EP049: Aaron McClung & The Why of Personal Mission

Episode 48 of the Church a Digital Podcast. Jeff Reed here once again, and I'm excited for this podcast, at least as excited as I can be considering I am very, very sick. Yeah, it's been rough. Things like it's been a rough 2020, just thinking the entire house seems to individually get sick one after another after another. But I've had my stretch a little bit this week and I've been coughing a little bit, actually a lot a bit. I may have lost a lung somewhere around this week. So if you, in fact if you do have a spare lung, feel free to hit me up on social media. And dear feds, I'm on all the platforms and let me know that you have a spare lung and we're gonna figure out how to I can get it because I'm probably gonna need it. The right that I'm going. So but we have an awesome podcast for you. So here's where we are. We're pausing from technology. We're pausing from church online talk with this podcast in particular because, well, technology is the means to the end. It's not the end. The end in our situation is gospel. And a lot of the gospel is getting people to understand who they are in Christ. And so to have this conversation, we're going to a technology guy who's kind of being pastoral because a technology guy can be pastoral, right? Like that's a thing we talk about that all the time. It's okay for a technology guy to be pastoral. So here on the podcast, for bringing in a good friend of mine, the guy that I've enjoyed working with in the past, his name is Aaron McClung. He runs a company literally called A.M.

And they are a digital company. They do a lot of website design, graphic design, branding, marketing, like the whole gamut. In this particular company, like I've worked with a number of church staffing, multiple projects over the years. I consider them friends. I treat them like family. And when I work with them, I treat them like a staff member. They are that closely integrated into my life and my projects. I could not imagine doing church ministry without them. But I don't, I honestly don't know that I can give a better testimony to them than that. As this podcast is not about the tech, it is all, it is all, it is all about the individual. You see, there's a thing here with the dot discipleship, and really this is the core that I believe will help church online be effective. It's not the new church platform. It's not the new tool. It's not the new toy. It's not another feature. It's understanding that our job is to help people understand personal mission. And what's interesting is Aaron has really kind of figured out that even more than just church online or even church attenders, churches, organizations, businesses, like there's a lot of people out there that don't understand the why for themselves on an individual level, or even though why for themselves as a business. And so Aaron, you know, who has guy who has been starting to, well, you know what, I'm not even gonna tell the story because I want Aaron to. So here's what I want you to listen to this podcast. We're not talking tech. We don't need to talk tech. The podcast you need to hear is the one you're about to hear right now. So you got Aaron McClung, president and CEO of A.M., and myself Jeff in the church digital in a podcast episode that I am calling the Why of Personal Mission. Okay, everybody, here you go.

Yeah, so my name is Aaron McClung. I live in Hurst, Texas currently. I grew up in Oklahoma. I grew up going to Baptist churches and spent a lot of time in that world. And God called me and saved me from age of five. BBs. And so ever since then I've been just trying to follow him and in the ways that a child can, all the way up through growing up. And just always felt a sense I God has just called me to serve him. And I didn't always know what that looked like. I didn't have the typical pastoral personality as you'll probably find out in shortly. But wasn't always the guy lighting up the room, if I could say it that way. But I always felt like really strongly that I wanted to serve the Lord. And so going through college, I decided to, there was a ability in design and graphic design and creativity. And so felt like that was something I needed to do. And I started to look into that and realize that I was gifted in that and that I had ability to help people understand concepts visually that are easier said in pictures than in words sometimes. And so as I explored that, I realized that that was exactly what I was supposed to be doing. And got through college and went to immediately started working at a church as a graphic designer. And so not long after that, I opened up for my own business doing that, helping ministries and churches and businesses as well, just to get the message out with clarity and creatively as possible. And so that's what we've done for now over 20 years.

So what year, what year did you launch, you know, the agency or what year were you on staff? Kind of like put that in context.

Yeah, so in 1998 I started doing any freelance work in college for some ministries, worship leaders, things like mostly like CD covers, things like that. There was a lot of that, like Disciple Now curriculum, first things like so. And then I worked at First Baptist Euless from 1999 to 2001 here in the DFW area. So awesome. Yeah, I was doing 1999. I graduated from college and right out of college I started a web design company called A Believer, and I was actually in Fort Worth. You were on the downside. So we were like literally contemporaries in the same, you know, territory. And obviously A.M., you guys have been far more successful than my little business was. But it's just like those days of web design and graphic design, man, those were rough days. I don't know if you ever gone back, like 20 years ago, kind of looked back at the old work. And it was, I mean, I can remember talking to a pastor and I was, my company Believer was doing web design for churches. And I distinctly remember this. I was talking with a pastor in Arlington, Texas, and the pastor looked at me. The year was 2000. And he's like, "Why would I pay you money to build me a website when my ten-year-old son can do it for free in Microsoft FrontPage?" And I was like, "Well, if you're happy with what your ten-year-old son can generate and yeah, Microsoft FrontPage, then you and I really don't need to talk." But that was, man, like remember when, like flash was cool? Like that was going to have like that flash opening and then you'd have to have the flash navigation and like that was like the best thing ever. We've come a long way since then, man. You know, things have changed quite a bit.

