Jake: Veritas, welcome to another Tell Us Your Story. The reason we do these is just help you get to know more people in our church and hear about what God is doing in other people's lives. And I'm here with a friend of mine, Phil Eastman. Phil, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Phil: Yeah. So Phil Eastman, a little bit about myself — I am a father of four. I've been married — Theresa and I've been married for about 20 years. I mean, 18, we just celebrate 18. I have been working in education for going on 20 years. I started out as a high school math teacher and transitioned to an administrator the last five years of my career. So now I work with third, fourth — I'm sorry — fourth, fifth and sixth graders. And It’s really good. Good to see them on a daily basis.
Jake: In Benton County?
Phil: Yeah, yeah. Benton community. Sorry.
Jake: What building are you at?
Phil: I'm at the Norway building. So, yeah, in the Norway building in Norway, Iowa, about three hundred and fifty students, which is good. I'm getting to see all the stuff and getting into people's lives in that realm. It's been a lot of fun.
Jake: How long have you and your family been at Veritas?
Phil: So April is our anniversary month.
Jake: So you like know the month?
Phil: Yeah, I think dates are important.
Jake: Well you said you've been married about 20 years…
Phil: Okay so yeah, about 20 years, November 1st of 2003. So we just celebrated 18 years. Yeah, but some people just get muddled up in that so give or take 20.
Jake: Sure, but you know the date that you started coming to Veritas.
Phil: It was the month of April. I don't know. So it will be eight years in April. So we started at the DoubleTree shortly after you'd left the Chrome Horse. And Veritas got put in front of our — or kind of brought to our attention twice within the same week. I mentioned a friend of mine, Matt Thede, and he was like, hey, you should try Veritas. That’s where Jess and I are attending. And then the counselor at the high school — one of the counselors of the high school was like, yeah, my husband and I were just looking for churches, and we've been going to Veritas for a couple of months now. And so back to back within the same week, Veritas got put — so might as well try it out. So we'd gone, you know, we'd tried three or four different congregations and, yeah, shopped and landed and haven't really been anywhere else.
Jake: So in those eight years, you've really got involved in different ways. In what ways are you serving or actively involved right now?
Phil: Yeah. So right away, the connection groups were kind of a big proponent. You know, we grew up in small churches. I grew up — I attended a small church like 40 people. And then when we were attending a church in Atkin's, like I said, it was like 40, maybe 50 people. My wife was in charge of like the finances and the children's ministry, and I was buildings and grounds. And coming here was kind of a relief almost to not have to feel like if we missed a Sunday, the table wasn't going to be missing a leg. You know, like so coming here was nice, a nice reprieve to that kind of pressure where we were attending the churches because we felt we had to be there. And now we attend Veritas. And like yeah, get into the Word, and it's not like — it's not the outward pressure of like keeping things going, if that makes any sense. So getting involved in Veritas right away, Theresa attended the connection group kind of open night before it was where it is now. And there are some people holding up signs like what night they met and one time they met. I don't know if you remember that or not, but she's like, let's see… Tuesday night, 6 to 7:30 works for our schedule. So she just walked up and started talking. It was Peyton and Alexa Schirm, and we jumped into their group and met for a couple of years, and then we kind of co-led with them. Theresa and I've been leading connection group now for three and a half — four years we've been leading our own group.
Jake: So lead connection group. You also teach in the third through fifth grade class as well.
Phil: Yep, so I'm one of the lead teachers in third through fifth and then Teresa serves in that room with me. Jason now, my eighth grade son, jumps in there and he's a teen volunteer in there. He attends Wednesday night — the youth groups up here on Wednesdays have been just really powerful, really awesome for that. Jess just pushed me to take the summer off. That's the first summer off that I'd had from childrens ministry in five years, six years. So just, you know, just keep signing up and going.
Jake: Well, thank you so much for how you serve. I have a daughter in your class that you know, so thank you.
Phil: Don't believe anything she says unless it's good, then yeah, we're good with that.
Jake: So how did you become a Christian? When did the gospel first make sense to you? When do you feel like you started following Jesus personally?
Phil: Okay, so it's probably like three phases as we talk about like the story, you know, and some people share like, oh, I became a Christian, like, I didn't have that big aha moment, but so I transition really or think back to third or fourth grade. I just remember coming downstairs and saying, hey, dad, the sermon today, like Pastor Bryan, actually i’ve kind of been pondering and really thinking on that, like, I think I'm ready to commit and my dad and I prayed in the living room right then. Shortly thereafter, I was baptized —
Jake: How old were you then?
Phil: Third or fourth grade so maybe eight or nine I would guess. And then, yeah, so baptized like in the Cedar River. I like wandered out there and was like a river baptized. Big deal. I didn't understand it to be a big deal, much the way I understand baptism now. So it was more like the the next step and then transition to high school where we went to church because that's what you do. Growing up mom and dad took us to church most every Sunday, youth group on Wednesdays. Like if the church was open, we were there. And then college happened and church wasn't on the forefront of things anymore or as important. I'd go home at that time, go home and we'd attend service at times. And then Theresa and I got engaged and we wanted to find a church home. So we found a church home in Atkin's and it was good. My faith grew with Pastor Mike like making it more real, more evident, more applicable to my life and kind of convicting. And then I got to just give just give God, Veritas, everybody credit here, like Veritas was really when the kind of the blinders were pulled off. Like, you know, I had been pretty successful in my my whole life. Like everything I had really kind of tried to do I just was successful with, but I was getting more and more stumbling blocks until now. I just kind of got to like, wow, like my life doesn't really even matter in comparison to like God mattering. And yeah, I even say, Jake, we've been at Veritas for eight years, but really in the last two to three years, it's just become more prevalent of like jumping into the Bible, getting into some devotions, praying — my prayer life improving. And then just conviction and yeah repentance has been kind of like the forefront of my life lately of like being a lot quicker to that. So I've been pretty focused on God, like rip that out. You know, when I have that thought or have that look or have that like rip that out and —
Jake: That was a paradigm shift for me where I felt like the more I grow as a Christian, that means the less I should repent. And I remember a mentor saying like, no, actually, the more you grow as a Christian, it's just the more often and faster you repent. God reveals sin in your life and more areas to grow. So that's really cool.
