EP352 - Jeff & Pastor D talk Digital Church Planting, Mental Health, Coaching

All right, hey, we got episode 352, 352 of the Church Digital Podcast. Jeff here. I'm excited about today's guest. To be honest, I probably waited 351 episodes too many to bring her on. And so we'll get on with her here in a little bit. But before we get... to the the i i don't know i gotta figure out the right adjective to use for pastor d but before we get to pastor d let me dive into uh a couple announcements i feel like there needs to be something the ever personality filled the ever i i literally like i'm bad at wordsmithing right now and so i'm struggling to come up with this but pastor d is going to be an awesome guest on the show here right around the corner. But before we get there, hey, there's a small little thing called the Digital Missionary Conference coming up. The website has been updated with the schedules for the four summits, the one, two, three, four summits we have coming up this September and October. The team over at Word Revolution, Barbara Carnero, has been doing an awesome time diving in on the last-minute details and getting things set. But if you're curious who's speaking and what time they're speaking, it's over on the website right now, www.missionarydigital.com. September 17th, Wednesday, is going to be our Digital Neighborhoods Conference dealing with a lot of the culture that's surrounding platforms and what evangelism and discipleship, even church planting, digital church planting, looks like on these platforms. September 24th is a Christ-centered Recovery Conference. October 1st is featuring a lot of our European friends. and a lot of what they're learning in context of digital missionary work today and then october 8th is going to be solely focused on gaming streaming and that kind of cloud crowd area i started to say i have no idea what i started to say that was weird so anyway all that's coming up all four conferences all four of them are free More information on www.missionary.digital. Before then, coming up in two weeks, we've got our town hall. We do these probably once a quarter. And I got to tell you, I'm really excited about some of the things that are rolling out here with town hall. Like you think that the missionary conference is big. Some of the things that we're gonna be announcing at Town Hall will have just as big of an impact, I believe, on many of you out there. And by the way, you come to the Town Hall, you hear the announcement, you go home with a gift. That is my promise to you. You come to the Town Hall, you go home with a gift. What are you talking about? I don't know, we'll figure it out between now and then. No, but seriously, we're gonna be rolling out something big that could have an impact on all of you, and we, the Church Digital, will be giving you a gift today. at the Town Hall and beyond. So check out the Town Hall meeting. It'll be two weeks from today. What is today, the 12th? So that'll make it the 26th, if I'm good at math. And so Tuesday, the 26th, 1 p.m. Eastern. More information coming in the days to come here. at The Church Digital. Well, in this season, we've been talking about empowering tools and equipping partners. And in many ways, Pastor D really exudes both of those as someone who is not only a practitioner in doing ministry, but also out there coaching and resourcing and helping as many people as possible understand how to be effective in ministry today. I got to tell you, I'm excited to bring Pastor D for the first time ever, episode 352 on the stream. And so, Pastor D, thanks for coming on.

I'm equally as thrilled to be here after all of these years. Thank you for having me.

Not everybody can say this in context of years like you can, because Pastor D, your church that you planted, House of His Glory, digital-only church, or a mixed hybrid, but mostly digital, is coming up on its 12-year anniversary. Yeah.

The whole congregation, the whole church is coming up on the 12th year anniversary, the first weekend in September. But I started out a traditional church. We were doing pop-up church for about a year and a half into it before circumstances had me desperately go all digital if I wanted to hang on to my new members. So yeah, it's been probably 10 and a half years now that we've been absolutely completely all digital.

So Pastor D was one of the first people I connected with when I was at Stadia. I maybe want to call that 2020.

No, even before that.

Was it before that? Okay.

Yeah, it feels like you had pretty much just started.

That would have been 2018, the Church Digital, yeah.

The podcasts were like in their single or just new brand new little digits. Yeah, it just got started.