Yeah, it was always fun to do the flash websites. There's just like, as it's creative, it was like this open canvas that you could do all this amazing things with and you had no accountability to whether it had to work on a mobile phone or any of that kind of stuff. So things have definitely changed. But yeah, it's been, yeah, I was just the only thing you had to worry about was the desktop experience. There was no mobile phones. There was nothing. It was just just give me the desktop. That was that was easy.

Yeah, I guess it's gotten a little more complicated since responsive and you know, Apple decided to boycott, you know, flash and all that fun stuff. One of the things, and I love A.M., and we were, I was talking about this with Aaron and off-air, like I just, I've managed to really utilize this company a lot. And I've seen them come in to very bad situations where websites were failing and code was crashing left and right and have really kind of depended on this company to get us out of bad situations. And so as much as I can like and endorse a company without endorsing, actually it's my podcast, so I can do whatever I want, you know. I just, I really love working with these guys and seeing the heart for ministry that they have beyond even just the website. It's more of, they really have a heart for doing what's best for the ministry of the church, the experience that the least in context of me that I've ever worked with them on. And it's really, it's this heart that I wanted to bring Aaron in to really dive into it because their company pivoted a little bit, I guess would be the word. I don't know if pivot's the right word, but there was a change in philosophy that at least that I've seen from the outside over the past year or so. And I really want Aaron to kind of talk about this because I'm excited about how this impacts individuals and how it can help organizations and churches achieve much higher clarity. And so Aaron, why don't you just talk a little bit and tell us a little bit about this overflow, kind of what it is, and then how you as an organization, how you got to this place where you realize you needed to pivot.

So we have a new, we call signature process that we call it Overflow. And so the idea is that your brand or your culture or your organization should communicate your story basically out of the overflow of your heart. Like Jesus, we're talking about four peoples. I got overflow of your heart, your mouth will speak. Well, we believe your brand will speak from that. And if you can speak from the core of why you exist, what you're called to, what's your unique story, that that's going to be a meaningful connection point that people are looking for. And that's how they make decisions on what they buy or buy into. And so that's the general idea of it, the backstory in the name. But what it is, it's basically a branding process that starts with discovery sessions up at the front of it and really digs into the core existence of why the organization is there, whether it's a business or a church. There's an origin story and there's leaders there that shows to be there. They're leading the organization and they typically have a vision that God has called them to. And so it's uncovering that, it's clarifying it, it's using our agency skills, but also trying to get to the place where it's articulated clearly and well. And all the story that you're having as an organization, all channels, all, well, you know, every opportunity that you can communicate is going through the filter of what that core purpose is. And it's smarter. It's trying to be smarter than just talking about what's in a house, but really the why. And so that, because there's science behind that, there's the millennial generation is changing everything's changing about the way people buy into everything. And so they want meaning and they want impact. They want to know that they're buying into a story that they can put their time and their dollars into and it's gonna make lives better. And so that's the story we got to go in and find out what is unique about that company, that organization, and then build a story around it.

And so I had to go through the same thing. So doing this agency life for over 20 years, where 22nd year, and now I think I do math, but that's we, the first two decades of that was just doing good work. Like that was the bar for what success was. It's like I didn't have a vision. I didn't know, haven't scraped business model plan in place. I was just trying to do good work with what I've brought us and be fair to our employees. To me, that was enough. That was enough to make me want to do it and do a good job. And however, about a couple years ago, God began to change the conversation with me, just something else. And so it was like, where are we going with this? I started to see that the industry is changing. It wasn't, you know, like you said, that it's always, you know, it's always some cheaper, faster way to do websites or whatever. And so it was that, may have grown us, but that wasn't clearly wasn't gonna, you know, that'd be the thing to take us to the next round of the next 20 years. And so I started to wonder what the answer was. And so for the first time ever, I was like, well, where is this going? And what do I need to do? And I really didn't even think about asking God about it.

