Building Belief One Brick at a Time Part 1

This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology. And we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network. It's about to start in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Man Talk, brought to you by TAWCMN, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and challenging men to take their God-assigned role. Here's our hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Welcome once again to Man Talk Radio, where you don't have the white guy, but we do have a Hispanic guy today, my brother in Christ. We're going to be talking to Pastor Leroy Moreno, and he's been a blessing to me, and he's been a blessing to Man Talk. And we're going to be talking about our topic is building belief one brick at a time. And these guys, they are dedicated to the ministry.

They're dedicated to service. He loves the Lord. He's a great, great friend and brother in Christ. And so I want to introduce Pastor Leroy Moreno and ask him to just introduce himself and talk a little bit about himself.

Yeah. Good evening. This is Leroy Moreno, Pastor Leroy Moreno, serving from the Way Church here in High Point, North Carolina. And senior pastor is Luciano Covarrubias, which is my father, physical father, right, and spiritual father at the same time. And we're serving underneath him and the ministry that God has placed in his life. And as a family, we are serving the Lord there in High Point and known as the Way Church, basically. We are from Hispanic background. I was born and raised here in High Point. Wow.

Yeah. I lived here all my life, born and raised here in High Point with the Hispanic descent, basically. Parents are from Mexico. And they're from Santa Nidalgo, which probably will be some of the conversation we'll have tonight from the church being built in Mexico.

But yeah, so they're from Santa Nidalgo, and we have our church located in High Point as well. And just living life, loving the Lord. Praise God. Yes, I am 34 years old, 34 years old, married. I have a wife and a beautiful baby boy. He's two years old, about to turn three in November.

All right. So he's definitely a blessing from the Lord. I know he's our miracle baby. We prayed for him many, many, many years, and God blessed us with one baby boy. We're still praying for another one. Praise God. We're praying for another one.

All right. But we're still believing for another one, but we're grateful for what God has given us. And we're a small family of three, basically. And there's three brothers, one sister, all serving the Lord.

Praise God. I have another brother in Greenville, South Carolina. He's an ordained minister as well. My older brother's involved in our leadership team here at the church as well. And sister, she's in Southern Wesleyan University, basically trying to finish her credentials out there.

So that's about it. Praise God. I know, Pastor, you have just swarmed around family members who were born again, and that's wonderful because I think when you have family who are really close to you and you're close to them, that can do nothing but strengthen, I think, the body of Christ and you in particular in bringing God's message forward to the people and just addressing all of the needs that the people have as they come. So talk a little bit about the church and how you guys got started and things like that.

You know, as I was telling you earlier, and I think it's important to move when God tells you to move. Stepping out in faith, and I know we were in a situation where we had prayed for God to give us a sign, per se, for God to say, hey, it's your time to start. And it was scary, especially coming into ministry. I remember the first times when God began to call my father to ministry, and my mom had struggled for many years with kidney failure. And I remember them making a promise to the Lord, and one of those promises was, God, if you restore her health, they would give their lives to ministry. And God did it. It's such a long story of my mom's past miracles. But to make it short, God healed her, provided super miraculously for a kidney to be transplanted into her the first time, and she was able to get off of dialysis and on a kidney transplant, basically a brand new kidney transplant that was given directly to her.

We didn't even have to go on a waiting list or anything. That was divinely ordained. It was supernatural. And I remember that was one of the biggest, I guess, pushes towards what God was calling us to do towards ministry. And I remember that first time that my father, my mom came to us and they asked us, they said, what do y'all think about starting the church? And I've grown up in the church. We grew up in the church. I just never pictured myself being involved with being a pastor. Hey, I'll help out or do what I gotta do, but never to that point to where they said, hey, we should definitely start a church.

And I remember telling my dad, that's weird. I don't think that's for us. It wasn't on my plans. It wasn't in, but our plans are not God's plans.

And it's not what I pictured myself doing in that timeframe. And I remember God began to deal with us. And so we decided to take a moment of prayer and take a moment to really get impacted by the Lord. And we took a 10 month internship under a church and they formed us, discipled us.

And that's where I really began to understand my calling, as this is what God is calling you to do. And I remember passing through all those circumstances with my mom's health and asking God, God, why do we have to go through this? Why do we have to go through sickness and all this stuff that was really, really, it's complicated.

