De-Influenced with Dani + Jordan - De-Influencing Ben Kirby (Preachers N Sneakers): You Won’t Believe This Conversation

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

We missed you guys too much… so we’re dropping a SURPRISE episode of De-Influenced with Ben Kirby! Ben is the creator behind the viral “Preachers & Sneakers” account that shook the evangelical world. What started as a sarcastic Instagram post about a pastor wearing expensive sneakers quickly exploded into a cultural moment — gaining over 100,000 followers in its first month and sparking conversations across the church world. In this episode, Jordan sits down with Ben to talk about the story behind the account, what he discovered about modern church culture, and what it was like being at the center of one of the internet’s most controversial faith conversations. They discuss: How “Preachers N Sneakers” started by accident The unexpected backlash from pastors and churches The viral growth that changed Ben’s life What he learned about influence, power, and church culture Why the conversation is still relevant today This one goes deeper than expected — and you might not see everything the same way after listening. Subscribe to our official YouTube channel, @deinfluencedpodcast, and follow along on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your De-Influenced fix. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok at @deinfluencedpodcast. Thanks so much for listening and supporting the show! Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. Okay, we got Ben from Preachers and Sneakers. We talked a lot about this last week. Danny is not in this episode. I want to be super clear. We talked about it. I don't think she's fully healed from Diet Prada. She's lumping you in the same category.

We're going to figure out. Yeah, I listened on the way and started to get a little concerned about the vibes heading into this. I was like, this may not go well for me, given that the matriarch is on such a soapbox, but I understood her points. And I, it's not the first time I've heard any of that. And so happy to get into it with you. I appreciate you having me. It's funny because, and we told this story last week, but, you know, we were at a school observation. And I recognize this guy across the room. And I'm like, who is this? And I couldn't figure out how I knew you.

And I probably would have never said anything and remembered it three days later. I've been bummed that we didn't talk. But then you came up and said, hey, you know, I think you complimented Danny. and we're like, hey, appreciate how you live out your faith online or something. And I was like, I know you. And then you told me, I'm Ben. I ran preachers and sneakers. And I asked you to sit down and we talked for probably the whole hour. Yeah.

And you had said before this podcast started that that was the first time in a long time. You had really kind of like gone back and really thought about that era of your life. It's been years. Yeah. Because it's, I mean, I was doing the math. I think it's been seven years or so since I started. it and it now is run by a close friend of mine and it's taking on some new direction. But yeah, it was very, is the word providential or ghosty or something where like we, of course,

like Danny is so, especially in Dallas, kind of popular and people know who she is. And me and my wife Stacy have followed you all for a long time and are always entertained by the content you put out. But then Danny and I had chatted briefly over DM a few years ago when my book came out. And I was so shocked because I assumed, A, that she was friends with maybe some of the folks that I posted about or at least was in similar circles. And so I was really grateful that somebody like that would spend the time or at least even mentioned that she had bought the book or somebody gave her the book. And that was that. But yeah, it's fun to follow y'all from afar and then see you in person and kind of level set.

It's like, all right, we both have toddlers here doing this weird. private school analysis where it's like super charged where it's like you better not reject my most prized relationship in person. But then we're like sending them off sight unseen to go to some classroom and now we're just sitting there. So it was very fun to run. So I think what's interesting about our audience with de-influence and just Danny's like following is I think that they know that we're believers. They know that we're Christians. But I think there's a lot of people that follow us that aren't. And so maybe give a little bit of a backstory on what Preachers and Sneakers was, both culturally in the evangelical community and then what it

became kind of outside of that too. Yeah. I appreciate the opportunity. And Danny, if you're listening, I'm not this person anymore, which Jordan tried to back me up. I believe to do. Thank you. But to be fair. People did. Okay, so preachers and sneakers, uh, was this social media or Instagram account to begin with that I started when I was at SMU, getting my MBA. And talk about like how it started too. Like you're sitting in your dorm room and you said, Carl Lentz is wearing these sneakers. I'm mad. Well, yeah, it's pretty, it's not too far off. Um, I was getting my MBA. And so I was thankfully not in a dorm. My wife and I had a house in Richardson. And I'll never forget it. I was, To make ends meet, this story, everything about this whole thing doesn't make sense and is weird.

Anyways, I was a DJ that had like several recurring gigs in like Deep Ellum at places that I think are closed now. But I was doing the full-time MBA program. And so to make ends meet, my wife was working at Watermark and I was DJing these gigs every couple weekends. And so my wife's- Watermark is a big church in Dallas. So your wife is in ministry. In ministry at a very large church with like 10,000 members. So like there's heaps of irony about the whole thing.

But anyways, I was at home on Sunday morning, slept through church. And I had never really done this before, but I just started watching like worship videos on YouTube because I didn't want to go to church. And this was me like checking the box. So speak for my spiritual life. And where's your faith at at this time? I'm practicing believer. I've been a Christian since I was eight or so. I grew up in Louisiana.

so it's kind of like you're going to be Christian. But then I had several like influences in my life through junior high and high school that helped me solidify my faith. And so it wasn't really like cultural. By like junior high in high school, it wasn't cultural. Yeah. So you weren't angry or resentful towards the church or anything like that in this season. No.

Like I mean, my life was being supported by ministry. My wife was working and she wasn't getting paid very much. But yes, like I had no vendettas against modern Christian. but anyways I was watching these YouTube videos I saw an elevation worship video that of a song I really liked like I'd sought the song out because I'd heard it somewhere else and really liked it and the guy leading worship was wearing some easis that I knew were on the resale market selling for like 800 bucks at the time I don't know what the market is for them now the easies were easy 750s and so they're these kind of unique looking high top sneakers

some of the earlier models that Kanye came out with. Not worth much now. Just saying. Well, he kind of flooded the market and then also had some public. Yeah, he had some statements. Yes, the Kanye thing is very deep and complex and I'm not an expert on that. But so I just made like a snarky video because I didn't know what elevation was. I knew the song.

I didn't know the influence they had in kind of modern charismatic church circles, I guess, even though at the time they were associated with Southern Baptist Convention. And I just made a snarky video. I had like 300 personal followers because I like making people laugh. And I just made some kind of smart A video like, did y'all know this guy's wearing Yeezy 750s?

These are, I've got the video somewhere out there. But like, these are $800. And I was being queued about it. It was like, dude, let me get on the payroll. How? Because I'm experiencing my wife, what she gets paid at our mega church. And I was like, there's no world where I could afford to pay $800. But again, like, I don't know where his name was Mac. Mac got the shoes. I didn't know if he was gifted him or

whatever. It's like it's a totally like flippant, if that's the right word. Yeah. Just like comment out into the universe that wasn't meant for anything. Instagram. Instagram. On Instagram. And on a private, like my account was private. Like I had my personal followers and that was it. And, you know, people messaged back and were either like shocked like, oh, I had no idea. or were laughing. Like, it's like, oh, that's funny. And then the algorithm started serving up like Mike Todd videos and Irwin McManus videos. And I, everybody was wearing very sought after, very exclusive sneakers that I knew.

At the time, I was also kind of into sneakers buying and selling kind of like these, this is kind of the early days, I guess, of stock X and goat, which is kind of like the stock market of things. So I just made, I started making those videos. I had a friend out in L.A. who was pretty connected and he messaged me and said like, dude, you should just, this is funny. You should make a whole account doing this because there's all these people out in LA. This is the entire culture. And there's so much content.

And I came up with the name, preachers and sneakers. Again, like no strategy, no end goal, nothing to sell, nothing to like, I didn't want to be some activist or anything. It was just like, oh, people are responding to this. That feels good. And for whatever reason, these captions are coming to me pretty, pretty, you know, organically. And so I moved those videos over to the new handle that I created. And in a month, I had 100,000 followers. Like no ads, no, I wasn't hawking anything. I was just, I guess, okay,

to land the plane to bring it back to sports. My, well, my posts ended up being were just like a screenshot of a famous pastor or preacher zooming in on their shoes or their belt or their jacket or something and then putting a screenshot of the current market rate for that. Yeah, that was, were to buy it. Early on, that was your, that was kind of your format. That's right.

Like it was like a consistent format and you just posted probably like once a day. Yeah, give or take. Like there was some days where like I was literally sitting in class posting these things and watching like thousands of people follow the account. And again, like I'm not bragging about it. This is just what happened.

