Steve Jeffery & Kyle Hessler: Works/Based & the Theology of Work + Fresh 10 Segment DMW#220

Dead Men Walking

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:05

Exploring theology, doctrine, and all of the fascinating subjects in between, broadcasting from an undisclosed location,

00:13

Dead Men Walking starts now. Oh, well, hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Dead Men Walking Podcast.

00:27

Thanks for coming along for the ride. Check us out at dmwpodcast .com to find out more about us there. We do have some snarky merch as well if you want to support the show.

00:36

The new How About You Just Shut Up and Let That Be Your Wisdom Job 13 .5 t -shirt is selling pretty well.

00:43

People seem to like that. It's a little cheeky, but hey, sometimes you got to quote scripture to the pagans. You know what I mean?

00:49

Welcome back, though. We've had some great guests on over the last couple of weeks. We're going to keep it going. Generally, if I'm by myself,

00:55

I'll rant and ramble a little bit. But if not, we like to get right to the guests so we can bring you guys great content.

01:02

But before we do that, I got to tell you about a sponsor of the show real quick. Great sponsor. Jacob Supply is in Temperance, Michigan, but he sells building equipment, building materials like half price.

01:15

I don't know how this guy does it. He's got flooring. He's got appliances. He's got lumber. He's got metal roofing, and it's all 30, 40, 50 percent off retail.

01:24

He buys out wholesale nationwide. I've got guys coming from three, four, five, six hours away just to come up here, buy the stuff for their spring project, for their building projects, for contractors.

01:34

It's pretty crazy. He's a reformed brother in the Lord. We want to support him. He supports the show. JacobSupply .com.

01:40

You got to check him out. I mean, they've got core tech flooring, like premium luxury flooring that Home Depot and Lowe's sells for like nine bucks a square foot.

01:48

Literally, we got a cease and desist from his competitors. It was so low I had to quit saying the price of it on the advertisement.

01:54

They said, hey, you can't do that. We can't get it that cheap. And I know that sounds like a gimmick, but it actually is. I built my chicken coop with his supplies.

02:01

I've built my cabin up north with his supplies. So even if you're not from the Michigan area, even if you're from four, five, six, seven, eight hours away, drive up there.

02:08

It's worth it. Load up on supplies and appliances, flooring, roofing, all that stuff. JacobSupply .com.

02:14

Absolutely love that brother in the Lord. So let's support brothers in the Lord that are building things and he's building something pretty awesome.

02:19

Cool. Now that we got the business out of the way, I want to give you a quick intro of these two guests.

02:25

And, you know, I say quick because I really had to pare it down because both these guys have done so much stuff. I probably could have read four or five pages on them each, but we're going to go with two paragraphs.

02:34

So Pastor Steve Jeffrey formerly served as minister at Emmanuel Church in London, England from its founding in 2009.

02:40

He's an author with multiple books written. He was a volunteer chaplain of the Metropolitan Police in London, England, and currently serves on the board of the

02:46

CRUC Domestic Church Planning Network and is a board and faculty member of the Reformed Evangelical Seminary.

02:52

He's also a scientist and has a doctorate in physics from Oxford University. You might have to ask him about that double slit experiment.

02:57

That one still confuses me. Sitting next to him is Kyle Hessler. He's a member of All Saints Church, where Pastor Jeffrey keeps a watchful eye on him because we know

03:04

Kyle can get himself into trouble. He's a husband to Jenny and a father to Theoden. I want to make sure

03:10

I say that right, and if not, correct me, in Stonewall. He's a professional fighter and has always been an entrepreneur at heart and has been involved in video production, real estate, and owns a vending machine business.

03:19

Very lucrative if you're doing that correctly as well, from what I hear. He currently manages Page 50. Friends of the show.

03:25

Sponsors of the show. Let's go, Stuart. Page 50. Love him. A Christian marketing company and is also the founder of the

03:31

Workspace Conference, which is what we're going to be talking about, and which is what Pastor Steve is a speaker at.

03:36

Guys, how are you doing? Welcome to the Dead Men Walking podcast. Great to be here. Nice to see you. Man, that was flattering.

03:42

It was quite an introduction, wasn't it? You should produce them for money, Greg. You do a great job. There you go.

03:48

Well, you know, I didn't mean it as flattery. I meant it as you guys are doing a lot of stuff, building a lot of stuff, involved in a lot of things, accomplished a lot of things.

03:55

That's the kind of guests we like having on and talking about the things of God on the podcast to bring value and content to the listeners.

04:03

So why don't you guys expand, if you need to, on those bios at all? Anything I forgot in that shortened version of who you are, where you've been, and what you do?

04:11

My son is King Theoden. King Theoden. Other than that, no, it was fantastic.

04:17

No, thank you for everything you said. Yeah, we're definitely two guys just taking dominion in different ways.

04:24

More theological, more... Yeah. Entrepreneurial, I suppose. Yeah. I think I'm right. Am I right that Ferdin David Hesler was the first person

04:31

I baptized here at All Saints? Correct. I think I might be right. Yeah. So yeah, I can't even remember. There was a blur that went past.

04:37

I'm one of the pastors here at All Saints Presbyterian in Fort Worth. You didn't mention who I'm married to. I'm married to the wonderful Nicole with three kids,

04:44

Ben, Becky, and Abby. Ben and Becky are at college. Abby wishes she could be and pretty soon will, Lord willing. Yes.

04:50

And between them, those four, my family, and this church gives me enough to keep me occupied.

04:56

Oh, and that and Kyle, who also gives me plenty of things to keep me occupied with. That's why

05:01

I included that in the bio. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, like I said, I had to shorten it up a little bit.

05:07

I couldn't do 22 minutes on the bio, but I appreciate you guys adding that. Obviously, both seasoned in both of your areas of expertise, so we love having you on.

05:16

So I want to talk about this conference because one, first of all, Kyle, I have to tell you I've helped with my

05:21

Church Builders Conference just as a speaker, and there's a lot of work that goes into that. I've looked into doing my own conference, and I went,

05:28

I don't have the time or energy for that. It's a lot of work to put on a conference, and I've said it before.

05:34

I've talked to the cross -politic guys. I've talked to Jeffrey Rice and those guys down there when

05:39

I go to Tennessee. It is just so much work. So first of all, I want to give you your props for that because there's a lot of behind -the -scenes stuff that goes on that people just don't realize to get speakers to show up to events, listeners, and conference goers, vendors, all that stuff.

05:55

So kudos to you for doing that. I looked at the website, and I went, geez, this conference looks awesome. I wish I wasn't out of town or I'd have to travel down there and take a look because the speakers are awesome.

06:04

The subject matter is something that I think is needed. Can you speak a little bit about what people are going to hear at the conference?

06:11

Also, we'll link all this up, but go ahead and throw out there the dates and where it's at and where people get tickets while you're talking to.

06:17

June 20th and 29th. We do have a speaker's dinner the night before. That's kind of an exclusive seating, but the actual conference starts

06:23

Friday morning, June 20th, in Fort Worth, Texas. It'll be at the Hilton downtown. Yeah, man, this is a lot of my passion.

