Rob & Barbara Gross were young pastors, trained, equipped and excited to plant a seeker sensitive church in Rob’s hometown of Kaneohe, HI. But, Jesus had other plans!
In this episode Rob & Barbara share their story of encountering the presence of God and how the trajectory of their ministry was forever changed. From Rob’s personal journey of inner healing to Barb’s burden for the restoration of family and the invitation for all of us to encounter God’s healing and restoration.
Meet Rob and Barb Gross
Gina:
Thank you for being here! Since my readers don’t know who you are, I would love for you to introduce yourselves a little bit and maybe give a little bit of your story. You’ve also authored a couple of books. There’s all sorts of things we could talk about.
Rob:
Both of us grew up here on Oahu. I grew up in a small town called Kaneohe, which is where we live now. Barb grew up in Pearl city, which is by Pearl Harbor.
We felt called to ministry, gave up our jobs and moved over to the San Francisco Bay area, where I attended school at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary for four and a half years. We were a part of a church planting community, which is actually out of Saddleback Valley Community Church.
Our church was called Bay Marin Community Church. We were a plant of Saddleback. We had an interesting experience in San Francisco or Golden Gate Mill Valley, to be exact. It was seeker-sensitive Christianity, which is what Rick Warren was all about, seeker-sensitive purpose-driven type services.
We came back to Oahu and planted, believe it or not, a seeker-sensitive congregation. We had drama every Sunday, until we actually started having emotional drama with the people. We had drama, we had one hour long services that were programmed to the nth degree.
And one day this friend named Chuck Clingman, gave me a prophetic word, which I didn’t really even know was a prophetic word. I was plugged into a pastor’s meeting about 30 minutes away from here. And he said “God has called you to something totally new. Why are you doing this seeker-sensitive thing.”
I’m thinking to myself “What are you talking about? I don’t even understand a single word you’re saying.” I didn’t even know what a prophetic word was at that time, being a Southern Baptist.
We were a Southern Baptist church, a Rick Warren Southern Baptist church plant. He gave us this word and things weren’t going well with the plant. It was a real struggle. I think the reason why it wasn’t going well is, because God never intended us to be a part of that kind of church, which for us, was an amazing experience. I have nothing but great things to say about Rick Warren. We love him. We love the seeker-sensitive church we were a part of.
Encounters with God
Rob:
We really intended to plant a purpose driven kind of church, but God had other plans. I always say that He shanghaied us unexpectedly. Long story short, things weren’t going well. I thought, “What if we install in the life of the church, small groups?” Because back then cell groups were a big deal.
There was a woman named Karen Hurston who was offering a seminar on cell groups at a Pentecostal church, First Assembly of God, Red Hill, about 20 minutes from here. I went there with my mother and listened to her share, and it was really fascinating. I loved every minute of it.
Then the leader of First Assembly of God, it wasn’t the pastor, but it was someone assigned to that seminar, invited all the pastors to go downstairs to their cafeteria, have lunch, then when lunch was over, if we felt so, come up and pray with everyone in the sanctuary. So we gobbled down our food and I said, “Hey, mom, let’s go upstairs.”
And we went back up and here I am a Southern Baptist evangelical pastor who taught that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues was not of God.
When I got into the sanctuary, there were people spread out, all pastors, mainly leaders, all over the sanctuary. Red Hill First Assembly of God is a large church. It’s a big sanctuary. It’s probably the biggest church on Oahu, and everyone was speaking in tongues. I wasn’t horrified as I should have been, given my background, but I sat there and I just started observing everyone.
It wasn’t even an observation with my eyes, because there are people bobbing up and down and speaking in tongues and English at the same time. I started to experience something that I had never experienced before and that was the presence of God.
I remember leaving that day saying to myself, I don’t want the tongues thing and I certainly don’t want to be on my knees bombing up and down like a crazy person. Evangelicals don’t do that. But I want that intimacy that I saw them have when they were connecting with the Lord on a very deep level.
I could see it, I could hear it, but more so I could feel it in my spirit and I was hooked and I wanted it.
I called a friend who had helped pray through some things that I was struggling with maybe a year before. And I said to him, “Dean, I went to the seminar and I had this experience. I observed this prayer time and what not and, oh my gosh, can you help me get tongues?” Now I want to clarify this, because I wasn’t interested in tongues. I was interested in intimacy and I was interested in the presence of the Lord.
