Leap of Faith - Bryan Jernigan

00:01 - Speaker 1
We have. We just jumped, both of us not knowing really what was, you know, at the bottom of the ledge that we jumped off of, but we just jumped. It was great at first. We've hit some turbulence at times and it's been rough. You know, having your own business is it's a character builder or it's a character revealer. Maybe there's probably nothing better for personal growth than owning your own business. You find out a lot about yourself with owning your own business, but it's been good. God has been faithful through all of it. Hi, I'm Bryan Jernigan, husband, father, a Squarespace web designer, social media coordinator at Jubilee Church in Van Buren, and I can't wait to tell you Faithly Stories.

00:48 - 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 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.

01:30 - Speaker 3
Let's start with like did you grow up in a Christian home? Or you came to faith another way, like how did you come to faith?

01:35 - Speaker 1
Okay gotcha. So, yeah, I grew up in a Christian home. I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church. I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church, so my, I guess I'm kind of like second generation, maybe somewhat part of like. My dad's dad was a Southern Baptist preacher, so my dad was a preacher's kid, and so you know, he grew up in church all the time. You know, whenever I was growing up, when I was young, we were there Sunday night, wednesday night, sunday nights, and so I grew up in church. I was saved whenever I was 12, at a revival at my church, baptized the following Sunday.

02:24
I can remember a lot of the feeling that the Lord was pulling at me and it was a so like, like I talked to my wife. She's she's very extroverted, she's very, um, like doing something like being on a podcast is second nature to her, like she lives for that kind of thing. I would rather be on the other side of the camera, um, and so I don't want to go in front of her room and talk. I don't want to do that type of thing. So even the whole, you know, the altar call of coming up front and everybody watching you walk up front and whatever, like I was battling that big time. I knew that the Lord was calling me. Like Bryan, you need to. You know you need to do this, you need to, I want. The Lord was calling me and I kept just putting it off, putting it off, putting it off, and this is probably over several months time at this, at this revival, like it was just, I guess it just got to the point where it was like, okay, this is not going away and I know I need to do this. I know that this is the step that I need to take. I know the Lord's calling me. Just go, just step out into the aisle and walk to the front.

03:38
Like you know, it's the whole profess. You know, with your mouth, like you've got to, you have to say it. You can't confess with your mouth. Like you, you, you gotta you have to say you can't, you can't confess with your mouth, you can't keep it to yourself. It's a, it's a profession of faith. So I mean you have to, you have to go, and you have to, you know, can't hide it. So so that was. You know, like I said, I got baptized the following week. You know that that whole public thing of, of and things were good I was young. Whenever I got a little bit older and became so, my parents at that point were divorced, and they'd been divorced. They'd get divorced a couple of years prior before that. So I was 12 when I got saved. I was 10 when they got divorced, and so I live with my mom most of the time went to dad's on every other weekend.

04:28 - Speaker 3
Do you mind if we get into that a little bit Sure? I only mentioned it because the last three podcasts yeah, it's been coming up a lot. So I was just curious, because you said your dad was a pastor's kid right, he's a PK. How did that affect your faith when your parents got divorced? Well, I don't know that that affect your faith when your parents got divorced.

04:45 - Speaker 1
Well, I don't know that it necessarily affected my faith when they got divorced. It may have. It probably did actually have an effect on my faith on down the road. Like, once you're in it, once you're living the life of, my parents are divorced, my parents don't live together anymore. I have two separate households that I go to. Now I don't have a dad in the house, I don't have another male role model around all the time for me to see that type of thing. So I think and just maybe even to hold me accountable of like, hey, you need to be in church.

05:16
I don't know how that would have affected me. That's something that I don't know that every kid who's the product of a split household thinks about how would things have been different if my parents had still been together? Probably a that every kid who's the product of a split household thinks about. Like you know, how would things have been different if my parents had still been together? Probably a pretty normal thing to think about. But yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure how that would have affected if I would have you know, because one of the things I had just mentioned, like was talking about how one of the reasons when I stopped going to church was because of not wanting to be like a lot of the people who were at church that I saw as hypocritical, somewhat like that, lived one way Monday through Saturday, and then they were a different person on Sunday mornings and so I didn't. So I don't know like how much you know it. Probably if I'd had someone to talk to about, you know that that's why, hey, I'm not going to church. This is why I probably could have bounced that off of them and probably gotten some wisdom at that point of why you know, hey, that's maybe not your best route to approach this problem or this thing that you're going through, but it happened. Thankfully, the Lord had grace for me Because, like I said, it was about a 10-year period there where I didn't go to church, gone off to college, graduated college, started teaching and coaching and then so I was the teaching and coaching job that I got.

06:20
At the time I was still in the same town where I had went to college at, about an hour down the road from here. Here's home for me. This is where I grew up at. So whenever I finally got a job back home and got moved back here to where all my family's at. Hey, Bryan, do you want to come to church with us? Okay, yeah, I'll go to church. And man, from that, so much has happened. I've met my wife at church, you know, and none of this stuff. Like I wouldn't even be talking to you right now if not for that. Go back to you.

