SLP EP 9: Ambition and Humility: A Leadership Paradox with Dave Park, Drew Hyun, and Aaron Chung

SOLA Network 

Welcome to the SOLA Network Leaders’ Podcast, where we amplify the voices of pastors and ministry leaders shaping a gospel future for the emerging generation of Asian Americans and beyond. We hope you enjoy hearing different perspectives from various ministry leaders throughout the U.S.

Dave Park

I’m really happy to be here to do this podcast with Aaron and Drew. We are here from the East Coast. And so this is kind of unique in that you’re going to get an East Coast, primarily a New York City perspective on today’s topic. We’re just going to start off with an introduction. So the listeners, you can get to know who we are. So I’ll start. My name is Dave coming to you from New Jersey. I’m married with two kids, 10 and six, both girls. Grew up in Philadelphia and I came up to New Jersey for college at Rutgers. We call it the public ivy of the East Coast. And I’ve been in Jersey pretty much ever since. And I serve as the lead pastor of Mosaic Christian Fellowship in Northern New Jersey. Also the founder of Core Funds. We’re an impact fund designed to create spiritual impact for the kingdom. And so that’s a little bit about me. Aaron, would you introduce yourself?

Aaron Chung 

Yeah, I’m Aaron married to Hannah girl dad to Logan and Hayden Logan is nine Hayden is seven. I also went to the public IV Grew up about 15 20 minutes outside of Manhattan. Our church started almost 11 years ago. So as a church planner I along with a core group of four other people and the senior pastor there at the same church today. It’s called Exilic in Midtown.

Drew Hyun

Yeah, hi, I’m Drew, married to my wife Tina and we have two kids, my son David who’s 13 and my daughter Avery who’s nine. And yeah, just really honored to be here. I’m the lead and founding pastor of a church in Manhattan called Hope Church NYC. yeah, but I was actually born and raised on the West Coast in Los Angeles and then went to university in the Bay Area and then ended up moving out to New York in 2001. So I’ve been here ever since and love being here.

Dave Park

Awesome. Yeah. So we’ve been tasked to talk about some topics that are pertinent, especially for East coasters, New York city centric kind of topics that would help ministry leaders in our area. We talked about a lot of different topics, but we actually landed on starting with this topic of ambition. It’s such a big topic for our area. We have a lot of ambitious people in all of our churches, friends, family.

So we’re going to talk today a little bit around this topic of ambition, but you know, it’s a little bit of a tricky topic because there are some Christians who feel kind of uncomfortable with this idea of ambition. And maybe we even have gone through seasons where we felt uncomfortable with our own ambitions. And so I want to ask this question. Why do you guys think that Christians feel so uncomfortable with this idea of ambition and when we don’t talk about it because we feel uncomfortable, what do you think is lost when we avoid talking about it? So maybe I’ll throw it to Aaron first. What do you think? This is an uncomfortable topic sometimes.

Aaron Chung

Well, I mean, when I think about scripture and how scripture uses the word ambition, there’s a lot of the word selfish is oftentimes attached to the word ambition. So even when we look at scripture Ambition can be seen in a negative light and so it can be associated with just Self-centeredness and and the pursuit of own, you know one’s own pleasure and It could kind of I don’t know like we’re always taught to seek for the kingdom of God, but success or ambition can kind of sort of seem a little bit more personal and you’re not living for something necessarily quite bigger. And so it’s easy to see why ambition can kind of feel like a demonized word. Although the city that we live in is highly, highly ambitious. And so I do wonder if you know, how many of our people actually struggle with being ambitious. I think they are, but there might be sort of a small guilt associated with being ambitious. That’s there.

Dave Park

Yeah, I mean, you know, due to those feelings, if we stop talking about ambition altogether, do you think that there’s something we lose?

Aaron Chung

Yeah, because I mean, when you think about the word ambition, you know, is it a good or bad thing? And the Bible would say, yes, it’s both because Paul also uses the word ambition in a good way. Like he made it his ambition to preach the gospel where it’s not proclaimed. I think 1st Thessalonians 4, make it your ambition to live a quiet life. And so the word ambition is also used very much in a positive sense too, but oftentimes we don’t think in those categories. It’s mostly seen in a selfish ambition perspective.

