Episode 321: Praxis, Purpose, and Cultural Change: A Conversation with Dave Blanchard

Justin Forman:
“I don’t know if you can hear the kids pounding on the floor above me. I’m not sure if you can hear us real life here on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. We are unfiltered here today. You know, it was funny. I was thinking about the time that, gosh, we got first chance to connect. I think it was Josh, then it connected us. We’d had some of those conversations and actually it was maybe David Weekley. We’re filming stories with RIGHT NOW MEDIA. We’d film the stories of Hobby Lobby and film some stories there for Chick-Fil-A. And there’s a book I don’t know if you remember this book, Our Souls at Work. You remember a guy named Mark Russell. It was in the movie. So he had written this book.”

“And it’s a fun story. I was up there. We’re building RIGHT NOW MEDIA, and we’re always meeting with different pastors and content contributors. And I’m up there in New York City. Somebody gave me that book and we went back and we captured a bunch of stories. We’d met David Weekly and I think I was back up there. And that’s where David, when we had filmed with them, he’s like, Man, you got to connect with Josh, And before you know it, we connected. And I remember I’m trying to remember one of the airports in New York City. I can’t remember which, but it was fine. We were both passing through there an iced coffee lunch. We got a chance to get together. But there’s one question I don’t think I ever ask you. And here I am a dozen years later, I still haven’t asked a question. Where does that name Praxis come from? What’s the story behind that?”

Dave Blanchard:
 “Yeah, you know, not a question of I’ve answered in many places before either. So Praxis means faith in action. And I didn’t know of that word for quite a while. In fact, when we first started. My co-founder and Josh Klein, we first started this idea, we called it 1522 Lab. That was the name of the venture. Everything has to start with some other name. That was for Proverbs 1522. By the way. We’re very biblical plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors, they succeed. So, you know, we’re building a mentorship driven accelerator program. So that was what we had. I think I bought it a little beaker icon for $10 from like a clipboard thing back in the day. That was our first logo.”

Justin Forman:
 “So do you still own the domain name? 1522 spelled out if we search your GoDaddy account.”

Dave Blanchard:
 “And surprisingly, no one has offered me $25,000 for that. But as we got closer to launching, we were like, We don’t feel good about like, handing out that business card and being with that name for a while. So we really wanted to, as you do, you know, put 20 names in Google Doc and try to figure out what it’s going to be. And really, really were struggling and getting nervous because we had a launch with Q Ideas in Portland in April of 2011. And so this was probably like February or March. And so the pressure’s coming in and honestly, I’m just praying over a lot. I’m still working and I know as design firm at the time, whereas leaving in April and some commuting in from Evanston to Chicago on the train and I’m listening to a lot of Tim Keller at the time that was like Peak Tim Keller podcast time.”

“And I just remember praying about this. And on the train in I just this word Praxis comes into my head and I’m like, What is that? What does that even mean? You know, I do a quick search on my phone and it’s like, you know, Aristotle used it for like theory and action, and there’s orthopraxis, which is like faith in action. I’m like, This is like, this is perfect. It’s like a gift from God, really, in this high stress moment and obviously has these long term consequences. So that’s where the name came from. I think within 24 hours, Josh and I were like, This is definitely it. And, you know, we handed it off to our designers, Jason Lucien and Company over at five. So at the time who were supporting us and they turned it into a logo and we’ve kept it. Here we are 14 years later.”

Justin Forman:
 “It’s always fun to look back on the stories or the moments, those kind of parts of the journey. That’s interesting. I was talking about this with some friends the other day, and we’re just kind of reflecting on what do you think those childhood memories are like those moments, if you think back to like, what prepared you for kind of what you do today? You know, I think back and had the opportunity to go to a Christian school growing up in Michigan and every I can’t remember the cadence every week, every day, whatever it was that we had chapel service.”

“But, you know, predictably, every certain time of the year there was this mission’s emphasis week. And there was a guy that came through, guy named Todd Corbin, and he spoke up there. And, you know, your heart is tugged for like, man, I want to live for something more. I want to do things that matter in the line of perspective of eternity. I didn’t have a voice for him, a thought for it, and what it look like. It’s like, man, I want to do something like that. But I feel more called the business. I just remember kind of that moment, kind of sitting in that chapel service as like if we were watching a movie of Inception and we all have our own version of it. Like that was probably one of those first moments for me when I was like, Man, the world is fleeting. What does it look like to live for something more? And, you know, I think years later I emailed Todd and said that. Encouragement. Know what he thought of it. But it was one of those kind of fun moments. Years later, to think about that in such a moment. So, you know, I guess flipping the tables here. What was that for you? Was it something growing up where this intersection of builders, business, faith work the journey? What are some of those moments you look back on?”

