If Jesus is Real - Darren Allarde

00:01 - Speaker 1
There's two things in there I was for sure struggling with if God is real, like I don't know if I was an atheist per se, like I don't, that's not my, that wasn't what I was prescribed to. Probably agnostic was probably the closest thing. I think if you had me though check check box, a survey, like I'd check Mark Christian. Just, you know, I want to be saved, so I'll check Mark Christian, but nonetheless I was there. The hang up definitelyup, definitely, were intellectual questions. You know, the media doesn't do those who follow Jesus any favors, and so I had a lot of intellectual. Hey, my name is Darren. I'm out in San Jose, california. I'm one of the founders for Salt and Light. It's a company that's trying to help with loneliness by having people play games in their small groups, and this is my Faithly Story.

00:40 - Speaker 2
Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life. Join us as we delve into their challenges, moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. Learn more at faithlyco. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry. On the Faithly Stories Podcast.

01:21 - Speaker 3
Could you tell me about how your faith journey started?

01:24 - Speaker 1
Yeah, you know okay, so I'll share this. I came to faith when I was 31,. So I'm 40 years old now and you know, more or less that's about nine years of walking with Jesus. It's not it's long, but it's also short all at the same time. My mom did teach me about Jesus.

01:41
Growing up, I was probably seven years old when, you know, she really started to talk to me about God and about Jesus and we had gone to church pretty regularly for about six months or so, but that's about as far as it went. My mom's side of the family was pretty religious. From what I remember, I wasn't sure if I was always vibing with the way they thought about it. I was always vibing with the way they thought about it. It was a lot of here's, the things you don't do, because if you do those things it's going to send you to a turn of damnation. So it didn't seem very fun to follow, quite honestly. And then, well, I'll just quickly end on this that when I was 31, so I'm now married I have my first kid he's about almost a year old at this point and I remember I was actually going to my wife's dad's church. It was a Korean church I'm not Korean, by the way, I'm Filipino it's a Korean church.

02:29
I don't understand anything that's going on, and I was trying to work up the courage to tell her, like I'm not sure if I really believe in this. I think I'm just going to kind of pass on it all, and I remember very clearly in the processing that weeks leading up to it feeling this tug in my heart I didn't even have the language for it at the time, but I do now where God was clearly knocking on the door of my heart and asking me to explore him, and a lot of the thoughts that were hitting my mind at that time were am I equipped to love my wife more at 40, 50, 60? What happens if longevity kicks in where I'm like 150 years old? Am I going to love my wife more then? Or is this peak happiness in my marriage? I've got one kid career's doing well. I've got a second on the way about to buy a house. Is this it? Is this all that I've got to look forward to? Or is there more to life than what I'm seeing?

03:20 - Speaker 3
Wait. So what were you doing the first 31 years? Did you just like it was just in the back of your mind, or yeah?

03:28 - Speaker 1
you know, nobody can ever not think about life after death. I think you know, even for people that are listening, that might not be of faith. If you just close your eyes and imagine every single person, you know, maybe you're really an NBA and you care. You're watching NBA playoffs like every single one of those basketball players, every single member of your family, every single person at your work. I know it sounds really morbid, but everyone is dying.

03:54
So you've got to have an answer to this problem and you know, to kind of answer your question more directly, what was I doing? I mean, I would contemplate death every now and then I't think much about it because it's not, it's not immediate in a whole lot of ways, If you're a healthy individual doing well outside of a free, freak accident, you're not really thinking about it, and more or less you're. I'm avoiding, I'm avoiding religion, I'm avoiding Christianity, I'm avoiding anything that has to do with the idea of surrendering to something that isn't me, Because I'm doing fine, Like life's going great, Like why do I got to surrender to something, so that's that was more or less my life flailing around before Jesus.

04:33 - Speaker 3
So what was it about that moment that like kind of convinced you and were you struggling with like God being real, or it was just not part of your life and like you didn't even think about it?

04:41 - Speaker 1
Yeah, you know I for sure was Okay. So there's two things in there I was for sure struggling with if God is real, like I don't know. If I was an atheist per se, like I don't, that's not my, that wasn't what I was prescribed to. Probably agnostic was probably the closest thing. I think if you had me though check checkbox a survey, like I'd check Mark Christian. Just, you know I want to Mark Christian, but nonetheless I was there.

05:04
The hang-up definitely were intellectual questions. The media doesn't do those who follow Jesus any favors, and so I had a lot of intellectual wrestling. It's very simple things like is the earth 10,000 years old? Is that a thing? As far as I'm aware, it's like at least 8 billion, give or take. A couple billion years it's gonna be. That's at least what you know science has seemed to be is compatible with science, and I really put a lot of value in that.

05:30
And there's one of my most favorite verses is Romans 12 too, and it's do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. It goes on and on, but the renewing of your mind is the most important part that really stands out for me, because the transformation begins in the renewing of your mind and there are some really great answers to a lot of these questions. And what I had also realized is that all these questions I had, they're like top 20 most Christian, top 20 most asked questions in all of faith. They're not unique by any standards of imagination and a lot of times you think those questions are very unique to you. They're not unique by any standards of imagination and a lot of times you think those questions are very unique to you but they're not. They're asked by billions of people throughout all of history. So I hope that answers it in some ways.

06:13 - Speaker 3
So do you feel like as you are attending that church? It answered those questions Like what was the renewal for you?