And especially growing up and not being able to do things that you normally would have done at a high school, young age and having to deal with sickness, being at the hospital, learning how to cook for yourself, learning how to dress yourself, running my dad's business at the same time so that we wouldn't go in a bankrupt while he was in the hospital 24 seven with my mom. So it's like we had to mature quickly. And I remember going to the internship and asking the Lord, Lord, why do we go through this? And he's like, it's all been to prepare you for ministry.

And it's crazy. And I understood my calling then. And it took 10 months of just meditating, spending time with the Lord, being radically discipled, being thrown full blown into ministry in high schools, preaching the gospel. It was intense. It was intense and it formed our lives.

So we went through this internship. And that's where God really began to touch our hearts towards ministry. So we come back and God radically changed us. And we were on fire for the Lord. And my dad, again, seeing the position that God had already placed in his heart to start a church, he began to ask us, what do you think about church this time? Now that you're there, now that you matured a little bit, now that you found, I think it was important that he considered our opinion because when you're serving the Lord, it's not just one person, it's the family. And I believe that that's what's really gotten us through a lot of hard times, you know, serving the Lord together as a family and being involved together in ministry. And it's difficult. It is difficult because everybody's looking at you. Everybody's saying, hey, what's going on?

What are you doing? But it's a blessing when you can serve together as a family and move towards the gospel and think together the same way, have the same vision, and not have any opposition. And it's interesting because so many times God calls us into ministry and he's calling us together as a family, you know, to move forward and preach the gospel together.

And God began to prepare us way before we even imagined it. You know, my brothers and I grew up learning how to play instruments. All of us, every single one of us plays instruments. You know, I play the guitar. My older brother plays the bass.

My younger brother learned how to play the no, my older brother plays the drums and my younger brother plays the bass. And when we started the church, we had the full band. You believe that, you know, years before God had already been preparing us and we never pictured it that way. And I remember it's crazy because ever since I was little, my mom would for, you know, my mom had a lot to do with ministry. She would always push us towards church. And I want to say it's one of the reasons why we are the reasons why my dad became really involved in the church because of the prayer of my mom. You know, and my dad would always go to church. He was, you know, he would help out and everything, but it wasn't until my mom's prayers to really say, one day you're going to be preaching the gospel, you know, that it really just led him on a pathway towards full-time ministry, you know, serving the Lord. You know, and that's the, that's the beauty I think of the gospel and the beauty of Jesus Christ because whatever one family member does, it affects the entire family, you know, and going forward.

And how God is going to affect them is how the parents respond to God, you know, because the children are there and they're watching. So unlike you, see, I was running from the Lord. I did not want to be a pastor, a preacher of anything.

I mean, but it seems like when I look back on it now, every time I attempted to do something, God would redirect me. You know, I wanted to be a dentist, if you can believe that. And I wanted to be a dentist. So I said, wow, I'm going to be a dentist. I'm going to go down here to this school and I'm going to take the DATs and let the Lord just bless.

But when I went there, I took the DAT and I had the interview with the student. But when I had the interview with the professor, I could see God gave me some discernment and I could see he didn't want me there. This guy did not want me there. And so I'm looking at him and so I'm coming and I'm sitting down and he never takes his eyes off me.

He just, he's just, you know, just to stare, you know? And so I'm looking back and I hadn't been born again that long, you know, and I'm looking back at this guy and God has given me some discernment. This is not for you.

This is not for you. And so I went and, you know, I had the interview with him. I never found out what kind of marks or things that he gave me during the interview, if it was a yea or nay or anything like that. And then I just left and then God redirected me. I wanted to go back into the military as an officer. God redirected me. I was going to go to ROTC.

God said, no, it's not for you. Because I had been in the military and it's like, if I go back, go down to this university, I even got with a first lieutenant. He told me, he said, yeah, I'll write a letter for you guys if you want to go back to the school. Wrote a nice letter for me, you know? And so off I go down to Alabama. Well, we, when we come back, this is, this is really good because I hadn't shared like this since we began Man Talk. But when we come back, we're going to have more conversation with Pastor Leroy, a blessed brother in Christ, and just one who loved the Lord. And so when we come back, we're going to have more conversations and we're just going to get into some deep stuff. So you all stay with us.