06:47
Know, I think it was in it's like August. No, it was at the end of July in 2000. And I met my wife. We both thought there's, you know, someone had tried to set us up. My elder brother's wife, my sister-in-law had set us up. And so at that time, you know, right now I'm about to turn 44. She's 32. So again, it's 11 and a little bit of a few months. But whenever you're, let's say, we would have been 33 and 21 at the time, it's a lot different than 44 and 32. And so I was like there's no way this is going to work. And then we went through that for about six months.

07:18 - Speaker 3
You have a lot. You and your wife have a lot of great stories, so I'm gonna cut you off because I want to go a little bit deeper on what made you want to go back to church, right, like compelled you. And then two okay, like what is the thing you were working out with the age gap, because that's, um, yeah, that's a very interesting story right there yeah.

07:37 - Speaker 1
So what made me want so? Like I said, I grew up southern baptist and it was very traditional service. It was I was bored, just, and it's kind of fit to say that, but it was like it was the same thing every week. You know, the order of service was the same, it was the same songs, it was the, you know, singing from the back of the pew and it was so, like you know, and, to be honest, like on top of the, you know, not wanting to be like everybody else that was there I shouldn't say everybody else, but like that's what my mind was, that's what I was thinking, that's what I saw, that was my rationalization for it, when in reality it might've been just laziness, but I rationalized it into something else. But on top of that, it was like this is the same old, same old. I'm saved, I've got Jesus. Why do I need this?

08:21
But then when they invited me to church, it was a non-denominational church. It was more of a like. The praise and worship was completely different. The message was different. You know, it wasn't. It was no longer you have to get dressed up to go to church. It was like, I mean, it was a lot of the seeker friendly stuff, and it was seeker friendly it was. It was friendly to what I was, you know, and it pulled me back in and so, you know, I think that was a lot of it. I found faith, I found all this stuff. It became interesting again. There was a different aspect, a different way of looking at it as an adult, because, you know, the 10-year gap had gone from I'm a kid to now I'm an adult. There's a different perspective there at that point how you look at things. So that was a lot of it.

09:12
So, going back to, I meet my wife. She's 21. I'm 33. So I'm 33 years old and still single, never been married, and that's because I easily found something wrong with everyone that I dated, and I think a lot of that goes back to having parents that were divorced. So my and not just divorced once, both of my parents at this point now have been through multiple divorces and so, and just seeing that, that's what I saw, that's that was the example that I saw of marriage, and it was all just like how marriage doesn't work and it's like, man, I don't, I don't want to go through that myself. I sure don't want to have kids and then put them through that.

09:48
And I was immature, I wasn't ready for marriage and I think I knew that deep down, if I get married now and I'm not ready for it, then I'm not going to be a very good husband. And so I think it kind of got to a point in life there where I was no longer dating to date. I was dating because I did want to find somebody to marry. I didn't want to find someone to spend the rest of my life with. I didn't know how I was going to do it because I don't know how to do it. I'm very lucky that I found her because she so her mom and dad are. They're 20 plus years of being married. They're not perfect by any means. They fight, they don't get along all the time or whatever. But getting to know her and getting to know them, they were a great example to me of like hey, it can work, you can go into a marriage. Of like, hey, we both are going into this thing with the understanding that divorce is not an option, and so it's like I think I can do this whatever. And so it was getting past some of that. For me, it was also getting past the age difference, like, okay, she isn't.

10:47
We spent like the whole first six months of our dating or courtship of both of us, I think just trying to find reasons why it wouldn't work. And then at some point, at one point in there, you know, about five, six months in, we said what if we just give this a chance, like won't we just try, like and see what happens? Because we just we keep trying to break up anyways and we then we never do, we just keep going. You know, yeah, I don't think this is going to work anymore. And then like a day later, hey, what are you doing? Later we ended up hanging out again and then it's like, okay, this is point one, we just actually try. And so both of us just kind of getting over some of that.

11:20
I think the age difference was, I mean, obviously it wasn't just a big deal for me, it was a big deal for her too, and so there was even some of it for me of like why does her dad not like me? Like he shouldn't like me, like what is this? You know, 33 year old guy went with my 21 year old daughter and he was never like that and it was like why is he? Why? Why? Why is he not like that? Why am I not getting grief from him? But that never happened, I don't know. I don't know what they saw in me or whatever, but I guess it was halfway decent and they wouldn't have let me stick around as long as I did. But yeah, so it was a lot to get through and I think I mean even today in my marriage, the coming from divorce. It affects that.

11:58
But I've got a wife who's very she's patient. She gives me a lot of grace. We walk through it together. There's a lot of times when we fight that whenever we fight, I want to shut down, I don't want to talk. She's like, nope, we're not going to do that Eventually, I have to just cave. We talk about it, we communicate and we work things out, whatever that's helped us. A ton is that we actually do fight things out. We do respectfully and with love, but we fight. We have to. You have to get through those things, but you don't do it by avoiding them. For sure. That just leads to resentment, I think, which leads to nowhere good. So I'm definitely very blessed that I found her.

