computer. All right. All right. Welcome. Today I get a chance to talk with my good friend, Shane. We have a couple things that we've overlapped on. Shane lives in California. Did recently until this most recent chapter, just taking them all over, all over the place. We just a fun guy, both love God, both love adventure. Both of us are really excited to teach people about God in a way that makes sense for both of us.
I use a lot of my surfing and you'll hear a lot of how God's working through Shane's life through the lifestyle that him and his wife and kids have chosen to really lean into, which, which is amazing. And I'm just glad you can be with me, bro. Yeah, man. It's good to be here. Stoked to hang out and talk and love technology. The fact we can do this in different places. Yeah, it's super, super nice. So I, you know, I got, I've, I've surfed since I was a kid. That's a part of my upbringing.
My father got me a boogie board. I think when I was eight and he, he was always a surfer, but I was too scared to go out there when I was a little kid. And then when I was 12, I read my first wave of my boogie board and I stood up on it. And then my father took me and got me a, a five eight double swallow quad surfboard that I had for a year. This was 1986 and surfing has been a part of my life ever since.
And I'm leading with that because some of the things that we, that we make a part of our life growing up, they really impact sort of how we relate to people. And I've always used surfing as a way to just enjoy my life and, and connect with people. And at what point did you get into being outdoors and. Yeah. I mean, dude, we're, I mean, similar stories in that, like I didn't grow up near the beach, but I grew up near the mountains.
And so they owned a mining claim up in the Sierra Nevadas, California. And we would spend most of our weekends all throughout the summer, we would go to the beach and we would go to the beach and we would go to the law muscular field and actually I live in California and we would spend most of our weekends all throughout the summer going out to the woods. My, my parents would go gold panning and fishing and shooting. That's just kind of, I was just our life growing up.
And so we spent a lot of time outdoors. And then as we got a little older, my parents got an RV and. We'd go on camping trips in the RV or tent camping. And like being outside, you know, that's just what we did. It was our normal upbringing. And so, you know, moving inside of a 45 foot fifth wheel didn't seem too crazy. It seemed kind of like normal. Yeah, that's awesome. I, there's been so many things that, that was one big thing I wanted to know.
And I had kind of thought to myself, man, he must have grown up like doing it. For those of you who don't know Shane, can you tell them a little bit of your story of how you were doing basically traditional ministry and talk a little bit about that and how it led you up to selling your house and doing what you're doing now. Like what was kind of like your traditional ministry experience background?
Yeah, so I got called into ministry in about 2011, 2012, and basically went right into schooling, basically doing online classes, getting my education for understanding what it means to be a pastor. It's kind of what typically what happens you get called in the ministry and started serving as kind of an assistant youth pastor. Then I got hired on as an actual youth pastor, did that for a number of years, and then got called in the senior pastor ministry, did that for about a year and a half.
And then we were feeling the call just to, really just to downsize, you know, kind of simplify life. And so, you know, ministry for us was our Sunday ministry, like our Sunday church ministry was everything. You know, we had our midweek services or outreach programs, but everything was focused on our Sunday morning. And we were trying to get the question, how do we get people to church?
And it's hard because we're competing, it's just California and you guys, I mean, Ryan, you know this, that California culture is busy. And so you're kind of competing with the busyness of how can I make church attractive enough where people would choose church over what they're doing on Sunday, whether it's sports, games, different things that are going on. Like there's a lot of stuff that people could choose over church.
And so we were trying to figure out how we could make church attractive enough with a low budget, you know, function. And so, you know, for my wife and I, we decided we wanted to maybe not do that. And what if we just make a bunch of really attractive Christians, not physically attractive, but just, you know, attractive people for Jesus. And yeah, so that's kind of what prompted the choosing a different lifestyle. But what that led to is obviously something different, even for ministry now.
Yeah, I remember from 2015 to 2019, I was a youth pastor like yourself at Saddleback Church. And I remember Clears Day, it was the service following Easter in 2018. And I was in a staff meeting. I loved Rick, I loved the church. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want any more responsibility than I had. I really liked my life. And I remember very clearly sitting in this staff meeting and the church had just announced their Easter attendance and it was the most people that they'd ever had.
And I was clapping like everybody else and all these people had gotten baptized. It was this really amazing moment in the worship center, just the people that work there, we had gathered together to celebrate this experience. And it was like as clear as day, I'm in this meeting, like God was telling me, you're out of here, I'm sending you out of here. And I was like, I'm not gonna leave. I'm out of here, I'm sending you out of here. And I'm like, what in the world are you talking about?
I like it here, I don't wanna leave. In fact, God, in fact, I know a hundred people that probably really don't even like working here. Why don't you say one of them? And I meant it, why would you put that on my heart? I like it here and I don't wanna leave and that was the beginning of me moving away from something that was centralized and something wonderful and something that I enjoyed.
And I also remember being terrified because I was like, my only frame of reference for ministry was these larger than life kind of congregations. And I remember just thinking, like talking with God and being like, if I have to like do, if I have to serve you this way, I think I'm gonna be awful at it, like awful. And I just felt God telling me, no, just start small and stay small. And I hung on to that. And I didn't even know what it meant at the time.
I just felt that in my mind, like in my heart, I just felt like God was saying, no, it's okay, man. Like, I'm not calling you to do this. This is awesome, this is a part of my kingdom, this is a part of it. I don't want you to do that and I don't need you to do that. And I remember just feeling this wave come off of me like, oh, thank you God, because I can't do it this way. You know me, Lord, I will not do well at this. And I just remember feeling this wave come off of me.
