Sincerity, it's an uncommon trait these days, but fortunately for us there are still individuals among us who exemplify it. Jay has been through much in his life and has been giving much back, boldly — out in the open — with honest transparency.

What is it about skateboarding that it can completely capture a young persons life as it did yours when you first discovered it? It really does become and obsession doesn't it?

Obsession is a word you could use, it's definitely a life-style, and really it's almost like salvation, it's kind of hard to explain, you've just got to experience it. There's nothing like standing on a skateboard and starting to roll, the freedom and the thrill that you get from just skating.

Did you plan to turn pro and make a career out of skating?

No, that was never my goal, I know for most guys that's a goal, to be a pro skater, but no that was never a goal of mine, it just kind of happened, I never really tried to pursue it, I'm just a skateboarder, that's all I've ever done and that's what I am and who I am.

You must have had a lot of natural talent to get in that direction.

Well, you know I just love skating, and it did kind of come natural to me.

Who were some of the pros that inspired you?

When I first started out there were all the guys like Bruce Logan and different folks like that, and then Jay Adams, Tony Alva and those guys were just barely ahead of me and stuff, and then all of those guys ended up becoming my friends.

That's cool, what year was that when you started skating?

I started skating in 73'.

How has the culture of skateboarding changed since then?

I've definitely seen skating go thru it's ups and downs, I've personally gone thru some ups and downs throughout the years as well, but you know, it's completely different. When I was skating, it wasn't cool, you got arrested for it, you were considered a loser, and you were treated like that. Now, its definitely become more mainstream, it's like the modern-day soccer. Even though there's that core element of skating that's still there, it's changed all together in acceptance and popularity. When I was at my peak in terms of ability in skating it was all underground, backyard pools, and building ramps.

Yeah, I had a mini half in my backyard in high school, and that was around the time that the "Skateboarding Is Not A Crime" stickers came out. It's interesting with skating in that it seems to have a continuous lifeline, but it sometimes goes thru some severe ups and downs where its almost completely dead and then it comes back with a roaring vengeance.

Yeah, there's definitely been ups and downs, you know like the late 70's and early 80's when all the skateparks started closing, they couldn't stay open because all of the insurance premiums were getting so high, and stuff like that. That's really when I was at my best in terms of skating and you know it was almost, if you skated, in like 1981, you were a real deal skater, you weren't skating because it was cool or anything like that.

Then of course, it began to transition as well to street skating and all that in the early 90's. I was living in a drug cave for years in the mid to late 80's and then I got radically saved in 1990 and I went from a drug cave to a God cave, so I didn't know a lot about what was happening in the skateworld at that time, because I was either focused on drugs, or I was focused on God. Of course then God gave me skating back and now with everything that's happening with skateparks popping up all over America, it's really rad.

Photo: Hosoi Skates

What's the difference with the skateparks that were going under and now skateparks coming back is it all about the insurance?

Well, the laws have changed, it's made it easier for people to have skateparks and most of the skateparks are being built nowadays by the cities. They're free and they're covered under their insurance and I'm assuming its probably real similar for them to build a skatepark in terms of insurance, as it would for them to build some tennis courts.

Well that's good news.

Yeah, for sure!

You've been through some serious hard times in your short life so far, do you find that a large part of the skaters today are in the same situation that you were?

There's definitely an element of that for sure, where you make wrong choices, and those choices lead to other things and it just snowballs and takes you down a road and it can end up nearly destroying your life. I remember when I was a little kid and in a skatepark, I can't remember how old I was but I was way younger than the guys I was hanging out with and I remember we went outside the skatepark, we were getting high and I was just puffin' a joint with these guys and I remember that was the very first time I ever saw cocaine, and they broke it out, chopped out a line and they started snorting it, and they were telling me "one day you'll be doing this" and I'm like "you guys are trippin' I'm totally content just puffin' weed", but sure enough, when I was 15 years old, you know I got turned on to my first line of cocaine.

How long was that after they had told you?

