Q&A with Kristie Kirby

Q: How did you end up at Renew?

Kristie: I'm originally from Virginia. I've been in L.A. about five and a half, almost six years. It'll be six years in July. I came here from New York City, and my first career path in life was as an educator.

I've always been drawn to more urban, diverse areas and, you know, living outside of D.C., I got a good mix, but I always felt like I could do more. So I moved to New York for two years and I worked in a charter school in Harlem. And then that led me to my job opportunity that I took out here, which I no longer work at. But the job was at a charter middle school in Watts. And so I took a job as a fifth grade ELA teacher / curriculum specialist. And then over three years of me being at that school, I moved from that position to actually eventually becoming principal.

It was just a really toxic environment. And there was a lot of tension there. I had great rapport with the students. I had great rapport with the teachers. But I think that there is a little bit of a [weird] power dynamic there. I was in a very low place. I realized "this isn't even part of the job that I like." I like interacting with the kids. So instead of working in the office, I would sit outside at the lunch tables outside of the classrooms and do work every day. Kids would be getting kicked out of class because of behavior issues or whatever. Through that, you know, I just learned so much about the kids' home lives.

And then in my grad school program, right after the pandemic happened in the spring, we had an assignment in my children's therapy class to write a therapeutic children's book. And that just kind of got the wheels turning and gave me the inspiration that I needed. I've been pursuing the books that I'm writing and seeing if anything could come from that. So I'm kind of taken like a little breather where I'm just hardcore focusing on the books and seeing how the path unfolds from here; trying to help some people out.

Q: [Was] working with those different communities was something that pulled you to Renew, given Renew's emphasis on diversity and inclusion. Is that something that you found really resonated with you or drew you to the church?

Kristie: Yeah. I started attending Renew in May of this past year, 2021. And before that, I got into a couple of churches out here in L.A. sporadically. Once the pandemic happened, I was really honing in on my relationship with God. I guess my relationship with God started kickstarting, like really kind of catalyzing in November or December of 2019.

God was really calling me to find an in-person church, and that I had been doing this enough alone. I had really changed my circle of people who I was hanging out with. I really felt like it was such a cocoon stage where God and I were just by ourselves in this pandemic. Like, I lived alone, was doing some hardcore work on things, and he was like, "OK, it's time to to branch out and be with some people."

So I found Renew on an Eventbrite link, where I had to register and like, it was a free ticket, obviously. But I had to show the registration and it was in a parking lot at the time. It was really going in blind. I had no idea what I was getting into.

There was a baptism that first day and there was something about that that really stirred me. And then I went back the next week and then there were baby dedications and I was like, "OK, like, this place is getting me."

And then I went home for two weeks for a vacation to the East Coast, and when I came back, [Renew] had a speaker who was a poet, and she talked about radical reform like as far as diversity and as far as doing something in this city. Renew's whole mission is broken people working together to help a broken city. And that was the first time that I heard their mission statement.

It put into action their emphasis on diversity and in between the baptism, the babies that the poet speaker. I was like "this feels like a place that I want to start establishing roots." I went back to the East Coast for a couple of weeks. I came back and I kind of made the joke that every time that I've left and come back, I've met a different section of people and I've kind of established my roots deeper and deeper.

I'm working with the middle school and high schoolers now and their youth ministry. I'm starting the process of starting to work with their inner healing ministry team, so kind of doing makeshift therapy there. Then recently I just got pulled into their singles committee. So just like I said, I'm like digging myself in and it just feels like home.

Q: So, after you lived alone and went through the pandemic, what did it mean for you to find a home group? What did being around community do for your soul after a year of uncertainty?

Kristie: Yeah, I think it did everything for me. When I moved here, I had a friend from college who welcomed me into her friends and family group in L.A. I think that that's something that I always was craving here in L.A. - a group of people to be around that really felt like family.

But there was always a level of not 100 percent feeling like I belonged [in that group]. Especially because they had known each other since high school, and were very tight knit. And then, as my own walk with Christ started evolving and changing, the more I started seeing that some of their lifestyle choices were just not what I wanted to continue doing with my life. And so there was a portion of time where I was just very alone.

And I think in that time, God really showed me how to depend on just him and stripped everything away and hyper focused on our relationship, so that when I was able to rebuild with the home group, it was more of a like a reciprocity thing where like now, we can mutually transform each other instead of it being like "I need you," and then surrounding myself with only takers, which as a giver I would often do.

But the home group has been so amazing, especially the curriculum that we did. The curriculum we did was about emotionally healthy spirituality (EHS). So going through that as a whole group of people who were all kind of on the same page with their walks in different ways, and we were all going through different struggles, but we were really open to being vulnerable and courageous to share those vulnerabilities and struggles.

