Hey, today I get a chance to sit down and talk with my friend Curtis Honeycutt. We're going to talk a little bit about our background, how our paths cross, some of our hope and vision for working together in the future, some lessons about some opportunity in Europe, some lessons, some opportunity there. We've been surfing together one time. Yeah, we went surfing, well, no, you surfed. I almost drowned. Yeah, so I keep telling people this story and you're there and you just listen.
I want this story from your perspective. I'm very eager to hear because I know what it felt like for... I know that you don't mess around and my friends don't either. I surf with a few chief of police, some vetted guys who also graduated from the FBI academy. So I know you like to be taken seriously. So I said, hey, my friend Curtis is coming out here with his family from Maryland and we'll throw you in with the sharps, which is basically exactly what we did.
So the surf was six feet at Trussells. For those of you who don't have a beach background, that's like one of the harder places in the world to take up surfing. The surf was a pretty solid size. He's never held a surfboard, never been in the ocean. I took him to basically one of the hardest places. I told you to meet us at Bobby's, which you did. I said, drive to Christine Edo's Park, walk down this trail. Yeah, it's dark outside. I've never been... It's dark. Yeah. You did it.
You walked a mile down to the beach. You found us at the beach, no wetsuits, water was not that warm, surf's big, and you killed it. And I was like... And after you left, I told Bobby, I think he's going to do well in Europe. But you didn't even give me advice. So you know, the whole thing was like, oh, all right, cool. You only have to... But was there... With the sharks you got, there were no excuses. We laughed about the whole thing.
And I thought, I think he's probably going to do well in another country, not knowing another language, not having any... I thought I was like, I think I do. So that's why... But you didn't even give me... Like, what were you thinking? We're standing on the beach and you're waiting for me. Your friends are out there. I show up. I just walked a mile in these flip flops that I never walked a mile in. There was sand in them. So it rubbed a hole in my skin.
That was the worst part of the whole day, was my left foot. But I just get there and you're... You didn't even give me advice. I thought I was going to... My ex... I shouldn't have had expectations. I was going to arrive at the beach and you're going to be like, okay, so here's what you do. Here's how you do it. You just start talking about other stuff. And all I hear is, all I'm waiting for is my surfing advice. I get nothing. Your surfing advice was follow me.
Yeah. And then, but at the end of the follow me was, and I'm going to leave you just so you know, follow me, but not for long. I was hearing up front that I was going to talk to you for 10 minutes in the water and then I was going to go surfing. Yeah. So, most people would not like that. I'll just put that out there. Yeah. But people who want a challenge, they figure things out. So I don't...
By the way, I don't... I thought you would like it because I know you're crazy when you've hung out enough to know that you're like... You're a crazy person where we both put our hands up. Yeah. So that's my side of it. Yeah. Okay. Well, now let me tell you... I thought you were going to like it. I've taught 94 people... I've taken 94 people surfing the first time they went surfing. Wow. And I've never taken anyone that trusts me. Yeah. I would have met... I can see why.
But I just thought you had it in you. Thank you. I think this guy has it in him. So there you are. Yep. My wife... I was right. I'm not always right. Dude, that was... Okay. Here's what happened for me is I show up at a dark place in the morning and I don't know where I am or what's going on and I can't really see what's happening. I park. I'm still kind of in the middle of the street. You show up and just put a surfboard in the car.
And all I remember is you going like drive to the highway, go two exits down. You're going to find surfers, follow the surfers that are walking. There's a bunch of different places that these surfers go. Don't go to any of those. Just go to this one. I don't even remember how you told me. I have a Mark Bell, the shameless Sir Coffee Play, who owns this company. I told him this story in Ego's song. That's classic Ryan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. So I get... Well, I'm learning that.
Well, I get to where I'm walking and then halfway through you ride by me on your e-bike and you're like, you're going the right way and you just keep going. You're like, you're doing great. My foot's bleeding. I'm like, this is dumb. I'm just... I finally get there. I get to the beach next to the Porter Potty. You're there and all I see... I'm expecting sand, right? Just sand that we walk out into.
