Jason BowmanArtSpeak Creative

In this episode of the Church Talk podcast, hosts Jason and Rob introduce their guest, Jason Bowman, who shares his journey from church planting to creative entrepreneurship. The conversation explores the intersection of church and marketplace principles, emphasizing the importance of passion and enthusiasm in ministry. They discuss the challenges of growth and chaos in organizations and the need for new approaches to engage communities effectively. The episode concludes with insights on embracing change and adapting to new cultural contexts. In this conversation, Jason Bowman discusses various themes related to church planting, community engagement, and effective leadership. He emphasizes the importance of gratitude, empathetic honesty, and core principles for building strong teams. The discussion also highlights innovative approaches to discipleship through the Jesus XP initiative, aiming to connect individuals with the teachings of Jesus in a contemporary context.

ArtSpeak Creative
JesusXP

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Transcript

Jason Allison (00:02.702)
Hey, welcome back to the church talk podcast today with Rob and Jason. And we got a guest coming in, but, Hey Rob, this, this is, you know, dropping after the first of the year. And I'm sure you've already met several of your new year's resolutions. I know I've already quit about three of them. so what's going on, dude? you know what? It's, it's funny that you say that because we're, you know, we're recording this.

before the holidays, this is gonna drop after the holidays. And as much as I love the holiday, and I really do, I love all of our Christmas stuff we get to do at church and heading into the new year and casting kind of vision for that. So I'm excited about those things. But, know, seeing that those things are a couple of weeks off for us in real time still, there's just, it seems like there's a mountain that we're, you know, at the bottom of getting ready to climb.

and, and actually, you know, when you mentioned new year's resolutions, which we'll probably have to do like a whole episode again about this, since we kind of like to do that, it seems like every year, I actually am working with a friend of ours who's doing like health and fitness coaching to, to do like a whole like health reset thing and just to provide instruction and accountability. So yeah, I'm, I'm excited to start that journey too.

I'm, we'll have to do it together. I'm in. Okay. We'll make it, we'll make it happen. Hopefully this year you're not down on your back for six months while your hip is growing back or whatever happened there. Or being chopped out for the fourth time. Yeah. Yes. that, that's, that's a whole nother story we might do later again, cause people haven't heard it, but anyway, Hey, so today we have a guest and I'm excited.

The main reason I'm excited is because his first name is Jason. And so it's way easier for me to remember. But also this, he represents ArtSpeak Creative, which actually has worked with Converge Mid-Atlantic, which you and I both are part of, as well as now National. I've seen lots of stuff and his team is amazing and so much fun to work with. But we have with us this week, the one and only, the man whose main title I just heard is

Jason Allison (02:26.914)
friend, which makes me like him even more. We have Jason Bowman with us. Jason Bowman, welcome to the Church Talk podcast. Hey, thank you, Jason. Rob, thanks for having me, man. I'm excited. Excited to be here. Yeah. Well, we're glad to have you. Maybe just like so our listeners get a chance to find out who you are. Just give us a little bit of your story, because I know you were your church planner there on the west side of St. Louis. You start new things. You love to partner.

people to help them grow and scale things. May tell us a little bit about who you are. Yeah. I don't know how far back you want to go. I was raised by hippie bikers in rural Washington state and a place to start. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's back. That's the origin story. about 20, 21 years old and, heard the name of Jesus and had to figure out who he was and, had that radical shift of lifestyle and life direction. And,

man, that set me on a whole new path. Ended up in Missouri to study and play basketball and study the word, study the Bible. I wanted to do ministry, wanted to change lives. Ended up in St. Louis after my master's degree and getting married and doing some college ministry. thought, everything worked well in college ministry. And I thought, I'm just gifted. Put me anywhere. Where is it tough? And so...

Man, I got what I asked for. ended up in St. Louis. We moved up here in 2008. So we've been here a while. My kids call it home. My wife and I have two kids. One, my son is a senior in high school. My daughter is a sophomore. And so we are very busy and loving it though, loving cheering them on and all their pursuits.

We planted a church in a movie theater. And so now our kids think about Jesus every time they smell popcorn. And we passed through that church for eight years, that journey. then about halfway through that journey, we had some really good success early on. had, I think, 370 people on our very first Sunday. We had some Easter outreaches that drew four or 5,000 people in our first couple of years. And so my friends across the country started calling me and saying, how'd you get that many people?

Jason Allison (04:43.718)
And turns out I really like to talk about that more than, you know, who's over the kids ministry this week or who's gonna drive the trailers and the trucks. I mean, we hung in there for eight years. So it wasn't like we just quit when it got tough. But I was also to keep my ministry addiction funded. Cause even though we had a lot of good numbers, most of the people we were connecting with had never heard of the word typing. So that was an educational time, but.

