Called to be hope dealers

Twanna Henderson: Welcome to T Time: Spiritual Conversations For, With and About Women. I'm your host, Twanna Henderson and I want to remind you to take a moment and like this podcast and share it with your friends and other women in your life. Well, we have a very special guest with us on today. Our guests is Vicki Gray. Vicki is the co founder of Transformation Church alongside her husband Dr. Derwin Gray. Transformation is located in Indian Land, South Carolina, and Vicki currently serves on staff with the church as the executive director of spiritual formation and staff health. She graduated from Brigham Young University with a BS in clinical dietetics and international relations with a minor in Spanish. Coming to faith in her late 20s, she is now a student at Wheaton College Graduate School, working towards a Master's of Arts in ministry leadership. Vicki has over 20 years of experience in ministry leadership, and her heart for shepherding is evident whether she is teaching in front of a large group or sitting down with a friend over coffee. And I'm so glad to have her with us on today. Vicki, Welcome to T Time.

Vicki Gray: Thank you so much for having me.

Twanna Henderson: Well, you know, I want to jump right in and just tell us about where you grew up and just a little bit about your faith journey.

Vicki Gray: Okay. Yeah, so I am originally from Montana. That's where I grew up. And my parents divorced when I was five. And my dad married a woman who's Mormon and so pretty quickly, half my family became Mormon. The other half of my family were really probably nothing. I mean, would probably say they're Christians, but it was more of I'm an American so I'm a Christian, because I'm not Buddhist or Hindu. So I'm Christian. And so, but the town I grew up in, there were no churches, and there was about five bars. And so that was just my life growing up. I will fast forward you basically all through my growing up years, my gods were accomplishment, achievement, being the best. Definitely everything external and I accomplished a lot but on the inside, I was miserable. And so I ended up getting a scholarship to Brigham Young University, which is owned by the Mormon church and I got a combined academic athletic scholarship. I threw the javelin in college. People always go, "the javelin? Like, is that the spear?" And I'm like, yes, I've, I have a Viking heritage so, if that, if that doesn't tell you anything. And so I went to BYU on the scholarship, and I really struggled my first couple years. And by that point, I was really seeking. But I didn't know what I was seeking. I mean, I knew I had made mistakes. I knew that I had some just, you know, terrible things in my past terrible things that were done to me, and I didn't know what to do with them. And so I mean, I really struggled. But three years into school is when I actually met my, my now husband, he played football at BYU. And so we would see each other in the locker room. And long story short, we got married in college. And neither one of us were Christians at this point yet, although like I said, we probably would have if someone asked us, we would have said yes. But we knew we weren't going to be Mormon either. And so, we got married in college, he actually got drafted by the Indianapolis Colts, and we moved to Indiana. And while we were there, I was working as a registered dietician and there was another dietitian at work, who, basically her life just spoke Jesus, like she didn't have to say a lot. And so then I started asking questions. And I always like to say, I felt like God set us up because we thought, oh, yeah, the NFL, If we make it there, everything's gonna be amazing. And we were like, this is this is it like, this is the pinnacle, like, you know, because we had so much emptiness, that it couldn't fill that void. And so I came to faith basically through my co worker, and about six months later, he came to faith through one of his I say, co workers, but it was another player on the team. And so we became Christians, right about the same time. And then not long after that God moved us to the Charlotte area because he signed with the Carolina Panthers. And we have been here ever since. So, I tried to summarize, it's an incredibly intense, amazing story. But for podcast purposes I tried to summarize it.

Twanna Henderson: Isn't it amazing how God has those setups, you know how he sets us up? And it's like, how did this happen? But he knew, you know, and he just kind of puts us in these situations and has his hand upon us. And just really orchestrates our lives.

Vicki Gray: Yes. Like, to the finest detail of things that I, I think how in the world? For people that don't know what Brigham Young University is, there's about 30,000 undergraduate students. And it's 98%. Mormon. So the fact that my husband and I met at this school with neither one of us being Mormon is like, you look at that, and you go, what are the chances of that? You know? And him coming from the inner city of San Antonio, Texas, and me coming from a small country town in Montana, right? And so God has a sense of humor, too, don't you think?

Twanna Henderson: Yes, he does. He absolutely does. That's for a whole nother podcast. Yes. But I know that you and your husband, Dr. Derwin Gray founded this phenomenal church, transformation church. When was the church actually founded and why was it founded? And why the name transformation?

rted Transformation Church in: 2010

Twanna Henderson: I love that that is so wonderful and just how that unfolds, I mean, just how you all came to that name and to walk that out. So have you found that the church has been that then? Has modeled that throughout the years?

