In this episode Gina has a conversation with Mark Barlow about coming away with God, and his journey trusting and learning the delight of obedience. Mark is a singer/songwriter and the Worship Pastor of Isla Vista Church in Santa Barbara.
Check out Mark’s music and ministry https://www.barkmarlow.com
Check out Isla Vista and the Jesus Burgers ministry https://islavistachurch.org
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Listen below to follow along: 34:50
Leading and Loving Well
Gina:
Coming from megachurch, coming from a family that’s so tight and so connected to the Lord and to God’s presence, and then suddenly you’re on this street in the middle of this city where all this chaos is breaking out and you’re saying “Yes” to Jesus, saying yes to, “I will stay here and be uncomfortable.”
What was that like for you? You were in this little bubble and now you’re encountering all these kids who have come from all manner of histories, backgrounds, trauma, and pain. How has that been, and how has that shifted and shaped your faith and your personal relationship with Jesus?
Mark:
I think it’s opened me up to realize that He really is a Father. The diversity of where his kids end up by their own choices doesn’t really speak a whole lot to His ability to father really well. Even His first kids rebelled and totally disconnected themselves from relationship with Him, but He’s still the best Father that has ever been.
So meeting all these kids on the street in any situation that they’re in, and seeing Him as their Father really helps to connect really deeply, and to not write anybody off, and to not discount the value of somebody’s life, even if they have thrown it all in the garbage. His value over their life is so massive, because it’s the infinite value of the life of Jesus. He paid the price for their life, which means that their life is infinitely valuable.
That perspective has really helped a lot to bring me down to earth, and not seeing them as lower than I am, and not to think of myself more highly than I ought, but bringing myself down into this place of: Jesus is the one who comes down and meets us in the middle of our mess. He says, “I love you.” That has radically shifted everything for me.
Growing up in a bubble, I was really isolated from any sort of exposure to any of these things. I’m so thankful for the way that the Lord has preserved the purity of my heart in this place. It’s only by His grace, in a city that has a lot to offer in regards to the pleasures of this world.
I’m so thankful that He has preserved me, and yet has still kept me in a place where that has been growing me in this place of being more adept at connecting with people in our humanity. Instead of speaking Christianese, learning how to talk like a normal person. There’s a lot of things that He has corrected me on in my perspective.
Gina:
I want to move to your music. What I love about your solo project, Hymns and Soul — Not to be confused with soul hymns!
Mark:
Sometimes I mix it up too.
Gina:
I love how you integrated songs about relationship with God, and songs about love relationship, in general. You’re integrating both and I think we’ve segregated our spiritual life from our regular life. We have this belief that we’re going to go and meet with Jesus over here, and we’re going to sing our worship songs over here, and then we’re going to go listen to the radio. We’ve separated everything. I love that you’ve integrated it.
It’s not like, “Here’s your secular project and then your worship project.” This is who you are and you’re a son of God, and you’re creative and you love Him, and you’re processing life, and you’re going to put it all on this project. I just appreciate that and I love your creative process. It’s interesting that if you would’ve taken that position as a 19 year old as a worship pastor, I would dare say that your trajectory even creatively would’ve gone a very different route.
Mark:
One hundred percent.
Gina:
There’s something really powerful about how you have stepped into the expression of your faith and stewarded all that.
Mark:
The guy who started Isla Vista Worship, first became the worship pastor here when he was in high school and his name was Mac Montgomery, this amazing artist, creative, musician, producer, and songwriter. He’s the one who back in high school was in our house of prayer, which is our garage here that we worship in.
He was just weeping and pouring out his heart to the Lord and just saying, “God send artists and creatives and musicians and worship leaders here to Isla Vista, that Isla Vista would be a creative hub on the coast of California.
That people would look at this place and experience Your beauty through the art that is made here, and that they would be radically encountered and changed for the rest of their lives.” He just would pour out these prayers. People would make fun of him because nobody thought anything good was going to come from Isla Vista.
Then he got a vision to plug in a microphone and his guitar one time as he was leading worship, which for our movement was a really big deal. At the time there was 10 people and they’re were saying, “Mac, why are you plugging in? It’s just 10 of us and we can hear you.” He’s a prophet and he saw something and he started moving toward it and stewarding that word.
Coming up under his leadership and learning from him for two and a half years before he passed off the movement to me and moved away, continued in his artistry career, learning under him was so incredible. He’s still one of my heroes in my life because of how freely he encouraged me to just make what was in my heart and how he modeled that by example.
He always stayed so authentically true to what was in his heart. There are seasons where he’s like, “I cannot lead worship right now. All that I have is a whisper to the Lord. That’s all I want to do is go up a top of a mountain and just whisper to Him. I have to be true to that.” Then there’s other seasons where he’s just pouring his heart out and he’s just belting, letting his voice rip.
That dynamic of being honest with where his heart is at has really encouraged me to feel free to go wherever the Lord is leading me to go, and also remain true to the emotions that come up in my heart. We read the book of Psalms and there’s a home for most every emotion.
Gina:
It’s a dangerous place when we feel like we can’t be honest with the Lord, and we can’t be honest with the things that we have inside. At the end of the day, He is the safest place to go with all of that. If I create this thought that I can’t be honest with myself or with Him, that’s when we get in trouble.
What a gift to be under leadership that modeled that and gave you permission to then do that as well. It’s pretty significant. At 19 years old, you have that conversation with the Lord and you choose to stay, how old are you at this point?
Mark:
So I am now 27 years old, about to be 28. It’s been eight years in Santa Barbara and in January it’ll be eight years in Isla Vista.
