EP244: Starting a Barbecue Church

As long as I have a boat, I'm not letting the people around me drown. And that's something that that's my heart. If I have a boat, I'm making sure people don't drown, you know? And I don't have a big boat, but I got life preservers and I'm willing to throw them out. And I got life-saving rings and I'm willing to throw them out and attach them to my boat and help get them to safety. Because we're called to be capital C church. Again, I'm not building my kingdom. We're building a kingdom of God.

Welcome to the Church Digital podcast. Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church, but more than that, we'll protect itself. We'll address deeper questions. Is disciple-making possible digitally? How should we approach the digital mission field? Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space? And where does the metaverse fit into all this? Whether you're a big or small church, an established church or a startup church plant, the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church digitally and physically. Our heart is that churches like yours will discover a newfound focus on disciple-making that will revolutionize your church. And now here's your host, Jeff Reed.

All right, hey, welcome to the Church Digital podcast once again. Jeff Reed, the host here, founder of the Church Digital, co-founder Digital Church Network. And man, I have a lot of fun jobs, and I love working with organizations that are championing this idea of digital church. And you know, as we talk about digital church, churches that are operating in digital space and physical space, there's lots of unique stories, unique expressions of these churches. And some are controversial. The Dungeons and Dragons Bible study gets some eyebrows raised. You know, anytime we talk virtual reality church, there's a lot of people that are uncomfortable with the virtual reality of baptisms and communion and some of that stuff that's happening there. But you know, when I talk about Grand Theft Auto church, which actually was a DJ Soto experiment, that right there is like, I'm not really sure. I myself, I'm not really sure about the GTA church. But you know, I love the fact that he's experimenting. But one of these churches that anytime I bring it up in a conversation, it always brings up a smile with whoever I'm talking about, however angry they are with me. I can get them to smile at merely mentioning the name: Barbecue Church.

And so we have Barbecue Assemblies of God, if I am correct in this. And so we're bringing into the conversation here Andre Anderson today. Andre, man, thanks for jumping on the show here.

Hey, thank you, Jeff. It's hilarious and fun.

So Andre, now I want to actually set him up to tell the story here in a second. Actually, will you do it right now? So Andre, you are lead pastor of Barbecue Assemblies of God, okay? How did you get here? Like, give me not the thirty-minute version, give me the shorter version, but tell me how you got to the place where you are now leading a digital church called Barbecue Assemblies of God.

Well, it started out. 2020 was the year that everybody tried something new or stayed stagnant. So sure, and I started smoking meat. I always love to cook. I've always worked in four-star, five-star dining establishments. So I'm like, okay, let's start smoking meat. I started, and then I was looking at barbecue Facebook groups, and they were kind of toxic. They would say like really random, terrible things. And so I started a Facebook group called Barbecue Assembly of God because I thought it was hilarious. And I figured if you're in this group, you're not going to talk crazy, hopefully. And if you do, I'll kick you out. I'm okay with that. And I did that. And one of my friends across the street is another brother who goes to a church in the area. He barbecues hardcore, and he comes over. I was doing a prime rib roast, and he said he's looking at me. He's like, "Hey, man, Barbecue Assembly of God is blowing up." And I said, "Am I the lead pastor?" And he said, "Yeah." And then I felt like God spoke to me and said, "You're going to start a church called Barbecue Church." And I said, "Okay." And so I originally thought I was just going to be doing training videos of, you know, how to cook this different stuff. And God said, "You're a pastor. You've always been a pastor." And I've always done youth ministry. I do youth ministry consulting and helping youth ministries grow. And he goes, "No, you're going to lead people to Jesus through barbecue." And I said, "Okay." And so I looked into it, started to go down this path, connected with great people at Church Marketing University, and they helped me start. And I mean, we launched Barbecue Church this past May. May 29th was our launch date. And it's been fun. And that's how we got here.

