Podcast Transcript
Jesse: I’m a songwriter for a living, and that’s all I really know how to do. Written songs for quite a while now. And now we are pastoring house churches in Austin and we multiply once a year.
So currently we’re about to launch number eight, so I obviously eight churches and have one at my house every week. I’ve been a part of planting two megachurches, and I’m for ’em. I’m for the big church, and at this point in my life, God’s really calling us to go for the simple. For the, yeah, just the simple gathering.
The Acts 2 42, those that were of the way devoted themselves to the breaking of bread, the teaching of the apostles and a prayer. That’s what our churches look like. Every one of our houses. We literally eat a meal together, read the bible together, read a whole chapter, and then just talk about it.
And don’t really have a teacher. We do discovery Bible study questions. So read the whole chapter and then say what does it say about God? What does it say about man? And how should we change? Yeah, it’s the sa same three questions every week for four, four years, and. Yeah, I’ve just learned more about Jesus.
I’ve learned more about the Bible been challenged more reading the Bible in community than I’ve ever learned in my life, yeah. Being under the who’s who of speakers nothing against that. They’re operating in their priesthood. Yeah. Un unfortunately, most everybody else is. Yeah.
How’s that for a launching point? We can talk about any of that. My gosh, there’s so many.
Ryan: I, from a guy like a we’ll talk church of government maybe not. Let’s see where we can take it. I love, like you split every year. Talk about that. What does that look like?
How do you do that? What do, yeah. What audit does that look like?
Jesse: Yeah. So our goal start this way. Our, I guess our goal is to, what we say, elevate the priesthood of the believer. And our motto is to grow smaller as soon as you have over, really over about 20 adults in your living room.
People have to start sitting on second row and third row, and it’s easy for those people to come and not participate. Yeah. And as soon as that starts happening, you’re losing your effectiveness. And so our goal is just to keep ’em small and keep multiplying. So when you multiply Try to stay together for a year.
It’s always loose, but during that year, you identify your next two shepherds. We always send people by twos cuz that’s what Jesus did, and identify the next two shepherds and disciple them for a year with the knowledge of, in a year you’re gonna be doing this at your house. It’s we’re now.
I’ve thrown around the numbers since the very beginning, like just multiplication. If you start with one on year 11, you’ll have 1024. And I’ve thrown that around oh yeah, this is how math works. But now we’re on year four and I’m like, oh no. Oh no, this is working because we have eight.
So year one you have one. Year two you have 2, 4, 8. So next year we should have 16. 32, 64, 1 28, 5, 12, 1000, 24 in seven years is what we’re looking at right now. So that’s scary cause yeah, we don’t know what we’re doing. So yeah, it’s just trying to raise up leaders, I guess what I’m most passionate about right now is really the elevating of the priesthood of the believer.
Cuz Peter said, in first Peter two, he is talking to believers and he says, you are a royal priesthood, a holy nation of people set apart for God’s own choosing. Yeah. So that you may proclaim the excellences of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. That’s to the individual.
And yeah and we read that and we’re like, okay, cool, whatever. But for them, that was revolutionary. Sure, right? Because these were guys that for thousands of years, had to make this trek to Jerusalem and carry a sacrifice with them and. Stand before a priest, that would do the sacrifice and give them forgiveness of sins, right?
Yeah. And all of a sudden Peter goes, Hey, by the way, because of Jesus and because of the Holy Spirit, now you’re a priest. And for them that was revolutionary, right? And they took it seriously. And that’s why the New Testament says that there were thousands coming to know him daily.
Because everybody was going out into their farms and into their shops and whatever, and as a priest, and so people were coming to know Christ well, you come to 2023 and we have the fewest amount of people coming to know Christ in history. So what’s changed? I submit to you what’s changed is that we no longer see ourselves as priest, in fact, We’ve gone all the way back to the Old Testament.
If you think about it. We all gather, we all come together. It’s not once a year. We come together once a week and we listen to one priest and then everybody goes home and does nothing. Yeah, I was gonna say, like we,
Ryan: we’ve fallen back into the model where we’re expecting. The church to cover the gap for us and our relationship award
Jesse: and what we’re doing.
Yeah. So that’s our goal, is to be able to look each other in the eye every week and go, Hey, in fact, just like we, after we eat a meal together, we always pray and then we do what we call Jesus stories. And every one of our houses starts every meeting that way with Jesus stories.