I was working for a marketing company. They ended up hiring my associate power pastor to build some of the websites that I had sold for them. And the two of us after a year there were like, you know what? We learned a lot from these guys. One thing is we could probably do this. What, but then here was the question. What if we could help the church with the principles that we were learning in this marketing world, right? We were helping Microsoft partners and better business bureau, good stuff. But I was like, what if we could help the church reach more people? So

10 years ago, the two of us partnered up today. There's about 42 creatives on our team. And we've just had the privilege of coming alongside some of the smallest and the scrappiest, but also some of the largest Christian and then some really great non-pro, know, churches, some of the, but some of those brands across the country and quite literally around the world. The last few years, the doors have really opened up in the for-profit realm, coming alongside life-changing leaders and helping them articulate the kind of

culture and processes and people centric culture that they want to create in their companies and also helping them reach more people. So yeah, I think that's maybe more than you asked for, but that's a little bit about my story. No, that's so good. Jason, I I got a question. you know, I, and I love, I love this stuff and I love, you know, reading broadly. love reading business books and leadership books, you know, written by anyone and everyone.

who has something compelling to say. But you know, I mean, I'm sure you've seen this too. You know, there's lots of people in the church who work in the church, you know, who are like, well, the church is different. You know, you can't bring all that those principles and that leadership stuff because the church needs to be the church. Probably that's not a ton of our listeners. But, you know, I mean, as someone who has had a kind of a foot in both worlds,

Jason Allison (07:06.734)
And, you know, learn, learn some things out in the marketplace that you've brought back to the church that have been able to be helpful and beneficial and a blessing to reach more people for Jesus. Like, what would you say, maybe if you were talking to a pastor or a church person who was a little bit leery about some of that kind of overlap and cross collaboration? Yeah, great question. I think, so this is like my favorite kind of conversation, right? What's happening next in the church.

How can we reach more people, man? That's why I wanna be a church planner is because I wanna reach people. So I wanna answer your question, but I wanna answer it right. And I feel like we need to back up from it just a little bit. When I say the word church to the three of us and probably most of our listeners, we're like, hey, we've got some issues, but two thumbs up.

You know, yeah, don't forget about the crusades. Like, don't be mad at us for that. like, you know, the, two thumbs up. When I say that same word in a Midwest suburbs that I live in, in my cul-de-sac, I don't have a, I don't know that I I think I might have, there's three of us on this call. I may have two others out of 10 in my cul-de-sac that would say the same, that would be like, yeah, two thumbs up.

two out of 10 and I live in the Midwest and I live in the suburbs, right? This isn't a hard place. This is the Midwest, these aren't even the coasts. So I think, my neighbors don't go to church on purpose. They know churches exist. They got the mailer. They've seen the website, they're not going. It's a lifestyle choice at this point.

How can we make the good news sound good again? That's a catalystic driver for us, but I think it gets to some of that answering that question. I think the future of the church is entrepreneurial. I think that doesn't take a prophetic edge in my mind, because if I look into the deep past of the church, it's entrepreneurial. We have 42 named entrepreneurial associates with the apostle Paul.

Jason Allison (09:24.182)
Now in the church world, we say those were church planters. In his day, they were also building tents together. So, and I'm not just saying this wasn't just necessarily the like how we would define bivocational. I don't think Paul waited until like they got off work. Okay, now let's talk about Jesus. And I don't know what went on under all the tents that they built.

I don't know that they were just tents for church services. In fact, think you'd either be easy argument that quite the opposite maybe. Who was building tents? Who needed them? So they were willing to serve them. And so I think we look into the deep past and we see this overlap of business and leadership and church and church planting and the mission of God is actively had. I will say this, so that's maybe my theological answer.

I think even my personal anecdotal answer is I've had more doors open for me in this city since my business card said entrepreneur, business leader than it ever has when I was like a pastor. And I'm not even talking about doors like for business and moneymaking and even for the kingdom. And it turns out like I...

God is at work in a lot of cool buildings, in a lot of spaces. I've yet to walk into a room where it wasn't obvious that he was already at work, in the lives, in the hearts, in the conversations, in some of the projects that were happening in my city that even as a pastor, was really blind to, because you have to be very focused on what you're doing, what's coming up. Sunday's coming, you gotta get a lot of preparation. But God's at work in a lot of places, so I think...

if we began to just limit this is church. I don't know. I'm just like my mindset in my own journey. I think I accidentally started a marketing agency. So I've accidentally discovered out of my own struggle that God's at work in a lot of different places that the definition of ministry is probably a lot broader, even the definition of church than I even first imagined. It's interesting as you say that my own experience

Jason Allison (11:42.638)
You know, really, I think also affirms that to me before coming here where I am in middle of nowhere, Ohio, 13 and a half years ago, I planted a church in West Michigan. And in the transitional period, I actually sold cars for six months at a big car dealership in Muskegon, Michigan. And it was amazing how many of my customers, how many of the other salesmen.

there's this one guy who literally would want to go on a smoke break. We had a golf cart, you know, in case somebody was looking at a car way out on the lot and he'd every day, Hey preacher man, hop in the golf cart. And we'd like drive around as he chain smoked. And he'd asked me questions about life and God. And before I left there, it was crazy. Cause he made me promise that when he died, that I would come back and do his funeral, you know, cause just like that made such an impact in his life. So I love that. Hey, Jason Allison,

Can I ask the next question? Because a lot of this stuff is from your experience and I love this question. So Jason, in a workshop you did in November, you said this, if you're going to open a Mexican restaurant, you better have good salsa. And I say amen to that because I love Mexican food. And hire people who love to make the salsa. Can you expand on what you mean by that? Yeah, I think, you know, I mean, I love good salsa.

