Going Big with Rev. John Yates: Faith, Calling, and Transformational Leadership

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Going Big! with Kevin Gentry

Episode: Going Big with Rev. John Yates: Faith, Calling, and Transformational Leadership

Date: August 18, 2025
Host: Kevin Gentry
Guest: Rev. John Yates

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Overview

This episode of Going Big!, hosted by Kevin Gentry, features a deeply insightful conversation with Reverend John Yates, former rector of The Falls Church Anglican in Virginia. With over 40 years of transformational ministry in church renewal, leadership development, and family life, Rev. Yates shares his personal story of calling, lessons from building a thriving congregation, the power of mentorship, balancing family and leadership, and pivotal moments in shaping modern Anglicanism in America. This rich dialogue explores what it truly means to “go big” in service, faith, leadership, and community.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Essence of "Going Big" and Calling

• Defining "Going Big":

  • Rev. Yates emphasizes living a life of service and making a difference in one’s community and nation rather than seeking personal gain.
  • "I want to encourage people to live a life where they make a difference in the community and in the nation… try to find ways that you can serve other people and pursue them, whether it’s through your work or just through your volunteer activities." — Rev. John Yates [00:25 & 91:20]

• Calling and Self-Discovery:

  • Yates describes his journey, being expected to enter the family business but ultimately feeling called to ministry in his twenties, against family expectations.
  • He is an advocate for supporting people in finding their "calling and contribution" and pursuing it boldly. [04:49–06:48]

The Faith Journey—From Doubt to Conviction

• A Life-Altering Decision:

  • Yates candidly discusses early doubts, familial expectations, and the influence of Vietnam-era uncertainty, culminating in a year at Princeton Seminary to “get questions answered for life.”
  • Influenced by Christian youth organizations and pivotal mentors, he and his wife Susan discerned a calling to foster renewal in the mainline church. [07:25–12:31]

    "It was just like God said to me, 'I might be able to use you, boy, but you need to put me first in your life.'" — Rev. John Yates [08:20]

• The Role of Mentors and Models:

  • Mentoring is a central theme; Yates reflects on having six pivotal mentors (mostly pastors or missionaries) and learning both from their direct investment and from role models like John Stott and Billy Graham. [17:37–24:00]

    "A mentor is someone who cares about you and believes in you, someone who sees gifts in you … and he encourages you. I've always said my mentors were cheerleaders for me." — Rev. John Yates [18:07]

• Practical Advice on Mentoring:

  • Listeners are encouraged to take the initiative in seeking mentors: “If you meet someone who strikes you as ... significant, don't be afraid to introduce yourself, to say, 'could we have coffee? I'd like to learn from you.' That's pretty flattering." — Rev. John Yates [24:23]

Renewal and Leadership at Falls Church

• Responding to a Difficult Call:

  • The move from Pittsburgh to a struggling Falls Church was difficult yet divinely confirmed. The first years were marked by resistance and controversy (“putting Bibles in the pews was controversial!”), but persistent relational work and a focus on renewal paid off. [25:48–31:07]

• Vision and Congregational Transformation:

  • Yates’ vision wasn’t programmatic, but relational and practical—he wanted a congregation that was “self-feeding,” could “grow on their own,” and would become "saintly" in daily life. He prioritized youth, families, and making faith relevant for all, especially children. [31:07–34:48]

    “I wanted them to become saintly, what I would call self-feeding. … I wanted them to experience this sense of calling in life.” [31:07]

Leadership Principles & Multiplication

• Empowering Others:

  • Yates details his “listen first, lead second, then empower” approach:
    1. Listen to the visions others bring.
    2. Encourage finding a core group of supporters before launching new ideas.
    3. Lead by example, then gradually hand off ministry to others.
  • "If you turn responsibilities to others, you've got to be really sure they can do it right." [39:14–39:45]

• Development of Key Ministries:

  • Launched a robust men’s ministry, deep small group networks, and numerous other programs by empowering and mentoring lay leadership.
  • The power of prayer and community support was illustrated through structured prayer groups (hundreds of men praying for him) and his annual week-long prayer retreat for every member’s needs. [41:16–47:07]

Reflections on Family and Balance

• Hard Lessons in Balance:

  • Yates openly admits struggling with work-life balance, crediting his wife Susan’s patience and their arguments about “time together” as the most painful but formative challenge.

    “Honestly, I'd have to be honest to say that over the years by far the most, and the most painful arguments we had were about time together, not being around as much as she needed me.” [51:04–51:30]

• Priorities for Leaders:

  • He stresses prioritizing one’s relationship with God, maintaining connection with a spouse and family, and being nourished spiritually in order to serve others best. [51:30–53:30]

    “The Lord came first, my wife and family came second, and then the work came after that.” [53:05]

The Power of Community & Multiplication

• Fellows Program:

  • Yates founded the highly influential “Falls Church Fellows,” a yearlong leadership program for recent graduates, combining faith formation, vocational mentorship, community, and real-world work experience.
  • “The word began to spread. It was so helpful for these kids ... we would connect each of these young people with a mentor for the year.” [56:45–60:31]

• Planting and Sending ("The Timothys"):

  • Conceived a strategy to train young clergy leaders and send them out to plant new congregations (“Timothys”), multiplying the impact far beyond Falls Church.
  • "We would bring them in ... then we began to send them out one at a time with a group ... and the rest made it and they are, they're thriving." [62:43–67:53]
  • The approach even challenged the “fixed pie” mindset about membership (“When you’re doing something like this, it’s like pruning a tree. You’re actually spurring greater growth.” — Gentry [66:36])

The Crisis and Renewal of the Anglican Movement

• The Departure from the Episcopal Church:

  • As the Episcopal Church drifted theologically, Yates and colleagues led the parish through discernment, ultimately deciding to leave even at enormous cost—losing buildings, assets, parsonage, pensions, all “on principle.” [69:44–73:09]

    “We were quite surprised. We were very disappointed. But… what do you do? You’ve done everything you can. The answer is no. Are you going to go cry? Curse? Be angry? None of that would have been worthwhile.” — Rev. John Yates [73:09–74:07]

  • Instead, the congregation marshalling resilience, worshipping as “tabernaclers” in temporary locations for seven years, and ultimately being blessed unexpectedly by the Roman Catholic diocese and generous donors. [77:01–82:50]

    “I learned two things. I learned again that God is faithful. And secondly, I learned that if you are trying to raise money for something good people believe in, they will give.” [83:51]

Final Transition and Succession

• Securing a Future:
  • The church purchased a unique office property to redevelop as its new home within the D.C. beltway, a “mind-blowing” provision. Yates humbly guided the transition and intentionally stayed out of the search for his successor.
  • “It was a great blessing to be able to introduce him [Sam Ferguson] to the congregation that day and turn over the reins of leadership to him.” [87:00]

Parting Encouragement and Life Lessons

• Advice for Young Leaders & Anyone Seeking Purpose:

  • Love, listen to, and pray with your spouse first.
  • “Learn what you do best... Try to find people who have gifts that you don’t have. Have close, trusted friends who will give you honest feedback.” [87:27–89:57]

• On Stepping into Calling:

  • “You can’t drive a parked car. You’ve got to start move... You might as well think as big as you can and try to discern where you have passion and pursue it.” [90:17]
  • Live a life that is “helpful to other people... always have relationships with people... try to figure out ways that you can help.” [91:20]

• Ultimate Encouragement:

  • “Life is hard. Don’t kid yourself about that. But God loves you... If you’re willing to step out in faith, pray big, seek the help of others—you may end up accomplishing a lot more than you think you can… Don’t give up. Don’t quit. Don’t be discouraged. Keep growing.” [93:33]

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On Purposeful Living:
  • “I would say you want to live a life that is helpful to other people. If you just want to make a lot of money and take care of yourself, God bless you. That’s not what I’m interested in.” — Rev. John Yates [00:25; 91:20]
• On Mentoring:
  • “A mentor is someone who cares about you and believes in you, someone who sees gifts in you ... and he encourages you. I've always said my mentors were cheerleaders for me.” — Rev. John Yates [18:07]
  • “If you meet someone who strikes you as, ‘gosh, this is a significant person,’ don’t be afraid to introduce yourself … If you say, 'I’d like to learn from you,' that’s pretty flattering.” — Rev. John Yates [24:23]
• On Leadership in Uncertainty:
  • “A call is not always fun. It’s not always something you expected.” — Rev. John Yates [26:10]
• On Prayer:
  • “If it’s a concern to you, it’s a concern to God.” — Rev. John Yates [44:45]
  • "You may not get what you ask for, but God will answer." — Rev. John Yates [44:45]
• On Loss & Resilience:
  • “We lost all the church buildings. We lost all the prayer books, all the Bibles, all the equipment. ... I remember my daughter actually brought a cake ... and she said, 'Welcome, it’s yours now.' … We tried to be gracious.” — Rev. John Yates [74:23–75:09]
• On God’s Timing:
  • “What I am doing now you do not understand. But one day you will understand.” — John Yates quoting Jesus (John 13), on the pain of loss and the hope of understanding in time [75:09]

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Important Timestamps (Segment Highlights)

