From PK To P?

Hey, and welcome to Journey with Jesus. I'm your host and author, Johnny Singh, and I want to welcome you to this platform, which is a Christian platform that's dedicated to your spiritual uplift and encouragement. This is going to be our pre-launch episode. So a few things that you should anticipate me talking about is why this platform exists, who am I, and which you can expect moving forward? Let's get into it. Thank you for joining us with Journey with Jesus. So grateful that you want to be a part of this with me and that I can, you know, be a part of this new thing with you. Who am I, man? You know, what's this all about? What's going on here? Why this exists? All right, yeah, let's get into it. I'm Johnny Singh. I'm 24 and I'm from Guyana, South America, and I live in the U.S. now in the state of Florida. It's called a sunshine state, but for some reason, as of recording this, it's 45 degrees outside. Don't ask me why that is, but that's what we're dealing with right now. I am a graduate of the Florida School of Preaching. I spent my 10-year there going through a theologically rigorous program that has allowed me to study the Bible and understand the dynamics of Christianity and other religions from a lens that come across as more studious than others. And I've been able to garner a whole lot of beautiful friendships with many people, but my journey doesn't start there and I actually started back home in Guyana in South America. And I was raised in the home of a preacher, my dad's a preacher and you'll see him on an episode to come, Sam Olsing. I was raised with three other siblings. I'm the youngest of four, and so funny. Every time people see my eldest brother, it's crazy. He's going to be on the episode eventually, but every time people see him, they usually think that I'm older than him. And I understand it, man. I look like a, you know, 30, 40 years old. It's been a running joke for a long time. Married and my wife's a year younger than me. I'll tell you what, just a side story. When we're in Walmart, you know, buying groceries and checking things out and getting a few things, this one time, this individual that knew her, one of her clients, because she's a banker for a well-known bank in the South. But one of the clients came up to her and said, hi, and whatnot. Client knew that she was young and all that good stuff. And he turned to me and he said, man, how nice it is that you're out shopping with your daughter. I looked at this, do your older guy. I just looked at him and smiled and said, uh, thank you. I appreciate it. I know he just giggled about it. I mean, there's, there's times we tell people that, you know, she's my wife when we married and all that good stuff. And they, they hear about it. But it's all good with me. If anything, I, I take it as a compliment as to how youthful and beautiful she is. Anyways, getting back to some of the things we're talking about. Like I said, I was raised in a born in Guyana, South America. I was raised in a home of a preacher. And, uh, you know, I guess we can call this episode from PK to pee from preachers get to preacher because that's exactly what happened with me. I became a preacher myself and I've been very enthused about teaching people about Jesus and telling them about his kingdom and allowing them to learn ways in which they can develop a relationship with him. But my journey, you know, I was raised in a home of three other kids. And again, I was the youngest and the age gap was all over the place. But, man, you know, being raised as a preacher's kid is an interesting dynamic. There's a whole lot that you understand about life, but there's also a whole lot that you don't understand about life. There's a real neat dynamic where you've got to somehow separate the differences between, you know, being a Christian, just being authentically yourself as a Christian, but then also having this sort of standard above your head that everybody looks at you in a certain way because you're a preacher's kid. Like I said, my journey's an interesting one. For the earlier part of my Christian faith, I got baptized when I was 11 years old and I became a Christian in 2012. The earlier part of my year, I definitely embraced Christianity at a level that I enjoyed and something that I grew fond of as I grew closer with God. But as I got into my teenage years and I started to learn a few more things about the Bible and a few more things about Christianity, there was a lot of things that I didn't understand. And as a result of that, my lack of understand and sort of drove me further and further from my commitment with Christ. So there was a gap in my life where I totally, in some way, stepped away from the faith. I guess you can consider the prodigal son's story, but I totally stepped away from Christ at one point in my life and I sort of lived a life that was separate and apart from that of somebody who professes Christ as their Lord and Savior. And I knew better. I understood that where I was wasn't where God would have desired me to be. But that's how things ended up. And as I got a bit older and more into my teenage years, I had the opportunity to be exposed to the Florida School of Precision here in Florida and I had the opportunity to be invited by some great folks and people that I loved dearly to come to the US and explore the school and get enrolled and be a part of it. And I said, "Hey, why not?" And I gave it a shot, I came and I went to school. When I got here and I started school and I was looking at things, I was like, "Man, this is just not me. I don't feel authentically myself." And there's a lot of reasons for that, but one of which was the cultural difference. Did I grew up in a Caribbean culture, ethnically, predominantly people that looked like myself and people that sounded like me and even the type of Christendom, you know, the kind of Christianity that I was exposed to in terms of cultural