I can't remember, I was probably something like 12 or 13 years old. So it was 2 or 3 years later, and here I am doing the very thing I said I would never do. It lead me down a road that nearly destroyed my life. The first time I ever snorted cocaine, I remember, you know, after several lines I looked at the people that turned me on and I was telling them how thankful I was because it made me feel so good, and I was able to talk and socialize and all of that stuff. But it wasn't too much longer after that, that it began to turn on me, when I first started doing cocaine it made me want to socialize, I wanted to go to the party, and even though I was a teen I was cruising the clubs already. I wanted to cruise to the clubs, I wanted to hang out with all the people, but then once it started turning on me, I got isolated, I became paranoid, I didn't want to be around a bunch of people, all I wanted to do was the drug.

What is it in the skateboarding community in particular that you feel the burden for? Why skaters? Is it because you're trying to reach your own people or is it something apart from that?

I just want to reach people, it doesn't matter to me if it's a business guy driving a Mercedes and wearing Armani, I want to win everybody. I just do that where I'm at, you know, I try to help people where I'm at, how and where I live my life. For me, the way I do life is with a skateboard, it's just natural, and I think that's what it should be for everybody. Whoever you are, wherever you're at, just live for Jesus, live with Jesus and help people.

Photo: Jay Haizlip

You used to be into the whole Rockabilly, Punk scene right?

Yeah, I definitely was involved in that whole movement when it all first started in the late 70's here in Southern Cal.

Do you think coming from that background, that it's mostly a misunderstanding of rules that keeps a lot people from coming to Christ, I think many see it as a list of do's and dont's rather than a relationship in where God takes care of things in helping us?

I think for most people, definitely, they have an unrealistic view of what it's all about. A lot of times, when they start giving me their excuses like "people are like this, or something's gotta be like this" — in a nice way, I will challenge them on that, I'm like "have you ever experienced that?" and what I've come to find out, with the majority of the people with those excuses, the whole thing is based on hearsay, not on personal experiences.

You can't understand what it's like until you've experienced it, I tell people it's like my leather jacket. If you could put it on and wear it, you would never want to give it back. And Jesus said in John chapter 3 to Nicodemus, you can't even see the Kingdom of God except you're born again, and that word "see" means to perceive or understand. You won't be able to understand God's ways, his kingdom, anything that has to do with him until you're born again.

God's never gonna remove that equation of faith, it's gonna always involve taking a step of faith, everybody at some point is gonna have to say "Ok Jesus, I'm gonna step out in faith and put it in you, and I'm gonna trust you to do what you said in the Bible that you'd do" and when you do that, all the sudden the scales fall from your eyes, all the sudden the potential and the possibility of the kind of relationship you can have with God opens up and hopefully you discover it is a relationship.

It's like I have an awesome relationship with my wife, to facilitate her and I having a healthy, strong relationship where she trusts me, and I trust her, there are things that I choose not to do, because I know that if I were to do them they would damage or weaken our relationship, and so out of respect for her because she's given her life to me, and I've given my life to her, I don't do those things.

Some of them are communicated and some of them aren't communicated. There's things she doesn't have to tell me "I don't want you doing this, this and this", and then that's the same way in our relationship with God. He's given us his word which reveals his character, his nature, his preferences, and any of the things that he does lay down there in terms of "hey you don't need to do this" isn't for his benefit, it's for ours.

It's like a lot of the city parks you see where there's a playground for infant kids, they have fences around them. The fences are there to protect the kids, because if the kid wanders out of the park, the car is gonna run over the kid and kill him.

Yeah I think it's the misunderstanding with the rule concept, you don't do it as an obligation, you do it because you love the person right, it's really the whole flip of it.

Exactly.

I bring this up a lot, but I do so because I believe it's happening already, I feel we are in the midst of another renaissance, and one of the evidences of this is that I see Christians finally accepting their talents as God given and stepping out in them, no matter how unorthodox it may seem. For so long, from so many pulpits, we've heard that one should "give up everything and follow Christ", and while this is true definitely, I think it has been taken out of context and caused many talented Christians to abandon their talents as some sort of religious obligation. God has plans for those talents wouldn't you agree?

Without a doubt. For sure.

You know it's just like I did with Christian and Brian, we did a Nightline interview the other day, so here we're on ABC Nightline and one of the questions the guy was asking us was "are you guys copying the world?" I said "no, we're not copying the world". They didn't put all of it in there but basically, we've got the Michael Jordan and the Jimi Hendrix of the skateboard world, all of these avenues were their world, and they got saved, so we didn't stop using these avenues, we just used the same avenues that have always been there, we just started using them for Jesus now.

I think that's a key point though and I don't know if a lot of people have realized that yet.

