Episode 82 - Devoting Daily to God's Word with Jon Collins, Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of The Bible Project
Today we’re talking to Jon Collins, the co-founder of Epipheo—a cutting edge video production company that is passionate about getting to the heart of why things matter. The name of their company comes from the combination of the words “epiphany” and “video.” And from Jon’s story, it seems like those are the two things that have defined his life’s work.
In addition to talking about Epipheo, Jon also shared with us the entrepreneurial journey of The Bible Project, an incredible work that breaks down the context of pieces of scripture in a powerful way. They’ve been viewed over 100 million times in over 200 countries around the world through the Bible App, YouTube, RightNow Media and more.
Throughout this episode, Jon shared why he’s passionate about the Bible, and why devoting daily to studying God’s word is important, especially for entrepreneurs. We hope you enjoy this episode. As always, thanks for listening.
Useful Links:
Epipheo: Animated Video Production
The Bible Project - Generosity
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
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Henry [00:02:39] I got to know John really by reputation before I met him for breakfast several weeks ago and said this is a guy that we absolutely have to have on the show. Maybe 10, 11 years ago, 12 years ago, maybe I was in Durham, North Carolina, and still the CEO bandwidth. And we'd just launched a new mission, a new ministry called Durham Cares. And I had seen a video that explained the Advent conspiracy to me. There was this great viral video that many you might have seen way back 12 years ago or so called the Advent conspiracy video, where it explained how we think about Christmas and gift giving. And it was done in such a compelling way over two and a half for three minutes of animation. I said, we have to have one of those. And it's been super cool to me as I then not knowing that the same person who is the co-founder of a piff who started that whole explainer video craze that you've now seen everywhere, whether it's a creative animation or a blackboard, I really think. And whether John will take credit for this or not, I think it really started with a pithy. And so you've all seen them. But then that that same person was a person who's then go ahead and say, no, I want to do more than just explain what a company does to solve a problem. Explain what the Bible does. And so that, of course, became the Bible project. And so we've got John with us on the program. John, thank you very much for joining us.
John [00:03:58] Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. That's was a great introduction. Appreciate it.
Henry [00:04:02] All right. Thank you. I mean, it means alot because it's slightly intimidating. You got a lot of production experience and we have a very little bit. But again, we're just we're a huge fans. That makes it pretty easy. So we'd love for you to give just to fly over your story. Talk to us about your entrepreneurial journey. Talk to us about the way that you've been able to use your creative gifts by leaning on opportunities you've seen or solving problems that you've seen. Maybe it started when you co-founded it, if maybe it started before then. But start as early as you can.
John [00:04:31] Sure. Yeah. I think of myself as an accidental entrepreneur. It wasn't a goal to start businesses. I went to college to study Bible theology and while there. Thought that I wanted to become a pastor. And I did. I was in my early 20s. I was working for a church here in Portland. It was kind of a Sunday night service. That was to try to get the young kids more interested in being a part of church. And what I really loved about that whole experience was, for me, the craft of putting together a sermon, just that communication craft. But I was in my young 20s and I just didn't know what it meant to be a pastor. And I felt really intimidated about being a spiritual leader. And we decided that this Sunday night service needed to actually either become more part of the church or turn into a church plant.
[00:05:25] And so I helped it turn into a church plant, which I guess was kind of the first entrepreneurial type thing, but passed it off to kind of a more seasoned guy to run with. And that guy, Paul, who was mentor of mine at the time, he asked me, like, John, what do you want to do if you're not going to work in the church as a pastor?
[00:05:44] And I was I don't know. And he said, well, if money wasn't an option, what would you do? And that question was really powerful. And my initial response was, I want to make documentary films if money is not an option. That's what I would do. That sounds like a lot of fun.
[00:06:00] And for me, it scratch the itch of wanting to be a communicator and wanting to help people understand something. But it didn't come with the responsibility of being the spiritual leader, being the one that people look to and say, oh, he's got the answers. You get to be more of the investigator. I thought that would be an amazing job. And that guy, Paul, actually right there said, cool, I'll hire you to make a little mini documentary for a ministry he did. So I got my first client in that meeting.
Henry [00:06:27] What was that ministry?