To be honest, here's to my whole life, but I didn't really know to take my business to him in that way. And so I always knew he was kind of watching out for me and trying to take care of me because he cares about me, but never had the kind of relationship door.

I was asking specific questions and expecting him to leave me, and so that had to happen to those couple years. And so as I dug more into that, I started to realize he does have a purpose for me. He has gifted me for very specific things. He does want the business to be his, and I'm just a steward of it, and that I can reach people through it. And that there's way more meaning to be shared and to be attracting armed team to. And digging it, like I said, I wasn't, I never saw myself as pastoral, so I didn't really even try, honestly. But the more I dug into that, the more I realized that, no, that God wants me to help impact our staff in meaningful ways. But there was, they needed a story to connect to for that to be meaningful. And so I went through a whole bunch of that. But like I said, it's because I had to start with me. And then once I did that and I started God to give me a specific vision on how to do this agency thing differently, I had to dig into how to do that. You know, months later, there's now a liberal process for it. It's got a name, it's got steps, and we're doing that every day. And it's a world of difference.

So let me let me pick in, and I don't want to get overly personal, but I'm just curious because, you know, I get asked all the time, you know, are Jeffrey, are you pastoral? Do you consider yourself a pastor? And I kind of kind of just put my arms up in the air as I don't know. Do you consider me pastoral? Like, yeah, but you're at, you're a tech guy. Like, what, when, how do you, how do you leverage tech with with being pastoral? I'm like, because I work with tech to be pastoral with people who are in community. So I I'm just curious because you're you're asking and you're in saying things about helping people realize and will impact more about this. But there's this tension of you're not, you don't consider yourself pastoral. Why is it, just in your personal journey? Well, it's been the thing that you're like, I don't consider myself pastoral because of this. Well, I'm highly introverted, so it's like I'm like always the quietest person in the room. I'm not usually the one up kind of lighting up the room and making everybody feel comfortable. It's like I'm usually just trying to hide and not be noticed. And so, but here I am running a business with twenty plus employees, and they're all looking to me for vision and they want to be inspired to work. And so, and they should be. They should show up to work every day was something where they know that something a life is being changed, and they need to know how they're doing that because that's what we're designed to do. Work desired to, you know, connect with others because that's what that image, the imprint of God in us is, you know, his, that's what he does. And so that meaning they were all looking for, they are, they're looking for it from their workplace. And that's that's something that's changing. I think. And so I didn't, I didn't recognize that. I, I guess, you know, you go through spiritual gifts tests. You do things like that, try to figure out, you know, God, I know you've got a ministry purpose for me, and I know the general callings of making disciples and helping other people, it applies to me. But, you know, how do I do it? And so how do I do it at work? How do I shepherd this team? And I never realized that I could do that. And so, and the more I've gotten to understand myself and do do self assessments, do things like that, the more tried new things, the more confident I get in there. And now I do realize I can impact people. And it's a, it's just like a different world here in our company. Even just our, in our, in our, it's just like everybody, we now have processes where everyone in the company understands how to under what their purpose is. Oh yeah, literal process. And so that's changed everything for us, helping people know, feel valued. So yeah, I I think the defining the why. It was funny, you made it off comment about blaming the Millennials for maybe he just said because of Millennials. I would kind of blame him a little bit. But honestly, like for me, and I'm forty-two, and I've had this conversation in context of the podcast as well, like it, I almost feel like I went through a midlife crisis a couple years ago where it was alright, so I've been doing this thing, you know, to your point, you were using the language, you're doing the work, and and a couple years ago I really just came to this place of why am I doing this? Like, what's the, what's the overall purpose behind this? And is the way that I'm doing it, is it, is it the most effective? Now for me, my endgame, my goal was was discipling people and helping people understand God's purpose. And for whatever reason, I really feel like my calling has been in that in that digital scope. And so this midlife crisis that I was on made me pause and kind of evaluate, okay, do I, am I, am I called to do it this way? Is this the best way what I'm doing it? Are there other ways to make that happen? And that really started wrestling with my my overall purpose. And as a result of that, honestly, in my track record over the past couple years of show, God, God took me down a road that that I didn't necessarily want to go down. And all of a sudden I'm being connected because he's in control. It's not me and my wishes that I'm given being connected into relationships and in purposes and in connections that that I've never dreamed that would be a part of doing things for the kingdom that I never imagined even six months ago how things have pivoted and changed so quickly. But it's amazing when God's in control of that. And so it's exciting to me because through your organization, through am man, you're literally helping people, you're helping organizations, you're helping churches like wrestle with some of this stuff. What what stories are you, are you hearing? What stories are you seeing as you're helping churches wrestle with their, with their purpose, with their why?

