E8: Kyle Campbell and Risky Corporate Evangelism
Download MP3Hey, alumni. Welcome to InterVarsity World Changers, the podcast celebrating God's world changing work in and through InterVarsity alumni like you. I'm your host, Jon Steele, and today we're talking with Kyle Campbell, a UNC Wilmington alumnus. And Kyle has a story about changing the world with Jesus through some risky corporate evangelism with both coworkers and senior executives in the different jobs he's held in the world of finance. Thanks for tuning in, and enjoy Kyle's story.
Jon:Kyle, welcome to the podcast.
Kyle:Thank you for having me, man. I'm really excited.
Jon:I'm so glad that you're here. I'm really looking forward to jumping into your world changer story and to to hear just the ways that God's inviting you to partner with him and the work that he's doing. Before we before we get there, though, Kyle, would you just give us a little bit of an introduction? Help us get to know you.
Kyle:Yeah. So my name is Kyle Campbell. I am 31 years young. I feel like there's some dog years thrown in there. 31 seems a little light, but I feel much older than that.
Kyle:I first came into contact with InterVarsity my going into my sophomore year of college, what it feels like a lifetime ago. My twin brother is actually on staff at InterVarsity. The groomsmen at my wedding is also another staff member and everyone else at my wedding is part of IB. So at least in some way, shape or form. And so had an incredible impact from them.
Kyle:Currently, in my world, I am I have some fancy title at a really large company, but basically I'm a numbers guy. I help, our company buy other companies that I lead those transactions. So I just quarterback mergers and acquisitions for different firms. So I'm in the financial space, very, very corporate finance. Okay.
Kyle:All the stuff that you see on the TV shows, most of it's true. So, yeah, that's kinda me in a nutshell.
Jon:Well, I'm I'm looking forward to digging into that context in particular and some of the stories that you have to share. Before we do that, I mean, you said, you met InterVarsity as a sophomore. Do you do you have, like, a I'm sure you have a 100 stories, but do you have, like, one story you could share that feels like, ah, this captures a bit of my quintessential InterVarsity experience as a student?
Kyle:Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So I guess trigger warning, that's very appropriate to do. I'm the son of a pastor. I grew up, in a in a culture of faith that I now know is uncommon, uncommon in its depth and its scope and its validity.
Kyle:Growing up. It was just normal to me. So I grew up, making Christian noises. I would say, I don't know that I was a believer. Surely the God of all creation will do what is just like only he can judge, but I did not have a life filled with fruit that would say that I wanted to be with Jesus.
Kyle:I did like making Christian noises though. So and I loved the affirmation of being a worship leader and youth group leader and all those different things. So I definitely loved his gifts. I don't know that I loved him. And so, my twin brother and I, when we entered into college, we were kind of closet atheists.
Kyle:I'm even more so than than him. And so God met us both miraculously. On the way into college, my brother, actually ended up getting ready to commit suicide because of a really just traumatic event. And I remember him locking himself in a room and he had I hear the story afterwards. He had prepared to go take his life and he had been praying and crying out to God in ways that he'd never had before.
Kyle:And he was just kind of like, God, if you're real, then it's worth keep like to keep going. But if you're not, like, there's no hope for for me and my situation. And that night, the Lord spoke to my brother in miraculous ways, and he began to laugh and experience joy that he couldn't explain. Wow. And the next morning, he came out of our room shaking this old bible in my face like like a crazy person.
Kyle:Like, what what if we lived like everything in here was true? I'm like, well, we would be foolish if we did that because it's clearly not. Right? And so we were at odds. And so we're best friends, obviously.
Kyle:And so he was like, well, hey, man. We can't really be cool like that if you're not willing to give Jesus a try. And I'm like, what are you talking about? We've been rolling together since the womb. We're gonna be friends.
Kyle:He's like, no, man. Like, this is really too important. So I said, I'll give your god thirty days to change my mind about the necessity of this story. And because I didn't doubt that God was real, I had seen too many miracles. The the story of faith that I'd grown up in, I I have no doubts that God was real.
Kyle:I doubted highly that he cared. I doubted highly that he had a story worth telling. Right? And so a very arrogantly challenged God proved me wrong. I was that guy that loved to debate Christians about, all the inconsistencies in scripture and all these different things.
Kyle:And so I just began over the next thirty days finding all these different ways that I could no longer trust in my atheism as something that was reasonable and intelligent and fully reconciled. And within that last week, I met Andrew Gibbons, who's an InterVarsity staff. He was on a prayer walk. He met my cousin who had been told by my mom that my brother had had this miraculous moment and my mom was praying for God to send someone to help bring him forward. And so she was like, well, hey, this is weird.
Kyle:You're apparently some Astor guy, my cousin just had this crazy moment. You should talk to him. So he talked to my brother and then my brother was like, hey, you should talk to my brother. And so I ended up talking to Andrew Gibbons at a Buffalo Wild Wings about faith. And we started talking about God and I said something to him and he said something that changed my life at that point.
Kyle:He said, hey, did you was that a real answer or did you just say that because I'm white? And I was like, because you're white, I don't really trust you people. Wow. So I really had to I had some some prejudice and some racism. I'd I'd experienced some things that people would be surprised to for folks to experience in the two thousands.
Kyle:And it was his curiosity and his humility and the miraculous ways that God was moving that made me give InterVarsity a chance. And he dug in with me and we asked hard questions and we argued and we wrestled back and forth and and plus the Lord over the next month, a new Christian, he was like, Hey, you should be on my C team. I'm like, I don't know what that is, but sure. Why not? And we were off to the races there.
Kyle:That's, that encapsulates the miracle, the intentionality that god used, and the humility and the courage that my staff showed to to wrestle with me through a lot of hard things.
