Why? It’s a big question, regardless of the context. It’s something we hear little kids ask all the time, and many of us never grow out of wondering why things are the way they are. We want to know what things are for, and going one layer deeper, we want to know what we are for. 

That’s the question at the heart of today’s podcast featuring Jeff Henderson, a pastor out of Atlanta and author of a book titled: Know What You’re FOR: A Growth Strategy for Work, An Even Better Strategy for Life. 

Jeff has been operating in the faith, work, and leadership spheres for a while, and we think you’re going to love what he had to share. As always, thanks for listening.

Useful Links:

Gwinnett Church

Know What You’re For - Video Bible Study

Who is Jeff Henderson?

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 FDE 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. Awesome to be with you all. Jeff, thank you very much for being on the show today. Let's dive right in. Could you let our listeners in on your story, give us a brief overview of your professional career and your personal journey along the way?

Jeff Henderson: Yeah. Well, I'm so honored to be here. And, you know, I'm a preacher's kid, as you know. And so I promised myself I would never, ever work at a church. So there you go. And working at a church for almost 18 years now. My backstory was my dad said, hey, son, if you can go do anything and be happy with that, do that. So I developed an interest in marketing and sports marketing. I know that you could do sports marketing. So it started with the Braves and then eventually wound up handling all of Chick-Fil-A sports marketing. But when I was there.

Henry Kaestner: That's a lot to handle, by the way. Chick-Fil-A does a lot. They have their own bowl. They're everywhere.

Jeff Henderson: Absolutely. And that was in the early days. So we got to launch of that. That was a lot of fun. And no one ever leaves Chick-Fil-A. Other than crazy people like me. But I was invited by my boss, David Salyers. He's still a great friend of mine to the leadership conference. And it was at Leadership Conference where I felt like God told me you're gonna help start a church some day. So that was almost 18 years ago. But I discovered that a lot of the things I learned in the business world I could apply to the nonprofit and church. And there's a lot that the church can learn from the business world and there's a lot that the business can learn from the church. I've been really blessed and fortunate to be able to work on both of those worlds and really learn a lot from organizations.

Henry Kaestner: So I'm really curious about how your work that you do right now interacts with the book you wrote. So you got a book out, Know What You're For. Rusty will ask more questions about the book itself. But I'd love to know more about how you get the idea for it. What motivated your writing? Did this come from your personal life, what you saw in the workplace someplace else?

Jeff Henderson: Yeah, well, a mentor really challenged me because I was telling him that I was really fortunate and blessed to work for Chick-Fil-A, which is a $13 million organization, but also now able to work for North Point Ministries, which was recently named the largest church in America. I don't know if that's true or what, but the point is, is that I've been able to be on the front row of two thriving organizations and my mentor pushed back and said, well, that's true, but it's not just the blessing. It's a stewardship responsibility. What did you learn from those two organizations that you could share with us, particularly about what causes an organization to grow? And so I really thought about that. And there's a lot of similarities. And not just those two organizations. There's a lot of similarities between thriving organizations. And I think one of the ways the world gets better is to have thriving businesses, thriving nonprofits, thriving churches, thriving organizations. And you said if you could boil it down to just a few questions, what would those be? And so when I start reflecting on that and I saw it as a stewardship responsibility, it really inspired me to write the book and just kind of build it down to two questions that I feel like any organization, if you can rally your team around these two questions and understand the power of them, I think you'll understand how to grow your organization.

Rusty Rueff: That's really great, this idea of know what you're here for. You know, being the marketing guy for Chick-Fil-A, you figured out what cows and chickens were here for.

