Theology in the Raw - Beyond Relief: From Poverty to Flourishing with Will Acuff

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

Get your copy of Paul for the World by Dr. Nijay Gupta here.Will Acuff is the co-founder of Corner to Corner, an organization that pursues the love of neighbor by fostering educational and economic equity, creating a city where all can thrive. Will has master’s degree from Reformed Theological Seminary and is the author of his first book: No Elevator to Everest: Shift from Survive to Thrive through Spirit-Led Self-AwarenessSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, American Church, we just had the federal government do a trillion dollars in poverty alleviation cuts. And many of my conservative Christian brothers and sisters said, government, get out of poverty. We want to do it locally. When I talk to pastors and I say, what's your plan now that the ball is in your court? They go, ah, we don't really have a plan. And y'all, if that is the church's response, then we will miss this moment. because the pain of our neighbors has not gone away. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology and Ra.

My guest today is Will Aikoff, who is the co-founder of Corner to Corner, an organization that pursues the love of neighbor by fostering educational and economic equity, creating a city where all can thrive. I love this organization, and you will too. I didn't know too much about it until I sat down with Will. Literally, this was a live in-person recording in Franklin, Tennessee. So if you want to pop over to YouTube, you can see us kind of hanging out together with some nice cameras and background and all that jazz. But yeah, didn't know too much about corner to corner.

And he told us all about it. He tells us all about it in this episode. And man, just I was so impressed, so excited about what God is doing through Will and his team at Corner to Corner. They're doing amazing things for the city. Will has a master's degree from Reformed Theological Seminary. And is the author of his first book, No Elevator to Everest. Great title. from survive to thrive through spirit-led self-awareness.

Really, really enjoyed getting to know Will better. And I think you're going to be a fan after you listen to this episode. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only, Will Akoff. So tell me, how did you get into the work you're doing now? Wanting to, I mean, broadly speaking, what, poverty relief? Would that be the broadest category? Or how would you describe? Yeah, I'd probably say poverty transformation.

Poverty transformation, okay. Yeah. Yeah, the highlight reel of this story was that a pastor's kid grew up in the church. My dad was a church planter in kind of blue collar no-collar area outside of Boston. Okay. He planted a church in the office of a gas station in 1985. Okay. And he later would be like, no, no, it was a car wash. And I was like, it doesn't make the story better, Dad.

Like this was very unglamorous, right? But very adventurous, like the gospel has lived out. adventure. Okay. And I say all that to say, like, I grew up with this sense of like, man, what God is doing, like this thing is on the move, right? Which was really exciting as a kid. But fast forward, I went to college, felt a call into ministry, thought maybe I'd go into seminary right after college, but instead fell in love with being in a rock and roll band. Really? So, yeah, man. You're a rock star. Dude, I was a wannabe rock star. Like hair down to here, None of it was gray.

We played everywhere from like the Apollo and Harlem to the Dallas hard rock. These are your real band. It's not just like a garage man. Like we're really like we opened up for folks like better than Ezra. No way. Like Wilco one time, which was like a really big deal for me. But so that's what I was doing by night when I got out of college. But by day I was a research analyst in health policy at Duke University.

So kind of two different worlds. Two different worlds. But that's kind of how my brain works, right? But I've met this epidemiologist who is an expert on the AIDS pandemic at this time. This is 2002. And he had a small group of us meet at his house for about six months and really talk about how does your faith inform how you think about suffering in the world. And then we looked at complicated issues like, hey, if pharmaceutical companies keep HIV AIDS drugs at this price

and don't make a deal with the Kenyan government, here's what happens. Oh, wow. Right. And so we did that, six months of that kind of learning. And then he led us on a small trip over to Nairobi. And we all split up. And I was staying with this Kenyan family on the edge of one of the worst slums in sub-Saharan Africa.

I'd never been out of Canada. Oh, wow. So, like, did not have a framing for this. Yeah. And my worldview just got destroyed. And I don't even think I was aware that I had a worldview. Okay. But it was something like, man, if you just try hard,

like it will all work out and you'll be okay and the American dream is alive and well and easy to attain for anyone from any background was kind of the vibe. Yeah, wow. So I came home from that trip, just really disoriented in my soul. Like you know when the Lord starts going,

hey, I didn't make you for this, right? It was that kind of vibe. But the band was so good at hitting my ego that I was like, I'm going to ignore that, Holy Spirit. Keep rocking out. Yeah, keep like, I'm gonna, this guitar feels good right here, right? And I joke, but it's true.

I think I did that thing that a teenager does when they hear a thumping noise in their car. They turn up the radio and go, that will fix that. It did not. And so I think God gives us his loving whisper first and most frequently. And then often when we ignore that, we get the loving sledgehammer. It says, no, no, no. I built you for a better life. And I want to bring you onto that path.

