How An Empty Room Shaped Noah Fiegener's Definition of Success
Description
Noah is a pastor, husband, father, and thoughtful friend who spends his mornings making espresso and being present with his daughter before the busyness of the day begins. We begin with a quote from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin about trusting the slow work of God, then discuss how deep thinking comes from reading the ancients, why Jesuits produce such contemplative writers, and Noah's love for early church fathers like Justin Martyr and C.S. Lewis. Noah shares his conviction that character development is the slowest work—looking back and realizing he wasn't nearly as mature as he thought—and opens up about a pivotal youth ministry season when everything seemed to be failing until one girl encountered God in a nearly empty room, teaching him that focusing only on outcomes makes you miss the beauty of the moment. We discuss the humility required to listen to those who've gone before us, why we don't grow alone, how reading ancient writers reveals we're rarely as novel as we think, and Noah's wrestling with atonement theories and the anxiety of wondering where the world is going as a father. I hope this conversation challenges you to trust the slow work of God in your character, read broadly and humbly from those who've come before, and remember that your small daily actions matter even when the problems feel too big to solve.
Lessons from Noah
Social pressure can be a tool for productivity. (4:40) When asked if social pressure motivates him, Noah responds immediately: “Thousand percent.” He loves coffee shops but has discovered libraries are the most underrated places—free, quiet, and full of social accountability. The presence of others working keeps him from falling into YouTube rabbit holes. Sometimes the constraint of knowing someone might see your screen is exactly what you need to stay focused. Productivity isn’t always about willpower—sometimes it’s about engineering the right environment.
Character development is the slowest work you’ll ever do. (19:03) Noah reflects on what he thought would be faster in life: “I think the slowest thing that’s taken a lot of work that I thought would be faster is my character.” At every stage—teenage years, young adult, mid-twenties, now approaching thirties—he thought he was farther along than he really was. “I underestimated the amount of work in discipline and honestly partnership with the Spirit of God to move me into a person replicating the kingdom of God.” Looking back, he sees he wasn’t nearly as patient, loving, or kind as he thought. Character is built slowly, and you only realize how much work remains with time.
Busyness is the Americanized metric for success—and it’s backwards. (20:54) Noah critiques the cultural reflex: when you ask someone how they’re doing, the answer is “busy.” Being busy has become a status symbol in Orange County—if you’re busy, you must be doing well. But the actual ideal? “Not doing anything. It’s like chilling and having so much money that you can just do whatever you want.” Both extremes are wrong. Somewhere between hustle culture and idle wealth is the real answer—work as gift, not curse or identity. The Genesis story shows Adam and Eve given work to tend the garden before the fall. Work isn’t evil, and it’s not everything. It’s something God designed us for.
Work your youth away, and your character won’t change on a dime. (23:22) Noah observes the modern trap: “I will work and it will be my identity. And it will be my everything. And then after I work my youth away, make enough money, and then in my old age, somehow my character is going to change on a dime.” He points to multi-billionaires who never retire despite having more money and power than they could ever want. There’s an illusion there—of success, of satisfaction. If you build your life around work now, retirement won’t magically fix you. The person you’re becoming in the grind is the person you’ll be at the end. Character doesn’t reset.
The days are long, the years are short—and parenting is a practice in patience. (25:45) Every parent knows the saying, but Noah unpacks what it actually means: “Parenting is a tension of patience in multiple ways. It’s the patience of being with your child as they’re throwing a tantrum while also being patient and knowing that you’re present with a child while having to do a hundred other things.” You can’t just drag your kids through life like luggage. They’re more like a garden—stationary, needing tending, requiring you to slow down and put down roots. People who moved around constantly as kids rarely speak of it positively. Deep-rooted, long-term stability matters for children.
When everything seems to be failing, you might be missing what God is actually doing. (36:47) Six to eight months into rebuilding a post-COVID youth ministry, Noah and his team were doing everything right—but the numbers kept shrinking. His coordinator said, “We’re doing everything right and it just seems to not be working.” That same week, the ministry was the smallest it had ever been. But that night, a girl and her dad showed up late, encountered God, and she found the friend she’d been praying for. Noah learned: “If I was only focused on the end, I would have missed that.” The 170 kids who eventually came took two years of grinding, gardening, and trusting God does the growth. But the real fruit was in the small, seemingly insignificant moments along the way.
You don’t grow alone—there’s no such thing as spiritual formation in isolation. (41:17) Youth ministry taught Noah a fundamental truth: “We do not grow alone. There’s no such thing as growing alone.” As a youth pastor, you realize you’re limited—you need leaders who take time out of their lives to pour into the next generation. Formation happens in community. The African proverb holds: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Noah rejects the myth of the self-made man. Somewhere along the way, someone helped you—whether it was someone cleaning bathrooms so you could focus elsewhere or a business partner investing alongside you. Both had equal benefit. Formation is done together.
