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All the latest from In10macy and more
The
PHILOSOPHY of In10macy
IN10MACY IS A LUXURY STORYTELLING PLATFORM.
BUILT FOR MEN WHO THINK DEEPLY — AND WOMEN WHO NEVER SHRINK.
We craft stories that feel like truth,
read like cinema,
and stay with you like memory.
This is where elegance meets edge.
Where modern masculinity meets soul.
Where women expand, not shrink.
Where healing and high standards walk hand in hand.
WHO IT’S FOR:
The emotionally intelligent.
The spiritually rich.
The ones who crave beauty with depth —
and words that mean something.
"SOME STORIES DON’T ASK FOR SPACE —THEY TAKE IT."
This is your Hood Author, Mr.10
"They say I speak too hard... but the truth don’t come soft, not when eternity’s on the line."
I wasn’t always this version of me.
Born in Kinshasa. Raised in Dublin. Raised in the church, too — not the Spirit-led one at first, nah... more like culture clothed as holiness. Church aunties with high heels and higher expectations. Suits tighter than the doctrine. I learned how to clap on beat before I learned what grace even meant.
But see, culture taught me silence. Conviction taught me sound.
I thought the Gospel was about behaviour. About performance. But God... God disrupted all that. He didn’t ask me to mimic tradition. He asked me to die to self.
Still — I wrestle. Heavy.
Because they call me “Youth Pastor” — but some days I don’t even feel like I speak the youth’s language. I quote scripture — they scroll TikToks. I talk salvation — they talk situationships. I say “wait on the Lord” — they say “wait for what?”
Sometimes I wonder: is it me? Or is it that their hearts ain’t ready?
And sometimes — sometimes — I hear God whisper:
“Ezra... don’t water down the fire. Just learn to warm, not burn.”
But that ain’t easy.
Because people — people are loud with their needs, but silent with their gratitude. They want help but dodge healing. They want light but hate the mirror that exposes what’s in the dark.
I don’t condemn. But conviction feels like condemnation when your wounds ain’t healed yet.
Still — I show up.
Three sermons this week. Worship night on Friday. Counseling two teens who say they don’t believe, but show up every Sunday — same hoodie, same hurt.
They call me “Pastor,” but I feel more like a translator.
Trying to put Kingdom in a language they ain’t ready for.
But I’ll keep translating.
Because God didn’t call me to be liked — He called me to be used.
And if one soul — just one — gets it?
If one boy like me figures out that church ain’t a cage but a covering?
If one girl stops shrinking her worth because God finally got to her through my story?
Then it’s worth it.
All of it.
It’s funny — when I think about the start of my story, I don’t picture a pulpit.
I picture a table.
Me.
A scratched-up CD player.
And the GAEL concert on repeat.
Kinshasa, Congo, was my birthplace — but Dublin?
That’s where God planted me.
I grew up in an African church in Ireland — where Sunday meant pressed suits, hats big enough to block the sun, and a “Hallelujah” you could feel in your chest.
It was culturally rich, but spiritually…
It was a script.
Everyone knew their lines.
You didn’t question the stage directions.
Back then, my relationship with God wasn’t a relationship at all — it was a schedule.
We sang the songs. We read the verses. We went home.
But when no one was watching?
I’d pretend to play the piano. Fingers moving in the air. Imagining I was part of something bigger than the small church stage.
Maybe I didn’t know it then, but music was God’s first way of speaking to me.
Before the sermons. Before the ministry.
And yet — even with the African roots, Irish upbringing, and a home full of faith — I wasn’t thinking about being a youth pastor.
I wasn’t thinking about being a leader.
I was just a boy in the back row, playing an invisible piano, wondering if God ever really saw me.
I didn’t become a youth pastor because I dreamed of it.
I became one because God kept showing up in places I didn’t expect Him to.
Like in the keys of a worship song…
Or in the rhythm of a bongo.
Music was my first ministry — long before I knew the word “ministry.”
I remember sitting in the corner during choir practice, just watching.
Everyone thought I was quiet.
But I wasn’t quiet — I was studying.
Learning the language of worship before I even learned how to speak faith without the accent of tradition.
In the African church, music wasn’t just background noise — it was proof of life.
It was where people forgot their problems for a while.
Where their hands lifted before their hearts even caught up.
God gave me that passion for a reason.
I didn’t know it yet, but the way I felt about music — the joy, the discipline, the way it connected people without them having to speak — was the same way He was going to use me to connect to young people.
The problem?
The youth in Ireland today weren’t growing up in the same church culture I did.
