Meet Pastor Andrei Sava of Trinity Community Church Fresno

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pastor. Welcome man, man. I love the way you bring
you you stay right on scripture, but you talk about
world events.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Trevor.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Now tell everybody you grew up on your communism for
how many years in Romania?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah? I came to the States when I was twenty three.
Communism probably for the first seven eight years of that.
And I still remember, though, very very vividly, because even
after communism fell, we still lived in a country that
was communistic in nature.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
I was gonna ask what was that transition, Like, did
it take a while for people to go, oh, we
can kind of say what we feel.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Oh, it was. It was quite the shock, actually, I
think for a lot of us. Romania became quote unquote
democratic in nineteen eighty nine. Probably remember there was the
news if you've been around at that time. Chowi Escu
was the dictator, Nikolai Chowischescu, and it was an interesting guy.

(00:59):
He was kind of a combination between KGB guy and
then also he wanted to play the West, so he
wanted he had his own kind of dictatorship. But yeah,
it took us some time. And actually, you know, it's
the same with like Old Testament Exodus of the Jewish people.
God took them out of Egypt, but it took a

(01:19):
couple of generations to take Egypt out of them, and
we are still thirty years later. So Romania is still
reeling the consequences of communism.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Did you grow up speaking taught English at all?

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Man Early on, after ninety ninety, the government in Romania,
they said, hey, we want to become more westernized innocence,
so we want to get more in touch with the West.
So they mandated for us to learn English starting second grade,
and then the schools, I would add, they added another language,

(01:54):
so we learned. I learned German, or at least taught
stad German. I don't remember as much, but I speaking
at one point, and then we had to learn Latin
and all that. So it's more European countries are a
little bit more into learning other languages, which it's probably
pretty good.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
You think you get a better education in Romania today
than here in California.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Depends on the schooling. Yeah, I think that's a great question.
I think what happened is that the Romanian system has
tried to copy more the American system, where you have
all the universities, everyone goes to college. Back in the
day in Romania, it was harder to get to college,
so not everyone was expected to go to college. So
there were more emphasis on going to trade schools, and

(02:38):
it was an honorable thing to go to trade school.
So then the quality of university was pretty high because
they didn't have to lower the bar so that everyone
can get in, but because they saw that they could
make money out of universities. Now everyone wants to go
to university, so they lowered the educational bar.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
All right, did I picture you growing up in a
kind of that behind the wall gray apartment kind of
place living? Was that what it was like? Cloudy a lot?
Was it?

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah? Yeah, it's it's funny, you know, when you're living
in it, you don't know any better, Right, I was
telling someone tolding my kids, imagine turning on the TV
and there's this one channel that's it. There's not many
others to choose from, and and on the news you
hear about, you know, our comrades in North Korea and
China are doing so great, and there's pictures with people

(03:26):
marching on and showing progress quote unquote, and then they're
talking about the West and America and Europe. I was
all falling apart, and you see bombs and people crying.
So in your in your world, you think, man, this
is this is the best we can get. So you're
living in an apartment of like probably five hundred square feet.

(03:46):
I was at the fourth floor with my parents, so
we had one bedroom, or you consider a one bedroom,
we consider it two bedrooms because it was two living spaces, a.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Living room and a bedroom maybe bedroom, and we were
three kids in there.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
I never until I was probably eight or ten, I
never took a bath front with water that came from
the sink hot water. My mom always had to boiled
water and put it in the bathtub because the hot
water would never go to the fourth floor. And I
was the oldest and I had two younger sisters, so
they would go in and take a bath, and then

(04:20):
I would come in the water. So I never saw
clear water until I was ten taking a bath.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
And I'm like, do you ever sit in your tub
at home now and think back to that.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Oh? Yeah, many times. I look at my girls at
four girls, like, girls, you don't even know what you
should be thankful for electricity, for water for all this
time you take for granted.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
This is I love getting into the mind and people
that weren't born here that come for other places. What
was your perception of America? Like did they show any
of it on that one TV station?

