Record Live Podcast

Signing off: two decades at Record
[00:00:00] Hi there everyone. I'm Jared. And I'm Sunita. We are your hosts of Record Live, a podcast where we talk about church faith and living well. We believe as followers of Jesus faith is more than just a set of beliefs. It's a way of life, something we'd put into practice. Let's go live.
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Record Live. I hope that you're having a great start to 2026 that you're kicking your goals and thriving. Jared and I have been talking recently about this idea of holding two very conflicting emotions at one time. Um, and we are probably both experiencing that today because Jared has some news that he will no longer be with us.
[00:01:00] Adventist Media with record or with science, and that is both super sad, but super exciting. So Jared, welcome back to a final episode of Record Live. Do you wanna tell us where you're going and what you're doing and what plans you have for the future? Thank you, Zita. I think you're getting me in the fields right now.
Yeah. So this could be my final episode of Record Live that we record and. It's over a hundred podcasts, I think two or 300 or more actual episodes on YouTube and Facebook. And it's been a journey and we've loved every minute. Well, I have loved every minute. I don't wanna put words in your mouth. Thank you.
Um, but you asked what's happening. So I have been asked by the general conference of Seventh Day Adventist to relocate to Maryland, which is in America. And they have asked me to be the assistant director for communication, primarily looking after [00:02:00] news. So the news director, the Adventist News Network, if people have seen that, heard of that they have a need, they need to fill that slot.
And they've seen in me someone that can contribute. At that level, and so I'm just very humbled to be asked and yeah, my wife and I have processed the call and we've known for a little while, but because of visas and different things, we haven't been able to necessarily share that with people. But I guess at this point, we're now letting people know.
People are starting to find out, and we are moving very soon. I imagine, and yeah, as I said, it's humbling, but it's an amazing opportunity to keep doing what I love, which is. Communicating God's stories, God's work in the world. But on a global scale, I'm always gonna be biased. The South Pacific is the best part of this world, but we, we can fly the flag of the South Pacific at the general conference and [00:03:00] still a lot of other parts of the world need more help to get their news out.
So we're excited to be contributing in that space. Yep. Awesome. Now for those who are listening, we are actually pre-recording this quite in advance and there are still sort of some visa uncertainties. Hmm. And they say, Jared, that moving house and changing jobs. Is like two of the most stressful things, uh, with a lot of uncertainty.
You know, you don't know when you don't know where you're gonna live. How are you going with all those uncertainties? Certainly wouldn't call it a peaceful time. This process, I think God knew what I needed. We've had periods of transition and, and unsettledness before and it's always hard. My health usually is on the back burner as I'm striving to just get done what I need to get done.
And that's been a little bit. In this season in terms of exercising and eating right and you know, it's just been day by day, step by step. I keep telling my wife, you know, don't stress. Let's just do each little [00:04:00] thing at a time as we can. And that's challenging for both of us. It has been, but. Often in times like this, it's been waiting for an answer from God while we went through some of that stuff and right now, I would say that when it first happened and the call came through, we started praying and fasting about, is this right for us?
'cause it's huge. It's a big upheaval, as you say, changing jobs, moving houses, stressful, but moving countries, changing jobs, moving house all at the same time. That's a lot. So with a family. Yeah. Yeah. With young children. So all of those things together, God, actually, I feel like he gave me the answer very quickly.
It felt like God was saying, you've seen the patterns. You've prayed some very specific prayers that I'm answering through this, and so. I felt like the pattern was clear. I knew what God was saying to us. And so having that certainty like to say yes, and then yes, we're dealing with this stuff, but we feel that we're on the right track.
We're [00:05:00] heading in a good direction, and that God is supporting us and walking with us in that journey, it makes it slightly easier to deal with the stuff. So yeah, we're just doing it step by step. It has been very stressful this period, but it's also encouraging to know that it's only from God that this opportunity could have come up.
It's not on my radar. It's not something I applied for or chased after. I definitely believe that God was leading and guiding in this, and so we have to go. That's where God's calling us. We have to go, and it's comforting to have that certainty. Even when everything else is uncertain, there's some level of trust and faith that we can exercise, that we can know, Hey, this is, this is all good.
