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Episode 8 - John Maxwell On Becoming The Richest Person In Heaven · Solving the World's Greatest Problems

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Today we have small groups around the world, and they do a thing called Beyond Success.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: I think we have 191,000 small groups.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: And Beyond Success is a table where we have five lessons on how to be successful so it appeals to secular lost people.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: And in that, at the end of that fifth lesson, I also say there's something I haven't shared with you.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: But I wouldn't do this without your permission.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_03: I respect you too much.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: But it's about my faith, which is really the secret to my significant life.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: If you want to hear about it, I'll be glad to do it.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: Only those who want to hear stay.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's over 90% stay, and over 50% receive Christ.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: In the last six years, we've now passed 4 million people coming to Christ.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: We believe we're probably the largest evangelistic organization in the world and nobody knows about it.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody said, How do you win so many people to Christ?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: I said, we we hang around with lots people.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Solving the world's greatest problems is an audacious proposal.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, no generation has more talent, capital, or tools than ours.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: The time has come for entrepreneurs, investors, givers, ministry leaders to reclaim the church's ancient calling.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: The scale of brokenness is too big for us to do this in silos.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Under his power, for his glory, together.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Solving the World's Greatest Problems Podcast.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: John Maxwell started his ministry small, but decades later, his organization equip has led over four million people to Christ.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he believes it's on pace to reach a million people per month within six years.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: He's not just a leadership author, he's built one of the most quietly effective evangelism movements in the world.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about the problem of the evangelism gap and how to solve it.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_06: So, John, everybody has core memories as a kid.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_06: I spent a dozen years or more with Brian and his team building right now media, which is kind of like this Netflix style.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_06: And so fascinated by media and story, and I look at history.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_06: And if before there were streaming Netflix, there was mailing DVD Netflix.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_06: And before there was that, I remember these core memories as a child growing up of cassette tapes.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_06: On delivery, sent to us.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_06: It was before there was Netflix, there was John Maxwell.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: In the caves.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: In the caves.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_06: How did that start?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: I you know what?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, first of all, you're going to have to describe what cassette tapes are to the people write down.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: But yes, we're talking, we're talking about the 1980s.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: And uh literally, I was in Jackson, uh, Mississippi at the Holiday Inn, and I was doing a leadership class for 39 leaders.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I finished the day.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: It really went well, and one of the uh people there, he raised his hand and said, John, this is really incredible.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: He said, When do we get to hear you again?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I said, I'm a pastor.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going back to San Diego.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: You I don't know if you ever get to hear me again.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: And he looked at me and he said, I have to hear you again.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: What I learned today.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: I have to talk and listen to somebody that knows more about leadership than me.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: So how are you gonna do it?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought, well, I I haven't thought about how I'm gonna do it.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: And then right in, I said, Well, I'll tell you what I'll do.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: I'll go home and every month I'll do a leadership lesson with my staff, my church staff, and and we'll we'll record it and put it out on cassette tapes, and and and uh we'll send it to you monthly.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: And and uh and I said, here, I took a legal path.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: I said, if you want to want that, just give us your address.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: And somebody said, Well, how much does it cost?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_03: I said, Well, I have no idea.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I said, five dollars, five dollars.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: I think I can cover my costs with five dollars.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: And and and there were 39 in the class, 38 signed up.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_05: That's a good clothes or anything.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's not a bad.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so I went back to a lay person in my church who uh who worked at at IBM, he was a business guy, we had a great heart for ministry.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: His name was Dick Peterson.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: I said, Dick, I said, I'm gonna start a tape club, and here it is, and here's what we're gonna do.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: And and so we did.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: And what's so funny, if you ever got those Enjoy Life Club tapes, they were pink.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: They were pink.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_03: Now, leadership, pink tapes.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: Dick's wife was in Mary Kay.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so, of course, let's have a pink lab.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: I and and those, so they went out and they just went crazy.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: And and uh and and within within, I think it was three to four years, a hundred thousand people a month were listening to those tapes.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_03: And and I'm just happy as a clam, and I'm helping people doing the monthly thing.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: And it wasn't until about seven or eight years later that I was at a conference, and um and the guy came out and said, How many of you get to enjoy life club tapes for everybody to play?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: I get to enjoy life clubs.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Have you ever thought about the fact they're pink?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: And he started making fun, which he rightfully did.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: He said, John, this is leadership, and you got pink.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: Of course, it comes back from Mary Kate, the whole process.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: Now, here's what I'm just going to say, because I have people all the time, Justin, they say, Well, help me get branded well, or you know.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: And what I want to tell them is, why don't you get good?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_03: Just get good.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: If you're good, they'll buy a pink leadership tape.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: If you're not good, it doesn't matter what color it is, it doesn't matter what the name is.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's literally how I started.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: And what a side effect of never thought about it.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: The side effect is I literally became the leadership mentor across the church world.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't I mean I didn't say I want to be the leadership mentor.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_03: That wasn't even my goal, but I was providing a resource for them.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_03: What's so funny, Justin?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_03: One last thought, is the you know, I told you 38 out of 39 signed up.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: Probably about 20 years later, this guy comes up to me at a conference and he said, You tell the story about Jackson, Mississippi, and 30.