Dave Park 

Absolutely. Drew, anything you would add to that?

Drew Hyun

Yeah, I I think from my Korean-American background too, there’s such an accent on self-deference. And as a result, I think I know that I grew up very uncomfortable with ambition because I was constantly taught, especially in Christian settings, to die to myself. And I think that dying to myself, like marrying, like that seemed foreign.

So whenever any kind of ambition would arise within me, there would also be this guilt for feeling that ambition because I’m like, wait a minute, I’m supposed to die to these feelings. And yet coming to a city like this and you know, we are in such contended times and in such a city of contending and so much ambition. And so I think it’s such an important topic for people today because again, I can over accent on the teaching kind of as Aaron was mentioning. The teachings in Scripture against selfish ambition that I can lose ambition altogether and what ends up happening is I’ve suddenly become someone who’s not really living into my fullest call and destiny that God has for me. So yes, I know that I’ve been uncomfortable with it, just a lot of it because of my own personal upbringing and cultural background that I come.

Dave Park

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I think that when we don’t talk about ambition, we, you know, because all of us have some sort of ambition. When we don’t talk about it, I think we end up kind of hiding a part of who we are. God has created us with desires and ambitions. David says you created me and my inmost being. And so God had something to do with putting ambition inside of us. And I think when we don’t talk about the topic, what ends up happening is we get discipled by someone about our ambitions, right? Whether it’s Wall Street, Silicon Valley, or social media. And I think that when we don’t talk about ambition, we really lose our chance to disciple our people around this topic of ambition, the opportunity to redeem it and so on. And so I think, you know, we need to talk about it and we need to talk about it in, you know, redeemable ways.

But Aaron kind of brought up this idea that there are kind of two kinds of ambition, godly ambition, selfish ambition. How would you help somebody understand when they feel an ambition in their heart, how would you help them to understand the difference between the two? Maybe I’ll toss it. Well, Erin, you kind of said it first, so I’ll toss it to you.

Aaron Chung 

I think it really depends on, you know, why you’re doing it and who you’re doing it for. And so is it is it primarily for you, for your finances to set up your future, your platform? What is the why behind what you’re doing? And that can kind of help you discern whether something is with godly motivation or selfish motivation. so examining your why is going to be really big and who you’re ultimately doing it for. And so even when Paul is saying, I make it my ambition to preach Christ where he’s not named, it is his ambition, but ultimately he’s doing it for the sake of Christ the gospel and for the people who have yet to hear it. So examining the why is going to be, I think, the big thing discerning whether something is selfish or not.

Dave Park

Yeah. Drew, would you add to that?

Drew Hyun 

Yeah, I I know this is going to sound super simplistic, but I wonder if part of that discovery in the why ultimately is cultivating a life of prayer. Like, I need a life of prayer so that whatever my desires are coming from, and that’s part of the confusing part about it with discernment, is that the scriptures talk about denying ourselves, but it also talks about our desires that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, he’ll give us the desires of our hearts.

So desires aren’t bad and ambitions aren’t bad, but this is why I think cultivating a life of prayer first really helps inform any kind of desires, hopefully, that I’m trying to pursue and gives me the reflective space that’s needed, especially to consider some of those questions that Erin was talking about.

Dave Park 

Yeah, yeah, you know, I think that when you read scripture, you can’t help but to see that the New Testament is calling us to have certain ambitions. So you have to obey and have these ambitions. For example, in Colossians three, when Paul says, seek the things are above, set your mind on these things, there’s kind of a drive behind it and an ambition for the kingdom of God. But I think that eternity is a huge part of telling the difference. Are these ambitions, do they make sense in light of eternity? And I was kind of thinking this week about how do you distinguish the outcomes and the process inside of the ambition.