And so on my honeymoon, my wife and I had a health crisis, and our honeymoon ended in the emergency room. Oh, my gosh. And so everything we thought we were going to build our life around was bulldozed. And in the emergency? Yeah. Can you say what it was? Man, it would take us like a 35-minute.

I just know if it's like a private issue, you don't want to. No, no. No, no, I've publicly talked about it, but literally it'd be like 50 minutes later. This is all we talked about. But it was, it led to a misdiagnosis, two years of suffering from my wife and I in the beginning of our marriage, not knowing how to navigate that. Because we're still learning who we are, all of those things. And the band goes away. The thing that was giving me identity goes away.

And in the aftermath of that, what my wife and I kept hearing from God was, hey, I have made you. to set your gaze on the margins. And I want you to walk in that direction. And so to follow that, we moved into a low-income neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee. And with the desire of like, how do we get a theology of neighbor?

So you moved in not because you couldn't afford a better one, but intentionally to be part of that. Yeah, yeah. East Nashville? East Nashville, off Dickerson Road. And again, this is 20 years ago. If you've been there recently, you can buy like a $12 coffee, right? This was not the case.

Yeah, before all the coffee shops and 100%. Yeah. And my wife got a full-time job at the men's prison and became a job training specialist. So helping guys transition back to the stability of at least a right now job, not a career, but at least one anchor of stability. And then we had an open front door policy. And so we started doing life. with these amazing neighbors who what we saw over and over again

was man, we've got image bears who are incredible, God given passion, creativity, and drive. And yet there's not a bridge of opportunity for them to express that in the marketplace that would launch them out of poverty. Okay. And so we started praying into,

what would it look like to create that kind of bridge? Okay. And that's what originally launched us into our nonprofit corner to corner. What year did that start? That started in 2011. Okay.

And our, you know, our core thing that we do is we help underestimated neighbors, plan, start, and grow their own small business. Okay. So they can become the economic engines of their families. And then as they grow, the wider community. Okay. And so to date, we've graduated 1800 entrepreneurs. 1800.

1800. And I think technically 1,797, if we want to be precise. I'm sure by the time this releases, you might have a couple more. We'll have a couple hundred more, yeah. And in 2025, we put 46.7 million back into the neighborhood economy through the revenue that they're generating. Through the revenue of people living in that neighborhood. In that neighborhood. People in the neighborhood giving back to the neighborhood.

Yep. And creating jobs and creating stability for their families. Yeah. Whenever I hear something like that, it makes me think of a book that, many people, People read, what, 20 years ago at When Helping Harts? Yeah, great book. Brian Fickert. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, the basic gist, like, it's really unhelpful to get people charity when they need development.

Yeah. Empowerment. Like, just handing few people, unless they're on the brink of starvation, famine hits a country. There's no food. Few people need just like, here's money. Here's food. Here's, you know, hurricane hits. Okay, yes.

We need that kind of relief. But in most cases, in almost all cases in America, especially, like, they need development, right? Like access to, I mean, to, like, earn their own income, use their gifts, do something, not just keep receiving. But come fully themselves, right? And I would describe it as there's kind of three stages, this oversimplification here. But if there's poverty here, stability here, and then thriving. Okay. We have a lot of programs, and the church has really dedicated a lot of energy in this direction that I would describe as relief-centered that moves somebody from crisis in their deep poverty to kind of the bare stability line.

Okay. But we live in a moment right now where, according to a recent bank rate study, 59% of Americans can't put their hands on $1,000 of emergency cash. Wow. which means if you have a bad doctor's bill and a flat tire in the same week, you're going to go back into the poverty cycle. Yeah. And so the question I'm always wrestling with

are what are the best ways to take incredible image bears, right? Because you're a nonprofit, you don't have to give a neighbor what God already gave them. Right. You're only like surfacing it. And so helping them discover the gifts and talents

they already have. And then, and get the education, the mentorship, and then the access to capital to turn it into a living, breathing thing. And we've got neighbors, like one of my favorites, a woman named Adrian Bowling, she launched on her own before meeting us a business called A1 Mobile Notary because she realized you could never find a notary when you need one. Yeah. Right? They work every third week on a Tuesday for nine minutes. It's impossible.

And so she's like, I can solve that. And it's also great for me and my two kids because there's a lot of flexibility, low overhead. I can just do that with my car. So she launches and she gets to $35,000 and then stalls out because she doesn't have a business plan. And a friend of her says, hey, you've got to go learn about corner to corner.

Go take their program. She came through a 10-week program and in the next 12 months did over $85,000. Went from $35,000 to $85,000. Now I recently spoke with her. She's doing over $200K. And I said to her, what is this meant for you and your kids? And she said, well, we're in a new neighborhood.

