Episode 66 - Looking Forward to Faith Driven Investor Live
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If you’ve been following this podcast for a while, you likely know that last year we had our first ever Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Faith Driven Investor conferences that included guests like Andy Crouch, Jewel Burks Solomon, Chip Ingram, Lecrae, Phil Vischer, Jessica Kim, and many more.
Thousands of you attended, making it one of the most encouraging days since the start of the FDE and FDI movements. Well, if you missed last year’s event, don’t worry. Because we’re doing it again.
Today’s episode is all about what you can look forward to at this year’s event, and the unique twist that’s going to make 2021 even better…
Episode Transcript
Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast special edition, kind of halfway in between last year's 20 20 Faith Driven Entrepreneur conference, which I thought was awesome. We can talk about that and maybe share some favorite moments with my co-host and great friends, Rusty Rueff and William Norvall. And then halfway between then, of course, and the one that's upcoming. So a good chance to reflect on the things that we were learned last year, the things that we've been reflecting on over the course of the last six months, and then the things that were kind of anticipating and hopeful for over the course of the next six months leading into, of course, this conference. So Rusty, William, welcome.
Rusty Rueff: Always good to be together.
Henry Kaestner: So fascinating. You know, Justin and Sue, Alice and Jonny have come to us to ask us to talk about the conference. And there's so much to talk about because this year we're going to be rolling out a new watch party. We're going to have much more of a local implementation. We've got an incredible lineup of speakers again, which is kind of hard because we had so many great ones last year. The thought is you go back to the same great people like Phil said, you say the same thing or not. But we'll talk about how we've been able to avoid that and why we're so excited about this actually being a new slate of topics and speakers. But before we get there, let's reflect a little bit. It's been six months since we did the last conference, and there have been some presentations that have continued to really make an impact in my life. And some I knew it at the time and then some have just been kind of creeping back up. Upon reflection. I don't know if you guys have experienced the same.
Rusty Rueff: Yeah, I actually think it's worth even before we dove into that, just let's remind everybody that, you know, the conference that was the conference was not the conference that was going to be the conference. Right. I mean, we went into this planning for a couple of days of fellowship in Dallas and, you know, being together and shaking hands and giving hugs from people from all over the country and all over the world who've been our listeners and participants and guests and everything got turned upside down by covid. But yet we persevered through and we tried something that, you know, we didn't know would work or didn't work. And it did work by God's grace. It's actually now leading us as we talk about what we're going to do this year, you know, into a hybrid of that. But, you know, it was pretty special given the fact that we were all doing it from our homes and our offices and, you know, sitting there on Zoome nonstop for a couple of days. But, you know, hats off to, you know, the team who pulled it all off, you know, and coordinated that. That's not easy.
Henry Kaestner: No, it's not easy. William, you probably had some favorites. I know you had some favorites. I know you're a huge fan. I know you're a fan much of all the speakers. And that's one of the things the team was nice enough to allow us to get some input and last year's speaker list in this upcoming one as well. But tell us about some of the speakers. And by the way, as we talk about that, know that we're about to launch and maybe by the time this is released, we'll have released the Faith Driven Athlete, all of these speakers, all these talks that we're going to be talking about, you're going to be able to see on your mobile device, on your computer, and really we're just really fired up about that. But OK, William, would you like.
