to area, and each time they pick up more people and all of a sudden you see God become a different depicted as differently like that.

00;11;31;22 - 00;11;56;25
Kyle Costello
He is this fine, He was this finite being here. He's not necessarily this eternal being that is. Above all, he they believe that God was once a man, that this man grew up and self-actualize like he became so perfect that he was then given his own world. And this is where in the doctrine covenants, where you start to see this idea coming forth.

00;11;57;09 - 00;12;17;21
Kyle Costello
And so in my mind, like that was so massive and so drastic because what if we're not in our faith for who is God? And there's inconsistencies in that, What are we in it for? And then as well as it's in that book, where as time goes, you start to see things like the what they call the priesthood come down.

00;12;17;27 - 00;12;42;27
Kyle Costello
It's where you see things, the the temple rituals come. It's where polygamy comes in. Each time. It's my personal opinion. It's as he's gaining more power and he's trying to figure out how to continue to move this forward, that he adds these new things that weren't originally in the Book of Mormon and end up making it look like two very different faiths if you read those two books separately.

00;12;43;09 - 00;13;14;00
Rusty George
Okay. So when you and I had lunch. Yeah. Ten years ago. Yeah, 12 years ago, whatever it was, I asked you this question. I have never forgotten your answer. I asked you about, you know what? Mormons believe in that. And you said most Mormons don't even know what they believe. They just are part of this tradition. Absolutely. So I think you've got your hyper vigilant Mormons that are are bishops and, you know, stakeholders or whatever the term is.

00;13;14;00 - 00;13;39;20
Rusty George
And they have some kind of a leadership role. They probably have been well versed and maybe even been to some kind of training. But for most people, it's just kind of what I grew up with. And as one person told me, if you're not called, you're just probably never going to believe it. So tell me what what your average Mormon next door probably knows or thinks about Mormonism.

00;13;39;28 - 00;14;03;04
Kyle Costello
Yes. So what they're going to be steeped in is the culture. And so the culture I always try to say separate culture from theology, because you're going to have you're devout Mormons who dive in and they're I mean, my father, my grandfather, like they they believe it, they teach it. They're in it. But, you know, coming from I lived in well, I grew up in Utah, but then moved back as a Christian for almost ten years.

00;14;03;10 - 00;14;22;15
Kyle Costello
And I would talk to my Mormon neighbors who went to church in hardly ever, like when we would discuss things and they would get into kind of the the foundations of the faith. Rarely had they went there. Some of them would say, Oh, I remember talking about that in seminary. Which seminary and Mormonism, You go through it in high school.

00;14;22;26 - 00;14;39;28
Kyle Costello
But they would go, but I don't remember any of that stuff. What they cling tightly to is the culture. So what you just talked about, the family, how connected the family is, how the family is going to be together forever. Now, a big part of their culture is love of country, love of country and love being an American.

00;14;39;28 - 00;15;08;25
Kyle Costello
And what that means to be connected to to our country here, being citizens, that that that are that that do something for the good of the community that means something to their faith. And so they grab onto these cultural things and they love that they're not necessarily diving in theologically and know the ins and outs of where their faith came from and what the what foundation they stand on.

00;15;09;07 - 00;15;37;13
Rusty George
That's fascinating. Okay, so not that I encourage this, but when Mormons come to the door. Yeah, I mean, they're so well trained and and certainly know the direction they want to take things, you know, what's what's the conversation stoppers. If somebody wants to engage, what's the conversation that would make a mormon think beyond their rote answers? I mean, what do you encourage or what would you do in those situations?

00;15;37;13 - 00;15;37;21
Rusty George
Yeah.

00;15;38;09 - 00;16;03;11
Kyle Costello
Well, the first thing I would do, and please, if anybody is listening, is be nice. Three of my brothers have went on Mormon missions, and if Christians are known for anything when Mormons are on their mission, it's being rude to them when they come to the door. And I would say, Man, there's nothing that Jesus, Jesus is not asking you to be rude to them, but be nice, Say hello if you want to engage.