My kids are in a new school. In fact, I'm getting my son his passport. She said, I don't have my passport. Poverty told me my life had to be small. What I'm learning is that I can build this bigger thing. And what I love most about Adrian, she has come back and helped teach our class four times. Wow. To pay it forward to the next group of entrepreneurs.

entrepreneurs. A couple months ago, we had the one and only Nijey Gupta on the show to talk about his new book, Paul for the world. If you caught that conversation, you know that it was a good one. This week, the book is officially out, and I want to take a minute to celebrate the release of Nijay's new book and make sure you know about it. Here's the thing about Nijay's book that I love. A lot of us have been reading Paul's letters as if he's primarily talking about like the

afterlife heaven and eternity and what happens when we die. But Neyjee makes a really compelling case that Paul was just as concerned with this life as he was with the afterlife. You know, he talks about friendship and work and money, mental health, justice. Paul had something to say about all of it. So Neyjay's book, Paul for the world, brings Paul's theology down to earth in the best possible way. It's super accessible, it's hopeful, and it will impact the way you actually live day to day. So if you've been wanting to go deeper with Paul, but you're not an academic, this is your book. book. Pick it up this week. The link is in the show notes. And again, congrats to Nijay on the release.

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trial pack. Okay, that's 20% off, plus free shipping on either the bestsellers trial pack or the plant-based trial pack at M-O-S-L-H-L-I-F-E dot com slash theology. Thank you, Mosh for sponsoring this episode. Can anybody start a business? Like, if somebody came to you and said, I don't know what to do, but I want to be an entrepreneur, I want to start a business, make money. Are you like, I will find something, I will discover what you can do and you will start a business, or is it Yeah. I love this. I love this question. So I'm such a human optimist. Like, I think the kingdom has come. The kingdom is unfolding. And in that framing, like, I think we are returning to our garden selves as we follow the Lord. And so there's one part of me that says, absolutely, yes, you can. And there's another part that says, oh, man, if you don't get the right education, mentorship and capital, this is really, really hard. And to frame the distinction, there's some studies. There's some studies. that show that if you just said tomorrow, I'm going to start a business and you went out and did it

without that support, about 23% of those businesses will succeed after five years. So failure rates high. Conversely, if you do get to be a part of a supportive ecosystem, like I'm describing, like what we've formed here, then we're seeing that be around 73% success rate

at the end of five years. And at corner to corner, we're trending at 81%. So 81% of our graduates are still in business. business. So yes, I do think anyone could start something. And also, you're likely going to fail unless you have this supportive ecosystem. What is a supportive ecosystem? You said capital training. Yeah, it's three things. Education, mentorship, access to capital. Okay. And that's something that that's what the eight week. That's what you do. Yeah, that's what we provide. I mean, to illustrate this a little more deeply, we did another amazing graduate named Kayla Hall. She,

We wanted to do an organic juice company. Okay. And if you've ever seen those little bottles of juice that are like two inches and they're like nine bucks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she was like, I know the carrots and the ginger didn't cost that, right? Like, I can, that's a good, that's a good markup for me. Right. And she got a Walmart juicer, something you or I could get for 30 bucks.

She came and took the program. She learned about she needs access to clients and distribution. Yeah. So she went and got a small booth at the farmer's market here in Nashville. Lots of tourist foot traffic. She called us about a month into this journey, and she said, thank you for the class.

I learned a ton, but y'all, this Walmart juicer is starting to smoke. I'm worried it might melt through the table because it wasn't meant for this volume. Can you loan me the money to upgrade my equipment? We loaned her $1,000. It was a loan.

She had to pay us back, but it was at 0% interest. She upgrades her equipment. She had 12 months to pay us back. She paid us back in six weeks off the increased revenue. We were so impressed with her. We're partnered with Goldman Sachs. They have a female training program out of Manhattan.

We connected her there. She goes up. Day two of her training, I get a text from her. It says, got them. And you know, sometimes the image is like delayed on a text. I was like, what is she talking about? The image pops up. It's a picture of a signed contract with Goldman Sachs.

She had convinced them to order $200,000. units of her juice. Her biggest sale ever while she was there getting the training. They were so impressed with her. They invited her to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. So she could get a vision of where her business could go. And so it's that education, mentorship, and access to capital. Because if our neighbors are really image bearers, then poverty is not the most important thing about their life. Who made them is the most important thing about their life. Wow. So whose they are, not their current context. Yeah.

So I know nothing about business, really. I've grown a little bit because I run a couple ministries. I was going to say, you sell books, you're out here doing a thing. I mean, yeah, I kind of look back in my life and say, I guess I do do some businessy kind of things, but I don't really know what I'm doing. I mean, can any business idea succeed or do you help shape the idea? Like they might throw out like here's five things. I have ideas.