John [00:06:30] Skate Church. Skate Church is a skateboard ministry in Portland. It's actually how Tim Mackie and I met. Tim is the guy who I work on the bio project with Tim started following Jesus at Skate Church. So it's just a 10,000 square foot indoor warehouse full of skate ramps that we open up in the evenings and then you skate with kids and then you sit them all down and have a Jesus talk and then skate some more. And for kids who decide they want follow Jesus, they come early and you do a Bible study. And it was just kind of a skateboard mystery like that. So there's a lot of skateboard mysteries now. This one's been going for 30 years. This guy Paul started it a long time ago.
[00:07:08] It was kind of a pioneering effort in that regard. And he's like a World-Class skateboard ramp builder. And he was an amateur skateboarder for Ted Cruz when he was growing up. And anyways. Great guy. And so I made like a 10 minute short documentary on Skate Church. And so.
Henry [00:07:25] Is that up there? Is it can we find it on YouTube?
John [00:07:26] Oh, man. I don't know. This was forever ago.
William [00:07:30] That means it's definitely on YouTube.
[00:07:33] It's super cool. That was my first project. I spent a whole year on it. He bought a camera for skate Church that I used and I bought a computer and editing software and and a subscription to what is now called Linda.com. But back then, I think a little different and just figured it out. And so I thought about going back to art school and doing that that way. But that just didn't seem like the right call. It would have been like 80 grand. And I went it looked at like what the seniors were putting out at the art school. And I kind of felt like I was almost there. And so instead, I spent like 10 grand on some better equipment and just decided to put myself through school. And that Advent conspiracy video you referenced actually was kind of during those days.
[00:08:17] What I learned was I was really good at editing, but I was really bad at cinematography. So I'd go out and shoot things and I would come back and I would just be so disappointed with what I shot. And so I would try to fix it by other means. And one of those means became just really simple graphic design elements moving around. So Advent conspiracy was a lot of like typography and like stock images and just really simple things just but the movement and how they build and tell a story with visuals became kind of what I relied on to carry the story forward. And so what I didn't know was I was really entering this world that now is called explainer videos and I didn't invent it. In fact, there was stuff I was looking at that people were doing that I was getting inspiration from. And there's other guys that were doing similar things, but but definitely was on the very cutting edge of it. And the success of Advent conspiracy specifically kind of gave this idea of let's start a business around this idea of a video that's animated. It's short and it helps you kind of have a paradigm shift within a couple of minutes, like you come to an idea you have know nothing about. And by the time you've finished watching, kind of have the framework for that idea. Now, in your mind, you don't know everything, but like the main thrust of it makes sense. So we called up DeFeo, which is. Epiphanny in video It's Portman do if those two words and how do you create an epiphany quickly with video and partnered with a few friends to make that an actual business? Because what I found was I was a horrible business person. I mean, my freelance career was a mess. It was just I didn't know how to value my work. I didn't know how to handle client relationships. I just kind of assumed that if I did good work, clients would take care of me. And I was thinking like an employee.
Henry [00:10:10] But that has happened now, to be clear. You've done great work and the market has taken care of you.
John [00:10:16] Yeah, that's true. No, I still think that quality work should come first. Like, that's my my focus is content for sure. But a business needs more than just that. And business needs, the cash flow for one thing.
[00:10:29] And so a good friend of mine, Jeremy, who was a mentor of the time, was a youth pastor of mine when I was a senior in high school. And we grew up in the same town. And he had been doing business like he was out on the East Coast and he started this big e-commerce business around token merchandise. This is back when like SVO was new and e-commerce was huge and new to the market and it was like this guys figured out. So I called him up and asked Jeremy, how do I make a business? And he was excited about the whole idea.
[00:10:56] And so we we teamed up with couple other guys and formed DeFeo, and that really grew fast because it was early in the market and suddenly everyone wanted these videos and we just were positioned to be kind of a go to player. We landed Google as a client pretty early on with some spec work that I did. Google was I don't know if you remember the product Google Wave that came and went. That's some familiar. No, do that, too. It was supposed to be like a new way to communicate without email. It kind of was an early version of what Slack became, but it didn't catch on. And the lead developers of Google Maps, their brothers, they I mean, Google Maps was so successful that Google just said, hey, what do you guys want to build next? And they're just like, we have this idea for an email killer kind of product. And they just said, fine, have as much money and time as you want. And they created Google it and had a lot of buzz.
