Rafael "Macho" Lara grew up a pastor's kid in a family where faith and music were the same thing. He was leading worship before he was a teenager. That early formation never left him. But it also never stayed simple.

He has spent the years since learning what it means to actually live what he grew up believing. He studied pastoral ministry, Christian studies, and church development. He has preached, taught, planted, and started over.

He has sat with people in their hardest moments and asked hard questions of his own. Living with MS has a way of making those questions feel less theoretical. That tension between certainty and doubt, between calling and cost, shapes everything he writes.

For the past several years, he has served as a technology instructor with Year Up United, a nonprofit working to close the opportunity gap for young adults. At the same time, he and his wife Erica planted The Table NYC in Sunnyside, Queens, where they live with their kids, Eliana and Elias.

His writing lives at the intersection of theology and real life. His first book, Those Who Wait, explores six biblical stories of waiting for anyone caught between God's promises and their present reality. His Table Guides series is a collection of short practical guides on what it actually takes to belong to one another in real community.

He writes, teaches, and pastors because he believes the way of Jesus is worth making believable again in the real world.