00;16;03;11 - 00;16;25;02
Kyle Costello
If you want to have a conversation, I would say ask them questions. So when they come in and they start talking about what they believe, ask them why they believe that. Ask them where that comes from. Just to get their mind going. Now they're going to be the ones who know their faith, but asking questions often kind of disarms rather than the immediate know.

00;16;25;02 - 00;16;42;29
Kyle Costello
This is the way it is. And then then I wouldn't even say go into that. This is the way it is. Let's debate conversation. What I always say at the beginning is, Hey, man, I'll listen to you if you'll listen to me, share my story of coming to faith and then share your story of how you came to know Jesus.

00;16;43;17 - 00;17;05;00
Kyle Costello
Like it's really just living out the Scripture where you're always prepared to give a defense for why you have hope, why you have joy. That is one thing that they are not. They are not going to know how to They don't have a counterpoint for that. They don't have an argument against that. A you have a story of how God came alive in you.

00;17;05;00 - 00;17;08;22
Kyle Costello
That is absolutely going to challenge that.

00;17;09;14 - 00;17;26;05
Rusty George
Okay. So let me ask you this some questions that people may want to know, and that is okay. A friend wants me to go with him to their Mormon church. Should I go or am I ushering in a spirit that is unwelcomed into my life?

00;17;26;11 - 00;17;47;02
Kyle Costello
It's a good question. I would say this. I mean, Jesus is alive within you. You feel like God is leading you down that road. If that's going to open up more conversation, I'm not against that. If you have people in your community who know what you're doing, who are going to support you in that. But but do it with the idea of like, yeah, let's talk about it after and then, hey, come with me.

00;17;47;03 - 00;18;12;24
Kyle Costello
I'm totally fine with the longer I'll go with you, then come with me and check out where I'm at and let's have some conversations about that. Hmm. I know some other people who have come out of the Mormon faith who would not agree with me in there, but for whatever reason, even in my own family, we've decided that certain things that happened in the Mormon Church, because we want to maintain an open conversation with our family like we went to.

00;18;12;24 - 00;18;42;03
Kyle Costello
So I went to my brother's baptism. I went to different celebrations that they've had, like when my brother's gone on his mission or a wedding or a funeral because I wanted to be able to maintain conversation about faith. I'm not saying that would be the wisest thing for everyone, but I think if you do it with proper intentions and with people that you're processing with, it doesn't it doesn't worry me.

00;18;42;24 - 00;18;50;02
Rusty George
This is one I've actually heard a lot, and that is I've been baptized in the Mormon Church. Do I need to be baptized in the Christian church?

00;18;51;05 - 00;19;12;14
Kyle Costello
Hmm. That is a fantasy. So just a little hindsight. So I come out of the Mormon faith. Two years later, I start going to a Christian church, and it takes me about three years before I would say I become a Christian like it was. It was I. To be honest, during those three years, I was just trying to find ways to debunk Christianity.

00;19;12;14 - 00;19;24;20
Kyle Costello
Like I was only going because a really attractive girl invited me and I liked her a lot. And then I went in in this. It was only an hour long and they had coffee and donuts. I was like, I can do this.

00;19;25;26 - 00;19;28;10
Rusty George
That is our greatest evangelistic tool, by the way.

00;19;28;18 - 00;19;49;24
Kyle Costello
It's it's phenomenal, isn't it? About the third time I was there, this preacher in general, he's given this message and he's talking about just who we are as people. And I think he's going to give this message about how we're amazing. And he starts to talk through these issues that people have and they're not positive. And I'm like, okay, listening.

00;19;49;29 - 00;20;09;15
Kyle Costello
And then he gets to the bottom and he goes, I'm describing me. And I was like, Oh, what? Like he's describing he's putting his issues up on a up on a up on the screens. And he goes, If you're here for anything but Jesus, like, it's going to let you down. And he moves to a conversation about Ephesians chapter two.

00;20;09;24 - 00;20;28;16
Kyle Costello
And I went back to that moment in my mind where I asked when my grandpa said, What gives you the right to question your dad, me, your great grandfather, and this pastor of this church that I can see is growing is like, question me all you want, because I'm not the one who gives you hope. Jesus is the one who gives you hope.

