We recently connected with Benjamin Jones and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Benjamin, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
My simple answer is from my Creator. Before you dismiss this as a fundamentalist view that is out of touch with reality, I’d like to share my journey of how I came to believe this. I didn’t always believe in the existence of God as a Creator with a purpose in mind for His creation. I came to realize though, that without a Creator, there can be no purpose. While I was in college, I began a more serious journey towards establishing a career. At the time I wouldn’t have used the word purpose since I didn’t really believe in such a thing. My goal was to find a stable career that could pay the bills and help me do better financially than my mom had done. She raised me as a single mom and did the best she could, but she never finished college and never made more than $50K/year. I wanted more than that for myself and I was determined to find a way to do that. Along that journey, I made lots of friends. Many were driven like I was and helped me to set goals and push myself to do better in school and reach for jobs I had never dreamed of previously. One of these friends, however, was not like the others. He seemed to take much more of an interest in who I was as a person. He seemed to want better for me than what I wanted for myself. He was the first person I began to have serious talks with about God. He shared His story with me about how a relationship with God transformed His life. He bought me lunch! He walked with me as I left campus and talked with me about my schoolwork and hip-hop, and life in general. He made me think. He was also full of joy and contentment in a way that I knew I wasn’t. He had something I didn’t. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I found out later, it was purpose. He didn’t have the nicest clothes, the most impressive resume, and he didn’t even own a car at the time I met him, but he had something much more meaningful, purpose. From that purpose, I could see a peace inside of him that I wanted. I continued our conversations and asked him questions about life, but could never figure out how to get what he had until one evening. We were studying the Bible. Yes, I know, it sounds crazy, but this was a key turning point. We were looking through one particular set of verses and for the first time, one of the verses jumped off of the page. It came alive and exposed me in that moment. I felt like I was seen, but not in a way that was cozy and nice, like a bright light had just been turned on in a dark room where I was hiding. Even though it was uncomfortable, it made me feel like I was seen, not by my friend so much, as I was seen by this Creator he had been talking so much about. It felt like a face to face encounter with God Himself. I knew I was found out and that everything was about to change. From this moment, I became unsettled about everything in my life up to that point. I couldn’t undo what happened that evening and now I felt compelled to make a decision. Continue down a new path of pursuing God with everything I had, or go back to my old way of living, without purpose. Somehow I knew everything I wanted was down this new path, but I also knew it would require me to give up what I was so familiar and comfortable with on my old path. After a couple of days of going back and forth, I finally went for it. I said “Yes” to this God. I said “Yes” to His ways and His path for my life. I said “Yes” to His purpose. I knew somehow that I could trust Him and that He knew more about the purpose for my life than I could ever figure out on my own.
That “Yes” has led to the same feelings of joy, contentment, and peace I saw in my friend. I’ve felt more secure about my future because of it and found purpose at each point in my life since then. I believe I have an ultimate purpose, which I am walking in now, but I also believe that purpose is something that I experience in each season and each moment when I’m aware of it. My purpose in some moments is to be a good friend who listens more than he speaks. In other moments, it’s to be present with my children. Other times, it’s to prioritize my wife and make her feel special. All of those moments add up to a purposeful life that may never result in fame or fortune, but it will result in something far greater, an internal peace that assures me that I am loved more than I could imagine and my life matters.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I currently serve as the Lead Pastor of Reflection Church in Pasadena. We are a new church plant that just officially launched in September of 2023. Our goal is to be a place where people can be seen and known. When we are seen and known for who we truly are, we are able to bring our full selves into the world. We come out of hiding and allow our truest expression to display the beauty and unique character we all represent.
We like to say that this is not church as usual. Our goal is to empower people to live like Jesus did and through relationship with Him, grow into a reflection of His character and nature. He was kind and compassionate. He included the outsiders into his group and was passionate about restoring the brokenness in the world. He made wrong things right again. Whether that was sickness, unfair judgment, or hopelessness, He was all about fixing it. We want to be a people who reflect that same heart to the world. To meet people where they are and show them there’s room for them to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
Since we started, we’ve had the opportunity to partner with organizations like Door of Hope to meet the practical needs of families who face homelessness. We raised $1,000 in our first official campaign to help a young single mother with six children purchase beds for her kids along with some other necessary furniture for their apartment. We are currently planning a trip down to Baja California, Mexico to build a house this summer for a family in need as well.
Our goal is to continue to be the expression of God’s heart to those around us, wherever we go. That includes the grocery stores, libraries, workplaces, and all around our community.