I was able to grow an extreme amount.

Like it really was miraculous how much I grew because I was in a safe space with people who were helping cultivate the seeds that God was planting, helping them grow in ways that I didn't even know that I needed help for them to be growing.

But I couldn't do it by myself, and I think that I have been trying to do it by myself for so long that it was just really refreshing. And like, we talk all the time, we see each other constantly. We call each other our soul family, and I do think that that's what we are. You know, we're all that God has brought together, and I think that we're doing amazing things in each other's lives.

Q: To someone not super familiar with the home groups: How does that work? What's the dynamic like? Is there a moment that you can recall from one of those group meetings that was super impactful?

Kristie: Yeah. So we meet every Tuesday. Our first meeting that we had was in a park in Culver City. And then one of the girls in our home group opened up her house to us for a couple of weeks. Just because, you know, it was winter with less daylight and it was chilly and all that stuff. So we met there for a couple of weeks and then one of our members, he co-owns a nonprofit here in Inglewood. And so he's opened up the facility to us. So we need about like from 7pm to 9pm every Tuesday.

We're starting now our second portion of the curriculum. So first, the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality for us. So now we're in part two, where it's about whole relationships, which I think has just been such a perfect moment of synchronicity with what God is doing now that we're all kind of loving ourselves and whole. Now we're learning how to better love in the relationships in our lives.

For me, I think that the moment where I felt myself kind of shifting and changing. I think it was week four of our curriculum. It was about breaking ancestral curses and generational curses, and we all kind of opened up about the home lives that we grew up in. Some difficulties and some patterns that we see in our own lives because of that.

I remember sharing something with them about something in my past. I think I've told two people, you know, and I was so. I was just stirred up to share that. And it was such a huge weight and it was such a relief that I didn't even realize that I needed it. It was something that I didn't even know was still in the back of my mind until it came up in conversation and I decided to let it out and share it.

Some of the responses that people had of being able to relate to what I shared was just so strong and so moving.

I think that it it solidified, you know, like the drying cement that we were already making in the foundation of our friendship and like our home group circle like it really was for me, kind of like, "OK, I'm all in, I'm welcomed as I am, and I'm safe here."

Q: I was curious how that contrasted with communities or groups in the past where you felt like you were just giving, giving, giving. How has that been different with this group?

Kristie: I think with this group, it is everyone's in it. Not only for their own growth, which I think is important, but to walk away with tools without draining people. I can walk away better. You can walk away better, I can help you, you can help me. And we can both leave in an elevated place where we're better than we came in.

I think that kind of goes back to all of us first and foremost working on our relationship with God and working on our relationship with ourselves. And then using everything else to supplement and to enhance instead of relying on someone else to do all the fixing for you. So it's very nice.

The emotional support has been amazing. I think that we're special. But every week I walk away and I'm thankful that I came and I'm grateful for the people, and I'm grateful for the support and the elevation that I'm really feeling like. I feel renewed every day, you know, leaving the home group.

Especially because we always kind of go off of the message that was given on Sunday. So it's kind of like a slow release. It's not like you get in one time and then you forget about it. It's like we get it on a day and then we get it again on Tuesday. And then it kind of carries you through for the rest of your week. And so you see each other again.

Q: If somebody maybe was scared to be a part of something, what would you say is the value of community? And like, why? Why do we need community as followers of Jesus?

Kristie: I think that community is everything. I think that community can be really scary because it's often a mirror that makes you realize a lot of your own patterns. The systems and the people that you set yourself around are going to give you the results for that system that you've set up. So maybe you're only setting yourself up around takers because you believe that's all that you deserve. You're going to constantly feel spent. It's going to be like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But if you can open yourself up to doing some really hard self-work and self-examination, it can be fruitful. Which is, I think, where that scariness and that vulnerability and that courage comes in. The people that I'm surrounding myself with, it's like an additional level of accountability where I don't feel scared to share the things that I have to share. I feel like it's a safe spot where I'm already doing the work. So it's not like brand new information. It's just another level of being able to, yeah, deepen the hard self-work that I'm already doing. That is just constant practice and a process that you have to put into action, you know, or it won't work. You're going to stay stuck in your current situation, for sure.

Q: If you feel comfortable sharing, you said there were things in your past that made you feel like you had to be the one giving. What was it from your own story that made you feel that way or made you feel like you were just giving yourself or emptying yourself and then not feeling that same appreciation in return?

Kristie: Yeah, I think that growing up, I've always seen my worth as what I can do for other people. My parents are still together. My mom's side consists of very strong women. My grandmother was one of 13 kids.