Jon:Wow. That is an amazing and a brief I'm sure very abbreviated version of a phenomenal story. I can only imagine what the rest of that thirty days was like. And Yeah. And and I'm excited to dig in a little further into what post thirty days and and way post thirty days, what what life has looked like for you.
Jon:And, you know, as we as we think about InterVarsity, as students with InterVarsity, we heard time after time after time this vision of lives transformed, which clearly you got to experience in a major way. Campuses renewed and world changers developed. And and moving forward here in our conversations, it's it's that world changers developed and what it means to be a world changers, what we're gonna lean into. And on this podcast, we talk about InterVarsity World Changers having two parts. One, you've had a formative experience with InterVarsity.
Jon:We've heard a small taste of that and someone who is growing in love for God, his word, his people and his purposes. And and so I'm looking forward to seeing where those things kind of land in your world changer story and and what that looks like for you. Now, Kyle, my understanding is that you're partnering with Jesus in some really meaningful and even sometimes risky ways in the working world and evangelism in the workplace. So I wanna hear some stories. But before we do that, you've you've done this a little bit already, but can you just kind of paint a picture for us of the the work environment that you live in every day and have been in for some time now?
Jon:What is that space like as we as we start to think about doing evangelism in a space like that?
Kyle:Yeah. So I'll I'll preface by saying I wanted to be an IV staff. I wanted to actually be a missionary and go overseas and do a bunch of different things. And I prayed about it, foolish, shouldn't pray about it. I shouldn't have done what I wanted to do.
Kyle:Yeah. And the Lord said, like, yeah, I'm gonna make you a missionary to the marketplace. And so Mhmm. I had two job offers outside out of college. There's a lot of stories we could tell about how I got into the field, but I was not a finance major until I had a moment with god.
Kyle:He told me to change my major. Three days later, I met the president and founder of the bank that I ended up working for who offered me a job for reasons, right? So all this stuff, God was running off. And the job I got was like a $30,000 salary and I had another offer for a $100. I prayed about it.
Kyle:Shouldn't have prayed about it. That's the theme of my life. Shouldn't have prayed about it. And the Lord really told me to go to the much, much lower opportunity. So think, I started out in a corporate banking environment in the South.
Kyle:So everyone's kind of sort of Christian, but no one's really Christian. They'll check the box, but a life with fruit, maybe not as evident. And very corporate, very regulated, very, risk averse. Right? These are banks and not even an investment bank like in the Northeast.
Kyle:These are conservative people, which nothing wrong with that, but just a frame of mind of of conservative ways of thinking, conservative ways fiscally around what we do, and everyone very scared of being sued and fired. So I came into this bank environment was the first African American they'd ever hired. So I was employee one fifteen, and I was the first African American they'd ever hired. And so I had some some experiences that weren't super great that clearly my time at InterVarsity, God was preparing me for. Wow.
Kyle:So it was a pretty hostile work environment. I had letters written about me about how I was lazy and toxic. And, I got I I I ended up working in a windowless room for reasons that it seems certain people didn't want anyone to know that I worked there. It was just not So it was it was a hard environment emotionally to try and understand like, God, why would you send me to these people? And what the heck am I supposed to give?
Kyle:And, like, what am I doing here? So just think, corporate finance, banking, all of that. And I've I've I've matriculated really well in my career. So I've been promoted probably 11 times in eight, So nine I broke every record and every role I ever had. I have one of those cool stories about how I'm smart or something.
Kyle:I'm Yeah. Smarter than the average penguin, but not as smart as the average woman or I would win more arguments against my wife. So I'm typically twenty years younger than everyone at my level. I'm typically the only African American in the room. And I am typically a very few, one of a very few people who is open about their faith.
Kyle:So it's it's not the most encouraging environment to try to evangelize in.
Jon:Yeah. And, I mean, and it sounds like even outside even if evangelism wasn't a part of the equation, already not the most hospitable environments that you've been operating in since the beginning.
Kyle:Yeah. Yeah. So it it it didn't feel like real missionary work when the Lord told me I couldn't go and and do something else. But about a year in, I was like, oh, yeah. I would love to go to people who maybe don't hate me, but that's often the work of of mission.
Kyle:Right?
Jon:I mean, that that reality just adds a whole another layer to, I think, to the conversation that we're going to have here. So pushing pause on sort of professional life in those spaces, but knowing that we're gonna be stepping into what does it look like to share Jesus, a Jesus who loves these people who hate you in in this professional environment. Before we dig into that part, like, I just wanna think about evangelism itself for a moment and at, like, your history with evangelism. Like, where did that value start to develop for you? And and can you and do you have a story of, like, can you think back to the first time that you ever shared the gospel with somebody?
Kyle:Yeah. So I would say the idea of evangelism was strangely foreign for me until InterVarsity. There's a it's another podcast. We could get into some of the sociocultural things that make differences in the way that we express faith in traditionally black churches versus maybe predominantly white churches. But Sure.
Kyle:I'd never really heard of evangelism. I heard of evangelists, people who came from another church who came and preached, but the concept was kind of foreign as far as like, well, what do you do? And so that was a little weird. I didn't have like a huge background, but I had a lot of background of faith and a God of miracle and my mom stopping strangers in the mall and being like, Hey, the Lord told me you had an abortion twenty years ago and you've never forgiven yourself. He told me the name of your child.
Kyle:And he told me to let you know that he loves you and you can come back home. And my mom's hugging this random lady in the mall and she's crying and my mom's crying. And I'm sitting there like, man, we were supposed to go to Toys R Us. Like, what are we doing? Because that was kind of normal.
