Morgan May Treuil [00:00:00]:
Okay. Welcome back to Am I Doing this Right? We are your hosts, Morgan and Leslie. We hope you're having a very fine Monday or whichever day you're listening to this podcast or watching. We have a very special guest on today. We have Andrew. Pastor Andrew F. Carter in the room with us. Welcome to Am I Doing this Right?
Andrew F. Carter [00:00:18]:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:19]:
How's your day?
Andrew F. Carter [00:00:20]:
It's been full.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:21]:
It's been full. You're racing from thing to thing to thing. So for context for listeners, we get awesome guests that are here for our Thrive conference, and then we get to pull them over into our little living room with our.
Leslie Johnston [00:00:32]:
Yeah, our little setup.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:33]:
Our little Target haven't changed. Not the pictures.
Leslie Johnston [00:00:36]:
I know he's probably looking at him like, where's your photos? Honestly, you know what this reminds me of is when I feel like there was some movie where they had all these frames and it was all like the. The staged people photos. Like, it was like. Not them. It was like the photos that came from. From Target and they're like, this is my grandma.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:53]:
This is my.
Leslie Johnston [00:00:54]:
I think it's Phoebe.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:55]:
Yes.
Leslie Johnston [00:00:55]:
Like, they told me this was my family. That's how I feel. The. We haven't replaced any of these photos.
Morgan May Treuil [00:01:00]:
Yes. So we're really thankful that you came on today. Can you tell us what the F stands for? Your middle name?
Andrew F. Carter [00:01:06]:
Yeah. So friendly, faithful, family oriented. Whatever. Whatever you want it to. But seriously. So my. My. It's a hyphenated name.
Andrew F. Carter [00:01:16]:
My mom's last name is Forby. So my. My name is Andrew Forby Dash Carter. So I just put the F. I like it. Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:01:22]:
That's awesome.
Andrew F. Carter [00:01:22]:
Nothing special.
Leslie Johnston [00:01:23]:
Welcome to the podcast. We're so glad you're here. So, yes. We're in the midst of Thrive. It's crazy. So we. We're able to grab Andrew for a few minutes before he runs off to go do a breakout. But we just give everybody.
Leslie Johnston [00:01:35]:
Just before we do your unpopular opinion, which is a staple for this podcast, give us just a little bit of who you are, where you live, what your family's like, what do you do?
Andrew F. Carter [00:01:44]:
Yeah. Husband to Kyra. That's the most important thing of five years now. I have five amazing kids. I have three from a previous marriage. Drew, Ezra, Xavier. They are 22, 20, and 16. And then two beautiful daughters.
Andrew F. Carter [00:01:59]:
Journey in heaven. They are two years old and five months old.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:04]:
They're amazing names.
Andrew F. Carter [00:02:05]:
Yeah. You know, and her middle name is Lee. So heavenly. Carter, Like a little play.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:08]:
You had to.
Andrew F. Carter [00:02:09]:
I'm a name guy. I Like, I. I take a lot of pride in naming my kids.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:12]:
That is really cool.
Andrew F. Carter [00:02:14]:
So, husband, father. I pastor a church in Inglewood, California. Royal City Church Authority. Social media. I share my testimony on social media about how I went from prison to pastor and kind of my background.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:27]:
And so this is. Wait, so, okay, well, we can get there. Okay, let's do your unpopular opinions so we can get to that, because I would love to hear about that.
Andrew F. Carter [00:02:37]:
We're gonna unpack that. I try to breeze past it real quick.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:40]:
We don't have to.
Andrew F. Carter [00:02:41]:
No, I would love to talk about it. It's open book. My unpopular opinion would be, I think that breakfast food is better in the evening and in the morning.
Leslie Johnston [00:02:50]:
I like this.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:50]:
You are speaking our language.
Leslie Johnston [00:02:52]:
Yeah, we love.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:53]:
Okay, explain yourself.
Andrew F. Carter [00:02:55]:
I mean, I would much prefer a breakfast burrito for dinner. Bacon and eggs. I like breakfast for dinner. It's like, one of my favorite things. And people, you know, people typically like breakfast in the morning, but I think it just hits different at night.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:07]:
If you think about it, too, it's like, this is all pretty heavy food, and we're eating it first thing in the morning. Like, when you go get breakfast and you eat breakfast food, you're kind of miserable for a few hours afterwards. Like, it really should be dinner. Yes, I know.
Leslie Johnston [00:03:18]:
I used to think I was, like, allergic to breakfast food because I would eat it, and I would be like, I'm out for most.
Andrew F. Carter [00:03:25]:
I'm done.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:26]:
My stomach hurts. I'm tired.
Leslie Johnston [00:03:28]:
I love big egg scramble. I'm like, oh, that takes me out so good.
Andrew F. Carter [00:03:31]:
And I want to. I want to eat and go to bed.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:33]:
How often do you guys eat breakfast or dinner?