12:39 - Speaker 3
Yeah, go ahead. Did her parents also go to your church?

12:42 - Speaker 1
Yes, yeah, so you're talking about the one where we met at. Yes, yeah, so you're talking about the one where we met at yes, so they saw you right. Yes, yeah, yeah so.

12:47 - Speaker 3
I'm just thinking, maybe like they saw you in church and they thought, oh, he's a decent guy. So, let's give him a chance, maybe.

12:55 - Speaker 1
Yeah.

12:55 - Speaker 3
You're not some stranger off the street, yeah.

12:57 - Speaker 1
Right.

12:59 - Speaker 3
Yeah, that's Because I think church is the perfect place to find people to get married with and become friends with, but in most urban settings it's like the complete opposite, because if you date somebody and you break up, you can leave the church, which I think is ridiculous. It's like being an adult. It just didn't work out, you know.

13:21 - Speaker 1
But yeah, so that's the only reason why I bring it up. Yes, I see that some with the whole, you know it for sure happens with marriage. If a marriage ends in a church, well, okay, which one of them does the church get to keep? It's almost like who keeps the baby, you know, type deal. And yeah, I mean like I don't know it, shouldn't I get that a little bit more with a marriage ending? For sure it shouldn't even have to be that way with that. I shouldn't even have to be that way with that. I mean I don't know why a church would have to feel like that. They have to pick one person's side or the other because both parties are probably equally. You know are both parties are at fault. I mean it takes two to make a marriage work. It takes two to make a marriage not work. Obviously, you know the actions of one could be worse than the other, but it takes. It takes two in a relationship on either end of it.

14:01 - Speaker 3
So yeah, so how did you said you knew a little bit of building websites Like, how did you get into that and what did you learn? And like, where are you in that process? Like do you feel like you're a pro now, or you're like, oh no, I'm still like figuring stuff out?

14:17 - Speaker 1
Okay, so probably the biggest thing here recently for us has been in April of 2023. So just this last year I resigned my job. I've been a basketball coach and teacher for the last for the previous 19 years and the year before I started getting I started getting this feeling like I needed to get out of the coaching aspect. I have a wife and three daughters and kids. They were, they're all young. Now they're six, four and two and with coaching, there's so much time that that I missed at home, so much time that you know so many days during my basketball season, which is November through March, that there'd be several days in a row where I wouldn't see them awake, in a row where I wouldn't see them awake, like I'd see them in their bed, maybe in the morning before I left, and I would see them in their bed asleep whenever I got home at night. And that had started to wear on me having to hear the things that had happened to them in their days from my wife. Now, she was great through the whole process. She was a great coach's wife. Now, you know, she was great through the whole process. She was a great coach's wife Any of the games that we played at home and a lot of them that were on the road. She loaded them up and she brought them to the games and before my game happened and after it happened, you know, in the stands would be a lot of the time that I would spend with them during those months every year and it just got to where that wasn't enough. My time had become more valuable. I was secure in my job in the amount of I made a good salary. The job was pretty secure in that. You know we're always going to need teachers and coaches and I didn't have to worry about that aspect of it a whole lot. I said I was an assistant coach at the high school level and so there's not a lot of. You hear a lot of the stories in coaching and stuff where where coaches go to find a new job from winning and losing and that didn't. That wasn't really a at the high school level and being an assistant, I didn't have to worry about that a whole lot. That didn't happen. You lose your job at that level for a lot of I mean it could be a lot of other reasons, but not for winning and losing. So I was pretty secure in that and so it was. It's tough to leave, but probably so.

16:56
I had started looking at getting out of getting out of the coaching and trying to stay in teaching, and that was my plan. You talk about, um, god has plans for you, and everybody thinks they have their own plan for their life. And that was what, where the plan that I had come up with is I'm okay, I'm going to get out of the teaching thing and um and, and then I can have a whole lot of my time freed up because the coaching thing's not happening anymore. And then I'll you a whole lot of my time freed up because the coaching thing's not happening anymore. And then I'll you know I'll still, I'll have the security of the paycheck every month, I'll have the security of I know I've got retirement coming, I have the security of insurance being taken care of and all these other benefits. And it was, you know, I thought that had the perfect plan built up and the that transition just kept hitting roadblock after roadblock after roadblock, and so that first year that I had asked out of coaching, it didn't happen. I was like, okay, well, I'll stick it out one more year, see what happens at the end of that year. And it was in.

17:50
So it was in this past year, in January it was probably in January, so about a year ago now that I just felt like the Lord was telling me I've got something for you, Bryan, but in order for me to give it to you, you've got to let go of what you have. And I didn't even though this stuff was kind of going on at the time. I didn't really even know what that was about. At the time, I was still in the process where I was thinking that I was going to just be able to get out of the coaching and keep teaching. And I was thinking that I was going to just be able to get out of the coaching and keep teaching, and so this sounds kind of goofy, but we were trying to figure out at the time, like of how we were going to get some new bedroom, a new bedroom set, and it's like, well, we don't really have the money. And it happened. I felt it when the Lord speaking to me when I was in my bedroom. I'm thinking it's about that and I'm like, okay, uh, maybe we just need to sell all this stuff. And they put the sleep in the floor, on the couch or something for a while, we'll, we'll do that, and it's like okay, and then I just went on about it and then I kept hitting these roadblocks, kept hitting these roadblocks and it's like I, I, I don't.