Reading the ancients reveals you’re rarely as novel as you think. (51:26) Noah’s love for Jesus has made him curious about the church across thousands of years. What he’s found: “There’s very rarely something new under the sun that I’m thinking about, and that I’m not novel.” When he reads ancient writers, they critique him—and they’re dead, which makes it both hard and lovely. Americans think they’re progressive, pushing the timeline forward. But when you read history, you realize: “There are things that they did do wrong and have done wrong, and there are things that we are doing wrong currently, and things that they were actually more enlightened in than we are today.” Humility comes from reading people and realizing you’re not the smartest person who’s ever existed.
Humility means listening to those who’ve gone somewhere you haven’t. (31:11) Noah describes his current season: “I’m having to humble myself and learn humility well, and listen to those who have gone before me and to trust that they may actually have gone somewhere that I haven’t gone yet.” There’s something in him that doesn’t always want to listen to someone older—that’s pride. The work is stopping, considering, and taking correction or guidance from an older person who says, “Hey, I’ve been here a little bit longer than you. Press the brakes in your early career.” Not passive, always pouring back in—but humble enough to receive wisdom from those ahead on the path.
Children teach you humility—they have nothing to offer but dependence. (34:01) In Jesus’ time, children weren’t elevated like today—they were looked down on because they couldn’t offer society anything. But Jesus says we must come to Him like children. Noah sees it in his daughter: “She’ll stop and she’ll look at something and she’s like amused by it and she’s enjoying it and she’ll like so present.” The humility is stopping with her, sitting in the grass, not rushing her along. “There’s a humility to stop with her and just to sit in the grass and like yeah this is good.” Children model total dependence, openness, presence—exactly what Jesus calls us to.
The hard question: where is the world going as a dad? (56:50) Noah wrestles with an existential anxiety that’s intensified since becoming a father: “Where is the world going?” It’s a question that gives him anxiety, burning in the background all the time. He doesn’t have an answer to the future except this: “Jesus will return and Jesus will be victorious and all the things that I’m worrying about right now there will be a coming age of the kingdom of God.” How much control does he have over big tech, governments, wars—or even his own life? He has to run to Jesus multiple times a week, sometimes multiple times a night lying in bed. The only anchor is trusting the one who holds the future.
* You’re not apathetic just because you can’t change everything. (1:00:39) Matt shares his struggle with indifference in the face of massive problems—if he can’t solve world-scale issues, why try? Noah pushes back: “You do have an ability to make change through your individual life.” There’s a desire in our culture—fueled by social media and overwhelming information—to become apathetic. “I can’t change, so why even try.” But there’s something deeply Christian about saying: “The kingdom of heaven is now. So I should take action. I should be moving as a father, as a brother, as a sister, as somebody in this world who needs to bring righteousness and justice into the world.” Even small individual action matters. Apathy isn’t faithfulness.
* Your small daily decisions shape where the world is going. (1:00:13) Matt connects the big question to the small one: “It’s all related to the same—where is the world going? Oh, it is going in the direction of the decisions that I make today about my family.” When he pulls the scope out, he realizes: if he wants to see change in the world, it starts with being the example of that change. We learn by the habits of people around us. If you want your kids to embody something, you have to live it. The Holy Spirit does the work, but your daily choices create the soil where growth happens. The world’s trajectory is shaped by millions of small, faithful decisions.
* Suffering can produce great beauty—but that doesn’t make the suffering good. (1:04:31) Noah reflects on Dietrich Bonhoeffer—would we have his books without the Nazis? It’s a hard question. History shows that sometimes suffering produces something profound. “Not to say by the way the genocide is good suffering—like no, evil, wrong—but in the midst of a great tragedy something can be made.” He’s careful to hold the tension: suffering isn’t good, but God can bring beauty out of it. “I have found and history tells that sometimes suffering produces a great thing and the benefit on the other end of it is beautiful.” The pruning is painful, but it produces fruit you wouldn’t have otherwise.
* His wedding day taught him to enjoy fleeting moments. (1:08:49) When asked about a top-of-the-world moment, Noah chooses his wedding day. What it taught him: “Enjoy the moment. Enjoy every moment of it because I would hear all the time it’s fleeting.” Now, years into marriage, he looks back at pictures trying to remember what it felt like. The sweetness of that day is gone in one sense—but the lesson remains. Pay attention. Be present. The moment won’t come back. And for the valley moments? “It will pass. You just have to walk through it. And probably will be painful, but it will pass.”
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