Henry Kaestner: Did you come up with that? No. Funny story about that is, you know, we were doing 3D billboards back in the day and the Richards Group, which was working with Chick-Fil-A at the time as their advertising agency. You know, we had rubber chickens over the billboard ad and, you know, cars for drive thru. And then somebody this is back in the day of faxes. And I'm not sure anyone remembers the fax machine, maybe barely, but this guy faxed over a picture of a cow on billboards said Eat more chicken. And that was when it was born. And fortunately for Chick-Fil-A, Steve Robinson and David Salyers, they really saw the genius of that idea and then stayed with it. It's now in the Advertising Hall of Fame. I didn't even know there was an advertising hall of Fame. So there you go.

Henry Kaestner: It would be my vote. If somebody came to me and said, there is an advertising hall of fame like you. I didn't know there was one, but you have one vote. I'd put the cow in, no doubt about it.

Jeff Henderson: That's awesome. It's done, really well.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah. I mean, you know, if such a recognizable brand. So let's go back. Let's talk about the book and let's go in a little deeper. Know what you're for and here for. So I think a lot of us can get an idea for what the premises and probably many of us have our own idea of why we think knowing why we're here matters. But I'd like to hear your perspective on it. I mean, why does knowing why we're here matter?

Jeff Henderson: So I think there's a huge assumption, Rusty, that everybody on the team understands the premise to this question, because it's a simple question, but it's not an easy question to answer. And that's one of the reasons I asked leaders. One of the best things they should do is do a vision inventory, walk around the office or on a online chat, just say, hey, what do you think our organization wants to be known for? And just listen. And more often than not, I think leaders will be surprised that there's some confusion. It may be a lot of confusion, maybe a little bit of confusion. But if there's confusion in the office space, there will be confusion in the marketplace about this. And they've got to be really crystal clear about what we want to be known for. And this question is so important, it's not enough to go on a three day retreat and then put it in a filing cabinet or on a document somewhere and think everybody's got it.

You have to say it over and over and over again because leaders are repeaters. And so I think the other thing is we're talking about his vision. And when there's a lack of vision and organization, the biblical principle is that in a lack of vision people perish. I believe it's also true that when there's a lack of vision, the organization perishes as well. And this is all comes down to vision. And vision is like a bucket of water. The more words you have in the bucket, the more the words fall out of the bucket. So you've got to have something that's transportable, memorable, cyclical if you will, that you can hand to folks to say, here's what we want to be known for.

And when there's assumptions that we all know this, that's a dangerous assumption to be made. And so when leaders push back on this sometimes to say, hey, that's cool, but you should still do a vision inventory and see what answers you get. And my hunch is you'll discover that there's some nuances and different answers that might not be or you might get some blank stares people going, I don't really know. And the reason I think this is a big issue is when research organizations tell us that when people come to work, they're not sure that they are experiencing a purpose to their job. That's an aha. That's like, OK. Then you haven't really crystallized what this organization wants to be known for and how this person's job connects to that purpose and mission. And so I think this is a fundamental issue for organizations in essence. Another question to ask is what is the problem our organization is gathered together to solve? Because in today's world and this is true now more than ever, it's no longer about being the best company in the world. It's about being the best company for the world. And you've got to identify what are you bringing for the world. And marketing research will tell you the younger the demographic, the more the demographic is saying, what is your organization doing for our community and our role?

Henry Kaestner: That's really profound. I just want to interject there. I think that that's an obvious thing, but I don't know that I've ever heard it phrased that way. We talk a good amount on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur about participating in the work that God is doing on earth that he might use us to bring about his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. And an extension of that, of course, is being the best company for the world. If nothing else, and you're talking about, of course, because we want to be attractive to our work force, that we want to come to work for us and stay working for us. And yet there's a whole other purpose, a whole year ambition that's baked in that concept, I think is super important.