18:52
I got to a point where I knew I didn't know where I was going to go, where we were going, and that's where you know, I don't like so for the, for people watching. My wife was on your first episode and she talked about in there, about how, about this a little bit. But we, I knew that I had to do something different, and so I had told her when we were going on a spring break trip because it was to the point where these coaching changes and stuff like this usually happen in the year, they usually happen at a certain time and it wasn't going to happen and I was like Jessica, I think I'm just going to resign, I think I'm just going to and I told her that I don't know where I'm going, I don't know where we're going, but I don't know what. And I told her that I don't know where I'm going, I don't know where we're going, but I can't stay here, I have to do something different. And so she was kind of taken aback and we talked about it over spring break and we were going on a trip and we're going to a place where we didn't like we had no cell phone service and no, going to be no distractions and stuff and we could just, um, you know, have time to think about it and have time to talk about it. And it never went away. It was like, yeah, this is what we've got to do. And so I resigned and I had been doing Squarespace web design on the side and that's kind of the plan.

20:17
Part of it was like the teaching thing I was going to continue teaching and just do this on the side. And it was like the plan part of with like the teaching thing, I was going to continue teaching and just do this on the side. And I was like that's going to be the plan, I'm going to do that whenever I had started doing it, because she has a publishing company and she needed me to build a website, and that was probably two or three years prior and I was like, okay, I think I can figure it out. I've always been kind, kind of inclined to that kind of thing and I had done that with my coaching job. Like we had activity pages on our school district's website and I put those together and stuff, and so I figured out how to build her website. And the next thing I know I had and this is still all, while I'm coaching and teaching I had another business in town that wanted me to build a website for them and it's like I think I can make some money on this and at the time I was just thinking it's gonna be on the side but, um, like, we're just going to do this, and kind of pretty shortly after that she decided to quit the job that she was doing on the side and go full time.

21:11
You know, all in on her, uh, on her publishing business. And so we have. We just jumped, both of us, um, not knowing really what was at the bottom of the ledge that we jumped off of, but we just jumped. So it's been, it has. You know, it was great at first and then it, you know, we hit some. We've hit some turbulence at times and it's been rough. She's had to talk me a few times, I've had to talk her down a few times, but it has been.

21:51
Having your own businesses, it's a character builder or it's a character revealer, maybe. Maybe there's been. There's probably nothing better for personal growth than owning your own business. You find out a lot about yourself with owning your own business, but it's been good. God has been faithful through all of it.

22:11
You know, it's one of the things I had to figure out how I was going to approach this whole thing was am I going to try to be someone who can build you a website on any platform you want to be built on? And I was like now, this is something brand new for me. If I want to be good at this, I probably need to pick one and learn it inside and out. And so that's what I did. I went all in with Squarespace and there's multiple reasons why I did that. Whatever, that's not for here. So I just decided to go in and I mean you can learn anything on YouTube. You can learn anything on researching through blog, reading blogs and this, and that this was so crazy Even the timing of this. There's no other time in the history of mankind that this could even be a thing.

22:53
If you go back to whenever I went through college, if that's what I decided I wanted to do, I couldn't have just dropped out of college and decided to be a web designer, I would have had to have, you know, gotten a degree in that and learned. You know I was able to, you know, this last year, resign my position at teaching and coaching and go all in on building websites, based off of what I had learned in my own research on the internet, my own research on the internet. But yeah, so it started with building her website for our publishing company, and so I said, it kind of happened by accident. I have always been kind of technologically inclined and so for the longest I've always been the person probably since the iPhone came out, I've been the guy in my family who everybody comes to when their phone doesn't work hey, Bryan, how do I fix this? And because I just naturally I just naturally am inclined to research those things and figure out the ins and outs. And again it's going back to I was single back then and spent way more time on my hands, but, like when the newest software come out of the iPhone, I was researching like every new thing that it did and I knew the ins and outs of how they worked and I just have always found that kind of stuff interesting, whenever you know in coaching, whenever what you had on your school district's website became more and more important and they started making it to where like, hey, we need you guys to have an activity page for basketball, we need you to have an activity page for your senior high basketball team and your junior high basketball team.

24:15
And it's like, who's going to do that? And most coaches aren't wired that way, but I was, and so it just kind of naturally happened that I was the one who got that responsibility and I didn't like it wasn't just something that I had to do, I wanted to do that. And so you know, generally speaking, the basketball activity page, other than there was another guy, our soccer coach. He was kind of wired the same way. He was kind of inclined naturally inclined the same way. So our two activity pages looked like professional websites and then some of the other ones.