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: He said, I was the guy that didn't sign up.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, You're kidding.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: And we started laughing.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Yeah, I heard you, and I thought, I don't think he'll probably really do it.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_03: And and he said, I did sign up.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, I look at how well it did, and he said, it was one of the most humbling times of my life of, I sure don't know how to pick what's going to be good and what's not gonna be good.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: He said, But three years later, I did sign up.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: So he said, I got in there.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: But anyway, that's that's how it started.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_06: You've had such unique experiences.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_06: You've, I mean, if we're collecting business cards, if there were still such a thing, like pastor, leadership, entrepreneur, coach, you've worn so many different hats.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_06: Which hat's been the most comfortable?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: The hat that I'm wearing.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: But when I was a pastor, that was the hat that was most comfortable.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: In other words, where I was was where I was most comfortable.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_03: But sometimes we get uncomfortable because we need to go somewhere else.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so I was all I I I loved it.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, people ask me, they'll say, Well, what were your happiest days of of life and ministry?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I I was as happy in Hillham in my first church with three people the first Sunday as I am now.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: I I I I've never had destination disease.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: I I I in fact I tell people sometimes no matter where you are, there you are.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: And and so I think that I really have enjoyed every step of the journey.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: And by the way, if I wouldn't have had each step of the journey, I wouldn't be where I am today.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: And so I say, I think sometimes we kind of say, well, you know, someday, someone, somewhere, under the rainbow type of stuff.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I've never felt that way.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's well tell you what's very interesting.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_03: I love where I am, but I am not in love with staying where I am.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: I want to continue to learn, I want to continue to grow.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: I may stay in the same ministry, but I gotta keep learning.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not the same person.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_03: I may be doing the, I may be, I'm in the leadership world.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: The other thing I want to say, one other thing, because you talked about uh, you know, the leaders, pastors, you know, uh entrepreneurs, the business people.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: The reason I can wear all those hats is I have one thing they all have in common.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_03: I sincerely want to add value to people where they are.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: That is my only agenda.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, Justin, if I'm working with you, I want to help you.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: I want to find out how to help you.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_03: I want to be like Paul, I want to be a servant to you so that I can help you.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: But I genuinely want to help you.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: I want to add value to you, and to me, until I add value to you, I've not proven my worth.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm more interested in what I can do for you than what I can get from you.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: Here's what I've learned.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: If I can do great things for you, I will receive everything I need.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: Everything I need.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: But my first it's Robert Lewis Stevenson who said, I consider the success of my day based on the seeds I sow, not the harvest I reap.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: What did he know?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: He knew what I found out.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: Just sow seeds.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: Harvest is automatic.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_06: It feels like there's this moment, and we've talked about this as an organization, as a ministry, that pastors and entrepreneurs are coming to a place to realizing, like you're alluding to, that some of the DNA that we carry, the way that we're motivated, the way that we're driven, the way that we're serving, the way that we're adding value, it's closer than we think.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_06: What do you think keeps us apart?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_06: What keeps entrepreneurs, pastors, for doing more together than they would otherwise do apart?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: Insecurity.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: When I look at you, Justin, and you live in a world that I don't know, instead of me being excited about finding out about your world and learning from it, asking questions, letting you teach me to grow.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_03: We like to build fences.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_03: We like security.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: We have this wrong thought that if we can just close ourselves in and keep ourselves and our group secure, that it that in itself will be happiness and joy in life.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_03: I have always jumped the fence.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: I've always jumped the fence because here's what I know.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_03: If you're different than me, you know something different than me.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: And if you know something different than me, if I find it, it could make a difference in me.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so I want to get into your world.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: The moment I get interested in your world and ask questions and learn from you and grow from you, we get connected.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so I want to be a bridge, not a wall.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: I want to always ask questions and get over my head.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: I tell people when they get over their head, it doesn't matter how how deep the water is, you're over your head.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: So dive deep, go for it.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_03: But I think that uh I think insecure people just want to stay with their own.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: And what I tell them is very simple.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: If I stay with what I know, and if I stay with those who only know me, my life is going to be very limited.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_06: Powerfully said.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: Every person has something to teach me.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: You do, Alex does, all of us have something to teach me.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_03: When I get more interested in learning from you so that I can grow than I do in feeling secure with what I know, that's a big breakthrough.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_06: And it's such a big shift.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_06: And one of the things I want to pivot to is kind of to build on that idea is like, how do we create these unsafe spaces?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_06: There is so much language about society of creating safe space, safe space.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_06: I think so much of what we're trying and we feel God's called us to do with faith-driven entrepreneur solving the world-problems is really to put people maybe in a safe place of conversation, but when they're challenged with an unsafe message and something that really gets them out.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_06: And I love the work that God has you in in this season, really wrestling with this conversation about riches, about stewarding wealth, about rewards.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_06: And I mean, if we're honest, if we look at scripture, scripture isn't always kind to those that are entrusted with resources.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_06: Scripture isn't always kind to those that are rich.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_06: What are you learning in this season and this journey about rewards in heaven and balancing that all out?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think safety is uh is a wrong path.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: First of all, the Bible says we're pilgrims.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: We're passing through.