Dave Blanchard: “Yeah. Well, truth be told, I think my childhood lasted until I was about 27. You know, I was always an entrepreneur and always motivated to build stuff. And I had maybe the opposite experience when I was younger. I think it hinted at something. Another story I rarely tell, but I’m happy to do so.”

Justin Forman: “I were two for two. Let’s keep it rolling. Let’s go.”

Dave Blanchard: “Let’s go. So, you know, I was probably probably third grade, maybe fourth grade. And I was into sports cards. In fact, I ended up with a small sports card trade show business in middle school. And this moment I had where I had market knowledge of this new release that Topps had come out with at the time, these baseball cards. And my friend and kind of a Queens in elementary school opened up a pack. He got this amazing card and didn’t know what it was worth. And I did. And he was open to trading and I traded him for it.”

Justin Forman: “So the first insider trading of baseball cards is what we’re getting at here. All right. Keep going. This is.”

Dave Blanchard: “Great. That’s right. You know, it’s funny. It’s actually this moment where I went through with kind of an exploitative move that one might say was ethical or the markets might even say was strategic and wise and based on my market knowledge. But I didn’t feel great about it. And I never really circled the loop on that. And in fact, you know, there’s an axiom that I don’t actually believe is true, but they say, you know, every great fortune started with some great crime and in some small way, this small fortune that I created in sports cards started with this little small crime against my friend. And I think I always carried out around a little bit of like, You know, there’s got to be a different way to do things.”
 

“But I’m making money. And I grew up in the church, but I would say I was kind of nominally there as a pastor’s kid. And when I say I was kind of a child until until I was 27, it really took me until my second post-college business to ask this question of like, what is entrepreneurship and the kingdom of God really? Mean, Is there a thing there? So the first kind of most meaningful experience that reflects what you had when you were younger was I had an opportunity to go on a trip to Nicaragua with Opportunity International, a large microfinance group that many of your listeners probably are aware of. And this guy, Chris Crane, who I didn’t know at the time, was leading this trip with a bunch of successful business guys. And I kind of got roped in because I had made a little bit of money and could be a donor and everything.”

“But I was like, Whoa, There is so much possibility here for entrepreneurship to unlock caring for the poor and witness in the world as Christians. That really set me on a five year journey to Praxis Worth and a number of other meaningful moments along the way. But that was my whole redemptive possibility with entrepreneurship and capital and all those things. And years later, Chris was one of our mentors at Praxis, still is today. And so that’s been kind of a beautiful, a beautiful story that I tell him. And he’s like, I don’t remember you, but I certainly remember him.”

Justin Forman: “So of course, it’s always fun to see those sliding door moments of life. We all have them. And like, again, I, I grew up in a very conservative Christian home, and I’m grateful for it. And yet I’ve experienced this childlike wonder of, like, recognizing it’s not, you know, the father, the son and this retired author that doesn’t do anything anymore. I like seeing the wonder of the Holy Spirit and how he works and demystifying it and seeing like just even in that story, you know, that’s clearly God working in that.”

“Yeah, it’s just fun to see that, I think. And part of the reason why we wanted to get back here together on this episode of the podcast is just to reflect on like what we’ve seen the Holy Spirit do, what we’ve seen God do what we’ve seen Him work in the past decade, and maybe all he’d offer thought and I’d love for you to just jump in with other things you’re seeing is, you know, I’m wondering if like, here we are. It’s really not a decade later. It’s decades later, many decades of this conversation that started.”

“And, you know, I know that you’ve spoken a lot to guys like Steve Graves and others that have had just a profound impact on this movement and the magazine he started the people he encouraged the people that worked as a part of that and how they went out to do other things. And we can talk about that. We can talk about so many other faith and work things we talk about. Pastors have talked about this message and. You know, I’m wondering if we’re kind of like at this point where it’s it’s no longer novel to talk about this idea of faith and work.”

“You know, we’re doing this research project here with David Kinnaman and Barnett. It’s been a fun thing to just reflect on kind of what God’s doing. And sometimes we see things and data gives a way to reinforce it. And we’re releasing this here in a couple of weeks, but to foreshadow some of the ideas of it. One is this idea that like 80, 90% of people like have come to this place as entrepreneurs in the church, realizing, hey, I’m created for something more. I’ve been given gifts, I’ve been given talents.”