Everything's rocks and I look out and the first thing that you tell me when I get there was that you should have been here when they just held the professional surf competition a week ago. I was like, why are we at a place where there's a professional surf competition even able to happen there? Why am I here? My armpit hurts from carrying surfboard just because I've never even done that. We just start walking out. You're just talking about random stuff and I'm walking out in the water.
Yeah, for sure. But you turn your board over and start using it so your ankle doesn't roll in the water. So I do that. I'm just watching you and I'm kind of taking my time and then it starts to get deeper and waves start coming and waves start coming and then I ask you what do I do? This is the pressing question for me because this is what I don't know what to do. If I'm in three foot waves in Ocean City, Maryland and I get smashed, I don't know what to do.
I try to go under it real far but now I got something that flows. So what do I do if a wave hits me? You say, you duck dive and I say, what's a duck dive? You halfway explain it and then you said now would be a good time for that. And all I remember is going upside down and when I came back up, you were much further than I was out. I already knew some of your background. I know you run. I know you hunt. So in my defense. None of that involves, you never even asked do you know how to swim?
You did ask that. You asked do you know how to swim? You know you hunt and you know you run. None of that has anything to do with what just happened to me. But it totally did. I knew you liked me in the challenge and you're out for a good story. Well then I remember there was a moment. There was a moment because you had gotten past the break and you're out there with your friends. You kept checking to make sure I was floating but I had a choice to make.
I was getting smashed and at this point I had cussed out loud twice. I yelled it. I was just getting smashed and there was nothing I could do. I either have to go sit on that beach and watch Ryan surf and cry. There were three options in my head. I got to do that. I have to stay here and get smashed for an hour while Ryan surfs or I have to get every ounce of because in my head now I'm like I don't even know how I'm going to get back in once I'm out there.
Once I'm out there I might have to stay. So I lived every single ounce of what I had. It took to get past the break and I finally got past the break and I got out there and you looked at me and said I didn't think you were going to get past the break. I'm just impressed you made it out here. So anyway. I was saying for the rest of the day who needs enemies when you have friends like Ryan. Bobby said that and I couldn't even sit up on the board because I was so unstable. I couldn't sit.
I just had to lay. My legs were open. I just had to lay there and then at the end I tried to surf and it didn't work. Getting in ended up being really easy and I was glad to get out of the water. That was my side of the story. Welcome to California and I went home and I was like hey this is what we're going to drive across the country to. Are you excited? She didn't like you immediately. Now she likes you though. But before she didn't.
I always find when you go straight on your buddy's wife's blacklist. Yeah 100% and you did it immediately. But it was good. But it is interesting. You correlate that to church planting or starting something new and it always comes down to that moment before you get out of the break when you're doing something new because everything's unfamiliar. I've never even been in water like that before. It was fun. It's also a little bit of a metaphor. People want a challenge.
Yeah but it's that three pronged decision. It's that three pronged decision in that moment of I either have to fully commit and give this every ounce of me. I have to stay here and keep getting beat up and sulk and whine. Or I just gotta get out of the water. It's one of those three options and then enough time doing different things getting past that break in those different areas you just start getting to the point where it's like well there's no other choice that I have.
I also had the gift of being 48 and knowing that I just naturally gravitate towards wild overcomer types. Just like to find each other somehow. Yeah. Here we are. Here we are. All things have their pros and cons. That's a good asset class if you want to do a more over doing. If you want to do smaller out there disciple making going into places where no one knows God and no one wants to. That propensity towards being wild and being overcoming is an asset. Absolutely.
You have to own it and you also want to be around the other people that are wired that way. Yeah. No you do. For sure. Yeah. So we have some similar backgrounds. We both worked at larger churches. Let's talk for a minute about the pros and cons of that. I'll go first. What I loved about a bigger church it was easy for me to invite people to.
It was a secure time for myself and my family as far as somewhere where I was able to work and I didn't have to have the level of responsibility that I feel now. I was able to learn a lot from people that I respect. I really enjoyed it. Part of me misses it. Part of me wants to. I was learning more about water policy and both my large church experiences I found myself gravitating towards the people that work in the mission side in both settings.