Jeff Henderson: I could not agree more. Where were you when I was writing the book? OK. So because here's what people when I left the business world, people come up to me, they still do. They'll say, hey, why did you go into full time ministry? And I appreciate the question. I understand the question. It's just theologically incorrect. I was already in full time ministry, and that wasn't because I was working at Christian Chicken. OK. That was way before that when I was a busboy at a restaurant. OK. So you know that. And here's the thing, though. When it comes to the for profit world, and the nonprofit world, typically we've got profit over, you know, on the business side and we have purpose over in the nonprofit side. Now, what I tell businesses, purpose is not exclusive for the nonprofit world. In fact, if you can combine a great product with a compelling purpose, that's your ballgame. But to do that, you've got to really be crystal clear on what you want to be known for. And the reason this is important is because of actually the second question, and I don't think it's going to get in the second question right now. But what you've clarified the answer to that first question. It's not enough because every day is an opportunity for an organization to deliver on that. But in essence, what you're doing is you are delivering on your purpose, whatever that may be.

Rusty Rueff: I love the idea of what both of all the questions that you're asking. This idea of, you know, what do we want to be known for is very inspiring. Right. I mean, it motivates you. It galvanizes you. It gives you that vision. But that question of what are we known for now is a hard question to answer. Right, to be honest with yourself. I got to imagine that as you wrote the book and as you went through those two questions, you had to also apply that to yourself as well. I mean, as we say in the startup world, you know, we eat our own dog food for a second. What did you learn when you had to ask those questions about yourself?

Rusty Rueff: Absolutely. That's why the subtitle, Rusty, is A Growth Strategy for work, but an even better strategy for your personal life. It's those questions really apply to all of us listening today. But that second question to your point is a pesky question, because it's our question to influence, but it is not our question to answer. For example, if I had been crystal clear in the team that I serve understands what we want to be known for. The second question is to your point, what are we known for? And that isn't one that we answer. That's the one that the customer or the participant in the nonprofit answer. And here's the power of those two questions. When the answer to what do you want to be known for and what you are known for, when the answers to those two questions match, you harness the greatest form of advertising the world has ever seen. Powerful personal word of mouth advertising. Because let's just speak on brands for a second, because that used to be my world. A brand is no longer what it tells customers it is. A brand is what customers tell other customers it is. That's the ballgame. And the reason these two questions are so helpful is because it can identify gaps in your vision, in the reality and delivery of your vision and the reality for all of us. Me. All of us is there are gaps in between those two questions. There's gaps organizationally. There's gaps personally. But here's the exciting thing. Every single day when we come to work as an organization, it's an opportunity, no matter what your role is, to shrink the gap between those two questions. So this breaks down silos. This breaks down departments competing with one another because we had crystallized our vision and we have measurement systems to understand whether or not we are delivering on those systems. And we shrink the gap so that customers I call vision carriers, not just customers, vision carriers carry our vision to their customers. This is why I just don't think many large brands are leveraging. I tell this to large brands all the time and they bring me in. By the way, you're not in social media. You're not doing social media. They all lose their minds. What are you talking about? I can share your Instagram page or Facebook page like you're doing digital media. You're forgetting the social part of social media. And that's a huge mess for organizations. The reason is because it's that second question. When we engage with our customers on their world and their platform and their community, that makes our brand more personable. And the more personable you are, the more remarkable your organization will be.

Henry Kaestner: So I want to unpack that now That last word, remarkable. I'm an investor now. It's a background as an entrepreneur, now I'm an investor. I spent a lot of time looking at companies and their customer acquisition costs and lifetime value. And one of the best ways, of course, to be able to hit that ratio is by lowering your customer acquisition costs and keeping customers around longer. So how do you do that? Well, if you are remarkable by your customers, that means referrals are coming in. They're out there. They're able to talk about your brand strategy in a way that has integrity with what you're actually going to deliver, which means then once they come on board for free because your customer was your advocate. They come on board, you then deliver, you deliver what they thought you're going to deliver, then they don't leave because there's no misunderstanding and no thought of what you'd be able to provide for them.