You might say none of those are going to work because, you know, market saturated, too many people doing it. You're like just got to be many reasons why a business, you would say this idea is not going to work. Yeah. Okay. And then you help them find one that will work? Well, so I put it like this. So anybody out there who's listening who knows business is going to really resonate with this. I am not the one who's going to tell you if that idea will work or not.

The market will tell you. Okay. And a good illustration of this is my mom taught me not to get in cars with strangers. So if you had told me Uber was going to be a business, I don't know like, that's bananas, right? So I missed that one, right? And so we don't want to be in the position of saying whether your idea will work or not. We want to train you to get data from the market. So an example, we had a young woman come to the class.

She said, hey, I'm going to do vegan ice cream. That's my business. We said, okay, that's great. Well, go try to talk to your neighbors. about if they want to buy vegan ice cream. And she said, my first flavor is going to be avocado, because I know

these neighbors are going to love that. Good luck, go for it, right? Three weeks later, she comes back to class. People don't want this ice cream. And she said, no way. She said, it sounds like cold guacamole in a cone. Like, people are not into this.

I think I'm going to do vanilla, right? And we're like, amazing. Yeah. Go for that. And so the market, so every single week during the program, people come to class, they check in, what's the high, what's the low, because we're doing relationship building. So as they're taking the eight-week course, they're developing their business along the way. Is that? 100%. Oh, okay. Yep. And so she comes in. She's tweaked her business, but every single person has to share how many clients or potential clients they spoke to that week. So they're getting real-time feedback. Okay. And I would say one of the key skill sets for anybody who wants to do entrepreneurship is to think iteratively. I think it's this.

Oh, man, it's not. Microsoft used to make all of their money off of individual computer sales to end users. They don't make any of their money that way, realistically now. It's all enterprise software to massive companies. It's a completely different business model than they originally got into. they had to pivot. So they learned along the way what was working

what wasn't working. So teach people like, yeah, I mean, no, just pay attention to what is... Pay attention, which I would say is an expression of love of neighbor. Yeah. Because we're called to love our neighbor

as we love ourselves. We are constantly solving our own problems, right? That's part of what it means to be human and to love yourself and your family and provide for them. What a good entrepreneur does is identify the pain point of their neighbor

and then solve it. Okay. And I would say what a Christian entrepreneur does in the face of that is they do that without manipulation. Yeah. Or exploitation. Right, right. They do that in a heart posture of love and mercy and grace. And you're teaching people to do local businesses with their neighbors, not online stuff, right?

Because so many things are just online now. No, they're doing some online stuff too. Yeah. We don't limit how they're expressing that. We have folks who, you know, have gone on to have multiple brick and mortar spaces. We've had other who did mostly online. And now they have more of their sales and how they're than in Nashville. And so whatever, wherever you find your market to go and develop that.

With all the people that have gone through your program, like, why have some, like, not succeeded? And you don't need to name names or, like, what would be examples of, here's an example of somebody

who just, it didn't work out, and here's why, and then what are the key traits of something that did work out? Yeah. So I think the person who can stay in that learning phase, oh, this didn't work,

so I'm going to learn versus this didn't work, and I'm going to start to feel really awful about it and kind of loop emotionally on that. Okay, which I'm sure is pretty natural, right? Very natural, but you've got to learn to go, okay, what's the learning from this? Now move on. Okay.

That's a key indicator, if somebody's going to be successful. I would also say isolation kills. So the people who succeed with us stay leaning in to the other entrepreneurs that they're now in community with. They stay leaning into us. Okay. Because any one of them at any point

can call us and go, hey, I need a brick and mortar space and I don't know a commercial real estate person. And that feels like I could really get taken advantage of. Would you introduce me to somebody you trust? Boom, we got you. So they can always rely on the community to come back with...

Absolutely. Oh, wow. That's huge. That's huge. And then I'd say the third thing is that access to capital piece. Okay. This gets a little trickier. So, like, for example,

we have an organization in America, the small business administration, the SBA. They funnel a lot of money into small businesses, but you already have to have two years of financials in order to get a loan. And so if you're just starting and you need to get off the ground, it's really hard to start a business with zero investment. Right. And so it'd be a little bit like me saying, hey, I need a first-time homeowner's loan. And they go, cool, show me your other homeowners loan first. You're like, what? You know?

And so that becomes an existential thing as well. But we do a lot of creative work to tap people into capital. Yeah, so how do you, like, if anybody comes to you and says, I need X amount of dollars capital to start this thing, do you get the screen? Or there are some where you say, we don't seem like this is a good idea. We can't do this. While somebody else is like, yeah, this seems like legit. Yeah. Well, so we have different buckets of money.

We've got ours, which is really small loans. as small as $250 to order a couple first samples of your product to try to sell all the way up to like $5,000 that we'll do directly just for our graduates. Okay. So it's just that pool. We also have relationships with folks

like the Tennessee Titans here in Nashville where there's a three-way partnership with us, them, and a local bank. And so graduates can get access to that money and the bank vets them. So it's still a very kind of responsible fiscal process. And we've got other partnerships most recently with Vanderbilt University. And I should say we're really well researched.