And I also remember feeling, like I also didn't even know what it meant. Because I did know how to start small because there were a few times in my life when I had started like Bible studies and I really enjoyed that, you know.
And, but I just kind of wanted to chat about that for a minute, because I think when you have centralized ministry experience, there's a set of expectations that go with that, there's a set of assumptions that go with that, there's a cultural set of assumptions that go with that.
And to, when that's all you know, and then you take a courageous step to, you're like, yes, Jesus, yes, your word, yes, disciple making, yes, missions, yes, helping people, no centralization, no large gatherings, no buildings. You really tease apart the parts you wanna keep and the parts you wanna let go of, you know. And what's that journey been like for you, transitioning from one approach to another? Oh man, the journey is, that's a couple hours.
But I will say, you know, to get to the point of where we said yes to the style of ministry or the type of ministry that we're doing right now is willing to abandon really the entire model in which I was married to. And that was really hard, you know, because I was pretty committed. I mean, I know God called me, like I had an audible call into ministry.
And so I don't ever question that, you know, for some people they keep really start questioning what that is and I go, God, I know you called me into this. It's the only time I heard voices in my head and I thought I should go check into an asanas. I thought there was something wrong with me and I heard voices in my head. And, you know, so I never questioned that.
And so to question the method or the way in which I'm supposed to be serving God, you know, it shook me to the core and had to go right back to his word and really figure out what it means to be a, quote unquote, pastor or a minister of the gospel. And so with all that being said, you know, it was really different, you know, I would say it started with diving into scripture of really what it means to be called, you know, serving God.
And then from there, knowing that, all right, well, maybe I don't need to be married to the model like I am. And so we would, at that point, we were already living in a trailer in an RV, really because God was already telling us at the same exact time to live simple. And so we had gotten rid of our sticks and bricks home in Northern California. And at the church I was pastoring was about 30 minutes away from us. So we wanted to get closer, but we couldn't afford to live in the neighborhood.
But because we were married to the model, you know, the senior pastor needs to live, you know, within proximity of the place that they're, you know, they're actually pastoring. And so a 30 minute drive to just go to a park and sit and work and hopefully to connect with a couple of families was a lot of work and not a ton of fruit from it, to be honest with you. And so I had more people coming to my church from, you know, down in where I was from, driving up there.
And I started asking the question, well, what am I doing wrong? So clearly I need to move up there. I can't afford to go up there, but I can afford to live in a trailer. So I bought the trailer, lived up there, and went into a different community at that point. We took our trailer, we went into an RV park one time and God revealed this entire ministry field of people that is being unreached for the church.
So in that, we started asking questions, well, how does the church become the church to a place that has no zip code? I mean, typically speaking, you plan a church where you're gonna go pastor somewhere, you literally are asking the question, and what zip code am I going into? And you can do research and look at stats for, you know, everything in that neighborhood to figure out what kind of ministry you're gonna provide, you know, service opportunities, so on and so forth.
And so for us, it was the full-time RV world. And so we've quite literally had to think of a different method. And so that means we had to go back to scripture again and look at, go, well, how are we gonna fulfill the great commission to a community that has no zip code? And so that's kind of us, that's where it kind of all started.
And we had already kind of had the vision of micro church, home church plants at the last church that we were serving in with, and never had the opportunity to implement it because we couldn't see two models, you know, and that's where a lot of the big churches are both able to shift from one model to the other, or even small churches where we have to sustain one while we build the other, but we don't have enough manpower to build the other, so we have to just kind of sustain the current.
And so for us, it was kind of an easy thing because we closed the church. And for Sarah and I, my wife and I, we said, all right, well, let's pick the model that's actually gonna work for this community. And you know, met some pretty awesome people in the process of that, people that were also doing something similar or have already done it.
And so, yeah, I mean, that's the quickest version I could share that within, but it really started with like just looking at scripture and what the church started out as, and who was actually effectively growing the church and effectively seeking out the kingdom. And looking at those examples in scripture allows us to see who's doing that fruitfully within our context and then knowing that we can still edify one another while we glorify God.
Yeah, I love how a lot of times in our life, we'll feel discontent with something. I remember feeling discontent inside. I remember I had this office, like I said, I was at Saddleback, it was a beautiful office. It was an office I didn't deserve. It had this view I didn't deserve. And I would look out and I would be like, what am I doing? Like, what am I doing? And there was this discontent and there was this discomfort that I had. And then there was also this passion that I had.
I mean, I wanted to see all of these people that I felt like I was meeting along the way through surfing and traveling and helping people do water and get water and stuff. I was like, how could I, like they won't fit in all of this. And I was like, how can I help them learn about God? And then it's awesome, because I feel like when we are discontent, we have some discomfort and we lean into our passion, that's how God does something new.
But when you don't know any better, there is like, you feel this risk, you know, like you, man. You're like, am I really gonna like sell my house? I mean, bro, that's pretty gnarly. That's pretty gnarly, dude. You know, that's, how was that? Is that hard? Yeah, I mean, I'll say this. I think what I love is, in the story of the timeline in which God called us into this, we were having two different conversations and God does that often in our life. Like we're having two separate conversations.