And I, I didn't know what I was doing. So like I didn't. I wasn't sure. I guess there's a part of you that whenever you put something on the internet, there's a part of you that hopes or thinks there's a chance that could go viral. But I, there's plenty of people that are funnier, more creative, have better design, have a better strategy than I did. But there was something that was resonating with people because

even with like Danny on the last episode, she like starts to kind of feel opinionated about this whole thing and whether like either for or against. And I didn't know what I was uncovering at the time but I knew that people were latching onto it and it was getting a lot of traction. The New York Times was reaching out. There were all these people like mainstream media folks that were reaching out because mainstream media loves a like Christian scandal or anything. So this had this kind of flavor. But again, like I made a, I think if you scraped the old posts, there's probably some

snarkier like because again, my audience was just my personal people and I didn't, I toned it down a little bit. But so that's what Preachers and Seekers was and has been for the last five or six years. It's recently I handed over controlled leadership to a friend of mine that I met at church. And she's taking it a different direction. But the core of it that people really latched on to was that like, all right, these are very valuable pieces of clothing. These guys and girls are wearing. there is an emotional reaction that comes when people see it, but it's so broad that it kind of just all

grew itself. So in those early days when you kind of shot up to 100,000, because it sounds like you shot up to 100,000 like a month, right? Yeah. So if you had to guess what percentage of those hundred thousand were Christians versus outside people, other faith backgrounds that were just following to kind of like affirm what they already believed about Christianity. It's probably like 62 and a half percent Christians. I don't know. I have no clue. But truly, like just take a guess. What do you think? I think it's got to be, I think it's probably leaned heavily towards Christians, but there was a large. this is what was so interesting about the whole experience was that and that kind of kind of screwed me up in the head was there was a large like because these are the most famous pastors and preachers are the most well branded pastors and preachers so like a big portion of like christians like christian christians love the intersection of christianity and pop culture la canje justin bieber yeah like carl being at the cardashians parties that

kind of stuff. But that was kind of new. That's like new, right? New as of like the past maybe 10 years. Or maybe social media just made it feel new, right? Maybe Billy Graham was hanging out with the celebrities, right? Back in the day, which I'm sure he was. But right, but there is something, at least for me growing up in the South, there was always this desire for Christianity to find a way to make Christianity cool so that it wasn't so taboo or hard to like talk about because we know like if you're I guess, an evangelical, you know we're called to, like, share our faith. But if it's not cool, it makes it so much, like, if it's so much easier to talk about, if it's a cool mainstream thing.

Right. Which is this tension that, like, be in the world, not of the world. So anyways, there's a lot of, there's a lot of things underlying here about why it was popular. But yes, there's a big portion of, I would say, like, Instagram doesn't track this, but like Christians that are aware of these faith leaders. But then there was another portion that assigned completely different meaning to it that were hurt by church, thought that all Christians just cared about money or that they were scamming, that they were all, they could kind of put them in the Joel Osteen box or the like Benny Hin box of prosperity and like grifters.

And I heard from both sides constantly. And so me being in the middle as a Christian, genuinely like trying to live out my faith, but also having this thing that was seeing all this growth, I didn't know what to do with it. Like there was many days where I was like, I genuinely don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Because I would have a well-educated seminary grad message me and be like, thank you for doing this. This is so important. But then I would have a fan of Stephen Ferdick. or Carl Lynch or whoever, message me and say, you're damning people to hell.

Basically, like, what you're doing is causing people to leave the faith. And so, like, that really, like, I'm not immune to that. Like, Danny called me a troll. It's like, I think early days, it probably did seem like I was a troll. But behind the scenes, it ruined my day to hear that. But then also, I'm, like, I'm a three, like she is. I like, it's cool to grow something or to feel like, okay, finally. I've I have tapped into something that's unique. It is growing. I'm not even having to ask people

to follow it. It's growing like virally. So what is this? Like bad things can grow like Jonathan Piccluid I interviewed years ago on my podcast and he made some really helpful statements. But one of the things I took away and I still remember or that I still really appreciate would see he was like, dude, cancer grows too, bro. Like growth. And he was commenting. not only on my thing, but also not, and he wasn't calling you off. But he was saying like, not every popular person is popular because they are doing a good or meaningful thing. Like, cancer can also grow virally. And so I didn't know what to do with it at the time. So I think that just this is a pretty like mic drop statement, but I think that that's

the cancer that's growing in some of these pastors' brains is I think that they believe because I'm growing so popular, I'm doing the Lord's work. That's right. And I think that that is, we talk about this a lot, that is a cancer that I think is very deceptive within the church right now, especially social media. It's kind of like, we talk a lot about the pastors that are like social media, the boats to take the gospel overseas. And it's like, bro, you just want to be famous.

You just want to be famous. It feels pretty good. Yeah, it's nice. So you're three on the Enneagram. You know, one of the third sections I want to get to in this conversation is how this all affected you. Yeah. But you are a three and I think that's a really important setup because I'm married to a three. And you guys like to grow things.

And there's nothing wrong with it. It's amazing. It's part of your ambition. It's hard to say no to it. It's hard to say no to it. And so I really want to kind of set the stage. So your wife's in ministry. Okay.

You pop to 100,000 in a month. When you first started it, the way that you characterized it to me, is you weren't thinking about it that deeply. It was just like, this is funny. Who knows where this is going to go? But at what point in time did you realize, oh, I have something that's growing. I now understand the rush of that dopamine

when a post go viral, or I get all these DMs, even if they're good and bad, it's still like, you know, no one probably knew you as a DJ, but now you got something where you're on a stage, like you're public. And that spotlight for a three is powerful.

It's a drug. It's a drug. It's a drug. And I think Danny, if she was in here, she would say the same thing. I mean, we went through her blowing up her whole life because of the drug of social media, right? So at what point did you start having to ask the question of this isn't just something fun that I'm doing? This has like existential value and it's complicated. Like your wife is even a minister.

You told me that you had to meet with the. leadership at Watermark at the time. So what did the journey look like maybe in the first couple months of starting this going from like a flippant, oh, this is funny, to like this actually has like existential value to Christianity. Yeah. It was a multi-phase thing. Like some of the moments like when when the guys that I was posting about started responding or messaging me or you know sub-tweeting me through their posts or on their

podcast that's when I was like oh this this is beyond this is getting big yeah this is beyond my scope and like I am not one of these like engagement above all costs like I don't care if you're mad I don't care if you like I

if they messaged me angry and we're insulting me that was and again like if if they were sitting here too they'd be like oh what was you you're building this huge platform and you're upset because I'm angry but like that didn't feel good it didn't feel good to think like hey this person that apparently believes the same things that I do thinks I'm so wrong for posting these two pictures next to each other without even espousing a judgment about whether or not it was good or bad. Like, sure.

Like, that was, I think one of the things that went well with it was it, I made it vague enough so that both Christians and atheists could kind of ascribe their own or like assign their own intent or value to it. Because without it, then I'm just the person that I think Danny was maybe hinting at me being as like, oh, I'm so holier than thou. No one should ever wear Travis Scott Lowe's. because they're worth $1,200. Well, and people who aren't familiar with the story,

I think the two bits of context that are missing from this conversation so far is, number one, you were anonymous. That's right for the first two years, yeah. Number one, you were anonymous. So when you say the pastors were coming at me, me, no one knew who me was. Right. It was you behind the scenes protected by the anonymity, which in my opinion was what also protected you from the argument of being self-righteous

because there was no glory coming. coming to you. Right. Right. But then they called me a coward and a hypocrite. So like there was always things to, and I'm not like if I could go back, I don't, the anonymous thing was a,

a reaction to just not knowing what was happening and how crazy people were going to be. Because people like very quickly were, were essentially daming me to hell or saying I was damning other people to hell. Like trying to evoke like spiritual warfare stuff that I was contributing on the negative side, which sounds super like Christianese or whatever,

but like basically people were like, you're not a Christian for doing this. And that, I lost my train of thought. Oh, so I see it so different. I actually think, and I think I've been, I think I've said this in one of our podcasts,

you know, a couple months ago. When you broke your anonymity, it actually was the first time that I questioned your motives. Yeah. Because your anonymity was what made me feel like you were doing this

from a place of just simply ascribing, starting a conversation that probably needed to happen. And you were also, so two bits of context. Number one, your anonymity. Number two is you were very artful in the beginning about not saying whether this is right or wrong. It was, it was amazing the way that you did it because all you did was you put the picture of the shoes and then the price tag. And then everyone else could assign their media.

right. And so any defensiveness that was coming to this anonymous person from these pastors had to have been their own insecurity and their own defensiveness of like, oh, I actually deep down know that this is not right, but I'm being called out and I don't like that because I'm supposed to be hanging out with Justin Bieber. That's right. So talk to me about, you know, what I was trying to set you up for is, you know, you're anonymous. There's probably a couple people that know it's you, you're starting to get the New York Times. So you're starting to get the atheist and the evangelicals saying, we need you to be this. That's right.