I thought if that’s the way to get it right, I’m going to go for it. He said “Okay, I’ll pray for you.” Over the phone, he starts praying for me to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. Well, an hour later, nothing had happened.
He said, “Rob, can I ask you a question?” I said, “Sure.” He said, “Have you ever taught against tongues?” I said “Oh yeah, absolutely. All the time.” He said, “Well, I tell you what, if you repent of that to the Lord, something might just happen.” So I did that and instantly it happened.
Not very many people that I know, have had that experience over the phone. I was so excited, because now I could connect with the Lord, like never before.
Immediately, I started to practice right there in my bedroom after getting off the phone with my friend. Barb walked in the room and she had not been exposed to any of this. Neither did she go to the conference or the seminar, nor did she hear my friend Dean pray for me. She had this surprised look on her face.
Barb:
I’m a watch and wait kind of person. Even though my eyes may have been bugged out a bit, I thought, “Well, let’s just see.” If he goes crazy, then I’ll know something’s not right. Will he still be sane? I’m just observing him.
Rob:
I was like a little kid in a candy store. I had to tell everybody about this new found presence, not about tongues, but about the presence of God. The current location was 100% evangelical. I started scaring a lot of people by just sharing what happened to me. God began to change the direction of the worship service. Instead of seeker-sensitive one hour services, our services started going slowly, until an hour and a half and then two hours.
The singing, at different times, went on and on and on and started going up and up and up. And there was a mass exodus of about 30 people at one point and people just couldn’t handle it in Southern Baptist. That was very, very painful for me personally. The reason why it was painful for me is because I grew up in a performance oriented home, so my esteem and worth as a person was directly tied to the well-being of the church.
On certain Sundays when things weren’t going well, on Monday, I would be depressed all day. Barb dreaded those, I think she referred to them as blue Mondays. It was really awful. But God was cleaning house and preparing us for the next stage, but also he was showing me things in my heart that I didn’t know even existed, related to performance orientation. And that’s a whole other story.
From Buddhist to Baptist
Gina:
It’s good. It’s His kindness that leads us to those places. With such intimate intentionality He brings that awareness so that we can be healed and step further into what he intended us for. Barb, before we started recording, you had mentioned that neither of you grew up in Christian homes, correct? Share a little bit of that. You grew up Buddhist.
Barb:
I have a Japanese family. My mom’s a second generation on the island. Grandma lived with us for a while until she passed. We had our little shrine in one of the bedrooms. I would say it was more of a family kind of worship. So neither my grandmother, nor my mom went to church. So from the eyes of a child, it just seemed like it was, putting this little bit of rice in this little container and offering up to the shrine daily.
More ritualistic, I would say. I didn’t see anyone pray. I would see them hold their hands and just bow, but I didn’t know if they said anything, so I just kind of followed along. I remember, at New Year’s they would put these things outside the door and have some mochi and tangerines, to decorate the house. And it was all for good luck, or to ward off evil spirits. That was kind of the extent of what I understood with Buddhism.
Of course, after so many days the priest or whatever his name is, will come and say, well, your aunt has a message. They would rehearse white ashes, which is kind of depressing actually. Nevertheless, that was my experience of Buddhism. But I couldn’t really tell what was Japanese and what was Buddhist. It was probably a mix, because my mom never said, “This is what we stand for. This is Buddhism.”
Rob:
She was a cultural Buddhist, not really a practicing Buddhist.
Barb:
I didn’t realize till later that it seemed like an obligation to the family was very high. And much later I realized that Buddhism had more to do with non-attachment. Rob, you could just explain a little bit about that, but I realized that in my family, whenever there was some kind of conflict, you detach yourself from people. We had a big riff on my dad’s levels.
My dad is one of nine kids and one of his brothers was married and there was something going on with my dad’s brother and his wife. It split the family into two. There was no forgiveness. Even how my mom and I would at times get into a conflict, there’s no reconciliation. There was detachment or we just wouldn’t talk about it.
We threw it under the rug and pretended nothing happened. That bothered me to no end, because there were times when I felt that she was mistaken or misjudged me, but there was no way to reconcile. That left my heart feeling really empty. Even though I would consider them good parents, there was still a big void in my soul. I was looking for something much more real than what I had experienced in my family.
Gina:
That’s powerful. How old were you when you met Jesus?
Barb:
Let’s see. I think I was about 20, maybe 23. I was working in the mall and there was a gentleman that worked two stores down and he was in his forties, and I was in my twenties. He became sort of like an uncle to some of us college girls and we became good friends. One weekend he passed away and he was the first person that I knew that was young, that passed away.