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Man? You know what happened as we grew older. I
grew older, my dad somehow smuggle the TV and we
had pictured this. We had a flat of four floors
and each one each each flat or each floor had
like four or five apartments, and my dad was the

(05:10):
only we were the only one in the neighborhood who
had a TV. So we had probably hundreds of people
just all watching the TV. We put the TV outside
sometimes and it.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Sounds like nineteen fifty one America. Somebody getting a TV
on the block probably and we found uh, he found
a d or cassette HS.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Hey, yes, there you go, so a VHS and we
found some also through some black market. He found some
movies and I remember watching Dallas the TV show Dallas
Wow Jr.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
Exactly Man, the perception of America, wasn't it Texas?

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Exactly right? So we were just in awe. Man, We
were like, how is that possible? Because we were listening
to this and then as I grew older, I realized
that they were. They had a radio free Europe and
that was also on the ground and you could hear
things and you're like, man, that doesn't sound like what
those guys are showing us on the TV.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
What created the desire to take such a big, bold
step to uproot and move to the other side of
the world.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, good question. I actually got a scholarship to come
to Red School in the States with the desire to
go back.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
So what was your major in?

Speaker 2 (06:22):
What were you looking at? The geology? I wanted to
know more. You knew it?

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Then, Okay, let me back up. When did you know
you had the calling to be a preacher?

Speaker 2 (06:31):
I actually so backing up even more. I grew up
in a Christian home, which is a very unique in
communist Romania. I didn't know that at the time. Growing up,
I knew though that I was different because everyone at
school would treat me differently. The professors included I only
had another Christian in the class and the probably four
hundred people class.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
Now was it illegal when you were young to say
you were a.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Christ They would call you It's very interesting. They called
remain Christian. Remaining Christians. They call us a repenter in
a derogative way. So if you talk with someone on
the street and you want to tell them, hey, have
you heard about Jesus Christ, look at you like, are
you a repenter? Are you one of those guys who
tells me I need to change my life and follow Jesus.
And they also came up with all kinds of legends

(07:17):
and stories about Christians. They like to eat people's flesh
and drink blood because of the communion thing, or they
come together and they're all like noumitic incests because they're
all brothers and sisters stuff like that. And so people
had all this caricature and they would always the government

(07:38):
will always put out a lot of bad rap because
they knew that the West is the one influencing Christianity.
So I grew up in a Christian home, I was
not a Christian, and I actually would tell people all
the time, my parents are repenters. I'm not, so don't
put me in that category. But at school they would
treat me differently. They would not allow me to be

(07:58):
in certain things because I'm a repenter. I would not
be allowed to be part of certain maybe games or
certain activities because I was a Christian, you were Rudelph.
You were excluded. That's exactly right. Yeah. And then as
I grew up older, I realized, man, there's probably something
about this. I always ask this question, where do we

(08:19):
come from? How is it possible? Because you know, communism
is based on the idea that were product of evolution
of nothingness, and we come from nothing or just material beings,
there's no soul. And I would go out for walks
and I look at nature. I look at animals around me,
I look at things around me, like, man, there has
to be an intelligent design. It's just almost impossible to

(08:42):
have this fine tune universe.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
You like a young teen at this point, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
And I would go back to my professors and I
asked this questions like how is that possible? And they
would say, yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
When you say professors, you mean school teachers. You're not
in college yet. Yeah, I'm not in college and you
call them professors, We call them teachers. Oh, professors are
in college. Okay.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah. So that's the time when the Lord kind of
drew me to him from this reason, like a part
I would just look at the skies and look at
the things around me. And I'm like, everything fits so well,
it's so fine tune. Starting learning physics, I'm starting learning geography,
I'm starting learning history. It's all fine tune. It seems
to be an world of order. Uh, there's mathematics, there

(09:25):
is things that all fit in.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
And I kind of came out from an intellectual level.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah. I think God was just opening my mind to
some of these things. Looking back, and I'm like, man,
maybe my parents might be up up to something here.
But I was still like, didn't want to get close
to them. And I had the guy who actually starting
investing in me, a guy from church. Honestly, I wasn't
really interested in him so much. Or you were you
made to go to church by your parents? Yeah, so

(09:53):
you heard the message every Sunday, Yes, I was. I
was sleeping on the last bench. I would just go
there because my dad said, if you want to play sports,
you have to come at least one Sunday a month
with us. So I had to go. But as sports
did you play? I played a sport called handball. But
it's not your your.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
New York City playground handball.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
No, it's it's an Olympic sport that America is probably
the largest nation that doesn't have the sport. You can
google it up, YouTube it of Olympics. It's a big deal.
It's probably number two or three in Europe in terms
of like people watching and going to cheer for that.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Do they have pro teams over there?

