From Small Group Leader to National Director—Learning to Lead in Different Contexts: an Interview with Jay Pathak

Jay Pathak is the National Director of Vineyard USA, a movement of 500+ churches. But in identifying himself as a classic “reluctant leader,” how did he make all those transitional moves? And what has helped him become a leader in so many different settings? Drawing from resources as diverse as Dallas Willard to Conrad Gempf to Marvel movies, Jay is the consummate learner and views curiosity as a vital leadership skill. In this fascinating interview with Dave Workman, Jay reveals a unique humble approach to personal leadership development.

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Transcript

Hey everyone good to be back with you on the Elemental Leaders podcast. I'm Dave Workman and I'll be hosting this episode with an interview today with Jay Pathak. Jay is an unbelievable communicator, author, church planner, pastor, international speaker. He's currently serving as the national director of Vineyard USA, which is an association of about 600 or so churches all over the US. He's married to the equally talented Danielle living in Colorado with their two daughters. Jay actually hails from our home state here in Ohio and is a graduate of the Ohio State University, thank you. Full disclosure here I'm part of this tribe as well having stepped down from leading a vineyard church 10 years ago And so it's been fun for me to follow the career path and journey of Jay in my own tribe. I think it was last year that Jay spoke at the National Exponential Conference in Orlando and I know this will embarrass him, but was the only speaker to get a standing ovation. It was such a powerful moment in message, which you can still see at rightnowmedia.org. Jay, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks man. 

There are so many different things that I'd love to ask you about, but before we jump in, could you give our listeners just a little snapshot of who Jay Pathak is? And since this is a podcast about leadership, maybe a little bit about how you stumbled into becoming a leader. 

Yeah, I'd say pretty much everything I've ever done with leadership, I fell into backward. So I wasn't raised in church, no church background at all. I don’t think anyone would have even said I was a leader of any kind as just a kid or even as a new believer. So I kind of just came to Christ out of desperation, reading the scripture, had an encounter of the Holy Spirit, and it was like, well, I guess I'm doing this now. And then even as I just went to church, it didn't make any sense to me. First church I went to, great church, it was a Southern Baptist church. I just couldn't tell what was going on. You know, it's like a foreign language, a foreign land. And it just was. And then a girl who I was dating brought me to the Vineyard, who is Danielle. It was the first time in the short time I'd been a follower of Jesus. I was like, "Oh, this makes sense. I understand what they're saying. I understand what they're doing." And so everything I learned about leadership happened in the context of small groups. I found so much life being in a small group. And then somebody who knows why said, "Maybe you should start another small group, start this other small group." And I was like, "I don't know if I could do that. I don't really know the Bible. I don't really know much of anything, but I mean, like, give it a go. So I started this small group that was really bad. Like, nobody wanted to go. Honestly, it was like, I was like, I don't even know why I'm doing this. Danielle didn't want to go. And she was like, “I think I'll stay in this small group.” So yeah, so it was, it was mostly trial by fire. But I think the thing that pulled me into leadership was I kept telling my friends about Jesus. Folks that didn't know Jesus. And it turns out they don't know anything about leadership. They don't know what it's supposed to be like. So whatever I was doing was the best thing that they had ever been to. So if you just lower the standard enough and you work with the uninitiated, you get to be a leader. And so because, you know, there is nothing to compare it to. And so mostly just small groups over and over—I led small groups, multiple small groups. And then Rich Nathan, who you know, the pastor of the Columbus Vineyard, he just called me out of nowhere. I actually can't remember having a conversation with him. And he said, I'd like you to be my intern. And I remember asking him why? Because I didn't really even have ministry aspirations. I was studying philosophy to do law. And he said, "Well, Jay, I can do a lot of things. I can teach a lot of things as a pastor, but there's one thing I can't teach or put into someone in that spiritual hunger and thirst. And you look hungry, you look thirsty." And then he kind of gave a backhand thing is like, yeah, you're actually not very qualified and it might not work out. But I would love to try. So that put me into the middle of being in conversations around leadership, which is the thing Rich did that was most helpful to me was he just brought me to meetings. So I'd be sitting in listening to them making strategy. When he would travel, I would go with them and I'd just be sittin g at a restaurant dinner table, having them discuss some kind of tricky deal with a leader or a pastor or a church or some kind of church discipline thing. And so a lot of it was just osmosis. If you're just sitting around people talking about things, you grow, you learn things. And he was right. I was hungry. I wanted to grow. I wanted to learn. And honestly, Dave, I'm not entirely sure how it all worked. It just kind of kept happening. So then if you lead enough people to Jesus, if you lead enough small groups, there's just enough humans then standing around that you're just in charge somehow. Most of the ways I understand leadership are pretty micro that lead to more and more strategic development over time.