Well, it's, it's a, it's funny because we talk about the why of a church, and almost all people, people aren't, don't all churches have the same why? Like, aren't we all on the Great Commission and doing those kind of things? And so it's a great question. I think I typically, or Michael, do you have, I mean, why are you at that church? Like, right, what is God, what's the vision and was the the calling he's called you to? And is, if we, if there's not a unique calling in a local body and why don't we just shut the doors and go to the one down the street? So obviously we know there's a unique thing there. But the church hasn't necessarily done a lot of work and trying to figure out what's unique about it or what what is it? And on top of that, what do people, why do they make decisions today? And how has that changed? And so what are, like you said, the millennial generation, the ones after that, what are they looking for now? They're making decisions, and the church has to wrestle with that and make sure that their branding and marketing is telling that story well. So we are seeing that, and we do dig into these processes. And what we're finding is that they get really excited when we get into helping them uncover what that's going, what that is, like it's really fuzzy for churches. It's that to begin with. It's like, you know, they're skeptical, maybe that there is something unique to say about them. But man, there is. And so you start to help them uncover that, it's just like I've seen so much joy and just like clarity. It's like, ah, because a lot of times they will work with the consultants that you know, you might hire a consultant to help you figure out what your value statements are, your purpose statements, those kind of things. But they're typically not creative agencies. And so the, I actually don't know of any other ones that are doing we're doing. But there's not, there's not one that's can do both at the same time. And so that that means it makes it hard for like a typical consultant. It's hard for them to visualize it and bring it to life and show a church or any organization what it looks like. They can speak and they get to what it is, what, how do you word it, maybe what's important. But having a creative agency come in and just like do all of that with all the skills that we have at the same time and visualize it, and they see all of it at the same moment, it's just like eye opening for them and encouraging, exciting, and just infuses energy into the whole organization.

Yeah, you know, I can tell you being a guy that's worked with creative agencies, being a guy that has run a creative department a couple times in a church, like I understand the the joy of working with an organization that has clarity. I understand it. I don't know that I've experienced it a lot because a lot of times you don't, you don't have that clarity. One of the things that I love about this story is you're taking the time not just to create the graphics, to create the ad campaign, to create the movement that, whether it works or not, I don't care, man. I'm just, I'm just, you know, cashing in the the invoice to check when it comes in. You're helping the organization get its ducks in a row by discovering its its messaging, by discovering how to be clear, by helping it understand that's why in its purpose. And from there breaking it down. A lot of times, honestly, especially dealing with consultants, and I am one, that's cool, I can say this. A lot of times it's, it's we need to solve, we need to solve the problem. But the big picture, like that's, that's not, that's not in my scope. You're not, you're not paying me for that. The holistic view of coming in of what you're doing, their overflow of helping people understand they're there why, helping the organization with clarity, understand what its purpose is. Now that's so much easier to market and so much more effective because you're able to do that with clarity instead of promising X and really delivering Y, which makes for you know, unhappiness on on the backside.

Why is clarity? And we you and I have both experienced this, honestly, there are people with church staffs out there that have experienced this. So this isn't a hard question. We all know this. Churches often struggle with clarity. The the finish line is constantly moving. The target is is constantly shifting. Organizations are trying its best to reach people. The goal is high, reaching people for Christ. But as a result of that, it shifts, it moves on on a regular basis as we're trying to be more effective. Why do we struggle with that clarity, peace in a church environment? What's what's the overarching issue? Maybe culturally that that we need to address? Is there a common thread as you're working with churches? What do you explore it? What are you seeing?

Well, there's the obvious kind of the busyness of the church cycle and the focus on keeping the machine running. And does anybody actually have time to stop and breathe and think about, is this actually working? That's rare. And so I think a lot of times when we go into a church and start asking these questions, it's like we all get to pause at least for a day or two and sit in these questions with each other and decide if we know what is the answer to the questions. What are we focused on? Because you, there's not usually scheduled time to stop the machine for enough time to get on the same page together and remember, you know, what we're called to. Minutes, that's just the pace of it, the just the grind of it. And so for us, it's it's amazing what a few simple questions can do to bring clarity for an entire organization. And so it has to start at the top. The leadership has to be on board. I can't push this this rock upstream. I don't think that's really how this is designed. So that's why it's critical that we get by.

