Dave’s journey started in Mexico where he found a little leather shop that could make a bag just the way he wanted. That bag turned into a dozen bags that Dave peddled from the back of his car which has now become the foundation for a multi-million dollar business. Today, Dave shares how his call to ministry combined with a call to business and why he truly believes that their bags are so good that if you own one, your children and your children’s children will fight over it when you’re dead...

Episode Transcript

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Dave Munson: You know, if you'd ask Paul the Apostle Paul, what's your personal life like, you know, your your friendship life, your entertainment life, your what's your work life, your recreation life. You know r tell me about your spiritual life too and your ministry life here, too. He would have said: "What? It's all the same. And when do you start compartmentalizing? You know, everything is spiritual. Everything is ministry. And when I heard that it really made sense to me that this is my ministry.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. If you're an entrepreneur driven by your faith or want to be driven by your faith, then you're in the right place. The best way to stay connected is to sign up for our monthly newsletter at Faith Driven Entrepreneur dot org. This podcast doesn't exist without you, our community. One of the things that the community has asked us for is helping connecting them with like-minded Faith Driven Investor. We're in the process of launching Marketplace, a new platform to present your venture and connect with like minded investors that are serious about honoring God as you are. Everything from philanthropic to market rate deals from here in the U.S. to emerging markets. Check it out at Faith Driven Investor Talk Sports Slash Marketplace While you're there, please send us any thoughts you have about how this podcast might better serve you or any questions you might have about being a Faith Driven Entrepreneur BAM.

Rusty Rueff: Welcome back, everyone, to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast, I'm Rusty. Today's episode, I think you're going to find fascinating. I know I did. Dave Munson is our guest. And Dave's journey started in Mexico with some wild stories, but he found a little leather shop that can make a bag just the way he wanted. That bag turned into a dozen bags. The Dave pedal from the back of his car. All of that's now become the foundation for a multimillion dollar business. Today, Dave is going to share how his call to ministry, combined with a call to business and why he truly believes that the bags that his company makes are so good that if you own one, your children and your children's children will fight over it when your debt. If that doesn't intrigue you, nothing will. Let's listen to Dave Storey.

William Norvell: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur. My name is William. It's good to be with you all and I'm here with Rusty today. Rusty How are you doing?

Rusty Rueff: Good, William, how are you, man? You know what? We've got to tell where our co-host is or what Henry is doing right now.

William Norvell: I think we have to. So, you know, Henry is with us. He may jump in, but today he's getting his second dose of his COVID shot, and so he's going to be a healthy traveling man here in the near future.

Rusty Rueff: Fully vaxxed up soon. Can't wait.

William Norvell: So, yeah, so we're we're missing him, but he's here in spirit and he may jump in here in a little bit if the line moves along. So we are praying for that to happen. But in the meantime, we've got an incredible guest and we're really excited to have Dave Munson here with us from Saddleback Leather. Dave, how are you today?

Dave Munson: I'm doing pretty well, doing pretty well. Thanks for having me on.

William Norvell: It's great to have you and I will say you run a leather company, so I'm not shocked by this. But non viewing audience, Dave is sitting in the most regal setting that maybe we've had on the podcast. Huge high back leather chair, leather books in the background map of the world. I mean, you just look amazing.

Dave Munson: Well, thank you. I think all men are drawn to leather. Emerson says that at his conferences, when he speaks on love and respect, tells the women, Hey, if you're going to get a man some sort of gift, just let it be made of leather. So they say it smells nice in here in my office, I can't smell leather and I got I got smell blindness. But yeah, it's a cozy office.

William Norvell: That's amazing. Well, we're grateful to have you, and that's a great transition. We'd love to hear a little bit and tell, Tell our guest who you are. How? From what I know, you went from being a youth pastor to an entrepreneur once upon a time and tell our audience a little bit about who is who is Dave and where is God brought you?