Technically awesome. So you were unpacking here a little bit. You were running the Facebook group, Barbecue Assemblies of God, and that actually led you to start the church. So what does Barbecue Church, what does that look like? Our whole thought process, and what we, it's kind of like our mission statement, is we want to feed people biblically, spiritually, and literally. And we, I just preach sermons. It's quick, you know, seven to eleven-minute sermons. I'm not going to get any awards or any accolades on social media for being deeply profound and deeply theological. It's not my audience. It's not who I was called to reach. We are out here to reach those people who don't want to step inside of a church. We're out here to reach those people who are on the outside who don't want to step inside of a church building. We're looking at the fact that the majority of people who go to church are women, and her husband stays home. And so their husbands aren't moving forward on their faith journey. Well, now these wives can point to Barbecue Church and say, "Why don't you watch Barbecue Church's sermon? It's seven to eleven minutes. You watch it, and then they can begin to grow together in their spiritual journey," which is important. It's an important piece, and it's something that we're lacking. And for me, being a person who works multiple, multiple, multiple side jobs, I'm out here hanging out. Like, when this recording is over, I'm going to go and set up parking for an air show. And the people that I work with are not followers of Jesus yet. And they watch Barbecue Church. And one of those guys texted me when I was on my way to fly to Atlanta. He said, "I just want you to know I'm giving everything to Jesus today."

Wow. That's Barbecue Church. Like, he didn't go to church. He watches our services. You know, often that's beautiful. Oftentimes we talk about how, you know, by doing digital church, by being not a physical church, doing digital ministry, but by doing what you're doing, planting and running a digital church, we're reaching different types of people. And that's an incredible testimony right there.

Now, was this somebody you knew? Was it a friend? Was it somebody like, how are you connected to him? Was it just through Barbecue Assemblies of God? Like, what's that relationship?

It's through parking. He works in a parking company with me.

Okay, yes. We do parking logistics and we park cars. A co-worker. A co-worker. That's beautiful. And like, he's not a Marine, okay? A leatherneck. Interesting. Very cool. Parkour. And he watches every week. Another guy that's with us right now, Brian, I'm about to go work with him. He watches every week, and his son just gave his life to the Lord. And Brian texted me to let me know, "Hey, just so you know, that my son went to this church with his fiancée, and she gave her, he gave his life to the Lord because he felt like it was time. And I think that you should know as a person that's close to us." And I'm like, "That's awesome. Praise God. Barbecue Church."

Like, are you seeing, I mean, it sounds like within your relationships, within your circle of influence, there are people that are connecting. Are you finding it's reaching beyond that? Like, outside different states, cities, across the country? Like, what's the reach of it right now?

So we have five campuses in five other states right now.

Okay. So what does a campus look like for Barbecue Church?

So what they do is they've made this up. They just started this, and I'm like, "Sounds good to me." But they have started to invite their community to their houses or to a building to bring smoked meat and to bring food once a month. And they watch one of the services together and they do life together and they talk together. So it's like a once-a-month small group where they watch the sermon, but they're all eating together, they're fellowshipping together, and it's people in their community. So we have what is it, Colorado Springs, we have Virginia, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and North Carolina. And it's just people who have found us along the way. About four months ago, I was in Reading, Pennsylvania at an air show, and somebody who I connected with because of Barbecue, the Barbecue somebody got Facebook group, he came to meet me for the first time while I was parking cars. And I had never met him before in my life.

Yeah, it's what I do. I love people. So if I'm in your area, I'm going to reach out. When I was at the World Games in Birmingham, Alabama, somebody from Barbecue Church who I had never met before lives in Georgia. Her and her husband drove two hours to Birmingham, got a hotel room just so that they could come and take me out for barbecue at their favorite place in Birmingham. And then they gifted me two cutting boards.

Do you, I mean, that's interesting. Just this reach that you're getting. And you've tried to, you know, establish, you've been doing this less than a year. Like, does the, did you have a target audience? No, barbecue is broad, but it's also narrow in that, like, are you trying, you mentioned men earlier. Were you targeting the male? Were you, did you have to come up with like a persona type of person that you were going after? What does that process look like for you?

Our basic target audience is people who eat. That's a pretty broad, yeah. If you eat, then you're my target audience. So the guy that's eating sushi in Japan, let's barbecue sushi. Let's find a way to make it work.

Oh my gosh. I will barbecue sushi right now. That's such a really great idea. I'll come over and eat barbecue sushi. Write it down. We gotta figure out how to do this. I gotta write this down because that's a really great idea. I can do smoked, okay, we shouldn't go into that. Go ahead. I want to hear.