I saw a joke one time as somebody mentioned, you know, I asked a friend if you want to go get tacos and he said, I ate tacos yesterday. And he was like, that, what do you mean? You can't have tacos. Good thing you don't live in Mexico. You know, like you can't live it. You can't eat tacos more than one day in a row. What kind of, what kind of diet are you on? You know, like I could eat them every day. So that's kind of me. So I think chips and salsa, some queso, man, that sounds good. So

Here's the deal, it's a theory I have about good salsa. I love Mexican restaurant, love good salsa. If you are gonna open a Mexican restaurant, have good salsa because you could hire my marketing company and I will only ruin your restaurant faster because I could introduce more people to your terrible salsa and now the word on the street is they've got terrible sauce. And then now you're gonna hit a spike quick and then die quicker.

Jason Allison (14:06.36)
Thanks to good marketing. So good salsa. But then here's my theory is if the people who make the salsa don't like making it, like they hate their job, then my theory is I'm going to taste it or at least feel it. Like I think the person who just served me this wants to hurt me rather than I like this environment. Like if the people who are working in that environment don't like being there, I don't think I'm gonna like being there. And so,

But on the other side of that coin, if the people who make the sauce love making the sauce, then I don't care what your sauce is. I think you won't not grow. Like you couldn't help grow. You couldn't stop the growth. If the people that are involved in making the salsa are like on Thanksgiving or with their family or over Christmas or.

They're like, what are you doing these days? And they're like, I'm making salsa. I get to chop the onions. get, know, it's so great. There's this great sauce we're making. They're like, what are you in a cold? Did you sign up for something? Like what's, we're worried about how excited you are, but I am going to come in and take a look and not just contagious enthusiasm of those on the go. And here's where I think in the biggest part, like, and this, this isn't just in the church, but I think it's organizational all over, but I do think in a large part.

the church world has forgotten that the secret ingredient to the sauce is those who make the sauce. And every time we're just writing people off as they walk out the door, there goes another secret ingredient. There goes one of the key ingredients, just walk out the door. And hear me, I've had people leave and then not be fun when they left. so if you're a little salty over that, and then right, then the church coach says, don't take it personally. And you're like,

how do I not take that personally? I feel like they just ripped out my kidney, you know? And so, you know, so I hear me, I'm not talking about that, but I do think what if we could create a place? This is my life goal now. How do I create a culture around me that people wanna be in? How do I create a marriage that my wife enjoys? How do I create a home that my kids want to be in? They wanna invite their friends to my house. How do I create a company, a business, a non-prov, whatever you're leading?

Jason Allison (16:28.12)
How do I create a team that people love to play for? And that's the great salsa metaphor. Yeah, so I remember hearing that in the workshop and I wrote it down like three different places so I didn't forget. Cause I love that. Now here's my question, my follow-up question to that. So you create this space, this environment that's got great salsa, we'll just keep the metaphor going and the people making it love it.

And so more people are coming in. How do you transition from it being a place to get great salsa to being a place where I want to actually be part of making the salsa? I want to be in it, not just a consumer of salsa, chips and salsa. I want to be part of that. Is there, and I know every metaphor breaks down at some point and I'm not trying to overextend it, but I'm just thinking of the pastor who's like,

Okay, I'm gonna do it, but then I've got to just make better and better salsa every single week and I'm getting worn out. But how do you respond to those kind of pushbacks? Great question. think one of the things, I draw this picture that I steal from Les McCown in his book, Predictable Success, that he talks about, I'll draw it here real quick. I'm not the artist on my team, but I do think there's a...

something fun about illustrations. So he draws an arc like this about a lifestyle company. And at the beginning, he calls it the fun, right? This is where it's like, dang, we're selling, we're growing, more people are coming, this is awesome, this is so fun. There's only like two of us, there's like four of us, and it's just, then we're doing everything and it's just so fun, it's just great, man, was like, there's this adventure and it's happening, it's happening. We said it would happen and it's happening. And then out of that, no, this is if you're,

scaling a marketing company, if you're growing a church as a church planner, if you're selling car, you're creating a car lot, anything you start new, you're gonna enter into chaos mode. That's what more sales is gonna be. That's what growth is gonna lead you to, chaos. Every time growth is gonna lead you into chaos. Because all of a sudden it's like, here's business 101, right? Or even organizational, make a promise, fulfill a promise.

Jason Allison (18:48.982)
hey, join us, this will happen in your life. Now you better fulfill that. So think about that when you put welcome home in the lobby. You better have a way to fulfill that promise. So everyone's welcome here. better have a way to, anyway, make a promise, fulfill the promise. Boom, you make promises, people are coming in to see, great, we have great salsa. Well, let's check it out. People are like, this is great salsa. Let's tell our friends. Now we're in chaos. How do we bring more salsa to more people?

