Leslie Johnston [00:00:00]:
All right, welcome back to Am I Doing this Right? And this is a very exciting day, an exciting episode because we have my dad on the episode.
Ray Johnston [00:00:09]:
Dad?
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:10]:
Your dad's on the show?
Leslie Johnston [00:00:12]:
Yes. Ray Johnson, new claim to fame.
Ray Johnston [00:00:14]:
Being the dad of the daughter of this podcast started.
Leslie Johnston [00:00:19]:
If you don't know, you're both kind of like daughters.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:22]:
Yeah. I was your real dad and then my surrogate California dad.
Leslie Johnston [00:00:27]:
That's so true.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:27]:
I don't know if surrogate's the right
Ray Johnston [00:00:28]:
word because I was like, hey, this could be the third twin.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:31]:
Twin, yes.
Ray Johnston [00:00:32]:
We can adopt her. And then I met your dad because I was hoping he'd be a jerk. And he's a great guy, so I know. I met him. I went, oh, man, the adoption thing's off.
Leslie Johnston [00:00:39]:
When More. Yeah, when Morgan's Texas dad comes to town, we'll have him on the podcast.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:43]:
Texas dad.
Leslie Johnston [00:00:44]:
We can make it Texas theme. Like, wear cowboy boots and. Yeah, I like to say that. Well, no, I was gonna say I call Morgan's dad Mater because he sounds to me like Mater from Cars, but he's really cool.
Morgan May Treuil [00:00:58]:
Like, he's a cool, cool Mater. Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:01:00]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:01:00]:
But this episode's about your dad.
Leslie Johnston [00:01:02]:
Yes, that's right. And right before we started this episode, he's actually both of our bosses as well, at our church.
Morgan May Treuil [00:01:09]:
Yes.
Leslie Johnston [00:01:10]:
And he said, this is really fun to do a podcast with people you can fire.
Ray Johnston [00:01:14]:
I have no recollection of ever saying anything like that.
Leslie Johnston [00:01:17]:
So we'll see how this episode goes. But I'm excited because my dad is one of my best friends and we spend a lot of time together. He's the person I go to all the time when anything kind of hits the fan.
Ray Johnston [00:01:31]:
As they say, anytime I need money.
Leslie Johnston [00:01:35]:
Not always true. But I come to him, like, literally the other week. This is going to expose me. But I was, like, really being like, I should not have bought this dog like this. Right. I'm in the pub, deep in the puppy phase. He's biting me. He's tearing apart everything.
Leslie Johnston [00:01:50]:
I'm, like, in tears and I'm, like, driving. I'm, like, going to my parents house. Like, I know my dad will make me feel better. And so I'm excited for everyone to listen because you, you are, like the king of talking through things, helping someone get from being, like, stuck to unstuck, from sad to feeling hopeful. So I think this is gonna be a really fun episode.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:13]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:02:13]:
Choked up in the introduction of this thing.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:15]:
Oh, I know. So a few things for our listeners.
Ray Johnston [00:02:19]:
Go ahead. One thing you should never, given our times, use the phrase bought a dog.
Leslie Johnston [00:02:25]:
Oh, yes.
Ray Johnston [00:02:25]:
Cause you actually have a rescue dog.
Leslie Johnston [00:02:27]:
That's right.
Ray Johnston [00:02:28]:
That you acquired.
Leslie Johnston [00:02:29]:
I acquired through money.
Ray Johnston [00:02:31]:
Through money and a plane flight. So you rescued this dog?
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:34]:
I rescued this dog from living in
Ray Johnston [00:02:36]:
the state of Ohio or wherever.
Leslie Johnston [00:02:37]:
Exactly. I know he was like living a great life in Ohio and I paid money to bring him to California.
Ray Johnston [00:02:42]:
Thought it was very good use of your money to rescue that poor dog.
Morgan May Treuil [00:02:46]:
That is great. So, Pastor Ray, you are, first of all the lead and founding pastor of Bayside Church. You are an author, you are a leadership expert. You develop lots of young people. You are an awesome husband. You have an amazing family, you have an amazing story. I have never seen somebody equally love both the church that they lead and also their family to the same like. Well, sorry, I should say this.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:11]:
You love your family more than you love your church and you love your church a lot. Yeah. And I think there's so much to learn from your life. So I'm excited for all of our listeners to get to hear a little bit about your story and how you got to where you are. But we always start this podcast with something.
Ray Johnston [00:03:26]:
First of all, thank you for saying all that. That's very nice. What's be overrated?
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:30]:
It's very true. And you're very humble.
Leslie Johnston [00:03:32]:
You also have more. We tell, we say this all the time among our staff. We're like, well, dad Ray has more energy than any of our staff members. I mean, all of us combined.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:42]:
Yeah, you're like a permanent 16 year old. Energy, like trapped in. Well, you're not old, so you're just a 16 year old,
Leslie Johnston [00:03:52]:
like in a 17 year old body.
Ray Johnston [00:03:55]:
The.
Morgan May Treuil [00:03:56]:
Okay, so we always start this podcast with an unpopular opinion and we're really excited to hear whichever unpopular opinion that you want to bring to the table.
Leslie Johnston [00:04:04]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:04:05]:
By the way, so I know how you like. I listen to your podcast and first of all, congratulations. It's going crazy. So very cool. So I knew this was coming. So I have more than one.
Morgan May Treuil [00:04:16]:
Okay, great.
Ray Johnston [00:04:17]:
I mean, number one is this the Oscars. You watch the Oscars and you go, why do they pick movies nobody ever sees? Like, you're going. A billion people go out and see, you know, Maverick and it was amazing. And everybody I talked to loved it. And you're going, nah, I don't have a shot at being an Oscar movie. Cause people actually like it.
Morgan May Treuil [00:04:40]:
Yes.
Ray Johnston [00:04:42]:
So all of the Oscar stuff, I mean, crazy. The other one is this. People that. Another thing is this. I like food, plain like, you had somebody on the other day going, plain chips, right?
Leslie Johnston [00:04:55]:
Oh, yeah. They didn't like flavored chips.
Ray Johnston [00:04:57]:
Yeah, flavored chips. Neither do I. The problem is, you walk into a store now and there's 7 billion brands of stuff, you know, and it's like. Like I saw the other day, onion vinegar chips. Drinks vinegar. Who wants that on their chip? Hot fudge chip. You know, I mean, I would probably go for that one. It was funny.
Ray Johnston [00:05:16]:
Like, Carol, your mom and I get married, Carol. And we'd go out. I could eat the same thing every time. Okay, no problem. Okay. I mean, the four food groups, you know, pizza, pizza, you know, that sort of thing. And so we're going out and were finally, she goes, you're such a boring eater. And I went, yep.
Ray Johnston [00:05:38]:
And then I finally fixed it, though about. It took me five years of being married to kind of figure this one out. I finally turned and said, honey, I need no variety in two things, food and women. Game over. Mic dropped. There was. I haven't heard any complaints.
Leslie Johnston [00:05:53]:
That's true. I laugh because all of us kids, there's four kids in our family, and we all adopted kind of his taste in food when it came to, like when we were younger, going through drive thrus.
Morgan May Treuil [00:06:03]:
Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:06:04]:
So my poor mom would get to the drive thru, and it's like, we're at McDonald's and she's like, can I get one hamburger with nothing on it? Can I get another one with just cheese? Can I get another one with just like. We all had our specific orders because dad did. So we're like. We're allowed to do that too.
Ray Johnston [00:06:18]:
That's funny. And so the other unpopular opinion is this. In my opinion, no dad with kids should ever have to learn tech because you got kids to go to. How do you fix. We just did this. Hey, honey, I need this phone on permanently. Bam, it's on.