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, I actually remember participating in some of the games,
and actually it was in the league semi professional or whatever.
And I was doing that and my parents said, hey,
if you want to do that, you need to have
good grades, and you need to go to church at
least a few times. And I had this guy from

(10:53):
church who said, hey, I want to read with you
some more books. And I came prepared with all all
what I thought are arguments against Christianity, because I wanted
to prove him wrong. And then God just worked through
him and that after two three years after just reading
the Bible, I read the Quran, I read other books.
I realized, man, the Bible is the word of God.

(11:15):
So my journey never started by wanting to become a pastor.
I just wanted to know God's word more. And because
if I thought, I thought to myself, if this is
God's word, and if God is God, and he created
a life and he knows how to troubleshoot us. He
knows how to just live life as he intended to

(11:35):
be in terms of marriage, in terms of being a
single person, in terms of work, in terms of future,
in terms of everything, and probably I should know this
book instead of just relying on someone else's say. So
that's how I started this quest of like wanting to
learn more about Hebrew and Greek and where did it
come from? And on what basis can we say that

(11:57):
this interpretation is right as opposed to other ones. And
so I never I never wanted to become a poster
per se. The churches, the people that I was with,
they lay said, hey, I think you're gifted in this area.
Probably should pursue this.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
We're going to come back and we're going to find
out how that young man that just saw God in
nature had the calling.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
And this is the Trevor Chary Show on the Valley's Power.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Talk Trinity Community Church. Do you ever think pastor like
back in seventeen hundreds here in the valley with the
Native Indians looking up what they the conversations they would
have like what is that? What is that moon? What
is those stars? Where does that big ball of the sun.
Where does it go? I think they probably had more
faith back then than we think we're too smart now,

(12:43):
and got it all figured it out. Because you were
talking about how you were brought to God, was seeing
his creation.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
Yeah, yeah, you know. Romans One says that we all know,
we have a knowledge that God is there, and it's
almost impossible to not acknowledge that there has to be
something beyond us here. And it's very interesting. So just
very quickly here. I remember years ago just reading a

(13:09):
book on the guys who were heading the genome project
here in the States, and at the end of it
that the main two people who were the directors of
that project, one of them, Christian, came up with a
book I think it's called The Fingerprint of God or
something like that, and he says, the genome of human

(13:32):
DNA is so complex and so fine tuned and so
organized that there's no way that this has just come
out of nothing. There had to be an intelligent design
to give that information. And the other guy, who was
the co director of this program, he published something in

(13:52):
the Journal of Science or something at that time, and
he said, I also believe that you can all just
come up with with this on your own. But his
explanation was, I think there's some aliens in multi versus
parallel multiverses from us that they send some of their
stuff and I won't say it on the radio here

(14:12):
on a comet, And that's how we came up about.
Now I have a question for that guy, where did
aliens come from? Professor? Because that intelligent information that aliens
gave us quote unquote had to come from intelligent design
as well. So a lot of people tried to excuse

(14:33):
their belief for an intelligent design by saying evolution. Evolution
is the process of trying to explain how we got here,
But it doesn't explain the origin of life, origin of
big bang?

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Who hit the button exactly right? So it'd be like,
it's as foolish to me as us denying that there's
broadcast engineers or construction as we're sitting in a studio
that was built by construction workers and engineers that put
this together. To deny that that exists would be insane.
What was the eventual thing that brought you to all right? Lord,

(15:09):
I'm going to America. How does something like that come
to be?

Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah? So I got a scholarship to come here, and
at that point in time, I've knew enough of the
United States and just traveling through Europe. You watch Dallas,
you knew enough of That's exactly right. Yeah, and there's
some other shows here and there. So yeah, I was
excited to come, but I knew that, you know, it's
not heaven on Earth. I was not naive enough to

(15:35):
think that, oh this is the end a of it all?

Speaker 1 (15:38):
And where did you land and where did you stay
the first night?