We meet weekly on Sundays @11am at the Livery Studio in Old Town Pasadena @ 155 S. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena, CA 91105. We welcome anyone to come and check us out as we continue to build up our community and make a lasting impact on the city of Pasadena and the surrounding areas.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Resilience, Integrity and Relationship Building (i.e. Networking) are 3 of the top qualities that have served me throughout my journey. While I don’t typically like to give advice, I”ll share a bit of my story on each. If you’re wondering why I don’t like to give advice, it’s that people don’t typically follow advice, they follow examples. Seeing someone implement a practice in their life and experiencing it for yourself are far more powerful ways towards change than hearing a piece of advice.
As for these 3 qualities, I’ll start with resilience. What I mean is essentially the ability to keep pushing forward when things get hard and when you feel like quitting. I played a lot of sports growing up and this lesson was taught to me early on. Whether it was learning to run up and down a basketball court at the end of practice when I was already tired or push through a difficult drill, I had to find a way to push myself beyond what I felt like doing in the moment. When everything in me was telling me to give up, I had to tap into another voice that would tell me this was worth it. That somehow the momentary pain would not last forever and would yield a result that would be far greater than the temporary satisfaction of giving up. This applies so well to life. There are so many times when it would be easier to just give up on a dream. Not finish a project that is due, stop short on a presentation and just do the bare minimum. Not call someone back because I feel like I just can’t handle it. So often it’s in those spaces of going a little further than we’re used to that we find significant breakthroughs and open doors to our careers and our personal lives. By tuning into the voice that says “keep going…this will be worth it” I have experienced far more than I ever dreamed possible.
The next quality is integrity. This is a tough one, but pays huge dividends the more you practice it. It’s the simple idea of doing what you say you’re going to do. By no means have I perfected this. I’ve had my fair share of showing up late, missing meetings altogether, or forgetting to follow up on some action item. However, on the whole, I have taken my words and commitments to others seriously. If I say I’ll do it, I own it. It’s on me and I do what I can to ensure that people see they can trust me with what I say. Developing trust with others is a huge part towards success in any area. The quickest way to gain trust is to do what you say you’re going to do. The quickest way to lose trust, is to not. This quality has given me opportunities at a much earlier stage than usual. Whether it was being offered a promotion, access to leadership, or real responsibility, integrity has always played a major role.
Lastly, relationship building or networking. Networking sounds so self-serving and impersonal to me that I’d rather call it relationship building. For some, this may sound like the most difficult and necessary evil in life, but it doesn’t have to be. I was not an outgoing person by nature when I was younger, but I learned this valuable skill while I was in college. My approach was to go into a “networking” situation with the goal of making a genuine connection with someone. I would ask people I didn’t know, questions about themselves that would help me get to know who they were as a person. Networking becomes a real chore when you’re only thinking about what someone else can do for you. Whether that’s the job you want them to consider you for, the product you’d like them to buy, or the club you want them to give you access to. If I see it that way, the people are just a means to an end and they end up looking more like obstacles to my real goals rather than part of my journey. I have consistently made the effort to see people as an end all to itself. Hearing the story of someone I don’t know tells me more about my own journey many times. It helps me see where I am and who I am in this process. I see relationship building as essential to growth. Without genuine relationships with others, we end up alone in our pursuits, no matter how far we make it.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
This may sound a bit odd, but I can honestly say that the Bible has played the largest role in helping me become who I am today. In so many ways it has helped me to see what is most important in life, how to prioritize my life, what things to pursue and what not to pursue. It has given me the tools to become a good husband, father, and continuously challenges me to be a better human being.
The most basic teaching of Jesus is that we should love each other. On the surface this sounds simple and completely intuitive. The problem is that His definition of what it means to love goes beyond my own definition and the definition of every person I’ve met. He sets an example first and then gives a direction or order to follow His example. His example of loving others includes talking to people who are considered social outcasts. It includes meeting very practical needs of everyone who asks for help. It includes telling people the truth, even when they don’t want to hear it. It includes risking humiliation to stand for what or who you believe in. It includes humbling yourself in front of others. It includes letting some people leave and walk out of your life even when you know what you can offer them is good and what they need. It includes serving the people who look up to you and want to serve you. It includes embracing suffering. It includes sacrifice.
These are all examples of love that constantly challenge me to grow in my ability to love others. I have a long way to go, but I’ve definitely come a long way because of His example.
Contact Info:
- Website:www.reflectionchurch.xyz
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/reflectionchurch.xyz/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/wearereflectionchurch
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@reflectionchurch9669
- Yelp: www.yelp.com/biz/reflection-church-pasadena
Image Credits
Credit Matthew Harang for photography