Okay, so what I can do is I can do smoked, I mean, I can do smoked salmon rolls. I can do smoked tilapia rolls. I can do smoked Mahi rolls. And I can get the sticky rice and cook it up because we have one of those big rice cookers. And then I can get the sushi deal. Oh my gosh, this is amazing. And then we'll do smoked different types of smoked sushi that we can put on platters that people can eat when they come. So we'll do smoked sushi and then we'll do smoked charcuterie boards, and that'll be like tasting events, like a little appetizer deal.

Oh my gosh, Jeffrey, you are a genius.

Well, I thought I was being a smart alec, and you've used my powers against me. So there you go. I love sushi, by the way. So, you know, invite me over at least when we get there. That's beautiful.

So the, what's the weirdest response you've gotten when you talk about Barbecue Church? The weirdest response is honestly from people who were in a position to help fund what we do. And coincidentally, we've actually gotten no.

Funding from anyone, so it's a weird response. Yeah, I would imagine very weird. Um, because no, they don't get it. Um, and so Barbecue Church—technically I'm an Assembly of God pastor, but Barbecue Church is not an Assembly of God Church. So I'm Assembly of God and Barbecue Church is an Assembly of God, and that's not because of anything but my district. I'm in the Illinois district and my superintendent loves me and loves Barbecue Church. Um, but when we were going down the thought process, the Lord said you need to launch now. It's not you can't wait. There's things that need to happen. So we just went ahead and launched, and we're still working with the Assembly of God. If you see, if I give you my bylaws, you'll see it. But I've had people who have said, like, I'll talk to church planting organizations or different organizations out there who can give money, and they're like, "Well, how are you going to pay your bills? Or how come, like, why do you want to do church events for other churches?" Because that's one that's my heart. I'm going to do Barbecue Church events at other churches so that they can reach their barbecue community, and then they can do barbecue small groups so that they can continue to reach their community for Jesus through barbecue. And this guy says, "Why would you help grow another church when you can just build a church yourself and do it for yourself?" And I said, "Because I'm not building my own kingdom." And then I got off the phone.

Let me ask you this. Did you have it? Like, was it hard for you to get started? You haven't gotten much funding, it doesn't sound like, but you've got this vision. You've got these locations scattered around. You know, I know your heart to like help the physical church through barbecue, try to be more—I want to say the word attractive, but try to just connect with people in different ways. Like, what was it? Was it hard for you to get started on this road?

It was because I'm a vision person. I'm going towards what I want, and I'm also trying to build everything in sequences. You know, I want to build a system. And so when I don't have the system in place, I get frustrated. And so I felt as though I needed to have everything working properly is what I thought. I felt like I needed to have the camera, the this, the that, this, that. And um, it was actually my little brother back in Pittsburgh and another dude named Phil who is not saved at all who kicked my butt. And Phil, who I talk to probably three times a week—um, I work with him in his parking business. Does not want anything to do with church, but watches Barbecue Church weekly and gives me critiques on my sermons. Okay? He pushed me and said, "You're trying to make everything perfect. You just need to launch because you're a man of God. God has called you to do something, so get out there and do it and stop waiting."

Wow.

And he said it with a lot of expletives that I cannot say on your show because Garrett will kill me. But it hit my soul because I was trying to just make it look the best and do everything perfect. And he's like, "No, God called you to do this. Just do it. Just do it." And so it was difficult because of myself. And you know, granted, if somebody would have given me ten thousand dollars up front, it would have been nice. Yeah. But I'm not in debt. I have good credit, and we're moving forward very cool.

You know, I myself struggled with that—trying to get the level of perfection, trying to get the excellence up. Um, and Radio Arms used to be the co-host here with the Church Digital Podcast with me. He was actually the guy that was just—he wouldn't use the expletives that you're describing, but he would be constantly telling me, "Hey, let's just go. Hey, let's just go. Hey, let's just go." And uh, it was funny like he sold it to me. He's like, "Hey, you know what? Let's just do a short series, like six. We're just gonna do like a short series of podcast, six episodes." And uh, you know, we're 240, 250 podcast episodes later. Uh, it's like I think we blew past that six number. And uh, doing really well with it. And if you go back, every once in a while I'll do this or I'll have somebody text me that they're doing it. They will—uh, my first episode was god-awful. Oh my gosh. You know, and it's embarrassing, but you know what? You learn and you grow through it. And uh, people use it and you develop as a result of it. And so I would use the non-expletive version of probably what your friend told you and tell that to somebody else to say, "Maybe just give it a shot. Experiment. What's the worst that's going to happen?"