Leslie Johnston [00:06:32]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:06:33]:
So. But the big one for me is this the. With four kids, two boys, identical twin daughters. They got a million friends. I have seen. I know. Guys are going, oh, nobody should ever watch the Bachelor or the Bachelorette. I've seen every one of those stupid things because I watched them with Mike.
Ray Johnston [00:06:53]:
I watched them with you guys. Matter of fact, now, I mean, you're adults. You're all grown. You know, everybody's out of the house every Monday. Is it Monday now?
Leslie Johnston [00:07:02]:
Yes. Monday nights.
Ray Johnston [00:07:03]:
Yeah, it's every Monday night. Bam, they'll be over. But like 10 years ago, when you were in high school, all your high school friends, all of this kind of Stuff. Big hulking football guys are sitting there. I'll never forget this. Sitting next to named Scotty on a couch one time. And I look over at Scotty and I go, you know, I think Vanessa's all wrong for Jake. And he looks at me and goes, me too.
Ray Johnston [00:07:21]:
And then we look at each other going, what the heck are we doing?
Leslie Johnston [00:07:24]:
My favorite. Hold on. My favorite part of this story is that Vanessa and Jake, those are the right names. He didn't just make those up.
Morgan May Treuil [00:07:29]:
Those were from that season.
Ray Johnston [00:07:31]:
No. Hey. And Scotty and I were right. They were definitely wrong for each other.
Morgan May Treuil [00:07:34]:
Yes.
Ray Johnston [00:07:35]:
By the way, the show's a disaster, cuz nobody ever stays married. But I know it is.
Leslie Johnston [00:07:39]:
But I love that you watched that with us. It was intentional though, on your part. I mean, maybe slightly you started to love the show, but I think you were intentional of like, my kids are going to watch this with a bunch of people. So I can either be like, you can't watch that. As a high school student.
Morgan May Treuil [00:07:53]:
Yes.
Leslie Johnston [00:07:54]:
So then I would go over to my friend's house and watch it, but you're like, no, let's have everybody over. And then occasionally you'd stop it and be like, this is ridiculous. Can we talk about how dumb this is?
Ray Johnston [00:08:03]:
Oh yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:08:04]:
So it helped us.
Ray Johnston [00:08:05]:
Yeah, pretty much. If you're parenting kids, you're going, okay, you can stop them from seeing everything. It's not a bad life strategy. It just doesn't work.
Leslie Johnston [00:08:14]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:08:15]:
And so we knew that earlier. You know, our oldest, Mark, he's like four or five. Five. And so we're going, we're not going to let him see any scary movies or any of this kind of stuff. He's too young. He'll get that later. He comes home and he goes, jurassic park is amazing. And your mom and I are going, where'd you see that? Our youth pastor.
Leslie Johnston [00:08:37]:
Oh my gosh.
Ray Johnston [00:08:38]:
Who's no longer our youth pastor. So pretty much I went, either you're going to try to stop everything from getting to him. Which is not a bad strategy. Okay, well, there's parenting strategies, there's protection, and there's preparation. Yeah, I think you gotta do both. But the all protection, we're gonna stop them from any exposure to anything. Those days, they don't work. So I was like, I wanna be able to watch this with a group of people.
Ray Johnston [00:09:12]:
And occasionally, just for fun, I'd stop it and we'd go, does anybody realize how stupid it is? Matter of fact, you remember the sermon illustration?
Leslie Johnston [00:09:19]:
Yes.
Ray Johnston [00:09:19]:
Like occasionally I'll have, like, I'll prep a message, and then I'd have my kids go over it with me and help me prep the last version. Okay. I remember one time you were like, oh, you got to show this video.
Leslie Johnston [00:09:33]:
Yeah. And it was like a. A portion from the Bachelor that we
Morgan May Treuil [00:09:37]:
had just watched, and you played it
Leslie Johnston [00:09:39]:
during the sermon, and I was like, dad, this is like. You were like, actually, this does kind of fit with the sermon. Because the girl's like, I. Why? Why didn't your marriage work out? And he's like, well, we just fell out of love. And she's like. She was actually kind of smart. She's like, well, are you just gonna fall out of love with me? And. And so he showed.
Ray Johnston [00:09:56]:
Can you drop it into this?
Morgan May Treuil [00:09:58]:
I'm sure.
Leslie Johnston [00:09:59]:
Sure we can.
Morgan May Treuil [00:09:59]:
You showed that during a sermon?
Ray Johnston [00:10:01]:
Oh, yeah. Matter of fact.
Morgan May Treuil [00:10:01]:
Hey, that's amazing.
Ray Johnston [00:10:03]:
You all want to hear this or see this? Check this out. You can get away with this, right?
Leslie Johnston [00:10:06]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:10:06]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:10:07]:
Okay, good. Get away with this other unpopular opinion. The. You're watching this thing, and the setup is the bachelorette. Seems like a really nice person, kind person, has a kid, and she's got all these guys. And this one guy, he's great looking, professional, all this stuff, but he was in love with somebody. They got married, and then they're no longer married. And so she's trying to assess, is this guy a good boy, bet or not to stay faithful in a marriage? So she looks at him and she says, so I have a question.
Ray Johnston [00:10:47]:
Like, I want to know, like, what's your capacity for long term commitment? She goes, like, so what happened? And he said, well, and it was a really great looking dude. And he goes, well, he said, you know, my wife and I, yeah, we were married, but we just kind of fell out of love. By the way, that's a problem, because if you could fall in love, you fall out of it. He goes, just kind of fell out of love. I don't know how to explain it. He goes. And the next thing, he goes, but she goes, well, what would you do if that happened with us? And he goes, oh, you don't need to worry about that. You're a sweetheart, and I wouldn't worry about it.
Ray Johnston [00:11:23]:
And you could feel every. So I went, oh, man, this is going to be good. So I showed it in church. And matter of fact, can they show it now?
Morgan May Treuil [00:11:33]:
Sure. Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:11:34]:
Y' all either watch this or listen to this. Check this out. Yeah, it plays. And then I go, the minute I did that, I said, hey, we got Any dads here with daughters? How many of you want this guy anywhere near your daughter? Not a thing. I mean, it was awesome.
Leslie Johnston [00:11:48]:
So funny. And then at the end of that
Ray Johnston [00:11:50]:
email, ladies and gentlemen, you've seen the Bachelor for the first and last time at Bayside Church. So that is so great illustration.
Leslie Johnston [00:11:56]:
So fun.
Morgan May Treuil [00:11:57]:
I remember the first time that I came to Yalls house. It was like I had moved here two days before and we had gone to with our roommates, we had gone out to eat dinner, and then we went to your parents house to hang out and you just said, we're gonna go over there and just hang out, watch tv. I walk in, that's when I meet you for the first time. And I had just started working at Bayside, so in my mind, you're my boss. And he's like, all right everyone, we're turning on the Bachelor. Everybody sit down, find a spot. And we started to watch the Bachelor together. And then you would pause it and you would pull everybody in the room to get everybody's buy in, everybody's opinion.
Morgan May Treuil [00:12:31]:
And that something that I have learned from you, first of all, to be in ministry and to be a real person also. Right? Nobody wants to learn from somebody that isn't a human being and nobody wants to learn from someone that they can't relate to or who isn't fun. You encompass all of those things. Second thing you do is you get every single person in the room involved in what you're doing. It makes everybody bought in. I feel like we could go a few different directions with our conversation, but one of the things I do want to do is talk about leadership. We've got a lot of leaders that are listening to this podcast. Leaders of various ages, leaders of both girls and guys.
Morgan May Treuil [00:13:09]:
But I would love to hear from your perspective how you became passionate about leadership. If that was something that happened in your life or a turn that things took. Obviously you're a pastor, but you're also really, really good at leadership. Can you speak to how that kind of started for you?
Leslie Johnston [00:13:24]:
Give. Give people a little background too for you? Because I think that helps with where you are now. Like, you didn't grow up with necessarily like the pedigree to be a pastor.