Andrew F. Carter [00:03:35]:
So I eat pretty healthy rate, you know, Monday through Saturday, Sunday, my routine after preaching is I go home and make breakfast for dinner. So every Sunday, I make bacon, eggs. I might even throw a steak on the grill. But I kind of eat my cheat meal. Is.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:48]:
Yes.
Andrew F. Carter [00:03:48]:
Is breakfast for dinner.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:49]:
That sounds so good.
Leslie Johnston [00:03:50]:
I love that that's your cheat meal, because I think my, like, bacon and eggs would be like, I'm being healthy.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:54]:
Yes.
Leslie Johnston [00:03:54]:
You're like, this is me being keto, not a donut.
Andrew F. Carter [00:03:58]:
That's awesome.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:58]:
We just wreck this for dinner, for our wedding, by the way, because we love.
Leslie Johnston [00:04:02]:
I've never thought about this.
Morgan May Treuil [00:04:03]:
Oh, it's. It was the best.
Andrew F. Carter [00:04:04]:
What did you guys have?
Morgan May Treuil [00:04:05]:
Well, we did, like. We did the whole potatoes, eggs, bacon thing, but we also had French toast and pancakes and just like, all the stuff. All the breakfast stuff. And then, because all that was Sweet. We did street tacos for dessert instead, which was actually awesome.
Andrew F. Carter [00:04:19]:
It's a kingdom covenant sealed in righteousness.
Leslie Johnston [00:04:21]:
I cut through a little street taco as your wedding cake.
Morgan May Treuil [00:04:25]:
I love that unpopular opinion. Okay. That was a great one. We've had many and that was of the top tier of opinions we've had.
Leslie Johnston [00:04:32]:
Yeah, that's really good.
Andrew F. Carter [00:04:33]:
I love it.
Morgan May Treuil [00:04:33]:
Can we go back? Because we don't have tons of time with you. We would love to hear that story from you said from prison to pastor. Yeah, tell us about that.
Andrew F. Carter [00:04:41]:
Yeah, I, I didn't grow up in church. Never went to church till I was 17 years old. At 12 years old, drugs, alcohol, sex. My mom was a, a prostitute largely most of my, my young life. My dad was a pimp. So I grew up in a really open ended house. You know, it was dream catchers and you know, it was, it was wild. So, you know, I'll breeze past that.
Andrew F. Carter [00:05:03]:
17. I got saved. I said yes to Jesus for the, the very first time. But my environment didn't change. I didn't have discipleship, mentorship, didn't get into a good Bible believing church. So even though something was changed in here, nothing was changed on the outside. It was a long, slow process of sanctification. I ended up, you know, having some kids When I was 19, 21, you know, 2025, I was in and out of jail, lots of trouble, fights, drugs, you know, I was, I was violent.
Andrew F. Carter [00:05:29]:
I was just an angry person. Even though I had accepted Jesus again, nothing had, nothing was really different. So long story short, I ended up getting into a church where I was discipled, I was mentored, loved it, loved the Lord was all in a prophetic word was spoken over my life. And the word terrified me to the point where I left the church because the word was, you have words of gold, you'll speak to millions of people and you're called to ministry. And I hated it. I didn't want, I wanted my prophetic word to be like, you're gonna get rich or something. That's what I wanted. Yeah.
Andrew F. Carter [00:06:04]:
And, and the pastor that I was under, God bless his heart, he had like 10 kids, he worked, he was a bi. Vocational past. So me being called to that, I was just like, that's, I just don't want that.
Morgan May Treuil [00:06:14]:
Right.
Andrew F. Carter [00:06:15]:
So I left church, I went back to school. I earned two college degrees in health promotion and education and public health. And I started a gym, a CrossFit gym. And so the first person in my family to go to college, let alone two degrees I was married. Even though it was a messy and toxic marriage, you know, on the outside, looking in, my life looked pretty good. It looked pretty healthy. It looked like I had. I was succeeding.
Andrew F. Carter [00:06:38]:
Time goes by what happens in the darkness Comes to the light My. All of this, what was inside was exposed. I was called the N word, a racial term, by a nurse, a woman at our party. We were having this big party, and I hit her with a wine bottle. And in doing so, I lost everything. I was sent to prison, sentenced to 25 months. I spent 18 months in prison. And I mean, it was just.
Andrew F. Carter [00:07:01]:
It went from the top of the world, making quarter million dollars a year, running a gym, running a business, to nothing. And lost, got a divorce, lost my business, lost everything. And in 18 months, I still didn't come back to Jesus. There was. It was still in there, but I was mad at God. I came back home. I spent a year and a half trying to figure out who I was. Through counseling and through all kinds of stuff, I found myself going back to church, kind of, you know.
Andrew F. Carter [00:07:28]:
You know, back in there. And then I had a. A. A moment where I met the Holy Spirit through social media.