And what Les McCown says is sometimes people get in this process, they're like, I just wish it was back in the old days when it just a few of us. It used to be so fun. It used to be so fun. Couldn't we just do it when it was small here? And we wanna go backwards. But that is not the way. He calls this white water in his book, Predictable Success. And the only way to survive in white water, it's fun to be in white water. It's crazy to be in white water. That's why you get in the rapids, right? That's why you go rafting, but you gotta paddle through it.

Right, you gotta paddle hard through it. Everyone's gotta work together and you just gotta get through it to what he calls a place of predictable success. And all that means is we know what the future is gonna be like and we plan for it. Right, in chaos mode, you're like, hey man, people like our salsa. so we set out 20 chairs and 70 people showed up. And now you got people running around crazy. that's a good problem. But you know it's a problem, right? Like they ate all the salsa and it's only 7 p.m. Like we have.

two more hours and we've got, make, chop some onions quick. know, so that's chaos mode, but now we're predictable success. We knew how much to buy. We knew how many chairs is set out. knew what was going to happen for the most part. How you get from chaos mode to predictable success is systems. And I'm not a systems guy. I am a chaos creator. That's my gift, but I have to surround myself with systems minded people. So, and create really healthy and great systems.

So one out of every five people on my team is a project manager. They are actually there just to make sure I's get dotted, T's get crossed, it's on time, proactive communication is happening, systems are being checked, or they're making the systems better. Also, I have people on my team that their main job as leaders, honestly, most of my directors that are leading a team, team leads and our directors, their number one job is to make better systems.

Jason Allison (21:11.81)
and keep making systems. Because you can exit out of predictable success onto what is called a treadmill. And that's where we just do what we've done, because that's what we do. And it's like, it's not as fun, but that's what we do. We got the same thing that happened in this year as we had last year. That's all right. And then if you double down on the treadmill and say, that's what we do, because that's what we do, then you enter into the downward spiral of an organization. I don't think the arch

of an organization is based on timeline. I think organizational life cycles has been taught to us based on time of the organization's age. I think it's more a matter of mindset. And isn't that true? Haven't you met, I have friends that are in their seventies that don't have a mindset of other people I know in my life in their seventies. They feel younger.

So it's not a matter of how long we're on the planet. It's the matter of our mindset. And if you double down on the, that's what we've done, cause that's what we always do, downward spiral, then you enter into the death rattle. And that just means, and honestly, people here are just like, this is what we've always done. And there's so many different companies throughout history, throughout American history, throughout, you know, that you could point to. The irony though is how do you get off of the downward spiral or the treadmill? Also systems. The willingness to reinvent.

and reestablish how can we make our systems fresher, newer, better, more, and really, and I get into one of our principles is just for the person, how do we make our system empathetic to the people that we're serving? That's a long answer, sorry, a rabbit trailing here, but. I love it. That's what, mean, our podcast is about giving pastors and leaders some practical stuff that.

you know, our, our thing is we want to engage, equip and encourage pastors and leaders and why you just did hit on multiple levels of that. So don't ever apologize for that. Yeah, that's so good. So, you know, as you were kind of going through that, Jason, I just kept thinking, whether it's because, you know, people at a church remember five years ago or 20 years ago or whatever, like their hay day. And so,

Jason Allison (23:32.044)
you know, they're on that treadmill because they're like, you know, if we just, this worked at one point. So if we just keep doing it, we know the magic will strike again. And, and, you know, and so that happens, or even sometimes it's more for biblical or theological reasons that people are like, Hey, this is just what we're supposed to do. And we can't deviate from it, even though it may not be accomplishing their mission or their vision or even expressing their values. Well, you know, so what would you say again to a pastor?

listening to as you kind of gave that illustration was thinking I'm being really honest I'm afraid that we're on the treadmill and we're and we're getting you know ready to hear the death rattle how can someone in a situation like that navigate back to to more predictable success I love that and I've got some resources for it as well so I think one I love Jesus's teaching

Your question reminds me of something Jesus taught in Luke chapter five. I love Luke's version of Jesus's new wine skin teaching because he says something to the point of no one says, Luke chapter five, no one says the old wine is bad. No one drinking the old wine says it's bad. I love that because that's true, probably on multiple levels, the old wine isn't bad. That actually means it's good, right?

No one drinking it says it's bad. So he's affirming the old wine. And I think we make a mistake when we're like, new wine, new wine skins, cause the old is terrible. No, no, no, no, no, I think a lot about when I live also, right? Like we're at the beginning of the 21st century. We're a quarter of the way through. And I'm not making it to the end friends. I'm not gonna be here at the end of the 21st century. That is not morbid. That's just math. Okay.

But what can I do at the beginning of this century to somehow influence our culture and principles so that the church that my kids, grandkids and great grandkids inherit might look a smidge more like Jesus, our culture, our people, their cul-de-sac might look a little more like Jesus. What could I do? Well, the tools and the trends and the ministry definitions that were given to us from the 20th century, it feels like to me are waning in inefficiency.

