RX 24 - RX24 Kickoff - Full Clip

Transcribed Content

Welcome to the kickoff of Rx twenty four. This is a packed house, and we are so thankful to see you. We have a really great lineup tonight. Thanks for being a part of it. The first thing I want to do is introduce someone whose support has been critical to the ability of us to have this evening tonight. So there's someone who reached out a couple of conferences ago when I was talking on stage about the grants that we gave to churches that were unable to afford early access with rock. And afterward, one of our sponsors approached me and said, can we contribute toward covering some of those grants? And that was not solicited. It came out of nowhere, and it was from the heart, and it was an incredible gesture. That same man has sponsored this whole evening for us tonight and his organization. So I just would like to introduce Mike Cantrell from Powered by Text to come out and say an opening prayer for us this evening. Thank you. Thanks, Emily. Thank you, RX twenty four. It is such a pledge a privilege and pleasure for us to be here together with you guys tonight. You know, this gives me an opportunity to be honest with you to say thank you. Three years ago, my church in, Allen, Texas, 1 of the suburbs there of Dallas, made the move to rock. And because we were in the SMS industry in supporting my own home church, it gave us the opportunity to come and meet you guys. And let me just say how welcome you made us feel. This is our third year back to the conference. We're so excited about the work that we're doing and the partnerships that we have here. But you guys have made us just feel so welcome. But, you know, that's indicative of what I've observed and what I've seen here at Rock and the community that you guys have. And I just asked if I could come out here and just speak a word of encouragement and a blessing and a prayer over you as we get started tonight. But let me just share something else with you that I've observed. The authenticity at which you guys greet each other, when you come back together again and I get to observe this, it's authentic. You know, just this Sunday, my pastor was preaching in second Timothy. And in second Timothy, Paul specifically preach speaks to those individuals that he has surrounded himself with that refreshing. See, I've watched you guys refresh each other already since I've been here. And in many instances, we may be depleted because I serve in the leadership of the deacon body at my church, and I observe and see with my friend Nathan Mahoney and Will Chapman and others at my church that are big part of this community. I see what you guys do. I want you to know we see it. And in many instances, we may be depleted. You may have come here and shown up here this week, and maybe you're depleted. I pray that you find replenishment. In some instances, it may be one or more of us that we arrive here even, dare I say, wounded. Maybe we need to be restored. If that is you, I pray that you find restoration here this week. What we know is that the battlefield is in the mind. And whether it's refreshment, replenishment, restoration, or just daily renewal. See, what I know that I know is that you guys are gonna provide that to each other. I just know that I see that. And on behalf of your churches that you serve, thank you. And on behalf of our organization, thank you for allowing us to be part of this community. It's just a privilege. Let me pray for you. Father, we just thank you, that you have brought us here safely. And for those that are still making their way here, Lord, just bring them here quickly and bring them here safely. Father, for every person, every family, every organization, every church that's represented in this room, Lord, in many instances, our service to you is a calling. It's because we love you, father. We're so thankful that you give us what we need when we need it. And, Lord, this community that is rock, I pray that these folks pour into each other this week, what they learn and what they leave and that they leave changed. And, father, for their families that are back home, we just pray for protection, for peace so that each and every one of us can just be present in this time together. Lord, you've been waiting for us, and we acknowledge that. So we are just nervous with anticipation for what you're gonna show us this week. And for that, we give you all the praise and glory in your son's name. Amen and amen. Thank you for allowing us to be here. Thank you, Mike. And now we're gonna get started on a two part event this evening, and we'll kick off with the first part. My name is Mike Goodwin. I'm 45 years old, and I'm a stand up comedian. How did you get to stand up comedy, bro? I think I just was the kid that was trying to alleviate tension in the house. Like, my parents would get into these arguments, and I always wanted to make my mother laugh. Dude, we are simpatico in that, man. That was why I love doing comedy. Right. Hearing her laugh Right. Was the best thing that you could do for the whole Clearly. So as a kid, I knew that I I loved comedy. I loved it. But I I never saw myself as a stand up. I joined the army after high school, and I did four years active duty. And then after that, I went to college, met my wife. Twenty one years later, we have two children. I was working at various jobs to pay bills, but they just were not the dream. And then recently, my wife said, well, why don't you just do comedy full time? And I was like, okay. You were so proud of me. Tonight is a chance for me to make my dreams happen and to make my family proud. High fives. Alright. Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together and welcome the bow tie comedian, Mike. Goodwin. RX two four. Make some noise, man. Make some noise. Make some noise. And let's give God a shout of praise. Let's give God a shout of praise. Praise God. So excited to be here. I've been to Arizona before. Y'all need to calm down with this heat. This is this is out of control. I was calling myself one to go for a walk today, and I went out there. It was about 03:00. And about five minutes into the walk, I was like, this probably is not a good idea. But I'm in it. Like, I'm here, and I'm walking, and I saw the parking garage. I was like, oh, I think I could pull this off. So I dipped over to the parking garage, and I'm walking in the parking garage. But I'm thinking, man, these people think I'm probably casing their cars. That's what is probably happening. And I felt like the rubber in my shoes were melting. I don't I don't think that was I think that was good. And in in in in lieu of the Olympics, I think y'all would win the gold medal in heat. I think this just would be a gold medal winner because they always like to try to downplay how hot it is. So y'all like, oh, it's just dry heat. It's over a hundred degrees. I don't care if it's wet heat. It's very hot. It's extremely hot. I love going to different parts of the country. I was in Arizona about a year ago, and I was having dinner with some folks, and they were talking to me about, like, the things that were unique to Arizona. They were telling me about the scorpions and the coyotes and the javelinas. Is that what this thing is? Like, it's a goat dog. Not a goat, like a like a pig dog, rodent. Then they were telling me about the weather, how crazy the weather was, and then they told me about something called a haboob. And they they had a straight face when they said that. You know? Because I'm a little immature. Like, when they said, Haboob, I was like, a what? A what? And they said it again. I was like, I want to laugh. Like, Haboob. Now when I do travel, I find I look for things that make me feel comfortable, and I was a little surprised. I was delighted that Arizona has my favorite restaurant here. I was I did not anticipate that. The Waffle House. Yeah. I am a connoisseur of the House of Waffle. Yeah. I have a rewards card, and they don't even have a rewards program. I just I just took an index index card and a Sharpie. Like, can you can you punch my card, please? But I know we got people from all over the all over the country. Matter of fact, I heard we got some Australians here. Make some noise for the Australians. Oh, right here in the front. Australia, y'all was representing with the breaking this year in the Olympics. This this there's a lot of controversy y'all caused. This woman, Rachel I'm I'm intrigued by this story. Doctor Rachel Gunn got zero points in breakdancing. I wanna talk to y'all after this. Let's let's have a conversation about Waffle House. I I like the Waffle House. My issue with the Waffle House isn't with the restaurant is with the people that go to the Waffles. Yeah. People that go to Waffles, they come to Waffles with unrealistic expectations. Yeah. They show up at the Waffles with Cheesecake Factory expectations. I was at the Waffle House the other day. This woman was in there having a fit. She was like, I want to speak to the manager. I was like, ma'am, this is the Waffle House. There is no manager. Yeah. You can speak to Willie, the head cook. That's who you can speak to. Lady was irate. She was like, I am emailing corporate in the morning. I was like, ma'am, the dude that's scrambling your eggs is smoking a cigarette right now. I don't don't think they're concerned about your complaints, ma'am. Now one thing I do wish the Waffle House would take a look at is their, dental plan for their employees. I wish that they would wish they would review their service provider. Yeah. I'm just saying there's a lot of gums and tongues when I go to Waffle House. And I'm easily distracted. You know, I can't I can't focus. If I'm talking to you and you've lost the majority of your teeth, I I can't. Like, if I'm looking at you and I see that speed bag in the back of your throat, I just wanna just wanna get a little workout in. So I'm a southerner. I I'm from South Carolina. Yeah. Shout out. Okay. Got some southerners in the house. I travel all over, and I tell people I'm from the South with a f and not a T H. From the South. 