How did you handle that moment as a believer? Not well. It was pretty, because to go a layer deeper, each one of these people have, each one of these pastors that I post about have burned congregants that like assigned too much. value or like basically came to faith because of this person instead of like what Jesus did. And so of course they tried to serve and got burned out by having to like work for free because they didn't maybe understand the like the volunteer culture of like how you serve your local church. And I mean, it's in like all the Hillsong Docton. Yeah, it's basically the whole

Hill song. Right. So those people were coming to you. And like trying to use me as a tool for their vendetta against Hill song or Mosaic or. elevation, like any number of these church, transformation church. And so I didn't, I didn't know what to do with that. And it was too much kind of crap to bear because like, yeah, I appreciated everybody's input. And especially when they're like, wow, this is so important. Here's this story from my own experience at this church. And some of it was like, okay, that's pretty effed up. but then other stuff was like that just sounds like church and maybe you didn't fully understand what being involved with the church is again like each church has in a vacuum has its own

set of nuances um so i didn't handle it well at first because i thought okay like maybe it is my responsibility to try to like zero in on some of these toxic toxic environments but it's too much and like who am i so i so a lot of things you um i've kind of backed into my theology about some of the things I was doing online. Because for the first year, really, I was like, this is growing. Everyone has an opinion about it. I truly don't know what. That's why I went to the leadership of Watermark because my community at the time and some people that I trusted didn't really have, they couldn't really speak into it because it's such a unique situation. Yeah, what was your, what was your wife saying? So she works at Watermark. She's, she loves Jesus. She's like seeing the DMs

firsthand. She knows you so she knows you're a three. And there's, and there's, this ambitious side of you. That's right. But she's also like, is this constructive? Is this destructive? You're anonymous. What was your wife saying? Yeah. She, my wife, Stacey, kept me out of so much trouble. Like, she is so full of wisdom. And it's multi-layered. Like, I think she was proud that something I was doing finally was taken. Right. Taken. Because I, you know, I always have, or you don't know, but like, I'm one of those people that always has ideas. And like, maybe this is the thing. Like, maybe this is what I've been missing and I'm like here's another startup idea here's another website you domain that I purchased like this will be the thing and so I think she liked that I was getting energy from growing a thing and

seeing it succeed but then she was very concerned about hey people are insane and I don't want people showing up to the house and like slashing our tires or like throwing blood at our door or something like because people are crazy on the internet and don't do well with but people didn't know who you were Not at first, which is why I did anonymous until I kind of had fleshed out what I believed about this whole thing. And so she, so much to her credit, encouraged me to slow down whenever possible. I think she was disappointed when I would get a tough message or something and it ruined my day because it's like, it doesn't. And again, like, I'm sure this happens to these pastors and preachers all the time. but I had a little slice of it where it's like, all right, this person that says they're a Christian is saying, I'm not a Christian because of, or I don't have a true faith because I'm doing this. And if I did, I wouldn't. Or if I did, I would Matthew 18 and like go to this person in private. But then I was like, well, wait a second. They're signing up for all the benefits of being a public figure. But now I then owe them the Matthew 18 treatment of like going to them direct. It doesn't seem like I don't think you can have it both ways.

but these are all things I was learning in real time. And I guess to answer your question, I didn't do it great. Stace helped me a ton in staying grounded. I think it was wise to be anonymous for a bit because I could have, like I got invited to go on the Today Show the first like three or four months I think when it was going viral. And ultimately said no, because I didn't see what I would have gained from it. And I was very aware that.

A world of hurt is what you would. A world of hurt. Yes, that's right. And I was well aware of how good it felt to see the thing growing up and to the right and how quickly a viral thing can go away. And so I just tried to do it slower. Being anonymous was part of that. It wasn't perfect and it was pretty messy.

I look at like, let's just say, and I'm not getting the timeline precise, but let's say the first year you're experiencing explosive growth, you're anonymous, right? And it seems like the way I would characterize that year is if you had three people, an atheist, a Christian, and your wife, and maybe a pastor, they would all have different opinions about what you should be doing. That's right. And so I would probably characterize that as just a house divided in your heart of what is this thing? There's some days you wake up and you're like, I'm killing it. I'm feeding my three. I'm feeding my ambition. So nice to be seen. There's other days, well, I'm married to one. You're married to it. Like, this is so refreshing. I'm married to one.

So I've had so many interviews with people that just don't get it or like, yes. Yeah. So you're at war. And I listen. Maybe we should be friends and realize. I've, I've experienced the dopamine rush of it as well. And I've seen how that dopamine rush plays out. So there's probably some days where you're like, man, I feel like I'm doing the Lord's

work. But then, you know, on low content days. So when all the pastors stopped wearing sneakers, you still have to feed the beast. Yes. And that's probably where things got dicey. So my last question about this era, or two last questions, is what did the church, like your church, Watermark, what did they advise you to do at the time? Different leadership, different people, like, you know, this is not calling them out. Because this is such a unique, I don't think that they had the answers either.

But what did your community and like the people closest to you personally, what were they advising you to do? Yeah, great question. my community, most of them genuinely did not have social media. And so couldn't really speak into it in a way. That's how our community group was too and was like, guys, this is hard. I kind of have this very important thing going on my life and none of y'all can appreciate it. So that's what kind of triggered me to go talk to the elders at our church.

And they gave me good advice. And they affirmed some of the things. And they didn't get it. Like they didn't care about sneakers, but they got, they understood this kind of self-flicking ice cream cone of modern-day evangelists where you're a very good speaker. You and your hot wife start a church. You get a bunch of young people to come. You have a really good band.

And then you write a book on church time. And then your buddies at all the other metros with really cool churches invite you to come speak. They pay you 50 grand. They also sell your book in the bookstore. And then you fly each other first class and stay in the writs. when you come to each other's conferences and stuff. So, like, they affirm like, yes, you're for sure onto something because that's happened. You just, you just, that's juicy for me.

I'm like, it's pretty good business. I mean, it's, again, like, that's what's happening. It may be fine. It's way worse than I thought. No, it may be fine, but that's my thing is like, all right, a lot of this kind of distracts from the main thing, which is pointing people to Jesus. And now each fan of these pastors could say, like, Oh, they changed my life.

They helped me come to Jesus. And that very well could be true. But when you zoom out, it's like, okay, there is this ecosystem of very profitable endeavors that are funded by tiths and offerings and no taxes are reporting. And why wouldn't you receive a $50,000 check to go preach at your buddy's church where they're also going to hype you up on social, sell your book, invite you to the conference where you get to sell your book. By the way, you're going to get your new book deal. And then, okay, the elephant in the room is like, well, didn't you also get a book deal? It's like, yes. But I also didn't write it while people were

funding my lifestyle in pursuit of furthering the kingdom. Okay, so the church, we're about to go down the path that you just opened, because I am so curious. So the church was basically saying, acknowledging, yes, you are commenting on a culture that we do not believe would be the Acts Church. but they are they are a little bit hands off in terms of what you should do because no one knows, right? There's no right or wrong answer. It's just like, Ben, what do you think? And you better keep your heart and check with Jesus while you do it.

And it was more of, and to their credit a lot, like I probably won't say their names, but they were elders of the church in 2019, so it'd be pretty easy to find out here they were. But they very, like firmly said, but you need to check your heart and audit your heart on this because, I can't remember exactly,

the words, but it's basically like the platform can be a drug and also everyone has a sneakers thing in their life, whether it's hunting trips or real estate or buying the new forerunner or something or even just like posting about who you're with and what you're doing on social. Like everyone needs to check and check their heart about what they post, why they post, why they spend their money, what they care about. So it was kind of like that was about as good as they could give me because it was so such a moving target. But the conclusion all these years later was just like, I think the moment an outfit, a purchase, a post distracts from, if you're in ministries at least, distracts from pointing people to the creator of the universe, that's an issue. Yeah.

And that's aside from what you're being called to. And again, like there's grace and there's tertiary issues. Like a lot of us believe the same primary issues. And this kind of gets into secondary and tertiary beliefs around Christianity. But it is like, I think, a good call to audit your social media presence, your financial interests and what you spend your money and time on. And nobody is immune to that. And I think that was ultimately the takeaway that I learned all these years later. So what are some of the things that you did discover just about what really is going on?

Like I will say, I knew it was bad because I mean, we know that there's a lot of parallels between how brands treat influencers and how people treat pastors, if that makes sense. So, hey, hop on my PJ. Hey, here's some sneakers. And we know how it feels when a brand, will pay you X, Y, Z, and wine and dine you and fly you to these places. So we know how that feels and we know the temptation of it. We know the danger of it.

We know it can strip us away from our family. So we know how to keep, we've just had to learn through trial and error how to keep our hearts in check. Yeah. What is the culture that you discovered, like either through DMs or through reports and you don't have to like name names, but like, what did you discover when you started getting all this information flowing into you? Yeah. How bad is it out there? Well, I think. And be honest, this is actually very interesting.