Partnerships with Notre Dame, their lab for economic opportunity, recent partnership with MIT and the J. Powell folks there and Vanderbilt. And with Vanderbilt, one of the things we're doing with their business school is they put graduate students paired with an alumni from corner to corner. And they work with them over six months, help them build a three-year strategy and then pitch. a committee at Vanderbilt for 25,000 of investment capital. And so we're always kind of finding those ways. But all of those partners will say, hey, love the heart behind this. We need to see more data or more clarity around this.

Okay. Your go-to-market strategy feels weak. Tell us a little bit more, that kind of thing. It's incredible. How are churches involved? Or how do you, I mean, this end of itself is, seems to me like just really clear kingdom work, you know?

100% holistic kingdom work. Yes. Are you connected with other churches, you know, Christians in the area? Like how's a church involved in what you're doing? Besides just you being part of the church and doing it. Yeah, totally.

Yeah, the local church has been heavily involved. Okay. Financial support, obviously, you're non-profit. You're singing and dancing for your dinner every year, right? That's how that works. As well as exposing this program to their business leaders

to then come and be guest speakers or mentors and coaches. That's huge. Because your average church in America right now, they have business leaders who often are their biggest donors, by the way. And then the pastor has them doing parking lot duty.

I know, yeah. And so to me, there's a way that we can utilize those people's skill sets and their passions and a more direct, larger kingdom impact, ROI, return on investment

right, from their skill sets. So we've done a lot of that locally. And we're doing some partnerships, for example, Crosspoint and Church of the City here in Nashville, are leading classes on their, using their buildings, activating their business leaders, and then serving some of their community. We also more recently, and something you and I have talked about a little bit, we launched something called Kingdom Founders, which is this program meant to be used in churches around the nation.

Okay. And so it is very faith integrated. Like what I just talked about, love of neighbor as you identify your customer, that's woven in there, image bear theology. There's devotional times, scripture. When you get the field work,

like go and learn how to do this this week, it includes guided devotionals for the students. So very faith integrated. But the idea here is, hey, American church, we just had the federal government do a trillion dollars. in poverty alleviation cuts.

And many of my conservative Christian brothers and sisters said government get out of poverty, we want to do it locally. And I love the heartbeat of that because anybody who's ever been to the DMV didn't come way going, that was such a loving experience. Government does love well, right?

Like I get the impulse to that. Simultaneously, when I talk to pastors and I say, what's your plan now that the ball is in your court. Right. They go, we don't really have a plan. Or they say,

maybe I guess we're going to do more jackets this winter. Yeah. Right? Or more turkeys at Thanksgiving. And y'all, if that is the church's response, then we will miss this moment. Because the pain of our neighbors

has not gone away. Right. Are those things even helpful? That's a genuine question. Yeah, I do think they are. The turkeys at Thanksgiving, the Christmas box. is at Christmas and yeah I think they are if they are the first step in a journey it has

be connected to something big 100% but if that's all you do every year yep yeah we we have a partner that we ran who ran kingdom founders last fall a church in charlottesville called the point amazing group there they have a program called the pathways out of poverty okay and they do some relief because in relief you're building trust and you're showing up. And when someone's in crisis and their cortisol levels are flooded, they're not like, cool, give me the 25-step plan. Right. Okay. So you being able to go, hey, I see that you're in crisis, here is a jacket, here's a meal, here's a bus pass. Next step, I'm going to help you get a job. When somebody sees you do that and then says, and I'm going to keep showing up week after week,

and then as your life stabilizes, we'll get you into this longer-term plan, then yeah, you've, you've got a voice of earned trust. And your love is not just theory. Right. And to me, this is classic James language. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? You can't say, oh, well, good luck.

Be warm and well fed, which has nothing to do with me, right? And so I guess the opportunity for the church right now, and I really see this as an opportunity is, would Christians be known as the most innovative, most creative, most hopeful when it comes to poverty alleviation? And so I am right now, like, if you're looking at. listening to this and you're like, oh my gosh, this is making my heartbeat faster. I want to do this kind of thing. Kingdom Founders could be for you. I would highly encourage you to connect with me. Okay. And I will get your church off the ground. So Kingdom Founders is taking what you do here and it's people can run with it. Any church in America. Yeah. Where, what cities,

what churches have adopted are cities so far? Yeah. So I mean, the pilot just was last fall, but prior to that, we had been getting phone calls from other churches going, hey, you know, would you help us get going with this? So we did some stuff outside of Charleston, South Carolina. At one point, we even were in Amman Jordan and working with some Syrian refugee camps. And then Watermark down in Dallas, they, amazing church down there. They have a community development org called a CDC. That's a part of their church led by a guy named Carson Smith.