One was we can't afford to, you know, to move into the neighborhood that we're pastoring in. So all of this, we're committed to this, we're committed to the method. So we had to go up there. And the only way to affordably do that was to buy, sell our house and buy a trailer and put all of our stuff in a storage unit. And so, and we started really downsizing after God made it really clear that we were not going to be staying stationary in this, you know, the city that we're pastoring in.
So, you know, that was, so what was good is that God was actually having two separate conversations with us at the same time. Number one, downsize, simplify, you don't need all this stuff. And then number two, he was the vision that he had given Sarah and I for to actually be, you know, pastors to whatever community that we're in. So, you know, the, I would say the easy part was actually selling our house and getting into something smaller because that was just transactional.
You know, getting rid of our stuff and kind of going through that. Once we were in the trailer, you know, we still had our support system, we still had our family, we still had our friends, we still had all that within a 30 minute drive. So, we didn't feel like we were losing anything. We decided to say, hey, we're going to do this ministry but it's also going to require us to not just be in one location, that it became really difficult.
Because at that point, that mean that we're, we're going to go ahead and close the church, which means I was losing a job. That means that Sarah would actually have to quit her job and find a remote job because she was, she's always kind of in our financial support and we're going to have to lose all of our, all of our friends support system. And so all the people, and then also not knowing what our denomination and our church was going to say, like, can I even remain part of that?
So even that last like piece that we were kind of hanging onto of what does this look like? But we don't know, but we know God's called us to it. And so we got to stay committed to what God's called us to. So, so I would say that even in just those four areas, it was really difficult. That was the process of leaving and going and do something.
And for those who've started other churches, right, or gone to other churches, been hired out of state, they know that, but typically speaking, they're going, they're getting right into the next IE support system, whether it's the church. Yeah, exactly. You know, for us, we were leaving everything and we weren't even sure what we were going to find, you know, out in the rest of America. And God has proven himself time and time again, that those are the things we don't need to worry about.
But yeah, so I kind of hope that answers your question. Well, I love what you said about being married to a model, you know, and sometimes we just forget that we're married to Jesus. Like, like he's, but it gets lost sometimes. And this is a real thing. I mean, I have several friends who if I could name, I will not, that when their calling was no longer their career, when their calling was no longer their career, they left Jesus, left the Bible, and left the church.
And I cannot tell you how disheartening and hard that's been for me to watch. And ultimately, you know, all we do is follow, we follow Christ. But I think part of it is it's just easier to throw it all away than to deal with nuance, you know? And, you know, but yeah, when you really sit down and you think about your life, you know, we love the Lord, we love his word. And we have to lean into the way that we want to teach other people about him. Yeah, amen.
And a lot of times when after you've done ministry a certain way, and then it's not going the way that you want, or is it producing the outcomes that you intended and that you wanted? It's easier to just kind of throw your hands up and just walk away from the whole thing than to deal with the incredible disappointment and the nuance of it. Yeah. I've seen, I mean, one of the best things that's happened for me, Shane, you're 30, right?
34. Hey, you're 34. One of the best things that's happened to me in the last year has been becoming friends with you, Curtis. I had already known my friend Nico for about four years, but when I transitioned out of doing ministry one way and then feeling this impression, no, start small and stay small, and just lean into that and do that. Fits your personality well. I'll be with you. I felt like God told me I'll be with you. I'll be 50 next year.
And one of the best things that's happened in my life is to develop friends that are with courage and enormous amounts of boldness and taking huge risk, huge risk to carve a new path, to be pioneers. I just wanna say thanks because seeing you stay with the Lord, stay with your family, love your kids, love your family, love your kids, transition from one paradigm to the other and do it pretty gracefully. Bro, my hat's off to you. That is not an easy thing to do. Not at all.
Yeah. Well, that's, yeah. I can't, you know how I feel about you, dude. I wouldn't be in the position without people that can encourage you and champion you and what you're doing. And so, you've been that person for me, Ryan. Like that person. When you have good people, good mentors, good friends who are championing you for what you're doing for the kingdom, you know, and I think, you know, we always look forward to that atta boy or that atta girl that's just that pat on the back.
Like, man, you're doing- Well, we need it. We need it. But it means something bigger and deeper when someone gives you that for the kingdom. Like, you're doing that for the kingdom, like atta boy. And instead of seeing what you've done for an organization or for, you know, whatever model it is that you're working on, man, it just feels, it feels so much different.
And whether it's someone who's rude or recognizing the work that you're doing, you know, I'll share the story just because I think it definitely is part of what compelled me to move more in this direction. As I was sitting on a room with some other leaders and pastors, I won't give any names as well, but I asked the question, like, how are you guys making disciples?
And we went around the room and everybody answered the question with what they were doing in their church, whether they were discipling their staff or they were discipling their, you know, their board. And that was just kind of where they ended with their conversation. And so I came back and I said, but how are you making disciples as a person? Like just as a person, how are you discipling people?
And no one could answer the question because they were focused on making disciples within the context of their job. And for me, and I just realized, man, I am doing my job outside of the context of church and I'm failing to do my job in the context of church because I don't wanna just make disciples at church, I wanna make disciples in my everyday life.
Yeah. And it kind of just like for me, it was kind of shaking me because I'm like, I don't understand why none of these other pastors wanna do what I'm doing. And I realized like they don't have to do because they're not doing anything wrong. And I think- No! And that gave me the- Just different. Just different. And that gave me- Just different. Man, I think I'm just trying to be like everyone else while God is literally speaking to me saying, I created you to be like this.
