Digital Social Hour - Becoming a Pastor, Importance of Being Honest & Going All In On Content | Omar El-Takrori DSH #274

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Omar El-Takrori comes on the podcast to discuss the importance of content, how he became a pastor and the importance of god in his life. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8...Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: Jenna@DigitalSocialHour.com SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 They say, hey, Jesus, what does the law say? If you, you know, have sex outside a wedlock, you should be stoned. And he's like, hey, if anybody is not sinned among you, let them cast the first stone. So that's the Jesus I believe in. It's the guy who doesn't like the person that's slapping the Bible over people's heads. That's not the point of scripture. Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe. It helps a lot with the algorithm. It helps us get bigger and better guests, and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot.
Starting point is 00:00:32 Thank you guys for supporting, and here's the episode. Welcome back to the show, guys. I'm your host as always, Sean Kelly. Got with me a very special guest, Vegas local Omar El-Takrari. Is that right? Yes, you got it. There we go. How's it going, man? Dude, thanks for having me. I'm honored.
Starting point is 00:00:49 Absolutely. I like having on different perspectives. I know you're big in the church space, religion space, and lately I've been having guests on that are anti-church. So I'm excited to talk to you, get your perspective today. Heck yeah. I also find myself doing like, like a lot of people online know me as a content guy, but then there's a whole nother world. Uh, cause I am, I'm also a pastor, but yeah, dude, I'm down, down at that event, whatever you want to talk about. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:13 I can't wait to hear about it. So how'd you become a pastor? That must've been a lengthy process, right? Yeah. It's actually different in certain denominations. You church, generally speaking, will find itself in a camp. They all have different camps, and specific camps have different processes. In my case, our church is a non-denominational church, and me becoming ordained as a pastor came from a place of more about like calling. It's like it was evident on my life and leadership saw that. We wouldn't say you have to be a biblical scholar to be a pastor. The Bible is clear that it's just, it's someone who can teach and preach, but it's also somebody who can just care for the people. And I was doing the caring for the people and I was teaching and preaching, but I just didn't have the office of
Starting point is 00:02:11 pastor or the title. And so that's kind of how it more or less happened. So it wasn't like an official title. I know people that have to go to Bible college, they get their seminary. There's Bible college? Oh yeah. I didn't even know that. Yeah. So they had to go to Bible college and like stand in front of a board and give this dissertation and like all this stuff, and it's like, okay, you can be a pastor in this, you know, camp,
Starting point is 00:02:36 or you can call it denomination. Right. And then others, it's like, I should know the Bible. You should. You should be able to teach it. You should be reading the Bible. And I was exposed to biblical interpretation through what the Bible calls discipleship, meaning somebody just took me via relationship and showed me how to interpret Scripture. And honestly, that process, I learned how powerful the God's word is and then ultimately how we can use God's word to apply it to our life, to experience his will for our life. Yeah. So what age were you when you got into all this? So I gave, I don't like saying I gave my life to Christ because he gave his life for me, but I received Jesus as my own personal Lord and Savior as a, in 2011.
Starting point is 00:03:26 Okay. And, um, I was, uh, raised Catholic and I thought I knew God, but I only knew how to function in that religion. And so actually what we, we don't, I wouldn't even call Christianity a religion. I would call it, it's more a relationship. And so 2011, it's like a light bulb went off. I was at a church. My brother was actually doing a rap for Christmas.
Starting point is 00:03:55 A rap? A Christmas rap, yeah. And that's what's cool. People think churches are boring and stuff. Dude, I bet you if you came to my church, bro, the church I'm at, you'd be like, this is fire. Really? Do you like conferences and like dope masterminds and like high level talks and like you like getting pumped up about life?
Starting point is 00:04:20 Like that's every Sunday. Wow, dude. Because I have some traumatic childhood memories of the boringness of church growing up. Oh, no. 100. Me too. Because of because being raised Catholic, it's sit, stand, kneel. I remember there was a there's a there's an age gap of people. There is you have the old people. Yeah. And then you have the kids that were dragged by the old people. And then when I walked into this church that I...