Ray Johnston [00:13:35]:
No, I grew up in Southern California, grew up in one of those kind of executive jet set Southern California families where dad was president of a company at age 40 and mom and he were a really big deal and part of what he did was run the Rose Parade. And so they're in all these fancy settings and there's a club down there called the Overland Club. And he was in that thing which was sort of of the elite of the elite. Guys wanted to run him for governor and he turned him down and they ran a guy named Ronald Reagan instead. So he ran in these circles. Six, three. Played football at the University of Minnesota. Kind of a big.
Ray Johnston [00:14:11]:
Just sort of a big deal. And then what. And I was the oldest of two younger sisters. And then what happened is he basically just got sucked into alcohol. Now, he had. Everybody's got a past, okay, when your past is rough. And his was. His dad committed suicide when he was 10 years old.
Ray Johnston [00:14:32]:
And so I don't know that he ever dealt with it or recovered. So he became an alcoholic, and then he became an alcoholic rageaholic. And so all that happened when I was about 10 and 11 years old. So I actually had a pretty good dad until about 10 or 11. Then what happened is he becomes an alcoholic rageholic. My mom becomes an alcoholic. Now they're both atheists, so I, of course, am an atheist. And so I grew up, didn't believe any of this.
Ray Johnston [00:14:59]:
I mean, never went to church. Matter of fact, When I was 18, I talked a guy out of becoming a Christian, which does not look good on the pastor's resume.
Morgan May Treuil [00:15:07]:
Oh, my gosh.
Ray Johnston [00:15:09]:
And so. But growing up in that family, I went, man, this. He could have been governor. He probably could have been president. He was that sharp.
Morgan May Treuil [00:15:22]:
And.
Ray Johnston [00:15:23]:
And I watched him make a decision that literally took him from going up to down. And I mean, wreck the family. My sisters will spend their entire life recovering from his impact on their life. You know, stuff like that. And then what happened is, so at age 18, I became a Christian. Well, my parents marriage blows up. But that was no surprise because in my family, every single marriage in the family tree has blown up. My mom and dad got divorced.
Ray Johnston [00:15:56]:
She had two sisters, married and divorced. One of them was married and divorced three times. One of her marriages lasted three days. Both grandparents marriages blew up. If you take my family tree out, you go about 140 years back in my family tree, there was one lasting marriage. Well, it took a long time. But a good buddy of mine down there, a guy named Jim Shipstead, started hauling me to this great church. And it was a large church in Pasadena.
Ray Johnston [00:16:24]:
I probably would have never walked into a small church because you get noticed. And so he hauls me into this thing. And it took me a long time, but I finally, after studying this stuff, I woke up one day and I went, oh, no, it's 5149. I now believe more than I don't believe.
Leslie Johnston [00:16:41]:
And because you did a lot of research, it wasn't like I had a emotional experience. And that's why you were like, no, I got to know if this is real or not.
Ray Johnston [00:16:50]:
I'm a facts kind of guy. So I basically went. I read every book. I talked to everybody. I asked everybody questions, and I asked every hard question in the book first. Basically, it came down to the resurrection. What's the evidence say? And so at one point, I was like, wait a sec. I'm actually walking around at night just thinking about this stuff.
Ray Johnston [00:17:10]:
And because I'm going, wait a second. It takes more blind faith to be an atheist than it does to believe that there is a creator.
Leslie Johnston [00:17:19]:
Wow.
Ray Johnston [00:17:20]:
I mean, I'm wearing a watch. It didn't just happen. Now you can say, where'd you get there? You know? But it was. So the move from atheism to there had to be a creator to me, holds more intellectual water.
Morgan May Treuil [00:17:35]:
Right?
Ray Johnston [00:17:36]:
Then the whole thing ended up being, is there more evidence that Jesus rose from the dead or that he didn't? And that weight of the evidence piled up to the point where I went, all right, I'm in.
Morgan May Treuil [00:17:49]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:17:50]:
And so then what happened is. And it's sort of. And then I didn't really go into leadership to be a leader. What happened is I'd watched my dad make decisions that literally blew his future up. State of California might even be different and blow up his future, blow up his impact, blew up our family, blew up everything. And I pretty much went, okay, seems like the smartest thing to do is to help people make great decisions that lead them to a great future instead of bad decisions. So ultimately, to me, leadership is going to making the right decisions or helping other people. Like, I just, right before walking in here, meet with young great leader and going, all right, now, let's think through the decisions and what's your outcomes.
Ray Johnston [00:18:42]:
You want, all that kind of stuff. So leadership's fundamentally part of what leadership is. Well, I define leadership like this. It's knowing where you're going and persuading people to go with you.
Morgan May Treuil [00:18:52]:
Wow.
Ray Johnston [00:18:53]:
Or knowing where it would be great if somebody went and helping persuade them that it's going to be better for them to go in that direction. My dad didn't have anybody like that. I'd like everybody to have somebody like that.
Leslie Johnston [00:19:04]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:19:04]:
Wow.
Leslie Johnston [00:19:04]:
It's almost like great leadership is an accumulation of a bunch of really good, smaller decisions that get you there. What? I love that because I feel like a lot of people go, oh, well, I don't have, like, I want to do this thing, whether that's in ministry or in business or whatever, but I don't really have like the pat. Like my past holds me back. But I feel like you didn't let that happen to you. It was like, you're a great dad and you didn't have. I mean, you had a great dad for the first 10 years, but I love like even watching you be a dad and a leader because I'm like, you didn't have the perfect setup to be one. What was like, what was the difference in like, obviously your relationship with God was probably the biggest thing that changed the trajectory. Cause your life could have gone down that way of divorce, alcohol, all that stuff.
Leslie Johnston [00:19:57]:
But you've really steered the other way. What was, what were some things that helped you steer the right way when your past was the wrong way or
Morgan May Treuil [00:20:06]:
you had no examples? Yeah. Like how did you, how did you become a good husband with no example in your parents marriage? How'd you become a good dad when your family history was more blow up? Like, where'd you learn it?
Ray Johnston [00:20:18]:
Yep. Well, first thing I'd say is this. There's a lot of you listening to this. If this isn't the largest podcast, the Thrive Podcast Network, it's on its way to being that. Very cool.
Morgan May Treuil [00:20:30]:
Thank you.
Leslie Johnston [00:20:31]:
Let me get that in. Ready?
Ray Johnston [00:20:34]:
And a few of you came from these perfect backgrounds. I mean, you know, it was like Billy and Ruth Graham were your parents and you know, your mom was your second Mother Teresa. Most of us, though, come from a lot. We don't come from that. And you're going. That can limit you or it can fuel you. And so what happened is like, everybody in my family tree, everybody's divorced, every single person. And I ended up becoming a Christian.
Ray Johnston [00:21:01]:
And I went to this great church and just got deeply involved. That's where I just had a bunch of different models. That was awesome. Matter of fact, I'm telling people who are atheists, like, I was, I was going, carrie's an Asia. Go to church, you'll get some better models. And if you go to a church, there are a bunch of jerks then go find, find one with their bottom models. And so what happened is I did that. And so last year, Carol and I celebrated our 40th Odegg anniversary.
Morgan May Treuil [00:21:28]:
It's amazing.
Ray Johnston [00:21:28]:
Which means we now have the longest running marriage in the history of my family tree. We've taken our whole family tree, cut it down. We use it for kindling to build a whole new one. And it's really cool. And so those of you that are watching this or listen to this, what I'd say is this. God couldn't care less what your background is. Which means make a decision. My background will not be the limiting factor in my life.
Ray Johnston [00:21:57]:
God can do great things. I'm living a life I never thought I would live. And so just do not let anything limit what you're becoming. Because your past doesn't determine your future.
Morgan May Treuil [00:22:11]:
It's good.