Have you always had that confidence or that faith or that assurance that things are just gonna work out like that? Or is that something that has grown over time? It is definitely grown when I look back now, and the reason I knew the answer from God so quickly was because I could see the [00:06:00] patterns in my life.
Seasons where I've had things like this happen to me before. I have always seen God's work in hindsight, in the lead up too. And I saw the same patterns in the lead up to this decision. I saw the same workings of God because I know he has answered me in the past. Sometimes I haven't liked the answer. I dunno if I've spoken about the transition from Victoria to Sydney before when we relocated the editorial department, but that was a long season of questioning God and fasting and praying about it.
And I was like, I don't know about this. And when God answered my prayer. And offered me a job in this space. I was ready to say no because I was so maybe disheartened by the whole length of time, the waiting and the process. But I knew the prayer that I had prayed, God had directly answered. So then I was like, I have to say yes.
I can't not say yes to God right now. And so I guess that was early on in my career, even the very first time probably [00:07:00] that I had something like this, I was just really discouraged about what I would do after high school and God. Encouraged me. He didn't give me an answer. But he said, I've got you. I've got your back.
And at that point, I just realized, wow, God really does care. He cares for me personally. He said, whatever darkness you're in, I'm the light. Jesus says, I'm the light of the world. And in me, there is no darkness. He drives the darkness out. So when I was feeling that dark time, I actually wrote a poem about the darkness that I was feeling to try and get it out of my chest, get it off, you know, catharsis.
I had heard poetry. It was good to get things out. So I started writing this poem about the darkness that I felt surrounding me, crushing me, trying to bring me down, and then this light came into the poem. I describe it like it wasn't me writing it that way, but unexpectedly that hope shone through. And I was all of a sudden like, how can I doubt when I know that God is good and he loves me?
And I remember going [00:08:00] next to my bed crying, opening my Bible, and I found that verse in John, I am the light in me. There is no darkness. And I was like, wow, God really cares. He really is looking after me. And that was the first time I said, whatever you want me to do, Lord, I'll do. If you will be done in my life, I'll go wherever you want me to do.
Whatever you want me to do is the best decision I could have made. I've never looked back. I think I wrote a piece about it at one point. Maybe we even talked about it on this show. About that best decision I ever made. You know, that was what the editorial was called, and I have no regrets since that point.
Yes, there's been hard choices and hard seasons and seasons where I've questioned if I'm in the right place that God wants me to be, but he's always come through at the other end. So I don't know if it's always been there or it's just something that's developed, but now I've just turned 40, I'm looking back the last 20 years or so of adulthood of professional life.
There's no question to me now that God is gonna figure things out. And so if I jump, he will [00:09:00] catch me. Like it's not a Jesus throw yourself off the mountain thing. You know? It's more like God, I can see his handiwork. I can see how he's led me in the past, and I don't fear for what's gonna happen next because I'm fairly confident in his leading and his guiding and that he's never led me astray.
Now, that's not to say there won't be pain heartache. Stress struggle. I might get over there and wanna come home. My wife and I might fight like cats and dogs. We might have regrets or resentment, you know, that has happened in each season. Those things are present, but it's not to say that the greater glory of God isn't fulfilled and the greater good isn't seen because once you then look back, you're like, even though it was rough, he led us through that and he's developed us to the point where we can say, yep, God is good.
Hmm, 40. You're only getting started, so there's a lot more he has in store for you, I suppose. But like you mentioned, we've hit at least a hundred episodes, just you and I, but you were doing record [00:10:00] live before that, and obviously you've been with record for a long time now. Can you take us back to the very beginning?
How did you initially land this role? What drew you into it? Can you give us that story? If I take us from my knees beside my bed with that prayer that I prayed. Yeah, I was in high school. I was in my last year of high school. I was getting towards year 12 and high school was good for me. I liked it. I was involved with sport.
I was in the choir. I was doing, I had friends. I felt like life was good, but I did not know what professional life would look like. I didn't know what to study. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. Some people even at that point had said, you should be a pastor. You speak well. You are passionate about God.