“And, you know, there’s many lifetimes of people that we could think for that we met and saw many of them speaking at the Lausanne gathering this past year and just seeing just God at work and how he’s been faithful during a conversation. And you wonder like, what are some of the things that got it there? And I think some of that in the church. But I think some of it’s also kind of some of the things just culturally. I mean, when you thought about entrepreneurs ten, 20 years ago, I mean, draw a picture of the image that comes into mind, the starving artist or whatever.”

“Yeah. You think about like movies like The Social Network. And I remember Justin Timberlake’s character in that and the way that he introduced himself. And that show obviously was on a crazy circumstances. He comes into a movie, but he talks about the word entrepreneur, and the girl that he shares it with is just immediately her reaction is like, great, so you’re broke. And like, they’re just this idea of like, this starving artist, nothing that you would want to go tell anybody about and let alone the parents of the girl that you’re with or whatever it might be.”
 

“And yet it’s changed. I mean, we got so much tailwinds really behind it. And I love the talk that you gave at one of the previous events where you’re talking about just the role that entrepreneurs are playing in culture and your click in through slides. You’re talking about this idea of it’s undeniable whether it’s like things and battlefields and battlefronts and different roles that entrepreneurs are playing. It’s really all around us. How do you think we got here? How did we arrive at this point where entrepreneurship has just flipped and become this desire thing?”

Dave Blanchard: “Yeah, it’s a great conversation to have on that front. I think it’s, you know, of course, multiple factors that kind of shift Overton window, if you will, in the world from, you know, kind of being a radical idea to be an entrepreneur to something that’s really popular. And these what we’ve seen happen, certainly you go back to the history of Sand Hill Road, Silicon Valley, etc., I think the success of venture capital in those days and creating a new asset class to finance entrepreneurship and pulling that forward into something has been a major factor that enabled people to start ventures.”

“I think you also see the substantial compression of the cost to start a venture with technology and tools and just all these things. I used to be, man is like millions of dollars. And it’s like, you know what, Y Combinator, they’re going to give away 100 K, That’s enough to get something off the ground. That was a profound idea when they started. So even the risk that all parties are taking felt like a shift. And I think also with the introduction of Y, C and Techstars and some of these hyper selective programs, they actually began to, I think, reputationally shift the status of going into entrepreneurship and saying, I got into something. It’s harder to get in than Stanford. That’s actually a new path that parents can approve and educators can approve. And all these other people who weigh in on what makes a good career and what’s a good a good career path.”

“So at the same time, you had these other big cultural shifts, I would say, in pop culture, which were pretty fun to watch. And I think about maybe the talk you saw me give many years ago and maybe the Social Network was in there. There was, if you remember, this app called Foursquare. It was like one of the first location, like I’m checking in at, you know, where I am. The founders of Foursquare, I remember, were the models in a Gap ad campaign. And when I saw that, I was like, like the entrepreneur’s role in society has totally shifted. They’re now the cool kids.”

Dave Blanchard (continued): “And man, you know, for better or worse, that shifts energy as far as what am I going to go do in my life? What should I aspire to? Who’s kind of, you know, driving how we think about the world? And then that, of course, that same vibe, you know, trickled into primetime television with Shark Tank, which it’s like, now everybody knows what a good pitch looks like and what a bad pitch looks like and how you can pitch. And maybe you can buy 80% of a company for $100,000 very often. But these people are doing it. And even put the investor in a way, in a celebrity seat, Right? Yeah.”
Justin Forman: “And you know, it’s interesting. Is that made it multigenerational, right? I mean, I think about the kid, the things that our family watches. I mean, content consumption has become such the individualized sport where we’re all watching something different. And yet for our crew, Shark Tank was one of those things that people gathered around and it was like, like I’ve got an idea of how I do it better, or I like this one. I like that one. It was family kind of safe for the most part. But it became the thing that, like a decade later, the effect of that, as you’re saying, it’s just undeniable the role that something like that played it.”

Dave Blanchard: “Yeah. Yeah. Total normalization. Yeah, It’s pretty amazing.”

Justin Forman: “You know, it’s interesting. I mean, part of it, we want to kind of, like, look backwards and we want to think also to, like, look forward of like, what are some of the challenges, what we face. You know, there’s another piece of this conversation that we’re having here as we think about this data with Bhana is that, yes, it’s normalized, that people think about their calling, their gifts, their talents. They’ve been given us for a reason. But yet people are still struggling with this idea of how and I think it’s like 60 somewhat percent of the people, these same people that are fired up, they’re ready, that they’re excited about it. They say, Man, I wish I had more help with how.”