And I'd go read stories, I'd read stories on Timothy and I'd read stories on Paul and I'd read stories on Peter. And I'm like, these guys literally were following Jesus at all costs and were forsaking their careers. Yep. Why do you do the same thing? And I already felt that, like I was already forsaking my career because I was already in business management before I got called into ministry. So I left the secular world of like managing businesses and owning my own company to go pursue ministry.
And so I was like, well, God, I've already done that once. Like, why would you call me to do that again? And he's like, yeah, but you're familiar with that. You can abandon that method, right? You're literally married to the method. So abandon that, like I've literally called you into this. And it just, again, it made it a lot easier.
So transition was rough, but again, the compelling part was listening to other pastors say, I'm not making disciples essentially outside of the context of my church life. And I'm going- When you've served God and you've had some experience serving God, you hear a lot of ideas and you read literature, you read books, you hear a lot of ideas. And I love when people are excited about the way that they're doing ministry.
They love the way that they're doing ministry, but I don't like it when they position it as their way is the correct way to do ministry. I had never felt that starting small and staying small was the correct way to do ministry. I've never felt that. For me, I mean, for me for sure, because when I wake up and pray in the morning, if you know God and you are his word, I got my Bible, right?
If you're reading his word, if you're praying every morning and asking the Holy Spirit to guide you, he will show you what you're supposed to do with your life. I've always felt that, but it never got to the place where I thought, well, this is a better way to do it or the correct way to do it. I never got there in my thinking, not one time. I think all makes and models of ministry, I think they have strengths and weaknesses. And I think a humble person realizes the difference.
And there are strengths and weaknesses. I will say, and when I started this newest part of my life, four or five years ago now, I did not realize how many people felt the same way. I didn't realize it. I wasn't even aware, dude. I thought I was just, I don't know what I thought. But one of the beautiful things of that has been that there is community if you want it. You do have to seek it out. You do have to be a part of it. You do have to seek it out.
You do have to make it a priority in your life. But there are, and I guess I just didn't know that. I didn't know that there was this kind of this grassroots thing that I'm sure you've encountered this because the more you get into like, hey dude, let's just teach, let's have Bible study with four dudes at a brewery or this campground.
When you really lean into that, can you talk a little bit about how refreshing it has felt for God to use you in the way that you're ministering now and people you've been able to meet? Yeah, I mean, I always say like, dude, if you're a relational person, man, you can do so much for the kingdom. And I would say pretty much everyone I know is relational.
So even if you're like a crazy introvert, like I don't like people and I wanna be around people, you know that you can still connect and you've got a gift. God gives you favor and different things. And so that's why I would say like, identifying who you have favor with. And so if you're a guy, you probably have favor with men. If you're a chick, you probably got some favor with other women and you know, sports then you've got favor with people that like sports.
And if you, you know, that's who you got favor with. I mean, God gives you favor with people in your likeness. And so in all that, like, you know, the lifestyle that we live is conducive to people that are trying to usually, they can be like you're escaping your current reality to get out in the middle of nowhere to just like, you know, experience nature or whatever. And so for a lot of the campers, that's kind of what we see.
And it's like the old timers, which, you know, it's in the RV world, it's grown 225% in the last two years. Like that's such a rapid growth for the amount of people that are living this lifestyle. Like they're looking for community too. You can always tell someone that wants to talk because they'll be outside their camper most of the day. And then you walk by and say, hey, and then they kind of turn and they can position just their physical posture towards you.
And they're just looking at the conversation, like just to ask the question, how are you doing? You know, to hear a story. And so that's been a lot of what our ministry is. Like, you know, just taking the dogs on a walk or going to the park and seeing other kids play and, you know, meeting other parents and inviting people over for fire or, you know, just to sit around and have s'mores or do whatever, like it's just all invitation.
And so then the people that you meet, you know, you're quick to ask questions or, and then they get to hear your story. And for us, like our stories are all based around what God has been doing in our life, whether it's today, yesterday, this year, like we're gonna share what we know God is doing. And that's the art of being a good storyteller.
You know, I can tell you a thousand different things that I'm doing, but if I could say, hey, God has been doing this in my life, well, now people are starting to look at the author and they don't even know who the author is. And so I'm not just the storyteller anymore right now, I'm actually talking to, you know, people about the author.
Anyway, that's kind of like where we kind of start and, you know, it leads to great discussions and people ask a lot of questions of how can you be a pastor if you live in a trailer and have no location? And then we get to answer those questions of like, well, you know, maybe being a pastor, you know, isn't it being the guest? I was speaking upfront on Sundays, you know, maybe there's a lot more to that. So unpacking that.
Yeah, one of the benefits of having traveled, I've traveled quite a bit, the three most populated countries in the world, China, India and Indonesia, for the most part, none of those countries and cultures have church buildings and the church is doing great. It's doing great. Problem is, is us American pastors, we don't always do the best job of learning from people that aren't Americans.
I mean, God forbid that we go learn from an Indian pastor or God forbid we go learn from a Chinese pastor or God forbid we go learn from an Indonesian pastor, which I'm gonna do next year. I'm not going there to teach, I'm going there to learn. I mean, you know, so it has to do with like, you know, but tell us about gathering and nomads, you know, what it is you're doing. Yeah. And how you're doing it. Yeah, so in short, like, I would say this, like we never wanted to call it anything.