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_03: Passing through is not about security.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: Passing through isn't about safety.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, pilgrims means you're going places you've never gone, doing things you've never gone, uh done, seeing people that you've never seen.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I I I think that whenever you deal with a person who says, Well, I I I want to I want to make sure that I'm safe, I also want to say to them, and you're going to make sure that you're never going to reach your potential.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, because I think our potential is always in the areas that are not safe.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: Now I'm not talking about recklessness, yeah.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not talking about doing wrong, but I am saying that Peter got out of the boat.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_03: All the rest of the disciples stayed in the boat.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: And Peter walked on water.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: And Peter also sunk.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: But when Peter got in the boat wet, he can look at the rest of the disciples and say, Let me explain something to you.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm the only guy in this boat that's walked on water.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_03: See, the scarcity people say, he sunk.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: The abundance people say, he walked on water.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: I think that we like Peter are often challenged to walk on water.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I think in walking on water there is a sinking.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: But it didn't hurt Peter.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: I, unless I'm missing this, he became the preacher at Pentecost.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_03: He became the leader of the church.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I think he became the leader because he was willing to go in unsafe areas.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so I what I want to let people know is the fact that the regrets that they will have in their life will not be so many that of what they did.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_03: I think their greatest regrets will be what they didn't do.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: What they could what they could have done, but they decide it wasn't safe.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: And well, maybe this won't work for me.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I have a whole bunch of things that don't work for me.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_03: I have a whole bunch of things that do work for me.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: And guess what they both have in common?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: They were in unsafe places.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: And so there has to be an a lot of failure.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_03: To have a lot of learning, to have a lot of growing, to have a lot of change.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_06: I love that.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_06: I'm reminded of our friend David Green that talks about this idea that legacy is what you set in motion, not what you leave behind.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_06: And I love that that core message.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_06: The front end.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: Not the back end.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_06: And when you talk about that, but it it it starts with, I think, I mean, there's been a lot of talk about rewards in heaven.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_06: And this whole idea of just like, well, how do we wrestle through that?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_06: How do I I mean, if I'm just throwing on the table, the conversation that you're having around this, what does it look like to be the richest person in heaven?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_06: It sounds at first kind of shocking when you hear the statement, but there's so much depth to the wrestling of that.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_06: Take us into that.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_03: Well, first of all, I I think one of the reasons it gets a little difficult to discuss it is that we're saved by grace.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_03: So we're all getting to heaven based on nothing that we have done.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_06: Amen.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_03: Just Jesus.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's just Jesus.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's like the guy who gets to St.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: Peter and he says, How do I get in?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: And Peter says, Well, it's going to take you a thousand points.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so the guy says, Well, I went to church every Sunday.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Well, that's 25.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I shared my faith, that's 25.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: I was in the Bible study, that's 25.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: I was a good neighbor, that's 25.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: And he's about to 100, and he realizes he's going to run out of good works.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_03: Finally looks at the Peter says, Oh my gosh, he said, The only way I'm going to get into heaven is by the grace of God.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_03: And Peter said, That's 900 points.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: Come on in.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: We're going to heaven because of what Jesus has done, period.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: End of story.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: Now that we're going to heaven, that's the good news.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: The question is, what will our rewards be when we get there?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: All of the rewards are earned.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: Grace is given, it's free.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: No earning.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: But the rewards are based upon what we did.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: And Jesus was very clear about that.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_03: He doesn't mince words.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, you know, there's more m more scripture on money than there is on any other subject in the Bible.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: Much more than prayer and all that process.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so Jesus wants us to understand, I'm going to give you this.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: What did you do with that?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: And we got the talents.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, went from five to ten.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: And then the guy said, Well, you were a hard master, so I buried mine.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: He did absolutely nothing.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: He said, You're you're a lazy, wicked servant.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so when it comes to the riches in heaven, we have to understand that's going to be fulfilled by our intentionality.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, even you think of entrepreneurs, when they do an investment, they do an investment based upon how many years?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: The term.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's a three-year investment.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, this is a gonna be a 20-year investment.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: And the and and and the the the length, the term of that investment determines the value of it.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: But when you think of eternity, there's no end.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: There's no term.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, if a great long-term investment is your best investment, compare it to an eternal investment where there is no end to it.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: You uh if you're into compounding, that compounding gets great.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: So what that means is our rewards in heaven get bigger and more large and and and higher return in the end.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: So I think I think that they're just as bit.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: When I was young, we used to have this segment.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_03: Uh this is probably going to tell my age.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: But cassette tapes, I think, already put that on the book a little bit.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_03: The cassette tapes already.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_03: So we had an expression when I was a kid that they were so heavenly minded that they weren't any earthly good.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: And we, oh, yeah, because they were just kind of head in the clouds, and when we all get to heaven and they weren't doing anything on earth, I think it's switched in mind now.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think that we are so earthly minded we're no heavenly good.