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, I went in, I went in the JFK, but
then stay there. I traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio, and it
was the middle of the summer, and I remember we
have humidity in Romania never. So here's the funny story.
I wake up around two o'clock in the afternoon just
because of the time change, and I remember so cold

(16:02):
it was in July in this house. I was staying.
I'm like, man, this guy's in the middle of July,
so cold in here. I didn't realize it was an
air conditioning, so I put like a jacket on and
I could put closed warm clothes in and I get
out of door. Man, I never had that feeling ever
in my life. When that committed.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
It hit me.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
It felt like in an instant sauna and I was shocked.
I'm like, how can you guys survive here? And it
was so different. I never grew up with that.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Were the Cicada's going there was chirping sound right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
That's crazy. I didn't have that. No, people get used
with those monsters, man, And I think people just think, oh,
that's nothing. But you see those beasts men, they're like big.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Oh yeah, they well they attacked. I think of what
a summer or two ago, they invaded America all over
the place. But that's it, man. I bet you never
saw fireflies either.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
No, that was night. That was fun.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah at night. Well what was it like when you
got out in the city of Cincinnati.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, so Europe. If you guys travel to Europe, the
closer you get to the center, more you get the
feel for the city because that's where they build the city.
You know, they started in the center and then they
kind of moved away from that and that's where they
have the city Hall. They have the heart of the city. Now,
what was interesting for me. I kept saying to my host, Hey,

(17:20):
can you take me to downtown? I wanted to see
that downtown, and they're like, you don't want to go downtown.
I'm like, why not? Like in yeah, oh, you don't
want to believe me, And I kept asking and asking.
Probably a week later, they finally gave in. It took
me on downtown, and I was shocked. I could not
believe my eyes. I saw homeless people, people doing things

(17:41):
that you should do in public restrooms in a visual way.
I'm like, wow, nobody's arresting those guys. I never saw
that part of America, not even on the news. I
thought that maybe it could be some parts here and there,
but that was very short, so you wouldn't see.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
That way more civilized in Romania. You wouldn't see any
not defecating or urinating out not like, yeah, we are not.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
As developed in some ways, but man, you keep.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Your zipper up when you're not supposed to be outside. Wow. Yeah,
and that was a while ago. What year late nineties
was it?

Speaker 2 (18:14):
No, this was actually mid two thousands. Okay, yeah, so
this is not too far. I've been here for fifteen
sixteen years.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
What brought you from Cincinnati and where you go in
the seminary there?

Speaker 2 (18:26):
I went to Louisville Kentucky the seminary and then marry
my wife. She's actually from Fresno, and we were hoping
to go back to Romania.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
But he should take a lot of convincing of her.
Was she excited.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
We met in the mission ship that right before I
was planning to come to the States that summer, like
a couple of weeks before. We met in Romania, and
she was on the mission trip from the current church
we I'm serving at with a group of people, sweet
people that are coming alongside us.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
So Clovis went to Romania. That's how you met, That's
how you met America.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yes, California, and she wanted from the beginning to come
back to Romania. That was the plan. I said, Hey,
let's go to more training in Louisville, Kentucky, and then
once we're done, we're going to go back. The thing was, though,
if you go through a legal process of becoming an
American citizen, and I wanted to do that because I thought
I can have dual citizenship so I don't have to

(19:27):
deal with American embassies. By the way, this is an
interesting tip for you. American embassies are a nightmare to
deal with if you're not American they treat you like trash.
And I'm saying that. I know probably some of your listeners.
We go to the DMV, we know, Man, it's just
so bad. That's not good to hear. Yeah, it's very sad.

(19:48):
I think it's because there's no accountability, honest, and I
have a lot of people who don't want to step
foot in America because all that we're treated by.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
Well, it sounds like we need to doze our embassies.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
I I don't think that's a bad idea, but anyhow,
I digress here. So I said, I don't want to
go deal with visas and interviews and all that the
future light trash. So let's go through the legal process.
If you stay in the States more and you get
the green card. If you leave the States more than
six months, your green card is canceled. So you have

(20:22):
to stay in the States at least. That's how it
was the rule to be legal citizen five years. So
I'm like, by that time I was three years into
the state being in the States. I said, let's stay
two more years after I finished school and find a
place to stay for two years, and then once I
go dual citizenship, go back to Romania. And by the way,
it costs you money. It's a very intense process, but