So you're kind of talking like there's a direct correlation between your personal conversion and then your hunger to see other people experience the same thing, to know Jesus the way you had, as being a connector to leadership?

Totally. Yeah. And I would say even as we planted a church, that's how it worked. We moved with 10 people and I waited tables. When I watched how people do church planning now, I'm like, wow, this is amazing. They have demographic studies and social media plans and mailers and all this stuff. Our thing was so slow and it was so boring. I think most people we invited to our church when we started were convinced we were a cult. You're meeting in the house, he's a pastor who works at a Chinese restaurant. It's not interesting, it's not very slick, but it would stick. If you've actually invested in leadership in that way, it might not be as fast, but it is deeply connected. Those principles you learn transfer. So even as I was working in a couple of different nonprofits or in a restaurant, the same things work. What you can learn as a small group leader helps you when you're training people as a server, in a restaurant, or you're managing a team. Bit by bit, I started to realize, wow, these principles, these ways of just serving people, bringing them together, that little discipleship loop of, I'm going to do a thing, you're going to watch me, I'm going to watch you do a thing, I'm going to send you out to do a thing and report back and now you're doing it. If you just do that enough times, there's just humans around. And then they keep thinking you're a leader. So that's kind of how it works. And then you end up the national director of the Vineyard. That's like, truly, it's like, I don't know, we just kept doing things over our life. And I was, I mean, I'm so, you mentioned Danielle, I mean, we've always been in lockstep that this is what we want to do with our life. And I know that's not true all the time for everybody. So that's a real gift to us, as we just loved doing this. We loved knowing our neighbors. We loved hanging out with friends of friends who don't have faith or whose faith is confused. So that led us into being a ministry. 

That's interesting to me. I mean, you went from a church internship to then being on a church staff and then to planting a church and now leading a national movement of churches. Can you talk a little bit about some of the unique transition challenges and some of those and maybe why you decided to make those changes from this to this?

I would say, again, this is where I'm probably not as helpful to people. I've some helpful thoughts, but it's not as helpful because honestly, Dave, it was nearly every time begrudgingly. I've always loved every bit of what I get to do. So I know there's people that do leadership with strategic ambition. Man, if I get to be on staff, that would be the best thing ever. And if I could get to preach, that would be so great. And man, and then if I get to preach, maybe I could leave my own church someday. And if I'm just really honest, that never motivated me. At about every turn, I had to be persuaded aggressively, usually over time. 

Did you find that some of the best things that have happened to you in your journey with Jesus has been almost by invitation, rather than you pursuing hardcore something, you were invited into something? 

Every time. I mean, so for me, that's really affected the way I look for leaders too, because if people just have enough fruit in their life, things are happening around them and with them, people will notice sooner or later, somebody's going to go, what are they doing? What is that? Who's that person who's filling up the row at church? Who's that person whose numbers are changing on that sales team? Who is that? And so nearly always, I just kept my head down. And this is where I'm a full blown weirdo. Nearly always, it was some kind of a God moment, a couple dreams, a few encounters. I was like, wow, I guess we're doing this. We're going to move to a place we've never been when we're doing really, really well. Life is working. I mean, even this new role, the national director role was like, I love our churches. I love our city. Why in the world would I put myself in any kind of peril or challenge? But over time, it just got clear. I think this is what God is leading us to.