24:43
It was like what happened here? So it's just starting to do that and I think that led to whenever my wife started her publishing company. She had known what all I had done through my school's website and plus running our social media accounts and all that stuff, that stuff. And she's like Bryan, you can figure it out. Like, let's you do some research and figure it out. And so in that there's a we have a friend who is a graphic designer and he had previously also done web design and he just kind of got out of the web design part of it because he didn't like it as much and he was making enough money just doing graphic design. And so I talked to him a little bit about the process and what are some resources where I can find stuff out, whatever this is, and so it was a learning it by doing it, and so I just jumped in and figured things out here recently.

25:27
I think one of the things that has really helped catapult me into really being able to just in the business aspect of it, of being able to make a little bit more money at doing this, and this was kind of I really feel like a God thing too. Like at the beginning of the summer, after I'd resigned, I was like I'm going to have to kind of invest in myself a little bit here, do some sort of further education here on in this area, so that I can, you know, if I'm going to take myself serious and expect other people to take me serious as a web designer, I need to be able to do this the right way, and so I started looking at different things. I was in Squarespace communities on Facebook and everything kept coming around to this guy named Sam Crawford Like, oh, he's about to start a course, you should look into that, whatever. And so I went to his website and signed up for his newsletter and, long story short, I ended up getting in on his course, for I think I paid $500 for it and it has been unbelievable the way he has everything laid out. There was like 70-something video lessons in there about how you do everything from your customer management software to revision software that you can use, and this is how you use it and this is how you keep yourself working and this is how you stack clients. It just kind of lays it all out you do this and you're going to be successful, and then all about treating clients the right way and a lot of that's going to go a long ways into getting them to come back and word of mouth them spread the word that you're doing it and you do a good job and you're going to get more business from that. But yeah, I got in on it at five hours and I think he's charging 30 for it now. I got in at just the right time, because it's one of those things like if it had, if this all had happened a year later, I probably wouldn't have done websites and like, hey, man, just give me the login to it, whatever, and I'll just write some code for you. Oh, wow, really, what Like. And so he just, it's been, it's, it's been a blessing for sure. But, um, so it's uh. I just jumped in and it was kind of like I don't know what my next step is, but I'm like okay, that's probably the next step. Okay, one step, you know, one step at a time, figuring it out as I've gone along, but it's that has been.

27:37
There has been a lot of faith that has been involved in that and it's been a lot of man, what. There's been times where it's like what am I, what am I doing here? Like this isn't you know what have I done to my family here? And then I had, you know, my wife has to remind me like hey, you heard from the Lord Like he's not going to. Like this is where the faith comes in. You know he's not going to lead you somewhere. That that is bad if you're, for you know when you, when you follow what he has asked you to do. And so we were big Dave Ramsey people, gosh, I think.

28:14
When we got engaged we started the financial peace class and it was probably like our plan when we got married was okay, we're going to get out of debt before we ever try to have kids. And so I think it was like a year into our marriage we actually became debt-free, went to Nashville, did the debt-free scream, that whole thing had the three to six month emergency fund built up and that had kind of I almost feel like here recently I've had this feeling of that had almost become a God, that had almost become an idol somewhat. That was our security, not God, but this emergency fund that we had built up. And through this transition of careers here, that emergency fund has dwindled and we've had to go and we've had to dip into it quite a bit in months. And so when we got to the point where it was like, okay, it's almost gone, it's almost again, like another word from the Lord, like you were, you were putting this thing up on a pedestal and it's you're, you're going to like, I was kind of taken back to the story of Abraham whenever the you know the other Kings tried to bless him with money and livestock and all this and he says, no, I can't take it, because then you or I one might think that it was you that made me rich and it wasn't, it was God. And so it's like it, almost like that had to completely go away and it did.

29:27
At the end of December it was gone. And December was a rough month zero income. And January happened after the emergency fund was gone and, like, my business this month so far has been crazy. Like so many leads every week, projects finished, new projects started. Like it's wild, like it's just it's amazing how, like I said whenever I resigned, like God has always taken care of me and I have no reason to believe that you know, 43 years into my life, at that point, that after 43 years worth of it, that he's going to stop now. Like, especially whenever this is from him, this is what you know. He told me I have something better for you. Like God's not a liar. So it's just crazy to see that play out all the time.

30:13 - Speaker 3
I was going to say, isn't it? Because I'm 40, going to be 41. And it's interesting, the first 40 years, I feel like, was practice, because it's like I wasn't really learning. And afterwards it's like, oh, when you actually learn how to start from scratch with literally nothing but God, it feels scary, but like going through it and then, like you said, one step at a time, you gain confidence to a point where you're like, oh, nothing scary anymore because, no matter where I am, god's going to bless it, as long as I trust him. Right. And I feel like that's what you were going through and that's such an amazing story for a lot of people who. Because one thing I realize now is like we've been, I feel like we've been lied to by the world, like, oh, if you want to be this one thing, you got to go through this one path, but in life, like you can reinvent yourself all the time, right for me it was like I had no idea what I wanted to do.