and and for the life of me it was funny like as i was talking to pastor d off air it's like hey so this is the first time you've done this right like she has been had been a guest like i went by guest she's been like in the chat room talking up storms with with people i can think of several shows that i was like you should have just come on the amount that you're engaging from the chat room and so it's it's it's a pleasure to have her on today by the way Speaking of the chat room, we've got some friends here. Mr. Pete is of course watching and VR doing some things and big screen as well. Mr. Pete, always glad to see you and even Billy Bob too. It's good to see Billy Bob as well. Ian Kirk is welcoming by saying, howdy all. Steve Reed, my brother from another mother. Nice to see you here, Pastor D. uh dave dave it's good to see you my friend i haven't seen dave in a while dave is is saying uh saying hey as well uh and so mr pete mr pete's getting a little jealous i think we're talking about somebody else uh mr pete's saying i've been here in vr for for for seven years and so um yeah missed mr pete is uh is quite the personality and so uh love that i did um I think somebody created a meme of me and the puppet Billy Bob, where Mr. Pete brought this puppet out for Billy Bob. And I was not ready to be doing a stream talking to a puppet. Not knocking the puppet. But no one had prepared me that by doing a stream, when I woke up that morning, I'd be talking to a puppet. And I just wasn't ready for it. So very cool. Mr. Pete, it is always a pleasure. Oh, and Yotope, log in in from Nigeria. Excited about that. He's got some really big things with equipping digital missionaries happening in Nigeria. Well, in surrounding areas there in sub-Saharan Africa. And so we're excited. We're praying for some of the work that Yotope's doing over there. let's get back by the way if you got questions as we're going into this chat feel free to throw them in and chat we'll we'll engage and ask here with pastor d uh but let's let's get into it so pastor d um you know let's open up since this is your first time here on the stream tell us a little bit about yourself what what's your story how'd you end up launching a a church like house of his glory

Yeah, you know, I was on staff at a non-denominational ministry. It was an international ministry. There was, I guess, seven churches, some in Kenya, Philippines, and several in the Pasadena area. Minister on staff, and I was teaching at their Bible college. I'd been there for six, seven, eight years. and really thought that was it until God did me like Abraham and was like, go, I'm calling you to pastor. And literally like when I got my master's, he told me to go and I left and that pastor said goodbye. And I was like, without a church home, without a license to do ministry, And feeling like I had no identity. And God used that season to just strip off, honestly, the layers. I call them the layers of traditionalism. Layers of what was commonly expected for you to do as a pastor. And led me to a wonderful bishop who just gave me the freedom to discover who I am and to... put whatever ministry God led me to together. And so as we began, like I said, we started out pop-up church doing it standard. Um, when that very same Bishop told me that he and his wife and their four-year-old son were now expecting triplets and he wanted me to come to Sacramento, 300 miles away from where I am to help pastor his church. It was on sabbatical. So in those six months, I was like, how do I keep my brand new congregation and minister to them and continue this thing that God has only just recently pastored me, called me to pastor. And so, yeah, that's how I just started duct taping stuff together and figuring stuff out. I mean, there was no Facebook live. I don't know if it had even been invented, but it certainly wasn't released. And the only digital technology I knew was sermons.net. And I found the church app. And between those two platforms, I figured it out. And we made the houseofhisglory.com our church sanctuary. And started building it from there. Yeah.

Wow. And so that was 2015, roughly, when you got that started?

Yes. It was 2013 when the church launched its first service in 2015. Easter service was the first digital message, I called it at the time. And I think, because I keep them numbered, I think we're somewhere at 400 and...

70 or 80 somewhere yeah around there now help me because when you were distanced helping you know your pastor friend who was on sabbatical and filling in for him for 6 months so you had to be digital but you know life eventually resets and so you still like how much are you physical today how much are you digital what is that balance today for you

Right. The intention had been to do a hybrid church. You know, the statistics are like, oh, 25 percent of your congregation are active and are your leadership. And so I thought, OK, well, let's have that 25 percent in-house and the leadership in-house will serve the digital congregation. So I expanded to a nice little. sanctuary that seats about five excuse me five it seats about 35 people it's got a worship section and a separate office and i had the intention if you build it they will come right so i got it all situated and built out and february the end of february i opened the sanctuary the new sanctuary to movie night and the intention was to start services that um that following march that easter with full services and that was 2020 and covet hit us in march before easter And so we never fully opened up the sanctuary. My people are so spoiled. They come when I feed them for Easter brunch. And so I am still working out of this beautifully set up sanctuary. And so it is still fully, completely digital. Yeah, it is not segued into that dream of a beautiful hybrid congregation. They're happy in the setup it is.

Well, and as somebody who's kind of felt the balance of wanting to be physical but not able to, like, now that you've been doing this, you know, one, two, 12 years, are you starting to see, like, what is the thing that you can do as with a digital congregation? that you can't do physically? As you're assessing this, what are the strengths and weaknesses, maybe the pros and cons between both methods?