You know, we've long said at the elemental group that you can't grow without change. And you can't change without letting go of something. Have you found that to be true as well? 

I think for me, the cost is almost all on the inside. I mean, if I can get the work done on the inside, why am I doing this? And is there a vision for like how this will actually make a difference in the world? Yeah. If those things can start to get clearer, I'm prepared to pay the cost. Because as you know, it's never just me paying the cost. It's all the people I serve with. It's my family. It's my friendships. And so there's always a cost to not just me, but to everybody else. That's why you almost always, this first answer is no. No, thank you. I'm fine. I'm doing fine. I love what I get to do. I don't need to do this. But as I can kind of weigh it out, it's like, well, okay, I think that there's a vision that's compelling. And my faith starts to grow. What if what this is could be different? All right, I could imagine that. And once I can start imagining it, then it feels closer, feels more possible. But I'm pretty reluctant, personally. 

In the Elemental Leader book, I did a section on reluctant leaders. There's something really powerful about that. Don't you think in the Bible, you see kind of both, you see the high D leaders, you know, it says that David ran toward Goliath. And then you have Gideon hiding out in a hole in the ground and saying, get someone else. You know, I'm not the one. Do you find yourself aligning with one of those two extremes?

I do. I'd say that I'd probably feel more like Gideon. But the truth is, when I'm locked in, now I'm in. Okay, we're going to go. If we're going to play, we're going to play to win. But I prefer not play if I'm already playing something else that I really like. And honestly, as you know, Dave, everybody imagines that the next thing's easier. If our church was just a little bigger, if we just had a little bit more revenue, if all ever, for your business, it's just not true. It's always harder. It's always more complicated. Now, there's certain things that are easier. I'm not saying everything's harder. Some things get easier. But the level of complexity. And so, for me, every time we meet a leader that's doing something I find interesting, the question I always ask them every single time, if I get a moment alone with them is, what did it cost you? What did you have to decide it wasn't about you? 

How does that question help you? 

Well, it helps me give me a little courage. Because I think I've just done enough reps of this that some of the idealism has been knocked out of me. You know, like, I mean, I've gotten to be around a good number of famous people, you know, people who are athletes or movie stars or musicians. Those are people everybody wants to be. Their life is really complicated and super isolated. And I'd say, for me, the thing that costs the most because of how I'm wired is how relationships change. I love deeply investing in friendships and relationships. And those change dramatically as you take on different kinds of authority and complexity of leadership. And so, I think if I look backward, that's been the highest cost. And as I talk to people, it helps me to hear how folks have done it in front of me, especially if they seem to be doing okay, 

Like they still seem like fairly normal. 

Yeah, exactly.

Let's talk about that for a minute. You have a high value for relationships of depth. You've written about this and so forth. That's part of who you are. So here you are taking on a new venture. So whatever it is, whether you were church planting or now a director of a movement of churches, how did you manage that in the context of raising a family?

You know, as we talked about our life in ministry, we've come to a very clear conclusion, which I don't think I had at the beginning, if I'm honest, but we've come to it, which is: I've really been influenced by Dallas Willard's sort of circles of sufficiency when he talks about that the first commitment you make is to your own life and body with God. So the first priority is, do you actually work out? Do you sleep? Do you have a prayer life? For me, solitude feels like I'm being tortured because I'm wired, but it's a necessary kind of training. So your first commitment to that, your second, the sphere out is your family and a few friends. And that has to show up in your checkbook and your calendar. So just prioritizing date nights and connection with my girls. And then the next layer out for me is to always be local. So even if now that I'm doing national and international stuff, how much does my life flow from where like my feet actually touch the ground? I'd say for pastors, I'm always saying make sure you're connected to people that have no life with Jesus, like actually connected because that's the first thing to go. You get busy. Nobody in my church gives me a raise because I'm hanging out with a neighbor. Nobody in my church applauds from the sideline because I play golf with a few dudes that don't have any faith. But for me, if that part isn't firing, like that means something about me has gotten disconnected. And so if those three circles in that order are working, my own life with God, my life with my family and a few friends, and I'm connected in mission that matters on the ground, like real life, I'm pretty bulletproof. Most everything else is going to be okay. No matter how hard life is, I've got a solid base. If one of those things is missing, just one or a little off, I'm pretty fragile. A little criticism stings a little deeper, kind of a little failure, like, oh man, we tried to pull that off. That did not go the way I thought it was going to go…it turns into some isolation behavior, some frustration. It just spikes a little bit. So for me, when I start to watch that stuff spike, I'm getting a little more tired, I'm getting a little more grumpy, I'm feeling a little more isolating in a bad way, like not by choice, but by way of avoidance. That usually means one of those other three circles isn't working. And I have to reprioritize. And I don't know how it's worked for you, Dave, but for me, the more pressure on me, the more I have to focus on those. 