Was the—I mean, it sounds like barbecue was always like your heart and target here, going after people who are like, uh, well, that are capable of eating. How do you feel about the feeding tube? Like, does that—no, I'm kidding. Don't answer that question. Uh, you want to go ahead? I'm like, I'll smoke it, whatever. But yeah, you put it in a pan, I'll throw it in a smoker. You put it in the bag, man. Was there like historically, are you an out-of-the-box type of thinker? I mean, like, previous to 2020 when, you know, everything went to pot and everybody's doing their own thing or doing all these new experiments, were you innovative and thinking outside of the box before that?

I'm an evangelist at heart, so everything is extreme for me. Everything's next level for me. And so if you give me a goal, I think I can do more. Um, I just I believe God when he said immeasurably more than you can ask or imagine. So I kind of run with that. You know, when so right now I coach youth ministries on the side. If somebody calls and they're like, "Hey, coach, coach my youth pastor," and you know, our youth ministries were growing, you know, they're doubling in size in three months. I had a youth ministry in the Poconos that would have blown your mind if you've seen what we were doing. But it wasn't what everyone else was. Everyone else was like, "Do bigger, do more, do this, do that." And I'm like, "No, I'm not. I'm gonna do three things at my youth service, and this is all we're gonna do, and it's gonna be the most dumbed down, most streamlined youth service ever." I was at a church of 100 people. We had 70 kids who were not churched coming every week. It's just out of the box. Works. It's you don't have to do what everyone else is doing. That's it. Just doesn't make sense to me. I like to just sit down and ask God, "Where does he want us to go?" And he's like, "Okay, Andre, Andre will take anything and run with it. So I'll give this idea to him."

So are there plans for like dessert church, sushi church, you know, he's spitting this off, multiplying into other things?

There are. There are some talks. Okay? There's some conversations happening in my fellowship with district officials and presbyters about how many non-traditional churches can we launch? All right, I'm going to prophesy. I'm not even a charismatic person, but I'm going to prophesy over this right now. You will launch a foodie church network in the next two years. I want to see it. There are opportunities to expand beyond just barbecue. I'm not a barbecue guy. I'm really not. I'm an—and I apologize. I know I'm speaking to the bishop, to the pope of barbecue literally here. But that's—we need to position you to be the pope of the food church network. Church network. I'm with it.

Here's the thing. If I made you some smoked cream cheese, it would change your life. So I've spent 14 years in DFW and in Austin, so I've had Texas barbecue all day long. That's nice. I'm not—and so I say that to the Kansas City people and they're like, "You know, nuts." And then I say that to the Carolina people. My parents used to live up in the Carolinas, and they get all offended. And everybody's literally pouring barbecue sauce down me through a spigot. And uh, well, that's—well, number one, that's where the problem lies. We're talking about barbecue sauce, and you just need the right things. It's not—you need the right things. Like, if we did—so if we did a smoked cream cheese, okay? Put some crackers around it, some celery. I don't know if you're into carrots. I can't stand carrots. I hate carrots. I do carrots, but we do that right? We put all that together, and then you're dipping it in a smoked cream cheese that you'll go, "You know what? This is delicious." Or if I made you some apple pie baked beans, all right? So where are we gonna hook up? Because I've got it. I gotta get some food. Where do you live?

Miami.

Um, okay. Can you come to Fort Lauderdale December? No, January. Can you come to Fort Lauderdale in January? Are you going to be in Fort Lauderdale in January?

Yeah, all right. I'll come. I'll come up. Yeah, I mean, this has nothing to do with Barbecue Church. Like, I'll hang out with you if you're going to be down here.

No, no, no. Why not? Here's how we're going to do it. Here's how we're gonna do it. So the poolside barbecue battle at the Visit Lauderdale Food and Wine Festival is happening Friday the 13th, and I'm hosting. I'm the manager, like, hosting and the manager of that event. And then the grand tasting is the next day, the 14th of January. How many jobs do you have?

Eight, man. I thought I had a lot of jobs. You beat me. What are your eight jobs?

Uh, let's see. I gotta look at a list. Do you have enough fingers?