And I was thinking about this idea of loss. I’m a really ambitious person and I have a lot of things going on. And I ask myself this a lot. And I think one thing that’s helped me is if I think about my ambitions as kind of a line graph and my earthly gain being on that same line graph, I do tend to ask myself, are they exactly the same? Like my ambitions, do they, align up perfectly with getting earthly gain? I mean, there should be some deviation, right? Between my ambitions and earthly gain, meaning that there should be a loss category if I’m doing it in light of eternity, if I’m doing it in light of passages like lose your life and you will find it. You are blessed when you are persecuted. If all that is true, then there should be deviation from my earthly gain and my ambitions. Right. There should be some loss in there. And so, you know, I, do tend to ask myself from time to time, if you had to suffer to do this, but glorified, would you still do it? Or would you only do it if on that line graph, your earthly gain lines up perfectly with your ambitions? that’s been kind of helpful for me, to kind of think about, because, know, I can be, yeah, tempted to, think it’s all for God, but everything is bringing the earthly gain at the same time that kind of doesn’t match up.

Aaron Chung

I was listening to a Tentivo interview and he was talking about how, you know, especially when you’re a quarterback and a football player in general, your body gets abused by all of these guys who are huge and they’re coming to tackle you. And he said, you know, he kind of put his body through the gauntlet for the sake of a pigskin game. And so he’s saying, if I’m willing to wake up at 5 a.m. for practice and get hit by all of these guys and for to have concussions even for the sake of a game. And I’m not even willing to get up in the morning to do a devotional to follow Jesus. He was like, why am I suffering so much more for a game? But I’m not willing to do that, like even remotely close to doing that as a follower of Jesus. And so he was actually sharing that and I thought that was a good word as far as losses and gains.

Dave Park

I think that applies a lot, when we think about where we put our energies and things like that. You know, Drew, you brought up kind of this idea of like your Korean American heritage and how that kind of affects your thoughts about ambition, right? Could you talk a little bit more about that? I mean, there are some unique challenges. Are there blind spots? The Korean American Asian American background when it comes to talking about ambition.

Drew Hyun

Yeah, I mean, and again, I think this is pretty common amongst Asian families. I grew up with a background of like, I was the youngest of four, so I’m the maknae, and my parents constantly were trying to drill out of me any kind of selfish ambition, any kind of honor seeking, that kind of thing, and that was part of the culture that I grew up in.

But I actually distinctly remember there was a moment in college where there was a group of us, it was kind of this inter-fellowship thing that we were part of. And there was this moment where kind of the question was posed to this group, like who’s gonna lead this thing? And I remember inside thinking, you know what, I think I should lead this. I should really step in and lead this thing. And one person brought up and said, Drew, I think you should lead it. And I was like, no, no, I’m not gonna do it. That’s not.

I think someone else should do it.” And then quickly someone else jumped in and was like, okay, I’m going to lead it. And then I was kind of shocked by it, but I kind of took a step back and you know, and what ended up happening, that initiative, which was like this evangelism campus wide outreach thing, it didn’t end up going so great. Years later, that friend who kind of nominated me was like, hey, like what, what, when I nominated you, why did you say no? And I was like, you know, honestly, I wanted to say yes, but I just, I said no.

And then she kind of rebuked me and she’s just like, she’s just like, you were being kind of a coward. And it was like this moment of like, my gosh, like I realized that that was a moment where my cultural upbringing had informed just my fear of stepping into whatever God had called for me rather than living into boldness.

And in many ways, I think my formation is so overly stilted as a Korean-American into sacrifice and you’re a servant and that sort of thing that oftentimes I actually need to be reminded of the call to live into godly ambition is to want to be on mission for Jesus and to see God do great things and to be a tool and an instrument for that at least for my own upbringing, I think that I’ve been overly discipled in that realm and I simply need to grow in this other realm. Now there are others perhaps, you know, who probably need to be discipled into how to be more servant-like. And I think that’s the beautiful model of Jesus, right? He’s the servant leader, he’s the lion and the lamb. He’s both ambitious yet sacrificial to the point of death. And so I was just thinking of that story though when I was thinking about my own Korean American heritage and how that ended up really causing me to kind of shirk away from my ambition that God had given to me.

Dave Park 

Yeah, that’s so funny because when you share that there’s something about me that recognizes like, yeah, that’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to say no, you’re supposed to refuse, right? Someone else has to choose you kind of thing. But then we’ve also seen that kind of overpowering spirit really become like an abusive spirit. hurts as well, right? It’s funny how like there’s these two opposite extremes. This one culture.

Dave Park

Yeah, Aaron, any thoughts on the Korean American experience, Asian American experience?