Jason Allison (25:58.414)
and effect, right? They're not as effective as they used to be. That doesn't mean they were bad. I'm still a fan. I still attend. I'm not saying we're gonna throw the whole thing out. In fact, that's actually the new wineskin teaching. It's just that the new wine won't fit in that model. It'll destroy both. It'll destroy the old model and it'll spill all the new things that you want. So let's not say it's bad. In fact, we're only here.

because of God's grace through whom he used in the last generation. But what we need to create just might not fit in that skin. So I love the idea of building bridges, turning on lights, help. With a friend of mine published this book, Steve Pike, called The Reimagined Church. So it is quite literally entire step-by-step principles.

on how to answer the question you asked. I didn't know you were gonna answer that. This feels like it was all set up. I always have these here, okay? So. We didn't know we were gonna ask it We didn't know. But yeah, that wasn't even part of, that wasn't even the question on the list you sent me. The Reimagine Church, I'll make sure that you guys have a link to be able to buy the, it's actually the sequel to the first book that we published with Steve. Steve Pike is a, he helps converge a lot and convert him and Gary Rohrmeyer help a lot of the converged churches with.

church planting concepts and helping the regions reach more people. But we helped write this book, Next Wave with Steve and help publish that rather. And then we also created the Reimagine Church. This was really targeting church planters, but these mindsets, I think, are the principles that he's got 12 mindsets in here that are just gold. then this was how do we take an existing church? This was like, you're starting from scratch. Here's the mindsets to build on.

How do you take an existing church? Well, one of the coolest parts about this book, and you can't really see it in my camera, but it's written by Steve Pike and the Next Wave community. So we have an ongoing live community of practitioners, because often best practices, by the time they're figured out and written down and published, they may or may not be best anymore. Our culture, history is happening so fast right now. That's not just like...

Jason Allison (28:19.278)
imagination, it really is. And so what we've tried to do is we've created an online community that takes this concepts and others and where there's gathered, there was one, two hours ago, a live hangout cohort talking about entrepreneurial in and starting businesses and the kingdom and churches together. How do we go into a city and start a kingdom ecosystems instead of just a gathering place?

But what does the community need? Does it need a laundromat? Does it need a grocery store? Does it need more tables for people to gather around? How can we create more and more and more spaces? How can we create the good that our cities need? Those kinds of conversations are happening live weekly in the online community. And the entire online community wrote this book together last year with Steet, which is cool. anyway, I'll make all links.

Free months, I'll give you guys a couple of free months in the community if you're interested or if you want to buy these, obviously they're on Amazon or I'll share a link. Anything I can do to help resources that are listening. I wish you got excited about things. I know, it's a problem. Where's everyone else out around me? It's great for a podcast, they're great for an interview. Where's all my friends out though? No, I really do. I love it.

knew even sitting in the workshop where you were leading and then just even working with your team. was like, anybody that's part of Artspeak is going to be a lot of fun to be around or they probably won't be part of Artspeak. I mean, like they won't last. I'm just excited that we get a chance to talk. But I want to transition just a little. I've got like three other things I want to get to and I don't want to run out of time.

Let's start with you introduced to me at the workshop thing, a thing called the Jesus XP.com and fascinating to me. I'm going to have to spend a ton of time on it specifically. I just want to make sure our listeners know what it is and at least take a minute. And again, it's the Jesus XP.com. I'll put a link to that also in the show notes. Maybe tell me where that come from. What are you thinking? What's going on with that?

Jason Allison (30:35.308)
Yeah, so it came out of a conversation originally like 20 years ago in a church plant leadership meeting in the Pacific Northwest where the church planter got done reading whatever Andy Stanley leadership book, you know, with his team and then asked the question, what should we read next? And one of my mentors today was in that meeting then. And he said, what if, what if we read Luke and my friend who

Today, my friend who is the pastor of that church said, realized that in 20 years of ministry, no one had ever invited him to read the words of Jesus, nor had he ever just invited somebody just to read the words of Jesus and think about what he said. So they built their entire church on that. Fast forward 20 years, COVID hits. They have multiple campuses, multiple sites in the Pacific Northwest, that's a big deal. And in their words, people lost their minds.

And in some of our other friends, the way they described it was pre-COVID, we asked people to attend and they attended. We asked them to serve and they served. We asked them to give and they gave. And when the government said, look, you can't attend our church service on Sunday morning, our people lost their minds. They thought they couldn't connect to Jesus. And there were some that were honest enough to say, wow, we drifted. We missed the mark.

We convince people that what you really need to connect to Jesus is to be in this room together.

So we went back to the basics and there was a small group of us and we just started, here was the question we asked. What if we read through the words of Jesus and ask this question, does Jesus have anything to say about discipleship today in our culture in the 21st century? Let's just read his words and talk about what he said. And it was like a breath of fresh air, man. Just getting to be a part of that, I felt like for the first time in my life, this is after decades of ministry, right?