Starting point is 00:04:47 Shout out to the Science of Scaling podcast hosted by Mark Roberge. It's brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week, Mark, founding CRO at HubSpot CRO and senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, interviews some of the most successful sales leaders in tech to learn the secrets, strategies, and tactics to scaling company growth. He recently had on the head successful sales leaders in tech to learn the secrets strategies and tactics to scaling company growth he recently had on the head of sales from open ai and that was
Starting point is 00:05:10 a very interesting episode on the future of ai listen to the science of scaling wherever you get your podcast today but i never knew like a church like this existed you i mean you would consider it like a spirit-filled you just vibrant community, a lot of young people. And that was the first time I was like, dang, this is cool. Yeah, that is cool. And so honestly, that's the type of church I'm a part of. I'm a part of a church called City Light Church. We're actually building a building down the street from this studio. Oh, wow. It's a pretty gnarly project, but awesome. I mean, it's been cool. All that's happening. So long story short,
Starting point is 00:05:50 long story long, but this guy, he was my youth pastor and he was like, hey, can you meet me at this Starbucks? This is around 2014. Can you meet me at the Starbucks the next six Mondays? I'm going to teach you biblical interpretation. So for about three years, I was reading the Bible blind, just opening up Scripture and reading it. And sometimes you could take on your own interpretation, but the Bible was written on purpose, for a purpose, at a time, for a reason, by a person. And so you can pull out so much from just the original intention of why scripture was written for a specific reason.
Starting point is 00:06:29 So that process, those six weeks, gave me a love for God's word. And so that's, I mean, the rest is history. I wouldn't say I aspired to be a pastor. Right. Just kind of fell in place. Yeah, just like a compassion filled my heart for people. It didn't matter whether you knew God or didn't. And I just, I made it my mission in life is to just let as many people as I can know about
Starting point is 00:06:56 Jesus. That's cool. And so I, in now in my world, cause I, I'm kind of in like the business sector and the church sector. Yeah. in my world, because I'm kind of in the business sector and the church sector, I use the influence in the business to create relationships with people, because I really genuinely want to get to know people. And I know you were just having a cool conversation before this, and sometimes you meet people just because I could be a service of them. I use content creation education
Starting point is 00:07:27 as a means to help people with the needs that they know they need fixed or their problems. And then if the opportunity presents itself where, you know, maybe they have a question, they see how I lead my family, they see the consistency in my walk and all these things, if the questions come up,
Starting point is 00:07:45 I'm ready to answer them. Yeah. And so that's kind of how it happens. Yeah. That's cool. So when Billy Carson came on, do you know Billy Carson? No. Who's that? Uh, he's like a anti-religious guy, I guess. Um, but he came on my show. One of the things he said was the Bible wasn't written by God. Okay. What would be your comeback to that? I would agree with him. It was because it was written by man, inspired by the Holy Spirit, which is inspired by God. So the Bible went through a process called the canonization of Scripture. And it went through a process of making sure that what they had was valid. And like, how do you know that this is valid from God? Well, they would backtrack so many references and prophecies.
Starting point is 00:08:30 And so, yes, was the Bible like, because God is God. He's invisible, but I believe he's three in one. So God is God the Father, God the Son, God, the Holy Spirit, and God, the Holy Spirit, inspired humans to write and pen these words. And so this process, I mean, there's so many reasons why. And by the way, I would agree with that guy as far as I'm anti-religion.