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: And becoming the richest person in heaven, one of the things that's going to be beautiful about this thought is it's going to become help people become heavenly minded again.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: Because I think I think we've missed that.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: I think that entrepreneurs spend more time on their personal financial portfolio than they do the kingdoms.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: Where do I get the best interest?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: Where's going to give me the greatest return?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then we flippantly throw money into nonprofits without vetting them, scaling them.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_03: If we treated our earthly money like we do our heavenly investments, we'd be poor.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_03: And what I say is the day that you think more about heaven and God than you do yourself, it'll change the way that even you intentionally do your giving.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Trafficking, structural hunger, a billion people without the Bible in their language.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: These aren't unsolvable.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're just uncoordinated.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: At solving the world's greatest problems, we're a community of givers taking on the root causes of the world's deepest suffering, and we're taking them on together.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: We've identified more than 30 of the world's greatest problems, and the list keeps growing.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: We work alongside the entrepreneurs, investors, and ministry leaders already in the fight, and we fund the breakthroughs happening right now.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Here's where it starts.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Choose your problem and start your journey with one of our foundation courses.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: You won't just hear about the work, but see the breakthroughs, and give directly towards them.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Come on your own, bring a few friends, or host a room and set the table.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Come join the fight and fight your people.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Learn more at solving.org.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Under its power for its glory together.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_06: That's beautiful, and it's powerful, and it's real.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_06: And I think that's the harsh truth that we have to come to is like this side of the pocket, the portfolio, whichever way you want to look at it, has been relatively looked past and has been ignored.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_06: And I think before we get into that, I want to come back to this idea of the number.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_06: I I think there's been so much conversation, or maybe the last 10 years, of like a finish line, a financial finish line.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_06: And if I'm just taking a hot take or perspective on this, I think why it hasn't resonated with entrepreneurs is it has this idea.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_06: Of scarcity, this idea of prescriptive nature to it, the entrepreneurs are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I I break rules, I don't follow rules, I don't build boxes, I don't I don't live in them.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_03: I blow those suckers up.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: I jump fences.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: Finished lines are finished lines.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: What entrepreneur wants to hear the day that they're finished?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that doesn't even have their language.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's not our language.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not mine at all.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so, I mean, that's why they don't have destination disease.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_03: You take an entrepreneur, they're never satisfied.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: Whatever they got, they want more.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: And well, we're going to do this project.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_03: Why do they have 11 projects going at the same time?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: Because they haven't been able to find the 12th one.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: They're built differently.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I have a uh a bunch of books I still have to write.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: You see, I've written 92, but there I got 14 in my book, Birth Line.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_04: There you go.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_03: And they're all screaming at me.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: They're all just saying it's my turn, it's my turn.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the books I want to write is going to be entitled, Is There a Finish Line?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's going to be a question.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: Because I think for 99% of the people, there's a finish line.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: When I get enough money, when I get a certain age, I'm finished.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_03: And what I tell people is that when you put a self-imposed finish line out there, age, money, whatever, when you say, This is my finish line, when you cross it, you're finished.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: What part of that don't we understand?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: Now all of a sudden, our best life is behind us.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_03: We're finished.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: And how many times do we see bored people who have so much more to offer, but they cross the line?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think there is a finish line.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: I think when you talk about being the richest person in heaven, and I think when you talk about a term that has no ending, a value that you can put out there, I think what it causes us to do is it causes us to think bigger than the finish line.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_03: And what I want to tell people, everybody, you know what I'm telling them?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_03: You're bigger than a finish line.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: Are you going to let a finish line reduce you down to whatever it defines for you?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_03: It's the same way with fences.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: You're bigger than being inside of a fence.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: Jump the fence.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that so many times, and the limitations that we have are not the limitations others put on us.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: And this is, I think, the big miss.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_03: They're personal limitations.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_03: In other words, these are the things that I've said about myself.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that it's time for us to begin to understand and call out within us our bigger self.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: The self that God saw us and created us to become, to, to, to be transformational, to make a positive difference in the lives of people, to be our brother's keeper, to live a life beyond my life.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_06: I think everybody, when they talk about finish line, I love how the language of like set your number, start to new conversations, it shakes up the box, it gives them a new framework, it creates an opportunity.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_06: And what I love what you've talked about is like the opportunity to see the get to and not like the got to, or not like what a movie is.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_06: Can you talk about just like unpack when you set a number, when you have that, what's the joy?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_06: What's the opportunities that we're missing?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_06: We're missing the upside of the equation.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_06: We're looking at the downside.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I say pick a number, not for security.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_03: Pick a number for significance.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_03: If I pick a number for security, when I get to that number, I have a finish line.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_03: I got enough for myself.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh, let's hold hands.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_03: Let's do kumbaya.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: When I pick a number as a finish line, it's for me.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: When I pick a number for a starting line, this is a different world.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: I pick a number so that I can really get a big number.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_03: I don't pick a number for me.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: I, again, we have our art, we can either tell our story of what we've done, or we can tell the story of what we have done for others.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: So when I pick a number, it says, okay, John, that's what you need.