Aaron Chung 

Yeah, I feel like, you know, everyone kind of suffers from imposter syndrome, but Asian Americans in particular, we we really suffer from imposter syndrome. And I think the good part of that is there’s a difference in a humility. That’s really good. The downside is to Drew’s point, there are opportunities where we miss out. And if you want to be a leader, you do at times have to step up rather than being forced to go into that position, there are moments where you do have to rise to the occasion and have a healthy confidence in how God has gifted you and wired you. That’s really, really important. But for us in particular, we really do struggle with imposter syndrome. I feel like there are other groups of people that have a little bit more of a fake it till you make it attitude. And there’s a downside and an upside there as well. But for us, we probably need to overcompensate on the other end I think I think the other thing that I think about particularly when it comes to Korean Americans Asian Americans as a whole. So the three of us are second ge. So I think in general when you look at patterns The first gen is always risk-taking So they’re willing to leave everything behind. They don’t need to know the language. They only they don’t even need to have money But they’re willing to take that gamble on that risk typically the second gen is also risk taking, but not as much as the first, cause they’re still, they’re still trying to figure out their own path. And then the third gen, which is our kids, they’re the least risk taking and they’re just trying to do maintenance control and not jack up everything that they’ve inherited. And it’s important for every generation though, to learn how to take risks. Because if you do not take risks, you cannot go big.

And sometimes you have to have a theology of risk where you trust in the sovereignty of God. Even though you don’t exactly know what’s going to happen and you don’t have all the money that you would want and you don’t feel totally equipped. Like that’s okay. And if it wasn’t for that first generation, like you would not even be here. And so it’s really important for the subsequent generations not to lose that risk taking ambition to do big things, which is really important.

Dave Park 

Yeah, I think that’s such a good point, the correlation and relationship between ambition and risk, right? Because we have in a lot of us a perfectionist tendency, which is very much in opposition to taking risk. And even putting yourself out there to say, I feel like God is calling me to do this scary thing, or I want to put myself out there and do this. I think that, you know, when you have a perfectionist mindset, or you have this collectivist kind of responsibility to hold things together. It’s a really scary thing and only faith will really combat that and allow you to step out like Abraham, right? I think that also when we are affected so much by our culture, we do have these ambitions, but like in Drew’s example about leading, we do have these things in our heart that God has put us in but is often suppressed and kind of cloaked. And we can’t live into who we are supposed to be, even if we’re willing to take the risk, but we have this kind of collectivist ambition to hold things together. It holds us back, I think, from who we want to be. There’s so many cultural expectations, I think, in the Asian-American sphere that directs our actions maybe more than we know.

But that was really interesting when you talk about the three different generations in relationship to risk. I never thought about that, but we are seeing it. just never made the connection between the Asian-ness of that.

Aaron Chung

Yeah, and the I mean when you think about the the most repeated command in scripture, it’s not it’s not even love God or love people. It’s do not fear and over and over Jesus or someone else is saying, do not fear, do not fear. it’s a lot of it is because we’re a bunch of scaredy cats and we’re afraid to do big things because we might fail or we might not succeed. But there’s a reason why do not fear is the most frequent command in scripture because there’s something hardwired in us that is always afraid. And I think when you have immigrant trauma, your second or third gen, your Asian American, these are all layers that can kind of add to that fear of jacking things up or not fulfilling the American dream and things like that that can kind of hinder us from living the life that God wants us to live.

Dave Park 

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, in light of all the sharing about our culture, what about, you know, I want to ask a question about you guys in particular. If ambition is really about godly direction, faith, what about for you guys? What do you hope your ambition will point towards? I don’t know if you’ve thought about the next 10 years of life in ministry, 20 years. Do you have something that helps you to kind of think about your own ambitions in the next few years? Maybe we’ll ask Drew to jump in first.

Drew Hyun 

Yeah, mean, some of it has been tempered through the years. And again, this is where, again, my chief ambition is hopefully to be a person of prayer and to be someone who leads out of my marriage. And if I can keep that the main thing, because of the vow that I’ve made in my marriage and because of my first ambition to be a lover of God and someone who’s loved by God, I feel like that will end up informing all the other ambitions that take place. I think it’s so easy to get awash into all the, again, the side stories and goals that people might have for me, the more. There’s this saying by a desert father, Abba Moses, where he says, go to your cell and your cell will teach you everything. And he’s talking about your prayer cell. And I remember even in the church planting journey, how informative that phrase was for me because I think what ended up happening for me was I think my ambition would get sidetracked by comparison and by thinking about like, I need to measure up or be as good as this person. again, growing up in a family system that was all about comparison, comparison to my brothers, comparison to the newspaper kids who got 1700 on the SATs and stuff. 