• 04:25 – 06:48: The concept of “calling,” family expectations, and discovery
• 07:25 – 12:31: Spiritual wrestling, seminary, early influences
• 14:59 – 24:00: Role of Billy Graham, John Stott, mentors, and modeling
• 25:28 – 31:07: Accepting the call to Falls Church, leadership challenges
• 34:48 – 39:45: Building an alive church for families and young people, leadership lessons
• 41:00 – 47:07: Men’s ministry, prayer for congregants, power of communal prayer
• 51:04 – 53:30: Candid discussion of balancing family and ministry
• 56:45 – 61:05: The Fellows program — vision, national impact
• 62:12 – 67:53: Planting new churches (“Timothys”), multiplication principles
• 69:44 – 73:09: The church’s split from the Episcopal Church; legal and spiritual challenges
• 77:01 – 82:50: Tabernacling, finding new worship spaces, unexpected blessings and setbacks
• 83:51 – 87:00: New building, succession, and ending well
• 87:27 – 93:33: Closing leadership advice for pastors and all listeners

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Memorable Moments

• The honesty about struggling with balance and the humility in admitting mistakes.
• The story of relinquishing the church property, Yates’ children sitting on the front row in tears, and congregational resolve in adversity. [77:42–78:54]
• The “miracle” stories of people donating communion silver and $100,000 during a period of “wilderness.” [80:31–82:50]
• Yates’ wife welcoming the incoming minister with a homemade cake, embodying grace in loss. [75:09]

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Final Takeaways

• Find and pursue your calling with courage—even when unexpected or costly.
• Mentorship and deep relationships are vital—seek them, nurture them, and become one for others.
• Principled leadership, even in the face of profound loss, bears enduring fruit.
• Never go it alone—life and leadership are meant to be shared.
• “You can’t drive a parked car.” Start moving, serve others, and trust the journey.

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For more inspiration and resources, visit goingbigpodcast.com.

Transcript

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[Reverend John Yates]

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[Reverend John Yates]

My school uses Podbean.

[Kevin Gentry]

My church, too.

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I love it, I really do.

[Reverend John Yates]

But I would say you want to live a life that is helpful to other people. If you just want to make a lot of money and take care of yourself, God bless you. That's not what I'm interested in. I want to encourage people to live a life where they make a difference in the community and in the nation. And so I would say whatever you feel you're called to do, learn to pay attention to people, always have relationships with people, and figure out what concerns people have, what things are hard for people in life where they need help, and try to figure out ways that you can help. I mean, if you. If you're living in Falls Church and you've got kids in elementary school and you begin to meet other parents who they're concerned about the quality of the schools and run for the school board or whatever you can do, try to find ways that you can serve other people and pursue them, whether it's through your work or just through your volunteer activities.

[Kevin Gentry]

Welcome to the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry, and this is the place where we celebrate bold moves and big ideas. Each week, I sit down with inspiring leaders, entrepreneurs and change makers who are making a significant impact in their careers and in their communities. Whether you're looking to level up your leadership, pursue your passion, or just get inspired to take your next big leap, this is where those stories come to life. Now, if you're listening on iTunes, YouTube or anywhere else you tune into podcasts, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you'll never miss an episode. Now let's dive in to what it means to truly go big. Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the Going Big Podcast. I am so pleased to have with me as my guest today Reverend John Yates, who for more than 40 years served as director of the Falls Church in Falls Church, Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. under his leadership, that church grew to a very large congregation, serving so many people, families in the Washington, D.C. area, but in so many other ways. And this is why I wanted to have this interview today and have John as my guest. He has gone big, not only in his, in so many ways, in building this church in Service to others, training up new pastors, training up other young leaders. He and his wife Susan have done enormous teaching for families and marriage, but also led the renewal movement in the broader Christian faith and in the Anglican Church in particular, which we'll get into. But also he's gone big in service to the Lord. And there's a lot to talk about, a lot that we can learn. I think I can still learn, learn from insights that John will share today. John, it's such a pleasure to be with you here in your home.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah, thanks for coming out here. Well, Kevin, you make it really easy for me today.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, this is a beautiful spot out in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I know you love it out here. It's always beautiful. And what a great spot to be to have this conversation.

[Reverend John Yates]

Just perfect. We love having you here.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, thank you. Thank you very much.

[Reverend John Yates]

Well, I've, I've loved. I'll just say for the folks, I've known and loved you for many, many years and admire you. And I'm so glad about this Going Big podcast you got. Glad to be a part of it.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, you were kind to say that, you know, that I hold you an enormously high regard. And another reason I wanted to do this podcast today. So I think we're going to have fun and we're going to touch a lot of different subjects, and I think it's going to be helpful to people, you know, all over the world who can listen to a podcast. And I expect people who are listening today, they may be, on the one hand, agnostic or skeptical about the Christian faith. On the other hand, there may be seekers and there may be deep, lifelong believers.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah.

[Kevin Gentry]

So here's the first question. How do you think from your experience, from your, from your learning and teaching and everything, we should think about going big in our lives?

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah.

[Kevin Gentry]

In the world today.

[Reverend John Yates]

It's a good question. And I thought about it a lot when I was young and I, what I concluded, I, I believe deeply in the concept of calling. I believe that, that if, if, if we are open to him, the Lord God will call us into particular ways of serving him and in the world. And, and, and the deal is to figure out that area in which you are equipped and called to serve and then to begin to figure out how to think small and big in that area. You know, I began to realize this when I was in my 20s. My dad was a. A pretty successful department store executive down in North Carolina. I had two older brothers, and dad fully expected that all of us would love Merchandising the way he did for my dad, it was a romance. He loved it. And he had me working in the local store fifth grade on, you know, making boxes in the stock room. And I faithfully served my dad there, working part time all through high school and college. And then when finally the situation came about and I told him I wanted to go to seminary, he was just incredulous. He couldn't believe that I wasn't going to go into the department store business. But I, I knew that was my calling. I wanted to explore something else. And when you think about going big, I think we have to realize that people have different capacities and some people have the capacity to, to go bigger than others. And you don't always know that. So. Yeah.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, thank you. You know that that has been a very persistent theme throughout all the conversations I've had on this podcast for coming up on doing this for a year. And people say, you know, it's, it's all about finding your calling, your gift, what is your contribution. But how do you discover that? How do you find that? And many people sometimes don't find it until later in life.

[Reverend John Yates]

Right.

[Kevin Gentry]

How did you decide to become an Anglican priest? How did you decide to go into ministry? What, what, how did you find that calling? I think it's definitely your calling. You're very gifted in that way. But you said you came upon it at an early age.

[Reverend John Yates]

It's funny, I didn't, I, I, I, I came upon it in my 20s. I grew up in a, a very strong family, a strong Christian family, a strong church family. And so from the time I was young, I knew that God is central in life. And I wanted to, I wanted him to be central in my life. But when it came to the church, I didn't, I didn't meet many, I would say sharp or appealing or cool pastors, you know, when I was young. And so I didn't, I didn't, I didn't think in those terms.

[Kevin Gentry]

So you didn't see a role model necessarily, you wanted to emulate. It wasn't like an athlete or an entertainer. I want to be that person.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah, yeah. I, I, I, I, I knew that the Lord came first in my life. I didn't know what that meant. And the church was important. But I, I was able to become involved in some youth, some Christian youth organizations, like Young Life when I was young, that had a much greater impact on me. Then when I went to college, I began leading a bifurcated life. I'll just admit it right now. I was, I was trying to be faithful to God, but I joined fraternity and I was trying to lead the good college life at the same time. And there was a lot of hypocrisy in my life and I, I had to come to grips with that. The time came when it was, it was Vietnam. We assumed we'd go to Vietnam, all of us. Nobody made long range plans. Then when I went to get my physical with the military, they didn't accept me. I had some sort of physical ailment and they said, you're not qualified. And so while I had been in college, I, I hadn't made any plans, but I had tried to study religion and college religion courses, they can be confusing. I, I knew my faith. I knew Christ was my North Star, but I, I really wasn't sure about some of the things that I believed. And so I decided, look, here I am, I'm 21 years old. I don't have a job, I don't have a responsibility, I don't have obligations. I know my relationship with God's most important thing in my life. I gotta get some of these questions answered. So I said, I think I'll just take this year in my life and study. I decided to go to seminary and study for one year to try to figure out, for instance, could I believe the Bible. There were other questions that were fundamental to me, whatever I was going to do in my life. And that was at Princeton, that was at Princeton Seminary. It turned out to be a great experience for me. I learned summer, I was studying Greek. I learned that I had to trust my future to God. I, I wanted to be a significant person. I didn't know what that meant. I know I was very self focused and, and it was just like God said to me, I, I might be able to use you, boy, but you need to, you need to put me first in your life. So that was a big decision. And I made that decision. And within a year, Susan and I were married. We, we, we had wonderful years in graduate school. And my senior year, her godfather, who was a missionary bishop in Alaska, sat me down and he said, I don't know what God wants to do with you, but we could really use you in the church. He was an Episcopal bishop missionary in Alaska. He said, you pray about it. I would love to bring you up to Alaska and set you to work as a missionary among the Indian people up there. But he said, you know, there are many people in the church who need to know the Lord. They're there, they're good People, but they don't really know the Lord. We need young people like you and Susan and I. As time went by, we heard a calling in the old bishop's words, and that calling was give yourself to trying to bring renewal in the denomination you grew up in, which was the Episcopal Church. So that was. We never anticipated it, but we felt a strong call, and that's the direction we went in.