You love your Bible. And I was like, I don't want to be an 18-year-old kid. Giving people marital counseling or comforting them in the death of a loved one or, or, I just felt too sheltered and I didn't know how that would. Navigate in my life because I just didn't feel like I [00:11:00] had the life experience or anything to tell them anything that was useful.
And so I said to God, you know, with my preferences for uni, whatever I got into that God would direct that, that he would help me get the marks I needed. I didn't get the marks for my first preference, which was international studies and journalism, but I did get. The marks for a straight journalism degree.
Now, it was very competitive. In Adelaide where I grew up, the marks were quite high. It was difficult to get into, but I got just enough marks to get into that journalism degree. But I went to an Adventist high school, and Avondale was giving scholarships to all the Adventist high schools. I believe they still do.
And so there's a student there that represents Adventist values, that has good or round social sport, academic different. Things, and I won the, it was called the President's medal, or the President's Scholarship. So already at that time there was this pool to Avondale, like this, this calling. My mom had gone to Avondale and I always wanted the Avondale experience.[00:12:00]
So what I did was I studied for a year at Uni sa, and then I deferred my course for a year, put it on hold. To go try Avondale for a year as well. I did both a year there, a year at Avondale. Avondale gave me a whole year of credit, and so once I did my year at Avondale, I only had one year left and I would finish my degree.
By the time I had spent a year at Avondale, I was having such a ball that I just didn't wanna leave. I had made a lot of good friends. Um, uni at home was nice. I'd just go to class, get decent marks and come home. But I didn't really know anyone. I didn't make great friendships over that year, so I decided to stay on at Avondale and.
My last year at Avondale, I won a thing called the Science Publishing Journalism Award or something. I was doing a internship for Pastor Bruce Manors, who some people might remember, was an editor of record in the nineties. He was the college church pastor and he got me doing church news at college, church [00:13:00] Now University.
We love Bruce. We love that for us. Bruce, fantastic. So Bruce sort of mentored me, gave me feedback on some of those articles. There was an independent writing piece that I had to do and different things. Anyway, the college had seen something in my writing and gave me this award, which was sponsored by Science Publishing.
Now. I started to get that feeling again towards graduation, like, great, I'm gonna graduate. I'm gonna have a degree, but what am I gonna do? I'm gonna go home to Adelaide. I'm gonna have to look for a job. I had done work experience at Channel nine in the newsroom. I had done work experience at the South Australian Conference putting together a grapevine newsletter and helping out around the place, and I just didn't know what.
Jobs I could get with an Avondale communication degree. It's a very good degree. It was a broad degree, lots of different things, but it wasn't even as weighty as a journalism degree necessarily, that I had started at Uni sa. And so, yeah, I wasn't sure. I, [00:14:00] again, started praying. I was again stressing, what am I gonna do after college?
'cause college is fantastic, but what does life look like after that? What's next? Nathan Brown, who was the editor of record at the time, he called me, um, about a week before grad and he said, we'd like you to have an interview. We've got a position opening up. There's no guarantee at all that you'll get it, but we're opening the advertising and we knew about you because we awarded the Signs Publishing Sponsored Award, so we know of you and we encourage you to apply.
It wasn't an assistant editor, it was an editorial assistant. So it was just assisting out in the editorial department and I thought, yeah, why not? I've got no options. Maybe this is a God thing. I'll go anywhere God wants me to go. And Victoria didn't seem too far from Adelaide. I thought I could handle that.
And so I just supplied, um, funny story. It was a phone interview 'cause I couldn't get down to Victoria. I was [00:15:00] driving. I had just started sort of dating my girlfriend, my wife, and we were driving back and forth from Ong to Sydney Airport because her sister was getting married and we were ferrying people from the airport up and down.
So my job interview where I'm sitting now in Sydney at Tara Murra on Pacific Highway, there's a bp and I was parked in the service station. And I sat on the lawn and the house next door and just had my job interviewed on the side of the road on the way to Sydney Airport. That was so wild. But I got the job.