Yeah and the proper application of "die to self and to follow to Christ" would be rather than using those platforms for selfish motives and it all being about me, use those same platforms and "I'm gonna to die to it all being about me, and it's gonna be about Jesus".

Obviously, if he's invested talents in people he's not gonna remit on those talents, he wants a return on them right?

What you're great at...

What you're terrible at God's probably....

[laughs all around]

And you enjoy what your'e great at most of the time right? So the joy gives you the endurance.

For sure, you do stuff you're terrible at, you get frustrated.

How did The Uprising come about and what's the goal?

The Uprising. Actually, we started I don't know how many years ago, but it started just as a tour, it was Christian Hosoi, Brian Sumner, Richard Mulder, Lance Mountain, Ray Barbee and myself, DJ Product, and the band Call to Glory. Basically, it started out as a tour and it still is that, but then we were approached and asked if we were interested in a TV show. Ben Cerullo, who's a good friend of mine, we had already been talking about that and felt that it was God's will and part of his plan and then sure enough, Inspirational Network and Steelroots approached us, and said "Hey, you guys wanna do a TV show?" and I was stoked and wanted to do it.

We sat down with Ben Cerullo from Inspirational Network and Steelroots and just cast the vision of what we saw it looking like and those folks at Inspirational Network were just stoked with it and it was a go and that's how it all started.

Our goal is two-fold; number one, first and foremost, is to get people saved, we want to introduce people to Jesus. Number two, it's to fan the fire and wake up the church, to passionately go after Jesus. That's our two-fold purpose, we want to spark a revolution, we want to be involved in a major move of God — an awakening.

How do you come up with the ideas for the episodes?

Well basically, they're not really scripted out, it's just real life, the only extent that we do in terms of that is, we just say "hey we're cruising over here" and the cameras and everything go with us.

Was The Uprising a segue to becoming a pastor or were you a pastor before that started?

I was already a pastor, everything that we do comes out of The Sanctuary Church out here in Huntington. The Uprising is a reflection of what is happening here in church and started here in church, the tour came out of church, the TV show came out of the church. I've been in ministry since 1990.

I was talking to Brian about that and he mentioned people are moving to California just to go to your church.

People are coming from everywhere to be a part of it, it's amazing.

What do you think it is about The Sanctuary that attracts people in that way?

Photo: Vision

Well, to me it's just normal, and sometimes I forget, matter of the fact most of the time I'm not aware of how it's really not that normal. Because it seems so normal to me, but I think when people come here and they see the diversity and they see the kinds of people that are here, they see we're definitely not perfect, but there's just an overwhelming unconditional love here, there's a genuine joy and acceptance of everyone and without compromising the standards of God's word or God's character and pushing God back in the closet to do that. In the same hand, the presence of God is usually very strong in our services, the presence of God shows up in a powerful way and we're very passionate in terms of chasing after Jesus, we want him with everything.

One thing that is very encouraging to me as I watch the Uprising shows, is that you guys come as people who other skaters can relate to, first and foremost on a peer level as skaters, and in addition to that you bring the presence of the Lord there for anyone who is open, but you don’t push it or jam it down anyone's throat.

Right.

I think that's very attractive.

You know Smith Wigglesworth, he lead somebody to Jesus just about every single day and he would pray and a lot of times he'd go down to a park down by his house and he would sit there and wait for the Holy Spirit to show him who was ready. One time he was driving in a car with somebody and he told this guy "you gotta go up here" and they went to the top of this mountain and Smith Wigglesworth made them get out of the car, and they sat on the edge of this mountain and the guy was like "there's nobody around here, who's he think he's gonna lead to Jesus up here" and then after a period of time, here comes a mountain climber climbing up the side of the mountain and Smith Wigglesworth led the guy to Jesus.

It's kind of like being a fruit inspector, you share Jesus with everybody, you kind of reach out to them in a loving, gentle way and if the door opens and there's an opportunity to take the conversation to the next level, then you take advantage of that.

Let’s talk about leadership. Would you say that you have been a leader most of your life?

Maybe to some extent you know, I guess I was always the guy who was the life of the party and stuff like that, I was never a leader in the sense that I tried to dominate or control people, but I was always a leader in the sense that I didn't do what everyone else did just because they did it. I always thought for myself and there were many times that I wouldn't do what everybody else did. So I was a leader in that sense, and then obviously when I got saved, that was part of God's plan, I'd always had favor on my life and God's the one who put it there, so it just started being used for the right purposes. I just started using who I was to connect people with the Lord.