Right, right. You know, I think definitely digitally is more intimate for sure. But what I really find is that you're not distracted by the culture of the congregation. You're not distracted by, I need daycare for my kids and that's your primary guiding force. youth group is what determines what church you're going to go to where you dig in and you're getting the word. And not only are you getting the word, but you're, you're learning how to apply the word and live the word in the structure of my congregation and what I teach. I call it a fueling station. We come into those digital services to learn how to be and how to do what God has called us to do so that the rest of the week we are living off of that fuel and being who God has created us to be, living off of that word without the distraction of church culture.

Yeah.

But then on the flip side, you can't drive up and, oh, I want to go to that church. On the flip side, the very things of that church culture that draw people in is what we're missing as well.

Yeah, I got to tell you, I was not expecting intimate to be the answer. Digital is more intimate than physical. I don't often hear that. I see it. But, you know, as a person who's had many conversations with physical-oriented pastors and physical ministry people, you know, they don't often see that or recognize that. And so it's intriguing to think of that intimacy level. Right. remote, long distance, um, but, and still being accessible. But I love the fact that you're seeing that in that your, your, your ministry is, um, is, is echoing that. And so, you know, you're, you're coming up on your, uh, I guess 12 year around there with, with the church. What, what is the next, what is the next three, five years? What does that look like for you?

For me and the church, yeah, this 12th year for the congregation, I'm really going to launch almost like a new church plant relaunch. We've done some rebranding. done some restructuring and um and i think i've got some new opportunities to really reach communities and reach those unchurched right where their needs are uh to draw them into um more of an idea of shifting from okay church online because covid really did shift um even the average Christian's perspective of church online and online church. And I know you've seen that too in your shift from focusing on the church into missionary work. And so it's going to be kind of an urban missionary drive. to reach people at their need to reach people who are unchurched who are church hurt with you're not necessarily coming into church because you are the church you're coming into relationship and this is a community where we explore relationship and where we learn how to not only have relationship with the Lord, but how to have relationship with one another and how that affects our relationship with every other way in which we deal with the world. So that's gonna be the shift in what I do for ministry. And then that leads into what I do. I'm a certified professional Christian life coach. And my focus for the last, oh, since, 2023 2022 since i got my phd is to focus on third john one and two beloved i wish above all things that you would prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers so let's prosper our souls you know like it just doesn't get more basic than that you know

That's beautiful. Yeah, let's get into a little bit of that. So what does, like you're a life coach. Your doctorate was in, what again remind me of that?

Yes, I do have a doctorate in, my master's is in theology. My doctorate is in Christian education.

Okay.

But the focus of my studies was the psychological,

and creative power of quantum faith and the word of god that's right quantum faith in in the word of god she she actually mailed her dissertation to my daughter my daughter is obsessed with all things quantum and so i got to give her my daughter a paper copy of of that that was that was remarkable My daughter read it, and she's like, I don't think I understand this all, but this is so cool. And so she was kind of thrilled by it. But I know there's some resources that you're working on, and you yourself are out there trying to help pastors and people better understand that. Oh, by the way, Ian is asking, I'll go ahead and ask, is the dissertation...

available and so um what if somebody wanted a dissertation a copy of the dissertation on quantum faith how do they get that right i know mr pete bought it and he read it too it's so amazing it is available on amazon um and you can find it under my name deidre campbell jones or under uh quantum faith the It's got an abbreviated title. I can remember the long title better than the abbreviated title.

That's funny. So Ian is great at Amazon. Ian, if you could do some digging and find that, that'd be great. Maybe post that link if you can find it here in chat. That's great. We'll include that link in the show notes moving forward as well. If people want access to that, I think it's awesome that it's on Amazon.

It is a hard read because it is the dissertation. Even though it's an abbreviated... you know, copy, it still is the dissertation. I've got easier reads on Amazon.

But let's talk a little bit, because I know you're doing some coaching and you launched out the Church Coach app. So let's talk a little bit about this. What's your heart? What was the thing that you were seeing as the reason to launch this app?