And so in February, 2007. I moved, I started the 5th of February, 2007. I started working at Warton at Science Publishing in the editorial department, primarily on record. I did the news snippets. I did the notice board section, the ads in the back. And I did whatever other assignments they gave me. Couple of signs, articles, couple of editorials, just bit of this, [00:16:00] bit of that.
Yeah, that was a very long answer to your question, but that's what started me off. And then they relocated. I've alluded to the relocation of the editorial team up to Sydney. That was November, 2009. We started the color record. We moved up to Sydney. I moved up to Sydney and started working here. Became an assistant editor, then an associate editor, and then in 2016.
Yeah, I became the editor of record. So you became the editor of record 2016. You started working 18 years ago. And then at what point did you also become editor for Science of the Task? So science was not after COVID had finished, but in the middle of COVID. At the end of that 2020 year, the previous editor left.
They were looking for someone. They opened up things, they did some hunting around, but no one came forward and we've had conversations and it was felt that I could help signs while still doing my record job. It meant maybe we could hire an extra person, get more, more hands, make slight work. [00:17:00] They say, so we had hoped to consolidate a little bit and to do both things through me, but also to be able to get more capacity, and we have built some capacity in the team when I look at it now from then, because we are doing so many more things with the advent of social media.
When I started at record, we didn't really have a website. We just had archives and stuff online. We had some things online. We didn't really have a website, not one that's updated daily like ours is. And we didn't have any social media. We didn't have an email newsletter. We didn't have podcasts like this one.
We live shows. We're doing so much more with not really too many more stuff, but we have been able to add some capacity. Yeah. Yeah, you've obviously seen a lot of changes in the technological space. You've seen it go from black and white to color, as you said, which you've already shared how old you are, but that seems [00:18:00] like a massive step.
But what else have you seen change in the magazine throughout your time? This record, most of the obituary submissions, and most of the letters used to come in as physical copies, and now they come in, most of them come via via email. It doesn't sound like you should change, but it is a lot easier to respond and correspond.
You get stuff quicker. Another thing that I will say is that stuff is more instant now, like in record. We would quite regularly put in stories that were three months old when I started, because that was as soon as we got them and could turn them around for print. Now we put up stories that happened on the weekend.
On Monday, like we put them straight onto our website. So we've gone digital first, web first. We're able to put up breaking news as it happens. As I mentioned, yeah, the podcasting and stuff. Science podcast is great. You know, even on the science side of things. Science didn't have a website when I started.
It was [00:19:00] just the physical magazines has changed. A lot, a lot more platforms we've been able to spread our messages on, and it's a lot more fast paced. There's a lot more stuff happening and you can't wait for three months to publish something anymore. People hear about it already from other places. Mm.
You mentioned at the beginning that you were throwing up a few careers when you were finishing high school, so it sounds like there was a bit of openness between whether you did journalism or other things. It sounds like you kind of got scouted to come to record. You didn't. Necessarily have your heart set on that for years.
And now I know that you are very passionate about news within the church, um, and communicating that. How has your heart kind of changed towards communication and news? I know we've had people on record live before talking about the importance of news. Talking about the benefit and the need of it, but what does it actually mean to you and why does that matter so much to you?
Yeah, that's a really good question. Um, I will say I was led to [00:20:00] journalism. I put it down because it was the thing I could most see myself doing because I love to read and I was told I was a good writer. Essays and stuff were easy stories. Creative writing, story assignments, right? Even from primary school, I had an affinity for writing because I had read so much.
I had sort of by osmosis gained these writing skills I could communicate, and so I went into that 'cause it seemed like where my gifting was, some of the skills that I had were pointing me in that direction. I felt like that was a good direction. And so I guess you could say. Well, in some ways, God knew what I needed.
He equipped me with that gifting before I needed it. But in another way, it was, you could say it was a selfish choice. I chose that. Course, because I was good at it. It was something I felt like I could handle, I felt like I could do. Now, I'm sure there's other things I could do, [00:21:00] but that seemed like something that I would enjoy and I wanted to have a crack at, and I would say I went into it.
News was not my favorite thing. Feature writing, creative writing. I always wanted to write a novel. I always wanted to write books. That was my dream as a kid, and I was like. You can't be an artist. You know, this cliche of a struggling artist, you know, I can't just write books. It's not gonna put food on the table until I become famous.