[00:11:52] It was beta invite only and everyone wanted to get in. But no one actually really understood why they wanted to get in and what it actually did. And neither did I. So I was like, this is interesting. I really want to be a beta user, but I even know what it is. So I watched like their two hour really dry tech talk on it. Marmee was 90 minutes and then made a two and a half minute explainer video and now it viral and Google reached out and a bunch of other people reached out and just the client funnel just kind of exploded.
[00:12:19] And so that really helped us just hit the ground running with that company.
[00:12:24] So Google Wave and Advent Conspiracy are both up on YouTube.
[00:12:29] Yeah. Google Wave was like, you know, it was me with a Sharpie and scanning in images and moving them around. And I mean, I did it in one evening. And so that kind of really simple aesthetic became part of the DNA of a PPO and also of what we still do even at the Bible Project. We do a lot of sophisticated art, but sometimes we just do doodles, what we call it, like a doodle style. And you can even see with Advent conspiracy, it's very early on. And it's I'm embarrassed by in some ways because of a lot of my typography choices and kerning and edits and stuff. But what works is you walk away from it and you're like, I get it now. And that's the most important thing that comes across.
Henry [00:13:10] Well, we're gonna put this up on the Web site and we're also going to put in for an added feature the video that you all did for us intern nine years ago. It was on the biblical message of generosity. I thought it was really, really good. I hope you're really proud of it.
John [00:13:22] Yes, I am. Yes.
Henry [00:13:24] I call myself a movie producer because I worked with Jeremy on it. And he made me look really, really good to thank you for that. Yeah. So how do you get about to starting the Bible Project?
John [00:13:36] So, you know, I wanted to get into business not because I wanted to run and own businesses. I mean, people get into services for all reasons. But my entrepreneurial narrative was that I felt called to be a communicator. And I had the specific sense that that could be done well with animation and video.
[00:13:59] And to me, I wanted the freedom to be able to pursue that craft. And so a pithy was a great vehicle to pursue that craft. We learned production really well because we're doing it over and over and over. And then I learned a lot of real business fundamentals. But the craft was not just to explain what someone would pay us to explain, but to explain things that I thought were really important that people in the world should know about. And so on the top of the list was the Bible. And I had been thinking for a while about starting some sort of YouTube channel called I wanted to call it theology is boring kind of tongue in cheek because it's how I kind of felt that theology is often pretty boring, but it doesn't need to be and make sure it animated. Films that explain theological ideas, but what kept me from doing it was I didn't really know what I was talking about.
[00:14:50] And I went study the Bible, but I still felt really unqualified to write those scripts. And the Internet's really mean and I didn't want to have to deal with all the comments about how I got everything wrong. But my friend Tim, we did skate Church together. We did undergrad together. And then he went on just to just become the biggest Bible nerd that I know. And he he went to Madison, Wisconsin, and studied at the university there, guys phd there in their program.
[00:15:20] And whenever I have conversations with him about the Bible, I just his wealth of knowledge, his humility and the insight that he gave was just always so refreshing. And I just I felt like I could ask him anything. I feel like, you know, how I know if you feel this way. But I grew up in the church and I kind of learned at some point that there's like a limit to questions you can ask without people starting to look at you and kind of wonder if you're really in or not, like if you really believe or if you really want to follow Jesus. So it's like he can have to be careful. Is this the question off limits? And if I ask too many questions and I just never felt that way with Tim. In fact, I would like ask him a question that I felt maybe was uncomfortable and he'd come back me like, that's interesting question. But have you thought about these other five questions and be like, oh, man, those are even more interesting. And down the rabbit hole we'd go and then we'd come out the other side. And and I was like, Tim, I want to make these videos. Explain the Bible, do you want to do it? And he thought that sounded awesome, too.
[00:16:18] He is actually already making you could look him up, maybe put him in the show notes Bible. And Five is what he called them when he was out in Madison, Wisconsin. He's looking for a church called Blackhawk. And he broke down the literary structure of every book of the Bible just on a whiteboard just in front of a whiteboard. It's like 90s, Tim early 2000s, Tim with like long sideburns and and no gray hair. And he's just like sketching out how Leviticus works.