Gina:
How have things shifted? How have you seen the fruit of that choice to stay in the place of potential discomfort and say yes to that invitation from the Lord?
Mark:
I mentioned a little bit of learning to hold people with open hands, and that has been the most uncomfortable thing, especially now being as of 2017 being in a pastoral position here, and working against the temptation to try to control anybody’s life or decisions. Even though I’m given a position of influence, if I’m not empowering people to follow the voice of the Lord for themselves, if I’m not empowering people and giving them a safe place for to fail, then I’m just teaching them to be dependent upon me.
I can’t do that, that would violate my conscience. I feel like that’s something that I’m still actively growing in, which I don’t know if I’ll ever grow out of fully. It’s just a process of learning how to better support and challenge people. Support and challenge is the combination that anybody needs to be truly liberated to accomplish their highest calling in Christ and to be who they were designed to be in the first place.
If I only challenge them, that can yield control and a whole lot of bad fruit. If I only support them, it can actually coddle them and they never grow. It’s the combination of both, the way that my heart holds people has been in constant flux.
It’s just an interesting journey, having to hold my expectations so open to truly free people up from my expectations, so that my heart toward them does not change regardless of whether they’re in my life or not in my life anymore, regardless of how close we are in season and out of season. Not taking anything for granted and understanding that I don’t deserve anything.
None of us deserve anything. Life is a gift. The word “worthy” only pertains to the Lord. Grace is a gift anyways and God doesn’t ever give us what we deserve. Why would we ever use that word in regards to us? These things just really help me to set up my heart for longevity. Those are the things that have really helped sustain me in the past eight years lately.
I’ve just been thinking about trust with God and recognizing how He has been so faithful to me this entire time. But I feel like there’s more trust that I get to build with Him, in becoming more trustworthy. A lot of that lately has to do with regular intimacy with Him, and learning about my relationship with God, and learning about how that has changed over the years unintentionally has been a bit devastating to look at.
I’m just looking at the future and I’m very hopeful for my relationship with Him to go deeper than ever before. I want to be 90 years old and still desperately in love with Jesus and burning for Him. If I’m going to make it there, then that means I’ve got to build consistency now. He’s the One who pursues.
Come Away
Mark:
There are very practical things that we can do to prep ourselves for encounter. In the charismatic circles especially, we just want to get swept away in an encounter, but there’s an opportunity in our relationship with God to create margin and to create space and time for Him to fill. Instead of Him being forced to just fill the scraps that we give Him.
I’ve been really challenged in that lately, because on Friday I hit burnout, or at least the closest I’ve ever been to burnout, and somehow have always avoided being fully burnt out. Until more recently when I hit Friday, I got so tired that I got sad, which for me is a big warning sign in my spectrum of emotions and what’s normal for me. So that was a really big warning sign.
I talked to my dad the next day and then my pastor the day after that. Both of them gave me a lot of wisdom that was lending itself to creating margin in my life. Right now I’m in a rebuild season, and saying No to a lot of hangs, saying No to a lot of opportunities to just be in my chair in my room, to just read the Word and journal and play my guitar.
Like I said, it is devastating to look back and realize that for so long I have been living off of yesterday’s manna from three months ago. We were never designed to live like that, but that’s how I lived. Unfortunately my own self-effort and strength carried me way further than I should have gone without leaning on Him daily, without hearing His voice daily.
So I have just been really challenged lately to be eating for myself, and I’m truly in a place where I am at my end and I need to be eating daily bread again. I am realizing that I’ve been starving for a while, and not taking care of myself. Obviously it’s His breath in my lungs. So He’s really been the One who has sustained my life, but it is unwise for me to go so long without daily bread.
Even having an encounter with Him today is not going to sustain me tomorrow like the thing that He has for me tomorrow. I’m in this place of being really humbled by my own weakness, and being really humbled by my own inconsistency, and realizing how faithful He is, and that He’s the One who pursues, and He’s waiting for me in the secret place.
You have to come away. So that’s what He’s doing right now in my heart. I wouldn’t say I’m super in touch with even my own emotions right now, because I’ve been living so overwhelmed without any margin. So I’m just really excited for connecting with Him, and letting that be the gateway to being alive again.
Gina:
That’s so good. It’s so powerful, because especially when we’re in ministry, it’s so easy for what we do for the Lord to be taken as our time with him.
Mark:
Yes exactly!
Gina:
It happens over and over again, and His kindness and His patience with us to be sitting there going, “Whenever you’re ready, I’m right here.” Proximity doesn’t equal presence. I’m always in His presence, but the times that I am intentionally coming into His presence to be with Him, and that’s where everything should start. We tend to do the opposite. We go till we can’t anymore, and then we fall into that place, versus starting in that place. It’s powerful for you to be able to recognize that and desire that and to choose to pursue that.
Mark:
I have been giving all of my time to people and none of it to Him. It’s all the love in my heart that He placed there for people, but if that love does not have any boundary or guidance, then there isn’t any left for Him. It’s been a humbling week.
Gina:
God’s going to honor that acknowledgement, and that willingness to hear, and He’s going to meet you. I bless you in that pursuit. Thank you for taking the time and for your ministry. For someone who’s 27 to live your life with the desire, and the awareness, and the willingness to hear and to respond to His voice is significant.
Trust that and have grace for yourself in the process. He has way more grace for you than you do. I so appreciate your heart and your ministry. God bless you in all that you are stewarding as you walk with Him.
Check out the rest of this conversation: A Ministry of Legacy, Does God Trust Me? & Give Away My Love
Check out the Dwell Meditations