00;20;29;02 - 00;20;49;00
Kyle Costello
And that jacked with me pretty bad to where I started going to all their classes, asking tons of questions. I finally got to at the end, the teaching pastor that was like, We just don't have any more classes for you. And and I call on the phone one day and I'm, I'm, I pray with a volunteer on the phone.

00;20;49;00 - 00;21;10;02
Kyle Costello
And again, this took as a three year process and she was like, well, now it's time to be baptized. Mm hmm. I don't know about that. Grace. Maybe, like, I don't do any works. You've told me all about this, Grace. Like, I'm not going to be baptized. I've been as a mormon, I've been baptized over 300 times because as a mormon, you get baptized for yourself and then you get baptized for dead people.

00;21;10;09 - 00;21;36;08
Kyle Costello
So I was like, I'm the Michael Jordan of baptism, man. I don't need to be baptized again. Like, and thankfully God in my life had put some, some wise and kind people that would listen to me kind of spew this stuff and go like, Hey, I don't think you're understanding like what you were baptized to before was this idea that Jesus was a helper, that he like got you on the ladder.

00;21;36;08 - 00;21;59;07
Kyle Costello
But now you had to climb that ladder. You were baptized before into the name of a God who used to be a human. Like this is not the same thing you're now saying, Man, I want to completely go away and I want to be alive 100% in Christ. My flesh goes away. I'm a new creation in him and I'm my hope is him, not me.

00;22;00;20 - 00;22;03;04
Kyle Costello
Now that sealed the deal. It took a while, though.

00;22;03;21 - 00;22;10;09
Rusty George
How long did your transformation, how transformation were always being transformed, your conversion process take?

00;22;10;26 - 00;22;32;22
Kyle Costello
Oh, man. I mean, it was a full three years from when I first went to a Christian church until I would say I, I professed faith in Christ, but I would have to say it was I would even say the stress. There are still things that come up in my flesh that I know are from when I was when I learned as a little kid.

00;22;33;13 - 00;22;50;17
Kyle Costello
But but, but, but even like the couple of years after that, the best thing I mean, God did amazing things for me, but then he put me in community after I was baptized and I had this awesome small group leader who would just let me talk. Sometimes he would ask the question and I would start talking like I knew it, like I knew what I was talking about.

00;22;50;17 - 00;23;11;15
Kyle Costello
And he just be like, Kyle, that that's not that's not in the Bible, man. That's probably in the Book of Mormon. But and it took me a long, I would say if it was about a good five years of just really where I think I could have sat down with you and articulated the heart of Christianity in comparison to the horror of Mormonism.

00;23;11;23 - 00;23;14;14
Kyle Costello
It was. It's been a good ride. Hmm.

00;23;14;28 - 00;23;40;22
Rusty George
That is so good. Let me interrupt this podcast for just a second to thank Belay Solutions dot com for the support of the podcast, I want to help you accomplish more and juggle less virtual assistants, accounting, social media and website services. Check out their resources at Belay Solutions dot com Bazley Solutions Dotcom. Okay, back to the show we've all got.

00;23;41;02 - 00;24;03;15
Rusty George
I mean, even if we didn't grow up, you know in a in an organized religion, we all have a lot of unlearning to do. I mean we've all been in small group situations where somebody just starts pontificating and you realize, yeah, I think that's Oprah. You know, I think that's the secret or something like that. Yes. And we kind of have to and train ourselves from them.

00;24;03;16 - 00;24;17;11
Rusty George
All right. So you you eventually go back and you plant a church right there in Salt Lake City. Tell us how you knew that was what you were supposed to do, why you did that and what kind of resistance you met.

00;24;18;00 - 00;24;44;13
Kyle Costello
Well, from the beginning of ministry. So I started out in Las Vegas, and so I came to faith in that church. A few years later, they asked me to teach a class, helping Christians have conversations like fruitful, faithful conversations with Mormons. And so I started teaching with this idea that we're talking about in mind. And from there it was like, God, this is what I'm calling you into.