06:19 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so okay, yeah, I now know the second part of the question is like so what happened? Okay, yeah, I now know the second part of the question. It's like so what happened? I think it goes back to what I was saying. The trigger was reflecting, if I was built for the long run, like, is there more to life than what I'm doing now? Do I just make more money? Do I just climb the career ladder? Do I just make my family bigger? What is it? What's the point?

06:42
And I remember so this was the impression I felt. Again, this wasn't language I was using at the time, but this is the language I use now. The impression I knew God was putting on my heart is come, explore me with the tenacity you do towards your career. And I was saying some flavor of that CS Lewis quote without knowing that CS Lewis had said it, which is, effectively, if Jesus is who he says he is, then he's of the utmost importance. If he's not who he says he is, then he's of no importance. The only thing he can't be is somewhere in the middle. And that kind of binary dichotomy of trying to understand Jesus helped me out so much and I just went hard.

07:21
In fact I actually didn't explore Christianity. First I spent a lot of time reading Eastern religions because I thought there was probably there was like a bit more attractive to feel like, ok, I can get into meditation. It's like the flavor of the day, you know, it's like I can get, I can have my cake any time I can get. I could do breath work, I could do meditation, I can go on. Like a quiet yoga retreat I could do those things. But like a quiet yoga retreat I could do those things, but I don't really have to submit to an actual God. No, thank you, I'm not sure if I'm going to believe in that. And there was some what would you say usefulness in those things.

07:57
Then I actually jumped to exploring atheism and read Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. And you can call it a bias that I'm structuring in my own mind. I don't really care. But you read those books and you're like where's the hope man? There's just like no hope. I might as well just make up my own rules, even despite the fact that what they present is semi-logical.

08:14
And then I decided to explore Christianity, and CS Lewis was a big one. Mere Christianity was a huge book. Tim Keller's work was so pivotal for me. Reason for God was just huge, huge, huge. And then you're just reading these books. Oh, by the way, I should caveat this with. So I live in San Jose and I was commuting to San Francisco at the time. That commute is about an hour 30 minutes. I would leave early in the morning but I'd commute back home just sitting with nothing else to do. So you're going to listen to sports radio because the giants and the warriors are hot music, audiobooks and all that stuff gets old at some point. So one at the point of expiration.

08:51
I was just slamming down like apologetics, and john lennox comes to mind. Frank turrick is a bit abrasive, but I liked it nonetheless. All these people were just guys I was just listening to constantly and at the end it you hear the presentations of that. I think about my explorations of before. I listen to all apologetics of other religions and you're like, wow, jesus is real. I can't believe this is real. And then you start to contend like did I actually want this to be real? Like this is now becoming the most intellectually honest thing I'm believing. If I don't admit to it, then I'm actually being intellectually dishonest to myself.

09:32
So I remember kind of throwing this prayer up or like all right, god, I think you're real, I'm pretty sure you're real, can you just show up in my life in whatever way you're supposed to? And he just did like, in small ways, just get it. The way I got connected in a church, the way that connections were being brought to explore him at a deeper intellectual level, the way I was experiencing the Holy Spirit, without me even knowing that that was happening. There's just so many things that happened in that season and I remember I'll end's all I know on this my wife and I we decided to leave her uh, dad's Korean church and we ended up joining a church called echo church and the first Sunday there I was ready. I was like, let's just get baptized. So the first thing I did I beeline to the lobby. I was like all right, it's my first week here, I'm ready to get baptized. So that was kind of like how my faith story went down, or at least the start of it.

10:25 - Speaker 3
That's awesome, man. When you met your wife, was she a Christian.

10:29 - Speaker 1
She was. She was a Christian, yeah that's correct.

10:33 - Speaker 3
So how did that work out? Because at the time you weren't a Christian?

10:37 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I don't think it was like I was parading myself as a non-Christian. So did I believe in God? I, as a non-Christian, so I, you know, did I believe in God? I think mostly sort of like somewhere in there. I think I can kind of tween the line between you know, to the point that's like I'm not, I'm not anti-God, let's. Let's put it that way. And I think for my wife you know that's her own faith story in and of itself is that she grew up in the church. She's a pastor's kid. She has a faith. She's had a faith in Jesus and hasn't left it. But you know, I don't have a problem saying it here, because if you ever talked to her, she'd be the first to tell you that you know it was a very carnal faith, it was something that was very just. This is given to you, this is what you do, and that's that. I was just born into it. And there's no real, there wasn't real depth in her relationship with Jesus until afterwards.

11:25 - Speaker 3
So did it affect your relationship with her? Or it seems like you guys kind of grew together.

11:29 - Speaker 1
We definitely grew together. Did it affect our relationship? No, it didn't, because you know she, it just wasn't a big, it was a part of her life, but it was something that she was more so born into. And there's a big difference between being born in a religion that you just believe just because your parents said versus man. This is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

11:51
He's my best friend and he is my king and I love him and I know that he loves me. Like I don't know if you, some people, can say those words, but then how deep is that revelation of a statement like that, I think, is another type of question asked. So how'd you meet? We met at a club. Yeah right, the lights were dim, just like that. We met at a club. Yeah, that's where we met.

12:12 - Speaker 3
No, I mean, like she's a stranger, You're your friends, Like what was that?

12:15 - Speaker 1
moment she's a stranger, she's friends. I'm like, hey, you're, and we saw I can share with. This is funny because in our product salt and light, we do these things where we leave like riffs for questions that people have and one of the in their marriage group. One of the questions is where Would you meet your? What was your first date with your spouse? So our first date was at yoga land. It was alright, it's chill. And I just moved into a new apartment in the peninsula in Belmont and I had to buy stuff like you know shower, shower curtain thingy, and you know towels or whatever. And I had asked her hey, do you want to go to Target with me?