It's all enmeshed, and it's a little complex how it works. For me, I clearly understand that when Jesus says, if you don't hate your mother and father and your brother, you know that whole kind of thing of, hear the levels of love that you need to have. And your love for me has to be paramount. I totally get that. On the other hand, if my marriage is not really clicking and we're in sync, and it's the same way with my kids, even though they're adults, I'm not as good in the kingdom. I just don't function as well. So somehow they're all tied together in a way that probably because we were designed to be holistic people, integrated people. 

Yeah. And it's the stuff that drifts the fastest. I mean, again, very few people are applauding, went and spent two nights at my cabin, staring at a river and journaling and getting stuff out of me that is creating anxiety. Like, nobody's like, man, that's so great, you did that. Yeah. So it's having a priority because what it really means is there's probably 100 people waiting for a phone call. There's 100 people there like, why isn't Jay wrote me back on this? So you have to keep, I mean, that bit in Mark 1 where Jesus goes away. And when he comes back, “Where have you been? We have all the stuff to do.” He says, yeah, about that, we're moving on. It's like he got away enough to remember, oh, yeah, that's right. That's what I'm doing. I'm not doing just great stuff. There's a point to what I'm doing. And if I don't get space and prioritize that, and then probably says that with like you said with my wife and my girls, I drift. I end up overworking, I end up not sleeping, I end up just worn out. And then especially if I'm not with people who are seeking a life with Jesus who don't have one, that re-orients me. Also, I'm like, oh, yeah, this isn't straight up for everybody. There's a lot of folks out there that they feel like there's a maze in front of them and that the church has made a maze. Like they can't get to Jesus. And just talking to people and just quick reflections they give me like, well, yeah, why would anybody do that? Or why doesn't this make sense? And I'll be like, wow, that is a really helpful insight. They're starting to realize that they're my test market for most of the students. But yeah.

That's really good rather than the other way of being them being seen as a project. 

Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, they're helping me. Yeah, you're here for me. I get confused and disconnected from the real world. 

We used to say for years that we need the poor more than they need us. There's something that happens for us. And I think it's true for people who are far away from God. 

It's so true. 

So now you've gone through these different types of leadership context. Talk a little bit about the challenge of leading an organization of autonomous churches. I mean, here you go: This is cat herding 101 probably for you. What have you found challenging? What have you found that works for you personally as a leader? 

