Episode 300 - The Entrepreneur’s Greatest Need: The Riff with Henry Kaestner and Justin Forman

It’s our 300th episode!

In this conversation Joey Honescko, Henry Kaestner, and Justin Forman celebrate the growth and evolution of the podcast and the entire Faith Driven Movement. 

They reflect on all that God has done over the past five years and dive deep into the importance of community for faith-driven entrepreneurs.

The three wrestle with the challenges of finding reliable sources of community and reflect on their own entrepreneurial journeys and examine how God has used other entrepreneurs to form and shape them into the leaders He is calling them to be. 

They also share stories from entrepreneurs around the world who have seen the power of locking arms with other entrepreneurs. 

Learn more about groups here: https://www.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/groups 

All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific advice for any individual or organization.

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Episode Transcript

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.

Joey Honescko: At this point, you've probably heard how important it is to find community. But come on, let's be real. Friendship is hard. Community is difficult, especially for entrepreneurs. Calendars fill up. Trust is easily broken. Business obligations keep our hearts and minds occupied. And none of that even includes how the responsibility to our families carries its own priorities outside of our businesses. How the heck can we really prioritize community? And is it even worth it? These are the questions at the heart of our 300th episode of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I'm Joey Nasco, and I'll be joined by Henry Kissinger and Justin Foreman as we riff on the real practical value that comes from locking arms with other faith driven entrepreneurs who are on a common mission. Let's get into it. Welcome back, everyone to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I'm your host, Joey, and let's go alongside Henry Kastner and Justin Foreman. And guys, this is officially our 300th episode and I think that's fun. Henry, I feel like sometimes the way you talk about numbers, we might have been on the 300th episode a couple different times, but this one actually is the 300th episode. And I was just thinking back, I mean, it's been, you know, over five years of podcast content, community, things like that. So when you go back and you think about those first recordings, episode one, the title's origin and it's still one of our most played people, go back and listen to it. So if you haven't, go back and check that out. But when you and William and Rusty started this all those years ago, did you really think, like, hey, we're going to do 300 of these, or what was going through your mind? What? How did that happen.

Henry Kaestner: When it started? Through investing in Sovereign's Capital, I'd come to know 10 or 15 stories that I thought were really compelling and that got it. Different issues that an entrepreneur was wrestling with and be helpful for other people to hear. And so when we got started, the thought was that there might be ten, 15, 20 or 30. And I remember thinking, gosh, you know, what happens when we run out of ideas and we haven't. Now, to be clear, there have been some things we've gone back and we've touched on several different times. We've talked about some things that are really helpful in terms of partnership or customer acquisition, or just some of the struggles with identity or faith. And there's been things that we've come to understand that hold us back from being really productive, like sexual brokenness, that I didn't think that we'd talk about, that we wade into. But as we started talking more entrepreneurs, we found out that there are other issues because we came to understand that faith driven entrepreneur wasn't just about helping an entrepreneur run their business better, it was about helping a group of individuals come to know the God of the universe more fully, and then to just wrestle with what does it look like to accept his invitation to participate in the work that he's doing and what might otherwise hold us back from doing that? So, while we always have this lens through being an entrepreneur, getting out there and trying to sell something to somebody and just creating and feeling lonely, there's something that unites us together as a group, as a community. And yet the things that since the biggest thing is us knowing God and enjoying him forever, there's so many different things that we can talk about through the lens of having guests on that get us, get our journey, and what makes us unique in the struggles that we have. And we just continue to explore. And it's been a beautiful it's just been a beautiful, wonderful journey where I've learned so much and that's why it's fun. Infrequently. Am I the guest? I'm mostly the host. I get to learn from these guests that we have on. It's been awesome.

Joey Honescko: Yeah, yeah, it's really cool to see just the longevity of this. And I think you make a good point that at the early stages it might have felt like, yeah, there's a couple people doing this, but now we've really seen the growth of this movement and just how wide and deep it can go. And one of the things that I think is really cool is, you know, this started with you and Rusty and William, and obviously some of the formatting has changed in the last year, and we've mixed some of that up. But it's cool to see the way that Rusty and William are still involved. And just a huge shout out to them for leading us through so many episodes in, you know, rusty was we borrowed some of his insights for the last episode. We did, and in a couple of weeks, William is going to be co-hosting again with me. So some really cool ways that they get to be involved.