variations. That is not something doctrinal. The cultural variations of Christianity and I just didn't feel authentically myself and it was, you know, God's good grace is that I met great people like Brian Kenyon who at the time was and still is the director of the Florida School of Precision. I befriended him and I remember meeting him. It's one of these sort of a vivid thing that sticks out to me in my mind. I met Brian Kenyon at his home. He had a bonfire for the local congregation. This was like around December and, you know, it's after Christmas and or maybe it was like the first week of January or something like that, but it was definitely after the Christmas holiday. So lots of people were sort of bringing their Christmas trees and, you know, they're going to have a big bonfire at his place and I went and I met him and this dude, you know, he's in shorts and flip flops and he's just a character. And if you don't, Brian Kenyon, you know that he's a character. And I just fell in love with him and I just love the kind of person that he is and was at the time that he met me and I got to meet his beautiful wife, Jaji and I got to meet some of their extended family and other members of the church and it just stuck out to me that for the first time in a few weeks, I felt like I was back in the kind of environment that made me fall in love with Christ and the environment that's very familiar with that of the Caribbean just enthused people about Jesus' enthused people about his kingdom, people that love each other. And I thought to myself, wow, if this is what the school is going to be like, I want to be a part of it. Now mind you, at the time of meeting Brian, I had no idea that this is the director of the school. This is a guy that I was emailing back and forward that I was talking to. So now fast forward to when I visited the school in person and I got to meet some of the lecturers and I walked in his office and there's Brian sitting there and he got out and gave me a hug and I think from then onward it was a done deal. I just knew that this is where I had to be. Then there was a lot of other people that just totally influenced my life as I continue to develop and invest into this aspect of my life as a Christian that's dedicated his life to study in the Word and telling people about Jesus and you know there's beautiful friends of mine that I got to meet while I was here and you'll get to meet some of them eventually on this podcast as well I've already got them lined up to do some episodes with me. So if I were to break down areas in my life you know again I got baptized as a as a young person I was 11 years old and that earlier stage in my life I want to say around 11 to 14 I definitely enjoyed and was enthused about Christianity but from around age 15 to about 17 18 that gap there things took a turn I started to not understand a lot and then you know exposure to life itself you know being a young person in our culture that is the Caribbean culture and being exposed to all kinds of things I started recognizing that this is harder than it seems and that it appeared to be when I when I converted at a younger age and then around ages 18 and onward I just felt like I was totally separated from Christ I mean I just lived the life of inconsistency and hypocrisy and something that was definitely not the expression of who Jesus is and what he desired for his followers to look and be like and then when I was 19 that's when I came in contact with some of the folks that gave me that opportunity and said hey you know why don't you think about it if you've had struggles with better understanding the Bible and as a result not being able to fulfill your life as a Christian why won't you think about coming and learning and being able to see things from a different perspective maybe one that you've overlooked in the past and that was the turning point that was the step in stone that gave me the opportunity to come and learn and study and see Christ from a different lens and it made me fall in love with Jesus even more than I was before and allowed me to deepen that relationship with him and something through that tenure that helped me dearly to understand what it means to journey with Jesus is faith comes at different levels and we've all got different levels of faith that we get to experience and are exposed to. And that reminds me of Romans chapter 12 verse 3. Paul said that every one of us is given a different measure of faith and at that moment in time 19-year-old Johnny looking back you know four or five years ago that was my turning point that was my moment where I recognized that hey I was at a different level of faith and I would love to be at a different level of faith and now I have the opportunity to do so so that's exactly what I did I grasped all to that and I latched all to it and from that point here you know five years later there's been so many great things that has happened to me and one of which is I was able to get married and I met my wife and that's been a beautiful thing and you'll hear more about that in future episodes to come but my journey man it's been an interesting one it's been a crawling one of crawled in different aspects of my life and then I've gotten to this point where I know that my commitment is something that I no longer can be doubtful about or challenged with and I enjoy that I enjoy deepening my relationship with Jesus so that has encouraged me to create a platform like this create a platform where I can help other people connect their journey with Jesus with you so that you can come to learn Jesus from a different lens so that you can come to see Jesus from different eyes and different stories different perspectives and hopefully you can be able to connect with him as a result of that so that's who I am I'm Johnny seeing I'm a preacher now and I'm minister for the kingdom of Christ and I enjoy doing it and I love telling people