No. I actually have it on a list. So I do. So I'm the lead pastor, Barbecue Church. Sure. I am. I'm a youth pastor coach and consultant. Two. I parking. Three. You know, parking and traffic logistics. I work. I'm an independent contractor for a company called Meter Feeder, which is pay for parking, okay? Online service. I have another business that I launched called My Event Program dot com, where I do digital programs for major events all over the country. I build online businesses for entrepreneurs through like funnels and things of that sort. And then I gotta find the other ones because I know there's more.

You got so many jobs you can't even keep them straight?

Yeah. I'm also a wholesale jeweler. Seven. There's one more. Let me look. Oh, there's so many questions in these jobs, by the way, right? And then there's—oh, and then I work for um, I work for Jamie Paul. So he's an evangelist that specializes in generosity. Okay? Um, Paul is like P-A-U-G-H. I work for him and help him with all of his online stuff. And so I'm part of his team as well.

So you got eight jobs. How do you have time for like doing the church thing or how do you have time for anything? Like, how do you manage all this?

Very carefully. Uh, it's a thing of you pick and choose what you do. You pick and choose your timing. You uh, have blocks of time that you do different things, and then there's times where other things fall to the side. Like jewelry, I'm not doing anything unless somebody calls me and says, "Hey, I need something." You know? But you know, somebody called me the other day and said, "I want—" I sold her a 2.23 carat round diamond with diamond bands, and everything it—I mean, total cost was like 25 grand.

Well, I'll tell you what, next time uh, next time I need a two carat diamond, your uh, you're on the call. Expect the Facebook message.

I mean, listen, if you need a one carat diamond, I got you, man. You're not going to pay full price. I'll tell you that. Anything you need, you're not paying full price.

So like, you've got eight jobs, so you've got multiple streams of income, well protected in that. Um, what are you—so as you're fundraising, what are you actually fundraising for for the church? Uh, so it's like salary. It sounds like you don't need that, but what's your desires and hopes, right?

Yes. Salary isn't the goal um, at all for me. It's—I was talking with my people last night. If I have four million dollars in a bank—

I would still be here parking cars like I'd still be doing this. I'd still be traveling because this is important, you know? What we do is great and I need to be out here. I need to be in the streets. I need to be with people. I need to be constantly, you know, I need to be around people.

So our goal right now is we want to get a food truck situation going so that I can go to the churches and cook lots of meat for lots of events. When there's a crisis like a hurricane comes through, I want to be able to go and smoke meat on the street and feed families. Um, and then I also, I need to hire somebody to do my social media because I am so busy that I do not have time to post as much as what I need to. And then, which, and that's going to be cheap—because I shouldn't say cheap, it's just going to be inexpensive, inexpensive—because I have friends. Um, and then my goal is there's a lot of church planters out there who honestly are struggling, and I want to start providing them with smokers. Because I believe that if I give a church planter a smoker and I set them loose and I teach them how to smoke and I say, "Hey, go out into your community and start feeding people. Find a place that you can set up where you can feed people," and I'll teach you how to do it. And these people could make, you know, four to ten thousand dollars on a weekend. And then they're not struggling anymore while they're trying to plan a church. And then they can feed their church with the smoker that we provide. Or I have a bunch of friends that are in campus ministry on college campuses. So why are you not smoking food out on the street on Friday, Saturday night and feeding these jokers? So that's what we're fundraising for. And you know, because we want to be, you know, God has called me to be a light into darkness. And so I'ma keep lighting that fire.

No, I love your—I totally blew past the pun. Thank you for drawing attention to that so it would just sit so much better in this conversation, man. I love your heart with the multiplication aspect, the, you know, the help in the campus guys, helping the planters, uh, in the idea of making ten thousand dollars smoking meat on a weekend is really interesting to me. So, uh, maybe an offline conversation, but um, what's the—is when you've talked with planters or people like, have you cast that vision of the possibilities? Like, are they would they be receptive to that? Have you heard people that are like, "Yes, I want to do that. Uh, you know, let's figure it out"? What's what's been some of those responses?

Oh yeah, I've already talked with some campus missionaries. Uh, I've talked with different church planters and they say that's a genius idea, that'd be something that I'd be willing to do. Um, that's something that they would welcome. And you know, there's a lot of times we don't do enough to help people who are planting. We don't—it's like we—there's different organizations that'll say, "Yeah, it's so great that you're planting, yay," but when it comes down to it, these guys are going dead. They're putting stuff for their church on their personal credit card and they're struggling and their marriages are starting to deteriorate. And then we're closing churches as fast as we're launching them, and churches aren't lasting more than five years.

