This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 554: Biblical Unitarians in New Zealand with Zach Mayo This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. 00:08 Sean Finnegan Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And you are listening to Restitutio podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today. 00:24 Sean Finnegan Something is going on in New Zealand and I'm excited to. 00:28 Sean Finnegan Tell you about. 00:29 Sean Finnegan It in today's interview, I speak with Zach Mayo, who, along with his wife Kayla, were serving as youth pastors at an evangelical church. When they came to change their minds on the doctrine of the Trinity. Now they're organizing a conference to unite. 00:44 Sean Finnegan One God, believers in New Zealand and invite folks from Australia and beyond to come here now is episode 554, Biblical Unitarian Christians in New Zealand with Zach Mayo. 01:05 Sean Finnegan Welcome Zach Mayo to restitutio. Thanks for joining me today. 01:09 Zach Mayo Yeah. Pleasure to be here, Sean, and Nice to chat. 01:12 Sean Finnegan To begin with, could you tell us a bit about yourself and your faith journey? 01:16 Zach Mayo Yeah. So I'm 26. I live in New Zealand on the other side of the world to you guys. I have a wife. I will be married for seven years and a little boy, Jethro. He's one and a. 01:28 Zach Mayo Half and I've got another little boy on the way, actually during September. So we're pretty busy at the moment, but it's pretty cool in terms of my base journey. 01:39 Zach Mayo It's hard to pinpoint a day that I would say I became a Christian or a moment. I think for me it was more over a period of time and whatnot, but I used to go to these camps when I was a a child based from 8:00 to about 15. 01:56 Zach Mayo Every holidays, school holidays and and this was a it was a Christian based camp and we used to go there and they had all sorts of people to come and speak. And I remember when I was there for one of the, maybe the second or third time, I was only 8. That was when I know I felt, felt something and I knew. 02:14 Zach Mayo It was the truth. 02:15 Zach Mayo But it probably wasn't till I was about 15 or 16 that things really. 02:21 Zach Mayo Became my own faith rather than, you know, my parents or my other friends, I guess. And so when I was about 15 or 16, I actually that's when I became a. 02:31 Zach Mayo Little bit more. 02:32 Zach Mayo Friends with my wife, Kayla, we began to date when I was 16 and her family really, I guess, changed my life. 02:42 Zach Mayo Help me to. 02:44 Zach Mayo Make my faith my own. And so it was about 15 or 16 that I would say I really started to settle in that church and get involved in worship team and, you know, spend time reading my Bible for myself and and things like that. So that was about 1516 and came out of high school and my wife and I, we got married pretty young. 03:04 Zach Mayo We were only 19 when we got married. 03:06 Zach Mayo And we moved around a little bit we. So we moved around in New Zealand, we were actually raft guides. So we we worked in adventure tourism, doing, rafting, mountaineering, skiing, all sorts of different things like that. So we we traveled around a bit and it was super fun and we, we learn a lot. 03:23 Zach Mayo About. 03:23 Zach Mayo Each other and we got to appreciate God's creation. 03:27 Zach Mayo And it was. It was awesome to sort. 03:29 Zach Mayo Of do that for a while. 03:31 Sean Finnegan And is it very unusual to get married at 19 in New Zealand? 03:35 Zach Mayo Yeah, fairly. If you were in a. 03:37 Zach Mayo Christian at least, or had had the sort of Christian values that that we had. It's pretty uncommon in our circle. It's not super uncommon because a lot of our friends are Christian and and they all have been married young. So like for instance, Kayla's both her brothers were married fairly young, 19 and 20 and and then a lot of our friends. 03:59 Zach Mayo We're married around that 20 months, so but 19 year we were, we were definitely the first out of our sort of group and we're we're so glad we did. We're we're seven years now and it's just as good if not better now than it was when we got married. You know we we. 04:15 Zach Mayo So it's it's awesome. I love my wife and she's definitely been a a rock in my life, so. 04:23 Zach Mayo She'll probably be hate me for reading on here. 04:25 Zach Mayo Like that but. 04:27 Zach Mayo Yeah, we, we kind of got married young and we're travelling around a bit and travelling between different churches and things like this and at this point I should add I was still a a Trinitarian or at least. 04:40 Zach Mayo What you would say, like I probably wouldn't have been able to take a whole lot about what I believed about who God was and who Jesus was then, but just by association, the church as well as with the people who I talked to, I've never had really a big issue with it because no one really had said much. And so we, you know, we sort of had been involved in these churches, but when we. 05:01 Zach Mayo Came back from Queenstown where we were living at the time. We moved back to Hamilton or Cambridge area to be closer to Kaylan's. 05:10 Zach Mayo Family and my family, we actually took on a role that I took on a role in Kayla as well as the youth passes at a church in Hamilton. We were the youth passes at a church there for 3 1/2. 05:21 Zach Mayo Years. 05:22 Zach Mayo Which was pretty cool. 05:24 Sean Finnegan What kind of church was that? Was that evangelical or or mainly? 05:28 Zach Mayo Yeah. Yeah. Evangelical. Yeah. We call the like brother. 05:32 Zach Mayo Movement open within just pretty evangelical, reasonably conservative, but yeah, just a pretty standard run-of-the-mill church. Like it was. It was nice to be at. We really enjoyed it there. We love the people, very family orientated about maybe 300 people. 05:47 Zach Mayo At the church. 05:48 Zach Mayo We got on really well and we we really enjoyed it there, but. 05:52 Zach Mayo See that had finished and so I'm not sure if you want me to talk about, I can talk about a little bit of. 05:57 Zach Mayo The journey of how I sort of came to. 05:58 Sean Finnegan Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Please. 06:00 Zach Mayo A Unitarian fight. Yeah, the Unitarian side of our faith came because of my wife's father. So my father-in-law, Vaughan, he went on a pretty big journey by himself about it over a decade ago. He was actually challenged by, I think, his brother, who came to him and was like, hey, have you read this? 06:20 Zach Mayo Out of, you know, pulls epistles. And do you see how they talk about Jesus and God and how they? 06:24 Zach Mayo Friend and whatnot. Yeah, and. And so he he started to go. Now you're crazy. Like warm. My father-in-law said to his brother. Now you're crazy. Like Jesus is definitely God. And the Trinity is true. Like, you know, what are you talking? 06:38 Zach Mayo About. 06:39 Zach Mayo And so he he went away, you know, to look at it, study his Bible and and started. 