(20:43):
I think it's worth it. I said, you know, did
you miss home? I did. Yeah, I still do. To
be honest, you know, it's when the last time you
went back, actually the last October.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
I'm still teaching your class.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
I have a couple of times a little bit harder financial.
We're thinking about maybe next year to go again as
a family. You said you're teaching classes there. Yeah, I'm
teaching my alma matter. I'm teaching a class online. Actually
zoom to the students on campus and tried to go
once a year or the other year.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
To just be all right, I'm gonna come back. Pastor
Andre here Trinity Community Church, how he got there, and
then we're going to get into the boy the chaos
that's going on in his homeland there of Romania. It
sounds like, tell me if I'm wrong. Here, you got
a nationalist kind of like Trump, and they don't want
him to win the election because they're saying Russia is
involved with his campaign. It almost sounds like a ditto

(21:37):
of what they did to Trump in America.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
It's a little bit more complicated than that. I think
they tried to present it like that. But this guy,
so let me just say this, this system did him wrong.
I want to say that, but the guy is not
your Trump guy. So Trump has.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
We'll get the Romanian insider view. Yeah, we'll get it.
Pass on. Andre Moore coming up.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
This is the Tremor Cary Show on the Valleys our talk.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
It's fascinating to hear your story and learn about another nation.
He grew up under communism and then he came to
America and we're going to find out how you ended
up in Clovis, California. We heard your wife on a
mission trip over there and you were going to move
to Romania. When did that change your roo happen?

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah? I stayed here for the first few years, and
I after three or four years, actually stayed longer than
I intended to. I went to the elders, the boarder
our church, and I said, hey, I want to get
permission to go back, and you're blessing, and they said, yeah,
you have our blessing and our permission, but we strongly
think you should stay here. We feel like you can

(22:47):
do more good for Romania or other parts.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Of this And this is Trinity church. You're talking about
training the community. What level of service were you in?
Were you just going to the church? No, I was helping.
I was spade by this.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
On the staff, I was doing missions and also junior high,
middle school. Okay, but that was at that time. They
asked me to do more preaching and they said, hey,
we really like the perspective you're coming from, seeing things
from a different way, from an outside perspective, and we
want you to be the preaching pastor. So I was
there the preaching pastor for the following seven years six

(23:23):
seven years, and then we just transitioned to be I
have a more of a lead pastor role, and last
nine months or so, we have a great group of people.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
I noticed that on the listing of everybody that works
in the office, normally the main pastor lead pastors at
the top. You're down the road a little bit. That
make that humble decision, Yeah, we did.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
My previous colleague, or the colleague with the still is
there pastor Chuck Shaltus pastor emeritus. He kind of led
the way this way is just a humble man loves Christ.
And I always like to tell people I'm just another
guy on the staff. Here and I have the responsibility.
I don't want to run from it. But just different giftings,

(24:03):
different responsibilities. And we have a bunch of people behind
the scenes that I deserve credit because if it wasn't
for them, probably wouldn't be where we are.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
You know what, I was impressed that your church, stranity
community does. I thought this was very cool. You have
a special needs service for special needs humans that have
their own service. I hadn't heard of a church doing that.
Is what parameters does that fall under? If somebody out
there has somebody has special needs in their family.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, we have a very very soft spot for families
impacted by disability and we are trying to find all
kinds of ways to come alongside them. We have a
buddy system for kids who are under eighteen and the
parents want to go into a service, and we have

(24:54):
special trained people with special needs that it just helps
them either separately be with them in a special room
with more kids with special needs, or be with other kids.
Then we have a special Bible study that is done
with adults have special needs. While we're doing one of
the services, they meet in another room and they kind

(25:16):
of go through more easy to digest materials, and we're
trying to come alongside a lot of this family is.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Because have you had the opportunity with the other services
going on though, but have you had the opportunity to
observe Yeah, Oh it's wonderful there some of the questions
that come out of their minds just kind of surprise
you and please Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, I think one of the things that and probably
there are a lot of parents there with kids special
with special needs, there is a sincerity to them that
that is just heartwarming. And it's also it takes all
the walls down because it reminds you of what human