Starting point is 00:09:01 I'm anti-religion. Oh, really? Jesus is anti-religion. Wait, what? Jesus hated the religious folk of the day. Whoa. This is a mind f***ing me because I thought. Yeah. Okay. So dude, this is why I love the Bible. Yeah. And this is why people assume things without actually like opening up the book. Yeah. So there's these accounts of Jesus's life. It's called the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Starting point is 00:09:30 And in these accounts, these are, these are four different eyewitness accounts of Jesus's life. And some tell the same story in a different way because each person has their proclivity. Like Matthew was a tax collector. Luke was a doctor. John was a Baptist or he like baptized people and stuff. And so like there are so many stories where either Jesus is teaching and it says the Pharisees, which were like the people who knew the law, like they memorized the law of Moses. And Jesus would always say, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for heart, not head. There was this time where Jesus was teaching in front of people
Starting point is 00:10:10 and this religious group of guys brought this girl who was caught having sex outside a wedlock and they threw her at the feet of Jesus. This is crazy. And then Jesus, and they say, hey, Jesus, what does the law say? That if you have sex outside a wedlock, you should be stoned. And he's like, hey, if anybody has not sinned among you, let them cast the first stone. It was just, they started backing up. And then he looks at the lady and says, hey, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.
Starting point is 00:10:48 So that's the Jesus I believe in. It's the guy who doesn't like the person that's slapping the Bible over people's heads. That's not the point of scripture. The point of scripture is to get to know God, to know his character, to know more about him. And as a business person, I would say there are so many principles in Scripture that because they were put in by God, it doesn't matter who applies them.
Starting point is 00:11:15 There are no respecter of persons. And my business coach would say the principles in Scripture are like God's automation. If you just do them, like things will happen. There's so much of that in scripture. If you will, then I will. If you will, then I will. And so you don't have to be like so literal with so many things. But like I agree with the homie.
Starting point is 00:11:37 Like I don't like religion. Neither did Jesus. And yes, the Bible was written by men, but inspired by the Holy Spirit. Interesting. Yeah, it's very fascinating to me how many successful entrepreneurs, business owners have a relationship with God. So I went on a weird journey. I mean, I grew up Christian.
Starting point is 00:11:52 Then I went through this kind of atheist phase where I thought I was cool and like, really, I was like depressed and just didn't think there was a meaning to being here. But now I would say I'm very spiritual, right? Like I do believe in a higher power. I'm having on some very interesting people and getting a lot to being here. But now I would say I'm very spiritual, right? Like I do believe in a higher power. I'm having on some very interesting people and getting a lot of valuable insight. So I would label myself as very open right now. No, that's awesome. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:14 What about the Christian journey in that experience kind of led you to be maybe discouraged or disappointed to say, you know what, I don't know if this is for me. It was just so boring, dude. Like I was a kid and, you know, as a kid, you just want to run around, jump off walls and stuff. Like sitting in that environment, just so boring. I felt like the way they taught it wasn't interesting. So it just turned me off. And then I stopped going to church for a bit, you know. I mean, that's funny how you say that because like, yeah, I was raised thinking that God was boring. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:49 And, and that was because I didn't know him. And so oftentimes, oftentimes people can make the mistake of basing their relationship with God or what they think their relationship with God is with the church they attend. And so this church that I attend is a direct correlation of who God is. And so if my experiences, and this is where it kind of could get dangerous when you base experiences off of, what am I trying to say? Like when you create who God is based on your experience. Right, and that's what I did. Yeah, and I think we all have a tendency to do that
Starting point is 00:13:29 just because life is life and it's so in our face. But this is why I would encourage anyone who is on a journey of faith to number one, yeah, I would say find a church that you actually would enjoy because let's say maybe there's a part of it that's like, you're like, man, I don't know about this part of it, but like the community aspect is unreal. Yeah, that part I love.
Starting point is 00:13:54 That you can't find kind of, it's hard to find that somewhere else, you know? And so I would say for the use of community and to bring the questions, hey, when I have these moments, dude, when I write sermons, you know what? People say like, hey, how do you come up with like talks and like, how can you talk about God all the time? It's because I ask questions. I don't question God. I just ask questions though. The questions lead me down a path of discovering who he is. And this is a lifelong discovery. I'll read the same scripture 10 different times over the course of five different years, hear it preached in a different context, and it's like it's fresh every time. Right.