06:33

I mean, you and me have met at Fight Last Feast a couple times, and I've been able to get some backstage know -how and knowledge from Gabe over there, so I felt pretty good about putting on events.

06:46

I've done some different events in the past, so the idea of doing a conference didn't seem too outlandish, though I'm looking forward to July 1st when

06:55

I can nap for a day because it is a lot of work. But really, my heart is for taking dominion through vocation, and I really believe that we need to be encouraging guys to not so much just start businesses, though if you're capable of obviously want, you know, if the

07:17

Lord's given you those skills, we don't want you to bury those talents. We want you to actually try to start a business. But I would say that really we need to recover what vocation, dominion looks like.

07:28

I think we think about jobs too often, and so we get a little lost in the minutia of what is a job versus what's your vocation versus what is dominion taking.

07:37

And so I really just want to talk to the heart of that. I want to have some speakers that are more educated than I am about that.

07:43

And to be perfectly honest, I've said this on a couple other podcasts, like I picked guys that are going to educate me.

07:49

There's a reason I'm not speaking at the events. I'm just organizing it because I got to learn from these guys. So if no one else shows up,

07:54

I'm just going to sit in the front row and learn from them for two days. Yeah, same reason why I do this podcast, bring smarter guys on it, and I just listen, ask them all the hard questions.

08:03

I got to tell you what I'm excited about. I mean, like a lot of pastors, I've spent time teaching guys here about work, and we have men's discipleship breakfasts.

08:12

We've done multiple men's discipleship breakfasts where we've talked about how to approach work Christianly.

08:18

And I'm going to try and bring some of that stuff with a bunch of other things to this conference. But what I'm really excited about and why

08:25

I really like Kyle's vision and thought this isn't going to duplicate what we've done in the church here.

08:30

I don't think it's going to duplicate what any church does. It's going to add something new because it's actually going to be taking the next step practically to thinking and more than thinking, giving opportunities for people to make connections, people to learn from seasoned professionals, people to get actual practical advice about how to start your own business, to get some mentoring, and to meet people who are experienced at building a business from scratch and having it hit millions of revenue, to get people.

09:02

So Andrew Krapichetz, one of our speakers, is the CEO of Red Balloon, the recruitment website.

09:08

And again, like anybody who is in a job now where they're not 100 % satisfied or thinks they might be in a future in a job where they're not 100 % satisfied, or they're likely to be recruiting for their own firm, their own company in the future.

09:22

I can't understand why you wouldn't want to take the opportunity to get to know Andrew Krapichetz if you had the opportunity to do so and you're able to make it.

09:28

So someone like Andrew to come along and talk about how he seeks to put

09:34

Christian principles into practice in his business. It's just a fantastic opportunity. And I'm looking forward to being a part of it for my talk and then sitting there paying attention and trying to soak it in from the other guys.

09:45

Yeah. So I have so much to say on this subject. It's hard for me with just a touch of ADD.

09:51

Don't tell John MacArthur. I'm not sure if he thinks I would have it or not. But it's so hard to keep all these thoughts in my mind while you guys are talking because I have so much to say, so many questions to ask because it's right up my alley.

10:02

I own a real estate brokerage, Covenant Real Estate. You can do the guesswork on the double meaning of that, a legal covenant and the theology.

10:12

But I've seen that even growing up in the 80s and 90s, there was still this thought with Christians and the evangelical world that a good

10:23

Christian worker was just someone who went to work every day and worked for a boss and was just kind of nice.

10:29

Didn't cuss, didn't get into the filthy talk with the guys in the break room. And that was what we were supposed to do as Christians.

10:36

And we kind of coasted on a society that we're riding on the coattails of Christendom. And now we've turned around and realized, oh, the pagans and the secularists, they own everything.

10:46

They own the cloud. They own the bandwidth.

10:53

They own the roads. They own the cars. They own everything. So how important is it, and will you be touching on this in the conference at all, on the difference between, and look, we're not dogging on anyone that holds a nine to five or works for someone.

11:07

You can be an influence maker or a decision maker in a job when you work for someone.

11:13

But will there be a distinction of, look it, maybe being a Christian in 2024 is not just clocking in at a job.

11:19

It's actually building something or kind of laying a foundation for something that's generational since we serve a generational

11:25

God. Is that kind of an angle you guys will be taking at all or am I way off base there? No, a hundred percent. In fact, I've said multiple times that, so we're going to have a networking component to this where on Saturday morning, we want guys to, there's not going to be any talks.

11:38

We're going to have our host, Darren Doan is going to kind of walk around interviewing the different vendors and stuff.

11:44

But we want guys to show up to this event with their resumes, with opportunities, ready to network.

11:50

But I've said before, I don't want guys who have a good job at like Amazon or Audible or some company we would deem woke.

11:58

And they probably genuinely, they probably actually are woke, but we don't want people to show up this job feeling like, oh man,

12:04

I work for a bad company. I need to quit that job and take a massive pay cut and go work for a

12:10

Christian. We don't want guys to feel that way. We don't want to discourage anybody that if you're taking dominion in a certain sector, keep doing that.

12:17

So to your comment of people that work nine to five, we definitely want to encourage guys that are just working jobs.

12:24

This is not a, you come to this conference and you're going to figure out how to start a business. Some guys need to dig ditches.

12:30

Some guys need to tell people how to dig ditches. I don't think it's biblical to just say everybody needs to own a business.

12:36

That's not right. So we don't want to do that. And I would also say that we definitely do want to encourage though, maybe people were finding opportunities to work harder or find more opportunities if you can handle it.

12:51

We don't want you to sacrifice time with your children, time with your family. But I think one of the books that's been super influential is

12:59

David Bonson's Full Time, where he talks about these different spheres. And we think of like work as like, oh, that's one sphere.

13:06

It's out there. The reality is you don't show up to work and stop being a father or a husband, right?

13:12

You show up to work and you continue to be a father and husband. When you come home, we don't think in the same way.

13:18

We don't think, well, I'm a sales guy, but I stopped being a sales guy at home. Your vocation and how you're taking dominion extends beyond just a nine to five.

13:26

That's how we want to encourage guys. Not necessarily don't work at this company or don't work at that company or start a business.

13:32

I don't think that that's the right model. And I think even in the reform circles, maybe we need to do a little jabbing, pushing back on some of that mentality.

13:40

I think it's interesting as well. Just to pick up your point, Kyle, about people who are working in an environment where there's a fair amount of let's just call it ideological texture or even progressivism within the company and in the structures, in the human resources management, those kinds of things.

13:58

What we're starting to see is principled Christians pushing back against that.

14:03

I mean, I'll just give one example from actually one of our speakers for the Workspace Conference, David Barnson, as you know, is a capital manager.

14:10

He manages five point something billion dollars of his investors, his clients' money. And he's been working along with Jerry Boyer, who's a friend of mine and maybe a friend of yours as well, to try to encourage the companies in which he invests to recognize when they've overstepped the mark from human resource management into progressive activism.

14:34

And so just in the last few months, he's tabled questions at shareholder meetings at JP Morgan and at Truist Financial Corp to say, look, you're you're not only stepping outside the bounds of what you should be doing, you're harming your own business.

14:49

Because in these two cases, it's been the debanking thing where conservatives or Christians have had their accounts canceled or suspended.