12:51
Just on a whim, like the day was over for me. I don't know if I'd ever call back, I don't know if she liked me, whatever. So I invited her to Target and she it was almost like I got to see a glimpse of what this relationship could be, because she was so thoughtful and mindful of me and very kind and I'm a sucker for very kind people so I was like, wow, she's like really really cool and I ended up calling her again and the rest is history Three kids later, 11 years of marriage it's like it's going great yeah.

13:23 - Speaker 3
That's a great story. So you said you had one child at 31.

13:27 - Speaker 1
Yeah, a boy girl boy, we have three boys, three boys, yeah, oh wow, three boys, half uh, koreans they're yeah, a lot to handle um.

13:37 - Speaker 3
So when you had your son, your first son, and then you kind of got converted, did your perspective of fatherhood change?

13:51 - Speaker 1
Yeah, big time, huge, I mean it's, I didn't. I feel like I've had pretty powerful revelation to the depths of what legacy means like eternal impact here on earth. And I feel like even now and all that revelation, I'm just at the surface of it all and very quickly, that was one of the first things that started a change in my heart was just recognizing the impact I will have in my family, in the legacy of this family and ultimately, whatever small parts of the world that we touch. That now that I'm following Jesus, I have a North Star, I have a compass. That is just, it's the greatest thing ever, it's the most transformative thing ever. And, yeah, I'm having a tough time putting into words just how much it changed.

14:38
Fatherhood for me, it like I knew I mean clearly anyone who's a dad. You don't even have to be a christian, but if you're a dad it's important. You know how much fatherhood matters. There's dads who are separated from the kids, that understand more than anybody how powerful fatherhood is. But the moment you touch jesus and you include him in that, oh boy, does it, does it amplify? It's almost overwhelming. Actually, we're like holy cow. This is the call to how I'm supposed to serve my wife and my kids. How the heck am I supposed to do this? It almost seems impossible. And then you go on the journey and you're like, oh man, the yoke of Jesus is light and easy, the burden is light and easy. Come on like, this feels good.

15:20
And you see the changes. And you see like a large part of my story is, you know, I had both my parents growing up. They're still alive today, though there was a lot of like marital trauma, spousal abuse, a lot of abuse that I went through physically. That's a huge part of my story and I always wondered how I would overcome this, even with my own kids. But then you see the Lord kind of work, not just in you as a dad, but you as a son to your earthly parents.

15:50
And then you know, reconciliation happens, redemption happens. I didn't even want it to happen. You know you're so filled with anger and bitterness towards things like that. You're like man, I don't care, I'm doing fine. And then the Lord starts to convict you and you're like really, you want me to go repair this relationship. I'm doing just great man. And then he does. And then, when that starts to repair, you have this new birth of vision for how you are as a dad. You're just like what is going on and yeah, yeah, I can go on and on about that topic for a while.

16:20 - Speaker 3
It's really that's one like we could pull apart forever if you'd like there are definitely things that are rearranging in my understanding of fatherhood, because when I see like tough, like broken men, a lot of that has to do with their broken relationship with the father, you know. And then when you hear that God is a father, it has like negative connotations and so yeah, I'm glad that God worked that out for you.

16:44 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, it's crazy how much our earthly relationship with our parents impacts our view of the God, the creator Within the Trinity. It was very easy for me to understand I should say very easy but the two that I understood more quickly at a way that really started to transform my life, were the sovereignty and human and godliness of Jesus Christ. And then, in addition, was the just mysteries and the supernatural power of His spirit, of the holy spirit. But god, the father, was always hard to get for me, always. It still is actually. I mean, like god, this is the fun part, this is the what I'll share. There is, like I feel like one message that isn't really broadcasted much for those that are spiritually curious and searching is that, dude, like following Jesus is super fun, like it's so fun, it's the most joyful fun thing, purposeful, meaningful. Throw in the big adjectives away Like all that's, it's just awesome, it's hard, it's hard as heck, but like, oh man, it's so fun. And I think in the journeys had me on really over the last five years with reconcile, not just reconcile my relationship with my dad, but redeeming it there's, you know, I've been it's, it's, it's renewed, it's given fresh fire, fresh wind to my view of the father. And it's different now, like I learned. I'm learning now how to like receive I didn't. It's different now, like I learn. I'm learning now how to like receive I didn't.

18:18
It's always been hard to do that. Like, how do I receive? What does that? What does that mean? And then now it's like oh, you touch it, you taste it, you're like, yeah, let's just sit in this. I don't have to do anything. I don't want to perform, I don't want to get stuff done. This isn't laziness, this is just me wanting to be in the presence of the father. And and I think about that with my own kids, like sometimes they just want to sit with me on the couch and do nothing. I'm like man, that's so cool. Like they just sit there, they cuddle, they turn on the TV and that's it. That's all. We're doing, nothing. It feels so nice. So I had imagined that God, the Father, desires that from us. He just wants us, in our childlike faith, to enter his presence and just be with him.

18:58 - Speaker 3
Yeah, presence and stillness is undervalued because we're so geared to do things and produce in this world. But like you need that stillness first so that, like you have a purpose in all you're doing. So, yeah, I love that. So then, how did you start getting involved with Salt and Light?