He had a heart attack. It rocked my world, because my only experience of death had been my grandmother’s passing. I thought when you get old, you die. Also there was a murder attempt of one of my high school classmates. But other than that, I didn’t know anyone that just died so young. By that time I was thinking, “What do I do?” I didn’t know how to deal with his death.
And I had met Rob a year ago and we had gone out to dinner and I had seen the change in him, because I had known him for a year. He was a different person. That change in him caused me to just ask him, “Can I read some books on Christianity?” He gave me this book by John Stott. I’ll never forget. The book “Basic Christianity” talked about Father, Son, Holy Spirit, you might’ve spoken in Greek to me, because it went over my head.
I just asked him if I could go to his church at the time. And it was a congregational church and I heard the message, but I think what really ministered to my heart was some of the worship songs. When he played them in the car, I would start to just well up with tears. I think that’s how I first experienced the presence of the Lord drawing me to Him.
God’s Heart for Family
Gina:
Fast forward, you guys are married, you’re leading this purpose driven church. Rob has this encounter with the Lord. He starts speaking in tongues and the church is moving in that direction. What’s your journey and all of that?
Barb:
At that time, interestingly, he would always say, “Can’t you come with me to these things?” And I was like, “I’m not interested in that.” I really felt God tugging my heart to my family. At that time we had met pastor Cal in town and they had talked about a curriculum called Growing Kids God’s Way. I was on that journey, learning about parenting.
There had been a pastor and his wife, who were much older than us, that came to our church. They had two boys that were teenagers. One had a walk with the Lord and the other one, they had a lot of trouble with him. When I also heard them speak about each other, I could tell there was conflict in the marriage.
That made me a little bit afraid, because I thought here we are in our early thirties, is that what we’re going to face in 15, 20 years with having conflicts with our kids where there’s somewhat of a division. So I thought I grew up with one brother, we have three boys. I thought, I better learn how to parent, because the only way I know how to parent was the way my parents raised me.
There were some things where I thought there had to be a better way. That was my journey into Growing Kids God’s Way. I gathered families together that had children and we went through: the core curriculum, the middle years and the teenage years. It probably took us about a year and a half to go through it, but it really really spoke to my heart.
I began to ask God, “Do I have a greater love for children outside of my family?” I wanted to test that out. I was telling a friend that I had wanted to do some substitute teaching work, because at the time I had been the worship director in church, but I had not grown up in Kaneohe. I wasn’t sure what the community was like.
I went to the school as a part-time teacher and started just applying the principles of Growing Kids God’s Way, because they’re life giving principles of how do you relate with children and so forth. And I found that it really works. It really brings life to kids. That led me into youth ministry. And here we are today.
You’re God’s Bambino
Gina:
You made that shift in the churches moving in that direction. I know that at some point you guys, started embarking on a path of what healing looks like, an inner healing. Healing Hearts Ministry is something that birthed out of Mountain View as well as others. You have a couple of books that deal with healing. I would love for you to share a little bit of that.
Rob:
In the year 2000, a contingent of pastors, here on Oahu, went down to Buenos Aires, Argentine, to attend a Harvest Evangelism Conference spearheaded by Ed Silvoso. During that conference, I was searching for significance, I was searching for what God was going to do through me. I was very performance driven, because of the expectations of my family, for example; if I got an A that’s just normal.
I always drove myself to no end without rest. I just didn’t know how to rest. I was very disillusioned, discouraged, even depressed. I went down to Argentina seeking purpose. I remember some of the pastors came back from this very well-known shopping district in Buenos Aires with these amazing, shiny, very genuine Argentina leather jackets, the kind that you can take a match and actually burn the jacket and it doesn’t even burn.
Three of us, three pastors, went into that district to look for our jackets and I did end up buying one. But on the way there, my friend Dean, who I alluded to earlier, was stopped in the middle of the shopping district by a prophetic woman, a prophetess who was affiliated with, or served under Carlos Annacondia, who is known as the Billy Graham of South America. He actually led more people to Christ than Billy. Incredible ministry of signs and wonders and people coming to the Lord.
She stops him and she gives him a message and jealousy welled up inside of me or envy. Everytime we were going in the world with Dean, that would happen to him. Prophets would always stop him and give him a great word. And I was like “Oh my gosh, here we go again.” Then she turned to me and she motioned with her arms as if she was carrying a baby and she rocked back and forth. She said, in broken English, “Your God’s Bambino. God loves you.”