00;24;44;14 - 00;25;05;16
Kyle Costello
So I went to seminary. I was at the church in Las Vegas, but knew what I wanted to do eventually was plant a church. And so, I mean, my church in Vegas was awesome. They helped me get connected with the church in Portland, Oregon. That was always planting and training planters. So I moved up there. I came on staff is what they call an embedded planter.

00;25;05;16 - 00;25;23;14
Kyle Costello
So I was in all these different roles with the idea that I was going to plant and then an orchard group, this church planning organization that just as amazing church plants really now all over the United States, they approached me and said, Hey, at the time they had only the churches in the Northeast. They said, Hey, we want to start going west.

00;25;23;25 - 00;25;47;00
Kyle Costello
And we're thinking either Seattle, Portland or Salt Lake City. And my wife will tell you that immediately she knew Salt Lake City was it. Even though we lived in Portland and got confirmed that quickly, our elders of the church, they were 100% on board. We had 30 people ended up moving with us from Portland to Salt Lake. We went right into the downtown area and and started going for it.

00;25;48;05 - 00;26;04;07
Kyle Costello
And that was it. It was it was an amazing and it is still because the amazing and beautiful work where from the beginning we started in my house, then we went to two houses and three houses. I know that's not maybe the traditional route, but in Salt Lake it is very difficult to get a place to a someone who will rent you.

00;26;04;17 - 00;26;26;29
Kyle Costello
And so after we went to three homes, we finally found a place in the university because they couldn't deny us because they were government owned. There were we could rent space on Sundays and after about three years we were able to purchase a building and and and just see God bless us. Like unbelievable. Like you asked about like the difficulties.

00;26;27;26 - 00;26;53;15
Kyle Costello
There's a few culturally the people who aren't Christians, they think you're just like Mormons. And so they they feel like they're the visiting team there and they feel like they're always like a little angsty and against like the church establishment. And so if you want to reach them, you have to find ways to to show them your uniqueness, you to show them that you actually carry a different message.

00;26;53;15 - 00;27;11;25
Kyle Costello
You can't just dress up like cultural church people and expect them to know there's something unique and compelling. With Mormons in Salt Lake, a mass. I mean, there's all of the obstacles you can think of. But what I what I found out because the first three years I was like, we're not reaching Mormons, Like what is going on?

00;27;11;25 - 00;27;34;02
Kyle Costello
We're reaching a lot of people who would say they would never go to church, who have had really gnarly stories from the past, but we're not reaching Mormons. But the minute we had a building, the minute we weren't set up and tear down, all of a sudden people who were either in Mormonism and like kind of questioning or had left Mormonism, they start coming in.

00;27;34;02 - 00;27;53;21
Kyle Costello
And so I started to ask them, I would meet with them and they were like, Oh, we don't know what those church clan things are. They are they're like little pop ups that come and go. They're used to this established faith with brick buildings on just about every five blocks. And so they struggled to even understand what we were before we had a facility.

00;27;53;22 - 00;28;01;20
Kyle Costello
And I never it made sense when somebody said that to me. I never imagined that until we were rolling in. Somebody told me that.

00;28;02;14 - 00;28;24;21
Rusty George
And I was. I'm so glad you said that because it just clicked for me. We had a similar experience in that, you know, things were going okay. They were going great for us as a church plant meeting in a movie theater or high school. But then the influx of people, once we had a building and I just assumed it was people that said, I don't want to do set up and tear down right, or I don't want to meet in a movie theater.

00;28;24;21 - 00;28;46;04
Rusty George
But what I discovered was it was either people with Mormon background or Catholic background. Yeah, they didn't even know what a church plant was. They thought that was the first day we ever opened our doors. And ever started was the day we opened the building. Yeah, because they didn't they didn't counted as valid until we had a building which, which says a lot about what's so valuable about a building, obviously.

00;28;46;04 - 00;29;05;22
Rusty George
So. Right. Okay. So you get this thing going and you have some people coming in. Did you, did you ever feel like because Mormons to me don't seem very hostile, do they ever feel like they got to snuff you out? They got to stop this thing, or they just say, you know what, whatever. You're not you're not right.

00;29;05;22 - 00;29;06;15
Rusty George
But whatever.