Dave Munson: Yeah. So I own a company called Saddleback Leather, and our slogan is the fight over when you're dead. And so in the marketing world, you want to own something. So we own the longest lasting, most durable leather bags in the world. And quality is, you know, is subjective. You know, all of this is made of unborn calf skin and has diamonds on it. And so that's higher quality. And, you know, everyone has something. But that's more specifically what we do know. Zippers are breakable parts and everything. We makes real, super tough and ages nicely, and it's just cool. So I'm from Portland, Oregon, and not now we're in Fort Worth, Texas. Now I went to Multnomah Bible College. I figured, Hey, if God wants you to cook for him, then I'm going to Culinary Institute, right? And so I'm going learn how to use tarragon powder and and all of the other spices and techniques. And so I became a youth pastor after my bachelors there. And then, yeah, it was youth pastor until ninety nine, and then I went down to Mexico to teach English. I was twenty eight and I didn't know what I wanted to do in life. I was burned out. Everyone was mad at me at church for. They said I was immature anyway, so I went on Teach English for a year in Mexico. And while I was there, I had a leather bag made to carry my books and I was thinking, Huh, I wonder what Indiana Jones would carry? So, so I made a bag that I thought that he would approve of. And after a year of teaching, English had since thrown away. It's no way international. Super great ministry. I got back up to Oregon and everyone's tapped me on the shoulder trying to figure out how they could get one of my bags. At four or five times a day, people tapped me on the shoulder, Hey, where'd you get that bag? Where can I buy one of those bags? So, yeah, that's the brief story I moved to. Juarez ended up back in Juarez, Mexico, and the whole process had a federally sent to kill me for something. I slept on the floor with my dog for three years at a black lab named blue and no hot water, no air conditioning for three years in Juarez. And then I met my wife on MySpace in 2006.

William Norvell: And wait, I can't. I can't. I can't let that go. You're definitely our first guest that dropped. I met my wife on MySpace. Sorry, I can't. I can't just move

Rusty Rueff: past that quickly. Do we need to refresh people what MySpace was?

William Norvell: So there was this social network where people met each other. Justin Timberlake owns it. I think now it's it's it's a weird thing. That's right. OK, so you were sleeping on the floor hanging out on MySpace?

Dave Munson: Yeah, I was keeping in contact with my old youth, the youth from a youth group and of course, looking for girls. I was single, you know? And you know, I wanted to be in ministry. So I started selling these bags so that I could do ministry. And I found out that God had gifts me and designed things. And so I, I was making more bags and selling them and working with young life. So I was on staff play guitar at speak at young life in El Paso, and we were trying to get young life going in Mexico. And so I was being mentored by a guy named Joe Jabbar in El Paso. And then I got so busy selling leather bags on eBay that I couldn't I couldn't keep up with young life, had to choose one or the other. And about that time when I had to choose, I met Suzette most amazing wife I ever could imagine getting met her on MySpace. She lived in San Antonio, so I started driving back and forth there. Got a couple of speeding tickets to get down there eight hours each way. And yeah, we got married. So in 2006, nine months and 15 minutes later had a little baby and then had another one and started the factory in 2008 because no one cares about your stuff as much as you do. And yeah, it's been really a cool ride since then.

Rusty Rueff: That's very cool. Somewhere in there is a story about a bullfight. Tell us about the bullfight.

Dave Munson: Yeah, that was awesome. That was that was I was pumping my fist for like three days after, like just randomly. Yes. Yes. That was so cool. So I went to it was a college fundraiser event and there's a bull ring. I don't know a thousand people there and people were on burros doing little hockey with brooms and stuff, and then they sent a little bull out there, you know, a little maybe three month old bull. And it was everyone's laughing and people were all. They had the rebel fighters out there like four or five of them. And then they brought a bigger bowl out and everyone goes, Ooh! And he came running out. He was like a teenage bull, no horns where everyone's laughing and stuff. It was cool. And then they brought out the big old bull. Everyone's like, Oh my gosh. He had one straight horn and one rounded curved horn. So one of the guys down doing the bullfighting, he's like, Dude, no way I'm out. And they said, Hey, we need to volunteer. So that was the only gringo there. So we're like, man winner will ever get this chance again. So I raised my hand. They picked me, jumped over the wall, and man was it. It was such a rush. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So that was the bullfight story.

Rusty Rueff: I went to a bullfight one time in Madrid, and I'm glad I did it. I don't know that I would ever go again. You know, and in most places in the world, you can't do it anymore. But the electricity in the crowd is just something that you know, you don't see at any other kind of event. It's really, really something. And in how did that relate to making the leather bags?