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Call 336-885-1987. Well, praise God. Welcome back. I tell you, I love that bump in music now.

You know, I'm going to comment on that. Praise God. Well, we're back here, Man Talk Radio here with Pastor Leroy and it's just been a blessing. So now you all have been introduced to Pastor Leroy, some of the things that God, his testimony and some of the things God blessed him to go through to get to where he is now. So now we want to talk about the church here in the US that God had blessed him to be a pastor over him and his dad. And so how did you guys get started in getting all the church together?

What are some of the things that you had to endure? Because it's always a challenge. Oh, yeah. I believe every pastor has this challenge of where are we going to meet? You know, where are we going to have our building? And that's where the next phase of our lives began, right? We started in the basement of my dad's house, in the basement of my dad's house. And it was the family.

That's the way we started. It was the family. Eventually, we started getting other friends involved. They started coming in. It got to the point that we were like 80 people in the basement of my dad's house. And it was packed every Sunday, packed. You know, it was great because we had food and everything.

But we were really, really, really packed. And we began to believe God for our building. You know, and this is where a big step of faith came into play. And I think faith without action is dead.

And my dad was always a man of faith, but he was also a major person of action. You know, he began, we began to look for places, we began to pray, we began to look fast, you know, pray fast, God, prepare a way, open a door. If it's not where you want us, close that door. And we saw multiple buildings. And we didn't have any finances, you know, and it was 2008 recession, you know, and it was that time where nobody would lend money, you know, nobody would lend money, nobody would let you, let another loan let you borrow for a church, you know. So we began to pray about it and say, God, you know, provide finances one way or another for us to have ability.

And we happened to, we found a place, you know, and it was a small place. It wasn't big or anything, but it was owner finance. And we said, you know, in our minds, every logically everything looked great. You know, this is the owners willing to finance us with the down payment. All we got to do is get the down payment raised up and everything. And we started getting to the paperwork and everything, but the interest rate was really high, super high, and we didn't feel peace about it.

And that's when God said, hey, you know what, it's just way, it's not a wise decision. So we stepped out of that deal. We didn't go through and we're like, God, where do we go now? We had a couple months before we had circled this mega building.

That was crazy. Mega building, 40,000 square feet, three floors abandoned. And we were like, God, we're going to dream big.

What if we can get that place? But it, of course it wasn't for sale. It was a recession. I mean, basically everything was closing down. We're like, hey, let's just go look at it.

Maybe it's for sale this time. And sure enough, we go back to the building and they have a for sale sign on it. We found a door that was open underneath the storage room or whatever. We get in, we start looking around and it was a mega building, 40,000 square feet.

It was huge, huge property. And we began to believe God for that. And we said, hey, this is going to be the church. One way or another, God is going to provide for this building. And so we get in contact with our realtor. Our realtor, thank God, was a faith believing Christian as well.

You know, crazy faith guy. That always helps. Oh yeah. That always helps.

So we get into the, start talking to him about it. We're like, look, this is a big property. Of course the property needed a lot of work.

I mean, a lot of work. Half of the roof was on one side was caving in. You know, a lot of, it wasn't even established as a church. So they had to be rezoned for a church. A lot of permits needed to be pulled.

A lot of impossible things that we as people, it would have taken a lot longer to do it if it wasn't for God. And so, meanwhile we were growing. We didn't have anywhere else to go. And we were trying to get this building. And one Sunday we had a visitor come in from another church. And he was one of my dad's contractors, basically.

And he was involved in his church tremendously. And he said, you know what? I see a problem here.

He's like, you're too big for the space you got. I'm going to talk to my pastor to see if we can get you over at our church. And that's where I met brother Roy. Wow. That's crazy, right?

That is. I met brother Roy there because of that association at Shady Grove, basically. And they let us use their youth building while we grew. While the whole church thing was getting figured out where we were going to go and everything. And God opened that door for us there. That's wonderful.

So we were able to meet at the youth center while we started getting the church figured out. And our realtor told us something crazy. He's like, hey, let's just send them a ridiculous low offer. He's like, they're desperate to sell. And we were like, man, they're never going to give us that building for that price. But he's like, let's just do it.

The worst they can say is no. So we're like, okay, submit the deal. Sure enough. It didn't take long. And they said yes to the deal.