William Norvell: Yeah, it's exciting. I'm excited to be up to another team and working hard on it and to be able to take a five hour conference, you know, that we did with, I think, close to 40 speakers and sort of distill that down into different topics and different areas. So you have to watch all of it right now. If you if you try to find it, you'll probably find the five hour link or some some things. But it's going to be amazing. And as I do hope, people will find that if they haven't found it already once this releases and. Yeah, I mean, reflecting back, yeah, I'm a big fan and he just always is just amazing. I think Andy has a unique ability. You know, all of our speakers have some unique super power. And I think Andy's is to just like get to the soul of what is going on. And he can speak to the soul of an entrepreneur better than anybody I've encountered. And so just as you know, 30 seconds of his talk, I think it was 12 minutes. I would encourage you to go find it and watch it. And we can and we can link to that in the app. But his main point was he talked about how. How to flourish as an entrepreneur and what he talked about was he believes that flourishing happens when authority meets vulnerability and the way he defined authority was the capacity for meaningful action. And the way he does, he defined vulnerability, was taking meaningful risk. And he said when you have the capacity to take meaningful action and you choose to take meaningful risk, that is where an entrepreneur flourishes and he teases that out over over 12 minutes and just walked through. And just to buy two guys, you'll see some great two by twos and and just how Jesus fits into that paradox of of creating that flourishing moment for an entrepreneur. And I just just it just hits me. I've watched it five, six, seven times. I've sent it to numerous people that are thinking about being entrepreneurs that have maybe I put myself in this category, always been on the edge of maybe going out and trying something. And he just beautifully lays out the encouragement for that and says, yes, like God did design us this way. If you're feeling that maybe he designed you that way to
Henry Kaestner: Rusty, what did you like? What is your impression?
Rusty Rueff: Well, you know, I got two instances with your former co-founder, Dave Morgan. Right. So not only his his discussion on why excellence matters, but also a little breakout session that we did together. And, you know, I just am always so impressed with the amount of humility he brings to the success that he's had and just the way he can be. You know, I can imagine I've only interacted with him here on the podcast a couple of times, you know, watching it on the conference there and then having that panel together with him. But I can imagine that, Dave, you know, he's pretty driven guy, right? I mean, there's you know, there's no you know, hey, I think we're not going to make this goal kind of guy. He's you know, we're we're going to take this hill. But at the same time, there's a purity to him and there's a gentleness, even with that ability to push that comes through in his humility that I thought was just awesome in both sessions. And, you know, I just admire and felt really challenged to step up my game, you know, and whatever I do to make sure that I'm being excellent.
Henry Kaestner: You know, it's interesting that if I were going to talk about how he gets that, it's interesting. It's not a focus on excellence is part a function of the fact that he is being given by some really unique gift things and is making the most of them. But pragmatically, I think that the blend of excellence with humility that I really do think that he gets and is wonderful to continue to experience that through a 20 year friendship and partnership is the fact that he prays one hundred times a day. Plus he's constantly in prayer and he's got it. This is one of the podcast interviews we did with them. He's always praying, God, thank you. God forgive me, God, please, all day. And if you spend that much time walking right next to God when your thought is that any time you have a thought. Delayed at God's feet, then you can't get to under yourself. You can't, and I think that that's kind of the secret there. And I think it's interesting you pointed that out, of course, from my perspective. I love David talk. It was great having Victor Ho talk about Sabbath, some of the earlier podcast we did. There's a part one, part two that we did with Victor. One hundred and sixty podcasts ago or something like that where he unpacks Sabbath. And a couple of things that I like Victor about. And actually coming back to our very first blog we ever put up on the podcast was Andy Crouch talking about Sabbath as a very first century we ever had. The second one was I think it was John Drexler's essay on the Silicon Valley episode where they talked about you can be anything in Silicon Valley, but you can't be a Christian. And the satire, the brilliant satire that that was. And John did such a great job. And I think we've had thousands and thousands of blogs since then. But Sabbath is so important. Victor Ho did a great job pointing that out. And what I'm talking about, Victor. Of course, we've got to go back to one of the favorite lessons I've ever learned from Victor is the emphasis on delighting our customer and the work he did at McKinsey, at Harvard Business School, and then now through five stars about what does it look like to delight a customer understanding that it is significantly more cost effective to retain a customer that was otherwise going to churn than to go out and buy a new one? Just the way he talks about that, I think is really good. But I think that my favorite interplay from the Faith Driven Entrepreneur conference is Phil Fisher and Casey Crawford, these two guys who are passionate about their faith and the interplay fills a little, maybe more bookish, very creative. And Casey's Super Bowl, when a six foot six is completely chiseled, they're different in some ways. They're very, very similar in some ways in that they're both students of entrepreneurship as it relates to knowing God. And the interplay that Casey had with Phil I thought was really cool. Now, they weren't on the stage at the same time, but it really started off as a continuation of something that happened here on the podcast. Right. We had been talking about Phil's podcast on identity. And if you go back to Phil Fisher podcast, I think it's minute 16 to minute 20 or so. Phil talks about the identity of a Khristine entrepreneur. That is really, really good. And as we're getting ready to interview Casey for his podcast, we were reflecting on it. And Casey was talking about, gosh, I know that we're called the not have anxiety, but yet I still feel anxiety and I feel that Jesus was in the garden. He's sweating blood. And I see David having some real stress and anxiety. And so how do I think about that? And Katie's talk was on are we called to comfort as Christians? And that made a real impression. But it just I just love the interplay between the two of them. I love the fact that they're both so thoughtful about being a Faith Driven Entrepreneur. They had such incredible experiences. And I love just the highlighting of the tension that comes about with the Faith Driven Entrepreneur. What's the tension? How do we deal with things like balancing work and family? How do we integrate our faith? How do we think about financing? How do we think about our issues? And there can be a tension there. And it was fun just to see them both unpack that a little bit.