Jason Allison (32:41.708)
Like I was invited to be one of the disciples. I didn't know I had that invitation to sit around the campfire and be like, know, and process, know, the Messiah now is up in the hills doing whatever Messiahs do after they teach. And we're sitting around the campfire going, who says things like this? Who does things like that? And just wrestle with. then, and so we invited a couple of handfuls of pastors and leaders to have that same conversation with us.

And then, and today, fast forward just a couple years, we've had about accidentally had about 10 to 15,000 people go through one of our frameworks. is a gospels centered discipleship framework. And it's gospels centered, not gospel centered. There's a difference. There's an S on the end there. It's plural, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. And we make an argument for acts as the gospel of Luke volume two. So we have, we have framework for Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and acts.

And it's just the framework. The curriculum is the words of Jesus. It is the gospels. And then, and the basics of it is just talking about what Jesus said and wrestling with it. And it's fantastic. You can download some of those for free. They are being retooled right now and are gonna be published this spring as we're an actual book. Right now they're just PDF downloads.

but in a really nice tactile book for purchase this spring that'll be updated by March at exponential. We'll be launching that with them. I'm just a friend of the JXP at this point. I just, got to help be a part of its initial recreation in 2020 and 2021 and then helping encourage, I helped introduce a few people. I love introducing people and collaborating and sharing enthusiasm and relationship.

and now I think it's getting ready to become something else, hopefully a resource, but right now you can download those frameworks. I think there's three of them available for download right now on that site, but again, that's being updated right now. So maybe by the time this drops, might be, there may be one. I'm an advocate, let's keep giving away as much of it as for free as possible, but great resource. And hey, even if you're like, wow, that costs money now and I don't want it, like here it is for the rest of my life.

Jason Allison (35:05.134)
how can I get as many people as I possibly can to read the words of Jesus and talk about what he said and just let the Holy Spirit do the rest? Because it's like his job. If you go back and look at the job description of the Holy Spirit, it's like, talk about the words of Jesus. That's his main job, right? And so if that becomes the centerpiece of your group, it's almost like he's like, I gotta get off the smoke break and get back to work, right? And there's biblical precedent.

for him smoking by the way, it's cloud. Anybody remember that? Those days? that's so good. That's so good. And Jason, I love how you, you know, have your, kind of fingers in all kinds of different things. You know, it's not just, Hey, I'm kind of this arts, be creative guy, but man, like you, you just seem like you're passionate to be a part of help resource, be creative around like,

whatever kingdom endeavors taking place, that's super cool. insane, yeah, insane or cool. I'm not 100 % sure. Yeah, yeah, or both, yeah. But again, and maybe that goes back to answer your first question about business and church. For me, again, the definition of ministry and what is the church, I mean, wanna resource people, I think, in my greater city, in my community or our generation. Yeah, how can I leverage any idea, any creativity?

One of my favorite stories, we get an opportunity to come in because of the depth that my team does through messaging and branding. We get the opportunity to speak into leadership culture a lot and we do consultation and coaching of leadership teams. And in a for-profit sector, we get invited in to do that and helping re-articulate. A Fortune 500 company CEO, he said, Jason, after this, I need to...

I need to reorganize my whole company. And I was like, I've met them. That's true. You do, you need that. And so, so he takes the words that we had created for his website and the marketing and reorganizes his whole company around it. got to help from the stage for in front of his company, help him introduce that to his executives. then he commissioned me and my team to coach his executives. So now we're coaching the C-suite on how to roll that out. And then we got to coach the middle management. And then right now we're building their new onboarding process.

Jason Allison (37:28.248)
But here's my favorite part of that, the CEO, right before we started coaching the C-suite, he says, Jason, help me make this a Christ-centered organization. And he's like, look, I don't need you to put Jesus on my website, but I want your team to train my leaders on how to serve like Jesus serves.

And I was like, I even told, was like, dude, this is so full circle for me, I have no idea. Now what I didn't say was, man, had you asked me when I was a church planner, I'd have done this for free, you know, but, but, but again, God's at work everywhere. And I think the principles that are true, that, that, that, that stem from the person and the words and the ways of Jesus, they work. words and the ways of Jesus, they work, they work in corporate settings, they work in nonprofit settings.

They work in cul-de-sacs, they work in family settings, they work in marketing and by God, I hope they'll work in church. Yeah, that's amazing. And you know, it's interesting, you you've said this a number of times, me and my team, me and my team, and you you told the story about starting with two and now there's 42 of you, you know, which is awesome. And I think, you know, one of the things that Jason and I get all the time from pastors and leaders is,

man, it's just me, you know, I don't have a great team yet. I'm trying to build a great team. I'm trying to find a great team. Can you spend a little bit of time talking about some of the core principles for a great team that you've shared? Yeah, I'm gonna go rapid fire through these. Okay, so I'm gonna give them all. I'm gonna give you all of our core values. I'm not saying you have to use these, but I think they're pretty good. when I teach them and I talk about them as principles because

I want people to apply them. don't think they have to be your core values is what I'm trying to say. But the first one, and these kind of build on each other, the first one for us is it's about people.