“And it feels like we’re at that moment. And what I’m wondering is, is like, is there something really bigger here where we’ve gone as far as we can go with the one too many kind of way of communicating with the church? We’re facing challenges with that. Every Sunday morning is like you’re trying to find this message that for 30, 40 minutes, whatever it might be, they can appeal to it, whether it’s 200 or 2000 in a same way. And that today most marketers would look at you and say that’s near impossible.”

“And I feel like we’re doing the same thing even in the faith work conversation where we’re taking this like, God cares about your work as much work and we might be in danger, almost like of inoculating people with like, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that, that if we actually don’t connect the why with the appropriate, how are we in danger of creating this consumer comfortable kind of not very risking kind of mindset. It just it feels like we’re at this how moment. I don’t know. What’s your take on that?”

Dave Blanchard: “Yeah, I think that’s a really good answer. Justin I think like it the risks of not saying, hey, you know, we have bridged the sacred secular divide. We have brought these things together. We now have done that. What’s next is that we sit too long and, okay, well, God cares about my work. Great. And we just keep kind of going about our business versus, man, there’s a new vision and there’s a possibility.”

“There’s a book written probably 20, 30 years ago now, actually, that I think was prophetic on this topic was called The Transforming Vision by Richard Middleton. And I think one other guy, and they went into a number of different cultural areas very specifically like you’re talking about pulling down from the one too many to say, what does it mean if you’re in medicine? What is I’ll call it redemptive vision for that world, And how do you dive into that and really understand the things that are being said about humanity and personhood? People buy into your practice as a doctor, and I think we need that.”

Dave Blanchard (continued): “We need that at every industry level. We need that at every issue level. And I think then we need the church to entrepreneurially respond to what we see as a different vision for what could be. And so that just encourages us to like get what we talk about. Sometimes Praxis is like a really good Venn diagram, vision of theology, culture and entrepreneurship. So who, who is God? How is he made us? What does he want for the world? What’s going on in the world today? And is it good or is it bad? And should we encourage it or discourage it? And then how can we take all the tools of entrepreneurship and deploy them against that insight? And I think if we have more and then there are people who are doing that, the possibilities of what’s good for the world and Christian witness in a time where I think people do want to see faith in action is pretty exciting. So hopeful for that.”

Justin Forman: “Yeah, it’s certainly encouraging and I love the prophetic nature of just kind of how that conversation is there. What do you think it’s going to take for us as a church to respond differently? It’s like, you know, it’s interesting as you thought about like kind of like the entrepreneurial journey. It used to mean, man, you have to have tons of capital, tons of different things, technology tools and everything has opened up a new horizon, a new way of thinking. Are we at that same place where we could be doing the same thing with the how question?”

“And what I mean by that is not every church is this way, but on the pews of a lot of churches, especially when you start talking about mid to bigger size churches, there are people that they’ve checked the boxes of retirement, they’ve got financial freedom, yet they are lacking that rule of purpose. It’s crazy to think like, could we be in a place where ten years from now you look at a church staff page and it’s the pastor of entrepreneurs. You might look to the church budget, but you’re going to see a big zero that they’re not paid because they’ve got some of that stuff figured out what that they could have that level of influence of helping kind of at that level.”

Justin Forman (continued): “Now, again, they might not be able to take them through all of the pieces. But do we need to re-imagine this in a different way where it doesn’t look like the full time staff, the church budget, some of these different things like how do we democratize in some way? How army? I don’t know if that even registers in my skull, Jax But like, do we need to democratize in a way? Because I think what we’re convinced of is actually churches like pastors, surprisingly, I think are convinced of the same thing. We’re finding this like, I think it’s like 70% of pastors are encouraged and want to learn more, but they’re fighting the headwinds of everything else that’s going on. Budgets and everything. What’s the imagineering here that we need to think about the next ten years of? What does that look like at a church level?”
Dave Blanchard: “Great question. You know, I think back we started this conversation with the origin story of Praxis. And a couple of times we ended up in a dialog worthwhile, like, why do we need an organization to do kind of missional entrepreneurship work? Why can’t the church do it itself? And I think that’s a good question. For every parish, church or Sodality that pops up in the world. And I think we pop up sometimes because we shouldn’t be core to a local church as a mission.”