And I think it's, I think it's truly God glorifying to expose it. Yeah. And I guess you'll have to just take my word for it because a lot of these things I can just say and you'll have to, you'll have to validate for yourselves. But let's see, a person walking behind a pastor carrying their Bible. Like, that was their whole role. Or the $50,000? Yeah, like the honorariums being. So it's like you're invited to your buddy's church.

And we want to honor your time for coming. So we're going to pay you a speaker's fee. But we'll call it an honorarium and $30,000, $50,000. Okay. That one's okay for me. I'm like, okay, justify time, you know. Yeah. Again, like I am not, this is what frustrates people about what I did was that I have to say,

I am not on a soapbox saying that that is inherently wrong. Right. What I'm saying is on whose time are you doing these things? And by what means are you promoting your personal brand and your personal wealth? Like if you are a full-time pastor charged with shepherding the souls of people to heaven or in their walks, and you're using time to record an album or write a movie or write a book or fly to your buddy's church, and promote your own personal book, is that time well spent if people are donating to your ministry in hopes that it's furthering the kingdom? I guess what I would want to understand this would maybe

help me is how much wealth are we talking about here? Like, I mean, are these pastors like making millies? I mean, I know Ferdick at least is getting seven-figure advances for his books, or at least that was back in early 2020s. And I mean, I'm sure TD Jakes and some other like really well-known pastors are getting seven-figure advances for their books. So like that's one stream. That's one stream. Honorariums.

They're selling so many books past their advance that I assume that they're making royalties on each book. They're not doing brand deals. I don't see that. They are doing brand deals. Like some like I know like there was pictures. of a church in Miami where they had tagged

some of the jewelry that they were wearing like tagging the brand of the jewelry that they were wearing at their conference. So this is this so there was another story that I heard of a church in LA where they were concerned about losing their 501c3 status because they sold so much merch that again like I'm not a tax lawyer

but they had sold so much merch that they were having issues with showing that they're a nonprofit. Like they were making so much profit that I think they, I don't know what happened with that, but that's just off the top of my head. So I think that most people believe that this culture of materialism, that is kind of what you were exposing within the church, was sort of confined to the Joel Olsteen's and like the prosperity. And I think what you're sort of educating even me on is that that culture has now come into the mainstream. It's a softer prosperity gospel. It's a like, hey, we look good, we talk good, we're living good.

God's going to give you your breakthrough. This is the year of breakthrough for you. God is going to bless you, like very broad guarantees of what God never said you were going to get, but they say that. And that's really a marketable message. And so, yeah, it's much less of the, hey, sew a seat of $100, you know, to make $1,000. There's still those goons that are doing that. but this is more like motivational, really good music, come hanging out with all of us, other cool,

beautiful people. God's going to give you your breakthrough. And it's still like thinly veiled prosperity and gospel. But I guess to answer your question, like again, feel free to DM me and chew me out because I sound judgmental. I'm just telling you like, Transformation Church up in Tulsa bought a big commercial real estate, multi-use set of buildings like a shopping center. under, I guess we're using transformation church funds to just invest in commercial real estate. So now this church led by a single husband and wife are building their commercial real estate portfolio. Like this isn't a church building. And maybe they started using those for ministry or whatever.

But at the time, if I understand it correctly, they just had funds to go then invest in commercial real estate portfolios. And so it's just like, so what is it? Is this a business? Or is this pointing people to Jesus? And again, like, maybe these are tertiary issues, but all of it put together. It's like, y'all are spending a lot of time and effort on all these things that are, maybe they're okay. But also, like, you're communicating a message that a lot of these things are part of being a Christian or part of being an influential faith leader. And I just disagree with that.

Well, I think one of, this is so, like, nuanced. Right. But one of the biggest struggles I have with ministries. folks. And we see this a lot between, I think that like the way I always say it is like, I feel like Danny and I are influencers that are Christians, which means that we are acknowledging that influencing is a business. And then you have Christian influencers, which is the same, in my opinion, but you're just, it's all spin. It's like you're acknowledging it's, it's about Jesus, but you're still taking the same brand deals and you're still doing all these things.

You're filling yourself praying. Yes. To be honest, we're both doing the same thing. Sometimes what I feel about ministry is I'm like, the only difference is like we're just being honest about it. Like we're just being honest that it's a business. And I think sometimes with ministries, I think that they become so capitalistic. The church system has become so capitalistic that you guys are just fooling yourselves. You actually think you're like a CEO. And you, you're like a CEO. And you, you're thinking like a CEO, but you're, you're, you're hiding behind Jesus to do it, right? And again, this is so hard because there are pastors that don't think like that. But one of the best, the two pastors that I can think of, Matt Chandler, when the village was blowing up, and he, I remember, I'll never forget this sermon. I don't know if I went there, I saw it online, but he said, listen, this isn't like colonialism. Like, we're not trying to like, have seven chapters of the village.

And what he did was he broke up the church and he made every one of the six or seven chapters that they had, their own freestanding, Brandon named local neighborhood churches. And that was like the most countercultural thing that I've seen in years. And then the second thing was Francis Chan

at the height of his fame, recognizing in his heart, most likely, I don't know, recognizing in his heart most likely like, ooh, like, I'm gambling my soul with this. Like, people are buying my books. I'm making a ton of money. People are paying me a ton to speak. Like, this is not becoming about Jesus.

This is becoming about Francis Chan. But this system that's been built is kind of crazy. Like, it's like, hey, let's find this super charismatic person and let's train them on scripture or maybe they went to seminary but they're kind of like vibes theater kid like background let's wrap them in western culture whether it be shoes or fashion or whatever let's have creative directors for our band and our sets and let's market a product which is our sunday service and you don't pay tickets but you pay your tithe which is basically a great subscription model and then let's allocate the funds and with no oversight and with no reporting with no oversight with no tax liability all I'm

saying I'm not saying it's bad all I'm saying is you better for sure have a strong board of directors i.e. your elders that are keeping people in check that's what that's what shocked me so much early on is because a lot of these churches truly are run by a husband and wife even even a lot of these churches in Dallas where it's like gateway I don't know I don't know what gateway's elder situation was at the time, but when I was writing my book, I think they were taking in like $100 million a year in gross donations. How do you find this out?

I did some kind of research. I don't know if they put it out. Some churches will choose, like Watermark puts out all their financials every year. Transparently. Yeah, transparently. And there's people can criticize Watermark about like every, no church is perfect.

But just the thing that I had to contend, or like that thing that was so shocking to me is like hundreds of million dollars. Like these are equivalent of very successful for-profit companies with none of the controls. Now, for-profit companies, companies are not above approach. But like, who wouldn't, like how many examples of fraud and embezzlement and misuse of funds and power do you need to not be terrified of the position you're being put in?

So, like, not only do you have millions of dollars in donations, you're also technically in charge of people's spiritual formation. And people are coming up to you every time they see you to say how much you've changed their life, how important what you're doing is. And people said these things to me too. So I'm not immune to it either. No, it feels good. Especially for a three.

That's like kind of, that's the fuel. And it was scary to me, even just getting a small taste because like posting something and having 25,000 people see it in like 30 minutes. It's like, dude, this is more powered than I am equipped for. And none of us really should have that, or like, none of us are that equipped to handle it. And so I guess it doesn't shock me that a well-dressed, well-spoken communicator could then write books, write songs, go on tour, buy real estate, invest in their separate. like personal investments. Like it all, it makes sense why we're here. Kate Bowler is a friend of mine and she wrote a book called Blessed where she flew around with like Benny Hin and a lot of

these like traditional prosperity pastors for years and wrote about what goes into that world and kind of the history of it. And it is like started in the 80s when we kind of moved to this secret sensitive model of modern church where like let's make it comfy. Let's make it similar to other environments like hotels or what like movie theaters or something. Let's put a coffee shop in. That's right. Walmart has a coffee shop. I go to their coffee shop a lot.

None of those things in a vacuum are bad. And again, I am not the authority on what's good and bad. But if you zoom out, it does seem like a lot of crap that is not centered around pushing people to Jesus. So the salaries for pastors typically get into this conversation of like, okay, well, what could they be making in the private sector. That's what we'll pay them. They're leading teams just like CEOs. They're allocating funds just like CEOs. So it's like it's pretty thin when you compare the two. Like they look very similar. They're marketing as though the company like the church is a company

with a product. Well, I mean, and that's like not even getting into like the CCLI revenue. So like these churches all start their own record labels. And so when they write a song that's popular like for elevation, Stephen Ferdick gets paid, I think gets paid every time. Any song by elevation worship is sung or recorded or whatever. So, like, that, again, I'm not necessarily blaming them for doing that. If somebody's like, hey, dude, you want to hop on this song and you'll get writer credit and then you'll get paid every time it's played? Like, who would say no to that?