Ray Johnston [00:22:12]:
Better things determine it.
Morgan May Treuil [00:22:13]:
It's really good.
Leslie Johnston [00:22:14]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:22:15]:
So something. A question I have for you. I'm really curious to hear the answer to this. I don't know that I've asked you this before. You might be the most positive, energetic leader that I know, which is interesting because I've never actually seen you in a bad mood or a negative mood. You have something that you say about what kind of leadership is like the, the incurable one. Not toxic. It's negative or it's pessimistic or something like that.
Morgan May Treuil [00:22:44]:
Anyways, I'll. I'll find it in a second. But I've never seen you walk into a meeting or walk into a service with a negative mindset. I know that your job is hard. I know that you carry a lot of things on your shoulders, and I'm curious to hear about that. How do you stay positive or hope filled when I know that your circumstances are not always hope filled? But you never let that affect your leadership.
Ray Johnston [00:23:07]:
Oh, this is going to be good. Because one of the reasons this happened is Leslie sitting right here. Leslie came home one day and she said, I have to write a paper on a leader. And I picked you. The teacher knows who you are. So the teacher said it was okay. And so she said, I have 20 questions and you have to answer them all honestly. Well, I'm going to.
Ray Johnston [00:23:31]:
No, dad wants to do that with his kids. So I went, let's go sit in the hot tub. Remember that?
Morgan May Treuil [00:23:35]:
Yes.
Ray Johnston [00:23:35]:
So we sat in the hot tub because I thought I'd end up in hot water. Why don't you start there? So we talked for what, two hours? I mean, there's like prunes at the end of this thing.
Morgan May Treuil [00:23:44]:
Fully dehydrated.
Leslie Johnston [00:23:45]:
Yes.
Ray Johnston [00:23:46]:
Yes. Her last question was her best question. We said, what's the most important thing you do as a leader? And if you're listening to this, there's no more important question. But it's like, what's the most important thing you do as a leader or as a person or as a husband, as a wife, as a kid, what's the most important thing you do? And I said, that's easy. And if anybody thinks about it, I go to conferences and speak on this stuff. And what happens is every time I say this, I will go back a year later. And above, a bunch of people would come up and go, that changed my life. And I looked at Leslie, I said, by far the most important thing I or anybody else does if they're a leader, is this.
Ray Johnston [00:24:32]:
Make sure I stay encouraged. It's make sure I stay encouraged. Because discouragement precedes destruction. I can't find anything that was destroyed where discouragement arrives first. It's the quicksand that people get into and that sucks them under and wrecks the rest of their life. Matter of fact, no young guy's ever come up to me and said, I'm so encouraged about my marriage, I'm getting a divorce. Nobody's ever, I'm so encouraged about school, I'm dropping out. I'm so encouraged.
Ray Johnston [00:25:04]:
You know, the discouragement precedes destruction. And so at some point somebody's gotta go, what is it that discourages me and drains me and do less of it. Who is it that discourages you? And get away from them. And there's people we just don't hang out with because I'm not better afterwards. And so like. So I think the last thing our church needs is a discouraged pastor. The last thing my kids need is a discouraged dad. Now you'll get discouraged.
Ray Johnston [00:25:41]:
There's a difference in getting discouraged and staying discouraged. And so on this one, pretty much you just go on, find out what drains you and discourages you and do less of it. Find out what encourages you and who encourages you and spend a whole lot more time on that. Matter of fact, I think there's a lot of people listening to this. Cause they're going, I needed to laugh, learn. But probably your podcast leaves them with encouragement instead of guilt.
Morgan May Treuil [00:26:08]:
Hopefully.
Ray Johnston [00:26:09]:
Yeah, hopefully.
Leslie Johnston [00:26:10]:
Except for today, if anything, they're like, wow, I'm doing good because those girls are a mess.
Morgan May Treuil [00:26:14]:
Those girls are a lot.
Ray Johnston [00:26:16]:
And it was interesting what happened with this is so after our conversation that led to a seven year research project on what causes hope. And over seven years I worked with a guy from Harvard, I worked with a writer, and I worked with a PhD professor at Richard University. And we did a seven year study and went, what is it causes people to have hope and a future? And what is it that causes people to go south and be destructive?
Morgan May Treuil [00:26:44]:
Wow.
Ray Johnston [00:26:45]:
And we ended up writing a book called HQ because for a long time, people thought you would do really well in life if you had a high iq. And we went with a lot of smart people that aren't doing well. And I actually believe somebody's hope quotient is more important to their future than somebody's intelligence quotient.
Leslie Johnston [00:27:03]:
Yeah, brilliant.
Ray Johnston [00:27:04]:
Hopefully have some of both. But over that time, we discovered there are seven things. If you build them into your life, build them into you. Like, if you're going, like, what I hope happened with my kids, I'm going, I want to build these seven things into these kids and into our church and into our staff. Because if you build these seven things in, you have rising levels of hope and you have a future. And if these aren't there, you're missing some of the ingredients it takes just to be thriving emotionally.
Leslie Johnston [00:27:32]:
Wow. Yeah. I actually reread hope quotient, his book, actually just last year. I was, like, feeling super discouraged, and I was like, you know what? It was like, sitting on my nightstand or my book stand or something, and I was like, I gotta read this. And I was reading. I was like, this is pretty good. As I'm reading this book.
Morgan May Treuil [00:27:48]:
This is pretty good.
Leslie Johnston [00:27:48]:
But okay, Morgan, I have a question for you. What do you think, like, encourages you when you're discouraged?
Morgan May Treuil [00:27:58]:
You know what's funny?
Leslie Johnston [00:27:59]:
If you're gonna stay encouraged, if that's, like, the key to this, like, what
Ray Johnston [00:28:02]:
do you do other than Benji, first of all, other than Benji, because he
Morgan May Treuil [00:28:05]:
bought Benji is discouraging me. What encourages you? No, this is funny because we. The past couple of days have been a little hectic and stressful, just with some doctor's visits and work stuff for both Benji and I. And this morning we woke up and we asked each other what we wanted to do tonight. Wanting to do something, something fun. And the first thing we both said is, it feels like we need to see our people. We need to be with our friends. And it was a kind of a.
Morgan May Treuil [00:28:34]:
A revelation moment of we've reached the point in friendship, in our community, with our small group here, where spending time with you guys actually makes everything feel better.
Leslie Johnston [00:28:44]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:28:45]:
So I think, I think being with our people who are funny and encouraging and like minded in their faith, people who are really big cheerleaders of us.
Leslie Johnston [00:28:54]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:28:54]:
In our situation, in our marriage, like, that is what brings me encouragement right now. What about you?
Leslie Johnston [00:29:00]:
I would actually. I would say the same thing. We just had our small group last night, and I feel like. I feel like you can get through a lot of hard stuff in life if you have good people.
Morgan May Treuil [00:29:10]:
Oh, yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:29:11]:
And so I would say small group. Same with you. But I would also say family. Like, we're in a cool spot right now where all of our family actually lives in the same spot, and we're all like 10 to 15 minutes away from each other. And I feel like getting to experience life and not just be like, oh, my first 18 years, my parents were great and now I never see them. It's like getting that relational time together, I feel like, is so encouraging.
Morgan May Treuil [00:29:36]:
Yeah, Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:29:37]:
I feel the same way. Before I say that, if you went back a year, like a bunch of people listening to this going, oh, man, I wish I had a friend group like you're talking about. You didn't have that a year ago.
Morgan May Treuil [00:29:51]:
No, no.
Ray Johnston [00:29:52]:
Okay.
Leslie Johnston [00:29:53]:
No.
Ray Johnston [00:29:53]:
And. And so I. I think we've talked
Leslie Johnston [00:29:56]:
about that a lot recently.
Ray Johnston [00:29:57]:
Awesome.