Jason Allison (39:28.366)
I have people, you have people, I'm leading people. So if I'm handling a conflict, if I'm dreaming with somebody, I have to understand that they're a person and I'm a person, I serve people. So I wanna do what's right by people first. And we can come back to any of these, but the second one that builds on that is gratitude is our operating system. Now we're nerds, we call it that. But there's also a brain science there about gratitude as our operating system. If you're in an environment of gratitude,

your brain thinks better. You dream about the future, you're optimistic, you're hopeful, you're more creative, you enjoy your workspace. People don't leave companies, people leave bosses. And so if they're in an environment where they don't feel safe and they don't feel like they're being treated like a person or they don't feel like they're being appreciated or appreciation can't be expressed, then they're not gonna stay there long. They're not gonna want to be in it.

If there's no other principle that I get to teach or consult on that's more powerful at shaping a life giving culture than the expression and practice of gratitude. We start every meeting with it. We have a 30 minute meeting every single week. It's the most expensive half hour of my week. When you're a business owner, you think that way, right? So you log and churches need to think that way. We have, we think we just have meetings and that doesn't cost us anything. Okay. But that's, that actually is expensive. Like

that those people aren't doing their meeting. I'm a fan of meetings, but just not more meetings for the sake of meetings. Also something people will not want to be a culture in. It's about people, gratitude is our operating system, but that 30 minute meeting that we have is just to express gratitude. The entire team towards one another. It's just popcorn. And we will sit in awkward silence until people start expressing gratitude, but they want to, and you want to. You want to be in a culture where actual genuine gratitude is freely expressed.

nothing can change culture more. In fact, when I'm coaching individuals that feel stuck in life, because I do some one-on-one coaching, and I lead some cohorts also, I'm coaching, the first step is just to start writing down gratitudes. So let me just drop this. If you feel like you're in the wilderness today.

Jason Allison (41:46.528)
And we're not in the, we all want the promised land, but we're in the wilderness. God provided in the wilderness. wasn't giant grapes. It wasn't, it wasn't massive, you know, wild game. And, and it was, it was tiny manna and you had to collect it every day. And so God will provide in the wilderness. Here's my, this, I'm only sharing this out of my own struggle, but if I will begin to look for anything,

that I'm grateful for today. It could be the color blue. I remember one time I was leaving for a meeting and my wife said, hey, I'm praying for you. And I got in the car and I was like, I have a wife that prays for me. And I began to record it. I began to capture the manna, the little, I wrote a note in my phone. It was titled manna. And I began to just say my wife's prayers. My son said something funny. My daughter said something profound. It was a sunny day. just, and I began to review that at night. And so I'm collecting the manna.

And I'm, but that's gratitude. I'm becoming grateful. And now I think in that same note, I began to dream again and gratitude and goals go so I'm off of your question, but gratitude and goals go so good together because goal gratitude says I'm happy where I'm at and goals say, but I know you're not done with me. So I'm satisfied. I'm content, but I'm called. I'm content with where I am, but I'm called to more.

And that's okay to have both ambition and enjoyment. But it's a tough balance. And I think gratitude and goals going, anyway, I could talk more about that. You'll have to have me back. Gratitude is our operating system. Yeah, that was a terrible invite request, right? So. I'd already considered it, so it's fine. Here's another one is imperfect excellence. Right? Excellence.

is about those we serve. Imperfection is about my own ego. It's unattainable and it's about me. So done is better than perfect, but imperfect excellence says, look, I'm not aiming at perfection because that's really about my ego. But excellence means I wanna do my best. wanna serve people to the, excellence is the way I serve. When I'm trying to pursue perfection, that's an internal personal thing. So we have a core value of imperfect excellence.

Jason Allison (44:12.898)
We have another juxtaposition of words, confident humility. Confidence says, have value to add. Humility says, I know everyone else does too. And so you need both. If you're gonna thrive as a leader, you need to be confident in the vision you have. But you also have to be humble enough to listen to everyone else on your team and bring them on. Probably the, I mean, honestly, as far as growing a team, that was your initial question.

Like how do you start collecting people around you? Build your vision around the people around you. listen to what God's put on their heart. What if our job as leaders is really just to facilitate the conversation and get them towards their dreams in life? I made it a prayer of mine a couple years ago. What if my life, what if my dreams were just about helping other people's dreams come true? My wife, my kids, my business partners, my co-leaders, my staff.

my clients, my friends, like what if I dream now to help their dreams come true. And I'm not, I'm not like perfect at this. I'm you can ask my wife, you can ask my friends. I'm not, I'm not, I've not hit utopia yet. but confident humility. Another one is empathetic honesty. And that one's super important. I think I taught on that one at the breakout, that one, if you'd have me back, let's just talk about empathy and it being the foundation for healthy communication. But we put empathetic honesty down together because

Empathy without honesty could be manipulative. I could just be convincing you that I think and feel like you for my own selfish purposes. Honesty though, without empathy can be weaponized and hurtful and cruel, even vindictive. I just need to be honest with you. No, you don't just need to be honest. If you're a Jesus follower and a leader, you don't ever just need to be honest. You need to be empathetic and honest, right? Because why? He was full of grace and truth.

or reminds me when he taught on the mountain, right? He says, who, know, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice for they'll be satisfied. And blessed are the merciful for they'll be shown mercy, right? That's the juxtaposition. You're gonna get justice and mercy. I love both, right? Empathetic and honest. And then the last one is persistent growth. Let's just keep getting better. Let's just keep getting better. Let's just, we're not, haven't, no one's arrived.