Well, if we can help them financially, that's one major hurdle that's taken out. What's the percentage? Let's just random percentage that I'll throw out without any type of research whatsoever—it's taken up 50 percent. Financial will take you out. It's a 50 percent chance that if your finances are bad, you'll close. So I mean, if we can help these guys out, help these guys and girls out, that's everything, you know?

I had a friend who just closed his church plant after five years, and I was furious—and not with him, but just because he didn't have the help he needed. He didn't have the prayer support that he needed. He didn't have the people around him that would lock arms with him and said, "All right, man, I'm right here. Like, we're good." And you know, I went to a church planting conference years back, and this guy was talking about, you know, when you're planting a church, you're sitting out here and it's like you're—what—when you're shipwrecked off the island of Patmos and everybody's holding on to the wood, and you know, and you're just trying to stay afloat. And everybody's standing up clapping. And I'm like, "Well, the dude preaching right now is in a boat. She's in a boat. You're the one in the water. You're the one holding on to the shrapnel. That dude's in a boat."

And as long as I have a boat, I'm not letting the people around me drown. And that's something that that's my heart. If I have a boat, I'm making sure people don't drown, you know? And I don't have a big boat, but I got life preservers and I'm willing to throw them out. And I got life-saving rings and I'm willing to throw them out and attach them to my boat and help get them to safety. Because we're called to be capital C Church again. I'm not building my kingdom. We're building the kingdom of God, and we need to be out here helping people and making sure people aren't drowning and making sure their marriages aren't failing, making sure they're not running around with, you know, getting into affairs, stuff like that, man. Like, that's—it's too prevalent. So we need to help people.

So you've done, uh, man, I just—I your heart to do, to reach, to help the church, help the planter. That's that's beautiful. It sounds like you have a history of planting and and have done that historically, and and so you know, um, you understand that world very well. Um, you know, I know we we've talked about different expressions of church. Um, you know, maybe one that doesn't necessarily look like the Sunday morning—there's a lot of digital that's involved in barbecue, but there's also not a lot of digital. You're talking very practical and very relational, kind of face-to-face, where uh, you just really are writing an interesting balance uh between physical and not with barbecue church and barbecue symbols of God. Um, are there other ideas? Are there other things that that you're thinking about or other expressions? Like, when you look at other expressions, what are you what are you thinking as an innovative guy? What are you thinking? What are you dreaming about, man?

There's so—there's so many different things that you could jump into, you know, um, but anything that will pull people in a community around each other—like, you—that will pull people together so that you can do life together, I think is worth jumping into. I think it's worth jumping into. Um, even if it's if you're talking breakfast church and it's just a bunch of women who love breakfast who are going to get together for breakfast once a month and talk about Jesus and do life together, then let's do it. Other people call it small groups and that's fine, you know, but can we rally around breakfast? You know, can we rally around brunch? You know, and you know, can we rally around cars? Like, man, I love cars. Oh, man, let's get—let's get together. Let's put our cars out in the back of an old Kmart parking lot and let's hang out and show off our cars and pop the hood and let's sit there and not—and let's do life and let's get into people's lives and then see where they're at on their faith journey and see if we can move forward in that. Like, let's show off cars, you know, through videos and let's talk about the different aspects of a car and how it pertains to faith and you know, walking it out and moving forward with Jesus. I mean, that's—I mean, it's if you're passionate about it, I think it works. I just barbecue just happens to be my thing.

What is discipleship? What is evangelism? Like, what do these things look like for you? You so you're you're you're preaching, you're feeding—down to no pun intended on the feeding—but you're you're you're pushing information down, you're you're you're teaching down. What does like multiplication or spiritual development look like uh within the group? Have you gotten to some of that yet?