(25:55):
humanity is about, and also that the fact that God
created us in his image and likeness. And I actually
wanted you asked me earlier how did I got into ministry?
And I actually remember this one moment. I was seventeen,
just became a Christian, and I had a friend who
took me to a Bible study that was specifically designated
for people with special needs. And that was very unique

(26:17):
in Romania at that time. Even today, there are not
many were laws to help people with special needs. And
I remember sitting down with probably eleven or twelve and
I said, man if the Bible brings so much joy
and so much freedom and identity, and brings this identity

(26:38):
of being a child of God regardless of your background,
regardless of your special needs or excuse me, regardless of
your physical need, aptitudes or abilities. The Bible says, if
you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, even
if you have a faith like a child, actually that's
what's commendable. You are a son and a daughter of
the King. And to see this young people who or

(27:01):
young adults who are dealing with all kinds of needs,
but they were so happy in their identity in Christ
while the world does not value them at all. I said,
that's why I want to preach the gospel, because I
want to tell people there's a better kingdom that values
human life regardless of their abilities and background.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
So should I assume that event when you were seventeen
has led to what happens?

Speaker 2 (27:23):
I think know that you brought it up. I think
that looking back, yes, that was a big deal in
my life.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
You know, I like your service. It has a reverence.
You're not shooting out T shirts before. How much do
you as a pastor have to say with the overall
feel and mood and being a preacher's kid, I'm kind
of a church consultant feeling, and when I go to church,
I'm like, God, take it in my mind and not
say it's out of the wrong order. They took the

(27:51):
offering before the sermon, No, you take the offering after
the sermon, when their hearts are touched. And I want
to put more money in because that used to be
my allowance money. As a preacher's kid, I knew that
you take the offering after they're judged. You guys don't
do the offering during the service. But how much of
a role do you have that in the mood that's created.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, probably most of what happens on a Sunday morning.
Actually not probably, I know because I'm the one in
charge of it.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
You're not playing the drums up there, No, but myself.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
And the person who leads worship. We meet regularly. Actually
we plan a month in advance for all the worship services,
every song. What we want to do and our desire
is for people to come in a special place where
it's not their experience they go. Let's assume someone comes
that they went to a nightclub the weekening before. We

(28:41):
don't want to emulate that experience from nightclub. We want
to emulate something that is different. They come in a
space where it's holy, not the building, but the people
and the reason why we're there. And I know some
churches see differently, but I grew up in communism where
we I remember this when I was sixty seventeen. Times
he would go and into hiding and you turn off

(29:02):
the light so the the KGB would not see you.
And we could not wait to get in a building
where there's light and you can see each other and
sing together. And I came to America and I see
buildings actually turning off the light and you go in
and you have to turn off your phone, and it's
just like the emphasis so much on I and me
and my experience.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
You mean the the mood lighting. Yeah, it's kind of
dark in a church, okay.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
And I think sincerely, I don't want to throw passors
under the bus. With have different views on this, but
I think they are desires to create experience. But I
think when we come together is a place where we
come together as a body, and we come together to
worship God. It's not about me, it's about us. And
I want to see people's faces. I want to see Trevor,

(29:48):
who's dealing with issues in his life, and I want
to see how he's worshiping and encourage him. I want
to see Rick, who's a quatterprilegic and he's raising his
hands as best as he can to worship the Lord.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
And we can't forget Walt exactly. Let me tell you
the story. The first time I went to this church,
I do the thing where if nobody says anything hi
to me or anything before the service starts, I'm out.
And I was sitting there and it was ticking down
pretty close, and Walt's in his early eighties and I
know him now a little bit. But he turned around
He's like, hey, good morning, how are you. My name's Walt,

(30:20):
And I said, all right, in my head, Lord, I'm
staying Hi, Walt, how are you. My name's Trevor. And
just that friendliness right there. Really, Yeah, it's important. It's
just not the one man out there preaching.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
One hundred percent. And I think it's also about this idea.
I said it even this last Sunday. You know, we
have this idea that you come to church like in
a concert, and there's the show that starts three, dude,
what yay? Welcome, good morning everyone here, and it feels
like the audience is the public. We are the performance
out there on the stage, and God is kind of