So I'm gonna need a job. What job would that be? Well, something that can help me maybe get better at writing further those goals. And so I would say that when I started feature writing was probably my preference. You know, stories, I still have a passion for stories. News was something that I grew to understand and love.
More journalism is practical. It pays maybe better than creative writing, writing stories and whatever. But interestingly, while my undergrad was probably more focused on journalism and the news side of things, my creative writing masters was sort of my outlet in the [00:22:00] other direction to get some of that creative storytelling sort of background.
But I would say that news in my experience, has shown me, because I've seen it work how. It can break down barriers with the community. People feel less threatened by the Adventist Church and the unknown mystery of it. If they see Adventists doing good things in the community, it builds bridges between.
People. So someone in one part of the world reads about something happening in another part of the world and they're inspired possibly to action, to do something, to change their lives, to contribute in a different way, to start a new program. I've seen that happen. I've heard stories. I've reported stories where someone has seen a story, someone has read a story.
One of my favorite stories to tell is I met a young lady. She was at the Victorian big camp one year. And she told me that she was church hopping a lot in her life. She wasn't sure. She had started attending a Seventh Day Adventist [00:23:00] church with her family and the pastor there asked her, why haven't you been baptized yet?
And she said, ah, I'm waiting for the aha moment. And she read a little snippet, which I think I put in a little snippet from Africa where people were reported as getting baptized in a crocodile infested river. Right. And she read this story. And she said, if they can get baptized, what is holding me back?
That was her aha moment. She said, the Holy Spirit said to her, aha, there's your aha moment. Get on it, get baptized. And so she was baptized and is still a member, as I understand of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, because of that tiny, seemingly insignificant news story. It was 50 words that happened on the other side of the world.
It was just unique or sort of interesting. So I put it in like, Hey, people will be interested by that. Not expecting that it would have an eternal impact in Sharon's life. So. To me, that's just one example of someone acting because [00:24:00] they've read a news story about what the church is doing. I will often say what God is doing, um, news is what God is doing in and through the church in the world.
And I still believe that, um, I'm very passionate about it because I've seen how it can really make a real world difference. And sometimes it's slow. Sometimes it doesn't seem that important. But I think it adds up. It accumulates over time. The weight of news, the weight of things happening can really influence and impact people and keep them inspired, keep them connected, keep them feeling like part of a greater church family.
'cause so often we can get stuck in our little local church bubbles and we don't realize that. We're part of a broad, worldwide community, and seeing news from around the world I think is super important for us as Adventists to remember that we're all in this journey together. We're all on the mission together, and other people are doing inspiring and amazing things, and we can too.
So that we inspire other people, but if we never tell anyone that we're [00:25:00] doing it, it's like hiding your lamp under a bush, you know? Mm-hmm. It's like not shining your light out. It's not letting people know, and it doesn't have as much of an impact. God can multiply the impact of the things that you do if people are aware, and it's not about blowing.
Trumpets and being proud of yourself and patting yourself on the back. Like I've seen that attitude, I've seen that resistance to things. I don't wanna share my news or I don't wanna. Promote my own ministry. I don't wanna promote my church because people get the wrong idea. Um, that's not the purpose of it.
It's to point to God, what God is doing through you and your community. And if the glory goes to him, then that is appropriate use of storytelling and that is an appropriate news format. And we need to give glory to God and what he's doing because if we don't know. It's easy to get discouraged, it's easy to get cynical.
It's easy to disconnect from the church. So that's my rant I'm [00:26:00] passionate about as you can see this. Um, but because you asked the question, you get the answer. That's why I think it's, I'm, that's why I'm passionate about it, and that's how it has changed for me, because I've become more and more strongly convicted of this.
You know, when I started, as I mentioned before, I was like, oh, should I be a pastor? Should I be this? Should I be that? I truly believe that communications is a ministry. I did go become a pastor as such, but not a pastor, a minister, a worker in God's field because. He wants his stories told, and we can help in our space facilitate those stories.