William Norvell: Yeah. You know, the last one I mentioned as reflecting on this is because you made me think of a delighting your customer. One of the most interesting talks I remember is, is Lacroix's talk about being an artist. And I was really fascinated when he went on the riff of really trying to understand his his customer and design music for them because I just blew me away. I just always think of artists as, no, I'm just going to go in a box and create whatever I create because God told me to. And if people like it, people like it. But, you know, he's like, no, I definitely see myself as a product and I have a product to sell and I have an audience and I need to understand my audience. And I thought it was kind of a really brilliant riff on an area that I'm not very accustomed to. And I think that's what the government is grateful to. If you can come see different variations of people coming from different walks of life and how those things can be applied to your universe, even though you may not think they can be applied to your universe. And that's what we we've tried to line up here this year to.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah. What are you talking about? Lecrae That's one of my most gratifying and hopefully it's not a prideful moment because it will always be something I'll struggle with to some extent. But when Lecrae really leaned into the ministry and really got excited about it through the podcast and then his participation in the conference and understanding that he as a creator is very much an entrepreneur and felt that we are his people in his tribe, so to speak, so much so that he has, of course, written the forward to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur book and just really great for us to be able to be, I think, in one way culturally relevant to a new generation. I think about my kids. I mean, I can talk about the 20 different presenters that we had on and the conference and and the one that they'll get really fired up about as Lecrae. And that's really important to me as a dad, because I've got three teenage boys who want to be able to have heroes that are thoughtful. About how to delight their customer, how to find their identity in Christ and then how to get out there and create and flourish, and so that was also a really cool moment.
William Norvell: You know what I said last time? But on that, too, talking about, you know, we talk about identity so much here, I thought Gelberg Solomon just did a wonderful job of talking about how the day she sold her company was the worst day of her life and how she woke up the next day and didn't think she had anything to live for and how she had to fight to recover her identity, not as a CEO, but as a child of God. And we talk about that a lot. But her story of how she felt it and and when she felt it and how she had to recover it, I just thought was it was really fascinating.
Rusty Rueff: You know, if we were if we were given out courage awards, I think you've got to give it to Rob Thomas. Jeff Parker. Right. And that that segment is the one that I heard most from other people about. Right. Who said, hey, I tuned into this. I watch this. Wow. You know that. I mean, the idea that there could be that level of authenticity, that level of vulnerability, that level of sharing and walking through something as they did, you know, talk about courage, you know, just amazing, amazing.
Henry Kaestner: And it come on and tell the story again and again. And they, of course, were alive with us in the studio. And that was remarkably powerful. I think that
William Norvell: was it live in the studio
Henry Kaestner: was that everybody was live in Syria. That's right.
William Norvell: Henry, Secrets, Secrets of the Calvert's here. Slow down.