[Kevin Gentry]

I'd never. Of all the years, I never knew all this. All right, so explain a little bit more about renewal. And by the way, I mean, you and Susan are such a team, such a partnership. It's always been John and Susan Yates and the teaching and the books that you all have done. And we'll talk more about that. But help us understand. What did you mean by. By renewal in the church?

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah, I just say about my wife. Somebody asked me the other day, what has surprised you most in all your years of ministry? And the first thing that came to my mind was so surprising, but I said, you know, it was how much I've needed my wife all my life. I just. That surprised me. But anyway, and she has. She's just been in many ways a senior partner to me. But about renewal, renewal means. It means coming to be assured of a genuine and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. A lot of people believe, but it's not. It's.

[Kevin Gentry]

They want.

[Reverend John Yates]

You know, is it really real? Am I just believing? Make believe? Renewal means you're sort of coming alive in your relationship with the Lord and the church. The mainline denominational church back in the 60s was, in a lot of ways, was pretty. Pretty dry, pretty dead. And. And people were looking for something more. And so that's really what we were called to.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, let me ask you more then about sort of the influence of you, because I remember you, you started talking about people like John Stott when we started going to the church, like, who's this John Stott? And I remember reading his explanation about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which at first mystified me. I was like, what does that mean? That really helped me. But who were some of the other influences for you? And maybe for Susan as well? I know you've spoken about your family, your parents, your mother in particular, but people like John Stott and even Billy Graham, because Billy Graham was so key at that time in our world.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah, he was a North Carolina man too. And we grew up. He was just lived an hour away. And he had to be a hero if you lived in North Carolina. And of course, we watched him on television and I can remember when I was a little boy watching Billy Graham with my mother one day, and she said to me, son, have you prayed that prayer of commitment? And I said, oh, yeah, Mom, I did that a long time ago. She said, I want you to be sure, son. I said, oh, Mom, I am sure. She said, I want you to be sure. I want you to be sure that right now. So I remember I went into a little closet at the old farmhouse where I grew up and I said, lord, you and I both know this is unnecessary, but I want to please my mom. And so again, I want to give my life to you. And you know, the Christian life's just a series of doing that over and over again. But yeah, I met Billy Graham for the first time when I was a young pastor. I was working in an Episcopal cathedral in South Carolina, working with high school and college kids. We had hundreds of young people involved in this ministry. And he came down, he, he spoke at the funeral of a great South Carolinian named Jimmy Byrne, who had been a leader in government back years ago. And I met him, I sat with him at the service and introduced myself. And later on I wrote him a letter and, and asked him a question. He remembered. He, at least he said he remembered me. He wrote me an answer. So over the years, periodically I would write him, I would hear from him. And then in the early 80s, he came to Washington and we had the Washington D.C. billy Graham crusade. And I, I worked with him. I was a part of the group dealing with follow up after that. So I, I had opportunities to be with him. He was a, he was a hero, I would say. I had several mentors in my life. The, the amazing thing I thought of, I thought this morning of six mentors. And I don't need to tell you who they were, but the amazing thing.

[Kevin Gentry]

Was I want you to talk about mentors. You've talked about that over the years and it helped me think about mentors and influence. I want you to touch on that. I will say, by the way, on Billy Graham, I stumbled upon a YouTube video of one of his. What would you call those huge gatherings? I'm drawing the blank on the Crusades.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah.

[Kevin Gentry]

And what he was saying 60 years ago was still so relevant today. He was so powerful.

[Reverend John Yates]

Oh, powerful, simple, direct. There was something about him that just spoke to people. Yeah. The interesting thing was my mentors, looking back, were all ordained pastors.

[Kevin Gentry]

Fascinating. I remember you've talked about it at a men's ministry, Alex Stanway. And so help us understand how you think about them, why they're important, how we benefit from the mentoring.

[Reverend John Yates]

You can have models, and models are people who you're not necessarily close to, but they represent something that you look to sort of as a hero. You know, you'd like to be like them. But a mentor is someone who you. Who comes into your life, who takes an interest in you and you have a relationship with, and they are. They are further along in life than you are. They are accomplished in areas that you admire, and you have the opportunity to spend time with them. For instance. Yeah. When I was a young pastor, we moved. We moved from South Carolina to Pittsburgh. And while we were there, we started a new Anglican seminary there. This is back in the mid-70s. And the man who came to be the dean and president of that seminary became a mentor to me. I was 30 years old. He was in his 70s, and he had been a. An outstanding leader in East Africa most all of his adult life. He had been an Anglican missionary, became a bishop, and in the 20 years he was a bishop in. In Tanzania, a new church started on the average of once a week for 20 years. You can believe it. Wow. And it was part of the East Africa revival out there. Then in his late 60s, he retired. He went back to Australia. He came out of retirement and helped us found Trinity School. Trinity Anglican Seminary. But he. He was a sort of bigger than life, a wonderful leader, a man of great administrative talent and ability, a man who had a gift of prayer. You don't meet many people who have the gift of faith, but he had the gift of faith, and that led him into a life of prayer. That really had a huge influence on me. And. And he said, john, why don't you come over to my house on Friday afternoons? We'll sit in the garden, we'll have a cup of tea, and we'll just talk. He took me under his wing. He took an interest in me, and he shared with me lessons of life as a pastor, as a Christian leader. He asked me questions about what was going on. I think a mentor is someone who really cares about you and believes in you, someone who sees gifts in you, who sees abilities. Maybe they're not very well developed. And he gives you advice and guidance, and he encourages you. I've always said that my. My mentors were cheerleaders for me.

[Kevin Gentry]

For people listening. What advice would you have for looking for mentors, seeking mentors? Or do they just come to you? And then also, how can you be a mentor? You're a phenomenal mentor to many as well. How do you think about both those things?

[Reverend John Yates]

In my experience, I mostly, my introductions to those people just came about through happenstance, you know. Although John Stott was different, John Stunt was a world famous Anglican pastor from.

[Kevin Gentry]

London, one of the most influential evangelical pastors of our time.

[Reverend John Yates]

He was a pastor to Billy Graham. And I think Billy Graham had as much respect for him as any man in the world. And they were about the same age. They worked closely together on a worldwide effort to bring together evangelical Christian leaders from around the world. It's called the Lausanne Movement. And Billy Graham and John Stott headed that up. We can talk about that if you want to, but I first, I didn't know this John Stott fellow. And when I was at Princeton, I heard some of his sermons on tape. And I didn't know who was, but I thought, man, this guy is really gifted. I'd like to know more about him. So I wrote him out of the blue. He was in London. And I wrote and said, look, I've heard about you.

[Kevin Gentry]

I'm seeing a pattern here. You have to reach out. You reached out to Billy Graham and you reached out to John Stott.

[Reverend John Yates]

I did. Most of the others just sort of were brought to me, but John Stott I reached out to, I wrote to, he wrote back. I eventually went to London and sat under his leadership. And when we came to Falls Church, I said, I wrote him, I said, look, I need help. Next time you're in the States, would you please come to Falls Church, spend a few days with us, preach to my congregation, speak to them. And he ended up coming several times over the years. And then when he was in his 70s, my oldest son John worked with him, traveled all over the world as his study assistant. And we visited several times in London, and he was in our house many times. And he was a. He was a mentor from a distance. And he was always very straightforward with me. An encourager, not a flatterer, you know, but just an encourager. And I learned so much from his example. You learn from the example of mentors, you learn from the advice of mentors, and you learn from the friendship of mentors.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, thank you. You know, I. It comes up so much in these conversations and elsewhere about how important mentors are. You know, the Sir Isaac Newton's observation that I can see further when I stand on the shoulders of giants. You know, why not tap that wisdom that has come before you? I think a lot of people are either intimidated or just don't know how to reach out or to see it or what have you? So. Thank you.

[Reverend John Yates]

I think if you. If you. If you learn about someone, don't be afraid to reach out to them. If you meet someone who strikes you as, gosh, this is a significant person, don't be afraid to introduce yourself to say, could. Could we have coffee? I'd like to learn from you. I mean, if you say, I'd like to learn from you, that's pretty flattering. Yes. So people will. People will respond.

[Kevin Gentry]

You know, I think a lot of people think that these very influential people are just inundated with requests. They don't want to bother them. But the reality is that that's actually not the case so much in terms of the mentoring opportunity. All right, well, let's. Let's switch gears. You mentioned the Falls Church. You were in Pittsburgh in 1979. You and Susan and your family were called. You were called to the Falls Church, a sleepy little dying church in the suburbs of Northern Virginia. Interestingly, the Falls Church, Virginia, is named.

[Reverend John Yates]

For the Falls church founded in 7, 1732. George Washington's father was one of the leaders of the church in the beginning. George Washington eventually became a member of the vestry of the Falls Church, and I think he chaired the building Kini. But the. Built. The original building that we were in for many years. Yeah.

[Kevin Gentry]

Yeah. The history is. Is that George Washington's early life was influenced by that service and his sense of service. And George Mason was a vestryman. It was a hospital during the Civil War. A lot of history you're called. Tell us a little bit about that. It's an. Obviously an important part of the journey, not just because of the consequential nature, but because it was a calling.