Dave Munson: Yeah. So that was my first experience with leather up close. So still on the bull. And so while I was there teaching English, I went to the bullfight and then I've had my leather bag made after that while I was still there and I found a guy making bags, I couldn't find a bag like I liked, so I said, Hey, could you make a bag if? I design it if I sketch it out like the one I have in my head. Then would you make it for me? And so we started going through it. I said, Listen, I don't want any breakable parts on it because, you know, I want like, you know, my grandchildren and stuff to, you know, when I die, they're going to be like, I want the bag. No, I want grandpa's back. So that was kind of the idea I was going after was that they would fight over it. And so that's where the slogan came. They'll fight over it when you're dead. Yeah. So I had that bag made and it just kept improving it.

William Norvell: And you know, it's such a great product story to write. I mean, we can touch and feel it and see it. And a lot of our entrepreneurs have built things like that. I think a lot of entrepreneurs have probably built things, you know, a little bit as a side hustle to write. They have a passion for something. They start it and then it starts taking off right as yours did and love for you to tell our audience, where did you know and where did it happen from? Where it went from? Kind of you alone selling bags on eBay and hanging out on MySpace to, you know, let's build a business employees, manufacturing vendors, customers, let's, you know, we're ready to make this happen.

Dave Munson: Well, actually, I didn't plan to start a business. And actually, there's a big and I've talked to pastors about this and people who done Bible School Seminary, that sort of thing. And I felt guilty about starting a business because I felt like I was supposed to be doing ministry and that I was kind of a second class Christian because I was doing business and I wasn't really like, you know, out sharing the gospel of people. I wasn't leading the Bible study around the campfire with 30 kids, so I felt guilty about it. I didn't really want to start a business, but it just kept getting so busy that I couldn't help it. And then when I had the baby on the way, I was thinking, This is temporary, I'm going to get back into ministry. But I just they just kept knocking on the door of my computer screen, asking for more and more and more backs. And that was around 2006, later 2006, after we got engaged. I guess that's what it was. I started realizing that maybe God who has this as my ministry and then my pastor church said, You know, if you'd asked Paul the Apostle Paul, what's your personal life like? You know, your your friendship, life, your entertainment life, your what's your work life, your recreation life. You know your tell me about your spiritual life, too, and your ministry life here to said what it's all the same. Like when do you start compartmentalizing? You know, everything is spiritual. Everything is ministry. And when I heard that it really made sense to me that this is my ministry, so I have another ministry. Some people have banking ministries, some people have insurance ministries, and we're going to be judged on that. And what did we do with our time when God put us in that area? And not just how did we change the whole world, but with our neighbors, with our coworkers? What's your spiritual gift? Are you using and at work? I have the gift of, I believe, evangelism, and I'm training my employees here how to share the gospel because most people don't do that. It's only two percent of people have ever that. What a statistic I heard from my evangelism professor. Only two percent of believers have ever shared how you can put your faith in Christ for the payment of all of your sins. They talk all about Jesus and how in God, how much God loves you, and you can have peace in your life and you can, you know, all the really good things and how you can go to heaven and have all your sins forgiven and you can start a new life and it's all fresh to be happy. But they they don't say how you can have that. So they do three out of four steps in sharing the gospel. And so our job is to reconcile God to man, that's what our ministry we've been given the Ministry of Reconciliation. What are you doing in your work on your podcast, in your everyday business to help reconcile God, to man? And so use your gifts? The gifts of evangelism is for training people, how to share the gospel or leading your employees. You are believers leading them to the Lord churches for believers when they get saved at work, when they get saved in the neighborhood and you say, come to church with us and you'll get around other believers who think the same. So when I realize, Hey, I'm in a leather ministry now, it was super freeing. Oh my gosh, super freeing. And it's not how much money we can give away. God doesn't need our money. God uses the unrighteous their job. The Bible says it's the store of wealth to give away to those who are generous to the poor. That's what the unrighteous do. So when Bill Gates or the Clintons or whoever gives away a billion dollars, you get some lady who falls on her knees that she got an HIV vaccine or an HIV treatment and she's like, God, you're so great. Thank you so much. I'm going to go to church now or they get a sponsorship or they get whatever thing people fall on their knees and they're praising God because they've been praying to God. And so he uses the unrighteousness money. To build the kingdom and also believers to ensure and there are believers do great things, also look at the Chick-Fil-A folks in the Hobby Lobby, folks and a lot of great companies that no one ever knows about, and they're furthering the gospel too with their money. But generally, I think he uses the unrighteousness money for ministry. But what are we doing right now where we are seated in our business to further the kingdom? And I don't think that got a lot of times doesn't do much. He's like, You're not being very faithful with where you are. So I'm not going to if you think you're waiting for us to dump a pot of gold on you so that finally you can use the ministry. You got it wrong. That's what I had wrong.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, that's good, Dave. Hey, must be a very fascinating culture that you've created with your company, and we've heard you talk in other places about, you know, Saddleback being a people business disguised as a leather goods business. Just give us a glimpse of what the culture looks like and how you've built that culture inside of the company.