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_03: Be satisfied with that.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: Now live the bigger world, the better world.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: Beyond that number, everything you do is going to be for others.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: Now, all of a sudden, I have a reason to pick a number.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: Picking a number now is not confining to me, it's not defining to me.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's not a fence.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's a goalpost.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: When I cross that number, I just got a touchdown.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_03: But the touchdown now is no longer for me.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: The touchdown is for the people.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_03: And the moment that I realize that I pick a number for me, I now get to pick a number for others.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_03: And the second number is going to have such a higher compounding return than what the first number is.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_06: How does somebody tell the difference between accumulation and stewardship?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_06: How does somebody know when they're really on the right side of that equation?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: I defy it accumulation as it's for me.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's not something that God teaches.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, God's not looking and saying, John, I'm really concerned about you.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: Your net worth needs to be up another 10 million.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: My gosh.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure you can make it with that number.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: Please, you know, you don't need to trust me.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: Trust yourself.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_03: Trust your portfolio.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: This is all wrong.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_03: See, I think accumulation is things that I get to have for myself.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: I think stewardship is the management of understanding.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: First of all, it's not my stuff.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: I don't have any stuff.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's all God's.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: If I think it's mine, I accumulate.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_03: If I think it's his, I invest.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's a different world.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: So my perspective, you know, how we view things, Justin, is how we do things.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: So two people can be in two different worlds.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: Sitting side by side, they can be neighbors.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: And live in two different worlds.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: And whatever world my perspective is, is truly the world I live in.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_03: I can live in a scarcity world, a selfish world, it's mine world, or I can live in an abundance world, he's the source, it isn't mine.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: And it it's and whatever that perspective of is going to determine how I respond to money and to people and to life itself.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_06: I think that there's a moment here where entrepreneurs, we've uh spent a lot of time on the business.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_06: We've spent a lot of time servant leadership, chaplaincy, ways to care for our team.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_06: It feels like there's a moment that's happening where God is calling entrepreneurs to say, hey, if he owns the business, he owns the fruit too.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, he does.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: He owns it all.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_06: And people are stuck a little bit at that how question.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_06: And and we were talking about this earlier, is you know, there's 1.8 million nonprofits.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_06: There's only 5,000 publicly traded companies.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_06: So there's literally 450 times as many choices, but there's very few guides, very few people to make sense of it all.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_06: And and yet we get paralyzed.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_06: And we see the worries of the world, I think we see the downstream symptoms of brokenness.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_06: And one of the things I love is that for you personally, God's called you to say, what's the upstream?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_06: And I think so much as we keep going upstream and upstream and upstream, yes, we see brokenness, yes, we see hurting, yes, we see wickedness.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_06: But if we want to get to the root of all that, it's sin.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_06: And if we want to get to that, it's the gospel and it's making God's name known.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_06: Talk about for you how did that become the thing that you guys as a family and as a couple say, like, I we're gonna prioritize this.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well, first of all, Justin, the gospel's called the good news.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_03: The only people I know that can take good news and turn it bad news are Christians that have lost their way.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I see it happen all the time where we don't share our faith, where we're hesitant to do that.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I I'm sitting there, and if if if I had, okay, if I if I had if I had some good news, Justin, to tell you, I could hardly wait to tell you.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_03: The the the my wife tells me, she said, John, you can't keep a surprise, and I can't.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_03: I I when I buy her a gift, I give her the gift right then.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: I and it's but it's not my birthday.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: I know it's not, but I just got it.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: I just I just got it.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: I want you to have, I mean, I just can't hold, I can't help myself.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's wonderful.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_03: Well, if it was really good news, we'd be sharing our faith with people so quickly because he's the answer.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: All the brokenness, all those things that you talk about that are on the downside, there's only one answer for that, isn't it?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: Jesus forgives.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_03: Jesus makes whole, he heals us, he restores us.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's the good news.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_03: The hope of the world is Jesus.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_03: What is amazing to me is the hope of the world that is Jesus, and we are so hesitant to share the hope of the world.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of like, oh, you know, Justin, I really got something wonderful to tell you, but I don't want to tell you.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: There's something real screwy about that kind of thinking.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_03: And the reason we don't want to tell them is because we have never yet been convinced that it is the good news.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: That's why you see brand new Christians sharing their faith much more readily than older Christians.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, guess what happened to me?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_03: Let me pass it on to you.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: Then we get them in church, then we get them in Bible studies, and then we get them in a whole bunch of stuff that is all wonderful and wealthy, but but it doesn't get us to where we need to go.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think that we have lost our way.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: So here's what I'm saying to you.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: When I talk about being the richest person in heaven, when I talk about picking a number, what I'm talking about is intentionally setting up your life so you can maximize the good news to as many people as possible.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_03: If it's the good news, the question I should be asking myself every day is very simple.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: How do I maximize it?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_03: How do I get it to more people?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_03: How do I do it in a better way?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_03: How do I connect with more lost people?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's a whole bunch of questions we ask ourselves that allow us to find the answer.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_03: We've got to find them before we can share our faith with them.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, hey, why did Jesus leave the 99 and the pen?