Jason Allison (46:40.472)
Let's just keep getting better. So those pillars help us in the content we provide. We could talk more about how to create core values later. my team has a great process for it, but we're running out. So I definitely, we're gonna have to have you back because I got like 15 more things I wanna talk about and I love it. But if when we have you back, we're gonna definitely camp on the empathetic honesty and the foundations for healthy communication.

I think there's so many pastors out there right now that don't get that. They think they do, but they're speaking the truth in love, but really they're just speaking the truth. And so, then they wonder why no one wants to follow. So that's where I will say that one principle is foundational for me, both as I think about my relationships and my, in my home and how I lead my team. And it is a principle for

for marketing. It's a principle for discipleship and reaching people. Am I willing to think and feel like them to lead them somewhere good? I think that's the gospel. I think empathetic honesty might just be the gospel of Jesus applied to planet earth. But I'm opinionated about it. So, but I'd love to talk about it. I'd love to talk about it. Let's do it soon. Let's do it soon. Yes. Yes. We definitely will. As soon as we get done with this, I'll send you a link and we'll get. Let's do it. Absolutely.

Please, yeah. Yeah. So, okay, one last thing and then, yeah, we gotta land the plane for today. At the end of each of those values, those core principles that you talked about, you said there are some actions that you have to do and it was listen, ask clarifying questions and look for the win, win, win. And then you got to the second core principle and said, and there are actions you have to do, listen.

ask clarifying questions, look for the win, win, win. And every single one of those core principles, those were the action points. Can you take just a second as we wrap this up and tell us why that's the same thing on every single one of those? Well, one, the repetition has some humor in it in the presentation, but I also, I also, know, every core value can't just be a value on a wall or a t-shirt. You have to look for actual actionable habits, cultural habits that are happening. Here's what we do with that value.

Jason Allison (49:06.818)
Here's why we do this. And habits can support multiple values, right? So confident, humility, gratitude, know, empathetic honesty. It's about people, therefore, one of our cultural habits is ask clarifying questions. So when someone's upset, a client, another team member, we're gonna think empathetically about them. What's going on in their day?

Well, that's a clarifying question. Well, let's look back at what the conversation said, what had been said before. What does the client really want? What are they really after? We're asking clarifying questions. That supports multiple of our values. And then listening. mean, that's just, please, if you're gonna be a leader, let's listen. Everyone listening could preach that sermon even better than me, but let's be listeners. And then look for the win-win-win is actually.

a Michael Scott joke for those office nerds that are listening caught that on the first path. But that's a Michael Scott joke, but I believe in it. I think Michael Scott might've been a better leader than the office gave him credit for. But win, win, win. Look for that, man. If we're partnering together, then you should win, I should win, and everybody we serve should win. That to me is the centerpiece of healthy capitalism.

That's the centerpiece of a healthy organization, right? Like that's when, we're not in a zero sum game. If your church wins, then another church can win. That's actually true by the way, when a Starbucks goes into a community, it's been proven that coffee culture wins, the entire tide raises. So when a local coffee shop sees a Starbucks come in, they shouldn't be as scared.

there's gonna be more people introduced to mediocre coffee and Starbucks has a really great way of introducing more people and there's gonna be a certain percentage of those that are gonna be like, Starbucks is cool and they're right here, I'll go by and they start getting into coffee and they say, wow, this is mediocre coffee and they're gonna come then to the local coffee shop. It actually creates better coffee culture. we don't have, next time your friend is pastoring down the street or you see him at a conference,

Jason Allison (51:28.428)
And he's got multi-site and big and mega and all that. And you're just this entrepreneur doing this one niche ministry. You don't have to be, you're not in competition with them. When they win, you might also be winning. I don't know. Maybe not though. Maybe they're a jerk. I don't know. That could happen. Jesus also said, don't call people that. I'm still, I'm still a work in process. I call people a jerk all the time. I actually said from the pulpit this past week, just so you know, people suck.

And so that's I got away with it. So that was nice. Hey, we are like out of time and it pains me to even say that because I just I love talking with you. So we're definitely going to have you as soon as possible. And I just want to I will list in the show notes all of those links. And if you send me some more, I'll list them all. We'll we'll make sure anybody who listens to this, if they want to know anything about that, I will get them that information.

As always, thank you. And to all our listeners, you have gotten just a fire hose of gold today. So take a moment and share this podcast. Give us a review. Subscribe. That helps us out. we're just excited that we get the opportunity to spend a little time with you every week. And so on behalf of Rob and myself, thank you. And Jason Bowman of Artspeak and more, thank you. Have a great week. We'll see everybody next week.