They didn't argue back one dime. They said, take it off our hands. That's all God.

A 40,000 square foot building. Saints of God. Do you hear that? I want you to know if you listening to pastor Leroy right now, I'm excited on the inside just for what God has done through them. So, you know, if God can do it for these brothers and sisters, he can do it for you. And just hang in there because God is able.

Continue. So, you know, God did that for us and it was all him. We prayed about it. God opened the doors and we began to step, taking steps of action.

God, what do we need to do? So then, of course, the whole down payment thing came into play. So my dad decided to say, he said, you know what?

I've got a piece of equipment. The construction industry had taken a big dive and he had a lot of heavy duty equipment that we weren't using anymore because they weren't building nothing. So my dad said, hey, I'll sell my equipment and we'll just use it as a down payment.

He sold it all into the ministry. Wow. And that's how we got our down payment.

And it's sold at the price we need it so that that could be a possibility. That is so wonderful. Tremendous.

It is. Tremendous. And see, see saints again, you know. One way or another. If you're sold back, God will give back. And we know this to be true because I know it has worked in my life. And you've heard me say this on Man Talk before, God had blessed me to pay off not one, but two houses. Oh, come on. Two houses in my lifetime.

Wow. And it's been all God. Again, like Pastor and I, we were talking earlier, it's about how you manage. It's about, you know, looking at the things from a God perspective and not looking at the things as a problem. Because you got to remember now, 2 Corinthians chapter two and verse 15 says, the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. Neither can he know them because he is spiritually discerned.

He don't know the difference because he's looking out for himself. He sees problems rather than God bringing solutions. And because he's not one of his, God doesn't listen to him. You know, Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice.

Yes. And that tells me when you belong to him is when he hear you. The things that he hear from an unbeliever is Lord, save me. Save me. That's what he hears.

But because God, God word, a little child can understand it. But saints, this is so good. This is so good. We don't have that long left, but continue with Pastor Leroy. This is good.

I love it. We get to the next stage, right? We got the building.

We got an okay. We got the down payment. We start working on the building.

And from there on then on forward, it takes more money to renovate. And we're like, where are we going to get this money from? What are we going to do?

How are we going to pay for this? And sure enough, we were involved with the Wesleyan denomination. And they took a chance on us. And they financed the remodeling project of the building.

Get out of here. And that was an answered prayer. But not only that, they also basically, from then on forward, every single step of that remodeling building was done at a super, super low price.

Super low price. My dad has construction knowledge, I guess you can say, right? And we had a lot of members who knew how to do the work. Of course, there were certain things that needed to be licensing and permits and stuff like this. So we started doing a lot of the work, manual work. The members start getting involved, tearing floors down, tearing walls down, getting blueprints done, getting all that stuff figured out. So we get all of that figured out.

And then we get to the stages where we needed licensing, AC, plumbers, that kind of stuff that somebody has to pull a special permit for that. And we prayed again. God, supply.

Out of nowhere, contractors would show up to the church when we needed them to pull permits, and they would offer their services. Hallelujah. Glory to God. At discounted prices.

Look at this. And they would say, hey, I need my guys to stay working. Praise God.

Pay me a very low, just pay the hours of my guys, keep them busy, and we'll pull permits and do everything you need us to do. Praise God. And we had that happen multiple times. I mean, plumbing companies that came in, fire department, like setting the fire extinguishers, all those people, they all came.

Normally, that would be an outrageous expense, normally. But God provided. I mean, there was no other way to explain that. When we got stuck at something where we couldn't move forward, at that precise moment, somebody that we needed would show up at the church and say, hey, this is what I do, let me know if you need help. Praise God. Praise God. Saints of God, listeners, if you're not excited about what God did through this brother and the members of the church, then you're not breathing.

You're just not breathing, I'm telling you, because this is good stuff. So we're coming down to a close, but we're going to continue next week with Pastor Leroy. So Pastor Leroy, for our Hispanic listeners, if you could give us a prayer while we're going off the air. Amen. Amen. This is so exciting.

I'm so excited. We're going to have Pastor Leroy back. We got to. And so when we do, next week, we're going to be talking about the church that they started in Mexico. Join us then. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, is building a community of men that are Christ followers with a desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk.