EXPERIENCE 27 | God's Business - Planting and Growing a Church with Pastors Aaron Santini & Daniel Smith

Welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast with LOCO Think Tank Founder Kurt Bear. Listen in as Kurt digs deep into the business and life stories of business owners and thought leaders at different stages of growth from all walks of life. Launching and growing anything can be a crazy experience, so expand your thinking and level up your understanding of what it takes to find success in the world of free enterprise. Welcome back to the LOCO Experience Podcast. My guests today are my pastors of my church, or a pair of them anyway. Aaron Santini and Daniel Smith. Hello. Welcome. And Aaron's the head pastor, I guess, founding pastor of the Crossing Church. And Daniel is one of the many other pastors, but maybe the main, well, there's a couple main other guys, right? Yeah, jack of all trades, jack of all trades. Yeah, that's what you need. That's what you need. So we're going to jump into first. Why don't you guys just describe your roles, your world, like what do you do? Aaron, you start. Sure. As you said, my name's Aaron Santini, first and foremost, obviously, I'm a follower of Christ, married to my wife. We just celebrated 25 years, been together 30 years, met in college, first day of school, and college we met, and the rest is history, so to speak. So that was, we're going on 26 years this year. Got five kiddos, and I've been passed from the crossing. We planted the crossing 11 years ago, as a church plant. It was myself, my family of seven and two other ladies. And by God's grace, we're still, we're still plugging away, you know, 11 years later. And my main role is just kind of teaching leadership, church planting, is kind of the three areas in which I kind of zero in on. And then we got Daniel Smith to my right here. Yeah, what do you do on their day? Yep, yep. So my name is Daniel. Again, follower of Jesus. And I got started at the crossing pretty early on. And my main role is to invest in the younger leaders, as well as I do a lot of the behind the scenes, kind of non-profit, business world, marketing, business manager type stuff, all sorts of stuff, yeah. Fair enough. We would say administration, it would be one of the terms we'd use for Daniel's talents, where I'm not administrative whatsoever. Yeah, very, very small. Pinky. So Daniel, and that's the guy we have Rich Gardner and Joey Nichols. Rich is also on staff, and then Joey Nichols is what we call layout, or he works a day job as a full-time job. And he's more of a counselor type. And then Rich is also kind of a jack of all trades master of none. And he's a teacher, some discipleship, and creates some other, obviously some other ministry, such as our life group, small group ministry, insurance ministry. And the other folks preach from time to time as well, they're not such pastors. They're trainees. You know, and I think we might get in this maybe, but as part of a church planning church, we want to create new business, so to speak, by planning churches. And so we have a pastors leadership institute that we start and we train up men that go through a two-year process plus. And if we want to plant churches, we need a pastors to preach, and part of them preaching is learning the skill. And so we use the crossing church as an opportunity for them to exercise that skill. And we get feedback from the body and others. And so that's just part of the process of becoming a church planning church. You need people that can preach. And to give people, to make people preach, you've got to give them the ability and opportunity to preach. And that's how you get better by repetition, so. Fair enough. Yeah, man. Daniel, do you remember the first time you preached? I do remember the first time that I preach. I was so nervous and santeeing calm my nerves by providing a hockey stick for me, right at the beginning, which that's pretty familiar for me with my background. It was probably the worst sermon I've ever preached, but hey, you got to start somewhere. Yeah. One pastor says your first 200 sermons suck. So there you go. What do you think you're at here? Well, hopefully, I think I'm getting, I think I'm pushing my 20 years of ministry close to 500, but some might stay say they still suck. Yeah, I don't know. Three and a half stars. I don't know. No, no more than that. There's a lot of churches I could go to. Yeah, but it's definitely a growing process. Yeah, for sure. For sure. All life long, right? Absolutely. It was that pastoring part of your family growing up or anything negative ghost rider. That pattern is full as we would say, as Tom Cruise is general or maybe commander would say in top gun. No, my dad actually my dad and mom were from back east Pittsburgh area, Pennsylvania. My dad was a wood stalker. He was he was a hippie and artist and he'd paint bodies when he'd go away to like Atlantic City, New Jersey, and he's a surrealist. And so that was his background. And then my mom kind of grew up in a more of a traditional family in the sense that they don't have some grocery stores back east. Then they got married and then they moved out to Arizona. And then he was he was an artist and actually worked with his hands. He was working in a business called Concrete Design, so he'd create all kinds of pillars and patterns for buildings and houses and stuff. A little more into the family later as well. And how about you Daniel? What did your pastoring roots come from? Yeah, it definitely wasn't growing up. I studied business here at CSU. I got a marketing degree and helped a friend start an online marketing business. And we were doing social media before everyone was doing social media. We were pumping concerts on my space and Facebook before Twitter was even on the scene. I was doing ministry on the side and lived with Aaron, which is a different story. Well, we might get into that too. Yeah, had had an opportunity to learn ministry firsthand and the Lord affirmed a call and decided to step into it. Yeah, I remember you probably maybe remember even Aaron shortly after Daniel came on the scene. I don't know, we had a chance to connect and I don't think Daniel and I even connected in person yet, but I've always considered myself a I've got a special talent to identify a special talent. And I pulled you aside. I was like that Daniel guy. He's a keeper. He's a keeper. He is a man. He is a keeper. Even after some of the interesting things we found out that he did it when he lived with us. Oh, goodness. Yeah. So I mean, hey, you know, pastures, this is part of the process. He'll throw some days my way. We love to dig each other. But he has curly hair like my wife has curly hair. And one of his secrets to keeping his locks beautiful before he met his beautiful wife, Michelle, was he'd put mayonnaise in his hair. Oh, and I was like, okay, buddy. Well, that's something new. Yeah. So Aaron has five kids. And when I lived with them, they were all living at home. And I was in the basement. And one day I heard a trick for curly hairs to put mayonnaise in your hair. So his kiddo saw that and it spread like a wildfire pretty pretty soon. Everybody in the house was in the downstairs bathroom looking at me with mayonnaise in my hair. To this day, I haven't lived it down. Well, I'll maybe suggest that to my wife she has curly hair too. Yeah. Yeah. So what I want to do is get kind of go to the way back a little bit. Let's let's talk about that upbringing a little bit more from you. Aaron and really finding Christ in your life and then, you know, building yourself into the kind of a leader that could plant a church. Sure. Sure. So and then we'll bring a long Daniel along the way and let him chime in as well. But you're in Arizona now growing up playing baseball. Yeah. So we moved out to San Arizona when I was about six years old. And my mom had real bad asthma and allergies. I mean, she was on the extreme end on both of those. So like growing up, we couldn't have any kind of pets with hair. So we had like hermit crabs and lizards. Right. And so that's why we moved out to Arizona just partly for her for her health, dryer climate, et cetera. And so, I don't know, we were probably in about, you know, roughly the third grade where, you know, they said, hey, we got to get some good influence on myself and my brother. And so they sent us to vacation Bible school with this small little little church in Tucson, Arizona, called Elim in the desert. And so we went there and had a great time. And then through that my parents started getting involved in a church. They just had friendly people, very friendly congregation reached out to them and they started going. And so that's how we got involved in church. And how did your dad react to that? That's old hippie artist surrealist kind of guy. Oh, yeah. I think it was just ready. He was time for it. I mean, he lived that lifestyle and and understood, you know, just yeah, they seek in the brokenness, the emptiness. And so he was looking for something else and and a Christ called him and he came to faith through that church. And and often used his talents, artistry for a purpose. And now he's a he's a what he's called mid mid evil surrealist penis that that shows in Boston and New York and some of that kind of stuff. But that's a whole nother, another, another story. But yeah, we started going through the church. And in the third grade, in the third grade, the Lord blessed me with athletic ability. So I had my autograph done. I had, I had 10 different signatures. And I said, I'm going to play professional ball, who'd be football, baseball, basketball, soccer, whatever had my autograph done. And that was my passion all the way up, you know, through middle school and high school and the Lord, you know, was blessed me, even though I wasn't a Christian, but I was still going to church. And then came to my senior year where I was one of the top recruits in Arizona for football and baseball. And had schools like USC, Nebraska, Florida, Washington, just won the National Championship in four and in football. Those kinds of schools looking at me to play both football and baseball and but I was, I was in eligible. That's a whole nother, long story. And so at the beginning of my senior year, well, it was SAT, SAT, I didn't take it. So I was in eligible to to sign or no one wants to take, give a scholarship to a guy that's not eligible to sign yet when they got 20 other guys lined up ready to go. So anyway, so at the beginning of the year, here I was just, you know, all American, all over the newspapers, all that kind of stuff. I thought I was in control of my life. And to the end of the year, my brother made a, you know, younger brother just said, hey, you're so big and bad, you know, and he said, you're going to go to a junior college, which nothing wrong with going to junior college. But when you compare going to baseball at Pima, junior college, as opposed to Texas A&M, Florida, or yeah. So I was just, I lost it. I put my hand through the wall, ran in my room. And because all this time, I just saw my dreams kind of slipping away. And I had no control. I had no control. And so my dad came in and I thousand get, you know, a little, a little, a little love from pops, you know, by the woodshed, behind the woodshed kind of deal. Cause I put a hole in the wall and, you know, it wasn't, and he just saw a sudden broke, you know, and he talked to me. We talked about the gospel. And then that night, you know, I just, I just, uh, when we in Christianies called born and get out repent of my sins, I said, man, I can't, I can't run in my own life. I need help. I can't do this on my own. I recognize myself. It's just my sin, my, my idolatry with athletics and a number of other things. So I just, so I give that up. I want to follow you. And, and that next morning, I woke up with an incredible common piece. You know, the night before, just, just an emotional wreck. Yeah. Just an emotional wreck that I just had a common piece. Because again, I'm, I'm going to church and I'm missing the sermons and for whatever some, some scripture came to mind that just gave me, the gospel just gave me a piece of surpasses I understand. And I said, the Lord's in control. And I'm just going to walk this walk. And so I ended up becoming eligible. I did take my ACTs and passed them so I could become eligible. I ended up getting a division one scholarship to play the baseball at the University of New Mexico. I went there, uh, played three years. First, like I said, I met my wife at the very first class. I went in to class with no paper, no pencil. Cause I was there in a major in eligibility, get drafted as a junior and then go play pro ball. That was my plan. And so the very first class, the teacher said, Hey, take out a piece of paper in a pencil. We're going to write an essay. I'm like, what the, what, what, what's going on here? You know, and so I turned. And it's Augustin, Albuquerque, New Mexico. So it's hot. It's beautiful. And I turned. I just see this beautiful tan little foot. And I just fall out this nice little beautiful calf. This nice little beautiful thigh care for you. I know. Hey, I'm just saying. And then I kept on and here's this beautiful woman. And she's like, do you need a piece of paper in a pencil? I'm like, wow, she's smart, too perceptive. That's not all I need. That's not all that's going. And, uh, and I was like, yes. And so, um, that was my wife. That's how we first met. And, uh, you know, well, it's a love story. The love story. But let's contrast you Daniel a little bit. Your family, um, and background and things like that as well. Yeah. Yeah. So I actually was born in Pennsylvania as well, but moved to the Dallas area when I was about five years old. My dad got a job transfer. He worked in the same industry, HR for 35 years. Pretty, pretty incredible, especially for me, a millennial. You don't really see that right in my generation. But, uh, grew up in the Dallas area. I was really into sports. I played hockey all throughout high school. Yes. There is hockey down in Texas. In case you're wondering, Dallas stars, they moved from Minnesota where they actually do play hockey. And then they, and then they won the Stanley Cup right after. Yeah. So I'm actually kind of the fruit of them winning the cup. And hockey just blew up in the Dallas area. And so I love hockey, but I did not love school. And, uh, I wanted to go play hockey after high school. Go play junior hockey and maybe try to make it professionally. But I got a tooth knocked out, uh, the summer before my senior year in a hockey fight. And my dad was like, are you an idiot? And I, I said, no, I'm not an idiot. But he's like, okay, well, then you're going to get in college education. And so I applied to Texas Tech and Colorado State. And I don't even know if I got into Texas Tech, but Colorado State said, yeah, we love out of state tuition. Come on in. Right. My, my parents let me. And, but it was God's providential hand directing my steps. And I made the hockey team here at CSU. It's club team, but it was the highest competition I had ever played in the Dallas area. And, uh, teammate on, on that team, um, he invited me to a Bible study. And initially, you want to shout him out? Yeah, his name is Doug Les. She actually works for the Forest Service. He lives up in Summit County these days. We, we stay in touch. But Doug, I, I knew something was different in Doug's life because he wasn't partying with us anymore on the hockey team. Uh, I, I didn't necessarily think he found religion in quotes. Right. But, uh, Doug invited me to a Bible study. And I was just at a point in my life where I was asking a lot of questions. Yeah. I had lived to the athlete lifestyle, partied hard. I had all these girls that my heart desired. And I just said, man, there's got to be more to life than this. And so Doug was like, Hey, how about you come to this Bible study? And I was like, I don't know, man, but he was real persistent. And so I went. And I'm walking into this Bible study. And I've got this huge afro on my head on this hippie hockey player and pot smoking guy. And I'm like, these guys aren't going to accept me. So I sit down at the kitchen table and they start feeding me pancakes, which that's the key to my heart as through my stomach. And then the guy said, next to me, he's like, you play hockey? I was like, yeah, but it's club hockey. It's not that big of a deal. And he's like, I love hockey. And there is an instant connection. And so we started talking about the avalanche and professional hockey and all sorts of stuff. And the Lord really used that to kind of call my nerves. And then we spread out in the living room and we started opening up the Bible. And I had never really done this. Yeah. And you never went to church as a kid. Your folks never did. Christmas and Easter kind of thing. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. We went to church a little bit. Methodist church. My parents split up when I was in sixth grade and went to the Catholic church a little bit, got confirmed. And so I was somewhat familiar with religion, but a personal relationship with Jesus. Yeah. Let alone reading the Bible. No category for those things. Yeah. And so when I see these guys in this Bible study when I'm in college, opening up the scriptures, and these are like normal dudes. They're not like some weird guys who just need flenders. Yeah. It's actually they're really personable and friendly, but then they have this reverence to the scripture. And I was like, this is different. And so then when I begin to hear them talk and how they want to apply the Bible to their life, I had never really thought about that. I just thought it was a dusty old book that maybe had some good sayings and how to get right with God. But when I realized that you're right with God not by obeying the Bible, but by believing in Jesus and what he's done on our behalf through dying on the cross. Yeah. Said, yeah, I'm a sinner. Yeah. I believe that Jesus died for my sins. And I gave my life to Jesus. And I mean, my life was transformed and changed from that day forward. And these guys as they begin to begin to know my lifestyle and the girls that I would sleep with and the party and that I would do, they loved me and accepted me. They didn't necessarily approve of my lifestyle. So to speak. And they helped me kind of shed some of that but they cared for me. They didn't want me to be just a notch on their belt. But they genuinely loved me. I like that notion. And I think it's important for especially non-Christian listeners is that the Bible isn't the wisdom necessarily. In a lot of respects, the wisdom is Christ, the word, but the Bible is what kind of what proves that Jesus is who he said he was in many respects and validates his ascendancy. Yeah, absolutely. And so that's awesome. And how long did you just dribble out slowly from the pot smoking and the girl chasing in the party? And well, I would say that happened the summer before my senior year at Colorado State. But my senior year, I still lived with the hockey players. I didn't play on the hockey team. But they saw a difference in me. Yeah. And it was attractive to them in some regards and it was unattractive in other regards. Sure. It opened up an opportunity to really explain to them like what Jesus had done in my life and in my heart and why I wanted to follow him in his ways and not my own ways. Yeah. And then I eventually opened up a door to moving into Aaron's basement, I gather. Yeah. And what's even interesting about that is this is just another take. Daniel, we read a house when we first moved the four Collins after I got done planning the twins and going through some of that stuff to to a ministry called a fellowship of Christian athletes up here. Yeah. And we were renting a house off a West Stewart. And Daniel actually was living basically across the street. Oh, really? Right. We were we were kind of a cornerhouse and they were living across the street. And I didn't know him or didn't know him. I just knew they were like five crazy dudes and they were always, you know, parties and parties and hockey players. And they had they had a bunch of cars over there on Friday nights. And at our house with FCA, we had a bunch of cars and things we'd have, you know, 30 to 50 division one CSU athletes at our house on Friday nights from seven a.m. to two a.m. And so he's looking at our house going, what the heck is going on over there? I'm looking at his house and what the heck is going on over there because sometimes they're they're, you know, their cars will be parking along our fence. And both and somebody that guy gets out and you're like, which house is he going to go to? And we never had any interaction that they moved, they moved out of that house. You know, you know, just short and a short time that we were there. And then, and then by God's grace, he brought us full circle at a later place. Another place. I don't know if I ever told you this story. But when you guys got Betis as a puppy, I remember engaging with your kids. And I'm pretty sure it was Taylor and JT. And it was just this one quick interaction. But they were like, look how big his paws are. And I was like, that's the biggest puppy I've ever seen. Yeah. So we had Betis Jerome Betis. We're from the Pittsburgh area. So he's an English master. And so when he was a puppy, we got him. He was probably 60 pounds, 40 to 60 pounds at that point. Whoa. Yeah. And he ended up being to 200 to 20. So let's, let's back up in time just a little bit to do the setup for the FCA role and things like that. But Aaron, why don't you take us to, I guess take us to the twins, like take us to baseball. Yeah. So I came to faith my, let's say my senior year in high school. And I got sent out to the wilderness, so to speak, you're going to college as a young athlete. And I had, I had a couple one, one friend that was playing on that team. But, you know, college, you're a single young man. You're going to, you know, a baseball athletics and all that stuff. And, and so it was, it was, as Daniel said, there were a lot of, a lot of ladies around and a lot of parties around and all that kind of stuff. And, and so got engaged in that, ended up playing three years, was drafted my junior year. But you were dating Rita not too long after. Yeah. We, we, you know, what's funny is, it is funny. My wife is an awesome lady. And, but when she, when we met, she didn't know Jesus. And so she was actually hanging out and dating another dude when she met me. So she was kind of, you know, doing two things at the same time. She just gave you a paper and pencil. Yeah. And I had like five on this, you know, five, not five on the side. But, you know, I mean, we're, we were like, Hey, we don't want to commit right now because college and we want to, and so we had that understanding. Yeah. But then after the first semester, after I found out she was hanging out with some dudes and she found out I was hanging out with some women, we're like, all right, wait a second. So I want to, I want to jump into this a little bit here, because I know a number of not, I know a lot of non-Christians. And part of what they really uh, challenge, if you will, is, well, I like a lot of what the God stuff says, but the no-sex before marriage thing is a little awkward. And I'm not sure I can bite into that. And both of you are describing situations where you were saved. And then you still chase girls and did things for a while. Like, talk to me about that. Yeah. There's a process of what's called sanctification. Okay. And obviously, uh, no man is perfect. There's only one perfect man, the man Christ Jesus, who knew no sin. And when he was living on this earth, he lived the perfect life in our place, life that we're supposed to live, but he, but we can't because of this thing called sin. And so there's a sanctification is a big word. It means becoming more like Christ and there's a growth. We start out as infants. Yeah. Someone comes to faith. As I said, as a senior, I was, it was a baby. Yeah. And there's a process of growth and maturity that has to happen. And um, you know, even part of that, like Rita didn't know the Lord. And I knew, you know, scripture says you're not called to even data nonbeliever, right? Because your two values and worldviews go in different directions, but you're also called to not sleep with believers and you're not exactly. So I was, there's multiple ways that it was breaking and sinning. And, um, and it was a growth process. And I went to actually, so I'll tie this in. So I was drafted my junior at the twins. And then, we went, I went to a conference called professional athlete outreach. It was just for professional baseball players and have it for football. They have it for hockey and basketball and stuff. And I was there and, and, and some of this got exposed because I was living with Rita even at the same time, you know, and we're not married. And I knew it wasn't, wasn't the best, the one, the one thing's like, well, shouldn't you live with someone before and try it out to see if it works. Well, the highest, the highest rate of divorce is people that live together outside of marriage. Totally. I told my parents that like my second or third year of college, and I wasn't faithful, but I was like, well, it would be dumb to marry somebody if you haven't lived the thing for a while. Yeah. And that was kind of the vernacular. And my mom was like, no. No. And that's the highest percentage of people that get divorced, right? People that do that. So even just read and I, I mean, we did it so backwards. And yet, God's grace is just all over that because we're still together. As I said, we're celebrating 26 years of marriage and 30 years together. And as I tell people, it's been 24 of the greatest years of my life. And she'd probably tell you, it's been 20 of the greatest years of her life, meaning there's some tough years. Yeah. Because of our sin, because of the way we did act before, we brought that into the marriage and that, and there had to be a lot of what called defragging. Yeah. Because that's not sin never leads to joy, sin leads to death and destruction. And so as you, as you point out, we did it wrong. And protections with consequences, like there were consequences for you. And so I'm at this conference. And this one, the guy that is from Albuquerque, a player played for the Yankees and a number of things in World Series MVP. And we were close. We were, we were friends. You want to call him out or you'll out too? Yeah, his name, his name is John Wendell. He's going through some crazy stuff right now, some crazy stuff. But it's not true. But it's crazy stuff. Anyways, you know, that's a whole nother ball wax. But yeah, he's a great, he's a, at that point, he said, what you're living with Rita and you're doing this, but you know, that's not right. And you know, that's not right. And he gave me some scripture and we talked about it. And he goes, so this is what I'm going to do. So now I did, he just, now he did, he rebuked me with scripture, which was good. What we called to do. But then he said, and you're going to come live with me. Yeah. He gave me an option to pull me out of. And so I'm like, well, I'm going to go from apartment to like, you know, 10,000 square foot home. I'm in. And when I told Ria, she was like, who's this dude? You're right. But anyways, it was just, it was just part of the process of us growing in, in what we call the sanctification and, and, and seeing our sin, repenting of our sin, and then, and then turning from that action and walking to different path. Yeah. Repentance, right? Repentance. Yeah. Yeah. Anything to chime in there on that topic before I let Aaron set up the story a little more. Yeah. Well, what you, what you described is oftentimes, many people don't choose to follow Jesus because they think Christianity will be the straight jacket in their life. And they have preconceived notions of, oh, if I'm going to be a Christian, then I have to live X, Y, or Z way. And to be honest, I, I thought that for a while. And when I started to read the Bible and see what God actually calls us to, yeah, there, there is this element of a higher standard. But what I didn't understand is that God will give you grace and he's patient. And that's why the church is so important to help. Just like Aaron described to John wetland, coming alongside him. I had many guys that came alongside me and they helped me kind of rewire my brain and how I viewed women. And also helped me understand life isn't for Daniel. Life is meant to live for the glory of God. And when you have a paradigm shift like that, then you see the commandments and scripture as joy and you want to obey and knowing that you won't perfectly. Right. But God will meet you along the way and help you and he's patient and he's gracious. That's a hopefully over time. You see growth. For sure. And I think I've chime in there and in thinking that a lot of people would say that Bible is like a big propaganda book, right? Of sorts, except for like the greatest hero of the Bible, David probably loved almost most by God of men, murdered somebody cheated on his wife with somebody's wife. And that's what's kind of amazing about the Bible is that if it was propaganda, it would kind of edit some of that stuff out. It's very raw. It's very raw. It's very real. And the thing about the scriptures as we alluded to, it's God's word that takes us on this path. But it gives us a playbook, so to speak, in my athletic vernacular. And the things that tells us what to do and what not to do, it's again, not as Dan said to put a straight jacket on us and it'd be a killjoy. No, the commands of the Lord lead to life and joy and abundance. And so when we talk about sex outside of marriage, again, anyone who's ever walked in that lifestyle understands the pain and hurt that comes with that. And so when you commit yourself to one woman for me or one spouse for the rest of the year, I mean, that's just it's just for the rest of your life. For the rest of your life, at least the rest of the year. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. No, I think that's I think that statement was freedom in that. And there's joy and abundance. Jesus says that he came to give life and life abundantly. So yeah, and I would just add to that, like if we're going down this track of having sex with people outside of marriage, it's this constant hamster wheel of your own performance or the other person's performance. And you're never living up to a standard or they're never living up to a standard. But when you enter into a monogamous relationship bound by the covenant of marriage, there's this freedom. There's this acceptance. There's this joy that Aaron described. And it's good. Yeah. And I would agree. Yeah, that's a it's pretty very. This is probably a whole another podcast. I'm sure we'll have a marriage podcast another time. You get to experience and learn one another for a lifetime. Yeah, with that commitment that if I goof it up this time, it ain't over. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, from a pastor's perspective, if you if you see a young couple that are dating in the church and you come to suspect that they're also sleeping together or whatever, like you still look upon them with love and grace. Oh, yeah. And perhaps offer them a chance to reconsider. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. Because for their own good, not because you're want to be a killjoy, but it's going to be better for you. Or we're expecting perfection. Or some sort of performance. Right. Real quick, Kurt, when we do premarital, we talk about a number of different things. And this is one of the things. And and and here's the thing in particular for for women, if they haven't sex before marriage, we say, Hey, man, this is not good. It's not difficult for a number of reasons. But here's the here's the one reason why this woman needs to know that you love her for more than what you can give what she can give you. And you just see, you just see women just like break when that is because for them, it's like, if I don't do this, I'm going to lose it. Right. And they need to know that no. Yeah. He loves you for who you are and not what you can give us. Maybe more private than Jill would prefer to share. We we slept together. I wasn't a Christian when we started seeing each other. She was. But we did, we did 60 days of celibacy before we got married. Yeah. And I'm so glad that we did. It's like one of the most important things that we did. Yeah. And so, you know, in my case, if they listen to this, they're going to be sick and grossed out. But you know, Rita and I, I mean, our sex life now is so much better even before when we start out, because no, we understand one another. We, I mean, just, there's love. There's passion. There's emotion. I'm serving her. She's serving me. It's a, it's a beautiful thing. You want to describe it in any detail for your kids? Well, you know, I'm just teasing. I'm kidding. There's a whole book in the Bible that describes it. Yep. Called the Simon Solomon. Yeah. Right. So Aaron, let's, let's get us into the setup of the plant and the process. You mentioned FCA and stuff. But so you played, you, you go through college, you're, you're not married yet, but married soon after college, I gather. Yep. So describe that period of life and you had a pretty short baseball career. But yeah, yeah, talk about that. Yeah. So I got drafted my junior year and then I played two years because I got hurt immediately. No. And, uh, and high school and college is pretty healthy. But as soon as I hit proball, I got hurt. Started breaking down. I started breaking down. By start breaking down. Which happens? That's just part of part of it. And so, um, and again, to me, when I look back, it's just a large process of him starting to guide my life in a different direction. And so, um, I, I had to go back, because I signed as a junior, so I had to go back to school, University of Mexico, to finish up my degree, my degree with communications. I picked that degree on like, what is the lease? What is the degree that has the lease amount of math in it? They said communications. I said, give me that. Right. So I do that unbeknownst to me that I'm going to be using people like, what, what are you going to get a communications degree before? I'm like, I don't communicate. Right. Everybody's got a communicate, right? What's that communicate? So anyways, so yep, got down with the twins. And again, since the third grade, I had a monograph done, and I thought, I'm going to play 10 years in the big leagues, retire, and be off. Well, got a different plan. And so I had to figure out what I was going to do. So I did a number of things. Went back, finished up my degree, started cutting turf, lawn care while I finished it up school, ended up working at Burlington Coat Factory. So here I go from a professional baseball player to talking to old ladies about thread counts and humility covers. Oh my gosh, yeah, ate some humble pie. Oh man. I ate a lot of it. You know, it's so good for you though. I was really good. Mine is different. You know, I had 35 years of really mostly things working out pretty good. And I try to start my food truck restaurant thing. And they had just humble pie on the menu for years. You guys were there. Yeah. And so, so yeah, did that and did enterprise rent a car. I sold cars. I did a bunch of stuff. And all the while I was I was involved in serving in fellowship with Christian athletes leading a couple Bible studies with some athletes there at El Dorado High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and soft fruit. People were coming. They were growing and these these these young men and women they were responding. And I and I got up and there was a there's a passion for it that I didn't really know was a passion. Yeah. And all the while just in sports, one theme is is is leadership. I mean, you learn leadership in sports left right. I mean, every day you learn leadership principle. It seems like it. So the Lord was was just growing me in leadership and development. And not only that a lot of these a lot of my sports career, a lot of things that I would do is I would be part of starting something. And so that also became a theme of my chapter. Yeah, like like in youth, a little league based spot. I always get drafted first because my ability and I'd have I always get play with the worst teams with the bad news bears, but I had to lead and develop a culture there. So hey, we can compete with these other guys, you know, and then when I go to, you know, to college, it was to restart the baseball program there. They were going to cut the baseball program the year before, but, you know, and so I'm restarting that. And then I got caught in the FCA in New Mexico and I joined them as a as a full-time profession. And then I got caught up to come up to Colorado. That's what brought me up to Colorado in 2002 to revitalize a restart FCA up here in Colorado. Oh, is that right? And so you just see these themes in my in my journey of of teaching of leadership development and of starting things new always been and that that fueled me. I had a passion to start things new. Like I'm not the guy that is going to be around in one job for 20 plus years. I'm the guy's like, okay, I get something off the ground and we've had a lot of conversations about this with the crossing. This is the longest I've been, you know, at one location for a while. I'd come home every three to five years with with Reed and I had this luck and she was like, where are we going next? You know, what are we doing next? So, well, you before, I want to switch back to Daniel in a minute here, but before we do that, why don't you set up like what is FCA for people that are initiated? Yeah, good. Yeah, fellowship of Christian athletes is what it is. And it's just a, it's a it's a pair of church ministry that ministers to middle school, high school, college, and professional athletes. It basically takes the gospel and takes like an athlete like me who understands the lifestyle, understands what these, these kids and these coaches are going through and it brings the gospel to their, I can speak gospel to them and their culture and their cultural context. And so, and that's what FCA is. And so, yeah, it was a joy I got to do it for 10 plus years. And it brought you to Colorado. It brought me to Colorado from New Mexico, which is thank you, Jesus. It's, New Mexico is known as the land of enchantment and I caught the land of entrapment. Oh gosh. It could be an awesome place, but that's a whole another story. You know, I think that's like North Dakota is kind of like that too. It's nobody leaves there much because it's just that way. Daniel, your college ended up in stuff and then there's an navigators chapter in your journey as well. So, why don't you describe kind of this flow of the next couple of years? Your journey. Yeah, so my teammate Doug invited me to a Bible study that was actually a navigators Bible study. Oh. And as I got to know these guys, I quickly became friends with these guys because in contrast to my teammates on the hockey team, my teammates really enjoyed me when they got something out of me. Yeah. When, when I brought a particular benefit to their life, whether it was around the drinks or bag of pot or bringing the girls over, but you didn't have deep conversations about yeah, interesting topics or, or I would say just authentic relationship. Yeah. And so that was a stark contrast with these guys in this Bible study. And so they started inviting me around to navigator type events, whether it was things going on on campus or things off campus and quickly became friends with many of these guys and got to know some of the staff. And, and let's set up navigators too for those that don't know what, what's that organization all about? Yeah, so like Aaron said with FCA, the navigators is also a parachurch ministry, which they got started in the military and the Navy in particular, which is where they get their name from. Sure. But they have a very big presence on college campuses all over the US and really all over the world. But not so much in sports necessarily. No, that's, that's not really their niche. Their strongest niche actually is college campus ministry. Yeah, cool. So got connected with them and after volunteering with them for a year after I graduated at CSU doing the online marketing stuff on the side, the campus director came to me and said, hey, would you like to come on staff? And I was like, you want me to be a minister? Like, I just had no category for that stuff. Right. Let alone I was a very young Christian in my eyes. And, and he was very encouraging saying, Daniel, we've seen your life. We've seen how you've changed and how you want to make your life count for Jesus and how teachable and humble you are. And yeah, we'd love to have you come on staff. You just have to go raise support. Right. I was like, oh boy, what does that even mean? I mean, the majority of my contacts and life are non Christians. Now, I need to go ask them to support me to give money so that I can be freed up to spread the gospel on campus. Like, and they're like, yeah, you'll you'll do great. And so it was this huge faith journey that I had raised 30 grand. I had to come up with 60 contacts of people that I would sit down with face to face and say, here's my vision. Will you support it? Well, and God showed up in a huge way. I mean, we had non Christians come on my support team. People that I had somewhat of a relationship with, but they were more in acquaintance. They said, yeah, we want to get behind you. And to this day, there are still people that support the crossing church that were on my support team back in 2010. That was that's really cool. Yeah. Actually, while we're while we're here on you, Daniel, why don't you get a quick flyover of your business journey because you were a partner in an online marketing business. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're right out of college or during college, I guess. So again, I grew up in the Dallas area and my best friend from high school. He was connected somewhat in the social media, my space realm. This is like dating ourselves at the time. And he got connected to a concert venue there in Dallas called House of Blues. And he started pumping their shows on my space. And there was a bit of a following for. And so pretty soon, he asked the manager, House of Blues said, Hey, can you pay me for this? Right. And they were like, yes, send us a business proposal. And so that's when my friend Michael, his name, he called me up and he's like, Hey, you're not going to believe this. And he tells me the whole story. And he basically asked, Hey, can you help me with business proposal? Now, I studied business administration, concentration in marketing. But I had no idea what to do. And so I asked my dad who's in this business realm. And he's like, yeah, I can help you come up with something. And so we submit a business proposal. And they're like, great, send us a contract. And I was like, uh, which uh, Michael's wife had an uncle or something that was a lawyer. And so we got a contract written up. And we, we land this, this gig, this concert venue. And we're, and mainly Michael, he's promoting these shows on social media. And so pretty soon word is spreading that House of Blues Dallas is doing something different. Yeah. And so pretty soon we get House of Blues Houston and Boston and Cleveland and New Orleans. And once those started to fall, Michael was like, Hey, I need help. Right. And at this point, I graduated at CSU. I still lived in Fort Collins. And I worked out my basement. And I was pumping, uh, tickets out on social media for these different concert venues. And it was the coolest thing. Oh, so people would actually go through your site and buy it to get from you virtually or you access the ticket system or whatever. Yeah. So you could kind of prove the traffic that you were providing or whatever being go over time it evolved. And we were able to track via links and things like that that it did come back. But this is when my space and Facebook eventually Twitter came on the scene. And uh, and it was around that time that I connected with Aaron. And I was on staff with the navigators and didn't really know much about local church ministry or anything like that. But I knew that the church that Aaron started the crossing, they had a passion for the word of God. And they also had a passion to live in community. I mean, it was the very thing that Jesus used to attract me to himself. Yeah. And I said, I want to be a part of that. Very cool. So let's, let's talk about that that founding time period then. Because you came up to Fort Collins. You spent actually when I first went to the crossing church or mentioned your name. I was surprised how many kind of business leaders around the community knew of you. I'm gonna think about Rayna Cesar as one of them. I remember. Oh, yeah. And he was a board member and a client of mine at the bank and stuff. And he's like, yeah, that Santini guy. He's a good good one. Rayna's, oh man, he's all time. Yeah. He totally is. Yeah, I will share that a little bit. And I want to change one other thing with my, with my story that was really formative. Going into my draft year at the University of New Mexico, you can, as soon as you sign a division one, you got to wait to your junior year to get drafted. And so going on my draft year, I came out of the Alaska summer league as one of the top short stops in the country to get drafted. And so I go home for Christmas break. And Christmas Eve, my dad and mom usually go this party. I'm going to go hang with the fellas. We'll see you in the morning. We open our presents on Christmas morning, not Christmas Eve, you know. And I get a call like three hours later. And it's my dad just weeping. And my mom had a allergic reaction at the party. And she died. And so that was just like, that hit me like a ton of bricks, obviously. And some crazy things happened. I was devastated. Devastated. And at the same time, I had a piece because she knew Jesus. I knew where she was. And I was liking it. There's a saying that that people were, a kid had a, was that a funeral and people were coming to him. Sorry for your loss. Sorry for your loss. And he looked up and said, Hey, something's not loss if you know where it is. Yeah. And that's where that piece comes. It's like, I knew where she was. You know. And so I had a piece obviously devastated. And at that point, the Lord started to change my passions. He, you know, he kind of took, took my vision off my dreams and kind of, and as I was delighting him, he kind of gave me his desires and passions for my life, which is way more better. And so as I just looked back on my life, now and, and it's like, man, my life is so much better. And I couldn't have written it any better than if I was with the Minnesota twins for 10 years or 15 years and graduated, made all that millions of dollars. The experiences and the track that he has put my life, I wouldn't change it. I won't change it. So I get on the FCA. And part of FCA is, as you got to raise support, as Daniel was talking about, I call it, you got shake hands and kiss babies. Right. Ministry partners. I call it. You got to shake babies and kiss hands. I do too. Yeah. Kiss and hands and shaking babies. And that won't get you anything, but in jail. But, but, but yeah, that was one of the things is I got to, I got to, I got to experience some incredible business leaders in the community. You mentioned Ray No Cesar, other guys that were kind of on our Colorado board would be guys like Joe Cours, of course, Brewing Company, Paul LeWon of the, LeWon business solutions, John Bandamere, Bandamere Speedway. I mean, I can go, I mean, we're talking about some of the who's who in business worldwide. Right. You know, and I see these guys, they're leading these companies that have a love and a passion for Christ and for leadership. But not only that, but then also training up a younger generations. And so with, with FCA, that's how I got in the business community. But the one thing that the Parachurch Ministry that was different than the church is FCA kind of walk through life with a certain segment of people, certain demographic of period of time. And for a period of time. And I was getting a little bit older, you know, we're like, we had five kids, five in seven years. And so there are some things happening. It's like, man, and I always know that the the number one plan for the Kingdom of God is churches. That's where that's where his plan revolves around his churches and how he gets his message out and makes disciples, et cetera. And the Parachurch is awesome. It's a supplement of that. We see them more as missionaries. But the church, which is his number one way in which he gets his message in Kingdom of God. The stable foundation, exact life of Christ following, right? Absolutely. And so, and the other thing that drew me to it is I got with FCA, again, it was a certain demographic of, you know, middle school to adulthood. Where the church, you get to walk with people from birth to death. And not only that, but then just really, I was influencing men to be better husbands and fathers, but in the church, you get to influence men, women, families for generations upon generations upon generations. And that, that's what drew me to the to the local body. And so the Lord just brought me through this process to plant the churches. FCA was great. It was rolling. It's still going great today. We had some tremendous, tremendous fruit. Yeah. I mean, I see, you know, guys, a much more visible organization. Oh, man, 20 years ago around here. Yeah. And it's just, and God honored that. But I wanted to, I wanted to be in one little local spot and just really minister to people from birth to death. And that's what made me come and plant a church. Plus, the excitement of starting a new venture again. Again, FCA, I was, I was a 10 plus years into it. And all of a sudden, it's like, oh, church planning. Right. Well, let's talk to the crossway network. And how did you bump into those guys? I guess just through FCA circles or whatever. But well, that came through. Yeah. So when I first came up here, I was part of a church called Providence Bible Church and got trained up and discipled there. Some, some philosophy issues. And, you know, which is fine. So I went in a different direction. And another church was, was called Mountain View Community Church. That's around here. So there Tom Harker started Mountain View, which started the Crossway Chapel Network. And then with them, again, this church plan idea, Tom just went to, who was the founding pastor of Mountain View, just was going to Wilmington, North Carolina to plan church. And so I was actually, I took a trip out there to maybe see if I was joining him in that endeavor. And the Lord didn't work it out. East Coast is great to visit. I do not want to live on the East Coast. You know, so I was like, man, I love Colorado. I want to come back here. So I won't start going to Mountain View. And just for short season, then all of a sudden, because I was still part of SCA at that time, all of a sudden, we were going to plan church in Greeley, this guy named Willio Burke. And because of my connections in Greeley with SCA at UNC, I was the football chaplain, had a lot of connections there. I joined up with Willie to start this new church in Greeley, okay, called Crossway Greeley. And so I was there for two or three years. So I was living in Fort Collins, doing SCA in Fort Collins, and in Greeley and commuting. The goal was probably to stay over in Greeley and take over the church. But again, the Lord did not, our life was here in Fort Collins. So then in about three years, I, well, I'm a plant church back in Fort Collins. And that's what brought me back to Fort Collins to plant the crossing here. And that was all part of the Crossway Chapel Network, because Mountain View and Crossway Chapel Greeley, Willie came from Windsor Church. They're all part of the same network. So do you want to differentiate that network at all? Or it's probably not important for this podcast, actually. But let's talk about one of the reasons I wanted to have you honest, because people don't know that starting a church is a very entrepreneurial venture. What is it like? Like, let's talk through that first month or two or three or six or whatever, and kind of 18, 18, whatever. Yeah. So in this encircle me a little bit, like, what's the timeline on this? You said 11 years ago. Yeah. So 2010. Yep. That's when we were officially sent out. That's good. Better me. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. That's exactly right. In 2010, we were officially launched or sent out from Greeley. But this process started in 2009 in our home and what we call a small, small, low group, small group house in our house in a Bible study. But yeah, there's several, there's several connections between starting a church and starting a business. When we take it all the way back to the creation mandate in Genesis, where we're called to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth. It's where we're called to create culture and to create, you know, life and all different areas of this world. And part of building the kingdom of God is obviously planning churches. And so first of all, it's just a desire to do good for the city. Yeah. And add value. Exactly. Right. The reason, you know, part of the reason why people start jobs is they think they can add value to the community. And obviously, our conviction is that the biggest value that the church adds is the gospel of Christ and the Bible and the scripture and peace. Connection to one another and connection and community. I mean, there's so many different benefits to the city. So that's, that's number one. The church is a vital. If you look, if you look over history, we have some, you know, we have some bumps in the road. But by far, the Christian church has been just a pillar of the driver of almost most of the good things, of most of the good things of humanity, schools, medicine, and hospital. I mean, sure. Yeah. Anyways, racial freedom, yeah, I mean, there's a, absolutely. And so, so that, there's like, there's a carry over there. Just I want to do good to the city. And then too, there's just a, there's a drive in the passion that you got to, you know, get the word out. And so how do you get the word out marketing? It is marketing. And here's the thing about the church is the gospel is, is a message that most people don't want to deal with her. Right. And that's it's all marketing, marketing too, right? So it's really not marketing its sales. Yeah. You know, it's relationship sales. Sure. In a way, we do a lot of marketing a little bit of think tank, but nobody really responds much to it. It just makes it easier for the sales guy that people have heard of it before. When, when we come along and have a coffee, the beautiful thing is always when you, you, you, you engage with someone that doesn't know Jesus, they come to know Jesus and the spirit and dwells in there by word, and their lives are transformed. Can't argue with that. Yeah. That's, that's, you know, so that's part of the, the, I guess, when you, the value of proposition. Yeah. There you go. The, you know, people see like, Oh, I want that. Yeah. Because I don't have that. And I want that. And so there's, there's, there's part of that. And then of course, there's the biggest thing also is leadership development. Sure. That's a massive part. We're called the, the great commandment. It's a love God. Love your neighbor. So they're serving again, the good of community, we talked about, but then also the, the great commands go and make disciples. And that's just, that's mentorship. That's training up men and women. And so there's so much leadership principles that are in, in eight and all that stuff. Yeah. And so leadership is another thing that kind of, maybe connects the two as well. Well, there's self leadership in that as well, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, there's, then there's the whole side of, of will, determination. You know, obviously, you're following, you had the playbook given to you by the lord in the, in the Bible, the preaching of the word, the prayers, the fellowship, and some of that stuff. It's, it's kind of set up. But how I put my, and we put our, you know, our personalities into how that looks. That's why there's different churches because there's different personalities, although the, like if you go to the Crossway Chapel network, each church will have some of the same foundational things. We preach the word. We sing music. We pray. We take communion. But the way we do that might be a little bit different. Sure. Daniel, I want you to bring me to, like, are you living in Aaron's basement now? Like at this time in the circa 2009, 2010, yet? Or when does that come along? Yeah. So when I was on staff with the navigators, that's about the time that I got introduced to Aaron and the crossing church and just started inviting tons of people. I was on campus. Right. I had a circle of friends that wanted to grow in their relationship with Jesus. And so I said, hey, come to my church. Yes, let's go. And, you know, it's not so much marketing or sales, so to speak, but it was more like this is a passion relationship building. Yeah. Just like, come be with me. Like I want to experience this with you. Is the crossing on Stover at this time then? Um, no, no. So the high school stuff, some, it was a hard, hard, hard school. When we met, yeah, or yeah, let's, this, when, when we met, we were meeting at the, the covenant church down, down south, yeah, harmony and lamay, I think it is. And, um, I, I didn't really know Aaron, but a friend invited me and got connected and heard, not only his sports background, but also his FCA pair of church background and Aaron supported me in my navigator endeavors. And, and so I said, yeah, this, this is where I want to be. And so start to come in, got to know his wife and got to know other people in the church, other leaders. And they started investing in my life. And once Aaron found out that I had to go on staff with the navigators and raise support in one way that they help keep the support raising low is by providing housing for the right. And Aaron was like, well, you know, come live with us. Yeah. And I was like, huh. Yeah, let's do that. And so moved into his basement. Yeah. He's got five kids and I became pseudo sixth kid, the, the almost other brothers, what they call me. But it was such a sweet and rich time that I, I picked up on so many things of what it looked like to not only be a part of a family, but to see the inner workings of a pastor and, you know, for those that are listening, they might think that they're really perfect, right? Pastor guys and the holy rollers or they, they have particular agendas or they're just perfect. And Aaron would sit down and drink a beer with me. And I was like, this is so different than anything I'd ever been a part of. And, and then shortly after being on staff for a couple years, they offered me an internship to learn what local church ministry was about. And at that time, we had probably moved a handful of buildings. And then we connected with mountain range Baptist church, which folded into us and gave us their building, which is where we're at. Yeah. Yeah, here, here today. Let's, let's bring that back a little bit to the business journey. They're not, we don't need to talk about financial numbers and stuff, but maybe more just about like memberships and spaces and stuff like that. So you started as a home church. So this is like, it was in your basement and then Daniel moved in anyway. But you're having these home church meetings and stuff. And then what's that first, like, real into a facility that can hold more than 20 people? Yeah. So yeah, man, that was, that was a crazy time. But this is a, this is a, this is a God story. It's a cool story is, um, we're meeting in our homes and then we outgrow our home. And then we're meeting like a clubhouse out of apartment complex. And then that we meet at, we ran out some churches. We would also just ran out other kind of big rooms and groups. Yeah. And then there was a point where we, you know, we had a couple of times where we had to just go meet at the park. And so we were kind of the nomad church in the first year. And then, there's a church on, on horse tooth and shields there called mountain range church. And my friend that used to go there said that you're kind of struggling a little bit, you know, their numbers have dwindled. And so I put up the light and there's a car there. I said, well, if this car is there tomorrow at the same time, tomorrow I'm gonna pull in and see what's going on. So I did that. And at this time, we're about 70, 70 people plus some kilos. Okay. And so I started coming just before that. We went to this Dover church a few times. Yep. Yep. That red carpet. Yeah. That was sweet. Yeah. And then this was, um, the Harmony School was where we were written and then that that ran out and the school was about the starts. We had to choose in their place. And so the guy was there. I went in there and we started talking and they were, he was there as an intermediary that closed the doors or find a new pastor. And they were different philosophy, some theological differences. And he goes, you want to join us? He's like, no, but we'll just come in here. We'll give you rent. We'll give you money. So it gives you a little longer time. And, you know, and you can help us by giving us space. And they're like, great. And so we just started talking and then through a number of different situations, um, they ended up folding in or joining the crossing church and they gifted us their building. They just turned everything over to this small little church plant within the next, within the six months. And so that's how we ended up getting, um, we just took over the mortgage payments. It took over 300 grand or so. You mentioned like a philosophical difference. It's kind of so you were like, well, this is our philosophy. If you want to merge into us, you can, but we're not changing. Yeah. A big thing was, you know, like even like starting a church plant, um, like you start a business. Got a mission statement and whatever. Yeah. What, what happens is, is, you know, we, we started business like you started church. You look at the demographics of the city. You look at their strengths, their weaknesses, you know, what, what, what are their, um, economic drivers, you know, and, and what kind of, you know, people group are you, you, you gifted to reach and you want to reach and, you know, Fort Collins, man, you got to pursue segments. We would call that. Yeah. I mean, so you do that. And so it's like, man, Fort Collins, well, this church was, was basically, they had about 20, 20 people left in their off 65 years and older. And, um, which is great. You know, we love those people. It's like, yeah, come join us. And our average demographic was probably in the mid 20s at that point. Yeah. Jill and I were super old. We were at 35. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, most people like we, we have so many, I mean, like Daniel's one, he coming as a single. I was saying, you find your, you meet your spouse there and now you have five kids. Yeah. You know, and we have, and we have a number of those stories. And so, um, and so, and when I say elder old, I'm not talking the age was the difference that the style worship style music. Oh, right. Okay. Do you wear a suit tie? It's those kinds of things. It was like, they're just different philosophically. Fair enough. They had, you know, you read out the hymn, you sing out of the hymn or not up on a screen, those kinds of things. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and so, um, so yeah. But that was just a God story. So here we are, this, this year old church plant that gets this $3 million facility on a corner, one or four stupid shields. Yeah. Yeah. And there you go, which they were happy to gift to us. Yeah. Right. Because they didn't want it to become a gas pay the mortgage. I guess they could have sold it. Yeah. Right. You right? Made a bunch of money. But then what do you do with all that money? Yeah. And while they were renting out and they were, they were just eakin' by and they were like, we don't want this to turn into just nothing. We want to use this property for God. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. And for the last 11 years, it's, well, it's 10. It was about in our, in our first year that we got in there. Yeah. It's been awesome. I didn't realize that we were so close to, uh, we just barely missed some of the very foundations. Oh, yeah. When we started coming, it was a year old or less. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I don't always recognize it. It seems like I've been there for five years or something, but it's been longer now. That's crazy, man. Time for you. I'm fun. So we got this, got this building now that makes it easier to grow. You know, you're not chasing people like, we're here two months. We're there four months and we lose half the people because you're too far away from where their house is or whatever. Yeah. So talk to like, let's talk to that customer segments and demographics a little bit and stuff like, how far do people drive to come to church? Like, is that a big deal to be close to where people live or is it we have people coming from Nebraska? No, I'm just kidding. Uh, we have people probably, what, John's town. Sprized for this now, but around that time that we got that church building, that's when Gary McQuinn, who was another pastor at the time, Gary was very good at inviting a number of people. And so he recruited our current worship leader, Cole. Yeah. Yeah. He recruited a guy, Rich Gardner, who's now a pastor. He was living in Pennsylvania with his family and they came out and checked it out and said, yeah, we want to move here. And it wasn't to be a pastor. He just, they moved here to be a part of the church. So when you see that, it's like, oh, wow, people want to be a part of this. And we often say the church is not the building. The church is the people. We meet at the building. Our offices are at the building. We are the church. And so however, having a church building in our day and age and our culture helps immensely for ministry, not just a place to meet on Sunday mornings, but kind of this home base. And then we can go out. And men's group can be there. Yeah. Like so many things. If I'm feeling terrible about my life and I pop into the church a lot of days, there's going to be somebody there that I talked to. I don't do that regularly. But back then in 2010, 2011, if the listener understands the home prices and the big jump that Fort Collins took shortly after that, the majority of our demographics were Fort Collins based. But over the last 10 years, a lot of our church has been pushed out of Fort Collins because they haven't been able to afford. Right. Right. They got a college. They got married. They got two little kids. Their job doesn't support a Fort Collins real estate price. So now they're living in Millican, but commuting to across. Yeah. Bingham. And we and we have a particular flavor or culture at the crossing where a number of people who live in Johnstown prefer this. So a number of people who live in Loveland or Wellington, they prefer and they'll drive great distances so that they can be a part of our community. What's the flavor, Daniel? You want to describe that? I think it's vanilla chai. It's actually a, I mean, for a Fort Collins church, it's a fairly diverse church. There's a lot of vanilla, but we've got a lot of interracial couples and different elements to above the average, I would say. Yeah. I mean, you look at Fort Collins, it's 97% angle. Right. You know, and then then we're only 91% or 91% European. But then get also in the demographics again, and I hate this because we talk through Genesis and talks about the nations. And even in midst of you, me and Daniel, we all come from different ethnicities and different backgrounds. Yeah. I'm Italian, Russian, Scottish, Irish. I just had to fill out a thing. I'm like, well, everybody else gets to do like some detail. I just check white. Right. Right. Right. Pretty boring. And that's, you know, and so one race, human race, you agree with that. So we have, I think, you know, at all the condoms, I think we have like representatives of five different condoms at our church, you know, that kind of stuff at some point. Yeah. And it's just good. It's just, yeah, we had a good international flavor for a few years there when we had a pretty big presence on the college campus, the number international students, which was, yeah, those are sweet times. Yeah. I like it too. Oh, we had those, even those, the other Saudi guys were going to our volleyball things. That was super cool. So, um, I guess, um, what's next? Yeah. For the, actually, let's take a quick potty break and then we'll come back on our go. All right. Hey, tell me that's next about the crossway network and the plants. And I know there's some of real aggressive growth goals. And yeah, how do you do it? Yeah. I think, uh, you know, like I said, I've been, I've been at the crossing out 11 years and my thing is always starting something like that. That's my gif mix. My gif mix is, is church planning, coaching, assessing, church planners, um, and then raising guys up to church planning. So, um, our network is, uh, well, we can sort of a church playing network. It's like starting new churches in different different cities, not trying to go mega churches, not trying to go nothing. We got nothing wrong with that. But it's like, um, we feel we can, you know, if you have a mega church of a thousand, but you have five churches of 200, the five churches of 200, 200 could actually has more influence, which is more, more buying lost in a mega church. Yeah. If you just kind of want to have your toe in the water, yeah, you have more people using their gifts and smaller churches. And you, you know, uh, you don't get lost like you said. And so anyhow. And so, um, and so we have, uh, five churches here in Northern Colorado. Six now with, oh, yeah, six now with Greeley. We just planted church in Greeley a couple weeks ago. Oh, yeah. Um, we have one in Alt Colorado called High Plains Harvest. We have one in Windsor called Windsor Community. We have one level in called redemption. And then there's Mountain View in us. And, um, and that breaks up this little, this little region. But we have also churches in, in Washington and Oregon. We had one in Arizona, but the past are just passed away from cancer, uh, year or so ago. That was tough. Then we have, uh, churches in Illinois, New Jersey, New York, uh, North Carolina. Um, and then we have a whole bunch of churches in the Czech Republic, some other European countries. So we're a wide network, worldwide network. And, and again, one of our missions and visions is, is, um, church planning, and we want to see churches planning. So in the past year, we planted a church in Boseman, Montana, uh, Sheridan, Wyoming, uh, Greeley, Colorado. And then right now the crossing, um, and these are all, um, churches that have, we have what's called a mother church, like Mountain View and Windsor Community are kind of like the mother churches that birthed Boseman and Sheridan and Greeley. But a part of the network, one of the things we do to help, um, to help grow the, grow faster, so to speak, uh, our growth is every church puts five percent of our giving into one pool. And so Mountain View, all the churches up here, we all put the fertilizer fund. Yeah, yeah. And so if you have this nice fund, yeah, seat fund, um, to, to help these churches get started. And so, um, that's an amazing thing. And so these churches that are going out there, the guys that are leading it don't have to go get a job or do some other things. Their job is to plant this church. Yeah. And that's a huge, huge blessing. Now there's multiple ways you can do it. This is the, the, the normal way in which we do it. Yeah. And so, um, all of us pulling these resources together, not any finances, but people, um, talent. Um, it just, it just expedites the, the planting procedure. I want to get over to, to Daniel because Daniel's the administrative, like he, like he probably maybe understands some of the mechanics of elements and things like that. Daniel, talk to me about your perspective on, on planting. I hear a lot from leadership and, and opportunities there, but yeah, the mechanics kind of, yeah, I would say like real broadly, we have a, a desire to plant 10 churches in 10 years. So hopefully we will have 10 new churches by 2030. But the, the boots on the ground that every day work, I mean, it, it takes a number of different people, not just a guy who can get up there and preach the word. Sure. Uh, or somebody that can strum a guitar, like it takes a number of people behind the scenes that are pulling things off. Like, yeah, where are you going to meet? How, how often are you going to meet there? Um, contracts. Uh, you're talking on C3s. Oh, man. I mean, it's everything that, yeah, payroll. Yep. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, for a gift mix like mine, I understand those things and, and I'm in the details. Daniel, not the devil is in the details. And so, uh, that, and that frees up a guy like Aaron who has just great gifts of encouraging and calling men and women to follow after Jesus. And so we want to plant churches with a plurality of gift mix. We don't want just one solo person going. We want a team of people going. Well, I think that's one of the interesting things that, that I've described the crossing, uh, when I'm invited people is that, you know, we don't really just have a pastor. We, we have three, four, five pastors. And if, one thing I sometimes say is, so if the head pastor gets caught with a hook or a bag of coke, you know, the church might not crumble because it got all these other pastors. Or it gets hit by a bus. Or I use a truck. Yeah. That's probably more likely in your case. I'm going to say. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. So, but it's, but it's kind of an intentional structure that way to have that redundancy. I guess they hadn't established that in Arizona yet. Yeah. Building the team. You know, he was a young church plant and any diet cancer, but that's it. We don't build it around a man. There's one, one man, one Jesus. That's right. It wants us to say one pastor, the man Christ Jesus. And then we are undershepherds. And so that's exactly right. And it's good for people to learn from different styles. Like Daniel has a style. I have a style rich has a style. Right. And so people gravitate towards that. So whoever we get up there, we don't have people following men. Yeah. Or just a man. And oh, that guy's not a preacher. So I'm not coming to church. Yeah. That's not our culture. One of our former lay pastors, Matt. Yeah. Whitney. Yeah. He was like a 19 just figuring out if he was a Christian or not at Mountain View when I met him. Yeah. Yeah. While I volunteered for our youth group for a while. And that's when we first connected. Yep. And one of the most gifted communicators in our church. Oh, yeah. And just student of the Bible. Oh, yeah. Nobody has aged to know as much about the Bible as he does. Yeah. Yeah. He just did a podcast on is the COVID-19 vaccine. The mark of the beast on our I can't believe you allowed that title on your thing. It was a subtle clickbait. Yeah. Right. Totally was. But that's okay. But but real quick. So like Daniel. So I'm part of a a team that has like this leadership, church planning, assessment, coaching, gift mix. And then all of our other churches. So that so us five, six pastors meet once a month. Kind of lead guys, even though it's not necessarily terminal, but that will help your listeners. And then Daniel meets with an administratively gifted team. Interesting. Called the chess club. Yeah. We call it the chess club because we do a bunch of nerdy things that other guys who are typically on staff in the church don't want to do. Yeah. I actually wanted to change it to the Wu-Teng clan. But that was already taken. Right. And what you just seen is you, well, we want to do one of the things at the cross. You want to put right people and righteous. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's entrepreneurial too. Right. That's business leadership. Exactly. Right. You people will stay with you at long time. If you put them in a place where they can succeed and find joy. Yeah. Because you put me in front of spreadsheets and and stretch it and some of that stuff. Put your fists through the wall. Gonna put my fist through the wall. Right. Right. But some people thrive and they love that. And so we want to pick people in the right spots because they're going to run in their passions. And that's going to fuel their life. And so that's definitely another carryover. So Aaron put you on a spot. You've been there for 11 years. That's a long time in your career. Like do you have a vision for like it seems like you're going to be part of the crossway network. But do you have thoughts of moving to Oklahoma and starting a crossway there or some craziness or not an Oklahoma? No. No, that is one of the things I scratch on my itches that I get to now that we are established and running. I got guys like Daniel and Rich and others that were building up to take over some preaching stuff. I can scratch that entrepreneurial itch to start things up through these coaching church planners. Yeah. Assessing guys that want to be good. It's gonna go. We assess. So that's scratching my itch. But there might be a time our youngest daughter Madison is a junior. And she's going to go out to Jacksonville, Florida and play for Jacksonville University of La Crosse. And my son's playing in South Carolina. Yeah. She's out there. Brita's family has a dad and a brother in the in the Brayton area in Florida. And so everyone's moving out that way. So it's like, wow, should we move out to Florida? And of course it's pretty open out there. Yeah. Pretty human. Pretty human. Pretty human. Yeah. I like some culture. Look like God make those decisions. Yeah. But no, there's nothing right now. I love what we're doing at the crossing. But there's always, you know, I'm always looking. Yeah. That's just part of my nature. And I think I don't know if I want to go plant a church, you know, come, I'll be I'll get that 50 burger this year. Right. I love training men and families to go do that. That's where that's brings me life. And so I get to we have a great thing going on at the crossing, a great thing going on here at Colorado. And this thing's about to explode our network and our churches. It seems like it's, yeah, the momentum is real strong. And we're a nation is strong now. Yeah. And why that's what's crazy? Yeah. Why checkles? Why? That's just where a guy named Freddie and Daniel met some guys at Mountain View and the largest knit are hearts to that one. And as a network, as we're growing, we're about to explore. But at first, we want to be focused. Right. We don't want to be strong foundations. Yeah. Yeah. We don't necessarily want to be a jack of all trades master of none because that means your average at a lot of things, but you don't need to do anything well. We really wanted to focus all of our time talent and resources in one area. Yeah. And what you've seen is you've seen an explosion in the Czech Republic, which is unheard of. The Czech Republic is one of the toughest places in the world to plant churches or do anything because they've always been taken over by so many different countries. Right. Post-communism. Post-communism. Yeah. Just skeptical. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Super atheistic. And this one church, there's about, I think they got about 10 churches now in the Czech Republic, which is like unheard of. How about like a hundred people on the average each or something like that? Oh, no. A large church would be a hundred people there. Okay. So like 50. Right. But somehow, you know, there's a couple. I think the church and the teen has, and maybe in Bernot, they're over 100. Right. But they're making an impact. Absolutely. Yeah. And not more than just the members as well. I'm sure. And that's what's so crazy is that, is that our little church, a part of this little network is affecting people not only here in Colorado, but literally around the world. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. And it's awesome. So we usually do the faith family politics. It seems like kind of a captain obvious moment to talk about faith too much. We've talked about your testimonies. And you know, if there's, I guess here, here, you got a three second point. Why you should take a faith journey seriously if you're a non-Christian listening to this? Who would like to take that? Yeah. I can do it because eternity matters. You know, we believe that God created us as spiritual beings, not only physically, but spiritually. And death is just a doorway to eternal life. And eternal life could be spent in heaven. And we, or we believe as the Bible says as hell. And the only way to get to heaven is through his son, Jesus Christ. He says, I am the way of the truth in the life and no one comes to the Father, but by me. And so that's through repentance from faith and recognizing that you yourself can't save yourself. Yeah. I think we've proved that there's no one good. You know, you can always find someone that you're better than. Right. But there's also a million people in front of you that's better than you. So it's not about performance. None of us are good. None of us are righteous. And none of us are our sinless. We need a savior. And we can't buy or can't purchase it. And so that's why Christ came. He came to live the perfect life in our place as our substitute. He died on the cross make payment for the sin that we should have paid for. It should have been us hanging on the cross, but he made that payment for us. He defeated death by raising three days after he was buried. And now the way to him, again, according to Christian theology is through repentance and faith in Christ. And that's why we, that's why we exist because we have a passion for people. We don't want to see people with our conviction that when they die, they, they go to hell. Well, and they'll have a better life now. They'll have a better life. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, yeah, I would just add that the one thing that separates Christianity from all the other world religions is this concept of grace. Yeah. Unmerited favor. You, you can't earn it. You can't climb your way to God. God came down and lived a life that we couldn't live in our place died. The death that we deserve on the cross rose victoriously from the dead. Jesus rose from the dead. Right. That changes everything. Yeah. And when you believe in him, you, you are welcomed into God's family. We put it like this. Most people think like God will love me when I obey him. And that's backwards. No. God loves me first. And then gives me the about the obedience. That leads to obedience. Yeah. Yeah. I was just thinking about that that grace notion and how the nation of Israel wasn't really necessarily special, but God gave them unmerited favor. He's like, I'm going to be your God. You're going to be my people. And I'm going to demonstrate. Yes. Stuff through you. And he was scratching his head so many times along the way. Like these freaking people are driving me crazy. I think I'm just going to snuff him out. Yep. Yep. And you know, Moses like, don't do it. You already said you weren't going to. So, you know, and so that's that unmerited grace that goes all the way back to the very first day of the first day of the Bible. It's exactly right. But God didn't love them because they obeyed. He loved them. Then they called them to obey. And even when they didn't, he still loved golden calf. Fair enough. Yeah. So that's faith. Family, I enjoy the game of one word descriptions for your children. We'll let Daniel go first on this one. So since we've started with Aaron so much, and got name them and then the one word descriptions Solomon, seven years old. He is tenacious. Oh, I don't know, six. Jude, he's six years old. He is tender to go with the teas. Augustin, we call him Agi. He's four observant. Yeah. Margot. She's our two-year-old girl. She's a pistol. Oh. And we're having our fifth baby. Probably hit the finish line here in in July. So. Yeah, name in mind or you know if it's a bill of girl. We know it's a boy. We keep going back and forth big time on names. We have no idea. We've ran out of the podcast here. Yeah, I'm ready. Yeah. Submit your favorite biblical name. Okay. Fair enough. Daniel, thank you. And actually while we're in the family segment, we haven't even talked about Michelle much. Read again a lot of airtime. But would you like to share kind of that love story? Yeah, sure. So again, after I came to faith, I kind of got rewired in how to view women and I was thankful for the mentors in my life. And one of the mentors came up to me and he said, hey, how about you ask Michelle out on a date? And I was like, dude, you've like told me to not treat women a particular way for the last 18 months. And now you want me to go ask her out on a date? He's like, Supra. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, I should ask her on a date. And so we started hanging out and I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I mean, I was a player who crushed a lot before I became a Christian. And then it's like, it's a whole new ballgame. I put my arm around you. Yeah, exactly. And so it was super awkward. And we figured it out. And she compliments me so well. She Michelle has this quiet strength to her. But she also has this this diligent, hardworking spirit that man, I'm so thankful for my bride. She is just, she's a gem. What would she say it was that helped her to fall in love with you? Yeah. So we were in a navigator Bible study together. And I was a young Christian. And I wouldn't say I necessarily impressed her with my Bible knowledge. In fact, I didn't have very much Bible knowledge. But what did impress her was this heart to follow Jesus. And she said, it doesn't matter how long he's been a Christian. As long as he has that soft heart to follow after Jesus. That's what I want. He'll do them there. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. And you shared some awesome things about her. But what was it just a friend said, hey, you should ask Michelle out or what was it that wanted you to ask her out the second time and the third time? Yeah. Yeah. I think this authenticity to her. She wasn't putting on a face or show. She has this natural beauty to her. She doesn't wear makeup. And this desire to make her life count for Jesus. Yeah. To stand redundant with the faith. I mean, Jesus is the very center of my life now. And the fact that Jesus was the center of Michelle's life. Yeah. I knew that we would the gravity was right. Great team. Yeah. I like it. I got a funny story with that. Sure. Yeah. So you know, so this is perhaps what Daniel was living with us. And they were starting, you know, Michelle was coming on the radar. And one of the one of the advice he got from one of the navigators or someone was like, can I just sit back and watch her? He was talking to read in the kitchen, I think. It's just a sit back and watch her. And he was like, no, Daniel, don't do that. That's called stalking. And so what you do is you go, you go, you go get her, you know. And then he did a lot, a lot to learn. And just the order for a few you've to examine women, women don't like pass it in that. Yeah. It's true. That out real quick. Yeah. There is a fair bit of truth to that. Oh, yeah. So any advice for if you're a passive man out there, come to man school. There you go. School. Okay. It's our man school musings podcast. We got that role in man school as the fourth Tuesday of every month at our church building. Yeah. So it's our men's ministry. It's our men's ministry. Yeah. Sealed the horse tooth. Yeah. The thing just just be up front. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think that's just a straight shooter in all your life. Expectations. Just just get them out there. Yeah. Yeah. And be a man. Unfortunately, the culture is is pacifying men. Yeah. And that's a whole nother podcast. Well, we could we can delve into that a little bit and we can drift into culture and politics or whatever. You get the chance. Now one word description for your kiddos. Yeah. So Taylor is my oldest. She 24. She's compassionate. She just got a big heart, big serve compassionate. JT sharp. Yeah. He's going to be a PA. Just he's sharp. I don't know where he must have got from his mother. His his his wit. His personality. His ability to maintain, understand knowledge. Nate the great our mill child is the hardest worker. I know. I'll put that guy up. He's just he is just a grinder. That's servant. A servant. Yeah. I mean, just oh man. Steven fun. He's just he's just happy. Go lucky. You know the time for sure. He's like all my sit all my kids favorite. Everybody wants to be best friends. He's just he's just awesome. And then Madison's mini me. Oh, she is she's a female replication of me. She is a tenacious young woman. God bless her future. Oh, man. You yeah, you better you better strap it on if you're going to, you know, marry her. It's going to be what's going to be. Yep. Yeah. No passivity in that dude. Right. Right. So. So yeah, those are my kiddos, man. And anything more you'd like to say about Rita while we're here in the family thing. Man, she's just a blow in my life. She's the the perfect compliment. That's the other thing. He's like, like, I never had a thought like, oh, there, you know, is there another woman out there for me? Like, yeah, never. I never have either. She complicit. She is the perfect compliment to to me. I have strengths and I have weaknesses and she compliments my weaknesses with her strengths and vice versa. And mentality wise, emotionally, intellectually. Yeah, we are we are companions co co co companions on this trip together with the two become one flesh is really that's that's it. So yeah, man, she's rock star. She is. So family faith politics. You want to talk about lockdowns, max, Trump, Biden, uh, $15 minimum wage, white privilege, white privilege, defund the police. Where do you want to start, Daniel? Let you, uh, by the way, Aaron, your, your quip last weekend at church about, uh, smuggling candy into the movie theater. I was like, only Aaron would say that from the from from the past or yeah, I would say this, this season through COVID has been a very difficult one for us as a church because we've got a number of people who have particular opinions on one side, whether that's you shouldn't be wearing a mask or you don't have the right to tell me that I can't wear a mask. But then we got a number of people who in our congregation, if they were to catch the disease, there's a good chance they would die in the disease. Right. And so you got to communicate what all these things are too. Right. And and we never took the stance that we want to shut down church or not meet and we certainly did for those first 10 weeks when no one knew what this virus was. But when we opened back up last May, uh, we've we've wanted to keep going. And so we've taken the approach that this is up to the individual. They're, they're conscience. Uh, if, if you want to wear a mask, you can wear a mask. If you don't want to wear a mask, then, uh, don't force other people to do what you want them to do. And so, uh, that certainly hasn't sat well with a number of people. But I think as we've learned along the way with leadership, you damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. So you just got to pick away, be led by the Lord and trust that the people follow. Well, and we've kind of, uh, you know, the second service is mask on. Yeah. All time in the first service is like restaurant style. Right. It's like restaurant style. You wear your mask again. You sit on your seat. You can take it off. Right. Right. Which we're going to go back to one service here. And some people probably get their feathers ruffled. And it's like, if you want to get the vaccine, you can go get the vaccine. But it's we're not going to force anyone to do anything. And personal responsibility is going to be the way forward, not just as a church, but as society at large. So you can probably see the theme of probably our convictions when it comes to politics. When we say personal responsibility. Yeah. Yeah. Not government. Well, and I actually, uh, I was in a podcast recently where I was kind of accosted for claiming both libertarian, small, a libertarian and Christian. He's like, well, I don't think Jesus would be a libertarian. I don't want to have him back on and actually argue that out with Matt and he can have a second on his side. But like, talk to me about that notion of personal responsibility and, and I guess, yeah. Well, I think that's just huge. I think, you know, that goes all the way back to just your own life and eternal life. You want to take personal responsibility for your life. And we believe we don't we don't we don't put ourselves in in categories, you know, aren't Republican or independent or libertarian or Democrat, even though they try and force us. Um, I kind of like that. I guess the category now of independent where I was started out more Republican. But I don't like what some of they're doing with some of our cabbage, with some of our money. And, you know, and, and, and the independent thing just gives me the ability to follow my convictions via scripture and via Christ. And so, um, there's, you know, scripture and say, you don't work, you don't eat, but there's also scripture says you, you, you give everything a way to serve the poor. Yeah. You know, and so there's this, you have these, these, all these different, um, almost, yeah, you just can't categorize. You can't categorize a person. It's an individual conscious decisions as they look to scripture as our guide. And we follow that. And there's some, there's some great areas in some of the, uh, the ways in which we can follow them. And that gives people freedom. Freedom. Yeah. You don't have to be fit into this perfect Republican nationalist mold. Let alone you have to be in this democratic socialist mold, either. Right. Right. Yeah. And we have air. We, I'd say we probably have every category represented in our church. Yeah. You know, I would no doubt about that in my mind. And, and that's what I think I love about our church is that it's Jesus who unites us, not a particular philosophical system that, that man has created. So, uh, if, if, uh, Governor Polis or Joe Biden happens to listen to this podcast, do you have any advice, uh, for making it better? Don't, don't kill babies. Yeah. First repentant belief in Jesus. Don't kill, don't, don't treat wolves better than babies. If you're so worried about the sanctity of life, let's, let's make sure you worry about it in the womb. Yeah. Am I showing my cards? Yeah. I think so. Uh, and yeah, we, we were all, we're all about, uh, equality. There's, there's no, there's no, here's, here's like scripture. This defines us. We got to stop using the word year, the black race, the white race. We're all one human race with different ethnicities, assuming that informs and colors us. Yeah. Um, and so, um, we're all about, uh, equality, et cetera. Um, well, I think that's interesting to bring out of that is that like we mentioned before we started recording the Scottish Irish and things like that. And, you know, these different cultural and ethnic, uh, upbringings and, and foundings, you know, it was different to evolve as humans are in Mexico than it was to in Saudi Arabia, or whatever, right? Like, and you believe in evolution, right? Do I? Yeah. Not at all. Negative. Zero point zero. Zero point zero. We are creating an image of God. Yeah. So he, but why did you put all the black people in Africa and all the yellow people in Asia, all the white people in North America? Uh-huh. And that's just, that's skin pigments. And that's, yeah, that's a whole. So it's not evolution. It's basically the, the, well, it wouldn't it be the evolution. The body's reaction to the way that the sun hits the earth or whatever, right? Like, that's what I think of it is. It's like, it's the way that, like, there's different kind of wolves or different kind of coyotes in Montana than there are in Arizona because of the different things they eat and live. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. There's, there's, there's, again, a whole other podcast, which is called macro evolution and micro evolution. So like, you know, if, if you live in a, and a desert climate where you got a dig in the sand, some of those animals, nails are going to be growing longer when other places where you live in and foliage where it's so soft in a swamp, you don't need, maybe necessary, as big of nails. Okay. And so there's stuff like that where, but a dog is always a dog is always a dog. Like, the coyote is always a coyote, whether he's in, you know, California or whether he's in Florida. Yeah. You know, the coyote is a coyote. And so, but that's a whole, that's a whole another, another, another good point of question. Listeners and stuff too, though. Absolutely. And, and, and the scriptures talk to about that in Genesis. You can even go to our, our, our study in the book of Genesis. And what you see is in the one God created, he created everything and there's a phrase in there after it's kind, after it's kind, after it's kind. Yeah. And, but then when he created humans, there was no after it's kind. He was created in the image of God. Yeah. And then he was created out of Adam and their unique outside of the rest of creation. In that sense, unique in the sense that we have an intellect. We, we can work. You know, work is dignity, et cetera. So, yeah. And, and human beings are the only aspect of creation that bears the image of God. Or it's as if you were looking into a mirror and seeing qualities and aspects of God. Part of which is creativity. Yeah. It was in my last month's blog like that creative impulse of, of humans to create things and build order out of the chaos is, is very reminiscent of God's. And just, and I would even say it takes more faith to believe in evolution. It does in the Christian and, and the Lord himself because how do you get life from non-matter? I don't know. That's why I'm a Christian. Daniel, I'd like to throw it over to you for an interesting cultural question like, like a revival of, you know, I, I've referenced as a post-Christian nation a lot of times in my writings and things like that. And because it seems like, you know, we're losing ground in a lot of elements maybe in, in some respects, although I think our community, our city here is maybe growing in, in faith over the last 20 years since I've been here. What would you say to that? And, and how do we inspire that? Sure. Yeah. Well, it's pretty clear that the culture morally is changing at a rapid pace. Maybe more rapid than it ever has. At, at least in our country. Yeah. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing because I think it's going to push the off the authentic Christians more to the margins of society and you're going to be able to see more explicitly what it means to follow after Jesus. What it means to take God at His word and want to live your life by it. Interesting. And I think there's a particular attractiveness to that. And I think there's a great opportunity for, I, I wouldn't necessarily use the word revival because there's so much baggage with that. Right. But I think there is an element of people are going to observe and want what Christians have. As, as stuff gets real and real yucky because of the decline in virtues and morals and things like that, those, those bright spots will be more easy to see. Yeah. Or, or they will, or people will go down that path, whatever moral failing that it is and see that this isn't a, it hurts me. Yeah. This, this, this, this well has run dry, proverbily, where can I go get water from? And Jesus said, whoever comes to me will not thirst. And, and they'll have the thirst quenched in Jesus. Very good. That's what add like, we, we welcome skeptics. We welcome those that have questions and we will sit and listen and have a good talk, good debate over a beer, over a good, good piece of meat, you know, and, and, and still love and serve. And so if there's any listeners that like, man, I have questions about evolution or I have questions about God or I have questions about whatever, like we're open to come and dialogue and we're going to treat your respect and courtesy because we believe like you can, you're created an image of God and we want to love and serve you in any way that we can. And so, um, and we're winding up here soon. The local experience. Did you think of the craziest experience of your lifetime that you wanted to share air? Well, I just, I just remember walking through life a little bit with you when you were making some of these decisions when you went from banking to start bears backyard to start local think tank. And so just walking through that with you. And I just commend you for being a man who takes risk and who wants to step out and pursue his passions and his heart and say, Hey, I want, I want to get out of this, this area because I feel, you know, I have a passion for cooking, I have a passion for feeding people. I want to try this and you tried that and then, you know, I have a passion for making money. Yeah, passion for making money, which, you know, bears bagger, you fed a lot of bellies and was good, but you said, yeah, now I want to try something else. Now I want to help people. And so I just think for me, when I think of this and what you're doing is I just, I think of your experience in over the last several years and how you've grown as a leader, as a man, as a husband, as a father, as an entrepreneur, and how a one you're so giving of your time, talent, treasures, to share that experience with others to help build them up for them to be successful. And that's, that's what Christ did. He looks to others needs more important than his own, you know, and he serves one another wants to, he wants, he wants others to succeed. And so you blow wind in their sales through encouragement and other and these opportunities to bring people together to serve one another to better this community and this, this country. Well, I think that's I'm flattered. I'm honored. And you've gotten to see that kind of story quite a few times, right? We've seen so many growing businesses, growing people, just, uh, servants heart. So for me, that's, I'll just say your local experience is just being in that seat and place to be able to lead men as they lead lives that bring glory to God. Amen. Amen. Daniel, your local experience. Okay. So it happened the first couple days that I lived here in Fort Collins. My parents drove me up from the Dallas area, dropped me off at Edward Storm, CSU's campus and my dad cries when we say goodbye and I'm like, I've never seen my dad cry before, like, what is going on? And so I, I begin to meet new friends in the dorm and they're like, hey, do you want to go to a party? And I was like, uh, yeah. And so we, we start going to these parties and we don't really know where we're going. But for anyone that's lived in Fort Collins, those first couple weeks in, in Fort Collins around the campus, there's just a droves of freshmen and they're walking all around the neighborhoods. And so that was me. And I think it was day two. We went, we heard about this kegger. I think it was at a frat house or something. And so we get to this house, we pay our money for a cup and this keg is in this trash can and there's one guy who is pumping it and just filling up cups and I would drink my beer and put my cup back up to get refilled. And there's probably 20 people around this keg. And I'm over after doing that a couple of times, I'm like, this is stupid. And then someone was like, well, I think they're having a keg next door. And so we go next door, same song and dance. Like, and I just like, this is dumb. And so we go out in front of the house and there's this guy in the middle of the street and he's trying to light this box on fire. And I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, I'm just trying to make a fire. And I said, why? And it's like, I don't know because I want to. And the box was a little damp and I was like, dude, that's not going to work. And so I take my top shirt off and I take my undershirt off and I give him my undershirt and I have this vivid memory of him lighting my undershirt and dangling it over this box and it just begins to ignite. And then he drops it on the box and it catches the box on fire. And then pretty soon there are people just throwing things into this fire. They're ripping branches out of trees. They're ripping pieces of fence. Oh, I thought it was going to be clothing. All these girls take off. No, no, no, no. And so pretty soon this fire just grows massive. And it's in the center of the street. And we have this raging bonfire. And at some point somebody throws like a stop sign in and I'm like, where did they get that? And then I look across the fire and there are people surrounding a vehicle and they're they're pushing on it. And it's going back and forth, back and forth. And then one side steps away and they flip the car over. And I was like, wow. And then they proceed to do that with two other cars. You started a riot. And yes. And so and so then this girl comes out of the house. She's like, that's my car. She's mother effinous. And I'm like, oh man, that sucks. And then all of a sudden like we're raging this riot, this bonfire for probably 45 minutes. And then I see police in riot gear shields helmets marching towards us. And I'm like, oh, that's not good. I'm going to go. And then people were like throwing Molotov cocktails at them. And I was like, oh my gosh. And then all of a sudden you hear this. And then these tears of tear gas laying right next to them. Like, what is that? And it starts smoking. And somebody's like, tear gas run. And so we run the other way. And I ran through a little bit of the tear gas. That's not enjoyable. Don't recommend that to anyone. And then what the interesting thing was like as the riot police were coming towards us, there were barricades set up and there were police officers following us right back to campus. And so we get to campus. And I was like, oh my gosh, that was the crazy, craziest experience I've ever seen in my life. And then there's this guy whose mother effinous police officer and we walk by him. And I'm like, man, that's not good. And we're approaching my friend's dorm. And then all of a sudden we hear this guy scream. And he's like, open the door, open the door, open the door. And he slams into the front door of the of the dorm. And then police come with clubs in their site. And they start hitting them and poking them and like stop resisting. And he gets arrested right in front of me. And I'm just like, wow, welcome to college. And so so the very next day my parents call me. They're like, and I reject the call. This is on my flip phone. I'm dating myself. And they say, hey, they left a voicemail. They said, hey, we heard there are some riots. It sees you just calling to make sure that you're okay. Give us a call whenever you can. Love you. Bye. And to this day, I still don't think they know that I helped start a riot. Well, they will now when they listen to the local experience. Yep. Yep. I misheard your question. I thought you were asking what not, yeah, what the local experience. What's your crazy experience? I can't talk to that. I was mature when I came here. I was not. That's okay. I can't believe my pastor started the poor call on the CSU riot, right? To his t-shirt 2004. Yeah, I think it was on vine or pick in. I don't remember. I actually, I kiss Jill the first time at a kick party. It's see by CSU. Yeah. Nice. And then told her she was way too young for me to date. Yeah. I think like my wife says when when people first, when I get introduced to people for the first time and, you know, when I say I'm a pastor and they just look at me. Yeah, right. And my wife goes, he's not your typical pastor. Just like Dan. Whatever that category is. I don't know. Fair enough. Well, you gentlemen, it's been a fun time. I think it'll be an entertaining listen for our guests. And Daniel, before we leave, why don't you tell the listeners how to look up the crossing church? Yeah. Yeah. You guys can find us online. We are at the crossing FC for four Collins, the crossing FC dot org or the crossing football club, whatever, whatever you prefer. And we've got information about our church, the different ministries that we do. You can find our resources. We got sermons. We got podcasts all on there, but we also meet every Sunday. Right now we have two services, 9 a.m. and 1030, 3601 South Shields around the corner of Horsetooth and Shields, a little Southwest corner there, over by Habachi and Shell Station. And you can also learn more about the crossing through now the new man's school podcast, man's school musings, man's school musings or the cross cast from Chad Barlow. And that's all on Spotify Apple podcast. Yep. That's all on our website too. Platforms and stuff. And now would be a thank you for listening to today's episode of the Loco Experience Podcast. This is Kurt Baer, founder of the Loco Think Tank and host of the Loco Experience. And I'm here with Rory Sharer, Loco Business Developer and host of the Loco Shorts episodes. We hope you heard some new ideas and business perspectives in this episode. Our mission and all that we do, including this podcast, is to share collaborative business ideas and solutions that uplift the business community. Subscribe and follow us for you listening to podcasts to get new episodes as they are released. Curious about Loco? You can learn more about us at locothinktakes.com where you'll find more information about our chapters, business resources, and events for business owners and users. If you're looking for perspective, accountability, and encouragement along your business journey, why not apply for a chapter near you today? Why not? Why not? Why not? We'll catch you next time on the in-depth Loco Experience Podcast with me, Kurt. And with me, Rory, provide size business lessons in the Loco Shorts. Bye!