19:15 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so before Salt and Light I was actually on staff at a local church called Echo here in San Jose, california, and we were in the COVID season. You know God. Here's one area that I know God really gives me vision for, whether I like it or not, and that is just to think very innovatively and it almost isn't even my, it's not like my intellectual brainpower doing it, it's almost like circumstance or people he introduces me to. That gives me that vision. So as an example, one of my good friends, karen, she sat with me in the office in December of 20. And I remember I asked her so what's this like COVID thing, coronavirus thing in China, is there real? And she's like, oh, yeah, it's real. I asked her so what's this like COVID thing, coronavirus thing in China, is it real? And she's like oh, yeah, it's real. I'm like what do you mean? It's real. And she's like, yeah, they're like shutting it down. And I'm like what's shutting down? She's like everything. And I'm like press here for a moment. I'm like what do you mean? Everything? She's like, yeah, the entire country is shutting down politics at any level. China loves doing its thing and they're making great money. It's on the up and up. The last thing they want to do is shut down anything.

20:21
So, like when I heard that, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is a big deal. Is it? Is it like how, like transmutable? Is it Like what's going to happen? Is it? Are we going to get it?

20:31
And I almost like panicked about COVID in December. Like God gave me an opportunity to freak out at like everyone that was freaking out in February and March. I had done that in December. So come February I was like ready, locked and loaded. I was like and again, it's not my lot of like I was talking to another friend like, hey, what do you think is going to happen?

20:50
He's like dude, like all the healthcare workers are going to have to go work. They're not going to have anyone take care of their kids. They're going to be working like 80 hours a week. They're going to get slammed. I'm like dude, we got to go serve the healthcare workers. They're not going to have like, what about like protection or like equipment? Like are they going to have it? So all these thoughts again, it was like this transaction of things that had occurred and I just happened to catch the wave, like a month or two before everyone else was on it and this. This is almost like a pattern in my life for a lot of things. So kind of going back to your question. Original question on salt and light. Yeah, I don't. I take no credit for it, I'm not that smart, it just happens to be wait, wait one second.

21:28 - Speaker 3
Yeah, what were you doing?

21:29 - Speaker 1
for the church. Oh uh, so I. I came on board 20 I want to say 17 or I can't remember exactly At 2018, innovation director, technology guy. I was like the technology guy at Echo Church, loved it, it was a great role. And then, about two years into that so now 20, they had asked me if I wanted to be the pastor at one of the campuses. What's?

21:54 - Speaker 3
an innovation technology person.

21:57 - Speaker 1
Like you know, it's like how do you think about the use of technology with ministry, with the local church, with the kingdom? How do we leverage technology? How do we leverage data? How do we think about it? Like, give us the appropriate lens to be leaders in a renewal of technology, as opposed to just being the followers and adopters of technology.

22:22 - Speaker 3
Can you give me?

22:23 - Speaker 1
an example, yeah, so all right, I'll give two on games. As a product manager, you spend a lot of time using the scientific method to prove and disprove features. You build on a tech product and you prove and disprove it by analyzing data. You look at the quant data, you call customers and hear the quality data around it and you realize, okay, here's why it's working, here's why it's working, here's why it's not. Now I'm I'm kind of giving the shortened version of that, but there's depth to those types of analyses.

23:03
Um, it's why, in a lot of ways, I feel like we should be all educated on how to read like research abstracts and like understand, like what we're doing with that. I mean not that I understand the whole time, but I know it enough that I could. I can make myself a little sharp and dangerous in some areas. It's bringing that kind of framework. It's like, okay, hey, you want to make a change to your connection card and you just want to like blanket this change. Well, you got 4,000 people going to your church every weekend. You have no idea of the change you're going to make is actually any good, so why don't you A-B test it? What do you mean A-B test? It's like put half of the old cards in and put half of the new cards in and see. And let's run this experiment for six weeks and just see what happens and see who submits more cards, or whatever.

23:43
It's like no, no, no, we already ordered all the cards. Like well, don't do that. Like we don't need to do that. Like don't you want? Like what if you put a change that actually makes the existing connection card worse? Like what happens then? Like so, even that type of thinking they're not thinking that way and that's okay. Like you know, they're not trained to do that. Like I really sympathize for pastoral and ministry staff. Like how did I get trained to that? It's like you hang out with a bunch of mbas that teach you how to do it.

24:07
It's like okay so they're not doing that. I happen to just be in the environment that was doing it. So, okay, that was like that was one thing that I was trying to push towards and we and we did. They got much better at it. And then the second was literally just building our own technology. So, hey, how about we build our own group app? How about we build our own like church app and not just use a white labeled app? And here's why because I want to track the actual metrics of how people are using. I want to know how our congregation, our members we didn't have members to know how our congregation, our members we didn't have members, but I want to know how our people are using it. And we ultimately built a technology through the innovation department that we were running. A lot of churches have this. It was like a two-way platform where it's like hey, I need help, you want to help me? We connect on this platform and we serve one another. So we were doing flavors of that. For sure. Does that help? Does that answer?

24:59 - Speaker 3
yeah, yeah, no, that's really good, and so they were trying to transition you to a pastoral role.