(30:52):
somewhere out there, but nobody sees him. Well, I think
actually that's totally wrong. I think God is the one
who should be the audience and we are the performers.
And at the end of the service, you should not
even remember who is out there singing or preaching. You
just remember, mom, there's some guy with a funny accent.
But I remember the text, and I remember that he
told me to love Jesus more, and that's the heart

(31:14):
behind it. And we also want to emphasize this idea
of intergenerational where you don't comparmelize the church. That's another
thing that was shocked a little bit in America to
see how there's so much emphasis on the new generation
that we kind of put the older generation in the
back and say, hey, if you want to come for
something older, you go in another room. Has come eld

(31:35):
in the morning, but the primetime is for younger people.
And I think that we were missing so much by
excluding the older people. In Romania, we have was saying
if you don't have older people in your life, go
out and buy somem because you need their wisdom, you
need their experience. That's why, for example, a Trinity, we
have this blended worship, older songs, newer songs. We don't

(31:57):
think that everything that's older is better. Don't that everything
that is newer is better?

Speaker 1 (32:02):
All right? Well, when Walt introduced himself to me, I
was on the back, back row in case I had
to bail. Right, Yeah, you got to sit in the
back row. But now I'm always a front row person,
and I like far right. I like a door anytime
I'm in public. That's just me. I sit close to
an exit door. That's just what I'm like. But I
didn't know that was your family. A few roads that

(32:22):
always sits in front of me till a few services there.
And let me tell you, you're fortunate to have girls
because they're so well behaved. I see him there, my
brother and I in church preachers kids. Here's the story.
My dad was in seminary Memphis, and he was going
up to interview with this little church that would hire
seminary students to drive out and preach on Sunday. So
they had a Saturday Night Christmas show and this old boy,

(32:46):
he was an old, good, old farmer guy up there
singing Silent Night or something, bless his heart. But I'm
like eleven. My brother's like, you know, eight, and we're
just moving the pew. We're laughing so hard, and my
mom started laughing. Here's my dad on an interview and
his family's laughing at at Green Acres going on, and
my mom puts her arm around us like she's consoling us,

(33:07):
like we're emotional or something like stop it, and she's laughing.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
So your girls are well behaved.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
And man, I would like to take any credits, but
it's actually my wife that puts a lot of effort
into it. And it's also God's great so far. You know,
we are thankful for that. And again we have a
very loving community of people at Trinity that it takes
the village to raise a family, and we definitely have
the right village.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
She'sy Hillary, I'm kidding that.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Oh I know, Oh my, oh my.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
You just quoted Hillary. Uh let's come back, and I
do want to get though into the politics in our
last closing minute. So you got one more segment in
you I pastor Andre, we're going to talk about Romania,
and he told me this, this guy that with the
election up there, the postponed election, is not really a
Trump nationalist. We'll find out next.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
This is the Trevor carry Show on the Valley's Power Talk.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
From here, Let's talk about your home country of Romania,
postponed presidential election. Explain here real quickly. What's the lowdown?

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Yeah, I think the best way I can explain it,
at least from my perspective. There might be all that
people out there that differ with me, and I'm not
going to die on this hill with him. But there's
several parties that have for years, you know, running the country,
and this guy that came up to be like the
first the primaries, came out of nowhere, literally, like nobody

(34:28):
knew of him six months or three months.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
See if I can say his name, you correct.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Me, George Escu, George Escue, the lean George Escu. And
you know, nobody nearly knew who he was. And then
all of a sudden he kind of started increasing in
surveys and numbers. There's all this stick talk advertisement for him,
there's all this stuff. So what I think happened and
actually it's proven already, is that the main two parties

(34:53):
three parties is starting pourting money into him hoping that
he will outbid that the competition. And then it all
backfired because all of them pore money into this guy,
and all of a sudden he became the first one.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Like what Adam shifted to Steve Garvey and California running. Okay, Yeah,
that was a shadd that he rose up. Now they're like, oh,
we can't have him in this mix.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
That's exactly right. And now with backfires and the way
they're doing it is by doing it unconstitution Now is
he a little arian? Oh very much so. He's a
cuckoo guy. Like he talks about telepathy and he we
should connect with the aliens, we should uh Rumanian only
is this kind of blood and this kind of That's.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Why I heard the nationalists that they gave.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
But it's a different type of nationalists.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
The Assisted Trevor Jerry Show on The Valley's Power Talk