14:58

And what's fascinating about it is he's he's a reformed

15:05

Christian. And so is Jerry. And they both understand that we don't retreat and back away from social and political and ideological institutions just when they no longer exhibit our flavor of reformed

15:18

Christian conviction. We try to push back. We we work within the structures that are there and we seek to represent our case well and cogently and try and persuade people to live out a more principled, wise

15:34

Christian and actually, therefore, more productive ethic in the world, in the particular domain they're in.

15:42

And behind that is a whole theological superstructure where you want to say, actually,

15:47

Christians in in working alongside people who don't share our

15:53

Christian convictions, we can be a blessing to them by exhibiting Christian integrity, by exhibiting

16:00

Christian maturity and a long term approach to life. And in whatever particular professional domain you're in, deploying a

16:10

Christian ethic in that situation, we can actually bless the people around us, which is one way that the gospel advances.

16:18

One way the gospel advances is precisely by companies. We might look at them and think, why are they doing this?

16:24

And they start to see their Christian employees are their best employees. And that's how

16:29

Babylon gets shaped by the the Judahites in exile. Or that's how

16:34

JPMorgan gets its acts back together and stops debunking conservatives, because somebody's pointed out that this is bad for business and it's bad for business because it's not biblical to treat people that way.

16:43

So there's some examples. I mean, David's going to be there. Maybe we can persuade him to talk about that.

16:52

And it's actually driven by theological conviction, Greg. It's driven by the conviction that we are not in the business of retreating from the world.

17:00

We're not in the business of smashing things up. We're in the business of being in the world, being principled and committed to Christ in the world and expecting

17:09

Christ through us to shape the culture in which we find ourselves. Amen.

17:14

Yeah, that's all great stuff. So I agree with it.

17:19

We do. We move forward. We build where we can build some of my concerns.

17:26

And I'm wondering and we might be getting off of the topic of what we'd be talking about the conference. But I see things, too, to where, you know, you guys are familiar with the

17:35

ESG scores that just came out, right? And now they're pushing them to banks and they say, hey, banks, if this business doesn't have a certain

17:44

ESG score, which stands for environmental, social and governance, if they're not, you know, equity and inclusion and diversity and climate change and all the things that the local left absolutely love and idolize, then we're not going to loan money to this to this bank or I'm sorry, to this business as a bank.

18:04

So I look at things like that and I go, hmm, how are we going to? Now, the

18:09

Christians that are sticking their heads in the sand and they have the rapture hatch and they're just waiting for Jesus to come back and you know what

18:14

I mean? And they're like, there's nothing we can do. It's got to get way worse. They've got their theology and we know what they're doing.

18:19

For the Christians like us, I would say that go, hey, no, we don't go out and, you know, just start swinging hammers at people, but we don't retreat either.

18:29

You know, we have a sharpened sword and it's sheathed, but we do know when to use it and we can use it skillfully.

18:34

How do we look at things like that and go, OK, we have banks that are because they've realized they can't do this from the top down with Congress.

18:41

A lot of these policies aren't coming through the legislative branch of the government.

18:47

They're actually coming from private companies. They're coming from lobbyists. They're coming from social groups and they go, hey, we'll just skip over and we'll pressure banks into not loaning money to these people.

18:57

And then we're cutting it off at the source. And I do have to say, progressives in the left, the ones that plan like that, they are smart.

19:04

They are intelligent on how they're using that. So maybe we're getting in the weeds here, but how does a

19:10

Christian business, a Christian entrepreneur, heck, even someone who, like I said, works for someone, but needs to take out a loan for to start a new business or something like that.

19:20

How do we combat things like that biblically, where we do see a progressive secular state going, oh, if you don't believe in the gods that we believe in, we'll cut off your money source, your lending source, things like that.

19:32

I mean, I want to say a couple of things and Carl, you jump in. I mean, the first is I think there's just a case for making our voice heard.

19:39

And this is the examples you gave of the banks that are being discouraged by their shareholders from lending to institutions or companies that don't have the right

19:51

DEI alphabet soup. Well, it's not that they're being encouraged by a vast majority of the ordinary people who own those shares.

20:01

It's a very small minority of woke activists. And it's helpful to know some history of this aspect of progressive ideology.

20:11

It's Antonio Gramsci. It's the long march to the institutions. It's the plan has always been to fill the low and medium level bureaucratic positions in education, law, media, politics, the corporate world with people who are bought into this progressive ideology.

20:30

Because once the speech code has been written or once the DEI policy has been written, even the

20:36

CEO has to abide by it. And if the policy was written by some 24 year old who's just come out of some woke university, it doesn't make any difference.

20:42

The CEO has still got to abide by it. So what happens is you get a very small vocal minority of people, either in bureaucratic positions or who have shares in companies for the purposes of activism, making their voice heard.

20:55

And what people like Jerry Boyer and David Barton are doing is saying, well, hold on a second. We actually own a few tens of millions of dollars of this company or hundreds of millions in investment portfolios for people who are not progressive activists.

21:10

We want to make our voices heard as well. And so there's that long term investment in and commitment to seeking cultural change just by persuasion.

21:19

And if you're a bank like Truist, say, and you do quite a lot of business in the American South, you might be open to persuasion that it's not a brilliant idea to alienate all of your conservative

21:29

Christian customers. So there's that point. I mean, the next and the other thing, of course, and this is more immediate and practical for the kind of people that you're specifically thinking of in your question.

21:40

What about the business that just wants a hundred thousand dollar loan to buy some equipment and a new vehicle just to get started?

21:50

And because it's like a three man band and they haven't got a DEI policy and they have no intention of getting one, their local bank won't fund it and nobody will fund it.

21:58

What happens then? And I think at that point, we've got to say we need not just a long term policy.

22:04

We need a short term policy. We need it. We need a short term plan. And if we can encourage people with financial resources who share the same

22:13

Christian conservative commitments to get in touch with each other, if we can actually help them to get in touch with each other, that will be fantastic.

22:21

And one of the things that Workspace is about, and this is the point at which I'm taking Carl's job from him, but this is the bit you're supposed to,

22:27

I'm sure you will talk about it more eloquently than me. But I would love to see guys showing up for Workspace conference and meeting people who have money to invest, people who need investors, meeting people with money to invest, because that's how banking used to work, right?

22:42

You'd go into your branch and you'd meet your local manager and he'd try and figure out whether you had a business proposition that was going to fly and whether they wanted to lend you money to help support it.

22:52

That's how it used to work on trust, on integrity, on a shared commitment to a value creating enterprise.

23:00

And if we can get back to that by people who share the same kinds of commitments to hard work, to conservative moral values, to Christian principles, putting them in touch with each other so they can work together, then that's our short and longer term solution.

23:17

Let me come at it from another angle. So let me be a little harsh for a second, too.

23:22

So perish the thought, Carl. I think about a lot of the things I want to talk about this conference is kind of de -socialist, like removing the

23:31

Marxism from the workplace. And so one of the things I think we need to talk about a lot is this idea of fair.

23:36

And I hear this all the time in my workplace and other workplaces of like, well, that's not fair from Christians. And I go, does

23:43

God bless equally amongst his, you know, how he disperses resources? Well, no, he doesn't.