Leslie Johnston [00:29:57]:
We've talked about, like, what is it? Because I go, okay. It seems like all of a sudden now we're all looking around and we're like, we've got this incredible small group, incredible people around us who are life giving, encouraging us in our faith. Like, so many different things that this, this, this group kind of brings. But I was thinking about this recently. I was like, this was not the case, like, two years ago. No, I mean, it was Covid. First of all, no one had friends,
Morgan May Treuil [00:30:25]:
and if you did, you probably disagreed
Leslie Johnston [00:30:26]:
with them and then you weren't friends with them anymore. But I would say I remember being in a spot where I was like, I had. I'd wanted to be friends with some of these people, and there kind of just wasn't room, you know? You know how that works Sometimes you're like, I'm kind of getting the vibe that they don't really want to be friends with me, but I want to be friends with them. And so I was like, you know what? Okay. I'm like, no harm, no foul. Like, not everybody needs. We're all adults. Not everybody needs to be everybody's best friend.
Morgan May Treuil [00:30:51]:
But if they don't be your friend, they're dumb.
Leslie Johnston [00:30:52]:
Yeah, thank you.
Ray Johnston [00:30:53]:
I was just thinking the same thing. I was going, anybody that would not want to be a friend with you, too is an idiot. They shouldn't be your friend.
Leslie Johnston [00:30:59]:
Thank you.
Morgan May Treuil [00:30:59]:
You heard that here first.
Leslie Johnston [00:31:01]:
But I do think sometimes God's either going, hey, if it's not working out friendship wise right now either, I have something maybe really cool that you can start developing instead of walking into a room and just being A here I am kind of person. We've talked about that on the podcast before. If you walk into a room, you can either say, here I am. Come be friends with me. Come talk to me, make me feel comfortable, or you can be the person that goes, hey, I don't be friends. But I see that those people might not have friends. Let's. Let's become friends and start something new.
Morgan May Treuil [00:31:30]:
Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:31:30]:
And I think that's kind of what we did. Especially you, Morgan. You're so good at this. Of going, let's start something. Let's pull some people together. It's kind of like, figure it out. People add, people leave, whatever. But we ended up just forming this great group within our church, and I think that's what's grown some of this small group and to where it is now.
Morgan May Treuil [00:31:52]:
It feels like the good things in life that you want, you actually have to be a part of creating. A lot of people wait for stuff to come to them. You wait for your marriage to get good. You wait for your kids to turn out well. You wait for your friend group or your church community to come to you and invite you in. And I think I learned this. I learned this from watching both of you guys. I learned this from watching your family.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:14]:
That the great things in life take a really good builder, somebody who's going to invest. That's something that I feel like you've done a ton. You take your marriage, take your kids, take the church that you pastor or your own life that you lead, and it feels like the intentional decision that I'm not gonna let this happen to me. I'm gonna build into it is one of the keys to how you've done ministry.
Ray Johnston [00:32:37]:
Yeah. You have a young audience listening to this, which is really cool. The earlier somebody learns this, the better they're gonna like life. People come up all the time. They go, I can't find friends. I'm going, friendships aren't found. There's no tree of them somewhere. Oh, finally, we're at the right tree.
Leslie Johnston [00:32:56]:
Exactly.
Ray Johnston [00:32:57]:
Friendships are built, not found.
Morgan May Treuil [00:32:59]:
It's great.
Ray Johnston [00:33:00]:
Which means. And the other thing is this. Sometimes you have to rattle around a little, but you just keep building some things, and eventually something will click. Too many people either never bother, oh, I can't find them, or they don't keep building until the thing clicks, which is. I watched you guys do that.
Morgan May Treuil [00:33:18]:
Yeah, it's great.
Ray Johnston [00:33:20]:
So that is cool. By the way, the other thing I'd say is this. The cool thing about this season is we've always been close Like, I mean, the stuff we did when my daughter's little. We went on daddy daughter date nights all the time.
Morgan May Treuil [00:33:34]:
That's fun.
Ray Johnston [00:33:35]:
Matter of fact, remember this when. When the first Ice Age movie came out, it was a school night, and I said, great, I'm taking the daughters to see Ice Age is kind of a daddy daughter date night.
Morgan May Treuil [00:33:44]:
Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:33:45]:
Yes. Do you remember this? Yes. And he picked us up and he's like, all right, where do you guys want to go to dinner? And with our fine palates that we had were like Taco Bell. So we swing through Taco Bell, and we didn't. We were like, I don't know, in third grade or something. Swing up purses or anything. So we're like, here's the. Here's the burritos, dad.
Leslie Johnston [00:34:04]:
Stuff them in your pocket for the movie.
Ray Johnston [00:34:06]:
Oh, so, yeah, basically. Basically, if those are the audience, you should be sneaking food in the movies.
Morgan May Treuil [00:34:12]:
This is something I've learned from your family, by the way.
Ray Johnston [00:34:15]:
Yeah, yeah. Non integrity things from our family. Actually, you know what if, like, we've seen snuck whole pizzas in there. Weaves. So we go to Taco Bell. We buy all, you know, all the stuff. Every. I stuff it in my pockets.
Leslie Johnston [00:34:30]:
Yeah. You know, and the burritos about, like, we get into the theater, we sit down, and he's like, what is on my pants? And the grease has dripped all the way down his pants.
Morgan May Treuil [00:34:40]:
That is so funny.
Ray Johnston [00:34:42]:
Terrible. It's kind of like having dirty sheets. But you'd have to go back and listen to the first podcast for that.
Morgan May Treuil [00:34:47]:
Listen to the show.
Ray Johnston [00:34:50]:
But what happens is, like, we're sitting there, you guys, I think, are second or third grade. So we eat. We're watching Ice Age. It was amazing. And then the whole last half of the movie, Christie's. I got my arm around Christie, got my arm around Leslie. We're watching this movie, and I thought, there's nowhere I'd rather be cool ever. And I still feel that way today if we're hanging out.
Ray Johnston [00:35:13]:
So. But I just went, like, for those of you that are parents out there, you're going, look, grab this time. You can't get it back. So we went on daddy daughter date nights all the time. Once a week, they'd wake me up and go drive us to school. We'd go to McDonald's for a fine breakfast on the way there. And then we'd play the current event game because I wanted to know what's going on in the world. And then we kept going out on dates when they Went.
Ray Johnston [00:35:39]:
Both of them went to Azusa Pacific University, which has a new president now. And it's awesome to see what stuff's going on there. We had this. So I flew down all the time. We'd go on a daddy daughter date weekend out to Palm Springs or something fun, and we just kind of kept that stuff up. And the other one is, you know, teenagers get too cool. So we have a story about that if we have time. At the end, we.
Ray Johnston [00:36:07]:
The. When I would come home when they were little, all the kids get up, Dad's home, they run up and get you. They don't do that when they're teenagers.
Morgan May Treuil [00:36:17]:
Right.
Ray Johnston [00:36:18]:
So I pretty much went, then I need to do that. It's like, payback. So I don't think they ever come over when. Which I don't get up and go give them a big hug.
Morgan May Treuil [00:36:27]:
Yeah.
Leslie Johnston [00:36:27]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:36:28]:
So you're just paying them back for the first 12 years.
Leslie Johnston [00:36:31]:
I would say one of the best things, and Christie would agree, and probably the boys, too, that one of, like, the best gifts that you've given us as kids is, like, we never doubted that you loved us, like, to the point where it was like, you would tell us we're, like, the greatest things in the world, not to build up our ego, but to give us, like, a solid foundation of, like, who we could be. And it was kind of like we knew we're not the best at this, but you made us feel like we could become that. And I feel like if you're a parent listening, that's such a great gift to give your kids. Like, I. I was in. I was in a ski lodge, like, a couple months back, and this mom walks in with her son, and she's like, you're making this day horrible for me, and you're such a bad kid.