I think there was, I realized that I just needed to silence the noise and be in a place where hopefully my own prayer life could help me discern my own ambitions and desires. And then before God and with the limits and the gift of the limits of my family and where I am, I do want to see God move in these incredible ways. And I want to constantly risk or be in places of exercising faith-filled risk, kind of like what Aaron was saying. I even realized like even back in the church planting days, I realized there was a certain amount of risk and ambition that I had and prayerfulness and faith. And honestly, you know, now that the years have passed, I probably need some more seasons of exercising that faith, whether it’s financially, whether it’s just us as a family taking a risk of what would it look like for us to exercise like God-sized faith. But a lot of that needs to be informed by my life of prayer. Otherwise, I can go off the rails with comparison. I can go off the rails with my own kind of selfish pursuits and things like that.

Dave Park

Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s a good word. There are some seasons when we really have to temper our ambitions. And then there are times when we need a little bit more ambition, right? That’s interesting. Yeah. What about for you, Aaron?

Aaron Chung

Yeah, I, do you guys remember that that orange book that David Platt wrote years ago called radical? S few years after that, my former professor, Michael Horton wrote another book that’s also orange called ordinary. And so here you have one book that says radical live a radical life. And then you have another book that says live an ordinary life and striking that balance can be difficult.

But we’re called to do it. It’s a it’s a both and it’s not an either or because when you just live an ordinary life I mean, you should not insult a big God with small dreams You should not you know So the fact that the disciples over and over again forgot that he just fed five thousand people surely he can feed four thousand Like how did you forget that? And oftentimes we forget how big of a God he is and at the same time we can’t swing the pendulum too hard where we’re living this, crazy radical life all the time. When Paul also says, make it your ambition to live a quiet life. And so we, we have to sort of, do both well and it’s not an either or. And that’s how I want to live my life too. You know, I, I’m not just a vessel forgot to use on his child, which is basically what Drew was saying, right? We’re not just an instrument forgot to use for his glory or his child first and foremost and so I want to bask in that I want to live out of that so I can fight the good fight and finish the race and complete the task and then once you’re living out from that hopefully in a healthy way you do what William Carey said when he said expect great things from God attempt great things for God and I feel like we don’t do that enough sometimes I was thinking about a quote from PT Barnum who once said that Men don’t struggle by imagining too much but men struggle for imagining too little and We don’t have big enough dreams sometimes and we forget how big our God is and even if you fail it’s okay because he’ll prepare you for the next thing and That was my mindset when we were planting our church, even if it fails It’s totally okay because we’ll just use that to prepare me for the next thing and I’m his child at the end of the day So it doesn’t define who I am.

And so as I think, mean, Drew and I are the same age. We have two decades left. Our second decade, Drew might not even be that good. So we have one really strong decade left and we have to make the most of it in a healthy way. So at a certain point you start thinking backwards with time. Cause when you’re when you’re 30, you’re like, you’re thinking forward about turning 40 and things like that. But at a certain point, particularly when you’re late 40s, 50s, you start counting backward with how much time you have left. And that can put things into perspective with how you really want to spend your life.

Dave Park

Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, I think for me, I’ve been thinking about a couple of different areas. I think that there’s so many data points that you also have to consider about what the Lord has endowed you with, who is around you, what’s going on around you, what’s the season of life. And I think for me, I think a lot about raising leaders. It’s something that I feel unusually passionate about.

And so I do feel like it’s kind of a calling to raise up leaders for the next generation and to displace myself eventually. And so I think about that a lot. What’s the best way for me to pour into future leaders? And for me, it just brings a lot more satisfaction to when I see my guys that I’ve worked into do something amazing or be faithful. mean, it’s so fun to see them succeed and to see them discover things about themselves.