Starting point is 00:14:31 And the Bible says it's living and active. That's why. Yeah. But I would say, yeah, that's unfortunate, but I would also... That was my experience growing up. For sure. Being raised Catholic. Like, literally, it was like a checkbox. Like, I went to church. I, you know, did my thing. It felt like a chore. It felt like a chore.
Starting point is 00:14:52 Now, I would ask you this question. Like, do you have any kids or anything? Not yet. I want kids. Yeah. Like, I have a five-year-old daughter and a son on the way. And would I want my daughter to relate to me like that? Hey, she calls me Papa.
Starting point is 00:15:16 Papa, could I please have a peanut butter sandwich? Hey, Papa, can I please have a peanut butter sandwich? Like, because it's just a religious way of doing things. No, I want a relationship with Ruby. I want her to know that I love her. Right. And I want her to talk to me the way she wants to talk to me. I want her to be who she is, who I guess literally made her to be because I made her with the help of Amanda Turnup.
Starting point is 00:15:46 But I say all that to say that's the heart of God. He just wants to have a relationship with his kids. And it's unfortunate, yes, that experiences could get in the way, that life circumstances could get in the way. But I would say the biggest thing, and I would encourage you with, is do your best to not create your God based on experiences, because that's so fickle. But God's constant and his promises are yes and amen. And he'll be there no matter what, whether I make mistakes, whether I have a really good month, a really good year, financially awesome, I'm f***ed, I lost it all. If anybody's going to still be there, it'll be God.
Starting point is 00:16:22 And I say God, but it gets general, but everyone has like – that's why I think Jesus having a name, it's powerful. It puts a face to God. For sure. But, dude, I would honestly – I'd love for you to check out City Light. I'll stop by. You know who's coming through to City Light? Who's coming?
Starting point is 00:16:46 Ryan's coming through. Oh, yeah? Neil. Neil Patel? Dhingra. Okay. He's coming through. I think you had him a little bit ago.
Starting point is 00:16:53 There's a lot of influencers that come through, but honestly, it's because it's lit. That's why. Dude, I'll stop by. I'm always open. That's what I like to do. I always like learning perspectives. One thing Billy also said, and this is going to be an interesting take coming from you
Starting point is 00:17:07 since you're part of church ownership. A lot of churches require their, what is it called, participants or members to donate 10% of their earnings. And he's saying they are maliciously using that money. They're buying real estate with it, all this crazy stuff, right? So what's your take on that?
Starting point is 00:17:23 Yeah, I love this question. No, okay. So the question is framed, churches require it. I think there are some religions that require it. I think the Mormon faith, I think they'll literally knock on your door and say, hey, where's the tithe? In my context, in the way we do church,
Starting point is 00:17:44 it is not a requirement from the church. I would argue though, God asks for the tithe in scripture and it was actually pre-law. So the idea is this, is if you want the favor of God or if you want God's involvement, and we just talked about the relationship between a kid and a father. If you want the involvement of God in your life, and I would say it's beyond finances, then he does. He asks for the 10. Are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest? We'll click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories,
Starting point is 00:18:27 cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life. Click the application link below and here's the episode, guys. He says, hey, trust me with the 10 and trust that I can do more with 90 than you could do with 100. Mm, he said that in the Bible? Yeah, I mean, that's the principle of the tithe.
Starting point is 00:18:44 Got it. So you're essentially giving back 10. That's the perspective. Right. So like everything I make, 10%, I give it to the local church. Oh, you do that too? Yeah, I do it too. Oh, okay. But I don't do it because I'm required to.
Starting point is 00:18:59 Got it. I do it because I want to. Because I want to invite the divine favor of God in my life. Now, I can't speak for every church. And are there churches that do stuff with money? 100%. I would, I would also say though, if, if, if the church is buying real estate and real estate's an appreciating asset, right. And it's for the church, Like we're building a church, like literally, okay, let me just put things in perspective from my point of view.