Ray Johnston [00:37:16]:
You shot a video of this when she wasn't looking. What? Is that the one you shot a video of when she wasn't looking?
Leslie Johnston [00:37:22]:
I don't think so. I should have, though.
Ray Johnston [00:37:24]:
We could have put. If you could get it, put it on next week.
Leslie Johnston [00:37:29]:
But I remember walking out feeling so sorry for that kid, because I went, now, obviously, parents lose it on their kids and you get over it and whatever, but I think if the main things you give your kids are making them believe that they're less than what they are, their life forever. That's how they view themselves as they walk into the world. But you gave us this, like, I can do something because I'm, like, loved and I can do stuff. You gave us such a Great foundation that honestly kept me from dating terrible guys for the most part. And I think you, she fits in
Ray Johnston [00:38:03]:
for the most part.
Leslie Johnston [00:38:03]:
No, I'm just kidding. But you did. It made me go, no, I'm better than that. Like, I'm better than making that decision. I'm better than falling in with the wrong crowd. Like that was such a gift that you gave to all of us and just that's such a great thing that you kind of helped us believe about ourselves.
Ray Johnston [00:38:21]:
Yeah. Well, any dads listen to this? I'd go, girls, most girls, not all. Most girls get their self image from the opposite sex parent for some reason. I had a psychologist tell me that one time. And so when we had you two, I went, oh, this is going to be a blast. Carol's got to be an example of all this kind of stuff. All I have to do is, is fall in love with them, which I did the second I held you after you were born. And then you just get to spend the rest of your life just building people up.
Ray Johnston [00:38:57]:
And some of you listeners had a dad that did not build you up and in fact did the opposite. I am really, really sorry for that. And go find some other voices for your life that are better than that because you didn't deserve that.
Leslie Johnston [00:39:14]:
Yeah, yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:39:15]:
I think people would be surprised, surprised to being around your kids. Every single one of them loves you, respects you and Carol and loves the church. Which is not always common for pastors kids. Right. Lots of times pastors kids grow up to resent the church or resent the ministry because they didn't get enough time with their parent. What's surprising about the way that you and Carol have done things is because if you were to look at like the, forgive this word, the resume or like the, you know, what is Bayside Church? You would look at that and think, wow, somebody with so much drive and so much leadership and so much energy has built this amazing thing. This has taken so much work. I bet that they didn't actually have time to invest that much time into their family.
Morgan May Treuil [00:40:04]:
But the opposite is true. You guys have invested so much in your family and all of your kids love you and respect you. And I remember thinking like, how do they do all of it? How do they do this church and how do they do their family so well and spend so much time? And I remember getting my answer, I was like two months in here at Bayside and I was at a 7pm Sunday night service and I was sitting in the bleachers and you were preaching and you're about 20 minutes into your message and you're on this big point and all of a sudden your phone starts to ring in your pocket and you stop the message and you pull it out and you answer and it's Leslie on the phone and you have a full on conversation. And I'm like, with Leslie during that message during the 7pm service. And I'm like, oh, that's it. He is the most interruptible senior pastor that has ever existed for the people that are most important in his life.
Leslie Johnston [00:40:55]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:40:57]:
Oh, I was having dinner last night with a CEO of a really great company and he wanted to have dinner. So we're having dinner and my phone rings. I think it was you. So I said, hold on for a second, it's my daughter. I was answer the phone.
Leslie Johnston [00:41:11]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:41:12]:
Which most people wouldn't do that.
Leslie Johnston [00:41:13]:
Yeah. When he doesn't pick up, I'm like, something's wrong now.
Ray Johnston [00:41:17]:
Oh, by the way, for the record, all of you listening, it doesn't work in reverse.
Morgan May Treuil [00:41:21]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:41:23]:
You call our kids, they're like, I'm in a meeting. What are you doing?
Morgan May Treuil [00:41:27]:
So is that a value that you developed early on? Like, what was the thing? You're going to build this, this massive church that reaches so many people, but family's always going to come first. How did you do that?
Ray Johnston [00:41:39]:
Here's the deal. Like here, I love our church. Okay. And in a lot of ways, I feel like it's just getting started. We have an amazing staff, an incredible future. It's kind of like having something that actually changes the world, you know, like kids don't have Chromebooks. You get them all back in school. You can do that in 15 minutes with an army like this.
Ray Johnston [00:42:03]:
But at some point there'll be new people in here and they'll have a new senior pastor globally over everything. And I won't have this church anymore. I'll still have my family. So it's pretty smart to figure out. I mean, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world to lose his family.
Morgan May Treuil [00:42:30]:
Wow.
Ray Johnston [00:42:31]:
So on that one. Now the other thing is this. We just either lucked out or got really blessed. I just have four really likable kids.
Morgan May Treuil [00:42:38]:
You do.
Ray Johnston [00:42:39]:
So I kind of rather spend time with them than most people.
Leslie Johnston [00:42:41]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:42:42]:
You have great kids.
Leslie Johnston [00:42:43]:
I have one last question and if you have another one we can jump into. But something that I noticed that I've watched with you, especially working with you, is being the senior pastor of it all and overseeing, thrive and all of these different things. There's A lot of times where you have gotten, like, backlash or things said about you that weren't true, or just people going around town saying stuff where you're like, where it makes me mad, or I'm like, I'm gonna go say something that this isn't right. You always take the high road. And I'm curious, like, what? Speak to that of, like, why? How do you know to discern, like, for people listening, they may go like, hey, things are said about me and I want to just, like, correct them all. Or if this thing happens, I want to take the low road and get them back. How do you take the high road and actually, like, live with doing that, knowing that sometimes things just aren't either true or fair? You're fair. Because I'm kind of a fair police.
Leslie Johnston [00:43:43]:
Like, I'm like, if something's not, you would say, if I was a judge, be fair. And you somehow have mastered this, taking the high road. And I respect it so much. I'm curious your thoughts on it.
Ray Johnston [00:43:54]:
Yeah. Hey, by the way, you're. I'm. The fair police thing. If you're a going to be a parent someday, which you guys probably are too, they. You go through these stages of police things. Your kids become so, like, they go to elementary school, they're six, and if they see you throw away a can, they're going, what? All that needs to be recycled. So they turn into recycle police when they're young.
Ray Johnston [00:44:16]:
Later on, they become the fair. About 10 years old. You become the fairness monitors of the entire universe. So I don't know how I got a riff on that. What was your question again? Oh, the whole criticism stuff. First of all, the only way to not get criticized is to do nothing, be nothing, say nothing, make nothing happen, stand for nothing. These days by the problem. These days, it is getting harder and harder for people to stand for anything, their values, theology, whatever it is.
Ray Johnston [00:44:58]:
In other words. And the problem is those who don't stand for something will fall for anything. And that's almost an epidemic right now. And it's been. It's been made worse because Cancel culture online. The other day, Michael Jordan was like, I had it easy. He goes, I'd get critiqued by the city of Chicago. He goes, now you get critiqued every second of every day online by a billion people.
Leslie Johnston [00:45:24]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:45:24]:
He goes, it was just. It's a whole different ball game. And so on this, it's funny when I criticize, I feel. Feel it. You know, you're like, wait a second. If it's True. Like sometimes you're going, somebody criticizes you going, that's true.
Morgan May Treuil [00:45:42]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:45:42]:
Well, I'll give an example. I probably shouldn't say this, but I will anyway. About 15 years ago, we had a company come in, surveyed our entire staff. We have a ton of people, served about 140something people, and then gave everybody feedback from direct reports. But I got feedback. I got direct feedback anonymously from 140 people. It was like giving 140 people that work for us a loaded gun and total anonymity.