So, but it's, again, that's like, all right, are you spending time that's technically supposed to be funded by tithes and offerings to serve your congregants to then write music that just benefits you financially. I don't know. Like that's where it gets, there's a lot here and it's, uh, can get messy.

Before we move on to the second section, which is the ethics of what you were doing. Super complicated part of the conversation. Danny, I'm not saying I did this perfectly. No, I saw that I struggled with a lot of things. And I also,

you know, here's the craziest part. And I, I advocate for Carl Lentz a lot. Because, um, was Carl the problem or was the system that he was put into without any guardrails or support the problem, right? So we're going to raise you up as a charismatic leader and we're going to

feed your, you're going to pump your veins full of dopamine, whether that's from the audience or congregants or social media post or we're going to put your name and face everywhere. but the minute they and we're not going to support you with any type of grounding or accountability but the minute you fall we're done peace out you're going to be the scapegoat you're going to be the scapegoat like carl lynx was the fall guy for the very nature of the church and the culture that we're building here you know this marketing social media driven like dopamine hit soundbike clips, you know, it's a beast, right? So I feel for the pastors, and I agree with you, like, I don't think a coffee shop in a church is inherently a bad thing. I think that what I don't know

the answer to is it seems like where churches go wrong is when they are under indexed on protecting the human side of all of our natures within these very powerful constructs. because it's just been proven over and over. Over and over again. Playing with fire. At a minimum, it's playing with fire. At a minimum.

Maybe you can do it all and keep it all in stride. But it's just like, even Matt Chandler had like had to take some breaks because of like power is. And I love listening to Matt Chandler. And I have no criticism against Matt Chandler. A, because I don't want him to yell at me because he's got such an in tears. Yeah, he's scary. And he knows way more about everything else or like everything. compared to me. But like even he had to step away because of like things that happened by nature

of being in quote power. And I just was so shocked that more of these guys weren't like trembling at the gravity of the call of the lot in life. Like yes, hey, we're going to give you 20,000 people that are going to struggle with worshiping you because they think you have a different way of communicating God's word and that God is speaking through you. a different way. And we're going to pay all this money to come see you and your band because the songs you write are so inspiring and almost like hypnotizing because they're so catchy and so emotional. Like, hey, also, we're going to pay you the same as a Fortune 500 CEO and we're going to give you a staff. We're going to give you an assistant that gets you all your meals and books all

your flights. You're going to fly first class everywhere. By the way, you're going to get credit for all the songs as church writes. Oh, and by the way, we have a whole social media team that's your entire image. Dude, I don't care who you are. You can be anyone outside of Jesus himself would fall in that scenario. I would fall in a month. Me too, dude. Like, people would message me.

Like when I wrote a book, they're like, this book changed my life. And I would have to say, like, thank you. I don't know what to do with that because I, that feels like too much to own. Because I don't, I felt like, I guess, maybe to go back to the original, the original question is like, eventually I got to the point where what I thought I was doing was important enough because it was getting people

to ask questions about, like even now, like considering things that we've just accepted as a modern and Western church. Like it's so cush here in America. And it's so easy to just not spend any time auditing the things that we take for granted, like comfy churches,

coffee shops, whatever. And so I did see value in, even though it was messy and even people's feelings got hurt, mine and included. It got people maybe opening their eyes to an element of doing church that needed to be evaluated. I don't know.

Again, like maybe there was a better way to do it. But for some reason, this is why God either let me or chose me to do this. What were some of the, before we get deep again, what were some of the craziest things you learned over DM? Because you know you got some crazy. DMs of like, I saw this happen. Don't, don't name names. Like, don't, we don't want to be those guys. But like, keep it anonymous, but like, what are some of the craziest things you learned? Yeah. That stick with you today. Yeah. I mean, the, so around the gifting thing,

I mean, to go back to your question about how people treat pastors, they're very, at least there was. I haven't paid attention in the last few years. But at the time, there was a big culture of, like, if you spoke at somebody's church, they would usually, like, this is where a lot of sneakers came from. They would buy you some really nice gifts along with your speaking fee to just say, like, hey, we want to shower you with honor and we're so appreciative of you being here. And those gifts, like, again, like they have a budget for gifting. They would get nice guns or nice boots, or they would get sneakers or they're influencers. We get 17 packages a day. That's right. And they also have contract riders. So like they're not getting put up in holiday ends. They're getting put up

in the Ritz or the Crescent or the like other really nice hotels. Again, like none of those things are bad. But if it's in your writer, it's like, why is this in your writer? Like I get like needing a nice place to stay. So like there's that. But then there was stories like I think I wrote about it in my book so I can say like Carl, Carl, I talked with Carl and several times and he was always nice to me. And I don't think anybody or, like, I don't think anybody or, like, I was. like I don't think just any Joe Schmo could have done what he did growing Hill Song New York. Like I think he does have a gift. No, they're all so talented.

Yeah, but he does have a gift for like, nobody can just like wiggle your way into playing basketball with Drake and Drake not being weird about it. No, he was like, yeah, he's got mega swag. And I still don't know, like, I don't think he would call me a friend now. I think there's part of it that maybe he was trying to keep like manipulate me in a way to stop highlighting him or a song. But, you know, he would tell me stories about going to stores with Bieber and Bieber just being like, take whatever you want. And who would say no to that? And so, like, these are kind of the things that seem behind the curtain or behind closed doors

where I was like, what would I do in that? Like, I don't think I would say, what's the right thing to do? Is it to say, no, dude, I don't want these randos on the internet to think that I'm, you know, of shopping at Bloomingdale's, or is it to say, dude, thank you now. Is there wisdom and maybe not reaching in front of 10,000 people with whatever Supreme Louis Vuitton hoodie, maybe? So, like, there was things like that where there's just like this insane gifting culture, which, like, you know, if you're Bieber and you have unlimited money and you think somebody helped change your life or change the trajectory of your life, it's nothing for him to say, take whatever you want to do. I want to bless you. Come on my plane. Come hang out with,

Kanye and the Kardashians, you know, there's, there was stuff that I didn't write about, like, super illegal things, like people from banks messaging me, like, telling me about certain transactions and stuff and me quickly being like, dude, I don't, I'm good. Okay, keep names out of it. What are you saying? I'm saying, like, people would, I have no way to validate this, but like, tell me about purchase transactions. Oh my gosh. That they could see that was not like super federal. Like, and again, like this is like, oh, you were telling me this. And I'll keep it anonymous, but you were saying that like this pastor, the banks, people who saw these people's banks accounts were like basically leaking transactions of like this dude just

spent like $50,000 at Neiman's. And he's like a mega pastor. Stuff like that. Right. Yeah. Again, like unverifiable super sketch like I did not ask for this but yeah crazy stuff like that or like some some uh friends like in the music space that um like Christian music that I've heard that's actually one of the darker corners well well like you know you get invited to come play at a church or a conference or something and then the pastor just gives you a credit card and says go crazy go like go get some sneakers go buy whatever you want and it's just like dude I can can't relate. I have no concept for, I guess, I mean, people have been generous to me, especially with sneakers. Like, people have sent me sneakers. People have sent me all kinds of stuff

in my brief, like, stint as a micro-influencer, I guess. That feels good. And like, I love a free thing. There's perks to it. So again, like, hear me say that I don't think that I'm any better, more righteous than these people, but I do think that we should take more seriously the calling on our lives if we believe that we are serving the creator of the universe. Like this isn't a game. Like you can treat your faith like a social club, I guess, but you also have to contend with the eternity of it and how, like, how much fear do you have of the Lord? I feel like it's like harder to go through a eye of a needle.

Yeah, a camera would go through an eye of a needle. I can want to go through and I. Into the king of the head. 1,000 percent, I feel that. Like, I feel like we have done well in our businesses. And sometimes I'm like, it's too much of a burden. Like, I'm like, I feel like our souls are on the line, you know, with just like stewarding all of this stuff.

Especially in this town, too. Like in this town, there's like, there's a ton. I'm trying to get us to Nashville, but it's not going well. Nashville's pretty dope. I love Nashville. But yeah, there is. But there's a lot of, there's a lot of Christian pastors up there. That's right.

Yes. I know several of them. But there's a lot of great people over there too. But I think this is really ghosty. And Watermark is starting to move in this way more like in tune with the spirit motion than we have in the past. So I've been talking about this more with my community group. And we've had some interesting conversations how, like if you believe in spiritual warfare, there is some element of like a materialistic warfare that that covers this city specifically.

And it's weird. Yeah, Dallas. That's what I feel. Where like there is more, like if I'm in North West Arkansas where I went to school for undergrad, I'm not thinking about a nice steak or driving a new truck or upgrading my house. But when I come here, I live here and I have plenty nice house up in North Dallas. There is an element of like, dude, that new Tahoe is so sick. And whoa, they have a ranch.