Kyle:So now in retrospect, get to understand how unique and incredible my upbringing was. I wish I had understood the value of it when I was in it. So I had this sort of foundation that if you did love Jesus, the works of Jesus were supposed to be displayed in these really miraculous ways, but also this idea of like, well, don't really talk about your faith to people. That's just something we do at church. And then if you're special, if you're one God of one of God's special people and you're super extra gifted, then you can also talk to people outside of church.
Jon:Okay.
Kyle:So my first time evangelizing was a bit of a crap show. And my friend who is now a Christian, but had grown up atheist and he's been my friend since seventh grade. He's actually now a Christian because God healed him of cancer. Again, miraculous stuff. Wow.
Kyle:But he poked a lot of holes in everything that I was saying because I was parroting things I didn't believe in and just kind of just saying stuff without really investigating. And he poked in and he he started me on my way to becoming an atheist. So my first my first the music department was not great. Post IV, it was really incredible. Our staff, we we went through a whole season of kind of evangelism and the first thirty minutes of our large group time was like a word and and scripture study.
Kyle:The last thirty minutes where we go out on campus and we tell people about the good news we just learned And it was scary and it was weird, but God showed up in a miraculous ways. And so I learned early on that God doesn't need much. He just kinda needs a yes. So
Jon:these sort of two very different timelines of of evangelism here of, you know, talking to a buddy who's who ends up poking a lot of holes and it just does not go well and and really sets you down a course of like, oh, wow. Maybe I don't actually believe these things. And and then with InterVarsity and having some really solid training and opportunities to go do and try and try and to see the Lord show up even if you aren't bringing much with you.
Kyle:Yeah.
Jon:I mean, so then let's take those experiences and now move back into the professional setting. You're in this I mean, talk about not having much that you've explained that you're talking to people that, like, literally hate you and are doing things to put you in into a space where they, like, can try to interact with you as little as possible and not make you a part of what's happening in the room. What what does this look like then at work? When you bring evangelism into that space, that kind of context, how do you navigate it in that setting?
Kyle:Yeah. That that's a good question. I I would maybe start by saying, at least in the philosophy that the Lord has impressed upon me, evangelism is an internal work first and an external one second. And so much I would say at the beginning of my evangelism at that space was wrestling with bitterness and hate for people God was telling me to love. And I really need to needed to I thought I had done a lot of work in that, and I didn't find out until it was time to go and spread the good news to people who I didn't wanna have it.
Kyle:It was very much a Jonah thing like, man, I don't even wanna God changed my life. I don't want him to change these people's life.
Jon:Like Yeah.
Kyle:They can have it. Right? So it started there. And then from there, it turned into challenges for myself, things that I thought were low hanging fruit enough that I couldn't make an excuse for why I didn't do it. So it just started with, okay, I don't know where to start, so I just have to start somewhere.
Kyle:I'm gonna pray. So I set myself five minute calendar invites three times a day to pray. So on my calendar, it's five minutes. How do you you know, I can't just say, oh, I got too busy.
Jon:Yeah.
Kyle:And I would pray and specifically ask, God, if there's someone you want me to talk to, if there's someone you want me to speak to, if there's something you want me to say, make it so clear that I cannot lie to myself about it. And I'm just gonna spend this five minutes at my desk waiting. And that was the most terrifying five minute fifteen minutes of combined of my day every day because I was terrified that God would really speak to me in some way that I couldn't. And sure enough, slowly people would come to mind and I'm like, okay, what is that? What do I do with that?
Kyle:And so it started out with me inviting people to lunch and just sitting down with them and asking them really two questions. So one, what are the three most important nouns in your world and why? Person, places, or things. They share theirs. I share mine.
Kyle:It's impossible to tell my story without Jesus. Yeah. And so it's like a it's an easy way, like, that's not pushy of letting people, like, know, like, this is what I'm all about. The only reason I'm here right now is because I really feel like God wants me here. Right?
Kyle:And so that and then the second question was, how can I be praying for you? Because I think it's really arrogant for me to pray for you in private and I don't even know what in your life you need. So if I were gonna pray something that would prove to you that God cares what would I be praying? And those two simple questions seem to yield way more fruit than I thought they possibly could. And I found myself quickly known as the Jesus guy, but in a way that apparently people did not feel offended by.
Kyle:So there were a lot of, like, people in the LGBTQIA community that I was reaching out to and just they they they had a picture in their head of what a Christian was and how they would respond to them and what that would look like, and I wasn't. And so I tried to go all the people that I thought maybe I had something against because I find it's hard to hate someone when you know their story. And so that's kind of what it looked like in the beginning for me.
Jon:I love that it it began not with this sort of forceful act of, okay, where are the places that I can just make make it clear to people that I follow Jesus and I think they should too? That, you know, it wasn't this sort of forcing something onto somebody else for the sake of standing up for what you believe in. You know, that's one of the things that I Yeah. I grew up hearing all the time is you gotta stand up for what you believe in. And it was like, no.
Jon:You actually kinda sat down for what you believed in during this time. You sat down for those fifteen minutes a day, five minutes, three different times a day, and saying, like, okay. Who do I need to pray for? And that even that act turned into this is sort of arrogant for me to think that I know what to pray for these people.
Kyle:Yeah.
Jon:And that there like you said, this internal transformation was happening in you to make it even possible to know how to how to broach these things and then to ask, know, three most important nouns and and how can I pray for you? I mean, if that doesn't feel like something that is extraordinarily accessible no matter who you are, like, that's amazing. I would have to think that I would assume that you would also attribute this to that feels like a work of the spirit to give that sort of like, you know, people present Jesus with two different options. It's either this or it's this. And he's like, here's a third one you didn't think about.
Jon:And like, that feels like one of those kind of moments of let me give you a completely different option you've never considered, and this is how you're going to start weaving me into the hearts and minds of the people that you work with in a really unassuming and humble way.