[00:16:44] And so those were really, really good explainers already, but they just were pretty low production and didn't have a lot of detail. And so we just feel like we can. What can we do with my knowledge of production and ability to distill information with visuals and his church that he was working at in Portland volunteered his time like a half day a week. And so we just started working out of a Pythias basement and started piloting a couple a couple of videos, worked on those for about a year, just trying to figure out our voice and how this was going to work.
[00:17:18] And during that time, also, I was really interested in forming as a nonprofit. I was really being affected a lot by a generosity movement that I felt like I kind of got thrust into of people who are just really passionate about being radically generous.
[00:17:36] And so one of the ideas was just like, well, let's just make this free. No paywall. It's also really strategic because you don't own a paywall and then more people can get to it. Crowdfunding had become a new phenomenon with Kickstarter. Patriarca was kind of a brand new thing. Actually, Peter didn't exist yet, but this other Web site called Subtotal, which was like an early patry on existed and that was created by some really popular YouTubers called the Green Brothers. And I was just going to use that as like a platform to allow people to pitch in and fund these videos and then Wookiees keep them for free and just make it a crowdfunded model. And we didn't do some bull because they didn't let us on the platform. We were a new YouTube channel. And you had to have like six months of being a YouTuber before they do it. So we built our own kind of thermometer thing and did it that way. And people was just immediately caught division and just started giving towards the next video. And so we just fill up a thermometer and then make the next video and just kept that going. And pretty soon, I mean, people since the very beginning of this project have now given us every single time. And so we just have always been trying to keep up with that. And we've been able to go from doing a video at a time, hiring freelancers to now where a studio of 37 people, half of that is kind of designers making the content.
[00:18:56] And then the other half is really starting to focus on get it out there, partnering with people, translating into other languages, just caring for our growing audience and our growing kind of patrons who give towards it. So we've got over 10000 people who just give, you know, 20 bucks a month or something. And that's how it's the whole thing works.
Rusty [00:19:20] It's cool. I'm curious, John, you know, if you could just distill down for our listeners the mission of the Bible Project and then, you know, when you just gave us some numbers on the numbers of videos was phenomenal. Where does it go? I mean, I don't think you're going to run out of Bible stories. I'd hope not. But do you know where does it go? And then maybe a little bit of a peek around the corner of. You see it fitting into the Greater Zeit Geist because it feels like you sort of skated ahead of the pack, if you look at Quimby and you know, all this short-form video that everyone's consuming like crazy now, you know, it feels like you guys saw around the corner. What's next?
John [00:19:59] What's next? Well, that's a great question. But your first question, the mission of the Bible Project is to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus, that really unlocks the Bible for us and for others, that it is a story. It's one story and all connects together. And Jesus is the climax of that story. And new creation is the resolution of that story. And one way we will show that is we make what we call theme videos. A theme is a motif in scripture, an idea that begins on the first few pages and then continues to be developed over the course of the story of the Bible and then has its climax and Jesus and resolution new creation. And so the image of God is a theme. And the Messiah. This character who is going to come and crush the head of the serpent and be the king. This is a theme throughout the story. The idea of heaven, an earth being united and then disconnected and then being reunited together again is a theme. So there's dozens of those themes.
[00:21:03] There's about 24, 25 that we want to do and we're reaching the end of that list. But we also show like the literary structure of every book of the Bible and then how the Bible works as literature, which man for me actually that was that was really hard to stomach. I grew up in a really conservative evangelical church, which would say, yes, the Bible is human and divine. That is orthodox, but it really is just divine. It's just like, let's not talk about humanity. It's a little bit scandalous to make it to human. But you know what, Tim? We would just talk a lot about the literary structure and what the authors were doing as they designed the books and stuff. Whenever we would do that, I'd kind of flinch a little and be like, oh, are we making this just a human book? But it really helps you see what's happening. And actually the divinity of it just shines even more. And so we look at that and we do word studies and all sorts of other types of videos. The library is about one hundred and forty some odd videos now. And we always think there's kind of an end in sight, but that keeps growing. So I don't know how many more we've got, but we're doing a season model now and one season six.
Henry [00:22:17] You're not done until you at least do a series for entrepreneurs.
John [00:22:24] I think that'd be great. Work and vocation. I think it's funny we have this running thing of what's a theme in the Bible and what's the topic in the Bible. And for Tim, this is really important. And sometimes I think it's too important too, but it's actually really helpful.
