Fail Forward: Belonging, Risk, and Rural Revival with Kevin Riley

What happens when a church stops asking how to survive and starts asking how to serve? In this episode, Sean and Frances sit down with Commissioned Pastor Kevin Riley of Mount Baker Presbyterian Church in Concrete, Washington. Kevin shares his remarkable journey from addiction, homelessness, and incarceration to pastoral leadership, reflecting on the mentors, congregations, and moments of grace that shaped his call to ministry. The conversation explores how a small rural congregation embraced risk, innovation, and community partnership to become a catalyst for transformation. Kevin tells the story of how Mount Baker Presbyterian moved beyond survival mode during the pandemic, investing its resources into the community through food distribution, homelessness initiatives, addiction recovery services, and partnerships that brought life-changing resources to a region often overlooked. Along the way, they discuss leadership, belonging, fundraising, failure, and why churches must be willing to think beyond traditional models of ministry. Kevin offers a compelling vision of a church that measures success not by attendance alone, but by lives changed, communities healed, and people discovering that they truly belong. At its heart, this is a conversation about courage—the courage to fail, to innovate, to trust God's abundance, and to follow the Spirit into places where the church can become exactly what its community needs.