How do I get a ranch? And they're also Christians and they're flying on a jet. But at the same time, it's like I'm living this crazy Cush, North Dallas life. It's crazy, man. Yeah. The, my, our, our friend Jefferson Bethke, um, I love him. I love him. Dude, he's so legit, so smart.

I'm not a, I don't, I don't think we would, we don't, we talked briefly over Instagram, I think. Yeah. But we know a lot of the same people. Oh, he probably would, I don't, I don't know what his opinion on is on what you were doing, um, but he probably would have like really appreciated and had a lot of he's got friends in both circles. Yeah.

Yeah. So, um, but Jefferson always said to me, he said to me, he said, every idol or every city has its own idol. And so he used to live in Maui. And he was like the idol of Maui is kind of sloth, right? And, you know, he was like the idol of Dallas is materialism. The idol of, you know, New York is probably busyness or whatever. And so every city has its own, you know, no city's perfect.

Every city has its own idol. And Dallas, I've tried to really like, Danny doesn't really believe me. I've, there have been times where I will be out of Dallas. and you know I feel at peace I feel like I don't have to strive like I feel like I can just be I am who I am like I want to live a simple life and I will land back in Dallas and I'm like I got we got to raise money bro I got I got to perform you know and it's been a big part of the it's been a little bit underplayed I think in our family but it's been a big part of my rationalization of like should we be raising our kids here because

You know, Danny's argument is like you can raise a family anywhere and she's not wrong. Like you can raise really good kids and Dallas is amazing for raising kids. Danny, you're always right. But I do think that there isn't, for me at least, there is an inescapable spirit of materialism here that is very challenging. And it's hard to even say that out loud because it does have so many benefits. Yeah. We live on a very cush street and by way of the military I was able to get a house at a time where I could not afford this house. now just based on how mortgages work. And so it's weird to even say that out loud because

there are so many benefits. Like we met at a super cush private school like screening thing. I don't know how I'm going to pay for it, but it we are living a very privileged nice lifestyle where there like so much of the world doesn't even can't even comprehend how cush it is to have 20 grocery stores and a half a mile. I think that's the problem though. I really do think that's like how Satan has captured Western Christians is distraction by the world. But it's so deceitful, especially when we can tell ourselves it's all for the kingdom. So, okay, you're anonymous still in our timeline here. You're still anonymous. This is what Danny and I were debating is I think if you wouldn't have done what you did, I think that the gifting culture, um,

whatever dent you made in this issue of like celebrity pastors and, you know, materialistic culture infiltrating Christianity in the church, whatever dent you made, my argument was that if you had not have done that, the dent wouldn't be there, right? Because I sometimes believe that shame is one of the only ways to get people to pay attention and to hold people accountable. And I even see that we debated this on the last podcast, but I, the argument I made to Danny is like, hey, if diet Prado wouldn't have done that, we would have been going the same way. We would have been building business the same way. We wouldn't have really gone back and been like, how can we do this with high integrity? So shame is a powerful force for accountability.

I guess my question is, do you believe you made it? a dent in sort of the culture that we're talking about here. And do you think that there could have been a different way for you to do it other than a social media anonymous account? I hope I made a dent. I've reflected on this for years. And I, at the scale, no. Like, I was no one and had nothing, no one had a reason to,

listened to what I had to say again, like I'm, I'm a lay person. I'm not educated in theology other than reading the Bible and doing Bible studying and stuff. And I also am not so high on my own supply that think that I'm, I did it well or perfectly. Like it was very messy and people were very upset. And I'm, I'm sure there were self-serving elements of it that were not ordained but can God work in that? I think. Like I think the Bible has plenty of examples of using imperfect people to either communicate something, to prophesy something, or to call people to a higher standard.

And again, at the moment, I didn't intend to do that. I didn't think that I had a word from God or I, it started from an emotional reaction to being like, that guys weren't $800. shoes. That makes me feel irritated or something. And then the only way I know how to process being irritated is to be a smart a or to like make jokes about it. But then that unveil like the sneakers were just like the surface level thing to unearth so much more. Like right now, the topic can lead to so many other conversations with so many imperfect solutions or outcomes that it doesn't surprise me now that it grew to what it did.

But I hope I made a dent because it was a ton of effort that I really, I mean, hear me say, like tried genuinely to do in a way that what towed the line between being funny and creative and also trying to be true to my faith and not just like burn everything to the ground. Because I could have, like I could have, I could have, I could have ended people's careers. I think with, I had plenty that I could have, if I focused on. one person I could have ended people's careers. But I didn't, like, I don't want to be a part of that. Like, I don't have a vendetta against that. But I do feel strongly about if people are getting taken advantage of or if people are being misled. And so like to Danny's point on the last podcast,

like, who are you to call these people out when you have a log in your eye? I, uh, but here's the thing. This is why I keep calibrating. You were anonymous. Right. My whole argument here is, like, like, you know like investigative journalists? You know, like investigative journalists, they always are kind of like so self-righteous and they're like, I'm here to do this. I'm here to do this. And I, as an art form, I agree with them because investigative journalists uncover truth and they create accountability. Why I think that I struggle with them is because they're so intellectually prideful and self-righteous about what they're doing. So what you were doing in my opinion was so brilliant because of the anonymity yeah and there was a fun aspect to it too

whereas like it's kind of cool to be causing a stir and no one knows who i am right so behind the scenes and like you can struggle behind the scenes with your own threeism and like all of the pride that you're feeling but you're anonymous and so danny's argument in my opinion collapses about this like self-righteous he needs to examine the log in his own eye because he's doing it anonymous, right? When you broke your anonymity, that that was the most confusing thing to me, because that was when everyone was then able to look at you and be like, see, you're no different. I remember I immediately said that. I was like, this guy, freaking, you're calling these people out, and then you got this book coming out. And I was like, you fell prey to the very thing you were

trying to call out. Yep. So why? And you weren't the only one. No, I know. I know. And so why, why did you go from anonymous to public? Yeah, it's a fair question, it's a fair criticism, and I've heard it plenty of times. There's multiple things here. So, like, practically, it is really hard to maintain anonymity

on a thing like this. Like, hey, I'm doing this really interesting thing, and I feel like I should tell you, but don't tell anybody. And then, of course, the person you tell has five really close friends, like, well, I just told my close friends. And especially Christians,

they're like, dude, I know, that's right. That's right. And I don't, like, I'm not mad at that, but it is interesting the ones that actually could keep a secret, which is very few people. I think it was just my family, really, that were able to keep their mouths shut about it. So, like, that, after a couple years of that, it's pretty exhausting, like fake email accounts,

fake phone numbers, a fake name. So there was the utility of that. There was the, I had kind of made the point with two years of posts where it's like, all right, this is what it is. I can keep posting when I'm posting and do my little engagement in the comments section and that'll be it because I can't go on podcast. I can't go on YouTube. And like you could see that as me being self-serving. But I did want to like I felt like I had learned more. I'd been exposed to a unique perspective on both sides. And so I felt like I could contribute more. And so the, there was part of me that wanted to contribute more. And it felt

It's impossible to all, like I went on the minimalist podcast in L.A. And they like, they blurred my face out for the whole podcast, which just feels tacky. They're not tacky. They're super, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love those guys. But it was just tacky to have that as part like, hey, I can do this, but you got to blur my face out. Yeah. Same with like Liberty University.

I did an interview with David Nassar. And he, for their like convocation or whatever. This big, huge, like, interview. We recorded in New York City, but my face is blurred the whole time. And so it's like there was part of me that felt like I could contribute more if I was out there. But then yes, like the, there was also part of it that when I, so my agent and I, my literary agent and I felt like you have more to say. Short form Instagram is not the place to say it. You could keep having an anonymous podcast, but there's also these people that are willing to publish you if you wrote these deep.

thoughts into like long form but also they're gonna want you to be in person so they can market you but also let me be clear i'm a literary agent and i need you that's right i need you to write a book that's that's right um but to be like the i didn't aspire to write a book it was kind of one of those things that were like hey if you have a book to write will yeah i'll shop it for you and so again i'm a three it's like maybe this is the rest of my life like people like how i write on instagram maybe this is what I'm actually supposed to be doing. Spoiler alert, the book did not sell whatsoever, and I make zero money on that now.

You can buy it on Amazon for like 82 cents. So I'm sure the publisher, like the publisher is probably stoked about the bet that they made. So yes, like the criticism is fair. I was aware of that. I tossed and turned about that for a long time. Do you think the book would have done better if you remained anonymous?

I think it would have done better if I, A, it wasn't during COVID, and B, because I had to do everything digitally. And B, I think if we, we needed a, there was a couple of things, but we needed to better frame it. We probably should have called it something other than preachers and sneakers, because people were confused about, is this a book of posts? Is it a book about, like, what is it about?