“But I think in our case, I would say it’s because the church hasn’t said we are going to be a creative center. And I don’t mean that as some punishing critique or anything, just as an opportunity to what you’re getting is like, what if the church said, we want to be this place of imagination and praxis in a lowercase P, We’re going to put our faith into action around here. And the pastors are looking around to say who’s got energy capacity, whether that’s financial capacity or builder operator capacity and what’s going on in our neighborhood and how can we bring the knowledge and culture and entrepreneurship down at the very local level sometimes. And man, I mean, if the church was known as a creative engine for what’s going on in their communities, that would profoundly reshape, I think, and the culture and ethos of that community, but also just how Christianity is perceived and taken in in the world. And so I think if you have that pastor of entrepreneurship who’s cultivating those things, what what a totally shifting move that would be or for our world in our witness.”

Justin Forman: “I think one of the other things that we’ve seen as you talk about that I’m thinking there’s heroes to this story that, you know, on a local level, there’s heroes that you see in the narrative of shifting media. I mean, I think about probably when both of us were kind of coming on the stage, growing up or leaving college or whatever it might be in the early stages, you know, you knew, okay, if you want to be a basketball player, you know my biases that Michael was your hero. Some might say different people, but like, there you go. Agreement.
“But we didn’t know what that look like at this faith and work intersection. And it’s been great whether it’s been people speaking at a Praxis event or some of the video stories of what we’ve been able to capture, there is a clearer definition of what that looks like, and I think that the movement had a chance to really see like what makes for a good story. And I think when you see that some of these stories, the best stories are the ones that aren’t necessarily looking to be told. There is this like reticence of saying like, Man, I’m not sure, God, that you want me to tell a story. I have a fearful trepidation of how this could mess with my ego, mess with my identity, mess with this perspective.”

“But yet you’ve seen faithful men and women step into that moment capturing some of those stories, but embodying what it looks like. I think that there’s you know, if I were to say like what has happened is that what could happen in the next ten years is could the difference between what we see on screen and what we can touch and feel? Shorten Could we all of a sudden say, that’s like so and so in my church that’s like silence. So my church and I don’t think we’re there yet, but it feels like that’s part of what is looking to happen or what’s starting to happen. And like what is a hero look like on a local level? Yeah, I’m just wondering what that journey looks like for us to uncover, to tell those and to.”

Dave Blanchard: “Model that out. Yeah, it’s an exciting vision to think about. And, you know, one of my favorite out-of-print authors is this guy Albert Trueblood is a former Quaker writer, and he in one of my favorite books, Alternative to Futility, he just writes about the power of the redemptive fellowship of communities, of people who are confessing communities together and putting their faith in action. And I think, man, it’s one thing to encounter a singular thing that’s like, yeah, this person made a crazy choice and they’ve done a cool thing that really moves me. And that’s important, the stories of individuals, but the stories of group.”

“Of people who are acting on behalf of others and Christians. That are laying down their lives for their friends in different ways and for their communities and are acting in ways that don’t make sense to the world community. That’s what the gospel tells us, right? It’s a foolishness to the world that when encountered, is beautiful and profound. I mean, and I think to your points, like one of the things that’s foolishness to the world is that you would do all these beautiful, amazing things and not care whether your stories told. Right. It’s like, well, isn’t that the reason you would do it? Because you then get celebrated as this amazing person. And that’s what we’re supposed to be in the world. And so there’s this beautiful discovery of things that’s like, wow, they’ve been doing that for 15 years over there faithfully. Man. That’s something profound. And I think you see people who come to faith later in life sometimes just be shocked at the good work of faithful people over a long horizon.”

Justin Forman: “It’s interesting that when you think about what God’s up to now and kind of what you know, I think about business documentaries. I don’t know if you have this feeling. It’s like thinking about the movement. I mean, obviously there’s been a rise. Netflix and others have figured out these stories, these business documentaries, but all of them seemingly are about failure. It’s like, hey, here’s the collapse of, you know, and I hesitate to name any of the different things, but name your favorite streaming channel. There’s some business story of something that grew. Whatever it is, the tough times of Uber, whatever it might be, those documentaries that you’ve seen. And it’s like, how do we, you know, people talk about cleaning your timeline or your feed and your social media.”
“What does that look like for us to really get appealed to the redemptive good story and want to watch that? It’s like everybody everybody at this point wants to see the train wreck. They want to hear the story of what happened, where it went wrong. And I’m wondering what challenges are ahead of us as a movement to say, how do we tell stories that on a Friday night or on a Saturday afternoon that somebody would want to watch That doesn’t feel like a Hallmark story. That’s too good to be true. It’s not a train wreck, but it’s that somewhere in between.”