And I think that that really directs a lot of my energies. Instead of me doing it, it’s a lot more fun to raise up people and to watch them do it. And so that’s kind of a big directional ambition of mine, I guess, the next 10 years. But the second thing is also creating systems and environments that I can leave behind. I think about kind of like these weird, unique ways that God has made me where I think about systems. And I think about different environments of thriving that I could potentially build for people, something lasting. And, you know, I think it’s part of the cultural mandate to work it and keep it, right? You’re building something that’s not just for your time. And, you know, the Lord calling his people to build a memorial for the next generation. And, you know, I’m younger than you guys and yet I find myself thinking about this all the time, especially when I look at my kids and especially when I look at the rate of decline, among pastors, I think about who’s going to pastor my kids because it’s not going to be me. It’s going to be somebody who’s probably in, you know, their early twenties right now. so I do find myself thinking about that a lot. So yeah, making disciples 100%, you know, that’s what our church is all about. But outside of that, what can I leave behind? I do find myself really ambitious about those things. so, you know, for a while though, if I’m completely honest, I felt guilty about doing things outside of the church. That I was not being a good pastor because I was passionate about all these things that had nothing to do with my church.

I don’t know where that came from. Maybe it’s like an Asian thing. But I felt like that. But then I was meeting with my spiritual director and he was saying, don’t you see Dave that God made you this way? You know, like he made you that way because he wants you to be that way. And I just remember feeling so much freedom, like really? Like it’s okay. He wants me to. And he was like, yeah, like, you know, are you sports gambling? Taking money from people? Are you doing awful things? Like, you know, this is fine. This is great, beautiful stuff. And I was like, yeah, you know, I don’t know why it was hard for me to believe that.

But he really helped kind of set me free. And I did feel like, yeah, you know what? I can pursue these things and they’re good things. I think that sometimes when you’re a pastor, like you feel like there’s a box around you. I’m not even sure if people are putting it around you, but I know for me, I felt that. And so I’ve learned to kind of lean into these ambitions and say it’s okay and it’s a good thing.

Drew Hyun

Yeah. Honestly, I think for you guys, I mean, just me knowing you guys, I think one of the things I really admire about you both, and I think the reason why your churches have been so effective as well is because I think both of you have really modeled this kind of unique ambition for the gospel in this missional wanting people to come to know Jesus in such a significant way. And both of your churches and and yet doing so with such a humility about you. So I mean, that’s something that I really admire about you both. You know, Aaron, I think about your, I don’t have as much faith as you did when you started, man. Sorry, when I heard about how you were starting Exilic, I have to admit, man, I was like, wow, good luck, man. And then Dave, mean, just hearing about some of your, the ambitious, you know, the stuff around generosity and this fun and some of the vision that you have and, you know, towards generosity and kingdom, you know, contribution and stuff. just, but I think that’s what, especially in a city like New York that is so full of this ambition towards mammon and success. I think there is something about the witness that, you know, you know, someone who’s humble but ambitious. I think that, gosh, that recipe is just a tremendous witness to the world, especially in a city like ours. So it’s cool to hear. Yeah.

Aaron Chung

Yeah, mean, I would add by saying I think I think the best leaders make themselves replaceable, not needed all the more. And so, Dave, to to just go back to what you were saying in your heart for the next generation like that, that’s that’s what we should do.

And I think particularly when you’re hitting close to your fifties, you should be thinking about that a lot more where you are passing on the torch to the next generation. And so even when I think about Tim Keller’s life, towards the last decade of his life, he started doing other things besides being the local pastor of Redeemer. And so whether it was writing books, teaching at RTS, traveling a lot more via city to city. There was a lot more things that he was investing in in terms of the kingdom as a whole. mean, there’s honestly no one better than Drew, who who I’ve dubbed New York City’s pastor and the amount of investment that he makes to me and a lot of the other pastors, young and old. And I think we have to do that for the sake of a healthy ecosystem and not just our own kingdoms.

And so this is the stuff that we should be thinking about because we’re not going to be around forever and we have to have the next generation not stand on the ground but on our shoulders. And to put them on second base versus home plate which is where we started.