There's some things we could have done just like around messaging that could have been done better. I think so. Like if it was anonymous. Yeah, exactly. And that's a cool thing. but also now I'm just signing up for a life of like not being able to like a take credit like say like I was proud of of what I had been able to build and proud of the people I had met and proud of

the conversations I was having and your three wouldn't have let you that's right that's right that's and I get it there's nothing I'm not saying that judgmentally like it's like Danny could you do what you do every day if no one knew and she's Like, no. Right. And so, like, hear me say. I know that it is cringe to see the guy that was making, I guess, social commentary about wealth and fame in Christian culture, then doing some of that himself.

And I still, to this day, do you regret it? I, some days I do regret it. That you came public? Came public or, like, did the book thing because I spent a year writing it. it essentially in my eyes flopped but maybe that's the three again like where it's like it's not gonna if it's not new york times best seller it's a flop let me tell you something dany's won a lot of awards made a lot of hit a lot of records yeah yeah yeah you guys are you guys are cursed this will be very cathartic first day's to here too because she's exhausted it's like yeah it's

like when you achieve a thing it's like yeah that's what i expect to do is to achieve the thing so why would i be thrilled with myself yeah yeah so it's it's not a a a healthy framing. So I guess to like get back to where you're saying like I'm proud of having the opportunity to write a book. I think what I did write about I felt like I treated the topic fairly as fairly as I could without being an actual scholar. I think I did things imperfectly and that there are plenty of areas where people can point at how I'm a hypocrite. And so I'm not sure what to do that with that. And so maybe to fast forward a little bit, that's what ultimately led me to be like, hey, there's a big platform here that people are engaged with. I don't feel

like I have anything left to say or really the energy to keep having this like back and forth about explaining who I am and what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And so if someone wants to find a way to bring new energy and a new voice to it, I'm all ears because I'm, I'm interneted out, I think. Was preachers and sneakers, was it slowing down before you became podcast? public or do you feel like you becoming public was kind of the beginning of the end? The latter, I think. So it still had momentum. And I think so would you look back on you coming public as like kind of a miscalibration

then? Because it seemed like what was happening is if it still had momentum before you went public, but you felt capped, it was kind of like it, what it feels like you're saying is that you got kind of sold on this bill of goods. Like if you come public, book and TV show and all. these things, you know, all around Ben in his image. But that probably was a miscalibration

because then it took away from what preachers and sneakers actually was. That's right. Yeah. And there's been several of those miscalibrations. And hear me say, too, I was all in on the idea of a book once I saw the potential there. And Jonathan Merritt, who's my agent, worked a ton with me to like flesh out some of the ideas. I think writing the book, was a good use of time. And I think if you read it, I think maybe people would appreciate the perspective more than maybe if they just followed me on Instagram.

But yes, I would call it a miscalibration because, but it's impossible to know in the moment. No, no, no, no. Hindsight is always. That's right. Yeah, hindsight. So no judgment. But like just looking back,

I'm curious, like, as you kind of like analyzed how it all went down, would you call it a miscalibration? Like, almost like by Ben's name now being, attached to preachers and sneakers and almost like took away from the original message? Yeah, I'm sure there's an element of that for sure because it does make it a lot easier to criticize me. Kind of like a pastor. That's right.

Attaching their name to Jesus. Right. And the gospel. Right. It's kind of waters down the gospel. The irony is that's why your story is so interesting. Right. And I'm not.

I'm very aware of that. So what am I to do? What am I to do in that moment? Is it to shut up and say, I'm no different than these preachers or pastors, despite me not claiming to be a pastor or a church or receiving any tithes or donations? Or is it to keep like doing my thing because it's getting people to think deeper about a topic that maybe is glazed over in the past? Yeah.

And I want everyone has different opinions. Yeah. Hindsight's always 2020. And I also have zero judgment for the decision that you made because I think that what I feel for Carl, what I feel for you is like, I just am like, if I was in their shoes, I totally get how they got there. Yeah. And I'm curious like as you did go public, this is what I've always been fascinated by because once you went public, there was a moment where you did have your moment. Like you were on the Today Show. You were on the podcast.

Like people like you kind of had your moment around the sun of the critical. Christian talking circles. Yeah. All the podcasts. Yeah. Was there ever a moment when you became public where you just kind of were sitting there and you were like, damn, all these pastors that I've been calling out, I totally understand how they got there.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Like I don't. Because you're like, I'm on the Today Show now. It feels good. People are telling me. People are gifting me stuff. Yes.

Oh, it feels good. Oh, I'm now getting these DMs of like, you know, keep going. Oh, it feels good. Like, that's why I never fault these pastors. I fault the system, not the pastors, because I'm like, you don't know. You think you're a good person until you are met with those types of like riches and all these things poured on to you. And let's see how you deal with it once you get there.

But there had to have been a moment of humility for you. I'm not saying you would have apologized to any of the pastors. I don't think it's that far, but you were like, man, I get it. Yes, 100%. The system's broken. Yeah. And I think JP and I even talked about that about like how similar of a position I was in other than depending on how strongly you hold the callings of a pastor biblically. We were very similar.

I like attention. I like to feel like people are listening or laughing at what I'm saying like that, yeah, that's a drug for sure. I wish I could have learned that lesson while making more money. Like those guys were making so much more money. And I made a little bit. I donated a ton of it because I was so insecure about the hypocrisy of it all. And that's ultimately why it's like, all right, this could never be a long-term thing because every day I still struggle with the monetization of it all.

I think if I spent more time like growing a YouTube or a podcast or something, there would be a more stable revenue stream there. But even talking about it gives people the license to say, why are you, like, you're doing the exact same thing. And so I hear that's why I don't do it anymore, even though I feel like it was probably okay to continue. But I just got exhausted with that battle in my head, which is why I sell software and firewood now.

Yeah. It's like over-indexing now and like, all right, firewood can't be controversial right like everyone this is like the least controversial thing i could possibly sell um and so yeah that's ultimately why what i'm doing now so um you you talked about this at the school and we can cut this out if you don't want it in but you said you went through a lot of therapy so i big fan well this social media world i had a lot of predictions about your story and I think I've been decently right about how the journey played out for you. But yeah, I mean, this world will just F you up and the head, the social media world.

So like what what led you to therapy and what do you think you learned the most reflecting back on the preachers and sneakers era of your life? There's a lot. I mean, it's a loaded question. I think we got time. I think what I think what originally, I've been a fan of like talk therapy for a long time. It's helped my wife and I significantly since about, but by the time, since I got out of the Marines,

I've been involved with some type of like talk therapy and medication. Um, it helped our marriage. It's been very important. But specifically to this time, there was a real tangible anxiety like physically that was affecting me on a daily basis because there's like the excitement of it. I'm sure Danny experiences this too where excitement and anxiety feel very similar.

And it's often hard to, they can often happen at the same time. So like even today, like going on this podcast, being excited, A, to like being y'all's house and meet, like, y'all have a huge platform, that's exciting. It's exciting to talk with cool people that have influence. But it's also super anxiety inducing in that, like, what if I say something that gets be canceled or roasted online or people see my boots? These are like $200 work boots.

and roast me publicly and call me a hypocrite or that I'm a POS. Like that still doesn't feel great. And so I went to therapy to learn, to beginning, like, what is this? Why is this causing such a physical, like, constriction in me? No, it is physiological. It's in your nervous system. Yeah, like lizard brain or like, why is it when some total stranger messages me something? Because I'm already, yeah, I'm already, like, calls out the thing.

I'm already insecure about and it immediately spikes although what a cortisol or whatever. So I meet like I went Michael Sweeney at Magnolia Counseling Group in Dallas is who I go see. And I would encourage anybody that needs help. They're an awesome office like biblically based super helpful. But that's what I originally went for. I mean, we talk about everything. But it was so helpful to go and be able to talk through. the big piece was feeling like I was a hypocrite.