So that's the extraordinarily powerful concept. If I'm listening to that, I've gotten that so far through this podcast. How do I do that? So I intellectually, I've got the concept. How do I bridge these two questions again? You talked about measurability. Clearly, that's going to be an aspect of it. But give us three things that a business owner as they drive into the office today they show up in the office. Guys, we've got to get together. We've got to bring this together. We can buy the book for everybody, but then we're gonna go ahead and start implementing. What does that look like?

Jeff Henderson: Can I give you four instead of three? Not because it's for me. That's it for you, of course. So you've got to be for groups of people. You've got to create an organization that is outwardly focused and the four groups are number one. You got to be for customers. You've got to be for the team. You've got to be for the larger community. And then you have to be for you. Ultimately, the best gift that you can give your community, your organization, your business is a rested, replenished, healthy, emotionally healthy you. And so in the book, I break down these strategies of how an organization can be for these four groups of people. And it seems like it's kind of obvious. But when I begin to dove into this with companies, they begin to see the gaps that they're missing, particularly as it relates to customers. And I can give you a couple examples for the customer side, if you'd like. I think these are really important. And one is just symbolically a lot of marketing in today's world is shouting at the customer. And what we want to do football analogy is many times we put the business on the field and we want the customers in the stand cheering the business on, because that's the most important entity. And what I'm asking organizations to do is to flip the script that the customers on the field and put the business in the stands and they're cheering the customers on.

It's a flip the script mentality. And the reason I say that is in today's world, when businesses or brands advertise that they're better than their competition, what they're saying is customers, we want you to cheer us on because we're the most important person entity in this organization.

The way I say in the book is if the business was a person, many businesses would be considered narcissists, because if you look at their advertising, it's all about them. It's all about how great they are. Have you seen their greatest product, how great our products are? We're so wonderful. That's not what we want to do. We want to shift the spotlight to talk more about customers. So I tell whether it's a small business church, a larger organization. Let's just use social media as an example. This isn't, you know, completely about social media, but it's an example to let you know whether or not the spotlight is on the organization or the spotlight is on the customer. So if I can give you an example in my world at Churchwell, we ask these two questions in church. Well, what do you want to be known for and what are we done for? When we started in the early days in our social media strategy is for every third or fourth post, it has to be about the community we're trying to serve and not about us. One of our social media measurements is that we want to have a response time rate and people respond back to us on Facebook within a 24 hour timeframe. Usually it's in its timeframe, about three or four hours. Now, if it's Home Depot, we're not getting anywhere near the volume of comments. But my point is this many times if you'll go onto a brand's Instagram page and you'll comment to them, they'll never, ever comment back. And that's not where this game is going.

So to say that we're for the customer and yet in today's digital space, you're not communicating and having a conversation with them. It's a gigantic miss. And the reason is because the systems have the spotlight on the business and the business doesn't know this. But their main emphasis is self-preservation.

So we've got to shift the spotlight to where we highlight the customer and give some several strategies in the book to do that. But this idea of being for the customer is so easy to say, but problematic from a marketing standpoint. It's really ultimately the business is trying to serve itself and trying to get the customer to keep the business in business. And there's just a different way to do that from the marketing standpoint, I believe, nowadays.

Rusty Rueff: Jeff, can I switch the perspective a little bit? You know, today as we're recording this, we're in this Covid 19 crisis and we like to timestamp these things because, you know, it might be years from now that someone's picking up this podcast. We hope not, but it might be years from now or maybe we hope so. But. In the midst of this crisis that we're in and totally the world is changing on us. Talk to us a little bit from your perspective about the role of the church and what should the church be known for? And what do you think the church is known for right now?