I started to connect with places in the world that need water are the same places in the world that don't have churches. So obviously God was doing something in my heart. That thesis that I started to develop about water solutions and churches I started to figure out that the context that I was in would not translate into the nooks and crannies of the world. And so that became a con for me in the sense that this is great. This is wonderful. I can invite people.
It's a safe place for me and my family. But then the conflict for me became I knew where I thought this thesis smaller more flexible and solving the water problem. I couldn't do both. So that's a little bit of my background. I also learned a lot about how to treat people. You know you work in ministry. What you if we're out there teaching people about Jesus a first grader would understand. Love that neighbor. So at the top of the list of things we teach people is how is how we treat others.
So I got an education as they say about how to treat people in different situations. There were things I definitely liked. There were things I definitely did not like. I was just taking notes. Yeah and just observing. I wasn't on a mission to ironically to teach anyone. Yeah. I was just learning. So you have some similarities. Well for me it was my I didn't grow up in the church. I don't think you did either.
So well yeah so well for me my whole idea of what progress was was like get rich be happy. That was it. So I got into insurance at like 19 and I was like this is this is the deal. Insurance is residual income. I sell you a policy. You keep it every month. You keep it. I keep getting paid every year. You keep it. I keep this perfect. You do enough of that for a while. You got money just coming in and you buy happiness.
People say money can't buy happiness and I had a mentor that used to tell me yeah but it's more fun to cry in a Ferrari than on a bicycle. And I was like well that's a pretty solid argument and I hadn't heard better arguments so I was like that's what I'm going to do. But what I learned from that experience was like they the bigger problems you solve the bigger checks you cash. The bigger gaps you fill in the market the more people are willing to pay you. So always look for gaps.
So similar to you like I went to Hillsong College where I met my wife and in Australia and I took a year. I had I've been a Christian for like four or five years started making money finally started traveling around and speaking but I felt like I wasn't telling people the whole story. I can tell you how to make money but I'm not giving you the rest of what's actually happened in my life and made the biggest difference and why I care much less about the money than I used to.
And after I came back from Hillsong I got that experience of being immersed there for a year and I came back and worked with New Life in Maryland and they they were unique because they had this like a larger church but they also just had many different variations of church plants like they had church plants on their campus. They're doing house church stuff. They have so I they have campuses so I planted a campus with them and with that experience it was the same thing.
I'm looking for I'm understanding this is how God created me and I'm looking for gaps because not like if we're a body not every church can fill every gap. It's impossible. You can't do it all. It takes all makes and models.
Yeah absolutely and that's where that's actually historically where I think people have gone wrong with the house church big church situation because without the larger churches the things that you can support there are people we say it all the time but all those people never walk into a church building. Yeah but there's other people that would never walk into your living room. You know what I mean like they're never going to show up in your living room.
The bigger churches they they bring vision they bring resources they bring all these different things they bring like you said a place to invite they bring teaching they bring events they like I'm new in this area we haven't been here. We got to go to church right down the street because they brought 70 tons of snow in and got Olivia had a blast. We had a great time. I don't miss putting on events like that.
So that for me I was looking for those different gaps while I was there just because naturally it was like that was what my brain was trained. My sister and my brother in law my parents some people my family still go to Saddleback church that I used to work at and it's wonderful. It's been a massive blessing to their family. What's interesting to me is in some circles it's it's common to have either or thinking.
Yeah exactly one one approach or one group of people is like the more noble enlightened. We do house church and we don't take salaries so we're better than you. Yes our ways the way actually Jesus is the way it turns out there's all this other stuff that's out there. Exactly.
It's like just about life at the same time at the same time there's a there's a segment of people who are built to go into the nooks and crannies to take on that need large large fame which isn't to say other people doing absolutely an approach different isn't large thing but when you're thinking of some of these nooks and crannies different parts of the world you know you and you feel a tug towards that and also as you read you know
church history you know you'll see wow this is how the gospel spread across the United States. This is you can look at other countries take the United States out there you start to look at how you know Jesus got out of the world. It was mostly small ball you know passionate small ball you know guys just trying to teach one dude over here going over here and it was messy and so that can be very encouraging.