1 thing about southerners, we have the unique ability to just make up words. We say words like fin to and fixing. What had happened was, that's one word right there. Matter of fact, I'm a share with y'all my Australian friends on a new word. You can use this. It's made up word. It's five syllables. One word. What you're not gonna do? Yeah. Yeah. My mother said that my entire life. My mother said stuff like, what you're not gonna do is keep running in and out of this house. That's what you're not gonna do. What you're not gonna do is stand in front of that refrigerator and hold that door open, little boy. What you're not gonna do is sit up on that phone while it's thundering and lightning outside. The Lord is doing his work. I mean, what some of y'all not gonna do is sit out there and not laugh at jokes. That's what you're not gonna do. Because I know we got church folks in the house. Make some noise. Church folks. Yeah. Love church folks. I'm on the team. I don't if y'all know that the church folks could be some funny acting people. I don't I don't know if y'all aware of this. I'm not talking about y'all. I'm talking about other church folks. Matter of fact, I called this woman from my church. I didn't realize it at the time, but I found out that she was a part time Christian. Yeah. And I apparently called her on her day off. Yeah. Yeah. She answered the phone with an attitude. She was like, who in the blank is this? And how did you get this blankety blank number? And I was a little taken aback because I don't I don't curse out loud. You know? I'll keep it on the inside. So I said, is brother Goodwin from the church. That's how you say it when you're spiritual, from the church. She said, oh, praise the lord, brother. I was like, praise the lord. What you're not gonna do is act like you ain't just cuss me out on the phone. That's that's what you're not gonna do. We got some strange expressions in the South. I don't know if y'all see this in Arizona, but there's an expression when the sun is shining and it's raining outside. Southerners say that the devil is beating his wife. Yes. This is a a a common expression. I learned that in South Carolina history in the eighth grade. Sun is shining, it's raining outside. Said the devil is beating his wife. I got a couple of questions. When did the devil get married? I've read the entire bible. I've read nothing about a miss Satan. And who would marry the devil? Who would send up on eHarmony? Looking at the devil's profile to my girl, I know he got problems, but he sure is hot. It's crazy, man. Another thing about the South is we love nicknames in the South. We love nicknames. I realized there's some people I've been knowing my entire life. I don't know their real names. My brother called me other day. He said, hey, man. You know Mark Davis's mom passed away. I don't know no Mark Davis, man. He was like, stanky, man. Stanky, mama passed. I was like, why you ain't say that from the start? I need to give stank a call. We would try to be funny with nicknames. Call big people nicknames like tiny, slim. We nicknamed people out the food. Know a cornbread, a pork chop, and a collard green. I know there's one dude, his nickname is boss, and he ain't got no job. I'm like, who you the boss of? Yourself? But I think white dudes have the coolest nicknames. I really do. Because white dudes, nicknames go with them their entire life. White dudes have nicknames like Rusty, Skip, Chip. Like, your nickname could be Chip. You could be the CEO of a bank. You could have Chip on your business cards. The brothers can't do that. Pookie can't be a branch manager at the bank. You don't trust your money with Pookie. Like, right this way, doctor Junebug will see you. I'm like, no. He will not. That's thank you, mama doctor. I'm not going to that man. That is not it's not about to happen. So that video was a little dated. I said to my wife and I think said we celebrated twenty one years of marriage, but actually yesterday was our anniversary. We just celebrated twenty four years of marriage. Yes. Have a a beautiful wife, a healthy marriage, and my wife and I, we've created some offspring. Yep. Usually, when I say that, people clap, but I see y'all can't think about my children. No. You had no chance. We have two children. We have a a daughter. You saw them in the picture. My daughter is the oldest, and daughter is a senior in high school right now, and I I don't like it. I'm not doing well, man. I remember I remember taking her to nursery school like she was a little girl. I've been walking in the class room. There was a sign on the wall, welcome class of 2025, and I smirked like, that's not a real year. Kinda imaginary year is 2025. Now 2025, like, hey. How you doing? Good to see you. My daughter, we had a hard time trying to figure out what to name my daughter, so we named our daughter a throwback name, like throwback jerseys. Yeah. We named our daughter Essie Maypearl. Yep. It's a good southern name. Little Essie May is what we call her. I'm just messing with y'all. You see the looks on some of your faces. What you're not gonna do is sit out there and judge what I named my daughter. That's what that's what you're not gonna do. I'm just kidding y'all. Her name is Gertrude. Somebody like, that's worse than this in May Pearl. But it's difficult naming your children. That's a tough tough task. And what a place do people look for names in the Bible? There's a lot of beautiful names in the Bible. My name's in the Bible. But then there's some other names you probably shouldn't be naming your children, like Judas, Bathsheba, Abednego. Can you imagine having a friend named Abednego? Like, yes, my boy, Abednego Jackson. Those his brothers over there shack racket Meshach. Yeah. They firefighters. Sister named Delilah. She's a hairstylist. This is oh, that's the line right there. That's the line. No Delilah jokes. Also, I have a son. I have a matter of fact, my son turns 14 tomorrow. I have a 14 year old son tomorrow, man. Thank you. Thank you. I smell him before I see him. This is just the smellingest dude in America, man. My son my son wake up every morning smelling like karate dojo. I'm like, son, what were you doing in your sleep? Why you smell like you worked third shift last night, man? It's bad, man. He don't he has no idea. It's like, dude, you don't smell that? I was playing him in the video game recently. He didn't have any socks. I'm crying. I'm just I can't see the controller. I'm just I'm down 20 points and he just three, and I'm like, dude, you don't smell that, dude? I gotta play my son online at our house because it's too bad, man. It's and I'm at this unfortunate place in my son's life because my son loves sports. He loves sports. He's not good, though. He's not. He's not. And we're at this point that if I don't pay for him to make the team, he not gonna make the team. He's not gonna make the team. He's on his rec league this summer. It's bad, man. It's it's bad. I don't even watch the game. I just bring a book and just sit sideways. It's bad, man. You know you're not gonna win a championship when one of your teammates is wearing a denim skirt. That's just not gonna happen. It's just it's not good. It's not good. And I knew. I've I've been known for a long time. I knew when his little boy, we signed him up for flag football, and that was a waste of money right there. Yeah. His team went defeated. Yeah. They won no games. Matter of fact, they tied one game, and my son came home super excited, hopping around like, I was like, hey, man. What you so excited about? My son was like, dad. Coach said that whenever we tie, he's like, both teams won. I was like, no, son. Coach lied. Yeah. The score was zero zero. You both lost, son. And I feel like the coaches sending my son mixed messages. Son came home one time and was like, dad, coach said it doesn't matter whether we win or whether we lose. What matters is if we have fun. I was like, no, son. Coach lied again. I was like, son, you won't have fun, just go in the backyard and play. But once I pay for registration, I need some wins. I need a I need a return on my investment, son. And it's different, man. Like, my kids, they have a a totally different childhood than what I had, man. My children, if they have a question about anything, they can just Google it. I couldn't Google stuff when I was a kid. When I was a kid, if I had a question, I had to go to the Encyclopedia Britannica. I felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. I was a weak little kid, so I had no information. I remember when I didn't know how to spell a word, would ask my mother how to spell the word. You know what she would tell me? Look it up in the dictionary. I used to be like, mama, I don't know how to spell the word. Y'all, I spent four weeks in the ales looking for elephant. I was like, mama, I don't I don't I don't see that word. I see I see licorice and leprosy. I don't see anything about an elephant. Almost blacked out looking for pneumonia. I was like, this is not a real word, mama. They are making up words. It's different. The kids, they learn different things, and I learn. Like, they were telling me my son was telling me how he played kickball at school. I was like, oh, yeah, man. I remember playing kickball. What my son described to me was nothing like the kickball I played when I was a child. My son said they play kickball. They stood up. They they stand on a single foul line. Somebody rolls the ball. You kick it, and you run and get in the back of the line. I was like, nobody gets hit by the ball? That's that's preparing you for life, son. Like, what you gonna do when life hits you in the face with a ball, son? You gotta move. You gotta dodge. Just can't stand there and run back to the back of the line. It's different, man. My kids were home during the during the quarantine. They would be at homeschooling. When it first happened, I was the teacher, but it didn't take long before my wife relieved me of my classroom duties. She reassigned me to security and snacks. And the issue was my wife didn't like my educational philosophy because I was teaching my children some things I learned when I was a when I was a child. Do y'all remember those bizarre stories they told us called nursery rhymes? Y'all remember these? There was an old lady that lived in a shoe. She had so many children. She didn't know what to do. So she fed them broth without any bread and whooped them all soundly and put them in the bed. Yeah. That lady going to jail. You can't you can't post that on social media, man. What about this one? Peter Peter, pumpkin eater, had a wife. He couldn't keep her. He put her in a pumpkin shell, and there he kept her very well. Yeah. Peter has a Netflix documentary coming out called the making of a murderer pumpkin pie style. That'd be right. But the straw that broke the camel's back when my wife heard my son singing the song I taught him in music class, 10 little monkeys. I don't know if y'all remember that strange little song. 10 little monkeys jumping on the bed. One fell off, bumped his head. Mama called the doctor, and the doctor said, then it was nine little monkeys, then eight little monkeys, then seven little monkeys. And I'm like, when's this doctor gonna call child protective services on this one? This woman's clearly overwhelmed with all these children. She need to call the old lady in the shoe. I bet you after some broth and a whooping, they stopped jumping on that bed. We learned some weird stuff when we were children, man. Like, what about that lullaby hushed little baby? What was going on with those parents? They buying billy goats and mockingbirds. How about you buy some milk? How about you do that? A diamond ring. You don't get no baby a diamond ring. That is a choking hazard, people. Every time it would rain, I sang this dumb little song to my son that somebody sung to me. It's raining. It's pouring. The old man is snoring. He went to bed, bumped his head, and couldn't get up in the morning. I'm like, why am I singing homicide hymns to my son before he go to sleep? And what was going on with knocking all these people in their head? What is strange stuff, man. Three blind mice. How you know? Who is evaluating the eyes of mice? Who has the time to make these little Stevie Wonder glasses for mice? Who's who's doing this, man? This is the stuff they taught us, man. Very strange. And what's wild for me, like, I was a child, but, like, I'm a father now. Like, I'm I'm, like, I'm at the age in life where people don't care about. I'm 49. Nobody cares that you're 49. I told somebody I was 40 I was turning 49. They was like, what you doing for your fiftieth? I was like, what? Got a whole year. What are you talking about? And let's see who's in the room. Let's see any any 20 year olds, make some noise. If you're 20, make some noise. Y'all tried. It was it was kinda like, shout out to the 20 year olds, man. That's a great age, man. Twenties. It's fleeting. It's a fleeting age. Like, twenties, man, it just like you look up and you're out of there. But I was doing this, and I was thinking about, like, what would I tell my 20 year old self? Like, what advice would I give my 20 year old self? And I would told my 20 year old self to try very hard not to be self absorbed. Like, when you're 20 years old, like, you're like, the world is basically, like, you and you alone. So I would have told myself to, like, try to not be so self absorbed. Think look outside of yourself. Now I wouldn't have listened to myself, but that's what I would have told myself. What about 30 year olds? Make some noise. Where the 30 year olds at? It's a great age. Great age. 30 is the you know, that's the age where you're young, but you're getting old. It's shifting, like, right under your feet. Like, it's it's happening, man. Thirties age, man. I would tell myself I was giving myself some advice. In my thirties, execute. Just do it. Just get it done. Quit talking about it. When I was 30, man, I just oh, I'm a do this. Just shut up and get the work done. Like, knock it out. Do it wrong, fix it, and do it again. That's what I would tell my 30 year old self. 40 year olds, make some noise. You're in the forties. Yeah. Those are my people right there. I'm almost out. I'm almost out, though. I had some somebody was made somebody was like, ah. I'm on the edge. I'm right there. I'm still in. I'm on the edge. I'm on circle back around to 40. But what I would have told myself, 40 year old, I would have told myself I would have gave myself more grace. Give yourself more grace. Like, it's alright. You'll you'll get it done. You'll get it'll happen. 50. What if 50 year olds make some noise? These are the folks right here, man. Life they got a new lease on life. They're putting people out of their house. Yeah. Money's coming back into their account. They don't have to work for it. It's just coming back to them. They naked walking around their house. They nasty. These are nasty people, man. Do not go to a 50 year old don't just pop up over there. Leave those people alone. They they hit the reset button or something, man, at 50. I don't have no advice for 50. I'm not there yet. I have nothing to share. Sixties. 60 year old. That's a great age. These people don't have a filter. They don't they don't care anything about your feelings. They'll just tell you, hey, man. You know your breath stink. Right? You're like, you're gonna offer me a mint or nothing? They just say they gotta tell you. They gotta it's on my eye. I just gotta tell you how I feel. I just can't I can't hide this anymore. I gotta tell you. It's a great age. Seventies. We got in 70 year old. My man. You thought there was some more. I thought there was some more too. I that was a strong clap. I was like, there's gonna be a group. It just seems like it's you, my man. It's you. And that's great. You're holding it down for the 70 year old. This folks this 70 is all about comfort. This is a very comfortable age. They have no laces in their shoes. They have elastic waistbands. He probably got his all his bed clothes on right now, under his clothes. He's he's prepared to go to sleep. He might go to sleep doing my set. He might take a little nap doing my set. Eighties? Okay. I didn't think so. I didn't think so. Y'all keep living. We'll get there. We'll get there. Forties. 40 is a very is a interesting age. It's a dilemma. 40 is the age where people that are older than you, they tell you how young you are. They're like, oh, you're just a 40 year old little baby. It's a 40 year old baby. But then people that are younger than you think you a museum fossil or something. They've never imagined being 40 years old. 40 is also the age my whole life, my mind and my body worked together in tandem. They were a team. They walked worked on one accord. I turned 40. They got a divorce. They did not communicate anymore. 40 is the age where you just go to bed at night. You don't do anything. You just lay down in the bed. You go to sleep. Wake up and your shoulders on fire. You're like, was somebody beating me in my sleep? What's why is my heel hurt? I didn't even get out of the bed. I step on a rock in my dream. What is going on? 40 is also the age, especially for men, where your doctor get all handsy with you. And women have no sympathy for us at all. No no empathy. People have been poking and prodding on y'all y'all entire life. Not men. Men, doctors were our friend. I remember going to the doctor. I was a little boy. I went in there. He hit my knee. I my leg. He gave me a lollipop, and I went on about my business. But it all shifted when I was in about the eighth grade, and they told me I need to go get a sports physical. So I was like, alright. So I go to this appointment and this man put on a glove. I'm like, he never put on no glove before. This glove is not my friend. So I'm in there and my man tells me to drop my pants and everything. I said, what? He tells you turn your head to the side and cough. And it's the weakest little cough you ever heard in your life. Because you like coughing, but you're trying to look and see what he doing. And then you're hey, man. Just tell me. I'll do it. What we doing down there? Just tell me what we're looking for, doc. Where's it going? But you in there. You I'm like, I just wanna play basketball, man. What are we doing? This is very this is very jarring. And then you go about the rest of your life, and you find it till you turn 40, and you go to your doctor's appointment. I remember I turned 40. I went to my doctor's appointment. I thought it was time to go home. He started putting on his glove, told me to put my elbows on the table. I blacked out. I woke up in the parking lot crying. I text my wife. I said, I think I just got violated. That's what I think. Like, forty years, nobody been concerned about nothing going on back there. I won't even go back there like that, man. Like, this the best medical technology we have to offer. This is the best we could do, man. Somebody finger. Come on, man. I was doing that joke one night. Somebody yelled out, wait till you turn 50. I was like, oh, wait till turn I found out. I found out. I I won't do that joke tonight. We'll we'll we'll let that we'll let that go. But 40 is also the age where you turn on TV, you see all these sports heroes selling itch cream and life insurance. It's It's it's very strange. They're selling compression socks and sketches. I'm like, I'm in the sketch of demographic, man. When did that happen? Y'all realize Snoop Dogg is selling sketches? I'm like, when? When did Snoop Dogg become the ambassador of America? When did that happen? I mean, you can't look at anything without Snoop showing up. I'm like, what is going on, man? Sketches, man. Sketches don't even want you to exert no energy to put on your shoe. They don't want you to bend over, lace, nothing. It's pretty soon you will be able to put your foot out and the shoe is gonna form around your foot like some AI technology. Snoop Dogg selling sketches. Can you imagine a song walking around wearing sketches, sipping on prune juice? Come on, man. And it's very difficult to explain how dominant the athlete on the commercial was back in the day to your to your children. I'm sitting there watching this commercial. Shaq comes on. I'm like, son, you see that? That's Shaquille O'Neal. Bad man. Use a ten hour rims. Shaq said, don't fake the funk on a nasty dunk. My son was like, the Papa John dude with the terrible wigs, daddy. That's the icy hot man, daddy. That's who he talking about? The general car insurance guy, daddy? Carnival Cruise. Get it. Shaq does a lot of commercials. Shaq wants all the money. And I think about this interesting concept of legacy. Right? Legacy is a very sobering concept. Legacy is not what you've done, it's what people remember you for. Pretty interesting because I think about people like George Foreman. Right? George Foreman is a Olympic gold medalist. He's a two time heavyweight champion of the world. But why does the name George Foreman resonate with you right now? A cooking apparatus. This is this is not why George put his body in harm's way for you to make a perfect panini. That's not what he was Took all those concussions for you to make a grilled cheese sandwich, man. That couldn't have been what he wanted. I think about Will Smith. Right? Will Smith, Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Independence Day, One of the highest grossing movies of all time. But when I think about Will, you know what I think about? The slap, man. This man has slapped Chris Rock in the face on national television. I remember watching it and and thinking that, man, they have to have a movie coming out together. This is this is not real. And what was so jarring about it, Will didn't follow any of the surf social norms and protocols of how we are supposed to operate in life. This man got out of his seat, went up on the stage, slapped him, then went and sat down and yelled, keep my wife name out your mouth. Yeah. You're supposed to lead off with that, sir. That's that's how we get this whole thing started. You just you just can't be slapping people in the den, telling them why we slapped them. That's just not appropriate, man. A lot of people ask me about the the slap, and I have a unique perspective about the slap because I work clean. I've always worked clean. I've long had you know, have done comedy in a way that's that's glorifying to god. Like, I never wanna do comedy that I don't feel that it is is worth you know, my my my my my witness will be will be compromised. Right? Yeah. That's a yeah. That's a good place. But I I was telling them backstage, like, in doing that, especially because I I don't like the term Christian comedian, like, because they try to make they try to play you like you like the youth youth service loop. Like, come and talk to the kids. I'm like, I don't talk to the kids. I talk about colonoscopies. The kids don't want you, but that is not for the kids. So that's when they say, Chris, they you know, I feel like they're trying to, you know, minimize it. And it's like, no, man. I wanna be excellent in my craft. Like, you know, we've seen some Christian comics when it don't go well, they wanna share their testimony. And you're like, uh-uh. We bring you here to tell your testimony. You tell some jokes, man. And so I and but people always ask me. Like, they ask me, like, how do you do the clean comedy on the stage? Now some of you have no idea what I'm doing right now. So so what I'm doing so Eddie Murphy had a stand up, like, in the eighties, Raw, where he did an impersonation of Bill Cosby because he wanted Bill Cosby wanted to send his son to an Eddie Murphy show. Well, he did, but Eddie Murphy was using language. And so Eddie Murphy was like, he get you do you send my son to your show and you use the flim flam, flim flam, flim flam. So that's the way I hear people when they talk to me about clean comedy. How do you do the clean comedy at the show? You do the joke and the joke jokes. It is weird to me because my whole life, I've laughed at things that didn't have language. I grew up like that. I grew up watching Goma Powell and the three students. Like, I've always enjoyed entertainment without language, so it's not it's not odd to me. And I grew up in a house where we couldn't even use regular words. Forget cuss words. I couldn't say shut up when I was a kid. I couldn't say lie. I had to say they were telling stories or they were fibbing. I couldn't say fart. I couldn't. I had to say they were pudding. Do you know how demasculating it is? You a 13 year old little boy full of testosterone, and you tell your mama, mama, I think he pooed it. Like, no, mama. He farted. That's what he did. He almost did something else. But I have a unique perspective because I can imagine being in a show using language. Right? And I could be on stage using language. I could I could I could imagine hearing his voice in the back of the room yell out, what you're not gonna do? And then see this little silhouette make her way right down to the stage and slap me in the face. My mom my momma would walk right on stage. 49 years old. I I'm 49 year old man getting slapped in the face, and she say, hey. The show's over. Thank y'all. I gotta go clean his mouth out with soap, but y'all be safe going home. That would be the end of the show. So I just have a I didn't have a unique perspective on the way that I deliver my comedy. And and also people, they're like, man, Mike, how do you come up with this stuff? I'm like, I just look at y'all. That's all I do. Just walk outside, man. Like, I don't know. Like, I think sometimes, like, we use expressions. I don't even think people hear their selves. Like, for instance, what do we say when we have a great night of sleep? Slept like a baby last night. Don't babies cry and wet the bed? You nasty. Yeah. I've had a baby. We had to change his diaper every morning. He slept like a baby last night. Have you ever been in a conversation with somebody in the middle of the conversation? They say something like, hey, man. Can I be honest with you? Well, that's what I thought you was doing the whole time. Was all was all that make believe that you would just share with me? I was at a hotel last week, and they had a sign on the door that said, no shirt, no shoes, no service. So I'm like, we show it with no pants? Everybody just good? We just right this way, mister Goodwin. We've been waiting on you. Then there's some things I see in society y'all. I it's not wrong, but it just ain't right. You know what saying? It's not against the law. It's not against the bible. It ain't wrong. It just ain't right. Like a thug that wear flip flops. You gonna be a tough guy with your toes out, man? That's ain't wrong. It just ain't right. I had a buddy of mine. He bought a a Harley Davidson, and he he came by my house. He pulled up. I went outside. I was like, man, that's a good looking bike. He was like, you like it? I was like, yeah. He was like, you wanna take it for a spin around the block? He was like I was like, yeah. He's like, hop on the back. I said, what? He's like, yeah, man. It's just grabbed grabbed around my waist on the back. I ain't about to grab no grown man waist. Ain't wrong. It just ain't right. Even little boys know better than that. What little boys do? Ride on the handlebars, man. Ride on the handlebars. It ain't wrong. It just ain't right. What about a grown man skipping? You ever seen a grown man skip? That ain't wrong. It just ain't right. Because when you skip, you gotta smile. Have you ever seen somebody skip and not smile? I ain't wrong. That just ain't right. That's a long way around right there. Should've just skipped right here in the front. That ain't wrong. That just ain't right. I was in the goodwill the other day. I saw a section for lingerie. That's wrong. Right there. Nobody want no hand me down drawers. They ain't wrong. It just ain't right. You having a good time? So I'm working on this thing, this tool called the big dad energy tour. Well, I'm highlighting father. So round of applause for all the dads. Give it up for dads. I feel like dads get a lot of love. Not a lot of love, you know, like, in in in, like, entertainment, dads are, like, the flunky. He didn't have the answers. He, you know, he's the he's the butt of the joke. Right? So I'm I'm trying to elevate fathers and give fathers their due, but we gotta give up for the ladies. Give it up for the mothers. Give mothers mothers a round of applause. The one thing I find interesting is the difference between mothers and father's day. Right? Very different. I feel like a lot of love for moms. People love moms. Even if they had a bad mom, they still love mom. It's like, mom, thank you for being a visionary and dropping me off from my grandparents' house. Not dad's boy. Father's Day come up, people angry. You can even see it, like, when you go and set a reservation. Right? Mother's Day. You can't you gotta make a reservation weeks in advance. Not Father's Day. Father's Day, you show with a party of 20. They're like, right this way. Here we go. Even when you put dad in front of things, it's not it's not a compliment. Dad jokes, that was not funny. Not good jokes. Dad bod, that's not a compliment. Ain't telling you how you're killing it in the gym. Dad bod. But I'm always looking for examples of good fathers. Right? And I was reading in the bible about Abraham, the father of our faith. Everybody's familiar with the story in Abraham. Oh, in Abraham, in Genesis. We're like, I'm a made up of book of the bible. Over there in Abraham. Like, what you read the lost books? What books are you reading? But I was reading that that story. I was like, man, this kinda sounds like a father's day story. This is something that would probably happen on Father's Day. Right? Got a son and his dad. And I was reading, and I was like, oh, I see why I'm not in the Bible too. Because if I was in that story, it would be a much longer story because he would have to catch me. Because I see this rope. I'm like, hey, What you doing, dad? Go ahead, man. Quit quit playing, man. I'm like, he got on sandals, man. He gotta catch me, man. I'm just not going. That's why I'm not in the bible. But Isaac, he submitted. Genesis twenty second chapter, God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. They go to mountaintop. Abraham goes to sacrifice and God speaks. There's a ram in the bush. They go on. Now the next time you see Abraham and Isaac together in Genesis the twenty fifth chapter when Isaac is bearing his father Abraham. So I submit unto you. That's pastoral word. I don't use that a lot. But I submit unto you that incident on the mountaintop was probably the last father son trip that Abraham and Isaac went on together. That probably was the last time Abraham was able to get Isaac anywhere with him by himself. Be like, hey, son. I'm about to run down to Damascus to get some livestock. You want a ride? He'll be like, no. What you're not gonna do is get me out here and try to sacrifice me again. That's what you're not gonna do. Another thing too about my forties, man, I'm in this interesting point of my life where I much rather have cookies than abs. Yeah, man. I'd rather have a six pack of cookies, man. And it's hard, man, because this button is the MVP of my life right here. This is this is holding everything together, man. I'm I'm oh, I I I would like I I'm working, but, I mean, it's like, it's hard, man. My doctor recently told me I need to lose some weight. I'm like, no. I ain't gonna lose no weight, man. I'm like, I got girl scout cookies in the freezer from last year, man. I'm not gonna lose weight. But I go to gym. I don't like it. I go. There's a lot of weird stuff happening in the gym. Anybody go to gym with a screaming dude? Dude in the and he just putting on his workout gloves. You're like, man, what is all that screaming for, man? And it never fails. It never fails. Doesn't matter what time of the day I go. I go in the locker room. I walk inside the locker room as a 85 year old man. Walk around naked as a jaybird, just just eating sunflower seeds, just marching around. I'm like, sir, where is your family at, man? What are you what are you doing in here, man? And he always wanna strike up a conversation with me. I'm like, what you're not gonna do is talk to me with no pants on, sir. This is very inappropriate. It's awful, man. Like, boys, they'd be trying to dry they self off in a hand dryer. You be like, come on, man. This is very inappropriate, sir. And I don't know why he always won't go captain Morgan on me. He always won't stand up. Hey. Thank you all so much. I hope you all had a great time. Enjoy your conference. I'm Mike Goodwin. Thanks Mike. What an amazing way to kick off our conference. Let's give him another round of applause. And I know you guys are always looking for events and for entertainment at those events, so just realize Mike has a great website where you can get all the information in terms of bookings and how to get him into those events. And you might want to ask quickly, I was looking at his calendar, he is a busy guy. So before we move on, let's talk about some announcements. First off, the rest of the presentation we're going to use interactive experiences. So you might want to get out your mobile apps. And if you go into the Rx control panel, you'll be able to engage with that experience when we get to it. Now if this is anything like last year, this might actually be scene two of our comedy sketch. We're going to put the hotel WiFi to the test. Okay. So we talked to you guys, we really emphasized that this part of the conference was something that we really wanted you here for. It's something that we saw that we talked about being a strategic beginning to the conference. And that's true. So you might be wondering, why are we all here? Now some of you might be thinking, putting the puzzle pieces together, that this is John's comedy debut, and Mike was just our warm up act for that. Well that might be funny, at least I would think it's funny. I don't think you would think that's funny, So that's not why we're here. But the better question is, why are you here? Why are you here at RX? Have you thought about that? Now some of you might be here because your boss told you you're going. I need you to go to that conference, I need you to get all that content, I need you to learn what's coming out, need to learn what people are doing. Get over there, get that content. Others of you might be here because a group of people in your church were like, hey, come along with us, you need to be here. But you're not really sure why. Others of you maybe had never really thought about it. You come here because you're part of the rock community and that's just what the community does. So you just show up and say, hey, this is encouraged. This is where I should be. This is the area that I serve in and this is the conference for the people who do what I do. So you show up. Or maybe you've thought about it, but you didn't really come down to a really deep meaning. Yeah, again, I just go to the conference, we kind of hang out, I get some content, and I go back. And I really feel like before we get the conference officially started tomorrow morning, that we should take some time and just really define our why. And believe it or not, God has a reason for each one of you to be here tonight and for the next two days. And I feel like we really need to connect with what is God trying to lead each and every one of you. What path does he want you on? And how do we strategically alter for each of you, your pathway through this conference? What sessions you're going to be going to? Who you're going be connecting with. What do you need to learn? And so we want to provide that time tonight. Now I know you all work for churches, and I know you all realize that we're in the middle of a spiritual battle. We all realize that, right? And the Bible says if we could pull back the curtain right in this room, there's a spiritual battle going on in this room. And I guarantee you there is tonight and for the next two days because this is an amazing and a powerful group of people who can make a difference in this world. So to think that there's not a battle going on, we'd be fooling ourselves. I think though, for being honest, that many of you in the room are like, yeah, there's a spiritual battle, but I'm not on the front lines. I'm not a warrior on the front lines. I'm in logistics and supply chain. I'm helping those who are on the front lines. And I want to tell you that is certainly not true. The devil would like you to believe that. But your experiences, your knowledge, and your toolset makes you a very powerful and dangerous warrior in this battle. And what's at stake, we know what's at stake. The whole world is at stake. And we can make a huge difference in this world with our skill sets, experiences, and our tool set. There's a widely discussed phrase the last few years, especially in America, and that is, make America great again. I'm not sure how we in this room can help with that, but what I do know is everybody in this room can help America be good again. You see, in the eighteen hundreds, a Frenchman came to America for several years and just went all abroad within America trying to figure out the difference between the French Revolution and the American Revolution. Two revolutions very different. And he wanted to know why. He wrote a two volume book called Democracy in America. And if I could summarize that two volumes down to two phrases, he said, America is great because America is good. And what did he mean by good? He was talking about our Christian values that formed this country. But he also gave a haunting prediction that if America ever stopped being good, America would stop being great. If we think back through the last twenty, thirty years, isn't that true? When we stopped being good, stopped being great. And to take America out of this, it's not an American thing. Everywhere in the world where there's greatness, it's because there's goodness. And you take away the goodness, you lose the greatness. So it's really important that we see our role in bringing goodness into the world. And we have that, right? We have the truth. God's given us that truth. And we need to do everything we can to make sure that truth is widely spread. And so you have to see yourself as a warrior. The warrior that God sees you as. The warrior God is calling you to be. Now there's different types of warriors, and I'm kind of wondering tonight, which one might you be? Let's look at some of the warriors that you might be. Perhaps you're the surprised warrior because you're like, woah, I thought I was in logistics and supply chain. I didn't see myself as being on the front line. But you are. I guarantee you are. And so what I want to tell you is that you might feel like you're not strong enough to be that. You're like, I'm not qualified for that. Well, good news is God doesn't call strong people. His calling makes us strong. And if you look at all the heroes of the Bible, they were much the same. Look at Jesus' apostles. Yikes. That's what he was dealing with. But his calling made them strong and made them world changers. And it's the same for you. I look at that in my life like what am I doing up here talking about these topics or leading the technology platform that we are. But his calling has made myself and our team strong. So don't forget that. It's not that he's calling strong people, his calling will make you strong. Perhaps you're not surprised, a surprised warrior, but maybe you're an apprentice warrior. You're saying, well yeah, I guess I see myself as a warrior, but I'm new to rock, or I'm new to technology, or I'm new to being on a church staff, well good news. You are in the right place. For the next two days you're going to be surrounded by content and learning. So lean into that and glean from all that's going on. For you, I would say, let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance. Proverbs one five. Well good news, you're going be around a lot of wise people in the next two days. Listen to them from their learnings, and get discerning and guidance from them. A lot of people have gone down paths that you can learn from. You don't have to be the first one down the path, you can learn from others. Well, if you're not surprised or an apprenticed, if you're just being honest, sometimes if we reflect deeply on where we are, perhaps maybe you've become the indifferent warrior. You're like, yeah, I'm living my best life. I'll clock in, I'll do my effort that's required of me, but then I'm going to go home and I'm not going to put that extra effort or extra time in. Well, would challenge you with that we should work willingly at whatever we do as though you are working for the Lord rather than for people. Because you are, especially when you work for the church. Everything we do is for the Lord. It's easy to get caught up, especially over time and lose our way and say, well yeah, that's the pastor's job. I just kind of help the pastor or the pastorial team. But I've kind of lost my way. Now if you've ever worked with me, you know, and the team that works with me the closest knows this and actually kind of laughs a lot at the way I think. I think in pictures and in analogies. And the picture I always think of from my own perspective to kind of encourage myself when I feel indifferent, is I think of a house on fire. The bad news is the house is on fire. The good news is God's provided a way out of our house. It's an easy way. All we have to do is follow it. Now if the house is on fire and there's other people in the house, wouldn't you help them out? Of course you would. You wouldn't say, well someone else will help them on the way out. That's the urgency we have to have. And in the spiritual battle, it's much the same thing, it's just a different fire. So work within your positions as if the house is on fire. And we need to get as many people out of this house as possible. I don't know when Jesus comes back, but it feels like someday, any day. And we need to be bringing people out of this fire as fast as humanly possible. Now I know a lot of you in this room, I work with a lot of you in this room. A lot of you in this room might be a different type of warrior. You might be the weary warrior. You guys work really hard. A lot of things don't go right. If I'm being honest, I think I'm in that weary warrior mode. It's been a hard twenty four years of ministry, and the last thirteen years have been crazy. This whole rock community and all the things that are going on, and I think sometimes it just gets to you. Also, perhaps you're like me, you kind of feel like sometimes you're under the attack from the devil. Certainly in my life that's been the case, I think for definitely the last year. In a thousand small ways, and in a couple of really big ways. I feel like it's even within our team we see a lot of that. The last two weeks leading up to this conference has been one crazy situation after another where you're definitely feeling the spiritual warfare. The last two days, our office in fact lost its air conditioning. That's probably pretty important in Phoenix right now, right? There's only one person I know that likes it that hot. And I know working with a lot of you, you probably feel the same thing. Some words of encouragement perhaps, things that make me feel better, is just know that the devil doesn't attack you because you're weak, he attacks you because you're a threat. So when you're feeling attacked, just know you're over the target. That's a good thing. And if the devil can't take you out, he's just going to wear you out. Knowing that truth is really, really helpful. A quote that really helps me too is this one. I want to be so anchored in Christ that the chaos around me doesn't produce chaos within me. I don't think I'll ever achieve this, but it's really helpful. Some other things I would just put out there that when you're feeling wary, it helps me. First is, he is with us and he is for us. We always hear the quote, Philippians four thirteen, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's a really good quote. I love that quote. But it's also good to know that quote, if you add to it, and Jesus is with us wherever we go, and he's for us. He's like rooting, a cheerleader rooting for us right next to us. So he's not distant. I also think, again I play these funny word games in my head. I always think too that I need to reframe my perspective. One way I do that is I think about my grandfather. He was born in the 1920s to a large family just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They were farmers. Their farm though wasn't a great farm. It was on a hill. So they had to plant tomatoes and do all this stuff on a hill. They had lots of kids. So the kids ran the farm because his mom left the family. She was tired of having kids. And his dad worked in a coal mine. That was until his dad died in the coal mine. And the kids had to run the farm on their own until they could find the mom and bring them back. He finally was able to leave the farm when he joined World War II. He was part of a bomber crew that did several missions, many missions over Germany. They kept lengthening how many missions you had to do, so it was almost like a perpetual stay in the military. Witnessed most of his friends die by watching their planes go down all around him. He got out of war but didn't have any money, so he started doing construction. He worked dawn to dust till he was in his early eighties. And so I kind of reflect on, like, what would he tell me? And I think he'd say something like this, John, you're working really hard. I'm proud of you. But no one's shooting at you. So just take that wisdom that even though we're weary, we still live in an amazing world. And we have so many riches and things around us that take for granted. So when you feel weary, just know almost anybody in history would trade their places with your worst day. And so sometimes reframing it I think helps that worry and weariness. And what I would want to tell you is you're making a difference, especially you in the rock community. And I would just really emphasize that you just need to fight on. It's okay. You're surrounded by people who will help you. Just fight on. And in my experience, life doesn't get any easier, but you do get stronger. And the things that brought you down yesterday don't impact you as much the next day. There's one warrior you could be, this is an important one. This is the battle ready warrior. I know there's some of you in this room. You have a great responsibility, in our community especially. Quote I would tell you is, therefore encourage one another and build each other up. First Thessalonians five eleven. And your job is to inspire the surprised warrior. Show them that they are on the front lines. Inspire them to take up their sword and shield and join the battle. Provide wisdom for the apprentices. Give them knowledge and learning that you have that they need. Challenge the indifferent. We're all going to hit a level of indifference And we need battle ready warriors who are going to challenge us to step up. And finally, encourage the weary. Now when I say this, if you're battle ready, you start today. Like for the next two days, do these things to the warriors all around you in this room. Inspire them. Help guide them in their journeys. And encourage them. So don't wait to wait until you get home. It starts tomorrow morning. Okay. This is our first interactive experience. What I want you to do, open up your mobile apps and tell us which warrior type you are. Now this is anonymous. So please just reflect quickly and pick which warrior type you are and we'll put it up here on the screen. Alright, it's working. Alright. Those are some great results. Those are the results I probably would have expected. I know many of you are weary. Now look at this and just know that over the next two days, these are the people you're surrounded by. Encourage them. I think this is a really good data point as we reflect and try to be strategic with our time together over the next two days. Now let's talk quickly about the enemy of every warrior. And I really feel like this is a cultural problem with our generation in history, not our generation like in terms of what we typically say generations, but in this moment in history, the biggest enemy that we have is comfort. Unless you're 70 years old, we just found out that you can be comfortable, but the rest of us, we can't be comfortable. In fact, discomfort is a real disease within our modern cultures. In fact, research scientists are telling us that we are so comfortable, the temperature is almost always perfect. Maybe Phoenix isn't. But we have air conditioning. I'm actually freezing in this room. And we go from freezing to warmth in the winter. We very rarely are uncomfortable in our temperature, if we're honest. But it's not just that, there's other creature comforts. Look at the houses we go to. There are palaces by any other time in history. Our beds are amazing. Kings didn't have beds as nice as we do. You can't even get a car without the steering wheel being heated now. And if you don't have a heated steering wheel, it's as if your car is not good enough. It's crazy. And experts tell us that makes us mentally weak. In fact when we lose just an ounce of comfort, a lot of people just lose it. And this comfort is really at war against our warriorness. In fact, we need to become much more disciplined if we're going to fight this battle as warriors. I love this quote too. Everyone must choose one of two pains, the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. Now it's certainly true if maybe you're going to the gym, you better get disciplined or you're going to have regrets, you're not going to make any difference. But as warriors, we have to look at this too. We have to be disciplined if we're going to fight the fight. Growth and comfort can't coexist. We have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. We know that, but we're fighting against that constantly because we're addicted to comfort, all of us, including myself. As much as I like to think I'm disciplined, I'm really not. I try to be, but I need to keep leveling up each and every time. And I think the quote is also great because it tells us if we don't do this, there will be regrets. Someday we'll reflect back to this moment working in the community and the opportunities that we had that maybe we didn't take. Or