Dave Blanchard: “Yeah, that’s a good question. You know, I think a word’s a word, someone smarter than me taught me a couple of years ago was hagiography, which I guess is this idea that we love as Christians to tell biographies of saints effectively that are not really the situation of what went down. And sometimes that creates this unrealistic expectation for us to as believers of like, my gosh, there’s these spiritual heroes that were perfect when they know that’s not the real story, they remember.”
“So part of me thinks it’s not the train wreck that went wrong, that ended wrong. That’s, you know, this sort of glorious disaster. But it’s the truth of the broken leader on a roller coaster adventure who does mean well and does do beautiful things in the world that still gives are like human fleshly desire for drama. And that’s true. You know, I think we talk about the good true and the beautiful and the true is really important there because the truth is often the difficult struggle, etc., that creates the drama. And I think, you know, so much of the time, great entrepreneurial stories are born out of suffering and difficulty. I think about I think about Jessica Kim, who’s been one of the hosts with you all on your Faith Driven Entrepreneur work and been close to us in Praxis for a while. And her venture, ianacare, was burned out of this really, really difficult time caring for her mother who ultimately passed away. And so there are real stories there that are, I think, an entree for us to hopefully share with the world that great, beautiful things can come out of difficulty and we should engage with those stories as much as or more than anything else.”

Justin Forman: “I think you’re right. There’s the adversity that things are born out of. And then there’s the unnamed villains. And I think that we’re in a place when the movement in the conversation where we’re getting better at naming the villain and talking about the villain in the depth of the detail of it. And I think you guys are so great at this as like the hidden motive, the thought we’re thinking, but we don’t want to say out loud the feeling that the battle we’re facing in our mind.”

“And it feels like that there is more space and kind of this high bar safe place for people to really kind of share like in this is the goal that we’re aiming for. But this is a safe place to be real, to say I’m surrounded by the world’s trappings, you know, X, Y, Z media outlet wants to make something more of me than is, right? And, you know, there’s those trappings in those temptations. I think we’re just set a place where. We got to name the villains and we got to know that they’re deep and they’re detailed and they’re sinister and they’re after us. They’re not just like some ambiguous character in a movie. They have a profile, a name and a very rich detail. And. It feels like we’ve come from that place where it was like we needed to connect the two, and now we’re in a place to say, Okay. We’re aiming for it. But let’s get real about what the temptations are. Let’s get real about what the struggles are. Let’s get real to understand that we’re not better than anybody else by far. Our challenges and our struggles and our villains are just different and so are opportunities. But I feel like I guess I’m wondering is like, are some of the stories not as strong because we gloss over the villain? Just feels like that. We just kind of skip it.”

Dave Blanchard: “Yeah, that’s really interesting. I mean, I think to be sure, you’re right in. It’s the the drying out of that and the articulation of those things and yeah, the confronting of the villain in the story and, you know, the temptations of that over time that we’ve got to share and have to be vulnerable about that help other people say that’s mine too. You know, I face that one.”

Justin Forman: “Well, there’s so much to celebrate. We’re so thankful for Cats. What a privilege it is for both of us and the teams that we get to partner with to have a front row seat of what God’s been doing and what he continues to do to this day. And it’s this conversation. And as you alluded to earlier, there are so many people in this movement and before this conversation, before we were even able to grab a cell phone, be a part of it, that we have to think, and yet we celebrate the things that God has done. And one of the things he’s doing and we’re excited about what’s ahead, it’s it’s fun to look back a dozen years later to see that the roads that he’s brought us both on, the things that we can celebrate about how this mindset is there.”

“But the challenges are there saying, okay, what does this look like? How do we name these villains? What’s the adversity that we’re up against? What are the new challenges that are going to emerge as this becomes somewhat normative? And we think that this merges together? And how do we separate, you know, what’s, you know, on the sidelines, what’s in the nosebleeds, far away from the action and what’s really kind of really getting there in the game. But to say it’s it’s a gift to be a part of this conversation together, it’s a gift to spend more time together. You’re recently thinking and dreaming about what God might be up to, both today and as you said, long after both of us pass the baton to others that are going to be taking over this conversation and serving different ministries and in different ways. So it’s a gift to be together. Thanks for being on the podcast. Looking forward to seeing you next week at the event that we get to participate in together and looking forward to doing this again here soon.”

Dave Blanchard: “So a pleasure, Justin. Thanks for having me.”

Speaker 3: “Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you. With content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There’s no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at Faith Driven Entrepreneur dot org.”

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