All Mom Does Podcast with Julie Lyles Carr · Purposely

What's in a Name with Hosanna Wong

September 24, 2025·36 min·2 clips

Hosanna Wong wrote 'I Have a New Name' in 2016 during a personal identity crisis, realized she could recite what her teacher and family said about her but couldn't name a single thing God said about her.

1. All Mom Does Podcast host Julie Lyles Carr interviews Hosanna Wong, teaching pastor at East Lake Church in San Diego and spoken word poet, about her children's book 'What God Says About You.' 2. Hosanna Wong is a California-based minister and author who has traveled to speak about faith for 16 years, spending four and a half of those years living out of a 1996 red Toyota Corolla and staying with church families across the country. 3. The episode's core question is how to help children — and adults — know who they are based on what God calls them before they spend decades healing from names they were never meant to answer to. 4. Wong describes a hospitality-shaped faith formation: families across denominations and cultures hosted her for weeks during her travel years, which she says healed her ideas about God and the church more than any program or sermon. 5. Carr and Wong discuss the value of 'professional aunties and uncles' — chosen family relationships across generational lines — and both credit that model with shaping their ministries. 6. Wong wrote 'I Have a New Name' in 2016 after a personal identity crisis where, despite being married, having a relationship with God, and speaking about faith weekly, she spiraled under enough people's opinions until she could no longer distinguish true from false. 7. She describes realizing she could recite what a high school teacher, a family member, and strangers online said about her but could not substantively answer what God says about her — she would have 'rolled her eyes' at the question. 8. The poem is over 80% scripture, with the remaining text organizing nine names God calls believers into a spoken word structure Wong recited to herself as a daily declaration. 9. In 2023 the poem went viral through no deliberate marketing effort when children began memorizing it and posting their own performances on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, performing it at their churches and youth groups. 10. Wong was convicted that she had never intended the poem for children, and inspired by the viral videos, she wrote 'What God Says About You' so children could receive the names God calls them before they need them for adult healing. 11. The nine names in the book include 'Greatly Loved' (Romans 5:8) and 'Child of God'; Wong reads both passages in full during the episode, both written in poetic prose for children. 12. The 'Greatly Loved' passage emphasizes that God knows the reader best and loves them the most — and that being seen includes being seen in moments of falling short, not only in striving. 13. Carr shares that her name Julie was repeatedly confused with Lisa throughout her life, which made her acutely aware of the weight of naming — she gave most of her eight children four names each so they could choose variations. 14. Wong discloses that she grew up in a mixed-race blended family in San Francisco with a full brother, a half-sister, and multiple half-brothers across different parent relationships, and never knew how to answer the question 'what's your birth order.' 15. She describes collecting identity-diminishing labels as a child — being mixed-race between cultures, having less money than classmates — each one reinforcing a sense of being different and less than, with the belief that some families were simply more of God's favorites. 16. Wong argues that personality tests, birth-order theories, and cultural labels are useful tools but become spiritually harmful when people hinge their identity on them, especially when those roles change or are lost. 17. She says God does not require conformity to a particular family structure, personality type, or morning-devotional style to have a relationship with him — he made each person uniquely and calls them by names that fit that exact life. 18. Carr frames Wong's work as establishing a family crest: the God-given names function as the surname that provides underlying identity while individual roles (parent, professional, friend) are distinguishing first names that change over time. 19. Christian parents looking for a theologically grounded children's book that addresses identity and self-worth, and adults who are working through the gap between external labels and their sense of who God calls them, would find this episode most relevant. 20. Listeners seeking theological depth or structural church teaching rather than personal narrative and pastoral encouragement would find the episode more devotional and memoir-adjacent than doctrinal.

As heard by us

A reflective discussion of names, identity, and the voice of God.

The episode stays with names and identity. The host asks where people got their names, why those names were chosen, and what they mean. Hosanna Wong returns as a spoken word poet and author, and the discussion centers on memorizing the names God called her, writing them down,…

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Press play for a thoughtful conversation about names, identity, faith, and the words that shape you.

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