Henry Kaestner: Know some of the people clearly were calling in from other places, but they're actually in physical proximity. With us is, of course, what I mean, I thought that was really good. Neither of them interestingly, we've had some incredible guests on the podcast. Everybody knows Phil Fisher with Trey Tim Keller, Chip Ingram, a lot of really bigger names. And yet those two guys, I think, are still in the top three. Most listened to episodes on our podcast, Carson and 60. And neither of them would nobody would know their name outside of that context. But the substance was so rich that people keep on downloading and forwarding it to people
William Norvell: because the title is 99 percent confession equals zero percent freedom. Was that right?
Rusty Rueff: About that last one percent? That last one percent, yeah.
Henry Kaestner: How about on the Faith Driven Investor side I go first. Yeah, I Phinney Kerviel is talk about the role of an investor I thought was really seminal for me. This is a guy guys in my PhD is one of the smartest guys on the planet and really, really smart people can oftentimes just lose you. And he could have lost me. I mean, because you remember this guy is an M.D., Ph.D. who ended up getting his MBA, I think, on the side while he's getting his Ph.D.. I mean, is that smart? So he's clearly capable of writing white papers and treatises and things like that. But he has a special gift of taking that and distill it into a simple concept, which was for me was as follows. He talks about Christopher Columbus and says, look, Christopher Columbus was an Italian. He had an idea for adventure. He went around to all his buddies in Italy to talk about this new venture. He's going to go on and they all said no. So it's OK. I'll try my luck in Portugal. And they also said no. He went to Spain and worked out and said, you know what, they should be speaking Italian in Argentina and Chile today, but they don't. And the cultural impact that that venture investment made and then fast for that and the relevancy for us now for hundred years on in Africa, there is going to be more entrants into the job market over the course of next 20 years than India and China combined. What language are they going to be speaking in Kinshasa? Are they going to be speaking secular or are they going to be speaking Christian? And what I mean by that is, are they going to be speaking Chinese? Are they can be speaking Arabic or are they going to be speaking? Where are they going to be speaking? Or is the marketplace going to be inhabited by entrepreneurs that are driven by their faith, who are able to speak the language of looking to create and do it for the glory of God? And what are their identities in Christ, where they're able to love their neighbor and be able to have a redemptive frame as they think about creativity in the marketplace. And that was really impactful for me, just the deepness of number one. It was the importance of investing. All of our investments have impact and means something. Capital has influence. I think that there's some deep theological truth in what he's talking about. And then he just made it really applicable. I can get it. I think that people in Argentina and Chile should be speaking Italian, and I think that people in Kinshasa should be loving their neighbor and inventing products and services that bring about God's kingdom.
William Norvell: You know, speaking of cultural impact, one of the ones I loved was John Irwin. You know, John Amen, the filmmaker, which is maybe like a little bit of esoteric asset. You know, if you're thinking about investing his riff on, you know, in his opinion that, you know, there's so many Christians that are upset about where Hollywood's go and all these things. And he just had this. And he said, you know, Hollywood didn't leave Christians, Christians left Hollywood, and he had this push to engage in places, just as Jesus did, and said, you know, that is our fault, not anyone else's. We decided to revert back into our bubble and not fight the good fight anymore. And he said, you know, I'm I'm living proof. I signed a deal with the big movie studio after some Faith Driven Investor said helped him get to a point where that was an option. And beautiful story.
Rusty Rueff: You know, I was struck by something you said there, Henry, about, you know, we overlook a lot of times the impact that can happen here, right, by Faith Driven Investor and sort of thinking down the river, if you will. And you know what Pete Kelly shares or what he does with apartment life on the surface, you look at it go, oh, that's you know, that's amazing. That's amazing. And the integration of the spiritual side of that and then how that turns out to be really great for apartment owners, I take that one step further. I say if he's saving money for apartment owners, then they are able to pass back that savings in a way that creates more affordable housing. Right. Which is, you know, loving on our neighbors. Right. Figuring out how to be able to extend those things that we've been given from God to make it better for others. And I think what Pete's doing there is really, really impressive.