Yes, we're actually building out uh a bunch of Bible reading plans because we've gotten requests. So when people give their lives to Jesus, you know, we use text in church, and so you text "journey" to my number and you get a thirty-day devotional um that's actually written by one of my really good friends. And so you get that. Well, then once that's over, people have been messaging me like, "I need more. I need more." And so we've started to develop a Bible reading plan and a devotional system so that we can continue to reach people through that. And then that's also what we're going to utilize social media for and extra, you know, in our website, you know, just throwing out extra videos that are discipleship-based. And I have a guy who's willing to do it. I just need to give him the stuff that he needs to be able to build it. But and then he'll handle most of the discipleship side of it, and him—him and my mom—because my mom is a part of my team.

So let's—so I want I want to unpack the mom here in a second because that's that's interesting. Um, but what so what you've done is you've basically partnered with somebody else. You're you're busy. That's that discipleship may not be a strength of yours, but it's it's a necessary component. So you're bringing in someone else to to manage that piece. And that's that person—or even your mom included—is is more uh is more passionate about that and it's taking over some of those responsibilities?

Yeah, yeah. So talk to me about Mom. If you come to the barbecue battle in Fort Lauderdale, you'll meet her.

Oh, I cannot wait.

Oh yeah. So my mom is fifty-seven years old. Um, and so and which if you start doing math, you're like, "Hold on, how old is Andre?" My mom had me when she was fourteen years old. And so my mom is—my mom is one of my best friends. She just is. Um, always has been. So um, and my mom is, you know, my mom is a prayer person. She prays heavy. Um, she loves her kids and she's always uh set us up for success. And so this is—um, she wanted to be a part of barbecue church. Her and her husband, and they are—they helped me with my thought processes. They helped me, um, they helped me think through like, "What's next? What do we need to be doing next?" And she helps me not get too too into the clouds. She pulls me back and goes, "Andre, you need to stop." And you know, and I don't just brush her off because she's my mom. I I listen. Um, and but you know, no one prays for me more than my mom and my wife. Uh, and so my mom's on the team and she's a fireball.

So it—but did she like, uh, what does she contribute? It not technological, I would imagine. Relational? Just Mom able to slap you upside the head and tell you to stop? Like, what's what's the—what's her—what's her contribution?

She is—she's the prayer person. She's the prayer person. She's the discipleship, like, thought of, "Did you think about this? Did you pray about this yet?" Okay, so you're doing this? Okay, no, we need to pray about that. Or, um, you know, I was thinking, you know, you start thinking through like, "Okay, we need to—we need to try"—excuse me—"we need to try and get a truck, you know, and get this whole truck situation going." So I'm like, "Well, Mom, what if I—what if I just reach out and say, 'Hey, you know, if a thousand people give this much money, we'll be there'?" And she goes, "Andre, I don't think that that's wise because that leads back to that old school church vibe of where that I used to sit in these services where people would—they would do, 'Here's the thousand dollar line, here's the hundred dollar line.'" And my mom goes, "She goes, 'That comes off as manipulation, and that's not who we are.' And so you're not doing that." And I'm like, "You're right."

And so she really helps me see things differently. Um, because I'll just start running and she goes, "No, let's pray about this. No, let's think about this." And so she's kind of—she kind of helps—helps me bounce things off of her. And you know, she keeps you grounded.

Yes, very much so.

Man, if somebody wanted to get started doing this, I'm not barbecue church, maybe sushi, I don't know. If somebody wanted to get started with missional imagination doing some crazy idea, like what are some obstacles? What are some challenges? How do they start, right? If God is calling you to do it and it's in your heart to do it and it's the thing that he's speaking, then you do it. You figure it out. You figure out what your platform is going to be. You figure out how you're going to do it and you write out the steps and then you just start walking it out. That's it. Don't wait for the money. Don't wait for all this. Figure out what you have in your hand, what's available to you, and do it with what you have. And that's it. And God does the rest because if this all fails, if the sermon only gets two views, somebody got something. If no one gave their life to the Lord, at least you gave a hundred percent. At least you were obedient with what you had.