31:03
And then I went to seminary and I thought I was going to be a pastor forever and then I quit. And then I was going into tech and I thought I was going to be like a google engineer, but like I met alicia and so like all these zigzags, right, but at the end of the day, the one thing that kept consistently the same was, no matter how terrible or how great things were in my life, I always had to remind myself God is good all the time and all the time God is good, and that just kept me together, man.

31:28
And yeah, like even if I lose everything, I feel like, as long as I have that I.

31:33 - Speaker 1
I've started over like three times already in my life, so it's not a big deal anymore, even the little reminders that we get. He's even good in that, even though you're doing what he's asked you to do, and you get to these places where you feel like, what am I doing? You doubt yourself, was that really God? He's good enough even to give you these little reminders along the way of like, yeah, even if it's not necessarily like, oh, you get a big paycheck or something like that, but just these little reminders of like, hey, I got you, I've got you, I'm reminded of. We had a. So at our church we just recently this year, this school year, started a private school. It's kindergarten through fifth grade right now. And so they're going through some of this because you know they're they're having to trust that donors are going to happen, they're having to trust that they're going to be able to make payroll.

32:18
And so I was talking to the head of the school at church one Sunday. She's like hey, Bryan, I don't know why. She was asking me about how business was going and I was telling her it was in December when everything was so rough, and I was telling her a little bit about it. And she's like I feel like I should tell you. I don't know really why, whatever, but she said that she had come across something and she is a good reminder for her, because they were wondering how they're going to make it. I don't know what the time was, all this stuff. We need somebody to step up and one of our donors to step up, and so it did for her, but that was after the fact. But she'd tell me I had someone remind me that God is plan A and there is no plan B. She's like I don't know why I need to tell you that, but I feel like I should tell you that.

32:55
So we leave church that day, me and my wife, and we're going up to Northwest Arkansas. It's about an hour drive, we're on the interstate and we're going to see my little brother and his family. He has two little girls that are very close in age to my girls no-transcript. My wife goes Bryan, look, you're not going to believe this. And I look up car in front of us, shoe polish. On the back glass of the vehicle it says God is plan A, there is no plan B.

33:33
What in the world I'm even thinking to the point of, are all these other cars around us? Are they even seeing that? Is it just being shown to me and my wife? Why would anybody put that on the back glass of their car? How often do you see that it's like, oh my gosh, you're going to be kidding me. But just little reminders that didn't do anything for us financially or anything, but it strengthened our faith. It's a reminder that God is good, it's a reminder that God's got you, and so just little things like that all the time when we're trying to decide if we were going to actually even make this jump. We'll go to prayer at our church. We have prayer on Monday nights and it's at the very end of it, and I think my father-in-law had asked if anybody had word for anybody.

34:14
And my brother-in-law who played he leads worship and he'd been up there. He's playing the keyboard and he's like I've been fighting this the whole time. I've been fighting this, you know the whole church, the whole service here and I didn't want to say anything because I'm so close to the situation. But it's about Bryan and Jessica and it was the whole thing that we had been feeling of like I don't know where I'm going, but I can't stay here, and so we hadn't told anybody, we hadn't told any of our family that we're thinking about doing this.

34:43 - Speaker 3
And he says I just keep getting this, like Abraham, I don't know where I'm going, but I can't stay here, and me and my wife are both just in tears Like, oh my gosh no-transcript all the same, and we all want the same things, and a lot of times when we get into conflict, it's just a misunderstanding, right, because we think the other person is getting in our way when really like no, it's not.

35:36 - Speaker 1
So, yeah, it's refreshing and so we yeah, the whole rule wrestle not against flesh and blood. Yeah, yeah, there's. You know, and I think that's what's so great about especially what you are doing with the podcast here is that, like you said, like so many of us are going through the same things, and probably one of the number one tactics of the devil is to keep you isolated and to make you think that you're alone and that there's not anybody else going through what you're going through. You're the crazy one for what you're thinking or feeling, and that's just not true. There's nothing true about that at all. God is not a liar, but the devil is.

36:07
So I mean, but yeah, it's this, creating just awareness of those types of things and letting people see other people's stories is this doesn't do anything but strengthen people. Going back to the Dave Ramsey stuff like one of the things we always did whenever we were going through the process of trying to get to encourage us was to watch other people's debt-free screens Like, okay, you know they were in like five times as much debt as what we had. If they can do it, you know, we can too, you know. It's just hearing those things it helps.

36:34 - Speaker 3
It does. I have one ignorant question to ask, and then I have some fun questions to ask. Okay, have you ever lived outside of Arkansas, I think.

36:43 - Speaker 1
I moved away and it was a 10-year gap. So I moved to Russellville, arkansas, which is like an hour down the road one way, and I was there for nine of those years and then, part of that being college and part of that being my first teaching and coaching job, and then part of that being college and part of that being my first teaching and coaching job and then I moved an hour up the road from here, the opposite direction to Salem Springs, and I was there for one year and then back home to Alma. So, yeah, everything has always pulled me back here. I said well, and then I lived in Northeast Arkansas until I was four years old. My family moved to where we're at when I was four. So we lived over there from 1980 to 1980. So everything that I can remember for the most part has been here, other than that 10 year gap.