Henry Kaestner: Now, we've got another conference coming up, and while the final guest list hasn't been announced yet and I can tell you one thing, I can tell you that we will by far and away have our most famous guest that is committed. And we've had some famous Gammie, again, Phil Fisher. We've had Tim Keller. We've had some really, really outstanding presenters. This one, I think that when we announced this and we just don't have clearance yet from the agent, but we nonetheless have a commitment. I think that this one will be one that everybody be really fired up about. It'll be fun. And I think, again, super culturally relevant, much in the way that the crew has been.
William Norvell: I'm excited about it. We're really we're not faking this. We actually can't say anything, but I can't wait to celebrate it. It's not just like, oh, they're names big. It's like, gosh, they're it's a fun group. And they're going to bring some excitement, energy to the conference that I just think is going to be phenomenal.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah, I just I love Gene Simmons. I really don't know. That's not the fun group. It's not I promise you, it is not fun group. But would that be something that they talked about? Faith driven entrepreneurs. Yeah, Rusty. As you look at the list of the speakers come up, any that stand out for you.
Rusty Rueff: Yeah, I'm excited, Henry. I'm a huge fan of Sue Warnke and what Sue has done at Salesforce. And you know for sure. Yes. And she and I had our own little moment of overlap at work and ministry thing at our church back in twenty nineteen. That was really exciting. She happened to be there while we were doing a thing called the Tightrope Talks, and I called her out. I didn't know she was in the audience because I had read in the Trailblazer book by Marc Benioff where he talks about faith force and he talks about Sue Warnke and about how such an impact that that has had on the culture of Salesforce. I mean, stop for a second and think about that. You know, Marc Benioff talking about a woman and a group of who are sharing their Christian faith with each other inside of the workplace, inside of a company, inside of a public company. And I just happened to mention that. And I asked if anybody who worked at Salesforce, this hand goes up. And I said, really? You know, you work at Salesforce, what do you do? It she goes, I'm Sue Warnke. I'm like, you got to be kidding me. You've got to be kidding me. So she's a rock star in my mind. And I think that's going to be really exciting for us.
Henry Kaestner: I travel around, I've been asking people, where do you think is the Center for the Faith and Work Movement in the United States? And if I'm in Atlanta, they say national. If I'm in Nashville, they say Dallas. If I'm in Dallas, of course they say Dallas. Right. People think about, I think in Texas. But I say to them, I will submit to you that I think that the Center for the Faith and Work Movement in the United States is in the Bay Area. And yes, I'm a little biased because I live out here. But I say this out here in the Bay Area where there are new are resurgent faith driven employee resource groups at Google and Apple at Facebook there. Before COVA, they were doing prayer walks on campus at Dropbox. They're doing praise and worship music. We've heard in the lunch room. That's right. And then, of course, at Salesforce, where it's called faith for us. I think more than a thousand members up there.
Rusty Rueff: Oh, I think it's double that now. Wow.
Henry Kaestner: Amazing. And, you know, and it's and yes, of course, you know, if you're a force, there are other faiths that are represented. But of course, we as Christians believe that truth stands out in the marketplace of ideas. And so guys doing something amazing out here in the Bay Area, which we hope is an encouragement. If you're a Faith Driven Entrepreneur, you're listening to this right now. Thing I don't know, Faith Driven Athlete Resource Group, that sounds like a little bit of a far fetched bunch of people getting together and praying together. It might be too much. And gosh, chaplaincy maybe. I don't know. But I mean, if Facebook and Google and Apple, you know, what I thought of is like the epitome of this secular organization have come to understand that having Faith Driven Athlete resource groups are good for their bottom line and good for their culture. I think that that gives us great reference. So as our employees come out and say, you know, you've got a group of people to get together, pray for each other and that feel a little uncomfortable about it, I think a lot of them will be able to see the fact that it's happened in some of the very best and forward thinking technology companies will help give some cover there. So I also I'm a huge fan of Sue William. As you look through the list, what's what strikes out for.