They didn’t care about choirs.
They didn’t care about the hats, the suits, or the order of service.
They cared about truth — raw, unfiltered, and in their language.
And that was my first real challenge:
God gave me a voice…
But I didn’t yet know how to make it sound like home to them.
There’s a fine line between speaking truth and sounding like judgment.
And I didn’t always know how to walk it.
I’d stand in front of the youth on a Friday night, Bible in hand, fire in my voice.
The same tone that moved grown men in my African church…
Froze teenagers in their seats in Dublin.
I could see it in their eyes — they thought I was here to call them out, not call them in.
Some would look away, pull their hoodies tighter.
Others would scroll through their phones like I wasn’t even in the room.
What they didn’t know was…
I wasn’t angry.
I was desperate.
Desperate for them to see what I had seen — that life with Christ is not just about rules and routines.
That it’s about relationship.
That God’s love is the only thing deep enough to reach the places no one else dares to go.
But here’s the hard truth:
I hadn’t lived what they’d lived.
I didn’t grow up dodging postcode beefs, watching friends disappear to prison or worse.
I couldn’t match their stories — only listen to them.
And sometimes, that made me feel unqualified.
The Holy Spirit kept telling me: “Ezra, speak their language without losing Mine.”
But finding that balance?
That was the battle.
And the battle wasn’t just with them.
It was with myself —
Learning that sometimes, you win souls not by preaching louder…
But by sitting in the silence long enough for someone else to speak.
It wasn’t a sermon.
It wasn’t even inside a church.
It was a Tuesday evening, just before the rain hit, and I was locking up after a midweek rehearsal.
One of the boys from youth — hoodie up, AirPods in, face half-hidden — was leaning against the wall outside.
“Yo, Pastor… you ever get tired?”
Not the physically tired.
The tired that makes your bones heavy.
The tired where you start wondering if God’s even listening.
I froze.
Because that was my question.
That was the one I’d never said out loud.
We stood there for a moment.
No Bible in my hand. No notes in my pocket.
Just me, him, and the wind pushing the rain closer.
“I do,” I said. “A lot more than you think. But tired doesn’t mean done.”
He smirked like he didn’t fully buy it, but didn’t walk away.
So I told him about the time I almost quit ministry.
About the years I spent in church culture without knowing Christ personally.
About the night I finally prayed like I had nothing to prove — and everything to lose.
I didn’t sugarcoat it. I didn’t wrap it up in verses.
I just told him the truth, the way I wished someone had told me.
And for the first time, I saw him actually listening.
Not because I spoke his slang — but because I spoke his struggle.
That night I realised…
Sometimes the door to a young person’s heart isn’t kicked open with conviction.
It’s unlocked with vulnerability.
Sunday came.
Same youth group. Same faces — half-interested, half on their phones.
But this time, I didn’t start with “open your Bibles.”
I started with, “Let me tell you about the week I almost walked away from all of this.”
Heads lifted.
Not because I was loud. But because I was real.
I told them how I was raised in church culture but never actually knew Christ until I met Him for myself.
How I’d been preaching rules I didn’t yet understand, to kids I didn’t yet know.
And how God showed me that His language isn’t just in Scripture — it’s in the stories we live out loud.
One by one, the phones went face-down.
Not because I asked.
Because they didn’t want to miss what was next.
I saw the ones who never made eye contact looking right at me.
I saw the ones I thought were too far gone actually nodding.
And in that moment, I realised…
I wasn’t speaking at them anymore.
I was speaking with them.
When it ended, nobody rushed for the door.
They lingered. Asked questions. Shared things I never thought I’d hear.
I left the building that day knowing the role hadn’t changed — but I had.
The youth pastor they met last month preached at their walls.
The one they saw today sat down beside them and handed them the keys.
Sometimes the greatest sermon you’ll ever give isn’t from the pulpit.
It’s in the conversation that convinces them they’re worth having one in the first place.
You can’t reach hearts by raising your voice — you reach them by lowering the distance. Leadership isn’t about authority; it’s about access.
The Purpose Movement (Ireland) — An Irish initiative empowering young voices, creating spaces where youth feel heard, seen, and equipped to lead.
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Born on the first year of the greatest century to ever exist, its only makes sense that a name like mine was a part of the equation. But even a ni**a like me got no blueprint. With mortals like 2Pac, Hugh Hef’, and the Great Gatsby breathing, the youth in me figured out the game. After all, real recognizes real. But what did ‘real’ mean to a ten-year-old me?
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