BeTempered
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BeTempered
BeTempered Episode 70 - How God Moves in Small Communities with Pastor Justin Wiegand
What happens when a young pastor with no money but unwavering faith decides to plant a church in a town of just 1,800 people?
On this episode of BeTempered, hosts Dan Schmidt and Ben Spahr sit down with Pastor Justin Wiegand to uncover an extraordinary story of courage, obedience, and small-town ministry. Justin’s journey takes him from making pizza dough in Kentucky to leading five thriving church campuses across rural Ohio, proving the life-changing power of listening to God’s call—especially when it leads to places that many overlook.
Justin’s story began with a simple but powerful revelation while cutting pizza dough: plant a church in Preble County. With just $3,000 from his grandmother and six committed people, Community of Faith was born in Lewisburg in 2007. But the road forward was anything but easy. When the church boiler failed, he took out a $10,000 loan. To make ends meet, he spent countless hours roofing houses while pastoring on nights and weekends. At the same time, Justin immersed himself in the life of the community—coaching youth basketball, announcing school games, and showing up at chamber meetings where only four people attended. Over time, his consistent presence made him not just a pastor, but a trusted part of small-town life.
What sets Justin apart is his intentional focus on rural communities—places that often get bypassed by larger ministries chasing numbers and growth. He describes driving through small towns looking for signs of a church or ministry presence, because to him, every one of those towns matters deeply. “Those little towns matter so much to me, and I know they matter to God,” Justin says. That passion has guided Community of Faith to expand to five campuses, each shaped by local leadership and rooted in its community’s specific needs.
Justin doesn’t just talk about ministry growth—he talks about life. He challenges us to resist a culture that glorifies busyness and instead create rhythms of rest, reflection, and presence. He asks the hard questions: “How many marriages fall apart after the kids are gone because it was the only thing holding them together?” His insights are both sobering and freeing, offering a reminder that true success isn’t measured in speed or size, but in faithfulness and sustainability.
Whether you’re a pastor, a community leader, or simply someone searching for balance in the chaos of life, Justin’s story will inspire you to embrace faithfulness right where you are. Because as he reminds us: “There is no small or big. There’s just obedience.”
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God, I just thank you for bringing Doug here today and his testimony and I just ask that you let it hit the ears of everybody that everybody that's going to affect.
Speaker 1:Lord and God, I know that every time we share a testimony, that you're the one that gives us the testimony, you're the one that gets through the fire.
Speaker 1:Satan puts stuff in our lives that sometimes we get tempted and sometimes we go with the temptation. But wherever we come back to you at, you meet us right there and I'm just so thankful that we don't have to do anything to receive your grace. It's just there and I just ask that everybody's that, or everybody that hears his story and hears his testimony, understands that, that the grace is there, that the only thing we have to do is just understand it and accept it and also have grace for ourselves, as sometimes we're hard on ourselves, we don't think we deserve grace, but grace is all we have lord and it's what gives us the peace to be able to follow you as closely as we can. And I just ask that you um just be with doug as he shares his testimony and give him power and and and give Dan the the right things to ask, and I just ask that you just bless this and just let us feel your presence here, lord, and it's in your name we pray. Amen, amen, thank you.
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Speaker 3:Hey, do you want to catch every episode live as it's being recorded? Log on to patreoncom slash be tempered for exclusive footage, behind the scenes, photos and a live recording as it takes place. Go to patreoncom slash be tempered. Welcome to the Be Tempered podcast, where we explore the art of finding balance in a chaotic world.
Speaker 1:Join us as we delve into insightful conversations, practical tips and inspiring stories to help you navigate life's ups and downs with grace and resilience.
Speaker 3:We're your hosts, dan Schmidt and Ben Spahr. Let's embark on a journey to live our best lives. This is Be Tempered. What's up everybody, welcome to the Be Tempered podcast, episode number.
Speaker 1:Number 70, Dan why like that? I don't know.
Speaker 3:Oh boy, hey. Today we get the honor of welcoming Pastor Justin Wiggand.
Speaker 4:Close enough Wiggand, wiggand.
Speaker 3:Pastor Justin Wiggand. He and his wife Jenny had this crazy idea many years ago that God was calling them to plant a church right in the small rural communities that they both grew up in. The calling turned into community of faith, which started within just a few families back in Lewisburg, ohio, in 2007. Since then, what started as something small has grown into something pretty amazing Now five campuses strong in Ohio and Indiana all places where real people are being reached in the hope of Jesus. But here's what I love about Justin he's not just preaching about discipline and faith, he's living it. He's in the middle of the 75 hard challenge right now which, as you know, has been life-changing for me and also for Ben. That takes grit, commitment and the willingness to get uncomfortable, which is what Be Tempered is all about. So we're going to dig into his story what it looks like to plant churches in small towns, how to stay authentic in a world full of celebrity pastors, and what happens when faith and discipline collide. Pastor Justin, welcome to the show. Where'd you?
Speaker 4:get that? Did you steal that from our website? No, Because I don't even think that that's on our website. It's not. But I'm sitting there listening to it. I'm like who wrote that? Like?
Speaker 2:is it good?
Speaker 4:it's okay okay, I I don't think I want to be viewed that way like it was really intense me and my wife jenny, and rural community and lewis, like god it sounded. It sounded really intense.
Speaker 3:Well, I really appreciate it though okay, okay, you know I can tell you our research and development team came up with it. Which is who? Some new technology, that's great.
Speaker 4:And you just took something and put it into the chat. Gpt Whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1:We don't do that.
Speaker 3:What was that name? I?
Speaker 4:have no idea, I have no idea.
Speaker 3:Is it getting hot in here? Must be a new app. Is it a new app? Is that what it is? It's the corduroy that I'm wearing.
Speaker 4:That's what it is.
Speaker 3:Oh man, well, welcome to the podcast, thank you man.
Speaker 4:What an honor it is.
Speaker 3:I've heard so many good things about you guys, so being here is kind of cool. Well, your name has came up many times over the past year or so. Lots of people saying, hey, you need to get Pastor Justin on, he's got a story to tell. So how we start every podcast is we like to start from the beginning. So talk about childhood, what it was like for you growing up in in small town USA.
Speaker 4:Wait, can I first say like, ben Spahr is one of the best basketball players. I've ever seen in my life I'm serious, like just to get going like I'm like man and cut. He's the with the old group of guys that I play with twice a week. He's probably the GOAT there. So you know, I think that we should just say that out loud before we jump into the story.
Speaker 3:How many knee braces are there in that league?
Speaker 4:You know there's quite a few.
Speaker 1:It's all about the guys you go with. You know there's a lot.
Speaker 4:What's really bad is when somebody just goes missing and you're like, well, they're hurt forever. But no, ben started coming and man, what a great group of guys there it is, but seeing Ben play, it's like he's next level.
Speaker 3:He's pretty solid. I think I'm going to have to come.
Speaker 4:I want to see some highlight reels from Dixie when he played there.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, A lot of standing under the basket getting one. That was my favorite story One of my buddies was like hey, I just uploaded all of our high school games on youtube and I got your game winning shot and I'm like I had a game winning shot. I like did not know, so you know you.
Speaker 4:You talk about it every time. I see you.
Speaker 1:You're like uncle rico it was great he took it comes out he took the shot, he missed it and there's a wide open backside layup that I got. Yeah, that was my game winning works, hey.
Speaker 4:But I want to say this I've I've heard about you guys a ton too. A lot of people ask me hey, do you listen to the be tempered podcast? And when you asked me to be on, I thought I better start listening to be different podcasts.
Speaker 3:So uh, but you didn't know we were on.
Speaker 4:YouTube I I. Spotify is the only thing. I don't have any like social media, so I didn't know you were on anything other than I know you're on Spotify because I have that.