William Norvell: Yes, a couple of things I'm excited about. So guest wise, super quick ones. Andy Stanley needs no introduction. He just if you listen to that podcast, his church had a big part in my coming to know the Lord in a deep way. And so I just always think he has just like hard won wisdom. And and then on the other side, Seth Dillon, the CEO Babylon Bee. And not just because he's hilarious, but he is hilarious, but his theology of satire and why it's important to the church. I was surprised by that. I was kind of blown away when we did that podcast where he had this really thoughtful framework for why he does his job. It's not simply that he's funny and he thinks he can be funny and he can make money on it. It's I don't know what he's going to share there, but the Babylon Bee is getting more notoriety. And so I'm excited for that. And that's an interesting one. I'm excited for that to be shared in community. So. I don't think we've talked about yet, we're rolling this out as a hybrid event this year, and so we want local host cities, right? We want people in their cities to host and kind of raise their hand and say, I want to have 10 people over to my house or I want to have two hundred people at my church, whatever that may look like. We've already got over one hundred cities signed up to date. And I just think we talk about local communities so much here, and it's just as such an opportunity to come around, watch these things together. And, you know, we've got a great guest to come on and talk about that. So Sue Alice has been on the podcast before, is the director of community at Faith Driven Entrepreneur and investor Sue Alice. Tell us a little more about your vision for the watch party format.
Speaker 4: You know, this has been a really hard year. Entrepreneurship is already a lonely journey. But throughout covid, it's been extraordinarily lonely in many ways. And as things are starting to open up more, we know that a lot of people aren't ready to jump on a plane and cross the globe to come and join us in person. But we can certainly cross the city and join together with other entrepreneurs, investors that live in our area and come together. And so we're going to be live streaming the conference all over the world. Wherever you are, we are coming to you. And we want you to gather together in community host to watch party. All you need is a screen and a space will even help you with food. We want to make this as simple as possible for everybody to try and come together and watch this experience sit together, be able to wrestle with hard topics together and remember that God did not create us to be alone.
Henry Kaestner: Did indeed sue Alice, as you look ahead and want to put you on the spot and something to a question that you probably didn't expect coming your way. By the way, I'm just so excited about the leadership that you provide to the ministry in the way that you're able to oversee small groups. And we're just getting started with the small group curriculum there. Three hundred faith driven entrepreneurs going through the class together. Twenty three different facilitators, entrepreneurs from all over the world. And that happens through the magic of us. Who else does, in addition to looking at the conference, but to Alice, as you look ahead to the speakers that we have coming up, are there any of that jump out to you, anybody that you're particularly fired up about listening to?
Sue Alice Sauthoff: Yeah, you know, I have seen on the list Laura Casey is on there and we hosted her recently at one of our other events. And I feel like just being able to hear from these entrepreneurs, all of these speakers have such authenticity and what they're sharing. And I just got to meet Laura recently and see that in her. So I'm really excited to hear from her again. I just connect with her a lot as a mom as well. And so it's really exciting to hear from her on that list.
Henry Kaestner: Well, thank you. Thank you for coming over and joining the team and providing so much leadership for leading the Faith Driven Entrepreneur group practice and the conference. For me, I've got a new favorite speaker and he's kind of a cross between Francis Chan and BAM Phelps. If you remember BAM Phelps, you remember bum Phelps, who's the Texan cowboy that always wore his ten gallon hat. It was
Rusty Rueff: a cousin. It was a coach, right?
Henry Kaestner: Yeah. Fantastic coach. There's a guy named Jimmy Song and Jimmy
William Norvell: Jimmy Jimmy the other day. Oh really?