23:50

So when I hear people upset because it's so much harder to start a business today than it was in the 80s, which it is, it's way harder with all the different regulations, insurance policy,

24:00

I mean, for crying out loud, all the stuff I had to do just to get a conference going, it's ludicrous. Ask me about my pro wrestling business that failed another day.

24:10

And I just tell you all the stuff I had to do for that. I'm still paying taxes for a business that never made a profit.

24:16

But my point is, we have this. The good old U .S. government, they'll take it even if you don't have it.

24:22

Yeah, taking from my pocket, which has a hole in it. But I don't want to complain about that because this is the challenge that God has given.

24:30

God has blessed us in our time with a much harder challenge than our parents from the 80s and the 70s and 60s and so on and so forth.

24:39

This is just how God does things. And so I don't want to bemoan stuff. I want to challenge brothers and especially men.

24:46

This isn't a men's conference. We have tickets for families and couples, but it does seem like a lot more men are interested.

24:52

And that's fine because I think men want to be challenged. I think they want to be put in a position to succeed.

24:59

And we want to encourage that. So on the challenge part, like, yeah, it's much harder to start a business today.

25:04

But that's the challenge. That's the dragon we have called to slay. On the other end, like, how do we combat some of this stuff for your average

25:12

Christian? Well, I kind of go like, let's start with encouraging men to get married, love their wives well, have families, love their children well, and then start exploring dominion outside of their homes.

25:28

I mean, what's their relationship to their local church, their pastor, their deacons, their elders, so on and so forth.

25:36

I want to encourage guys to kind of focus on themselves really strongly before they're worried about the

25:42

DEI out there. Not that they shouldn't be worried about it. But my point is more if we're wanting to encourage men, it's starting in the home.

25:48

It's starting with the self. We need to be focused on the church purifying itself before we're worried about the sins of Congress or the sins of woke banks.

25:58

Again, not saying that's not a problem. It's definitely a problem. I've run into it. But it's to say that when we're talking like Steve Jeffrey here has a bunch of swords that he can go combat in the public square right now.

26:10

I do not. I'm trying my best, but I still have a young family and I'm trying to raise my two boys and love my wife well.

26:16

And I'm doing stuff like this conference. But there are certain people that are better equipped to combat the world and the paganism we're seeing.

26:25

And I think that the real reality is if not to be too critical of previous generations.

26:34

But I do think if men in the church from the last hundred years had done a better job of worshipping the

26:42

Lord in their churches and having solid worship. Being strong -willed with certain incoming feminism or whatever it may be.

26:51

If previous generations had been better equipped to combat some of that stuff, we probably wouldn't be in the mess we're in.

26:57

But that comes back to my point about I think we need to clean up our own homes. And so I want to encourage guys to do that while they're also conducting their lives professionally.

27:05

Because you can't put that aside. You can't say I'll stop working, go take care of my family, and then come back to work.

27:12

You got to do it all. Well, I think you mentioned the home. And anybody who's a member of All Saints will know that that's a domain that Pastor Shaw and I here at All Saints talk about a great deal.

27:25

But I want to say as well, the workplace. Like if you're a Christian in the workplace and you're not known as the best, the most hardworking, then that's a good place to start as well.

27:36

And we've had men here. We've got a couple of guys at our church who spoke at a men's discipleship breakfast.

27:41

I interviewed them about what it's like to employ Christians. And honestly, it's mixed. Sometimes they have

27:46

Christian guys working for them who are fantastic. Sometimes they have Christian guys working for them who just feel like they're looking for a handout or a hand up or something.

27:54

And you think, no, working for any company and certainly starting your own business is relentlessly demanding.

28:01

And that's another place we can start at home. The challenge before us is,

28:11

Carl's right. We're in a unique situation. Every generation is in a unique situation. And we're not going to drift out of it.

28:17

Like downstream from here is bad. So upstream is the way we want to go in the sense that we're going to be pushing against all our prevailing tendencies.

28:27

So when you're college students, they want to be putting the hours into their studies. When you've got employees, your sales guys, when you've got manufacturers, when you've got

28:37

IT people, we want to be encouraging them. It really matters from the point of view of Christian discipleship that you're doing the very best job you can to serve your boss, to serve your company, to serve your clients.

28:51

And that is a manifestation of Christian discipleship. I'm in danger of talking too much here, but I want to get back to something you mentioned before,

29:00

Greg, or you hinted at. Where in the past, the way that pastors and churches have spoken about the secular, quote unquote, workplace, is basically just don't cuss and don't get into trouble and don't have an affair with your secretary.

29:17

And that's the limit of your Christian discipleship, because basically the gospel had been shrunk down to this little thing where it's like the forgiveness of sins and the life everlasting, and that's it.

29:26

And God be praised, our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting life. But the gospel has more claims on us than that.

29:33

Christ has more claims on us than that. And what we're called to do is to live out our faith in every area of our life.

29:40

And this is just going back to the reformed rediscovery of the doctrine of secular vocation. If you're a shoemaker or your job is to milk cows, you have dignity in the eyes of God.

29:52

It matters that you do your work and it matters how you do your work. And it's not that your

29:58

Christian discipleship is measured by how many people you've evangelized today. If you've evangelized people, great. I preached a sermon yesterday encouraging people to do that.

30:06

But I also want people to come to me on Sunday saying, you know what, pastor, I feel like I learned something this week because I really pushed myself at work.

30:14

And by God's grace, I discovered I could actually do more if I really put the hours in first in, last out, working as hard as I can to try and serve the clients

30:22

I serve or to try and do the best job I can for my boss. That is Christian discipleship. Yeah.

30:28

So I think those are some really good points there. A lot to unpack. I think that's lost on a lot of younger guys, too, like, hey,

30:35

I'm just going to start this business and I'm going to be this entrepreneur. And it's like, well, be faithful in the job you have.

30:43

Christian discipleship also is, like you said, outwork everyone at the job you work with. Do it with joy and cheerfulness.

30:50

Treat everyone how you would want to be treated. And if you can get through that list, then yes, then maybe you're qualified to start looking at entrepreneurship.

31:00

Kyle, I would agree with you, too. Funny fact, when I was younger, if I said that wasn't fair, my father would come to me and say, we don't say that.

31:08

Satan is fair. God is just. So get that out of your vocabulary.

31:14

And it stuck with me. You gotta get your father. Yeah, through adulthood. God is just and the world wants everything to be fair.

31:21

And I would agree with you, Pastor, too, that, you know, as a real estate agent, the 80 percent of my clientele that's secular, they kind of fall right in the middle.

31:32

We have a good transaction. I'm respectful. They're respectful. Christians either fall on extremely great to work with or the worst clients

31:39

I've ever had. And it shouldn't be that way. You know, and it's just it's two extremes.

31:47

And I do my business. What's that? I'm interrupting, but I'm fascinated. Why do you do you have a theory why it should be like that?

31:55

I really think they take kind of a carnal idea of we believe in these same things.

32:03

So therefore, I should be able to get a deal or maybe abuse the relationship.

32:08

And they don't think they're doing it out of like I don't I don't think they're mean or they're trying to sin.