Speaker 3:So everybody out there listening needs to go to YouTube so they can watch this yes, go to.
Speaker 1:YouTube, yep. That way you can see the corduroy in live action.
Speaker 4:And it's getting warmer by the second in here so.
Speaker 1:All right so all right.
Speaker 4:So where are we starting? At? My childhood, how far? Back. Do we want to go? Because I don't want to spend a lot of time there.
Speaker 3:Well, this is your show.
Speaker 4:You know, jeff Travis was here a couple weeks ago and you had to turn it into a two-parter. So, my goal is to not turn this into a two-parter, that's for sure. Let's go three-parter.
Speaker 2:Oh man no way.
Speaker 4:Um, you know, I grew up in new Madison, um, the land of tri village. I'll be honest, tri village wasn't tri village. When I was going there, they they weren't what they are now. Um, but I went there. My parents owned a campground so I grew up at a campground. So all my pastor friends, they all, they all joke that I'm the socialist person. They know because of that.
Speaker 4:That campground, you grew up in a campground. It was a family business. We all work together. You're, you know, you're just working through the week. My parents owned a public swimming pool so you'd swim during the. On the weekends your friends would come out like. I grew up in a great spot, at a campground right outside of New Madison. It's called Arrowhead and, man, just one of the best ways you could grow up and so many good memories there. Um, so I just grew up in small communities. You know, new Madison was was home for a while. I ended up transferring to a small Christian school in high school and, uh, cause, I actually thought I wanted to go in ministry at a young age.
Speaker 3:I wanted to go in ministry at a young age and what planted that seed?
Speaker 4:Man I don't really know, it just always had that little pull on me Started going to church as a kid. This girl I knew, which I thought she was cute, right. So her parents started taking me to church as a kid and man, I fell in love with church. I fell in love with God and really didn't look back much after that and just always wanted to go into ministry. So, you know, I asked my parents if I could transfer to a Christian school. Some of my friends went to that Christian school in high school and so I was transferred to Faith Christian. It was at Faith Baptist Church in Greenville and I spent my high school years there and that's where I met my wife. So can I tell you a great story about how I met my wife? So we were in class and you know, when the public schools kids come to visit the Christian school, like we're looked at as we got thrown out of public school.
Speaker 4:And there's the only place it'll take you is the Christian school. So you know I'm visiting there and you know, for all they knew I was, you know, just got expelled from a different school. So I'm having to be here and I I turn around and I look at this girl behind me and I just looked at her and I said, man, you're cute. You said that out loud, oh yeah, I said it out loud, a hundred percent. And she looked at me and she goes please stop talking to me, like she's super shy. And from that point on I was like well, game on Right, um. So I pursued her and you know we ended up dating. And so here's how I tell the story. And thank goodness my wife isn't here, but I say we dated on and off for a couple of years and then we got married, had kids, started some churches, like that's my story. But the longer that story gets, I'm a huge jerk and uh, but we'll just keep it at keep it at, we dated on and off you know, and but she's, she's gold.
Speaker 4:But I met her in the 10th grade, 9th, 10th grade. I think we started dating in 10th grade, but I met her in 9th. Yeah, that's how I met my wife. She grew up right outside of the Greenville area, so small towns are great for her too, and we get it right. If you grew up in small towns, you get small towns. I just went to the Ohio State game last weekend with my son and sitting in traffic I mean we were talking earlier I get I get claustrophobic. Yeah, just being in a big community, being a big town, and why anyone would want to leave Lewisburg or and Sonia or new Madison or Richmond, like I have no idea. Like just plant, plant, stay where you were planted, man, it's so much better. That's my opinion.
Speaker 3:You know, it's funny that you say that, because I remember Jeff Travis talking about how, when he went to Lewisburg, they were like what the heck is this place? Oh yeah, you know how small it was yeah, for sure. And it's funny to hear the people that are raised in a city or an urban environment compared to us being raised out in the country.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because Jeff's Detroit yeah.
Speaker 3:Like they're terrified to come to the country, like it's so quiet there where we're terrified to go to the city. It's just, it's just funny how you know that, how Absolutely Similar but different. You know how we're both scared of each other.
Speaker 4:Jeff asked me. He said what should I do? And I said go buy a Menards hat. Like, lose the skinny jeans, go buy a Menards hat, it'll help somewhat, you know, yeah. Anyways, so you make it through high school. What's next for you? Um, you know, make it through high school and then just kind of go off to to Bible college and just trying to follow that dream there. And, uh, you know, in that process of time I asked my wife to marry me. So we get married. And, oh man, what if I don't know? We're on this podcast August 3rd 2002. You sure, yeah, I think so. You know, the passcode to my life is our anniversary so pretty sure I don't know if I should have said that.
Speaker 4:I might want to edit that out, whatever, but yeah, and her and I Running that credit card now. Thank you for that. For sure, I left my wallet over there, so I'm sure he's got it Now. He's got my passcode. Oh, yeah, yeah, you're in trouble.
Speaker 4:So I'm sure he's got it Now. He's got my passcode. But just, you know, we, we got out of there and then we jumped into helping start a church and rule Kentucky and you know a guy asked me. He said, hey, you want to come and help us with youth? And I was like sure I didn't have anything else to do. So Jenny and I got married and then we moved straight to Kentucky right after our our honeymoon and you know I go to a church where there's zero youth to help work with their youth. And that was a trip. You know, just trying to help a church get started from the ground up Changed facilities a ton of times. I remember one time we were in this facility that it was a reception hall on Saturday night and then we had church there on Sunday morning but they didn't clean up on Sunday hall on Saturday night. And then we had church there on Sunday morning but they didn't clean up on Sunday night.
Speaker 1:Saturday night.
Speaker 4:So we'd get there early on Sunday mornings just to clean up. It smelled like beer, I mean, you could just tell like there was a party there. So we're cleaning the thing every Sunday morning. So we did that for so long and we were there for like four years. So we, that's that's how I kind of got started doing ministry and, um, you know, we didn't have a permanent facility. So you know, we started meeting at a local YMCA, started finding some youth and just you know, hey, what can we do to introduce young people to Jesus? You know that, honestly, that's that's been my heart from time time I can remember. I actually think it's the secret to life. Knowing Jesus is huge and I think I can be that bold here.
Speaker 4:Absolutely so that's really my heart cry. So you know that was how all that transpired and I think what most people and I've told this story a lot, because when you said, hey, I want you to tell your story, I'm like, dude, I tell my story all the time. You know it's just to the COF family, so I don't tell it a lot outside of that. But really people ask me like, hey, how did COF get started? Am I getting ahead? Is this?
Speaker 3:okay, no, you're good man, yeah Now.
Speaker 4:COF is Community of Faith. Yeah, so COF is Community of Faith. We started in 07 and really started with six people. There were six of us that you know. Just we felt led that you know, we should start a church.
Speaker 4:And what happened was is when I was doing youth ministry in Kentucky because we moved there. We weren't from there, we were from New Madison and Greenville. So when we were doing youth ministry in Kentucky, I was working at a pizza restaurant too, and you had to get there super early to cut, to make dough. So I'd get there by myself early in the morning and I was just cutting pizza dough over and over and over again. You make the dough and then you cut it into balls and then it makes pizza. So I was just I'd use that time to pray and I was praying and I thought, lord, you know, what do you have for us? What do you want Jenny and I to do? And just something on the inside felt like we were going to start a church in Preble County and I was like, all right, so I go, I go home.
Speaker 4:That night and I kind of forgot about it, cause you know the day got away from me and you know I kind of thought about it and I went home and I was like hey, jenny, we didn't have any kids. I said, hey, jenny, I I don't know this is crazy, but cause she's from dark County and I lived in dark County too. So if you're from dark County, you don't think to go to Preble County. I don't know why, but some people think that if you're from dark County, that the fair is the greatest thing on the planet, which it is amazing.