Yeah. So yeah so we both had opportunities in our life to to have those experiences to totally a lot from then and yet here we are we're friends and our paths have crossed and when did we meet? We I don't know you like virtually about two years ago. Yep you were always on your bicycle on the zoom call. I remember that. Yep. Their first your first thing every zoom call was like sorry I'm on my bike can you hear me that's how you started every zoom call.
When I was when I first started Ocean Water yeah we're in my garage talking I was super stressed out don't know what I'm doing I'm pacing back and forth hours a day. Talking to God. Get out on my bike to pray and clear my head just basically trying to be healthy for myself and you know try to keep for some call going not no pun intended.
Yeah and yeah so I did I do ride my bike and surf but that is how we met and I met you I met I met Dwight yeah I met David Jury I met Phil Tay yeah and some other guys yeah and we were on that call for about a year yeah and that was great for me because I was coming out of my you know larger experience and I really I didn't hey I didn't want to be doing this by myself yeah but B I didn't really want to be terribly responsible so
I was just like super more people great yeah yeah I was a really cool so yeah we we met there for like yeah we yeah we did that for like a year and then we had talked some and you told me you're like well because I had told you at the time I think toward the end of that call I felt like God had told us to sell the house go debt-free buy a fifth wheel renovate it well he didn't I didn't hear all that I heard buy a fifth wheel we found one
that if we wanted to go debt-free we had to find one and renovate it and that's and we did and that was like I would talk to you about that periodically and your response is always like don't bring that thing to California that was every when we talked it was always that well if you fast forward we renovated the RV right halfway through renovation you know this story I'm halfway through renovation we sold everything and I get a text message
a call find out that my my brother was shot and killed his wife was shot and killed my nephew was shot for like this it was just this crazy chaotic time in life and then we finished the renovations and then coming into the next year like now we don't know what we're supposed to what we're doing with it we had this idea like we had a plan but we kind of it's like God said go do this and then we made up a pretty piss poor plan just
so that I felt like justified in what I was doing like I needed to have something but once we were finished I'm like that's not what I'm supposed to be doing with this right now yeah jacked up line broken in certain spots and then I go on a 40-day fast not like no food 40-day fast cutting out certain things 40 days and as we're going through this fast I'm 20 days in and you called me and said what are you doing with that RV and like stuff
was just getting kind of crazy with that fast. If you fast for a long period of time and you're just you're praying and focused, it's just amazing. Like the sensitivity to God is incredible. Well the fact that I would call someone on a fast when I never fast. That's perfect. It was day 20. If you want to learn about fasting, Curtis has a lot more experience. Yeah, but it was literally day 20.
I will say again, pros and cons. I've gone through this period of my life pretty clear to me that I need to go do this. Cons are totally stressed out, terrified. I don't use the word terrified. And one of the pros is praying a lot. You don't have any other choice. Through that experience, I would say I've gotten better about sensing certain things. Yeah, you just popped in my head and I was like, oh man, I wonder if you want to come out and spend some time here as preparation for what
was in your heart, which is the Oasis Project. Yeah, talk a little about that. Talk a little bit about that call that you feel how it relates to honoring your family. Matilda and Mission, Sweden and all of that. So for me, it was always like since it was strange to me when I was making no money in marketing and insurance, I had certain people that were making a lot of money. They were like where I wanted to be financially. They were traveling, they were speaking,
they had the life. But after I got saved, those people were coming to me for spiritual counsel. And I always thought that was interesting. I thought it was crazy then. But what I realized now is God has kept me in that world for a reason, with some sense of influence with this group of people for a reason. And I didn't know why at the time. But when Matilda and I met, I was not planning on working at a church ever or planting a church ever. I was planning on
making a bunch of money and giving it to the church and doing cool stuff. That was my plan. We came here for the first season of our marriage. She's from Sweden. And we knew, it was like eventually, the plan is we build something here, we get some things established, she gets her citizenship, and then I'll go get my citizenship in Sweden. But also, when you go there, there's these beautiful stone churches everywhere, in just about every town. And they're
unoccupied. That land is being sold off by the government now. And then I started, I preached when I was there. So I started studying their church history, and it was rich, and it was amazing. But as soon as it got mandated, it just sucked the life out of it. When it became just the state's thing, it just sucked the life out of it. So we've always had this dream of doing church in Sweden, occupying those buildings and purchasing that land back.