Dave Park 

I love that. Yeah. And I think, you know, both of you guys are such great examples of that in New York City. But, you know, as you’ve also seen, ambition can become a tool maybe to take from the city or just to benefit from the city, personal success, reputation, things like that. really want to ask you guys, being at the heart of Manhattan, how do you see ambition being shaped in a way where it could really benefit the city, right? And love the city. And even as I asked that question, I’ve witnessed both of you guys do this, but maybe you share a little bit, maybe Aaron, how do you see, mentioned Tim Keller in The Great Legacy, he’s left behind. How do you see ambition being used for the city?

Aaron Chung

So in many ways the city itself benefits us too. So for example, mean Tim has said on numerous occasions that a part of the reason why he’s Tim Keller is because he’s in New York City. If he was still in Hopewall, Virginia, you probably wouldn’t know who Tim Keller is. So to a certain degree, New York City itself was a platform that served him well.

I mean, Drew and I probably wouldn’t be on this podcast either if we were somewhere very, very remote. mean, a part of it is because the benefits of living in a place like New York City has also benefited us, which also means that we have a responsibility to serve our city well too, just as it has served us. And so I think there has to be some honesty with the reaping of the benefits that we sow from living here. And at the same time, serving a city that

has both sides of the ambition, whether it’s selfish ambition and godly ambition and making sure it’s rectified in a godly way, where we’re truly here not just to reap the benefits of the city, but to serve it and all the communities that are in our city and to actively give back, even if you’re only here for three or four years before you move back to your home. We have a responsibility to see the the shalom of our city, which is very, very broken and fallen. And so there’s a lot of work that we have to do to get back.

Dave Park 

Right. What do think, Drew?

Drew Hyun

Yeah, think the city, I think Aaron just said it so well, know. Gosh, I was thinking about what he was saying about the whole generational thing, about how every subsequent generation loses some of its, you know, some of its fire and ambition and even risk-taking. And honestly, I’m thinking about my kids, you know, they’re 13 and nine now. And gosh, one of the things that I really needed to stop doing was

I would constantly tell them like, you when I was a kid, I didn’t get to go on vacations. know, when I was a kid, I didn’t get to go to ball games. I didn’t get to eat at steak houses like you guys have got, you know, and I would be constantly putting like this guilt trip on them. And I, but I realized like they do live more privileged lives than I did as a kid. And so I’ve had to repent of like constantly guilt tripping that on them. But way that I’ve talked about faith has been, if you guys can just stay humble and hungry, humble and hungry and hustle, wherever you are, just remain those three things. Stay those three things in Jesus.

I would say the same, and so those are three things that I constantly think about as far as me also as a pastor in the city, as well as the people that we lead. If their hunger and their hustle is steeped in humility, I think there’s a really great chance for God to use that vessel for however God might want to.

Dave Park

Yeah. I mean, I would just add one thing that maybe it’s so obvious for you guys, but maybe outside of New York City and other places, it’s not so obvious is that you guys really do work together. I mean, I do see so much friendship and connection. I’m in the city pretty often. And every time I go to these gatherings, I see a lot of people really know each other from different churches and leaders. And there’s so many different gatherings that are taking place.

And I’ve heard from other towns, say that is not normal everywhere. And I think that that’s a tremendous blessing that you guys have in the city. I’ve seen churches working together, pastors helping one another. And in New Jersey, that’s really the heartbeat of why a lot of bigger things happen, right? Because the leaders become friends and the competition goes away and the distance which creates suspicion goes away. And you realize, he’s another person just like me with uncertainty and securities and you know, we can help each other. And I think that when that spirit of unity comes, there can’t be anything but benefit for the city when the city leaders come together.

And so I just want to commend you guys in New York for, you know, how much connection I’ve seen at least from the Jersey side. I think that that makes a huge, huge difference. So yeah, that this was the I think a really helpful talk on ambition. We hit a lot of different kind of angles we shared very personally from a lot of our own stories. But thank you guys so much for giving of yourselves for everything you guys are doing in the city. We’ll continue to have more conversations from this East Coast perspective. But thank you all through the listeners for joining us on this week’s episode of the Sola Network Leaders podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Give us a follow on Facebook or Instagram at Sola Network or visit us at our website at www.sola..network. I was so close. I was so close to not messing it up. www.sola.network. All right, guys. Thank you so much. Have a great day.