[00:22:36] And I think he would put work and vocation as a topic, but I would push for it as a theme. And it's a theme connected to the image of God. Right. Like we're co rulers with God. He puts us here and to work the garden. And you can kind of trace that theme throughout scripture and then its culmination in new creation. But yeah, there's a lot we could do as we look ahead, though. It's tough. I mean, I really I think a lot about what's the shelf life of animated explainer videos. You know, when I started making film, I shot in standard definition on tape and then digitized it. And you just you know, now like that skate church video we were talking about, you look at it and you can tell it's from another era and it feels like it's not as applicable because it's just shot in a format that we just don't use anymore. And so there's that there's the resolution battle, there's virtual reality, which we actually are playing around with, too. We just submitted VR short to South by Southwest today and really proud of it and been working on it for about a year and a half. It's kind of on the side and that's been a fun project and virtual reality that so many of us have.
Henry [00:23:47] Maybe we haven't actually surfed at home or we've seen it. What is it for somebody who doesn't know VR? Yeah.
John [00:23:53] So the experience we did is it's the last week of life of Jesus. It's called last week of a King. And originally you want to do seven scenes and walk through the whole week. We bit off more than we could choose. We did three scenes.
[00:24:04] You watch Palm Sunday. He's on the donkey writing in Jerusalem. You just kind of find yourself there. You don't know what's going on. You see him coming. The crowds are cheering and singing. And then the next senior in the temple courts and you're watching his pathetic protest when he flips over the table. And so there's that scene.
[00:24:23] And then the third scene is you're in the upper room and you're having a meal with him while he's explaining his upcoming death and what it means.
Rusty [00:24:30] From whose point of view are you are you from one of the disciples or you're just, you know, sitting outside of, well, you in the upper room, there's a little place you can sit at the table.
John [00:24:41] So it feels like you're. The disciples, in fact, if you count, there's only eleven disciples in the room and then the space for you to sit. So you kind of out in that place. And the other scenes, you kind of just feel like an observer. He just kind of feel like I was just here in the temple courts and whoa, what's this happening? So you're just kind of there. It's like it's theater, but you're on the stage is what it feels like. It's animated and it's not like photorealistic or, you know, it's like we have a series called Looking Acts and it's kind of built on the style of that series is the world that stylistically. So that's a nutshell what I mean. You do so much with VR and that's just such a basic thing is just being there and witnessing something.
[00:25:24] But to be able to interact with stuff and pull things apart, put things together, click on something, you know, like, you know, you could be in the tub, of course, and and there could be an opportunity to look up and see there's people going up there to like they're in a line. They've got go. It's like what's happening? And you can like click on it.
[00:25:43] And then if something can open up and you can read a passage or you can get a little explainer, video or whatever. And man, the first time I did VR, I just was blown away with the possibilities for education. It's just unbelievable.
Rusty [00:25:58] What you're talking about, John, is so exciting because it's funny how you talked about how a medium is, you know, the antiquated and we don't want to go back and look at the radio and work is just not shot that way. But there's something about the Bible. Yeah, something about the Bible that doesn't age on us. We know that. Yeah. And that, you know, sometimes you can sit down and see an old, you know, cartoon that somebody put together and look at it and be, you know, engaged. Yeah. So you're talking about with VR is so exciting because that could be the invitation, the gateway for this next generation who, you know, as we know, don't read or at least don't read to the level we want to. I'm excited by what you had to say.
John [00:26:37] Oh, cool.
Henry [00:26:38] I would imagine it will also, though, create some amount of angst with you. It's one thing to do an explainer video and maybe somebody disagrees with some aspects of the theology. When you do a re-creation by somebody, you actually be with Jesus. I mean, I don't know the grieving images. Of first comes out and there's just you know, there's some wrestling with re-creating. And it's one thing maybe when you get the last temptation. But I feel like you're actually there with him. Yeah, it's equally incredibly powerful ones and intimidating.
John [00:27:11] I agree with you. There's something to worry about there. And you know where VR is heading with resolution and processing speeds, things get more and more realistic. And then, you know, anytime we make an image, though, even with our explainer videos, the amount of times we've depicted Jesus and we've done a different ways, we've had him balding. We've had him with a big nose, we've had him with the beard, we've had him with, you know, with more like Orthodox kind of Jewish curls on the sides of beard and everything in between.