[Reverend John Yates]

And it was some doubt, but, yeah, a call is not always fun. It's not always something you expected. We lived in a suburb of Pittsburgh called Sewickley, and it's a beautiful place. It is the ideal little community. We honestly, we thought we'd live there forever. I worked under a. A wonderful Englishman named John Guest. Very, very gifted leader. I learned so much from John. He was another mentor. But we. My wife had just given birth to twins that gave us five children, seven and under. And the. The very week that she was in the hospital having twins, I was preaching, and a group from this church in Virginia showed up at church, and they asked me to have lunch with them after church. And I had been recommended to them as someone they should consider. I was very young. I was just 32 years old. I had never been a senior pastor before, and I had Absolutely no interest in talking to them. But my father in law had talked to me a few months earlier and said, you know, if you never are willing to talk to people who come to you asking you to consider a change in location or change in job, you might miss God's call on your life. My father in law's words were ringing in my ears when these people from Virginia came up and I said, I better talk to them anyway. And it turned out that, yeah, I ended up coming down and meeting with them and they contacted me. It was amazing. They said, we believe you are the man that God has raised up to come and be our leader. They sent me a telegram. They said, they said, we will simply wait until God shows you that this is the right thing.

[Kevin Gentry]

Oh, wow.

[Reverend John Yates]

You can believe that. And I still have the telegram. My wife and I wept in each other's arms when finally we admitted to each other we think this is the right thing.

[Kevin Gentry]

Oh, wow.

[Reverend John Yates]

And so we came, babies in arms. It was so hard. We didn't want to come. Northern Vineyard, Virginia is not a friendly place. Half the people here are just as new as you are. They don't know anybody any more than you do.

[Kevin Gentry]

Very transient.

[Reverend John Yates]

The church was, There were good people, but I must say we were not made to feel completely welcome. I was young, I had never led a church before. My hands were full. Susan was overwhelmed with all these babies. And it was, it was a dry, a dry church. And they said they wanted renewal. But when, when I came as an, as an evangelical church person, I think it was a little more than they expected. And I remember we, after a couple years, we, we decided to put Bibles in the pews. You would not think that would have been controversial, but boy, that raised a stink among some people. And I remember on a vest retreat, the leadership of the church, after a few years, the members were going around and they were sort of checking and saying how they're feeling about things at the church. And I remember this one beautiful blonde haired Virginia lady with lovely gold jewelry on, very attractive, looked at me and she said, I don't like you. I don't like your churchmanship. I don't like what you're doing to my church. The first years were pretty hard.

[Kevin Gentry]

Wow. Okay. Yeah, well, let's talk a little bit more about this renewal.

[Reverend John Yates]

People, people. And we came to love each other. But it took a lot of work to, to build understanding. I remember meeting with five members of the vestry every Saturday morning for, for months and months, just trying to talk about John, you Say this, but we don't understand what you mean. And a lot of clarifying had to go on during those first few years. They were not used to my enthusiastic approach, personal approach to the Christian life.

[Kevin Gentry]

Yeah, well, looking back, we could say the rest is history. It went on to become this very significant, large, influential church.

[Reverend John Yates]

Church.

[Kevin Gentry]

Did you have a vision for the church? Did you have a vision for renewal? You know, in Proverbs the Bible says when there is no vision, the people perish. Did you come in with this or, or what? Where were you?

[Reverend John Yates]

By the time I came, I had been a pastor for nearly 10 years and I had experienced in Sewickley what I hoped to see in, in our church. And I remember early on I preached a sermon. I said, this is my, this is my dream for our church. But honestly, Kevin, it, it wasn't a dream for huge, big programs. It was more a vision for the qualities I wanted to be true of our congregation. And I, I wanted to be a consequential person. I did. I know I did. And if you feel that way, I'm sure it impacts the way you do things, but I was learning important lessons and, and, and, and it was a long time before I began to have much in the way of influence beyond our local church. But I wanted, I, I wanted our people. I wanted to have them understand you. You can really have certainty about your relationship with God. It's not presumptuous to believe that God loves you. It's not presumption to believe that Christ can be real in your life. In, in the Christian faith, we believe you can have assurance of that and you can have a, a genuine relationship with God. That's what I wanted from my people. I wanted them to become saintly, what I would call self feeding. I didn't want them to be dependent upon me or books. I wanted them to learn how to pray, how to read the Bible for themselves, and to become, to grow on their own in the faith. I wanted them to feel confident knowing how to talk about the reality of God in this world and in our lives. I wanted them to experience this sense of calling in life. I wanted our people to believe that, that.

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[Reverend John Yates]

God has his hand on you. He has his eye on you. And there are certain ways he wants to use you. And if you can discern what his calling is for your life, you can live a strong and, and fulfilled life. And I guess I just say the other thing I really wanted was I've always had a burden for young people and for families. I wanted our, I wanted to be a church where young, we weren't boring kids with the gospel. I wanted them to come, I wanted them to know that God in their lives. And I wanted to help families raise their children in the Christian faith. The first book I wrote was about how to help, how to help families have Christ centered family life. So those were, those were things that were on my mind when I first came.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, a little bit more on that. I mean I remember growing up in church, mainland Protestant church. My parents, you know, we, we went every Sunday. But I kind of dreaded it because it was boring. And me too, I used to fall.

[Reverend John Yates]

Asleep on my knees.

[Kevin Gentry]

Oh well, but that's not the false church. And you know, my wife Ann and I did not start going until almost 20 years after you had started. But we know many people today, good friends who started in those early days. They weren't there necessarily in 79.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah.

[Kevin Gentry]

But word spread in the Washington D.C. area that there's a church that's alive out in the suburbs. There's this young pastor, John Yates, what you talked about, the focus on families and young people. But what sort of leadership principles did you have in mind as well? I mean I love the idea that you were engaging and winning over the leadership, the lay leadership of the church because that wouldn't have worked if you just tried to force your way. What were some of the leadership principles?

[Reverend John Yates]

The first five years were working on leadership, trying to build trust. And then after the first five years we began to experience a sense of unity in the parish. Some people left for various reasons, not many, but we were, we were inundated with people from the beginning. And I think, you know, a young pastor with a beautiful wife and young kids that, that appeals to young people. And so, and we're in a good central location which was easy and we experience a lot of exciting stuff. I, I, one of the, one of the things I learned about leadership was you I Always tried to do two things. I always tried to pay attention to the visions that people brought to me because people would come and say we need to do this, we need to do that.

[Kevin Gentry]

It and you've always been a very patient listener.

[Reverend John Yates]

I always had my own ideas, but I wanted people to know that they're important. And so, you know, what I finally learned to say was if I thought it was a good idea, I would say I love this. I want you to see if you can find three or four other people who share this vision with you and would be excited about where I'm like, say somebody wanted to start a bookstore. You know, a great idea. We, we need this. But come back when you've got some people who want to be committed to that with you and then we'll talk about it.

[Kevin Gentry]

But what a great idea. I mean you were engaging them in leadership by getting them involved, but they had to demonstrate some initial market support.

[Reverend John Yates]

If they wanted to do something themselves. I need you to be sure they could do it. The, the visions that I brought were, were, were I needed to be sure. In other words, if I had a vision for something like the Fellows program. We'll talk about that in a minute. I needed to get people to help me with it. But I, I, I, I felt that if it was something really important, I wanted to take leadership first. I wanted to bring this thing into being, but I wanted to have people who would walk with me and observe where we were going and share in that vision with me. As time would go by, I would turn over responsibilities to them and eventually give them the responsibility. So the principles I followed were first do it, see it and do it yourself. Then bring along someone alongside who can buy into it and learn from you and, and gradually turn it over to them and eventually give the leadership to them. And you'd be way in the background encouraging them from, from behind.

[Kevin Gentry]

Those are some great insights, great lessons. And now I can understand all the various ministries. There's so many grew and you couldn't have done them by directing them but, but they had to be sort of through a bottom up empowerment really. And you were alongside them though. Well.

[Reverend John Yates]

The leader can't do everything, but if you turn responsibilities to others, you got to be really sure they can do it right. You know, when, when you and Ann came to the church, it was in the 90s and by then we had gone through huge building programs. We the, the minute some ministries had become very strong in the church and it was a fun time mostly. But I remember about the Time you all came, there were three things that I was focusing on. I don't know if you remember, but around early 90s, I began to have a desire to spend more time with the men of the church.

[Kevin Gentry]

The men's ministry was huge.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah. And so I pulled aside a little group of men and I said, I get so frustrated because on Sundays I preach to families, little children. Everybody's in there. There's so much I'd like to share with you, all that I just can't share on Sunday mornings. There's some great jokes I'd like to tell you, but, you know, they're kind of appropriate just for men. And would you guys like to get together? So we started with like a dozen men and a meeting once a month. But that became a. A very strong aspect of the church. Eventually you would have a couple hundred men coming together once a month. And we built a. A very strong group of men. You know, nothing against women in the church. I don't know what we would have done without our women leadership, but a lot of churches are run by women, and. And I wanted to have men who were just as strong as the women in our church. And that was just great.