06:45 Zach Mayo Asking some big questions and he kind of came away from it going man. Jesus might not actually be God or, you know, there might be something here. And so he he started looking into it a bit more, reading his Bible. And at this point he didn't have any resources. He didn't have any anything like your podcast with the studio at the time he did, unless he didn't know about. 07:04 Zach Mayo But and he didn't have the other websites. He he hadn't found yet. And so he was sort of on his own journey. But he came to an understanding that there's vastly different to what he had been brought up believing, which he will say now is just all God's glory. You know, he her God, God opened his eyes to to see that. 07:24 Zach Mayo Funny enough, his brother actually is still a Trinitarian, the one who brought. 07:28 Zach Mayo It up and it it. 07:30 Zach Mayo It. 07:30 What? 07:31 Zach Mayo Yeah, I know. Crazy like his brother was at sea. 07:33 Zach Mayo Here I think and was writing some paper or whatever, and that's what made him question but. But then it's funny enough, you have all the one who was telling him he's crazy, did end up becoming a Unitarian. And then his brother didn't. So it was quite. It's an interesting story, but maybe one for another day. And so anyway, that that was a while ago. 07:54 Zach Mayo And and he just was on that, you know, Unitarian trained by himself for a long time, but he never lost, you know, that open. 08:03 Zach Mayo And that desire for fellowship and and he he talked about it with anyone who would listen. He obviously lost his, you know, any position in all the churches he was at, he often would be kicked out because of his beliefs. Even people who were his friends stopped talking to him and he lost contact with a lot of people, which is. 08:23 Zach Mayo He said. But there's not an yeah, not an uncommon theme, unfortunately for Unitarians, you know? 08:30 Zach Mayo We. 08:31 Zach Mayo When we do change our beliefs, it often comes with the cost and so I respect and love my brother more for that because it's pretty hard to do it even when you've got friends and family around you live alone. 08:44 Zach Mayo So so. 08:45 Zach Mayo Yeah, he, he. 08:45 Zach Mayo Was there in and when I was came into the picture with Caleb, his daughter, when we were dating and what not, he was a real blessing. And you know he would challenge me on what I thought about the the Trinity and what I thought about Jesus and who he was. And I kind of gave him stock standard answers, you know. And you said to nature. 09:03 Zach Mayo And he was fully God, fully man. That's how you know, there's these seemingly contradictory statements and the New Testament and and whatnot as we all do. I guess it when we when we're getting challenged with that stuff and we haven't thought about. 09:16 Zach Mayo It a whole lot. 09:17 Sean Finnegan Well, you probably also would say I'm sure that the experts have this figured out. I don't need to necessarily explain it or understand it. I can just agree with it and my life just goes on no problems, you know. But he kept asking you, well, how do you explain that? 09:32 Zach Mayo Yeah. 09:36 Sean Finnegan And so, yeah, So what happened next? 09:37 Hmm. 09:39 Zach Mayo Yeah. So, I mean, it was a long process that definitely didn't happen quickly. But myself, I mean, I remember myself and him staying up till midnight when I was, you know, over at their places talking and reading Scripture and. 09:52 And it was. 09:52 Zach Mayo Really eye opening because he started to point out things I hadn't thought about, you know? Hey, Jesus is God. How could he die? 09:59 Zach Mayo He'd say, well, if we really hold scripture. 10:03 Zach Mayo As our sole authority of you know, truth and and where we get our truth from, then how can we start adding things in there that it's not saying and you point out clear scriptures, John 17 three things like that you know that I hadn't really even thought about before and so my mind definitely started to shift. So this was you know a long time but I would have still. 10:24 Zach Mayo Considered myself, I guess a Trinitarian or some degree, but it wasn't very convincing, that's for sure when obviously, Michaela. 10:31 Zach Mayo Got married, we moved. 10:32 Zach Mayo From home and we weren't spending heaps of time around them and we didn't really think about it. And I think I just put it on the back burner. I just said, oh, it's not that important because I knew what had happened with him in his churches. And so I kind of thought, well, I don't really want that to happen to me and Kayla, you know, we want to go to our churches and be part of fellowships. And while we're moving around, we need that, you know, community. 10:53 Zach Mayo And so we kind of, I mean, I'm not sure if I did it consciously or just didn't want to get into it or what, but we just never brought it up. We just kind of didn't talk about it. We didn't think about it. It was sort of, yeah. And even when we came to back to Hamilton and we got our jobs as youth. 11:09 Zach Mayo This is we had some serious questions about in Trinity and death of Christ, but we still took the job at the church where we went, and their statement of Faith was a trinitarian one, and we we did tell some people who knew us, who were at the church about our sort of feelings and our problems. And it was funny because their comments were, oh, you're young. 11:30 Zach Mayo You'll figure it like you you know you'll you'll come round. 11:33 Sean Finnegan Don't you hate it when they say that just like pat, you on the head? Ohh. You're just so young. You don't know anything. 11:34 Zach Mayo Yeah, yeah. 11:37 Yeah. 11:39 Zach Mayo Yeah, you don't know exactly. And so we kind of just were like we kind of chuckled to ourselves and we're like, OK, we are young. 11:49 Zach Mayo But we we knew our Bible fairly well. Again. I think the part that where it stopped was we just didn't think it was that important. 11:57 Zach Mayo We didn't think it was a real big issue. It wasn't an issue, at least worth bringing up and causing any. I don't know, arguments over, we just thought let's get on with it. Let's just serve Christ in this church and let's be you've passes here and serve the young people and do that and. And so that was cool. We did that for 3 1/2 years and this is sort of when things. 12:17 Zach Mayo Began to get more serious as I. 12:19 Zach Mayo Was you faster? 12:20 Zach Mayo You know, we started hearing messages at church by our pastor. He'd preach and or at least some of the elders who would preach. You know, they would say things sometimes and it would really ruffle our feathers, things like, you know, yeah, God died on the cross for you, things like that, that we're, you know, just one off statements in it and. 12:39 Zach Mayo We go, man. 12:39 Zach Mayo Is that? Is that really what the? 12:41 Zach Mayo Bible teachers. Or does the Bible teach that God sent his son who died for you, you know? And so this happened over, you know, those few years. And then by the end of the 3 1/2 years where you're passing, our son Kayla was pregnant and we were getting close to him being. 