But then, you know, through planting the church and doing the things that we did in Maryland, during that fast that when you called me, I was taking a step back, we were about to do five weeks in Sweden at the end of that fast. And I was going to do five weeks in Sweden and take a full step back and just look at what would we do if I just had scripture, my family, the people that I know, like what's in my hand, what would I do? And that was my goal was to finish this fast,
go to Sweden, pray about that, plan that, and then come back and try to do it. So while we were there, I start looking at the different business contacts that we have, people that want to serve, people that want to give money to the church, people that... And then I found out how you partnered with Sir Coffee and using their space and you guys work together like that. And so I started
kind of building out this plan for what it looks like for the start. I met Ralph Moore and he did this study on business people in the church with Paul, Priscilla and Aquila, and I started studying what that looked like. Like what did that church actually look like where the business was partnered with? They provided opportunity for people like Paul to build tents, not just to give him money, but also to build tents so that he could make money. They provided income. They provided...
Why isn't the bit we've done this weird thing, I think now, maybe unintentionally, but it's like if you're a pastor, you're here in ministry, and if you're a business owner, we want your money, but you're your second string. And that's not what we say. But for a business owner, it's what gets communicated. It becomes a part of the culture. Yeah. Yeah. And I was trying to... I met Ralph at a good time because it was as I was transitioning to what I'm doing now. And meeting him really gave me...
He helped give me a framework for what I was feeling. And what I was feeling was, I remember it was... I'm in 2018. We had just had our largest Easter attendance at Saddleback. It was 90 plus thousand people in 80 services, just typical Rick Warren stuff that's never been done. Yeah. And I remember I would sit in the meetings for our campus. And it was $1.2 million was the model to basically launch a successful campus for three or four hundred people. And I remember
thinking, that's awesome. We figured out what this costs, how to do it right, how to be successful at it, how to standardize it, how to put the systems in place. That's wonderful. And then I had a question at Honda View. And the question was, what if you don't have $1.2 million? And sometimes you hate questions that pop into your own brain. You're like, why did that disruptive thought have to get into my consciousness? And so much so that I started to rethink, by the way, if you have that
amount of capital and you have like a team and the people, I think that's amazing. There is literally 1.2 million worse ways to spend $1.2 million. I think you can agree on that. So it was wonderful. But I started to wrestle with that. And it turns out that I can look back now and God's really used my friendship with Mark Bell and Adam Watts, who own Sir Coffee, where I go every day. And Mark has a bit of a ministry background. And then Adam is my favorite type of Jesus person.
He's sincere. He's got like probably two or three world-class talents. He strangles people for fun. Yeah, he's humble. So he's this really wonderful mix, like the type of human being you want to just be around. He's just a very fun, sincere, capable, gifted guy. So I've been friends with Mark for 20 years. And I've been very good friends with Adam. He's one of my best friends for about
five years now. So through those relationships, we ended up being able to have our church to coffee shop, which has been interesting because this idea of having just a few people to 40 people in a cultural context, it just makes sense to people, whether you're in San Clemente or Sweden, having coffee in a great place with people is understandable and a great place to connect. Yeah. And so it's been really fun. And of course now we're talking about praying about
maybe what that might look like because you've been involved with that. Talk a little bit about what's on your heart for Sweden, why we feel that synergy you and I have. Yeah. Well, for Sweden, one, a challenge is a good thing. And ministry anywhere in the world right now is first or a challenge. When I was in Sweden, there's this like, here in the States,
we're like, in my opinion, we're like 50 years behind them into where we're going. Like they hit kind of a progressive church is a joke or I'm like, I'm in thing a while ago. They are now at a place of like indifference. Like it's not even a thought. It's just like, nah, that's not even an option to where if like things are going bad, it's not necessarily like, ah, maybe I should go back to church. It's like they're past that now.