Morgan May Treuil [00:07:33]:
Wow.
Andrew F. Carter [00:07:33]:
And I posted a video online. And this video, I pointed at a couple boxes, it said things God's carried me through. Prison, foster care, divorce. I've spent some time in foster care as a kid and everything else. And where God met me is I got a message from a guy and he just said, hey, I've been to prison, I've been divorced, I've been to foster care. Last night I was going to kill myself. And if I wouldn't have seen your video saying that God carried you through that, I wouldn't be here today. And like, in that moment, there was this.
Andrew F. Carter [00:08:00]:
I can't describe it. It was just this overwhelming feeling of the Lord saying, you were made for a time such as this. This is how you're going to speak to millions of people. You have words of gold and you're called the ministry. And so over. Almost 15 years had passed since that prophetic word was spoken over my life. But I felt that in that moment, that was it. And so I completely surrendered my life back to Jesus in 2019, the end of 2019.
Andrew F. Carter [00:08:23]:
And since then, I've been following him closely. And now we have a. We planted a church going on five years, speak to millions of people through social media with millions of followers on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and written four books in the last five years. And, yeah, that's where we're at. Wow.
Morgan May Treuil [00:08:40]:
Such an. Thank you for sharing that.
Andrew F. Carter [00:08:42]:
Yeah. So prison to pasture.
Morgan May Treuil [00:08:43]:
That's an incredible story. Wow. I. I have so many. I wish we had more time with you because your story, your story is genuinely incredible. We often ask this question to guests because our guests love to hear the answer to this. But you said Kaya or Kyra.
Andrew F. Carter [00:08:57]:
Kyra.
Morgan May Treuil [00:08:58]:
Kyra is your wife. How and when did you meet Kyra?
Andrew F. Carter [00:09:01]:
I met kyra in like five months after my surrender in April of 2020.
Morgan May Treuil [00:09:06]:
Okay. How'd you guys meet?
Andrew F. Carter [00:09:07]:
Through social media.
Morgan May Treuil [00:09:08]:
That's awesome.
Andrew F. Carter [00:09:09]:
Yeah, she slid in my DMs.
Leslie Johnston [00:09:10]:
Yeah. Nice.
Andrew F. Carter [00:09:11]:
So, ladies, if you're listening.
Morgan May Treuil [00:09:12]:
Yes.
Andrew F. Carter [00:09:13]:
You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
Leslie Johnston [00:09:15]:
I love it. Wayne Gretzky, Michael Scott.
Morgan May Treuil [00:09:17]:
Yes. Do you have a moment that you knew she was the one?
Andrew F. Carter [00:09:23]:
Almost immediately. So I was just talking to. I brought a group of 15 people up with me. We drove a 16 passenger van and they were asking me about that. And I, I just, I knew when I stopped going after what I was going after before. So I had a list of the type of. I had an archetype of a type of woman that I pursued and I, I had to kill that list. And when I met her, she was the exact opposite of what I had pursued in the past.
Andrew F. Carter [00:09:51]:
And upon meeting her, there was just. There was just this electricity, this kind of like in my heart, I was like, oh, she's so different. And for context, she used to. She was a crime scene investigator.
Morgan May Treuil [00:10:02]:
Wow.
Andrew F. Carter [00:10:02]:
And so we joke. I used to commit crimes, she used to solve.
Morgan May Treuil [00:10:06]:
Awesome.
Andrew F. Carter [00:10:06]:
And so she's like the opposite of me. No tattoo. She's just this super clean cut. Gals in ministry for a long time. And so I got a good church gal.
Leslie Johnston [00:10:13]:
And I love that.
Andrew F. Carter [00:10:15]:
Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:10:15]:
I'm so happy for you.
Morgan May Treuil [00:10:16]:
That's awesome.
Leslie Johnston [00:10:17]:
Yeah. So I love what you said about some of the things you had gone through. You're like, God walked me through that with such a tumultuous upbringing and probably a lot of instability. Where did you like looking back now, knowing what you know? And God had kind of this call on your life the entire time. Where do you find God in some of those things? Like, was there any moments you were like, oh, it was weird. Like, I feel like I felt God back then in some way or I felt him watching over me or. Was there anything in your past? Cause I think a lot of times people go, oh, man. Like, I just had a really hard past.
Leslie Johnston [00:10:52]:
Like, God was not there. He was absent. But like, where did you see God growing up in that environment?
Andrew F. Carter [00:10:57]:
I'll give you one example. I've got dozens of them. Because in retrospect, it's easier to look back and go, oh, it all makes sense, for sure. I think the one that is the most powerful is I spent a year in foster care in my. My sophomore year in high school. And I look back and it was the best year of my teenage years, where a lot of people don't have a great time in foster care, but I was put under care of a woman, and I had like, eight different foster siblings. But it was the most consistency I had in my life. It was the most comfort I had.