Carson and his team maybe three years ago Came saw our work in person Went to a graduation Because our graduations are huge block parties Like three to four thousand people Oh man it's wild Joy just on tap Feels like a family reunion

And a business fair Right all at the same time Anyway Carson and his team They came up They're like we want to bring this To the Dallas area So Carson They're running a version

right? So we've seen it, it doesn't matter if it's a smaller market like Charlottesville, bigger market. This is, this is viable. And again, in a moment where 59% of our neighbors are on the edge going into poverty. Yeah. This is a time where I think Christians and churches can't say, all that we do is the gospel in word. Yeah. We preach well. Yeah. Man. If we get our, orthodoxy and our orthopraxy correct without what I might call the orthocardia, the right heart in action, I think we are missing it. I think gospel word and gospel deed have to go together. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. What would you say to a pastor listening and says, all this sounds great, but gosh,

I don't know anything about business. I don't know anybody in my church that does. Maybe they're there. and I'm not connected with Vanderbilt and all that, you know, you seem to be... Neither was I when I started. Really? Okay. I didn't know any of these people. And guess what? On your elder board, there's a business person. Right.

Guaranteed. Okay. Yeah. So all it takes is somebody that, to adopt the kingdom, what's it called? Kingdom founders. Kingdom founders. Yep. Is somebody that says, man, I would love to integrate this in my local community.

And, you know, I might have some people in my church that could kind of head it up. Is that? And then they contact you and yeah. I mean, I'll be so bold as to say this, Preston, my cell phone number is 615-498-49-7. If you're a pastor listening to this right now, call me. Yeah. My phone number is 555-55-1-2-34-56.

Yeah, but I'm so convinced, like, it's not that we were magical. Like, we didn't figure out. This isn't that. You're saying it, you make it sound easy. Dude, it's to graduate 40 people a year. And to put it in context, corner, corner will do about 400 people this year. 400? Super hard. You got to build all sorts of systems and layers. 40? That's run in two classes. You graduate 40 people a year and you'll have a million dollars of economic impact on the lowest income neighborhoods around you. Yeah. So this is designed for low-income neighborhoods. Like if upper middle class, you know, if a pastor in Brentwood or something like, hey, we want to help Brentwood become, for people to know, it's pretty well off neighborhood. Yeah. It's doing all right. Is that, are you like, that's not, I mean. Yeah. Well, one, I wouldn't turn them away, right? Because I also think what ends up happening is there's not very many opportunities.

in such a polarized society today to get together across racial and economic lines. And so a church could host this in a really well-to-do community. Amazing. And they might get a couple people from their own congregation who are doing okay, but feel uncertain in an AI world that they might need to start a business. A lawyer who's always worked within somebody else's practice might need to go out on their own. Where do they learn how to think like an entrepreneur? But what happens is they will also get some of these low-income neighbors, some of the service staff in their community, some of the people who are waiting on their tables, right? And those folks being together in the same cohort, we've had students, I remember we had a young woman who had just finished her Ph.D. program for speech pathology. And she was about to launch her own clinic. And she was sitting next to a teen mom who was bringing her two-year-old to class with her every week.

And she was doing designs for like t-shirts and branding. Boom. They become friends. She gives her some counsel on her child for free. She designs her logo and her first company T-shirts. And they never would have crossed past otherwise. So connecting and networking people with different gifts is huge, right? Huge part of it.

And so to a well-heeled church, they could end up doing some of this tying people together in a way that gets really hard in other contexts. Yeah, I love this, man. Because I think in our highly politicized world, right? I mean, I feel like we're so arguing over which government policy is going to help people or not help people. and it's in and and those are important but what if we didn't put so much stock in the government to do the work to the church has the gifts and economic power to do not not to the exclusion of yeah voting for this policy whatever like but i mean gosh like like you said all you know what a trillion

dollar cut and it's like the church could step in and and maybe not do all of that but maybe a lot of it I mean, honestly, you know, you look at some of the ways the government goes about development, and you're like, I don't think that's the best approach. Yeah. I don't know if that's working. Well, and I think, again, we live in such a binary society, like it's either or. Yeah. And I actually think it's an and. Yeah.

So, yeah, we should pursue good programs on the government level. Cool. Let's figure out what that looks like. And while that's happening, because it's pretty slow right now. Like, our government's not known for collaborative work. while that's happening and on the ground, church, let's do this. Right, right, right. And so, again, if Christians are meant to be the best at love, practically, spiritually, holistically, then we should be on the forefront of these discussions.

Well, the church has the resources, spiritual resources, to go about development on a holistic kingdom level. 100%. Well, the government's not going to do that. Yeah, because we're not trying to make more miserable middle class people. Right. I want to be clear about that. If you just get rich, you'll be happy, right? Yeah, you know what we'll solve all your problems?