Dave Munson: Well, a lot of it happens at the factory. Well, of course we do programs like we don't have it going right now, but the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University, we offer that at different times. We haven't done it lately, but so that the employees are healthier at home. Most divorces happen because of finance. We have love and respect, which is a huge it changed our marriage like totally changed our marriage. When my wife finally read, it was just getting no.

William Norvell: MySpace finally pushed it to her.

Dave Munson: Yeah, right? So offering that we want to help them in real, tangible ways, not just like an Athletic Club membership or, you know, those temporary things in Mexico. At the factory, we have counseling. We have marriage classes, parenting classes for the employees. We have a daycare that we started. We had to drop it during COVID, but it got picked back up. We have a school, we're doing a homeschool curriculum at our own private school, so we have a building that we bought next to the daycare, that we're getting that going in. We have. Yeah. Ways that changed their lives permanently so that they ask, why do you love us so much and then we can tell them? It really opens the door to the gospel. It's a nice bridge to the gospel.

Rusty Rueff: Oh, what a great question. To have an employee ask a company owner or a company leader, why do you love us so much? I mean, you know, there's something we could all aspire to, that's for sure. A lot of our listeners, you know, have businesses part of their businesses will be outside of the country that they reside in, whether it be offshore customer service or development team someplace else. And you've got a factory in Mexico. Can you kind of give us some broad knowledge and learning for our listeners about doing business internationally like that? Any good lessons you've picked up over the years that you'd like to impart?

Dave Munson: Oh yeah. Don't trust anybody. Just kidding. OK. If someone says, well, so in that I was stolen from a few times in really big ways, one by an American guy and one by a Dutch guy. And those were both in having to do with the factory. And when they insist that you trust them, just be real careful with that. Also, it takes a little while to understand why they do certain things, like in knowing the culture, and it's really unloving for someone to say, Hey, I found an error in the line of leather that they're making a briefcase or something, and they see, Oh, the guy before me made a mistake. But it's unloving for me to say something about it because they might get in trouble. And so I don't want to say anything because that's unloving to do. And so to understand the culture is really important so that you can say, Hey, knowing that that's unloving, you can come up with other ways that make it not unloving to get quality every single time to get things made. If they know that you love them and care for them, then they will want to please you. They're not going to go look around for other jobs. Whoever has meat for lunch at that factory over there, there's really not a lot of loyalty in the area where we are. So you get a revolving door, you just train, people train, you're constantly training people and then somebody offers them 10 pesos more a week and they're out. And then a year and a half later, they come back and I have my job back. So really investing in your people? And that would be for us. We're not there all the time. We go down once a month for four days or so. Sometimes we'll be there with the whole family for longer. But you have to have people there that love people. And so we found a really solid team of people who love people. That's why we have really good customer service is we hire people who love people. We use the Core Values Index Test CVI and it's fantastic. And there's a certain profile of people, people and we look for that and then we go find people interview people who fit that profile. And instead of looking at resumes, we look at and then we talk to them, you ask them questions surrounding that, but you have to have people who represent your heart in charge and in the leadership you have to put just that's it. You have to have people who are of the same mind and have the same mission as you do and the ultimate leadership. You can have less in production and, you know, supervisors and stuff, but you have to have the same supernatural love for people.

William Norvell: Amen, Amen and Dave on a switch to something a little bit. Your catch phrase for the bags is they'll fight over when you're dead. And if people haven't seen it, we're going to, of course, link to the faith and co video that we have an amazing partnership with them. Seattle Pacific just puts out amazing, amazing content and amazing videos of amazing entrepreneurs like Dave and so many others. So please check those out. We'll link those in the show notes. But also, Dave, tell us a little bit about the opening of that video where we find you designing your own casket.