Andrew F. Carter [00:11:29]:
It wasn't like a. A great place. But I didn't go home not wondering if I was going to have a roof over my head or what I was going to eat or if the lights were going to be on or if my mom was going to be overdosed. And so what I learned and. And that year was the best year I'd ever done in school. In high school, I had a 4.0. I played ball. And so what I realized in that moment where God was, is he was showing me that with consistency and discipline, the.
Andrew F. Carter [00:11:53]:
The sky's the limit for me because the year before I dropped out of school as a freshman, I had no consistency. I had none of that. And so even in where some people might look at foster care and go, oh, it's like this dark cloud. I look and I was like, oh, he was. He was there with me, showing me, giving me the confidence that, hey, if I have consistency, then I can do really whatever I put my mind to,
Leslie Johnston [00:12:13]:
which is so implementable for anybody. Like the discipline. I mean, I don't think we talk enough about having discipline in your life. Like, it's. It's a. A thing that God can totally use and does help you so much, which is really cool.
Morgan May Treuil [00:12:26]:
What's an area in your life that you find yourself asking present day am I doing this right?
Andrew F. Carter [00:12:31]:
Oh, parenting, husbanding, pastoring, friending. Yes, everything. I just.
Morgan May Treuil [00:12:39]:
Yes.
Andrew F. Carter [00:12:39]:
Yeah, yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:12:40]:
Talk about the pastoring piece. Because, I mean, it's not just that you're pastoring a church. You planted a church. Right. So that's a whole different kind of pastoring. Was there a moment when God said, hey, not only are you going to pastor and step into ministry, but we want you to actually plant a church?
Andrew F. Carter [00:12:55]:
Yeah. So, I mean, we planted with no mother church, no sending church. We planted with a dollar and a dream and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Leslie Johnston [00:13:01]:
Wow.
Andrew F. Carter [00:13:02]:
And so, you know, I don't have a seminary degree. Currently, I'm working on one. I didn't have previous pastoral experience. I wasn't in a church. We just went straight Book of Acts. We felt called to this city and to this place, and it was filled with dreams. The Lord spoke to both of us, my wife and I, clearly, that if we buil it and we step out in faith, you know, they will come. If you build it, they will come.
Andrew F. Carter [00:13:24]:
Wow. And so, I mean, that's. It's. We're running on faith and fumes, and that's. That's all it is. And so every time, every year that's gone by, we've had networks come along alongside of us. We've had donors and finances, mentors, overseers. I'm in rooms that I have no business being in because I've only been serving the Lord since 2019.
Andrew F. Carter [00:13:43]:
And it's so it. It goes to show, you know, John was just talking about John Maxwell. It's like, I can't take credit for anything that God's doing because he's drawing straight line with a crooked stick. You know, it's like, who am I?
Morgan May Treuil [00:13:55]:
Right.
Andrew F. Carter [00:13:55]:
It's First Corinthians, you know, he's using the. The foolish and the base things of the world to do some pretty great stuff. So.
Leslie Johnston [00:14:02]:
Yeah.
Andrew F. Carter [00:14:02]:
So.
Leslie Johnston [00:14:02]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I. Okay, so in your story, something that kind of caught my eye was like, when someone spoke that prophetic word over you. It wasn't like that happened. And then all of a sudden, everything was sunshine and rainbows after that. It was like that, actually. And you said. Scared you.
Andrew F. Carter [00:14:22]:
Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:14:22]:
What. What was like the scary thing about that that made you not lean into it? Because I think a lot of people and a lot of our listeners are like, God's maybe put something on my heart, or he's told me something, but it's almost like this guilt if you don't do it right away or you don't understand it. What made you run from it?
Andrew F. Carter [00:14:37]:
Yeah, it's like a Jonah moment. I didn't want it. I didn't want to be in ministry. You know, he. To speak. So it was a heavy word. I'm. I look back and I'm.
Andrew F. Carter [00:14:48]:
I'm about 23 years old, and he's saying, you're going to speak to millions of people about Jesus. That doesn't make sense to me. I've got my space. 13 followers. I failed speech class. You know, Like, I don't. I'm not a Communicator. I'm not a somebody who speaks.
Andrew F. Carter [00:15:03]:
And so for that big of a call, I thought that he had something, he got it wrong. I'm just like, that doesn't make sense. How. And I didn't want to be in ministry because what I saw of ministry, it didn't look attractive. You know, I'm a 23 year old guy working in a factory, got two kids, no formal education or training at this point. That terrified me.
Leslie Johnston [00:15:23]:
Yeah.
Andrew F. Carter [00:15:24]:
So for the rest of my life, this is what it is. No. So I ran and I ran to the world. I went and I tried to basically get what the world tells you, brings you happiness. And that's the education, the car, like all success. Success became my God after. After that.