Kyle:Yeah. I mean, the Lord had to expose to me that, at least initially, I didn't really care about the people I wanted to evangelize to. I cared about assuaging my own guilt and feeling like a good Christian. And I think that's what was exposed when I started to try and pray for people I knew nothing about. Didn't know their story.
Kyle:Didn't know what the you know, like and also clearly didn't really care. Right? Because I I just cared about me praying for them, not that they would hear from God in a way that would change their lives. And so I had to do a lot of pruning of my own pride and arrogance and a sense of righteous indignation. And to be clear, not everyone there hated me, but it it was it was it was a hostile environment for for many, many years.
Jon:Wow. And then as you continue on in this process, you say this is how it started. I'm interested to know as you move through as as these relationships develop, as you're having things to actually pray for people, are there do you have any you'll never believe what happened today stories of sharing Jesus with your coworkers in these creative and and humble ways and not just and let let me let me ask that actually in two different ways. Sort of you'll never believe what happened today in, like, in a way that my coworker responded Mhmm. Or and or any stories of you'll never believe what happened in me today as a result of continuing in this process with Jesus and my coworkers?
Kyle:Yeah. It will probably not be a surprise to you. I got stories, man. I don't know why. My god is bored and have it.
Kyle:Netflix is not working, and so he seems to always meddle in my life. So in the evolution of I to be clear, because I always wanna sometimes I tell these stories, we even talked about it. I tell these stories and it makes it seem like I'm some really faithful, just bible thumping believer. I am a bible thumping believer. I am sometimes faithful.
Kyle:But to be clear, this like, if you look at the stock market charts, that's what my faith story and evangelism look like. There's highs, there's some real lows. There's a whole lot of going three weeks without doing the thing then going a few days of doing it all of that. But within the midst of that, God really moved. And so I would say one moment was, I was in the shower at the work gym and I heard, or I didn't hear audibly, but I just, you know, the Lord spoke to me clearly.
Kyle:The story of Hosea and Gomer, and he brought up a person's face, and they were a very, very, very senior executive at this this company. And I felt strongly like I was supposed to go and tell this man that God wanted him to love his wife the way that Hosea loved Gomer even after she had betrayed him and and cheated on him. And I was like, okay. Woah. That's very specific.
Kyle:I don't know what to do with that. I sat on that for two days. I could not sleep. I couldn't eat. I was like, I'm going to lose my job.
Kyle:And I could not. I just had a newborn. Like, I'm like, I cannot lose my job. I'm like, I'm gonna lose my job. And the Lord was like, yeah, you might.
Kyle:But, like, I gave you this one, I can give you another one. Right? So I was like, oh, shoot. Well, that is Oh, man. The worst type of truth.
Kyle:It is technically true. Right? So I'm like, oh, man, So you're through much fear and way more crying than I'm proud to admit today, I finally went to his office and he wasn't there. And I was like, oh, thank God I'm off the hook. And the Lord told me, no, I'll send an email.
Kyle:And I'm like, I'm like arguing with Jesus. Like, you know, HR, these emails, you know, like one thing that's having physical conversations. Another thing that like he's like, no, send the email from your company email so it doesn't get whitelisted. It doesn't get sent. He needs to see this and it's more important than your job.
Kyle:And I'm like, okay, whatever. Cue the crying, the lamenting, the the throwing up. I can't do this. Then I finally do it. I send an email and I actually send the scripture and then I send like basically sermon notes and context.
Kyle:I'm like, hey, I just want you to understand what's happening in the story because I have no idea if he's a Christian. I know he's not a Christian, but maybe he grew up Christian, whatever. I'm not sure. And so I actually sermonize the whole thing and say, hey, I I strongly believe that God is telling me that your wife did something that you cannot forgive and he's asking you to love her the way that Jose love Gomer. And that's all I got, but if you would like to talk about it more, I'm open.
Kyle:And so I got a text, an email back that said, meet me at my office at 7AM tomorrow. Definitely opens at eight, right? So I'm like, oh, shoot. I meet with him And he's like, let's go outside. Let's walk at the lake because I don't some of the things I need to say to you, we don't I don't want any any recordings for.
Kyle:And I'm like, oh, shoot. I'm gonna get cursed out and fired. We walk out to the lake and he just breaks down crying. Wow. And he says, I have no idea how you could possibly know what's going on.
Kyle:I wasn't here yesterday because I was looking for another house because we're gonna separate. And when you're that rich, you just buy another house. So apparently, I've learned, you know, making my portion to be that rich. But and so we began talking. We walked circles around the lake for an hour talking about what was going on.
Kyle:And and I just I shared the gospel with them. And I was like, hey. You know, I'm gonna say something to you that's maybe a little countercultural. I don't necessarily care about your marriage, and I don't necessarily believe that God cares very much about your marriage in this sense. If you have to lose your marriage to gain a relationship with Jesus, it's not even close.
Kyle:And so I can't promise you that if you lean into a relationship with God, he's gonna fix your marriage. He hasn't told me that. I don't feel comfortable saying that and I don't I think it's a distraction. God is really the prize here. And, and I can't promise you that everything's gonna be alright.
Kyle:I can promise you, the same things that were promised to me. One, in this life, you will suffer. And two, he will be with you and him being with you will be better than if you had never suffered at all. And that's the only story I can tell you because that's the only story I know. And so, I think God wants to meet you here, in this thing, but I because he was like, well, you know, so like, because I really wanna fix this.
Kyle:I really wanna make this work. And I'm like, yeah, we can do that, but you won't be married in heaven. And so there's limited usefulness to your marriage here. Its utility is primarily to, one, show you how hard it is to love and then marvel in the goodness of God that he loves you in all the ways you don't love your spouse and your spouse doesn't love you. Right?
