On May 26, 2020, Pastor Victor conducted an interview with Pastor Rocky via Zoom about his first year as Senior Pastor of Evergreen SGV. This is Part 4 of a 4-part blog series based on that interview.

Any final thoughts as you reflect on this past year?

It goes back to relationships. 

I’m grateful to our Lord for Sharla [wife] and the children. I feel like we've transitioned, but we're still transitioning. We still miss Washington. We still miss people from Washington. We still miss football and football life. I think it’s an ever-growing process for us. But I'm grateful that they trust the Lord and they trust me.

Having that trust from them is a ridiculous, extra motivation that the Lord gives me to be faithful to do this. I don't know how things are going to turn out, but I just want to be faithful. That’s my goal.

I’m grateful for the relationships at Evergreen [SGV]. People have been so gracious. Here's a brand new pastor, wet behind the ears and they’ve been so gracious. 

They’re just willing to listen to the preaching. They’re willing to be flexible. They’re willing to be open-minded.

It’s profound for me to think about it. 

That humbles me and that actually motivates me to want to be faithful to our Lord.

On May 26, 2020, Pastor Victor conducted an interview with Pastor Rocky via Zoom about his first year as Senior Pastor of Evergreen SGV. This is Part 3 of a 4-part blog series based on that interview.

What are you most looking forward to?

In our pastoral meetings earlier [we asked ourselves in regards to the church], “If we’re a factory, what will we be known for?” 

What is Evergreen [SGV] known for? God willing, in the future, I would love for us to look at each other — you ask our kids, our wives or anyone else, even people from outside the church — and I would love everyone to say, “They’re about discipleship.” 

They’re about producing followers of Jesus Christ. What is discipleship? Discipleship is basically twofold. One, is evangelism — we are called to evangelize the lost. Second is to edify the saints — build them up to become more like Christ. It’s a twofold process and I would love for everyone to be able to say with full conviction, full honesty, that Evergreen [SGV] is involved in discipleship, and discipleship is the central theme of the church, period. I would love that. That's what I'm excited about.

And I'm excited [for how the Lord will potentially use the church in] the San Gabriel Valley. This is a gold mine — the people that God has given us, the resources that God has given us, the location that God has given us. When it's time, the Lord will unleash His people who are saturated with God’s Word, [who] love Christ, [are] evangelizing [and] looking to edify the saints that God brings around in their communities, in their homes and their work.

And then [when] we get together [on a Sunday morning], it's a big rally. We come together for ... equipping, encouragement, edification, warning, correction [and] motivation. When we leave, we get back to our mission field and then look at what God is going to do in and through us. I’m excited about that.

One thing I want to say, is that the Bible needs to be absolutely central to everything that we do. 

The Bible needs to be absolutely central to everything that we do at Evergreen [SGV] — from the preaching of it, to the teaching of it, to the counseling of it, to exercising oversight of the church. It’s in the Scriptures and we need to be biblically trained to obey the Lord in it and so that's what I would love. 

I would love for people to be culturally just carrying a Bible in their hands, a physical Bible. Yes, it could be more convenient to have in the phone but I'm actually physically carrying it [because] it’s a reminder for me to have the Bible central.

On May 26, 2020, Pastor Victor conducted an interview with Pastor Rocky via Zoom about his first year as Senior Pastor of Evergreen SGV. This is Part 2 of a 4-part blog series based on that interview.

What have been some of the challenges from this past year?

I remember when I was coaching, some people would come up to me at church and say, “Hey, it’s great that you get to play your games on Sunday. What do you do the rest of the week?’” What? The games are the rewards! It’s the grind, it’s about 80 or 90 hours just to get to this point at work. 

Pastoral ministry is similar.

First of all, even to get to the pulpit for me, it’s 15-20 hours of work to have some kind of organized thought to preach the Word. It hasn’t necessarily been the tasks that have been challenging to me, although they’ve been humbling because I’m learning something new. 

The challenges have been more relational.

At the end of the day, I still have to make the choice on some of these [decisions for the church] and some of these emphases have been hard on some and relationally, that’s been hard for me. I don’t like to disappoint people. Naturally, I like to please people and make them happy. 

I have to make decisions that I feel like is best for the church family and what the Bible says in essence guides me. [Some of those decisions made from applying the Bible are] not popular for some people.

I’ve been involved with certain situations where I have to confront sin, where I have to confront error for the good of the sheep and also for the flock. That's hard. That’s a challenging thing.

You know [correction in the context of family is] never a fun thing, but it's what we’re called to do because you love them.

And the same thing [is] for me as a pastor. These are the things that I do because I love Christ and also, I love the people. Relational things are incredibly hard for me and God’s humbling me through it.

In pastoral ministry, I don't have the eye in the sky [game film] or the one loss record column to determine if I'm doing a good job or not. [The key question is]: “Am I being content and just being faithful to what a pastor is called to do?” A pastor’s primary role is to preach and teach the word of God [and] feed the sheep (John 21, 2 Timothy 4). The second thing is to pray for the people, to care for the people [and] to protect the people. That's really what it is — to provide spiritual oversight.