Jeff Henderson: So that was the question we asked eight a half years ago when we started Gwinnett Church. And, you know, our church wasn't known for anything because we didn't exist. So we said, let's just take a big C picture. You know, what does the global church known for? And somebody said, you know, when it comes to the church, many people are more familiar with what the church is against rather than what the church is for. And we just looked at each other and thought, OK, get this straight. So we have the most inclusive message in the world. And yet our brand, if you will, is known more for what we're against, rather what we're for. And that was heartbreaking for us. And so we said, you know, right or wrong, if we go down swinging, we're going to go down swinging, being known for what you work for. That's what we're going to do. And I think most famous Bible verse of them all starts with the word for word, For God so loved the world. That's what we're gonna get. And I think the most exciting thing I don't know what the word is for Rusty, but in this moment, what we've been trying to do for eight and a half years, we just get to keep doing because now more than ever, the community needs the local church. And I told our team from the very beginning, I said, hey, if my goal here's our here's one of my goals for our church. If we decided to close down the church and said, hey, you know what? It's been a great run. We've got a lot of fun. We're going to sell the building, sell the property, give it all the way and go do something else. I would want the community to be so upset about that that they would rise up in protest and say, no, you can't close down, because if you closed down, our community suffers. And that's the kind of church I want. That's the kind of church I want to lead. That's the kind of church I want to serve. So we're trying to do that right now. Now, even in the midst of self isolation and self distancing, I mean, one of the things we're trying to do right now is to best as we know how to help support local businesses. That's been part of our heartbeat from the very beginning. I think part of that is because of just my background in business. And many times one of things I love about what you're doing is I've observed that this one is podcasts. Such a gift. The Business World and the Church world really don't talk that often. And I don't think it's because they don't like each other. They just don't understand each other. You know, and so I've wanted to bridge that gap and in our little community. And so we do these things called for Gwinnett Friday. And it just features a local business in the community. But now what we're able to do, because we have a whole vault, if you will, of social media post now we're just able to take those pictures and take these people and post them right now in the season and say, hey, we introduced you to Steven with Heartsongs Barbecue. He's doing online gift cards. Now, can you help Steven stay in business in these days? And so for us to have and these are people that some of these people go to our church. Many of them don't. That's not the point. The point is, if you're a local business leader in our community, we want to help you because we believe thriving businesses helped create a thriving community is part of what helps create a thriving community. And again, sometimes I'll get pushback like, well, we can't do this for everybody. But I love what Andy Stanley says do for one, what you wish you could do for everyone. We can't do this every day, but we can do it every Friday. So that's an example, Rusty of us going, you know what, we want to be a value add to this community. Another quick thing is in our community and Gwinnett, high school sports are gigantic, OK? So we have large high schools in our county. Well, I mean, we promote and we elevate local sports like you wouldn't believe in. A thing I love about it is these local high schools retweet us and we share our post. And I love it because I'm thinking, OK, I grew up in the day of separation of church and state. But when people see on a public high schools Twitter page, Gwinnett Church, nobody loses their minds. Nobody calls the governor. Nobody protest because we're not talking about us. We're talking about them. But as we talk about them, it creates a relationship with these local schools that shows much favor. And we want to try to reach their students. So that's a quick example, I think, of wanting to be a church that's known more for who or what we're for than who and what we're against.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, that's that's that's a beautiful thing. I mean, I know it's a little speculative, but as you think about how we come out of this phase. What are your thoughts now? I mean, how do you think we reengage? What does the church look like in the future? And then, you know, I mean, again, we're asking you to be speculative. It could end up being totally different. We all know that. But I think there are people who are trying to figure this out who will be listening to this and any words of wisdom that you have or just or just what you're thinking would be helpful.