Phil: Yeah, we just had a great connection group last Wednesday. We were just talking and I asked a question, went off script a little bit, and was like, how often do you guys repent? And I go, is it like when you lay down to sleep at night and you know there were answers all over the board? Some people like, I don't remember the last time, some were like every Sunday at communion. Some were like, you know, daily or whatever. And so it's kind of all over the board in, you know, we're probably laying on the right answer is every time I sin, I should repent.
Jake: So you ask that question in connection group?
Phil: I did. Yeah.
Jake: That's an awesome question. If you're in connection group to answer that question of like when is the last time you remember repenting? That's really good. I interrupted, finish your sentence.
Phil: No, you're fine. It's just, I don't know. I would say, God, it wasn't me. Like, I just came up with this and and I preface it with, if you're going to put this in your connection group, like this isn't me trying to be better than you, because I'll tell you, I don't know. I probably repented the last couple, maybe once in the last couple of days, but I know I sinned a whole lot more.
Jake: I don't know, can you be better at it? It's a humble thing. Oh, I repent all the time, right? I mean, we are aware of our sin. Yeah, but it is something that's just our own awareness of our sin shows that we're living in light of the holiness we’re called to.
Phil: Yeah. And I, you know, put a shameless plug in for anybody that might watch this — the seven or eight people — but like if you've thought about getting into like serving, I tell you what, like we just started back in Genesis four weeks ago, like the creation and how awesome that is. And we just talked about Cain and Abel today. And guess what? Like, there were some sins struggles way back then, and that just continues to like, help me evolve in like my awareness of the brokenness that I have. Yeah, what the Fall and then boom, here it is, like what they were going through — not a lot different than what we're going through.
Jake: That's like a plug for kids volunteers like to learn, teach kids.
Phil: Yeah, because that's what you got to learn. I became a lot better math teacher or a math person when I was teaching math. So you become a lot better player when you coach it just keep that in mind, too.
Jake: I was never good at math. I should never teach that. I struggle helping Rudy with math homework, like it's bad. So how in the last — how do you move on from that? How in the last couple of years would you say specifically you've seen growth in your life?
Phil: So in the last couple of years, I would give my wife and my family some credit, a lot of credit. They have just been jumping in to different book studies. Theresa has a different — is it like the Hebrews book or the Galatians book? And she's like, in that right? And then I walk out, I'm like, oh, she's reading. It’s a good little plug. My family, my older two are going to like the Bible reading plan, and they're probably a lot more dedicated to that than me. So how have I seen that is just simple reminders of that being taken shape and just my level of what I sense like my either stress or worry or calmness. I started my administrative job at Norway — was the year like the world shut down, like we went home on Friday not to open again in March and then my second year leading staff and students and families was one where to mask or not to mask, to be open or not to be open, and just had a real sense of peace not being angry with whichever side you land on, but just, yeah, loving people where they're at and understanding where they're at and being okay to have a difference of opinion where Phil, ten years ago would have had to be right in those situations, like I would have needed you to know where I stood and why I was right and you were wrong. And I think like God is always right, and I'm traditionally very wrong when I compare those two. Just kind of a sense of peace of like, it's alright to not align with. And I’m fortunate to be in a position to lead my family and then lead my staff, lead them well, I hope lead them well or yeah, we have a lot of difference of opinion, but at the end of the day, we can still all align and be good and demonstrate grace to each other.
Jake: Yeah, yeah. Operating from a real understanding of the gospel brings a lot of freedom and peace to have that in those times.
Phil: Yeah you bring up like the gospel and like grace, and it's like an active thing. That's something else, you know, like Jesus died on the cross. Well he died past tense. But I mean, he's still like, he's still working on our behalf. He's still going, leading the charge on our behalf. It wasn't like a one and done, sins are forgiven. We're good. Like, No, we're still sinning. I'm still saving. Yeah. And yeah, that's it. You used the word paradigm. Whatever you said, like, that's a mental shift for me of it’s an active thing.
Jake: In Hebrews we just covered Jesus as our intercessor on our behalf. He's advocating. That's that's good news.
Phil: Another connection group — that was a great conversation that night when we got to talk about that. And kind of that was really, if you have a way to circle back to that at some point, I think that was definitely an area that people, myself included, don't always remember, right? It's like he won, game over, next season and it’s like, no, He's still winning.
Jake: He’s still winning, He’s still winning and we get to enjoy that victory. Phil, thanks so much for what you do here. It's the way you lead kids, the way you lead connection group. And I know you just the way you lead out in the community and the way you lead your team at school and the light you are to kids in your building where you are an everyday missionary and we're seeing you mature as a disciple. So that’s really cool. And thanks for sharing your story.
Phil: Yeah, you bet. Thanks.
Jake: All right. See you guys.