Henry Kaestner: Yeah. He is really, really good. He's very thoughtful. He's got great energy and charisma and he is really focused on what cryptocurrency means and grounding in theology and in scripture in a way that I didn't think could happen. I didn't think it could happen. And so he'll unpack for us. What does that mean and how can a Christ follower think about the ramifications for cryptocurrency? Is it bad? Is it good? Is it neutral? And he has a firm opinion on it. And I tell you, you spend enough time with Jimmy song, you find yourself kind of coming along with his way of thinking because he's just so thoughtful
William Norvell: in his book, thank God for Bitcoin and working through it so good. And he's just so thoughtful about how God works through Bitcoin specifically. And he also has a famous story of buying maybe what could be called the world's most expensive beef jerky. That's Raichlen adopter. He buy bitcoins worth of beef jerky, which as of current day is a sixty thousand dollar thing of beef jerky, which I don't think it was worth that to him. He said it was good beef jerky, but probably not that
Henry Kaestner: probably not dead
Rusty Rueff: yet. I'm I'm excited, as you guys are, about what we're going to do in the fall. And I think one of the things we've got to remember, too, is that in our faith journey, there are these disciplines that we each are striving to bring forward in our lives and to internalize in our life. And, you know, this conference can be one of those it's a part of the journey, because while we won't be together face to face with our speakers, we'll be through technology. We are creating community there and we are sharing and fellowship. But these watch parties that we're talking about, the small groups that we have with FDE, you know, those are community. Those are people coming together and having the opportunity to fellowship and to strengthen each other. And as we know, iron sharpens iron. And we recently had an FDE podcast with our favorite entrepreneurial pastor, Chip Ingram, and he talks about how important it is that we have people in our lives that we can have strong relationships and friendships with and who we can be totally vulnerable and held totally accountable together. And, you know, what we don't know is we walk into one of these conferences, we go to a watch party, we invite someone to our home to do this together. There in May be that person, right? That person. You know, God will deliver that person for us if we don't already have them or if, you know, God will deliver more than one person to us. But we have to be willing to open the door. We have to be willing to share of ourselves and share of our time. And that's part of what's so exciting about what we're doing here, is we are continuing to walk through that faith journey.
William Norvell: Amen grateful for all of you as part of my community and grateful for so many people that I've met through the conference and after the conference and became friends with because of some of the people that share their time with us so graciously did.
Henry Kaestner: We're excited for you to come be a part. And again, as Alison said, if you have a screen and you have a passion and you want to share this community and encourage other Faith Driven Athlete. Noises, you yourself are encouraged. We really do hope that you become a watch party host, it's easy. You can find it on the website. And thank you, Sue Alice. You know, you've been around the ministry not forever, but long enough to know that on our podcast, we ask every guest to share with us a bit about what they're hearing from God and his word. And if you've also been listening to podcasts, you know that I'm not the one to ask that question. It's William.
William Norvell: I thought you were just going to steal it from me.
Henry Kaestner: I thought for a second. And I was like I was
William Norvell: like, he's going for it, tag. I'm going to have to have that truth and love talk after this episode. But, you know, no, we love figuring out where God's story is. And and I know, you know, that's where it's coming. But just yeah. If you wouldn't mind, share with our audience. We're just glad to have you today in his word. And where is he taking you in his scripture and how is that impacting how you see the world today?
Sue Alice Sauthoff: Yeah, I have been spending a lot of time in Psalm thirty four and verse one says I will praise the Lord in every moment, in every situation. And I have to spend meditating on that a lot that whatever comes, the joys, the struggles, whatever, that I'm still looking to the Lord, I'm still praising him and that and I could go on with more, but I'm going to turn the tables around because our audience wants to hear from you three guys. And so I'm turning the tables. William, you always ask the question. So I think you should go first and then Henry Rusty up next.
William Norvell: Oh, goodness, I didn't see that coming. I didn't see that coming. Oh, gosh. Where would I go? Oh, gosh. Two to two verses come to mind that I've been meditating on. I'll try both. One Old Testament, one New Testament I'm going to go to and I'll do it quick. It's not my strong suit. But first, Peter, five, six and seven, where God says that some version of the paraphrase is that, you know, we need to humble ourselves before God and it's his job to exalt us. And that has just been meditating hard on my heart lately that my job is to is to serve him and to walk with him and it says that he chooses the time to exalt us if he wants to. And just what I've been frustrated when I found times that I thought maybe I should have gotten credit for something or something should have been viewed differently. I've tried not that I'm doing it well. Going to God's. I got. If you want that to happen, you find the time. It's out of my hands. And it's not it's not up to me, right? And that's really hard and it's really hard, but I think it's truth in the second one is a piece of that. These are both sides of humility. Deuteronomy eight, where God says pretty clearly that he took the Israelites through the desert for 40 years so that they would learn humility and just to think at rest there, too, that God does not require anything of me or want me to think of me other than to recognize who he is and to love him for that and to humble myself at his feet and to walk with him every day. Amen.