00;29;07;01 - 00;29;26;06
Kyle Costello
I didn't ever feel like there was like a, I don't know, a collective movement. But what would happen is, I mean, three different times I went to sign a lease, I got I'm talking a long term lease of a facility. This is before we bought a building. A facility that we would have purchased that we would have been in for a long time, redone the whole thing.

00;29;26;06 - 00;29;43;00
Kyle Costello
It would have been kind of our space. And what would happen is these were all owned by my Mormon landowners. They would have their representatives basically negotiate the deal with us, and then when it would come time to sign, they would go, Who are these people? And they would go, Oh, no way. Like, I'm not I'm not signing a deal with them.

00;29;43;16 - 00;30;06;16
Kyle Costello
We had one person, we just wanted to rent their building for a weekend and they they brought out the snake clause because they thought that we would handle snakes. And so they were like, We need to make sure that you'll sign this. And it was a literal at the top is like the snake addendum. And it made promise that we would not handle live snakes.

00;30;06;20 - 00;30;08;28
Kyle Costello
I know that's not necessarily oppression, but you get it.

00;30;09;12 - 00;30;15;24
Rusty George
Well, it certainly is a misconception they have. Tell me you have a copy of that because that is fantastic.

00;30;16;23 - 00;30;17;29
Kyle Costello
Yeah, it's pretty.

00;30;17;29 - 00;30;31;18
Rusty George
Funny. So Elijah's saying it does great stuff and you know, you're making an impact. You have family around you. It seems like this is what you're called to do and then you leave. Yeah. How did you know it was time to go? And what do you think was next?

00;30;31;29 - 00;30;52;24
Kyle Costello
Man this is the question that my wife and I processed a lot before we left, because I'll be honest. Like, I didn't ever think we would leave. I just thought we would be there. I wasn't discontent. I wasn't like, Oh, where's that? Where's the next place? Where am I going to go? My wife will tell you she's always loved the beach.

00;30;52;24 - 00;31;13;27
Kyle Costello
And so she always said, Hey, God, if you're ever interested in taking us near the coast, I would love that. But still, it wasn't like we were fasting and praying that God would move us. But what did happen is he did profoundly like speak to both of us. We had someone approach us and say, Hey, would you consider this role in Southern California?

00;31;13;27 - 00;31;39;29
Kyle Costello
It was a trusted friend from many years. I think you would be perfect for it. And I said, and it just came out of the blue. And I said, Well, I will pray about that. We did, and nothing was happening. But then something rather remarkable happened and and then more things started to happen. Then I brought our elders in and by the end our elders were like two of them.

00;31;40;12 - 00;32;12;27
Kyle Costello
My best friends, like through tears, were like, Man, I. I hate to see you go, but if you don't go, it'll feel like you're being disobedient. Like, I'll have to challenge you as your friend or not listening to God. And I think that was the only way it could have happened for me to go. It. It was, you know, it's it's difficult when you've when you've seen just about every moment of the church to then go to let go and go somewhere else.

00;32;12;27 - 00;32;17;23
Kyle Costello
But it God's done nothing but confirm that that was the that was the best thing and that was the way to go.

00;32;18;03 - 00;32;39;09
Rusty George
So here you are in Southern California and you get a renewed call to go plant another church. I mean, yeah, you plant a church once. You're crazy, you do it twice. I mean, that's certifiable. Something's wrong. What in the world? Yeah. Why? Why did you sense that was what you're supposed to do? And why? Oh, hi.

00;32;39;19 - 00;32;56;02
Kyle Costello
I'm with you. I would have said the same thing two years ago. I mean, people would say, you know, after even in the middle of planting in Salt Lake, like, would you would you ever plant again? I was like, and no way. Are you kidding me? And the beginning of 2021, it was almost like the New Year hit.

00;32;56;02 - 00;33;18;20
Kyle Costello
And there's something just started to stir in me in my time with God and just listening to him. And so I went to my wife and I said, Hey, I'm feeling the same thing I felt back in 2009 about planting. And she her response was, Well, you have a lot of ideas. And then they come and go, so why don't we take some time and let's let's pray through this.