Starting point is 00:19:28 City Light, our pastors planted City Light February of 2018. We planted in a middle school, you know, southwest part of town, and it was set up and teared down in a cafeteria. And we did that for eight months until a door opened and a church said, hey, would you guys like to use our church? We're closing our doors and you guys can take over the lease. And so we got into this spot eight months in, and it was cool because now we didn't have to set up and tear down
Starting point is 00:19:53 and we could really build. But we were running five services on Sunday. It just wasn't fitting the growth that was taking place. So what do we do? What would be the right thing to do? Expand. Right. And church, maybe in some sense, it's a business, but it is an organization. And there is crossing your T's, dotting your I's, and making sure the finances are good. And we personally do an audit
Starting point is 00:20:23 every quarter just to make sure that nothing sleazy is happening. Yeah, yeah. But in the event when we have an opportunity to buy land like we did here on Jones and Sunset, we come to the church and say, hey, if the Holy Spirit's leading you to give, we have this opportunity. And this is not a requirement. The Bible says God loves the cheerful giver, not the reluctant giver or the person that's like this.
Starting point is 00:20:52 Yeah, reluctant, yeah. Yeah, so I again agree with Homie. Okay. That there are churches that do that. I wouldn't blanket statement and say all churches do this. Right, so that's where you would differ with that. He's saying the whole religion as a whole. Oh, yeah, which is hard to say
Starting point is 00:21:10 because there's so many different types. There's like, literally in Vegas, we probably have 1,000 Christian churches. Right, there's different. And there's just, they all operate differently. They all have, some have elder boards or like, you know, what you would call like a board team. But yeah, this project that we're doing, dude, it's like, I think it what you would call like a board team. But yeah, this project
Starting point is 00:21:26 that we're doing, dude, it's like, I think it's around 17 or $20 million. Damn. Wild. That's crazy. Just to build out the church, it costs that much? Yeah. I mean, there was the buying the land and then the actual costs of like all this stuff. How many people does it fit inside? We'll be able to fit, I think close to 900. Wow. The crazy thing. I don't know if like pastor Jamie would want me to say this, but I think we're, I think it's too small. What? Because, because when we moved from the building we were in now, now we're setting up again at a high school, but the high school seats like 500 people in the auditorium, as opposed to our spot, which was like 200, or we could set like 650. Um, we've expended, our church has exploded in the last year.
Starting point is 00:22:06 And you've been able to do that from content, I assume. It's a mixture of things. I mean, I think it's definitely, we have a great Sunday. Like, I mean, I feel so comfortable to invite you because I know you'll like it. I just know, because I know you, I know people like you. And people like that too. They didn't know that they can experience God
Starting point is 00:22:25 in a way like this, right? And so a lot of people are coming and it's awesome. But I go on to say, to like demonize churches investing in real estate is kind of like backwards thinking because if you built your own house, the cost of you building your house is cheaper than you buying the house
Starting point is 00:22:44 after it's been built, right? Right. So it's a good investment. Yeah. So it's probably like, that's like, if I'm going to use people's money to do anything, it's probably smart to do it in a way where it will grow. That makes sense. Yeah. And that's what you call like a good steward of finances. Right. There's this parable in the Bible where Jesus is talking about these three people. Is it three or five? I think it's three people. One guy got one talent. This is just like a bag of coins, let's just say. The second person got two bags of coins, and then the third person got five. And he goes on to say that the two people that got two and five went and multiplied it and brought it back. And then the person that got one talent dug it in the ground
Starting point is 00:23:31 and did nothing with it. And then when it came time to come to the master and say, hey, what did you do with what I gave you? Everybody else doubled it. And this person who dug in the ground said, look, I still have it. And then Jesus says, that's a wicked and lazy servant, a person who doesn't multiply. Like he didn't lose it. He didn't spend it. Um, he just dug it in the ground. He, he hoarded it and it didn't multiply. Wow. So I think two things there. Number one, it comes back to the heart of the person, right? Like so much of people's pointing the finger at a religion or, or whatever, call it
Starting point is 00:24:12 a religion, call it a faith system, whatever you want to call it is, is, um, it's, it's hard to make these blanket statements and because there's so much nuance. And at the end of the day, we don't know somebody's motive. I mean, maybe if you get to know somebody, you can, like, because I know, because I know you enough to be like, hey, that's not like you or hey, that was a little greedy, bro. You know, I can call you out, but this is why God judges the heart, you know, and he sees heart. So I can trust God with the fact that he sees people's heart, and at the end of the day, what God wants to happen will happen, you know? You value honesty really heavily. Does that come from the religious side,
Starting point is 00:24:56 or is that something you had instilled from your parents? Where does that come from? Well, honesty, I think it's a tool to stay free. And I think where it came from, more or less, these values or virtues that are biblical, in my opinion, they come from me being led by the Holy Spirit. So the more I submit my life to the Lordship of Christ in my life, the more I become like Christ.