Speaker 1:I'll give you that.
Speaker 4:But um, so it just wasn't a thought to go probably County, dark County, whatever. And I came home and I told her I said, hey, jenny, uh, I think we're supposed to start a church in probably County. And she kind of just broke down on me. She's like me too, like it was without, it was without hesitation, you know, um, and that's kind of been, it's kind of been her she's, she's support. I mean it's been a tough road but she's been super supportive over the years but was she so?
Speaker 3:did she hear that calling too? Or was she just? She's just that supportive?
Speaker 4:no I think she heard it too, like, like um, because it was. It was like it was confirmed on her. On the inside She'd been feeling a toll too, but you know she didn't know what to do with it really. Or hey, is this, you know? Is this God? Is this, is this us? What are we thinking? Um? So at that point we I mean, it was a quick process we packed up, sold our house, tried to and moved to Ohio to try to start a church. So here's what's crazy. We come to, we come to the area and we thought all right, if you're going to start a church in Provo County, where would you go? Ben eaten, eaten. That makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So I'm, I'm assuming it's eaten. And so, man, there's a church for sale and eaten right beside McDonald's. And I was like money, this is it, this is the Lord, I know it's him. So I called on it and it was the church right beside McDonald's. If you're from that area, you know what it is and it was over a million dollars. I was like, hey, Lord, you got something wrong here, Like I don't, because that's out of the budget and anyway, Lord, you got something wrong here, Like I don't, because that's out of the budget and anyway. So you know, I didn't hear anything. I just was like, well, I don't, I don't know what to do. If that is the building, you know what's it look like. And man just continued to pray.
Speaker 3:Now hold on one sec. Yeah, so you decide to leave Kentucky.
Speaker 4:Uh-huh.
Speaker 3:I assume not much money in your pocket. Yeah, I mean, we made a little bit off of one of our houses, but not a lot, so you're moving up here just pure faith.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean now our family's from here. So that helped tremendously, knowing that we actually have family up here. But yeah, we're just trusting God. You know, and here's the thing we went through a law firm to get our 501 C three, which took every penny Jenny and I had. So we actually, once we paid for that, we had zero money and so we just working trying to figure it out. Fear no, we look back and we're like we didn't have any fear. I think we were too young and dumb to have fear, or naive I don't know what the word is but just no fear. I didn't know what it would look like. I mean, what was there to fear? We were broke anyways, we weren't going to be broke, you know, it's like what was there to fear Ever, any doubt?
Speaker 3:Uh like, is this really what I'm supposed?
Speaker 4:to do God, I think so. I mean sure, you, you always kind of run that through, but I don't think I ever stopped to to think that, hey, this isn't right, like I just kept going after it. You know you, you just you feel that on the inside of you and you just you just got to go after it. So we just did what we knew. I mean, we found a building in Lewisburg and really, after praying it out, I was like, all right, lewisburg's probably the place. And uh, and knew a buddy asking him about a church in Lewisburg and he's like, yeah, I know one for sale. I was like, really, he's like, yeah, actually there's two. And I said, can I look at them? So we looked at them on Saturday and, uh, actually, the original building that I still pastor that location, that's the one we started in and it was rebuilt in 1894. It was an old United brother in church which became a Methodist church. And I knew like, hey, this is the building. Looked at the other one. The other one was newer but this one was man. It just seemed like it was the right one. It was right on 503.
Speaker 4:Loved the building, still love the building, and I remember trying to talk about a lease option, right, cause we had no money. When I say we had no money, like dude, we had no money. And uh, they, they agreed to a lease that we could afford, but it doubled every month until it got to where it needed to be. So it was like grow or die, that was the, or find a new location or something. And so, you know, we and and it was a, it was very favorable, like it was. I don't remember what the terms of it was, but we get there real quick and you know, within the first year, somebody comes in and they're like hey, your boiler's a ticking time bomb, it's from the forties, it needs to be replaced. And he goes, what's above the boiler room?
Speaker 4:and I was like kids church like, uh, he goes, we might want to do something about it. I was like, all right, let's do it. So I had to go get a loan, had to go. Somebody gave us a boiler, a brand new boiler, and but to install it was 10 grand, which at the time, man I mean. So I went to a banker and I was like, hey, man, we need, I gotta have this, or we don't have church. And it was awful. I didn't want to borrow money for a boiler, but we needed a boiler.
Speaker 4:So it's just those early days, man, and I was working, uh, my father-in-law, he does construction. Um, I'll have to shout out his business, trojan builders, greenville, ohio. Uh, he does, he does gutters and siding and windows. He'd let me work whenever. Another friend of mine, uh, gabe, he owns GMT roofing in Greenville, he'd let me put roofs on, like I could just show up and log hours whenever I could and I'd have to go do a funeral and then I'd come back and I'd get on the roof or just whatever. And, man, I thought this would just be life, like that's what it would be, and the church just kind of kept growing and I don't know how many gaps you want me to fill in between now and where we're at today.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, like, why do you? What caused it to grow?
Speaker 4:You know, I I honestly people ask me that all the time, Like it's if you go into a business and it's failing, I mean, let's look at Blockbuster, right? Am I allowed to say that on here? I?
Speaker 1:don't know. I just crossed the line, but you look at Blockbuster and you're like the line.
Speaker 4:But you look at Blockbuster and you're like it's easy to see why they failed so easy. But why did Netflix thrive? They about went bankrupt two or three times. It's hard to put your finger on why things actually grow. But I just know this we just kept trying to reach the one person, kept trying to reach the lost.
Speaker 4:You know how quick can we get involved in the school? I mean, I was coaching basketball year two. I was coaching they had an opening for junior high girls basketball and I was like, yeah, let's go. Sure man, some of the funnest times coaching there at the school. And today I still am involved in the school. I announced all the varsity games, I announced football, I announced basketball. I love being involved in the school and now my kids are, you know, a little bit older. So we got to do all the parent things and the concession stands and you know. But just getting involved in the school, that was, you know, a huge, huge part of it.
Speaker 4:And I think just reaching, trying to reach young people from from the get go, just doing our best with what we had. I think you can look back from the early days until now. We just did everything to the best of our ability with the resources we had, and it's kind of the same that we're still trying to do. We try to do things to the best of our ability with the resources we had and it's kind of the same that we're still trying to do. We try to do things to the best of our ability with the resources we have. But really, just man, I just wanted to reach Lewisburg. I had people ask me all the time did you set out to have multi campuses? And no, I mean honestly, I just wanted. I just wanted to reach the town any way we could help out, any way we could be involved in the community any way we could.
Speaker 4:And I think that's really why my heart is so focused on small communities. Rural communities is because you have that ability, you can get involved. I remember going to chamber meetings where there were only four of us and I was one of the four in Lewisburg and we would sit around and talk about how can we make Lewisburg better? And you can't always get that. We have amazing. We have a village manager in Lewisburg. He's amazing, like if I was in a big town. I'm not going to go to Indianapolis, I don't even know if they have village managers. I mean, do you guys know?
Speaker 3:I have no managers. I mean, do you guys know the questions? Well, Indianapolis is not a village.
Speaker 4:Well, that's true.
Speaker 1:I came from a village in New Lebanon, so I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's like does Dan just try to make?
Speaker 3:guests feel stupid. Is that what he does?
Speaker 4:Because he totally did right now. It's my whole life.
Speaker 1:I take it back.
Speaker 4:No, no, no. Actually I kind of walked right into that one. So that's totally. I wasn't going to say it, but God told me Wow, that's great man. Um no, I hear myself. Oh no.