Right, right. And really what I was seeing is not only from my coaching experience, but from my own mental wellness journey as well. The hugely unfortunate thing is that one, when you go to see your pastor for pastoral counseling, more than likely they're going to throw scriptures at you, pray for you, and give you some sort of, I'm sorry, half-baked Christianese advice that doesn't reach your problem. It doesn't reach your need. And in my case, and in many times, it has made matters worse. Then when you seek secular care, even if you go to a Christian life coach, Pretty much you're getting the same secular care as you would for a non-Christian coach. It's just someone who's a Christian who shares your beliefs, who again will pray for you and maybe toss in some scripture to support their secular standards of coaching. And I went through those training of being a Christian life coach and they train you in those secular standards and encourage you to pray for your clients, and to use scripture whenever appropriate. And that's the extent of it. And so when I began coaching, even years ago, before I was pastoring, I always had a sense that the word of God can do more and is meant to do more in people's lives. And so I was always coaching from that standpoint. And I realized after I went through stuff, that I was like, I cried out to God and I was like, I need a coach who can coach like me. I need someone to coach me, you know, because the best surgeon in the world can't operate on themselves, right? So God said, well, then teach people how to coach like you. So then I developed my own coaching methodology into what I call the mindedness methodology. And that is teaching people how to coach through the mind of Christ and coaching people so that they can utilize the mind of Christ that they have been given. Use the word of God, the spirit of God and the gifts of God within you to listen, to like coach alongside with Holy Spirit because he knows that person way better than we do and more accurately than any questions we can ask. So we ask those questions and we let them answer and let God interpret that answer and fuel us with, okay, what's the response? How do we reach that? How do we reshift their thinking? And it's more teaching than the traditional listening and drawing out. We're using the word of God and the principles of God to teach them. So I teach coaches and pastors how to implement that kind of uh biblically based faith-based spirit-based coaching um so that more churches can meet the needs of their people there's just a huge gap the statistics show that um i think it's like 79 of pastors think that they are addressing the mental health needs of their congregation from behind the pulpit while only, I think it was like 9%, who went through some sort of mental health needs felt as though their pastors had addressed their needs. That's a huge gap.

Yeah, and there's lots of organizations that are trying to address the mental health at the church level. I know Barna's done a ton of work on that. Our friend Laura Howe over at the Church Mental Health Summit is doing a lot of work in that space. There are summits coming up. Oh my gosh, right around the corner, sometime in September, October, surrounding ours for life. I mean, I can't think of that date right now, but they're sponsoring us and we're sponsoring them and we're excited about the work that that's doing. But to be honest, I don't know. everybody's wanting to speak at it at the large scale. I don't know that many that are actually trying to help individuals develop some sort of a coaching process to go individually through that. So what led you to the micro view as opposed to what I'm guessing is the easier macro view? Why are you diving in specific with individual pastors on this?

Yeah, because especially as an African-American, you see people sitting in congregations that have this stigma, you know, well, I'm a Christian. I'm supposed to have it figured out. That are like, well, I'll be embarrassed if I go to my pastor, you know, that have such need. have an innate sense that okay i'm just going to come to church i'm going to pray more i'm going to read my scripture more they have a sense that god can help so um and having been in that congregation and felt that way and gone to my pastor and not receiving the help i thought let me get pastors a tool a resource that they can implement church-wide that will break down those barriers So that the methodology is embedded into an app that I've built so that they can select, you know, leadership. They can select team members that will go through the training right there on the app to learn how to be and to be certified as a mindedness coach there in the congregation. And they can either have their congregation go and request coaching. Or, and this is what breaks down the barriers, they can run, hey, we're going to do a wellness, a mental wellness check on all of our members and just tell them you can expect to come through the program. Just going to do a mental wellness check so that they reach out to people. that wouldn't necessarily reach out to them. That's the first. The second thing is to certify individual coaches who are, I mean, the life coaching industry is booming right now and it's being supported by psychologists and psychiatrists because they're finding that if you can do life coaching early, it acts as an intervention to avoid some of the very serious problems that might happen down the line if some of those things are not addressed. And so if we can get more coaches, Christian coaches, to be effective at the ground level, then I think the possibilities are huge. limitless, especially when we serve a limitless God.

It's beautiful. Do you have any stories or examples you'd be able to share of maybe some churches or some pastors that have implemented part or all of this process?

Yep. My favorite is I call a more traditional congregation a little bit older pastors, predominantly, not predominantly, all black congregation of mostly older members. And he came to me one day, I was so honored that he came to me and he was like, look, I don't know how to pray. For my people, they're getting older. There's so many people on the prayer list. um, the sick and shut in list. And he's like, I'm feeling helpless. I don't know how to help them. And he let me, um, sign him up as a prototype church and First and foremost, he said, just the information, how much it has helped him shift in his understanding of how to reach people and how to use the word of God to reach people. As a small congregation, he didn't necessarily implement the full program or even, you know, and just had really gone through the training to look at it and help me out. But here's the testimony. I was blessed. this previous Sunday to speak at their congregation. And I hadn't spoken at his congregation for a year since all of this. And Jeff, oh my gosh, just hearing him pray over the congregation and hearing like feedback from the people, I was just like, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's what I'm talking about. That's the change I wanna see this be able to do. Yes, that's it.