My great grandmother was a single mom like both of the dads left at different times. And we've always just been raised to like, be strong, but to also, like, do everything for other people and to make yourself less. You know, if we're cooking for everyone, you're going to be the last one to eat. Everyone eats before you. And then my dad is a perfectionist. He worked at night when I was younger and then when we were older and he started working during the day. And so I would go to my mom a lot, and I just don't think [my dad and I] had a solid foundation.

A lot of the criticism that I would get for not doing things right wasn't always seen as coming from a place of love, because we didn't have that relationship already established.

I didn't think that just me myself was worthy or me myself was enough. Like, I always felt like I had to earn it to prove it.

I would often, especially in relationships, surround myself with takers who I felt like I had to earn or prove or get love by doing certain things for them. Or to prove my value, it was always something that wasn't inherent, it was something I had to earn.

Even with friendships, I feel like I kind of set that up the same way. But it was always because that's what I thought I deserved. So I would surround myself with people who would give me that message back where I would have to constantly work for their love or their attention, or they would be avoiding me. So they would just be inconsistent, like I was just so much chaos.

And I think that's really what I thought I deserved. I deserved the chaos. And if it was too stable, I thought that it was not for me. I would avoid it and I'd run away.

But I think where it really started changing them. And I really started, I think, before when I talked about the course of my journey in November 2019, when I was in one of my grad school classes before the pandemic started. We did an empty chair exercise. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that technique. It's a "ghost technique" where you can pretend that someone's there and you have to confront them.

Something inside of me said "go volunteer."

I pretended like I was confronting an ex of mine who lied to me a ton, and stole thousands of dollars from me. The anger that was poured out was always anger that I had in me, but just anger that growing up, I didn't think I was allowed to express. Like I had to be like, this perfect, you know, nice, well-behaved girl.

When I was confronting him in this exercise, the teacher said something about how I was really angry and I was like, "yeah, I am angry at him." She's like, "no, you're angry at yourself." And that kind of unlocked something.

A month later, I went home and my dad and I had an incident where he said something very rude. And I was kind of at a breaking point for me, where I had a very hard conversation with him about how we can't continue going on this way.

Like, I don't feel loved, like I don't even know if you like me. And that started to do something to him.

The next month I was back in L.A. and it was January 29th. I was walking to grad school class and Kobe had just passed away. I think that the value of life, especially the work that I had done over the last two months, had been really present on my mind.

I read a book by a therapist, and she talks about her experience with her clients and her own work that she's doing. Spoiler, but there was this hard Hollywood executive who she had been talking about, just like how much of a pain he was, and he finally opened up that the reason he is the way he is is that he had had a car accident and a couple of years ago, where he was driving distracted and his child died and how he how he blamed himself.

And that kind of really unlocked a lot of things for me. So as I was walking to class and thinking about the growth that I was doing and listening to this book and that part and thinking about Kobe, I just took a moment and I was talking to God. I was saying just how appreciative and how grateful I am of, like not only the journey that I've already had and the ups and downs, but where I am now and how for the first time, like I don't feel dead anymore inside and how I'm really appreciative of my life.

And I said "my relationships are good. Like, I've never felt better. If I were to die today, I would be OK with it."

And several seconds minutes later, I was hit by a car.

Something inside me said something inside me said to jump. I jumped. And so like when I did, I landed on the hood and through a series of weird events, I had just picked up a new class that night and my backpack was extra heavy. It was like a chilly morning and I had an extra layer. So when I bounced off the car and landed on the ground, my backpack was so heavy, so I landed on my butt. My feet were up, lik was just sitting down. And then my backpack was so full that it caught my neck and my back.

I was like "I'm OK. I'm alive."

And since then, my whole life has changed. And I just feel like God has me here for a reason. Like, there's been so many times in my past where I definitely have almost passed away for one reason or another, whether it was like a weird medical thing when I was a child, or the car, or there's been other things too. And at that point, I feel like I was just kind of done denying that God has me here for a reason and God is doing things for me.

I had to stop trying to accept parts that are mine because I think of, you know, for so long, I was like, "oh I'll be a teacher because I'm good at it or I'll be a principal because it was offered to me. I think I should just be someone's wife and mother of their children, which I think were all important pieces of my journey.

But I don't think that is ultimately what God's doing for me. And I think that over the last two years, just learning how to really come into this second life that God has given me and how to be the second creature and how to fully live, you know, the path that I believe that I was created to be here for.