Speaker 3:I can tell you why it grew. Okay, it's because of you. I don't know about that. No, it's because of that leadership. I mean, I, we didn't know each other right before this and we just had lunch together and kind of got to know each other. But there's certain people you can feel certain things from. You can feel I don't know what it is, maybe it's the Holy spirit, I don't. I don't know what it is. You just have that feeling, that aura, that like. I don't know what it's going to take.
Speaker 4:You just combined like the whole Christianity with like the new age world with aura and the Holy.
Speaker 1:Spirit.
Speaker 4:Like, let's try to pick one here. Dan, he redeemed himself. Let's go. Holy Spirit here, can we do that? Not aura?
Speaker 3:Hey, thanks for listening everyone.
Speaker 4:Oh man, you guys are great. This is actually really fun. This is terrible. No, I'm trying to compliment you, I get it.
Speaker 1:I make jokes when I'm uncomfortable so deal with that all right?
Speaker 3:No, but what I'm saying is that there's certain people that have certain leadership qualities that they may not even know, and it's just. It's just the simple things like helping that one person, like that's our, that's our whole mission with. Be Tempered is for your story to reach one person, to do something, to help someone else. And you completely relied on faith yeah, to move from Kentucky you're making pizzas to go to Lewisburg, ohio, with $0 in your pocket, then a $10,000 boiler that you had to go get a loan for. But what'd you do? You got embedded in the community. You started getting involved. Well, what happens? And people start to know you, they start to feel that aura, that presence, like, hey, I want to get to know this guy a little better, so maybe I'm going to go to his church. Then you start preaching, right, then they get to know you even more. It's your vulnerability, it's your leadership. That's why it took off.
Speaker 3:But my question is, knowing where you're at now, with all those different campuses, how do you go from one to two to three? Talk about that process, because there's a business side to this. Right, there is a business side. Whether you want it to be or not, there is, and you know I'm a businessman and we've had we just had the conversation an hour or so ago, you know, at lunch about growth is hard right and finding the right people is the key to all of it. So how did you go from $0 to growing your church in Lewisburg to then going to that second campus? That had to have been a big step.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I want to. I want to clarify $0, because there is a really cool story in this is that, uh, you know, I don't know that everybody believed in us when we said we were going to start a church in Lewisburg. Most of the time people were like why, like you know, they have enough churches and you know, and I love, I love the churches in the community. But it was just people didn't understand. My wife supported me, my mom supported me and my grandma like they were all like honey, you can do it with that, it's kind of they kind of have to. Like everybody else was just pitying me.
Speaker 4:I could tell you know, but my grandma, early on, my grandma never, never made a lot of money and if she's listening, you're amazing. Grandma Wiggins, she's in her 80s now. I remember we told her we were going to start a church just like a year prior, because there was about a year gap before we knew and when we opened the doors, she just started saving money. She started saving money and she gave us like $3,000 to start and she had saved for a whole year and I couldn't believe it. I mean, it helped us get on the right track. So you know, we could say $0 and obviously it didn't go real far. But the fact that she did that I'll never, ever forget that my grandma Wiggin, like she's put money aside and she gave what she had, and man, what a blessing Right. So a big shout out to Grandma Wiggin. She, if you're listening, I don't know, she knows technology more than me. You know, I think she's on Facebook more than she's one of our YouTube subscribers.
Speaker 1:She's one of your YouTube subscribers but just really sweet.
Speaker 4:So I'm, you know, I don't forget that but going from that man. There's just so many little side stories along the way getting established and you know, is this real? Should we be doing this and honestly getting back? Like you say, it's me? But oh my goodness, I look back and I was like, yeah, but I just it's Jesus. I want to point to that If I have anything that's good in me, it's from him. If I have any quality that is awesome, it's from him, like I didn't manufacture this on my own.
Speaker 4:The fact that I'm a better basketball player than Ben Spahr that was from the Lord Like no, I'm definitely not a not a better basketball player than anybody else there but the, the, anything that we have good in us, it's, it's from the Lord.
Speaker 4:So if I have any leadership in me, it's from the Lord. So here's what I did know is that we started, we started growing a little bit early on and what I realized is I knew nothing about leadership, Never. I mean whatever just is organically that you get from growing up at a campground. Growing up, I had a loving mom, I had a driven dad, Love them both. But whatever I got, just naturally from growing up in the environment. I grew up and it was my leadership ability. So I knew, man, I had to dig into leadership.
Speaker 4:So I took the better part of a decade where I read every book, went to conferences, listened to audio CDs on leadership back in the day like whatever I could get my hands on. And I did that for the better part of a decade because I didn't. I didn't know how, and then one of the first people, um, so when I first moved to Kentucky I'm going to go back a little bit when I first moved to Kentucky, I got hired on at office Depot. They were opening up a new store and I needed a job. So I went to Office Depot and this guy, Keith Peterson. He interviewed me, he hired me. Man, we become really good friends, Great guy. So he ended up leaving that store and he took another store in Lexington, Kentucky, and I ended up going to a pizza place. Well, I call him and I'm like hey man, I think we're moving from Kentucky and Kentucky. People are like crazy, they love Kentucky basketball, they, I mean, they love Kentucky, they do not go to Ohio. And um, so I told him, I said hey man, I think we're gonna go start a church in Preble County, Ohio, and he comes with us. He, up through his family, they transferred him from the Lexington office Depot and they gave him the Trotwood Ohio Office Depot. Same thing, yeah, Like totally same thing, Same, same same thing, Same same everything. But, yeah, he, he came up and he, he helped. And so you talk about the business side like he. He understood that so much better than me. I had no idea really.
Speaker 4:And so, as the church has grown like he was the guy to work in three jobs helping. I mean, I remember one time we were joking about his answering machine. He had like two different phones cause he was selling truckloads of merchandise to wholesalers. He had a car lot. He was working for a company part-time and he was at the church. He was leading worship and running all the business side of the church. And he just moved up here and said I'm in Uprooted. His whole family and his wife worked for us for a while. His son pastors are Arcanum church now and his other son's a professional musician in Nashville he's. So him coming was huge and he's always been. You know, I I say that I'm the gas pedal, he's the brake pedal. It's really nice when you have somebody that will put the brakes on, and he's he's been really good at that. Over the years he's helped me tremendously to make wise decisions.
Speaker 4:So, going from one campus to two, we grew, um, we were in two services, Then we went to three services in Lewisburg and then it's like, all right, what do we do? Um, I was like, well, let's build a big building right on the interstate. That was my only thought. It was my only solution, you know, and something about it didn't feel right, but I didn't. We didn't know what else to do. So I remember we, we were we'd partner with the Pueblo County YMCA for different things and they had a church partner there for several years and their church partner was leaving and I remember having a conversation at the time the Y director there, his name was Josh Haynes Good dude, man, Great dude and he had a conversation and was just like hey, you ever think about COF being our church partner, Thinking we would just move everything to Eden and without thinking like that'd be awesome, let's do it. So Keith kind of comes in. He's like I don't know if we're ready for that right now, Like you know.
Speaker 4:And eventually we were ready and by the time the other church went out and we started, you know, building, building excitement around it, we had several families coming from Eaton to Lewisburg and we ask all them hey, do you want to do, you want to help start a new church in Eaton? And they're like where's it going to be? We're like at the YMCA, we're going to set it up and tear it down every week. And people were just like, yeah, we're in, let's do it, let's reach Eaton too. And that's really what started.
Speaker 4:That started something different on the inside of me, Like a big building with one big church never felt, just didn't feel right. I felt like the real Lord was really like hey, don't have people leave their community to come to your church, take the church to the community. And I'm like, all right, I don't even know what that means, I don't know what that looks like, I don't know how to do that, Still don't you know? Um, but yeah, that's, that's, that's what happened. That's how we kind of went from one to two and uh, so there was some big factors that happened. Jeff came along right at that time. He did a podcast with him, Jeff Travis pretty clear that he was going to be the pastor of that church. He only wanted to commit to three years because he's a missionary by heart and he stayed for seven. So you know, I milked a little more than he wanted to, but it worked out well.