[Kevin Gentry]

No, it was a big deal. And. And in those sessions, those ministry, I mean, you went into some deep, tough subjects. But you're right, you couldn't have done in a normal worship service. That's good. Very good. By the way, you have this great book about how a man prays for his family. We'll talk about some of these other.

[Reverend John Yates]

Books that came out of the the Time with Men. I don't know if you know this, Kevin, but one year, I spent the whole year teaching the men about prayer. And then someone came to me and said, why don't you write a book about this? That's how that book came about. But at the same time, a man came to me and he said, you've been talking about prayer so much. It must be really important. And. And he said, I. I wonder if you don't need us to pray for you. And I said, gee, that'd be really great. I need it. He said, I'll get together 30 men and ask them to agree to pray for you one day a week. I'll even ask them to fast and skip a meal and pray for you one day, one day a month, and let's see how that goes. And so he did that. And I gave those men something that I wanted them to pray for, and so they did. So after a first year, one day someone said, to me, how's your year been? And I stopped and I thought, wow, my year guy's been a great year. I thought about it. I wonder why it's been such a great year. And then I thought, I've got 30 men who've been praying for me. And I told him that. And he said, well, well, well, if this had been a good year, maybe I could get 60 men next year. You'd have twice as good a year, Kevin. I ended up having 200 men praying for me, fasting and praying for me. I would send out a little card once a month. You were probably with a picture, a paragraph, and three or four things that were.

[Kevin Gentry]

We could pray for you about.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah.

[Kevin Gentry]

And maybe travel, maybe speaking, maybe something going on in the church. Finding a new staff member, a problem with a child. Right.

[Reverend John Yates]

Health problem. Something we shared life together and it made a huge difference.

[Kevin Gentry]

Okay, so. So speak a little bit more about that. So I learned from. From you and the church, the power of prayer and praying for others. And, you know, I will now often ask somebody, how can I pray for you? Something I never would have dreamed of asking. And it's very meaningful to the person even to be asked that question. Here we are at your farm. I remember every summer about this time, you would collect prayer requests from everyone in the church and you'd spend at least a week fasting and praying individually over each person's prayer request that you received. And then you'd send us a note about how you prayed for it. I don't know how you did that. I will say your handwriting was a little tough to read after writing 800 notes or so, but tell us about that. And how should anybody listening think about receiving prayer and offering prayer?

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[Reverend John Yates]

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[Reverend John Yates]

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[Reverend John Yates]

The Bible teaches us that we've been created by God and that God loves us. And Jesus taught us to think of God as our father in heaven. And he said, you should take your concerns to my heavenly father in prayer. I really think, Kevin, if it's a concern to you, it's a concern to God. People might say that's crazy. That's being presumptuous. But God can know all people. He's not limited. And he's created us to be his children. And so I've always believed that prayer is real, that prayer is effectual, and God hears and answers. He doesn't always give us what we pray for. But he. He may answer yes, he may answer no. He may say, you're not ready for that. And sometimes you might even say what you asked, that you got to be kidding, son. But I. In the 90s, I began to feel that I needed to be a better pastor to the people. And I thought that it would. A pastor should pray. A shepherd should pray for his sheep, you know? And so I did. I sent a note out to everybody and said, I'm going to go away and pray for you. If there's some way you want to let me know how to pray for you, I will pray for you. And it developed into a. I suppose I did it Maybe the last 20, 25 years of my ministry at Falls Church. I am. I would do that when we worked out a system so people could send me confidentially. But my secretary would address envelopes to people and. And I. I was able to write a response. But every summer I got hundreds and hundreds of letters from people. And, you know, the. The preacher always thinks that his sermons are the most important thing that he does. That's what he really spends time on and all with. I wish I could tell you the number of people who came to me and said, john, we love your leadership. We love your preaching, but what you do that means the most to us is you pray for us.

[Kevin Gentry]

Oh, yeah. Well, let me ask you something about that. I've always met. Wanted to ask you. You're. You. You spend a week out here at the farm, and it was by yourself. You're fasting.

[Reverend John Yates]

That's by myself.

[Kevin Gentry]

And you're receiving 800 or so request quests that are probably not pleasant. I mean, no, people are praying for needs, and they're. They're unleashing some needs that are. That are deep and profound. And how do you. How do you personally handle that?

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah, it's. Well, it. It's part of my calling, so I know it's the right thing to do. You. You have to sort of get yourself geared up. And I. I can't say I look forward to it every year. I mean, my flesh dreaded it, but I wanted to focus completely on what I was doing. And so, of course, I wouldn't let my wife or anybody be here with me. And I, I would, I would have a stack of envelope letters from people. I would sit and I would read their letter many times. I got three, four page typewritten letters from people. Some people began to see it as an annual visit, you know, free people, sort of, sort of like an annual report to the pastor, you know, and they say, here's what's been going on, John.

[Kevin Gentry]

And on January 17th, I remember one.

[Reverend John Yates]

Fellow wrote me one year and he said, I've been wanting to get married for a long time. I'm going to ask you, please pray that God would give me a wife. So next year I got a letter from the same guy. He wrote back, he said, I still don't have a wife. This is the second time I've asked you to pray. Would you please pray that I get a wife? Next year I get another letter from this guy. He says, I've asked you two years in a row to pray for wife. I still don't have one. Three strikes and you're out. So I pray for him again. And. I don't know, he eventually went off on his own and married the wrong one. Didn't work out. But there, there were a lot of funny things.

[Kevin Gentry]

Oh, wow.

[Reverend John Yates]

It was, it, it demands, wasn't it overwhelming? Totally focusing on the letter before you, trying to just think about that person and bring their need to God and intercede for them. And you wonder, is there something I need to say to them? And then the hard thing is you pray and then you have to move on to the next person. And so I, I found that if I started early in the morning and prayed on into the evening, I could cover about a hundred letters a day. Wow. And yeah, it was very exhausting. I, I couldn't do much else. And after the first few years, I started, I think I started eating, at least eating a hard boiled egg each morning and I drank a lot of.

[Kevin Gentry]

Water, doing that in terms of fasting and in the. Oh, wow. Well, let me ask you actually a related question too that you touched on. So when you're at a period like you were building the church and we'll say like the growth period of our lives, that tends to be the moment when we are newly married, have young children, we're trying to raise our family while we're in this growth period of life.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah.

[Kevin Gentry]

How did you balance all those demands? I mean, if you were having to meet on Saturday mornings, that's a big demand. You were visiting people in the hospitals and what advice would you have for any of us? About how we think about that or advise our children and grandchildren to think about it.

[Reverend John Yates]

I've known so many men especially, but now women too, who at the time when their family needs them the most, it's the time when they're trying hardest to build their career right there. There's so many conflicts. I would just say, honestly, I don't think I did it very well.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, you've got a beautiful family. They're very engaged with you. But Susan does say in her books that you were traveling a lot or you weren't home a lot.

[Reverend John Yates]

Well, I married someone who was very capable and very patient and, and very honest. Honestly, I would, I'd be. I'd have to be honest to say that over the years by, by, by far the most. And the most painful arguments we had were about time together, not being around as much as she needed me. And so I. You know, people say, what are you doing now? And I say, I'm just saying yes to my wife. And I'm glad I've lived long enough to do that. But during those days when things were. Were so stressful and so hard, I guess I had a few priorities. I, I certainly. The priority of trying to share with and be with my wife, I struggled to try to do that as much as I could. And, and by the time we had been married 25 years or so, I was doing a little bit better job of it. But the other principle was to. To be with my children as much as I could. Never felt like it was enough. But I tried to establish certain patterns of being with them. And, and, but the main thing was to take time to maintain a rich connection with the Lord myself. If, If I wasn't. If I wasn't getting personally nourished in my own life with God, I certainly couldn't do the work that I had to do. So those were sort of the principles that I had to be true to those things. The Lord came first, my wife and family came second, and then the work came after that. It seemed like the work took more time and more energy than anything else, but I knew in my heart what was most important, and I. You're always striving to live up to that, but you often feel like you're. You're not making it.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, you'll have done a great job teaching about that. The books, raising kids with Values that last, Building a Home Full of Grace. Strongly recommend these excellent books. They have weathered over time. Because I've written a while ago, you'll still speak about that, but. And especially for your, the church being in the Washington, D.C. area with people coming to Washington, Congress, their families may be back home in their districts. That's gotta be really tough.

[Reverend John Yates]

So, so tough for those folks, the pressures they're under. And if, if, if, if those people can just develop some friendships here in Washington, it, there's so much rancor now. You know, when we moved here in the 70s, politics have always been hard, but there were friendship across party lines in those days. And, and most of the congressmen lived here. Their children went to school locally. The, the, the, the, those people would stand on the sidelines at soccer matches with people across party lines, and they knew each other better. We don't have any of that now. And it's a huge challenge.

[Kevin Gentry]

It really is. You know, I interviewed Newt Gingrich recently, and he talked about how even though he and Bill Clinton were adversaries, they worked together to get some of those reforms done. You know, those, the RA friendship that Reagan and Tip o' Neill had. And. Well, all right, well, let me, you.