Starting point is 00:25:32 And in that, it's a process. It's like there's this, when I say I got saved in 2011, I got justified for my sins. The justification for my sins was paid for. It was like taken care of past, present, and future. I'm clear. I'm in, I don't have to pay for my sins because of the finished work of the cross or what Jesus did. And that's justification. But then after that happens, it is, you take this next step into what is called sanctification. And that is the process of becoming like Jesus. And that is a lifelong process. But the more you walk with God, the more he convicts you. And so even when I have moments of when I'm maybe not being honest,
Starting point is 00:26:16 I get this little thing in my stomach. Like a knot. Yeah. Yeah. And I could either resist it and grow callous toward what the Holy Spirit would want to do through me. Or I could either resist it and grow callous toward what the Holy Spirit would want to do through me, or I could be like, say sorry to a person and say, hey, actually, the truth is. So my biggest thing is the reason why I like to be honest is because I think we can move faster when we're honest. Like even in business relationships, it's like, hey, if we were just honest up front, we can move quicker. For sure. I feel like God's the same way. Hey, if we were just honest, I promise I can excel your life a lot quicker.
Starting point is 00:26:52 And so that's why I would value honesty. I don't want to hide behind my lies. Yep. And it's one reason why I absolutely love marriage. Like I got married young. We celebrated 10 years this year. Wow. I got married at 21. That is young. Yeah, I was just like, yo, she's young. We celebrated 10 years this year. Wow. I got married at 21.
Starting point is 00:27:06 That is young. Yeah, I was just like, yo, she's it. All right, let's run it. That's crazy. But I think the coolest thing about marriage is that there's somebody on this planet that knows everything about me. So like I have this level of like freedom, like my, the inhale and exhale of life that I can take out of like in my breath is, is so freeing because I know that somebody knows everything I'm going through and I have nothing to hide. Beautiful. Like bank accounts open, passwords to everything, whatever it is, like I
Starting point is 00:27:38 have nothing to hide. So that's kind of why, I mean, I was, I would hope more people would be honest with themselves, but then ultimately honest with people just to know because we all have to make sure that we honor our word. And if we say something, this is something my business coach taught me. In the book of John, it says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was with God, and then the word dwelt among us. And in the same way, when we stick to our word, when we give our word to somebody and we stick to it, we could dwell among those people. And when I say dwell, it means like you could confidently approach a person. But when we aren't honest with our words, we have to hide. So like, I mean, it just happens in every context. It doesn't matter what context you're in. And so I would say honesty is a big deal.