25:04 - Speaker 1
Yes, so the campus that's closest to me, one of the the prior campus pastors transitioning out uh, they were looking for somebody else, so they asked me to do it and, just like when they asked me to join full-time ministry, I was like, no, I'm good. No, thanks, dude. Like to be honest, like it doesn't sound particularly fun to work for a church. However, now that I've been part of it, now that I've actually worked for a church man, I feel like I really recommend this. Everybody listen. This is why I'm one plea on this, I don't know, on this podcast Work for your local church for like six months a year, two years, consider it boot camp of understanding how the ecckklesia thrives, about the importance of the local expression. It's changed me a lot. It's empowered me to guilt-free pursue this missional venture without feeling I still have to do all these things with my local church. There's a lot of awesomeness out of local church and I a huge, huge, huge support of it and that when you get embedded in it, living in it, you realize the, you realize its power. It's. It's one of the greatest accelerants of the kingdom, actually my personal opinion. So it's not an innovation lab, it's not a tech department. It's not a parachurch thing. It is a space to serve the local expression and the local body of believers together, and that is very, very, very important. So what were you doing as a pastor? Well, the funny part is, I became pastor during COVID. So I think I joined as a pastor in January of 2020, as I was freaking out about COVID, and then we all locked down in February or March, I don't remember exactly. I think it was February, mid-february, and so what did I do? I mean effectively nothing. We built the Echo Compassion site, spent a lot of time doing care calls. Actually, this all bridged back into why we started Salt and Light, so the genesis of it. I do remember doing care calls to people at the campus. Hey, I do remember doing care calls to people at the campus. Hey, how you doing? How's the family? We're like two weeks into lockdown or one weekend. Oh yeah, it's great. I'm working from home. Blah, blah, blah. How's this, how's that? Oh yeah, it's great.

27:09
And then I'd ask this question I'd go how are you and Jesus? And they'd go oh, you know, ever since, like church closed, I'm like whoa, what are you talking about? Like you know, our like we're closed down and that did something to my soul, where I'm like, wait, what does church mean? Like maybe I don't. What's the theology on church like? What is the root word? Where'd this come from? What the heck's ecclesia like? And I just dove down the rabbit hole. I was like I need to understand this stuff, like what the heck are people talking about? Because, in mind, out of my ignorance of kind of not, I would at that point, what? Five years walking with Jesus? I don't really know what people are talking about. As far as I'm aware, church never closes, like it just doesn't close. So what are you talking about? That it's closed.

27:52
All that to say, salt and Light came out of a spot where I, where we, where we had began to recognize that we, we as a society, became more distant and the ability to dive deep into things is becoming lost. And what this translates to practically from like a diagnosis perspective is loneliness. And you can see it Vivek Murthy, our US Surgeon General, has effectively declared loneliness as a new mental health crisis. It's an epidemic. It's a big, big deal. So what does the local church do really well when it's beaming? It's small groups. It's a big, big deal. So what does the local church do really well when it's beaming. It's small groups, it is community, it is conquering loneliness. So there's no organization on the planet better situated and positioned to deal with the pandemic of loneliness than the local church. The problem is that small groups are oftentimes confined to just the local church. Problem is is that small groups is oftentimes confined to just the local church. So what?

28:43
Salt and Light is trying to do is we're trying to bring small groups to the masses and we wanna give opportunity for those small groups to play and have fun together. So in our prior beta test we had realized we can give devotionals, we can put them on this cool journey. It feels good, looks good, plays nice, but if it's not fun, people aren't coming back. That's why we go back to, that's why I go back to my YouTube shorts and I want to watch one and I'm a hundred deep afterwards and it's because it's fun. I'm getting that dopamine hit Now. We don't want to do things as obtrusive that, but it has to be fun. You have to be having a and purpose around it and hence why games is now a big part of what we're doing. We want small groups to be able to play games with one another, intentional games.

29:26 - Speaker 3
So is Salt and Light specifically just for this specific app, or is it like a venture company that produces?

29:33 - Speaker 1
multiple Venture company. We're a for-profit business, we're a public benefit corp, so there's a heart that is behind what we're doing that is greater than profit. We have a line that we borrowed from one of our advisors is that if you're a for-profit business, you should be in the for. You should be for the profit of human flourishing, slowly but surely becoming an ethos and part of our DNA and culture that we want not only to serve and honor our investors potential investors as well. Allow us to be a company that is awesome on their portfolio, makes a bunch of money, that they can lift their heads high, but, more importantly, that they're just proud about the work that's happening and that they can share testimonies to their LPs and to their friends and family about, hey, we invested in that company and look at what they're doing.

30:21 - Speaker 3
So, yeah, Is this your only app, or are you guys working on other stuff?

30:25 - Speaker 1
Yeah, this is our only app and we don't I don't think for now. I can imagine what. We have a library of apps, but for now this is the only app there's no need for, like multiple apps.

30:34 - Speaker 3
What's the app called?

30:36 - Speaker 1
Salt and Light itself is called salt and light. That's correct. And then the company is salt and light labs. Yeah, the.

30:43 - Speaker 3
The company is the salt and light company. Okay, so how did you come up with the name? Besides the obvious, uh, bible verse.

30:49 - Speaker 1
It was because of the obvious. It's because of the bible verse. But the funny part is is that, well, you know, for stuff, people like us, danny, it's pretty like apparent that it's a bible verse. But for even kind of new Christians or a lot of people that are in a lot more, what would you say? You know secular environments, it's not that common. In fact, like one of the reasons why I like it, it sounds like a place that sounds like a nice place. I could also buy furniture, like like a lot of people don't know.