Henry Kaestner: And rusty is so good. You know, he has not only this great spiritual debt, but he's got a voice made for radio. And I remember the joke we had was that I have a face made for radio. And then we realized that once we had me on the radio, on the podcast, and I had a voice made for print journalism, and I write like I'm a TV anchor, it kind of goes full circle here. Rusty's got this voice from having been a deejay. That just helps. Just these topics come alive for all of us. I think in a great way. It's it's great that he's still involved. And yet I love what we're doing, some of these new topics. And, joy, I love the fact that you've gotten out from behind the editing booth, so to speak, and coming in as you've lived this out now as an entrepreneur yourself. So you start off as a creative, just helping to, you know, bring the guest, putting together all the different show notes. But really, as you're coming into the entrepreneurial journey yourself and just the ups and the downs and even over the last couple weeks is I know some of your story. It's so cool to have you involved in this more fully. And then, of course, for Justin to do the same.

Joey Honescko: Yeah. I think one thing that as I've been going on my own entrepreneurial journey, as I've been writing with and for and on behalf of entrepreneurs for eight years, and one of the most obvious things that I have felt as I've entered in my own is that these things are real. You know, I've written the words entrepreneurship is a lonely journey, but it doesn't have to be so many times working for faith driven. And now I'm in this space where I'm actually experiencing that. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Just that need for community, that need for other people to come around you and just and I want to throw it to you here for a second because, you know, this did start faith driven entrepreneurs started as a podcast and a blog way back when. But over time, we started seeing this need for community. And it's not that we've stopped emphasizing content, but I've heard you describe it as a, you know, there's two engines, there's the content, and now there's that community element to so what is it that faith driven entrepreneurs needed that wasn't being met in just content alone?

Justin Forman: Yeah man, what a great journey to think back on and to have that moment to reflect and see how God, God works. You know, I think there's certainly something about community, but I think sometimes, as you alluded to, it's stories that can sometimes often bring us together. I mean, we probably shared this on the podcast before, but it's how Henry and I connected is we were on a search for stories. We'd filmed stories of Hobby Lobby and Chick fil A at Right Now Media. As we were building that, we were desperately searching. What are the other stories? What are the untold stories that are out there? And through a book that we'd picked up, we learned about what David and Henry were doing it bandwidth. And it was through that story that we connected. We filmed the story of bandwidth and what David and Henry were doing back then. And it's amazing. I think, as Henry alluded to when the podcast was started, there's a question of cash. Are we going to run out of stories? And I think one of the biggest things we've seen is that there is not only a depth of story, but it's a global story, and it's a global story that was going on for decades. And we see that over and over and over again. But I think it's the commonality of when you see those stories that you feel understood and you see something in a way that you haven't been before. You know, I think that there's ways that when people see stories, they see themselves in the story, that that's a good story is when you can all of a sudden see yourself, feel it, think it, and you can have that kind of like taste and smell nostalgia kind of conjured up. And when you do that, but like you alluded to, you know, the Texas phrase of it, we'd say around the team is like, there's no pep rally without a football game to follow. And I think there's often times that we get hyped up in about things. And one of the dangers of content, there's so many beautiful things about it. But inspiration, one of the dangers is that you can get so hyped up about it, you can be a consumer and that you can't move that into action. And that's when, you know, probably about three and a half years ago, we said, what does it look like to gather people together? And, you know, I think one of the fun things about the entrepreneurial journey of faith driven is that it was born in a time and community, was born in a time when we couldn't gather in person. There's so much power of gathering in person, we know that. But we had to adapt. We had to figure it out. We filmed the Faith driven entrepreneur course. Literally. Henry was filming some of that. I think the day before that, they shut down travel as Covid was hitting. And so we would Henry had filmed that and we filmed those segments with JD in North Carolina, flown home. And and it was just a point when lockdown hit. And so not only did we film it then, we produced it then and we launched and beta tested it then. And in many ways they gave us this an alternate view of like, what does it look like to do this? And it was, you know, necessity is the mother of all invention. And it certainly was. And it changed kind of how we did community to start now, today people meet online, they meet in person, they meet in church. But it was really fun to see amidst a really difficult time. It pushed us to innovate and think about community just in a different perspective.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, and I'd say, selfishly, I've enjoyed being part of so many of these veteran entrepreneur community groups myself, and it's wonderful to see we all know the maximum that, you know, whenever 2 or 3 are gathered there, the their goddess as well for the revelation for me to see that that actually happened through Covid, that that's also true in virtual groups. Now, so many of the feature nonprofit groups meet in person and is wonderful when it's done, particularly in a local church or something really powerful about a community of people coming together. To be clear, in a local church where you're sitting under the teaching of the same pastor, your kids are going to the same type of youth group and you see each other. That is very, very special. But it's also really special to be able to be a part of some of our virtual groups where you get to know feature of not draws in many cases from around the world coming together. And just as you interact with some of the content, we have some of the storytelling we have for the first 15, 20 minutes and then just process. How God is moving in our lives as we wrestle with identity, or we think about being faithful versus well for stewardship versus ownership and not worshiping work and just loving on our families while all those different things. There's something really special about sharing that with 10 or 12 people and just hearing how God is working through them in each case, without fail. I leave that hour that I spent knowing God more fully, and his love for me in a way that is harder for me when I just listen to a podcast. And yet, I also love podcasts, and I'm so grateful for so many of the people that listen to our podcasts. And yet there is something I think that is a little better in some ways, which is coming together in community and just processing the content that we see and how God working through that. And it's oftentimes a perspective that somebody else will have in a community group that will help me to understand something that I was wrestling with, and I didn't even know it.