Like we just were just gonna be like missionaries and stuff. And we were just gonna go, because we knew what God called us to do. And God began revealing like, hey, if you're gonna do this, like, you can't just focus on what it is that you're doing for the sake of you. Like you gotta seek first my kingdom. And so that might mean thinking about the next generation of disciples and the next generation of people that are gonna do it too.
And so after meeting with you and some other people, like just ask those questions, what does it look like to create a network of things? And so there's kind of a two part series, if you wanna call it that, that God started working on. So the first one was Shane, Sarah, the Boyd family, like y'all are gonna be missionaries to the RV world. Okay, so what does that look like? Wow. And then the second part was, by the way, Kelso build a network of other people.
So that way the other people that are called into it still have koinonia, like they still need fellowship and community on the road. So how do you figure out how you bridge those two things together and can they work simultaneously? So we had to come up with a name. So Gathering Nomads was the name. I like most of it, it's more action driven. That's what we're doing. People that live like nomads. And so we are the Gathering Nomads, right? Let's just make it simple.
I think kind of similar to ocean water, right? Like, hey, let's just keep it simple. So everything's around ocean water and so let's keep it simple, right? Yeah. And so we didn't wanna call ourselves a church. We didn't wanna have a bunch of sprinkled in names that had a lot of preconceived notions to it. And so the church and they think of, what time is your service? What's your children's ministry? What's your youth ministry? I mean, there's all the questions that go with it.
So we said, okay, we wanna do that then. Let's just call ourselves a missionary. But we'll be like the first chapter. And that kind of then spurred on the conversation of chapters. Okay, so what if we just all called ourselves chapters instead of all missionaries? And so in the organization, we call ourselves the Boyd chapter. It's our last name. And then we just call ourselves chapters because we're all gathering nomadic people for the kingdom.
And so in that, so we've got, that's what we call it. We call it all the chapters that are out in the world doing the same exact thing that we're doing that live full time in RVs. And essentially we answer the question, how will we fulfill the great commission through the gift that God has given us? So instead of me telling people what to do, we're leaning heavily on what scripture says they should be doing and their gift mix.
And we kind of lean on the apest understanding of that and Ephesians four. And so we just look at Ephesians four and then we answer the question, how are we gonna do that? Fulfill the great commission, Matthew 28, 20. How do we stay focused, Matthew 6, 33? And knowing that it's not always up to us, Acts 1, 8, like you're gonna receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And then you'll be my witnesses into Jesus, Mary, and to the ends of the earth.
And so knowing that that's the focus all the time and that God is going to work through you because of your yes and your obedience, that you don't have to be the guy teaching, you don't need to be the prophetic guy who's also getting all these words, or you're not being an evangelist all the time. You're not always having to be an apostolic visionary person, whatever that may look like. We teach people that they need to fulfill the great commission.
Well, the goal is not always disciples making disciples and churches planting churches, even if you don't use those terms. And so I love what you've done because there's been one instance that I can speak from. Adam Watson and I, Adam's a three-striped black belt in Jiu-Jitsu. And for years, he's been asked to go to Camp Pendleton, which is a 55,000 person Marine base right next to San Clemente to train, he'll speak, he'll train different guys. And they have a lot of them come to his gym.
And two years ago, we were asked by the chaplain at Camp Pendleton to come onto the base to be volunteer chaplains. And Adam and I were like, well, how do we start a church for people that don't wanna be called disciples and don't wanna be called churches? Using the thing that you're great at, that they will respect. You have 55,000, and I think it's 54,000 men or 50,000 men, there's not a lot of women on Camp Pendleton. And it's all about who's the biggest, who's the baddest.
So Adam got asked to train 30 guys one day in a workshop. And Adam's, he's about five, nine. If you don't, he looks like you could fight him, but they don't understand. He's like, he's a technician. Yeah, I mean, so he had 27 Marines lined up to fight him. Because somebody said, oh, I can kick that guy out. And he said, well, you know, because somebody said, oh, I can kick your ass, and you know how guys are. And in one by one, he submitted 27 in a row.
And after that, word spread on Camp Pendleton, hey, there's a guy in town and nobody can beat up, basically. He used to be a professional fighter as well. So he actually knows how to fight. And so myself and the chaplain and Adam were joking around about this. How are we gonna start this church? And so we came up with the name Grapple Chapel. And Adam leaves it and Adam shows up and they do Jiu-Jitsu for two hours. And then he has a Bible study after.
Every single time, every single time, there's a few to sometimes upwards of 20 guys. And the level of sharing that happens and the level of community that happens after you fought for two hours, and then people crack a beer and start talking about what's really going on in your life. Well, what's really going on in your life is men don't trust each other. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about why we as men don't trust each other.
And the average guy not only doesn't trust one other man, the average guy doesn't have one other man he looks up to. Whoa. Now, we call it Grapple Chapel and chaplains and that's what you're doing well is you're using the right, you're not using language that trips people up. A lot of times we're using language and all it's doing is making it difficult for people to understand what it is we're trying to tell them.
And I wanna tell you something, you have the best content, you got the Bible, you have an amazing culture, dude. You have an amazing culture, what you've chosen to do with your life, with your wife and your kids. Your culture of RVing is unbelievable and you have contacts. You've got contacts all over the country and I just wanna say, keep going, bro. Like, bro, your content, the Bible, your culture is amazing. You're inviting people into it.