32:14

But it's almost like we've admitted to the same thing. We're in this club of and I think they view it that way.

32:20

So therefore, I should have some I expect some extra special treatment. And look at every single client

32:26

I work with deserves my utmost respect. I have a fiduciary responsibility to them. I don't care if they're a believer or not.

32:33

But my point is, is I also blame that on 50 to 60 years of sermons that have not touched on one proverb from the pulpit.

32:44

And if you just go through the proverbs, there's 31 proverbs and 31 days in the month. Everyone should be reading a proverb every morning when they wake up.

32:52

80 percent of that can be applied to a business. OK, the sluggard says, oh, there's a line in the street. I can't go work today.

32:58

Well, that's victimhood, right? The sluggard turns over in his bed and goes, oh, I can't lift my hand. If only

33:03

I had some food doesn't want to work for things that he needs to earn. I mean, almost every proverb can be applied to some type of the sphere of work.

33:11

And I've come a lot, you know, across a lot of Christians. And I'm not trying to be judgmental or condescending here, but they've sat for 20 plus years in a pew.

33:20

And outside of their three or four talking points that they have, they haven't really explored the scriptures all that much. And they're definitely not applying it to business relationships, either running it or being part of, you know, having someone work for them.

33:33

So I kind of blame the Western American church on that. You haven't been even applying the principles of the

33:41

Bible anyway. Why would you do it in a business relationship? But the ones that do get it, like the

33:47

Jacob's Supply at the beginning of this, you know, our sponsor, it's insane.

33:52

That guy gives away and sponsors more things. I don't even know how he does it. He was running a business out of his garage.

34:00

I'm a county commissioner in my district. And we had to come to him, us and the supervisor and go, look at man, you can't have a two car garage in a residential neighborhood and have semis pulling up, dropping off flooring.

34:10

So we got him into a building, an old car dealership building. Now he's, I mean, it's insane.

34:16

You got people coming from 10 states away. The guy is more generous, sponsors every single thing, writing checks with his time.

34:24

His employees, he's the most gracious with because he has a set of biblical principles of understanding what his employees are, who they are and what he's doing for the kingdom of God.

34:32

And those principles continue to bless. I mean, God's blessing. But through those principles, it just naturally grows.

34:38

And he's probably one of the most successful guys I know at his age. He's younger than I am. And sometimes

34:43

I look at that and I just go, yeah, he's just doing what the Bible says. You know? And he's reaping those benefits of it.

34:49

He's not holding anything with a closed fist. Everything's open hand, open palm. Lord, you can take it anytime. He's not baring his talents, right?

34:56

Right. Yeah. Go ahead. No, that's like, so that parable, I've been reading it over and over and over again because it's like, we just spiritualize it.

35:05

So we don't want to talk about the realities of it. It's a literal investment. Yeah, it's actual money. It's actual money.

35:10

And then there's a whole other element of the guy that did good investment and got it back tenfold.

35:17

He's given more responsibility. He's managing a city. So there's a – you can talk about wealth and the responsibility of wealth.

35:23

It doesn't get easier as you get richer. But what I was going to say is just to your point, Greg, about if we were to be critical of Christian – let's just say

35:32

Christendom in the West currently. I think there's been a lot of Christians who are tantamount to Israel.

35:37

They're fat on bread. Isn't that – that's Proverbs, isn't it? There's a little – Yeah, and a few other places.

35:43

Yeah. And I think we're just – we look – the American church and the Western church is way more like the guy in the parable of the talents who looks at the

35:53

Lord and has the audacity to say, you are a wicked ruler who would punish me. We've been given something.

35:59

We bury it. And then we go, I'm scared of you because you're going to punish me.

36:06

It's ridiculous. But we actually do this. This is – it's noticeable. And if I were to go back to the kind of previous thing

36:14

I was talking about, about kind of criticizing younger Christians who may be whining about how unfair things are, well, let's – there is an older generation that does have a lot of wealth and a lot of capital.

36:25

I'm a post -mill guy. I do believe in blessing your children's children. But there is also an element of, do these guys think they're going to take this into the kingdom?

36:33

How is that 401k going to work for you when you're 89? Do you have some money that you could bless a

36:38

Christian in your church who's starting an electrical company or whatever the company may be?

36:44

There's an older generation that's got some resources and some talents that could definitely provide those back.

36:51

And I do want to kind of emphasize that point. But I think realistically going to what

36:56

Greg was talking about, about just Christians, there's laziness. I mean David Monson's book, he talks about this regularly in full time that you'll hear sermons about working too hard all the time in certain segments of the country.

37:10

You'll hear the like Hallmark Channel sort of pitch about this guy works 60 hours a week and never sees his kid.

37:16

But you never hear a sermon about laziness. I have, but most people don't.

37:22

Most people don't hear sermons. Yeah, for sure. But you don't hear sermons about, hey, 40 hours is maybe not, that's kind of a socialist benchmark anyway.

37:32

So like maybe you could work 45 and find some little work to do. I was even listening to somebody recently said, you know, you're not ready to take dominion in the world if you got weeds in your front yard.

37:43

Yeah. I was sitting with one of our most experienced deacons a number of months ago.

37:48

And we're having a really fruitful conversation with a couple of people in the church who, to their great credit, come seeking advice.

37:55

And I remember this man said, look, nobody works 40 hours a week. I mean, like, brother, you're thinking about 55, 60 hours a week.

38:04

And it was just really eye -opening because I think this man had not heard that said with such clarity.

38:13

You know, he'd heard me say, you know, you should be ready to work hard. He'd heard me encouraging him. He'd heard other pastors encouraging. But just to hear a man who's,

38:20

I don't know, 25 years his senior say, brother, nobody works 40 hours a week. So if you're doing a job that only gives you 40 hours of work, get yourself another part -time job, you know.

38:29

And that's the kind of situation this brother was in. And to his credit, I think he's really pushed himself.

38:35

And again, back to Carl's initiative with this conference. What I'm really glad about is as a preacher,

38:42

I really believe in applying the Bible to real life. You know, I try and think of it as implications rather than application because I want to highlight the point that these the real life is built into the text.

38:56

If you just follow where the text goes, it necessarily implies it leads you towards doing.

39:02

It's not that I have to get the Bible and apply it like a paintbrush with paint. The Bible drives us to these implications.

39:09

The truth is I'm a pastor. I'm not a businessman. I'm not a conference organizer. I'm not an investor.

39:14

I've never built a business. And I'd love to see the men at All Saints and further afield find the resources, the practical resources they need to actually do whatever it is that they're able to do to put this biblical teaching into practice.

39:32

So I'm just excited about this conference. I get to do the fun bit. I get to do the kind of whole

39:37

Bible in 45 minutes or whatever it is, talking about how we should approach the theological foundation of our working lives.

39:44

And then I get to sit back and be praying every moment of that day and watching these men and women just interacting with each other and hopefully sowing the seeds of new business ventures, new jobs, new opportunities.

39:55

What's the Doug Wilson quote? Theology is at your fingertips. Yeah, theology coming out of your fingertips. Yeah, yeah.