Morgan May Treuil [00:46:10]:
That gives me anxiety thinking about, oh, yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:46:12]:
And I read this thing. I read this thing, and a lot of it was. There was some positives, but some was negative. And every negative comment was, oh, God. So I wanted to kind of burn it and never let anybody see it. But I went, I can't do that. So I had your mom read it, had Carol read it, and she goes, who are these people? And I said, they're our staff. And after reading it a second time, I went, that did it.
Ray Johnston [00:46:36]:
I quit. I don't have to put up with this. And then I read it and then I went, wait a second, I'm not quitting. I'm firing everybody. I can get these attitudes for free. And so then what happened though, is I read it. I pretty much went, and I read it deeper, and I got three really great wise people and went and met with them for a day and a half. And we went through every line.
Ray Johnston [00:47:01]:
And the more we went through the line, the fog lifted and it was crystal clear. All of life and parenting and leadership is mission and morale. And I had been almost all mission and had stopped paying attention to morale. And. And I went, or as Paul says in Philippians, progress and joy. I'd been way more progress and way less worrying about whether our staff was happy or not. And I stood in front of the staff, got all choked up, and apologized. And I said, man, I am really, really sorry, but we will pay.
Ray Johnston [00:47:38]:
We will get this right. I also said, look, we're also in existence to make some great things happen. So we will not stop stepping on the mission accelerator, but we will add a health accelerator. We will add a joy component to this thing. We want this to be the best place you've ever worked. And so both had to rise. But. So that was a case where I got slammed by a lot of people.
Ray Johnston [00:48:03]:
And I could have said, bunch of jerks, but I went, wait a second, maybe I should listen to this. And so we went, and everything has gotten people that are here now. Kind of are going, whoa, I didn't know those days existed. But so some of that. And then the other part of it is, some of it, you just can't stop. You're like, okay, like when we went through the pandemic, I mean, it was absolutely crazy, and it was uncontrollable. So I get a call from the chief of the police in Sacramento, and he's like, hey, we're going to do a. There's a march, and it's pastors and police and pastors and police marching together.
Ray Johnston [00:48:46]:
Right when. Right after the George Floyd thing happened. So he goes, I go, I'm in. So I go down there, and there were a bunch of Black Lives Matter protesters. It was crazy. I mean, we were marching. Remember what the world was like back then? We're marching. It was crazy.
Ray Johnston [00:49:02]:
There were a bunch of black lives protesters actually screaming at the march and swearing at us for marching with police. And we went to a church, kneeled down, prayed for the community, stuff like that. Well, I get home, one of the speakers said something about, whether we build the city up or burn the sucker down, we'll do it together. Well, so that happens. So later, the mayor of Roseville's on the phone going, that guy needs to be fired. I'm going, I'm not doing that. And so all of a sudden, where we are, it's like, raised the Black Lives Matter guy. Because what happened is there were pictures in the paper and online of me with Black Lives Matter protester signs behind it.
Ray Johnston [00:49:56]:
So they're taking. I'm in a shot with all these Black Lives Matter sign. Wow, okay. And so that's going on on one hand. So up in Placer county, which is more. Right. More Republican, I've got that. And then, because I'm trying to get folks in the city to say things in a way that's going to be more healthy long term.
Ray Johnston [00:50:21]:
I'm also the white guy that's trying to silence their voices. And I literally went. I've been in leadership for a long time, and I never thought I'd be slammed by both sides at the same time. I'm going, one of them's right, one of them's wrong. And I pretty much went. It was one of those things where I went, the world's so crazy, I can't fix it.
Leslie Johnston [00:50:45]:
Yeah, that's what I always loved. I said, if you're getting hate from both sides, from the extremes of both sides, you're probably doing it right.
Morgan May Treuil [00:50:53]:
Probably right there in the middle.
Leslie Johnston [00:50:54]:
Exactly.
Ray Johnston [00:50:54]:
And I just Felt like. I felt like. I think this is where the Bible is. You know, like you're going, like, if you're going African Americans with the history in this country, when I'm up here in Placid County, I'm going, wait a second. The starting line's not the same thing. I mean, we've had to rehab six inner city schools. Something's terribly wrong with our state and our government because you don't ever have to rehab a school in the suburbs.
Leslie Johnston [00:51:19]:
Totally.
Ray Johnston [00:51:20]:
So some no kids. Starting line should be at a different place. That's not fair. And so, matter of fact, when Covid broke out, you remember that, we get a phone call, and about two weeks into it, we're like, there's 300 kids, most of them African American, most of them in a certain area of the community that's more disadvantaged. And 300 kids, and every other kid's back in school online. Well, these 300 kids are locked out of school, and they probably need it more. And we're going, why? Because they don't have Chromebooks and their family has no WI Fi. So we call a Zoom call and we actually break Zoom.
Ray Johnston [00:51:56]:
Max out. Zoom. Go over to Facebook. Describe this. With our church on a Wednesday night, it was all church, every campus call. And we describe this and go, we need to solve this right now. Okay? And people gave a quarter million dollars in 13 minutes.
Leslie Johnston [00:52:12]:
Wow.
Ray Johnston [00:52:13]:
And we didn't keep a dime of it. And it literally. We got 300 kids. Chromebooks bought them. Chromebooks got. Put WI fi hotspots in their house and prepaid two years of WI Fi and all those kids got back into school like that.
Morgan May Treuil [00:52:26]:
It's incredible.
Ray Johnston [00:52:27]:
And. And so I'm going, when people just sit around and criticize each other and divide over stuff, nothing great results from it.
Morgan May Treuil [00:52:38]:
No.
Ray Johnston [00:52:40]:
When people come together and they team up and go, maybe what we agree on is more. We agree on more stuff than we disagree on. Maybe if we focus on that and quit shooting each other, we can save 300 kids and their future and do a whole lot more. So I just. I tend to think it's, you know, getting criticized. It's part of anybody that wants to make anything better, you're just going to get it. You can't let it discourage you or derail you.
Leslie Johnston [00:53:07]:
Feels like the devil's a great. He has a great tactic when you're trying to do something great. It's like he'll get someone to criticize you. Or if you get caught up criticizing another person and then he's like, great. You guys will just fight each other forever and you'll never do it.
Morgan May Treuil [00:53:20]:
I'll take a break on this one. Seriously.
Leslie Johnston [00:53:21]:
Like, he's like, you're good. I'll move on to someone else because you're going to be too busy to ever do anything good.
Ray Johnston [00:53:26]:
Yeah, I've probably said this 100 times. I remember we had a guy in church a while back, and he comes up at the end of the service. He's one of those big guys angry about. You can just tell this guy's angry. He comes up and you ever had somebody probably with you, get too close when they're talking to you? Yeah, this guy's right in my face. And he goes. He didn't introduce himself. He goes, so I got a question for you.
Ray Johnston [00:53:43]:
And I go, hey, what's your question? He goes, why don't you use the real version of the Bible here? And I'm going, what, pray tell, is that? He goes, of course, the original King James. Yeah, well, I could walk through. Here's what done. Yeah, I didn't do any of that. I just looked at him and said, you know what? I appreciate that question. How long you been at Bayside? My first day. I went, you're not going to like our church. Let me give you the name.
Ray Johnston [00:54:11]:
Some others, I'll bet I've said that 100 times in 20 plus years. You're not going to like our church. Because I don't want toxic, angry, critical, condemning people coming here because they want to multiply.
Morgan May Treuil [00:54:25]:
Right.
Ray Johnston [00:54:25]:
And so I'm going, there's other churches. I'm going here, go there, bother them, but don't stay here.
Leslie Johnston [00:54:30]:
Yes.
Ray Johnston [00:54:30]:
So some of that is. Some of that is, you know, you just. You're going to create a culture.
Morgan May Treuil [00:54:36]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:54:37]:
And the culture is going to be fundamental in your home or the way you treat people.
Morgan May Treuil [00:54:41]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:54:42]:
And other people are going to try to wreck that culture. You just. You sort of move them on and create a culture that.