Kyle:But all these different things. Was just like, no, that's not it. And so that was kind of shocking to him because he was like ready to jump on the Jesus train if Jesus would fix his marriage. And I was like, there's a lot of married people who don't have anything to help for just like you. So, that turned into a string of biweekly walks around the lake talking about Jesus.
Kyle:And he never came to faith. I know that he sent the message to his wife. They prayed, they cried, they went to church for the first time in twenty years. I suspect that God's still doing work there. For the next three years, we kept he would reach out to me and we'd have a morning meeting around the lake.
Kyle:And so I don't know today if if he ever made the final decision, but it was a moment that I know there's nothing in me that could make any of that up and nothing in him that could say, yeah, sure. You you're twenty years younger than me talking about Jose and Gilmer and forgiving my wife. And to be clear, I don't even know if it was infidelity. I just know that it was something that felt that big. But, yeah, that that would probably be my you'll never believe what happened today story.
Jon:That is a mind blowing story of just fearful faithfulness right there. I mean, you know, that it it it feels like at from the beginning, it was sort of a fighting tooth and nail. Lord, no way. Like, not a chance.
Kyle:Yeah.
Jon:And then and then to be prompted, I mean, face to face, doing this at all seems terrifying. But to then be prompted, now put it in an email. It seems like, are you kidding me? Of the things that you don't do overwritten a written medium, you know, it's breaking up with somebody, and it's this.
Kyle:Yeah. Yeah. I I broke up a rule there.
Jon:Yeah. Yeah. But then for it to for I mean, for it to just meet in that moment, say, like, okay. Let's talk. I need to talk more to you about this.
Jon:But also one of the things that I really appreciate about that story is that you actually don't know how it ends at this point. And if that isn't just such a a reality, I think for many of us of the experiences that we will have in sharing the gospel is that our seasons of life with people are oftentimes so short and that the work of Jesus in people is such a long game Yeah. That that that we have to be okay with saying, I will do the part, even if it's terrifying, and I'm not gonna get the payoff at the end of knowing that that he actually said yes and that his marriage was put back together and all this stuff. But to be faithful in this scary thing, to be faithful through the years that followed that you said of talking to him, and that still today you're left with, and I have no idea what happened. Someday someday, I I assume someday you will know.
Jon:Right. You'll be able to ask Jesus face to face, or you'll be able to see this person, hopefully, and and say, like, okay. Now I know. But for now that you're left with the question of, like, okay, Jesus, this is in your hands. If something's gonna happen, it's up to you and the other people that you're choosing to use.
Kyle:Yeah. Yeah. I I I think in so many ways, I have, like, stories like that. Maybe not anything quite that crazy, but I have a lot of stories. And to your point, many of them, I don't know.
Kyle:I get to see from afar. I sometimes hear like through the grapevine, you know, so and so said you changed their life. And I'm like, what? They never told me. That would've been great.
Kyle:Cause I was stressing out. But, yeah, to your point, like, evangelism is a is an exercise in humility, first and foremost, because it's really not about you as much as we would like for it to be.
Jon:If there was anybody in in these scenarios that it feels like would have the right to not change their mind about the people around them, it would seem to me from a from a human perspective, it would seem to me that that's you, that you would have knowing the the the the environment that you were working in for your heart to not change towards these people and for you to just do that, like, I'm gonna obey, but I'm not gonna change. Like, it would seem like you would have every right. But I'm guessing that you were changing as well in this process. Were there ways that the way that you saw your coworkers were were there ways that that was being transformed in these processes as well?
Kyle:Oh, absolutely. There's there's a moment that sticks out. It was paradigm shifting for me. I'd flown to San Francisco on a private jet because that's how I was flying that in those days. No business doing it, but so it's like, just think of kind of the the luxury that I was sort of experiencing.
Kyle:And we'd taken some clients to a Warriors game back when the Warriors were the Warriors. You know, think I I expensed $30,000 in twelve hours, you know? Wow. I'm staying in this really, really nice hotel. It's the Senator Hotel because a lot of senators stay there, but it's in San Fran, I believe.
Kyle:And I remember the next morning going to another meeting and there are homeless people lined up laying in the road, like laying in the street. People are stepping over them. And I'm from the South, so or at least I grew up here. We have homelessness here, but it's nothing like California. It's nothing like San Francisco.
Kyle:It's nothing like even New York. But so just bodies on the ground of people. And I'm, like, stepping over them, and I'm thinking, man, I spent enough money in the last twelve hours to feed and clothe every single one of these people. Why in the world am I here and not, like, here on boots on the ground? Like, why did I fly here?
Kyle:Like, god, why in the world would you send me to do all this stuff to to meet with these people who seem to have everything and I have to step over people who have nothing? And I was like, I'm quitting. I I can't do this. Like, it's setting my soul on fire, like the injustice of it all. And the lord really, really convicted me.
Kyle:It's one of the one of the maybe dozen times in my life I I really felt like the manifest presence of god in a way that scared me in a healthy way, a healthy reverent fear of like, I think very Job like, who are you to talk to me about what I'm doing here? And the Lord spoke so clearly to me. I have people I'm sending to them, like the the the people on the ground, and you are the people I'm sending to the people in the penthouse. And, like Wow. Basically, like, stay in your lane.
Kyle:Like, I'm trying to do I'm trying to do a better work than what you think is happening. And the Lord was like, what if everyone you met with last night is really worse off than the people you just stepped over. Woah. And that was a hard thing to really conceive of. I had to wrestle with that.