Leslie Johnston [00:15:38]:
And did that feel like at first you were like, oh, I'm getting success? Maybe this is. I mean, maybe it's not totally what God had, but it's like similar. What. What's the difference in how you feel now verse when you did back then? Because I think sometimes we can feel like, oh no, what I'm doing is good. Like this is a good. Like this is the American dream. I'm living the American dream. Like this should feel like enough.
Leslie Johnston [00:16:02]:
What's the difference with your life now versus back then? Right.
Andrew F. Carter [00:16:06]:
That's a great question. I think it's the difference between a good thing and a God thing. And that's where. Where I was is. It was good, but I was never fulf. There was still this longing and this deep. It's almost like a chasm is. Even if I got the degree, it's like, okay, well I need another degree.
Andrew F. Carter [00:16:22]:
And so I got two. I played college basketball and it's like, well, I want to play at a higher level. You know, I. I just. It was this constant chasing like. Like Solomon says, it's chasing after the wind. There's no grasping it. And so no matter how many achievements or accolades or rewards I compiled over that short amount of time, I.
Andrew F. Carter [00:16:39]:
Once you get there, you're just like, oh, what's next? Yeah, so today it's like there's just a peace, you know, if I don't, if I don't preach another sermon, if we don't plan another church, if I don't make another dollar or write another book, like I'm content, like I'm just happy. I'm at peace.
Leslie Johnston [00:16:53]:
Yeah, I love that.
Morgan May Treuil [00:16:55]:
What's the thing that you're learning right now that is impacting you the most?
Andrew F. Carter [00:17:01]:
That's a great question. Because I'm Learning so many things. I would say rest, the importance of rest. I've, I'm a very disciplined and consistent person. I get up at 3:30 or 4 every morning, seven days a week. This morning I was up. Why is a great question.
Leslie Johnston [00:17:19]:
What time do you go to bed then?
Andrew F. Carter [00:17:21]:
9:30 or 10.
Morgan May Treuil [00:17:22]:
Okay.
Andrew F. Carter [00:17:22]:
Oh, yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:17:23]:
Oh, I was, I was spending like
Morgan May Treuil [00:17:24]:
11, 12, 1, 2. So you get like five or six hours of sleep at night?
Andrew F. Carter [00:17:27]:
About six or so. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm a big believer in naps, so I, I won't shy away from. I got a 2 year old and a 5 month old, so when they go down, we go down.
Morgan May Treuil [00:17:35]:
We go down.
Andrew F. Carter [00:17:35]:
Yeah, we go down.
Leslie Johnston [00:17:36]:
We're all taking.
Andrew F. Carter [00:17:37]:
My wife says we'll put them down a nap. It's like, I got it, I got it.
Leslie Johnston [00:17:39]:
We're gonna sl.
Morgan May Treuil [00:17:40]:
Yes.
Leslie Johnston [00:17:41]:
That's awesome.
Andrew F. Carter [00:17:42]:
So I think rest. I've, I come from the fitness world. Owning a gym, training people, it's always like blood, sweat and tears. You know, go hard or go home. And I brought that mentality into ministry. And five years in, I'm realizing it's not blood, sweat and tears. It's. It's got to be rest and rhythm and taking care of yourself.
Andrew F. Carter [00:18:01]:
And so I'm spending more time this year. I'm not preaching the last Sunday of every month. I'm taking more Sundays off. I'm saying no to a lot more things and taking time to just be a dad. And I said last Sunday, I didn't preach last Sunday. And I was serving coffee and people were like, what are you doing? And I was like, well, this week I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna be a servant. I'm just gonna be a son kind of a thing. Like, I just want to be really cool.
Andrew F. Carter [00:18:22]:
I want to be poured into this week. So I went to the altar and prayed and just worshiped with the people and let somebody preach.
Leslie Johnston [00:18:28]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:18:28]:
How do you, as a minister, because how, how old is your church now?
Andrew F. Carter [00:18:32]:
Five years.
Morgan May Treuil [00:18:33]:
Five years. Which I wonder how. I think a lot of pastors had this fear or ministry leaders in general when you, you, you have this like false sense of belief that when you remove yourself from something that it's not gonna, it's gonna tank, Right?
Andrew F. Carter [00:18:47]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:18:47]:
And I care. I'm curious how you balance the pressure of that, like to remove yourself from a weekend sermon to, to be a son and to serve coffee and be a part of the church, but not leading, you know, leading the sermon time. Do you feel like that's Hard sometimes to like relinquish control or are you starting to love rest? And it's. And it feels really good when you do it.
Andrew F. Carter [00:19:07]:
Yeah, it's. I love it. And the thing is, is I just don't feel like Maxwell was crushing it. He had me in tears because I feel like I'm a leader who's a pastor, not necessarily a pastor who's a leader. And so I feel for me, I have an apostolic calling on my life. I am a visionary. I'm forward thinking. I want to plant more churches and launch.