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, look at Jesus.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_03: He lost the, he left the found.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_03: So he could find the lost.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_03: So many of us in the church, we lose the lost.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_03: We leave the lost so we can find the found.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_03: And why did he, why, why would he do that?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's much more comfortable to be with the sheep that you already found.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: He did it for one reason.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_03: He was the only one that could find the lost sheep.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_03: He did it because of the good news.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think the moment that we began to realize how beautiful it is as the feet that share the gospel.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_03: How beautiful it is.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the Bible says the person that wins souls is wise.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't say you're wise if you win souls.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: The wise comes on the back end, not the front end.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: God said, I will give you wisdom that other people don't have.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'll give you understanding that people don't have.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'll give you compassion that people don't have.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_03: If you will share your faith.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_03: All the good stuff comes on the back end.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's like obedience.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_03: Obedience is not understood on the front end.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_03: We question God, well should.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, it's always understood on the back end.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_03: So what do we do?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_03: We trust on the front end.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_03: I trust God, this is the good news, and I share, and as I share the good news, I begin to learn things about lost people I didn't know, which gives me much more wisdom of how to share with them the good news.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: It all comes on the back end.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: And what I would say to you and to me and to all of us, to all of our friends, whatever, here's what I would say.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_03: You have to take action.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: You don't think your way into sharing your faith?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_03: You don't pray your way into sharing your faith.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: You don't hope your way to sharing your faith.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: Peter said, be ready to give an answer to every person that sees the hope in you.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I gotta ask myself two questions.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: Do people see hope in me?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_03: Am I a lifter, a positive Christian, that people say, oh my gosh, I don't know what he's got, but I think I need a little bit of that.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: So I got, first of all, I have to have the hope, create the hope.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I told Christians recently, I said, I know you're saved.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_03: Could you try being nice?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: Can we just put nice on to save it?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_03: Be a little bit better.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, what so you gotta have that positivity of life that has hope.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: But here's the flip side of that is he said, be ready always to give an answer.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: The only way you can be ready always to give an answer is you're always giving an answer.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_03: And this is the big mess.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, people are frightened of evangelism because they say, I don't know what to say.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you don't know what to say because you said nothing.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_03: What part of this do you not understand?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know how to swim.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_03: Could you get in the water?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_03: I I'm astounded many times at what how people make things complicated.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_03: There is no life change without action.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and and and and I have a teaching, Justin, called Action Attraction.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_03: And the teaching basically says the moment we move, all kinds of wonderful things move toward us.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: But it's our movement that causes the movement.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_03: Resources come to us, people come to us, ideas come to us, opportunities come to us.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_03: But it doesn't come to us when we're sitting.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_06: And I and I want people to know this part of it because I think as we hit this at the beginning, so many books, 92 plus 14 being birthed.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_03: I'm old.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_03: You can only do 90.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_03: Only 92 books if you're old.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_03: If you're not old, you can't do 92.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_06: Some you can do on cassette tape.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_06: You can you can do this.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_06: But but people have known so much of the books.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_06: They've known so much of the leadership.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_06: I think when entrepreneurs are hearing this message, they can hear this message and say, Oh, that that sounds great, but but there's the question of like how?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_06: And what I love so much is through ministries like Equip and the work of what you guys have done, you've taken that very same talk that you encouraged us as entrepreneurs to take heart in and said, How do we do this?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_06: What does this look like?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_06: Because God is giving you platform and opportunity in countries around the world and leadership opportunities, and you're stewarding that with that intentionality to say, I'm gonna share things that's gonna add value, but then I'm gonna also say, How do I share my why?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_06: Can you talk people through like what does Equip do, and how have you brought those two things together?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, I was for 25 years a pastor, loved every moment of it.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I was with my publisher in Nashville, and they had done research on my books, and they said something that shocked me, totally shocked me.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: They said, Your books are not being bought by a Christian, they're bought by business people in the secular bookstore.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember looking at him saying, You're kidding.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_03: I knew my books were starting to sell, but I had no idea.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_03: I kind of just thought the Christian community was buying it.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_03: The moment they said my books were being bought by business and secular people, the very moment, Justin, I felt clearly God say crossover.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_03: Crossover?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a theologue.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: I know the church.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a pastor.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_03: I love the church.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: I love pastoring.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_03: Crossover.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: So I was in San Diego and we were at a major relocation project, would probably cost 50, 60 million dollars.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_03: And so I knew I had to steward the manage it right, and so I spent two more years at the church to get the money, get everything ready so that I could.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: But at the appropriate time, I I knew I had to cross over, and I crossed over.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_03: But when I crossed over, of course, now I'm living, I'm leaving a world that I know to a world that I don't know.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: And and everything, everything's gonna be different now.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_03: Everything's gonna be different.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_03: Scary time, a lot of questions.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh what do I do?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_03: How do I do it?