Well, I'd say what helps me the most is I really like learning. I like talking to people and figuring out how they've done what they've done. I like reading history. I enjoy that. And so even with this role, so much of the work was trying to figure out how did this come into being? Like, what is this? What's the history? Who are the players? Where are the points where people connected and disconnected? Where has there been conflict? And where has there been growth? I've lived in my own little slice of this thing. But to try to understand it from other people's vantage points. So I've just spent a ton of time talking to folks that have been around a long time. So explain to me why you're in this. And where do you think things have gone well? Where have things gone badly? What's the cost been to you? What would you do if you were me? That's one of my favorite questions asked people. And so that's from the inside. And so I'm a family systems guy. I love family systems thinking. It really helps you to get a more robust way of seeing things. And then I've done a lot of work to talk to people from the outside. So let me go to people that are parallel to me. So who's someone in another church movement? Who's someone who's in a parachurch movement? And, you know, everybody wants to be nice at first. So you can't get anybody to tell you the truth when you first meet them. Like, like they're, they're complimentary and they're, oh, I've loved the Vineyard and you guys are the best. But then when you can finally say, okay, listen, I really need your help. You're a high level leader, you lead a complex organization. Tell me what doesn't make sense to you. What doesn't work? Why doesn't it work? Where have you seen clashes? You're not us, but you're close enough to us. Yeah. And then I'll often start to give them problems. I'm saying, here's some things I don't understand. I don't know what to do with. What would you do if you were me? What have you seen people do in my scenario? Who do you think could help me? Do you know anyone that you think, man, they could really help Jay think this through. And then I'm reading all the time. So I'm reading different kinds of leadership books and change agencies, stuff like that. So for me, I get almost all the information just by talking and listening and being in rooms. And then I can start trying things out with higher level leaders. Like, here's my assessment. What do you think? What do you agree with? What do you not agree with? So out of all that, I can start to derive ideas or frameworks or concepts. And that takes a lot of work. I've been on a lot of planes. I'm standing in a lot of rooms watching. I mean, if I get to go visit a church, I would say I'd like to come to staff meeting and I don't want to do anything. I just want to watch. Like, how do these people interact? What are they doing and not doing? And why? And I love asking questions then. Like, how do you think about goals? And how does your budget work? How do you think a decision gets made? And stuff like that, I like watching process and then understanding history and then learning people who've done this before me.

Would you consider yourself observant by nature? 

Yes. I don't know that if I'm very honest, I don't know that I'm naturally observant. I think I've learned how to be. 

Is that because of being thrown into leadership things?

 I think it's because I've always felt like I didn't know what was going on. 

I feel like that a lot, Jay. 

Yeah. I just think so when you don't know what's going on, you have a few options. Option one is you just back away. Be like, I don't know what this is. I'm out of here. Option two is assert yourself. Act like you know what you're doing, even if you don't know what you're doing. So fake it till you make it or use the small bit of information that you have and try to just do that really well and assert that in the midst of what's confusing to you. I think that third option, which is not as common, is to be able to stay engaged but be curious. Why is this happening this way? Why did they do that? Why didn't they do this? What's going on here? So a lot of my gifts fire to be interactive. I like talking to people. I like asking questions. I like learning. I can live with a bit of discomfort. I'm effectively a third culture kid. I was raised in the middle of two cultures. My dad's Indian. My mom's wider family's from England. So I think what I've learned about myself over time is I've never felt like any room was my room. There's no group of people that I know for sure I fit in here. So what do you do with that? 

Has it caused you to be more adaptive? 

 Yes. I never assume I understand what's going on. 

That's great. 

Right? Like I... That's great. They just did something that I'm not sure what that means. So all of us, whether it's leadership or not, we have a set of expectations all the time. Whether we know we have them or not, most of them are subconscious. Like I, for example, expected you to be wearing clothes when we got on this call, right?

And you were shocked when I wasn't! 

You know, and if you weren't wearing clothes, like I got on and you didn't have a shirt on, I would have to figure out what to do with that gap. So there's a gap between what I…

I would suggest closing your eyes and screaming. 

Hahaha! Exactly. Well, that's it. So I have options. I'm going to act like this isn't happening. I'm going to get offended and withdraw or I'm going to be offended, make a demand or whatever. There are a million things I can do with that gap. And the gap there, whatever that gap is, whatever I do makes complete sense to me. Obviously, I should immediately hang up or I should immediately confront him or... Right. Well, here's what's interesting is everybody does different stuff with that gap. Yeah. And so I think the hardest skill to learn, it's a skill. You can learn it. That's why I say I don't think it was intuitive to me. You can learn to try to interrogate even your own responses there. Just like, you know, I'm just going to set that aside for one second. And instead of me assuming why they're doing what they're doing, I'm just going to ask. So, hey, I noticed you're not wearing a shirt. Tell me about that. Why did you think today was a good day to not wear a shirt? Is it warm there? Are you sick? Or, you know, I don't know, whatever. And that's a silly example. What happens often with leaders is because we're good at what we do, we just start snapping. We make snap judgments way more quickly. 