Justin Forman: Indeed. You know, I think that if we step back from home, it's fun to think about the entrepreneurial journey that God brought us, along with faith driven groups. But if we step back and just say what's happening in the church today, I think what you're alluding to is stepping into trying to invent and build into a solution that the church has been facing for many years. I mean, when you think about church growing up in the church myself, there's a case that could be made that assimilation, the kind of the process of getting somebody that's visiting a church, seeking the church connected to the church, has maybe experienced some brokenness. There's been some gaps. There's been some shortfalls. You know, you could go as far as to say, maybe today it is broken. And when you talk to small group pastors and over the years, it's a it's been a struggle. Like, how do you really make people feel connected. And so much of the past few decades it's been based on, you know, two factors. What's your zip code and what's your life state your kids. And so you look at the people to your left and to your right. And certainly there's beauty to that of sharing the same neighborhood and the same overlap there. Maybe you have kids in the same grade and the same overlaps that aren't same sporting events and teams. But I think what you're talking about is, is like, there's an innovation that's happening where people are saying, what if you really align people by a calling and a shared calling? And when you walk into a room with another entrepreneur, you just get each other. You understand risk. You understand seasons of work. You understand like a craziness of schedule. You understand shared passion for the mission, calling for what you're do it. You don't see it as work. You don't see it as office hours or in 8 to 5. You see it as a crusade, a mission that you're on. And I think there's an opportunity here for the church to really say, man, what does it look like to get together? I mean, Sree and I were talking about this the other days. We're driving church on Sunday morning and we're passing the car, and it's kind of coming from the same direction that we are in. We look at the car and got the same bumper sticker for, you know, same school district, the same football team, Baylor, that we passionately are about. And we're thinking, man, I would love to know who that family is as we watch them pull into church in a different part of the parking lot and had to go a different way. And there's that affinity, like when you can come around with so many shared affinities that you can accelerate this feeling of community and just a powerful way. And it makes you just wonder, is there a chance to really do that in the church? I mean, imagine if, like at the end of a church service, if the pastor said, hey, you know what? Nothing special, but we've got a group of teachers gathering in the back in the church today. And then right before you head off to start the school year, we're just going to get everybody there together so that you can know each other, pray for each other and just be known. The affinity, the acceleration for somebody that's visiting for the first time or has been on the sidelines of this big church and hasn't been able to get connected, it suddenly accelerates. Now think about doing that for doctors and dentists and entrepreneurs. I wonder if.

Henry Kaestner: Mothers of preschoolers.

Justin Forman: And wonder.

Henry Kaestner: Wait, no, that's done.

Justin Forman: But what an opportunity. I mean, I think we've just it's something we haven't explored yet.

Joey Honescko: Well, and I think there's something to that, Justin. And I've heard both of you guys talk about this idea of the role mission plays in generating friendships in community. I think the quote is aim for mission and you get friendship. If you aim for friendship, you may not find a common mission. And there's something about being a faith driven entrepreneur, particularly where you are on mission together, even if you're not necessarily working in the same company or even in the same industry, there is this shared affinity that even goes deeper than just like, oh, we have this thing in common. But there seems to be this opportunity to unite and kind of lock arms in this mission of what it's like to try to redeem the world, bring redemption through businesses. So I'm wondering if you guys have any thoughts about that idea of the unique way that uniting around entrepreneurs can also kind of ignite your own mission and ignite the mission of those around you as well.