Jeff Henderson: One thing I'm doing is I'm trying to listen to other organizations and what they're doing, because I heard somebody put it this way. We're all in the same storm that we're all in different boats. The reentry part is going to be a question for all of us. And fortunately for me, so many great friends at church feel like they're facing very similar challenges that they've developed kind of a task force, kind of a reentry task force. The challenge Rusty is this thing is happening, changing, not on a daily basis. It seems like it's changing on an hourly basis. And the assumptions you had one hour may be different from the other. I was on a phone call earlier this morning with all of the lead pastors at Northpoint. And we started talking about what is our reentry look like? The challenges is we don't know, will there be a general phase? OK, we'll let 50 people get together. OK, we'll let one hundred people get together. OK, we'll get 250 people together. So not knowing that puts you in a little bit of a problem. But here, the questions that we're asking that I think can lead us there, even though the circumstances may change by the time we're done with the podcast. The first is what are things that we want to walk away from? For example, if there are things that we lived without and still thrived as a church, then the question we have to ask is do we need that in the first place? Then the second thing is what do we need to double down on? In other words, wow, this really works and we're gonna double down on this. The third question is where can we take new ground? What are we doing now that we weren't doing before investing? You mentioned this before we started recording. Where what are things we're doing now that is showing us how this could be new ground? And then the fourth, somewhat similar to the first question, but is what is essential? What is essential in this moment? And I think as this plays out financially for organizations, it can be a gift in terms of getting lean on your purpose, because when stock markets high and everything's great, sometimes a natural reaction is let's hire, let's add, let's add, let's add. I think this is a leading process to go what is essential. And then another bonus question is, what does this make possible? What does this make possible? So I'll give you a clue real quick of something that we're experiencing and you mentioned alluded to this again before we got started. Rusty. One of the things that we're seeing is that people love the live chat stream. What we're doing our services. So I don't think it's enough anymore just to put your services online and get, you know what, we're we're a digital church now. We've got our services online. I mean, that's great. I mean, I started Northpoint a lot, so I'm all for that. OK, that's not a complete online digital strategy. Cutting your church service online, I think even maybe creating a different Sunday experience for the online gathering versus just showing your service. Again, don't quote me on this, although you are because this is recorded. But I know is that the line in-person service should be completely different than the chat stream digital service. And how much we'll will get churches is to watch the viewership rate in terms of how long someone stays on your your online service, because the assumption is they're staying there the whole time. And that's a gigantic assumption. Typically, it's about a quarter of what you think about a log service. Somebody stays in for about 15 minutes. He walks away and leaves. That's that's pretty much on line church. So I think what we're experiencing now is we've got to have a completely different approach to engage people where they are. I'll give a quick example. I did this Sunday between so our services are 9:15 eleven scenic one. We have two locations. So we just follow that. You know, not fifteen online service, 11:15 online service.

And in between, I'll do a live chat on Facebook and the live chat on Facebook. Far outpaced the engagement in the length of viewership that our online church service. And so that was that was an aha. Okay. We got to pay attention to that, because what seems to be resonating is this interactivity that people are created for. Now, when we're all back together, will that happen? I don't know, but I do think this is an opportunity to experiment and explore and ask what's possible.

Rusty Rueff: I totally agree. I was just talking the other day with an entrepreneur who has had this piece of technology that is used in E-Sports for a long time where we can all watch the E-Sports live, but we can break into our own little groups and actually talk. But he equates it to how we go to a baseball game. When we go to a baseball game, we sit in a baseball game and we pay attention. But we also we have community, we have we have socializing that goes on in this technology allows at the end of something for everyone to clap out loud and everyone to hear it, including the people who are either doing the performance or playing the game or doing whatever. And I sit there and I look at that and I go, well, that's the kind of technology that at some form and time has to find its way to the church. And maybe at a moment, just as this.

Jeff Henderson: And I love that. The reality in any crisis in history, there are organizations that come out of it thriving and their organizations that don't make it. And I think the flexibility that this is forcing us to have is important. But you've got to give yourself permission to try a few things in this season, knowing that they may not work or they may work for the season. But I have a hunch that a digital strategy that is providing connectivity with the person that's hosting, that's the future may go to Instagram right now.

And what we'll see up top is Instagram live Instagram live. And what that's so Justin Bieber was doing this last night. And, you know, millions of followers, but it was an opportunity for somebody to just he wasn't able to respond to everybody. But that wasn't the point. Occasionally he would go home. Let me say hi to Henry. Henry, how are you doing today? You just made that. He's making his day, right, when Justin Bieber sees your name out loud.