[Reverend John Yates]

Know, I just say about that. It's true for their families, too. You know, when Bill Clinton came to the White House, my wife and a few other women had gotten to know her a little bit. Hillary. And they went to her and said, hillary, we just want to pray for you. We don't necessarily agree with all your politics, but you're here. We want to pray for you. So they start a little group and meeting. Wow. Together once a month just to pray for the First Lady.

[Kevin Gentry]

Wow.

[Reverend John Yates]

And many times Hillary Clinton claim came and joined in with them in prayer. She very much appreciated it. She joined in with them and they've kept that. They call it the First Ladies Group. They still meet today. They're mostly old now. They meet on the phone now to pray. But it's a great thing. People in leadership need to know that they're being prayed for.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, I remember George W. Bush talked about how he felt the prayers of people as, as well. All right, well, let's go back to the Falls Church. Two of the. So one of your many gifts, in my judgment, is your ability to raise up talent and then the consequential nature of that talent. There's the Fellows program, if you would talk a little bit about that. I work with many fellows still today. Some are recent fellows, some were fellows or more years ago. They're awesome. And then also the Timothy's about raising up leaders in the church. I remember that article about those. Fred Barnes wrote, I think, for the Washington Post about how you asked him to go start a church in Alexandria.

[Reverend John Yates]

Street journal. Yeah, I went and said it's time for you to leave.

[Kevin Gentry]

Yes, exactly. Well, well said. Let's start with the Fellows and then the Timothy. What is it? And what can others learn from it?

[Reverend John Yates]

Okay, so you know, I've always had a concern for young people to help young people grow up, find God's calling for their lives and go flat out for life and for the Lord. And so we began to sense about 30 years ago that young people were, a lot of them were sort of losing their way, were not sure about where to go in life. And it's even gotten worse now in the 2020s. So much confusing my young people today. But we, I, I just wanted to start some sort of a program whereby we could bring young people together and teach them a deeper understanding of the Christian faith, expose them to men and women in positions of service and leadership who were significantly serving the community, the nation, the Lord, and, and also exposed them to a good local church which many of them hadn't experienced. And so I, I pulled together some friends and we began to talk about this and, and we developed a vision that we called the Falls Church Fellows. And now this fellows vision has spread across the country. There are many, many churches that are a part of sort of a national network, the expanded Fellows network. But the way we did it was we, we recruited about a dozen, seldom more than 12 young men and women just out of college and brought them to Northern Virginia and we took care of their room and board. We got them a part time job in an area that they were interested in. If they were interested in politics, we tried to get them a job on Capitol Hill. If they were interested in medicine, we tried to get them a job working for a doctor, whatever. And we sought to teach them. I had a seminary professor come in and teach them one morning a week. We wanted them to experience rich community, deep friendships. We wanted to build relationships that would last in their lives. And they have. And I'll never forget the first Fellows class. About half those kids were all in my daughter's wedding.

[Kevin Gentry]

You know, there was a North Carolina.

[Reverend John Yates]

Influence and Virginia influence, but the word began to spread. It was so helpful for these kids. Once a week on a Friday morning we would bring in someone like Kevin Gentry who would speak to the fellows and would sort of tell their story. Look, here's how I, here's what I'm doing in life now. Here's how I got here. Here how, here's how I'm trying to serve God in the world today. And we would. We would connect each of these young people with a mentor for the year. We would take them through. We would give them aptitude test, talent tests and things to try to help them figure out what they might be good at. And we would try to guide them as they began to plan their life. And it's interesting, every year, at least half these kids stay in Washington, D.C.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, one of the other benefits is they often stay in that church, and it brings up a younger element and they raise their families. Congratulations. Because the consequential nature of that is substantial. And we'll see those consequences for a long time. As I say, I'm sorry. Still working with. There are dozen I can rattle off the top of my head that I'm working with in various ways that came through. And some of them, not only the Falls Church Fellows, but Fellows programs that came from the Falls Church Fellows Program. It's called the Fellows Initiative. If people want to look into maybe doing that for their church, go online.

[Reverend John Yates]

The Fellows Initiative. There's several churches across the country. And then so we have this national fellowship. There are lots of other churches who've heard about what we were doing, and they said, we're going to do that. And they've started their own Fellows programs sort of on their own. They're not a part of the Fellows Initiative. And it's not just churches. There are communities who've said, we want to do this in our community. And there are, Kevin, There are thousands of young men and women now who've been through either our Fellows Program or other similar Fellows programs who've been helped, who've been given a step up the ladder in life and are now serving the Lord and serving their communities and serving their churches.

[Kevin Gentry]

It's a great framework. And you introduce mentors at an earlier age and so many connections. Okay, now let's talk about the Timothy's. You had a vision for renewal that involved more than just the Falls Church. It was to go beyond other churches.

[Reverend John Yates]

We need to be training young leaders for the church. And it occurred to me that probably the best way to do the work of evangelism is by starting new churches. And I remember that was when we were in the Episcopal Church and I went to our dear bishop and said, said we'd like to start a new church. And he was against it. He said, I don't think you need to do that. We got plenty of churches in Northern.

[Kevin Gentry]

With you on that. Yeah, because when this seems to be a pattern in life, that when somebody Is. Is growing. Growing fast, doing some big things. Some resentment can say necessarily, it's resentment or suspicion or skepticism or maybe it's just mentality that that happens. And how. What. What happens? And then what do you deal with that? And then we'll get more back into the.

[Reverend John Yates]

I think in the mainline church, this has been true.

[Kevin Gentry]

If, if, if, if it's in business, it's in the nonprofit world, it's in government. When you grow fast and are. And are seemingly a threat, even though you're not a threat.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah.

[Kevin Gentry]

Then people just shut down.

[Reverend John Yates]

That was our experience. People said, well, those people over at Falls Church, they must be a bunch of fundamentalists. Yeah, right.

[Kevin Gentry]

Because there's no way they could be doing what they're doing.

[Reverend John Yates]

Right. They're tricking people, you know, and it was funny. The denomination, they really wanted our money, but they weren't interested in our methods or in us as a model. And that was disappointing. Yeah, that was hard. And. But in our denomination, we. We. We saw some real bright spots, but mainly the denomination was drying up. The leadership was moving away from traditional orthodox Christian doctrine. They were embracing. There was no discipline in the church. There was no discipline of bishops who said, I don't believe in the resurrection. Or. I remember one bishop said, well, the church wrote the Bible. We can rewrite it now. You know, it was no.

[Kevin Gentry]

Yeah, those miracles. There's no virgin birth.

[Reverend John Yates]

And it was a hard time. So that if we have time, we can talk about how eventually we decided that we just weren't going to stay there. But this. You ask about the young pastors, and.

[Kevin Gentry]

By the way, you've got them pastoring now. Churches in Richmond and Winchester and Alexandria and Arlington and. And even places outside of Virginia, Vienna. And they're in there. And that's what's growing. That's what's growing.

[Reverend John Yates]

We've been very fortunate and very blessed. I came up with this idea that I would look for young men who had been to seminary, who'd had some experience in life and who wanted to start churches of their own. And we would bring them in and they served on our staff for two or three years, usually three years. We try to take them through the different aspects of leadership in the church, tried to help clarify their vision for the church. And then we. They were here. Their vision about where they wanted to start a church, how they wanted to go about it, would become stronger. I would usually give them the responsibility for the Saturday night service. Let them actually lead that for six months or a year or so. Great experience for them. And yeah, we began to, we began to send them out one at a time with a group of people from our church because originally the churches we started were, you know, within a half an hour or 45 minutes of, of false church. And so they would take a group with them.

[Kevin Gentry]

Right. By the way, they would take a group from the false church with them. But the false church kept growing. I think that's a very interesting.

[Reverend John Yates]

We just sort of assume that would happen. But, but it, it did.

[Kevin Gentry]

I remember now many people think it's a fixed pie.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah.

[Kevin Gentry]

But when you're doing something like this, it's like pruning a tree. You're actually spurring greater growth.

[Reverend John Yates]

It seemed to work that way. Kevin and I, I remember when one young man took 200 members of our church and, and I, I went and met with them when they first started meeting and I looked around and said, I can't believe I let all of you all leave. But that's, that's the way we decided to do it. And we, we would pay the salary of this young man for the first year. We said we can give you a year to get on your feet and to get things worked out. We helped them organize administratively, help them organize financially. People would go with them. Some of our best leaders went with these young church leaders. But we did this over a, a period of about, I don't know, 13, 14 years. And I think, I think we started 10 or 11 churches and there's one up in Portland, Maine who, I'm still not sure whether it's a full fledged church or just a big small group. And there were a couple that ultimately didn't make it, but the rest made it and they are, they're thriving.

[Kevin Gentry]

I know, I know and I followed.

[Reverend John Yates]

Is in Richmond, Virginia.

[Kevin Gentry]

And now they've started a church.