And what that looks like is I’ll. Hey, let’s just go around the room real quick and just tell one time this week that you got to speak the name of Jesus to somebody. And I said, oh, nobody evangelized it. Like what the first four months of that was the most painfully awkward thing you’ve ever been a part of in your life.
That’s suddenly everybody has toile their shoes, yeah. So they’re not making eye. But now, four years into it, it’s part of our culture and people are starting to speak the name of Jesus, it’s, the song I Speak Jesus, for example, that was written to give our people motivation to go speak the name of Jesus to people.
Yeah. And it’s just it’s mind blowing to me when people send. That song all over the world, cuz I’m, that was not the, that wasn’t the goal, but now it makes me super happy. I would do when that song was out, on the last record I would do radio interviews and the record label would always get mad at me because I would tell DJs, I was like, Hey, I don’t even care if you play the song.
No. I don’t care what would be more beneficial. If you as a DJ would speak the name of Jesus into people’s cars and into their office buildings and into their homes, because when you speak the name of Jesus, there’s power in it, yeah. And so that’s always been my encouragement. So yeah, that’s the motivation behind the song more than the song itself, if that makes sense.
Yeah. So talk a little
Ryan: bit like how did King’s Porch, like
Jesse: where did that give birth from? So King Fors is the name of our house churches? Sure, sure. But the recordings,
Ryan: But
Jesse: apologize. Yes, it’s the name of our house church. Because when we started it and let me just say this, let me clarify.
I’m not against the megachurch. I’ve been a part of planting two. There’s one in Austin, Austin called the Austin Stone that started in my living room. Then we helped start Passion City in 2008. I’m for it. I’m for it. Anywhere The gospel goes out. What we’re called right to right now is small gatherings, elevating the priesthood.
A Believer the name comes from three times in the New Testament. It talks about Solomon’s portico. In fact, in Acts chapter three, where that’s the first miracle Peter ever. Where the guy is, says he’s lame from birth, and they bring him and they lay him at the gate of the temple every day and he’s asking for money.
And that’s the famous, where Peter walks in and he asks the guys for money and Peter says, silver and gold have a number. What have I give to you And the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth Rise up and walk. Yeah. And he stood up and everybody went crazy. And it says, and they all gathered together on Solomon’s port.
And so I had a little note in my Bible outside Solomon’s portico where it said the king’s porch. Yeah. And I was like, my wife and I in the early days were like, man, what if that’s what church was? What if we, had a meal, prayed for each other, read the Bible together, but something outside the walls of the traditional church, like they were just outside on the porch.
Where people still believe that there’s power in the name of Jesus, and people still believe in healing and people still believe in the Holy Spirit, yeah. I’m just praying for miracles from house to house, and that’s the heart behind it. And honestly, when we started it, That was in my three year dark period, which we don’t have to talk about, but I had a three year dark period now and a half to now.
Yeah. No, we’re not gonna talk about, no, I had a three year dark period where I didn’t write, I didn’t do music. I didn’t yeah. I didn’t listen to worship music. I didn’t allow my kids to listen to worship music. It was, they would listen to it like they were doing cocaine, like with a lookout, dad’s coming home.
Turn, turn it off. So they’re gonna all end up in counseling at some point, but at least we’re open and honest about it. No, but so when we started the church never ever did we think we were gonna put out records, yeah. Ever. But, I write for b e c and I, early on I said, Hey, one of these days, I don’t know when, but one of these days I wanna put out a record called Songs for the Simple Gathering.
It, it didn’t even have to be called King’s Porch, but I just, when I read the statistic that 90% of churches in America have less than 300 people, I was super I guess the word’s convict. That, that for 20 years I’ve been a part of an industry that creates a product for 10% of the churches.
Yeah. If that makes sense, because most of modern worship songs, again, feel like, I’m just constantly disclaimer. I love modern worship music. I love it. I ride it, I ride with Brandon Lake, like he’s a good friend. But I will say this, I can’t play graves in the gardens on my back porch with an acoustic guitar.
Yeah, sure. You need to have a drummer that’s going da. Like big electric hits when you do that on a acoustic it just best. Yeah. It’s just doesn’t translate. So I went to BC early on. It was like, one of these days I just wanna write simple songs like I, I. I still haven’t done it yet.
I keep trying. I wanna write a song like I Love You Lord. Yeah. Like the old schools Lord, you are more precious and silver that are just timeless and people can do on an acoustic guitar around a campfire. And it turns out, even for a professional songwriter, writing simple songs is really hard to.