But their life is built around a table. They care about mission and serving people. They don't want to start it, but they'll they like other people to do it. Well, they'll support it or at least they'll hold up a sign saying good job in a courtyard. They'll at least do that. It's the lowest form of support. It's a sign. The worst form of support. But I actually found out in certain places, like in Switzerland, for
example, most of the mission is actually started from the government. Like you don't go start your own thing. If you want to do something, you just go, which sucks the life and ingenuity out of somebody to go start their own thing and find gaps and fill it. So anyway, but there was a scripture that came to mind as, as I was in Sweden when we were praying through what this next step in ministry could be for my family and I. And the scripture that came up was in the Bible.
The scripture that came up was in Jeremiah 29, which Matilda and I read this morning actually. And it was Jeremiah writing to the exiles in Babylon. And he said, work for like he was telling them, like, look, don't just go exist while you're there and don't sit there and wine. Don't complain. Don't just sit there and wait for the day that you're going to leave. Go there and like have kids and start gardens. Like he said, work for the peace and the prosperity into the city in which
I've called you into exile, placed you in exile, however he said it. And I was like, that's what, that's what I want to be able to do is help work for the peace and the prosperity, but not prosperity
as I'm sitting on a stage telling people like, Hey, give me money and you'll be prosperous. But meaning like, no, add value to their economy, like add value, find gaps in their economy and add value to it and give those business owners access to work with high level leaders that have character that are attached to mission, that are attached to church, that are attached to like, let's, let's put those two things together. And I saw you and Mark and Adam doing that well.
Um, so that really got me interested in what's happening. Yeah, that was what was happening. And I didn't realize it. No, no. Yeah. So now we're putting together this, this network of people and it looks like Matilda and I within, I don't know, probably the next year we'll be living in Sweden. If everything goes to our plan, which typically it doesn't, but maybe it will. And, um, we'll be, I have a business here
that I'll keep running to fund our life. Um, so hopefully that'll grow and we'll continue to be able to do that. But when we go there, like we're starting a house church and we're, we want to grow it. And right there, like if you can in where my, the town where my wife's live, the town in which my wife is from, where my wife is from their coffee sucks. It's not good. It can be way better.
It's not as good as, as sir coffee, but they also like a coffee shop there with people meeting, doing a Bible study in it that had solar panels on the roof and they're like, people would be all over it. So just that, that different way of thinking, going and planting a church there right now, unless you're a name that people know, you're not going to be, you're not getting people to come
to the church. You're not passing out flyers and like people, people go, they have a big Christmas event every year with my, my wife's old church there and people flood to it that aren't Christian. They love the Christmas event. They never come back, but the Christmas event's cool. And that's a good thing, but those people aren't coming back ever. And they're not interested. They just like taking their kids and their family to a cool event. That's well done. But if you can go into a place
like that at value of the economy, you gain that respect. And if there's mission, now you start poking at the heartstrings. Now we can have a productive conversation around Jesus because as I've talked to these people, you start to find out and people anywhere, but as I've gotten to know a lot of people there, it doesn't matter. People are just as lost and broken everywhere. No matter what things look like, no matter if they feel like they're comfortable or they're living in a
hut or it doesn't matter. So, yeah. So we both feel called to make the cycles of seeing the church multiplied, seeing the cycles of churching. One of my breakthrough kind of aha moments in the church is the in my 40s was when I was when I connected, I was like, wow, there's actually a correlation between the cost of something and its ability to scale. And so like that back to the cost conversation, if you have millions of dollars, that's wonderful. Like let's spend it the best way possible.
