Gary-Rebecca Spiritual Conversation in Austin
Date: July 18, 2025 Type: Recorded Conversation Participants: Gary Sheng, Rebecca Metters Location: Austin, Texas
Most Powerful Insights & Quotes
On the Black Church as Spiritual Anchor
Gary: "I really do think that the black church is like the most important thing to strengthen right now. Because you know that people will sell their soul for anything... Leaders of the black church need to learn how to do that. For spiritual opportunities. Support human flourishing. Not mass surveillance. Or genocide."
Context: Gary was reflecting on attending "Prophacology" - a conference for black prophets - and contrasting spiritual vs. financial opportunism.
On Racial Positioning in America
Gary: "I find myself in a very interesting situation. As an Asian. My family showed up in America a few decades ago. I really do see it as do you want to solidify white supremacy? Or do you want to destroy it? A lot of people that look like me are choosing to be part of it."
On family dynamics: "You think that I would be able to even have this conversation with my parents in any sort of fashion at all? Probably not. No. They are atheists. Even though my grandma, the reason that she has a... Her mind is still strong in 90-something. It's because of Christ."
Rebecca's Tower of Babel Theory on Religious Division
Rebecca: "I think at one point that God was singularity... And then the Tower of Babel happened. And because he had to separate people via language and understanding, everybody was talking about God, but because you understand God in a very personal manner, everybody talked about himself slightly differently... God has a very personal back."
On universal truth: "Even with atheists, I'm like, cool, you don't believe in God, fine... But how do you think things happen? Well, the universe, this universe, that universe, yeah, we're talking about the same person... We're literally talking about the same entity."
On Finding Common Ground vs. Arguing Over Process
Rebecca: "We can be talking about this tree, right? How did the tree get that tall? You may say, oh, we got water, we got sunlight, whatever. I can say, no, it showed up like that because they pulled it from the forest... The synopsis is, the tree is that tall. That's where we end... How it got that tall, we argue over all day long."
The principle: "Where is our point of agreement? Let's live there... We're just so used to having to be defensive all the time that we don't look for the thing that is truth. Together."
On Being Living Testimony vs. Proselytizing
Rebecca: "My job is to be insightful. My job in being, or how I do that, is to live a proper life. I don't have to force feed you Jesus. You're supposed to be so invested in why my life is going well, and why I'm always blessed, and why I'm always happy."
On God's instruction: "God tells people in the Bible, taste and see that I am good. He doesn't say go ask your neighbor how great I am. Just come to me... I am supposed to say, man, this food is really good. Look at your own plate."
Gary's response: "Right, right, right. You are the temple."
On God's Personal Nature
Rebecca: "He is, in a cyclical fashion, the same God. Doesn't change. Doesn't vary. But in an independent fashion, he's the God you need at the time you need him... Some days I need, get off your ass and do what you're supposed to do before I make it bad for you. Some days I need, let me just baby you, and love on you because you're having a hard time... He is a personal God."
On God's infinitude: "People want to like, surmise him into a very finite thing, and he's not finite. He's singularly the only thing that isn't finite... He created time, so time, we can always say time is infinite. Actually it's not. If it was created, it's not infinite."
On Church Leadership Corruption & Spiritual Maturity
Rebecca describing her church's pastoral transition crisis: "Pastor Jones is gone, and y'all lose y'all damn mind. Which makes me think, you never had it to begin with... I watched what happened to a place that I called home... almost unearthed itself, and started destroying itself internally."
On leadership standards: "I've been at the church my entire life I'm 37 years old, you should not be the same person 37 years later when people can't trust you and you talk crazy and you're gossiping... if you were consistently being big in God because he changes your heart, he changes your soul as you grow and learn."
On spiritual development: "Just because you're an adult does not mean you're an adult in your Christian walk or you could be a toddler or you're rebellious... there's some people who just forever in infancy with God... if you're in your infancy you can't teach other people how to walk."
On Church as Hospital
Rebecca: "To me a church is a hospital so I don't expect to heal people... but leadership should embody it, have a higher standard or rather just meet the standard that God wants you to meet."
Gary: "Wow. You have a lot of good lines."
On Free Will & Transformation
Gary: "I really do believe that God gave us free will and if that's true then you have every action you take can shape reality... at any point someone that is doing a lot of evil can change their ways... at any point someone can repent and ask for demons to be cast out and then start to become a baby, right once again... on the path to eventually become a follower."
On spiritual hypocrisy: "I think one of the worst things that you can do is claim to be a follower of Christ and then do a bunch of evil."
On Austin's Cultural Uniqueness
Rebecca: "When they say keep Austin weird, they're serious... They don't really have a tribe."
Gary: "Especially Austin people."
Rebecca observing from their window: "It is the most fascinating TV show I've ever watched."
Key Themes
- Racial dynamics in spiritual communities - Asian American perspective on white supremacy vs. black church strength
- Universal vs. personal God - How different religious expressions point to same divine reality
- Leadership accountability - Church corruption and the need for spiritual maturity in positions of authority
- Living testimony - Being the example rather than forcing conversion
- Common ground seeking - Finding agreement on outcomes while allowing different processes
- Spiritual warfare - The ongoing battle between good and evil, with emphasis on personal transformation
- Austin's spiritual landscape - Observations about the city's unique cultural dynamics
Notable Context
- Gary recently attended "Prophacology" (black prophets conference)
- Rebecca is navigating church transition after losing her lifelong pastor
- Both are seeking authentic spiritual community in Austin
- Conversation touches on family generational differences around faith
- Discussion of contemporary worship music and cultural fusion in churches