So we’re, I keep trying. Haven’t done it yet. I speak Jesus at its core as a simple song, but it’s still not. I Love you, Lord. There is the last song on our new record is probably the closest I’ve come. It’s called All My Days and it’s just, it’s super simple and it’s probably my favorite so far.
Yeah. Just because it’s getting closer to the target, all that to say. My heart right now is trying to write songs that a little bitty church with a music minister and acoustic guitar can play ’em and they translate. Yeah. What I’d
Ryan: love to so that like a simple song is something that could work well.
Because listening to your album, it seems that should work. It’s a simple song. I’d love to hear you unpack a little more. What how would, you know what that is, like I got it. I wrote a simple song. Like what would be
Jesse: the hallmarks of that? It’s real hard not to write like the big the big huge anthemic bridge.
Yeah. Because it’s in all of us and that’s the release that we want, yeah. So it’s hard to war against that. And I. My favorite thing to write when I write songs is a big anthemic bridge. I love it. Yeah. Even the first song on the record, God is in this house, has a big bridge.
We, but production wise, we don’t have electric guitar. Not because I don’t like electric guitar. It’s cuz we’re trying to resource people that don’t. Yeah. We don’t have a. In fact, when you listen to God is in this house, the thing that sounds like a snare, like the tapping brush thing, is the guy playing brushes on a surfboard.
And again, it’s not because I don’t have access to a snare drum. I could get one pretty easy, but it’s because we’re trying to just put out music that you don’t have to have all the bells and whistles to be able to pull it off in your church. You know there, because there’s lots of resources for those.
Sure. Again, I’ll form ’em, but we’re leaving out 90% of the churches, so we’re. Our goal is to try to equip the small church with simple songs. Yeah, that’s great. Talk,
Ryan: talk a little bit like what in encouragement might you have? Like I can hear or hear I can visualize worship leaders like hey, say this and being like all in on it, but they’re already a part of this system.
Needs all the big. Maybe some like tactical encouragement for like, how they might be able to lead or how they might be able to write to maybe guide their church a little away from all the high production. Again, love the high production too, but to maybe help them not become the thing that, that their
Jesse: church is so reliant on.
First of all, it would take an enormous amount of courage. Yeah, because a big, awesome band is a pretty good safety net. You know what I mean? It makes you feel, it makes you feel more confident. It would take a lot of courage to just give your band a week off and get up there with an acoustic and just see what happens.
Yeah. Just ask God as a songwriter that’s a really good question. And the only thing I can answer is through personal experience, what I encourage songwriters to do is to write for the small it. Write with an individual in mind. Like somebody in your church that’s dealing with the death of a child.
Yeah. For example. Which I know that gets real heavy, real fast. My ex, my experience has been when I write songs to try like Jesus. What how would you encourage this family that’s going through this? Help me write a song that I can just text to this person to encourage ’em. When a song is birthed like that, I feel like.
Oftentimes we’ll blow on it to the big Yeah, sure. If it works in the small, it will work in the big Yeah. But conversely is not true. I’ve written a thousand songs that I think, man, this thing will kill in an arena. Yeah. And nobody has ever heard those songs, Brett. They just stay in a file on my computer.
So I feel like when I aim for the big, you miss both of them, but if you aim for the small, there’s a chance you’ll hit both of them. Yeah, if that makes sense. Yeah, that’s great.
Ryan: I’d love to hear too, like for your, having been in so much ministry and like seeing so much it seems like a lot of times like for you to go from the big to the.
And to still have a heart for the Lord. Like that’s a big thing now is a lot of guys coming from big church just go completely off the deep end and don’t want to have anything to do with God anymore. Like I’d love to hear like, how have you just fostered your relationship with the Lord through, saying just I guess longevity and ministry is becoming a more rare thing and here we are.
No.
Jesse: What you got? No, I can. And again, it’s just my personal experience is, yeah, when I got, I always say when I pulled the rip cord, when I pulled the rip cord and just parachute it out of the, the big, yeah. I went back, I actually went back to work at the Austin Stone. This was in, in the dark years that I was talking about.
With no worship music. I was the family pastor there over kids and students for what, six, seven campuses? Yeah. And just, just working at a church. And my wife Janet, she’s, anybody that knows us, like she’s just a better human than I am. And, or white, right? Yeah. But she’s super dialed into prayer, I’m working on being a better prayer, but I’m just not a great prayer. I love to study the Bible. I love to read the Bible. I’m not a great prayer and I’m trying to, and, but she hears from Jesus, she hears from the Holy Spirit. And so she came to me in 2017 and she said, Hey, Jesus told me something this morning and you’re not gonna like it.