And maybe I still am a hypocrite, but still finding a way to pull out positive or fulfilling elements of what I was doing so that I could keep going because it felt important. But daily and even sometimes today, there's still plenty of me that is like, cringes at kind of the, how extreme and heated everything got

and how I wasn't like that's not even my thing like that at the time that wasn't I didn't care about holding people accountable I just cared about people asking tough questions of the people that they were trusting their faith lives with no 100% or like asking fair questions about how their money was being used but I also uncovering like going through therapy uncovering plenty of issues I have with money about like jealousy and was any of this born out of jealousy in that like oh here i am as a christian guy trying this hardest i'm getting my MBA at one of the wealthiest demographic schools in the country probably sitting next to billionaire kids like uh there is a big part of me that wants that too and so it was my physical reaction i mean this is the kind of things we want we walked through in therapy is like is was my initial reaction more out of of jealousy that these people were building a platform and having a brand and making all this

money by doing stuff that I felt like I could do. But they just were willing to use the name of Jesus for it. And I felt like that was inappropriate or wrong. But then opens up this question about like, well, shouldn't your faith dictate everything you do? And shouldn't you be open about why you're doing things or what you're writing or what you're producing. And so it's still an imperfect. I know I'm rambling and I know people are like, get to the point. I don't, I don't think what's so hard about. I actually think what you're trying to do is you're trying to answer a question that probably doesn't have an answer. Right. Because is what's very draining about the whole thing. The whole story. The whole, I think the tragedy of your story is that there's

No, was it fully right or fully wrong. It's not black or white. It's very gray. And when you have a three, an enneagram three behind it, the complexity of how you navigate what is right and wrong is even more complicated. That's right. You know, and what's so interesting about your story has been behind preachers and sneakers for me, being married to a three, it's like, people can call you a hypocrite, you know, all day, every day,

you know, but ultimately, like, what I'm so curious about is, like, when you reflect back now that your nervous system is reset and you're back to normal life and you have that whole era, like, what do you extract God was trying to teach you through that era, even in your mistakes? There's plenty of things. it's this it's the quintessential like I'll be a different rich person than the rest of these rich people that get it wrong but in terms of like building a platform so like there are people out there I know that are like all they want to do is grow their social media platform or like be an influencer or or grow a brand and there was a very real world lesson about hey when you get a platform here. here's all the BS that comes with that, or here's all, like, the terror that comes from, like, posting something that was interpreted incorrectly

and people think you're a racist or that you are an atheist, like the, yeah, I guess I call it terror, anxiety of people misinterpreting you or you meaning well, but it's just not landing in it, causing people that used to be friends or used to be fans, to then reject you or to say you're off base. Like very close to the end of my time running the platform, I had posted some funny like Preaches and Sneakers-and-style photos about Kamala Harris and Trump.

And like, of course, like it's people were angry that I got out of my lane or got angry that I was, quote-unquote, communicating one thing or the other. So there's plenty of lessons. Big lesson is like, hey, you're not equipped to have this. of power or influence. I don't think anybody is. And it's it's a real sensitive thing to navigate on a daily basis and maybe like be careful what you wish for. Like having a I think a real lesson too is like here's a taste of fame and adoration. Yeah. And I too it was his grace on me that I had some amount of like

fear and trembling about it where I could see very quickly like if if I was a single person, how single person with nothing but time, I could have ruined my life in so many different ways. Because people love those that have big platforms, even if you're not attractive, or even if you don't have money, if you have a big platform, people think that you have things figured out

or that you could put them on and make their career really well, which manifested itself in plenty of ways. So there was all those like real world, lessons, but then lessons about like thinking before I speak or like even now my community has been really great about encouraging me to not speak out or lash out. Like this happens more on LinkedIn now because like I'm in the software world and I can't stand. You've taken your art to LinkedIn.

Yes, I can't stand the like cringe that is on the self-aggrandizing BS that happens. happens on LinkedIn. And so my natural tendency is to click on that person's profile and find something that I can do in a similar way and post and be like, this you, bro? Because of people in the sales world, you'll have like a marketer or a procurement person that's like complaining about things that we do as salespeople. And like there's a similar justice side of me that wants to go then destroy them on LinkedIn. And that's like a very practical thing. It's like, hey, BK, you know, you don't have to say anything. And also like, this isn't going to be received well.

So there's all that, I guess there's maturity. I'm not saying I'm mature, but there's maturity that has come from being inundated with praise and inundated with criticism. And I'm more sensitive and just the like the actual value of my brand on the internet. Like I hold that so much more loosely now than I did back then. Like I thought, oh, this is the thing. This is going to be my ticket to retirement. I'm going to be a big whizbang author and podcaster

and I'm not going to have to work a real job ever again. It's so funny because you really wanted to be the very thing that you're, it that's, and again, I'm not judging you. That's the irony of us as humans as sinners. Danny's judging me. She sees it. She's like, see, this is exactly what I said he was going to be like. I'm just trying to say, I know that there's multilayers.

Danny struggles. And I'm not a douche. I'm trying not to be. struggles with other threes. Like it's like a game recognized game type of thing. She has so much more game than me in every way. Yeah. I'm sitting in a room surrounded by things that she's done better than me in every way.

You and me both. So I don't know if I answered your question, but there's plenty of lessons learned. Like I could go on and on. Is your fate stronger because of the era? I think it is, yes. It's stronger. a way that it has stripped away a lot of the things that I accepted just at face value growing up in North Louisiana and the Bible Belt, seeing behind the curtains of like people's true colors in

ministry. And like that, that alone will cause you to want to quit because just the depravity of man manifesting itself over and over in all these different contexts and having exposure to all that. Like you get exposure to the scandals on the West Coast, the East Coast in Texas. And it's very discouraging about like, okay, who can we trust to actually teach us the word without also having sex with an intern at the same time or like using funds for personal gain that were meant for ministry? Like, it's just so discouraging. But I think it was encouraging in that God's not scared of our tough questions about like, hey, this feels very imperfect and everyone has a different opinion about this and where does God fit into all this? And also,

like, can Jesus use a sexy, well-spoken pastor with 10,000 members? Yes. Can he also use an idiot in a in a 3-2 in Richardson, Texas? Yes, I think so. And can he also use someone in Uganda to fully like live a Christian life in poverty or some other impoverished nation like there's all these things that were kind of uncovered because of the sneakers that made it feel important um i think my i got jaded for a long time of like all these people with influence especially the ones that were douchebags to me on instagram or on email or something i got no time for that like i like you are who we thought you were but for the rest, it helped me, I think, keep certain elements of Christianity perspective,

like worship music and like me being a super fan of, like, I'm a super fan of Christian artists and of certain pastors or whatever, like the way people teach. And I think he was able to teach me about, hey, everyone is human and we have all fallen short and I can take this away in a moment's notice and everything is so fragile and the only thing that is constant and true is his love and his plan. Everything else truly is just like a moving target and you are not, I guess, yeah, I guess there's a humility that come or like a humbling of me. I wouldn't call, like I'm not so humble, but humbling me to say like, congrats, you grew this thing, but also it was because of me, God. And also, I could take this away.

And also, it's going to come with its own set of things that are actually very painful, even though from the outside looking in, oh, woe is you with your hundreds of thousands of followers or whatever in your book deal. I'm grateful. I'm grateful for a lot of those things and opportunities and people I got to meet. But the ultimate reality was, or the ultimate thing that strengthened my faith was like, this pushed me to, I think, cast off all that, like, fame and notoriety BS and really see my family and my community as actually being good use of my time. It's like a very wordy way to say it, but basically like I feel so much more convinced that I am called to take care of my family and invest in my local community than I am to grow my personal brand for. for somebody in LA.

Like I, and that's different for everybody, but I think he, I got a taste of it enough. Again, like there's part of me that still, especially now having not being in charge of the account, there's still plenty of times where like, it was cool to say, hey, John Mayer follows me. And Joel McHale wrote the forward to my book and Questlove wore my hoodie at a red carpet event.

Like, all that is cool. And I miss some of that like celebrity, stuff like hear me say that but i also know that it could easily be my downfall and i would much rather not risk my family's future and my own integrity to still play in the christian influencer waters yeah it's interesting because i think we'll we'll end on this but they're kicking me out they're literally playing me out no no no right now no we um i think that what's interesting is that your platform and your experience with it, you personally and then people who followed it could have pushed people away from the church and pushed people away from Jesus. And maybe for some it did.

But I think what it did for you and for hopefully what it did for other people was it pushed them away from worshiping the man and the people behind the church and push them the late. deeper to understanding that is Jesus because in my opinion I love a good scandal in the evangelical community like I talk about this all the time but I watched the Vanity Fair documentary with Carl Lince and I watched what he went through and there was like this one scene at the end they did that documentary I would say this to his face way prematurely like he should have given it like at least eight more months because you could tell it was like not they were still working

working through things. But at the end, it was like his wife and she was like, is our marriage still messy? Yes. Do I still have problems trusting him? Yes. Like, did he blow up our family? Yes. But like, God has called me to stay and like it's within that reconciliation that was the gospel. And so like was a great era to be able to laugh at these sneakers, but maybe like now it's time to be like, you know what they're just as depraved as I am I would have been in the same boat or Ben was in the same boat as they were so it's all just like a giant dose of irony that all does lead back to the gospel which is like we're sinners we're all the same and like Jesus is the only true you know and if that's if that's the takeaway for everybody after all this that feels worth it well

I think it is once with your story being told yeah yeah otherwise they just think you're randomly selling fire logs that's right and The troll, according to Danny. Okay, that was great. Bye. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.