12:56 Zach Mayo All and we kind of really said to ourselves, we need to make a decision on this. We need to really decide, hey, is this actually important and is it worth doing something about? And so we both spent a good chunk of time together studying the word. Really asking ourselves is it that important? And then I actually remember. 13:16 Zach Mayo Warned he had found all your podcasts and whatnot by now. 13:20 Zach Mayo And he sent me. 13:21 Zach Mayo An episode I think it was by a guy Chuck and it was. Does the truth really? 13:25 Zach Mayo Yeah, I don't know if you mean it's a. It was a while ago. You. Yep. That's the one and that episode he sent to me and I didn't wanna watch it. I didn't wanna watch it because I know what he was going to say and I was scared so. But I did end up watching it and it was a real blessing because because he he pointed out, you know, like if we. 13:27 Sean Finnegan Chuck Whitlock? Yeah. 13:46 Zach Mayo Suppress the truth because it benefits us or or we're not gonna speak up and talk about something because it benefits us. Is that really what we, as Christians should do and? 13:56 Zach Mayo And how much does it matter for our journey? You know, if we're gonna say we believe something here but then not act on it, do we really believe it? Anyway, it was a real challenge and we ended up. 14:08 Zach Mayo Talking to a couple of our elders who are our friends, and they initially weren't really that shot. It was an interesting conversation. They kind of thought ohh maybe this could work. You could probably stay at the church and just change the statement of face because we said look, we can't continue on with the statement of faith. We need, you know, we want to be honest and upfront about it. 14:28 Zach Mayo We thought Ohh that was a really good conversation. 14:31 Zach Mayo Laid out everything we believed and where we had come to, but then they went away and talked to the other elders and our pastor, and within two or three days we lost our job. We didn't go back to church. We. 14:46 Sean Finnegan That quickly. 14:47 Zach Mayo Yeah. Yeah, it was that quick. Yeah, they had said we're putting you on hold, is how they put it all. We're we're taking you off all responsibilities. So I wasn't that. 14:56 Sean Finnegan So they didn't try to persuade you, they just fired you. 14:59 Zach Mayo No, no, they they sort of did. They came in. 15:02 Zach Mayo And they hit, like our pastor. 15:03 Zach Mayo Came and had one conversation with us. 15:05 Sean Finnegan OK, so he he did try to give you his case. 15:09 Zach Mayo Yeah, he he. He brought John one and he and he bought a couple other little passengers that we had already thought about. And, you know, we'd studied for a long time. And and we told him what we thought about those. And we asked him a few questions and. 15:23 Zach Mayo He couldn't answer as. 15:24 Zach Mayo Well, we showed him a few messages that. 15:26 Zach Mayo He just went away. 15:27 Sean Finnegan He might have felt intimidated. Then at that point, because hit what he thought were his slam dunk versus or real solid evidence. 15:36 Sean Finnegan And you were able to sweep away, but then yours. He he didn't have any. Yeah, so. 15:40 Zach Mayo No. 15:42 Zach Mayo And that's right. We were pretty shocked. You know that because it all happened within a couple of days. So it was all real fresh and raw. And you know at the time and now I've been think back on it, but you know, he came in and he wanted to just convince us that we were wrong rather than listen to us and hear what we had to say after that conversation that he obviously went back to the elders and they had a meeting and said oh. 16:03 Zach Mayo We're gonna stand Zach and Kayla down from all responsibilities. He can't preach. He can't. They can't teach. They won't go to youth group anymore. They won't. 16:10 Zach Mayo And it basically said you're you're stopping. It wasn't that we were necessarily fired on that spot, but we were taking off from our job. Basically, we couldn't do it. And they said until you basically change your mind, can't go back, it's sort of a conversation and how it happened. And we're like, look, we're not going to change our minds. 16:31 Zach Mayo On this overnight, in all honesty, we're actually pretty solid. We've kind of come to a landing. We've been looking at this for for 26 months and a year really. 16:40 Zach Mayo Really in depth, fully, and I know that's not super long because I know they'll take to what, 10 years or something 20 years to do it. So a year to six months isn't heaps, but it was enough for us to go. Hey, we think there's a problem here and to have enough evidence actually to put forward to people pretty convincingly or at least for ourselves, we were pretty convinced that this was the. 17:01 Zach Mayo Group and so we parted ways with the church. It wasn't the most horrendous we we live with a few people who were we're still in contact with, but in most part we haven't kept a lot of the relationships. We had a lot of people don't wanna talk about it. Sort of an awkward thing. And we were pretty surprised actually with the lack of. 17:21 Zach Mayo Contact that we had from people in the church afterwards. I'm not sure we didn't go to our church services because the week after this all happened the first sermon back. 17:32 Zach Mayo Was is the Trinity true and then the the next two weeks were Jesus's humanity and then Jesus's deity. So they did like a three-part series that like the following three weeks on the Trinity and Jesus God and we were just like, oh, what a kick in the guts. They didn't want to hear it. We asked to go before the elders and have a meeting with the elders and. 17:52 Zach Mayo Sort of lay out why we've come to this position and made them want to hear from us. They. 17:56 Zach Mayo Just said no. 17:57 Zach Mayo We're OK. We know what we believe in. 18:00 Zach Mayo Yeah, we're not going to change. So it was a bit a bit sad, but we we threw out at all, had a real peace and that was something that we give to God and we thank him for that because we knew, you know, the spirit was definitely working in our lives at at this point because we, Kyle, is 9 months pregnant. 18:22 Zach Mayo We were losing our job as youth passes and we had all this stuff going on and yeah, we weren't stressed. We weren't super anxious about it. We knew this was the right move to make. And yeah, we were. We were super, super stoked about it. 18:35 Sean Finnegan Let me point you there. When you were in that year of study, did you read any books that were helpful? 18:41 Zach Mayo Yeah. Yep, we did. So Jeff Dibol his book, it wasn't out for long when we got it, it hadn't been out for long, I think then. 18:49 Zach Mayo I'm not actually sure though, so I read Jeff Dibal's book Christ before Creed. I think that one was probably the easiest book that I read and it was the one that I I found the most helpful. It laid out everything so clearly and easy. It wasn't big language, there wasn't much jargon in there that. 19:05 Zach Mayo I couldn't understand. 