Q: Wow. Between the conversation with your dad and then getting hit by a car like especially just on the heels of thinking and pondering life and like you said, Kobe passing away like, that's such a crazy. Just everything coming together at once kind of thing. For clarification, what happened specifically with the accident?

Kristie: So it was such a perfect storm of circumstances that made this happen, which made me feel like, you know, it can only be God, right? As I was walking up the crosswalk, I stopped and I looked to my left, which is where the car was coming from. I thought the car was slowing down to stop.

But the car had just turned on the street and was picking up speed. So I kind of looked at them for a while and was like "oh, he's definitely slowing down. So I just started walking. And then I heard a loud sound. And I turned and I was like, he's not going to be able to stop. And like I said, something inside me said to jump. And so I did.

And as a volleyball player who has always been yelled at for their whole life, for not being able to jump, I don't know how I got that much air. Like I really must have been lifted. And then like, yeah, the circumstances of how I landed and all this stuff, and when you got out of the car, it was interesting and going back to me being a giver. He was freaking out. I think he thought he'd killed me. He was a younger guy, and I felt really bad. And I'm like, "No, it's OK. Like, I'm fine."

I was consoling him. And he said he was heading east and the sun was right there and he's like, “I couldn't see you, like the sun was too bright." It was like a very bright morning. It was, yeah, like I said, just kind of like a perfect storm of events.

It was nothing less than miraculous.

Q: Did you have a moment either through sitting with God or by proxy through this group that showed you that you had value like no matter what?

Kristie: Actually, that's why God and I have been working on the last couple of weeks. I would say since the end of October this year, God has really been working on me with removing fears like it's really been. Almost like every two weeks or so, a different fear has kind of come up and I've had to face it. That chain has been broken and I've gotten a little bit more free.

This last really embedded fear in me, the fear of me not being enough, my core internal struggle, has been something that has cycled back through.

Last week we had a church-wide fast for five days under the word abide, like abiding the beauty and power of God's love. And we had a prayer and worship night on Friday night, and I've noticed this pattern over the last three prayer and worship nights that every week of the prayer worship night over the last three months, it's been these moments of intense self-doubt, like I'm not moving fast enough.

Like when I'm writing the books. I think I'm keeping people from their blessing because I think that with these books, God has put them in my heart to really help people. And if I'm not moving at the pace that I thought that I should, then you know, like I'm not doing enough and I'm disappointing God.

I was conscious of that last week, and during the prayer I was paired up with a friend. I was kind of sharing with him my struggles and what I was going through. And as it was coming out my mouth, my own internal dialog was "you know that's not true. You know that you're valuable. You know that you're worthy. You need to have this conversation with yourself. Like, get it out. And then know that that's a lie and that that's not who you are."

Where God and I are right now, and going kind of back to the stuff with my dad, I realized over this last week or so that in my own head, I think that there's no room for error, that I have to get it perfect and I have to get it right the first time. Or I'm going to mess it up. I'm going to lose it. And God keeps telling me that the things that he has for me are for me and that they are for no one else.

And the ups and the downs and mistakes aren't even mistakes. They're skinned knees. I'm getting stronger each time. I can't be afraid to let go and to fall because He's got me. So the deeper that we go into our relationship, the more and more He's removing those fears that I've talked about, which has been great because I've been sharing this with the whole group.

You get that reflected back and hear them talk about the growth that they've seen in me too over the last couple of months. My parents, my sisters, you know, everyone who I'm letting into this journey that I'm on has definitely commented on just how much growth and how much that they see.

Where I'm at with God right now, what we are working on is just loving the journey and not being this final destination that I have to hurry up and instantaneously get it now. I feel like that's what the world and our society demands.

You know, we want instant results and we want it like right now or we're not going to get it. And I think going back to what Pastor Dihan said in his message last week, that really resonated and stuck with me.

It flipped a lot of things in my head when he talked about love being long enduring and long suffering. The patience and their gentleness and the kindness which I give to other people, I don't always necessarily give to myself.

Speaking of fear, we're really, really going out on a limb here with the finances because like I said, I'm not working right now. I don't have money to take a trip to Hawaii, but God has been really putting Hawaii on my mind and I leave next Wednesday and I'm gone for a week and I will be in Maui for the anniversary of my two years of getting hit by the car. And then it's also going to be just like an early solo birthday trip. My birthday's in February.

So, yeah, just trying to love all the ups and downs of this wonderful journey that God has created for only me. And how to handle each thing that comes my way with nothing but pure faith that this is designed with the intended outcome for my life. That God wants me here for that day. When I wake up it's because God wants me here and I'm going to keep walking in my path and purpose with him trying to bring him all the glory that I can because he's he's kept me here. He didn't have to. I could have been gone many times.