[Reverend John Yates]

They've started two churches themselves and they're finally, I heard the other day they finally got property. They're building, they're going to build a building of their own. It's, it's been very exciting and I, I tried to find young men who I thought I had leadership ability, who I thought had a strong heart for the Lord, who had good marriages and.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, it's remarkable, John, the consequential nature of this. This is again one of the, this is why the biggest reason I thought about you with respect to going big because these two visions you had for tied to renewal based on that principle with respect to the fellows and the Timothy's has just impacted thousands and thousands more than you could have even done just from the Falls Church because of the leveraged manner of it. And again, we're going to see the benefits of that for years. And others can learn lessons from this and apply it in their case. It's amazing. All right. I want to begin to draw this to a close, but we can't close it out until really we address the biggest thing that happened and that was respect to renewal. What was going on in the broader Episcopal Church. It's covered very well in this, this great book by Josh Simmons, the Awakening of Washington's Church. Great play on both George Washington and Washington, D.C. just what began to happen and then when did it become impossible? And then we'll walk through a little bit. It's an in and of itself. It is an extraordinary going big story.

[Reverend John Yates]

It needed a good book like that. I'm so grateful.

[Kevin Gentry]

Oh, it's excellent. And I've given this to others in the Presbyterian Church, in the Methodist Church, and others who are trying to figure out in similar ways what to do.

[Reverend John Yates]

Around 2000, a trickle began of leaders in the Episcopal Church who felt that the church has moved away from its doctrines and its most important traditions. We've worked very hard to try to bring renewal. It is not working.

[Kevin Gentry]

And to be fair, you're, you're kind. I. I would say the national leadership really didn't believe anything. It wasn't even a. A church.

[Reverend John Yates]

Things got really bad there for. Right. And I used to be embarrassed to tell people that I was an Episcopalian. But anyway, I've got many good friends who are still there. There's some wonderful people there. But it got tough and we began to wonder if perhaps what we were called to was to begin a new movement, an Anglican church in the United States, because that's the background of the Episcopal Church. Right. We spent about three years in our.

[Kevin Gentry]

Church, Anglican church being its roots in England.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yes. We spent about three years as the leadership of our church, praying, thinking, debating this. And eventually I took a group of about 15 pastors of other Episcopal churches to our bishop, and I said, bishop, we feel we can no longer in good conscience remain in the denomination. We want to leave. We. We want to figure out a way that we can stay in our buildings. We want you to let us go. We want to figure out with you a way that is fair to keep our property. We spent a couple of years trying to figure out how to do that. And when we finally figured out a way to do that and our bishop agreed, at that time, the national Episcopal Church stepped in and said, no, if you want to leave, you have to leave. We own your property.

[Kevin Gentry]

That, by the way, what, that, what then happened was so drastic. Just say a word. I mean, the members of the church effectively were sued. You were, Things happened to you.

[Reverend John Yates]

About 90, 95% of our church members voted. We, we have to leave. We think this property is ours. And so we did that and the National Episcopal Church sued us. They sued me, they sued the vestry. They see the church, they said that the property belongs to us now. It was the local people who built the church. We raised all that money to build that building and we. The deeds were in the name of the vestry of the Falls Church. But that began a seven year period of legal wrangling. I think if we had known it was going to be like that, we probably would have just said, keep it. We're gone.

[Kevin Gentry]

And by the way, just originally the Fairfax Circuit Court ruled in the favor of the false church. And the church is leaving a long opinion, very well thought out, but the Virginia Supreme Court said no. And that, that the Episcopal, that the national church had it. And so then what happened?

[Reverend John Yates]

It, it took seven years to work through that lawsuit. And we really thought we were going, you know, we, we did everything as well as we could, as honestly as we could, as thoroughly as we could, and as prayerfully as we could. You know, you never get things exactly right, but it was our desire to please God. That was our desire. And so when we got word that the Virginia Supreme Court had ruled against us and we had. This was like in March. We had to be out by May of, I think it was 2012. We were, we were quite surprised. We were very disappointed. But, you know, what do you do? You've done everything you can. The answer is no. Are you going to go cry? Are you going to curse? Are you going to be angry? We, none of that would be, would have been worthwhile.

[Kevin Gentry]

But what does it mean to be out? I mean, it meant you effectively thrown on the street.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah, we were, it meant everything.

[Kevin Gentry]

The, As a pastor, did it affect your health insurance or retirement or everything?

[Reverend John Yates]

Everything. I had to fight for my retirement, but I had been in 30 years by then, so I was, I was vested, so I was able to keep that. But yeah, the house we were living in as a family, we lost all the church buildings. We lost all the prayer books, all the Bibles, all the equipment, all the money, all the money that we had as a church was lost. I'll never forget the day that we had to turn over our keys to the denomination. I had a vacuum cleaner run. I was trying to vacuum my office out so it would be okay. It'd be presentable for the people who came in.

[Kevin Gentry]

By the way, I remember your son in law reaching out to the men of the church saying, please come over and let's just clean up and make this as nice as possible.

[Reverend John Yates]

They did, they were, they were putting.

[Kevin Gentry]

It in the best shape of the best.

[Reverend John Yates]

The nail holes in the walls and painting. And I remember my daughter, I couldn't believe my daughter actually brought a cake. And she said, I just baked this for the minister who's coming. And she put it on his desk. She said, welcome, it's yours now. You know, I mean, we tried to be gracious and I remember God gave me a passage of scripture that really helped me get through that time that week when we learned that we had lost the property. I read in the Gospel of John a verse that gave me the courage to believe that we were going to be all right. It's where Jesus was talking to the disciples just before his crucifixion. It's in John chapter 13. He said, said what I'm doing now you do not understand. But one day you will understand. I took that to the congregation. I said, look, this thing is in God's hands. We do not understand what God is doing. But one day we will understand. Kevin, that was what, 15 years ago? I guarantee if you go to any member of our church who was in our church at that time and you said to them, them, do you think we did the wrong thing? Are you sad we did what we did, should we have done otherwise? I don't think you'll find anyone who says we did the wrong thing. And I don't think you'll find anyone who says. We realize now that God was doing something different. That enabled us to start training Timothy's to plant daughter churches. It enabled us to reach out to things so much bigger. And who would have ever thought that now we'd be in this amazing office building.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, let's speak to that. Okay, so. So did you jump ahead a little bit because this is the story. So, so we talked about, you know, you're called to the false church as a dying church. It's revived, there's renewal going on. The fellows, the Timothy's, these men's ministries, all these ministries is flourishing. And then on principle, yeah, you must leave and you're left with nothing. Help us sort of see, help us understand now what happened because it wasn't an immediate turnaround and by the way, speak to, if you would. That last service at the church, that was an extraordinary experience the last Sunday.

[Reverend John Yates]

We met Sunday morning, but then we met Sunday night, and we had a couple thousand people that crowded in, I guess, and it was a time we said, we're not gonna. We're not gonna be sad. We're gonna praise God.

[Kevin Gentry]

By the way, I remember your children sitting on the front row, really.

[Reverend John Yates]

I asked all of the young men who were in training. I think we had seven at that time. I said, I'm going to give each of you four or five minutes to say what you want to say to the congregation. And that was very moving to hear each one of those young men speak words of encouragement, words of faith to the church. And then we, you know, we had prayer to commit the future to God. And we prayed that he would protect this property that we had loved. And then we said, we'll let you know where we're going to meet next Sunday. We didn't know. So it. That led to a period of seven years.

[Kevin Gentry]

Seven years of what we call tabernacling. Maybe it was, I don't know, seven.

[Reverend John Yates]

Years in the wilderness after another. And the amazing thing was it didn't weaken the church family.

[Kevin Gentry]

No, it didn't. It did. It did. But it's not even a reliable place. It would be a hotel one week, it would be an elementary school another week.

[Reverend John Yates]

Here's where remaining Bishop o', Connell, a.

[Kevin Gentry]

Catholic school, gave us their auditorium, Columbia Baptist Church.

[Reverend John Yates]

We couldn't find any place that was reliable. And finally I went to the Roman Catholic bishop of Arlington and I said, you've read about what we're doing. I've said, your Bishop o' Connell High School is the only place I found that is not being rented now that is big enough to accommodate us. I know you're sympathetic with us. You're a man of God. I know you care. I know you have friends who are Anglican bishops. Would you consider letting us rent your property? And be doggone if he didn't do it?

[Kevin Gentry]

Oh, it was extraordinary.

[Reverend John Yates]

And we met for two or three years. That's. That's what really saved us.

[Kevin Gentry]

Oh, but meeting in the auditorium on Sunday morning, and maybe they had a play the night before, Romeo Juliet, the set would still be on the stage and you'd be moving along amongst these pieces, and you kept on.

[Reverend John Yates]

It was. It was a lot of work. And we tried to get as many people as possible involved in setup, take down. We were. We were running. I thought I'd be retired by then. But we were running.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, that's another thing. You were trying to retire. So speak to two things. One was the amazing, unexpected gifts that happen. I think the story of the communion instruments was extraordinary. And then also how you found the new space and where we are today.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah, it was just phenomenal to see how God answered prayers when one of the things that's important to people in our tradition is the communion service, which is the heart of our worship. And we had had early Colonial American pewter and silver that we used in the communion service. Precious, historic. And we lost all that. And around about the time we were leaving, the lady who was in charge of that came to me and said, what are we going to do? I said, I guess you'll have to go to the thrift store and find stuff to use. And one day a man came to our church, and he asked if he could see me. Somebody had taken him to the boardroom, and he was there. And I went down and on the table. Table that seated about 15 people, the table was covered with antique sterling communion silver that he had been collecting for at least 10 or 15 years. He's an antique dealer. He read an article about our church, and he said, I'm going to help them out. He came down and he gave all this to us. And when I shared the picture of this with the congregation, it was like, gosh, we're gonna be all right, you know? And we were. People were extraordinarily generous. They had to dig deep during that time. And I. I'll never forget, one day a man came into our church. It was a temporary office. I think I had a cardboard desk. And he said, we love what you're doing. We had a major sale. We're not rich people, but we got some stock. We sold it. We got more money than we ever dreamed we'd have. I want to give you a gift. He put a CH for $100,000 on my desk that day. I was just weeping, you know, things like that were happening. Our. Our needs were met. And then our. Our leadership began to develop pretty radical visions about where we might go, what might be our. Our eventual home. And. And our people led us to a piece of property that. It's just mind blowing how well it's worked.