Kyle:But the Lord was just like, I need you to trust me that there are people spending $20,000 a night who are worse off than the person who just stepped over. And I'm sending you to them because they're destitute, they're homeless, and you have to see them that way. If you can't see them that way, I can't use you in this work. You have to see them as people who are homeless, not people who have everything. And that shifted like it.
Kyle:I started to see and also see opportunities with people where I'm like, well, that is interesting. Why would a woman in this situation with all of this wealth and all of this beauty, why is she so alone? Well, there's a story there, right? And if you would ask, you would find out she's barely making it. All the money in the world barely making it and so it became my own ministry that the Lord really evolved that sense of like meeting people with a lot of resources who were destitute and honing that sort of sense of like, what's, where are they poor?
Kyle:Like, where are they hungry? Where are they needy? But it was, it took, I was in that specific environment for four years. It probably took two and a half to three before I really started to love the people God sent me to.
Jon:I would I'd have to imagine that that paradigm shift creates a new level of compassion. That if you can see somebody who in through the world's eyes has absolutely everything they could ever hope for, but the in the realities of eternity are completely bottom of the barrel destitute, that that really puts a a love and a compassion in your heart that couldn't have existed if you only saw them as these people who have everything, and so why would they ever have problems?
Kyle:Yeah. Absolutely. So, I mean, the the gospel is the gospel for that very reason. Right? Like, I have a lot more resources now than I did when I was, you know, than ten years ago.
Kyle:And I could attest, like, life isn't, I mean, yes, I would rather, to be clear God, would rather have troubles with money than troubles without money. But it was a huge barrier I had to cross of like, just feeling like you don't deserve the, you don't deserve the gospel and you don't need the gospel. And both of those things revealed to me a deep, almost demonic arrogance and pride that I I had to do some some uprooting. And my IV staff was actually my roommate after college, so he was helping. You know?
Kyle:He was like, hey. We're just friends now. But yeah, bro. I need to check you on this. The way you're talking about these people, like, does not sound right.
Kyle:So IV, you know, just shown up. Can't get rid of it.
Jon:You you've said a couple of things here that stand out to me. One, a few minutes ago, you said, like, let me be clear. The stock market is a good picture for my engagement with evangelism, that there's some high highs and there's some low lows. There are some seasons where I wasn't doing what I felt prompted by the Lord to so and and that you've also had places where you were being transformed in the midst of those things. So so where are the places today that you're still in process as you think about engaging the professional world that you walk in with Jesus?
Kyle:Well, I think in a really interesting way, my evangelism has shifted one because COVID, right? So I used to be in the office with these people working side by side. You could grab lunch. You could grab fifteen minutes. Now, if you wanna make time for some there's no spontaneous meetings anymore.
Kyle:Right? It's scheduled. Yep. So that has changed a lot of my approach and and it now looks more like, a lot of that three most important nouns Tell me like, hey, what are you dreaming about? You know, what would you need to change in your life to wake up tomorrow and be excited for the next twenty years?
Kyle:Just trying to get into people's stories because we're both aware in everyone's story, there's a need for Jesus. So you just gotta find, hear the story, ask a good enough question, you're gonna find there's a need for Jesus. That's what it looks like a lot, but it's honestly, it's been a it's been a shift that I'm still like wrestling through. I I don't feel as faithful as I used to be. Some of that is the direct results of just a lack of fidelity and obedience to Christ.
Kyle:Much of that I think is, a new work that God said. Like I said, evangelism is always internal first and external second. Yeah. COVID revealed to me that I had done so much evangelistic work in my workplace and I had basically abandoned my wife, abandoned my children. And so the last two years have been a really primarily a story of a new evangelistic work to the to my first responsibility.
Kyle:I think in some ways I caught really high on the affirmation of the stories I could tell and the people that I could bring and my wife was languishing. She's like, we don't even pray together. How is this, you know, like, make it make sense for me. Right?
Jon:And Right. Wow.
Kyle:And so somewhere along the way, in a very insidious, slow, but inexorable way, it became about the next story I could tell about what God had done through me, but really what I had done. And so the last few years, last two years really have been a story of more intentional, intensive work with myself and finding, you know, finding places to serve that aren't necessarily at work. So I still have I'm part of the work Bible studies. I do weird things there that I thought I was going to lose my job recently because I'm on a call with all senior executives and C suite people, and we're doing a Bible study, but work bible studies can be another form of politicking if you're not careful. And so, I kind of shared vulnerably that God had healed me of addiction and just talked about that journey of addiction and the struggle and all of that.
Kyle:And I was like, oh shoot, I should not have said that to people who are going to decide whether or not I get promoted. Right. Or at least I didn't want to say that, but the Lord was prompting me like, Hey, like I didn't get you. I can get you promoted if I need you promoted. He's shown me that.
Kyle:Right. So at some point, if people are going to see that there's a real God, they've got to see the evidence of his work in real people, right. Who have real problems who don't just show up every day and get everything done. But I would, it's still a story that I think the Lord is telling. Everything is shifting for me.
Kyle:Don't have the same sort of stories though, and I certainly don't have the same amount of intentionality. I'm in the process of praying through what that looks like and also trying to get comfortable with what it doesn't look like anymore. I do like coaching for men primarily, like therapeutic coaching. So a lot of like the great stories that I could tell are private and confidential. And so, you know, it's like, it's not my story to tell, but I know the Lord's doing it.
Kyle:And and so it's it's new. It's that's a bad answer. I'm sorry. It's a long answer to a short question, but still something I'm developing.
Jon:No. And what what I love about that response is that this is a matter of faithful obedience. You know, it's easy you know, this this episode is about, you know, like, risky corporate evangelism or, you know, something like that. And to say here towards the end of our conversation that, yeah, that's still a part of my story, but the Lord is actually broadening my scope of where of the places that he's calling me to lean in. And I don't have I don't I still have stories, but the ones actually, ones that he's giving me now are ones that I can't tell.