But, you know, when you go to reproduce yourself, you do it with the budget that you have. People usually try to reproduce the budget that they have. So one of my aha moment was, wait a second. So it costs, you know, $1.2 million to do it this way. What if we could figure out a way to make disciples in plant churches just for the cost of food? Well, it turns out that you can scale that way. And that you actually can, anybody can make a disciple, really anyone can start a group
of disciples in any place. We lean in towards, which this is something we work here, we lean into backyards and beaches and coffee shops and jujitsu studios and breweries and homes. That's a good lane for us to run in. And, you know, those are all no cost. You know, we discovered that at Sir, actually, they actually get a tax credit for letting us know what you're in there. They won't get that in Sweden. So that's been fun to discover. Yeah. Because it does give you a lot of hope
about, wow, you mean we can still make disciples and still plant churches. And it's about responsibility. Yeah, it's about responsibility. I can, when I was in insurance, I would go to an event, I'd drive an hour every week to go to this sales event. And I would bring potential clients or I would bring people that I wanted to recruit. And every week I would go, but no matter what, all I had to do was show up. Some weeks, I'd bring people, some weeks, I'd go by
myself. I made more money if I brought people. I recruited more, sold more if I brought people. But there was a shift that happened. After like a year, one of my friends looked at me and said, hey, why don't you put on one of these events near you? Ran out the hotel space and put on one of these events. Everything shifted. Everything. Because now that other event, all I had to do was drive. I didn't have to think about it until I was there. And then I just did
it. Because everybody else did everything else. Sure, I could show up. I helped with chairs or I could help with the table or I could greet people. It's the same situation. But as soon as I had the responsibility of doing it on my own, I had to fill that room up. If I didn't fill the room up, nobody else was going to. I'm just banging out phone calls. I'm the one on the phone with the hotel trying to figure stuff out. I'm the one now getting creative with businesses in the area.
It turned something on in me that I didn't know was there. Like it flipped the switch because now I have responsibility for it. That's what happens. I've found when somebody gets responsibility for now, the church that's in their home and even just flipping the idea from small group to house church of, yeah, I'm doing this for them and I'm just kind of showing up. But you fill it with your small group, like event that you do rather than this is something that God has called me to do. These are
the people that I'm going to be better and I'm going to seek God more for these people. I'm going to become more so that these people have an example to follow so that I can love them better. Something different happens. That, when you're talking about scaling, that's what I want to see reproduced. Now let's park it right there for just a second because I have, as you do, two prior experiences. I have a reference point. The reason why with Ocean Water, what I teach now is really
clarifying why we encourage churches to have a few to 40 people. Well, there's some reasons for it based on experience. When you have a few to 40, the leadership is not intimidating. Pretty much anybody can do it and that's great because you always want what you're teaching to be something that people feel like they can do versus what you're teaching is here and they're here and they're just like, I can never do that. So that's nice when that's your scoreboard,
a few to 40. The other thing is I can pull from experience and something switches at about 40 where it goes from real ownership to consumerism in this weird way. It's just been an observation in mind. It's not something I've talked about, but it's something I've thought a lot about. Right about there is when people start saying it goes to more of a service-oriented relationship. I think so. That's just been an observation. That's not hard and fast in all cases,
but just a general observation has been that. It's been a lot more fun for me to encourage, let's just keep it there and then try to find the next person who has that spark and build them up and develop the thoughts on that. One of the things that I learned when we planted the church, I had a guy who was the worship leader at the time that was amazing voice, good leader, played guitar, knew some other instrument. It was just like top-notch leader. Well, he was going to one
of our other campuses and I was like, man, that sucks. But what happened was as soon as he left, these other people and one in particular stepped up and I'm like, I had no idea you could do that. I mean, like, yeah, because you didn't need me to before. So what was the point of me doing it? And then that started translating that I would stand up on stage and talk. They didn't need to learn how to share the gospel and share their testimony and go get their testimony
because I was sharing it. So it was great because they could invite people, but I was also making an excuse for them why they didn't have to share the gospel, why they didn't have to grow deeper because they felt fantastic after they left. And that was it. And for me, that was heartbreaking for me. And you can't fix it all. There's no solution that's just going to solve all those problems. But for me, that ended up being a gap that I saw.