[00:27:38] You know, because what do you look like? Who knows? And some of the most hot water we got in was we made this video and we depicted God. And he's kind of looks like a a white man with a white beard. People were really bugged. And it's like, yeah, well, maybe we should have been more creative, but and maybe we should never depict God. I mean, there's an argument for that.
William [00:28:00] John, William here. I wanted to jump in as a I'm an early adopter. I got a reality. San Francisco. We went through all of the videos and a Bible of year and any year biblical literacy. And Tim came down and gave some sermons. Big, big, big fans of what you guys, John and Justin thinks can feel the personal impact and see the community impact things that had fifteen hundred people walking through this together and seeing just that, the conversation around, you know, obviously an obvious encouragement of anyone. Listen, this is God's Bible project and take a look at some of the videos or Google edits on YouTube. But as you've been walking through this, you know, one of your goals is obviously to increase engagement in the Bible. Walk us through what that's looked like. I know you've mentioned a little bit, but how are people engaging in ways maybe you didn't expect? How are people using this around the world? My guest says this has been picked up everywhere. Just walk us through what the Lord's done through your work.
John [00:28:54] Yeah, well, the thing we could track the most is the views. But a view doesn't mean. That someone now is reading the Bible or that they even cared about what they watched. But it is cool to see how many people are watching content that's just explaining the Bible. We very early on and you guys were part of this a reality, we started a reading plan to read through the Bible with our content. And that has really caught on because people do want to read through the Bible. It's just hard. And you give up, you know, especially you're start at the beginning and you get to Leviticus and you're just like, OK, I'm game over.
[00:29:31] Like, I I pushed as hard as he could. Tennis is an exodus. And now you were reading about sacrifices. Freeserve was the dress. And I don't get it. And I don't know why I should care. So that reading plan, a number of churches adopted it. But then we had some friends who are part of crazy love. They developed an app called Read Scripture. And we've had I don't know that exact numbers, but with everything I should, I could go find it. But in hundreds of thousands of people go through scripture app. We have over 200,000 people on an email list.
[00:30:07] That's just a weekly e-mail of like what you're supposed to read that week and what videos correspond in the open rates really get on these like way better like 5x industry standard. And then you version, which is the Bible app, which almost I mean, there's like the hundred million active users.
[00:30:24] I think they've had three, 250 million downloads. There's rarely a Christian. I find it doesn't have it on their phone. They've put all our videos up in their app and we have a number of reading plans in there and we have a year reading plan and that's been used a ton. I don't know the exact numbers. And then we have a lot other easier reading plans that don't take a whole year. Actually, next year we're working with them and we're going to promote a bunch of like two month reading plans because the goal is to get people reading the Bible and these videos help encourage you to go, OK. I got the big picture now. Let me go in and start reading. But we also hear from people who just are more like I just I've been reading the Bible my whole life, but now it does feel like it's coming to life in new ways. They didn't even realize it could or I'm a new Christian and this has really helped me get into the Bible straight.
William [00:31:17] And as you think about entreprenuers out there, you know, Henry said, you know, we won't be done till you you know, so we can fight about the theme or topic. Sounds like entrepreneurship is probably gonna lose the theme, but sounds like a great topic. I don't like it. I don't want to get in a fight with general now. I'm pretty sure I'll lose. But what would your encouragement be? Entreprenuers. Just what you are. One, you are surrounded by many. You dig into the word of God as your job. Right. What is the word of God to an entrepreneur out there on their journey? How would you encourage them to engage with it and learn from it?