Jon:And, like, there's something really cool about that juxtaposition right there for me. And for us to say, like, yeah, this is one of the places that historically God has invited you into this space. And it doesn't mean that that's the space that he's going to keep you in the same way, that maybe there are new opportunities and new places that he's inviting you into his world changer work. And I I love that that is where that question took us. So I think that that's really cool.
Jon:Kyle, we've touched on these. We've touched on this a number of times already, so I don't think I have to ask you this, but I'm gonna just pointedly ask it anyways. As you look back on your time as a student and the other ways that you've engaged with InterVarsity since being a student, I mean, are there are there formative threads that you can see that, like, God was God was transforming me here during this space and time with InterVarsity to prepare me for all of these spaces that I've gone through since then?
Kyle:Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I some people, InterVarsity was a good time in their life where God was just reinforced some things and I praise God for that story. InterVarsity for me, I I would be dead today. You know, I was I was suicidal.
Kyle:I was deeply depressed. I half the reason I wanted to be a missionary once I became a Christian was I wanted to go to Northern Sudan. I wanted to go wherever they were killing Christians because I really believed genuinely that the greatest gift I could give God was a death on a cross. Like, I I was like, bro, like, I'm not good enough. Wow.
Kyle:You can't really use me for much, but I have a high pain tolerance because I've suffered a lot, and I'm willing to give it all up. Right? And so, like, even that was God protecting me from a really insidious quasi Christianity that God that I'm not worth living, so I might as well die for Christ. Like, I wanna I wanna give my life up, not have someone take it away because of my unaddressed trauma. But all of that was exposed in InterVarsity.
Kyle:All of that was clearly exposed in in leptio diviners and in scripture times and and even in, like, my story of addiction. Like, I'm not gonna cry. The air conditioning, it's crazy. Mean, I gotta pin it
Jon:up. Absolutely.
Kyle:But I came into college hating white men specifically because I felt like they hated me first. I hated God because I thought God was a white man, and I didn't have a concept of a white man who loved me and didn't want anything other than me to be a really good servant or to dance for him in some way, shape, or form. And God sent me the whitest of white men in the universe, Andrew Gibbons. Andrew Edward Gibbons IV. Now my mom has a picture.
Kyle:If you go to my house, you'll see graduation pictures of five people, even though there's only four kids. It's me and my three siblings and a picture of Andrew Gibbons right there and next. Right? Like, so he's family. But
Jon:That's awesome.
Kyle:There was a story that God was trying to redeem and show me that there were men that I thought could only ever hate me. And so I hated them back preemptively That loved me and that changed. I only work with primarily older white, like conservative men, people that maybe folks would think I shouldn't be able to love, but I genuinely, I love the people I work with And I'm a story to encapsulate it, which I'll be brief about. I promise, essentially, was struggling with an incredibly deep porn addiction. I'd experienced some childhood trauma.
Kyle:I was molested. I was hiding that from myself. I was having nightmares about convincing myself they were nightmares, not memories, all that stuff. It came up in a moment of prayer. Someone else like we were doing a prayer time and then a varsity someone was like, I feel like the Lord is saying that something happened to you when you were younger and you don't want to talk about it.
Kyle:I'm like, what? No, nothing. Me? Never. Either way, I had all of these different things.
Kyle:Was struggling with my sexuality. I was struggling with this deep, deep, deep porn addiction. Sorry. Should have trigger warning that. Failing the fight 30 to 40 times a day.
Kyle:Just addicted to my bones. And I thought there was no power in heaven or hell that could rescue me from from what I was in. And, one of the nights that God met me in InterVarsity was the Lord told me that he wanted to heal me of that addiction. There's been stages of that. I'm like pretty fully, I'm in active recovery now, but it's been great.
Kyle:But I was struggling. I went cold turkey and I had the same sort of withdrawal symptoms that a heroin addict has shaking, headaches, throwing up, I'm sick. And my co worship leader, small five foot four from Nowheresville, North Carolina, good old, just conservative, whitest white kid. I called him at 2AM and I said, man, I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm dying.
Kyle:And he knocked on the door about fifteen minutes later and he laid in the bed with me all night long. Wow. And, like, and held me. Now, at this point, you can't tell. I used to be athletic and handsome.
Kyle:So, you know, I was, like, I was on the track team. I was an Olympic power lifter. I was at two twenty pounds of like solid muscle. And he's this little tiny five foot five, you know, one hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet dude. And he held me and he prayed with me and he, he was the picture and the voice and the arms of Jesus.
Kyle:Wow. And it was like this paradigm shifting me. I'm like, woah, we have nothing in common except for the love of God. And somehow that is more than enough. And it was like, woah, I have too much evidence now that there are people that love me, that think I'm worth comforting, that see me as something more than what I've been showing, right?
Kyle:And so, again, a long story for a short answer, but I mean, the threads that God was weaving in my time in InterVarsity are things that I still think about, I still weep about, I still cry about. And, you know, he was one of my groomsmen. Another one of my groomsmen was a young white guy I met who we had an altercation and he said some stuff he would get canceled for saying today. And two years later, we met in a bible study and he apologized to me and I apologized to him. And it was just so it was a story of reconciliation.
Kyle:Wow. All of that I learned at InterVarsity.
Jon:Kyle, that is unbelievable. I mean, the the old and the only thing that I that I know to say to that to that store to those stories, that response is like, man, thank you, Lord, for choosing to do those things. And InterVarsity is is this tool that Jesus has chosen to use, and thank you, Jesus, that you chose to use InterVarsity and that we got that we get to be a part of that even even to this day as alumni. And that is Yeah. Absolutely amazing.