Dave Munson: Yeah, so so I went to a couple of funerals of friends of mine who were younger. You know, one guy was like a 40 to one guy was 53 and one was a mentor of mine and me and great guys hearts are gold ministry minded man. And one guy had a funeral of like a thousand people, and I went to his funeral and I looked at his casket. What the heck? That's not very impressive. And he was nice, but it wasn't like cool. And so then

Rusty Rueff: how did he respond when you told him that?

Dave Munson: Yeah, I'll tell him later. And then the next guy was a missionary in Brazil, and he had come back and he had brain cancer and he died in his casket was, you know, real typical. And I thought, Man, I'd always been really impressed with those Clint Eastwood. He should sum up. They lean the coffin, the tow pincher, the six sided one, you know, I thought, Oh, that's cool, I want to have one of those. And then I thought, what would it look like wrapped in leather? And then here's my thought. We do a lot of videos. I thought, I'm going to do a video of my funeral. Like, ahead of time and then we're going to get it practiced and get it ready. We're going to have like cool guitar music gets me the coolest funeral ever. I want the coolest funeral ever. And so with our customers, hopefully it doesn't happen anytime soon, maybe 20 years from now, or 30 or 40 years from now. And I thought, Hey, we're going to let everyone know, Hey, livestreaming Dave's funeral, the cool funeral you've ever seen. And we're going to send out to every single customer a leather gospel tract, the gospel track stapled into leather and say, If you don't know, this is a day was always about. And so you want to tune in to this funeral and watch the coolest funeral in the world and then when they get it, have just a great gospel presentation at the funeral. And hopefully by then we would have a lot of people tuned in to watch online the coolest funeral in the world. And if they saw my casket in or people are sneaking pictures of it because it's just so cool. So that was my idea, and my last going of Magnus Open would be the gospel presentation to hopefully by then millions of people, all at one time. Wouldn't that be cool? But you have to have a cool coffin for it. So yeah, that was the idea behind that.

Rusty Rueff: And where does one store the coffin that they've made for themself between now and then?

Dave Munson: Yeah, you know, it was kind of weird having it around the office. Yeah, because my kids would come in and go, Oh, what if dad dies today? You know what if dad dies, driving to work tomorrow? What if dad dies the next day? I mean, it was really it kind of weird. And then we did a photo shoot with the family, with the coffin. It was. I shouldn't have done it. It was like. But we got on national TV with it. So that worked out. And then around the VFW, we sold a bunch of products because of it. We did a thing on Halloween for the local CBS station. But yeah, I was sitting around different places. It was kind of awkward with the family. But the Memento Mori is the Latin. They said that was general who would come back in Rome from war and they would be going around in their chariots after with all the victory over take it all in, they had someone behind him as a memento mori like you two shall die. You soon shall be dead. Death is coming. You'll be dead to remind them that be thinking about your mortality, to keep you grounded and to be thinking about how you get home to my family. Don't work too much. It was the work. Death Balance is what we came up with for that video, and a lot of people mistake. They bypass their number one ministry, which is their family, and they because they have what they think is a more important ministry with their business or their church. And it's not and they're out of line and their kids and everyone wonders if they're really loved. So it's a lot of big mistake that people make.

William Norvell: Well, that's that's morbidly beautiful. If I can come up with a phrase work death balance, I've never heard that before. It's it is beautiful. You know, I remember Jonathan Edwards had a quote somewhere along the way that said some version of, you know, think of your death and think of it often to remind yourself of what life is. Right? And I hear that in your story, too. And on that, I'm interested. So obviously, you took great care and design for your casket, and we talked earlier a little bit about. I think we we touched on the unbreakable parts and things like that, but I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk a little bit more about your products and the quality of your materials and how you think about that. You know, with relationship to God is sort of how he's shaped you and how you feel like he's created things in the world and how that influences how you think about creating products at Saddleback.