Where does your confidence as a leader come from? Sometimes there is a fine line between self confidence and pride, and on the other hand a diminishing of self confidence with more of a focus on the Lord, can often lead to not seeing the strengths in oneself that the Lord has given us.

Well, I can only tell you how that works for me, I mean, for me the more God uses me, the longer I walk with God, the more frail and weak I see I am, I see my inabilities, I don't focus on those, if I were to focus on those it would paralyze me, but it creates this desperation in me to cling to God. My confidence or courage comes from him, so I just cling to Jesus, and I realize that in him I can do anything, all things are possible in Christ and if God's called me to do it, he'll give me the power and ability to do it. I'm always desperate, I'm always desperate, God, I've gotta have you, Lord you've gotta help me, God you've gotta give me the power, the strength, your presence, Lord you gotta hook me up. Lord if you don't come thru, I'm a failure, this is gonna be a horrible crash. So that's the way it is for me.

That's the exact point you hit on there, and that's the reason I asked that question, you said that if you were to focus on those frailties and weaknesses, it would freeze you right?

Exactly.

I've pretty much done it the same way you have and what I've noticed is that people will come to me sometimes and say that I'm selling myself short and not recognizing what I have the ability to do, and in the context of leadership, if you don't portray that you have the confidence to do something, it spreads.

Right, yeah, just like in Joshua chapter 1 where God instructed Joshua to cross over into the promised land, he said to be strong and of good courage. In Joshua chapter 1 he tells him that several times in that chapter. Only be strong and of good courage. I'm confident in the Lord. Humility is not like some oppressed beggar, walking around with your shoulders and head drooping going "I'm just the scum of the earth" that's not humility that's oppression, humility is an inward realization that without Christ you are nothing, but in him you're everything, and my confidence is in him and when it comes to leading, I always reflect anything that God's done, I always reflect it back to him and you can do that in a humble way without acting like you're insecure. When somebody comes up and compliments me, if it's like preaching, I say "I appreciate it" but God knows that I know, that if he doesn't hook me up, I'm preachin' terrible.

[laughs all around]

But if I'm out skating or something and somebody's like "Dude that was a killer trick!" I'm like "WOOOOO I'm stoked!"

What is the greatest thing that you have personally learned as a leader?

Hmmm, the greatest thing I've ever learned as a leader...I don't know if I'd call it the greatest thing, but I just love people. I love people. I love and believe in people, I give everybody an opportunity. I don't know if I can say what is the greatest thing. I've never had anybody ask me that question. Obviously, the greatest thing that can happen to anybody is a relationship with Jesus Christ. But you know, I don't know if I've learned it yet.

Ok that's good, that's a good answer.

Often the leader is the one saddled with the vision, frequently it can be clear, others times not so clear, how do you keep on course?

That's exactly how it is and sometimes it's more vague in the sense that ok, you have a direction but you don't see the full picture, the Bible talks about we look thru a glass dimly. Sometimes it's very precise. I just stay focused on whatever it is, and then I understand that even though I may not see the full picture, at least I have the direction, and the vision operates like a compass, it points in the direction I'm to go in, and so I'm to make my decisions, I gotta make sure that I'm prioritizing properly, that what I prioritize comes in line with the vision, what God's plan is, my resources, that I use those in a way that it reflects the vision, the priority.

Even when it's vague, and there's those seasons or days or moments where you don't see everything, I just trust and rely on the fact that God said if I acknowledge him in all my ways that he would direct my footsteps, and I know that he does that and hindsight is 20-20, you can look back and say "Wow, God's ways are perfect!"

Photo: Hosoi Skates

Have you ever had to change course, and if so, do you feel it was the vision changing course or you needing redirection?

There's definitely been moments where I can say ok, I missed it, and there's been seasons where God had me doing something in a particular way. For years I was primarily an evangelist. There was a point where I had this big huge 2000 seat tent on a Peterbuilt tractor trailer, and I went to inner cities of America and I put it up in the worst neighborhoods and sometimes I'd be there for a week, two weeks.

Wow, how long did you do that?