Speaker 3:So I want to stop you for a second because a second, because that's another key piece Again, the conversation that we had earlier at lunch. How do you go and you find the right person? Because the most critical piece, or one of the most critical pieces to any church is the pastor. So how do you, how do you go and look for the right person?
Speaker 4:Well, you know, there's always been the talk of hey, do you put me on a screen, do we just live stream me into every campus? And man, that's never felt right for us. Now there's people who do it. I don't, I don't care how you do it, for us it just didn't feel right. I met Jeff at a conference and I was like, hey, what do you do and why do you do it in Troy, michigan? I like Jeff you know he's good dude and he's like uh, travel and speak to youth groups and I live here because this is where I'm from I was like, all right, you should move to Ohio. That was it. I just kind of planted that and left and you know he ended up moving to Ohio. I leave a lot of details out. It really annoys my wife.
Speaker 3:Jeff. Jeff filled those in.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I know, I know my wife, you know somebody will tell me it's my, I have a baby. I'll be like hey, been spar, they had a baby. And she's like, oh, what'd they name it? Like, listen, I've given you all the information. I know she wants to know why, or she wants to know eye color, weight, height, the whole thing, and I'm like honey, I have no idea. So I leave a lot of details out and I'm I'm okay with that If you, jeff. Jeff felt a ball head right. So he ended up moving here and it was. It was pretty clear.
Speaker 4:But then there was somebody coming to the Lewisburg campus. That was just a mate and I could list people from the early days. I had an early person who helped us out administratively. Her name was Jennifer Johnson. She's a huge help to us.
Speaker 4:But there was this girl coming and this family coming, dave and Carrie Ann Helvey and I'll be honest, you guys are from the Eaton community. Dave and Carrie Ann just in my brain they're two of my favorite people, love them. In my brain they're two of my favorite people, love them. And she like process admin. She's why that Eaton church, like the ball, didn't get dropped over there. She just took up the mantle and ran with it and I remember she'd work all night at Channel 7 because she's a meteorologist. Check this out. She might hear this and might not, but she started first, started working for me and I introduced her as uh, she used to be the weather girl. Oh man, like she. In the mid conversation she just smiled and said meteorologist, and I was like I was like, uh, carrie Ann is never the weather girl.
Speaker 1:She is a meteorologist and she has degrees to prove it Right.
Speaker 4:So I've just kind of laughed at that. So I learned real quick Don't ever call her the weather girl. If you're listening to this and you see her, by all means feel free to call her weather girl, we'll see her at football games, yeah.
Speaker 4:But you know, she was just such a huge help. She'd work all night at Channel 7 because there'd be a storm or something and then she'd get to that campus at like 6.30 in the morning and she'd make sure that it was running. Every I was dotted, t was crossed and it came time to we needed another hire and the first place I went looking was Carrie Ann and some of you don't know this, like Dave, helvey is one of the best vocals and musicians I've ever encountered.
Speaker 4:I mean the guy when he sings and plays. It's amazing, one of my favorites. And then his wife, carrie Ann. I mean, just, she's a process machine. Sometimes I think she's just trying to find new ways that we can be better. That drives me crazy. But you've got to have people like that on your team and she's super valuable. But, yeah, we brought her on right around that second campus before we launched a third and she played a huge role in getting the third campus off the ground. And yeah, just like you said, great people coming around man. Sometimes I look around and I just think we have better people than than I deserve. And he's brought some really good people along the way.
Speaker 3:So you just do a really good job of listening to the Lord, right. Listen, I don't know, man, I hope I want to you have to to take, to take those steps to to go from $3,000 from your grandma. Which is amazing, to get a loan for $10,000 to fix a boiler. That's getting ready to blow with the kids up above To the next campus, to the next campus, to the next campus. And now you've got how many total. There's five, five total. You're getting ready to build a building in Eaton.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they broke ground, so they're doing the footer. Actually this week I saw there was some dirt getting moved.
Speaker 3:You have to listen, like you have to listen. That's one thing. That's a big thing that I struggle with. That's why I say that, because there's a lot of similarities between the Community Faith Church and where we're at with this podcast. I mean, as you're talking like I'm feeling what you felt early on with this Sure, and one thing I'm trying to do and I think Ben is too is we're just trying to listen to what God wants us to do, and that's really hard for me.
Speaker 4:Man, it really is, because I just I mean honestly. So when you read throughout the Bible and first of all, sometimes I'm like, hey, why is Ben here? He doesn't even talk.
Speaker 1:I don't.
Speaker 4:I mean, Ben, can you interject something here? That would be great.
Speaker 1:I sit here and process the whole time.
Speaker 4:I do have stuff, I'm just thinking All right, he comes in. At the end I come in so quiet, poor Ben you know Dan's a communication major from Dayton.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, I am a diploma major from Dixie.
Speaker 4:Okay, that's, I'm proud of you. Thank you, and you hit the game, winning shot.
Speaker 1:Layup.
Speaker 4:He hit a game winning layup one time, one time In his career. That's amazing. Yeah, you know, here you hope, hope. I just want so.
Speaker 4:To me, quick obedience is huge. So there was a time where God looked at law and he's like go to the land that I'll show you. Now I'm sure there's a lot that happened to between that right Like because, but but really, soon after that, we just see, lot goes. You know, god asked Abraham to take his son up, isaac, isaac, and sacrifice him. It's like the next verse he's loading up a donkey and it's like whoa, whoa, what, like? What did you go through?
Speaker 4:What was the thought process? Like, I want some more there, but I really do. I want to be obedient, like, whatever it is the Lord wants me to do, whether he wants me to lay down COF one day, so be it. Like if he's got something else in store for me, it's his, not mine. So I don't want to and I've struggled with that over the years, but it's his. Whatever he wants to do, I'm good with and it's just kind of doing that. And I've made mistakes. I'm I'm sure you're going to make more mistakes with this podcast than anything you do, but you, you do your best to man, just make up for the mistake and you just got to keep moving forward. So, man, I really do.
Speaker 4:I want to be obedient to God. I really want to hear his voice. I want to. I want to honor him. I want to live a life that's worthy and that glorifies him. I want to. I want to not apologize for anything and we were talking about this at lunch, like I love the word. It's truth. It's the only place that we're going to find truth in a culture that is so messed up, confused, divided. I want that to be glorified. I want his word, I want the son of God, I want Jesus to be lifted up, like so I just want to do my part. You know, there's a point that we're all going to get to and I want to hear well done, good and faithful, like that's it. I don't want to hear nothing else. I just want to know that I did my part, no matter how small or how big, because honestly, I don't think there is small and big. There's just obedience. That's all there is.
Speaker 4:So Stephen was they got stoned, the first martyr of the New Testament church. He was just as obedient as Moses leading the children out of slavery in Egypt. Like I just want that, that simple obedience, and I try to make everything simple. I do not have an engineer's brain, I don't have a complex brain. Everything to me is super simple. So if it's the right thing to do, let's do it, and if we miss it or we mess up or it wasn't right, let's go back and do our best to make up for it and then move ahead again. So you say that and I'm just like man, I don't know, I'm still trying to figure this out, but I do believe that shift happened to me at some point where it was like, hey, all these counties that everybody else is overlooking, all these rural towns that nobody else is going into.
Speaker 4:You know, I go to conferences. I meet pastors all over the place. They talk about their cities. I've heard of it. You know I go to conferences. I meet pastors all over the place. They talk about their cities. I've heard of it. You know, charlotte, boston, memphis, nashville, you name it. And I'm like Lewisburg. I'm like, oh, where's that at? I'm like, if I tell you, are you going to care? Like, do you even know? And people have never heard of them. You know, people never heard of those towns, but I do know that God sees each and every one of those communities, and so that's what I can't even go on vacation Like.