And I was like, okay. And she goes yeah, Jesus told me that you have to quit going to church for one year. And I was like, what? That doesn’t make sense why? And she goes, he told me that you have been paid to be a Christian since you were 15 years old, and it’s gonna take you a year to figure out who Jesus is.
And so I did, I took that as the word of the Lord from her. And I quit working at the stone and quit going to church for a year. And just, we would read the Bible together with our family. And then, I told you about Acts 2 42 was pivotal for us. First Corinthians 14 says, when you gather together, Everyone should bring a word, a teaching, a prophecy, haun, or a soul.
Yes. It says it. It says it in there. Hey we don’t let we, we just brush over that. That’s not talking about church. No, it’s specifically talking about church. When you gather together, every person should bring a word, a teaching, a prophecy, a song, or a to a song or a tongue. So really it was during that year.
Just reading the Bible and going, okay, like really, what did Jesus do? What did Jesus want us to do? What did he tell us to do? And what would it look like if we actually tried that? Yeah. And so that’s where we are right now is the buzzword right now is deconstruction. Everybody likes to talk about de deconstructing and.
It’s a danger if you start deconstructing Jesus. Yeah. That’s gonna be a way deeper conversation, but I don’t necessarily think is wrong with deconstructing what in the Bible to be the definition of church. Sure. I agree with that and. And most of the people just, I’ll just touch on it real quick.
I do have several friends that have walked away from Jesus, and the saddest part of that to me is I think that, I think the people that deconstruct all the way, and leave Jesus behind is because so much of their relationship with Christ was based on a man. Yeah. And that man ends up disappointing them or letting them down, and they can’t separate Jesus from that man.
Every one of my friends that have walked away from Jesus is because they’ve been really hurt by a pastor or a man, right? And I don’t think they’re gone forever. I pray for ’em, but my goal with them is to go, Hey, that man that let you down is. And that’s gonna happen. But what about Jesus just always bring it back to Jesus?
What about Jesus? What, how did Jesus handle this situation? And so while I’m not always on board with it I do think a healthy level of it is okay. Yeah.
Ryan: And God meets us when we, I think God wants us.
Jesse: Not
Ryan: fight him, but wrestle with through, when wrestle with scripture and actually open our Bibles and Right.
Because Yeah. Yeah. So we rely on our pastor to tell us what the Bible says and we don’t read it ourselves. That’s,
Jesse: yeah. It’s like when Paul says, I know whom I’m, whom I have believed and I’m persuaded that he’s able to keep me. Yeah. That’s a different level of know. That comes from the struggle and the question, John the Baptist, for crying out loud in prison was like, Hey, can you send a message to Jesus and ask him if he really is who he said he is?
That’s Jesus’ cousin, right? He was questioning that and ended up dying for his faith. You know what I mean? But a healthy level of questioning is okay. God’s not scared of your question. And in that time in my year off, I asked a bunch of questions and Jesus proved himself true to me. Yeah. And so now I’m just like doubling down on the whole thing.
There you go. Came out stronger for it. I did come out stronger. Yeah. And I came out with a clear vision of what God wants me to do. Instead of just doing. Carrying out somebody else’s vision. Yeah. If that makes sense. Oh, cool. In fact, when we started King’s Porch, I had a bunch of questions like, what would it look like to multiply?
What would it look like if nobody got paid? But we got to give all of our money away. Is that legal? I like questions, like very practical questions. Yeah. And a friend of mine, a friend of mine goes this is what Francis Chan’s doing in San Francisco. And I was like, no, I didn’t know that.
Now I knew Francis from back in the day, in the passion days, but I hadn’t talked to him in, five years. So I just cold called him out of the blue and just vomited everything that God was doing in my life. And he actually said this the point of this is he said, he goes, why don’t you and Janet just move to San F?
And come help us and be a part of, we are church cuz that’s what we’re doing. And out of my mouth without even thinking, it’s like my spirit just goes I said because that would be way easier for me than what I feel like God’s asking me to do, if that makes sense. Yeah. It, Janet and I are really good worker.