31:16
You know, yeah, I think that's ultimately what we anchored it in that Bible verse of being salt in the world and light in the world, and a large part of it is. You know, in that journey over the last few years, I personally, my identity in Christ has only strengthened, and I think this is probably one of the biggest areas of growth for the totality of the body of Christ is to recognize that your primary identity isn't the Tesla you drive or your work or your money. It's the fact that you are a co-heir with Christ in the heavenly realms. So don't ignore that. Grab that mantle, do something about it. Like a lot of times we say the words but we don't allow the Lord to breathe revelation into it. And I know, I know, I know I'm a child of God, I know I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. It's like you know, but like knowledge is like dangerous. Sometimes. It's like what we're after is like wisdom and revelation, and I feel like so a little bit about the name.

32:16
Like group leaders have access to untapped networks that the local church can never touch. You know friends in your life that will never go to church. But your friend, you can invite them to a men's group. You might tell them, hey, it's within the Christian context, but, man, I think you're going to love it. And he might actually go to one or two of them and guess what? The moment he interacts with your group, that's it, man, he's in the ecosystem of church. He Guess what? The moment he interacts with your group, that's it, man, he's in the ecosystem of church, he's touched the body of Christ and congratulations, he's in it.

32:51
And what does that do? It calls everyone who's a small group leader to grab a hold of that mantle of being a co-heir with Christ in the heavenly realms. You're a minister. You don't have to wait for your local church pastor to pastor them. Go your friends yourself, man, like so. That's. That's a large part of what there's, a large part of the vision of salt and light that I'm hoping is touched by that thought that those who follow jesus can use it and use it to just love on their friends and invite them into an environment, digitally, that they might not ever go physically where can people download the app the?

33:21
website website, saltandlightcommunity. That's probably the best place to get it. You can get it on iOS and Android. So yeah, start a group, invite your friends. I have multiple groups going, groups from church. I have my family. My family is using it. My mom's so cute. She uses it like a voicemail machine for me. It's really, really, really funny. So, yeah, I highly recommend people giving a shot and seeing what it's like yeah, we'll put it in the show notes or in the description.

33:47 - Speaker 3
So how does the app work? It's like you, is it like a? Because when you say game, I'm thinking like an rpg game I'm not allowed to screen share on this thing oh yeah, yeah, go ahead, let's just, let's just do whatever you want.

33:57 - Speaker 1
Let's do it. Let's do a demo. Give me a second. Let me load this thing up.

34:02 - Speaker 3
Because when I talk to Amar, I do love the fact that you're gamifying small groups just so that you make the interactions more fun, but in my mind it's like what's the value? Prop right Of growing, but also are there team challenges?

34:15 - Speaker 1
Is it one-on-one. Imagine you play a game where so imagine you're hosting a group and it's a men's group whatever, and imagine you're kind of in a module or course or book. That's really unpacking like the depths of trauma or sin. Well, it's kind of hard to ask a question of hey, what's one sin you struggle with over text. Like it's not easy to do that. There's probably a list of like warm-up questions as well that kind of lead someone to that A lot of times out of ignorance.

34:45
I don't even really know how to answer that question sometimes, but if I'm led to that spot then I could probably give a much more like respectable answer for people. So imagine you're playing a game where you know you pick, you nominate people to sit in a seat and you have a deck of cards of questions that you could throw their way and the questions can range from you know, share a childhood memory from the summer, you know what's your favorite cuisine. Those are kind of like higher surface level questions, but then some deeper ones could be you know what's one thing you really admire about your parents and why? Ooh, now we're on to something. You might hear a response from a friend that's like it's really hard for me to understand that question because I just didn't have my family growing up.

35:24
You might not have ever known that, you might not have known that I was dealing with it and it may lead to discussion now that you can unpack and tease apart with him and minister now and then again there are deeper questions. You know we actually in one of the games this sounds so bad, but in one of the talking about you know what's one sin struggle you really have. And we were still testing the game so we didn't like balance it well, but we only gave 15 seconds for people to respond, because no one wants to hear like a five minute soapbox. So we gave 15 seconds and my friend disclosed this like enormous sin and like his victory over it in like 15 seconds and it felt so rushed, but it was actually. And because it felt so rushed, but it was actually, and because it was so rushed, it was hilarious and I'm like all right, on the big, there are clearly levels of these questions and on the really big questions we have to give like 60 seconds. I'm back. So yeah, you're right.

36:10
Okay, like, if you want to just play a fun game, look, let's just add me as a friend on steam. We'll go play some dota or something. Like it's fine, like we can go on playstation 5 and like we can go play fortnite with my kids. But there are games that you can make as a game, so I am a game designer. As a game designer, you can make games that are more intentional and more heartfelt, and there's a very popular purpose-driven game called we're not really strangers comes in a red box and it more or less asks questions like this so yeah, that's kind of more or less what we're doing.

36:39
So I'll just do go good, did you have a question?

36:43 - Speaker 3
no, no, I was just gonna say you can share the screen and then show me like a demo yeah, yeah, so this is the screen.

36:50 - Speaker 1
Um, this is like let me actually go to a group where, like, our early adopters are sitting in, so you can kind of tell already like we were really intentional with making sure that the ui didn't feel like a very generic UI. We wanted you need to feel like this is a game. You need to feel like this is your digital third space, because you're already throwing your group into a group text or WhatsApp chat or Slack channel and it's more transactional or like informational. If you want to play, you've got to go to a place that's designed for it. So if you kind of swipe over to the left, there's this microphone. Here we're taking a big bet on audio communication. There's an emotional richness that happens in audio that you can't get in text. So, as an example, here's one question hey, this group, by the way, is for our early adopters are typically leading groups. So it's like hey, take 20 seconds to share about the group you're hosting so you could listen to what Lucila has to say, you can emote, you could play it. It's a lot of fun, even something like this.