I have no idea how things are going on results-wise in the hearts of people. That's humbling. I'm used to results.

Size of the church isn't even the metric [of success for a church]. The metric is how holy are the people that God has given us to take care of. That's it. Only God knows that.

I’d say those are two challenges — relational challenges and just being content and being faithful to our Lord.

Check in next week for Part 3 of the series —What are you looking forward to?

On May 26, 2020, Pastor Victor conducted an interview with Pastor Rocky via Zoom about his first year as Senior Pastor of Evergreen SGV. This is Part 1 of a 3-part blog series based on that interview.

What have been some of the highlights of this past year?

Some of the highlights have been basically growing in relationship with so many people - the staff, the Pastoral team, and other lay people in the church. It’s been wonderful and God's allowed me to be in really privileged positions.

I was able to be there at some very precious times —people's aging dads who come to faith and being able to baptize them in their hospital beds. I mean that is an incredible thing that no one gets. Pastors are the few people that get to do things like that and that is precious and tender. 

So many things have happened, so I almost didn't get a chance to reflect on the first year of serving as senior pastor. But what I stumbled upon [was] Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones. This guy was a brilliant man. His career was just blossoming, exploding, but something got a hold of him and he left medicine to become a preacher. [Dr. Jones] knew deep within his heart that he needed to preach a certain message right. 

So God put a fire, burning desire in this man's bones to preach about this message. And then Dr. Jones would go on to say what that message was and he goes, “I need to preach Christ. I need to preach about Jesus. I need to preach about the gospel.” 

Dr. Jones basically describes what's in my heart. I mean, that perfectly describes it. In my mind, I have thought about maybe, I'll be the first Japanese-American head football coach in the NFL or major college football. I had those thoughts. My dad wanted those things. I was thinking, “Yeah, this would be kind of cool. I wouldn't mind being that spokesperson.” But just like Dr. Jones … when I was coaching the Seahawks, I couldn't help but think about preaching about Christ and I knew that message needed to be preached —Christ and the sufficiency of Christ through his Word. 

And so I think that's one of the highlights is I get to preach generally most of the week or most weeks and I'm grateful for that and just like when I was coaching, I'm aggressively pursuing that. And I have friends ... who have really helped me [with clarity in preaching]. So I'm trying to get better and that part's been exciting to me too. Not that I have arrived by any means, but I’m trying to get better at it.

Those are two massive highlights - relationships and then just being able to preach Christ on a week-to-week basis. 

Check in next week for Part 2 of the series —What have been some of the challenges of the past year?

This is a piece I wrote for our church newsletter about the Los Angeles Times article that I wrote about in last week’s blog.

On Monday, September 11, 2017, I received a text message (yes, I do know how to text and even have a smart phone) from one of our church members. He informed me that the anticipated article about Rocky Seto becoming the next Senior Pastor of Evergreen SGV was on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.

I eagerly went to our neighborhood 7-Eleven convenience store and bought three issues of the morning paper for $9.75 (I remember a time when newspapers were a dime). I then drove to our staff meeting and eventually read the fairly long article.

I thought it was an excellent article about what transpired over the past three years regarding God’s providential hand moving Rocky from the Seattle Seahawks to Evergreen SGV. I was very blessed to read it.

The genesis of the article started months ago, right after Rocky made the decision to accept the call of God to become our next Senior Pastor. Rocky approached me about a reporter, named David Wharton, wanting to do a story about what was transpiring at our church.

One of my first questions to Rocky was, “Is he trustworthy?” Rocky said that he knew David from his days at the University of Southern California and that he was indeed a trustworthy man. Normally, I refrain from interviews because it is so easy to be misquoted or misrepresented. However, because Rocky trusted David, I decided to consent to the interview.

I first met David when he and his photographer came to our joint worship service on March 12th. He worshiped with us, hearing the story of how Rocky came to be our next Senior Pastor and got a feel for who we are as a church family.

He asked if he could attend a staff meeting and see what happens on a normal day at the office. My first impression of David was that he was a very nice man, humble in spirit so I consented. He said, he would like to interview me when he visited.

After sitting in our staff meeting, he and I got together in my office. One of the first things, I said to David was that I normally record interviews, but because Rocky trusted him so did I and I would refrain from using my phone to record the interview. He said not to worry; he was recording it for the sake of accuracy.

He asked questions and I answered them. It was a very pleasant interview. I enjoyed his company. However, I wasn’t sure how the article would eventually read.

Fast forward to Monday, September 11, I thought that the article represented what transpired really well. There was only one thing that probably could have been clarified, but overall, David captured the essence of what actually transpired. Rocky’s call was a God thing and not a human thing.

I wanted to give kudos to David for being a warm, friendly and a very professional reporter.

Please read the article. It is now an historical piece in the life and times of Evergreen SGV.

By the way, David Wharton has written two book about the University of Southern California’s football program, entitled, “Conquest: Pete Carroll and the Trojans' Climb to the Top of the College Football Mountain” and “USC Football: Yesterday & Today”

This article and other happenings causes me to believe that God has a will and a way for what is going on at our church regarding the transition from me to Pastor Rocky and we can trust Him for it.

Something to think about…