I find it interesting, Jay, because it sounds like it's not just situational leadership. There's a curiosity element that you're throwing into it. Yeah. That even with those preconceptions of why is the person not dressed, you're curious about that 

I'd say my main skill is I find people fascinating. I just find people every person in front of me is a really interesting specimen. And they chose, or sometimes things were chosen for them, to do things in certain ways that I wouldn't have done or you wouldn't have done. And it's trying to figure out, okay, so what is that? And what sets of values or what sorts of inherited values did they operate out of? And are they even aware of them? Often, they're subconscious to the person themselves. And if I can just slow down enough and just notice, especially if you're with gifted or talented people who have produced a lot in their life, it's very complicated. It's not very straightforward. Sometimes it's accident. Sometimes it's real effort. Sometimes it's, they're super talented. Sometimes they were just connected to the right people. There's always something going on that you can't quite see at first glance, but if you'll slow down enough to just stop guessing and start asking. 

It's the curiosity element that's fascinating to me as you bring it up. There are four elements that we look at when we're measuring church health. And the one that I see the least operative in churches is what we call imagination. So that's just capacity for change or the level of curiosity in leaders or organizations. There's this Tom Peters quote where he says, the best way to foster creativity is to hang out with weirdos religiously, hang out with weirdos, because there's just something going on that's very different that you can lean into and wonder about. 

Yeah. I mean, for me, I've always been an artist that doesn't have any kind of medium. So I can't play an instrument. I can't sing. I can't do anything art. I can't draw a stick figure, but barely. But for some reason, my entire life, I've been drawn to musicians, artists, and those become my friends. So I'm always the guy that likes music, but can't play music. I think maybe because of this, I found myself with people like that a lot. So I don't know. Again, I think some of it's innate, but some of it's a skill that I've grown into because I've always felt out of place. I've always felt like I don't know how to fit. And so out of that, though that is kind of a sad thing, like I say that in people are like, there's always, there's some compassionate person listening right now going, but you do fit, Jay, and you're great or whatever. Don't hear it that way because it turns out it's been very helpful because I've learned these other skills to understand how people think. And frankly, Dave, most people have not interrogated themselves enough to even answer those questions. So the vast majority of time I ask questions, people are like, I don't know. I don't know why I did that. I don't know why I didn't do this. And then there's another layer of learning how to be curious. Like, well, okay, so as far as I can tell, there'd be a few things you could have done. And you did this. Why do you think you didn't do that? Or you did do that? So learning those skills of question asking, there's a book that really changed my life, a book called “Jesus Asked” by Conrad Gempf. He's become a friend. I chased him down. And the basic thing he asks is, why does Jesus ask more questions than he answers? And throughout all of the Gospels, Jesus only answers two questions directly. All of the Gospels, he's asked questions constantly. He just doesn't answer them. He answers questions with questions or with stories. 

Yeah, it's really pretty irritating if you're an engineer type person. 

Exactly. And he does it just, I mean, he does it so much that it's worth noticing and saying, wonder what he's doing? And is he training us in a way of being in the world that the best way to teach is to ask questions? Because if you don't bring people out, if their worldview isn't on the table, if their heart isn't exposed, whatever you're going to say is going to bounce off their preconceived notions, their boxes, whatever. And so it is kind of an interesting psychological technique, but it also demonstrates care. I mean, when somebody listens to you and truly understands you, they feel loved, they feel cared for. 

The other side of that is when you're asking questions, when a person self-discover something through that question asking process, then there's a higher ownership for change. 

Yes, that's exactly right. 

So you don't consider yourself an artist in the classic sense as a painter or a musician or whatever. But because of curiosity, there's a creativity component in the way you approach leadership in relationships, which to me is just as critical as being able to draw a straight line. 