Rusty Rueff: That's beautiful. You know, as I reflect back over this year, one of the things that I've maybe I was actually projecting when I was talking about how important it is for the conference for us to get together, because one of the things that I miss the most is I've missed the intimacy of friendship, like not being able to hang physically with, you know, my most personal friends and have those sort of conversations and things that pop up because, you know, you're just you're out working in the garden together or you're taking a run together, you know, and conversations that come up. And so it really has had me thinking about the importance of reminding myself that Jesus is to be my best friend. And the verse that's been on my heart is Matthew, six eight for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. And, you know, that's what best friends do, they know the things that you have needs before you ever talk to them about it. And they bring it up to you. And, you know, I I'm I'm such an emotional guy. I mean, I cry at American Idol auditions, so you just need to know that. I mean,
William Norvell: hey, wait, who's who doesn't.
Rusty Rueff: So but, you know, I'm just reminded that Jesus is my best friend and that he knows the things that I need before I need them and that he's gone, you know, in front of me for those things and is has taken care of me. So that's what's been on my heart most recently.
William Norvell: Amen.
Henry Kaestner: Well, I really should have gone first because you can't top either of them two things that have impacted me from scripture recently. One is just the lesson of the good kings of Judah and second Chronicles, where these are the good kings. They're not the bad kings of good kings. And yet each of them made a really, really bad mistake and not seeking God before making a major decision. For one, it was a trade deal. For others, it was about whether they go off in a war or not. And I think, oh, so God put that second chronicles. So I'll I'll be able to make sure that I don't do the same thing. And because I've got the benefit of this type of teaching that they didn't have at the time. And yet I still find myself not going to God with all my important decisions. And maybe I get the majority. But the good kings are due to have the majority of them. And they just one time, one time didn't see God and it went really poorly for them. And I just I need to see more of God. We talked about at the beginning of this episode about how David Morgan does that so well and so regularly, habitually, if you will. And I need to do a better job of that. That speaks to me. And the other thing that speaks to me and I shared this with a larger Faith Driven Entrepreneur group that gets together in the area. We've been kind of inklings and I shared with them yesterday that as I go through the Bible with my boys and devotions, I love it when you kind of get a summary of the Bible, when somebody says, OK, what really matters is this. There isn't a moment like that. The other day, as my family and I were going through Galatians five, and it was because we were going to look at the fruits of the spirit together. And of course, if you look at the fruits of the spirit, if you just focus on the fruits of spirit, you won't find them. If you just focus on love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, you can't find it. You find the fruit of the spirit comes from our relationship with Jesus and the fact that we have this relationship with Jesus. Well, what how do we know that we're really in line with Jesus Christ in us? Is this fruit? So I was going to talk about that with them, but I didn't. Instead, we just got hung up on verse six and is the second part of verse six. So the first part is for increased Jesus is neither circumcision nor UN circumcision have any value. The only thing they can't. There's a second part. The only thing that counts and like, oh my goodness, here we have in the second part of a verse, Galatians five, six, be the summation of the entire Bible. Three thousand pages of it. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. And what I was able to process with them and, you know, just partially, which is, oh, my goodness, if that's the only thing that matters, how are we as a family, how are we as individuals thinking about how our faith expresses itself through love and how does it even happen? But I just love that just a simple thing to kind of just continue to meditate on. So, Sue. Thanks for turning the tables on the fair turnabout is fair play. That's never happened. And we've probably recorded one hundred and seventy five different podcast episodes. And I'm glad that you did it. I'm glad because I was blessed by William and Rusty. Sharon, thank you.
William Norvell: Need to keep your head on a swivel here on the FDE podcast. Never, never know what's coming at you.
Henry Kaestner: Head on a swivel and Kleenex next to the computer.
William Norvell: Hey, man, that's a that could be our first brand Kleenex swag for the conference.