Andrew F. Carter [00:19:27]:
And so when we planted this church, it was never with the intention of me being the lead guy for years to come. So it's really exciting for me knowing that, you know, the discipleship programs that I've got implemented in our church are working. We're raising up leaders. And I sat like, like a proud father in the stands of just like, ah, look at what God's done through somebody broken like me. And now if I'm gone, this church runs and it's fantastic. So it's more, you know, my goal is I would not be pastoring this church in the next five years and somebody else is running it and I'm off doing the next thing God's called me to.
Morgan May Treuil [00:19:59]:
That's really cool.
Andrew F. Carter [00:20:00]:
Yeah, I just, just. Yeah, I don't want to be a lifelong pastor. I don't like.
Morgan May Treuil [00:20:05]:
I think that's awesome and kind of rare. Yeah, I think that mentality of I'm really happy when somebody else is good at this because that means I'm training somebody else up. And yeah, I don't want to be the person doing this in five years. I feel like that's a. Basically we have a kind of a plurality of leadership and there's so many people that are all so talented and everyone's got their hands at the helm. And I'm like, this is not normal to have people that are so low ego. So, okay, God does what God does. I'm gonna be a part and then I'm gonna get out of the way and let.
Morgan May Treuil [00:20:37]:
I think that's really, really cool.
Andrew F. Carter [00:20:39]:
I think it's biblical.
Leslie Johnston [00:20:40]:
Can you speak?
Morgan May Treuil [00:20:41]:
Can you speak to. Sorry, what were you gonna ask?
Leslie Johnston [00:20:42]:
Oh, no, you're good.
Morgan May Treuil [00:20:43]:
I was gonna say, can you speak to social media?
Leslie Johnston [00:20:46]:
Yeah, I was just gonna ask that
Morgan May Treuil [00:20:48]:
too, because this is a huge. What question were you gonna ask?
Leslie Johnston [00:20:50]:
Well, I was just gonna say, obviously you have a very large following and you reach a lot of people on Tick Tock, Instagram. What? Talk to us. What that's like, at that level, like, what surprises you about it, what's awesome about it, what's hard about it? I mean, social media is like, not only are you a pastor and you have five kids and you've got all that. Social media is like a whole other section. And if you have a following, I assume that comes with great things and really tough things.
Andrew F. Carter [00:21:19]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly, at this stage and where we're at now, I don't spend a lot of time on it. And so I have people who post for me. At this point, I've stepped back. But in the early days, you know, and early days, it was like the wild West. It was 2020 because nobody was working, everybody was on social media, and things were just taking off. And so at first I would, I would go in the morning, I'd sit on my, my bike, I would do cardio, and for an hour I would respond to dms, I would respond to questions, I would give my phone number out, email, like I was trying to change the world for Jes. That backfired.
Andrew F. Carter [00:21:53]:
That was the worst thing I could have ever done because random people had my phone number. If I said something they didn't agree with. I'm getting emails and now they're, oh, God. I gave too much access to myself early on and, and then I was fighting with people in comment sections, trying to change their mind, writing out long paragraphs.
Leslie Johnston [00:22:11]:
I don't do it, but I, I, I am tempted to, I rehearse it.
Andrew F. Carter [00:22:15]:
It's, yeah, it's, it was, it was bad. It was heavy. It was mentally draining. I think the great part is that you can reach people. You make an impact in your life. It's really cool when I'm speaking somewhere or I'm traveling and somebody comes up in the airport and they're just like, man, I've been following you, and your content has, you know, pulled me out of depression or God's used you. And that. I think that's, like, really cool.
Andrew F. Carter [00:22:36]:
It's just like, man, I had no idea that, you know, I could reach so many people, but there is just a dark, negative side of it. I think for me, what I struggle with the most with social media is comparison.
Morgan May Treuil [00:22:47]:
Right?
Andrew F. Carter [00:22:48]:
And so I had to limit myself from social media because I, I follow a bunch of pastors and, and, and guys who I love and celebrate. But I start looking at them and it's like, man, their ministry is growing. Why is mine not? Or, man, oh, somebody just gave them a million dollars. Like, lord, do for me what You've done for others. And. And it becomes this comparison. You start to resent, you start to get frustrated, and you're missing out what God's doing in your city, in your context, through you, because you're so concerned with what everybody else is doing. And so for me, that became negative.
Andrew F. Carter [00:23:20]:
And it's like, I'm not jealous or mad at the guys, I'm celebrating them, but I really start questioning God of like, why are you doing it for this guy? I know I'm up earlier, I pray harder, I'm fasting longer, I'm more physically, you know, like, yeah, I'm doing all of these things. But you're. And that just became toxic. So, yeah, I had to step away.