Justin Forman: I think that's a great quote. I mean, my quick story of is we went to for our 20th anniversary, we took. A trip with our church to Israel and it was a phenomenal, amazing, incredible experience before all of what's happening broke out a couple of years ago. And we had a reunion night a couple months later. We walked into the building there at the church and there's, you know, fun conversations or some conversations at varying depth. But then all of a sudden you come to the table with another entrepreneur and you just ask the question that you would normally ask somebody, walk into the church, how are you doing? And cutting through the surface level stuff? I remember him saying, man, I just wish somebody would tell me what par is for this course. I want to know, like, am I below par? Above par? Like what? And how am I doing? My family, my kids, my business and team, the culture, the business, the scorecard of life as an entrepreneur. It has so many different KPIs that are playing each other. And I tell you what, that moment, that feeling of being understood, like I can't tell you just the ways that I felt connected in that moment. And as I was talking to Sree about that, there's just something there that like when you can talk about things, I mean, it's the same equivalent of like if you're got a struggling teenager and you're going through something and a parent going through the same things, you feel understood. And I think that that is so much of what the life of the entrepreneur is. So I don't know what it looks like, all the programing of it and the opportunities, the matchmaking connect. But you can just tell there is something deep when you get to entrepreneurs together.

Henry Kaestner: There's no doubt about it. And the story that God told just put back on my mind right now is just the Japanese guy who was a soldier in in 1974. Philippines is still fighting World War two. And you can do that if you're on mission. You can just just focus on the battle that's in front of you. In just the loneliness of the existence juxtaposed the incredible camaraderie in the fellowship that we see in the movie or the TV series Band of Brothers, and being together and going through basic training together and being there, and the joy in the bonds that that creates because people understand where you are, you're doing this together. And as you come together, community and you're able to share and just like, gosh, I'm just really trying to figure out how to renegotiate with my bank about the covenants on this revolver that I've got. And somebody is able to process that with you and like, here's how we thought about it and here's how we did that. And then what ends up happening is over the bond that it creates over the next six months, nine months. And just, you know, now I'm a part of your story. I could go out on my own. I could be that guy who's a Japanese soldier out there and ends up having to have his commanding officer, who's like, 95 years old, fly from Japan to finally relieve this person of his duty 30 years after the war starts. Or I can be in a spot where I'm in this kind of like. And you can do that. It's just very lonely. Or I can be a part of this knitted community of people and know my story and I know theirs. And while I don't have all the responsibilities of all the things that they're doing, I am a part of that. I was able to help that person think through how to negotiate covenants with a bank, or how to think about, gosh, how do I wrestle with culture? My company has grown from 2025. We all had the same culture. We all knew each other's wives and we had barbecue. And now we're 75. And some of these employees, I don't even know their names. How do you just even navigate through what that looks like? Or, gosh, I'm feeling like I'm just on this growth trajectory just for growth sake. And is that the right thing when other people participate in that? Not only am I the beneficiary of that wisdom, but when the tables are turned and when I can go ahead and just contribute to what somebody else is wrestling through, I'm now a part of their story. And that inner woven tapestry is this beautiful thing that makes for this Technicolor life, that gives me joy and gives me that type of energy. When I go back in on Monday and I'm doing my own thing again, I know they've got a bunch of people who've got my back. I know that while. There's going to be just dragons to slay that week that I can pick up the phone with other people who care about me, and I care about them. Something really, really special about that. I really think that that's the way that God design things. The enemy would love to separate us out. The enemy would love for Justin to never meet that person who shares their passion for Baylor football and have them completely separated out. He'd love for the teachers that are part of a congregation, or the accounts that tax time to never know each other and to pray for each other. But I think that the church in particular has this great opportunity to lean into that and say, you know what? To further the discipleship of those in our congregation, let's bring those together. And of course, we care about entrepreneurs the most is where God has called us, and it's where we've experienced loneliness. And, you know, you know, not that entrepreneurs are any more important than teachers, but the teachers do have the staff room, right? They can come together in community during breaks. Entrepreneurs don't have that same type of thing, but churches can bring that together and help foster that level of community in a way that will enrich the local church and also bring in other entrepreneurs that are longing for that community and say, gosh, that's a church that I might join and find that fellowship that I'm looking for.