John [00:31:51] You know what I would say? Well, from a personal journey, I grew up in a tradition that very highly values the Bible and had this sense of I need to understand. I went to Bible school because of that and wanted to understand this book. And honestly, just continuously was disappointed that I was I would leave confused. I would sometimes be offended. So I think kind of in my 20s, I started to just be okay with being a Christian and not reading the Bible. And I was becoming a post Bible Christian just, hey, it's about Jesus, right? I could follow Jesus. He's the example. The Bible's kind of getting in the way is what it felt like. And men working on this project has really just helped me so much. It's brought the Bible to life for me. And, you know, you look at Jesus, Jesus saw himself as the fulfillment of the story. And Jesus was a big Bible nerd. And like he launched his career in ministry, reading from the prophets, from Isaiah and saying like, this is about me. So to follow Jesus, you know, we should know what it is. Why did he think he was the climax of the story? Why did he care so much about this story? And really, by being in that story, you know, I'm really big on thinking about what is it that changes our minds and our behavior, like what actually affects us, like what kind of communication actually makes an insight happen and what kind of challenge actually changes how someone lives. And it's the stories that we immerse ourselves in that have the biggest impact. And the story of the Bible is a story of how God wants to work with humanity, to create a beautiful world of justice and peace. And it is kind of this, you know, strange calling of collaborating with God and then how we just constantly just give God the middle finger and do it our own. And in that story, and then seeing how Jesus becomes the human that we couldn't be. And that's just a small part of the gospel. It's just as it shapes your imagination, it begins to shape who you are. And that's really important for people running a business because what are we doing as business owners and starters but co-creating with God? And what does that mean and how should we be doing it? What's the values and the ethics of God and how should that affect us? And the Bible isn't like a handbook to tell you how to do that, but it's a story that is it forms your imagination and your psyche. It gives you those things. And then, of course, also we have the promise of the Holy Spirit, who will give us that as well. But man, being immersed in that story, whatever story we're immersed in, will change us. And it might be the stories you're reading on your Facebook feed. It might be the stories that culture at large is giving us through advertisments or whatever. But you would be wise to let that narrative be scripture.
William [00:35:03] Well, you just gave me a dynamite setup for our final question here. So with that, what story has got you in right now? Where is he taking you in this season of your life as an entrepreneur? He's in the Bible probably more than every day, if that's possible. Just tell what story are you in and what's God revealing to you?
John [00:35:22] Yeah, I think the biggest theme for me that keeps recurring throughout this project and even recently is this image of God idea of just that God. He wants to empower us to work with him. And so I've been thinking a lot about what is the story of the Bible have to say about what do we do with power. And power is something that we can all crave. I think it brings security and influence and maybe it'll bring us friends. And it'll it does bring the things that we want like powers so enticing. And it's enticing for a reason. I mean, it's it's an important thing. But how easily we use it to be selfish and to protect us and ours, to marginalized all sorts of things in the story, the Bible just shows us that over and over. And I just been thinking a lot about the example of Jesus in power. It's like Jesus had ultimate power. He read Philippians 2 about He's one with God. But what did he do with his power? He decided to be self-sacrificial and radically generous. And just think about how true power really is that way. If you see someone in their business or whatever, it is really just trying to hold on to power and demean people and prop themselves up. You know, it's just not true power. True power is self-sacrificial and giving because true power could like be killed and still be the true power of the universe. And the asmir reflecting on that. And just I think it's been such a gift with this project. I mean, every time someone gives to this project, they're empowering us and we want to use that power. Well, whenever you get a client, you know, you're being empowered. And as Christians, how should we think about power and how should that be different than the world?
Rusty [00:37:25] Great question. All right. Thank you. Hey, you know, you've raised the bar for all of us, because I don't know that we can claim that ourselves, but what a wonderful thing to be known as a Bible nerd. Bible nerd, you know. So thanks for putting that out there.
John [00:37:41] Absolutely.
Henry [00:37:42] Supercool also for people to be able identify with just their struggles with God's word and find it just, you know, at times offensive. That's very much mirrors my experience when I was coming to Christ and reading the Bible, realizing I'd never really open it. And at first I found it offensive. And just further engagement just helped me to just God allow me to have my eyes open and see the absolute beauty and majesty and the things that I thought were offensive and have been beautiful and meant something altogether different than what I originally thought they meant. And so you're part of that. You've become a part of that for me. And in my ability to reengage with scripture, to be able to do that with my family, I think that's one of the things that a launch nurse is struggling with. How do we provide a great godly example and engage with our family and interest them in the word of God? Many of us have the discipline of open up God's word every day. And yet it's rare that I walk down on the kitchen table and I see my three boys all like point and do quiet time with the Lord, right.
[00:38:46] And I can try to encourage them. And maybe they have some fits and starts that are really never fit the my goodness to get them interested and have God's word be accessible to them through a medium that they get, which is the five minute YouTube video. Now you got something. So, John, you have blessed me and my family and my boys and I am forever grateful. Thank you again.
John [00:39:07] My pleasure.