37:51
We're changing rapidly. This is like the nature of software startups, where things change rapidly and look a lot better. You can chat so these are all the chats that I'm in and then you can host events so you can schedule an event with your group so that people know which one's coming up. And in this case there's no events coming up. And then Story Chain is the game that we're making. That's the dino in the middle. Unfortunately, I can't demo it. It's not ready yet, but if you do download the app and tap on it, you'll get a nice video that Amar has recorded and he shares and talks a little bit about what StoryChain is going to be. So StoryChain is going to be ready. When is it going to be ready? This Thursday or Friday? So, yeah, that's more or less that Audio communication with your group and playing intentional games with them. That's really important.

38:38
The intentional part is important, and I'd also say, like the last thing around all this is, I don't mind, I want to leverage games to do this. This is what games are awesome at. It's why Duolingo is the most popular and profitable and, in some ways, most effective language learning toolkit out there, because it's a game. There's no mistaking it. You download Duolingo, you want to go learn Spanish or Korean or whatever. You're playing a game, not just doing homework. It feels and plays like a game and games bridge through. In practice they're more engaging. There's so many wins that games are at. So I'll just say this so I was like a faith founder.

39:16 - Speaker 3
I'm like pleased to be building a positive game, a game that's meant for good, so yeah, no, I totally agree with you that gamification is actually what we're created for, because there's a lot of joy, but not only that. It taps into our child likeness. You know what I mean? Like sports is just one big, expensive game, right, um, and we get excited about it. So, oh, thanks for sharing. That makes me like want to download it right now and like check it out.

39:44 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, dude, no problem, happy to talk about it more. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to share about it a little bit here.

39:50 - Speaker 3
So I'm curious as, like a startup founder because, like I'm, you know, what we're doing is startup too Like one, how's your user acquisition have been? And then, two, what has been the user feedback?

40:02 - Speaker 1
Yeah. So I think what you guys are doing right. I feel like when I last spoke to Alicia about it, there was this kind of like hustle around just getting people to sign up and go. That's exactly what we're doing right now, and I think there is one kind of additional lever that we're able to pull on here that feels really nice, which is get the group leader. They invite the group members and that feels very, very good. So that's more or less the core, like go to market strategy for now. And the market size for that is like I hate. I don't like using the language when it comes to that, but this is just a technical term, guys don't freak out but it is a relatively like large size. We're like estimating that there would be about 40 million people that are in small groups in the united states. And then what are people saying? I think everyone understands that.

40:49
So let me start with a little bit of the, the kind of neutrals and negatives. I think everyone understands that it's early and it feels like a little clunky and buggy sometimes, but I think everyone also immediately, immediately feels how fun and different the app is, and not different for being different, but different in a good way. There's apps, there's software applications that come around and they they just change the game in this weird way and you don't really expect it. Slack reminds me of one of those apps. Again, I happen to just use Slack day one of public beta, just randomly, because a friend told me about it. I remember the moment I installed it and use it, I'm like this feels right, this is different. And it's like was it really that different? It's just chat, like this is what this is what all the pundits were saying. It hat like this is what this is what all the pundits were saying. It's just chat. It's like it's not just chat, guys, it's like irc, but like better and for work.

41:52
And and I had a difficult time explaining what slack is. So there's some pattern recognition for me where I watch people explain it and I and I'm desiring that outcome. When they sit there and explain, they're like okay, yeah, it's like chat, it's like group and it's like a little bit like audio, but but I don't know, it's just like fun and like. When I hear that, when I hear that expression, when I hear people say that, I'm like okay, we are onto something, this is it, this is all the, all the great products. Oftentimes that is how people will explain it. It's kind of like this hey, if we have to live in that, if we're successful and live in that world, that's how people define us, so be it. And if it takes five years later for people to really have that one crisp, one line blurb of who we are, and everyone gets it fine, like I don't care, but that's that's. Uh, yeah, that's more or less how people are explaining it now yeah, at the end of the day, all stars are the same.

42:39 - Speaker 3
It's just the joy of a user experience, and then they just share that gospel with other people and then get the mass market like, if you really think about facebook, it was like a page right of your profile. But then the fact that, like you can look at other people and like see what they're doing, and then that, like you know, steam roll. So, yeah, it's also like faithfully. Like people ask me, like oh, what is faithfully? And we started off saying it's like a linkedin for christians. It's also like faithfully, like people ask me, like oh, what is faithfully? And we started off saying it's like a LinkedIn for Christians. But it's really not just a LinkedIn, and so there's not this word that you can describe.

43:08
But the goal is like connection, so that people can like connect with you or connect to anyone else. Or, like you said, when you're doing the technology thing, you're talking to other churches Like where do you go, right? So it's hard to explain. It's just more of this like intuitively, we understand human beings and how God created us to be relational, right, but that disconnect is devastating and isolating, and so we're trying to like break down that wall and like build bridges. So even now, like I don't even have the words to it, but yeah, build bridges. So even now, like I don't even have the words to it, but yeah, so what is like your big like hope for this app.