That's beautiful. Are most of the churches that use this African-American, is it wired necessarily to that culture?

No, you know, so far what it is, is the churches that I know that I've been able to reach out to... Are from that environment? Are from, yeah, from that environment. However, the individual coaches, they're all predominantly white.

Okay.

So, I don't know.

That's intriguing. You know, if the answer was yes, that's great. If the answer is no, that's great. I mean, either way, it's beautiful. But it's always intriguing to me how ideas cross different cultures. Let's just say it that way. Going from an African-American to a white to a Hispanic here in America. Yeah. And especially globally. Like, it's just fascinating to me how things explode at the global level. And so, yeah, this is intriguing. If somebody wanted to, like, do they have to buy the app? Is it a subscription? Like, how does getting the app, how does that work?

It's both. There is a course price to take the training. And the training happens right through the app. And it's built so that once you absolutely complete all the steps of the training, then it can, if you choose to, you have the option to unlock the coaching application of the app itself. And then that is a membership fee based on whether you're an individual coach or then different subscription prices based on not church size, because as a micro church, I can't stand it when they're like, how many members do you have? I just can't stand that question anymore. But it's based on how many individuals you think you might be bringing through the coaching process.

Gotcha.

And yeah, so that's the pricing structure, the monthly pricing structure for that. And thechurchapp.com.

Yeah. I was going to ask that as a follow-up question. Your tech stack here is the church app? It's Subsplash?

Oh, I always do that.

Thank you for clarifying. That's what I thought. I thought you dropped. So let's back up. If people want more information on your website, on your app, where are they going?

Churchcoachapp.com.

churchcoachapp.com. There you go. We'll get to the next question in a second. But for more information on the app itself and the coaching process, churchcoachapp.com. More information, check that out. And they can get in touch with you through the website as well. okay great now which brings me to the next question i was going to ask after we got out past that um just because we got a bunch of nerds and geeks that are watching this uh so tech stack what so you you built all this on the church app subsplash like is no oh i'm sorry now i'm slamming my sub splash people what did you use to build the app i built that app through glide a program called glide

And I like it because it's part WYSIWYG. I don't know if that's too old school.

It works, WYSIWYG. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you. I mean, this beard's gray. I understand. Some whippersnapper out there is probably saying, what, what? And I'm telling him to get off my lawn. Yeah.

So it's part user interface, part data driven. So you can switch between the screens and drop in components or build up components on the back end. So it's really a wonderful, wonderful platform for building out apps because the more you know, the more intricate you can get with your design and with your app capabilities.

Yeah. Interesting. And so you developed it entirely yourself.

Yes. I developed it entirely myself. I went through a training program to learn how to use Glide. And when I found out that my imagination went beyond my actual capabilities, then I got a Glide expert to help me. and she was phenomenal because i would say oh you know and i want this page to do this and she would say and don't you want it to also do this i was like as a matter of fact i do i didn't know i did but now that you said that yes yes i do

That's beautiful. And then she's like, well, that'll be an extra $6,000. No, I'm kidding.

She did it. I know. Wow, you got a good one. I did. I really did. Miss Megan, I want to promote her. She's amazing. So intuitive. Yes. Yeah.

Very cool. So how long has the app been a thing? Have you been working with it?

Yeah, you know, technically, it's been a thing for a year. I signed up, you know, my preliminary coaches and churches last year, last summer, actually. Yeah, and so it's now fully good to launch. There's all kinds of levels. There's a do-it-yourself level. And then, of course, there's the ultimate level where I will come and help facilitate transition and implementation and train staff on site. Yeah.

So do you, I'm going to shift gears on you for a second. Hopefully it's okay. Do you, I mean, you consider yourself bivocational by doing like this as, is this your primary mode of funding the church app or what does that look like for you?