And I’m good at carrying out somebody else’s vision. Just fall in line and run with it. Like they say, do this and also to move out there and work for we are church, I would be valid, validated by the name Francis Chan. Does that make sense? Yeah. It’s easy. Easy to go.
Yeah, I work with Francis, blah, blah, blah, and you’re just namedropping because it makes. Feel like you have an identity. Yeah. When you’re basing it on a man, it’s way scarier to go, this is what I feel like Jesus is asking me to do. Yeah. Because it’s you. You can’t, if it fails, I can’t blame Francis.
I can’t blame Chris. If it fails, it’s either, Because I didn’t really hear the voice of Jesus. That’s an option. And that’s scary. Yeah. Or then there’s a theological question, would Jesus ask me to do something that’s gonna fail? Maybe. I don’t know. Sorry, might. Yeah. It’s just way scarier to step out on your own and all of my identity for 17.
And because I played in the Chris Toman band. Yeah. If we’re gonna be honest, like that was probably the main source of my dark years was an identity crisis. Sure. Of not being able to hang my identity on Chris Tomlin or on Passion or on Louie. Like all of a sudden it’s just me and Jesus and is that enough?
Yeah. There’s probably. Listening to your podcast, that if they’re honest with themselves, their identity’s found in the name of their church, or in the name of their pastor. Yeah. And it’s just, I don’t fault people for that. What I say is that we have a very crafty enemy.
Yeah. You know what I mean? And it doesn’t matter if you’re at a house, church, or if you’re. If you’re at Elevation, it’s the same enemy and he has the same tactics. And if you can find your identity in, in the name of the church, or in the name of the pastor, or in your role as the worship leader, then he has a foothold in your life.
Yeah. Yeah, that’ll do it. Yeah. Maybe to pivot a little bit, I’d love to hear
Ryan: just little bit of the process. Like you said you’re playing on a surfboard for percussion and stuff. Gimme a little bit of like the recording process and the, putting the album together and what clearly we’re trying to make it access.
But maybe just some advice cuz I’m sure that could be really exciting for people listening, saying you mean I don’t need to go spend, thousands and thousands of dollars on all these other, like maybe give some advice for somebody that might want to do something similar.
Jesse: Oh yeah. I can say it’s, it is been two different processes.
The first process we literally recorded in the room that I’m sitting in right here. Yeah. Minimal gear on the first record, the snare sounds or whatever. It’s not even a snare sound. The two and four beat is a, was a, I thought I had it up here. It’s a leather samsonite suitcase, like from the sixties.
That was my wife, grandfather, and we found out like when you did that on it, it sounded really rad. Yeah. So that was like the main snare sound. And we did it all here. The next record the one that we’re supposed to be talking about right now. I’m actually always really bad about talking about records, cuz I really just wanna talk about church and the Bible.
We’re here for it. That’s fantastic. Yeah. The, there’s a church, a huge church in Austin called Austin Ridge, and some of ’em, my really good friends are worship pastors there and they have an amazing. So we actually got to use good gear on this record. Yeah. But we had to go into this space with good gear, with a mindset of we’re not just going to use all the bells and whistles cause they’re accessible.
We still wanna make the record that we want to make. It’s also way easier to get a professional Nashville session player to play all the acoustic. But we’re like, no, you know what? They’re not paying us. They’re not making us pay for this studio space. So instead of that, let’s let this guy, that’s not a professional, let’s give him 10 passes Yeah.
On this acoustic part instead of just farming it out because it’s easier. Sure. And then it also gives your people ownership. Owner when Yeah. When you let your guys play on a record and let them have ownership on of it. First of all, it’s gonna sound. It’s gonna sound more better is subjective.
It’s gonna sound, it’s gonna sound more like your church and more like your people, which is gonna make, give you better buy-in from not only your band, but from your congregation. Yeah. First thing, whenever a church gets a budget to make a record, they’ll go, all right, let’s go to Nashville and get all these guys that are session players, and then all the records start sounding the same.
Not
Ryan: to mention how like I’ve known guys. Done that and then regretted it because like they, you leave your team behind and then they’re like, oh, cool. Like, why wouldn’t you not use your team like your
Jesse: people on it? Yeah. That’s great. And you gotta get a producer and it’s a, it’s, it is a lot more work for a producer to pull the best outta your guys.
Yeah. So that’s why I think that’s the most important part of it. The, my buddy. Produces our records, a, because we write together almost every day. But B, because I can go, bro, no, we’re using this guy on acoustic and we’re gonna do what it takes to get the best out of it. Yeah, that’s great.