40:01

No, I like the practicality of the conference as well because I have to imagine there's going to be some people there giving some practical like real world kind of this is how you take something from the

40:12

Bible and then turn it into that. Because I've had a lot of young guys. I'm getting older now. I'm 42. So I'm in that stage where I'm still listening, but I'm also mentoring.

40:21

So I'm, you know what I mean? I have my mentors, but I have some guys that are coming up. And some of the things

40:26

I talk about, too, that I think are so important is like a lot of guys just have a plan A where I have a plan

40:32

A, B, and C. And at some point, those plans fail. So when plan

40:38

B fails, I'm still doing plan A and plan C. When plan C fails, A and B fills in and I get a new plan.

40:43

So have multiple kind of revenue streams. Have multiple ideas of what you can do or where you can go if something falls through.

40:51

Mentorship is a big thing, which is really just the secular word for discipleship. And then, you know, know your limitations, which all of those things,

40:58

I'm going to go back to them. It sounds like a broken record, but those all can be found in Proverbs. You could literally run a business off of the book of Proverbs.

41:06

Maybe we'll pull in some Ecclesiastes, too, if you're feeling a little morose. On the harder days, sit down with a glass of wine after you work.

41:15

Read Ecclesiastes. Sob like a baby. And then, you know, but I joke.

41:20

But all those things, I think, can be talked about at the conference. Workspace conference starting, what is it?

41:28

Is it July 28th, June 28th? June 28th, 28th, 29th. Okay. But we're going to be talking about practical things as well, too, correct?

41:34

Like how we can transfer some of these things in, like from the Bible to, like, this is how you actually physically build it.

41:42

We're connecting people, but also are you going to be giving any types of pointers? Will there be people that are going, yeah, this is how you build or this is how you transition a business?

41:50

Or this is how you, you know, hire employees? Or this is how you, you know, manage a team?

41:55

Like things like that will be going on, too? Yeah, so as I mentioned earlier, that Thursday night we'll have a speaker's dinner.

42:02

That's pretty exclusive. I mean, it's going to be at a steakhouse. It'll be really nice. But that's, like, a great opportunity to network and talk to all of our speakers, which we haven't listed them all because we've had such a great conversation.

42:13

But we've got David Bonson, who we've mentioned, Steve Jeffery here, C .R. Wiley, David Reese of Armored Republic, and Andrew Krapaschitz.

42:20

And then we also have Darren Doan, who's hosting the event. And so I just want to say real quick, every one of those guys, with all due respect to my beloved pastor.

42:30

I mean, they have, they do way more than you realize. The only one who doesn't have multiple businesses.

42:36

C .R. Wiley and me were talking and he owns 80 doors. Yeah. He's got quite a bit of real estate.

42:44

David Reese owns multiple million dollar businesses. Andrew Krapaschitz is,

42:50

I was up in Moscow recently and I was driving with a friend. I was like, who owns that? That's a cool house that's up on the mountain.

42:56

And they're like, yeah, that's Andrew's house. Andrew owns a mountain. So my point is, these guys are like,

43:03

Andrew's an elder at Christ Church. David's a pastor in Arizona. So is C .R. Wiley and David Bonson.

43:09

Like, if you don't know who Greg Bonson is, you know, what's wrong with you people? But all those guys are not just super active in the church or leading a church.

43:19

They're also experts. So they're going to have so much practical advice. So that would be good to go on the

43:25

Thursday night. But Friday morning, we're going to be doing what we call Talk Shop, which is meant to be not quite breakout sessions, but they're going to be little classroom sessions.

43:34

We don't expect everybody attending the conference to go to that, but that's going to be like an opportunity to raise your hand and ask questions because it's going to be very classroom oriented.

43:44

And we're going to have David Reese talking there. Andrew's going to be talking there. And then we've got a couple other people that we haven't announced.

43:50

They're not names per se, but they're like one of our elders, Tony Douglas is potentially going to be talking there.

43:57

Well, he's a CEO of a pretty big company. And then we've got another guy who's a wholesale company buyer and real estate guy.

44:06

So he's going to be talking. So we've got a lot of guys that are super practical. But the conference as a whole, you should be edified while also having a game plan and recognizing that your game plan is probably not just A, B, like you said,

44:18

Greg. I hope guys walk away from this being like, yeah, I think I want to start a business. I've got a trade. I think

44:23

I could raise some capital. This is what I'm going to do, step one. Okay, if that fails, I'm going to go do this, step two, so on and so forth.

44:29

So the whole weekend really should be not just edifying, educational, but it's also going to be a lot of fun.

44:35

And if you can stomach it to learn how to network, which I do think is a skill because in our modern world where technology – it's easier to have a conversation like this nowadays.

44:47

Than to talk. If you can stop doing that, I promise you there's somebody at this conference that's willing to invest into a business if you have a good idea.

44:56

I've got to say, if I just look back, my calling is somewhat different to the rest of these guys.

45:02

But I also look at my wife. She's homeschooled our kids. She's in the process of building a business.

45:08

What's interesting to me is that whole plan stemmed from one conversation. Now, of course, there was a bunch of background to it.

45:16

She has the skills. She's a STEM degree, really sharp lady. She was an engineer.

45:22

She stepped back from that for two decades to homeschool our kids and now is stepping back into the workplace and building a business.

45:27

But it was one conversation really where we were talking and just blue skies thinking, what would we like to do?

45:33

And as it happened, we came up with an idea which I think is going to work well. Now, what's happening here, you mentioned

45:39

Ecclesiastes, Greg. This is cast your bread on the waters. Truth be told, the guys that you hinted at,

45:46

Christians who are looking for a handout and not really interested in committing themselves to hard work and so on, on that end of the distribution, they're not going to be here.

45:54

But people who think, you know what, this is worth spending some time, it's worth traveling, it's worth spending some money, it's worth putting myself out to try to learn.

46:02

What I'm hopeful, on behalf of Kyle and of everyone who's there, is that this will be the weekend where they have those providential conversations that they look back on in 20, 30, 40 years' time and think, yeah, that was the thing that that guy said that got me thinking.

46:19

Just one thing that got me thinking. And I'll be praying for that. And I'm looking forward to being a part of it and seeing it happen.

46:27

Yeah. And you'll probably say it one or two times to somebody. I might. Honestly, as a pastor, there were one or two conversations that set me on this path in here right now.

46:36

Yeah. All right. So let's wrap this up. Throw out the website, the dates and everything one more time.

46:41

We'll make sure we link it up, Kyle. So if you guys are listening or watching right now, you'll be able to click on it anyway, but go ahead and throw it out there.

46:47

Yeah. Workspace .com. I'm still shocked I got that URL, but I got it. Workspace .com.

46:53

Tickets are available. We've got early bird pricing for a little bit longer. And then, you know, we've got couples tickets, families tickets.

47:00

They'll be great. It's at a hotel, so you can stay there. There's a Hampton Inn down the street if you want to, if that gets full or whatever.

47:07

But June 28th and 29th, Speaker's Dinner is on the 27th. Yeah, it's going to be a great time.

47:14

I mean, if you've been to one of these, like, rowdy Christian conferences, like FLF or anything like that, it's going to have an element of that.