That's a really important ministry, a really important work to do. And so I realized, hey, maybe God is not actually calling me to pastoral ministry. He still might at some point. That might be the call, but I am feeling called just that God keeps calling me to these roles that don't quite look like traditional ministry roles.
There's still ministry for his [00:27:00] kingdom, but not ministry as we In the traditional sense. In the traditional sense. Yeah, absolutely. And if you think about, well, a pastor only has one church, but you've been spread out to, not you, but I mean your words have spread out to hundreds of churches every week To impact has definitely been huge.
But I think it's awesome that record exists. I know that it is predominantly for Adventists to encourage us in our faith, to inspire us, but these days you don't know. Who sees our news, like social media is a crazy thing and that it just goes to all sorts of people. And I think that that's kind of like a light on the hill in a really dark world these days.
'cause we are recording this in December. There's been a lot of tragedies this month and. There's a lot of news sites, a lot of publications, and I'm not saying it's bad, but it's just the reality that we see a lot of news that is really dark, really tragic, really horrible, and makes it difficult for us to have hope sometimes, especially if someone is [00:28:00] looking at that and doesn't have a hope or doesn't know God.
And so I think it's awesome that record exists to kind of share what God is doing and how he's changing lives and how he is healing people. And. Restoring people. Not in the future, but right now. So I think it's really amazing. A hundred percent. And yeah, it is primarily for Adventists in the South Pacific region, but Adventists outside the South Pacific region.
Definitely read our stuff. I was just talking to someone who read the headship articles. We've played on record live recently, the interviews with. Darius and Adita. It gave me so much to think about. It was so helpful. It was so important. I, I'm, I'm gonna process this for a while. Hmm. Cool. Then there's our friends in the Pacific, some of whom are ministering to other Christians, to people in, in their communities, and are handing out records for people to read.
Now we would say, oh, it's just for church people. Well, they don't seem to think that. They find other people enjoy it. Other people are interested in what the Adventist Church is [00:29:00] doing, and so they're handing it out. They're sharing it widely with their community. You know, we have these perceptions of what this should be or what that can be, but the reality is the Holy Spirit doesn't fit into neat little boxes, and he can use stuff in all sorts of spaces.
And given that we're online. It's easily discoverable. It can go anywhere. Anyone can read it, really. And so we just have to be faithful in what we're supposed to do, and God can do the rest. He can bring our content before any number of people's eyes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I know you mentioned that recently we had these headship pieces, and that's one of them.
But there's been many episodes on record live, many articles in record that have really made me think, have made me be like, Hmm, maybe I'm not right about that. Or maybe there is another perspective to that, which I think has been really good to. Broaden my view on things to challenge my view on things. I think it's good that we are constantly doing that.
But as someone who has been with record a long time, who has been the host of [00:30:00] Record Live, who has been the editor, who has, you know, been a fresh employee, how has working for these publications running this podcast, how all those things stretched and groan your own faith? Wow. What a question.
I would say when I started I was fairly conservative, probably. Um, which I'm not saying that is a bad thing or a good thing, I'm just saying it as a thing, like I grew up in a very committed family and covering. Different parts of the church, different parts of our division, I think has made me, not just that, but my life experiences, right?
So there's life experiences, there's church attendance experiences, and then there's the record and the content that's come through and through all of those things, God has been shaping my life and growing and stretching me. A hundred percent. Like I can see things that have [00:31:00] changed, perspectives that has changed the women's ordination debate and the headship ideas.
I was probably in a very traditional thinking just because like when I started, just as I had grown up, that's just how things were and I didn't question it and I didn't really know any different. And so I have respect for that point of view. I get to how people get to that perspective. Right. But also.
As I was having to cover it, put in different stories, read different things. My perspective shifted on some of these ideas and events. Because I got older, I got more mature, I got more life experience, I got more compassion with people I was dealing with. I also got better understanding of some of the issues and my perspective, I should say broadened.
It changed, and I don't think that's a bad thing, Anita. I think that's an important thing. I have always tried in my role to bring. Both the left and the right together to bring the conservatives and the progressives together, because I see some points on either side that are [00:32:00] important and maybe both sides have missed the point in other spaces as I do as well.