Justin Forman: Yeah, that's so good. You know, I think it comes back to one of the quotes that we were talking about earlier is like, if you aim for mission, you get friendship. If you just aim for friendship, rarely do you get mission. And that's been something that missional communities on missions, small groups, whatever you might call it in the church, it's been a language that's been there for the last 20 years. It's been talked about in small group ministries. I think the thing that what you're hitting on there is, is like, what is our felt need? I think most entrepreneurs, if you'd asked and you'd survey them to list it out, 1 to 10, 1 to 20, whatever it is, what are your top priorities? They're probably not going to always say like discipleship. Sometimes they might say community, but I think it's like what you're talking about is like, if you talk about the pain point, if you talk about the problem and you engage in the problem with somebody that gets you, then it does lead to community. And it's one of the things, you know, candidly, that we're wrestling through. When you think about, like inside our conversation as a team is we love the fact of how many people that God called us to serve. But when we think about inviting others into it, sometimes a place where we need to meet them is not just like, you know, another announcement of are you lonely? Are you disconnected? Do you want community? It's actually probably starting a conversation around one of the things that are fueling in that pain point today is I think about, as you said, staff debt financing, whatever it might be. That's a place where you start the conversation, but it leads to community, not just starting with community, because then we only get the people that are already at the place of awareness, already at the place of knowing that they need it in their lives. And really, God's called us to maybe invite so many more into that conversation.

Joey Honescko: I'm wondering what you guys think about, you know, we're talking about community, and I think that there's a sense in a couple weeks we're going to have Doctor Brian Lauritsen and talk about friendship, and I'm wondering what the relationship here is for y'all, because I have found that, very practical example last week in my young entrepreneurial journey was already the hardest week I've ever experienced. There were all sorts of challenges. We don't have to get into them necessarily, but there was a moment that another business owner who has been doing it for a long time, walked by me and I was like, man, this was really hard. You know? I can't believe the fire trucks had to come because the fire alarms were going off. And he looked at me and he goes, oh, that's not a big deal. And it was such a freeing space to have somebody that has been there who has done it. Now, me and this gentleman are not friends like our families may not get together, we may not go on vacation together. But there was something really unique about having that kind of relationship. And there are friends that I have that are entrepreneurs that have spoken into it as well, and that means a lot. But I'm also wondering, you know, even when we think about groups of it being something that is just getting in that room with other people who get it, it may sometimes spark lifelong friendships. It may sometimes be those moments where you just are like, yeah, someone else understands. And so I'm wondering is you guys think about that, that relationship just between a community of people who get you and it maybe not necessarily producing the deepest friendships of your life, but giving you something unique and meaningful. How do you all see that relationship?

Justin Forman: I think you know you're hitting on it so often times. I have struggled with some Bible study experiences that we've had in our church, and I told Terry and we were talking about this and she said, man, what is it? She was trying to drill down into it. And I said, it's because it's fill in the blank. It's fill in the blank, it's prescriptive. It's if this, then that type of thing. And I said, man, I need a safe place to wander now, not wandering off the reservation. Why not wandering into some crazy kind of alternate direction? It's like you need a safe place to talk about the pain in the same way that like, and you think about it from a marriage. Not every time when you bring something up you're not always asking for. Resolution. You're just asking to be heard and to be felt, and to see the pain of what kind of what's going on. And I think that's so much like what you just alluded to, Joe, is what it unites entrepreneurs, is shared painful experiences, shared pain points. God is so much more in control of our lives than we ever realize. And he's going to direct our steps. And if we're seeking, we will fight. But it starts with, I think, just that moment of saying like, what is the pain? Talk about it, sit in it, understand it. And I just think that we need safe places to wander.