37:19 - Speaker 3
The reason why I ask is, I realize, depending on where you are and where you grow up, you think that's like the world right and so, like a lot of urban cities, like I grew up in New York, like I'm a New Yorker, I thought every city was like New York City and I realized no other city is like New York City and I realized no other city is like New York City, right?

37:39
So you being, you know, like a native Arkansanian I don't even know what you call it Arkansan, what is your thoughts? Arkansan, there you go. Yes, I visited a friend who lived in Omaha and she moved from New York and I visited her and her family, and life out there is so different, you know, like it gets dark and like because the sun's going down on the planes but everything's flat, so like you see the sun go down. So I'm just curious as to what rural people think about people like in the city.

38:07 - Speaker 1
So Omaha, I've been there, awesome town, loved Omaha, but it's very but it it. It feels familiar though it's, it is somewhat like here now it's bigger, like here Now it's a way bigger city than what I'm even from. Where I live is five-ton people, so that's the population within the city limits In Arkansas. So our biggest city is Little Rock, but it's five-ton people. So I mean, you're thinking of that as a small town that's a drop in the bucket to New York City, and so I've visited Chicago, dallas, atlanta, some of these places and yeah, it would be completely different. It's a completely different way of living.

38:48
And then I can listen to my wife's. When my wife was on this, she talked about having to have a car. She's talking about the story about giving her car away, whatever, and like I've got to have a car. There's no public transportation, it's you have to have a car to get around from one place to the other. I guess now it's kind of changed a little bit with that. You can get an Uber or something like that, but you're probably gonna be waiting a while and you pray 45 minutes for any Uber to come to where I'm at, and so there's a lot of things like that, it'd just be completely different. It feels like thinking about living that way just seems completely foreign. The whole idea of walking everywhere you go, picking up groceries on the way home from work, like on your walk, and just carrying what you need for that day, not having a car, all those things. It's almost like a different world to even think about 10 acres, so it's a completely different way of doing everything, which can't help but change probably, outlook on things.

39:41
But there's this perception, I think, in rural America that the big cities, that just pretty much everybody there is just crazy. Because you see so much of the news coverage and what does the news cover? Bad things that happen. Right, because there's more people in big cities, more of the bad stuff that happens is probably going to happen in big cities and it's just one of those things like what people in big cities think about people in rural America is a whole different stigma too. But everybody in rural America is not like that either. It's one of those deals where you have to judge everybody just based on them. It can't be, you know, but the whole, but the stigma that goes with it. Like I have shoes on right now I live in Arkansas. But I do wear shoes. Even I mean even in my house I have shoes on it's a. You can't trust a lot of the stereotypes, for sure it's it's a. They're generally based in something, but probably far from true still based in something, but probably far from true.

40:35 - Speaker 3
Still, so, thanks. Yeah, I just wanted to give perspective to people because I'm again, I'm talking to people all over and I'm just fascinated that like well, and I think we need to be a lot more humble about different perspectives because, like, we don't know until we live their life and that's what I'm learning more about like the beauty of like being a christian is like you can be wildly different on everything, right, but when we start talking about faith and how good Jesus is, it's like it breaks every heart of a Christian and I just find that beautiful that we only need that one common ground.

41:01 - Speaker 1
Right, it can break down all the walls. Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's all it's done since the beginning is break down walls. So yeah, it's one of those things, definitely one of those things that I shouldn't even say, one of those things. It is like the thing that can bring anybody together, of no matter what you know, where you live, what socioeconomic you know spot you find yourself in life, race, gender, like anything. It's all it's, because we're, all you know, made in the image of God. We all have that same. We're all drawn the same to God. You know, even though some people don't realize it and they don't know that, that's what's missing in their life. It's present in all of us. It has to be, you know. So we have way more in common than we do different, for sure.

41:41 - Speaker 3
The last few questions. When was your? I know she's the one moment.

41:46 - Speaker 1
So this is pretty easy. So she had never had that moment of stepping away from church. She's been solid her whole life. So when she was first, the whole idea of being set up with her was introduced to me, I thought, eh, she's probably like a goody two-shoes Never said a bad word, never, whatever. You know, if she even knew half of the stuff that I've done, like she's going to be gone, no-transcript, and I really I didn't know what she would do and she was just like, okay, okay, thanks for telling me.

42:40
Like this is one of those things like you don't want. It's like when you do something bad, you're probably better off if you go tell your parents yourself than them finding out from somebody else. Like I didn't want that to ever be a deal. Where it came up Like we go ahead and get married and then three years down the road she finds some stuff out about me and is like why didn't you tell me that? Like that's obviously going to create trust issues and now we got big problems.