So my job has not been to convince either side of their wrong or their rightness, but to try to find, well, what is God saying about some of this? And not even them presenting my thoughts of what God is saying as the. Be all and end all, but to try and chart a third course or a middle way between some of that stuff and to call both sides to some sort of civility, at least agreement love, because I have great love for the conservative side of the church.
A loving conservative Adventist is one of the nicest. Best people you can meet. The best sort of examples of Adventism loving conservatives. Not the angry, aggressive, militant ones, but the loving ones. And in the same frame, some of the progressive Adventists who are also loving progressives are some of the best people you could ever hope to [00:33:00] do anything with.
They're out there loving. Sharing, serving their communities and trying to make a difference. And so I think sometimes the polarization of our church is really disheartening and discouraging when I think we've got a lot more in common than we realize sometimes. And I have trouble defining where I sit on the spectrum, but I feel like I definitely started more on the conservative side and I've moved.
Since I started on certain things. But that's not to say completely moved away from some of that stuff. It's just I've changed and matured and learned more and it's been good, I think for me to broaden my horizons. Yeah, to change my perspectives. Some of that's even just on worship style preferences and you know, which music I used to listen to as opposed to what I'm comfortable with now.
And it's just, it's just. It's not a right or wrong thing, it's just people change as they grow and they develop. And I can see that I've definitely changed and developed and that's been in part thanks [00:34:00] to certain mentors that's been life experience, you know, reading and experiencing things. Um, one thing that's shaped me hugely is my connections to the Pacific.
And I don't wanna let this opportunity pass to acknowledge this. My grandfather was a missionary there and that shaped. My upbringing, hearing my mom grew up in Fiji, gave me a curiosity, an openness to the Pacific and to Pacific culture. My wife is from a Pacific background, so you know, we got married in Samoa.
We've traveled. Often to the islands for different things personally and professionally. So when I'm going out there for work as well and meeting people and getting inspired by what the church is doing there, it is just given me a real big heart for the Pacific. And so the Pacific has shaped me, I'm sure way more than I have been able to influence or help include the Pacific in the magazines or try and open new channels into the Pacific to help them receive some of this [00:35:00] information, you know?
Um mm-hmm. It's been huge in shaping my perspectives and my perception of what the church can do when we have diversity, not just the church in Australia, but it's the church in the South Civic. And so what does that look like? We've gotta keep different ethnic diversity in mind and different countries and cultures in mind, and it's so, so important to me and I've been super proud of the way that record has shifted in that direction in the past few years to include more.
Pacific Stories. We're getting so many more news stories from the Pacific now and I'm so excited about that because it shows that they see record as theirs as well, and it is. They've got most of the membership in our division. They're a super important and key part of our division that has really changed my perspective and my life at some of the best times I've had as record editor has been the experience of attending events in the islands that have really shaped me as person.
So [00:36:00] shout out to that Pacific influence as well in terms of, it's not just theology that's shifted, it's just life perspectives that have been shifted by this role and by. The breadth and beauty of the South Pacific Division. Hmm. Yeah. They're our neighbors, but they live in another world. So I think you've done an awesome job at networking with them.
But I also think, going back to what you said earlier, I think you've done a great job of holding that middle ground at record and with signs and not, not taking sides, not trying to be divisive. That's definitely been something that I've recognized, and I'm sure other people have. Recognize as well. I've been accused of both Zita.
I've been accused of being a progressive and a conservative and so I don't know, you might get me into trouble on this my last episode, but well, we won't ask any more spicy questions. I do have a final question 'cause I think this is important on a record live. I'm gonna put you on the spot a bit here, so you are gonna have to put your hanging cap on as we farewell you from record live.
[00:37:00] Um, one of the things that we do every week is we end the episode by getting practical, and I would love to know what one piece of practical advice that we've been given on record live that you are gonna take with you as you move to America into your new role. Ooh, that is a difficult question. It doesn't have to be work related.
It might just be a general life, life thing, but what do you got? I mean, there's a lot of practical stuff we've got over the years, and often it boils down to that old children song. Read your Bible, pray every day. It's the fundamentals, isn't it? The basics. One personal thing that I've incorporated into my own spiritual life is journaling, like prayer.