19:06 Zach Mayo So that was a there was a great book. I read Anthony Buzzard's book the Self conflicted world. 19:13 Sean Finnegan That's a little more technical. 19:13 Zach Mayo But. 19:15 Zach Mayo Yes, that was so that one I I read it. But yeah, definitely a little bit more technical and I found it very helpful for certain texts because it goes a lot more in depth into, you know, his exegesis and whatnot. So those were really helpful. I read Keegan Chandler's book, the God of Jesus, that one, if I could choose one book to keep it. 19:35 Zach Mayo Probably be Keegan's book because. 19:37 Zach Mayo The history in the beginning of the book, the first half of it, I found super helpful. I mean, it's a question we all have to answer well. How the heck did we get where we are? You know, how do we how do we get to the Trinity being the dominant view. And so when he laid that out in the first half, it makes it so much more easy to go. Ohh, OK we that's how we got there. 19:57 Zach Mayo So what does the Bible mean if we actually go back and read it with the Jewish lens, you know that. 20:03 Zach Mayo Non like philosophical lanes that that a lot of us still have today, that we read the Bible with. So that was really a really good book. I've got a few other uh Green Gables book. They never told me this in church. Yeah. 20:16 Sean Finnegan That gets into other doctrines too. 20:18 Zach Mayo Yes, exactly. So not just that and and I haven't really mentioned this as well, but when we going through all of our journey and whatnot, we and since from then till today we've changed our minds on a lot of things. For instance, I've read your book the Kingdom and and then the gospel of the Kingdoms ideas have changed how I see. 20:38 Zach Mayo A lot of scripture, you know, and that. 20:40 Zach Mayo Has come through from seeing a lot of Unitarians sort of going that direction. I was going hey, wonder what is here? Yeah. It's been really eye opening and and a few other things. Conditional immortality. I was, you know, my understanding of how and and whatnot. So all of these things have been challenged. 20:54 Sean Finnegan Have you come across Warren Prestige's book because he is a fellow countryman of yours? 21:00 Zach Mayo Yes, I have. I've actually, yeah. So Warren, actually. So for the last year, we went to a church in Hamilton. There is sort of Unitarian half Trinitarian, but we got a mix of people. But Warren actually came and spoke at that church. So I met him in person, and I've got a copy of his book, I think. 21:17 Zach Mayo Is it life, death and how hell or something like that? 21:21 Sean Finnegan I can't life, death and destiny, yeah. 21:21 Zach Mayo Like your life. 21:23 Zach Mayo That's the one. Yeah. They've all been super helpful when sort of my understanding as well as your podcast day or today's podcast last year, end of 2023, I was in the 0.5% of top listeners for the studio. I'm pretty sure I listened like 5000 units of studio. I'm a builder. 21:41 Boy. 21:43 Zach Mayo So I can check my headphones on at work. 21:45 Sean Finnegan OK. 21:46 Zach Mayo You know I'm doing work and and I can just listen, which is so cool. But I listen to pretty much every one of your classes. I like the one guy class and your theology class, which is you do a while ago. So and and yeah, that's pretty much every episode since it's been such a blessing. And I just wanted to say thanks. 22:04 Sean Finnegan So, oh, you're welcome. So glad to hear it. Sometimes when you're putting the work in, you think to yourself, is this doing any good? And especially when you're editing audio when you're editing, that's when it hits me the most. I'm like, this is just terrible. What, like, what's the point of my? 22:13 Zach Mayo Yeah, yeah. 22:19 Zach Mayo Yeah. 22:23 Sean Finnegan Life that is encouraging to hear. 22:26 Zach Mayo It it, it has been such a blessing and yeah have learned so much. And I mean, look, I'm not saying I there there's there are things I still disagree with with a lot of people. And I'm open to talking about it. But I think what I love about Restitutio and and especially the Unitarian community by and large. 22:45 Zach Mayo That most people are willing to talk about things that in past churches that I've been involved in. 22:50 Zach Mayo It's not. People don't want to challenge the status quo, they want to just have their stock standard answers and they don't want to think about them. And so that's something that, you know, I've had to learn and and it's a challenge. You don't like being questioned. You don't like being put on the, you know, examining table. But I think it's been great for me and and I know that this is who there and the books that I've read. 23:12 Zach Mayo Have been real help in another book that I did read was Dalton's book as well just. 23:17 Zach Mayo Trinity. 23:18 Sean Finnegan What is the Trinity? 23:19 Zach Mayo What is the Trinity? Yeah, that's it. 23:21 Sean Finnegan Yeah, it's a. 23:21 Sean Finnegan Great little introduction book to the philosophical side of the Trinity. He's so funny in that book because he plays it, he plays coy like up until I don't know, Chapter 8, Chapter 9. Then he's like by the way, I don't believe in. 23:28 Yes. 23:29 Yeah. 23:37 Sean Finnegan The Trinity at all, you know? 23:38 Zach Mayo Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let us sneaks it in there at the end that he kind of tells you all these problems, all these problems that we've got and then goes. 23:39 Sean Finnegan It's just so funny. 23:45 Sean Finnegan Yeah, here's all the problems. And you like, I think the honest or the sort of uninformed. 23:50 Sean Finnegan The reader, he's probably thinking like, all right, he's gonna come out with a really good solution for how this all makes sense in the end. Instead, he's just like, yeah. 23:57 Sean Finnegan There's there's no solution. 23:59 Zach Mayo Yeah, just throw it away. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. And. And listening to it, I listened to it on audio books as well. I bought it on on. Yeah. And yeah, I love listening. Dal Dal's voice are he's so. I know he's pretty mono time, but I just. It's so relaxing sometimes listening to. 24:14 Sean Finnegan He has a nice, deep voice, doesn't he? 24:16 Zach Mayo Yeah, yeah, it's good. I like it so. 24:18 Sean Finnegan Very good. I was going to ask you to continue from where you had left off. You just mentioned going to this other church that has some units. 24:27 Sean Finnegan Isn't it? Did that take you a while to find or were you doing just how home church or what? What were you doing after? 24:34 Zach Mayo Yeah. Yeah. So it was actually crazy. I mean, we had finished up at the church we're at, and we were like, man, what next? And Kayla's family. So Kaylan's father, Unitarian and Kaylan's brothers are both Unitarian as well. Now that obviously they went on a similar. 24:35 Sean Finnegan Leaving this. 24:51 Zach Mayo Journey to us. 24:53 Zach Mayo His mom. 24:54 Zach Mayo And so we will. I mean, what are we going to do? And we actually got in contact with Greg Dibble and we asked him, hey, do you know any churches in New Zealand, Hamilton, Cambridge area that Unitarian or have would accept humanitarians, at least. 