No, we’re not gonna overdub that snare sound. We’re gonna use a surfboard. It’s just one of those things it probably doesn’t matter in the end, but it’s just so much part of my DNA that I want to do, different. Sure. Yeah. So what I’d love to hear like what is the Lord
Ryan: teaching you lately that they been just like recently?
What are you reading? What’s God been I impressing on your art? Always cool to see just how the lord’s moving in through everybody. I’d love to hear just what recently, what haven’t been impressed on
Jesse: yet. Yeah, that’s easy. Because we’re going through First Corinthians in our church right now, and Yeah.
Four years in, we’ve gone all the way through the book of Acts, the book of John, book of Mark, book of Colossians Galatians. Now we’re on first Corinthians, and yeah it’s funny it’s just not a coincidence that four years in, that’s what we’re going through because Corinthians is just correcting everyth.
So it’s like you can’t read it and go, oh man, we’re guilty of that. We’re guilty of that. But I will say this, the one thing that, the message that keeps coming back is how much Paul, like I love when Paul says, and in context in Corinth, like they are in the city, like with so much thought. Philosophy and big trade city like, and Paul says, I choose to preach Christ and Christ crucified.
Yeah. And that is what we’re anchoring on right now, is that Jesus’ last prayer. In the Garden of Emy was father, make them one as we are one. And the church is the most divided institution on the planet, right? That’s Jesus’ final prayer. And we are so divided. So our message now is learning how to come together with people that don’t see things the way and don’t interpret scripture the way you interpret him. Yeah. And go, okay, can we agree on Christ and Christ crucified? Then if we can, then we’re one church. Yeah. That’s a hard lesson. And we’re for you. You know what I mean? Like I, and bro, can I just bring it all the way down, to the grassroots, one of the un, I don’t even know the word I’m looking.
One of the benefits of the House church that we did not expect is that half, literally my, not all the houses are this way, but at my house, half the people that come to my house are Catholic. Eh, that’s interesting man. There’s one family that comes, they’re from yeah. Government, south America. Not Chile Columbia.
They’re from Columbia. Yeah. Ray raised. Strict Catholic church, their whole family got saved on my back porch. Wow. It was unbelievable. And afterwards I was talking to him, I was like, bro, like that’s awesome that you hit it up in my house. I was like, would you have ever gone to the Austin Stone?
And he goes, no way man. And I was like, I go, why? And he goes, cuz that’s a Baptist church. And I said, What would you say if I told you that the Austin Stone started in my living room? He goes, you’re Baptist. And I was like, actually no I’ll follow Jesus. But one of the benefits that we’re seeing is it’s a, in your living room, it’s a safe place to not have labels and walls and denominations, and you’re Catholic.
Can we agree on Christ? And Christ crucified? Great. If you’re, whatever stream you’re from, we’ve got a bunch of people that are super charismatic and people that are like super conservative and we’re like, okay, let your discussions be hap like healthy, but realize that we’re brothers and sisters and it, and just because you don’t agree with them doesn’t mean you have to leave and go somewhere else as it turn.
It turns out that this book also says that there’s one church and there’s one Lord and there’s one baptism. So that’s the message. That’s a really long answer to the question you’re asking. No, it was fantastic, man. Our goal right now is we’re really striving for unity, and even being for like big churches, even if we don’t agree with their theology perfectly, just go, we’re for you.
We’re for you. We’ll pray for you. In the event that somebody. He gets mad at us and leaves, we’re like, Hey, give us one more Sunday so that we can lay hands on you and pray for you and bless you, and send you to another church, because there’s one church, right? We’re not gonna allow you, we’re not gonna allow you to leave.
Matt, we’re gonna bless you as you go because you’re just, you may be going from, the shoulder to the knee, but we’re all one buddy, right? Yeah. My
Ryan: mind immediately goes, Like the, that for all these Catholics would be coming because people are actually like talking about Jesus and inviting them to join.
Rather than like the marketing that, that we can all follow trap to going into. That’s just,
Jesse: that’s awesome. But that’s exactly right. When we started, when we went, Janet and I actually went to San Francisco and stayed with Francis and Lisa for four days and just asked him questions what they did right, what they did wrong.
And I remember asking Francis, I said, I think they had 17 churches at the time. I was like, Hey, so if people go to we are church.com, do you have a map like with a, like a pen where all the houses are so people can find me? And he goes he looked at me like I was an idiot and he goes, no.