Speaker 4:When I go on vacation, I drive through these rural communities because we don't take a lot of interstates. My wife likes to take back roads to Florida, so we'll do that a lot. I drive through these little towns and I just I'm looking for buildings, like, man, is there a church here? Is there a presence here? Is there something here? Because those little towns, man, they matter so much to me and I know they matter to God, and I know that people are called to Columbus, cincinnati, indianapolis, all those towns too, and that's great. But, man, for us it's these rural communities and like, is there a need? If there's a need, let's go you. And like, is there a need? If there's a need, let's go. You know, and we want to hear from God and if the Lord lays that town on our heart, then we're going to do our best to get there.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, I want to. I want to ask you a question. I want to get your opinion on it. I've got a good friend.
Speaker 3:I told you the corduroy story before in Dallas, texas, and him and his wife have been going from church to church just trying to find the right feel. And he said you know, everywhere we go, I feel like instead of them preaching the gospel, reading from the Bible, I feel like they're trying to sell us their church. So how do you not do that at the community of faith? How do you not try to sell your church to someone?
Speaker 4:You know I would say it's tough because we do talk about, I mean, like I'm not trying to sell it, but I'm so excited about what we're doing. I'm excited that, you know, last night we had one of the largest baptism days that we've ever seen at Community of Faith. So I'm not saying that to sell you the church, but I'm excited about it. So I think people talk about what you're excited about what you're doing. So you know I'm I'm quick to give a lot of grace to other other churches because they do things different, but I think the truth of it is there, has to. We have to make sure that the church isn't Jesus is being glorified, that truth isn't deriving from opinions but truth is deriving from the word of God and making sure that those are staples when, when you're out looking for a church and and also, you know I, I kinda I'm on the other side of it, right, I'm not shopping for a church. You know I I'm kind of responsible for churches. So would you say your buddy's a Christian, yes, yeah. So so also going into these churches with a different mindset of going, a lot of people are professional church goers and they go in and they're like, hey, what's this church have to offer my family? And they go in and they're like, hey, what's this church have to offer my family? Which is fine, like I'm not against that, but at some point go in and go. Man, how can I be a blessing to this community, like, find a church that could utilize your family, that could utilize your gifts. But so many people are like, hey, what can this church do for me? What can, how can they? And that's that's fine. But I love the shift in the mindset of what can I do to be a blessing here? You know, how can, how can I be an encouragement in this community? Because I think there's great churches all over the place that that you know. If families would come in and dig in and help out, like it's just such a huge blessing to that church.
Speaker 4:So I would say, you know, if it's heavy on selling the church, be cautious, right. But if it's, if they're highlighting and they're excited about what they're doing, if they're not excited about what they're doing, I wouldn't want to go there either, right. So there's a weird balance between the two. But at the same time, man, is it a motivation? I don't want a motivational message, I don't want somebody's opinion. That's why I love you know, especially at my campus, I love people to bring their Bible, like, bring it, I want you to know your Bible.
Speaker 4:There's things I think we should do every day. I think we should do every day. I think we should pray every day. I think we should be in our Bible every day. I think we should learn every day. You know, I think that there's just things that we should think every day.
Speaker 4:But better than any book I mean I've read 10 books this year the best book is still the Bible. It's the only one that gives me life. It's the only one that brings life change to me. It's the only one where there's absolute truth and I believe that. So the best discipleship tool we have is the Bible. Like we better be pushing our people there. So be sure that we are making the Bible the thing, the priority, and that Jesus is being glorified more than anything else.
Speaker 4:I can't bring life change. Cof can't bring life change. But, man, if we can be a conduit to help connect people to Jesus, man, that's my heart, that's what I want for all these communities. So that's just. You know it's. I'm trying to be honest about your buddy. I'm like, hey, man, try to look at a little bit different too and just go into it going, hey, what can we do? What can we do to be a blessing to this community, to this church, to these people? Yeah, I mean, he gave us all gifts to to actually bless other people. So what can we do? And I think a lot of we're just professional Christians in the American culture and I don't, I don't love that, I'm not a big fan of professional Christianity, like I want to just be a servant. Find a need. You want to be more like Jesus. He came to serve. So look for those needs in your community.
Speaker 1:But I also feel like that's why community of faith grows right, Because isn't that the heart of everything is community.
Speaker 4:Well, maybe I sit here and I'm like I hate agreeing. Just be like, yeah, that's why community of faith is awesome. But yeah, I'm just saying right Like Arcanum.
Speaker 1:I didn't even how many people did you guys baptize?
Speaker 4:79 last night. I didn't even realize there was 79 people in Arcanum, right yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean I did, but you know what I mean.
Speaker 4:There's like 1500 people in Arcanum, right, that's the third one, yep, and actually we started it on a Sunday night. I would do three services in Lewisburg on Sunday morning and then we would all drive over to Arcanum on Sunday night and we would do Sunday night.
Speaker 1:And it's just, I don't know, like the blueprint of community of faith. It seems like is, you know, preach the Bible, bible-based everything, scripture-based, the truth, the living word, and then after that it's community, like the truth, the living word, and then after that it's community Like that's what the heart of it is and that's why it grows and baptisms. But I feel like that's what you know professional Christianity, like you're talking about, but that's where those all kind of missed the mark and everything, cause you don't have that community. You don't have, you know, seeing your neighbor at the grocery store and you're serving with them all the time. Or you know serving your actual community, like having pride in your community. If you have pride in your community, it's going to change your morals of the community. It's going to change everything.
Speaker 1:Like you said it's huge, so I get the heart of the community, what you're talking about and seeing every and getting people involved, just like you, you know you went and coached middle school basketball.
Speaker 4:Look at this. I love it, ben, I'm done. Yeah, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:Just kidding.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but where's the needs? Like, if it's girls basketball, you got a coach, then do it. If it's something else.
Speaker 3:And you know what's crazy this day and age is like? It seems like not many people want to get involved. It seems like, like these volunteer organizations, even at the churches, I mean, it's hard to find people because everybody's so busy. But where's the priorities in life?
Speaker 4:Man, I, that's a drum that I beat a lot Like if you don't have time to volunteer or to be able and I'm not saying at the church, just in general in your community, and like let's rework our life, just in general in your community. And like let's rework our life. You know, I've had, I've got a son who's a pretty good athlete, you know, and but travel stuff wasn't an option because I can't be gone every Sunday. Like it just wasn't an option. And I'm not against anybody doing anything, they think, but let's have downtime. How do you ever have time to think? You know how many marriages I see fall apart after the kids are gone Because it was the only thing holding them together. Let's put some margin in our life. Let's take time to breathe.
Speaker 4:I was preaching yesterday. I love so many times we see the Bible where Jesus was taking a nap. Nobody has time to take a nap anymore. Find some rhythms in life and I don't know how awesome it is that we run ourselves to death and it's all good things, but are they right, like I think we should at least step back and question is my rhythm of life Right? Am I running at a pace that's sustainable? Do my kids know to break and take a break from their phone, take a break from sports and just think and read and go outside. I mean we need to be. I mean I got so many thoughts. We need to spend more time outside.
Speaker 3:Well, I can tell you, I mean just yesterday, so I helped coach my youngest son's flag football team. Yeah, and one of the young kids on our team, he's in soccer right now, he's in flag football right now and he's also playing baseball. This is a 10 year old little kid. Like when does he have time to be a kid? I could tell he was exhausted. When does he have time to be a kid? When do the parents have time to spend time with each other husband and wife? And and we've we've done enough of these podcasts and we've interviewed enough people to know that a lot of times when that falls out of balance and then the family gets divorced, parents get divorced. That is the biggest turning point in a lot of these kids lives as they get older is when, when mom and dad get a divorce.