25:12 Zach Mayo And so he put us onto a church in Hamilton. He said. Yeah, no, I know these guys. I'm actually coming over to New Zealand to do, you know, to speak and do some teaching over there in a couple of. 25:22 Zach Mayo Months. So we went along there and a couple months later he came over and we met him and and that was such a blessing. So we were able to find this church that, you know, at least allowed us to come. They wouldn't put themselves out there as Unitarian. They wouldn't even put themselves out there as Trinitarian. They just sort of either or. And the churches, you know, we we really enjoyed. 25:42 Zach Mayo Been there for a time and it was nice to be, I guess, accepted and welcomed to come to a place and we after a while to struggle to stay there because of they didn't ever pass the and all the preachers that were coming in were people from. 25:59 Zach Mayo Like passes from other churches or seminary professor, or like university professors who were all Trinitarian and and so often we would actually still get hounded for our police, or when we questioned them, or when we asked about, you know, hey, why do you think that? And we sort of get told off for bringing it up. And it was a real, you know, after a time, we just felt a little bit like. 26:19 Zach Mayo Maybe this isn't? 26:21 Zach Mayo The church. 26:21 Zach Mayo For us. And so we actually aren't at that church in more, but it was a real blessing at the start because we got to meet a few people that we didn't know existed because we were pretty much by ourselves at this point. As Unitarians, you know, in the world of Trinitarians, we we're able to meet a few people and have some really cool conversations and we really. 26:41 Zach Mayo Encouraged by. 26:42 Zach Mayo So anyway, over that next year it was a little bit we see, but now we're kind of doing our own thing at home with our family and we're doing a bit of a Bible study. We're sort of in the process of beginning that up with a few of the other people from Hamilton and and family. Obviously it's a little bit difficult when we've got my wife pregnant and we've got a little son. So we're trying to balance. 27:02 Zach Mayo Work and life and all of these other things. But it's been a bit of a struggle. I'm not gonna lie to find fellowship and find community that is willing to affirm. 27:14 Zach Mayo A Unitarian faith, and we're pretty isolated. But there is a really cool number of people spread around New Zealand who I've been able to get in contact over the last year with. 27:24 Sean Finnegan Yeah, let's talk about that. You applied to the UCA to run a conference. What inspired you to do that and what? What's it been like as far as the planning? 27:25 Zach Mayo No. 27:36 Zach Mayo Like I was saying, we with the church and kind of being in and out of groups and whatnot, we felt pretty isolated. 27:43 Zach Mayo We found the UCLA during that year and I was super excited when I when I found the UCI, I didn't even know it existed until a year ago or maybe a little bit more than that. Now I became a member and I saw there were other people in New Zealand on there and so I started reaching out and messaging them and and trying to just introduce myself, which was pretty cool. 28:03 Zach Mayo And talked to a few people, but. 28:05 Zach Mayo There was still. 28:06 Zach Mayo This desire in me to have something happen, everyone's separated, everyone's quite spread out from New Zealand and and I was said to myself man, what would it be like or what could we do to bring everyone together? How can we get these Unitarians who are spread out throughout New Zealand? 28:21 Zach Mayo And meet up. And when I was on the UCLA page, I saw that you guys had brought out a new page it. 28:26 Zach Mayo Was international conference. 28:28 Zach Mayo And I said, man, that sounds exactly like what we what we need a group meeting where anyone could come, you know, where just one goal believers can can come together and hear some good teaching for some fellowship and be together. So I. 28:42 Zach Mayo Pretty much immediately. Just. 28:43 Zach Mayo This message, the UCA just emailed, I think it was Stacy who I was talking with initially. She, she said, hey, look, yeah, we we'd be happy to do something but here's some information that we need first. So I started filling out some of those things and and then I I believe you got in touch with me. 29:00 Sean Finnegan And then I got busy and I handed you off to Brandon. And then and then, now I'm back. But that's that's the way life is. You know, you go through these periods where seasons and and so forth. 29:04 Zach Mayo Yeah, it's like. 29:06 Yeah. 29:09 Zach Mayo Yeah. 29:13 Sean Finnegan So talk about how you've been able to get in touch with other Unitarian Christians in New Zealand and make connections and invite them. 29:22 Zach Mayo I. 29:22 Zach Mayo Started asking people, so I got into. I emailed everyone on the UCLA page that was from New Zealand and started asking them, you know, if they'd be interested in having a phone call or meeting up if they were. 29:34 Zach Mayo Was by and when I met them, I'd ask. Hey, do you know anyone else? Do you know any other Unitarians around? And they would pass me on to someone else. And so I'd get their phone number or their e-mail address and. 29:43 Zach Mayo Send an e-mail or a text and ask if they. 29:44 Sean Finnegan That's old school right there, man. That's some serious phone work. 29:47 Zach Mayo Yeah, yeah. So I it was a real pleasure actually, because I had some phone calls with quite a few different people all throughout New Zealand. And and I mentioned to them, hey, I'm thinking about organising this conference, the the guys from America have said, yeah, we're keen to help you. 30:02 Zach Mayo Run this. 30:03 Zach Mayo You know, we'd be keen to do something, but how many people were interested. So I, you know, I started getting on the phones and talking and everyone seemed really keen. I talked to probably about 35 ish different people throughout New Zealand. They all were really positive. They were super excited to hear from me and I heard a lot of their journeys as well and it's been really cool. 30:25 Zach Mayo You know, guy down in the South Island of New Zealand, Kim, it was an awesome week, chatted for like I think 2 hours. 30:31 Zach Mayo More just on the phone one evening and it was awesome. You know, we I was able to talk about things and and we talked about our Unitarian faith and how we both sort of came to it. But then we also talked about other theologies and and different things. And it was so cool. And so I, you know, I mentioned to them about UCLA conference here in New Zealand and it was overwhelming. You know, that they they were all. 30:51 Zach Mayo Very positive, very happy and excited and just. 30:55 Zach Mayo You could keen to hear more about it, so I kind of left them there unfortunately because I said, hey, look, I'll do some organizing and and a lot of the people I haven't really talked too much again apart from a few emails or texts just to say hey, things are happening still we made a bit of a planning committee. So out of the people who I talked to I asked. 