43:01
And so I just laid it out to her and she didn't run for the hills and so it was like man, if you know, if, if she can give me that kind of grace and still be okay with it, and like she knew that I wasn't the same person at that point and so like, thanks for telling me. I'm glad you told me that now I don't have to find out from somebody else. If it ever does come up for whatever reason and that was that was freeing to know that, man, I can tell her anything Then I can absolutely tell her anything. I don't have to be anything.

43:28 - Speaker 3
Man like, yeah, that was it, I found her I love that story and I hate you because I'm so jealous. I'm editing that out, so don't worry. How would you like to be remembered? How would you like to be remembered by your daughters?

43:41 - Speaker 1
oh, wow, um, I'm gonna try to make me cry, aren't you? Uh, how would I like to be remembered by man, just someone who's tough man. I want them to know that I love them. I want them to know that I love their mother. I hope that they know that I would do anything with them, for them.

44:01
It reminds me like my father-in-law always tells a story about when he got stuck in the side of the road and was with somebody, and this person that he was with didn't have the greatest relationship with his dad. And way on down the road, somewhere they were going on a trip, and he calls his dad to come help him out. And this guy's like why do you call your dad for? And he's like because I know he's going to come, I know he'll be here, I'm in trouble and my dad's going to show up. And this guy just couldn't get that. And it's like one of those things where you're like, yeah, lucky that, even though my parents were divorced, I have my dad is that way. I could be 10 hours away. And if I called him and said I'm stuck on the side of the road and I don't know what I'm going to do, that he'd take off and he'd find a way to get there to help me out and I want that for my kids.

44:42
I want them to know that I've always got their back, but I hope that they would think of me as someone who led them well. I think that me and my wife, I hope we are doing a good job of showing them what a relationship with Jesus looks like and that he loves them even more than we do. That's hard to admit sometimes as a parent. We dedicate our children in church, whatever, and it's like man, you give them over.

45:11
There's nothing like being a parent of making you realize that you really don't have any control. You have no control over things. There's only so much you can do to protect them. And then you have to Becoming a dad and starting my own business. There's been nothing that has ever in my life stretched me in my faith in so many ways as those two things. But I just hope that they think that I led them well and that they just understand exactly how much that I love them. And they probably won't get that until they have their own kids, because you can't until you have your own children. It's hard to comprehend.

45:44 - Speaker 3
Thank you. What are you hoping for at Faithly?

45:47 - Speaker 1
So, man, I really think what y'all are doing is know, y'all kind of market yourselves as the LinkedIn for ministry type deal, right, and that's such a great concept, because churches, I think, can be isolating at times of you don't go outside of the walls of this church for help with anything, or how do you deal with a certain problem, like you have to talk to other people in your church, like we're all on the same team. I think one of the things that we do in this world that probably does upset the Lord the most is the division in the church. We're all part of the church, right, and the church is not even buildings, it's the body, it's Jesus's followers. We're all supposed to be on the same team and churches get caught up in competition so much I know, especially in small towns, probably not, probably the number one way that a church grows is from the decline of another church. It's in that's. It shouldn't be that way.

46:37
You know, like, but there's just a way to like, and with what I'm doing specifically, like through the with my web design, like and it hadn't come through faithfully yet, but I think I'm on my third.

46:48
Yeah, so I just got a contract for my third church for building a website for them.

46:53
Yeah, so I just got a contract for my third church for building a website for them and I don't go to church there, but I want to build a website that's going to help their church. But then also the stuff that I do through social media, through our YouTube channel for the church and things like that being able to reach out to other people that do those similar things at their church, like what do y'all do? Like your church's YouTube channel is successful, what's been kind of the secret? What's been the what's helped y'all the most? That type of thing. But just creating a y'all having a platform that connects people from different churches together to be able to discuss those things that would have never happened otherwise, especially whenever you're talking about, you know, I can be speaking to somebody that's at a church in New York City all the way down here in Arkansas, so that obviously would never happen. And so that's just a great resource, a great tool to have and just helping to use it.

47:40 - Speaker 3
For those reasons, and then, how can we be praying for you and your family?

47:44 - Speaker 1
Oh, probably. So the number one thing would be just that we have direction, continued hearing the Lord. What does God say about this next step, what does those type of things? And just the reminders and stuff that we have? And to have your ears tuned in to the Lord to be able to hear those things, because you guys don't have to pray for Him to speak to us. He's always speaking to us, but maybe more so for us to be able to hear Him. So, just for direction and for continued being able to hear the Lord, and just protection from anything outside there's the devils trying to tear the family down all the time. It's the number one. The nuclear family is probably the best form of governance that the world's ever seen, and so if we can tear that apart, then so just protection over our family and protection over our marriage that type of thing would be great. We can always never take too many people praying for us for those things.

48:44 - Speaker 3
Thanks, Bryan, this was great, and, man, I want to visit you and your family.

48:49 - Speaker 1
Yeah, anytime, man, anytime. Just come on down to Arkansas. You can catch a flight to Fort Smith and go see the US Marshals Museum and you can come stay at the house with us.

49:01 - Speaker 2
Thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast. 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 frontlines of ministry on the Faithly Podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful and never underestimate the power of your own story.