Speaker 4:A hundred percent. We can say kids are resilient and they are to an extent. But it has a long-term effect. It does.
Speaker 3:I mean.
Speaker 4:I, I, we, I talk to young adults all the time. I got several that work for me and, um man, the young adults that that stuff seared into the brain about what was made a priority, what they did, how young they were, given a phone or a device and stuff's foreign forms them, oftentimes in a negative way. I just think we should be conscious of it, like let's at least step back and go. Are these rhythms of life right? But nobody wants to step back and address it. I think we should if you're listening Because it's too busy Too busy yeah.
Speaker 4:And if they slow down, they might have to deal with issues. That's right, oh man, yeah, that's it. The quiet's scary man? Yeah, but it needs to be addressed.
Speaker 3:So let me ask you another question. This is something I always like to ask pastors, because you hear a lot. People come to you a lot with issues, right? With things going on in their lives and, quite honestly, we get a lot of it now, sure, absolutely. You know, once we open the door and we start having these conversations, then people want to come and tell you their story, which I love.
Speaker 4:I mean that's why.
Speaker 3:That's why we're doing it, because I can see that it helps people right. Same thing for you. How do you deal with that mentally when you hear all these stories and you're trying to listen uh, listen to give advice? There's some hard things that you have heard in your life, I'm sure.
Speaker 4:Sure, how do you hear about, I mean hard things. You got to navigate because you I mean, if you lose a best friend, you go to their funeral. If I lose a best friend, I do their funeral, like. So it's not only navigating the things that I hear, but just navigating the everyday stuff because I'm still dad. When I go home, my kids don't know what kind of day I've had, like my wife doesn't know what kind of day I had. Um, I think the way I deal with it is I've got some good wisdom along the way learning to take downtime, learning to be away, but also, uh, I was talking to an older guy one time and he told me he said, find a tree. So before you go into your house, leave all your worries on that tree. So do you pick them back up when you leave the next morning? He said, but you got to find a way to leave that stuff. So whether it's, you know your drive home or I mean the tree.
Speaker 4:We're not going all you know tree loving stuff here, like the aura that you tried to earlier but he literally said just grab a leaf, he said, and just put your worries on it and it's easy to say. It's really hard to live, but I've learned that I got to be able to, to an extent, shut that off. My wife would say there's seasons I go through, I'm probably bad at it, but then there's seasons I go through where I'll turn my phone off at night and she's like then they call me. But I've just tried to be present. I hear so many people talk about you gotta have balance and I have found that balance is really weird. It's impossible.
Speaker 4:It's so. When I'm at work, I'm a hundred percent. I'm there. My wife and I don't text much throughout the day unless you know hey, you're picking cami up at this time. I guess just that, but we don't. We don't talk on the phone much because I'm a hundred percent there with the people. I work with what we're doing there at work. But when I'm home, I try to be 100% there. I don't try to balance the two. I try to give all my energy to what I'm doing at the time. It's just like coming to this podcast. You guys said the same thing. We all left our phones out of here and we're not that important that we can't take what hopefully an hour, hopefully an hour Like I don't even know how long it's been?
Speaker 3:Well, it was three hours already. Oh my God, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4:You're in an hour. You're in the part two, Jeff right.
Speaker 1:Um so.
Speaker 4:But we got, you can take time, you can take downtime and slow down, and I, I, I just found that that's a good rhythm for me. You know, I think my natural state is to stay up late, get up super late. You can't live that way and be really well. So I've just learned man, go to bed at a decent time, get up early and spend time with God, spend some alone time, quiet, spend some time reading, and it just, it just makes the day better. I can navigate better that way.
Speaker 4:But I hear some. I wish I could just do a podcast where I told you the stuff I've heard over the years. They're crazy. From the back door of a church to in my office, I've heard, I've heard things that I'm just like is this real and it is.
Speaker 4:I mean, life's messy with people and what's crazy is nobody wants to talk about it until it hits them square in the face, you know. And when their relationship gets wrecked, they want to talk. When their job gets wrecked, they want to talk. And when their finances get wrecked, they want to talk. But other than that, they just want to go through life as quick as they can with their head down. It's like, no, we can't do that. We actually have to address some things. So that's what you know I try to do. I try to take time and address some stuff, and I go through seasons where I'm probably more unhealthy than I should be, um, and I and my wife is real quick to tell me hey, your brain's going to break, you need to slow down, you need to chill out, you need to calm down, and I'm thankful for that. It's good.
Speaker 3:She says it's time to do 75 hard.
Speaker 4:No, she'll never say that. Because I'm too tired, like I have a little less energy. And, man, when I'm on 75 hard, those two workouts they get you, and then you go to the bathroom a hundred times a day.
Speaker 1:How do you feel right?
Speaker 4:now I feel good, I'm good, I haven't had anything to drink for you know no, I'm good. Then I'd have to measure that Like I drink four 32 ounce bottles a day, so I'd try not to drink anything else, anyways.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's impressive. We talked about 75 heart. Obviously, I wore the shirt for you?
Speaker 4:Yeah, you did. Thank you and I.
Speaker 3:I know, you know we we've talked about Andy for Sella and we Andy's you got to kind of take with a grain of salt, right, Right, His communication style is a little in your face.
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:But the program I think for me was was like I mean, it's, it's the reason that we're doing this podcast, it's the reason my life changed three years ago, and so you know, knowing that you have done it multiple times, talk a little bit about what the first time like why did you start 75 hard? Because it's not an easy thing.
Speaker 4:No, it's not. And I think I just got to a point where I just live in this perpetual cycle of up 50 pounds, down 50 pounds. Up 50 pounds, down 50 pounds, like it's terrible. And uh, so I came across 75 hard somehow. I asked a handful of people to do it with me and we did it. And uh, you know, I I needed that.
Speaker 4:I could tell it was just getting a little unhealthy. I have a pretty unhealthy job if I'm not careful, like sit around, talk, have meetings, you know, study, eat, like you have lunch every day with somebody if you're not careful. So it's just a bunch of that. And man, just probably getting to a point where I wasn't very healthy and just was like man, I want to change. And somehow I got a hold of 75 hard. I don't even know how. Somebody probably told me about it, but I don't even remember who. So I researched it for a minute and then you hear Andy, his mouth is terrible, but I was like I like the concept, um, and I like structure, I like discipline, I like I loved practices in high school and you know where they. You got to run a lot and you got to work. I just always loved that. So it was a challenge and I thought all right, I can do it.
Speaker 4:Well, ended up, I did, you know, 75 hard. I did phase one, phase two, phase three and man, just a great experience. I still hate the water the most. I'll take a cold shower. Over a gallon of water a day, all day. Why the water? Just because you can't get behind on it. I can stay up late and do two workouts If you have to hammer three-quarters of a gallon after 7 pm your whole night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're not sleeping.
Speaker 4:You're not sleeping, so the water gets me them. I love the reading, I this. The water gets me. So drinking a gallon a day, man, it just wears me out. So I try to get a half gallon in before noon and then I'll get another quarter gallon in before I leave work and then I, the night, at dinner, I'll drink my last quarter gallon. So, anyways, um, but I did it just because it sounded good and I just fell in love with it. I like it, and then so can I put people on blast on this podcast.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so, just like two months ago, I'm walking in Lewisburg and this guy's insurance guy in town. He pops out his door. He's like, hey, justin, come here, it's Todd Appledorn. Like, what's up, todd? He's like want to do 75 hard? I was like, man, when you want to, when you thinking, todd, he's like tomorrow. I was like I hate, I hate you, um, but I was like, yeah, why not? I'll do it. So, um, we both, we both messed up at day 20.