31:15 Zach Mayo About 5 people. If they would be interested in forming a bit of a planning committee. So a guy Matthew, he's from well. 31:21 Zach Mayo Then a couple, Michael and Yvonne there from sort of central North Island and then myself and my wife Kayla, we started a planning committee and we kind of met together to begin. 31:33 Zach Mayo And and we. 31:34 Zach Mayo We found a a venue and we had some dates that we proposed to the board. We worked a bit together and we even got Jeff Dibal. 31:42 Zach Mayo He's come on board now, which is awesome. He's gonna sort of be our Australian liaison because he's keen to be involved. 31:49 Zach Mayo And we would love for Australians to come over for the conference and and. And I know initially it was. 31:55 Zach Mayo We thought it was going to be a New Zealand conference. I hadn't really thought about Australia at the start, but then my wife, you know, mentioned to me, hey, what do what do we do about Australia? You know, we've got Greg and Jeff both over there. I wonder if they'd be able to help us, maybe try. 32:09 Zach Mayo And talk to some people from Australia. So they're gonna help us promote that once we get the website up and running. So we've got all the info. We've got a date, we've got a venue. So it's gonna be in Cambridge in November. That's the 22nd to the 24th of November. It's locked in vain venue, but we're just waiting to get the website up and running so people can register. 32:30 Zach Mayo And we can start pointing in there and have all the other information I guess up there for them. 32:35 Sean Finnegan Yeah, this is. 32:36 Sean Finnegan Exciting. I am curious though, how do New Zealanders think about Australians? Are you guys? I'm sure you have some competition because I have no idea. 32:46 Zach Mayo Yeah, I'm sure there's some rivalry. Yeah, some people don't like Australians. I mean, I can speak for myself and people I know. We kind of see them just as like brothers, you know, maybe cousins. 32:56 Zach Mayo There's probably a bit of. 32:58 Zach Mayo When there's not a big rivalry apart from sports, if there's sports and we're, you know, we're watching a football game or rugby especially. 33:06 Zach Mayo Maybe if it's New Zealand, Australia then you start to. 33:09 Zach Mayo Get a bit of a. 33:11 Zach Mayo Bit of a rivalry going. Yeah, but we are now like we've got plenty of friends over in Australia, you know, especially Greg and Jeff and stuff and and we love them. And yeah, we're kind of the little brother and there is a little bit painful sometimes when people just say, oh, New Zealanders. 33:26 Zach Mayo Just Australians that separated all the water for New Zealanders to be called Australians as like Canadians to be called Americans. So if that makes any more sense to you guys. 33:38 Zach Mayo It's just similar. 33:39 Sean Finnegan Yeah. No, that communicates well. Speaking of Canadians and Americans and our European friends. 33:44 Sean Finnegan As well, is this conference open to those people to come to? Are you looking to bring in internationals? Is travel pretty easy to New Zealand? Talk about that a little bit. 33:55 Zach Mayo Yeah, I mean absolutely. I guess it goes without saying, we'd love as many people that come as we can get the the whole point and the the goal behind this is to connect with other Unitarians. And so wherever they come from the, you know, far and wide, they're welcome. We would love for obviously Australians and New Zealanders to be involved highly, but if there were people, you know from the states. 34:15 Zach Mayo From euro? 34:16 Zach Mayo Who wanted to go on a bit of a holiday and time it to come for our summer in November end of November. December is pretty lovely time of year. It's getting into summer for us, so we'd love to have those people come. I was also thinking countries like Fiji or the Philippines or you know those sort of. 34:36 Zach Mayo South Southern Hemisphere countries might be a little bit more inclined to come this way rather than having, you know, trying to get to the UK or the states for a conference. 34:47 Sean Finnegan Or even Hawaii. 34:49 Sean Finnegan Is probably closer to you than me. 34:49 Zach Mayo Yeah. 34:52 Zach Mayo Yeah. Yeah. It's on the other side of the whole country. 34:54 Zach Mayo Right. So. 34:56 Zach Mayo Yeah, exactly. So we would love to to. 34:58 Zach Mayo See people come from all over. 35:00 Zach Mayo In terms of getting to New Zealand, New Zealand is probably the furthest away. Most people you know can get from where they live. It's we are down the bottom of the world here, but it's not horrendous to get to. I don't know what the prices and and and stuff are these days to get to New Zealand, but in terms of a country to get into. 35:19 Zach Mayo It's really easy to come on a bit of a holiday here, but it is a fear flight I believe from LA to New Zealand is like the 16 hours or something like that in the. 35:29 Sean Finnegan It's a long ride, but hey, your country is such a diverse, geographically interesting place. You know you have these volcanoes, you have. Don't you have like, ice and glaciers? And you know, the Lord of the Rings was filmed there, right? So you could run into a Hobbit. Who knows? 35:36 Hmm. 35:45 Zach Mayo Yeah, yeah. 35:49 Yeah. 35:49 Sean Finnegan But no, they preserved that set, didn't they? 35:51 Zach Mayo Yeah. So we actually only live about 20 minutes from the. 35:56 Zach Mayo Listen, sit. So. And I was saying before we worked at adventure Tourism, my wife's first job out of high school was actually working at the Hobbiton set in Meta Meta, which is that you can go for a a tour there. You can see the, the Hobbiton village and the Shire and whatnot. So it's. Yeah. There's so many cool things and and yeah, like. 36:16 Zach Mayo The South Island is full of mountains and glaciers and pretty rugged down there, and some parts of that obviously still cities and and the nicer spots, Christchurch and whatnot. But there's also, yeah, just amazing walks. 36:29 Zach Mayo Is the crystal clear and I'm trying to sound dealing here and I I love New Zealand. It's it's an amazing country to live in. We're blessed to be pretty free to be able to, you know, have different religions and different thoughts and. And so we love for people to come and see what we're all about here and and come and meet us and check out some pretty cool countryside as well here if you love Wolverines. 36:50 Zach Mayo Definitely. Yeah. Come up and see. 36:52 Yeah. 36:53 Zach Mayo This is something that we've talked about as a planning committee as well, and we'd love to host people when they're here. If people from overseas are planning on coming and do want to get over, get in touch with us because I'm planning on taking some time off work around the time to maybe take people and do some trips out to see some mountains or. 37:13 Zach Mayo See some things like that. So if people are interested in coming. 