00;33;19;07 - 00;33;43;14
Kyle Costello
So we did for January and February we did. And it didn't leave. In fact, it grew stronger. And so for us, we said, okay, where where would we go? And we were like, God, could you give us a place that we both really want to move to? Not that God spoke into my through my wife before, and we went directions with her and he spoke it through me and we went those directions that were like, Well, you unite us on a place.

00;33;43;29 - 00;34;07;03
Kyle Costello
And right off the bat, man, for us Ohi was it y Ohi well, it is. It is a place that is almost this unique mix of the places we've done ministry and prior. So we started in Las Vegas, we went to Portland and then we went to Salt Lake City. It is a place that has this wild mix of folks.

00;34;07;03 - 00;34;33;14
Kyle Costello
People have been coming to Ohio forever for all things spiritual, that don't have anything to do with Christianity for for literally 100 hundreds, 100 plus years. And so it's not a place that thinks about Jesus, which is absolutely Las Vegas. And then it's not a place that that that thinks that needs Jesus. And so that's absolutely Portland. Like they think, man, I've got it figured out and I'm going to handle it.

00;34;34;11 - 00;34;58;08
Kyle Costello
And then it's a place that thinks it's cornered the market on something spiritual. And that's absolutely Salt Lake. That's not God. Everybody comes here and thinks that their guru is going to be here, that the mountains are going to speak to them in some way, that crystals they purchase are going to somehow change their life. And it's a way for them to control their faith.

00;34;58;17 - 00;35;21;22
Kyle Costello
I'm not saying the exact same way, but in the same way that you can in Mormonism. And so for us, it it appealed to us. And we we we were in. And so as we started praying about it, we were just like, God, if this is it, would you just show us how we can make this happen? And so I got a good buddy, Mike Hickerson.

00;35;21;22 - 00;35;41;28
Kyle Costello
He planted Michigan church in Ventura, right about the same time we planted in Salt Lake. We came up here. If you don't know where Ohio is, just about 15 miles away from Ventura. And I sat down with Mike and I was going to asking these questions. I had them written out on my phone and I said to him and he said, Hey, man, it's been a while.

00;35;41;28 - 00;36;05;04
Kyle Costello
It had been a while since because of the pandemic and everything. He goes, I feel like God's before we get into anything, I just feel like guys wanted me to say to you to invite you, enjoy to move up to Ojai to plant a church. And I was, like, speechless. I took my phone with my notes, and I showed it to him, and he's like, and we're both, you know, Mike, like, rarely is he speechless.

00;36;05;04 - 00;36;33;03
Kyle Costello
And we're both just kind of looking at each other, like, what's what's going on? And then he tells me that two weeks prior, he had been given the the inside kind of opportunity to lease a building in Ohio, a church building. And he's like, man, let's do this. And God, just the ball just kept rolling wherever the partner with Orchard Group again and man I can't wait to see just what what God's up to here.

00;36;33;26 - 00;37;03;04
Rusty George
Well, that's awesome. I've heard that story now a couple of times, and it always just gives me chills thinking about God's orchestrating this together. We're so happy to be a small part of that as well. And I know we've got people in congregation that want to go and help you do this, So help our people understand how do you launch a church and when do you know having other people come alongside you to just physically be there and do heavy lifting or butts in a seat?

00;37;04;08 - 00;37;07;18
Rusty George
When does that become part of the roll out process?

00;37;07;29 - 00;37;33;08
Kyle Costello
Well, I mean, the thing is, you can only launch once, so let's do it well, let's do it right. And so what we're planning on doing is launching in September of next year. But we have a big plan that takes us up there. So starting in January, we're starting this kind of nine month initiative we call 1010 Faith Adventures, 100 tables, 1000 prayers, 10,000 invitations.