Speaker 4:Uh, and you and the premise of the program, if people don't know, if you miss one thing, you've got to start at day one. You do it 75 days in a row without any excuses. So he missed a workout because he was up at Derby Days late. And the same exact day I missed one. You've got to read 10 pages a day. I missed one page of reading and everybody's like how do you miss one page of reading? And everybody's like how'd you miss one page of reading? I was reading, I was in the middle of reading, and we had to go uptown to get one of our kids and my wife goes, honey. We got to go. So I put the book down. I thought I'll read. I'll read one page when I get home.
Speaker 4:I went to bed, never looked at it again, so I woke up the next morning I said, did you fail? And I was like, yes, um, so you know, you just have to start over. So I called him and and I started over at day one. He started over at day one, uh, and then he had like a flood in his house and he texts me and he's like, hey, I'm going to fail again because I got to deal with this flood in my house and he had to replace his bathroom and I was like, shh, excuses, excuses, todd. Uh, I feel really bad. I love Todd. I'm giving him a hard time completely, uh, but he did start back of day one, I think, uh on last Tuesday, so he wanted to make sure he got Memorial day in, um, so he started last Tuesday. So he's he's a pretty good ways behind me, um, but heck, I might finish with him. I don't know.
Speaker 3:I mean, I actually enjoy it. He's done it before. Yeah, he's done it before.
Speaker 4:I think he's done it with your brother. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so pretty fun. I like to give him a hard time that he hung me out to dry, but I kind of like doing it by myself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, yeah, I do too Early.
Speaker 4:I can go to the track and walk in Lewisburg it's nice or get a late workout in. I love that one of them has to be outside and man, I like to plan it when it's raining, just to be outside. I loved doing it when it was like zero degrees outside, like there's a part of it you just kind of love.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you embrace that. Yeah, and those are the times you don't forget either.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100%. You know those challenges yeah, 100%.
Speaker 3:What do you got Ben, anything else?
Speaker 1:No, I don't do anything.
Speaker 4:What's the GOAT got? Hey, how old are you, ben Huh, how old are you 47. Yeah, for men. Oh he's not. Oh, how old are you for real? You might look it 37. 37? For For men, 37 and over, he's one of the best basketball players I've ever seen. All right, where do we go from here? I don't want to go too long on your podcast.
Speaker 1:Four and five what are the four and five locations? We said the first three.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So campus number four is Richmond. Had a lot of families coming over from Richmond and man just felt like the right thing to do. We actually started in the YMCA on the other side of town and then we went to the AMC and we were in the AMC for a while and then we ended up buying the old Cox grocery store which is behind the mall and that's our permanent location there. And then Greenville we, you know, bought a church building during COVID and so Greenville is the newest one.
Speaker 4:Man just crushing it, he, he. The pastor of that church is so community minded. He grew up, uh, graduated from Missinnawa, um, so he's a local kid. And then our, our Richmond pastor, he's, he's wonderful. He's one of the best teachers I've ever encountered in my life. Uh, he teaches the word so well. Um'm just thankful for, for all the campuses.
Speaker 4:But I'll say this like going from and I don't want to lean into it too much, but going from three campuses to five campuses was the most painful thing and and all we done at cof, um, just how we did things, the, the, the strain it put on some really good people, um, um, you know we, you know we didn't. There's just some things that we were doing. That probably wasn't the super healthiest. You know, people rotating campuses every week, not going to churches with their, their families, like just made some mistakes and and didn't realize it till it was kind of late. Uh, so I've tried to help a lot of church planners through and just go that are planning multi-sites and I'm like, hey, something changes when you go from three campuses to four and five. You cannot do things the same way.
Speaker 4:We're a logistics company, sometimes just trying to get coffee to every campus every week. We have a gray folder that has to go out making sure they have all the supplies they need, from trash bags to cleaning supplies. You don't think about getting all the curriculum to the campuses. You don't think about that stuff. And so we went through some really hard times through campus number from three to five. But we navigated through it. You know we did our best to recover from it and just did a good spot now with the five campuses. So yeah, and you know I think six and seven are. You know they're in the sites. Um, I'm not ready to announce on this podcast where it's going to be, but you know we will probably start this podcast isn't good enough for that.
Speaker 3:You said it, not me, Okay, okay, and cut and cut.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:All right. Last question Yep, if you could sit on a park bench, have a conversation with someone, living or deceased, who would it be and why?
Speaker 4:You know you want to choose your wife, right, but I sit with her all the time. So you know, I thought about this for a little bit and there's my first answer is Billy Graham. My first answer is Billy Graham. Like, if you ever get a chance, just go on YouTube and listen to his old crusades. They're amazing and they're still relevant.
Speaker 4:Like listening to him preach is one of my favorite things to do and you can hear it's like the old school sound system in the background. But I would just sit down and say, hey, like how'd you do it for so long? I mean, you advise world leaders, pastors, and he wasn't a celebrity like type. He didn't want the fame, he didn't. He was just steady and he preached the same thing. I mean I don't know that he has more than five or six messages he probably does but I mean he preached consistent, the same salvation turn to Jesus message over and over and over again. Man just would love to sit down with him.
Speaker 4:But you said something earlier about celebrity pastors, which I don't want to be. But there's one dude that and I think that there's thousands of guys like this all over America that we overlook. So Billy Grant would be my park bench guy. But there's a guy from Eaton and he pastored my grandparents. He buried my grandparents and he pastored faithfully in that community for over 50 years. His name was Lowell Spencer and to me those are the rock stars, those are the celebrity pastors that everybody overlooks. I remember my grandpa passed away when I was in high school. Lowell Spencer's the one that walked down in my basement, woke me up and told me my grandpa had passed away.
Speaker 4:And guys like him are. They're the real deal. I don't care if somebody has social media followers. They have TV programs. I don't care if they've written books. Guys like Lowell Spencer are the real deal. They faithfully serve their church and their community for half a century. Guys like that, I think, should have way more attention than guys who have just built a big church. Show me where everybody's at in 50 years, not in five minutes. So that's my park bench is Billy Graham. Guys like Lowell Spencer are heroes to me and I think they need to be recognized way more for their faithful service than what they are. You know we just lost a stud in our community. He pastored there for years. You know we just lost a stud in our community. He pastored there for years. You know, david Justice just passed away in Lewisburg. Faithful man, faithful, loved God, loved to worship, loved the community, like those are the guys that are. To me, those are the heroes. So anyways, that's my two cents there at the end.
Speaker 3:That's pretty awesome. How can people learn more about the Community of Faith website?
Speaker 4:Yeah, cofchurchescom, you can check that out. I think there's man. I'm not on a lot of stuff, but I think there's Facebook. I think there's Instagram.
Speaker 1:Facebook. You have Instagram.
Speaker 4:Instagram. There's that, there's the app, yeah, and actually people can. If they want to physically come, they could come to one of our campuses. All the info is on the app or on the website, so they're welcome to. But I'll say this if you have a good church, stay plugged in, Be a blessing to that church. Don't leave them for something better or what you think is better. The grass is not greener on the other side. The grass is only green where you water it. So water where you're at. It's huge.
Speaker 3:That's great. Love it, man. Hey, appreciate your time. Yeah, man, appreciate you coming over here to Richmond. It's an honor.
Speaker 4:This is one of our towns, man, we got to be here, yeah, so we love Richmond.
Speaker 3:It's a great story, you know, especially for me, not not knowing it, not really knowing you and getting to know you, so appreciate it. Everybody like share, do all those things.
Speaker 4:And if I didn't shout out somebody who's been a blessing to the organization, like I did with Keith and Carrie Ann, like I'm sorry. You're all amazing and important to us. We couldn't have done it without you for real, yeah, yeah. Yeah amazing and important to us. We couldn't have done it without you For real, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just saying I know they're amazing.
Speaker 3:No, All right, everybody go out and be tempered.
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