we didn't step up as much as we could. And we don't want to live with regret. That's the one thing I don't want to live with. Okay. So let's look at a few things that every warrior needs. The first thing that every warrior needs is a mastery of skills. Would you want to stand next to a warrior who didn't know how to use his weapon and had no idea of tactics or strategy? I wouldn't. In fact, I'd prefer them to stand very far away from me. I'd rather have no warrior next to me than someone who had no skills. So we need to continually grow our skills. No matter how much you feel like your skills are ready, we need to continually grow those skills. And we can't be in a better place again for the next two days to be surrounded by people who have skills that maybe we need to level up in. Skills that we can learn from over the next two days, sure, but we can take those skills back with us and change the trajectory of our careers and the impact that we have in God's kingdom. So for the next two days, we're in the perfect place for that. I'd like to do our second interactive experience, this will be our last one. And just ask you guys, what skills do you feel like you need to level up in, in building out your warrior toolkit? So go ahead and pick one of these skill sets. Alright. That's great. I'm actually a little surprised at how even the bars are. That's really, really great. Now the good news is we have all of this content over the next two days. What I would challenge you to do is to go back to the session list that you've picked over the next two days and ensure that what you're going to matches what you most need. I think sometimes if you're like me, it's easy to go through that list and be like, oh that sounds like a fun one, that sounds like a fun one. I kind of know some stuff about that. But we often sometimes don't pick the ones that are going to stretch us. They're going to make us uncomfortable. So consider going back through your session list and picking those that are going to make the most impact. The second thing that every warrior needs, and this is very important, is a battle plan. Now for us, plans could almost be translated into projects. Like we need to pick the right projects to fight in, and we need to know how to work those projects. So a battle plan is very, very important. And it's very strategic. We talk about this a lot, not only at the conference, but on the podcast and every time we talk to the community. We have to be very strategic on the projects we pick. There's a project management axiom that says that when I say yes to one project, I'm actually saying no to every other possible project I could work on. So we have to treat the projects that we say yes to as very strategic decisions. Sometimes we're quick to just jump in and just say yes. But realize when you say yes, you're actually saying an infinite number of no's. We need to make sure we're working on the right ones. We talk a lot about that from the community's perspective in terms of things like, there's two types of projects. There's administrative projects, administrative projects and ministry projects. I keep telling you guys that the administrative projects, I sometimes call them Satan's projects. And it's true because if he can't stop us, he's just going to keep us busy with stuff that doesn't matter. Reports that don't change anybody's life, reports that get us busy, that keep us away from the features would actually change this world. Now there will always be administrative projects. There will be some things we need to do. But I think the draw to them is too great. Why? Because sometimes those projects help us. They make our job a little easier. And so we're quick to say yes to them. Or maybe they're quick to say yes because they make the person who sits in the queue with the office next to us, they make their job a little easier. And so we get a nice attaboy and a pat on the head for doing those projects. But we really need to be aggressive to make sure that we're working on the right, to fight the right battles and to do the right projects. Not only is it important for your church, it's important for this community. Because the projects that you pick, they funnel all the way down to us because we are working to support the needs that you want us to work on. And so by selecting just administrative projects, you're actually forcing us to work on those also. Just realize there is always a tension here. And the wheel is always going to pull us to the administrative projects. So to keep even parity, we have to steer the wheel to the other direction. I remember once when I was in college, I went to Northern Arizona University. What people don't realize is a third of Arizona is very high forest. And so it had just snowed and the roads were really icy. And me being from Tucson, not a great snow driver, I was going down this hill and I thought it would be really fun to go kind of fast. And at the end, it kind of teed off and I slid the car and hit the curb. Well I was driving like this for at least two days until I could get it to a mechanic. So I had to make it very awkward. That's the same thing we have to do with our project planning. We need to pull to the administrative side. It's only those features that are going to make a difference. And I know there are some people in the room who saying, that's great. I want to work on those projects, but I don't have access to that. I don't get to pick my own projects. I have to work on what's given to me. And in Love, I'd want to say that's a bit of a cop out. You see, you can have cast vision for these projects, and you can work on the projects you want to. I'll tell you another story. I just mentioned I went to college at NAU. I was there between the years of 1991 to 1995. It was a great year for going to college at NAU. I left as a very experienced and almost perfectly trained mainframe programmer. At a time when mainframe programmers were not needed. Luckily I'd taken some elective classes in client server programming, and I'd also at that time learned about the World Wide Web. It was an exciting time because the World Wide Web, what we mostly call the Internet now, was invented in those four years. And I had taught myself that in the lab. It was kind of a coincidence at the time, I thought, but now I see that God had a plan. Well, flash forward, I graduate, and now I'm getting my first job at Honeywell. And I show up on the first week and tell my manager, hey, I know I'm here for client server development. I'm all for that. But I have this skill set where I can do web stuff. Can I work on some projects like that? He said no. And I'm almost assured that he just didn't know what I was talking about. And he just wanted me to quickly exit the office. But I said, wait, one more question. Do you mind if I work on my own time to set up an intranet site for the IT department? And he's like, sure, it's your time. I don't really care what you do. So I begged, borrowed and mainly stole a desktop to operate as that intranet server. It was an IBM PS two and it weighed about 80 pounds and had this huge handle on top. And I had to lift it back to my desk. I installed this Web server on it using a floppy disk. And I put up a five page intranet site. Now, at that time I worked in a division that made jet aircraft engines. And so the coolest thing about my five page Internet site was this animated GIF of an engine spinning. It was really cool. But that was about the only thing that was cool about it. But it wasn't about six weeks later that someone in the engineering department went to his director and said, hey, someone in IT just woke up and is actually doing Internet things. Like we should get over there and maybe they can help us put all these projects that we want onto the intranet. So they went to my director. My director was like, who did this? Luckily my manager kind of had an idea what I was doing. And flash forward, six months later, I'm doing nothing but intranet and web based projects. Flash forward two years, I'm actually working at corporate. I'm setting all the e commerce standards. I'm being able to be on calls with the CEO who's gotten the e commerce bug and now wants all these standards created. And I'm leading teams to set those standards and to do all the web hosting for Honeywell. All it takes sometimes is just a little bit of effort and pouring into the vision and the needs of the organization. It's a principle I call leadership gravity. In my experience, a lot of people want to be handed leadership and then they'll show you what they can do. But I don't think the world works that way. So what I found is if you just have a little bit of success, it creates what I call mass. Now we know mass creates gravity. And so a little bit of mass, my little intranet site, that was a little bit of mass done on my own time, But it started to create a little bit of gravity and I had opportunities pulled to me. When you continue to do successful projects, you start to create mass. That mass creates even more gravity. Next thing you know, you have more opportunities that you never thought you'd ever want. All those promotions that I got, I never asked for any of them, they were just given to me. Sometimes in the hallway, surprises, I'm like, really? This is great. I didn't ask for it. But the more you create mass, more you create gravity. Once you have enough gravity, start to have so many opportunities that you are given a team to help achieve those, and you get even more mass and even more gravity. Soon you're like, stop. No more. I just literally can't handle this. But it's creating that success. And sometimes that success requires us to go above and beyond to achieve it. So if you feel like you don't get to pick which projects you want to work on, just start working on something, even if it has to be on your own time. Make sure that it aligns with the vision of your church leaders. And you might say, well, don't have access to them. And I'd say you do. I'd hope most of you have a staff meeting occasionally. And if you don't, you have a Sunday sermon. Find out where want to