My morning pages habit. I don't do it every morning. I do it far less than I should, but I find it very helpful when I do do it. But the thing that first came to mind when you asked that question, it's not so much practical, and I'm not sure we've ever shared it on record live, [00:38:00] but I'd like to leave this with people because I think this is advice that my mom gave me and it's helped me so much in terms of navigating my career, doing what I need to do, et cetera, et cetera.
And she said this to me early on. She heard I was going to work for the church, and she said, just remember, Jared, you're going to work for God. Not for people. Hmm. And that has helped me to know that, to remember that. And even if you don't see your job as one where you are working for God as such, you are living for God.
You're not living for people. Your church attendance is for God to worship God and to be with God and to learn about God. And if your church has terrible people in it and it's not a good experience, you can get very caught up in that. And I've seen people walk away from faith. Because they get fixated on other people, and so I would just say live for God, not [00:39:00] for people.
That wisdom has carried me through many times, and there's been discouragement, there's been disillusionment, there's been questions that I have, doubts and difficulties, but that piece of advice is like, okay, I think Matthew puts it this way. Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will be added.
It's like another perspective to that. If you put God first, you'll be all right. And I would say to our friends right around the South Pacific, if you're watching this, listening to this, do what you do for God's glory, not for other people. Do your best. Work hard. Go to church, serve, love others. But remember that you're doing it for God and don't let people derail your faith journey.
Don't let people and arguments and theology that people have derailed that. Just try your best to fix your eyes on Jesus and keep following the path that he lays out for you, because that is the most [00:40:00] important thing. That is the number one thing, Anita. My mom gave me that right before I started working for the church, and I think it's been the best piece of advice that anyone.
That I can think of has ever given me. So I would like to leave that with our view as our listeners. Awesome. That's good. I'll take it with me too, Jared. Uh, I have really enjoyed not just working with you with record and science, but joining you on record live each week. It's been awesome to have conversations and yeah, just wanna affirm you for your hard work, for your dedication, for your many, many years of committing to this magazine for your bravery and sharing your life.
I know you've. I've shared really openly and vulnerably in a lot of your articles, and that's been a real strength for other people. So yeah, we wanna thank you. We wanna wish you and your family all the best as you move to Maryland. The show won't be the same without you, but we will go on. And for anyone who is watching, who has, yeah, been blessed also by Jared's ministry, by his work, feel free to drop him some [00:41:00] comments.
Maybe it was an article you liked, maybe it was something he shared on record live. But yeah, we just wanna wish you all the best. We'll be praying that you arrive safely, that you land in deep community, and that gorgeous continues to lead you guys. So thank you, Sunita, and thank you for your contribution to the show as well.
It's been. Actually real honor to host with you. It's been a lot of fun. It's very hard to walk away and say, Siara goodbye to this because it's, yeah. We always say it's one of the best parts of our week to do record live and having this as our final show, potentially it, it hurts a little bit. Um, but I want thank you and your graciousness and I want to thank our viewers, our listeners, our watchers, anyone that's joined us 'cause it's.
Only for you guys that this is possible. Like we only do it for you. It's not a platform for us to trumpet ourselves, but it's to bring glory to God about what people are doing in their lives. And it's for you guys, so that you can join the conversation. Leave us your comments, watch us live [00:42:00] and interact, and we've been blessed so much by your thoughts, your questions, your interactions over the years.
So. I'm gonna miss you all, but I'm gonna always fly that South Pacific flag and could be back here one day doing who knows what. But I hope to see you all again in my travels. And yeah, I pray that God continues to bless all of you. And thank you so much for watching and listening and engaging with Record, live and Adventist record over the years.
It has been the honor of my life so far. To interact with all of you, so thank you so much. We'll have to get you on as a guest in the near future and hear what you're after. Awesome. Be good. Alright. Thank you everyone for tuning on for another episode of Record Live. We do not know exactly what the future holds for this show, but no doubt we will see you soon.
Thank you again, Jared. God bless.[00:43:00]