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I went into the scripture and I saw how Paul did it.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_03: He said, I became a servant to all people, all kinds of servants, to all kinds of people.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_03: And it hit me that when I crossed over, I needed to serve people, add value to them, value them, and add value to them.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: And so for the next uh uh several years, seven or eight, I really didn't share my faith much.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: I I just got into the leadership world and helped leaders lead and help businesses grow and help people become more successful, and I poured my heart into it.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_03: I had to learn an awful lot because I didn't know that world very well.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_03: I knew the leadership world, but I didn't know the business world.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_03: And slowly I gained credibility.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_03: It took a lot of time.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_03: I had to start clear down at the bottom and go back up.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_03: But I got there.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_03: I got there.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_03: And there came a time when they began to um, you see, in the Christian world, relationships are everything.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, oh, Justin, Alex, you you love the Lord, I love the Lord.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_03: We're all it's almost like immediate glue.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_03: We're trying to.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_03: Trust acceleration.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_03: In the business world, it's not that way.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_03: Respect comes first.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_03: Really, business people don't want to hang too much with you unless they respect you.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_03: So they're qualifying you all the time.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, there were, I had years where they weren't, nobody was listening to me.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_03: They'd listened to me on leadership.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: But that was, I mean, I was put in a pigeonhole, leadership, leadership, leadership, and I was helping them leadership.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_03: Guess what?
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_03: If you're good where you are, you get to go where you aren't.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_03: But if you aren't good where you are, you don't get to go anywhere.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_03: Over time, I got to expand my circle and get their respect.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_03: When I got the respect, now I have the opportunity to share my faith.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: And so equip, we we we were, it's a leadership organization.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_03: We said, let's train leaders, especially in developing countries, because that's the reason the developing countries they don't have good leadership.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_03: So we started that, and we we got a volunteer movement that became pretty strong, and we started training leaders, and we started seeing countries do a little bit better.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_03: And and then I put out what I called a million leader mandate.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_03: I said, let's train a million leaders.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_03: Well, when we started, we were hoping I thought maybe it wouldn't be good if I trained a thousand leaders or ten thousand leaders.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: See, uh when people set these big goals, I don't understand them.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's wonderful that they have these big thoughts.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_03: I've never had those kind of thoughts.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: I just kind of think, I think if I really do good what I'm doing right now, I'll get more.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so I mine's a little bit more processed and segmented.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I still get surprised.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_03: I still get beautifully surprised.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: I said, oh my gosh, that happened?
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so I I've just committed my life to adding value to people, train leaders.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_03: We trained a million leaders, and then we said, well, let's train leaders in every country.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_03: In 19 years, we went from no leaders trained to six million leaders trained in every country of the world, became the largest training organization in the whole world.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_03: But how do you how do you eat an elephant?
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_03: One bite at a time.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_03: If I would have told them in the beginning, well, we're going to train leaders in every country, they they should have thrown rocks at me and gone home.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, no leader has the right to put big goals in front of people until they have proven they can hit the small ones.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_03: The credibility of can I reach a big goal is I hit a small one.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_03: Then if I had a small one, I can, it's it's it's it's David.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_03: I killed the lion, killed the bear.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_03: All right, bring on the big boy.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_03: But you don't bring on the big boy.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: First, you don't even talk about the big boy.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, David would have had fear facing the big boy in the beginning.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: He had to have his confidence build up, and his confidence gave him some success, and his success gave him more confidence.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_03: And it was a group.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_03: Does that make sense?
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_03: So when we trained all those leaders, that I realized there was still a missing part, and that was we had leaders who had leadership skills, but they didn't have leadership values.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_03: So I said, now let's let's get let's get let's have we we've given them skills, let's give them values, let's help them get right on the inside.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_03: And so we started doing that with transformation of country and values.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_03: And values are pre-conversion.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and it feels like there's been a shift.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, there has been.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, like years ago it was, you know, in business and the marketplace, there was this idea like, well, we can get a return, but it comes at the expense of our values.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_06: Now it's you get a return because Because of the question about it.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_03: Those soft skills that everybody kind of thought were not important have become essential now because they realize they're the key to human relations.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so we we did the values, and values, and all the values are they're all Christian values.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_03: In my Maxwell Leadership Bible, when I sign it for somebody, I said, everything I know about leadership I learned from this book.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_03: So all the values are biblical, but we don't, we in the secular world, we don't put the verses in there.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_03: Biblical values work whether they know it's a biblical value or not.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_03: So we started putting values on the inside, which opened the door for us to share our faith.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_03: What's interesting is in the early years I didn't share my faith to gain credibility and respect with the lost world.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: Once I got that, now it's ridiculously open in sharing our faith.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I just want to close with this.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_03: What I longed to do in the beginning, share my faith.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_03: I get to do today with people, with a lot of people.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_03: And we are seeing the compounding results.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when you're going on the right direction, your work is stored up before it shows up.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of people don't understand that.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_03: They want it to show up immediately, and then when it doesn't show up immediately, they either quit or get frustrated.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_03: It stores up, and then one day.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_03: When it starts showing up, people think you're really better than you really are.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_03: It only shows up good today because it was stored up before.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so all the things that we stored up and showed up with the possibility of sharing our faith.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_03: Today we have small groups around the world, and they do a thing called Beyond Success.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_03: I think we have 191,000 small groups.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_03: And Beyond Success is a table where we have five lessons on how to be successful so it appeals to secular lost people.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_03: And in that, at the end of that fifth lesson, I also say there's something I haven't shared with you.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_03: But I wouldn't do this without your permission.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_03: I I respect you too much.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_03: But it's about my faith, which is really the secret to my significant life.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_03: If you want to hear about it, I'll be glad to do it.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_03: Only those who want to hear stay.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's over 90% stay, and over 50% receive Christ.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_03: Now, think of this with me 191,000 small groups, all basically laymen, business people out there.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_03: Now compounding of in the last six years, we've now passed four million people coming to Christ.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_06: Amen.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_06: Praise God.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_03: We believe we're probably the largest evangelistic organization in the world and nobody knows about it.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody said, How do you win so many people to Christ?