I did that for several years, and there was a season I know that I know, that God had me do that, he gave me a vision, he supernaturally provided all of that stuff. But then when it came time for that season to end, the doors to do that began to gradually close and the doors to go to the next phase of ministry which was preaching more in churches and doing these large youth events and things like that began to consume all of my time where I really wasn't having that many opportunities to take the tent into the inner cities and eventually it was obvious. "Ok I got all of this stuff, this tent, this tractor trailer and I'm not using it anymore because I'm consumed and totally busy over here" so I sold it all.

Then when God began to put it in my heart about moving back here to Southern California to start a church, at first I didn't know it was to start a church, at first I thought God just wants me to just move there so that I can increase in terms of influence on the West Coast. But the closer it got time to move here, God required us to take a step of faith. I sold my house, no promise of anything, and to make a long story short, me and my family came here to Southern California, we started a church in a community center and really, we took a step of faith you know, when we drove across the desert, we were leaving one life to go and start another one, and there was really no promise other than what we had in our hearts and spirits from God.

A lot of people said "Well you're crazy dude, you're well established, you're successful, you've got a great house, you've got a wonderful family [because of the level of success you have in ministry, there comes a certain element of security when it comes to things like finances and all that], you're walking away from all of it" to a lot of people that looked crazy. To the natural mind it was crazy. Coming to one of the most expensive places in the world to live, renting a house, just renting a normal house is 2-3,000 dollars a month.

How do you manage the business aspects of your projects like The Uprising, are you a natural businessman?

I don't consider myself a natural businessman, obviously doing what I do, there has to be an element of administrative involvement that I have to have, but what I try to do is to surround myself with a team that's strong where I'm weak, and even though I have an eye for detail, there's a lot of things that I'm not great at doing. I get frustrated, whereas somebody who is gifted in an area say administration, they can do something in a day that would take me a whole week, and they can enjoy doing it, where I wouldn't. But I pay attention to make sure those things get done. I just try to build an awesome team where we're all committed to one another, we're all on the same page, we understand we're all fighting for the same thing, we're headed in the same direction and we understand that we need each other to make it happen.

Speaking of teams, what’s it like having people like Christian Hosoi, Brian Sumner, Lance Mountain, Richard Mulder and Ray Barbee around you, that’s a pretty strong group of guys.

All those guys are awesome, all those guys are wonderful guys. They all are very unique and different in terms of their personalities and stuff, it's really cool.

What advice do you have for the entrepreneurial readers out there who want to start their own career or business or ministry?

One, you definitely gotta hear from God, and do your best to your ability to follow his leading and that can be a hard place to find sometimes where you don't get ahead of God, but you're not lagging behind where God wants you. I guess the one thing I would have to tell people would be nobody succeeds without failure.

I don't know how many attempts it took Thomas Edison to figure out the light bulb but it was crazy. Colonel Sanders, he had his special recipe and it was hundreds, and hundreds of times and he got rejected, he went from person to person, "I got this special recipe for chicken", they said "nobody wants to buy your chicken" but finally he landed on one person that said "we'll give it a shot" and the rest is Kentucky Fried History!

It's like the drive thru window, it was one guy in lower management at a McDonalds years ago, he went to upper level management and said "I believe that if we put a hole in the building and put a window in it and start selling food out of it people will be stoked on that". Upper level management said "Americans don't want to eat in their car they want to come in and sit down", but the guy was persistent he wouldn't let up and finally just to get the guy off of their back they said "ok we'll give you one restaurant to try it in" so they put a window in there and 80 something percent of all business that is done in McDonalds is done thru the drive thru window. It was all because of one guy's persistence and he didn't take no for an answer.

What’s on the horizon for Jay Haizlip, any new projects coming up?

Well our goal here at the church, we've got more vision than we could ever accomplish in our lifetime, but short-term goals, we're buying the property were we're at here, we're building a building and gutting the building out we have here and enlarging it. We're positioning ourselves to begin to plant churches somewhere here in the near future. We're gonna be planting churches in the major cities of the world, we were recently in London, scouting it out, we had our feet on the ground praying "God what is your plan, your future, your purpose for us here in London" and I know God spoke to us about London. We're gonna plant a church in Berlin, we're going to plant a church in New York City. That's kinda the next phase we're gonna go to within the next few years to come.

Related

• The Sanctuary HB
• The Uprising Is Here
• The Uprising on Steelroots