And from the top of the organization, because we need them to—we don't know how long we're gonna be involved, right? We have to know. We have to give tools and give clarity and ability to articulate, but it has to be from the pulpit to the email to everything in between. Of every channel, it's got to be lined up if it's gonna work the way we want. And in that, the clarity is all about focus. Like, if you can get your purpose figured out and you can get your why cleaned up, then it's on. It's like providing you a filter for staying, you know, keeping from getting distracted all the time with all this stuff. And so if you can define that and say, "Okay, this is why we're here. This is what this church is called to. This is maybe our three-year plan, our one-year plan, or whatever, and this is how we're gonna get there," then it should bring like the ability to say no a lot. I've seen a lot of people struggle with that. Like, they don't—yeah, I don't have anything to say no to this, and because it's, you know, scary to say no in a place where everybody's kind of looking to you to, you know, serve them. And so it's a lot of tension in that statement. But we've seen those conversations. The process is just getting everybody in the room together at the right time. God can show up and get some things off their chest that they just haven't had the ability to do.

So, you know, it is hard organizationally to say no, you know, especially when the cause is great. To the Romans, I'm a Roman. To the Jew, I'm a Jew. To a Greek, I'm a Greek. And so we have that. But the larger purpose is that if we're everything to everyone, then from a messaging standpoint, we're really nothing to no one, you know? And we lose the overarching purpose of the organization. And somehow by simplifying it down, we find that we're more organizationally structured. There's clearer purpose behind it. We're more structured towards achieving that goal. But what's interesting is when an individual church plays its part, what it really does, I believe, is it opens up for other churches to play their parts, right? Rather than, "Hey, you know, I live in Miami. Arguably, Miami has 98% lostness." Like, their stats, or even if you were to assume the best of it, it's still like 85% lostness. Like, it's crazy how little church has a purpose here. And for any one organization to say, "I'm gonna be a part of reaching the millions of people. Like, I'm gonna tackle it all," it's ridiculous. There's no way to. We have to organizationally work together towards doing that. And churches often struggle with that because, for whatever reason, they want to own the larger piece instead of realizing that maybe it's more effective for us to own a smaller piece of that.

One of the things that you stated on your website, and I really want to unpack this because you are a self-diagnosed introvert—I have a self-diagnosed introvert as well. People are like, "Well, Jeff, you're so extroverted." No, no. My extroverted is my defense mechanism that covers up how actually introverted I am. And even having conversations like this on the Zoom are just exploding my brain right now. So, but you say something on the website that I want to get your take on this because this is good. His business is relationships. God's business is relationships. God is after a relationship. How does that imply and fit in to like what you're doing through Overflow? How does that relationship component come into play at 2020?

Well, that's typically a conversation I'm having with business owners. They tend to think of their business as a separate thing from their faith. And so my desire to tell that to them—and this would apply to church leaders as well—the idea is that it's not your business, right? It's God's. And just like you have to get saved, your business sometimes is gonna have to get saved too. And so give it to him. Let him run it, just like your life. All the stuff we hear in sermons about transferring ownership of who we are and what our dreams are applies to business leaders too, and applies to their business. And so if you let God run your business, then it's about him. It's his vision. And his vision, we know, is going to be about other people. And so his business is relationships. That's like the business he's building is the kingdom. And so to use your business, if it's connected to him, you're gonna give it to him, and then your business then becomes all about relationships too. And so most business owners are trying to survive. They're trying to get the bottom line built up. I guess you could argue that the churches maybe you're focused on outcomes as well. But basically, if you're gonna give your business to him and let him run it, then you're gonna have to remember that the thing you're growing is other people. And so how do you do that? That's the idea there.

So, you know, I'm listening to the guys like Gary Vaynerchuk, some of these business guys, and they, from a digital standpoint, they challenge me. And sometimes, honestly, I look outside of the church world to be challenged to find some digital guidance and direction of what the future is. And it's interesting to me to kind of filter that through a spiritual lens. But you're asking secular businesses, you're asking business owners to really like release the business to God. And so like, let's just be very practical at that point, because somebody out there is like, "Wait, what? You want me to do what with my business? That's separate from my one hour on Sunday when I attend church over here." So explain to me what it is and why I should give up my business, my workplace. Why is that God's business? What does that even look like?

I can tell you practically what it looks like for me and how we talk about it with a business owner. So like I said earlier, I ran the business for twenty years separately in my head, trying to be obedient to general things, the general callings of God through some mentoring and discipleship in this area by other Christian business leaders. They kind of enlightened me of what that—the Bible has much to say about business, as much to say about running a business. Where does vision come from? What does God want from my life? Well, if my life is mostly spent at work, timewise, mathwise, then that's got to line up too, right? Then this idea that he can run it better than I can—because I, again, I spent twenty years doing well, and he's probably too comfortable staying where I was and then trying to figure out what's next. I needed—I don't have this entrepreneurial thing that I see in a lot of business owners. And so I need like God to say, "Well, what's next?" And so if I start, if I believe that he cares about me and this business is just a vehicle for our relationship, that's what changed my perspective. It's like he wants to guide me, and he knows my heart is in the business and my time. And he says, "You know, where your treasure is, where your heart is." And so if he wants to reach me, he's probably going to like lead me through the business. And so why not? Why not trust him with it and let him lead it?

And then I start to do that, and I'm asking specific questions that I never asked before. I practically like, "Okay, God, what is the vision for my business? Is it yours? Did we make that clear? Are we good?" You know, if we have, I turn this over to you. And you start to pray through that, and you know, God begins to speak. God is always speaking. You look for confirmations through scripture, through others, the Holy Spirit. You're asking God, "Just if it's like, God, what's the vision? Okay, I'm waiting." And then I'm getting answers. And so you get more confident the more you do that. Before you know it, you're asking God, "Should I hire this person? Should I take this step? Is this what you want the business to do? Is this how you want to use this money?" If it's your business, I'm stewarding it, and I must hear from you. And so before I know it, my dependence on God and my relationship with him is so different and so improved. And it's like night and day from the first twenty years. And so it's just like, and it's working because apparently God knows what's going on. And so that's the crazy practical side. There's a spiritual side. There's a tactical side. But they are both a chase to the Father. That's where they are. As much as I can give him leadership and ownership of the business, then I've just been blown away by it. And my relationship with him is truly that walking in the cool of the day kind of thing that he was after the whole time.

So I pulled up a stat as you were talking, and this is something—this is LifeWay Research, this is 2019, and this is last year today. They ran in a research—well, leading to it in the show notes so you guys have it. Fifty-one percent of people who are Christians, spiritual matters do not tend to come up as a normal part of my daily conversations with other Christians. So the majority of people, it's fifty-one percent. It's not even like, you know, to the point of "I'm willing to give up my business." It's almost a level of, yeah, like, I'm not even talking about God outside of the one hour on Sunday. And so like what you're describing is really going to be a foreign concept to people where, you know, there's this—I'm presenting, you know, people define worship as the literal twenty-minute block of musical noise that comes off of the stage for that one hour on Sunday. Scripture tells us that we're presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and cleansing to God. This is our spiritual act of worship, and it's more than just, you know, the low rumblings of that bass guitar coming through the subs, which is so glorious to hear, but it's really more of who we are as a Christian and what our life entails entirely. And so you're dropping this knowledge on some people, and it's probably, you know, exploding some brains a little bit, which is awesome. You know, I love the little emoji of the exploding head guy. What are people's responses when you talk through this? Are they appreciative? Are they pushing away? Like, what's the range of emotions people are hearing as you're kind of coaching them through this idea of giving up their business, of all they are to God, and letting God be central of their work, their home, their family, everything?

Well, obviously Christian business leaders are the ones that are mostly being challenged with this. Like, if you're not in a relationship with Christ, you're just gonna be like bouncing that off. But the ones that are a Christian and they're hearing it, they're ringing like they're kind of blown away because they've never heard anybody put that together like that. Like, because I'm a teacher. I'm a learner, right? And so I don't come with just fuzzy stuff. I've got a framework, and I put it in order, and I show it to—I'm gonna say yes, here's your relationship with God. And I walk it through vision to your why, your purpose, your mission statement, your execution, and how you're gonna get there and how you're gonna achieve that vision and then how you're going to engage and empower your team to get there. So it's a framework that I'm putting in front of a very technical and built off of similar business thinking models, right? Business operational models, but just putting God at the beginning and saying, "This is actually all about him." And so when I walk them through it, it makes total sense to them, and they've never seen it laid out that way. And then we start talking about Overflow specifically. It's just a little piece of that, right? And so we're actually trying to—

Create an entire culture around this purpose that's in you, and when you do that, you're actually building a purpose around God because he's the one that put the purpose there. And so to what degree they want to share that or leave that story from a gospel standpoint, it's kind of up to them. They're usually their reaction is, "Wow, I never knew that there was a logical, linear flow to understand this." And so it kind of makes sense to them because a business owner would want actionable, tactical steps to follow. So, you know, make it easy for me. And so having those conversations, a lot, that's where my gifting comes. I'd like the clarity and creativity combining it. It's kind of coming up with this kind of unique flavor to it. It's just stuff I've done myself. It's just that I've gone, "God, give me what I need," and then I'm sharing it with other people. So the response has been great.