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_03: I said, Well, we we hang around with lost people.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's an odds gift.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_03: If you hang around with Christians, yeah, you've got to pick a couple, but but if we hang around lost people, we just hang around lost people, but we now I think we just got a report.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_03: I think this month we will see 160,000 people come to Christ.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_03: And we and we have a statistics, we have people that we hire specifically.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_03: We got names, addresses, emails.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_03: We don't do this ministerially speaking.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_03: We make sure that we have real numbers because I want to have credibility with the people.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_03: But here's what we do believe.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_03: We think scaling right now, it's very possible we could do it earlier.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_03: But we think on the present rate that we are, that in six years we will lead a million people every month to Jesus.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_03: Amen.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_03: If that happens, there'll be more people go to heaven because of equipment than any other organization in the history of the world.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's very humbling to us.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_03: And right now, we do it for four dollars a soul.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_03: Four dollars a soul.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_03: And we lead somebody to Jesus.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_06: And I and I, as we come to the close, I want to double-click on that because um our mutual friend Chris Hodges was in his office.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yes, he's on our own.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_06: All of the things in his office, one of the things I love most is that thing behind his desk and that counter.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I call it the salvation scoreboard.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_06: And I love that scoreboard, and I think he has one connected to your work and the board.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_06: But the intentionality, the measurement of that.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_06: Some people, maybe if they're the first time stewarding their philanthropic capital in a new way and they hear four dollars per salvation, it can can sound maybe transactional or whatever, but I love the measurement of intentionality to say, how are we stewarding these resources to the most effectiveness?
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_06: And it's just beautiful to see as we talk about just that that overlaying of our business skills into some of this.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I know.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the I love the little poem I learned when it much younger, it's about heaven.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_03: It says, When you enter the beautiful city and the saved all around you appear, what joy when someone will say, It was you who invited me here.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_05: Beautiful.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_03: I want to see Jesus.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_05: Amen.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_03: But after Jesus, I want to see all the people that I helped get to heaven.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'm there for that.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we love affirmation from others, but when Jesus says well done, that's really who's really hard.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_03: And the way to be well done is to give Jesus the greatest gift we can give him, the gift that he died for.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_03: People who have been saved.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_03: And that's Equipp's aim, and that's where we are, and we have a lot of people helping us.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm very grateful.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm very grateful for God's favor, and I'm very grateful for the men and women who have invested in us and said, I want to help heaven be populated, and for the people that have gone out and had those small groups.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's a beautiful thing.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_06: Well, John, thanks for starting with pink cassette tapes.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_06: It's everything here.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_06: It's a gift to be with you.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_03: I laughed.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_03: I I just have to laugh because I find a lot of humor in all the things I did wrong.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_03: I it doesn't bring me more joy, but it does bring me a lot more humor.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_03: Who would have thought that a guy in Jackson, Mississippi, with 39 people, would say, okay, let's start a cassette program.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_03: And then he would do it with pink tapes.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_03: I love the people, I love the people who think they're doing it right on the front end.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_03: I want to walk into them and I say, I love your heart.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_03: You're quite stupid, but love your heart.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_03: You don't know if you did it well on the front end.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_03: The test of doing it well is the back end.
• 51:09
  unknown: Amen.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_03: So starting well, a bunch of people start.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_06: Amen.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_03: Not a lot of people finish well.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_06: Amen.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_06: Well, friends, uh, we could talk for hours, but as we finish this conversation, we know that we always like to leave you with the next step.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_06: And we don't want this to be hype and a bunch of conversation that that doesn't move into action.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_06: And so it's probably right here in front of you.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_06: When you hear us wrestling, you hear us talking about just the ways that God has put us in a place to steward capital, to say, what does it look like?
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_06: To say, what is that number?
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_06: What are the ways that God is going to create this new and exciting new adventure and a starting line of joy, of intentional strategic giving and doing it with friends.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_06: So I would just want to encourage you, go to the solving.org website, explore all these collaborative giving funds.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_06: In there, you're gonna hear about the evangelism fund that we just talked about.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_06: And you're gonna be able to see some of the ways that we've been able to financially partner and support with Equip to say how do we be intentional about reaching more people with the gospel?
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_06: So find a way, maybe as a family, as a business, wherever God's calling, to get in the game.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_06: It's great to be with you, and we look forward to seeing you.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are your next steps?
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: Give together, meet friends, and discover how you can go further.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: Join us on the call, and we'll give you a 30-minute overview of giving funds and how they work.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: Visit solvent.org to join the call today.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: Pick a fund and step into the story.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: Breakthroughs are happening right now.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: God is already at work, and you're invited to join him.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more, visit solving.org.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's solving.org.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're watching on YouTube, please subscribe.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and we hope that you join us in solving the world's greatest problems.