No, it never had been. As I said, you know, when I was a minister on staff at this former ministry, they put me on their internal staff. counseling team, so to speak. And it was through one of the associate pastors who was bi-vocational that I went through a certification process and became a life coach so that again, I could better do the job that I was assigned to do through the ministry. And that was separate aside, like my vocation at the time was teaching at the Bible college. So to me, coaching was a part of ministry. And I became that Christian life coach just so I could do it better. And because I was not on the pastoral staff, but I couldn't like coach outside people. So I got the certification so I could coach people that were not a part of the ministry. So that part was always integral. Even in, you know, all the years of pastoring and coaching, if you'd said, you know, are you by vocation? No, I'm full-time ministry. I think I even said the same thing to you. And you were like, well, how does all of this fit in with the house of his glory? Yeah. And you being a pastor. And I was like, uh... Because it is.

It just does. That's beautiful. Listen, if you can have your cake and eat it, too, more power to you. You know, oftentimes in my world, there's just, you know, I've got to do things to pay the bills. And so that's a lot of the tension that I'm feeling. And I know a lot of the people around are. They're trying to figure out how to do the thing that pays for the thing. And so, anyway.

And this is the first... six months, six to eight months, because I kind of put my own individual coaching on hold so that I could build out the app and focus on that and focus on a series of online courses and coaching programs that are intended to just provide me a salary. But yeah, this last six to eight months, I was like, oh, it's time for me to pick up some more coaching clients because I need the money. Yeah. Yeah. It's time to go back to actual work. Oh, maybe I am bivocational.

I didn't know it.

I am now anyway.

Something's got to generate revenue. That's all I'm saying. That's great. With the coaching work that you do, is it primarily focused around the mental health component? Are there other areas you do coaching as well? Or what does coaching look like for you?

Yeah. I call it Christ life coaching, which is wholeness coaching that's not necessarily niche-based. But I have found that that is starting to incorporate some, some Christian, some Christ, like business coaching. I am finding a lot of Christians that are wanting to get business coaching, but do it from a biblical mindset and a biblical perspective. And God has really just put that in my lap. He's like, here, I want you to coach this person on this topic. I'm like, oh.

have you have you explored doing that type of coaching outside of you know nine to five ministry context christians in the workplace in the marketplace in education systems have you does the coaching adapt outside of kind of the church space um

Yes, and it always has for me. It seems for as many church-based clients that I have that I am found somehow by those outside the church. And a lot of it is starting to gear towards those in the marketplace. And coaching people who want to be coaches, they're like, let me work on my own self first before I coach others. And I am starting to modify some of my messages for education as well. My new topic that I'm building out is BYOB. Be your own best friend.

Oh, wow.

Be your own bestie.

Be your own best friend. Okay.

Yeah. Bestie. Yeah, your own bestie. B-Y-O-B. Be your own bestie. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah.

I love it.

I know. You know.

Bestie. I don't use bestie a lot. But yeah, I love that idea. B-Y-O-B-S. B-Y-O-B-F-F. My, you know, Dr. John, who's out there on the West Coast with you, he also is a guy who, I don't want to say he's, he had a coaching business that was working with churches and it struggled to really catch on for whatever reason. But then he adapted some of his coaching into the secular marketplace outside of the church space. and and i'll tell you like his coaching business exploded somehow he got uh earmarked into like the education world uh in and wherever he is in california and dude is like flying off off of that because he he he took some of of the niches he was coaching in the church space and brought it into the education area within the county. And he has just been going from school to school to school, having literally doing the same coaching for all these different K-5 to 12 schools. And I don't think he's doing college, but maybe he is at this point. But anyway, like it's just has accelerated greatly once he got into that ecosystem. And it's been... it's eye-opening for me realizing that that sometimes you know i kind of and this is one of the things i struggle with i kind of feel like i have a unique set of skills that operate best inside the church building inside this you know ecosystem that we're even trying to move away from and by moving away from it it's like well my skill set i'm kind of walking away from that how do i contribute value, you know, even outside the church world when I'm not even using my skill set inside the church world. But there's ways, I think, to bridge that into the secular marketplace or what have you with bivocational abilities. So I'd encourage anybody to give a shot going down that road and start to explore what that would look like in the unique spaces.

That is absolutely an encouragement because I was definitely thinking in that direction. Like all of my family, the women in my family on both sides of my family are in education. And I think I, my mom's a superintendent of a school district in Northern California. And I told her, I think it was around May. I was like, mom, I'm going to come start speaking at all your schools. She's like, uh. I told her. That's the perks of having a mom who's a superintendent, right?

Yeah, that's the blessing of the superintendent mom. Hey, mom, I'm not asking. I'll send you an invoice. I'm on my way.