Vicki Gray: Yes, I would say, not without challenges, of course, as you know, as a pastor and a church leader as well. We have been incredibly encouraged how God has honored what we believe is an extension of the great commandment. Love, you know, upward, inward and outward. Love God, Love your neighbors as you love yourself and the Great Commission, "go make disciples of all nations," that word is ethnos, which means ethnic groups. And so we are now living in a time when the ethnic groups are across the street. We don't have to go across the sea. Right? Okay. Yes, in the town I grew up in Darby, Montana, yes, it is mostly white people. I'm not gonna lie, right? But a good portion of Americans are actually living in very diverse areas. And so our heart is that we really believe that the text that the New Testament really talks about, that this early church, this early people of God was made up of Jews and Gentiles. And so the very early church was a multi ethnic church and in fact, there are several scriptures where that's really why the Jews were so angry at the apostle Paul, is because he was saying that, ya know, gentiles can be saved, too. And they, you know, pick up stones to throw at him. And so our hearts are that this becomes an expression. And if the church can't live out ethnic unity, how in the world, do we expect anyone else to do it? Right?

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, yeah. Well, that's a challenge. I mean, yeah, that is something I mean, that's, that's, something that we certainly need to be striving towards but it is a challenge. I want to talk about, I want to talk about your role at the church, I'm just very intrigued by your role as executive director of spiritual formation, and staff health, especially the staff health part. Described your leadership role with Transformation.

Vicki Gray: So this role is relatively new. As you know, when you start a church, you actually do all the roles, you know? You do a little bit of everything and so this role that I'm in now, I've been in probably about six months. And my passion is, although I love evangelism, I also love the other side of the coin, the discipleship piece, like I love when somebody that is new to their faith starts to grow in their faith. And what I've recognized over my years in leadership, and really the people that mentored me, was leadership in the church is really discipleship at a very high level. It really should be. Our leadership, our spiritual leadership, should be an overflow of our very own relationship with Jesus, right? And so, so we believe that we need to start with making sure that our staff are the healthiest that they can be spiritually, emotionally spiritually, because they're the people that are going to be basically the sneezers, they're going to be the ones building into we, use the the core, the committed the congregation, the community that concentric circles. And so we pour into the core, and then the core, which is our staff, and really key servant leaders, they pour into the committed, and then the committed pours into the congregation, and so on. And so, so with that, one of the things that we focus on is, every Tuesday, we have a staff meeting called Transformation Time and the focus is discipleship. Now, we might have an announcement or two, but we are literally focusing on how is your walk with Jesus? And then how is this being lived out in your life? And we, we generally will go through maybe a book of some sort, and we'll challenge the leaders to take turns leading. We will do small group time. One time, we just took the book of Acts and read through it, and formed little groups of three or four people and said, "hey, get with your Acts group, pray with each other. Talk about what you learned in, you know, in chapters three through five, etc. And so really, that time we guard it, and I have to like, when I tell you, I have to fight people off at that time. I have to fight people off at that time. Because they're like, we need to do an HR so and so and we need to and I'm like nope, you set up another meeting for that. This is discipleship time, you know, and you have to fight for that. Right?

Twanna Henderson: How long does that take I mean, because, I think it's great. But you know, we want people to come in and get to work.

Vicki Gray: I know, that's right. It's an hour and a half every Tuesday.

Twanna Henderson: Oh my goodness.

Vicki Gray: It is from 9am to 11am every Tuesday.

Twanna Henderson: Wow, that is major.

Vicki Gray: It is, and we've actually had some newer people that will think that it's, I mean, somehow there was a miscommunication and they'll think, "Oh, well, it's really more important I'm getting my work done than I'm doing this." And we're like, "no, this is your top priority." A lot of times people just aren't used to, especially if they come out of the corporate world. They're like, "wait, you care about my soul? Like you care about my relationship with Jesus?" And I'm like, "yes, we're the church, this should be our priority." So that's the first thing we do. I also, myself, one of our executive pastors, males, and we meet with a senior pastor, and then a female director. So there's two men, two women, and we form our staff care team. And so in that we will, you know, highly confidential talk through staff that may need to go into some form of counseling, or maybe their marriage is struggling, and they're asking for help, and just really wanting to nurture our people the best that we can. And you know, Twanna, I know, you know, you've been doing this probably way longer than me, I don't know. But I do know this, like people have to want to. And so like, you can, like pour your heart and soul into helping people. But they have to want that help and so that's been really a learning curve for me.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, yeah. I love that idea. I think that is so important. I know, our listeners are from various churches. How can churches small and large implement a culture of staff health?