Starting point is 00:28:39 Yeah. I love that, man. I'm pretty honest. I used to be a really bad liar, definitely worked on it over the years. But that's something I value heavily, my honesty. And I feel like we're in a society now where people are scared to be honest because they get punished for it. Right. And it sucks to see because people are kind of just living like in a shell version of themselves. No, 100. I definitely think it's a – would confidently say that like the longer we live dude the softer humanity is getting and because because it we're all becoming more soft
Starting point is 00:29:14 on both sides it's becoming hard so it's hard to to stand for something because we're too worried about how it's going to make people somebody feel right. But then also, you know, we don't want to offend a person, but then also I don't want somebody to offend me, but I'm easily offended. Like, so we're just all, we're all like starting to hide more. And that we were not designed to be isolated and we were not designed to be, to bottle things in. And so it's unfortunate, but mean i think i think there's a there's a myriad of reasons why we're becoming like that um it's unfortunate though it is yeah
Starting point is 00:29:51 it's funny how like you can be on instagram and like there's like an early 2000s clip from a movie or a show yeah and it's always like this wouldn't go yeah it would not air like it just wouldn't and it's just and that's how crazy it's Yeah. Like stuff we said as a kid growing up, certain words. You said that these days you're canceled. Yeah. So it's crazy to see the evolution and it's, it's concerning for sure. 100. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:30:13 I want to dive into business stuff before we wrap up because it is a business podcast. You went all in on content and that's something I feel like most churches don't do. Right. But why did you decide to go that route? Dude, actually I, in high school, I picked up a camera. I took broadcast journalism. This was 2007. And I learned how to make videos. And it was so fun because you would make commercials, you would do the morning announcements. And I just fell in love with the process of creating videos. And fast forward, you know, when I got saved in 2011, I still was making videos, like whether I was vlogging or shooting friends' music videos
Starting point is 00:30:53 and stuff like that. So I just started using those gifts, talents, and abilities in the church. And I guess you could say my skill set really grew because now I had a platform to produce or show off the content that I was creating and learn various different ways to market. And that's actually when I connected with Sean Cannell, the founder of Think Media. And that was when we – I was kind of working under him for a season, and then he went off to go start his own stuff. And then in 2016 is when I stopped working full time and I've kind of been on my own since 2016 doing entrepreneurship. And I started helping Sean with Think Media. And this is like inception.
Starting point is 00:31:37 There was probably like maybe, you know, 50, 60,000 subscribers at the time. Wow, that's early. Yeah, and so that's 2016 yeah and then uh fast forward to 2018 he's like yo can you start teaching like can you start making videos on the channel and i said let's do it and so i started making videos and i you know uh c19 was awesome for our channel and like now we're at 2.6 million subscribers. And so I think what has happened was, number one, me educating and just doing video.
Starting point is 00:32:11 I mean, I've just been doing video for over 15 years. I didn't know it would arrive to this place where everyone needs it. But being able to take a lot of those things that you learn for business, it's actually the principles apply the same in the church world. And so yes, using content marketing in the church is huge because now no one's going to a website. People are looking at the Instagram. People are watching a sermon on YouTube and how you position
Starting point is 00:32:39 and make it easy for people to get to. That's what people are doing before they actually walk through the doors. They're spending time with you online and then they're making that decision like, you know what, let's go check it out in person. And so it's kind of like that lead. It's like the funnel, I guess you could say. So you train that skillset to be right place, right time once it became a money thing.
Starting point is 00:32:59 Because now it's like high demand skill to have that. No, 100. And I could have never planned on being, you know, being in video for so long. And so I do feel like it's a part of like the call on my life to help people with it. It comes so easy and naturally to me, but then also on the strategic standpoint,
Starting point is 00:33:19 being able to see opportunities in different businesses and sectors on how they can use video to like create more awareness and things like that. No, No props to you, man. Cause I remember when I went to college, people got made fun of that did, um, graphic design or video. Cause there was no money in it. And then when NFTs happened, graphic design was hot. People were making millions. So right place, right time. But dude, it's been fun getting to know you. Anything you want to close off with or promote? Oh dude. I mean, if you, uh, want to check out,
Starting point is 00:33:48 uh, Instagram is where I post a lot of stuff. Um, I also have a podcast called the department. Love to have you on. Yeah, let's do it. I essentially say it's, it's, it's conversations with people who are in their department. And so, uh, that is the department with Omar Al-Takrori. You can find that anywhere. And then if you're looking for some video help, YouTube, think media, and then we'll be there with anything you need to have questions with. Love it. Thanks so much for coming on, man. Great episode. Thanks for watching. As always, guys, see you next time.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.