Yeah, I'm literally sitting here trying to think of the next question, and my question was gonna be, "Okay, so I own a Shake Shack. What is giving God my Shake Shack? What is that actually gonna look like? What, how is that gonna affect my business?" And as I'm sitting here waiting for you to finish, and I was gonna ask the question, the first thing that pops in my head is Chick-fil-A. And how that, as a business, like how is, you know, giving God my business, how does that affect my messaging? How does that affect who I am? How does that affect my culture? And arguably there's others, and I'd love to hear some other examples. But, you know, Chick-fil-A as an organization has been very vocal and standing up for, you know, who they are and in who they are not. And as diversified as they are, man, it's good chicken, man. That place is always busy, and they've managed to stay in good favor still holding to their morals and ethics of what, you know, that family has instilled years ago.

What are some other examples? Shake Shack's a bad example, but what else you got?

Okay, well, I'll give you a look somewhere a client example. So there's one kind that's an eggroll manufacturer, faith-based company. They, it's a second-generation, thirty-year-plus eggroll manufacturer here in DFW. We have these conversations like, "Okay, let's figure out why you do this." And so we dig into that, and at the end of it, it's basically we've got to come up with the taglines and the stuff you're talking about messaging them. It drives the story home. And so we dug into it and said, "Okay, what is meaningful? What's happening here?" Well, it's an immigrant family that came over from being with nothing back in the sixties, running from all kinds of terrible things in that country. They come to the US with nothing, chasing the American dream. The mom of the couple is basically trying to figure out how to run the company, and she's basically got forty dollars in her pocket. And she had this crazy story of how she landed here and had to get her family going and surviving in this country. And so these are the people that started this, and they're Christians. And so now it's thirty years later, the daughter is now the CEO of the company. And we basically have a minority-owned, faith-based, women-led company. And so you can see it, I'm already got things that are starting to pop of what I can drive a meaningful story around.

Sure. From there, long story short, the tagline has gone from things like, you know, just more generic things around, you know, honest food and things like that, making quality products, to our new tagline is "Made to Love." And so, you know, the people we care about, our people, we care about our customers, and we feel like, you know, they are made. Those are words that Christians can identify with. Those words that someone is made to love, and that the food is made to love. And so we now have this conversation-changing starting piece for all its communications. Then they can tell a, you know, ten-second, you know, simple, surfacy-level story about there, where the quality of their eggrolls and how our people are made to love, and we want our food to be as well. Or you can go really deep into the culture, you know, how they hire people and how they attract people and how they honor people, and in that same tagline. And so it's like that's the kind of thing I want. I want to give everybody a meaningful conversation starter, and then we build a beautiful brand around it visually, all the creative assets. And so the entire organization now has these conversations the same way. Now, and they're all the starting points are the same, super consistent. It's just like the ownership they have exactly what they need to tell their story in any context. And it's working, attracting people to the organization in every way.

How do people in organizations, how do they work with you? What's the process to get started?

Well, the beginning conversation would be making sure to fit there. Like, were you out? What do you, what do you do? You have a conversation that you're trying to change? Typically, people come in with the pain point, right? And so, you know, are we willing to go to this brand's story and revamp it and then apply it to all the channels? And so to get started, it's having an honest conversation about where you are, what your, what can we affect, what can we impact, and then deciding if Overflow is the right choice for you. Sometimes we need to go deeper. And so it might be, "Well, I don't know my purpose. I don't know where I start. I'm a leader." We might have to have some conversations around a purpose discovery process where we help you figure that out. And then when you start applying it to the company and help you, you know, build from there. And so there's a couple of different starting places. A typical starting place is Overflow, and we work on that in that scope, and then decide once we've built it how far do we want to take it, right now, and then keep going from there.

What's the, and so we've talked about businesses, we've talked about churches. I mean, I really feel like even if you take the business out of this, if you even if you take like the church out of this, I feel like there's a challenge for the individual where there's an opportunity, I mean, baked in a little bit of this. And I don't want to know like overstate, but there's like a discipleship, there's like a personal mission kind of challenge in this where we as individuals really need to wrestle with some of the why on this and maybe recognizing some of what the personal mission of our life is and why God's has us where we are in our workplace, maybe not as the boss, but maybe as a just a general worker. Why God has this in our community, in the home that we live, why God has this with our kids involved in this stuff that they're involved in. Like, how can you mate had, do you have a wrestle with this? Like, how does this Overflow maybe apply down to an individual level?