I mean, I don't think, you haven't been doing this for a year, have you? Nope, technically the vision came in in October and January and so we're seven months in. So you're out doing your thing and what have you seen God do? I mean, the last time I talked to you, there had been a half a dozen or a dozen people that you had interacted with in this short amount of time that were basically like, dude, I wanna be in your tribe. I wanna be in your tribe. And I will say this, man.
I mean, the wonder of social media is great, right? We use, I'm never good at it, but I've been able to network and that's really because we live kind of like a nomad, right, that's the idea. And so staying connected, Paul wrote letters to the churches, right? He wrote letters and we have those documented letters and so how much easier does it now? We don't have to send even snail mail. We get to go email and then we'd have to go to Zoom or we have Facebook or Instagram.
The great thing is we have these platforms to connect and so there's a number of people that we connected with early on that were interested, but again, we're hung up on the method, right? They were married to the method. They go, well, I haven't gone to church in X amount of years and specifically, and there's one of the first people we met, this was probably, I'm gonna go ahead and say it was September last year.
This lady named Dee, she goes, I've been full time in for the last seven years and I haven't been to church in seven years. Haven't had church, I watched church online and it's just not the same thing. And then COVID made it worse. And I was like, I don't know how COVID made it worse, you weren't going to church.
She goes, no, but then all the online content, they were trying to make it towards people sitting at home and I just didn't know how to interact with people online and they wanted us to answer questions through chats and she goes, it just wasn't, online church just became weird for her at that point.
Because she knew what she was watching, but then all of a sudden people were engaging with her and we had to play with her and she talked with us about all these different things that she's experienced and in her church hurt and why she didn't attend. And she goes, I just would say start off by calling yourself a chaplain because I didn't know you were a pastor until about 40 minutes into our conversation and it's the only reason I was able to open up.
As soon as I found out you were a pastor, I didn't want to talk to you anymore. And I go, whoa, man, that kind of hurt, that stung a little bit. And so ever since I've introduced myself as a chaplain, I don't really ever introduce myself as a pastor anymore. And in that, that kind of inspired some of the method shift for sure of, all right, I'm not gonna function in this pastor mentality, I need to disconnect from that.
And so since then, the reason why we've had people joining our tribe is that I'm not inviting them to become a pastor, right? Because then their stigmas on the introduction isn't, well, that means I have to go get a degree, I've got to go to college, I got to get a minor degree. It's on Sunday, I have to get in front of everybody, I'm not a big public speaker person, I don't want to run a staff, I don't want to have to run an organization.
And so having a conversation of, well, do you want to just be a person who follows Jesus and then invites other people to do the same thing? How does that sound? And people are, I mean, they love it. They're excited to go serve Jesus, but to know that they can get a title, that doesn't mean all these other things that they can come up with, right? And in that, that they're first and foremost, they answer to Jesus, they don't even technically even answer to me.
They have to answer some questions for me every single month. But again, even that, and so right now we have seven chapters, we've got three more chapters in the works. That should be essentially official chapters in the next month or two. And what I love about it is that they are on fire for Jesus and they are answering first and foremost to Him. And which is great because they're not riding my tail or my flame or my excitement for the Lord or what God is doing in me first and foremost.
They have to have weekly God stories, like weekly God stories. Not just like having a God story once a year, but if you don't have bold enough faith, where is it at? And that's your faith, not my faith, right? That's not your Testament, that's just what God is asking you to do. And so those are the questions that we get to ask and we get to answer those things. And it's not that you have to answer to me, it's just that's what we should have.
We should have bold faith stories every single week in our life. Amazing, dude. I mean, yeah, I just see God just all over what you're doing. It's awesome to watch. It's awesome to see the fruit of you taking a lot of risk. And let's talk about the, it's incredible. And I've told you before, there are just so many people that want to be a part of what you're talking about. And I'm really, I pray for you, I prayed for you this morning. I'm stoked for you.
And let's talk for a second about like, okay, what does like a normal day look like? I'll speak for myself. I mean, I'm a special education teacher at a public school. I don't, obviously I don't introduce myself as Pastor Ryan unless I never really called myself that when I was in those settings anyways. Yeah. Because I felt like it made people feel uncomfortable or maybe I just felt uncomfortable, who knows? But here's an example.
I've been at the school now for a few months and the guy that I'm teaching with, he comes up to me last week and he goes, he goes, are you a man of faith? I go, yeah, yeah, definitely, bro. And he's like, I go, are you? He goes, yeah, I'm kind of like, as I'm getting older, am I thinking about God more? And I go, that's awesome. He's working in your life and making you think about that. And now every day we're becoming better friends.
He asked me to go certain with him and his daughter and my granddaughter. And you could just see how God's just working through this pressure. I mean, it took me like probably five months of just being his friend and working hard and showing up five minutes early to work and just basic work ethic stuff. Yeah, just basic show up early, leave late, you leave late, just basic working hard, being a team guy, all where you kind of like people's walls.
That's one example of someone who has really opened up to me that I feel like I'm making a difference in their life. The office manager also told me that she's like, so glad, just a lot of like compliments. I feel like when you're doing like, when you're trying to make disciples and raise people that people may wonder about like the day to day, for me, it's just like, just being a good dude and teaching good and being fun and being courteous. I mean, can you talk a little bit about that?