about Jesus and I'm not going to stop loving telling people about Jesus so if you want to know about Jesus let's talk about him separate and apart from this platform of course but why is this platform here you've gotten to understand a little bit hopefully if who I am now you'll get to know why this platform exists journey with Jesus Romans chapter 12 verse 3 was one of those pivotal verses that helped me to launch what I want this platform to become an area in every person's life where they can have a journey with Jesus where they can deepen their relationship with Jesus where they can come to know who Jesus is and where they can come to embrace that relationship and love him as he loves everyone that's why I've decided to create that platform this platform journey with Jesus I want you to journey with Jesus and I would love for everybody that you can come in contact with through this platform to encourage that journey so that you can deepen your relationship with Jesus in a place that you would like it to be and that's why we're here a little bit about the platform you know Romans chapter 12 verse 3 is definitely a pivotal verse every one of us has given a different measure of faith that I want you to be exposed to that and hear about different measures of faith and then also John chapter 10 verse 27 Jesus says that he's a true shepherd and that his sheep know his voice and that they follow him and they hear him and then of course in verse 28 he says as a result of that I'll never leave them and the Father loves them so to sheep we we hear his voice and we know who he is and he knows who we are and we follow him he cares for us so Romans chapter 12 verse 3 and John chapter 10 verse 27 those two are verses and places in scripture that definitely prop this podcast up and this platform up into what I would like you to become so that's why we're here so that you can get connected with Jesus so that your journey can deepen with him and so that you can come to learn of him and and and hopefully so from the perspective and lens of different people what can you expect expect weekly uploads now journey with Jesus already exist on the sub stack platform and there's also a website and I'm going to put some stuff in the description so that you can get in contact with that if you're not yet but I've been writing for the past few months and already put in content out there so there's a lot of written works that's already belonged to the written part of journey with Jesus and now this of course is going to be the audio and visual part of journey with Jesus so what you should expect is weekly uploads from the podcast platform I'm going to be doing solo episodes like this where you and I get to talk about Jesus and I get to share some things with you from the Bible so that you can come to better understand some things and be encouraged and uplifted and then also expect some interview episodes where I'm going to be having guests all kinds of people from family to friends to faithful servants of Christ as they tell you their stories and their journeys and how they are where they are so expect weekly uploads solo episodes as well as collaborative episodes with different guests that's going to be under show what else to expect expect an opportunity to connect I'd love to hear your feedback and proposibly if you would suggest areas of discussion that you would like to hear dissected from the Bible I would love to do that if there's questions or concerns or areas of curiosity that you would like to better understand or be exposed to from a biblical lens I'd love to open a Bible and share that with you whether it be something that is cultural or something that personally affects you whatever it might be share that feedback with me from the email address I'm going to have that somewhere as well as well as from this if you want to comment somewhere in the description or if you want to reach out to me on one of the social media platforms there's going to be ways for you to reach it out with me and you can get some things to me so expect weekly episodes that's going to be on a solo level you and me as well as a collaborative effort me you and other people as well as you have the opportunity to reach out to me in say areas that you'd love for us to discuss as a result of this platform that's what you couldn't expect so who am I Johnny saying just a Christian and I love Jesus and I want to tell you about him why this platform exists I'd love for you to share your journey with Jesus with us for other people to do that as well so that you can deepen your relationships so that we all can deepen our relationship with God what you should expect well you should expect weekly episodes I'm going to be uplifting and encouraging you are the best way that I can and I'm going to be having different people come on board to do that as well you can reach out to me so that we can have areas that personally affect you so that we can discuss them just noticing and a lot of facial expressions huh how about that I have a paid attention to that before but eyebrows are doing a whole lot of things so there you go and this has been delightful this is the pre-launch episode this is not episode one so this is somewhat of a pre-launch episode so that you can already get familiar with some things as we prepare to start making episodes available in the month of March March 2025 you're going to start seeing episode come out on a weekly basis unless something interrupts that and I'll let you know ahead of time what's going on I love you and I love that you're here and I love that you decided to join me in this platform and I love that you want to love God because he loves you thank you I created an introduction but I haven't created someone of an outro we'll work on that hey thank you for joining me thank you for being a part of this on this pre-launch episode of Journey with Jesus I look forward to seeing you somewhere