Leslie Johnston [00:23:36]:
Yeah, that's really smart.
Morgan May Treuil [00:23:38]:
What's your philosophy on using social media to reach people? Because we have a lot of people listening to this that have very active Instagram accounts, Snapchats, whatever people are using now. And, and they have an opportunity here to use it for the sake of furthering the kingdom of God. And you clearly think that that's true because you're using it to do that. So can you speak to what you think social media does, the reach that it has? You gave an example of somebody who saw a video of yours and it saved their life. Not you, but God that met them through your video. So can you speak a little bit to that?
Andrew F. Carter [00:24:12]:
I think the biggest thing would be authenticity. People see through it. They see performance, they see when people aren't being who they are. And it's funny, it's not funny. But the one video that actually took off for me and put me on this trajectory was the one video that I was just being honest. The night that I posted that video, I had just separated from somebody who I saw like a long term with. And so I was just sitting in my room reading my Bible. I've got tears in my eyes.
Andrew F. Carter [00:24:39]:
And I shared three points that have. That held a lot of shame and guilt. Prison. Nobody wants to, you know, yeah, I've been to prison. So I was sharing that foster care. There was shame and guilt around that divorce. These are like the scarlet letters there, you know. And so I was being authentic and I was just like, you know what? This is me.
Andrew F. Carter [00:24:56]:
God's carried me through it, like me or not. And that took off that, that's, that's the video that resonated the most with people. And so even our culture, for our church, our first one is we're unapologetically authentic. And that's just what I think People should be on social media is just stop putting on a face. Stop pretending to be something you're not. When you speak from your heart and let God speak through you, you're going to make the biggest impact.
Leslie Johnston [00:25:18]:
Yeah. What's like, the thing that you. Because you have walked through so much and a lot of it is stuff that happened to you, you know, like, stuff that you had no control over. What would you say? What's like, your biggest encouragement for people who are stuck in a rut of, like, gosh, too many things have either happened to me, I've done too much. Like, when they feel almost like, how could God use me when I've. And if. Especially for people who, like, you know, when, like, you. You sin and you do things, but you're, like, not a Christian yet.
Leslie Johnston [00:25:51]:
You're like, well, that was like, before I was a Christian.
Andrew F. Carter [00:25:53]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:25:53]:
But it's almost harder when you are a Christian because you're like, I know I should know better, but I still get caught up in these things. How could God use somebody like me? What's, like, your main encouragement when you talk to people about that? Because you've kind of lived that.
Andrew F. Carter [00:26:07]:
Wow. I think when things happen to you, and that could be, you know, you're in foster care or somebody hurt you, cheated on you, whatever that looks like. What I've learned is that many times the pain was preparation for a platform. And so what I was going through or what was happening to me was preparing me for the audience that would need to hear what it is that I have to say in the future. And so, I mean, you look, even in the Bible, you look at Moses and Abraham and Joseph, they didn't have lives without pain. And all of their pain was preparation for the platform that God had for them. And so that's just. That's just what I see it as is, hey, you're going through hard times and these things are happening to you.
Andrew F. Carter [00:26:48]:
And if you look at it through the right lens, you can use your hurt for a harvest. Right. Or you can use it to. To. To glorify Jesus.
Leslie Johnston [00:26:57]:
Yeah. Isn't it funny? Like, we read the Bible, like, it's like our context now as we look at some of these people who maybe are like, pastors we know, or people are doing great ministry, and it's like, oh, yeah, they've been, you know, Christians since they were 4, and they've, like, apparently never messed up. But you look in the Bible and you're like, everybody that's mentioned has the craziest stories and the craziest past and what they've done. And I'm like, if you're looking at biblical heroes of the Bible, those are the people who are like, they've messed up, they've done stuff, they've whatever. And that's who God is interested in. I mean, he's interested in using everyone. That's who he uses the most.
Morgan May Treuil [00:27:32]:
Yes.
Leslie Johnston [00:27:33]:
So to me, I'm like, if anything, it should be like, hey, you know what? God must be really doing something for me because I've been through a lot and he is about to use all of that, which I think is so cool.
Morgan May Treuil [00:27:42]:
That's great.
Leslie Johnston [00:27:43]:
And just to commend you too, like, I was just talking to someone about this the other day. Like, I love when someone comes from a background that is not at all what they're doing now. Like, I think it's cool. Like, I even look at my dad, and my dad came from in different ways, but, like, some of a tougher upbringing with his family, a lot of alcohol abuse and all that kind of stuff. And I'd like, look at him now and I'm like, the fact, dad, that you are so different from what you grew up and who you grew up under is such a testament to, like, what God can do. Like, your past doesn't define you. It doesn't. It doesn't ensure the road that you have to go on.
Leslie Johnston [00:28:25]:
And so I love hearing your story because I love going. Not I love what you walked through, but I love that, like, the man you are now is just proof to everybody. It's like, God can do so much in you if you let him.