It turns out it's money, right? Like, not at all. That's a good thing. I'm glad you said that because, yeah, I was kind of the back of my mind. Like, is this, okay, you just got people, they're not poor anymore in the middle class. No, no, no. No. The whole thing is designed around relationship.

Yeah. And developing connections of trust and then being invited in to, to do life with each other. And if we want, you know, the other thing for churches is, one, it disciples their business leaders who, again, are often an undiscipled group. Yeah.

And then it also adds a new front door to the church that's further out in the community. Yes. Because if the only front door for your church is the one that's connected to your parking lot, is the front door, right? You're missing people. Yeah, yeah.

And so this is another way to get the church out there. In my anecdotal experience, I know a lot of, I have a lot, you know, several solid Christian business leaders. They're running pretty massive companies. They're on the road. And they just, they feel, and these is my words, not their words necessarily. They just seem kind of bored in church, you know. You know, they're at a church with the, you know, 29 year old church planner who's never, you know, has no clue. It's like to be, you know, run a company of like 500.

have to fire somebody and hire something, you know, and like, I can just sense like some of these business leaders are just like, I, you know, I need to go to church and, and, you know, good hearts, but it's like, man, to know that they could do, be empowered to do this kind of kingdom work that is, that this is an essential expression of what it means to be the church, not just a side gig, you know, on top of attending a Sunday service. It integrates their life. Yeah. And these business leaders, these high capacity folks in our churches,

again, they're handing out bulletins and they don't feel useful. Yeah. And these high capacity leaders, one of the most critical things I hear from them all the time is, if you can make me useful in this, then I will keep showing up. Yeah. And it lights them on fire. And there's all these stats. It's crazy.

For example, if someone volunteers with your church in some capacity, even twice, they are 95% more likely to be at your church a year from now. And still engage and still committed. Yeah, I was at a church a while back where they had everybody stand up who is serving. And they said, everybody, and they kind of, I think I can call them out, like, you know, hosting a Bible study. And can you stand up? We want to thank. It was great hearts, right?

They're like, we want to thank everybody serving. And those who hand out communion and bulletins. And I'm looking around. I didn't stand up because I'm doing those things, you know. So I was the one sitting and they were thanking everybody who's serving. serving, you guys are serving the kingdom, you know? And my family and I were just sitting there, you know. Yeah.

And then they were like, and now we would like to direct our attention to Preston, everybody. No, it would just fly. I was like, oh, I don't get bothered about stuff. But it looked around and like their definition of serving was helping run the Sunday like whatever takes a plus Sunday service. 100%. And I was looking around to all the people in here that like how many are like doing like awesome kingdom stuff that just doesn't fit in that kind of narrow definition of.

what serving is and not to denigrate people who were doing those, you know, church service serving things. Yeah. But it's like, I looked at all the people sitting. I'm like, I think they're probably doing a lot of stuff for the kingdom. It just doesn't fit in that definition. Absolutely. Yeah, which, I mean, the church gathered and scattered, right?

Yeah. What does it look like for the church to go out after Sunday service? Yeah. Yeah. You seem like a happy guy. You have a lot of, your ministry is really successful. You enjoy what you do But you've had some

Trials You've suffered And you've written a book about it Yeah Well, you know Some of this is in your book Can you talk about that? I don't know how much you want to share publicly

Yeah, I mean Oh no, yeah, very open about it Okay Yeah, the book No Elevator to Everest is all about the journey of our family Wrestling with the question How do you live a life of joy in the midst of really hard suffering.

And for us, it was our son, both of our kids are through adoption out of Memphis here in Tennessee. And our son leaves about two and a half stopped sleeping through the night. And not the occasional blurry night that most young parents have, but for three and a half years,

I'm talking like two nights out of ten. Oh my gosh. He'd sleep. So sleep studies at Vanderbilt and then surgeries, and all the different things. And then that led to, well, we actually also think this is happening. And it was a language processing disorder.

And then it's an intellectual disability. And then it's autism. And just the diagnoses stacking. And then more recently, of the last four years or so, he was diagnosed with a rare disease. Only 50 known cases in the world that essentially, if he were to try to run like a 40-yard dash, About halfway through his muscles would lock up

Because they don't process glycogen properly And so it goes into this process called rhabdomylosis Which you usually only see for like Olympic athletes Who are training too hard And then it floods his kidneys And can take his kidneys and his liver out Oh gosh And so our landscape of our daily life

Was just like so heavy And in the midst of that my wife, who I've got her blessing to share, my wife Tiffany, almost been married 22 years, which is, you know, a miracle in and of itself. It has been such a fun journey. But in the midst of all this intensity, she went into severe depression. Hard to get out of bed, suicidal ideation, all those things. And we were just at a breaking point.