Vicki Gray: Yeah. Wow, that is, that is a really good question. I think. It starts with trusting the Holy Spirit that as you, as you make it a priority to care about the hearts and the souls of your people, He's going to empower you to get the work done. Because everything in us is, we got this, we got that we got to hurry, we got to work, we got to work, we got to work. And those things do need done, like the week, Sunday's coming, right? The weekend is coming. And so it has been an act of faith to say, you know, what, if I have a staff person who comes in, and their marriage is falling apart at home, and I'm not attending to that, but I'm only expecting them to make sure the kids ministry is set up on Sunday, or whatever the case may be, in some ways, I'm actually prostituting them, you know, and we have one of our values is called people over production. And that we're like, people are more than their gifts. And in order for people to really be who God's created them to be, like, we want to be invested in their lives. And it doesn't mean we're all best friends. You know, I mean, we all have to like sort of have healthy boundaries and things like that. But if they can't come to us when they're struggling, maybe in their marriage, or maybe they're struggling with a parent, or I don't know, any kind of thing. Then sometimes I feel like what are we really doing that they don't feel safe to do that with us? Yeah. But it's a faith journey because you have to believe God's gonna give the the time and energy to accomplish the work that needs to be done. Because you're taking care of people's hearts.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, yeah. So are there resources that you can recommend? You know, for people I know, you said, sometimes you guys will read books and things. Are there, like some resources that churches can say, hey, you know, this is this is something that we can do. We can just start with having everybody to read this particular book or something.

Vicki Gray: Yes. I'm not sure if you've heard of "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality". Peter Scazzero?

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Vicki Gray: We have taken our staff through that one as well as "Emotionally Healthy Leader". And we've also done some breakout things that we've offered to the congregation. I think their curriculum that they provide is, is wonderful, because it really gets you thinking below the surface, right? Like, like, wait, why didn't you just explode? Yeah, why did he go from zero to 60 in fiveseconds? Like, I think there's a problem there? Right? And that maybe there's something that I need to address or I need, I need some help walking through. And, I mean, gosh, I think when I first became a Christian, I didn't even know I didn't even know that that was a thing. I didn't even know to look below the hood. You know what I mean?

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's good. Yeah. And all their stuff is really good.

Vicki Gray: Another one is "Search for Significance." Have you read that, Robert McGee? Yeah, yeah, that was really good, too.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, yeah, that's some good stuff. And So yeah, I think anytime you can just take resources that are available, you know, regardless of the size of your church, and, you know, and have your staff regardless of what the size of that staff looks like, you know, digging deep into some of these things to really make sure that people are whole, you know, whole in every area, which is so important.

Vicki Gray: Yeah. And you bring up a good point, you know, he who is faithful with a little will be faithful with a lot, and we didn't start with the staff the size we have now, you know? In fact, there was literally two people that were paid, my husband and one other pastor, when we first started. I don't think I actually got paid until we've been going for two years. But we started right away going, no, we need to take care of each other. That's really important.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, yeah, I agree. So talk about what spiritual formation looks like at Transformation.

Vicki Gray: Okay. So, in looking at the scriptures, we believe that Jesus basically laid out that people who follow Christ should have certain characteristics. There should be certain things about them, right, that set them apart. And we call them the five characteristics of a transformer or basically a disciple or a follower of Jesus. And they are, and I'll go through them individually, but it's worship, connect, serve, give and invite. And worship is we believe all of life is worship. So that goes along with our mission shaped part of our vision. So we don't believe every single person necessarily has to be in vocational ministry, that we're all royal priests. And there are probably a lot of our passion for that comes from the fact that Derwin and I were both led to faith through people in secular jobs. And so we know that there's going to be people that are sitting in our congregations, that they're going to have opportunity to share the love of Christ with people that will never step foot into our churches, right? And so if people can start to see everything they do as worship, and that everything they do as a way to honor God, then all of life changes. It's like, all of life just becomes this adventure of like, okay, God, what's next? You know? So all of life is worship. Connect, that you connect, we try to keep get people into small groups, or small serve groups. Because the larger the churches, the smaller the church has to get. You just, it's too easy to kind of come in and be anonymous and leave. And real life change happens in smaller group relationships. Even if it's just you and one other person. So worship, connect, serve. We don't even use the word volunteer, because the heart doesn't volunteer to beat, you know, the heart serves the body. And so, each person is created with these wonderful creation gifts that God gives us. And then when we're born again, and we have the Holy Spirit, He gives us spiritual gifts. And each one of us are gifted and uniquely formed and created to be used in the body of Christ. And so we want to get people serving where, where they're gifted, where they're passionate, you know, where they're called. And then, of course, outside the body of Christ as well. We're very passionate about being active in our local community. Give. I mean, that's pretty self explanatory. But, you know, we always say, Jesus didn't withhold any of his blood when he gave himself. So who are we to withhold from him, especially when he's the one who originally gave it to us. So we talk about generosity a lot. And then invite like, we want to be an inviting community that people feel loved and cared for, and welcome when they come in to Transformation Church. And so all of those characteristics we believe we should be growing in. So as I grow in my faith with Christ, I should become more generous. I should, I should be somebody that becomes more attractive to an outsider that says, there's something different about that person, right? And so all of those characteristics that become part of our spiritual formation. It's a much more holistic and not just like scripture memory. It's a much more like holistic, like, it's great you have a lot of knowledge and Bible knowledge, but are you living that out? And so that tension is, you know, being a church leader, is we do want people to love the Lord with their minds. But we also want to make sure that they're serving with their hands.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think that is wonderful. And, you know, your journey with ministry has just been phenomenal. I mean, just the transformation. As a ministry partner with your husband, what's been your biggest challenge and your greatest joy?