37:17 Zach Mayo I would love to help them see the. 37:19 Zach Mayo Country a little bit and. 37:20 Sean Finnegan Yeah. And you have experience? 37:21 Sean Finnegan With going to a lot of these places as well. 37:24 Zach Mayo Exactly. So I'm happy to to do that. And and when registrations are open and we can get an idea of who's coming, I can start to make a little bit more of a plan of what we're gonna do and see, see when people are gonna fly over, maybe people will come for a couple of weeks. You know, we might get. 37:38 Zach Mayo A time to yeah. Do a few things as well. 37:40 Sean Finnegan Yeah, very good. Are you looking for presenters currently or you have the lineup fully done or what's the story there? 37:48 No. So so. 37:49 Zach Mayo The plan is is once registrations open, we were going to advertise it, guess this, but we would, we are gonna do a bit of a call for papers kind of like the USA one but. 38:01 Zach Mayo It's going to be not papers, but presentation. So the plan will be come and present something or put it on to us as the planning Committee and we'll sort of have a look at it. We'll choose the ones. I guess that we feel will be the most beneficial. I guess the best if we get that many, I'm not sure how many we get. We only get a few. 38:21 Zach Mayo So that would be pretty cool. However, we are planning on having Dale, Toby and Mark Caine both coming over for the conference. Yeah, so we're hopefully get them to to present something. 38:33 Sean Finnegan Yes. And Mark Caine has a whole recording set. 38:36 Sean Finnegan Up and so he can. He can bring that. I think he's bringing that to the UK Conference. He'll be able to test it on them there and. 38:41 OK. 38:44 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 38:45 Sean Finnegan If there are. 38:46 Sean Finnegan Any problems by the time he gets to New Zealand, assuming he's able to make it, then yeah, we will be able to record and then add the presentations. 38:57 Sean Finnegan With your beautiful Kiwi accents, we Americans, we're fascinated by your accent. It's just. 39:04 Sean Finnegan Like it tickles our ear, you know, so. 39:06 Zach Mayo Yeah. Yeah, it's funny because we think the same about like English people. We think. Ohh man. They've got such a smart accent accent so. 39:12 Sean Finnegan Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're very impressed with the English as well, yeah. 39:15 Zach Mayo Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just think we sound like farmers, just pretty rugged and me, but no, it's it's interesting to hear. 39:23 Sean Finnegan Yeah, I remember interviewing Warren prestige. And no, it wasn't him. It was David Burge. His accent was so thick. Zach, I tell you, I could not. 39:35 Sean Finnegan There were times where I had no idea what he. 39:37 Sean Finnegan Said. 39:38 Sean Finnegan There's no idea at all. And then I just went on to the next question and I'm like, well, let's just hope that it was good, whatever he said there because I have no idea with you. I think it's pretty easy for me at least. 39:38 Yes. 39:45 Yeah. 39:50 Zach Mayo The further South you go in New Zealand, the thicker the accent seems to get, so if you're I'm I'm I'm not kind of middle of the North Island Cambridge which is a couple hours South of Auckland if people. 40:01 Zach Mayo The letters. But yeah, the food yourself. You go. Especially if you kind of ride at the bottom. And the cargo, you know that Southland area, it's pretty thick. They speak with a pretty thick accent. 40:11 Sean Finnegan Can you impersonate it? What does it sound like? 40:13 Zach Mayo Ohh no I can't. I can't even. I can't even do it. Yeah. Yeah, no, I would. I'd just make it all myself. 40:15 Sean Finnegan No. OK. 40:20 Zach Mayo So I'm not. 40:22 Sean Finnegan OK. 40:23 Sean Finnegan OK, so once again, the conference is November 22nd to the 24th for my American brothers and sisters. I do want to just inform you that this is not going to conflict with Thanksgiving. So if you have family plans for Thanksgiving, you can get back in time. It's not till the 28th this year. 40:28 Yes. 40:43 Sean Finnegan For us, it's a confusing holiday because it changes dates every year. All right, well, anything else we should cover as far as your story or this conference or other stuff that's going on. I suppose we'll mention just before I turn it over to you. Let's mention that the information will be on Unitarian Christian alliance.org. 41:02 Sean Finnegan I have spoken to the person who's putting it up and it should be up by the time this podcast is out. Unitary Christian alliance.org. And then there's a menu on the top that has events and then under events is 2024 conferences, so it should be there. 41:19 Zach Mayo Yeah, like that's the main thing we wanna get this out. Spread far and wide to as many people who we can get it so they know what's happening and that. 41:27 Zach Mayo That's the key. Is just. 41:28 Zach Mayo Word of mouth. 41:29 Zach Mayo Letting people know. So if you know anyone in New Zealand listening, let them know that this is going on. I I might have talked to them and I might have got the e-mail address and I might be. 41:37 Zach Mayo You know, but there's a chance they haven't. They will say this. The Christadelphian community in New Zealand. I've got in touch with a couple people. But if you have contacts, especially Christadelphian, if you guys have any contacts with people in New Zealand, let them know as well, because we would love to have, you know, Chris, about the community being involved as well. 41:58 Zach Mayo Because I know there are big, massive involvement in the UK and in the US conferences and we would love to see them, yeah, be a part of it here. So really Christadelphians listening, please get in touch with me and or your friends and let them know this is happening. If you are from New Zealand and you're Christadelphian, feel free to get in touch with. 42:16 Zach Mayo Me, but otherwise we're just really excited that this is happening and we want to spread the message of who God is and who Jesus is and we want to have fellowship with other like minded people. So that's what this conference is about. Just you know we're getting something here in New Zealand and we're not sure where it will take us. 42:33 Sean Finnegan Yeah, it's exciting thought. I mean, it could cause some new connections and perhaps even some coalescing of. 42:41 Sean Finnegan Isolated individuals into house churches at as a starting point at least, and maybe even larger, more sustainable churches with time. 42:50 Zach Mayo Yeah, exactly. God willing, you know that would that would happen. We'd. We'd love to see that. Get in touch if you have any questions as well, we're gonna e-mail myself and I believe, Jeff, we're gonna get in touch with people. I'll try and get in touch with people from Zealand. I think Jeff and Greg dive. We're going to do a bit of sort of, you know, networking in Australia to. 43:10 Zach Mayo Let people know what's happening and. 43:12 Who? 43:13 Zach Mayo For anyone who's in New Zealand or Australia, who is the saying, hopefully you'll get an e-mail from us soon. If you're part of the UCA members, then we should be able to send you an e-mail from there. If you're listening to us and you're not a member on the UCA, I'd encourage you to jump on there and sign up because it's so much. 43:32 Zach Mayo Easier to find people to. 43:34 Sean Finnegan And and you can just get a free membership if if you don't want to contribute financially and you know you just get a free membership. If you want to contribute financially. 