Dave Munson: Yeah, God, he doesn't cut corners to save a little bit of money or energy. He just makes like the ultimate in the best. It's the best dandelion that could ever have been designed. It is the best rock. It is the best. And he does those things. He just designs the very best. And so it doesn't take much more to try to have the best one in the whole world. The longest lasting or whatever, it doesn't take much more effort than that. You just have to plan it. And so I just plan to have the longest lasting, most durable leather bag in the world. And as it went along, I learned some more things and learned some more things reinforce certain things as things broke. But that's in my design philosophy is really try really hard to have it be the best one in the whole world and beautiful. So therefore, we use full grain leather so people go, Oh, top grain, genuine bonded, full grain. What's the difference? It's like a roof that was like a rooftop and you have the plywood underneath the decking, then like tar paper and then you have the shingles on top and the shingles are like the full, like the grain of the leather. And it's really tough, gnarled, tight, dense fibers that's called the grain and that's on along the top layer. So a lot of people shave that part off to get rid of scars, and they shave most of it off. And that's like the water resistant stuff. It's like shaving most of your shingles off your roof. So then you get under that is the top grain layer, and that's when you have a little bit of grain left still strong. And then sometimes they'll split the leather in half and sell the top, the fold, the whole, the grain to me. And then you have a genuine leather or suede or split leather. That's the bottom half. And it's still OK. But it it absorbs moisture and it's just it's a lot cheaper. So we only use full grain and then we line it with pigskin, which is stronger than the cow skin instead of a fabric. And we use only this great German thread and our hardware is like super hard to wear the whole like a £750 engine up with just one of the hooks. I mean, it's amazing. It's kind of overkill, but people seem to appreciate overkill when it comes to their bags and then that full grain really ages nicely. So it has this beautiful patina to it because it has all the pores still on the top. So it takes in oils and dirt, and it ages nicely at the top grain. Doesn't genuine, doesn't age. Nicely. So anyway, we end up with this, I say your bag will be the most, ugliest it'll ever be the first day you own it. And then, you know you save money by buying quality. So I feel like God, if he were designing a bag, then he would design excessively high quality, I mean, excessively high quality. It's not for everyone that they're expensive bags, expensive wallets, expensive belts, but they're the least expensive bags and that you'll ever buy because they last for long. So it's kind of like a buy nicer buy twice. I think it's a lesson for anyone who is going to be doing a lawn care service or going to be doing an insurance service or call center or billing. Whatever anything you're doing in the business really try to be the very best. And I believe that God is honored when we do that. We're designed to work and when we work, and we're the very best in our category, at least try to be. It's very honoring to God. And it's a great testimony for unbelievers to look at.

Rusty Rueff: Amen Amen. That's that's well, well, well said and sold. I'm on my way to getting a Saddleback Bag's just way cool. William is going to bring us to a close in a second, but I want to shift, if I might, just for a second. You know, you went from being a pastor and going to become an entrepreneur. So you went from the ministry to the marketplace. We also have listeners who many times are thinking about exploring going the opposite direction, coming from the marketplace into the ministry and beginning to pursue a life as a pastor. How would you use your story to encourage them where they are now? And maybe, you know, pass along a little bit of wisdom? Having seen both sides now? Yeah.

Dave Munson: You know, my dad always told the story of a missionary who came into their church when he was going to a church when he was young, and he sat in with the missionary who was trying to raise support. He wanted to go on mission field, and the pastor asked him, Well, how many people have you led to the Lord this week? You know, it's been a really busy week. This week I've been traveling and stuff. OK, well, how about this month? How many people have you left the Lord this month? Oh, you know, I'm I just, you know, my my kid was sick and I knew, OK, how many of you lied to the Lord this year? And he said, Nobody. And he said, well, then what would make me think that you're going to do that when you get overseas, if you're not doing it right now? And I would say if you're not doing ministry right now, then maybe you need to look at that because it would make me think that you don't have a heart. For ministry. But you love God. And that's not always true, but sometimes you just haven't, you know, let people the Lord, but maybe, you know, there's something else going. But personally, I would ask that person to go do ministry right now where you are in your workplace. How many people have a healthier marriage because of you and your workplace? How many people are better parents and have kids who feel more loved and where you are exactly right now? Not in the masses, but where are you? What are you doing right now? But it's probably not going to happen. If you want to be a pastor or preacher, stuff like that, if you're not doing it in your free time, in your just everyday life. So I would say you can have more impact in business than pastors. I know people in business who do way more ministry than the pastors of their churches. Just because you hear a sermon, you preach a good sermon and people feel tingly. But if you're going to want to go into ministry to equip people to do ministry, if you want, I want them to go out and do ministry. That is important. But if you want them just to feel better and, you know, grow some and that's good. But if you're not equipping them to go to ministry, then don't go into ministry and you need be doing it where you are. Absolutely. So get going first, where you are. And I think a lot of people, if they did that, they wouldn't go into vocational ministry. But one of the things that I I was reading through here was like two years ago. I read through every prayer that Paul preached. And except for one prayer and they're going through torture, they lost everything they had, they were on the run in these new churches, they had to leave Rome and all this, all this terrible stuff. And he said, I pray that you would grow in the knowledge of God. And in the knowledge of his will, that's my prayer for you, that you grow in the knowledge of God, and he kept on praying that he didn't pray that you'll be happy and pray that you'll have peace, that your job will be successful, that your work will, you'll be profitable. He prayed that you'll grow in the knowledge of God. So therefore, I think Bible school or seminary online courses at Dallas Theological or wherever you would go would be fantastic. In fact, Dallas Theological just open up a new online course free on evangelism. I just signed up for it. But I would say grow in the knowledge of God and then grow. And how do you equip other people for the work of the ministry and doesn't have to be being paid by church?