Henry Kaestner: He's not. No, no. Great guy. Great guy. I don't know that I'm a belieber. But yes, just next time you do something like that. Put in Rusty's name, please. All right.

Jeff Henderson: I will do that. But he saw, for example, you saw Steph Curry with the Golden State.

Henry Kaestner: That works. You heard him call out to me. Yes, he did. Yes, he did.

I should've done basketball. So, Steph Curry, I don't know if you saw this or not, he and his wife Aisha did a live worship thing so they would pull different worship leaders in. Just blew up. But he's able to interact with people and it's live. I think there's something again. In fact, my son the other day said, I noticed that you go to his room now. It's like you got a string of people that are Instagram live? That's a hint. That's a hint of the future, I think.

Henry Kaestner: You know, Steph Curry, by the way, not not Steph Curry. I get it. I'm a Carolina basketball fan. Seth Curry's at Duke basketball player. Also a great guy, great player. But being in the Bay Areia, it's Steph Curry that that would really get me going.

Jeff Henderson: Please don't tell me I messed that up.

Henry Kaestner: So I won't. I won't, I won't, I won't. This has been great. And one of the things we do with every one of the guests we bring on board is we ask them something about what God is speaking to them through their word, through his words, rather, what is God speaking to you through his word right now? And it could be. But right now, I mean, it could be this morning in your devotionals. It could've been yesterday. Could be this week. But what's the sense of what God is speaking to you individually right now?

Jeff Henderson: So we just came off twenty four hours of continuous prayer for our church. We asked everybody to sign up for just 30 minutes, for twenty four hours starting yesterday at 9 a.m.. And so for me, part of the way I used my 30 minutes was just reading through the Book of Psalms. And one of the things that really stood out to me is God is my shield.

And you know, we want to practice self-distancing and self-isolation and all that. We're all for that. But I still got to leave, and you know, move forward, even though I have my own fears. And you're like, can I go outside for a walk? You know, how do I do this? I can't turn to anybody. Hey, when you went through a global pandemic, know, 20 years ago, what did you do? There's no books on this necessarily. So for me, I felt like God said, hey, I'm your shield. Keep taking one day at a time.

And then the other thing that I feel like God has been asking me to do is to pray more for his glory than my relief. Because early on I was praying, God, get us out of this. God I know you can do a miracle. I know you can do it. You could be Thanos of The Avengers and you could snap your finger and this whole thing goes away. Right. Even though Thanos was an evil character. Just go with me. So. But what if there's a deeper play here. So I've had to really start shifting. Still pray God, I want this thing to go away. I believe you can do that. But if that's not what you want to happen, I want your glory to manifest in my leadership and in my family. Then the other thing, too, is I can get drawn into work and somewhat forget my family. So I have to balance that right now. Right. I got to balance because you got the pressures and especially a nonprofit. You know. What's giving like? And all the normal pressures in any organization leader has. But in this day, my family needs me just as much as the organization does. And so don't lose don't lose that. I think being a shield. God as my shield. Praying for God's glory more than I pray for my relief. And ultimately, there's gonna be another lead pastor at Gwinnett Church. There will never be, you know, Wendy's first husband and father to Jessie and Cole. So focused on those.

Henry Kaestner: Great place. And Jeff, I'm very grateful for you. Rusty and William and I and Justin are just grateful for the view that you've given for the church and the opportunity for the church about being able to connect the what we're for and what we're known for completely applicable as we talked about with the Faith Driven Entrepreneur. Very timely. Grateful for you and your ministry. Thank you.

Jeff Henderson: Thank you. Thanks for having me. What you're doing is very important. You're speaking to a group of people that I'm fondly and deeply have a huge respect for, so thanks for how you're serving them.