go, where they need to go to, what they want, what their strategies and visions are, and align your experience, knowledge and toolset to support that. And you don't have to do something grandiose, just do something small. Something small creates mass, mass creates gravity, that creates opportunities. You continue that over time and it quickly will lead you to a point where you can choose the battle plans and have a bigger difference in God's kingdom. Another thing that warriors need is a passion for the mission, and I hope you have that. I hope this conference helps you with that. It's only when we have passion that we can get over our weariness. It's only when we have passion that we can be the catalyst that God has in store for us. Now the last thing every warrior needs is an army of allies. No warrior wants to fight the battle alone. Right? You want to be surrounded by an army of people who are like minded. Now you can find no better army of allies than you have in this rock community. It's an amazing thing. We always say rock is not a product, rock is a community. And if we had to get rid of one thing, we would get rid of the product. Because we could rebuild that product with the community. But if we just had the product, I don't think we could recreate the community anywhere near as easily. And I think we take for granted how powerful our rock community is, and how much more powerful it could be in the future. In fact, I was thinking about it. There's just under 700 people at RX twenty four. I think that the people in this room, even though they're a small part of our community, our full community can't be here over the next two days, but you are. But this group of just under 700, I think is the most powerful community and most powerful group in God's kingdom right now. Because with our experience and our knowledge and our toolset, we can change the world. We can. Let me prove it to you. Did you know that this weekend, there are 1,200,000 people in attendance at a church running rock? That's a lot. Yeah. You should clap. Now, does everybody go to church every week? No. What's multiplier that we can get to get active attendance? I always hear four. I think I heard someone say four. I always go with four, but I went with three because we need to be conservative. We don't want to overdo it. That means that 1% of all Americans attended a rock church this weekend. That's pretty incredible. Imagine if we just go above and beyond and we just level up in our experience, our knowledge and our use of this toolset to reach these people and draw them in and give them tools that help them become a better follower of Christ. And it's not just that 1% because more churches are coming and if we build our community and we help more people get on board, we not only get them, but if we give these tools and we keep working on outreach tools for our people, how many more people will they be able to bring to our churches where they can hear the message and change the world? That's one fact. Another fact is there's really over 28,000,000 people records inside of rock databases. That's 9% of all Americans are inside of a rock database. Their contact information is inside of a rock database. What if we could reenergize these people and reconnect them to our churches, and again, give them the tools to reach the lost? What impact could we have? I love this quote from Margaret Mead. She says, never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has. And if you look in history, that is true. There's not one revolution that started without a small group of committed people. We think that all these revolutions were caused by majorities, and they're not. They're caused by very, very small minorities. We always think that the American Revolution, everybody supported that, they did not. Most people were indifferent. A lot of people were actually supporting the other side, the English. And there was only a very small group of radicals supported the change, and even fewer actually fought. We need to take that to heart. This group, even this group tonight, we can change this world if we want to. If we put ourselves and we commit ourselves and we put extra energy into everything that we do. I think there's some lies that our culture talks about and tells us. One of the lies that goes around right now, especially in sometimes in younger generations is never work more than you have to. Jesus said, if you're supposed to go one mile, go two. Now if you're required to work eight hours, I'm not certain he's saying work sixteen. That might be a little aggressive. But if you look at your screen time, all of our phones tell us how many hours a day and a week we spend on our screens. There's a lot of time in there that we can apply to bettering ourselves and going to the next level. And when we do that, we can have a huge impact in this world. And I think if we think through the future, sometimes it's good to think backwards, but sometimes when you think into the future, I think when we reflect back on this time in twenty years, maybe thirty years, we're going to say, you know what, those were the days. We got to work on amazing technology and amazing projects in an amazing community with an amazing toolset. So right now that means these are the days. I think to the weary warrior, sometimes it's like, oh man, this is a grind. But don't forget, in the future you're going say, those were the days. Remember when we used to do those projects? Remember when we made that difference in the world? And so we need to really feel fortunate that we actually have these amazing projects that sometimes can make us very weary. So what we want to do is be very strategic with this time. We want you to take the next two days and make sure that it's not just another conference experience, but you level up. And that you really think, why does God have you here and how do you need to approach the next two days? So what we're going to do, we know the power of community and we know that we want you guys to make as many connections as possible. We're going to break you up into smaller teams where you can think through a series of questions. This won't take long, But again, we want you to be strategic. We want you to maximize these next two days. So what we're going to ask you to do is get together in these small teams, open up your mobile app. You'll also find that there's a workflow that you can enter in answers to a series of questions. These answers are for you. They're going on to your personal profile that you can see inside the Rock website. We're not going to look at them. We might remind you of them in a few months to make sure that you're still on track, but we're not looking at that. We're just going to email that out to you or remind you to go into your profile. The questions we want you to answer is number one, define your why. Why do you think God has you here for the next two days? Reflect on that. What is he trying to tell you? What is he trying to show you? What does he want you to focus on? And also take that information and adjust how you approach the next two days. Second one is going to be super easy because you already answered it. What's your warrior type? Again we want to get that put onto your profile so that you'll remember the warrior type that you picked today. And maybe in the future you can reflect on how you've changed. The second one is what skills you need to build. Again this one should be pretty easy, you've already answered that. We just want to get it tied to your profile. The fourth one will be a little harder. Battle plan. How does your battle plan need to change to maximize your kingdom impact? We talked at length tonight about different ways that we can adjust that, maybe some different changes you can take to increase your mass, which increases the gravity and the opportunities that are pulled into you. And also making the choice to work on more ministry projects than administrative. And the last one is the comrades. What connections do you need to make to build your army? We're going to do our best over the next two days to build these connections for you. But to maximize it, we suggest that you set goals. I know most of us in this room are probably more on the introverted side than extroverted side. But for the next two days, we will all be extroverts. We will set goals where we're going to meet people in the hallways, and we're going to show them a smile, we're going to connect with them, and then we're going to follow them. Now it's really easy to follow somebody. We want to get their contact information, or you want to get their contact information so you can keep in contact with them beyond the conference. Each of you have a badge with a QR code. Within the app, you can take the QR scanner and you can scan that QR code. Now do that once you have permission. Don't just randomly go up to people and start scanning. That's awkward. We don't want to be awkward. Intentionally awkward. We'll be accidentally awkward all we want. Now one thing has changed about doing that. When you scan that QR code, you will now be following that person. You will have their contact information on your profile on the Rock website. We made a change this year. They will also be automatically following you back. So no longer do you both need to scan each other, one of you scans and you both get followed. For those of you who wish that maybe you didn't follow that person, that's awkward and not very nice. So we're not thinking like that. But you can unfollow them in your profile later if you don't want that. Okay. So again, we hope that you take this time and this effort to think about these questions and to adjust your schedule at the conference to maximize the content that you need to do. So what we're going have you do is go out the back doors and turn left to go to the expo area. I know it's tempting that you want to get back to your room and maybe get some quick sleep, but just invest just a little bit of time to strategically think how we can take this to the next level. And I will see you tomorrow morning for the kickoff of RX twenty four.