Because I just feel like there are misconceptions about what it means to do ministry. Well, dude, I mean, number one, like you think about, we think about stuff as jobs all the time and it all comes back down to the calling. Like you have a job, right?
As a teacher, like you have a literal job that you have to get done, you know, Monday through Friday, you know, whatever your schedule is, like you know what your job is, you have to teach, you have to write curriculum, whatever that may look like. And I say that more in the bulk of what teachers do that may not be exactly what you're doing.
But in the reality of it, like in the reality of jobs, for most of the people that are, you know, in the world, they have a Monday through Friday to five job or whatever their set schedule is. And so they have a task at hand. But ministry specifically, it comes less of the job and more of the opportunity. And I think you have to seek out the opportunity, right?
And so that's kind of, I mean, the question that I'm asking myself pretty much all day long is, okay, God, are you giving me an opportunity here? And again, that's not for me, that's not for me to do my job, that's not because I need to report back to somebody, that's like, is this, and the reason why I quote Matthew 6.33 so often is seeking first, you know, seek first his kingdom and everything else will be added unto you.
Like quite literally that what Jesus is talking about in that verse is like, you are worried about so much, but stop, seek first the kingdom and everything else. Read is like, it's gonna come towards you. Like, it doesn't even have to worry about these things. And so, you know, for me, I have to constantly remember that like, God, are you giving me an opportunity here for your kingdom? You know, it's not my job. Like if anyone's my boss at this point, it's just Jesus. And I'm grateful for that.
So, you know, talking about like your friend, you know, either person, your coworker, the guy you're teaching with, but I could share probably a hundred different stories of people that we've even met. God's given us some sort of favor, some sort of opportunity, but I will share at least, I'll just share about a couple of people, a couple of families that we met in Tennessee and Kentucky. And we pulled into a campground. I was supposed to pull into a spot.
I was eyeballing this one spot and I thought I was gonna take it. And something told me like, now you gotta go park up a little further. And I mean, the two sites that we're looking at were identical. So there's no reason why I needed to choose. I could have just backed in that one and called it a day. And come to find out, you know, less than 24 hours later, there's gonna be a couple pulling in with five kids that were gonna need some help with some electrical on their electrical box.
And I just happened to be popping out, right? When they were backing in and then in that, I was with another family and then two other families. And so in that one moment, to at this point, three other families, all with kids. And three days later, we were having a Bible study in their tent and talking about Jesus, praying healing and reconciliation over one of the couple's marriages. And God just began, I mean, speaking in all these various ways.
And fast forward and make it again, I could share all the different fellowship within that timeframe. But then fast forward three weeks later, we had to leave, because where we stay, we only stay for 21 days. And as we were leaving, the couple said, and one of the couple that we've been praying over, they said, hey, I think we might follow you guys to the next spot. And so they followed us up to the next spot into Kentucky. And then another family followed us up to Kentucky.
And we had even more of those moments of fellowship and just so much like favor within, at that point, six weeks time, we had spent so many evenings together praying, movie nights, celebrated birthdays for kids. Like it just was that real nitty gritty thing. And at the end of our time together, one of the couples walks up and just said, we really love Jesus and everything that you've been showing us, we wanna do it too. Like, what does that look like?
And I not even talked about Gathering Nomads to any extent, really at this point with them. We were just doing life together. And so they're a chapter with Gathering Nomads right now. And when I say like they love Jesus, it's those types of stories of just like, man, if you just had bold faith for three weeks with someone, would God give you another three weeks and then allow someone else, I wanna do that too. Like I wanna do what you're doing for Jesus.
And that's encouraging to me because I don't think I'm doing anything special, I'm just doing what God told me to do. But the reality is that the kingdom had everything to benefit from that, like I gained nothing from that. Like no benefit at all. But what the kingdom gains, what Jesus gains from that is now a whole set of hands, husband and wife, and two kids that are gonna chase after Jesus with everything they have. And that's what we should be after, right?
And so anyway, that's what I'm hoping. Yeah, no, I'm 100%. And I love how, I mean, what I heard from you is like just being someone's friend, just like being there for them and making a connection and just being there for people. I had, in 2010, I went, I rode my bicycle for a year and I wrote a little travel book that you can read in about, I don't know, 90 minutes or two hours or whatever. And I don't really pass them out much, it's like not my thing.
I've had people be like, you need to go down to the bookstore. I'm like, that's not me, bro. Like that's not anybody who knows me and it's not me. I do have like a box, I don't have any more. And every once in a while, I will feel like I'm supposed to give one to someone. And it kind of comes in ways, like it'll happen a bunch and then, well, it had probably been, I don't know, like eight months since I'd given anybody one.
And yesterday, I'm thinking about the guy that I work with and I really felt like, hey, you need to give this to Todd because we've been talking about surfing and he's like super into motorcycles. And this past weekend, he rode two days in a row and he's like, I just, it had been years and we were talking about bikes and motorbikes and surfing and being outside. And I thought, all right, I need to like give this to him.
So on the back, it talks about some of the water work we've done in El Salvador. I gave it to him today and he's like, he goes, dude, this guy that I've known, one of my closest friends for like 20 years is from El Salvador. And he's like, thank you so much for helping those people. And I was like, yeah bro, no problem. So that, when stuff like that, when you see God working in people's lives, like the way you are, that's like what it's all about.
