Faith, Friendship, Fear: Episode 8 with Macho Lara

Key Takeaways from today’s episode:

• Friendship and Adult Connection:
  We reflect on our deep friendship, how it has grown, and the intentionality required to maintain meaningful relationships as adults, particularly among men. Macho shares his background as a loner and how adulthood has allowed him to build lasting friendships.

• Life Transitions and Calling:
  Macho discusses his and his family's major life moves—from Pittsburgh to Georgia and eventually to New York City. He recounts a pivotal moment when he sensed an unexpected call to return to NYC despite having just settled elsewhere, describing a process of discernment, prayer, and confirmation through the community.

• Church Planting Journey:
  He shares the origin story of planting The Table NYC, a diverse faith community in Queens. Initially resistant to leading a church, Macho explains how events and growing leadership opportunities led him and his wife to recognize the call to plant a church. Their approach began with dinner gatherings in their apartment to build community organically.

• Bivocational Ministry:
  Macho talks about the challenges and benefits of being bivocational—working in IT while leading a church. He distinguishes between bivocationalism as a necessity and strategy, ultimately embracing it as the latter. He reflects on how working outside the church has kept him connected to the broader community and how this model has become a sustainable way to live out his calling in an expensive city like New York.

• Faithfulness in Uncertainty:
  The conversation ends with Macho discussing how he remains faithful through uncertainty, especially amid recent personal health challenges. He emphasizes learning to shorten his time in frustration and doubt, trusting in God's past faithfulness to sustain him through present struggles.

Ways to Connect:
Listeners can follow Macho’s writing at macholara.substack.com or find him by searching online. His church, The Table NYC, is based in Sunnyside, Queens.

Macho is currently launching a Kickstarter for his forthcoming book, Ctrl+Alt➔Believe, I encourage you to support here.

Thanks for listening. If you have questions you’d like me to cover on this podcast, reply to this e-mail or DM me.

Jeffrey Riggs produced this podcast episode.

Music by Fyodor Zharkov from Pixabay