Henry Kaestner: Joy, I'm going to challenge you a little bit. You said you're not friends with this guy in Uber. In the same way that a lot of us think about friends. But in just 10s, he was able to say something that united you at a spiritual level and spoke to you in a way that was profound enough for you to mention, of course, on a podcast. And I think that when I look, you know, gosh, I'm not the end of my life. I'm only 54. But I get nostalgic for the types of the riches that I've had in my life are all interpersonal. And when somebody is able to meet me worth my need in a way that I felt that nobody else got me, there's something powerful there. And I think that that's one of the things that happens in these community groups is that if we're not spending a tremendous amount of time with some of these people, and yet they're able to minister us and us to them in an efficiency of time. And as entrepreneurs, we love that efficiency, right? I want to have that rich spiritual fabric. And yet I don't want to have to maintain friendships with people. I don't want to have to play 18 holes of golf with each one of them every week. And there's something about the way that entrepreneurs are wired to be able to have meaningful community to hit, where we're struggling right now with a word of encouragement or a collective prayer, or just knowing that somebody else gets me, that hits me on my need for community and fellowship to see God in them. And it also hits me on my need for efficiency to. And I almost hesitate in saying that because you almost want to say, can I? Are there any shortcuts to discipleship? And he shortcuts to friendship, you know. What's the hack into having meaningful friendship? But you found that a little bit by finding somebody who gets where you are on the journey. Yeah. And you had a meaningful interaction with somebody that lasted probably seven seconds. And the entrepreneur army loves that efficiency.

Joey Honescko: Well, and to your point, some of what made it valuable. Now, if you know, even if it was a dear friend of mine who's not an entrepreneur came up to me in that moment and said, this isn't a big deal. I would have been like, get the heck out of here, dude. My life is falling apart right now. But because of this shared affinity and because I trusted that this other gentleman who has experienced a lot more entrepreneurship than I have, for him to say, hey, this is not a big deal, was actually much more meaningful. And that efficiency was skyrocketed. And I think it goes back to that mission saying, because I know this guy and me are on the same mission to create businesses that do good in McKinney and that care about the people down here. So when he tells me it's not a big deal and this stuff happens all the time, I can rest a little easier than even if a dear friend who doesn't understand these experiences was like, hey, chill out! I would have been like, dude, right now's not the time to tell me to chill out. So there's something again about that mission concept that I think does unite us.

Justin Forman: I think this beautiful scene, these conversations, converge. It's the missional side. Now, we're not saying seven seconds takes away the need for a dear, close friend knowing all the things about you and build speaking things in your life. So to be clear on that. But you're talking about like entrepreneurs are having all of life converge at the craziest moments, right? Like starting a family, kids, their activities levels start growing off the charts. It's the same time businesses scaling. You're feeling pressures. You're feeling time. You're always feeling behind in everything at some level. And there is just something about even just like what Henry talks about is like, how do we make sure that we don't overlay different stages of life and what community might look like at different stages for this stage? Like, how do we find the uniqueness of maybe like what entrepreneurs are going through? Like how do we find the uniqueness of like, how powerful those short words are, those short conversations that like, again, it doesn't mean that we trade being known on a deep level, but how do like when we think about taking the gospel to a foreign place, a place where it hasn't been? We study the culture, we study everything about it language, hierarchy, communication styles, family dynamics, whatever it is. And I'm wondering, just like, what does it really look like to do that? Same for this people group. For the people group of that, we are part of that. We get to serve. What are our strengths? What are weakness? What are the challenges? What are the opportunities, and how do you just not glance past those and think that it's all cookie cutter?

Joey Honescko: Well, in Henry, you mentioned earlier, just like the potential of the church to be this place and to be this haven for faith driven entrepreneurs to come together. And we dreamed a little bit about that. And just and I want to throw it back to you for a second, because I know we have the church conference coming up later in the year, and that our desire as an organization, as faith driven entrepreneur, the way you guys have led this organization is not to be something that happens away from the church, but actually something that is in the sidecar of the church, right? Who's right there alongside the church? And so even though we're mentioning some of the challenges with church assimilation and the relationship that fate driven entrepreneurs might have. Talk a little bit about the hope that you both have, and the reason why the church is in a central, not even important, but an essential partner for a community like this.