43:46 - Speaker 1
Yeah, there's so much here. Let me start small and then kind of scale out. So the for now goal is to build an app that group leaders and their members absolutely love using, that there's a companion, that this really becomes a companion app for them, a true digital third space that they know it's like. Okay, we love using salt and light. If it goes away, we'll be pretty upset. Like this, this is really helping us gel, get to know one another, go deeper in our relationships. It's a lot of fun. So there's like a tangible outcome there.

44:20
Clearly, I think from there the next big stage is discoverability. For me. So again, a large part of the genesis of why we started this was around loneliness. If you're already in a group, you're already in a group. You're probably not as lonely as a guy who's not in a group or a girl that's not in a group. So how do we then serve the rest of the population that isn't in a group and would like to be in one, and how do we allow for some of the wisdom nuggets that materialize out of this to be broadcasted out?

44:50
So I think of Reddit a lot as a platform where you can go there. You can type in right now, how do I overcome depression? And you're going to see lists and lists and lists of people in different subreddits talking about how they're depressed, talking about her lonely, and you're gonna see people comment back with some advice. That may be good or maybe bad. Either way, it's not audio based text and it's not trusted, and I'd hope that at some point in time that, let's say, you leave a fantastic message around reconciliation with your dad and your parents and what it did for you, and it was just awesome, minister, to me and the rest of the group and you were willing to publicize that as kind of a cookie crumb into your group, into an online group, or as a or just as wisdom that people can interact and listen to like wow, that was, that's amazing. That's like something really special in my opinion.

45:41
So I don't know if that's the end goal, but it's definitely one of the major goals that I know will take us some time to get there. And it does start again with having the appropriate group, the appropriate people, in the app, and it's why I get excited thinking about Salt and Light and what we're doing, because, again, there is really no one better equipped than the local church to deal with loneliness. Small groups are awesome. They're super hospitable, they're really engaging. If you have a good group leader, they just crush for you, they really go to bat for you, and I'd love the rest of the world to experience that type of love and that type of hospitality and embrace that they may not be expecting from the church.

46:23 - Speaker 3
All right, thanks. I'm going to ask you our last two questions. What are you hoping for at Faithly?

46:28 - Speaker 1
What am I hoping for out of Faithly? You mentioned Faithly a bit earlier in what you guys are doing and I think I love. I don't know if there's a spot now it's been a while since I've logged into the app, so'll reactivate but I'd almost love to be able to start just sharing the journey of salt and light organically, not as a spam, hey, download, install now but more of like here's what's going on and if you want to know more, like message me and we can talk and then people will naturally google things or search things up and find it. And if we had a platform to be able to share, kind of what we were doing, that'd be awesome, where other people could see it and would be interested in seeing it.

47:07 - Speaker 3
You should make a group. That's what we encourage people to do Make a group and then people can follow your journey in more of an enclosed thing, Because if you do it on the feed it kind of like gets buried. Something to think about, and then how can we be praying for you and your family?

47:24 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I think two things, Many things actually, but let me just kind of riff on some of the things that are coming to my mind. Any entrepreneurial endeavor is very lonely. It doesn't have to be something, it doesn't have to be a tech play. There are people who are doing fitness gyms and they're just barely getting by. Or they're starting their own like food truck or restaurant business and it's just really, really hard.

47:48
It's a very lonely road and that is definitely an area where I'd love to continue to receive prayer for. And the second area is I'm really praying that people will use the app and really give it a shot to see what they think and leave feedback, because we're changing it every week. Like our development cycle is like pretty aggressive right now, and if you want an opportunity to really craft an app that we want to use, now's the time, because we're like, please tell us what's happening, like it's so cool, we'll fix something, and Amar will send a video to the person and say, hey, we fixed it. I just want to show you what it looks like and it's like so fun for them to do that.

48:29 - Speaker 3
So yeah, prayer around people coming into the app to use it. Yeah, I don't think most people realize that, like, the worst criticism is still the best feedback, because you're trying to make something that people want to use Right and make something that people want to use right and so, at the end of the day, all founders are trying to make their users happy. Like you have no idea, I'm like craving feedback, but people I don't know I think they just try to be nice, but yeah, don't be nice.

48:52
Be completely blunt and honest. I can take it.

48:55 - Speaker 1
I mean I think the large part is like it feels like it enters a vortex of nothing. So that's what we're trying to dispel is like it's not a vortex of nothing, like we have I don't know at the time of this call, about 270 people signed up and we've sent almost everyone a welcome video and we're trying to like put our face out there and like let them know like we're real people that actually want to serve you and yeah, so, but I'm with you, I it's why I don't leave feedback, it's because you just have this kind of eh, it just goes in a black hole. So hopefully we can begin to dispel that.

49:29 - Speaker 3
Yeah, I think because of Faithly, I've been trying to leave more feedback for all, like the apps and software I use and then I know when they don't reply. Okay, i'm'm gonna look for a competitor, because I want to be cared for as a user. Anyway, man, thanks for coming on.

49:45 - Speaker 1
This was fun yeah, no, thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. I'm I've been seeking more opportunity to just share my story and talk about salt and light when given the opportunity, even just for a brief moment. So thank you, I really do appreciate it all right, that's it for the podcast guys, but thank you for tuning in to the faithly stories podcast.

50:05 - Speaker 2
We pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey. The faithly stories podcast is brought to you by faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. The faithly Digital Platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection, foster collaboration and promote growth within the church and ministry space. Remember to subscribe, rate and review our podcast to help reach more listeners like you. Stay tuned for more uplifting tales from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful and never underestimate the power of your own story.