William Norvell: Amen not to get worried. It made me think of, you know, side hustles, of course, have been growing during COVID and maybe just in the culture, right? And I was just thinking, as you were talking, I was like, Yeah, if somebody is kind of coming to you with that, can I encourage them? Hey, want to pick up a side hustle of ministry? Right? And yeah, and see how that goes, right? But like, make it an active effort, right? And see how that goes first. And maybe that's exactly what you said, ministering to people at work. Maybe it's taken a evangelism class. Maybe it's working with a nonprofit doing ministry, right? But in a formal kind of side hustle way is kind of what I was thinking, and I was like, That's such good advice, right? Like, you wouldn't tell someone to just start a company and just leave their job tomorrow. You'd say, why don't you try it out first, right? Like, see if you can make a go at it before you kind of upend your entire life, right? And I don't think we say the same. When someone says I want to go into ministry, we go, Well, of course, that's a fantastic idea. Right? Like lay like, of course, give you, give yourself to God, give it all. But like, that's it's nuanced. And I think you did a great job of walking through that nuance for our listeners. And as we do come to a close, unfortunately, what we do love to ask. I'm excited. It sounds like you haven't started the evangelism class, so maybe we'll have to bring you back on. But what we love to ask is, where is God's word coming alive to you today? And that could be something that you know, you've meditated on for years. And God put it in your mind today. It could be something you read this morning, but just love to, you know, jump in with you and let our listeners here where where God's word is with you today.