Jon:So cool that we get to that we get to do that, and I'm so glad that I get to hear those stories from you. Whether it's related to evangelism in these spaces or just obedient following Jesus, whatever it might be, do you have a word of encouragement for other alumni like you who are in this process of sorting out how do I partner with Jesus in my context?
Kyle:Oh, absolutely. I I think the word would would be that you cannot you cannot overestimate what God can do with a yes. Like, sitting on the couch today, years removed, months removed from some of these different stories, it can sound so simple and powerful and faithful and obedient. And then we've talked about it a little bit, but if I the real story is what could God have done if I had said yes even 40% of the time that he asked me?
Jon:Right? Yeah.
Kyle:The stories that I tell are a highlight reel of me being faithful 30% of the time to what I knew I should do. This the I, you know, I get to tell great stories and preach sermons every now and again, and the reality of what it means to walk with Christ can really get lost in the in the telling of the story. And so I would say as an encouragement, do like, dare God to use your worst yes to change the world. Dare him because he will. Say that you're gonna pray for five minutes, pray for fifteen seconds, say something to someone you didn't even think, you know, and just see.
Kyle:Because, you know, we could say it all sorts of different ways. God draw straight with crooked lines, whatever. I don't even know if half the time I did whatever the Lord told me. I'm not certain to this day it was the Lord speaking. I know I believed it was.
Kyle:And whatever it was or wasn't, I know that God is faithful to take a broken yes and heal it on the way out of your mouth that it turns into something good. And so and that's a story I'm still trying to tell myself. So I say that to us. Don't don't overestimate what God can do with a crappy, just trash yes. Give him your worst yes and go from there.
Kyle:And I think we'll all be really pleasantly surprised.
Jon:Yes. That that's amazing. I mean, because when it comes down to it, God's gonna do what he's gonna do. You know, it's just that he invites us to be a part of it for some reason. And, you know, and so even our crappiest guest, he's still gonna accomplish whatever the heck he wants to, which is pretty phenomenal.
Jon:Yeah. That is that is amazing. I love that. Then, Kyle, the last thing that I wanna know is how can your alumni community be praying for you? I I'd love to take one or two things or five, whatever you got, and just put it in the show notes of this of this episode.
Jon:And as people listen for them to be able to say, yeah, I I wanna be a part of an alumni community that prays for each other. So how can we pray for you and and and the what's happening in your life?
Kyle:That's a good question. A question that you sent me and I completely disregarded. I would say, if you're praying for me, you could be praying for further internal reconciliation. Yes. I'm privileged that I present as someone with whatever 10 talents and a lot of gifts and a lot of faith and all these different things.
Kyle:And I try to be as open and vulnerable about my flaws as possible because I think it's the most helpful anything anyone who's publicly about Christ can do. But, in private like I am still wrestling with like some of the stories of my past. I recognize now at 31 I I'm missing years of memory in in my childhood and life, things that I'm just now finding out I forced myself to forget. And the hard thing, the frustrating thing is God has healed me in so many miraculous ways, so consistently, so steadfastly over the last decade. I should not there's no reason for me to be afraid that he can't touch what's coming up in therapy next week.
Kyle:But I still do, you know, I'm just like, man, like, and I'm also like, am I the most broken person in the universe? Like, what is wrong with me? I'm not clearly, but, well, maybe I am, I don't know. But I'm the least of these, as many of us are. So if you could just be praying that, like, my incredibly super culturally black pastor says all the time, I'm praying that the wind of God would blow in your direction.
Kyle:He always does this. He's so theatric. It's great. It's like watching Martin Luther King preach every Sunday. It's it's way too much.
Kyle:Wow. But if you could be praying that, like, that the wind of God would be blowing in my direction as I I do a lot of internal work, a lot of private work that no one needs to hear the stories about. But I'm Sure. I'm still trying to be fully reconciled with why God chose me to be me and Yeah. Why he even trusts me with half the things he trusts me with in light of everything.
Kyle:So I yeah. Again, I only have long answers to short questions. But yeah, if you figure filter something out of everything I said, pray for that.
Jon:I get that. Absolutely. Absolutely. We will do that. And, man, Kyle, again, you and I have talked for an hour and we've exchanged a few emails.
Jon:But I do I do just want to affirm that you are you are a child of God that he loves deeply, who even at 30% faithfulness, that God is is moving in really amazing ways, and that that he yeah. Gosh. That he loves you and that he's changing the world with you, and that's a really awesome privilege to get to be a part of that. And I'm I'm so grateful for for you for your humility, for your willingness to share big stories, things that you celebrate, that you humbly celebrate, but also things that you lament. And I I'm grateful for your willingness to reach across both ends of the spectrum for the for those things in this conversation and just to be really open with that stuff.
Jon:And it it is a a deep privilege for me to get to talk to alumni like you who are who are working through those things and trusting me, trusting us, trusting this podcast with your story. And I'm I'm just really grateful for your time and encouragement to other alumni like you. So thanks a lot, Kyle.
Kyle:I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. This has been really, really fun. And like I said, InterVarsity, my life has forever changed because InterVarsity and the the missionaries that they've sent said yes. So I appreciate it.
Jon:Thanks for tuning in, alumni. Check the show notes for more information about today's guest and for ways that you could be praying for your fellow alum. If you know someone who needs to hear the story, take just a moment to share the episode with them, and then be sure to leave us a rating and a review as well. Now go change that world, alumni. Thanks for listening to InterVarsity World Changers.
Jon:This podcast is brought to you by the InterVarsity alumni relations team hosted and produced by Jon Steele, production assistance by Mike Zentera, and our theme song is Crazy by InterVarsity alumnus Andy Minio.
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