Morgan May Treuil [00:28:38]:
Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:28:38]:
Which is really cool.
Morgan May Treuil [00:28:39]:
So good. I have one final question, because you've got to race over to teach a breakout. What would you, I think, about your role as a husband, a father to five children, and those five children, there's an age gap between them. So your top half children are in a certain life stage. You've got two under two, right?
Andrew F. Carter [00:28:57]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:28:58]:
Which is. I only have. I have one that's four months and I'm exhausted. So I don't know how you're surviving. And then not only do you have this, you know, this big outreach ministry via social media, but then you're a church planter, that is pastoring a church. And I'm just curious. You must experience a lot of pressure, and I'm curious how you stay standing up and going forward when the pressure gets really intense because you fill a lot of rules.
Leslie Johnston [00:29:22]:
Give us like, give us like a physical one and Give us a spiritual one. Like, what's one thing spiritually you do to stay encouraged and refreshed? And what's something like, because that's a huge aspect of your life, too, is like, what's something like physically that really does help you, and it's practical.
Andrew F. Carter [00:29:36]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm about to teach a work workshop on it. It's called Faith that Don't Fold. I think that. Okay, my favorite quote is Abraham Lincoln, and he says, if you give me six hours to cut down a tree, I'll spend the first four sharpening my ax. And so, basically, before I go out into the day, I'm going to fill my cup. And so that's why I get up early.
Andrew F. Carter [00:29:55]:
I don't get up early just to work out. I get up to spend time with the Lord. And so I'm a better husband, father, pastor, friend because of that. And it's a sacred time. Everybody at the Airbnb thought I was crazy this morning.
Leslie Johnston [00:30:08]:
Morning.
Andrew F. Carter [00:30:08]:
Because I was up and I took the van and I went to the gym at 5 and did what I did. And they were like, you're not going to take a break on vacation. And it's like, you don't want to see me without doing my routine. And so the. The discipline, consistency, and routine is what carries me through. It's something that I lean on. And in that time, I. I pray and I spend time in the Word.
Andrew F. Carter [00:30:30]:
I usually read devotionals. I'll listen to sermons and podcasts as I'm going to the gym.
Leslie Johnston [00:30:35]:
Am I doing this right? You start your day with, am I doing this?
Andrew F. Carter [00:30:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. Basically, this is. This is what I tune into. Make sure that I'm locked in. That was a good plug. So that's. I mean, my physical and spiritual routine is I spend the first couple of hours, I get up early because I have kids.
Andrew F. Carter [00:30:54]:
I can't just do this in the middle of the day. So I have to make a sacrifice. And so I go to bed early, I get up early, and I do this. I fill my cup spiritually, physically, so that I can show up better in all of the roles that require me to be there.
Leslie Johnston [00:31:06]:
So I love that. That reminds me of. I don't know. This is funny. It's like a Mr. Rogers thing. But I watched the movie on him. It came out, like, maybe 10 years ago, and I remember him being like, he was like the nicest guy ever.
Leslie Johnston [00:31:19]:
He was amazing. And I remember in the movie, they. And it was true story, they interviewed his wife, and they were like, Is he just this nice at home and this nice all the time? And she goes, he is, but he's actually a very angry man. Like, she's like, but every morning he wakes up at like 4 in the morning, he goes and swims. He does this. He reads his Bible. She's like, he swims. I don't know, it was like 50 to 100 laps.
Leslie Johnston [00:31:43]:
And he reads his Bible. And that's why he's the person that he is. And I was like, man, what could we be if we actually were disciplined in our life? Kind of like what you're doing is like the person that we could become if we developed that sort of discipline in our lives. I may not be up at 3:30, but I'm gonna get up earlier.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:02]:
I do need to get up earlier.
Leslie Johnston [00:32:03]:
I think I'm gonna be like maybe a 6:30.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:05]:
But we need to meet him in the middle because I'm over here rolling out of bed and he's a bit right there. I'm like, we gotta 6am or something.
Leslie Johnston [00:32:12]:
We're gonna lock in after this.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:13]:
I need to lock it after this conference is over. I'm locking in.
Leslie Johnston [00:32:16]:
I'm very inspired by that.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:17]:
So good. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for who you reach. I'm sure the. The story you shared about your social media reach, there's thousands of stories that are like that. People who have seen you and their lives have been touched or changed because of it. So thank you for what you do. Thank you for being vulnerable with your story because this is the stuff that we don't talk about.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:37]:
And when we don't talk about them, it. It doesn't let people know that they could also have freedom and redemption. So thank you for all of that and thank you for pastoring and thank you for coming on the podcast. We really appreciate it.
Andrew F. Carter [00:32:48]:
It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Leslie Johnston [00:32:50]:
All right, we'll see you next time. Am I doing this right?
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:52]:
Bye.