43:43 Sean Finnegan That's great too, because then we could underwrite some of the expenses for these kinds of things, which is helpful as well. 43:51 Zach Mayo It's worth mentioning that the conference is free to come to. There's no cost. We've actually been able to got some generous people involved as well as the UCA, who are going to help with the cost of things. We've done it in a. 44:02 Zach Mayo Way that's gonna. 44:03 Zach Mayo Keep this conference down so it's going to be free to come through the cost you have funds, obviously your travel to get there and then your accommodation for the weekend. 44:11 Zach Mayo But in terms of lunch and dinner and everything else that goes on for the conference, then you would solve all of those things. They will be covered by us so. 44:21 Sean Finnegan Now, that's hospitality, Zach. You might have outdone the English on that one. 44:24 Yeah. 44:25 Zach Mayo Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're we're trying to make it as easy for people to come as possible because we know that it can be a cost. 44:32 Zach Mayo But we want to see people come and maybe in the years to come, we might change it, we might maybe next year we'll do it in Australia and it's easier for Australians to come a long term. We might travel over to see you guys and vice versa. You know, who knows what the future holds. But at least at this stage we we're just rolling with. 44:48 Zach Mayo Something and we'll see where it goes. 44:50 Sean Finnegan Very good. Well, thanks for talking with me today. I appreciate your time. 44:53 Zach Mayo Yeah, no worries. Shawna, it's been. Thanks. 45:03 Sean Finnegan Well, that brings this interview to an end. What did you think? Come on over to restitutio.org and find episode 554 Biblical Unitarian Christians in New Zealand and leave your comments there. Well, after that interview concluded. 45:20 Sean Finnegan I was able to confirm that I am planning on attending this event in New Zealand so. 45:29 Sean Finnegan New Zealand brothers and sisters, I am delighted to be able to announce that I am going to be coming, and I also hope to see the Dibal brothers, Greg and Jeff, of course. Greg, I have met in the flesh once or twice before at different conferences in the USA, but never so far. 45:49 Sean Finnegan West is it West or east? I don't know. The other side of the world. 45:53 Sean Finnegan And we're not quite in Australia, but we're close enough and so be great to spend some time with the mayos, the dibbles and the other brothers and sisters there. If you are like me, living in the United States, it does take quite a bit of logistical planning to get all the way out there. But if you can get out there. 46:13 Sean Finnegan Why not make a vacation out of it? Why not take some extra time and and go see the islands? And it's just incredible. The kinds of geography and sites you can see if you do end up going. So that might be a great vacation option for. 46:26 Sean Finnegan For you, if you are interested whether you live in New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, the Philippines or wherever you happen to live and you are planning to attend this event, we do have a link now available in the show notes for this episode so you can get those on your device if you're listening through a podcast. 46:46 Sean Finnegan Up and click on the link there or you can get it through restitutio.org. Just find episode 554, biblical Unitarian Christians New Zealand and you'll be able to find the link. 46:57 Sean Finnegan There. 46:58 Sean Finnegan On last week's interview with Kermit Zarley Kato, 1006 wrote in saying excellent interview Brother Zarley. You are a blessing to the body of Christ. Your books have helped me so much. That's a comment I've heard multiple times. Kermit Zarley's books have been out for a long time, but this recent. 47:19 Sean Finnegan Republishing of his. 47:21 Sean Finnegan Russian is really worth picking up. I highly recommend it. It's very thorough and it can help you understand the Christology, but also to explain confusing verses. So take a look at that. That's called restitution. You can get that on Amazon. As for our interview the week before with Suzanne. 47:41 Sean Finnegan Take in Julia, Carolyn wrote in saying. To all this, I am so encouraged. I was Trinitarian a year ago and went to all the above mentioned names and resources and am now Biblical Unitarian. 47:56 Sean Finnegan It seems so counter to what you've learned from the Bible, and then you start to see things you didn't, and the Bible makes so much more sense. And God is so much more evident. His truth is what it is. I don't have to read into the words. It's awesome. 48:14 Sean Finnegan Well, that's a wonderful comment and this is something we're hearing more and more year by year, more and more people coming to see that the Trinity idea is a later addition to. 48:24 Sean Finnegan Scripture and that we really don't need it to make sense of what the Bible says about God, about Jesus and about the Holy Spirit. Thanks for writing in Julia, Peter wrote in on Suzanne's interview as well, saying Super interview. Suzanne and Sean really, really resonated with what you shared. 48:46 Sean Finnegan In your hearts for seeking the truth. I don't believe we would line up a 100% on every theological comma and dot, but I'm 99.9% in agreement and I'm always open to shifting on what I believe on some point. If I'm wrong. This is code for be open to really hearing others. 49:04 Sean Finnegan Out. Do any of us 100% have exactly the same understandings of Scripture? Our life journeys, including spiritual experiences, does color our understandings of scripture to some degree in places I 100% agree with the spirit and diplomacy of both your approaches of just genuinely sitting with others in conversation. 49:25 Sean Finnegan On a topic not fearing the truth were ever it may lead is a personally satisfying way to live. 49:34 Sean Finnegan And his comment goes on from there. If you'd like to read the rest of it, you can find that on restitutio.org under Episode 552. Seminary convinced me that Trinity is wrong, so take a look at that if you're interested. That's going to be it for our time today, everyone. Thanks so much for listening to the. 49:53 Sean Finnegan End here if you'd like to support us, you can do that at restitutio.org. I'll catch you next week and remember the truth. 50:01 Sean Finnegan Has nothing to fear.