47:21

But I think it's going to be pretty professional. And I think that if you care about dominion -taking and extending your dominion beyond a nine -to -five, and, again, with all due respect to those people,

47:32

I think we're trying to encourage guys to seek to grow beyond just a job.

47:39

That's right. Not dominion. I shouldn't have said it like that. We want to encourage guys to seek to extend their dominion beyond one job and one spot, even though that you can do it in that spot.

47:49

Yeah. No, that's awesome. I'm surprised. You could probably sell that workspace .com to, like, a Catholic theologian for a lot of money.

47:56

Well, they'll deny it. They don't want to ask. Oh, that's true. That's true. Yeah, James. Look at James. I forgot.

48:02

Yeah, I was going to say, like, maybe we should just say real quick because it's important. I came up with this name.

48:08

I like the name because there's a double entendre there, and it's awesome. Exactly. It's the funniest name I've ever heard. And I asked him,

48:14

I'm like, are you sure you want to be associated with it? And he's like, oh, my gosh, yes. It's like three puns at once. I love it. That's what I mean.

48:20

Yeah, like a workspace, and then based in the social context of, like, being based. And, yeah, I was like, dude, that's smart.

48:26

But we should say that our tagline, or one of our taglines, is we are not saved by good works. We're saved by Christ for good works.

48:33

And you actually are called to do good works there, Christian. Awesome. Okay, so let's shift gears here, finish this up.

48:39

Before we get into the Fresh 10 segment, though, I did want to ask Pastor Steve, do you, as a physicist, do you have, what's going on with the double slit experiment?

48:48

Are you familiar with that? Because I mentioned that jokingly at the top of the show. He's been asked about this at church multiple times.

48:55

But when I study that, it just freaks me out that subatomic particles perform differently based on just us observing them.

49:01

Like, you know, and we've got the pagans saying we're in a simulation. But what's going on there? Can you answer?

49:09

30 seconds to solve that mystery. Okay, so the double slit experiment refers to the phenomenon where if you get two slits in an opaque medium and you shine light on it, then you get a diffraction pattern on a screen the other side of those slits.

49:26

And then if you, instead of shining light on it, you shine a beam of electrons on it, then you get another diffraction pattern on the other side of those slits.

49:33

And the reason you get the diffraction pattern, it used to be thought, was because an electron going through one slit interferes with an electron going through another slit.

49:40

They kind of, they produce this pattern. And then what somebody did was they turned the intensity of the electron source right down, so the electrons were only going through one at a time.

49:49

So they couldn't be interfering with each other. And you still got the diffraction pattern, which means, drum roll please, that the electrons must be going through both slits at the same time.

50:01

Which, if that doesn't blow your mind, I don't know how to. What it actually means is that the subatomic particles behave not only like particles, but also like waves.

50:09

And that's opened the door to quantum mechanics and a whole bunch of other fun things besides. So kids, work hard at your math.

50:16

When you're old enough, call me and I'll explain all the details. Post mail, we're going to figure it out. Right, you're going to figure it out.

50:23

It'll be one of the questions. Was that one of my 10 questions? It wasn't, but if you guys want to stick around, we're going to do, what's that?

50:30

That was a bonus one. That was a bonus one. So we do a little segment here called

50:36

Fresh 10. We ask you 10 random questions. I will let you guys choose. You can both answer one or the other.

50:41

Let the other person take it. You'll be the first duo that does the Fresh 10. It's to get to know you a little bit more.

50:47

You don't know what these questions are. Fellas, you ready to play? Yeah. Do you want to take it in turns to go first? You go first the first time.

50:52

Yeah, I'll go first. And then I'll go first the second time. All right. Okay, go on. All right, here we go. Can we take that one more time? Let's go. I'm fresh.

51:01

I'm fresh.

51:07

So what we like to do on this podcast, take learned men, doctors, scientists, physicists, conference, put her together and bring them down to our level with that type of music.

51:15

So it is what it is. Okay, who's getting question one? Kyle, you're on question one. All right, what city and state did you grow up in and how did that affect your childhood?

51:23

Go. Minneapolis, Minnesota. I grew up about a half mile from where Mr. George Floyd died. You can imagine how that impacted me and I escaped that world.

51:32

There you go. All right, Pastor Steve, question number two, what's your favorite funny story to tell people or maybe when you first introduced to them or you got a fun story you're sitting around visiting, what's a go -to joke or funny story that you like to tell?

51:46

I would probably tell a funny story about one of my children. It would probably be my youngest daughter and I think

51:52

I better not recount it at this point. Otherwise, I'm going to have some fairly uncomfortable moments this evening.

51:58

Oh, wow. You got out of that like a professional. All right, question number three, going back to Kyle. You're in the

52:04

DeLorean. The flux capacitor is fluxing. Are we going back in time to visit our great, great, great, great grandfather or are we going forward in time to visit our great, great, great, great grandchildren?

52:16

For me, probably grandchildren because I definitely - You post -millennialist.

52:22

I knew you were going to say that. The short version is my sons are the first to bear my name.

52:29

I think they're going to be the only Hesslers from my immediate generation and I weep over them that they would live to see great, great grandchildren and that they're -

52:38

I tell my boys every night, I said, may the Lord God bless you and keep you, may He smile upon you all the days of your life and may you and your many, many, many, many, many descendants never know a faithless day.

52:50

So I'd love to see the fruits of that, especially given one of my sons' name is Stonewall and if you look at the history of some of their family, it's quite sad.

53:00

But anyway, sorry, that was a longer answer. No, great answer. Pastor Steve, going to you, what's something people would be surprised to know about you?

53:11

I once wore a wire for an FBI sting. Get out of here.

53:16

No, wait, how did we not open the podcast with that? What? It's true.

53:21

I'm sharing that on the signal chat right away. That's going to our men's group. I think we just changed your name to Pastor Rico.

53:29

Well, that's not a crime anymore. Oh, that's true. White House says it's not a crime.

53:35

All right, okay. No further explanation needed. Kyle, top three bands or music albums that have influenced your life the most?

53:43

If you can't get three, you can just name one. Motorhead, Tool, Iron Maiden. Holy cow.

53:50

You, even. How dare you name three great bands? Well, Motorhead started me on the path, but I don't really listen to them anymore, even though I find enjoyment in it.

53:59

Tool, I can listen to certain albums of theirs for hours. I just love the melodic. The heavy stuff, not as much.

54:07

They're very cerebral, anti -God songs. No, but for the music, it's quite good.

54:13

And Iron Maiden, I just love Iron Maiden. I won't deny that. All right, question number six.

54:18

Back to Pastor Steve. What Monopoly piece do you go after when you're playing Monopoly? Are you the thimble? Are you the horse?

54:23

Are you the bag of gold? What are you going for? Car or dog. Car or dog.

54:29

I like it. Okay, bonus question. What real estate properties do you like? The green ones.

54:35

The green ones, which in England are Regents Park, Bond Street, and something else. But in New York, it's something else, right?

54:41

The green ones. Park is the very fancy one. Now, Park Lane and Mayfair are the blue ones, the really dark blue ones in England.

54:47

But Regents something, I can't remember. My son knows. I forget. But the green ones are good, and the red ones are good.