So, um, so yes, there's absolute benefits of modifying that. And, you know, and to be perfectly honest, it has been easier to reach individual coaches than individual pastors. One, there's a lot of suspicion. They think that you're, what are you going to teach my people? What are you teaching me to teach my people? There's a lot of suspicion you have to break through. And if you cut through that, then you have to go through the board. Then you have to cut through their suspicions. And it's a long process. It's a long... You have to be full of patience. You have to answer the questions over and over and over. And so, yeah, it has been much easier to reach those who have an individual desire to coach and to reach different out to different organizations that may not necessarily be, you know, church aligned. Cause the, the goal is just God's people, you know?

Yeah, that's beautiful. I mean, there's value in that. There's helping reach people and do ministry with people even outside of that building and engaging with them and dialoguing with them. It's funny, ironically, you can always tell. I'm going to let you in on a secret you didn't ask, Pastor D. But you can always tell when I need to do laundry by when I wear this shirt. Because I only wear this shirt, the Living Word Christian bookstore. This is back from the years 2000, call it 2004 to 2008, when I ran a brick-and-mortar Christian bookstore. I miss that store. and it was but like it sits in the back of my closet and whenever I'm out of shirts this is the last one I grab and so laundry is piled up in my closet but it's reminiscent for me even as I'm wearing the shirt is like we did there was a we owned the store was called C28 it was in West Palm Beach Florida actually are you in SoCal or NorCal? Where are you in California?

I'm from NorCal, and I live in SoCal.

Live in SoCal. Okay, so we were in, do you remember C28? Were you in Southern California? The store was in Temecula. The store was in, no. It had like six or seven locations. I could rattle them off at one point. I don't remember. But there was a guy, this is going to be a long story, I'm sorry. But there was a guy, his name was Aurelio Barreto. He was a Christian millionaire. He made his millions inventing the dog house that looked like an igloo. You ever seen those dog loos? The dog house looks like an igloo? Yeah, so this guy, Aurelio Barreto, invented this. And after he made his millions off of the dog loo, he found Christ. And so he was convicted what to do. And the guy was kind of like this edgy, you know, like an older motorcyclist, like, like, you know, Harlington, Harlington, whatever it is, Harley Davidson guy. Yeah. And so he decided to create this company called NOTW and a second company called C2A. NOTW is like this really like Hot Topic PacSun level brand. C2A would be the stores that it sold in. And so he had like a dozen of these all over California. And I was the first guy to like own a franchise of that in Florida. And pre... This was like pre-Obama 2008, pre the election, pre the recession that hit in 08. And so I actually had like $1.5 million committed from different people to open a series of C-28s up and down the coast of Florida, basically Tampa down. where it was going to be tampa orlando west palm beach um miami fort lauderdale i think we had one of the location i can't remember right now but the the goal was to launch these stores but the beautiful part was we opened one in west palm while i had this the bookstore and i had a c28 running separately we saw over a hundred people come to christ in a brick and mortar mall in west palm beach Because we were training our employees, they were basically high school kids, on how to share Jesus using the shirt designs. Wow. And so they were like these really, like, not your typical Christian t-shirt. They were like skulls and crossbones and very edgy in designs to be attractive and to connect with a younger generation. Yeah. But we had kids that they literally they would come hang out at the mall at our store after school. They'd come like do you would see them outside of the store praying with each other, like in the in the hallway mall. And they were like. you know, just connecting in big ways with each other, doing Bible studies. It was funny. My assistant manager actually went to go be a youth pastor at the Life Church when Life Church came to town. Life Church literally stole my assistant manager to be a youth pastor. I was okay with that, but we partnered with them. Anyway, but it comes to realizing there's opportunities to do ministry, all that to say there's opportunities to do ministry outside of that church moniker. And growing up as a guy that felt a calling to the church, I... I don't know, looking back, if God was calling me to do ministry inside the church as much as the idea of doing ministry. And I just equated in my youth that it had to be inside the church building, where I realize now I really feel like I missed a lot of what God had because I was trying to be bleeding edge in a vehicle like the church that is... I mean, let's just say allergic to the idea of bleeding edge. And so now it's like, man, what would it have looked like for my life if I had not been restricted by some of that? Do I think God was glorified? Yes. Do I think God maybe had some things that I did not consider at the time because of my short-sightedness? Probably. In hindsight, though, I think there's an opportunity for all of us to recognize that ministry is not in the typical church buildings. And even fundraising does not have to be in those typical environments. We can look outside of that for opportunities that arise. You're really a great example of that, Pastor D, as you've figured out ways to navigate that for partnerships, to take advantage of mom, quote-unquote, saying, hey, I'm on my way. I charge $250 an hour. You'll figure out where that money comes. See you later. See you at dinner, whatever it is. But no, seriously, just figuring out ways to make it happen. Wow. know you've been doing this ministry for for 12 years and so somehow over the course of the 12 years you know you've managed to figure out how to make it happen good days and bad what advice would you give to somebody that's that's starting out how do they make their 12-year anniversary i always say this and try to remind myself of this

