Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Benjamin Jones. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Benjamin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

Five years ago, almost to the day, I decided to leave a six-figure income in the field of brand management to pursue ministry. At the time, I had no idea what that was going to look like, but I felt compelled to pursue what had become my passion.

Ever since I was in college, I discovered and developed a serious faith that began to shape my whole world. It determined my values, how I approached relationships and which career to pursue. This led me to working for a couple of years as a campus minister in Nashville where I happened to meet my wife. Then I went into the non-profit field to help college students with professional development and securing internships in the field of business, engineering, and science. After that, I went back to school to get an MBA. I applied, got accepted and received a full scholarship to attend Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. I studied marketing and landed one of the top job opportunities at Nestle in Glendale, CA. It was a dream come true as I was from the LA area, wanted to move back there at some point and I loved the culture and people that I met.

I found myself challenged and opened up to a whole new world while working at Nestle. I had some great friends I had made, amazing mentors, and a wonderful manager who took a beautiful approach to managing. She was always there to encourage me to pursue my passion and worked selflessly to ensure that all of her direct reports were taken care of.

Through my time, I was exposed to some of the most innovative companies in the world like Google, Facebook (META), Snapchat, and many more. We would have team dinners at the nicest restaurants, travel for conferences and stay in some of the best hotels. I was getting paid more than I had ever dreamed of and yet something inside of me began to feel unsettled.

They made a big announcement that the company was going to move the HeadQuarters from Glendale, CA to Rosslyn, VA. This was a huge move and they asked everyone if they were willing to move or if they wanted to remain in CA. For some, they were offered other positions locally, others found jobs at other companies. This was a pivotal moment for me to figure out what I was going to do.

At the time, we had just had our third child and were living in a 2-bedroom apartment. That’s five people and a dog in a small space. We were looking for a house, but needed to decide on what we would do first. My manager asked me what I wanted to do and I told her that my goal was to become a manager and have a direct report. I wanted to continue my growth by having someone directly report to me and help them develop in their career. She had conversations and was able to present me with an offer for a manager position, with an increase in pay, and keeping me based in CA. It was the best offer she could possible have possibly given me.

While she was working on offering me this position, I was working on figuring out what was going on inside. I was becoming more and more intrigued with the church we were apart of, and not just in a showing up kind of way, but in a wanting to help grow it kind of way. I began to talk with mentors of mine and spent much time in prayer and fasted as well. During a week long fast, I finally had some clarity. For the first time, I felt as if God Himself spoke to me saying that He made me to be a pastor. It was not an audible voice, but it sounded so clear to me from the inside. It was as if I was given an option to continue to pursue a career in business or become a pastor. I felt like becoming a pastor was what I was made to do and business was something I could do. My heart came alive as I thought of pursuing something that I was made to do. I shared it with my wife and we agreed that this was who I was at my core. That just left one problem, what do I do with the manager offer I’ve just received?

Once I came to the realization of what I was born on earth for, it helped me to make a decision about the offer. I knew I had to turn it down, but I also knew it was going to be difficult. I had a family of 5 to think about. How were we going to get out of the apartment? What about all the expenses ahead as the kids get older? I quieted my mind on all of those thoughts and decided to focus on the one thing I knew was true. The answers to those questions couldn’t be answered even if I stayed at the job. Anything could happen at any time and I couldn’t spend all my energy worrying about what was ahead. I focused on what was right in front of me. What was in front of me was a simple decision: continue a career in business or pursue my calling in ministry. I chose the latter.

I went in to my manager at the time and gave her my decision. She was definitely caught off guard and didn’t quite know what to say. She tried to understand, but couldn’t quite make sense of it all. She could tell that my mind was made up, however, and that I was set on moving forward in this new direction. She respected my decision and worked out a situation for me to stay for another month to help transition all of my work.

I left feeling amazing! The world felt brighter and more open. I felt like there were so many possibilities ahead of me.

Fast forward, I am now in the process of starting Reflection Church in Pasadena, CA and our first official service will be on September 10th, 2023. Over the last 5 years I’ve spent a significant amount of time growing and developing as an individual. More recently, over the last year or so, I’ve been sharing the vision and plans for this new church with as many people as I can find and walking in a greater sense of purpose and meaning than I’ve ever experienced before.

Benjamin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

To start with, I’d like to share that I didn’t grow up in church…let that sink in. I didn’t even know what a Pastor was until high school. My life was transformed while I was a student on the campus of USC. I met someone who saw more in me than I saw in myself. He saw a young man made in God’s image and formed for God’s purpose. After a few months of forming a new friendship with this person, it led me to forming a friendship and relationship with God. From that point on, I was never the same. I spent all my time telling everyone I knew about this new relationship I had with God. Since then, I’ve continued to look for ways to share this experience with as many people as I can. Through campus ministry, non-profit work, corporate america, and now pastoring, I’ve been sharing my story with people for close to 20 years. Why do I do it? This relationship has given me more than I could have ever imagined. While it hasn’t always been easy, life has become more full and beautiful with Him. I can’t help but want that for others. I’m convinced that others around me want it as well, they just don’t know where to look. All they need is someone to share it with them in a way they can understand, like my friend did for me. That’s the heart of my role as the lead pastor of Reflection Church – a community where we meet people where they are and see in them what they can’t see in themselves. Now I devote myself to doing my part to transform this world one person at a time.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

Deep and meaningful relationships are a must to succeed in ministry. Without these, you find yourself feeling alone a lot. When you are a lead pastor, many people see you as an example and some may even put you on a pedestal. With anyone that finds themselves in this position, you realize that people are more drawn to an image of you rather than the real you. There is a lot of pressure to maintain a particular image and disposition. It takes a lot to resist this pressure and continue to be who you are. You need mentors and peers who can understand what it’s like and help you levelest your own expectations. If you don’t, you find yourself doing all you can to meet the expectations of others. That always leads to you losing sight of who you are.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn was that if you just work hard, you’ll get good results. I grew up thinking that hard work alone was all you needed to succeed and get the results you’re looking for. The truth is that you need hard work applied in the right direction. I found myself doing a lot of activity, but not necessarily focusing it in a direction that would yield progress.

As I began the process of starting a new church, I started by reaching out to people I knew, taking meetings, having coffee, praying with people, following up and spending a lot of effort making myself available for anyone and everyone who would take time with me. As I continued doing this for some weeks, I would come to the end of a week and be exhausted. I would also see that it wasn’t necessarily translating to people joining and becoming committed to the church we were preparing to launch.

My wife would see all of this and she started asking me if the activities I was focused on would yield the results I was looking for. I realized that some of what I was doing wasn’t going to translate no matter how hard I worked. I made a pivot and started asking myself what kinds of behaviors and activities I would need to focus on to yield the type of results I was looking for. I began researching into a social media partner, identified specific leaders and invested in them specifically. I began protecting some of my time and asked people to meet me at an event we were hosting or a service we were putting on so they could get more connected to the community we were building. This helped me see more of the type of results I was looking for. It also helped me realize where people are in their relationship to me and our church community.

This was a hard, but necessary lesson. It helped me find better ways to serve others and meet their needs while not overextending myself. As I look ahead, I’m excited to find better ways to apply my efforts into directions that are most impactful and meaningful.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ReflectionChurch.xyz
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reflectionchurch.xyz
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/reflection-church-pasadena
• Other: www.tiktok.com/@reflectionchurch.xyz

Image Credits
Matthew Harang