Dave Munson: OK, so you know, business isn't easy, and God has given us a lot through business and I made a lot of mistakes and disappointed a lot of people. And man, it's been a real, stressful lot of the time. It's I feel like God's hand is coming off of my forehead right now, like he's been resisting. And so here it is. Philippians two, three and four. Don't be selfish self if I want to think about myself. Don't try to impress others. Be humble thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don't look out only for your own interests. But take an interest in others, too. And so this came about. That's been a huge. This is the other thing that changed my marriage is love and respect. And then this and it changed my business. It changed everything. And I felt like God was resisting me. And then one day one of my employees called me into my office and said, Hey, Dave, you got to tell you this. You're really a prideful man. And I go, Oh, wow. All right. I mean, man, that's bigger. You, man. I appreciate that. Like in what way? How can I improve? I don't want to be prideful. You know I can. I'm thinking, I don't go bragging about things. I'm not cocky. I ask for advice. I take people's opinions and I work with them all. I thought, Hey, I'm. Well, not flashy. You know, I live in a tent. I mean, come on, how prideful safari tent. And I thought, OK, whatever, dude's jealous, that's all. He's just jealous. You know? And so I told my wife, she goes, Oh, that's ridiculous. You're a humble man. And then that week I was reading listening to that book, The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lindsey on in a fantastic book. Look for people who are humble, hungry and smart to have on the team to hire smart with people hungry, to do a good job and humble, not prideful. And he said, watch out for the prideful ones because those are usually the really helpful, nice, kind people at work. But really, they're the most prideful people. You got there and I thought, Wait a sec, maybe I don't understand what pride really is. So I dug in and I Googled Signs of pride list. And I read like Psychology Today, Wikipedia, Jonathan Edwards, Rick Warren. I mean, I read them all. Everyone has written on pride and what is pride, and it turns out I put some lists together. They can merge them in the night. I was like, Oh crap, like, I am prideful or I didn't know that's what pride looked like. And it says God resists the proud, but it gives grace or gifts that we don't even deserve. He gives those to the humble people and in work and in marriage and family and health and everything. So I go back to my wife and I said, Hey, honey, I think I am the problem. I'm prideful. Look at my list, so I read it to her. She goes, Ha ha ha ha, you are prideful. Ha ha, that's so funny. I go, Oh honey, come on, I'm going to be invulnerable here, you know, like, come on. So I said it would you pray for me? Because that's the only solution is that God would change me from being when I am prideful that he would help me to recognize that, and then I would stop and repent. She goes, Sure, I'll pray for you. And I said, Oh, and there were a couple of other things on the list which were her issues, her pride issues. And she was like shocked. She goes, I didn't know that's what Pride looked like. And that's we were very prideful people. I was very spiritually prideful. And so I would say and do things so that people to affirm something about me, it's just me. They had recognized that I was spiritual and I would kind of rehearse some prayer sometimes, or I'd make my Bible look really old and worn. I would talk about my sacrifice in a humble way and spiritual eyes a lot of stuff. And so people would think, Man, dude, spiritual man, I could never be that spiritual. And I was embarrassed about having nice things and nice home because, you know you want to suffer for God, right? And we all these signs of spiritual pride in the soil, anyway, they're like twenty to twenty four different categories of pride. And I was really humble in a lot of them, and it's just been true. But I was really prideful in some and just kind of medium in others. So I put this whole list together. The signs of Pride list, it's at Saddleback leather dot com forward slash pride. And it's just my story, and this is pretty comprehensive list of pride in all the different places and ways it looks, and it's not my list, it's just I compiled everyone else's lists and put them together and knowing that it's when you try for people to think highly of you when you go out of your way so that people will go, Wow, dude, is really impressive. So we get praised instead of God getting praise. So let me read it one more time. Don't be selfish, selfish. I want myself to feel good or look good. Don't be selfish. Don't try to impress others. But instead, instead of that, which is pride. Be humble thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don't look out only for your own interests. But take an interest in others, also a sign of pride, for example, is people who don't ask questions about other people. They're not interested. They walk in and start talking. When your spouse goes, Hey, I don't like that, you did this. You really hurt my feelings and you go, Oh yeah, well, if there were ever food around here cooked like when I got home from work, maybe I wouldn't be like that. And that gets defensive and used to attack back when. Instead of saying a humble person would say, Honey, I am really sorry that I said that, and they don't say anything about the frying pan in the back of the head. They say, Oh honey, I'm really sorry that I made you feel that way. I never should have done that. And will you please forgive me? That's what a humble person says. A prideful person throws it back in their face and said, Well, the only reason I did it is because you don't know if you've ever had that. Well, that's pride. And so it's God resisting. He doesn't body slam the prideful. He just puts his palm in your forehead and he resists. You need to walk through life and it's uncomfortable, or he resists you and your marriage, or he was just you. And so if you want to start your business and get it rolling, if you want to get in ministry, if you want to do whatever it is, you need to work on the pride part of you first, because God blesses you with ideas and opportunities. He blesses you with great people around you. All these gifts of grace, this grace, he just pours out of these free gifts that you don't deserve or earn. He gives you all of a sudden, Oprah Winfrey is talking about your business. You go, Where does that come from? And because that's grace, he gives grace to humble people, but he resists prideful people. And if you're spiritually prideful or you're real proud about how much you know or in these other categories, controlling legalistic, those are signs of pride. Anyway, there was a big, huge, gigantic deal for me, and it changed my business that changed my marriage, my parenting, my relationships. It changed everything, and I still struggle with pride. Everyone always does. But I recognize it more now. My wife and I both, and it's been really helpful for my business.

Rusty Rueff: Thanks so much for joining us on today's show. We hope you enjoyed it. We are very grateful for the opportunity to serve you, the larger Faith Driven Entrepreneur community, and we want to stay connected. The best way for you to do that is to sign up for our monthly newsletter at Faith Driven Entrepreneur DAUG. And while you're there, we want to hear from you. We derive great joy from interacting with many of you. And it's been very rewarding to see people come to the site and listen to the podcast now for more than over 100 countries. But it's even more important to us that you feel like this is your show and that you'll help make it something that best equips you on your entrepreneurial journey, one that you're proud of and one that you're going to share with others. Hey, this podcast wouldn't be possible without the help from many of our friends executive producer Justin Forman and program director Johnny Wells. Music is by Carl Queller. You can see and hear more of his work at Summer Drugstore.com audio and editing by Richard Barley of Cornerstone Church in San Francisco.