It's very easy to get caught up in what we do for the Lord and forget who we're doing it for.

Wow.

Always, always, always partner with God. Partner with God. Even if your idea is a great idea, he's probably going to be like, here's how we can do it better. We get so caught up in doing ministry that we just get lost in who we're doing it for and who we're supposed to be doing it with. And what is it? I hope I get the scripture address right. I think it's Mark 10 and 27 with man, it is impossible. but not with God for with God, all things are possible. And I think as Christians, we're like, yes, everything's possible for God. We interject, we replace for God, everything's possible for God instead of no, The King James says with God, that when we do it with God, everything is possible. And even if it legitimately is impossible from our natural eyes, God says it's not impossible when we do it with him. Yeah, it's beautiful.

You know, I do think in my own life, sometimes I forgot that. It was, you know, I'm carrying this on my own accord. I've just, I've got a, as a guy that's guilty of, you know, I've been called a finisher. Like, you know, whatever Jeff starts, Jeff finishes. Jeff, you know, Jeff, no one ever questions your work ethic. You're one of the hardest working guys we know. And so I'm guilty of those conversations. And historically, I've been the guy that would kill himself, turn around and say, hey, God, thanks for running with me on my journey. Not necessarily, hey, God, where are we going today? And let me walk with you. And so I do think it's interesting for us to maybe even stop and pause and evaluate, is the road that we're on, is that our road or is that God's road? And what role is God playing on that road that we're on? And so, hey, thank you very much for that reminder.

Thank you.

We need to do this more often. I could totally appreciate hanging out with you for 352, but we probably should have did this half a dozen times before now. And so I'll make a promise to you. We'll involve you on a more regular basis here. I would love it. With the podcast and the streams and the things involved. And so, hey, as we're wrapping up today, Pastor D, any closing thoughts?

Closing thoughts? No, you know, I'll just say this that I always say to my congregation when I close. You know, go in his glory. Like his glory is there for us to walk in and to access. Walk in power. Like he's also given us his power. And just... receive everything that the kingdom of god has for us that jesus died on the cross for us to receive just go for it yeah and just pray that everyone just just walk in the fullness of what god's got for you how he's got it for you

Wow. Yeah, so take that away for this week, Pastor D. That was well said. Walk in the fullness of God and what He has for you and understand that. Pray that through in the days and the weeks to come. And so hit up Pastor D.'s website for, you said it was churchcoachingapp.com. Am I saying that right?

Yeah, churchcoachapp.com.

churchcoachapp.com.

It's either the church coach or it's church coach app.

I tell you what, just randomly type letters until you see Pastor D's face. And we apologize for any other websites you may accidentally stumble into while going down that road. And you can find Pastor D inside our WhatsApp. Are you hanging out more in WhatsApp or Discord with us?

WhatsApp.

Yeah, WhatsApp. All the cool kids are at WhatsApp. Like the kids are over in Discord. The cool kids are over in WhatsApp. There you go. Yeah, so you'll find Pastor D over in our WhatsApp. So you can hit up and ask your questions in there. But for today, next week, I'm excited. We got our Jesus friend, our Jesus film people. Coming around, excited, had a conversation with Aaron today, and they're going to be talking about some of their Next Steps tools and some of the improvements they've had on that. We talked about that back with the last conference, but they've got some new functionality and some new things that we'll be digging into. Some really cool stuff. I love the fact that Jesus Film is engaging so much in helping people share Jesus digitally, even beyond the stuff that Jesus Film is doing with their films. But that will happen next week. For today, we're going to wrap up. So Pastor D, thank you for the time today jumping on this stream. We will do it before we get to episode 700. I promise we'll get you to re-engage. But we're going to land the plane. For Pastor D, this is Jeff at The Church Digital. Thanks for hanging out with us today on the stream. And we'll see you next time on the show. Y'all have a good one.