Morgan May Treuil [00:54:48]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:54:49]:
That lets people throw.
Leslie Johnston [00:54:50]:
Yeah.
Morgan May Treuil [00:54:50]:
That's really like. We've learned. I have learned, learned so many things about so many different areas of life just from this conversation. And I feel like I get to learn from you a lot. And every time we sit down and chat, I feel like I'm learning new things. So this is not the last time, hopefully, that we have you on this podcast because we want you to come back, if you'll agree. But I did want to end this the way that you end all of our meetings. You end all of our meetings by saying, does anybody have anything to say about anything? Which opens the door for anybody to say anything about anything that's on their hearts.
Morgan May Treuil [00:55:21]:
So is there anything we didn't talk about that you're like, I want one last word on this?
Ray Johnston [00:55:27]:
Yeah, the. By the way, the answer that's gonna be always the last four years. And it feels like we're coming out of it. Like, I was with. I was at the leader of a church, and he goes, every campus is growing. All this stuff's great. The bazillion kids in day camps around here all summer long, which you globally lead the whole thing. Leslie.
Ray Johnston [00:55:53]:
All that stuff's trending up and. Right. And I was with. I did a conference recently with a bunch of leaders, and I told them the story because this actually changed my life. And those of you listening, if you're still listening, if you get a grip on this, it will change everything. The day Covid shut the world down, everybody remembers that day. It was a Sunday afternoon. Do you guys remember it? And I'm in the desert, and Coachella pulls the plug.
Ray Johnston [00:56:24]:
The tennis tournament pulls all in the afternoon. Well, we have these thrive conferences. I mean, last year, the one here, we'll cut it off at 4,000 people. This year, there's already way over 2,000 people already registered for it. Matter of fact, if you're looking for a conference that'll kind of make your life come here, people come in from all over the country. And we had sold out Northern California. We had just sold out Southern California, and Northern Southern California was. Two weeks later, I'm down there, I'm fired up because I'm going, this is going to be unbelievable.
Ray Johnston [00:56:56]:
And what happens is, two hours later, I'm going, the world's shutting down. And I. So we call our staff together and go. We're. Pull the plug. Pull the plug on the conferences. And then I get discouraged and. Or depressed.
Ray Johnston [00:57:17]:
Not about COVID but I know what happens to anybody that walks into this conference. I mean, they walk out kind of with fresh vision, brand new future, all this kind of stuff. And so I get down. I usually bounce back pretty quick. Like when you're going, hey, you're all encouraging. I'm going, not all the time. Yeah, check with my wife. But I get down and I stay down, and I don't bounce back.
Ray Johnston [00:57:42]:
And it's three or four days later, and I'm still just going, man, this sucks. And I went, I don't want to get stuck here. So I actually. I grab a bible, grab a journal, go out in the Backyard. And I sit down and I go, all right, I got to hear from God on this. So I read a bunch of stuff, and then it wasn't an audible voice, but pretty much what God said to me or made clear to me was this. And I actually wrote this down, and I felt like God said this. If you will let go of discouragement and replace it with dreaming, the world just might be a better place.
Ray Johnston [00:58:26]:
I actually wrote those words down. If you will let go of discouragement and replace it with dreaming, the world just might be a better place. By the way, that happens with anything. Whatever it is that has you deeply discouraged today. Your health, your finances, your shape, your weight, your husband, your kids, your finances, whatever it is, if you will let go of discouragement and replace it with dreaming, anything can be in better shape. So I write that down. And then I go, okay, what am I discouraged about? Canceling the conference. And so I went, okay.
Ray Johnston [00:59:02]:
Instead of being discouraged about this, which is making me miserable and making me miserable to be around, instead of being discouraged about it, I went, okay, dream. And I actually, like. It took 30 seconds. I wrote down, what if we launched the largest ever completely free, totally online leadership conference in the history of the world? What if we asked every great communicator to speak at it for free, didn't pay anybody? And what if we then used that conference to raise a million dollars for kids who are gonna be hurt by Covid? And what if we did it all seven weeks from now?
Morgan May Treuil [00:59:41]:
Yeah, that's cool.
Ray Johnston [00:59:43]:
And. And I went, wham, there it is.
Leslie Johnston [00:59:48]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [00:59:48]:
So I've gone from days and days of discouragement, let that go. Dream. And now. So now the problem is this. If you're a leader one step ahead, you're the leader 10 steps ahead, you're the target. So I go, I get our staff back on. I get our key staff back on the phone, and I go, here's what just happened to me. And they all lit.
Ray Johnston [01:00:05]:
They were like, let's do it.
Morgan May Treuil [01:00:07]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [01:00:07]:
And it was a seven or six or seven. Whatever it was. Weak track, race. Every single great communicator we asked to speak at this thing said yes, Every single one of them. Okay? I mean, from John Maxwell to TD Jakes, I'm every great communicator. And then what happened is we added a prior day on race and reconciliation. So we just broadcast this thing worldwide, and we sent out worldwide. The day of it comes.
Ray Johnston [01:00:38]:
And the problem is this. If the. Like, our conference this year will cut it off at 4,000 people, but you're standing there speaking and you can see them. Okay, this one you're like, we have a full on set, looks like ESPN studio set. We got multiple locations in this one big room. And you're sitting, I'm opening the thing up, day of the conference, opening up, and I'm at sort of the desk and we've got a couple other people with me. And then we cut to a video teaching thing, I think it was. We let off with John Maxwell.
Ray Johnston [01:01:06]:
And so we cut to that and then I'm going, is anybody watching? You know, I mean, like there could be six people. You just kind of. I was hoping the Northern California conference is 4,000 people. SoCal's 2,000. I hope there's at least 6,000 people on this thing. But there might be six. You just don't know.
Morgan May Treuil [01:01:26]:
Yeah.
Ray Johnston [01:01:27]:
And so I say when it cut, I say in my headset to the producer, I said, hey, can you let me know? Is anybody watching? And if so, like, are they all local? Where are they from? And she goes, you're not going to believe this. I'm going to slide you. So she slides over a piece of paper on this and I look down and it says There are currently 242,000 individual devices on this. Many of these folks are in situations where they're watching in a group or a small group, which means our lowest estimate is there are a half million people watching this conference right now. And then. And then on the right hand side was a list of countries. There are currently 43 countries watching this. It's in Afghanistan, it's in Saudi Arabia.
Ray Johnston [01:02:19]:
It is in countries where it's illegal to be a Christian and go and do anything like this. And I sat at this desk and I kind of got choked up and I went, man, if somebody like, do you listen to this? If you will let go of discouragement and replace it with dreaming, your life and your world just might be in way better shape.
Morgan May Treuil [01:02:41]:
It's amazing.
Leslie Johnston [01:02:42]:
That's really good.
Morgan May Treuil [01:02:43]:
I've never heard that. That's really good. That's where we should end, I think.
Leslie Johnston [01:02:47]:
Yes, dad, thanks for being on the podcast. I'm glad you.
Ray Johnston [01:02:50]:
Nothing better than being with you guys. By the way, you know, your dad, I mean, I'm still willing to start. Adoption papers. We're looking for. We were looking for a third twin.
Morgan May Treuil [01:03:01]:
This. You are one of the guests. You're one of the guests we've been talking about having since before we started the podcast. So we had to make sure this
Leslie Johnston [01:03:07]:
was legit before we brought you on.
Ray Johnston [01:03:10]:
I actually think we're going to. Okay, we're done with famous actresses now.
Morgan May Treuil [01:03:14]:
We're going to do this was one we were really excited about and it lived up to all of it. So thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it.
Ray Johnston [01:03:21]:
Love you guys.
Morgan May Treuil [01:03:22]:
And thanks for watching or listening to this episode of Am I Doing this Right? And we will see you guys back here next week, same time, same place.