Justin Forman: Yeah. Great question. You know, at the risk of sounding like, you know, pitching something or pushing something back, I want to really back up to say, I think this has been a shared prayer, a shared hope for the movement, for thousands of business men and women that have been a part of this conversation for decades. And it's come out in different forms. Sometimes it's come out in a place of frustration. Sometimes it's been a kind of place of walking past each other. Sometimes it's a place where the entrepreneur doesn't feel empowered, sometimes a place where the pastor doesn't feel supported. And we want to create a safe place to wonder, a safe place to have a conversation, to say what are the issues? And not just like in an attitude of like, what are we thinking and feeling, but one that's also guided by data. And so, yeah, this fall, as you were alluding to, I think it's a really, really unique thing that's going to bring together conversation of pastors and entrepreneurs. And we know the busy lives that both lead, and it's difficult to hop on a plane, fly to the other side of the country and meet about it. And so we're trying to merge this dynamic of community and conversation, as well as the convenience of shopping online. And so it's going to be a two hour conversation that people are going to join into a group of pastors and entrepreneurs that are going be a part of that. We hope that many pastors will bring a business leader from their church to engage with them, so that they can both see the opportunities, the blind spots that we're walking through in this. And it's been really fun to see how this conversation has come. I gather from some pastors like Nikki Gumbel and Derwin Gray and David Platt that are really just seeing and sensing the need to say, you know, we were never designed to do it all. It was never the case were designed to do this together. And that sense of how people are waking up to realize this is not another program, this is not another budget. This is really about starting with an empowering conversation of, say, what more can we do together? And we have been able to travel to some unique places, whether it's in Taiwan, whether it's in England, to capture stories in a non prescriptive way of the different ways that pastors and entrepreneurs are coming together. It looks so different, so different scales depending upon your setup. But our hope is, is that these two might come together and we might realize we're a lot more alike than we're different. That were driven by mission we're always on. We're oftentimes sacrificing at great expense to sit there and push forward something we feel God has deeply called us to. And if we can get those conversations in the same room, we're really encouraged to think what might happen, because we know for far too long darkness has tried to prevent that from happening. Evil is trying to keep these two from being more connected.

Henry Kaestner: A good friend of the movement is a guy named Nikki Gumbel, who does a Bible one year podcast with his wife, Pippa. And, he did just a great video for us about the opportunity of the church coming together with Feature of Nonviolence. And of course, we'll show at the conference. And actually, you can see, I think online right now on our website. He had mentioned something, though, in a daily devotional that I had earlier this week that I think is really helpful. He quoted a guy named Josh Wilbur, I think was his name. He said, ultimately, there are three conversions that happen, and I think that these three are important. Simple but kind of profound. One is you're converted to Christ. Number two. You're converted to the church. Number three. You're converted to his cause. I think the ordering there is really important. The most important thing, of course, being understanding that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior and the value, the gift given us. Then being tapped into a body of local believers committed to the ongoing discipleship and the advancement of his Kingdom. But then that's where that cause comes in, is about advancing God's kingdom under his power, for his glory. But I think it comes against this foundation of having been converted to Christ and then converted to the church being a part of a local body and then off of that foundation. What's the cause? Where might God have us as entrepreneurs, making redemptive products, services, loving on communities in a redemptive way, in a completely different way? And it starts with the partnership with the local church. Or it comes against a foundation, with the partnership with the local church. With the first one, of course, knowing Jesus is our Lord and Savior.

Joey Honescko: Yeah. That's great. Well, we're coming to a close here and I want to think about this. You know, we've done 300 episodes. Faith driven entrepreneur has been around doing content in community for five years now. As you think about the next five years. And we've had, you know, maybe 17,000 plus people go through these groups. You think about.

Henry Kaestner: 10,000.

Joey Honescko: 18,000, but.

Henry Kaestner: Who's counting?

Joey Honescko: Henry is, 18,000. So as we've had more than 18,000 come through these groups, where do you guys see if we could just have a second just to dream of what would community look like for faith driven entrepreneurs five years from now? How would their loneliness be different? How would they be in that band of brothers kind of locked down mentality? What would that look like? You know it. Episode 600 if you will.