54:54

What a trivia question. Don't say that at the business conference, because for the price versus the rent charged, it's the least of return are the greens.

55:03

Did you know that? Really? Are you kidding me? That's why I never went to Monopoly. Greg, I've not met you early enough in my exhausting life playing board games with my children.

55:12

The most profitable, the best ROI on the Monopoly board are the orange properties. And overall, it's railroads, because there's four of them.

55:21

But anyway. Let's do it. All right, let's keep going here.

55:26

We can't be here all day. Question number seven. Back to Kyle. What do people misunderstand about you the most,

55:32

Kyle? They think one thing, and you go, that's not true. This almost seeks to demean the whole conference.

55:40

I don't work as hard as people think I actually do. I just work efficiently. There you go.

55:46

They're like, how do you have time for all these things? We must talk later, Kyle. Well, I mean, there is something to working smarter and not harder, right?

55:54

Like, I don't equate hours of work to how good of a worker or what your work ethic is.

56:01

No offense, but if I can do 40 hours of work and 20 hours of work, well,

56:07

I got 20 extra hours to spend in my wife, my family, and my brothers and sisters at church. Like, you know, it might sound like I'm pushing back on your, if you were only working 40, work 60 hours.

56:17

But I've fine -tuned over the last 15 years how to get 40 hours of work done in 20 hours. And I would just say that's just being wise and discerning with my time.

56:27

Yeah, if you can do that and then use the rest of your time profitably, Lord bless you. Yep. Absolutely. Right.

56:34

Hey, God created technology for us to bring him glory and to help us work. Absolutely. Question number eight. This is going back to Pastor Steve.

56:42

I believe we're on. If you could sit down for a cup of coffee with any historical figure outside of the

56:48

Bible, who would it be and why? So it could be a Christian. It doesn't have to be secular, but it can't be.

56:55

We try to, we know we all like Paul and Jesus and all that outside of the Bible. Historical figure.

57:01

Who are we sitting down with having a cup of coffee with? It would probably be Jonathan Edwards. Maybe Winston Churchill, but probably

57:08

Jonathan Edwards. The guy's a legend. He's absolutely, he's out there. We don't make him like that anymore.

57:15

Your favorite American? He was actually thought of himself as an Englishman, but you go ahead. America's finest theologian.

57:22

He certainly was. That's what you usually say. And yeah, he was born 1703, died 1758 of a smallpox vaccine that went wrong.

57:31

Genius. Yeah. We just had Matthew Everhart on, who is a scholar with that.

57:39

We were talking about the joy of Edwards and it was just a great episode. It's so good. You're right. All right, Kyle, I'm gonna give you the book question then.

57:45

Question number nine. What book outside of the Bible should everyone at least peruse, pick up and take a read?

57:51

It can be fiction, nonfiction, theological, but outside of the Bible, what's one book everyone should just get their hands on and take a look at?

57:58

Let me say two, because one deeply impacted me in a way I wasn't expecting, but I think it's called

58:03

Son of Hamas. It's basically the guy that started from Hamas.

58:09

His son is a Christian now, and it is one of the best testimonies you will ever hear. Oh, wow. I didn't know that.

58:14

Yeah, and he's now kind of in the mainstream media again because he's, I mean, the recent conflict in Israel, obviously.

58:23

But yeah, the last I heard, he's still a solid believer. I mean, I see light from him, but his testimony is one to read for sure.

58:33

The other one I would, although I'm only, there's three, let me say two more, because my past rule,

58:40

I'll get brownie points for it. One is The Wonderful Works of God, which I read a couple of years ago, and now our church is rereading, how do you say his name?

58:48

Herman Bobbink. It's a great book. It's like, you know, we can get into these theological debates on head coverings or baptism or whatever.

58:56

This guy just makes the Bible accessible in a way that you're like, you're not thinking simply enough because you're not thinking cleverly enough.

59:04

It's such an interesting read. It's a big book. And then our church member here at All Saints, James Jordan wrote

59:13

Through New Eyes. I've been reading that. That is, you need to stop thinking with a

59:19

Christian worldview. You need to think with a biblical worldview and it will change how you think about things once you understand that concept.

59:25

So sorry, I gave you three. Spoken like a true entrepreneur. He asked for one and he gave you three. All right.

59:30

So this question is for both of you. This is the last question. I want you to both answer it. It's a fun one. What's a movie? So I used to ask, what's your favorite movie?

59:36

And no one could really answer that. So now I say, what's a movie that you've just watched multiple times over and over and you can just fall into it and watch it?

59:44

We'll start with Pastor Steve. We'll move to Kyle and then we'll be done. Skyfall, because it contains so many of the literary devices that you find in the

59:56

Bible. And one day, one of the books I'm not currently writing is going to be a book about how to read the

01:00:01

Bible. And the first chapter is going to be an exposition of Skyfall, which highlights all the artistic devices that it uses to construct the narrative.

01:00:14

And they all have parallels in biblical teaching. I would say the Lord of the Rings movies as cheap.

01:00:20

So I'm going to go a different way. I'm going to say The Departed. It's just a great movie. It's not wholesome. It's quite violent.

01:00:27

But it's actually like I believe there's glory in making a good movie, and that's just a great movie.

01:00:35

I've watched it so many times. Scorsese definitely knows how to make your back tense by watching a movie.

01:00:41

You feel for the characters. You're like, oh, my gosh, this is nuts. All right, that's it. We've got our

01:00:46

Fresh 10 with Kyle Hessler, Pastor Steve Jeffery. All right, there you go, guys.

01:01:02

Kyle, Pastor Steve, thanks for coming on today and spending some time with us. Thanks, Greg. Look forward to seeing you later this year at FLF.

01:01:09

Yes, and if you do the conference next year, I'll make sure I stop by and come out of that. I couldn't do the dates that you're doing this year, but I'm excited for you to see what you've been doing just from two or three years ago that we met and all the things.

01:01:22

Pastor Steve Jeffery, thank you so much for coming on. It was great to meet you and talk to you. Hopefully we can do something in the future together as well.

01:01:29

Guys, appreciate you so much. Thanks, Greg. Thank you. All right, guys, thanks so much for listening to another episode of Dead Man Walking Podcast.

01:01:36

As always, you can find us at dmwpodcast .com. You can find us anywhere on socials at Dead Man Walking Podcast, except for Twitter.

01:01:43

They wouldn't give it to us. It's real DMW Podcast, but it's all on the website. Go check it out. Go support us with the merch.

01:01:48

If you want to be a sponsor of the show, reach out to me. We've got to do a little question and answer because we want to make sure our values align and you're good for the show and I'm good for you.

01:01:57

But other than that, guys, remember the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. God bless.

01:02:02

Be sure to check us out at dmwpodcast .com where you can purchase the best and snarkiest merch on the Internet, support the show, and leave us a review or message.

01:02:08

Dead Man Walking can be found on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at Dead Man Walking Podcast and on Twitter at Real DMW Podcast. The Dead Man Walking Podcast is part of the

01:02:14

Fight Lab Feast Network. For exclusive show content, be sure to download the Pump TV app and become a member. If you're a business that needs to reach hundreds of thousands of potential customers then your demographic podcast advertising might be for you.