00;37;33;13 - 00;38;10;21
Kyle Costello
What does that mean? Well, ten faith adventures. That's going to be anything from different ways. We're going to serve the city in the valley. It's going to be ways that we throw parties. It's going to be ways that we live out our faith and the way we see Jesus living out the story of the gospel and in the New Testament and the church in Acts, the 100 tables is we want to have 100 meals between January and September, where we're gathering our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers, and during the meal, we're just going to share with them why we're excited about this church that's coming, the thousand prayers where we're going to start gathering names

00;38;10;21 - 00;38;33;19
Kyle Costello
of people that live in the Ohio Valley so that we can be praying for them over that season, whether it's them coming to church, whether it's them because they have a sickness or their struggle in their life. We just want 1000 names of people we can be praying for. And then over that time, 10,000 invitations that we want to go out that invite folks to do everything that we have kicking off in in September.

00;38;33;28 - 00;38;49;11
Kyle Costello
So to get to your question, like, how can people participate? Well, what I what I would love to do, just as as we get those ten faith adventures starting to get them nailed out, there will be ones that we specifically will say, hey, if you guys want to jump in, you guys want to join us, we'd love to have you.

00;38;49;18 - 00;39;09;02
Kyle Costello
But starting in September, when we when we launch services, I can't tell you how incredible it is to have some critical mass, to have people who would come up, who would serve, who would say like, yeah, I drive up from Valencia. Why? Because I believe in what's happening here. I want people to know that they're loved and cared for, that we're thinking about them.

00;39;09;17 - 00;39;16;04
Kyle Costello
And so absolutely there will be opportunity when the church launches as well. Now, hopefully that that makes sense that way.

00;39;16;19 - 00;39;26;10
Rusty George
That's awesome. Oh, so exciting. Okay, so for people that want to know more, connect with you, donate to the project, sign up for the these events. How do they get in touch with you?

00;39;26;18 - 00;39;48;10
Kyle Costello
Right now? The best way to do it is just through my email and it's Kyle at Refuge Church of the dotcom. And so we haven't totally gone public yet with the name that'll come in January. Then we'll have a website which will be a refuge church o v dot com. You can find all things there right now emailing me and I can stay.

00;39;48;10 - 00;40;10;08
Kyle Costello
I can keep folks posted all in all kinds of ways. My Instagram is D Kyle Costello 11 but in January will launch the church's Instagram will launch the church's website, all the church's social things. So we just don't want to get it out there too early where we're we're you know, it's the long with the long climb to September.

00;40;11;05 - 00;40;19;04
Rusty George
I totally understand that. But Kyle, this has been fantastic as I knew it would be. And I'm just so, so grateful we get to be partnered with you.

00;40;19;04 - 00;40;19;19
Kyle Costello
Thanks, man.

00;40;19;19 - 00;40;27;26
Rusty George
I love it. And we're looking forward to seeing the launch of the church. And you are so great at the revival. It just inspired a lot of people, so I.

00;40;27;26 - 00;40;28;10
Kyle Costello
Appreciate.

00;40;28;10 - 00;40;36;26
Rusty George
It any way. It was. It was great. So looking forward to partnering together in the future and thanks for adding value to our listeners today. Really appreciate it.

00;40;36;27 - 00;40;38;16
Kyle Costello
Thank you, Rusty. I love it. Thanks.

00;40;39;12 - 00;40;59;14
Rusty George
Well, that was such great stuff from Kyle. I know you're going to want to hear more from him. Make sure you keep plugged in with real life and real hope as we continue our quest to plant 30 churches by the year 2030. And I know you're going to want to be a part of his church plant by helping him financially and also by showing up from time to time and supporting him.

00;40;59;21 - 00;41;17;18
Rusty George
And we'll keep you posted as to when that is coming out. Hey, next week I get to have a conversation with a rock star in the world of apologetics, which is basically providing reasons for your faith. And he's going to give us some of those reasons. He's going to talk about what apologetics looks like in our world today.

00;41;17;18 - 00;41;37;11
Rusty George
He's going to talk about some of the issues our kids are facing right now. But he's also going to break down Marvel movies and the spiritual implications of a lot of those. His name is Sean McDowell, and you're going to love to hear from him. So make sure you join us back next week. Thanks to Belay Solutions for sponsoring the podcast, Make sure you share this with a friend.

00;41;37;11 - 00;41;39;00
Rusty George
And as always, keep it simple.

00;41;39;14 - 00;42;02;16
Intro/Outro
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