C (33:55)
Yes. I love that you said, too, this is a business show, because the thing I think a lot of people maybe don't think about is, like, the church is still a business. Right. I mean, it's a ministry. You're there to help people. But there's a lot of businesses that aren't churches that are there to help people. Right. So think about with the church. You, you, you have employees, you have hr, you have hiring. Unfortunately, you even have firing. You know, you have time off, you have, you know, vacations, you have teams, you have culture, you have training, you have sessions, you have conferences, you have things where you're developing culture. You have money coming in, you have money going out, you got budgets, you got departmental budgets, you got marketing, you got advertisements, you got branding, all of it. It's literally the same. So for us, if we look at it from a business, you know, perspective, we start as a Bible study for the Arizona Cardinals, open to the public. You know, you're growing and now, and now you have a church. So how do you grow this? How do you grow numerically? How do you grow spiritually? How do you grow financially? Right. Relationally, all the Elise, how do you grow? And so like, those are all business, like, those are good business tactics. So branding. Our name is Impact Church. Why? Well, I wanted a one word purpose statement. That's why I wanted one word that said all of it. What is all of it? Well, that I'm impacted by God, but that I make an impact for God. That I love my neighbor as myself. That I help people, that I love people, serve people, sacrifice for people. Impact. That said it all. So our pro athlete Bible study, me and Andre Wadsworth, who played in the NFL, he, he and I had a Bible study called Impact Pro Athletes. So we had sons, Phoenix Suns. We had Arizona Cardinals, you know, Diamondbacks. We had pro athletes in Paradise Valley come together, did, did this Bible study. And I was like, dude, Impact Church. That's it. Like, that's, that's the name. That's perfect. Now coming on onto the business idea, I wanted a symbol, like a logo, something that said Impact. Well, what, what is that? Well, I was like, God, I, I want, I want a s. Now, now the cross is obvious. The cross is a symbol of our faith, that's for sure. That's what Jesus did for us. But I came up with the idea of the star because so anywhere you see Impact Church, you see a star, right? Well, why the star? Because in Philippians 2:15, there's a verse that says that you shine like stars in a dark universe. That's what we should do. Shine like the world's dark, man. Like, how do you not, how do you not be dark, man? I'm going to love like, like nobody's love. I'm going to give like nobody's. I'm going to be generous because the world's selfish, like stand out, you know, shine like stars. So we're talking about business, right? We're talking about like building the church, but building a business. And so you've got these ideas, you've got the marketing, you've got the branding, then you've got the, the, the, the imagery and then you've got the marketing. And then you, you, you start building everything around that. Like, man, this is what we're doing. We're we're making lives better. We're, we're, we're. We're here to help marriages. We're here, here to help the attic. We have hundreds of addicts that have been set free in our church. Right? So, like, all that speaks for itself. So, like, you might want to. In a business, you might want to run infomercial, you know? Yeah, like, well, our infomercials are. Lives changed. We've had the privilege of water baptizing 6,000 people in the last 14 years. Wow, that's a lot of people. But, like, I don't. I can't change a human heart. I can't. I literally cannot make somebody with my own words and my own power, you know, change whether they believe in God or not. That's God. I'll speak words and I'll speak life and I'll speak hope and all those things and love. But like, God does that. So those people that are being water baptized that it's 6, 000 people that go, man, my life changed. Like, something happened to me. Like, God did something in my life. So. So now you've got the power of advertisement. Well, what are we advertising? We're advertising life change. We're not advertising to make money. I'm not selling something, I'm giving something. But advertising is still important. Marketing's still important. You know, culture is still important. You know, being a giver and not a taker, that's a good component to team because a lot of teams, even, you know, I serve as the Phoenix Suns chaplain, and I have for 23 seasons, and I've served in the NFL and I've served in Major League Baseball. Well, when I go, the way Chapel works with the Phoenix Suns is before every game, we have chapel. Like, you know, most people don't know that, but I didn't know that, but I know. And like, think about that for a minute there before 60 minutes before tip off, we have chapel for 15 minutes. People like, what is. Well, we get together, man, we have a little prayer, a little devotional. It's about life. It's like, man, they have hardships too, and they can't go to church because of their schedule, you know, not during the season. So we kind of take it to them. And, and so. But the NBA, the NFL, mlb, they all have chapel, right? But the NBA, the NFL and mlb, it's a business. Those are businesses. We think it was like, oh, watching sports, it's a business. It's there to make money, right? So a business goes, hey, let's Create some space for spirituality for some, some, some just some decompressed time, man. We're about to play like, let's just take a deep breath, let's reset, let's re, let's recenter, you know, because we're about to go get after it. So. Yeah, so then the church starts growing. I mean, it went from you know, 200 to 400 and 400 to 800. And you know, and, but it speaks for itself because God's doing what God does. And, and so, you know, so then you start, you know, you, you start thinking about like space and buildings and properties and how are we going to facilitate this and utilizing the Internet, utilizing YouTube, utilizing Instagram, you know, and all those things. But, but the, I would say the biggest difference for the business of church versus like just like corporate America business is it's, it's solely about Jesus. You know, it's like if, if you're in sales, you've got to sell me on something. So, you know, it's kind of like you're selling Jesus, but it's free and he sells himself. Like if you give him a shot, he sells himself. Like, I don't have to convince 6,000 people to get water. Like, I didn't do that. Yeah, like the supernatural did that. God did that. You know, when I watch big full grown jacked NFL players getting a baptism tank and go into the water and come back up. By the way, I don't know if you know this, Sean, but that's a baptism, water baptism. It's a symbol of like dying to yourself and rising up brand new. It's like, it's a symbol of like, man, I get a new start in life. I'm, I'm washed clean, like a new slate. But you know, seeing like, like man, it's fun to watch kids and stuff, that's beautiful. It's precious. But like when you watch a full grown man, dude, you're like, dude, only God can do that. Because men are like tough and stubborn and you know.