He’s no, bro. I was like how do you do it? He goes, if somebody reaches out to us through the website, which is rare, but if they do, what we’ll do is we’ll just ask ’em what part of town do you live in and we’ll put you in contact with the shepherd at that house. Yeah. So that when they walk through your door, it’s because they were invited.
It was a relationship. It was a coffee, it was at lunch. It was like, Hey, yeah. Come shake out what we’re doing. You’re invited. Yeah. That’s great. Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: Maybe let’s like little shift here from like maybe one in send off question for worship leaders.
Would you have.
Some sort of encouragement for a worship leader in the midst of what they’re doing. How can they help foster some of this
Jesse: community in their team? Man, I think, honestly, I talked, I told you about Jesus stories, like asking, when’s the last term? You spoke the name of Jesus. What’s crazy is I’ll ask that same question in a group of worship.
Yeah. That’s like when I’m doing a songwriting thing and it’s all worship leaders, right? I’ll say, Hey, before we start this session, let’s go around and just tell one time this week that you spoke the name of Jesus to somebody, and it’s equally as, in fact, it may be more painfully awkward because it’s a bunch of professional Christians.
Yeah, sure. My encouragement to to a worship pastor is a, what I’ve already said. Your identity is not found in the name of your church, and it’s not found in the name of your pastor that you’re linked to. Yeah. Your identity is as a son or a daughter of the king, first of all, and along with that he is, Impressed or concerned by what you do.
Yeah. If that makes sense. Yeah, no, that’s great. I’m not saying it doesn’t make him happy, like it sure it totally can make him happy, but he doesn’t love you more because you’re a worship leader at a church with 10,000 people who not one bit. In fact, I would say this is a whole nother conversation.
How long are we’re gonna go? It’s keep going. It’s we’ve been studying Genesis, but it like Genesis one is crazy that it says that there. It says, and there was evening and morning the first day, and there was evening and morning the second day. And I’ve read that since I was a kid and never thought, wait a.
It should be. There’s morning and evening. It always starts with evening. There’s, just recently been studying the Bible through an eastern perspective, through a Jewish perspective. And what they teach is that the Toro was written to the Jews after slavery. So for 400 years of slavery, A Jews identity and their self worth was based on what they could produce.
Yeah. Because they were brick makers. So your value as a human was how many bricks you could produce in a day. Yeah. So when God told his story to Moses and said, I want you to write this down. He said, I want you to write down, there was evening and morning the first. And what the rabbis teach is, the reason they teach that is to tell people that God, like your value to God is not in what you can produce and your value to God is really comes with who you are when you’re at rest.
Yeah. When you lay your head on the pillow to sleep at night that’s when you need to listen to what God says about you. Yeah. That’s when you, that’s when you can hear him say, I love you, man. I love you, daughter. I love you, son. Not for what you’re doing. Just I love you for who you are at rest. So number one, encouragement would be to worship leaders that your value doesn’t come with what you do.
Number two would. I would encourage you to elevate your priesthood. And start speaking the name of Jesus Monday through Saturday. Yeah. Not just to your team, but at your kid’s soccer game. Yep. Or at the grocery store or at Home Depot. Bro, I was at Home Depot not too long ago and I ran into a guy and we were talking right by the lawn mo.
Just like catching up. I was like, how you doing? And he told me that he had just lost his job. He and his wife were having to move in with her parents. And I said, Hey bro, can I pray for you? Yeah. And he was like, yeah, sure. And I was like, no. Like now, like right now by the lawn, by the lawnmowers and Mike walk off.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. By the lawnmowers and. Yeah. And so I was like this may be awkward. Two dudes standing face to face in Home Depot, but I’m gonna lay, I’m gonna lay hands on you and I’m gonna pray for you. Yeah. So I prayed for him, spoke the name of Jesus over his family, Jesus, over his job situation.
Jesus be glorified, blah, blah, blah. He literally called me the next day and he goes, bro, you’re not gonna believe this. He was like, when I was driving home yesterday, I got a call from an interview that I did and they offered me a job and I’m taking the job. I don’t tell, I don’t tell you that story to go, oh, look at me, I’m awesome.
I tell you that story to say for me, I am trying to also practice what I preach and it is awkward for me in a Home Depot to lay my hands on somebody and. But what I can tell you is if you’ll fight through the awkwardness, God answers prayers cuz he loves when his kids speak his name over people.