Because if you looked on the outside of my life, you'd be like, oh man, ministry up into the right. Like, it's going really well. But at home, it was getting harder and harder every day. And just so much turmoil and suffering. And around this time, my wife found a trauma retreat center. Somebody was like, you've got to go. And she went and she came home.

And it was still a long journey for her after that. I don't want to paint it like it was easy. But I saw the new sparks of hope. for her. Okay. And she said, you've got to go too. And my response was, aren't we therapists enough as a family? Which never a good idea to invent words to debate your spouse. I just want to, hey, fellas, that's a pro tip. But I did, but my wife is such a strong force of nature personality that she said, oh, no, no, no, this is not like a dialogue we're having. This is a decision I've made that I'm catching you up on. And so I, I, I,

I went to this place and my first day there, chip on my shoulder, I'm here to get language to fix her, right? This is all about me learning a framework that will help her. Man, by the end of the second day, I was cracked open. And just weeping, knowing that I was there for me. And it reconnected me with God's unconditional love for me. And really, like, and for a year, the only scripture I could read

was the prodigal son's story and I just kept going back to the well of that beautiful story and feeling like the son who is being welcomed home despite everything falling apart but I knew I was going back to a really hard context

and so I asked the question what does it look like to live in joy when the context doesn't change and I turned my life into a joy lab and that's what this is. That's what the book's all about. Yeah, it's how to do this.

Practical, practical ways to connect with self and to connect with God in the midst of long suffering. It's a great title. No elevator. Did you think of that? No elevator to Everest. Yeah. Yeah.

You've got to walk it out. Shift from survive to thrive through spirit-led self-awareness. Yeah. Oh, that's great, man. One last question, I just have to ask. What's it like having a super famous brother? That's funny. Yeah.

One, I feel like in certain places he's really well known, and then others he's not. Yeah. And in Middle Tennessee, he's very well known. So all the time, all the time, I'm asked like, wait, are you John's brother? And so, one, I'm really glad he's my older brother. If he was my younger brother, that'd be hard. So I'm always telling myself I've got four more years to catch up. But no, I would say it is.

been a fun journey and seeing kind of the behind the scenes with his work. And then John and I have a really collaborative creative relationship because both of us are really... Yeah, he seemed wired similarly. I don't, I don't know much. I just know the name. John Acup, you know, so I don't... We're both really driven. Okay. And so we're always like, what book are you reading? What's lighting you on fire? And so we talk about that kind of stuff all the time. And then John has been a huge champion of the work of corner and a quarter. Okay. And so he's all the time, hey, man, I just spoke to this business leader. I told him what you were up to. I'm connecting you guys on a call. And so that kind of stuff. Does he live here in Tennessee? He's, he's in Franklin, which if you think

Brentwood's nice, you should see Franklin. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're right. The studio is like, right, I think we're technically in Franklin. Oh, I think we are. Yeah, yeah. Franklin is, everybody's moving to Franklin. I almost moved to Franklin. Yeah, everybody's moving to Franklin. Like we have so many transplants from California and New York, but it's awesome. Come on down, y'all. I think it's too many famously Christians. I don't know if I can, I don't know. There's a lot of that.

And some of my friends. So there's nothing. It's just like so many in one area. Yeah. I don't know if I would do well in that environment. Yeah. I will say it lends itself to really fun. I ticked off a lot of people.

I just thought of like so many people live in Franklin. Nothing, I'm not saying anything negative about it, just for me personally. Yeah. No, I will say, I think Franklin is an amazing and lovely kind of small town with high connectivity. Like it's a small town, small world. And you do have a lot of creatives from the Christian, kind of various Christian industries, if you will. Yeah. But what it leads to is you can do a lot of cross-pollination. Yeah, yeah. That's super fun. We're like, oh, hey, did you make that album? Yeah, I did. Like, oh, I'd love to talk with you about that. Does it create kind of a keeping up with the Joneses,

kind of in the Christian celebrity sense? Like, how many books have you written, you know? If you live down there, probably, but I live up in East Nashville in a low-income part of the city. And, like, I'm like, keeping up with the Joneses is not like a thing. I will say having my first book come out

and having a brother who sold like millions of copies of books, and I'm like, can we sell 3,000 books? Right? Is a thing. Yeah. But that is, it's been, he's been so supportive in helping me kind of understand that landscape. I've got a friend of Elizabeth Franklin, and she's like, I think I'm the only person in my friend group that isn't, doesn't have a book, you know. But she could get one if she wanted.

All she has to do is ask. Yeah. Oh, Will, thanks so much for being a guest, Cynthia Jera. It was fun. We finally connected last fall in person, randomly, super randomly. Had dinner together. Yeah, you've been on my radar for a while. And we share the same publisher.

So thanks to Dave C. Cook. Yeah, absolutely. Preston, thank you for having me. I really appreciate your work. We'll do it against it, then. Yeah.