And I felt the presence of the Lord, because, by that time, I was already accustomed to it breaking over the top of my head and I began to weep. My friend Cal Chanem, who’s one of the key leaders here in Hawaii spearheading revival, said, “Wow, Rob, what a great word.”
And I thought to myself inside, not audibly “Shut up Cal, what a terrible word, everybody knows that God loves them. I want to know what God is going to do through me.” Because my significance is based on the “Do”, not the “Be.”
I left Argentina so discouraged. That was the year 2000. At the end of 2003, this guy from Detroit, I think his name was Bob Griffin, who’s known as the singing prophet, came to Hawaii and I was on stage for some reason, with a bunch of other pastors. He began to sing over me. One of the lyrics “In 2004 God is going to take you off the floor” When I sat down and I was thinking about this “I don’t know if I like this word.”
When 2004 came around in the spring, I went into full blown depression for four months. Prior to that occurring, I had this very disturbing dream. In the front of my house, on the lawn, there were holes dug up everywhere. And then my car was up on jacks. The tires were gone. The body of the car was being reworked. I was getting a total overhaul. I think “What is that about Lord?”
Then in 2004, I woke up one morning, sat up on the side of my bed and crumbled back down onto my bed, because I was depressed. I could not function. Not only depressed, I think I was totally burned out. The elders of our church put me on the sideline for that four month period, and I transferred authority to our associate pastor. I had no authority. I would come into the service and I didn’t have any oomph to do anything, to pray over anyone. It was awful.
But for four months I had to learn how to rest. During that time, I went up to the Elijah House in Idaho, to get prayed over by Amy Lincoln Sanford, John Sanford’s daughter. It’s an inner healing ministry called the Elijah House. The morning of our first appointment, because you get 16 hours of prayer ministry over a four day period and you actually stay there in one of their cabins.
I had this startling dream. I was going up a mountain on a skateboard, powering my way up with my leg. And then I got off the skateboard or the scooter. Then I went into a cable car, a gondola, and it took me all the way up to the top of the mountain. Amy Lincoln Sanford asked me a few hours later during our opening session about God giving me anything. I said, “Yeah, I had this really crazy dream.”
I shared it with her. And she said, “Based on your questionnaire, application that you filled out to get here, it’s obvious to me that God has brought you to the Elijah House to take you off the skateboard of performance, to take you into the gondola of His grace. Once you leave here, you’re going to learn how to rest, and God’s going to take you up His mountain and it won’t be in your own strength.”
Barb:
He shifted a lot in those four days and when he came back, he had to deal with conflict in the church. And prior to that, I think he would have just gone the route of people-pleasing. But he was still able to say “no” to someone, in love. I was just really proud of him.
Closing Thoughts and Blessing
Gina:
Before we move on and go about our day, I want to hone in on a couple of significant things. When Rob was sharing his personal journey and story of healing, he talked about how his significance was rooted in, do not be in what he was doing for the Lord, his achievements, his success, or failure directly related to his sense of significance in the kingdom, his sense of significance and worth to God. But that beautiful story of that dream and that vision and that invitation of the Lord to say, “Rob, get off the skateboard of performance and step into the gondola of grace.”
I want to ask you right now, wherever you are, however long you’ve been walking with Jesus, can you relate to that? Can you relate to that place of striving, that place of working, of trying to prove to yourself, to Jesus, to the people around you that you’re worthy of sitting in church on Sunday morning or serving him or leading worship, or just having a relationship with Jesus.
Do you find yourself trying harder, working more, serving more, full of shame or frustration that you fall short hearing the whispers of the enemy saying, “Who do you think you are?”
If that’s you, I want you to take a moment and be still before the Lord and ask Him to reveal those areas in your life. Those areas of brokenness, to quiet your heart so that you can hear the invitation that He’s extending to you.
Father in Jesus name, I just pray for Your sons and daughters for those that are sitting in that place right now, those that have grown weary, who have been working so hard in their own strength. Father, would they hear your tender voice saying, “You’re my boy. You’re my girl.”
Father, I pray that right here, right now, would be the beginning of a journey of discovery of Your love, and Your healing and Your grace. We ask all of this in Your mighty name. Amen.
Rob and Barbara are Senior Pastors at Mountain View Community Church, HI
Check the rest of this conversation Healing Hearts and Whole-Hearted Family
Check out the Dwell Meditations