Yeah. It's so, it's so, because yeah, I mean, you're a really sharp guy and I know you have a lot of you have a vision for ministry and that's exciting, but like the heart of it is this stuff. Yeah. That we're talking about. It's just like, wow, that was like, that was awesome. Yeah. To just see, to just see God use that little gesture. And you like went and helped this family with their electrical panel and it turned into this huge friendship. And it's awesome. It's exciting.
And we need, we need more of, we need more people to feel like they can be used just by God to teach people about him wherever they're at, wherever they're at, whether they're in a classroom or in a campground or wherever. Well, I think that's the- I feel a lot of hope. I feel a lot of hope when I hear you, when I hear you share it, but it's awesome. Well, I think that's, I mean, that's the, that's the vision really for, I would say that, that all of us have to catch onto really.
Again, it's not our vision. It's not, you know, it's not using them. It's just the fact that God is calling people out of whatever, whatever it is that they're doing and into seeking first. And if we can do that, you can do that. You don't have to give up your job. You don't have to give up your title. You don't have to leave and sell all your stuff and live in an RV. Like, you don't, those are the things that you don't have to do. You could or you could not.
Yeah, you could, but like, you've got to, you've already been given favor in your workplace. You've already been given favor in so many places. And so I just always tell people, man, start with your hobbies and the things that bring joy to your life or bring it back to your roots. Like, Ryan, for you, it's surfing. For us, it's camping. For some people, it's going to be riding bikes. And for some people, it's going to be going to sport games.
Like, there are so many things that people do that they have no idea that God's given them a passion for. And he's given you favor within that community. And so if you could just seek first the kingdom and know that you've got favor in all these other sub-communities, like bro, you could blow up the kingdom tomorrow. And that's that. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. This has been so much fun. Well, definitely, you and I can, we just jive, man. Episode two. How can people find out about what you're doing?
Do you have like, somewhere people can find out information about gathering of nomads? You can just find my air tag and follow me around the world. No, we do have a website, even though we're super hokey, living in a travel trailer and stuff. But now we have a website, it's called gatheringnomads.com. You can check that out. It's kind of got some good little, a cool little video about what we're doing. And you can also meet the other chapters.
Like, again, we just call ourselves chapters and you can hear their stories and what they're doing. It's, they're so cool. Like the people that are doing this, like with us are some of the raddest people you'll ever meet. And so you can check that out. You can follow their social media and the stuff that they're doing. Yeah, you can check that out.
And then, we always tell people like, if you wanna pray for us and what you're doing, you can join our little newsletter and just pray for all the different things that are happening on the road. Cause there's a bunch of, I mean, there's millions of people that live in travel trailers and vans and stuff across the US. So lots to be praying for. Pray for Shane, get involved. This has been awesome, man. Thank you for doing this. Yeah. Dude, episode 254, man.
I'll tell you right now, 54 specifically is a number that's been in my life forever. And so I feel blessed that, I don't know, just always been like constant numbers, time, just the time 54 comes up a lot. Talked to my wife, I'm always like, I hope I'm not dying at 54. I don't die in the year 2054, I have no idea. But it's just been a number, dude. And so I saw that episode number, I'm like, okay, God, there's that number again. Yeah, you like my fancy graphic in the background. It's like.
Bro, it's fitting. I like it. It is exactly what is needed. Also, I just, I feel honored to be on one of your episodes, bro. I just like, there's two things I enjoy. I enjoy teaching the Bible. I enjoy talking to my friends. And I feel like people need the Bible and they need friends. And so that's why I do Bible teachings and I like to talk to my friends. That's behind it. I feel like it helps. I feel like it helps people. And I think, thanks for taking the time to talk to me brother.
Oh man, can I share one last encouraging thing? Yeah, of course. The one thing I'll say that in 2018, I was sitting with Jesus on my back patio. I was dealing with crazy depression and a high level of panic attacks and anxiety attacks that I had no idea what they were. I thought I was having many heart attacks left and right.
And I sat down with Jesus on my patio table and I was probably on hour four just going through scripture, just asking God to speak to me because I needed some sort of relief. And I'm a fixer and I stumbled upon Colossians and it was in Colossians four and specifically in Colossians four. I don't have any of my notes. So I'm just kind of going off memory here. Don't shoot if I don't quote scripture correctly here.
But it says something along the lines of, like I didn't come to like, just to fulfill the law, but to set you free from it. And as I'm reading through this, I'm like, like Jesus is like, that's your law. And so asking that question or trying to answer that question of like, this is your law. And I'm like, well, what is my law? And I realized that my schedule was my law and God set me free from that. And so in that one moment, I mean, my schedule was set from sunup to sundown.
I knew everything I was doing. I could share it with anyone. You could find out where I was at. And I didn't realize how much I was fulfilling my own law, which was my schedule. And so in that moment, like Jesus set me free from that. And so just know that like, no matter what God has called you too, or me too, or anyone too, like there's a chance that you're in some sort of chains that Jesus is trying to set you free from.
And so just answering that question, like I don't know why when you're talking, God put that on my heart to share that. But if someone's listening to this episode of just like, realize that Jesus literally came to set you free. And so if you were trapped in some sort of law, whatever that may be, that God came to set you free from it. So anyway. Good word brother, thank you. Got it. Let's get stuff. Gotta do it. Yeah. Yup. All right, Shane, thank you. Thanks man. I'm gonna stop recording.