Vicki Gray: Hmm. Wow, I would say the biggest challenge has been I'm very strong willed. And so I think, early on, it was too easy for us not bump heads. And for, like maybe an issue we were addressing as a leadership team to become an issue between us, or, and not really an issue between us, but just a cause tension. And so we had to really learn to set healthy boundaries. And I think what's hard is I would hear some people say, well, we just don't talk about church at home. And I'm going, well, that doesn't work for us, because our whole life is this, right? And so I don't know how that works. I mean when I say our whole life is this, it's not exactly but I think learning how to have healthy boundaries around maybe we don't just completely agree on the way something needs to be done or whatever but the more secure we both are in Christ, the more we can be like, okay, we can agree to disagree on that one, and not let it impact us. Right? So I would say that's probably been one of our biggest challenges. And probably about five years ago, that really, we really went through a rough patch with that we really did. And I felt like God took us through a lot of difficulties to like, help us navigate, like, you can't operate this way. Like your marriage still has to come first. Your marriage isn't the church, like your marriage is first. And the church follows after that. But don't forget that it is also an overflow out of the strength of your marriage. Like you can't you can't front right, like you can't pretend you have this great marriage, and then expect your ministry to thrive. Because eventually it will come crumbling down. And so biggest challenge. I would say my greatest joy has been when we've gone through difficulties together in leadership, and we have just pressed into the Lord together and then we see him do something utterly amazing. You know, you get that incredible, like miraculous email that you're like, God did that, you know? Yeah. Those are the things that make you go okay, all that other stuff was worth it.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. That's wonderful. That's great. Well, as we prepare to close, and let me just say this, you do have a speaking gift, whether you believe it or not, that is your gift.

Vicki Gray: You are so kind, thank you.

Twanna Henderson: But there are women listening who are either on staff with the church or in a parachurch ministry, and even those who serve in ministry in some capacity, can you just take a moment and pray for those women as well as all of our listeners, as we conclude?

Vicki Gray: I would love to.

Twanna Henderson: Thank you.

Vicki Gray: Oh, Lord, thank you, for this time, for just this holy moment for us to reflect on who you are and reflect on just the great things you've done. And, and we thank you, God, that you have written stories for each one of us. And God, I pray for each person who is tuning in to this Lord. I pray that something that Twanna said, or something I said just was such a reflection of your heart towards them, Lord. That they feel a tremendous amount of love, and grace, and the peace, that only you can give Lord, in knowing that you are sovereign, and that you take every single detail of our lives and you craft it into this wonderful, sometimes very challenging, sometimes very hard, but beautiful story. And so God I pray for each person who is tuning in Lord, that You would just help them grow in your love. Really, what the Apostle Paul prayed, like, help us understand your love. It's so other it's so contrary, that we need you Holy Spirit to tear the blinders off our eyes and reveal the Father's love to us at a deep level, the kind of level that changes the core of who we are. Because that changes the way we view ourselves. And we no longer see ourselves as these dirty sinners rolling around in the mud. You've created beautiful butterflies, you've transformed us you've transformed these lowly worms into beautiful butterflies when we're in Christ. And then God when we see ourselves differently, we begin to treat other people differently. We treat them like the valuable creations that they are. So God for each one of us, there is nothing you want more than for us to grow upward, inward and outward in the love of Christ. And so that that is my prayer for each and every one of us. I thank you for this ministry. I thank you for the way people are encouraged as your Word goes forth. And we thank you that you use each one of us to really play the role in your kingdom that you've set out for us. We love you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen.

Twanna Henderson: Amen. Well, Vicki, it has been such an honor to speak with you on today for T Time. Thank you so much. And to all of our listeners, Twanna Henderson and I look forward to connecting with you the next time be blessed of the Lord.