[Kevin Gentry]

It really is. And to build that kind of place inside the beltway in Washington, D.C. which is not a place where a lot of new churches spring up anymore. Yeah, it's so close us out with that. You're trying to retire. You're. You've been there 40 years, you had some knee surgery. You've had some other things to deal with. I remember you were taking Ubers to parishioner's house because you could. Couldn't drive because of your knee to meet with various folks. But you found this property, the church found this property. And you also, our church, found a successor to you, which is when a big person steps out in leadership, almost effectively founding that modern church. It's tough. And it was somebody, actually, that you had trained up. Is it Timothy Sam Ferguson, an amazing pastor, just amazing preacher. Just. Just close us out with that. And then I've got two closing questions for you.

[Reverend John Yates]

People came to me and said, john, we think there's a possibility that we could buy this office building and that could be our headquarters. We could rent out most of it, and that would enable us to pay the mortgage on that building. There's enough property to build a church there. Fairfax county came in and said, you need to build a parking garage to accommodate 552 cars. We had to do that before we could build the church. So our leadership had come to me and said, john, you've worked hard. We love you. We want you to be able to retire. But we, We. We really need you to see us through this time. Please don't step aside until we've got a new place and we feel like we're on our feet. And I, you know, the call to come to Falls Church had always been strong. The reason I never left to take any other job was God always said, you stay where you are. I'm not finished with you yet. I've still got work for you to do. And so we. And I had no idea that we could raise enough money to purchase this land, this office building, to do what we did. But I learned two things. I learned that if I. I learned again that God is faithful. And secondly, I learned that if you. If you are trying to raise money for something good people believe in, they will give. The third thing I learned was a lot of people in Washington have a lot more money than I knew they had. I never cared about that. But all those. All those snowy night visits in people's homes were precious, and people gave generously and so worked out and we began building the building. We could see it. We could see what it was going to be like. And. And so I went to our leadership and I've said, it's time to call somebody to take my place. I'm going to be in my mid-70s. My wife needs me. We set up a. A committee I, I set up the committee with the vestry's permission, but I said I will not be on it. I, I don't want, I don't want to choose my successor. Yeah, I'd love it if you call my son, but I'd probably be awkward. You, you do what you think is right.

[Kevin Gentry]

And we did an international search. We interviewed candidates from other countries and lots of different people applied.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah.

[Kevin Gentry]

And, and I know it must have been tough not knowing exactly what we were going to do. I think we were actually in our basement at our home the night when the vestry announced the decision and you joined us. But we didn't know what the decision. You didn't know what the decision was going to be.

[Reverend John Yates]

I thought it would be wrong if I tried to influence this decision and.

[Kevin Gentry]

And for you, because there are a lot of leaders that, that couldn't, couldn't do that and that, that creates a lot of challenge.

[Reverend John Yates]

But I was so happy with the choice. It was a great blessing to be able to introduce him to the congregation that day and turn over the reins of leadership to him.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, the church is thriving and it's thriving in so many ways. All right, here the, here the wrap up questions first.

[Reverend John Yates]

Yeah.

[Kevin Gentry]

For young pastors today. Now thinking back, even over your life, but even where they are today, I think, I believe you still have a community of these young pastors. You bring them out here to the farm.

[Reverend John Yates]

I try to stay closely connected with and be some sort, some sort of a mentor to young pastors. Our Timothy's, most of our Timothy's still meet with them as I can and, and they do come. We, we all meet here at the farmhouse twice a year for an overnight retreat and we have a great time together. They're all, they're mentoring other people now, but it's a, it's a blessing. And I, I guess there's so many things that I try to communicate to these young men. But I would say if, if I'm talking to a young man who's trying to find God's way in his life and do well, whether it's leading a church, whatever. I would say, first of all, I would say love, listen to and pray with your wife. That's the first thing I'd say. And then I'd say learn what you do best. Figure out where your gifts are and where they're not. Pay attention to your dreams. Pay attention to the things that get you really excited as you get moving. Try to find people who have gifts that you don't have. You you can't do it all. You need to find people who are better than you are in certain ways. Have close, trusted friends who know you well, who will give you good, honest feedback on how you're doing as a person, how you're doing as a leader, and the work that you're called to do. People who will be truly devoted to you, who will encourage you, but who will confront you when you need it. Most leaders don't like that. A real leader, a godly leader, wants feedback, wants to know when he's screwing up. He doesn't like to hear it, but he knows he needs to and he wants to to. And I'd say when you're a young man, you got to figure out the principles that are going to determine the kind of man you're going to be, figure out what those guiding principles are, and always stay true to them.

[Kevin Gentry]

Well, let me take it back to the beginning about finding your gift, your calling. What would you say to people who are listening or watching today who think maybe they, they know their calling, but they just can't quite step out in faith? What, what advice would you give?

[Reverend John Yates]

You know, the, the, the perfect opportunity may just present itself, and that's wonderful if that happens. But I, I, someone said to me, you can't drive a parked car. It's got to be rolling if you're going to steer it somewhere. So you've got to start move, you've got to figure out what direction you want to move in and start moving in that direction and see how it goes. People have different talents, you know, Jesus said they're one talent people, five talent people, ten talent people. You never know what you're going to be able to do, but you might as well think as big as you can and, and try to discern where you have passion and pursue it in any way that you can. Pay attention to people in your life who inspire you and try to find a way to learn from what you've learned from them and begin to put some building blocks together in your own life. You don't have to put that many together at first, but I, I would say you want to, you want to live a life that is helpful to other people. If you just want to make a lot of money and take care of yourself, God bless you. That's not what I'm interested in. I want to encourage people to live a life where, where they make a difference in the community and in the nation. And so I would say what, whatever you feel you're called to do, learn to Pay attention to people, always have relationships with people and figure out what concerns people have, what things are, what things are hard for people in life where they need help and try to figure out ways that you can help. I mean, if you, if, if, if, if you're living in false church and you've got kids in elementary school and you begin to meet other parents who, they're concerned about the quality of the schools and well, run for the school board or whatever you can do. Try to find ways that you can serve other people and pursue them, whether it's through your work or just through your volunteer activities. I think start with small goals. Don't be afraid to fail. We all fail that, that's how we learn important lessons. But don't go it alone. I guess that would be the theme song of my life. Life, don't go it alone.

[Kevin Gentry]

Nice.

[Reverend John Yates]

You've got to be closely connected with other people who help you, who believe in you and who you can love.

[Kevin Gentry]

All right, well, the last question. I do want to sort of take it back to the beginning, but for anyone who's listening, wherever they may be in their faith journey, what sort of going out, encouragement, inspiration would you offer to anyone listening about how they can just go big in their life with respect to the gifts they've been given?

[Reverend John Yates]

I, I want to say life is hard. Don't kid yourself about that. Jesus said in the world you're going to have troubles. Don't kid yourself about that. If you expect a life of ease, good luck to you. You've got to be willing to give yourself to grow into the, the best person you can be. And that takes hard work and commitment and the help of other people. I want to say God loves you. You, God has made you with certain strengths and certain weaknesses. And the best way to get to know those is to get to know Him. And the best way to get to know him is to look to his son, Jesus Christ. Learn from him. I often think if anyone could, if anyone could meet Jesus Christ, they'd love him. There's so many misconceptions about him. You know, I say go for him. You, you may be a 10 talent person, you may be a 1 talent person. You are the way God has made you. But if you're willing to step out in faith, if you're willing to pray big, if you're willing to seek the help of other people, you may end up accomplishing a lot more than you think you can. In fact, I will promise you your life will turn out to be very different. Than you think it will be. It will be harder than you think it will be. But in some ways it will be so much more wonderful than you think it would be. Don't give up. Don't quit. Don't be discouraged. Keep growing.

[Kevin Gentry]

John Yates, what a pleasure it's been to be with you today. As always, thank you for all that you continue to do, for your years of dedication and leadership, and for the inspiration and look forward to many more to come. Thank you.

[Reverend John Yates]

I'm a blessed man indeed.

[Kevin Gentry]

Thanks for tuning in to the Going Big Podcast. I hope today's conversation left you feeling energized and ready to tackle your biggest goals. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps spread the word and it gets these inspiring stories out to more people. You can also find more content, resources and updates at our website, goingbigpodcast.com Remember, remember, the only limits are the ones you don't challenge, the limits that you impose on yourself. Keep pushing, keep growing, and above all, keep going big. See you next time on the Going Big Podcast.