We start with that conversation on it. So we have a purpose discovery process that all of our team goes through, and you dig into your spiritual gifts, your personality profile, your strengths in general areas. Like, what, you know, why do you, you know, what do people say you're great at? And because we're trying to show them that God is putting exactly in them what he wants them to do with their lives. And so most people, most people don't even know what their purpose is. There's a stat that says only ten percent of people know what their purpose is, which is, it's way too valuable to be sitting there dormant. And it's way too much focus and clarity to know what your lane is. Like, God, you created me to do this thing. And so when Jeff needs something and it's mine, I'm up. You know, do I recognize that it's skills and gifts he's called me to? And am I operating in that? When I see your need, because that's gonna show me that what God is asking me to do it in it, and I'm gonna see the biggest fruit in you. And I do that instead of trying to be somebody I'm not. I can be aware of myself more than it's gonna change lives. And it's putting confidence in people that they never had. And so when people know themselves and they know what God is calling them to, it's just like it resonates so much stronger and deeply when you operate in it. And sadly, most people just have no awareness of any of that. That's what we're about with individuals for sure. It's so important.

And I literally had coffee this week with someone who's wrestling with this. This is a person who's been on staff for a number of years of church staff, and I've literally brought up the calling piece, and they were like, "You know, I'm not sure what I'm called to." And it's this gross reality of, and gross isn't even the right word, but it's the stark reality of people that are living lives without realizing what God has them for. And maybe they haven't understood it at a personal level to achieve their own clarity, or they're so busy, you know, to your point, organizations are soft and so busy they don't have time to ask the wise. Maybe they're so busy living out the lives and the identities that they've kind of stumbled into on their own to put money on the table, food on the table, and things like that, without stopping and realizing, "Wait, what does God have for me in that situation?" And oftentimes to do that, to have, you know, God be head of your organization and have that be the wire, to have God be head of yourself, like there's a humility in that where you have to release control.

When we look at the Beatitudes, blessed is era the meek or the poor in spirit or they that mourn, you know, Matthew four and five, it's not an overly controlling, demanding, power-type person that's blessed in those situations. It's blessed are the people who are humble, arguably who are teachable by God and shapeable by the path of the Spirit, who are in tune to where he's leading. And that's dripping all over this. The ability to stop and to ask the organization, "Why do you exist?" allows God the opportunity to drive instead of you forcing will upon that situation. And whether, you know, I said this once in a blog, if you are responsible for your victories in life, then you're responsible for the losses. And so every win you get, hey, good for you, but the failures are all over you. If you're not responsible for the victories, if you allow God to own the victory, then God owns the failure because he's driving through that and allowing you to grow through that process. I would much rather give God the victories and allow God to cover my failures than for me to be solely responsible for that. Giving God control, this is so much clearer.

And Aaron, I love your path, and even just the courage to organizationally pivot twenty years into developing an agency and realizing, "Hey, I'm asking the wrong question, and they're not ready to answer the question. What's best for themselves? We need to change the organization away from just a creative agency to an agency that's helping organizations answer the questions they really should answer." And then once it's answered, then yeah, we can definitely be the creative aspect. But there's so much value in what you're doing beyond just that ad campaign or that website or that social media looks.

Oh, man, thank you for your diligence and your patience with that, because I'm sure that's a hard thing to get a twenty-year organization to kind of turn like that. But it's awesome to see how God is using you in this process. So, man, as we're landing the plane, any last thoughts?

For sure. Your time, it's your, you're definitely hitting on some of the high points, and it's reminding me of some of the.

Of the just the challenges it's been to get there, and it takes a lot of faith and vulnerability and courage and just willingness to do things I'm not like. I've done there's so many things in the last two years that I was never comfortable or never thought I was capable of, but it's been completely praying through it, asking God to, I'm gonna trust you, that I know you're bringing these opportunities and I think this is gonna work. And then you start to build on it and it keeps working and it's like yes, this is God and is working and it's changing lives. And I'm just excited to be part of it at this point.

So the thing I love about this entirely is that you are, you have literally put yourself through the same test. Yeah, and you've read to find yourself through this wide that you are asking other people to go through. And you yourselves are a living testimony of how you've gone through this process. So man, thank you for being just diligent and faithful in that. And we're gonna be looking excitedly to see how God continues to do things through A.M. Agency.

So hey, we're gonna wrap right here. This has been a great podcast, looking forward to what's next for Aaron. This is Jeff with the Church Digital. We'll see you next time here on the podcast. Y'all have a good day.