Justin Forman: Good question. Quick thought I'll add here before Henry jumps in is you know I think it first starts with us walking through some of the same challenge the church has face. It's like they're trying to match people. Maybe they're looking to match teachers and they're looking to match entrepreneurs or doctors and to think of what could happen. I think that God has this in a place that we've been able to serve entrepreneurs, as you said, 18,000 of them. And we realize that even inside of those 18,000, there's a lot of difference. The solopreneur is living a different life and a different challenge. There's a guy on LinkedIn that some might be familiar with, a guy named Justin Welsh, and I don't think he comes from a faith perspective, but he really advocates for like, hey, this is the life of a solopreneur. A solopreneur oftentimes is looking for comfort, convenience, looking for a little bit of freedom, looking for flexibility, looking for that chance to say, man, I can do x, y, and Z so that I might not have to work as much. I think in many times, not in all times. There's a difference sometimes where an entrepreneur has an idea, thought, a ministry of something that they're business, that they're going to build, that they say, man, the world, gosh, is just a better place if we can figure out how to solve this problem and get this out. And so they are not necessarily looking for the flexibility as much as they might be looking to solve a big, big, big problem. And they just can't wait to get back into the office. They can't wait to be surrounded by a team. They think that their office is the center of the universe, of everything that's happening. They're so committed to that mission, and I think that we face an opportunity here to say, what if inside of this entrepreneurial conversation, you could match people? What if you could say, hey, you've got a real estate office and 20 or 50 different agents? You might not have competitive overlap with somebody from Michigan to North Carolina. But what if you compared the same notes, same thoughts, same challenges of an industry and brought that together? And I think we have an opportunity to do that. I think online gives us a chance to do that. So my hope would be that it starts there but obviously goes so, so much deeper. But I think that the stickiness of the connectivity of it, if we can get some of that stuff right around a mission and around a stage, and you can do both of those instead of one or the other, if you can bring shared mission and shared stage, maybe some of those communities will be that much more sticky, that much more deep, that much more effective and shaping change. So, you know, we often talk about recency bias, but Henry and I talk about things maybe we're talking about going through and how that shapes us. And and I think that's just a big recency bias we have is what could it look like to for for this.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, 100% I love the way that you just answer that. You know, I'm going to borrow a phrase that's used a lot or an expression is use a lot and say that an entrepreneur tends to overestimate what they're capable of doing in one year and underestimate what they're capable of doing in ten years. So five years, maybe this is a prediction. That's right on. Maybe not, but maybe so five years from now. So we've come to see the value of entrepreneurs being in community together. To be able to expand on that beyond our local circle. Justin said we might be able to find community on people that share our affinity, our industry, our stage, the different problems we're wrestling through. But then also entrepreneurs are problem solvers and we live in a fallen, broken world, and we live in a world in which there's 7.5 billion people who do not live here. What does it look like when you're able to bring together a faith or an astronaut that cares about orphans? And that's Whitney with the faith driven entrepreneur from Brussels, who cares about the same in somebody from London or Johannesburg or Akron, Ohio. And they think, gosh, oh my goodness, I thought I was the only person who cared about this particular issue that is broken in the world. And these are people that get me because we're all entrepreneurs and we're working together on a squad to solve this problem. We're coming out with a new initiative over the course of the coming year called Solving World's Greatest Problems Under God's Power for His Glory. But what does it look like when the body of Christ comes back together to make God famous and work on some really, really cool projects? Kind of a redemptive story of the Tower of Babel. But so our sort of who runs our communities is fond of saying the reclaiming this kind of C.S. Lewis call that, you know, friendship is really just cemented when you say, well, I thought I was the only person that cared about this. Well, as we bring together a larger community, as we focus not just necessarily on our own businesses, which are incredibly important where God's called us, but then think outside about some of the world's greatest problems and find others that God has put a calling on. And if we can figure out a way to bring that broader community together. Wow, how God might use entrepreneurs to solve this broken world in a way that brings us closer to knowing God and then advancing his kingdom in this battle. Because it's a real battle where slain dragons slain dragons together in a way that makes God victorious.

Joey Honescko: Yeah. That's beautiful. It makes me think of that Nicky Gumbel quote or quote of a quote I guess, that you mentioned of. Really, the hope is that people would find their identity in Christ, that they would be on mission with the church, and that they would be for the call that Christ has for us. And what that looks like will vary. It'll look like different things. It'll look like different problems to solve. But really that's the hope is that three fold framework. So excited about all these initiatives. They'll be more about the church conference and about solving the world's greatest problems coming up later. But the groups, we have those on an ongoing basis. You can go on to the website, learn more at feature of entrepreneur. Gorgui. Groups will link to all these things in the show. Notes. Thank you for listening. Thank you Henry. Thank you Justin, and we'll see you all in a couple weeks. Thanks for listening to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Our ministry exists to equip and resource entrepreneurs just like you with content and community. We know entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but it doesn't have to be. We've got groups that meet in churches, coffee shops, living rooms, and boardrooms around the world. Find one in your area or volunteer to lead one and bring this global movement to your own backyard. There's no cost, no catch, just connection. Find out more at Faith Driven entrepreneur.org.

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