Honestly, I don't think I've had an innovative thought my entire life. I've never had a phrase or an idea. I don't think I've had one innovative thought and I'm amazed at innovators. I find them almost like magical creatures. I just find them amazing. I love being around innovative thinking. I just don't know how to do that. What I am is I'm a great thief and I'm a great synthesizer. So if I can get near some people that are trying stuff and they think creatively and they come up with ideas about what the world could be like, if I can get around those environments, I can start to see how things fit. Wow, this could go with that or I could take this idea from the business world and I could put that with this sort of spiritual concept and then I could build a class or I could make an experience where we could learn that together over a retreat or whatever. I'm a good synthesizer. I can steal and I can put things together. But what that means is I have to be engaged a lot. I'm not the guy who goes and sits somewhere and comes up with how things should work. I have to read and I love watching movies. I learn so much from movies because the characters develop a certain way and I'm like, that's so interesting. That reminds me of this other friend of mine and the way they did that or biographies are super helpful for me to hear the sort of the Marvel, all the rage is origin stories now. How people become who they are helps me immensely. 

I think most good leaders are synthesis actually and there's a place for the generalist that I think is really critical in today's world and the ability to pull from these different genres to build metaphors is a leadership thing that I think you have. I think it's obvious that you have it. Let me shift gears if you don't mind. A little over 10 years ago, your fantastic book, The Art of Neighbouring, was published and was used by so many churches in rethinking and simplifying a relational way for people to introduce their literal neighbors to Jesus. So why was that important for you to write as a leader?

This is going to sound like I'm being repetitive. I didn't want to write it. I really didn't. I didn't want to write it because I'd watched how many people wrote books and it took over their life. So I did my very best to not write. But through honestly years of an agent, a publisher, and my friend chasing me around, I became persuaded that it could help. So I was like, okay, let's do it. As long as there's these parameters, I'm only going to travel this amount, I'm not going to promote. So anyway, I know that that's probably not that great. I think to answer your question more directly, I just became convinced that Jesus gave us a way to change the world that we hadn't really tried. And I'd seen the fruit in our own church, in our own city, by just getting to know our neighbors, helping them start to think about living a different kind of life out of relationship to us, Danielle and I, and then watching people in our church do that. It led to all kinds of transformation stuff because if you get to know your neighbors, spend time with them, pray for them, care for them, and there's real transformation that'll tend to leak into the next set of neighbors. I just think Jesus gave us a way to change the world, but it requires doing it. If you're getting in your car to do ministry every time you go to do ministry, that's a problem. To be able to start with where you're at, to love God and love your neighbor, your literal neighbor is a good starting point. And if every believer who loved Jesus in our cities loved even just the eight homes around them, that's all they did. It would start a movement. And we wouldn't be wondering, how do we get people to come to the whatever, or it would just be, well, we're connected to all these people. It has an exponential component to it that we've experienced. So then we're like, well, I guess we should write this. And it's been pretty helpful. Most people are pretty shocked. This is really simple. A really well-known pastor say to me, I have never known anyone to do more with so little. You've done nothing. You made a tic-tac-toe board. You've made that into a world. How did you do that?

Thank you, I think. 

Yeah, exactly. Because I can't make any sense of them. Like, well, you're not wrong. You're right. Yeah, we just a few weeks ago baptized my neighbor's girlfriend. Whole family came to church. That's years of being connected and friends. And yeah, it's pretty cool. 

That's amazing. Way to go. Well, let me ask you one more. You were thrown into this leadership thing, invited in. As C.S. Lewis said, kicking and screaming into the kingdom. You've been at this for a number of years. What keeps you going? 

I mean, Dave, again, it's really simple. I'm more convinced than ever that the local church is actually the hope of the world. 

Love it. Love it. Love it. Thank you for carving out the time to be with us today and for sharing your insights and your heart. I just really appreciate the impact you've had on the big C. Church and for keeping it real and humble at the same time. Thank you. 

My great pleasure. And I'm grateful for your work. 

For all of you out there in the Digital Ether, glad you could join us. Just to remind you at the Elemental Group, we work with churches and faith-based nonprofits, just like yours, to get a little healthier, a little more effective and become everything that God has dreamed for you. So check out all the resources and our new menu of services at ElementalGroup.org. And we'll see you back here the next time. Take care. 

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