That was one of the reasons I got excited about coming to California was when I flew out here for that event and you almost drowned me. I was like, that's my style. Maybe there could have been a little more instruction on the front end, but it's like, I would rather have that situation than we sat on the beach for four days and you just talked to me about surfing.
Yeah. That's a different situation. And people learn and they don't know when people aren't forced to do things that are out of their comfort zone, they never know what they actually have. And if you don't know that you have what it takes when the moment comes, then you'll cower. Maybe you'll buck up and try to fight through it, but a big part of it a lot of times is never skill. It's literally just the, I've been here before, I've been in hard stuff, so I know all I have to
do is keep pushing. Yes. And sometimes like your focus way, sometimes when you're just wild and you want to try stuff, at some point you should just quit apologizing. Yeah. And quit. If that's how you're built, then do it. If you're wild and unorthodox and you just want to go try stuff, that's not sinful. And it's great because those people... But in that group of people is the group that you're looking for with something like this.
When we talk about the gaps, that's ultimately what you're looking for. I'm not looking for everybody in this. It's not like everybody has to convert and do things the way that you're doing it the way that I'm doing it. That's not the point. The point is there's a bunch of psychopaths out there that would be willing to jump on a surfboard and get flipped over. But a lot of those people are sitting dormant. That's the thing that makes me... I want to go find those people and just give
them permission to go screw stuff up and figure it out. And as they do that, amazing thing because for me, go back to when you study church history, studying church history, it's messy. And I would rather have structure around it all to where it's not messy, but people are always going to be messy. But I've gotten to the point where I'm okay with more mess than I've ever been okay with. You and I have big is messy, not big is messy. Pick your headache.
Yeah, that was a great conversation. Pick your headache. It's the end of the day. You want to get up and be enthusiastic in a reasonable manner. Life is endless as it is, not every day is perfect. That's part of the experience. But for the most part, you want to get up and you want to be stoked about what you feel like you're supposed to do, the difference that you're making, the way that you're doing it that's a good fit for you so you
don't feel like you have somebody else's armor on. All of these things, that it's a blessing to your family, that your family's becoming more Christ-like. And you want to feel all of that. And it's really liberating when you get a framework to understand that either way is great. The way is great. Just find a lane and find a way to do it. There are so many people out there that need to feel like God can use them and are going to find hope in this. You just have to be
willing. I always teach people, start with one person that you want to try to teach about God. And it's you and that one other person, God's stoked. It's that simple. It's fun when you think about how might God use some courageous people in California or this other place or anywhere anyone's listening to this. God's just looking for some courage. Take a step and He goes with us. It's my favorite verse. Joshua 1.9. Do not be discouraged. Do not be dismayed. For the Lord,
your God will feed with you everywhere you go. And so it's a cool thing when that starts to settle in. This has been fun. We hung out the other day, me and you and Brian and chatted for five hours. You know you can vibe with someone when you can chat and hang out for five hours and it feels like an hour. I look forward to doing more of this stuff in the future, more conversations with you. It's been fun for me too because I spent a lot of my life, my heart's always been for
youth ministry events and that's what I love. If I'm 48, you're 32, we get along great, we're good friends. Our challenge now is getting how we feel down to someone coming out of high school. We don't have to have these conversations in 10 years. That would feel like progress. It would feel like progress to me if when I get together with you and Dwight and a bunch of these other guys and this just becomes normal for somebody coming out of high school and in college to
like want to teach people about God and solve real problems like water, food, and housing. It's like really really fun. It's like invigorating to try to get there. We've said a lot, we can say a lot more, but do you have any like this is like a pretty good first swing like a conversation you want to leave everybody with today? No man this is just, I'm excited to see the more I've been out here seeing you with your family, seeing you in the way that you value friendship and transparency
and integrity has been cool and it's been well worth the trip out here. So yeah thanks man, I'm just excited. Good to be your friend. Love you man. Love you. All right thanks for joining us. Till next time.