Do you consider yourself an influencer? I mean, I have influence in certain circles, so I mean, maybe. It's interesting. I've been, we've been talking about the word influencer, whether or not it fits. And so I apologize. It's funny your response is actually what I was expecting. Um, you have influence, but influencer means something else. Maybe I don't know. It's been a conversation with that behind closed doors. So I mean, most of the people that label themselves influencers aren't the type of people I want to be around. They're the type of people that, like, if they have the label influencer in their title, they're not really the type of people that I rock with. So when I hear it, it's almost, uh, it's a term that I'm kind of reserved about. I'm like, uh, I don't really like people that are called that. So it might be a little bit more why I'm kind of more hesitant with it because, you know, people like, what is Elon Musk? And an influencer, would he be considered an influencer? Well, I mean, I would. He's not a guy I would hang out with. Not a fan of Teslas. You abandoned Twitter? Oh no, I'll, no, no, I'll have one. I'll have one someday because my wife wants it. But like, but Elon and I are going to be going out for brunch. So you think it's there's a prestige or a class difference? Not, it's not a class difference. There's an attitude about an influencer that just bothers me. Okay? It's just it just bothers me. It's not that you're a bad person. It's that in order for you to influence, you have to influence in a certain way, and that type of influence isn't the type of influence that I want to have. I just, I don't want, I don't want that type of influence. I want to bring barbecue to the world. I want to, yes, like, but I want to set people up to meet Jesus. Like, I'm just, I'm just a connection point. I'm like, hey, listen, I got this relationship with this person over here that can help change your life, and he wants a relationship with you because the relationship was broken. And so I just need you to, I just need you to meet him real quick. That's my job. I want influence there. Um, so the other, the other type of influences, it's not what I want.

No, I think that's good. We've been wrestling with some of the negative connotations of the word influencer. Like, is it good? Is it bad? Um, is it helpful? That they would have to explain our interpretation of influencer. Everybody has influenced. We're all influencers. And, um, you know, some people understand that. Some people, it's not worth the fight. And so it's been interesting just our internally, some of the conversations we've done. But I really appreciate your vibe here.

Hey, so like, if somebody wanted to get connected to barbecue church, barbecue assemblies of God, where are they finding you? I mean, so our main website is barbecue church, spelled out barbecue with a C, the real way, the proper English way. It's barbecuechurch.com. And then there's, if myeventprogram.com Andre is a really good one because it shows you from my event that program, my event program, yeah, myeventprogram.com Andre is one of the best because it has all of my information on there.

Very cool. All right, hey man, listen, it's literally everything that I do. I know I've loved this conversation. This has been, um, more honestly, it's been a little more free-flowing than the typical. And then you just, you've got the great vibe kind of hanging out, um, literally in the hotel getting ready to go do a job here in a little bit. But excited to talk with you, man, about barbecue church, about different expressions, thinking outside the box, innovation, and just just going for it. What an inspiration. What a story you've had putting this thing together and making it happen. And it's exciting to see how God is using this, like in real time, just even to impact people, you know, and people that you don't even know. So that's really cool.

Um, okay, we're landing the plane here. Any closing thoughts? It's funny because I'm just trying to think through. I'm trying to think through your audience, and you know, it's most likely a bunch of these guys, guys and girls, who are just trying to do random stuff that everyone else may not even like and may not think is actually viable. Or they don't think, oh, that's not ministry. And I just say, look, do what you're called to do. Just do what you're called to do. You don't need approval from anybody. You don't need anybody to co-sign you. All you need is you and Jesus moving forward. Make sure you're praying. Make sure you're in the word. And make sure you're doing exactly what he's called you to do. And that's all you can do. That's it. And just don't get hung up on everyone else and what everyone else is doing. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to look like them. Everyone else wants cookie cutter, but most likely you weren't made to be cookie cutters. So just keep going. And then in the end, people will come back and say, I knew them when, or I knew this was going to work. But you'll remember the conversations and have grace. And I'm speaking to myself because I'm the guy. I remember those conversations, and I don't want to have grace. Um, I want to tell everybody to keep that same energy they had when they told me it wasn't going to work. But we need to be a gracious people. So be gracious and keep fighting the fight and watch God do things in people's lives. And let's keep leading people to Jesus. And, uh, enjoy some smoked sushi at some point. That would be good. I'm telling you, you're gonna get pictures of this awesome. So yeah, hey, we're gonna hang out in Fort Lauderdale here early next year. So excited about that. But hey, we're gonna land the plane. Uh, Friday, it's been a great conversation, Andre. Uh, the man with eight jobs, including lead pastor of barbecue church. Man, thanks for jumping on the podcast. Like I said, we're gonna land the plane for Andre. This is Jeff with the church digital and a bunch of other stuff. Thanks for jumping on the show here. We'll see you next time on the pod. Have a good day.